October 23, 2006

65 Million Boars

Wow, I haven't posted to this site for almost 2 years. Crazy. Maybe I will switch it to Wordpress and post to it again. In the mean time, I have been playing World of Warcraft for the past two years, and just created a site cataloging all the funny stuff that people make in/about the game. So check it out if anyone happens to stumble upon this site. Like say, the Googlebot. :)

65 Million Boars

Also, the site I made before that one,

Mordots

March 11, 2005

Why the Y Key Gets Abused

Ryan and I continued our scientific exploration this evening when he noticed that the Y key on his 12” Powerbook looked more “used” than the other keys. The paint wasn’t fading or anything, because it’s a Powerbook and they are indestructible, but it lacked a certain shine that the other keys had. Or maybe it was shiny and the others weren’t. I don’t remember.

Ryan thought that the cause could be that his finger drags more on the Y key than the others. This is because he uses the Powerbook in his bed, laying on his back with the Powerbook on his stomach. So because of the strange angle and the fact that the Y key is farther away than say, the T key, a dragging action takes place as you pull your finger back from pressing the key.

I verified this by finally copying his position after a few minutes of describing how he was laying. But I couldn’t even see the screen because my hands were in the way, at which point I realized he probably just doesn’t know how to use his Powerbook right, and that all of our experiments and usage of the scientific method was for nothing. Thanks a lot asshole. We could have used those 45 minutes to solve some other important scientific issue like how they make springs springy, but other types of metal “not springy”.

Name Order

I was just discussing with my friend Ryan what the reasons are in the way we order two people’s names. For instance, Duke and Gloria. Bob and Stella. Ron and Claudia. These sound natural. But Gloria and Duke sounds wrong. Why?

After much discussion, we have come up with this…

If the two names are of different sexes, the male name always comes first. Yeah that’s right, we have the penises, get over it.

If the two names are of the same sex, the “soft” name comes first, and the “hard” name comes second. For instance Susan has no hard sounds. But Patricia has a hard P and T sound, so it comes second.

If both names have hard sounds, the name with fewer syllables comes first. For instance, Pam and Patricia.

And that’s about as far as we got. We agreed on all of the scenarios we came up with… Was it a fluke, or is there really a set of sub-conscious rules for this type of thing?

February 10, 2005

OneWord: Smudge

I work at a photo printing store now, which doesn't mix very well with my hands, because they are oily pretty much all the time. It's not that I don't wash them or anything, I'm just a naturally oily-handed person, you see, and it's a condition that we have to live with.

But back to the point, the problem is that when I handle the photos to put them in a little bag or something, I can easily get finger prints and smudges on them. We have special cotton gloves, but they are all too small because all of the other people that work here are small-handed women.

That is my story about the word Smudge.

OneWord

PayPal Fee Calculator

After starting a new job where I was hired to program an online photo uploading and e-commerce site, I figured it was time to learn to program in PHP. So I got a book and read it for a couple of weeks and then pieced the site together. I'm sure I made hundreds of mistakes, but I'm still not good enough to realize it yet.

But anyway, today I will tell you about a different site, that is much more simple, but was still a fun programming project for a beginner like me.

It's called PayPal Fee Calculator and it can be used to tell you how much to charge someone thru PayPal to make sure that you get a certain amount.

For instance say you want to get $100 from someone. If you just charge them $100, you will actually only end up with $96.50 because PayPal takes out their fees first.

But, if you enter $100 into my site, it will tell you how much to charge in order to be left with $100 after PayPal's fees are taken, which happens to be $103.29 in this case.

You can also ask how much will be taken out of a $100 transaction, which is where I got the $96.50 amount earlier.

Like I said it's really simple and took less than a day to put together, but it was fun for a beginner programmer like me.

So bookmark it and use it the next time you need to send a PayPal money request to someone.

February 09, 2005

OneWord: Wires

My desk has a pretty huge pile of wires behind it, as do most computer geeks. You've got powercords to almost every device, monitor cables, mouse/keyboard cables, USB wires, USB hubs, external hard drives, the list goes on and on.

Pretty soon most of that stuff will be wireless though. I already have a wireless mouse, though it still requires a cradle to be plugged into the computer with a wire. Then you have the wireless keyboards, and now even wireless battery recharging.

I don't know what I'm going to do with all the room behind my desk once everything is wireless though. Maybe I can rent it out as storage space or something.

December 30, 2004

Lost is Losing

Lost is one of my favorite TV shows in a long time. It's like a movie, only it comes on every week!

At least it did… The show has been in re-runs for several weeks, which has all but killed the momentum of the show for me. Wednesday night used to be “Lost Night” that my wife and I looked forward to, but because the show has been in re-runs so long, we have already gotten out of the habit of watching the show. Why do networks do this? I'm going to forget the first half of the show by the time they start playing new episodes again, and stop caring about the characters and monsters in the jungle. The only thing left for them to do to completely kill the show is to move it to another night and time slot, which seems like something stupid enough for them to do unfortunately.

Bring new episodes back on before we all lose interest and stop watching the show entirely! At least at the end of a season it'll wrap up the show to tide you over until the next season starts, but this taking a month-long break in the middle of the season is just silly.

December 27, 2004

Gotta Get My Stuff Done

Here is a great cartoon about procrastination, which I suffer from. In fact I’m posting this link on this blog instead of working. Dammit.

Zoom… Enhance… Magnify

I enjoy the CSI TV shows. My wife and I regularly watch all three versions of it; Las Vegas, Miami, and New York. I think each spin-off has ended up being less interesting than the last, but one thing is really starting to bug me about all of them… The computers.

I don’t know much about forensic science other than what I see on the shows, so I don’t know how accurate the DNA analysis and fingerprinting and other things are, but the computers have gotten ridiculous lately. In an episode of CSI: NY we watched last night, the CSI people were watching a crummy surveillance video of a guy in a pawn shop. He had his head down so you couldn’t see him on camera. So what did the CSIs do? Just zoom in on the shop owner’s glasses of course! Of course it was pixelated, but no matter, just press the enhance button to get a crystal clear, high resolution image of the shop owner’s face, as well as a nice shot of the guy in the reflection of the glasses. Nevermind that they were dealing with a grainy, low resolution surveillance video, this software can create image information out of thin air!

Then we have all of the other ridiculously specialized software that I just don’t see existing. In the same episode last night, a guy was bitten on the ear by another man in a fight. So, to identify who bit the man, all they had to do was take impressions of everyone’s teeth, then fire up their “teeth - bitemark matching software” which was able to quickly scan each set of teeth and match them exactly to the bitemarks on the ear of the victim. Now how many times are you going to use a piece of software like that? Enough to warrant spending thousands or millions of dollars developing it? I think not.

Finally, we have the databases of seemingly limitless information available to CSI at any given time. Again, in an episode last night they needed to find out which companies in the New York area had two different kinds of duct tape so they could compare the two types of adhesives. No problem! We’ll just cross-reference the duct tape distributor database with the heat-retardant duct tape database to see which shops in the area carry both types. Now I’m sure the CSI have lots of information available to them, and some of it is stored in a database, but come on… Duct tape distributors? That just doesn’t seem like something that would be cataloged with any kind of precision or consistency.

I know they create these programs just to make it look more interesting than it really is, since it’s a TV show and all. But recently it seems like a crutch to their story. If you’re running out of time in an episode, just have an incredible piece of software create information out of nothing so we can arrest the guy and move on to next week’s show.

That being said, I still watch these shows every week because they are awesome. :)

December 21, 2004

Productivity Breakthrough #2

I've found that if you turn off your instant messengers like AIM and MSN during “work time”, you get a lot more done! Or at least you have less distractions interrupting you every few minutes.

My next idea is to stop checking RSS feeds on Bloglines every 20 minutes.

Rave Motion Pictures - Chattanooga

My wife and I went to the new Rave Motion Pictures in Chattanooga the other night to see Ocean's 12. It's a relatively new cinema company, I think they have 18 locations across the southeast now. The company says they aren't trying to be an art-house type theater that plays foreign films or independent flicks, they just play blockbusters on really big screens with really loud sound. Which is fine with me.

The screens really are quite huge, bigger than any I've seen except for an IMAX and the feature theaters at the Cleveland movie theater. Unfortunately we got to the movie a little late, so the stadium seats up top were already filled, so we had to sit on the second row from the front, which put the screen right in our face and so close that you had to move your whole head around just to see the entire screen.

But at least we didn't didn't have to move our head around just to see past other people's heads, because each row of seating is risen 18” above the one in front of it, giving just about anyone a clear view. The radio ads being played on the station's around town mention a 7' man with a 2' tall stovepipe hat going to the movie and people still being able to see over him, which is a big of an exaggeration, but maybe if he didn't have the hat on it still wouldn't be a problem.

There is also ample space in between rows, so you don't have to stand up for people or have your toes smashed when people come and go.

The best part however was the self-ticketing system in the lobby. Most of the theaters around this area don't take credit cards, and if they do they charge you a crazy fee like $1 - $2 extra just to use your card. The Rave theater doesn't take cards at the tellers in the window, but there are two kiosks in the lobby that allow you to choose your movie and showtime and pay with a credit card quickly and easily without having to stand in line or yell through one of those little holes at the ticket window. Then the machine spits out your tickets and you can proceed to your movie.

The prices are more than any other theater in town that I've been to, $7.75 for a feature showing, and I'm not sure what the matinee price is. Most other theaters are $7.50, and the one in Cleveland is $7.00. However I don't mind paying the extra quarter for the convenience of the self ticketing system and the huge screens and great quality sound.

November 14, 2004

Ibanez Bass for Sale

I'm selling my Ibanez Ergodyne EDB 605 bass on eBay, here.

The description says it all, so I won't repeat it here. But someone please buy it so I can buy an Xbox. Thanks.

Edit: Now with working link!

Sold!

November 02, 2004

I’m not Voting

HOLY CRAP! To everyone out there that voted, congratulations and here is your damn gold star. I mean seriously… I'm so freaking sick of people telling me, begging me, asking me, and hinting that I should vote that I'm never ever going to vote for the rest of my life. If I wasn't planning on voting before, do you really think your whining is going to make it seem any more interesting to me?

Every blog on the internet seems to be telling people to vote, including blogs that have absolutely nothing to do with politics. Hell, even FreeFlatScreens.com, a site that gives away free TV's like the free iPod thing, has a message at the top “reminding me” to vote. OMG WHY? Leave me alone!

Sorry for the rant. But you know… what else are blogs good for? :)

P.S. If you sign up for the free flat screen thing using the link above, I'll vote next time. :P

October 27, 2004

Productivity Breakthrough

Did you guys know that if you make your lunch the night before you need it, you have a lot more time to sleep in or check RSS feeds and email each morning? It is true. Sometimes this even helps you get the scoop on some hot news item before those Speed demons at Gizmodo and Engadget! It also results in a more stress-free morning. When you make your lunch ahead of time, you simply take it out of the refridgerator and go on your merry way. But when you didn't make it ahead of time, you head for the door at 8:30 and realize that you haven't made lunch yet, so you have to frantically slap some condiments and some sort of meat on a piece of bread, wrap it in saran wrap, and then throw it in a plastic grocery bag. Then you end up being 10 minutes late to work, feeling frazzled and guilty for being late. Which effects your work for the entire day!

The moral, make your lunch the night before!

October 23, 2004

My Free iPod

As a perk for being an editor at ForeverGeek, I got to put my referral link on our main Free iPods entry, which comes up in the top five when you search for Free iPods on Google. So obviously it got a lot of traffic and a lot of sign-ups through it.

After placing my order on 9/11/04, I received it yesterday on 10/22/04, so it does take a while to receive. But hey, it's free so I'm not complaining.

If you are interested in getting your own free iPod, just go to FreeiPods.com and sign up for an account, complete one of the free offers (I recommend the Blockbuster one because it's free and easy to cancel online), then get 5 friends to do the same thing. Once you do that you can place your order for the free iPod. You don't even have to pay for shipping. The entry at Forever Geek has a lot more details, if you are interested.

Update… Now Gratis is offering free Photo iPods. You have to sign up 10 people, but the iPod Photo is worth $500 and has a 40gb hard drive, so it's pretty a pretty sweet deal too. Sign up here

Here are some pictures of mine: