I was at the doctor a couple of days ago for my separation physical, and at one point in the interview the doctor said, “Oh, you’re the one with the 908 triglycerides. I was waiting for you to come in.”

“Oh, great,” I unenthused, “I’m famous.”

Apparently the diet that my regular doctor has had me on to try to help me lose weight has taken me down the road towards diabetes. The new diet prescribed by this new doctor is pretty much diametrically opposite from the previous one. So my diet is now high-carb, and I’m really hoping I don’t end up with diabetes. My weight? Well, high-carb isn’t exactly the modern dieter’s friend, but avoiding diabetes trumps rapid weight loss. Also, there’s a good chance that getting my dietary shit (so to speak) together will help me lose weight, anyway.

So, yeah, there goes at least six months of dietary effort down the drain. Dammit.

This game has forever secured it’s place in my heart directly below Planescape: Torment, and slightly above other long-time favorites such as Fallout 1 & 2 and the Thief series.

spoiler warning spoiler warning spoiler warning spoiler warning

I just completed BioShock. When the end arrived, I found myself crying a bit in relief that the ordeal was finally over.

(more…)

WeFeelFine.org is a masterpiece of data visualization.

EDIT: And almost immediately an edit. The mental giant behind WeFeelFine is Jonathan Harris. He’s done other things that I’m probably going to be looking at as soon as I save this entry.

I’m such a sucker for good design, especially since I have so much trouble doing it myself.

Ah, yes. The Onion.

Whether they’re working to bring us the facts about a recent study of the effect of multiple stab wounds on monkeys or reminding those of us in uniform why we fight, The Onion is truly great.

An idea just came to me upon waking, and I wanted to get it down before I went back to sleep so that I didn’t forget.

I have sleep apnea, and I sleep with an APAP machine (keeps my airway inflated so that it doesn’t collapse.)

All too often, I find that I have knocked the air hose loose from the machine in my sleep. That, or removed the mask without realizing it.

The machine has an alarm on it to alert you to large air leaks (like those above) but it is way, way too quiet to wake me up.

So what I need to do is have a computer (or better yet, one of my PDAs) listen for that tone and amplify/supplement it. Come to think of it, one of the embedded systems would be better as I could clean off all of the other software and have that be its only job. I’ve found computers to be unreliable alarm clocks, and I wouldn’t want to rely on them for this, either.

I’ll flesh out the entry later. For now, back to sleep.

EDIT: see the project page on the wiki

Television is the first truly democratic culture – the first culture available to everybody and entirely governed by what the people want. The most terrifying thing is what people do want.

-Clive Barnes

I’m moving away from Maryland when I’m out of the Army in a few months.

Portland, Oregon looks promising.  It’s got some larger city aspects, but it’s got ultraclean air.   My math degree can, frankly, be obtained from anywhere.  For the sake of collapsing the mountain of possibilities to a single actuality, I’ve applied to Portland State University.

The title is misleading. This is the first mention of the blog.

I’m Wil Langford. I may decide to blog here. If so, it’s set up and ready for me.

If I know you, feel free to request an account so that you can comment. If you’d like the ability to post, let me know when you request the account.

If I don’t know you, then you’re probably not going to find this site very engaging. Same thing probably goes if you do know me.

Wil