No Maps for These Territories » Uncategorized

There’s no there, there.

admin — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 00:24:10 +0000

Yeah, I’ve pretty much stopped updating this, sorry. The need for personal web space in the age of Facebook is hard to maintain the energy for. I’ve had dreams for years of revamping this space into an area to showcase my personal vanity projects instead of a blog, but that sure hasn’t happened yet.

If you’re curious what I’m up to, I run the Game Services (video game porting and engineering) divison of OnLive, and I live in Washington DC. And I love it here.

You can contact me at tobin dot coziahr at gmail dot com if you need to get a hold of me.

The night the zombies attacked

admin — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 09:35:54 +0000

We had a crazy night of fog here tonight, and when I looked outside, it genuinely looked like zombies had come and eaten everyone, and I was the only one left alive.

I love nights like this, walking around at 1am when the world is completely empty and the streets are abandoned. It reminds me of blizzards I’ve been in on the east coast where you can walk down a six lane highway and not see a single car.

I kind of expected to see a row of them shambling down the street.

I’ve got my shotgun ready at this point, the zombies must be right around the corner.

The arrow says “this way to zombies.”

Last man standing.

Traffic lights keep signaling, but everyone’s had their brains chomped.

The funny thing is, the camera actually was able to see better than me. Visibility was about 50 feet, but in these pictures it looks much farther.

i made a twitterbot. and python is awesome.

admin — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 07:43:22 +0000

This has been up for a while now, but I thought I’d share it.

dowcloses, my twitterbot. It posts every day what the DOW closed at, in case you’re a masochist and like to watch the decline of your net worth.

It was a quickie project that I did in Python, my new favorite language. I’ve been a C programmer my whole life, and I’ve dabbled with Java and perl when necessary, but nothing really grabbed me. Python is like no language I’ve used before, it really works with my head.

For a long time it dawdled along as a scripting alternative that lots of programmers just knew as “that language where whitespace matters”, but now that Google and several other big boys are really endorsing it, it’s getting more momentum, and I couldn’t be happier.

If you’re a programmer, and you use perl for your daily scripts, I can’t recommend Python highly enough. You can pick it up over a weekend, it’s insanely powerful and fast, and easier to use than any language I’ve ever tried. Honestly, it made me feel giddy with power, I was so used to programming being a struggle that I’d just assumed that’s how it would always be.

I’m doing a large scale project at work in Python now, and I’ve written several scripts to do web scraping, a la my twitterbot, or interacting with amazon through boto, and each and every time, I get up and running in a fraction of the time it used to take. Python is badass. Give it a shot.

playing around with time lapse

Tobin — Sat, 23 May 2009 10:03:27 +0000

My camera has a “time lapse” feature which I’ve been eyeing ever since I got it.

I bought a tomato plant holder from Home Depot that proved unable to hold the weight of the tomato buckets I put on it, so I decided to build my own tomato stand, which should hold four five-gallon buckets of dirt no problem.

A construction project? What a perfect way to test out the stop motion! I left the camera running while I figured out how to build a 6-foot tomato-hanging cage, and it came out pretty well.

I gotta say, stop motion is damn fun. Now I need to find more stuff that I can record.

Bay to Breakers 2009

Tobin — Tue, 19 May 2009 07:32:29 +0000

Every year in San Francisco, a bunch of really crazy bastards go up for Bay to Breakers, which is theoretically a race, but more like an excuse for thousands of people to dress up like it’s Halloween, and drink a lot.

I’ve never gone before because I have to wake up at 5am in order to get up there in time, but I figured that I’d man up this year and go for it.

Our crew went dressed as Wizards, which involves a robe of some sort, a wizard hat, and a wizard’s staff. You have to earn your staff by drinking beers, and duct taping them to the bottom of your next beer. Each new beer is “leveling up”, because we’re a bunch of huge nerds.

This is the view at Caltrain at 6:30am. A bunch of college kids, already drunk and dressed up.

I’m level 1! And it’s not even 7am yet!

The caltrain station again. Lots and lots of neon and buttcheeks.

Oompa loompas!

Yuzo and Nina, as Yuzo beards up.

The race hasn’t started, and the wizards are already level 4.

I’m trying my best to catch up. Look at those sexy wizards.

The construction workers don’t quite know what to think of us.

That’s not where the beard goes!

Colored hair and leopard prints abound.

Green man! I was so happy to see a Sunny in Philadelphia fan. Best show ever.

Oh yeah, and lots of people just go straight up naked.

This dude was a hero. Walking all by himself with a shopping bag, in his tidy whities.

Is that the Death Star? I can’t tell.

Grover!

Leveling up continues.

The lifeguard party float.

Wizards stop for a bathroom break at someone’s house. I’m not sure whose. They didn’t seem to mind TOO much.

I think this dude stole those girls’ slip.

Yuzo reaches level five! Ding!

The tiki bar float was popular.

Look at all those PEOPLE. It stretches as far as the eye can see.

Range in a mumu. They should have sent a poet.

Level…. uhh… not sure.

The camera cannot contain our staffs!

Awww, man hug.

The wizards cast magical spells of plant watering.

She’s ready for the flood with her floaties.

Awesome robot costumes.

It’s hard to see, but these guys were dressed as Mario Kart characters, and they even had their own karts! One of my favorite costumes of the day.

British cops?

Oh, hello, angels. I like your outfits.

Now this cracked me up. Impromptu PORT A POTTY PARTY! Aww yeah!

I love that people were using the port a potties while people danced above them.

I may have forgotten to apply quite enough sunscreen to my arms. Whoops.

All in all, that was a hell of a party. I’m definitely going back next year. You should join us, we could always use more wizards.

Tokyo Day 2

Tobin — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 15:34:42 +0000

For the full gallery of pics, see here.

Man, it’s really hard not to fall behind on these posts, the days are so jam packed with action that setting aside time to blog is hard. But I’m gonna try to stick with it! Day 2 started off with a trip to Akihabara, where I dragged Kevin and Range, as it is my spiritual home on the planet. So many nerds and games. I’ll be going back again to actually PLAY games instead of just doing a drive-by.

Catching the Hibiya line.

Everyone’s got a cell phone, and the trains are completely quiet. No talking, and no cell phone conversations. It’s really pretty awesome. In such a crowded place, the Japanese have taken great lengths to safeguard the precious little time they have to decompress after work.

First thing on the agenda, food. We pop into a soba noodle joint.

Curry soba. Fantastically delicious.

Here we are, Akihabara.

A UFO catcher game, where you can win… Ritz crackers. The game costs about as much as it would cost to just buy the damn things.

I am so totally going to try this Gundam game. They don’t allow photos in the arcades, so I risked my life and limb to get this one. Full 180 degree screens, each person gets a pod, and they have screens displaying the games live.

The number of stores just selling analog components like wires and resistors and what not is truly stunning. Anything you could possibly need is in Akihabara.

This shop sold police batons, stunners, handcuffs, mace, pepper spray, you name it.

The density of stuff for sale is staggering. Another component shop. Kevin needed a cable for his camera and was able to find it no problem.

This vending machine will sell you a ticket for hot food, which you then pick up upstairs.

How many Japanese workers does it take to replace a few planters full of flowers? The answer you’re looking for is four.

The imperial palace is near the Tokyo station is pretty, but disappointing, since it’s all locked off. This is as close as you can get, everything is blocked off by police.

I ran ahead to get a shot of Kevin and Range towering above the armies of Japanese tourists.

This tonkatsu dinner only cost $8 and was fantastic. You can get some amazing meals in the Tokyo metro station.

Sadly, these large delicious beers were also $8, which doubled our dinner bill!

Yes, this does appear to be a hot dog wrapped in a tortilla.

The density of the concrete jungle around Ueno station is crazy. Layers upon layers in every direction. Escher would be proud.

Poking women’s eyes out with your newspaper is discouraged.

Clorets ICE will punch your bitch ass in the face with its freshness. PWNED.

We found a beautiful cemetary near our metro stop. (Menami-senju). This is on the walk back from the metro to our hostel.

They actually have rags and other scrubbing implements available for you to clean the grave of your loved one. I found that really touching.

A side street near Minami-senju.

Please note that not ONE of these bikes is locked up. Not a single one. Again, a first world nation is one that should be full of adults that don’t steal from each other. The lack of theft is a constantly mindblowing element of Tokyo, and a kind of depressing one when you think about how long these bikes would last in the US.

That is a four LITER bottle of sake. That’s what I call the “living under a bridge” size.

The “lots of fried shit” section of the grocery store. I would like one of everything, please.

Okonomiyaki! I’ve always wanted to try this. Our friend Deanna took us out for dinner at her favorite place in Shinjuku. You get a bunch of meat mixed in with toppings and batter, dump it on a grill, and make a meat pancake. It was so good my mouth waters just thinking about it.

Kevin tends to his meat pancake.

Ah, Shinjuku. Absolute wonderful chaos 24/7. It’s never dark.

The Park Hyatt. I’ve never in my life been in a place that exuded affluence more. Everything is subdued and rich. We went to the 52nd floor to check out the bar made famous in Lost in Translation, but it was a $20 cover charge each to enter, and we decided to pass. The view from the 40th floor has to be seen to be believed. I’ll post the videos I took later, I think they came out better than pictures would.

At night the Shinjuku station turns into a homeless shelter of sorts. Dozens of men (no homeless women?) camp out their spots in cardboard boxes. Not a single one of them is begging for money or harassing people. That’s another thing that’s stunning about Tokyo, you never get approached by scammers or panhandlers, everyone just kind of sticks to their own space.

Range passed out sitting up, next to his Japanese twin.

That’s how I like to end my evenings. Oh one cup sake, how you treat me so well. I’ve been informed by my new Japanese friends that one cup is the equivalent of Mad Dog here, it’s kind of a homeless sort of drink. I still don’t care, it’s my sweet mistress.

Tokyo Day 1

Tobin — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 08:52:07 +0000

Here’s day one of my month long journey to Tokyo. If you’d like to see the entire gallery, it’s here.

Kevin’s luxurious room in Chez Coziahr. Our bed and breakfast has many themed rooms, this one is titled “yarn”.

Liquid nerves for the 11 hour plane trip.

Zzzzzz.

Range discovers that alcohol is free on intercontinental flights.

This lady sat next to us, and she was hilarious. She kept slapping the back of my head when she wanted to tell me something, and yelling “chotto”. She quickly became part of our crew, and then gave us an 18 year old bottle of scotch as a present. I shit you not. The only thing we were able to give her was the gift of our wonderful personalities.

Thanks for the free booze, mystery lady!

When I got up to get snacks, she demanded I bring her a banana.

I will never, ever fly United again. Look at this spread. It tastes as good as it looks.

Kevin gets his ticket for the Kinsei skyliner. Off to Ueno!

Look closely, this is the last ground you will see that’s not covered with concrete.

Our train. Complete with bathrooms and vending machines. Yeah, fuck you, BART. San Fran public transit is a joke.

Am I in a hostel, or prison? Hard to tell. The Hotel New Koyo is awesome, though. $27 a night, private rooms, great staff, free wireless internet, gobs of eurotrash.

My room is seriously quite small.

Kevin tries to escape the hostel.

Right down the street from us is some of the tastiest spicy noodle soup I’ve ever encountered. And we met some new friends, who wanted to know things like “what does attractive mean?” and “what is a medusa?”, and then proceeded to buy us a free beer.

The ramen selection at our local convenience store.

Screw ramen, Range heads for the cans of coffee and beer.

Yes, that’s spaghetti.

Hitler says, be careful around construction sites!

Beautiful rainy night in Ueno.

Happy hour is all day long on Wednesdays at the local pub. Wait till you guys see the video I’ll upload with the ultrasonic Guinness machine. It creates a head on top of the beer with sound. Ohhh yeah, technology.

Asahi dark is a wonderful beverage. I think I’ll have another.

Make that another. And another.

I can’t explain this, but I had to post it because Range will kill me.

It’s fun to squat and shit, kids!

I absolutely love that there is no theft here. Leave out your bike, your umbrella, you name it, no one is going to steal it. Kind of like how it should feel living in a first world country full of adults.

This is my new office. That’s a massage chair, a beer, and my laptop. Nice end to our first day.

Off to Japan!

Tobin — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 05:01:48 +0000

I had high hopes for actually getting around to cleaning up this blog before heading to Japan, but it doesn’t look like that’s actually going to happen. I’m heading out tomorrow morning.

I recently changed my blog to run on WordPress, instead of Blogger, and I think that move might have destroyed the old RSS feed and created a new one. Is anyone out there actually reading the new RSS feed? Were you reading the old one? Let me know in the comments or email.

The plan here is to try to post pictures and/or videos every few days from Japan while I’m there and see if I can keep a better documentation trail than I normally do for trips. I usually just take a crapload of pics and then look at them again in a few years and wonder what the hell everything is. Maybe my blog can act as a better video diary.

If anyone’s been to Japan and has cool things to suggest I do, or you’ll be there in April when I’m there, let me know. I’ve got quite a list of things to see, but I’m always interested in more. What I’d really love to see is lots of live music. If you’ve got some good venues, definitely give me the skinny.

Anyway, I’m outta here. Next time I blog I’ll be posting from 16 hours in the future. I’ll send pictures of jetpacks.

don’t ever, ever talk to the police. ever.

Tobin — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 08:52:00 +0000

I just watched a great set of videos about why you should never talk to the police for any reason.

Here’s the first one, by Professor James Duane, giving a background on the law and a bunch of different scenarios where even if you’re innocent, anything you say just makes your life worse. Then, there’s a second video, by a cop, about exactly why the law professor is correct. It’s a nice set.

(Don’t let the fact that Professor Duane talks way too fast annoy you, you just have to ignore it and focus on the good stuff, he makes some really great points.)

I find this particularly interesting because I’ve been interrogated by cops and various security professionals several times in my life, and I’ve found myself doing exactly what he describes here, talking way too much to try to convince them that I’m innocent, or embellishing the truth if I’m trying to get out of something. You always, always end up saying the wrong things, or going a bit too far in your earnest desire to help prove your innocence. I’ve always regretted it in retrospect.

The primary point that he makes is that the 5th amendment is NOT just for criminals to protect themselves, it’s also for innocent people to protect themselves from the system. Anything you say that is false, even unrelated to the case at hand, is ammunition against you. And even the fact that you talked to them at all, even if everything you said was 100% fact, can be used against you if the cop misremembers what you said.

At the end of the day, absolutely nothing you say to the police helps you, it can only hurt you, and that’s a very interesting thing to keep in mind. Innocent or not, your words are ammunition against you. The only way to win, is not to play, as I learned from WarGames. Don’t ever talk to the police.

our cognitive heat sinks

Tobin — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 22:50:00 +0000

This is a fantastic video about how society deals with change by creating cognitive “heat sinks”, which I’d never really thought of in those terms before, but makes perfect sense.

Clay Shirky goes over how we reach periods of societal change, and lose ourselves in mindless excess of things like alcohol, or sitcoms, and then start to tap that stored wealth of cognition and slowly bring ourselves to the next societal level.

I highly recommend checking it out, it really helped me solidify my thinking about how we create “relief valves” in our minds where we passively consume in order to spin unused brain cycles, it’s not just sitcoms, it’s professional sports, it’s religion… we’ve got these heat sinks built up all around us, just waiting to be tapped. Otherwise, we would completely combust as a society.

The trick is to recognize your own heat sinks, and start to tap them to do something, instead of nothing.

His bit about someone asking him “Where do they find the time?” about Wikipedia really hit home for me, I’ve always been a firm believer that we have huge, HUGE amounts of free time that we fritter away. It confuses me when people ask me where I find time to play games to review on Noobtoob every week, and take Japanese classes, and do any number of other things – what’s interesting is I still waste probably 40 hours a week on cognative heat sinks. Maybe more. I certainly don’t feel like I’m making the most of my time.

We have to give ourselves permission to have these escape valves, of course, you can’t be creating and contributing all the time, but whenever I force myself to take a couple percent of my spare brain cycles and actually DO something, I always feel better for it. And I think the direction we’re going is really exciting, a whole new generation of kids are coming up who don’t think of entertainment as a passive medium. I just need to learn to think like them and ditch my baggage.