Knittin' Crap: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5... Oh, Crap

I would almost certainly have finished the bodice yesterday, except I boo-booed. That cost me several hours of work, figuring out that I had miscounted when I divided for the armholes. I think I'll still be able to make it in time, though.

News: No Gnus is Good Gnus

Unfortunately, there's always news.

Geeky stuff:

• Computer security experts and organizations have released their annual list of the top 25 most dangerous programming vulnerabilities. Yes, buffer overflows are still up there. While the document is full of detailed descriptions of the vulnerabilities and practices on how to avoid them, I'd also be interested in having some kind of demographic data on who is most likely to make what kind of error. I realize that would be hard to compile though, as most code is written by a large numbers of people and even if the authors had access to commit records, it would be an onerous task to go through all that data.
• The first major court case involving copyright infringement of open-source software was settled in the U.S. in the plaintiff's favor. The Java Model Railroad Interface had been licensed under the GPL (Gnu Public License), as is probably most open-source software these days, including the Linux kernel. The license's legal validity had never been confirmed in court before, though, leaving its effectiveness in question. Seriously, though, who would have guessed the milestone case would have involved software for controlling model trains?
• A Federal judge ordered the Pennsylvania school district which had been spying on its high school students through the webcam of school-issued laptops to stop it. That really is seriously creepy. The cynic in me is wondering how many school administrators got their jollies watching teenagers undress. Anyway, CNET has an article on just how easy webcams are to activate even without having special spyware installed, without the user even knowing. I actually don't have a webcam, but I'm thinking I'd stick duct tape over the lens at this point. Except some cameras can actually pick up infrared, so maybe lead would be better. That way even Superman wouldn't be able to see through it!
• A polling company claims that women secretly prefer hairy geeks. Uh-huh. Why do I strongly suspect the poll was conducted by, well, hairy geeks? Besides, this is what women really want:

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Not-as-geeky stuff:

• Neat visual breakdown of commute methods in major U.S. cities.

The Quiz of Life?

Knittin' Crap: Miles To Go Before My Hands Fall Off

In the 24-hour period between midnight Sunday and midnight Monday, I knit .15 miles. That is a lot. Most of it was the Ravelympics cardigan, but I spent a little time working on other projects to vary needle size and hand movement to lessen repetitive hand fatigue. After a little work today, I'm done about 8" of the 12" I plan before starting the armholes. As I'm working across front and back, that's a lot of progress.

I think I may be actually be able to finish before the games close next Sunday evening, but it's going to be a lot more work. The Noro Matsuri yarn is even harder on my hands than the 100% wool Jojoland Rhythm I used for the pullover. The Matsuri is a cotton/wool blend, so it has cotton's inelasticity and wool's abrasive scales. I'm applying hand lotion for lubrication, which I rarely do while working with yarn, and take breaks to stretch my fingers and wrists, and, as I said, spending a little time on other projects to get a little range of motion relief. Even though I definitely notice the effects of the marathon effort, I'm being vigilant. I watched all my Netflix DVDs over the weekend and returned them today, so hopefully I can find stuff to watch on regular TV tonight and tomorrow (at least there's a new episode of Damages tonight -- excellently intense show for knitting stockinette) and as long as the hands hold out, I'm good.

Knittin' Crap: I Am The Champions

Yes, I finally made it to the awards podium! I actually finished the sweater yesterday evening, but I didn't post about it them because I was too busy partying while wearing my Ravelympics medal over my groin.

Anyway, to wrap up the last three days

Thursday evening: Finished all the knitting, including knitting on the collar after seaming the shoulders. I undoubtedly will redo the collar's bind-off because it's too damned tight and I can barely get it over my big head.

Friday: Didn't actually do much. I had flaked on returning my Netflix DVDs until Thursday, and there was nothing on TV, and I can't knit unless I'm doing something else visual at the same time (call it ADD or whatever, but it does have the beneficial side effect that I rarely get eyestrain while knitting or crocheting because I'm constantly looking up and refocusing my eyes).

Saturday: The rest of the seams didn't actually take too long (meaning about 3 hours of actual work) because the stitches were relatively large and the yarn is pretty smooth and easy to work with. I hadn't quite finished by the time of my afternoon lesson, but I showed my students my "injury" -- the red mark on my finger.

I spent several hours last night (after the aforementioned, um, partying, which, all right, didn't happen) swatching stitch patterns for the cardigan. The yarn I'm using, the discontinued Noro Matsuri, is self-striping, but it also has white strands going through and little nubs of color, giving it an odd tweedy look. It just didn't look right to my eye in an eyelet-lace pattern, and I was getting gauge in straight stockinette anyway. I'm also going to work across the front sides and the back in one continuous piece, both to keep the striping consistent and so I don't have to do the side seams later. I'm not sure if I will finish it or not, as this is more knitting, even if it's simpler, than the pullover, but I'll give it a go.

Knittin' Crap: Ravelympics Day 5

My first choice. I would lengthen it a few inches and use a different stitch pattern for the body, rather than the eyelet-quads. I would get to enter this in two different categories, one for sweaters and the other for multi-crafting, as the body is knit and the edging crocheted. And what is it with me and the purple yarns?


Me and the mitered pullovers, hmmm...

I've finished one sleeve and am mostly done with the other. While they're blocking, I'll do the shoulder seams and knit on the collar. If I stay on schedule, I will probably finish late tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I made it to Kinokuniya today to look for my next pattern for the second week of the Ravelympics. I found a couple of possibilities that might work with yarn I have and need to do some swatching.

And that yarn groove on my finger, while not indented at the moment as I haven't done any knitting yet today, has the color and smoothness of a first-degree burn. For some reason, I have this mental image of lying on a coroner's slab (I watch too much crime-drama on TV) and the medical examiner being able to tell that I was a knitter who held the yarn continental style just because of that mark.