Posts from — March 2003

Visit Frosty Welcome, write a message and send it to your friends. This fridge isn’t nearly as cluttered as ours.

I love Internet radio and CRHear is another great way to find some good music. They have something for everyone including music radio, televison and news.

Let’s see. Did anyone piss me off today? Besides the tailgater on the way to work who practically ran me off the road, the smart-ass intern who gave me a hard time about his “stupid computer”, the lady at the deli talking away while I stand there and wait for her to make my sandwich and the user calling me from the other side of the country asking how to turn on their computer, nobody bothered me today.

The basement work is scheduled to begin tomorrow. Finally. We are excited about getting it done. I took some “before” pictures, with the basement completely empty to post in the Gallery. Look for them soon. And go to the Basement Project site for details on project.

And then I was helping a user look for a missing file somewhere on their computer. I told them “go to My Computer…” and look on their hard drive. I looked away for a moment and when I turned back, the user was gone. Thinking I would catch up with her later, I went back to my desk. When I got there, I found the user sitting at my desk waiting for me. She had gone to “MY Computer.” For pete’s sake.

Where are the Organians when we need them? They could put a stop to this war very quickly.

My favorite show, 24 was on again tonight after several weeks off. When last we watched, the atomic bomb had gone off somewhere in the desert. Tonight’s episode followed Jack Bauer as he tried to find who was behind it. While I watched, I thought about how this show was paralleling the events going on with Iraq. Interesting.

My other favorite show, Farscape had it’s series finale last Friday night. I really enjoyed watching the offbeat characters, the often intense storylines and funny swear words they used all the time. Why the frell did you have to take this great show off the air you pieces of dren?

Bumper sticker on the Starship Enterprise: “Our other starship separates into THREE pieces!”

I’ve been playing around with a new Moveable Type template but it’s not finished. I did make some changes to the current template and learned a few things along the way.

So we went out Geocaching on Saturday. It was cold and muddy and we didn’t find a thing. I hadn’t quite figured out the GPS unit when we decided to go stomping around the woods. Then today, after reading the owner’s manual to my new unit, we tried it again. This time our hunt was successful. The thing gave us bearings right down to the last 10 meters. As we walked along, our position was accurately tracked on a detailed map. Pam spotted the cache, hidden under a bridge. It was fun walking around at this new, less muddy park. We squealed like children when we finally found our treasure.

How many old cellphones do you have around? We have a box filled with them doing nothing. Then I found this website where you can sell your old phones for cash. Excited, I jumped onto the site and found my old Nokia 6160. My excitement quickly faded after I saw it was only worth $11. Postage to send it to those people would almost cost more. So I thought, why bother.

They Rule is a website that allows you to create dynamic directories of top 100 companies in 2001. The data is static and quickly becoming out-of-date. Hurry and check out the relationships of different companies and the people that rule them.

I picked up a copy of the new Detroit Experiment CD. It features 14 Detroit-based artists that play a combination of Jazz, Techno and Funk.

You are looking at an interim style for this site. First I am getting the templates working correctly, then I’ll apply the CSS.

It’s 30 minutes away from the deadline President Bush gave Sadaam to get out of the country. We could be at war very shortly.

I bought a handheld GPS receiver the other day. I love gadgets and one of these has been on the top of my list for a long while. I’ve also been wanting to get into Geocaching. Think of a high-tech treasure hunt. The unit should arrive tomorrow and Pam and I will be stomping around in the woods looking for hidden treasure.

But today it was reported the government may be “dumbing down” GPS reception during the war with Iraq. The range will go from a few feet to over 100 feet. Geez, I hope this is just temporary.

This weekend I plan on updating the design of the site. I will be adding a search button so you can look for past entries, syndicated news, new links, CSS and a better comment system. I also want to get some video into the site. I have this brand new miniDV camcorder that is not getting enough use. All this is fun for me and it’s good to learn new things about web page design.

It was very foggy on the way to work this morning. At times you could barely see 20 feet ahead of you. Visibility was horrible. Most people take extra precautions when they drive by turning on their headlights and not following too closely. Except for the 11 IDIOTS I counted on my way to work travelling blissfully down the road without their frelling headlights. These people should be taken out back and have the crap beaten out of them. How stupid do you have to be to not realize other people need to see you when the conditions are that bad. (thanks, I feel better now.)

Let’s see, what’s been happening around here. Last weekend we set out for Lansing for an overnighter. We got halfway there, stopping for lunch. After lunch our ambition was lost and we turned around and came back home. That’s OK, we didn’t have anything planned for Lansing, just a trip back to where we both went to school. On Sunday we went downtown to the Detroit Science Center. If you haven’t been there in a while, check it out. They’ve completely remodeled the place and its great. They are featuring a Titanic exhibit that’s top-notch along with a Titanic-themed show in their new digital planetarium. On the way home, we stopped at Buddy’s pizza - the best in town.

Here’s a website that is a guide to over 200 alphabets and writing systems. It’s very fascinating and well worth a look.

Why are people compelled to use their phone when I interact with them? I go to visit someone and he is on the phone. No problem. Then he gets off, we start talking and in mid-sentence picks up the phone and makes another call. Oh well. Then a bit later, he makes ANOTHER call and leaves me to sit there like an idiot. I just left him to make all of his important calls. I felt bad about bothering him, I was just trying to be friendly.

Other times I’m helping someone with a computer problem and their phone rings. They immediately ignore me and answer their phone while I stand there and wait. And wait. I will have to start enforcing my phone-talking policy: “If you talk on the phone while I’m with you, I’ll leave.” And you won’t have an easy time getting me to come back. Consider yourself on probation when you do this to me. If you don’t show me any respect, I’ll give you none back.

So I got a copy of the brand new Roxio Easy CD Creater 6. It has all sorts of neat features for burning CD’s, DVD’s, music and whatever. The interface has been improved dramatically and it’s very user-friendly. So far there’s only one problem with it. It can’t burn a CD without crashing. I tried to copy some network files directly to a CD and the program errors and makes a coaster for me. I went back to Nero and my problems went away. Nero 5 will take anything you can throw at it without any hiccups.

My computer crashed on Friday. It wasn’t anything too bad but enough to warrant a reload. So I backed up my data, formatted the C drive and reloaded WinXP. Easy as pie. Now my system runs like a 2.66 Ghz Pentium 4 should run - very fast. I mean I wouldn’t know how to act if it took more than .25 of a second to open Word. I don’t have all day to wait for these things. When it takes up to 1 second to open, I find myself incredibly bored, trying to find something to do while my system chugs away. Geez.

Nothing much happened over the weekend. On Friday, Scorpy was caught by the Scarrans and Moya’s crew went to rescue him so he wouldn’t give up what he knows about wormhole technology. Other than that, things were uneventful.

Here’s an interesting weblog to read. Raed is from Iraq and he writes a weblog telling about his life there. It’s a fascinating look into a culture that is on everybody’s minds lately.

I believe there are certain rules you should follow when riding in an elevator. Always remember you are invading my personal bubble when we are confined in a small space like an elevator. The best thing to do is enter the elevator, press your floor button and MOVE OUT OF THE WAY. Don’t stand in front of the panel or in the front by the door. If you have a bag or briefcase, don’t bump me in the ass with it. It’s OK if you want to engage me in small talk but please keep it brief. Remember these simple tips and we will have a very pleasant ride together.

Have you seen the AniMatrix trailer? It’s awesome. Almost looks better than the movie. I can’t wait.

Thanks, Mike. This is very handy for your FTP needs.

It was April the 41st, being a quadruple leap year. I was driving in down-town Atlantis. My Barracuda was in the shop, so I was in a rented Stingray, and it was over-heating. So, I pulled into a Shell station. They said I’d blown a seal. I said, “Fix the damned thing, and leave my private life out of it, okay pal?” - Kip Adotta Wet Dream

Lot’s of people have been asking me how that Flash Mind Reader thing I featured on my site last week works. So here’s an explanation I found on the web. I only wish I could find out where I got this so I could give the person credit.

“..it works the same way as most number tricks do: math + sleight of hand + misdirection + design. First, the math part. The instructions say to choose any two digit number, add the digits together, then subtract the total from your original number. When you do that, the result will be a multiple of 9, NO MATTER WHICH NUMBER YOU CHOOSE. It even works for bigger numbers, not just two digits. If you’re skeptical, pick a few numbers and try it yourself. Why does that work? I dunno, number theory or something? But it’s guaranteed, and it’s the first key to the trick.

Next comes the sleight of hand. Back at the Mind Reader, take a look at the first four multiples of 9, starting with 9, then 18, 27, and 36. They all have the same symbol. You probably figured that would happen, now that you know about the math part. Now click the crystal ball. Check the symbols for 9, 18, 27, and 36 again. HEY, THEY CHANGED! It’s still the same for all of them, but it’s a different symbol. Did it occur to you that the symbols were changing every time you guessed? Most people don’t imagine that possibility. It’s sneaky! In this trick, it’s the second key. If the symbols didn’t change every time, the trick would quickly lose its luster.

The third part is a bit of misdirection. Check out the symbols for the two highest multiples of 9: 99 and 90. They’re not the same as all the other 9s. That’s because they will never be your numbers in this trick. The highest original number you can choose is 99. 9 + 9 = 18, and 99 - 18 = 81. Your number will never be higher than 81, so having different symbols for 90 and 99 is a red herring. Another clever touch is listing the numbers backwards, from highest to lowest, so if you suspect something about powers of 9, you’ll probably start by looking at 99 and 90. When they have different symbols, you’ll be thrown off the trail. Nice.

The final reason why Flash Mind Reader works so well is its wonderful design. It’s not called “Flash Trick Based On Math, Etc.”. It’s hidden behind cool, magical stuff: a crystal ball, mystical symbols, groovy sounds, and no explanations. It’s a great magic trick for the web. Bravo, Andy Naughton!”