ImageMagick book
MythTV book
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Fri, 04 Jan 2008
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More nuclear bunkers
Its clear from my past posts that I am interested in cold war bunkers.
I just watched "Lost Worlds: US Nuclear Bunkers". That's re-ignited my interest in US nuclear bunkers (as well as cold war history in general). I like the idea of the Lorton Bunker (under a correctional facility 20 miles form Washington DC, and abandoned in only 2001), and I've talked about the Greenbrier bunker before.
It's a pity its four hours drive from Arlington, VA:
View Larger Map
The Greenbrier was secret for 30 years, and kept constantly stocked will all the supplies needed for three weeks of sealed living for 1,100 people. Finally it was leaked by one article in the Washington Post. After the article, the site had to be decommissioned.
Next, they talked about the Palm Beach Florida bunker built for JFK. Tours of that bunker are cheap too -- only $10 each. This bunker is only a decontamination shower, and a single room, but I guess you wouldn't complain if you'd just been nuked.
Finally, there is Cheyenne Mountainwhich used to offer tours, but apparently doesn't any more.
Tags for this post: travel( ) usa() virginia()
posted at: 14:29 | path: /travel/usa/virginia | permanent link to this entry
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Fri, 28 Dec 2007
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Mental note: don't become a US permanent resident just in case
To quote from this blog post (its a bit odd that its a PDF, but whatever):
... the new expatriate regime (Exit Tax
Provision) requires expatriates to recognise gain on their assets, and imposes a
new tax on gifts and bequests by expatriates to Americans, This new provision
(styled Section 877A) is an addition to (and not a replacement of) the current
expatriation tax rules of Section 877. Under the Exit Tax Provision, certain
individuals who renounce their U.S. citizenship or U.S. long-term residents
who relinquish their U.S. residence status (collectively covered expatriates)
must recognise gain, or otherwise be taxed, on all their assets on the date they
expatriate. In addition, gifts or bequests they make to U.S. citizens or residents
after expatriation will be subject to tax at onerous estate/gift tax rates.
In other words, if you're a US resident and you leave the US permanently, then they deem all of your world wide assets sold, and then tax you on the gain. This includes retirement funds, as well as savings. Congress is proposing this as a way of funding tax relief for serving members of the US military.
Its not law yet, but still something I should pay attention to.
Tags for this post: travel() usa()
posted at: 04:20 | path: /travel/usa | permanent link to this entry
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Tue, 20 Nov 2007
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Boston
I must say that I like Boston. It feels a lot like Sydney, and I hope that Boston is the city that Sydney is in another 200 years. Boston has plenty of history (it seems that America happened here, and the rest of the continent came along for the ride), isn't too built up (not all sky scrapers), has great public transport, and friendly people. Its too cold though -- it snowed a little on my walk to the office this morning.
Tags for this post: travel() usa() massachusetts() boston()
posted at: 03:58 | path: /travel/usa/massachusetts/boston | permanent link to this entry
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Mon, 19 Nov 2007
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Boston
I am forever glad to be away from Dallas, which seemed to have few redeeming features (although perhaps that's because I was staying in the worst hotel I have stayed in in the US). I'm now in Boston, where the Kimpton is very nice. It has a hilarious leopard skin print theme, but apart from that is very nice. The meat loaf for dinner last night was fantastic.
I have an idle day today, so the plan is to catch the metro to Boston Common, and then walk the freedom trail. I wonder if I'll be freer at the end. I should try to remember to take a tea bag as well, and ceremonially throw it in the harbour. Then I can honestly say that I've tea bagged for America.
Tags for this post: travel() usa() massachusetts() boston()
posted at: 00:41 | path: /travel/usa/massachusetts/boston | permanent link to this entry
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Mon, 12 Nov 2007
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Arrived in Dallas
I arrived in Dallas yesterday. This part of the trip is to attend LISA 2007, spend some time on the Google booth, and present a poster about the initial research in my new-improved-previous-topic-abandoned PhD. I'm staying in the same hotel as the conference, the Grand Hyatt.
Staying at the Grand Hyatt has led me to make a conclusion -- people mistake expensive for up-scale. I look at the hotel, and its pretty lame: parking is $18 a day, internet is $10 a day, printing is $1 a page, and all the food options are expensive. I can only assume that either they're not interested in business travellers, or that they're hoping people will confuse being gouged for being upper class.
Oh, and the room is noisy and poorly laid out. I much preferred The Hampton Inn I stayed at in Atlanta to be honest. Now there was a hotel that understood business travellers.
Tags for this post: travel() usa() texas() dallas()
posted at: 01:46 | path: /travel/usa/texas/dallas | permanent link to this entry
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Mon, 05 Nov 2007
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Random travel tip: DFW / Dallas Fort Worth
If you're flying through DFW and have a layover, then this random advice based on my experience yesterday might help. The airport is huge, but bits of it were built at different times. The D gates were much nicer (and had a better selection of food places) than the A gates. I assume that means that the E gates are even nicer. So -- don't go to your gate too early if its in an older terminal.
Tags for this post: travel() usa() texas() dfw()
posted at: 23:49 | path: /travel/usa/texas/dfw | permanent link to this entry
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Mon, 22 Oct 2007
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Arrived at Disney World!
We';re here at Disney World (at the All stars movie resort if that matters). I don't really have any comments yet, apart from it talking way longer than we thought to drive from Boca Raton to Disney World. Florida seems to be composed mainly of strip malls, gated communities, freeways, and toll booths. More to report once I have something to say.
Tags for this post: travel() usa() florida()
posted at: 09:16 | path: /travel/usa/florida | permanent link to this entry
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Sun, 21 Oct 2007
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A busy couple of days
Andrew had his school walkathon yesterday -- the five year old and I did 16 laps of the school oval before we gave up. The timing was unfortunate, given that we woke yup at 4am today and flew to Florida. Initial impressions: Miami traffic is congested, Navman GPSs don't work well in Florida, its insanely warm and humid here (even for winter), and I am tried. That is all.
Tags for this post: travel() usa() florida()
posted at: 12:35 | path: /travel/usa/florida | permanent link to this entry
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Sun, 30 Sep 2007
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Noisy neighbours at Central Park in Mountain View
Its 5am my time, and I've been awake since 3am. Not from choice though -- its the downstairs neighbours waking us up yet again. They're shift workers you see, and must either sleep with construction hearing protection on, or be deaf. Either way, they seem to think its ok to stand outside our apartment at shout at each other at 2am, or slam doors at all hours, or listen to music so loud it vibrates stuff in our apartment basically all night.
We've asked them nicely to turn it down (we used to get on quite well with them at first). We've asked the complex to please do something. We even rung the complex security folk when its happening, and asked for some peace. Its really done nothing to help -- they perhaps turn the music down for 30 minutes until security leaves, and then turn it right back on again.
So, we've run out of ideas, apart from ending the lease early (which will cost an unknown amount of money), and moving somewhere else. We're so serious about doing that that I have started looking around Craigslist already.
Perhaps the floor between apartments is too thin, because the bathroom fans this neighbour leaves on for literally days at a time also vibrates things in the apartment, but either way I think Central Park has pretty much failed to provide us with a livable apartment. We don't want a lot, just some peace after 10pm like the complex rules say we should get.
Grumpy.
Tags for this post: travel() usa() california() mountainview()
posted at: 22:08 | path: /travel/usa/california/mountainview | permanent link to this entry
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Sun, 10 Jun 2007
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How do you spot the Australian kids in an American playground?
They're the ones wearing hats.
Despite it being noon, the various American kids at the playground all lacked sun protection. In fact, they pretty much all lacked practical clothing, it was all way too dressy. Americans don't seem to have figured out skin cancer at all in fact, every weekend there are bikini clad young ladies sunning themselves around the pool, the schools don't require kids to wear sun protection, and it's pretty common to see outside workers not wearing any sun protection either. How odd.
Tags for this post: travel() usa()
posted at: 09:20 | path: /travel/usa | permanent link to this entry
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Fri, 23 Mar 2007
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Dentist
I went to the dentist for the first time in the US last night. It was a pretty odd experience. 19 xrays (apparently that's standard here), a TV set on the wall where they showed me the tooth which needs a filling, and then showed me the filling after it was done, photos of my teeth with a digital camera so they can show me before and after in a few years. Heck, they rubbed lotion on my lips for me so that I wouldn't have to suffer at all by keeping my mouth open for more than 30 seconds.
The best bit? They came up with a written estimate before they did the filling, and made sure I was ok with the whole thing before they did any work.
I think I like the dentist here.
Tags for this post: travel() usa()
posted at: 05:00 | path: /travel/usa | permanent link to this entry
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Mon, 05 Mar 2007
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I am sometimes amazed by the childlike political discourse in the US
It amazes me that the best political argument Ann Coulter can come up with is that John Edwards is a faggot. While it is true that Ann specialises in a particularly vile form of hate politics, I guess she's sufficiently lame that she can't even think of good insults any more.
It's a bit like the Anna Nicole Smith burial thing... Isn't the best way to fix these problems just to turn off the media coverage of these morons?
Tags for this post: travel() usa() politics()
posted at: 03:59 | path: /travel/usa/politics | permanent link to this entry
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Sun, 25 Feb 2007
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Summing up Santa Monica
The office stocks vegan jelly beans. Say no more.
Tags for this post: travel() usa() california() santamonica()
posted at: 02:15 | path: /travel/usa/california/santamonica | permanent link to this entry
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Fri, 23 Feb 2007
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Santa Monica
I'm currently waiting as part of boarding group A for my South West flight to Santa Monica. I should be there by lunch. So, any last minute suggestions for things to do in Santa Monica apart from drink a lot?
Tags for this post: travel() usa() california() santamonica()
posted at: 03:18 | path: /travel/usa/california/santamonica | permanent link to this entry
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Tue, 02 Jan 2007
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There is a reason Ikea is crowded on the weekends
It only just occurred to me the other day, but I now know why Ikea is so crowded on the weekends. Sure, the cheap furniture is attractive, but I think it's also go something to do with:
- Free child care
- Free nappies and baby change facilities!
- Bathrooms which are actually designed to be the right height for kids
- Cheap food
- Even cheaper food for kids
Basically it's just such a pleasure taking the kids there, and they have suck a good time, that I keep finding excuses to take them there. This time it was $6 worth of plastic buckets that I could just as easily got from Target down the road.
Now, if only someone would open a similarly kid friendly cinema. I'm sure such a thing would make a killing too.
Tags for this post: travel() usa()
posted at: 03:06 | path: /travel/usa | permanent link to this entry
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Thu, 28 Dec 2006
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Reactive economies?
The other day while in Costco (for the foreigners, think Bunnings or some other hardware warehouse, but for food), I was graced with this conversation at the checkout, between two Costco employees:
e1: Where the hell is e3?
e2: Oh, we didn't meet our sales target yesterday, so they cut hours today.
e1: So he's not coming in at all?
e2: Nup
Apparently Costco works out their staffing based on a "budget for the day" which takes into account todays sales target, expected customer load, and whatever they have to "make up" from previous missed targets.
While there is nothing wrong with that, it must suck to be an employee in that environment. I can't imagine not knowing how much work I would have day to day. I used to be a casual, but our rosters were fairly static and worked out weeks in advance. I guess that Australia is headed down this path with the new industrial relations laws as well.
That's not why I finally got around to writing this though. It occurred to me this morning that being able to lay off people instantly based on a micro assessment of the economy must also lead to very reactive economies, which are more vulnerable to downturn. If Costco couldn't lay people off instantly, then the billion dollar company would act as a cushion between small variations in economic state and the rest of the economy. Without that cushion, the laid off employee goes home and spends less (being unemployed for a day and all), which has a big knock on effect for the rest of the economy.
I wonder if there are any studies on the probability of this being a problem compared with countries with more employee protection like Ireland? France probably goes too far for such a study, because the barrier to firing there is so high that it acts as a barrier to hiring as well.
Tags for this post: travel() usa()
posted at: 02:48 | path: /travel/usa | permanent link to this entry
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Tue, 26 Dec 2006
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Sat, 23 Dec 2006
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Back on the road again
James and I are driving back to Los Angeles today. We're not running any cameras at the moment, basically because while I now have two nice cameras with better optics and a nice external antenna for the EDGE card, I am having trouble finding a video4linux 2 web cam application. I've got some code which does the job, but it needs more hacking to make it usable, and frankly I'm more interested in getting home to the wife and kids for now.
So, if anyone has a v4l2 web cam application recommendation, feel free to let me know and we can use it tomorrow for the LA to Mountain View drive.
Tags for this post: travel() usa()
posted at: 02:58 | path: /travel/usa | permanent link to this entry
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