I was spending time trying to fine-tune a (graphviz)[http://www.graphviz.org/] file documenting the call graph of a piece of code and describing some of the critical functions. graphviz isn’t really designed for the kind of long node labels I wanted to give it, so it would do things like put nodes in places which made it have to draw arrows reaching clear across the page.

Finally I realized that rather than trying to talk graphviz into reordering its nodes, I could just refactor the thing I was graphing so that the flow wasn’t so darned convoluted in the first place.

Before (image links to full size version):

After (image links to full size versopm):

Corollary? If it’s hard to get your call flow graph to look pretty, well, the graph isn’t the only thing that’s ugly…

Little Red Riding Hood: The Infographic remix. (Via Daring Fireball.)

Pretty clever marketing campaign: Defriend 10 people on Facebook, and get a coupon for a free Whopper.

Improv Everywhere ratchets up the excitement at a little league baseball game with bleachers full of screaming fans, NBC Sports on the jumbotron, and the Goodyear Blimp. (Via AgBlog.)

An avocado, found in the snow near Portland St and Broadway, Cambridge, MA

An avocado in the snow.
Who left it there? I do not know.
Not Father, Son, nor Ghost so holy,
Rebirths you into guacamole.
Did leaping from this wretched fate
Allow you to feel special, great?
Or did, cast down like ancient foe,
You weep from terror, weep from woe?
But lie here now, near Portland Street,
And rest, green flesh and tasty meat.

Well, well, well… it looks like we have another airline adopting movie plot security tactics. From JetBlue’s page on service animals (emphasis added):

Certain unusual emotional support animals (i.e. snakes, other reptiles, ferrets, rodents and spiders) pose unavoidable safety and/or public health concerns and will not be allowed to jet with us. The release of such an animal in the aircraft could result in a direct threat to the health or safety of customers and crewmembers.

No word on whether they’ve hired Mr. Jackson as a consultant.

Wolfire Blog has a neat analysis of the design of World of Goo (which, if you haven’t played it, is a rather fun game.)

Today’s Times has a great article about rice cookers.

1. I want to try toasted rice ice cream.
2. I think that this should be our national loaf.
3. I want to stick a spoiler on my Sanyo, turning it into a rice rice cooker.

Here’s a lede I never thought I’d see:

A spokesman for the pirates … said that so far, in the eyes of the world, the pirates had been misunderstood. —Somali Pirates Tell All: They’re in It for the Money, New York Times, 2008-09-30

The downstairs neighbor got cable installed recently, and this is what the side of our house looks like now:

More glamour shots here. Off to call RCN and see if they’ll do something about it…

Update: Allegedly, an RCN dispatcher will be calling us tomorrow to send someone out.

Update 2: RCN came, and it turns out that it isn’t their wires. Before we and downstairs got RCN, there was a Comcast install. Comcast came and disconnected their wires once nobody at the place had Comcast, and they left the mess.

Update 3, 2008-09-15: I called Comcast on Friday, and they said they’d send someone out on Saturday. They didn’t. I’ll try emailing them this time…

Update 4: Email didn’t progress very far before they said I’d have to call or use their “live chat” feature. I called, and a very helpful and apologetic CSR scheduled an appointment for Wednesday, and said she’d monitor the account and call me back on Wednesday to make sure that someone actually came out this time. I think it’ll actually happen this time.

Update 5: Looks like they came and took care of it. Hooray!