learn more about scutigera coleoptrata
house centipede!
only once in my life have i come across this crazy critter that looks a little like a mutated centipede. his legs are too long! apparently confusion over this arthropod is common as 'nobody' has seen one before and 'everyone' is perplexed when they encounter one. i came across mine unmoving on the cement wall in the basement of an old church, and i shocked a friend when i knew exactly the critter being described (once again chillin on a wall)
they are harmless to humans (unlike regular centipedes) and hunt spiders and other bugs.
learn more about scutigera coleoptrata
learn more about scutigera coleoptrata
day length as a function of latitude and time of year
how cool would it be to live at one of the poles and have only one sunrise and one sunset each year? (i mean, besides the fact that it would drive you nuts)[via wikipedia]
vibrato and tremolo
what started off over at linguisteresis as a simple inquiry into the difference in definition vibrato and tremolo ended up a full scale investigation.
vibrato is the fluctuation of frequency while tremolo is the fluctuation of amplitude for audio signals. vibrato seems to be more well known because it is considered a good quality to have while singing, yet tremolo is much easier to implement mathematically to a time-varying signal.
i thought a picture would be great to illustrate this difference but wikipedia surprisingly did not have an example, so i made one (seen above) and added it to the page.
im not sure i can really hear the difference between the two so i dove further in by finding a sample audio clip of a (very soprano) operatic singer and viewed her spectrogram (not innuendo.) to me it really just sounds like the sound is getting louder and softer, but what i see is clearly vibrato:
new blog!
my primary passion is electroacoustics, but i realize i frequently post about language oddities, and this is something i have alot of interest in. to accommodate this i created a new blog dedicate to just my random thoughts and observations about language. hopefully others find it interesting also!
http://linguisteresis.blogspot.com/
http://linguisteresis.blogspot.com/
microsoft's lorem() function
lorem ipsum, a set of nonsensical latin phrases used as a placeholder for text in a template, continues to show up in random places for me. recently i found out something interesting having to do with microsoft word 2007. there is a function, lorem(a,b), which will produce some lorem text placeholders. parameter 'a' is the number of paragraphs and 'b' is the number of sentences. to get this to work, type
=lorem(1,1)
anywhere in a word document and it automatically turns into this:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.
it appears the second parameter defaults to 3 if left blank, but the first parameter cannot be left blank.
RSTLN E not the best letter frequency mnemonic
ok so i know its not a mnemonic device at all, but i have always used RSTLNE as the general guideline for which letters were most common in english, because thats what wheel of fortune suggested. turns out its misleading, and there is a better one.
I happened upon the wikipedia page for the ampersand where i learned that it got its name from the way english schools used to recite the english alphabet, seen below:
I happened upon the wikipedia page for the ampersand where i learned that it got its name from the way english schools used to recite the english alphabet, seen below:
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ&
the ampersand on the end looks out of place, but its there because they would include that character as a letter. they also used to use the latin phrase 'per se' (meaning 'by itself') in front of the letters that could be words. so they recited the alphabet as "per se 'A'BCDEFGH per se 'I'JKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ and per se 'and'" and the last part very easily slurs to 'ampersand'. thats great. interesting story.
but the true purpose of this post is to make people aware of etaoin shrdlu. this ampersand business led me to the page of letter frequency in the english language, and i noticed it spelled an interesting name (ETAOIN) and when i did a search of this combination of letters the page for ETAOIN SHRDLU came up. this is about the order of the most frequent letters in the english language. this is great knowledge to have for word games, and apparently it is used as a character name in many literary works
but the true purpose of this post is to make people aware of etaoin shrdlu. this ampersand business led me to the page of letter frequency in the english language, and i noticed it spelled an interesting name (ETAOIN) and when i did a search of this combination of letters the page for ETAOIN SHRDLU came up. this is about the order of the most frequent letters in the english language. this is great knowledge to have for word games, and apparently it is used as a character name in many literary works
cutaneous rabbit illusion
IEEE did an article on a new technology from phillips: a jacket with 64 little actuators in it that let you feel a movie or tv show. for instance, in a frightening scene it can make you feel like a shiver is running up your spine. the question came up about how only having 4 actuators for the entire length of your arm is enough, and the article references the 'cutaneous rabbit illusion' as the answer. my interest was piqued so i went to good ole wikipedia. it turns out that if your wrist is tapped several times rapidly and then your inner elbow is tapped several times, your brain tricks you into thinking you are being tapped at every point along your forearm - like a rabbit running up your arm. using this, four actuators can create the illsuion of being touched along the entire arm. neat.
'life is beautiful' always reminds me of 'come undone'
no, not the weezer song... but everytime i hear 'life is beautiful' by sixx:am (the new band for nikki sixx, the lead singer of motley crue) i am reminded of 'come undone' by duran duran.
here is a clip of the chorus of each. they are in different keys, but they are about the same speed.
here is a clip of the chorus of each. they are in different keys, but they are about the same speed.
evanescent vs effervescent
today's adjective lesson:
evanescent - tending to vanish like vapor
effervescent - bubbly (like a beverage, not a blonde)
with regards to soda, time causes the evanescence of effervescence :-D
evanescent - tending to vanish like vapor
effervescent - bubbly (like a beverage, not a blonde)
with regards to soda, time causes the evanescence of effervescence :-D
house questioning God's existence
a recent episode of house on fox featured a priest who has lost his faith in God after he is wrongfully accused of molesting a young boy and is kicked from church to church, continually fired after they find out about his past. he has a vision of jesus after a night of drinking and so he checks himself into the hospital thinking there is something wrong with his brain.
house pulls his file from the clinic simply because he wants to mess with another doctors head for her religious hypocrisy. things start to happen to this priest (e.g. his toe falls off) and it becomes a legitimate case for house. the symptoms lead his team to believe he has AIDS and therefore assume the allegations against him must be true.
house eventually figures out that if he eliminates hallucinations from this list, then it fits that the priest has a genetic disease that can look just like AIDS, but is much less serious. when he tells the patient, (sarcastically deeming this genetic disorder another "gift from God") they have a very thought provoking conversation. house had become especially interested in this priest because the priest had become an atheist.
House: it explains all your symptoms- toe, chest, eyes, skinpriest: what about my hallucination?
House: scotch explains that...
priest: that was just a coincidence?
House: coincidences do happen...
priest: but that coincidence is what brought me to you in the first place
House: you promised you wouldn't go there
preist: einstein said that coincidences are God's way of remaining anonymous
house: a woman in florida said "look, jesus is on my cheese sandwich"
priest: you didn't even want to take my case, you didnt even think i was sick
house: the fact that i was wrong is not a proof of God... everything that happened to you can be rationally explained
priest: i know, its just... thats an awful lot of coincidences
it can be difficult for people who want to think logically and rationally about everything to deal with the issue of faith. the concept of God, who has always been around, without regard of time, spcae, or the confines of any facet of the reality we live in, can seem unfathomable. yet at the same time, ockham's razor can lead the same person to accept the existence of God as the most likely reality. I have so much to be thankful for, things just seem to work out for me. i cannot see all these coincidences happening around me and accept them as simply coincidence. the only rational explanation is that God has a plan for me and whatever happens is a contribution of what He wants me to be. i could see the universe, life, and the experiences i have had are pure chance, as many naysayer's would. but... that is an awful lot of coincidences.
was blind, but now i see (<-- a pun)
what we see: | what we learn we see: |
when we were young we were told that the three primary colors are red, yellow, and blue, and that with these three powerful colors we can make any color in the world! this was enough for a young person. when i was a little older (5th or 6th grade?) i was let in on the secret of additive vs. subtractive colors, and that additive colors (red/green/blue) applied to light, and subtractive colors (good ol' red/yellow/blue) applied to things like paint and crayons. i didnt care about the physics or where these came from. apparently these are more psychological primary colors (read: we dont care about how this works). arent sensation and perception amazing?
in later years i would go on to learn about rods and cones in the eyes and how they pick up wavelengths of the elctromagnetic spectrum that we perceive as colors. i know about what wavelength applies to which color and what comes before and after on the EM spectrum. but i still assumed that every color of light could be made with RGB and every color of reflective objects could be made with RYB.
this graph above got me very interested in this shroud that seemed to be over our eyes. it is a plot of all the colors the average person can see. the triangle chunk taken out of it is the subset of visible colors that can be represented using the RGB model. maybe we dont care. apparently the colors outside the triangle are inefficient to reproduce electrically, and they are very similar to colors that are inside the triangle, but still. we dont see a triangle of colors, we see a tongue! i couldnt believe that humans simplify visible colors into linear combinations of these three without there being an awareness that other visible colors exist outside this subset. our tvs and computer screens cannot reproduce these ignored colors. also worth noting is that the red-yellow-blue model is old and deprecated, and now we "know better" that the best choices as the three primary subtractive colors are yellow, cyan, and magenta (all this time i have been confused into thinking that cyan and magenta were primary additive colors, not subtractive...)
the answer to ars's article is that magenta is a combination of other colors, and not a true monochromatic color. but most of what we see in the real world is not a perfect monochromatic color either, and our accepted scheme for representing color cannot realize any monochromatic colors anyway.
shutoff begins tonight
television stations can now begin shutting off their analog broadcasts today. in the twin cities, only one plans to do this: channel 23 (the CW) will end analog at 11:59pm, with other stations to follow later this week
DTV transition update
as mentioned before, no television station would like to continue broadcasting longer than they have to, but of the 491 full power stations that have expressed wishes to shut down analog broadcasting on feb 17th (instead of waiting til june 12th), the FCC has only okayed 368. for the other 123 stations, the FCC wants them to jump through several hoops if they want to turn off early, stating that it is the best interest of public safety. [via]
jimmy john's, erbert's & gerbert's, and milio's founders are all cousins!
i had heard stories - urban legends, almost - about the founders of erbert's and gerbert's being brothers (named erbert and gerbert, coincidentally) that eventually had disagreements about how sandwiches should be made so gerbert branched off, changed his name to jimmy john, and made his own sandwich franchise.
seems there is a hint of truth in this: jimmy john's came first, in 1983, founded in a garage by jimmy john liautaud. he helped his cousin, kevin schippers, set up erbert's & gerbert's in 1988 (jim was in illinois and kevin in wisconsin, so they were competing yet). little did i know, milio's founder was another cousin, mike liautaud, who also got help from jimmy john setting up a sandwich shop in 1989!
excerpt of an interview with the milio's guy:
"We all get along. We’re not going out to eat every Friday, but we’re fine... I try to keep that competition out of the family, and at family events." [franchisetimes]all three are sandwich options on the university of minnesota campus! [mndaily]
in my opinion, jimmy john's is by far the best. now i just wish i could recreate his #5 at home...
autohotkey script for MappedUp behind a proxy
very cool new screensaver/active desktop/rss reader MappedUp is definately my new screensaver. you choose your rss feeds and it sticks them on a world map. a sample is seen below:
however, if you are behind a proxy server that requires a username and password, the feeds do not work until you enter your credentials (it uses the same interface as IE). to solve this problem, i wrote a simple autohotkey script that will simple click "okay" when the screensaver comes on:
feel free to use/modify this however you want :)
however, if you are behind a proxy server that requires a username and password, the feeds do not work until you enter your credentials (it uses the same interface as IE). to solve this problem, i wrote a simple autohotkey script that will simple click "okay" when the screensaver comes on:
#Persistent
settimer,check,5000 ;checks every 5 seconds to see if screensaver is active
check:
result:=DllCall("user32.dll\SystemParametersInfo","uint",0x0072, "uint", 0, "uint*",screen_saver_active, "uint", 0 )
if(screen_saver_active) ;if screensaver is active...
{
SetTitleMatchMode, 2
ifwinexist, Connect to ;and proxy window is active
MouseClick, left, 184, 320 ;click the okay button (enter does not work)
}
return
feel free to use/modify this however you want :)
review: prince caspian
imdb rating 7.1/10
release date: 16 May 2008 (USA)
plot: he Pevensie siblings return to Narnia, where they are enlisted to once again help ward off an evil king and restore the rightful heir to the land's throne, Prince Caspian.
supposedly this strays from the source material quite a bit (i am ashame to say i have never read the book) but i found this movie to be less cutesy than the first (surprisingly frightening for a PG) but more enjoyable. plus peter dinklage was great
review: campbell's tomato soup offerings
now that i have tried all three of these, i have to warn against the first and sing praises for the last. the classic tomato is just alright when its hot. its a little thin, maybe a little too plain and tomato-y, and there are definately better soups out there. the creamy tomato solves the thinness issue, but it is still just plain tomato and so it still tastes more healthy than delicious. enter the creamy tomato parmesan bisque. i believe this to be the best soup i have ever had. it doesnt come in can form, or in the bigger microwaveable bowls, just the small soup at hand, but it is so worth it. if you get a chance, try this soup
google deleting streetview incidents
newsblog valleywag posted a story about a girl flashing the a google streetview camera. now this particular point of the street is listed as "under high demand"/'unavailable", showing instead a black screen.
this same thing has happened with other incidents caught on film, with highlights posted here
this same thing has happened with other incidents caught on film, with highlights posted here
a glaring misunderstanding by majority of media sources
i got the news story today in several of my usual news feeds that the senate has approved the DTV transition delay this time around so broadcasters can broadcast until june 12th (instead of feb 17th). however, every single news story i read on this topic (i read 7, since they were all neglecting a fact i had known) is completely ignoring what i think is the biggest part of this bill, that broadcasters MIGHT be broadcasting until june, but they do not have to. the bill allows for broadcasters to turn off analog broadcasts on feb 17th, like planned, if that is more convenient for them, yet 8 out of the nine articles i read come close to ignoring this fact.
take House Approves DTV Delay Until June (PCWORLD), which writes on about the delaying being "in an effort to prevent millions of residents from losing their TV signals," and "Many U.S. residents aren't ready for the transition, Democrats argued" only to mention at the very end, almost as a footnote, that "The bill also allows broadcasters to switch to digital broadcasts before June 12."
the worst offender of this oversight, however, is the san francisco chronicle, which opens with, "Television viewers who rely on sets with antennas to pick up their broadcast signals have about four extra months to get ready for the nation's switch to digital TV." furhter down the same page, they say, "The delay does not mean every station will continue to broadcast in analog. Broadcasters will be permitted to shut off their analog transmission before June 12. That creates a potential uneven transition for analog viewers, who might still lose some channels, depending on what local stations decide to do." this appears to perfectly contradict their opening statement.
i got nothing on PCMAG. they have a solid article :)
UPDATE: even the whitehouse blog got this wrong! section 4a of the bill congress passed explains what will happen but everyone seems to be ignoring this fact...
regifting
regifting is such a great idea. i am not a big fan of obligatory gift giving/receiving so regifting the presents you know you will never use saves time and money
getting feedburner comment count to work with blogger
so the feedburner staff does not advertise this well, but after hours spent browsing pages and pages on this topic, i have finally found the solution, and it is a very simple one: your burned feed MUST be an atom feed, not an rss feed. to change this:
1) log into feedburner and edit "feed settings" and get rid of the ?alt=rss from the url you are burning.
2) save.
3) you are done. to make the effects happen quicker you can resync your feed
1) log into feedburner and edit "feed settings" and get rid of the ?alt=rss from the url you are burning.
2) save.
3) you are done. to make the effects happen quicker you can resync your feed
$2.78 shipped on very cool implementation of bluetooth
i got one of these extremely small usb-bluetooth adapters for $2.78 with free shipping on 12/15/08 and i checked today (1/27/09) and its still the same deal. if you ever use bluetooth devices but dont have it built into your laptop/desktop, this is a great way to go. it is so small that you can leave it plugged in all the time, even if you are putting your laptop in your backpack. also it works with all operating systems.http://dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.11866
ZOMG [google] MAP HAX!!!!111one
View Larger Map
several pictures of the google maps larpers have been circulating recently, but feeds have been updating to report that this scene was staged. turns out the story is actually even funnier - the entire street where this scene takes place is full of random events as an art experiment put on by the carnegie mellon school of art. the funniest scene is the "love laser" ;-) see them all at:
www.streetwithaview.com
digital groundhog sees his shadow, 4 more months of analog
US senate postoned the DTV switch to June 12th today. the purpose of this being that they dont want to leave anyone in the dark on broadcast tv. at last count, there are about 6 million people who would be out of luck if analog tv died today, and a good chunk of them dont care, because they dont watch tv. tech news site ars technica explores why analog tvs are getting special government treatment to save them from obselecense while other technologies (such as computers) are ignored once they are too old to work. the onus is on the consumer, as it should be, and right now a hundred million people are ready for the switch. a delay means more money wasted. the amount of money that will be wasted far exceeds the amount it would take to replenish the converter box coupon fund (which shouldn't need to be replenished anyway)
Update: on Jan 28th, the house rejected the bill to postpone the transition, and unless something else happens to change this situation, we are back on schedule for the feb 17th transition date
Update: on Jan 28th, the house rejected the bill to postpone the transition, and unless something else happens to change this situation, we are back on schedule for the feb 17th transition date
capital one credit card
i got a credit card from capital one and they let you customize your card with a photo of your choosing. they expect you to use a family photo or one with your significant other (they manually screen the photo you choose to make sure it isnt copyrighted or offensive to anyone in any way) but i wanted to test them to see how ridiculous my photo can be. they explicitly say cartoons are not allowed, but i figured they meant the kind of cartoon you might find in a newspaper, or on xkcd, and perhaps not a doodle that a child would make... which brings me to the picture i chose to test their limits with:
i just received the email congratulating me that my picture has been approved and my new customized card should arrive in 7-10 days :-P
i just received the email congratulating me that my picture has been approved and my new customized card should arrive in 7-10 days :-P
new macbook has no keyboard
impressively authentic looking news report on the new "macbook wheel". i laughed :)
Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard
Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard
psychology lesson of the day
Confirmation bias is where you subconciously ignore any evidence that disproves a theory you have. here is an excerp from wikipedia:
this topic has come up several times recently so i thought i would share. my theory is that mcdonald's always places the pickle directly over the white circle in their cheesburgers.Among the first to investigate this phenomenon was Peter Cathcart Wason (1960), whose 2-4-6 problem presented subjects with three numbers (a triple):
2 4 6 Subjects were told that the triple conforms to a particular rule. They were then asked to discover the rule by generating their own triples and using the feedback they received from the experimenter. Every time the subject generated a triple, the experimenter would indicate whether the triple conformed to the rule. The subjects were told that once they were sure of the correctness of their hypothesized rule, they should announce the rule.
While the actual rule was simply “any ascending sequence”, the subjects seemed to have a great deal of difficulty in inducing it, often announcing rules that were far more complex than the correct rule. The subjects seemed to test only “positive” examples—triples the subjects believed would conform to their rule and confirm their hypothesis. What they did not do was attempt to challenge or falsify their hypotheses by testing triples that they believed would not conform to their rule.
obama's nick name?
I just found out Barack Obama went by "Barry" in highschool. http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2009/01/the-college-years.html
review: john tucker must die
imdb rating 5.5/10 14,903 votes
release date: 28 July 2006 (USA) more
plot: Three ex-girlfriends of a serial cheater (Metcalfe) set up their former lover to fall for the new girl in town so they can watch him get his heart broken. | full synopsis
this comedy really cracked me up. every scene was very funny, and its message is a good one (despite what all the trailers and posters would have you believe) also i watched the unrated version and there was nothing that would not be allowed on tv. this movie would be for fans of mean girls or clueless
handy unit conversion tool
for those that want something that is faster to use than google calculator or a TI-89, etc to convert between units, here is a small, robust, and fast program (windows only) to handle every conversion you could think of. who knew a carat was 3.14e-5 stones?
review: nine inch nails - ghosts i-iv
trent reznor's open source summer project plays like a movie soundtrack. It is very enjoyable music that even non-fans can find very accessible (easily listened to and easily downloaded) except for the tracks with distorted guitar. the guitar tracks are rough and metallic, while other tracks are just ambient piano. it is a little eccentric to not have names for any of the tracks, but seeing as how this is an entirely instrumental experimental album that was improvised in 10 weeks, it is acceptable. what is really impressive is that this was released as a free album on nine inch nails' website and yet it still managed to be the top selling album of all of 2008.
google adsense for blogger
after taking way too much time to figure it out, i have finally gotten google's advertising system working on my blog feed. for some reason, i felt like i should have these ads even if i dont make a penny. that is odd. maybe i just appreciate the way google handles ads so much that i want to support that kind of advertising. so far the semantics dont seem to be working, as every post has an ad about blogging, but i remain hopeful. also, the ad on my blog's main page side bar does not show up in my adsense account, but i will wait on that also. it will be interesting to see what happens with these ads :)
Update: now the ads are very targeted. it is almost scary
Update: now the ads are very targeted. it is almost scary
self-handicapping excuses
productivity blog lifehacker recently posted an article about escaping your self-handicapping excuses (e.g. "I barely slept before that test") and asked for examples. I commented that i frequently use bad traffic as an excuse, because i am in control over when i leave. but how can you plan for a morning that lengthens your commute by 100 minutes? one part of me wants to get rid of excuses, but there are times when no amount of planning is preparation enough. i mean if the reason you were up late the night before the test is your house was struck by lightning and burned down, arent you justified in your excuse?
brr
this morning was the coldest minnesota morning since january 2004, and that translates to the local language as "it'll take more than two hours to drive to work"
bad traffic
it snowed a little today, and this is the result (click to enlarge):
this is a good example of a time to use D:?
this is a good example of a time to use D:?
best driving songs: a list in progress
here is my partial list so far for the best songs to have playing in the car:
bodyrockers - i like the way you move
jet - are you gonna be my girl
foo fighters - one by one
comments? additions?
bodyrockers - i like the way you move
jet - are you gonna be my girl
foo fighters - one by one
comments? additions?
review: step brothers
imdb rating 6.8/10
release date: 25 July 2008 (USA)
plot: Two spoiled guys become competitive stepbrothers after their single parents get hitched.
if you have ever liked a Semi-Pro, Blades of Glory, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Wedding Crashers, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, or Old School, then you will certainly like this movie. i found it funny but very deserving of its R rating. some bad themes are found, but the main theme of the movie is bringing families together (but dont see this with your family)
review: the water horse
imdb rating 6.7/10
release date: 25 December 2007 (USA)
plot: A lonely boy discovers a mysterious egg that hatches a sea creature of Scottish legend.
simple entertaining kids movie with enjoyable special effects
release date: 25 December 2007 (USA)
plot: A lonely boy discovers a mysterious egg that hatches a sea creature of Scottish legend.
simple entertaining kids movie with enjoyable special effects
new accounts
I recently changed usernames. this is something i do not recommend to anybody. the best thing you can do in this day and age is a) have a very unique name or b) come up with an interesting and unique screenname at a young age and stick with it. I have a name that ranks in popularity somewhere between bob jones and john smith, so using my name is out, and unfortunately for me, i never had a consistent username for anything when i was younger. when i was about 12 or 13 i would use simple names like "tiger" or "maverick" for games like doom, quake, and warcraft, but these are no less common and every time i came up with a new name i got sick of it quickly or found some flaw with it.
I am now on my fourth gmail account because of these same reasons. I wanted a name that is pronounceable, unique, robust (6-12 characters, no numbers or special characters), and a name that would typically be at the top of an alphabetically sorted list. the last stipulation led me to something related to "aardvark" for its double a, assuring alphabetical superiority. variations of the word aardvark are more common than i would have thought (uniqueness was measured with google searches) and somehow i came upon "aarduous", which just added an extra "a" to "arduous". it was a common enough typo (about 50 hits on google) but none of the links appeared to be profiles. This became gmail account number three and i began the process of creating accounts for everything i could think of with this name, hoping to reserve every site for myself. one of the last sites i checked was aim, and aarduous was taken. i have tried emailing aarduous@aim.com and have been watching to see if he/she logs on to aim, but nothing yet. this, and the fact that aarduous is an adjective, not a noun, led me to reconsider it as a username.
as evidenced by the name of this blog, i settled again with aandroyd. the extra a and y instead of i make it extremely uncommon (as seen here, there were no results when i published this. i hope that soon there will be results and every link will reference me)
Just by posting this i suppose i run the risk of somebody taking an account with this name just to spite me... i hope nobody would do that though :( be nice.
my goal is to stick with this name and use it whenever possible to build up my web presence, but at the moment i find myself sacrificing functionality to reach this goal, as many sites (gmail, last.fm, any site that grows in usefulness with time) have no way of transferring information, emails, logs, w/e between accounts. with gmail, it is certainly possible to copy all my archived emails between , but i hit snags with slow internet at home, and proxy bloxy at work. last.fm comes right out and says they do not allow transfering of accounts.
this was a long rant for me, and i forgot my point now... but if you are young and dont have a name picked out, find one ;-)
I am now on my fourth gmail account because of these same reasons. I wanted a name that is pronounceable, unique, robust (6-12 characters, no numbers or special characters), and a name that would typically be at the top of an alphabetically sorted list. the last stipulation led me to something related to "aardvark" for its double a, assuring alphabetical superiority. variations of the word aardvark are more common than i would have thought (uniqueness was measured with google searches) and somehow i came upon "aarduous", which just added an extra "a" to "arduous". it was a common enough typo (about 50 hits on google) but none of the links appeared to be profiles. This became gmail account number three and i began the process of creating accounts for everything i could think of with this name, hoping to reserve every site for myself. one of the last sites i checked was aim, and aarduous was taken. i have tried emailing aarduous@aim.com and have been watching to see if he/she logs on to aim, but nothing yet. this, and the fact that aarduous is an adjective, not a noun, led me to reconsider it as a username.
as evidenced by the name of this blog, i settled again with aandroyd. the extra a and y instead of i make it extremely uncommon (as seen here, there were no results when i published this. i hope that soon there will be results and every link will reference me)
Just by posting this i suppose i run the risk of somebody taking an account with this name just to spite me... i hope nobody would do that though :( be nice.my goal is to stick with this name and use it whenever possible to build up my web presence, but at the moment i find myself sacrificing functionality to reach this goal, as many sites (gmail, last.fm, any site that grows in usefulness with time) have no way of transferring information, emails, logs, w/e between accounts. with gmail, it is certainly possible to copy all my archived emails between , but i hit snags with slow internet at home, and proxy bloxy at work. last.fm comes right out and says they do not allow transfering of accounts.
this was a long rant for me, and i forgot my point now... but if you are young and dont have a name picked out, find one ;-)
Obama worries about getting screwed by DTV transition
News site Ars Technica posted an article today about Obama/Biden calling for a delay in the DTV transition, set to take place feb 17. While his team cites problems with the converter box coupon program (which has no money left) and concerns about the "low" number of operators on staff to take calls the week of the transition (2300), it seems clear to me that the real reason president elect Barack Obama is worried about the transition is that it takes place less than four weeks after he is sworn in and if it turn out to not go well, he have this nationwide fiasco associated as being his failure. while that may be unfair, it would be irresponsible to change the date now. the DTV transition date has been changed twice already, long before it was a financial issue to do so. but now that we are a month away from the transition and every network has been preparing for a year, it would be more cost effective to double the amount of money in the coupon program fund (another $1.5 billion) and double the number of operators taking calls than to push back the date.
My proposed solution for the government to save money: make the converter coupon worht only $30 instead of $40. this would actually make the coupon program fund go much farther than a 33% increase, because when there is an option to get two of something for free instead of one, people will choose two even when only one is needed. making the cost of each box small but not free will lessen the hoarding effect, and stretch the fund to double the number of household for the same amount of money.
My proposed solution for the government to save money: make the converter coupon worht only $30 instead of $40. this would actually make the coupon program fund go much farther than a 33% increase, because when there is an option to get two of something for free instead of one, people will choose two even when only one is needed. making the cost of each box small but not free will lessen the hoarding effect, and stretch the fund to double the number of household for the same amount of money.
is this a real thing?
so the FCC's website on the digital television transition has a quiz that allows anyone to become a "DTV Deputy," and while the entire dtv.gov site looks aesthetically unappealing, this quiz is laughable. i took the quiz and aced it (13 very general multiple choice questions like "what does DTV stand for?") and was rewarded with this generic certificate. It makes me laugh a little to think that this is an official government produced document and it looks like a certificate i got for participating in a model rocket competition when i was 12. on the other hand, perhaps i should be glad that the FCC is clearly not wasting extra money spicing up their website when the fund for subsidized converter boxes is empty.
40 days and counting!
analog channels will be shut off soon (feb 17th 2009), and although there are bound to be thousands (millions?) of households without tv because they do not know what is going on, there will be many times that number of households that can say goodbye to fuzzy or static-y tv :-D
this is good, but i am more excited for more networks to broadcast more content in HD. currently, most networks broadcast in HD, but they are broadcasting analog-converted-to-HD content, and it looks just awful. I am really hoping that they are waiting for more people to have access to digital signals before they invest in better content, and in february we should hopefully see a surge in digital viewership.
i am pretty sure there is only one person in the world who sees these posts right now, and even he might not read this because he might not care. however, i will take a reader poll nonetheless:
Are you ready for the switch? do you care?
get prepared at http://www.dtv.gov/
this is good, but i am more excited for more networks to broadcast more content in HD. currently, most networks broadcast in HD, but they are broadcasting analog-converted-to-HD content, and it looks just awful. I am really hoping that they are waiting for more people to have access to digital signals before they invest in better content, and in february we should hopefully see a surge in digital viewership.
i am pretty sure there is only one person in the world who sees these posts right now, and even he might not read this because he might not care. however, i will take a reader poll nonetheless:
Are you ready for the switch? do you care?
get prepared at http://www.dtv.gov/
thanks, wikipedia
wikipedia, while entertaining and useful for trivia, is also actually a fantastic knowledge building tool. It gets slammed all too often for not being a legitimate encyclopedia, but for technical learning, you don't care about accuracy of dates or whether a source is cited correctly, you just want to learn how things work. Use some common sense. If you need to write a report about the life of barack obama, do not use wikipedia. but in my experience, no prankster will ever get his jollies by modifying the entry for Wheatstone bridge to make it look like an actual bridge. also the moderators are not stupid, and they are aware of all changes. if a change is obviously wrong they fix it quickly. if anybody believes that it is easy to fabricate facts on wikipedia, i dare you to try it ;-)
when i first started my professional career, i had much to learn that school could not have prepared me for, and wikipedia was the biggest helper in teaching me what i needed to know. so for this, i plan to repay wikipedia with a donation of $100, and even that i consider to be a steal, as the information i learned on the site would have cost thousands in tuition. The founder has already thanked the world for donating enough to run wikipedia through mid 2009, but any extra can't hurt :)
when i first started my professional career, i had much to learn that school could not have prepared me for, and wikipedia was the biggest helper in teaching me what i needed to know. so for this, i plan to repay wikipedia with a donation of $100, and even that i consider to be a steal, as the information i learned on the site would have cost thousands in tuition. The founder has already thanked the world for donating enough to run wikipedia through mid 2009, but any extra can't hurt :)
another emoticon post
i use the emoticon D:? often. It was inspired by a friend i went to highschool with. he used it alot and i never knew what it was but thought it was a guy with a weird hat until dave (the originator) told me it was a scared face with a literal question mark over his head. he is a scared and confused face. he can be used when you are worried and dont know what to do (not in a serious sense). people seem to see different things in this emoticon, but this is what it really is.
don't analyze things too much
dwelling on any one issue (specifically a social issue) will make you crazy because you make up hypothetical situations and start to believe they are true.
theWarehouse emoticon pack
So for a little while now I have been wanting to create a gaim/pidgin smiley theme that replaces all the default smileys with samplings from Carl Huber's theWarehouse web comic (i.e. replace 
with 
). A friend of mine and I have made this singular replacement and everytime i type :-D it cracks me up. I have emailed Carl about him creating this pack to spread warehouse humor, but there has been no response yet. The following is a short list of potential emoticons:
with ). A friend of mine and I have made this singular replacement and everytime i type :-D it cracks me up. I have emailed Carl about him creating this pack to spread warehouse humor, but there has been no response yet. The following is a short list of potential emoticons:
blogging instead of google reader
google reader is great for reading RSS feeds, but it lacks many social aspects. Sure, you can share your thoughts or other's posts on your greader blog, and your friends can get your shared items, but the direct link to your shared items is always something ridiculous like http://www.google.com/reader/shared/01265451620713717669 and there is no way to comment on the things others have shared, so if you want to comment on a friends comment, you have to reshare the post.
A friend pointed out that friendfeed.com is similar to google reader but with the social aspects, and it is nice, but I think from now on i will share my thoughts in an actual blog.
-AJ
A friend pointed out that friendfeed.com is similar to google reader but with the social aspects, and it is nice, but I think from now on i will share my thoughts in an actual blog.
-AJ
work after holiday break
going back to work after 2 weeks of sleeping in and lounging around sure does suck. I'm sure it always has sucked; in highschool, college. But going back to a 9-5 job seems worse somehow. maybe its just recentism...
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