Peace and Quiet At Last

Blogging from the office. Just wanted to mention how very peaceful it is here.

As I've mentioned before, The Sarcastic Weasel works in what is, truth told, a hole. Actually, a basement with frequent flooding problems. As a result, I cannot leave my computer tower on the floor. Granted, for fan, heat, and dust related reasons, you're not supposed to do so anyway, but who ever does what they're supposed to do?

Instead of being out of sight, out of mind, and out of earshot on the floor, my PC tower lives on top of some metal shelving nearly at ear level. The problem I have with this is that the processor is loud... freaking loud and annoying. Furthermore, it runs all the damn time... ALL THE DAMN TIME! It's always processing something... some damn system idle process.

First, I killed the distributed computing task (goodbye SETI at home... the BOINC is silly Berkeley nonsense anyway).

Next, I went on a total spybot killing rampage followed by an obsolete programs, files, and registry entry holy war (none survived).

Finally, I went into the process tab of the task manager and noted which processes were running and how much of the CPU they were claiming: nothing terrible, just 2-4%... all of the goddamn time.

Turns out the culprits were all related to Microsoft's indexing services. Indexing services are these neat software things included in Windows that run while you system is (theoretically) idle (and that hold a death-grip on your resources for quite some time after you try to use you system again) in order to make and store fancy lists of all of your files. The idea is that you can trade reduced system performance 100% of the time that you are trying to do crap, for a faster Windows file search those one or two times a month that you need to do a search. Also if you processor buzzes right in your ear, it makes sure that never shuts up.

To kill or not to kill? Not much of a decision, really.

For those that would like to kill the damn things on their own machine, follow this advice (Tweak #2 on the linked page):
http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/Easy-XP-Tweaks-t2780.html

It's totally worth it... My God, is it worth it. I can just sit here and bask in the silence... ahh... wait, is that the wind tunnel I hear?

Red Wings: Final Round, Final DOOM!

Well, it's my last chance this season to predict doom for my beloved Red Wings. Last round, it was pretty facetious... come on, Chicago? Brian Campbell as a real-life defenseman? Please. But it was Patrick Sharp that provided them their only win.

But this round is different. The Wings are real beaten up now. The Pen(i)s have grown up a little. Most importantly, that whiny rat of a coach they had last season got s***-canned, which is a massive improvement.

Predictions? Well, I'm great at those. Datsyuk and Lidstrom play at 90% or better, Wings win, 3 to 2 odds. Otherwise, Pen(i)s win, 11 to 9 odds.

Often the Aluminum Foil Hats Can Come Out in Significantly Fewer Steps

From P.H.D. Comics

DOOM! GLOOM!

It's almost time for Round 3 to begin. I nearly forgot to predict doom and gloom for my beloved Red Wings.

DOOM! GLOOM!
Patrick Sharp!

Jury Duty

The Sarcastic Weasel is set to do his patriotic duty as a citizen of this great democracy by making himself available for selection as a member of a jury pool in his local district court.

I wonder if I have time to get this made into a shirt...

Important Disclaimer: All comments made by the Sarcastic Weasel on this blog are for (his) entertainment purposes only; truth is always a secondary concern. In no way does the Sarcastic Weasel condone the wanton shirking of legal responsibilities nor his own persecution... that is, prosecution for contempt of court.

NHL Cruelty

It sucks to be a Sharks fan this time of year.

It sucks more to be young and dumb enough to video blog about being a sharks fan this time of year (which, during the playoffs, apparently involves copious, uncontrollable weeping on your webcam).

It sucks even more to have a dad who knows you shouldn't be doing this sort of thing on the internets, but doesn't quite understand how his role in the video simply causes the ridicule to be bigger, faster, and more meme-ish... meme-esque... meme-tastic... whatever.

http://www.americanhockeyfan.com/2009/05/i-understand-viewpoint-of-everyone-in.html

Also related: Play Him Off Keyboard Cat, Explained; Make your own.

NHL-Musical Theater Quote of the Day

"Watching the Stanley Cup playoffs on Versus is like watching a community theater production of "Les Miserables." The source material's emotional potency and the magnetic qualities of its aesthetics make it, at a minimum, eminently enjoyable.

Then some local dentist comes on stage, sings "Master of the House" like Wilfred Brimley with a bran muffin stuffed in his mouth, and you suddenly remember you're not exactly on Broadway."

Puck Daddy on Yahoo sports blogs.

Academicese

I have recently described my new baby as such:

"The new baby is (to me anyway) a very unique, non-stationary, non-linear, real-time stochastic control problem. I am scouring the literature on this topic, but most of the studies I find report highly anecdotal results with little to no proofs or optimizations. I understand that it is a problem that one works on for a number of years before receiving much in the way of recognition or funding."

Lions Drafting Adventures

I'm lazy, so I'll link to the Reverend0 and his comments regarding the Lions draft this year.

My thoughts are simply that I am actually out of snarky comments about how stupid the Lions are. With so much sarcasm in my heart to give, I wanted to believe I could keep it up forever, but after so many consecutive years of utter incompetence on their part, I'm spent... drained... I've blown my I-hate-the-Lions wad.

I think that this will require me to reexamine my life and possibly become a Buddhist.

Suddenly The Rulebook Applies?

I understand that, when it comes to interpretation of the rules and calls from the officials, here isn't a single (or married) coach out there who isn't, at least officially, a massive hypocrite. By Anaheim's Randy Carlyle gets some serious hypocrite points for his comments after his team's OT loss last night:

Form the AP recap article:

While Ducks center Ryan Getzlaf and coach Randy Carlyle vociferously complained Hiller’s pad had been nudged, video review confirmed the officials’ call while the Sharks already were in their dressing room.

“The reason the puck went in the net was their player pushed our goalie’s pad,” Carlyle said. “The puck was loose, their player pushed, and as he pushed, the goalie’s pad—the back of his foot, which is attached to the pad, the back of his skate, knocked the puck in the net. … I think there needs to be some clarification, because in my view, they are not allowed to push the goaltender and the puck into the net.”

What an interesting perspective, Randy! Please, do tell us more about how "goals" in which the goaltender has the puck stopped but some punk player pushes the goaltender into the net should not count as legit goals. I'd be very interested to hear your (new) perspective on this topic. More public comments please!
http://articles.latimes.com/2007/may/15/sports/sp-duckrep15