December 04, 2003
Heating
Yesterday, while in the shower, an idea came to me. We will call this moment, the epiphone. When I stepped out of the bathroom, Henry had the same idea.
You see, our apartment has electric heat. Electric heat is expensive. Our apartment also has, courtesy of the apartment company, free hot water. As much hot water as we can use, ours for the taking. The hot water heater is powered by natural gas.
Keeping in mind that water, pure, precious water, has a specific heat of about 1 joule per gram per degree celsius (that is, it takes 1 joule to heat 1 gram of water by 1 degree C), and that air has a specific heat of just .25, the geeks engaged in some hot (quite literally) watersports.
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| How many kilograms of water in a bathtub? |
For now, we just have a rudimentary tub-filling and fan-blowing system, which steams the upstairs, and also makes it quite toasty. Future plans (ie after winter break) are to engineer a heating pipe with radiator that takes water from the tub's spicket, pumps through the hallway upstairs, and empties it back into either the sink or the tub drain.
This apartment is about to get so A-Team...
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Further back...
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Previous Trips...
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Hiking Mount Whitney, 2007 
Spring Break in West Virginia, 2005
New Year's in Paris, 2003-2004
Coming to America, 2003
Protesting in Berlin, 2003
Prague Bier-Tour, 2002
Dresden, 2002
Recent Reading
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Stealing the Network
I first bumped into the Stealing the Network series when reading the exploits of Joe Grand, one of the book's many hacker authors.
The 'Stealing the ...' series of books follows a rather disparate group of computer hackers as they help a former NSA spook (many of them unwittingly) gather the money he needs to retire.
The stories themselves are not fantastic fiction. The writing is uneven and choppy, the characters are stereotypical and not very well thought-out. What is fascinating about this book series is the technical accuracy of the exploits (at some points *too* accurate, with screen shots and step-by-step instructions).
It's a great series to read if you're a system administrator, or just getting into the wonderful field of computer security.
Rated 
by reid
on March 06, 2011
by reid
on March 06, 2011
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Close to the Machine
Ellen Ullman is one of those authors that somehow avoided my radar. Until now...
Close to the Machine is less a book than a collection of loosely related personal anecdotes from Ellen's time as a very rare thing -- a successful female bisexual independent computer programming consultant.
In the course of her work and relationship life, she learns hard lessons about programming, running a business, being lonely, and loving the wrong people. I found it particularly poignant being a crypto-nerd with difficult times in relationships and a more-or-less NDA'd, secret work life.
This book is a must-read for anyone into running their own business, programming, or anyone dating a person that is a business-a-holic or programmer.
Rated 
by reid
on November 23, 2009
by reid
on November 23, 2009
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The Long Trip Home
I had the joy of dining with the author in Florida. We went to a little Brazilian BBQ where he spoke with our waitstaff in (what I can only assume was) flawless Portugese.
Brian Wyllie spent 1969-1971 living in Brazil working for the Peace Corps. His recent book outlines his trip back to the United States via Bolivia, Peru, and the Carribean chain, by way of bus, train, and sailboat. The format comes spattered with observations from the modern day, and makes me think, "this must be what John McPhee's journal looks like."
The trip sounded like a fantastic one, but I was left wanting more detail...where did the gun (being snuck through customs in a variety of places, no doubt) come from? And how did Geneve's hair smell? Alas, we'll have to wait for another book to find the answers.
Rated by reid
on April 16, 2009
by reid
on April 16, 2009
Yay A-Team reference!
Posted by: Sarah on December 9, 2003 03:20 AM