Barnson.org

I just received this valuable terrorist alert in my inbox. In the interest of furthering the war effort, I present it for you now:

At New York’s Kennedy International Airport today, an individual, later discovered to be a public school teacher, was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a setsquare, a slide rule, and a calculator.

Attorney general John Ashcroft believes the man is a member of the notorious Al-gebra movement. He is being charged with carrying weapons of math instruction.

“Al-gebra is a very fearsome cult indeed”, Ashcroft said. “They desire average solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on a tangent in search of an absolute value. They consist of quite shadowy figures, with names like ‘X’ and ‘Y’ , and although they arefrequently referred to as ‘unknowns’, we know that they really belong to a common denominator and are part of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country. As the great Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, ‘There are 3 sides to every triangle.’ ”

When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, “If God had wanted us to have weapons of math instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes.”

“I am gratified that our government has given us a sine that it is intent on protracting us from these math-dogs who are willing to disintegrate us with calculus disregard. Murky statisticians love to inflict plane on every sphere of influence,” he said, adding: “Under the circumferences, we must differentiate their root, make our point, and draw the line.”

He warned, “These weapons of math instruction have the potential to decimal everything in their math on a scalene never before seen unless we become exponents of a Higher Power and begin to factor-in random facts of vertex.”

He said, “As our Great Leader would say, read my ellipse. Here is one principle he is uncertain of: though they continue to multiply, their days are numbered as the hypotenuse tightens around their necks….”

Okay.. please, Sam, Ben, Jon, Paul, Matt.. everyone..

In exacly 4 weeks, Kelly and I will be spending 3 days and nights in Las Vegas. Lodging is taken care of. I need activity suggestions.

On Day one.. Star Trek Experience until dinner. After that.. Old Vegas… but nothing more specific than that. Any thoughts on what to see there or where to eat? Some gambling will be done here. Budget: Low not including gambling.

On day 2.. 7 hours with Matt, Christy and Kids.. no gambling here. I’ve heard about shows and rides.. what on the strip is fun to do during the day and doesn’t involve gambling? Budget: Moderate.

On Day 3.. All day is free after we return the car. What sights, foods, casinos, activities are not to be missed.. what will I kick myself for not seeing?

Any help will be supremely appreciated.

I apologize for my lack of posts lately; I’m cooking up a couple of technical articles with tips I’ve picked up on FreeBSD and spam filtering.

But more important than that, I’ve been working my keister off preparing music for Void War by Rampant Games. We have about half the songs ready that we need, and there’s about six weeks until release.

Suffice to say, I’m stressed 🙂 But the game is looking really good already, plays very well single-player, and Jay and John, the programmers, are working out some multiplayer bugs (though it’s quite playable multiplayer, just not on a link that’s subject to really bad packet loss). It’s not much money unless the game scores incredibly big, but still, the worst case is that I’ve spent several months preparing music for a game that doesn’t take off.

And I really think this game will do well in the independent market 🙂 Otherwise, why do it?

But if nothing else, doing so much music has got me back “in the groove” of it again. Not a day goes past that I don’t end up having a new riff or theme playing in my brain on my trip home from work. I’m eager to sit down to my synthesizers and Cakewalk Sonar 3.1 to compose music when I get home.

Some technical things bug me, like some really weird routing changes in the signal path between Sonar 2.X and 3.X. Why did they route everything to a sound card channel by default rather than to BUS A and then the channel? Why’s the CPU usage so much higher on the same tune as 2.X? Progress, I guess.

Which means I’m saving money for a new computer, too. Got a check in the mail from a good friend who owed me money, and it looks like I should be able to afford that dual Athlon motherboard, memory, and CPU combo I’ve been hunting for.

Dual-processor computing rocks. People pooh-pooh it because it doesn’t “benchmark” as well as a single-CPU system, but if you’ve used the two types, you know the difference. A duallie remains very responsive under heavy load, while a single doesn’t. Simple as that. Sure, you lose some top-end performance, but when I’m adjusting sliders, tracking my automation in setting and killing effects, and trying to use various software synths, I need all the responsiveness I can get. I know what it takes to max my CPU, and if I could just do that, and be able to manually adjust a slider without causing a dropout or jerkiness in the slider motion as recorded due to a badly lagging machine, I’d be satisfied.

Well, OK, not really. It doesn’t matter how much hardware I have, I’ll probably drive it to the max anyway.

So last night I started a new tune for Void War called “Bereft”. Umm, here, I’ll give you a little chunk of it:

“Bereft” Sample. Internet Explorer screws this up if you just click. Try right-clicking and “save as” instead, otherwise it chops it in half. Lame web browser.

(Note: You’ll need a player capable of ogg vorbis to play this. I recommend WinAmp. I’ve changed audio formats; I’m sick of the politics surrounding MP3, and the fact that OGG is half the size for the same quality doesn’t hurt. I’m pretty limited on space here in my virtual server.)

Anyway, that’s just what I worked on last night prior to our playtest. Definitely nowhere near finished, and is a lot of cut-and-paste while I flesh out the structure.

But anyway, to get back to the point of my post: this is why I haven’t had much time to post. Busy, busy, busy. And finding a new job! So if you know anybody looking for a good UNIX admin, point them to my resume, would you?

Off to work now!

Yup.. thats right.. I have officially gotten old.

I donned my first pair of glasses yesterday. They are a simple, weak prescription in simple wire frames.. but still.. the difference is noticable. I can see leaves on trees.. suddenly the world looks like a photograph again, not an amalgam of crisp details (foreground) with an oil painting background.

I am excited (.. and scared ..) I know i have crossed over into new territory. How should I feel about this, y’all?

So I was reading the latest I, Cringely column which was about the blogging phenomenon, how we have probably 24 years or so more before it becomes an accepted, everyday “normal” thing, when I read to the end of the article.

It was somewhat of a non-sequitur in the article, but he briefly recounted his dinner some years ago with Ronald Reagan. And his main impression? Reagan was a funny guy. Here’s the joke Reagan told him; I thought it was funny enough to share!

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One night in 1978, my friend John Austin, who had covered Governor Reagan for Time magazine, and I met for dinner in San Jose, California. The former governor wasn’t even running for President yet, but was in town that day to give a lunch speech. Reagan’s plane back to Los Angeles, where Nancy was waiting, didn’t leave for several hours, so we kept him company. Over drinks and then dinner, Reagan never once mentioned politics. Instead he told an unending string of Irish jokes. Here is my favorite:

Two Irish ladies were at the wake for their dear friend. “Poor Mollie,” said the first woman, looking down at the body, “she had such a hard life. First she married Mike, who gave her five crying children in six years. He beat her and never worked a day in his life. Then Mike up and died, and she married Johnny, who was even worse, giving her seven more children and not a penny of support. He was drunk all the time until he died, too. And now Mollie is gone, worked to death taking care of those 12 kids.”

“Well, at least they are together at last,” replied the second woman.

“You mean together in Heaven?” asked the first woman. “But is Mollie together with Mike or with Johnny?”

“I was referring to her legs.”

So, in the grand tradition of Ronald Reagan, what’s your funniest ethnic joke? Try to remember that my children, family, and relatives read this board; the joke above is about as dirty as I want to get 😉 And when I say “ethnic”, I mean a joke representative of a funny stereotype of an ethnic group. Not jokes insulting to that ethnic group.

OK, disclaimer: done…

  I couldn’t sleep last night, so around 2 AM I posted new pictures of the Barnson family. Figured you might get a kick out of seeing the whole clan. So there ya go.

We did the photo shoot in the Oquirrh mountains east of Tooele, UT. There are some beautiful spots within easy driving distance of our house; a pity we don’t visit them more often. These are a few samples; more good ones (including close-ups of the kids) are in the photo album.

The weather was clear and warm, with a light breeze. The principal concern of the children was that the very large termites, on the “log” shots, not get on them. They’re a bit squeamish about bugs — gotta work on that. Afterwards we bought barbecue pork and beef sandwiches from a new roadside stand on main street along with our photographer, Verlene Sedgewick. Verlene is an old friend of Christy’s, and an amateur photographer who does surprisingly fine work.

EDIT by matthew: Experiencing weirdness with my photo gallery software, fixed all photo links to just go to the album instead of individual photos.

Kander & Ebb once said, “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere – it’s up to you, New York, New York.”

Well, I couldn’t make it there, so screw it, I’m going home. 🙂

On June 30th, Dani, Joey, and I will be moving back to Maryland. Dani’s been out of work for 3 months now (laid off), and her severance package is running out, and we decided to be proactive rather than wait until we start digging into savings.

We’ll be staying with my mother for a little while, in order to live rent-free and put a little money in the bank, and then we’ll start looking for a house, probably in the Howard County/Columbia area. I’m try to transfer to the DC office of my firm (luckily there’s a position available), and Dani’s got an interview today in Bethesda. With any luck, I’ll be able to get into Georgetown Law.

I feel like this is a really good decision for us. Since I stopped pursuing opera as a career, we’re in a position where we’re no longer tied to the New York area like we used to be. We’ve got more and better quality options for day care for Joey, and our money will go much farther towards a home down there. Plus, having a whole set of free babysitters nearby won’t hurt.

We’re looking forward to getting to know Maryland all over again, as adults. It’s been six years, and we’re ready. NYC, for all its excitement, can be a tiring, dirty city, and we’re looking forward to getting a break.

So, you’ll all know where to find me when it comes time for the Wayward Sun Reunion Tour. More details when they become available.

Although I’ve moved 11 times since 1991, I have never moved into a house as an owner.

Any suggestions for the move? Tips and advice from those that have something to share? Greatly appreciated.

Sam

So I’m facing unemployment again (my last day on my current contract is July 2). Anybody know of a place needing a good UNIX administrator?

We’re even considering relocation this time! Christy told me, “if it comes down to a choice of you taking a job out of state, or being unemployed for an extended period of time, I’d rather move than be unemployed.”

So, if you’re aware of anybody looking for a UNIX admin with light programming experience in Perl, shell, and Python, have them check out my resume on this site. I also do SANS, Windows (in moderation), and when it comes to Internet infrastructure, that’s one of my specialties. I particularly love work with Apache web server and acceleration/load-balancing techniques.

In fact, if any of you are game, I’d love snail-mails of newspaper clippings from want ads, or links to relevant online want ads in region-specific papers. For the first time in seven years, I bought a Sunday Deseret News yesterday to look at their diminutive Computer jobs column. Who knows what will come next?

Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban is good!

Okay.. thats what you wanted to hear.. here’s why – spoiler free.

I didn’t care much for the last Harry Potter movie, and I mildly liked the first.. but I thought they were both well, perfunctory.. like they were just casually going from scene to scene in the book with no sense of urgency, artistry, or emotion. Sure, they were fun, but not a lot of substance.

Of course, I also feel that about the first two Harry Potter books.

This movie, like the third book, is richer, more emotional, darker, more complex, more interesting, and just, well, leaps and bounds better than the last two movies.

Cinematography? Beautiful.. and we spend a good amount of time off the school campus and on the outlying grounds.. and it is shot beautifully.. but notably, the mood is set by a sort of permanent storminess that echoes the tone of the story.

Acting? Again, much better. I didn’t like Harry’s performance in the last movie, and really, really hated Malfoy’s performance.. they were both kind of wooden. This time around, all the performances are solid (including Malfoy and Harry), with exceptional performances by Hermione, and Michael Gambon (making his debut) as Dumbledore. Oh yeah.. Snape rules my world. (Thrreee Hunndred Ninnety Fooor)

Music.. better too, darker.. like John Williams has decided to channel Danny Elfman. Effects? Top notch, finally, I believe the quidditch match.. it doesn’t seem fake at all.

Screenplay – This is where the movie really shines. It takes slight cuts from the books, and instead makes you really care about Harry’s plight..

So, yeah.. if you’re a fan go see it right now before you do anything else.. if not, you might be a little confused.. but see it for the very cool cinematography and for Alan Rickman, who, again, rocks out.