repak shawahb
I like to think of myself as the master of my own destiny

^
   

rsw@jfet.org


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Thu, 28 Apr 2005

happiness is 

[kwantam@positron ~]$ set -o vi


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hot sluts

...er, actually, thermal strippers.

Recently Mike, Ion, and I were sitting around talking about this and that when Ion provided a nugget that I just had to pass along to all y'all.

Ion is from Romania; before he came to the US he was a professor of EE. He's one smart dude, and he's got tons of stories and some damn good interview questions tucked into his sleeves. During our conversation yesterday, we somehow strayed onto the topic of winding inductors. One thing led to another, and I was reminiscing about burning the shit out of my hands trying to get the shellack off of Litz wire. Ion said to me, "well, of course, you just use Aspirin, right?"

Turns out, if you put the Litz on top of an Aspirin tablet (no fancy enteric coating or any of that shit) and heat it with a soldering iron, the salicylic acid reacts with the insulation and it's gone in no time.

Bad ass.


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Mon, 25 Apr 2005

hit the road...

Summer's here, and I'm happy to say I'm finally getting back into road biking. Step one: buy a bike.

It turns out that the used bike market strongly favors the buyer. That is to say, fancy road bikes hold value about as well as a wet baby T holds in Britney Spears's implants. I was able to pick up the ridiculously hot Kestrel 500SCi (see picture, right) for about 1/4 of what it would have cost new.

A Kestrel with Dura-Ace all around for less than a new Cannondale R700 with 105s. Score.


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mothafuckin' hustla!

It's official: you must go see Kung Fu Hustle. It is fucking hilarious.

Watch for an incredible number of references to other movies, including the Matrix (duh), about a million other Kung Fu movies (double duh), Spider-Man, the Shining, and others.

Also, prepare to laugh harder than you've laughed at any movie since, oh, Jackass or so.

Best. Movie. Ever.


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Thu, 21 Apr 2005

fun with design reviews

Once again exercising my design review announcement skillz, I just wrote and fired off this beauty:

SI3240a MADC Design Review, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the ProSLIC 
Summary: SI3240a MADC design review, Friday, 2p, Gecko.
It will almost certainly not fill up all 3 scheduled hours.

-- The long form:

Gentle(wo)men... BEHOLD!  Short on notice, long on caffeine, it's...

The design review for the ProSLIC's shiny new MADC!  I'll be discussing
incremental delta-sigma theory, its application to our lovely MADC, and
the implementation thereof.  You'll be dazzled with tales of integral
nonlinearity and regaled with intimate phase diagrams you
can't get anywhere else!

...but that's not all!  Respond now and I guarantee there will be no
mention of the dreaded phase margin.  That's right!  Not a single
previously-unreviewed transistor-level block will be presented,
guaranteeing maximum design review efficiency.

Where will you find this spectacle, this marvel of modern meetings?
ConfRM.Gecko, Friday, 2PM!  Be there or 4*a^2*x^2/(b^2-4*a*c).

Humbly submitted,

Riad Wahby


"Knock yourself a pro, slick."


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Tue, 19 Apr 2005

cheap Sox tickets, illness, and guilt

One advantage of watching the Sox other than at Fenway is that the tickets are MUCH cheaper. In particular, Tim and I picked up lower infield seats (section 20, row 13) at the July Sox-Rangers game at Ameriquest for just a bit more than bleacher seats go for at Fenway. Total hotness.

In other news, I managed to catch some sort of mutant superflu (which is to say, I've been sick for more than my usual 24 hours) from Cindy—no surprise there, since she works with little kids all day. I ended up staying home from work in the morning yesterday, but by the time the afternoon rolled around, guilt overtook malaise and I went in and ended up working a (very productive!) full day anyway. Oh well.


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Wed, 13 Apr 2005

strange bedfellows

What do the IEEE and Playboy have in common? Apparently, an interest in naked chicks.

"I don't care who you are, that's funny right there."


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Sun, 10 Apr 2005

trophy husband

Damn, is this really only my second April entry? Fuck me... life has been nothing but work, and will continue that way until we tape this bitch out. Yay!

OK, no, it's not that bad. Weekends have been relaxing, and the weather here is gorgeous. Today I went to the driving range for a few hours and discovered that my swing hasn't completely left me! I had some trouble with my hands on the mid irons, but I managed to figure out what I was doing. What had left me were my callouses, and now they're on their way back—heralded by some moderately painful blisters. Maybe next weekend I'll play 9 holes instead of just going to the range...

Right now I'm watching the Discovery Channel, and I've just learned the strangest thing: the male deep sea anglerfish is actually a parasite on the female. It attaches itself permanently to the female (they even share a circulatory system!) and basically degenerates to nothing, except that its testes develop substantially, giving the female a permanent supply of sperm.


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Fri, 01 Apr 2005

Sin City is...

AWESOME!

I wish there were something bigger than <h1>. No, really. A few reasons why:

  • Cyrus is a really big Frank Miller fan, and according to him the storyline is preserved almost perfectly from the books.
  • Quentin Tarentino is a guest producer, and you can tell. Jeffrey Westhoff's quote from rottentomatoes sums it up well (even though apparently he didn't like the movie—unwashed miscreant): "You know you've gone beyond run-of-the-mill movie violence when you need to use the plural for 'castrations.'" Yup.
  • The visual style is literally breathtaking. It's insanely cool.
  • Clive Owen is a badass.
  • Mickey Rourke is even more of a badass.
  • Elijah Wood is a fucking psycho.
  • Holy shit there are a lot of hot chicks in this movie.
  • No, really. Take a glance over the credits.

By the way, have any of y'all ever noticed how much Kurt looks like Josh Hartnett?

Also, one of the trailers before Sin City is for a movie called Domino that looks really cool. It's based on the true story of Domino Harvey, daughter of Laurence Harvey, who was a fucking bounty hunter. Samus-style, biaaaatch (but without the Metroid).


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