spiderx

5 years on the meatless monday diet

2011-06-30T13:44:00.002-07:00

It's been more than 5 years since I started the "Meatless Mondays" diet. Basically, I do not allow myself to eat meat on Mondays. This includes fish, any kind of meat flavored anything, such as in broths. I haven't decided on jello though... and I think cheese, milk, yogurt and eggs are just fine. Also, I drink only tea (unsweetened), coffee, and water. I still do it, and it's pretty easy to do now. I normally have a veggie burger (no, it does not taste like meat at all) and for dinner, beans and rice, or peanut butter and honey, or oatmeal. Of course, since I have started, I find myself eating a lot less meat, since I've found foods which can satisfy me just as much as meat did. I think now I go meatless most days, about 4 out of 7 without meat. When I do eat meat, it is usually turkey, bison, or fish. Before I started this, my cholesterol level was not exactly high, but for my age it was higher than normal. Now it's within normal ranges, and I feel like I am in very good shape. I've also been riding my bicycle to work and back every day for the past couple of years.

I guess it goes to show that starting a new habit on just a single day a week can make a huge difference.

Dictating a blog post

2011-03-02T20:01:00.001-07:00

So once again I decided to try writing a new blog post by dictating with Dragon naturally speaking . And this is the result . As you can clearly see it appears to be working correctly. this is all thanks to my android phone and the new keyboard that I bought today. Yes I'm perfectly happy dictating this blog post . I just wish this keyboard would automatically insert punctuation . Well that's all for now as you can see it's almost 100% perfect .

Awesome new keyboard for android

2011-03-02T11:33:00.001-07:00

I just got this awesome new keyboard for my nexus one. It's called flext9. It is made by Nuance communications. I must say, the voice recognition is the best I've ever seen on any device. It just seems to work. I'm using the sliding input method now, and it is also the most accurate i've ever used. it's also very fast. I highly recommend this keyboard to anyone. My only wish is for it to support the Russian language.

Peap / EAP on Android

2010-10-15T11:09:00.001-07:00

I'm putting this here to save for later, in case I need it.

I got it work on my new Android 2.1 phone. yes, I was able to connect to 802.1x wifi.

Guys,

Fix #

1) Download Wifi Advanced Configurtion App and its free.

2) Add a new wifi-network as per your employer instructions. Now, you will see two "XXX" SSID one showing as "secure with WEP" and other as "not in range"

3) Open the App and uncheck the WPA_EAP setting in Key Management for the wi-fi network you created.

4) Your wireless should have already connected now.

I hope this solves all your issues.

from here:
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/android/thread?tid=36dabddba0ba6162&hl=en

Study of Daily Life

2009-11-23T18:39:00.001-07:00

I should have wrote 'job / study / work' but it is the same nevertheless. Even while on vacation, I seem to have the same formula.

Regex website: www.txt2re.com

2009-11-17T17:58:00.001-07:00

BASIC wasn't the best language to learn first, but it was quick and easy enough for me to get interested in programming. Because I became interested in programming, I got quite good at BASIC, and saw it's limitations when I tried C.

The point is, I say this is a great website to take away a lot of the mystery of regex. Once people realize that it's simple enough if you take the time to learn it, they will obviously not be returning to this website, save to show their co-workers the ease of creating a regex, and the power of syntax.

http://www.txt2re.com/index.php3?s=17:Nov:2009%20"This%20is%20an%20Example!"&

My Views on What Chrome OS Should Be

2009-11-13T20:12:00.004-07:00

Google will be releasing an OS called 'Google OS'. I've heard a little bit about it, but it did get me thinking about the problem with software development. Now we have people writing programs in Java to overcome the operating system limitations... basically, the way programs are written now, they are written for a single OS. Windows (usually). However, when a program is written in Java, that program can normally work on all OS.

The way it is now, if you write a program for Windows, and you want to switch to Linux, you can't - because most of your productivity software that you already purchased just won't work in Linux, or OSX, or whatever OS you decide to switch to. The way people work around that now is with a 'Virtual Machine' (VMWare / Sun Virtualb0x).

Well, imagine that Google comes out with something similar to JAVA. Imagine being able to run native code through the browser. Imagine that the OS becomes irrelevant, and every application is 'virtualized' as if it were running in a virtual machine.

Google has a few projects in the works, which, if combined could eventually make that future a reality. Take for example their new programming language "Google Go". It's a semi-compiled language that is similar to Java. Look at another project that they have in the works called "Native Client". They also use sandboxing in Google Chrome. Intel tried and failed at something similar with their "Open Runtime" (they haven't failed, but nothing's come of it for years). The only thing missing is the VM, and perhaps Google's 'Davlik VM' could play that role.

Imagine Google actually pulls it off.

Whales

2009-11-12T18:26:00.001-07:00

In heaven and hell, an exploding whale. One beached, the other sunk. One returned to the sea, the other moved to land. Such is earth between heaven and hell.

Parents and Technology

2009-10-12T09:36:00.002-07:00

When my mom messages me on AIM, she writes it like it's a letter. I'll give you an example.

hi honey hope you are having a wonderful birthday hard too believe my youngest baby is 30 Love Mom

laughing at life

2009-09-27T00:41:00.000-07:00

Since things neither exist nor don't exist,
are neither real nor unreal,
are utterly beyond adopting and rejecting -
one might as well burst out laughing.

Longchenpa Rabjampa

I've probably posted this before but I don't care. It's worth repeating.

Spanking as child corrective action

2009-09-16T13:46:00.002-07:00

There is a news report which has just been published, which says "spanking detrimental to children". The study shows that if you spank your child at age 1, it will have more discipline problems in the future, and be more aggressive. I'd have to say that if you think spanking your children at 1 year old is doing them any good, you are kidding yourself. I was at least 6 years old when I was first spanked. Before that, it was time outs. Only when I was 11 years old did I escape the corrections. After that period, grounding is much more effective.

Universal Healthcare

2009-09-09T00:38:00.002-07:00

I haven't heard much good news from Arizonans concerning universal health care. It seems quite a few here are opposed to it. But, when looking deeper, it seems that this is out of ignorance more than anything else. The fact is, we pay for AHCCCS with public funds, to pay for healthcare for the poor. We pay taxes for Medicare and Medicaid so that takes care of the older folks. We fund the VA, and the military hospitals, and AHCCCS doesn't just serve the poor. Most of the people funded by AHCCCS are illegal immigrants, and their children. So we provide healthcare for the poor, the illegal immigrants, the military, and elderly, but for some reason we can't provide healthcare for ourselves.

Right now, I'm paying close to 8% of my salary to cover medical insurance. And I work for a very large international company who is a major player in healthcare! Now, if the government provided healthcare, of course they would have to raise taxes. However, at least according to Canada's numbers - 8% is near the top of the scale. The healthcare taxes are a progressive tax, so the more you make, the more you pay. At my current pay rate, I'd end up paying about 5% of my salary, if USA were to copy Canada's system.

So, I say 'tax me' - give me my universal healthcare. My dad needs it, my mom needs it, my brother needs it, and you know what, if you don't want to tax me, I'm sure we can reduce military spending.

Thank You Stewart Butterfield

2009-09-02T16:18:00.003-07:00

I was working on something for a website when I realized that in 2001 there was already something which was made, that did what I want. It was part of "the5k.org" competition, which was created by Stewart Butterfield in 1999.

The 5k Award was a competition where you had to make a fully functional website, all graphics, scripts, everything - in 5 kb or less. That competition changed the web forever. It really sparked the creativity of the web and took web development back to it's roots. There were tons of great entries, and my favorites were the functional ones such as a calendar where you can schedule events, and another where you would generate a different password for each website, but you would use the same password for all. Then there was the 5k furniture store, complete with pictures and descriptions.

It's been about 9 years since that competition started, and I say it's time for it to come back. Web pages have become quite complicated over the years, and I'd love to see what people can do with 5k now that we have HTML5, and more advanced web browsers.

So, Stewart - after founding Flickr, and completing gne.net - where's your three games you mentioned you'd make in this interview with Mindjack?

I'll quote the relevant part if you don't remember:

MS: If Ludicorp were forced at gunpoint to make an action shooter for the Xbox-or-something, and money were no object, what would you make?
SB: After a long discussion around the office we settled on three concepts - all of which should be available sometime in 2009.
Paleolithica! - A "shooter" (slings, spears, rocks) of Cro-magnon vs Neanderthal, set in and around the Pyrenees, Catalonia, Basque Country and the Langedouc. Advance your combat skills by developing new linguistic practices to co-ordinate with your fellow fighters. (You could also get into hand-to-hand combat and rip out each others' throats! Quest for Clans of Cave Bear Fires!!)
Library Bookbomber! - Set in the Library of Babel, you play Borges the nearly-blind Librarian battling a non-denumerable infinity of foreign-speaking janitors while hopping from low-ceilinged hexagonal room to low-ceilinged hexagonal room. Drop books on them, throw books at them: do anything you can do prevent them from kicking you out and bringing on the cataclysmic "closing time".
Nanoswarm! - If the budget really allowed for exploration, custom hardware would be the way to go! Imagine some kind of consumer productization of a local positioning system [like a spatially tracked ring or stylus] that gave the players gestural expression. Then, the game could involve gesturally shaping the behavior of billowing swarms of nanobots dancing in the air between combatants.
But first, we will finish GNE.

pausing for input - javascript

2009-09-01T21:33:00.003-07:00

I write websites and connect them to databases as part of my job, and I've found this little trick helps out quite a bit when I'm writing some javascript which tries to autofill or search while typing.

function KeyHandler()
{
if(!(typeof nagle == "undefined")){clearTimeout(nagle);} // if there's a timeout set on SendKeys, clear it...
nagle = setTimeout("SendKeys()",250) // set new timeout to 250ms....
return false;
}

That little bit of script creates a function which can be called on every keypress event, and after the last key is pressed, it will wait 1/4 of a second before running the function "sendkeys".
It doesn't have to be related to sending data to a server though, you can use this with other scripts, like if you want to filter a table or something else.

Oh, and I chose the word 'Nagle' because it was part of a larger script which implemented John Nagle's idea of waiting a moment before data is sent, with the intention of reducing the overhead of single keypresses. His idea was to reduce the amount of data sent over a network, and my idea is to reduce the number of queries to my server.

It works!

2009-07-25T19:28:00.001-07:00

I am happy to report that Windows 7 voice recognition is awesome. I think the problems that I had with Windows recognizing my voice earlier were that I was using the microphone on my webcam (accidentally). Now it appears it's working correctly. And this is without any training at all.

The movie "The Dark Knight Returns" is one of the best movies in the world. I wished that all movies were made like this movie was made.

This entire text was written with windows voice recognition. Not once did I touch the mouse. All editing was done using strictly my voice.

Now that I've been using this I think I prefer it to Dragon Naturally Speaking.

End of experiment.

voice recognition

2009-07-25T12:02:00.004-07:00

Today I am testing out Dragon naturally speaking 10. So far it works a lot better than Windows voice-recognition which is included in Microsoft Vista. The only thing that I don't like about it is that when I'm writing a post in blogger it will not allow me to undo without erasing the whole thing. And yes this whole post was written with speech recognition! I have to say -- that I did have to rewrite this post a few times. Overall, it's been interesting to not have to use my keyboard or mouse to write this post. I think my sister would love this software. There is only one other problem, and that is that I can't seem to get up to the title in order to change it. Once I figured that out I hope I will never have to use my keyboard or mouse again. I think my spelling has also improved :-).

I bet you think it was hard for me to get that :-) up there. All I had to do was say the word SMILEY.

The problem with this blogger website is that the links are written in such a way that I cannot tell Dragon NaturallySpeaking to click on "publish post" or "title" or anything. Stupid blogger.com!

PS I was finally able to do it by using the mousegrid.

more commentary on electronic cigs...

2009-06-22T11:08:00.002-07:00

I've noticed that quite a few people are concerned about the amount of nicotine in these e-cigs. See, the problem is that with a normal cig, you smoke it until it's gone, and if you are satisfied at that point, you stop. If not, you light another and smoke a portion or the whole thing. Well, an e-cig has the equivalent of a pack of cigarettes of nicotine in them, and you can smoke the thing for hours before the battery goes dead. So, how do you know when to stop? If you are a pack a day smoker, you would want to "vape" one cartridge a day, max. The only problem, of course, is that you don't know when you are about to run out of juice (nicotine / propylene glycol / flavoring mix). This can be a serious problem, as if you are switching from regular cigs to e-cigs, you could end up becoming more addicted to nicotine than you already were! I think the key is moderation. Limit yourself to about four minutes max per session. That will work for some, but for others, the situation is different. This is because of the way e-cigs work. Since they aren't burning, they are never "out" in a sense. This changes the behavior of some smokers such that they will carry the device with them at all times, and momentarily take a puff or two whenever they feel like it. It seems to me that when using the device this way, you will automatically increase your intake of nicotine, and thus increase your dependence on it.
And another concern, is cancer. Though there are no causative links suggesting that nicotine causes cancer, there are studies which show that if you do have cancer, nicotine increases the vascularization (angiogenesis) of the cancer, causing it to grow. So, if you do have cancer, and it's treatable, it's probably best to quit cold turkey. In that case, piracetam and lecithin supplementation may help.

Cancelling accounts...

2009-06-22T11:05:00.000-07:00

(from a reddit comment thread by another person)

... Ignore the script. Every sentence that they say that doesn't ask for name/account info is answered by "Cancel my subscription".

"Sir, how is the weather now in Alaska?"

"Cancel my subscription"

"Sir, may I ask why you want to cancel your super wonderful subscription?"

"Cancel my subscription"

...

Following their script will just waste your time, so ignore it.

Electronic Cigarettes Commentary

2009-06-17T16:34:00.002-07:00

I think these new electronic cigarettes (e-cig for short) are great. They are not advertised as a 'quit smoking' product, because they aren't for one, and for another, they would have to be approved by the FDA if they were. The websites that I see dedicated to this aren't concerning quitting smoking, but changing from smoking those unhealthy analog cigarettes to smoking these "no carcinogen" cigarettes. The pros of switching, based on anecdotal evidence are:

Improves lung function.
Improved sense of taste.
They smell better, pleasant even.
You don't stink after smoking these.
You can smoke these where smoking is banned. (Scottsdale, AZ comes to mind)
No burning, so less fire danger.
No ashes, so they are cleaner.
Cheaper per smoke than buying a carton.
Better variety of flavors (cola, toffee, strawberry, chocolate, malbo, mint etc).
Only nicotine and propylene glycol - no carcinogens.
The "smoke" (actually just vapor) does not hang around in the air.

Anyway, for $35 a starter kit, it makes a good gift for friends who are smokers. Still, I wonder if they could help you lose weight like smoking does. Probably not since it won't ruin your sense of taste.

On death

2009-06-05T10:52:00.000-07:00

I was a baptist, then atheist, and now buddhist. So, take what I say with a grain of salt, but here's my idea. Death returns you to the state before your birth. Just as you were before you were born, you will be after your death. Who's to say that from that state you can't be born again? No one would know, and we are incapable of knowing. Have you ever lost consciousness? If you have, you don't remember what happened after you lost it, you only remember the moments when you have it. It should be the same with death. You lose consciousness, and thus you won't remember it. The point is, it doesn't matter what happens to you after your death. What does matter is that after your death, people will still be living. Kids will be born, younger folks will mature, and they will exert their will upon the earth. In a sense, when you die you are giving the world and your part of it to them. It's up to you what your legacy will be. My hope is that the world is a better place for me having lived in it.

words of wisdom

2009-03-25T10:59:00.001-07:00

Silently shall I endure abuse as the elephant in battle endures the arrow sent from the bow: for the world is ill-natured.

hey

2009-03-17T08:45:00.002-07:00

Driven by fear, men take to many a refuge, in mountains, forests, parks, sacred groves and shrines, but these are not a secure kind of refuge. By taking to this sort of refuge one is not released from suffering. He who has gone to Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha for refuge, though, and who with true wisdom understands the Four Noble Truths of Suffering, the Origin of Suffering, the End of Suffering and the Noble Eightfold Path, leading to the Elimination of Suffering, this is a secure refuge, this is the ultimate refuge; by taking to this refuge one is indeed released from all suffering. 188, 189, 190, 191, 192

Computer / Electronics Tip

2009-02-20T09:15:00.002-07:00

If the fans on your computer start making too much noise, and you find yourself slapping the computer just to make it stop, here's a tip: Turn off the computer, take out the fan, and remove the little sticker in the middle. That's hiding a service port under a black rubber seal. Open that seal up, grab some Carmex and squirt it in the opening. Next, grab a toothpick and push it in deep where the bearings are. Seal it back up, re-apply the sticker, or use some electrical tape, and re-install the fan. Your fan will work problem free for at least another year. I've tried using olive oil, motor oil, and WD-40, but the one that works the best is Carmex. The tube is great because it dispenses the product easily, so you can get it right where you need it. Plus, when you're done, you can put it on your lips :) . If the bearings get too hot in the fan, you'll know because you'll have the pleasant smell of Carmex. I learned this trick from my Yo-Yoing days...

Nokia N810 sharing Bluetooth DUN over WIFI

2009-02-16T10:43:00.003-07:00

I thought it was impossible, but I figured it out...
here's how you can configure your Nokia N810 to share your Bluetooth DUN over WIFI.

Steps:

Install wireless-tools. It has " iwconfig" which is what you need for the next steps.
Install Privoxy (since you don't have forwarding setup, you need to use a proxy)
Setup Privoxy to accept connections from all network interfaces. Basically, you change a line which says: listen-address 127.0.0.1:8118 and change it to: listen-address :8118 (you leave off the address).
Connect to your dun on the Nokia N810 / N800
open a terminal as root and run the following commands:
ifconfig wlan0 up
ifconfig wlan0 192.168.1.1 netmask 255.255.255.0
iwconfig wlan0 mode Ad-Hoc essid n810 key off
connect to it from your ipod Touch (or other wireless device which doesn't support bluetooth.

eating in a multicultural household

2009-02-09T10:02:00.002-07:00

In the United States, it is considered proper etiquette to eat a little bit from each item, not focusing on any one item. It is considered rude to eat only one item at a time. In Italy, the opposite is true. Also, In the USA, you eat many foods with the hands, and in Italy, you avoid it at all costs. You don't even eat pizza with the hands, you must use a knife and fork. They also gesture a lot when they talk, so waiters are always cleaning up spilled drinks. Remember though, the rule is: when in Rome, do as the Romans do.

Chex Mix Bar Turtle

2009-01-22T10:16:00.002-07:00

Ever since I've been to the doctor and she told me that I need to watch my fat intake (no more than 40 grams fat per day) I've looked for low fat options when I can get them. Today I found a low fat treat in the vending machine today. It's called "Chex Mix Bar: Turtle". Normally, I'll get the gardettos for 12 grams of fat, or Cheetos for 20 grams, but after that, I can only have 20 grams more, and that leaves me with few options for dinner or a snack afterward. So, I've been getting these granola bars with 6 grams of fat, thinking that I'd be saving my fat intake for later in the day. Sure, they don't taste as good as a "Butterfinger" but they have 5 grams less fat. Well, I found something that tastes like a sin and has less fat grams than the granola. The Chex Mix Bar: Turtle tastes like a regular candy bar, but it only has 3.5 grams fat.

blogging from Maemo WordPy

2008-12-10T10:20:00.001-07:00

hello from my Nokia N810!

Ubuntu is very nice

2008-11-03T10:06:00.000-07:00

I had SUSE 11 on my pc, and that was good... the only problem was getting my ATI drivers installed. I followed the instructions on the SUSE wiki, but nope - I only had errors. I had them working in SUSE 10, after struggling a bit, but the same process did not work for SUSE 11. I gave up. I really wanted to use Gnome and my ATI drivers, and while SUSE had gnome, it was like a second hand offering. It just wasn't that great. My friend YAN said "well, Ubuntu uses Gnome", so I decided to give it a shot. I love Ubuntu for making my video driver install as easy as saying "yes, install my driver. I understand it is not open source.". It detected my hardware, and found the driver, downloaded it for me, and even offered to install it for me. Also, my printer, a Kodak EIO printer, worked. I was able to read the photos off the SD card reader and load them onto the computer with no problems. In this case, Linux was actually easier to use than Windows was. The Ubuntu team has done a terrific job.

Buddhist issues with Fable 2

2008-10-21T15:26:00.002-07:00

Last night, I purchased Fable 2. It's a great game, and I had lots of fun... stayed up until 2:30am playing it. However, it's choices are too black and white. For example, one mission that had to take as a kid was to go inside a building and kill all the beetles in it. Now, I am a Buddhist, so I try to make my character act as a Buddhist with "perfect knowledge" would have. So, I get inside the building and I am given an option - I can either kill all the beetles and "make 'em suffer" or I can destroy some boxes. In this instance, I chose as a Buddhist would, I tried to leave the building. Unfortunately, I couldn't. I HAD to do one thing or the other. There was no option to just leave and not perform any action. Instead, I smashed the boxes (teaching non attachment??) instead of killing the beetles. I'm sure the game thinks that I was an evil person for doing that, but tell me what is worse - destruction of property, or killing?

On the other hand, I played an online game (also on the fable website) where I had an option, upon finding the person who killed my parents and ate them. I could show mercy, or I could kill the guy. I chose to kill the guy. My reasoning is that a Buddhist with "perfect knowledge" would know that a video game villain cannot be reformed, and thus would choose to end his life instead of letting him live. I'm sure the game thought I was just out for revenge or something...

The point I'm trying to make here is that this game supposedly decides to make your character good or evil based on the choices you make. However, this is not entirely true. It makes your character good or evil based on the choices the game expects you to make, judging one choice as bad and the other choice as good.

According to the game programmers, In the first example I gave, the killing is good because it is only some little bugs. In the second example that I gave, the killing is bad because it was a human and maybe he could be reformed (the hero always has to show mercy). Clearly this is not so black and white as the programmers have written it.

Later on in the game, bugs start attacking me. In this instance, since they attack me, I must defend myself and kill them. In this case, as far as a Buddhist is concerned, this is acceptable.

Overall, I am sure its fine to play if you pretend to be a "hero" from the movies and comic books and such, and you don't take it too seriously. I'm going to keep playing this as though my character were a Buddhist and he will stick to his morals for as much as the game will let him. I wonder if he will be seen as good or bad?

My Vote

2008-10-09T16:32:00.002-07:00

I'm going to talk about who I'm voting for, and why. You can certainly disagree with my decision, but you cannot disagree with the facts.

I really don't think anyone should be getting tax cuts now, because we are in a war that costs 10 billion dollars a month. We need to increase tax revenue, not decrease it. Never in history has a country gone to war without new taxes. Bush must have thought every other president in history was just dumb.

Giving money to colleges to offset costs doesn't help anything. Neither does giving money to any other institution to offset costs. It only gives those institutions incentive to keep raising their prices, so they can get these taxpayer funded "offsets". Most college tuition has increased at a rate several times that of inflation. Federal Tuition Aid only increases the amount of money a college makes. We should not give the same kind of help to banks, hospitals, homeowners, or oil companies.

We need a president who will rely more on diplomacy than military. We need someone who can attain allied support should we need to participate in military action, and we need to build the support of the international community. I do not want an executive branch who doesn't understand politics and will launch an offensive against a perceived and not actual threat. They must be smart enough to understand the difference between the two.

We also need a president who understands the need to protect our environment and who will invite competition among green energy producers. We need to have renewable energy become the backbone of our economy. They should recognize that while oil is the quickest option we have right now, it is a dirty and limited resource, and we need to come up with something better.

We need a president who knows how to use computers and can efficiently get the job done. We need a president who knows how to "google" something but who also knows how un-reliable most sources on the Internet are.

We also need a president who is a good speaker, someone who can soothe troubled minds with an inspiring speech. We need someone who can write intelligently about our times, someone who can truly understand what it's like to be an average American.

We need someone who can show the world that America is great not because of it's military or economic strength, but because of it's resilience, it's ability to give someone a chance who can make a difference. We need to show the world that we are beyond partisan politics, racism, and religious denominations.

Anyway, that's the kind of politician that is getting my vote. Maybe you should vote for him too.

taxes after election

2008-09-26T13:24:00.001-07:00

http://www.electiontaxes.com

Use this calculator to see who to vote for if you are concerned about how much you will be taxed.

My PersonalDNA report...

2008-08-18T12:46:00.001-07:00

http://www.personaldna.com/

It says I am an "independent leader" - imagine that.

how to remove warts

2008-08-05T15:05:00.002-07:00

I had warts on my fingers for a while, and I read that they might go away in two years. So, I waited and they multiplied. Soon, I had about 10 warts in various places. On my right arm, my ring finger on my left hand, on both hands even. I was getting worried that it might spread to others, or to other parts of my body, so I researched how to remove warts.

I tried freezing them off, but that didn't work. That was a complete waste of $20. Then, I read about the army trying duct tape. I tried that for about 3 months, that didn't work either. I tried burning them off with that acid type goo, and it seemed like it was working at first, but it burned like hell and my warts ended up even bigger and uglier.

Then, I read about the duct tape study a little more. Sure, it says that 85% of warts were removed with duct tape, as compared with 60% for freezing therapy. It turns out that using duct tape didn't solve the problem. The key that I found was this: the therapy consisted of using duct tape and then, once or twice a week, ..."gently debrided it with an emery board or pumice stone".

Well, I think that was the key right there. So, I saved up enough money and spent the $0.99 for Emery Boards. (Yes, only 99 cents and you can have the cure). So, here was my solution:

1. With thoroughly dried hands (and warts) use the "emery board" on your warts until you see a little bit of blood spots. I know, now you are thinking that I'm crazy, but trust me, it doesn't hurt at all since the warts seem to remove most of the feeling in your skin.
2. Clean them with peroxide or alcohol. I chose alcohol since it is better at killing bacteria than peroxide. (this part is a little bit painful, trust me its worth it)
3. Apply "aloe vera gel" and make sure it is absorbed. You only need a small amount. (I used the green stuff that has pain killer in it... just use whatever you have)
4. Cover with a bandage until the next day.
5. Wait until your skin heals itself and...
6. Repeat as necessary!

I went through this process about 4 times before I finally got rid of mine. After the first or second time, you should see some improvement. If you don't then stop!

Tip: If you have too much blood after filing, take an open tube of super glue, and let the vapors waft over the wound. This should stop the bleeding and help seal the wound. Do not put super glue on your wounds, just use the vapors!!

Disclaimer: This is only my personal experience, and this may or may not work for you. Good luck!

Nexflix worthless?

2008-07-28T15:38:00.002-07:00

Does anyone out there actually use Netflix? I heard of people using it, my dad tried it out for a while, but found out that they don't offer unlimited DVD rentals, they do limit it very severely actually. If you rent DVDs from them on a monthly plan, you will get DVDs until it costs them about $3.00 per rental. So if you are paying $6.00 a month, you can expect to only get about 2 DVDs a month, no matter how fast you return your DVDs. If you are paying $12.00 a month, you can get about 4 DVDs a month. Sure, when you try it out for the first month, you might be able to get 6 or even 8, but after that, they delay the processing and shipping until you are getting a dvd rental for about $3.00 each. For less hassle, you can go to your nearest DVD vending machine and pick one up for $1.00, provided you return it the next day. High definition rentals are another thing. I don't think you can even get those with Netflix, but you can with the Blockbuster store, and with Xbox 360. With Xbox 360, it's actually cheaper, there is nothing to return either.

Mass Effect - Finished!

2008-06-26T10:54:00.002-07:00

Wonderful game, a delight to play, but the boss fights were way too easy. I'm used to a Ninja Gaiden experience... you know, you fight boss 3 for weeks then finally give up. In Mass Effect though, I usually beat the boss on the first try. At least make it difficult for me - I should have to retry the fight no less than 5 times before I beat it. Anyway, the story is great, and I was able to complete it in about 20 hours. I really want to play it again though and make some different choices. Maybe choose to be a different class, go after the alien chick instead of the human, and have a "earth only" outlook, and just in general being a complete a*hole. This first time through I was half and half. Half nice, half a*hole, and just generally being myself. This next time, I want to try to play a role of a renegade, talk to the reporters, express my displeasure of dealing with upper management, get all the money he can, ignore pleas of help unless there is money involved type of guy.

Great, great game. Well worth the $30 I payed for it (used). At $1.50 per hour, it's a steal. Even getting a movie off Xbox 360 is $3.00, and those are only 2 hours, possibly less. Now I need to see if I can trade this for another game...

Daily Regimen

2008-06-20T16:46:00.003-07:00

I just wanted to record my daily supplement regimen, any why:

Cinnamon 800mg (helps maintain sugar levels / reduce cholesterol)
Garlic Oil 1,000mg (heart health / reduces cholesterol)
Piracetam 5,000mg (brain and blood health (platelet aggregation reduction))
Lecithin(Choline) 1,200mg (brain and heart health)
Fish Oil 1,000mg (brain and heart health)
Multivitamin (replaces daily essential nutrients)
Cayenne pepper (tasty)
Vitamin D (bone health)
ALCAR + ALA (Alpha-Lipoic Acid) - (brain and heart health)

I'm happy to report that I've had no strokes or heart attacks yet! It must be working!!

Anyone else want to share theirs?

Iranian Nuclear Ambitions

2008-06-11T13:20:00.006-07:00

After hearing the two presidential candidates make statements about Iran's nuclear ambitions, I did a bit of thinking on the subject, and I think that Obama may have the better answer. To give you a little bit of background, Iran is enriching uranium. You can use enriched uranium to build nuclear payloads. There are other components required to deliver the payloads, such as ballistic missiles, but they can also be delivered by conventional means, such as by a suicide bomber and such. Obviously, at this point, Iran does not have the ballistic capability to deliver a nuclear strike on USA.

So what's so bad about them developing nuclear strike capability? It's about civilian casualties. These weapons are not made to precisely destroy tanks or bases, they are made to destroy human life, civil or military, and to create a nuclear fallout area which makes the area nearly uninhabitable. We're talking another Hiroshima incident here.

We shouldn't worry about a nuclear war with Iran though, because of several factors:
1. They don't have the ballistic capability to deliver nukes to the US of A.
2. If they did, they would not be able to hit every single counter-strike capable nuclear launch site, much less 25% of them. This means "mutually assured destruction". Of course, with the number and capability of nukes the USA has, if there was such a war, Iran would be annhilated, but USA would survive. So, it doesn't make much sense to launch an attack unless the leadership of Iran is suicidal.
3. Iran does not have the naval capability to get close enough to the USA with their fleets to do any damage. They couldn't even get close to Puerto Rico.

So what's the big deal then? The big deal could be this: (hypothetically)

1. Iran is working with Russia to assure Russian military dominance. Should there be a war between Russia / USA, Iran would clearly side with Russia. Should they do that, our reasons not to worry as listed above would be negated. Replace the word "Russia" with "China" if you prefer.

2. Even if it does not officially support Russia, by enriching uranium, they are able to supply nuclear weapons components to other countries, some of which are at odds with American policies.

3. They are a major supplier of Oil to the United States, and could successfully block oil shipments to USA from the Persian Gulf, which accounts for about 17% of all US oil imports. This would definitely make prices soar, and cripple the American economy further.

Ok, so why would they want to develop this capability?

1. Power. They are being pressured by other countries. By developing these weapons, they are able to negotiate with a lot more leverage than they have now.

2. Offense. They wish to start a war and nothing will stop them.

3. Batshit Crazy (see Kim Jong-Il).

4. Money. They can sell the product.

So what's the way to handle this?

1. Threaten war if it isn't stopped. No timeline yet but sound very stern.

Would it work? Only if we could get support from the international community, or the UN. Since our current president ruined that idea, no, this will not work.

2. Sanctions - This will only work if we have broad support, which Bush is failing to get.

Sure, he just made an announcement with Merkel, but come on, Germany? They aren't going to war with Iran over this. I highly doubt this will work. Who knows, maybe Iran just can't live without it's German beer.

3. Negotiation - This looks like the only option that WILL work. Look at what we are able to negotiate with North Korea, and other states.

Anyway, it was taking far too long to put this post together, which is why it was posted now. I don't have the time to do all the research, but I did research most of it. I heard someone say the exact same thing on NPR concerning this issue the same day I was working on this post, which made me postpone this, but it still needs to be said.

Ignorant Americans?

2008-06-10T14:32:00.003-07:00

I will share a little about myself, only because it relates to my rant. I am an American, my wife is an Italian. She lived in Italy her whole life, until we got married about a year and a half ago. Her english is not 100%, maybe 95%, but it's improving. People can see she is from another country. She says she is married. What's ignorant are the followup questions. "Did you just get married for the green card?" was one such question. Another was a sweeping generalization about why foreigners marry Americans. The stated that "Foreigners marry Americans because they are poor and Americans have money.". The particular person is a teacher of macroeconomics, so I am assuming he is looking at statistics and not just making this stuff up (I'm getting into my "benefit of the doubt area" here, in which everyone is entitled to stay until circumstances say otherwise.). I think he is wrong, but maybe it is not his fault. If you look at statistics, you will find that it appears that poor foreigners marry americans that make good money. My wife was not exactly rich, but not quite poor either, and I am doing pretty good, so our story sort of fits the statistics. I have no problem with the statistics, but they do not tell the whole story. This professor is further making the (common) assumption that when a foreigner marries an American it is for money, and as soon as they get the green card, they will get a divorce. Indeed we see that around 50% of marriages end in divorce. I'm going to guess that the foreign marriages are around 50% divorce rate too, or higher. There are many reasons why poorer foreigners marry richer Americans. I'll outline a couple of them below.

1. Richer Americans are more likely to visit other countries, and thus meet someone while they are there. Poorer Americans are less likely to visit any other country, and don't have the same opportunity to meet or stay in contact with a foreign love interest.

2. Supposing that they do have the means to stay in contact with and meet a foreign love interest, poorer Americans would be less likely to marry a foreigner and have them move in with him (assuming male to avoid using the awkward word "them" when referring to a single person). After all, if you barely have enough money to support yourself, how can you support another person who will be entirely dependent on you until they can get their immigration paperwork worked out? It takes about 3+ months just to get all that done.

As you can see, while money plays a factor, you cannot say that is causation. In other words, correlation does not imply causation. This is a common mistake in statistics and science.

The second part of the professor's statement, "They get a divorce as soon as they get a green card" may also be statistically correct. There are different reasons as to why:

1. They were not happy after moving to the USA, and wish to move back to their home country. It is very difficult for a foreigner to adapt to a different way of life away from their home, family, food, and language.
2. They were not happy with the marriage, and didn't really know what they were getting into when they got married. This is how my first marriage failed, and it was with an American!
3. Abuse by one partner. This is too common to ignore, and the problem usually only shows up after marriage.

So, while it may be true that sometimes "foreign women marry American men for money and divorce them after getting a green card". I think it is a fallacy think that those instances account for every foreign marriage. The number of women who prey on men for their money, or for a green card are probably very small, but you can bet that if it happened to you, you would tell all the news outlets and message boards and bloggers about how some foreign woman screwed you over.

What's my point? Stop being an ass and assuming that just because my wife is from another country that she married me for my money. Don't make an ass of yourself and make these prejudicial generalizations about others either.

Game Consoles

2008-04-11T10:26:00.002-07:00

Those of you that know me know that I own a Nintendo Wii. I love the thing, but there hasn't exactly been a glut of good multiplayer games. It was released in November 2006, and since then there have been some great games, but mostly first-party games. Third party games have been very poor quality. Still, the games that are great are games which are not even possible on other consoles, so I keep coming back to them for the fun. However, if you don't live in the middle of a big city and your friends don't live within 5 miles of your place, your chances of having multiplayer (4 people using same tv) gameplay is pretty slim. Nintendo should have focused on online multiplayer and webcam / communicator support. Instead, in this year and a half, we have only a few marginally online multiplayer games. Even then, adding someone to your "friends" is a pita at the moment. Why the hell they haven't fixed it by now is anyone's guess, but it's too late. I've decided that I need a next-gen console, not last-gen with enhancements. I need to have online multiplayer, something that gives me and my friends something to talk about.

The PS3 would be my first choice, because the hardware is ahead of the competition, and there is a lot of potential there. However, it has some major shortcomings such as: not enough great exclusive games. None of my friends own one, so I would be playing online, but against strangers. Third, the price is higher than I'm willing to pay. Sure, there is a high definition movie player which is part of the deal, but in actuality, I'm done with buying and managing movie discs. I've decided that I am going to download movies instead of drive to store, rent, watch, drive back to store, drop off movies. Why mess with all that when I can just download and avoid late fees, and have my high definition. I think Microsoft was right for not including a movie disc player in their console. Downloading movies is a whole lot easier. Not to mention that when you download a movie, it's guaranteed to be in stock. There are no shortages of popular movies. So, that's one more reason to not waste my money on a PS3. No, I'm going to have an Xbox 360. Online multiplayer that is the best in the business, with a wide selection of great games, and plus, the fact that all my friends are already on it make this a great deal.

bread is great

2008-04-03T00:02:00.002-07:00

Tonight is my 6th or 7th loaf of bread. I bought a breadmaker from the thrift store for $12, I think it just now paid itself off. I make an italian bread from a pizza dough recipe. It is nice and fluffy bread, my wife loves it. Contact me if you want the recipe. I haven't bought bread since. What's cooler than having fresh bread?? I mean, I think my bread machine loves me. Since when has my wife worked for 4 hours just so I could have some freshly baked bread? Never, that's when!!!

Word of advice for advertisers: Don't insult your customers!

2008-03-04T17:05:00.002-07:00

I hate some of those TV ads that I see all the time. The most ridiculous advertising tactic is to show people who use your products or services as idiots and/or hypocrites. Take for example this Microsoft Sync commercial showing their (supposed) customers as idiots. Then there is this one from Geico: "So easy a caveman can do it". This is a 1-800-call-att comercial. Here is another one from Zippo, found after doing a quick search. Please, please, please stop insulting your customers. I see these advertisements, and I think "wow, people who use these products must be idiots", and decide that I will never purchase products from these companies ever. Look at this company which does things right: esurance. Or, for more inspiration, look at this one from Coke. The esurance ad shows their customers as people who are smart, maybe they need some help buying insurance, but they are smart and in a hurry. The Coke commercial shows their customers as people who have a great imagination, and enjoy a tasty, cold, refreshing beverage that is packed with fun.

Selling my Nokia 770

2008-01-28T14:21:00.000-07:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_770

You can get a good deal... charger, 256mb memory card, stylus, all manuals, and the box - $65

The Health Insurance Issue

2008-01-13T12:34:00.001-07:00

This article is about medical insurance, and stupidity.

A while back, I had kidney stones, and I went to the hospital. I stayed there for about 4 hours, they gave me a bill of $7000, which, if I paid before 30 days were over, it would be only half, or around $3500. Luckily at the time, I had the money in the bank, so I paid it. I did not have health insurance at the time.

My next visit to the hospital two months ago, I had chest pain, and again, I was in the hospital for about 4 hours. My bill came to be around $3500. However, I had health insurance, so they billed the health insurance company only $350.

The difference is astounding. Had I self-payed the second time, I would have paid $3500, they would have taken every single cent and put me in debt had I not paid. However, health insurance companies get to pay just 10% of that! Regardless, my health insurance really doesn't pay for anything. It costs me about $215 a month for my health insurance. So, by now I have already paid my health insurance company back. In fact, this year the health insurance company has made $2580 off of me, and so far, has only had to pay medical expenses of about $600 in total, for a profit of $1980.

What I'd like to know is how I can self-pay the $350 instead of the $3500. Maybe I need to start my own health insurance company with 1 covered person: me. That way, I can keep my $1980 in profits and invest in something.

If the hospitals and doctors charged their patients what they charge the insurance companies, most people would not need the insurance companies anymore, and everyone would be able to pay their bills without going broke. Right now, I am about $1500 in debt due to medical bills while I was not insured.

It's the same with car insurance. I have not had any claims at all, and my car insurance company has gotten about $3500 in the past two years. I could have put this money in savings if car insurance wasn't mandatory.

Gaming Today

2008-01-09T12:01:00.000-07:00

This is a repost of my forum comment from Reddit, I thought it would make a good blog post on the current state of gaming.

"since requirements for new games are so god-awful there's no way I'm able to keep up."

That's what is driving people to the Xbox 360. The video cards which can play these new games cost almost as much as buying an Xbox 360. The 360 is a common platform, which makes it easy on the developers.

I haven't been able to play many of the new games, despite purchasing a $500 video card last year (Radeon x850 XT) because people are developing for SM 3.0 which my video card doesn't support. It has the throughput and fill rate, if they would program SM 2.0 shaders, but sadly, developers are targeting SM 3.0 only because of the 360. I could get a new video card, but then most of the new games request a dual processor too, which brings the total up to the cost of a PS3. Which would last longer in the market. However, now I seem to be playing independent games on the PC because they have lower system requirements. Anyways, I already purchased the Wii, and I don't want to get into the HD-DVD / BluRay mess yet.

The gaming industry is pretty fragmented now. The PC is great for MMO games, mainly because of the community which the PC builds - forums just aren't readily accessible on the 360. It is good for game mods too, such as Team Fortress, because you are guaranteed a hard drive, etc.

If the Xbox 360 can cut the cost of the hard drive, or allow you to use an external USB device as a hard drive, and if it could make forum access easier (such as including the keyboard attachment in the retail boxes) I could see it replacing the PC for MMO and mods as well.

Still, I doubt that people are interested in forking over $400 for it anymore. It's over 2 years old now. The price should be dropped by a good $150 because the lifetime of a console is around 5 years, so really if you buy one now, you're going to get about 3 years more of good games for it. With consoles, if you don't keep up with the latest games on it, your online community tends to dwindle, so you can't buy an old game and expect to find any opponents online for it anymore. I've seen this specifically with the Nintendo DS.

Christmas Loot

2007-12-26T12:34:00.000-07:00

Okay, I got some great stuff from my wife for Christmas, but the thing that we had most fun with was this: The WowWee FlyTech™ Dragonfly. This really is an amazing toy. If my dad doesn't own one yet, Dad... what's wrong with you?!?

International Relations: Russia

2007-12-26T11:11:00.000-07:00

Just some comments and observations about Russia. It looks like we might have the start of a new "cold war" with Russia. They are in the news for nearly completing a "GPS Alternative" which would allow them to launch guided missile strikes, and USA is putting in a "missile defense system" in Russia's next door neighbors. They are already cold with us because we supported the growth of NATO, and the European Union. Their President may soon become their emperor just like old Russia, thanks to his smooth move of picking the next president who will give him the duty of "Prime Minister". And what should happen if the new president of Russia steps down (under threat of death, most likely)? That's right, the PM becomes the president. Anyways, I think we have some interesting years ahead of us starting in 2008. With our military weakened, our dollar dropping, and our foreign relations crumbling, our next president has his work cut out for him! Let's just hope China and Russia don't hand our asses to us. More posts about China later, they have had some interesting developments too.

Salt in the news

2007-11-29T15:27:00.000-07:00

Today I saw a news article about how salt is "bad for your health" and it causes "high blood pressure". My personal experience is that this is simply not true. A while back, I pretty much avoided salt, for a period of 5 years. Then, I went to Italy. I married an Italian, and my salt intake has increased by 300%, and my blood pressure is the lowest it has ever been. While this is only my story, it is a fact that there is no scientific validity to the statement that salt is the cause of high blood pressure. The media seems to fall into the trap of reporting what the FDA says without checking the facts. See here for more information about salt myths. Oh, and before you discredit the site due to poor web design, notice that all the myths debunked have their sources listed.

N810 Developer Program!

2007-11-09T13:36:00.000-07:00

Alright, I've finally been accepted into the Nokia n810 developer program! I wrote a proposal which uses all the feautures of the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet. Here's a brief summary of what the software will do:

Connect you to other N810 (possibly N770 / N800) owners via ad-hoc (or site based) networking.
Automatically. No need to manually configure network settings!
Using GPS to find out who is available to connect, and where.
Offline mode lets you cache settings, for up to 3 hours.
Provides you with a list of devices / people who you can connect / chat/ video conference with
Automatically launches chat / conference / whatever you want with those people. Skype comes to mind.
Eventually, with a good database, it can log wifi signal strength for signal strength mapping. This could be very useful in wifi surveys.
Other features as the data will allow. I could create a contact card sharing app, meeting logs, etc etc...

I'm thinking right now that chats would be broadcast based. I dont like the idea of having one server, but I could link them all to a meebo chat room if they do want a server based option. Anyway, it's an ambitious project, but I am sure I can pull it off. I'll start building the website now, and when I get my N810 I can start on the client side. Right now with my N770 I can't even get Python working correctly (with OS 2007). Hopefully with the 810 that won't be a problem.

javascript libraries

2007-11-07T12:11:00.000-07:00

I've been doing some javascript development, and after looking at the libraries, my preferred library is jQuery. It's pretty easy to use. The only problem with it is that it's not the fastest of the bunch. I did some testing across different browsers, and the only one which has good performance across all browsers without errors is the excellent Ext JavaScript Library. I might consider switching because Ext has much better documentation, and some more built in controls that are nice. However, the JS file is larger and 2.0 is still in a release candidate state. I was considering using Prototype, but that uses mozilla's xpath support to speed up its javascript implementation. On IE6 it's considerably slower. Still, there is nothing wrong with jQuery. It's slower, but it is correct, and works well across all browsers. The event normalization is nice, and it is small (20k minified).

cool! I want to learn that.

2007-10-24T13:58:00.001-07:00

Idiocracy at Costco

2007-09-17T11:50:00.000-07:00

I recently joined Costco because I wanted to start bulk-buying of my food, to save money. It's been going good now, but then I decided to go one early afternoon. I was hungry. I bought a couple things (cinnamon pills and flavored oatmeal) and they have a place to purchase food. We waited in line for a good 5 minutes, when we got to the counter, the lady took my order, and when I begin to pay with my credit card (same one I used to pay for the oatmeal and pills) she said they only take cash. WTF?!? She then kindly suggested I go back to the checkout counter (for the 'bulk items' part of the store) and wait in line, only to buy a ticket to have them make my food for me. Right, so let me get this strait... I waited in line for 5 minutes only to be told (after ordering) that I can't pay with a credit card. My only option is to go back and wait in another line behind people stocking up for the winter, so I can purchase a ticket. Then, I have to take this ticket, and wait in the food line again, to get to the same cashier, and then I have to give her the ticket showing that I paid, before I will be able to wait for them to make my food. Brilliant! Who in their right mind would design such interactions? In today's world, people don't have cash on them unless they live in the New England states.

FF Released!

2007-09-14T09:51:00.000-07:00

Last night, I come home to see that Fortress Forever was released. Go to www.fortress-forever.com for more information. I used to play Weapons Factory back in the day (and TF before that) and it is nearly the same game of old. Binds are similar, thanks to HL2 being built off HL, which was adapted from Quake. The classes play great, and the sniper is as badass as ever. They enhanced the Pyro to make him a better class to play, and they kept all the fun of playing a spy. Now I have to get all my old buddies together to start playing it.

Last night I was playing a game as the 'random' class, and I was a spy at times. I was able to backstab an enemy in my base! It was a lot of fun. Then, I was a pyro, but I was up against another pyro, so it wasn't much fun. I was a sniper and caught someone running into the base, and I somehow 'sniper tagged' the flag carrier which helped my team recover it. Then, as I was finishing play last night, Most of our team was in the main lobby area of our base, with a couple turrets up when a spy infiltrated and hacked the sentry gun. Next thing I knew, I was killed by my own team's sentry gun, as was the rest of my teammates who were standing out there. Quite fun!

Cool article on Marvin Minsky

2007-08-28T16:30:00.000-07:00

To those that know me, the fact that Marvin Minsky is one of my heroes should be no surprise. I just read an interesting article on him, and that makes me want to buy his new book, "The Emotion Machine". I have his earlier book "Society of Mind" and it is great. In it, he describes in detail how human minds work. The new book is released about 20 years after the first one, and goes into detail about how emotions work in the human mind. He describes the human mind in a way that a programmer might define a program. He's sort of setting the requirements for a particular type of computer. Anyways, here is the amazing article which is a discussion with Minsky. Have a look.

SRS Audio Soundbox

2007-07-17T13:02:00.000-07:00

Today I was doing my regular stock market research, and I saw one of my favorite tech companies has something new. It's the SRS Audio Soundbox. It basically takes any audio from your computer and turns it into surround. This is really great if you have a 5.1 speaker setup. It solves one of my biggest complaints about 5.1 sound systems on PC's, which is the lack of 5.1 channel content. This turns an ordinary stereo signal into 5.1 channels, and it really works! If you have a 5.1 speaker setup, you'll be hearing sound out of all your speakers. Surround sound support is pretty choppy in Windows at the moment. Windows Media player doesn't output 5.1 unless there is a file encoded with Windows Media. Quicktime won't output to 5.1 on Vista x64, and most games have very poor support for it, with games like Battlefield 2 causing the BASS to go all wacky when 5.1 is enabled. All of these problems are solved with this. The software installs a new sound card on your PC, which processes the sound before it gets sent to your actual sound card. You can set different options to optimize the effect for movies, music, games, podcasts, or whatever. I only had a problem installing it on Vista x64, a matter which I solved by downloading the 64 bit version and installing that. Those of you who do not have a 5.1 speaker setup can benefit even more. It will give you virtual 5.1 support, and expand the stereo image into "3d". Anyways, if you care about the sound quality, it's worth checking out. This doesn't just add reverb. In fact, it doesn't add anything to your sound. It just changes the dynamics of it to make it sound more alive, more real. Well, check it out already...

web pages and css

2007-04-29T12:09:00.000-07:00

Lately I have been dealing a lot with javascript, css, and html. It's amazing how IE messes everything up when it comes to HTML and CSS. Firefox usually works as expected though. If only everyone used Firefox...
Typically, as a web developer, I write everything in a notepad window and use Firefox to check it out. When I have everything as I want it, I check in IE6 and 7, then fix the problems. Along the way, I find something that is not quite easy to fix, and after doing some research, I realize that it's a bug in IE or assumption in IE. Usually the only way to fix it is to write some IE specific kludge in CSS, or in some cases (such as the infamous button bug) a complete re-design and implementation. I could write specifically for IE, but then it would be nearly impossible (without complete rewrite) to support Firefox because of the IE specific tags that are easier to use than finding workarounds for IE's lacking standards support.

"The Future" or Why Flying Cars Will Fail

2007-04-06T10:15:00.000-07:00

More times than once, I see these predictions about "flying cars" and how they are the future, just around the corner. Here I list reasons why it won't work.

First, it requires a lot of energy just to lift a vehicle off the ground, which is just so you can begin moving. Since there is no energy required for a car to sit on the ground, cars will be more fuel efficient.

Second, accidents from flying cars crashing into each other has a greater chance of causing death than automobile accidents. When cars crash on land, they crash, and stay there. When vehicles crash in the air, they fall... this simple fact means that insurance premiums will go up, and cost of the vehicles will go up due to the extra safety procedures that must be put into place.

Third, with a lot of flying vehicles, traffic will be nearly impossible to control and regulate. Air traffic today is regulated by the FAA and the Air Traffic Controllers. Since there would be thousands of vehicles all in the air at the same time, this would make radar unreliable and the FAA would not be able to regulate or control the traffic. You could have traffic cops, but this would be even more difficult as you can't just "pull someone off the side of the road".

That said, there is a way it can work: Air buses. You would load up on a bus, it would fly you to certain stops, and then take off again. The pilots would be trained and controlled by a central 'air bus' station. Stops and routes would be setup by the station based on demand. To have an 'air bus stop', which would be beneficial to your business, you would just need an elevator to the roof, a landing pad, and some shelter for the elements while passengers wait.

The main problem with the 'air bus' method is 1. cost, and 2. noise. If it's too noisy, businesses won't buy in. And if it's too costly, passengers won't pay. Currently, 1 and 2 are the limiting factors, but even so, there are plans to start something similar between smaller cities (airport to airport).

shouldn't there be a law against this?

2007-01-22T10:32:00.000-07:00

OK, shouldn't there be a law against this? This sex offender who was arrested and convicted of "attempted molestation of a child" is living right next door to a day care center! On the map, green diamonds are day care centers. The red is the sex offender. If you look closely at the red dot, you can see the left side of a green diamond underneath it! I mean, how close does he have to be to a day care center for it to be illegal? Every time he leaves his apartment, it's right there! I can't believe someone would rent to him knowing that.

Advice To Live By

2007-01-04T22:28:00.000-07:00

You learn a lot from living. I learn new things every day. It has dawned upon me today that I have learned something about life from my cat. Not just my cat, but just about every cat I've ever been around. You see, cats trust us. I'll let you perform an experiment to verify. Find a cat, preferably yours. Pet the cat for a little bit to gain it's trust. Make sure you are in a calm setting. Then, while staring deeply into the cat's eyes, with a slight smile on your face, close your eyes very slowly, then close them completely for about a second. Open your eyes just enough to catch the eyes of the cat. You'll see the cat also closes it's eyes too. Clearly the cat is trusting your judgment that everything is okay. But, what does this say about life? It says that you have to believe in yourself. You have to love yourself, and respect yourself. If you don't believe in yourself, then who will believe in you? Sometimes, all you will hear is how people don't believe in you. Don't listen to that. Just believe in yourself, and that's all that matters. But don't take my word for it. The cat believes in you too.

What are you on for?

2006-12-28T13:22:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about my computer usage lately, and the computer usage of others. I wondered how sites such as myspace were getting popular, and I think I've found it out. Maybe you extroverts have figured it out, but it isn't really intuitive to me. Kids these days use computers to socialize. They actually turn on a computer for the social aspect of computing and mostly nothing else. Sure, some homework, or news pages, but the real draw for them is being able to communicate to many people and organize their social networks and communications. Personally, I use the computer to do research, which I seem to do constantly. I also use it to play games. Half the time I am on the computer, I use it to play online games that are more social, but since I am an introvert, that is not the draw for me. The main draw for playing online games for me, is that I play those games for the sport of competing against a worthy opponent. Anyways, this was just a personal epiphany moment, which I'm sure most of the world would just go "duh" about.

The Cat and the Wii

2006-12-19T21:25:00.000-07:00

My cat loves to bat at my bigscreen TV when I am using my Wii. He swats the cursor when it gets near the bottom of the screen and is relatively motionless. I didn't particularly enjoy when he does it, but I did find it amusing at times. However, today as I was playing with the Wii remote (while watching regular TV / Wii was turned off), I noticed something. The cat saw me playing with the remote, and he stared at the screen looking for the cursor! Apparently he knows that when I use the Wii remote, then his playmate (the cursor) comes out. Very interesting observation... I shook the wii remote a few times while the cat was watching, and sure enough, he again looked at the screen...

Virtues

2006-12-07T12:22:00.000-07:00

I'm providing here a list of virtues. You should strive to exhibit these virtues in your daily life.

Acceptance: To consider circumstances, especially those that can not be changed, as satisfactory.

Bravery: A quality of spirit that enables you to face danger of pain without showing fear.

Caution: Avoidance of rashness, attention to safety.

Curiosity: A desire to find out and know things.

Defiance: Bold resistance.

Determination: Firmness of purpose.

Devotion: A great love or loyalty, enthusiastic zeal.

Discretion: Being discrete in ones speech, keeping secrets.

Flexibility: Adaptable, able to be changed to suit circumstances.

Focus: Concentrated awareness and effort.

Forgiveness: To cease to feel angry or bitter towards a person or about an offense.

Generosity: Giving or ready to give freely, free from meanness or prejudice.

Gentleness: Moderate; mild, quite; not rough or severe.

Gratitude: Being thankful.

Honesty: Truthful; sincere; not lieing or cheating.

Humbleness: Modest; not arrogant or boastful.

Humor: The ability to perceive, enjoy, or express what is amusing, comical, incongruous, or absurd.

Impartiality: Fair.

Industry: Diligent, hardworking.

Innocence: Guileless, not guilty.

Justice: Fair, impartial, giving a deserved response.

Kindness: Friendly, helpful, well meaning.

Love: A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.

Loyalty: Steadfast in allegiance to one's homeland, government, or sovereign. Faithful to a person, ideal, custom, cause, or duty.

Majesty: Great and impressive dignity.

Moderation: The avoidance of extremes in one’s actions or opinions.

Obedience: Willingness to obey, to be controlled when necessary, to carry out orders.

Openness: Ready and willing to talk candidly. Unsecretive.

Patience: The ability to endure delay, trouble, pain or hardship.

Peace: Freedom from mental agitation; serenity.

Prudence: Wise or careful in conduct. Shrewd or thrifty in planning ahead.

Reliability: Can be trusted to do something.

Responsibility: Having control over and accountability for appropriate events.

Sensitivity: Heightened awareness of oneself and others within the context of social and personal relationships.

Simplicity: Straightforward; not complex or complicated. Unpretentious.

Sincerity: Free from pretense or deceit in manner or actions.

Sobriety: Serious, solemn and calm. Free from intoxication.

Spontaneity: Natural, not planned.

Steadfastness: Firm, resolute; determinedly unwavering.

Strength: Capable of exerting great force.

Toughness: Strong and durable; not easily damaged.

Tranquility: Serenely quite and peaceful; undisturbed.

Trust: Having confidence in others; lacking suspicion.

Trustworthiness: Able to be trusted or depended on; reliable.

Wii

2006-11-19T20:12:00.000-07:00

I now have a Nintendo Wii. It is really cool, and definitely worth the purchase price. I'm happy about it. Now I can play some of the best games for GameCube while I wait for other games for the Wii to come out. I'm really looking forward to some multiplayer on that one. I waited outside a Scottsdale Wal-Mart all night just to get mine, so I hope getting yours will be easier. Oh, Hello to Yan, the dude who was in front of me in line, there were 20 people in all, and Yan was our spokesperson.

Misconceptions of Buddhism / Buddhists

2006-11-18T12:27:00.000-07:00

I want to clear up some misconceptions of Buddhism and Buddhists. Here's a list, and the rebuttal.

1. Buddhists must be vegetarian. -- This is simply not true. Monks do eat meat and many lay Buddhists do too.

2. Buddhism is not a religion. -- This misconception stems from the belief that if your religion doesn't propose a "beginning of time" scenario, or a deity, and doesn't have a holy book, that it's not a religion.

3. Buddhism is just a philosophy. -- See the above. It's a philosophy and a religion. If you accept the philosophy, then the religion is just the practice of the philosophy.

4. Buddhists worship "idols" thus they are sinners in the eyes of God. -- Buddhists do not worship idols. It is true that Buddhists will build shrines and maybe have a little statue of a Buddha somewhere, but we don't worship the statue. Just as many Christians have a cross on the wall, or even a "picture of Jesus", we have the same; It simply serves as a reminder of the teachings. The statues and pictures are those of a respected and loved teacher, not of a deity, and they are not to be worshiped.

5. Buddhists are all just hippies and drug addicts. -- Buddhism has something similar to the "ten commandments" of Christianity called the "five precepts". The fifth precept states: "To refrain from intoxicants which lead to loss of mindfulness.". This includes drugs. So what caused this misconception? Buddhism in America started when Chinese and Japanese immigrants came here in the late 1800's. However, it's growth among whites happened in the 1960's and started in the hippie movement. Be aware though, that it is not limited to those groups.

6. All Buddhists believe in the Dalai Lama and that he is a prophet. This is not true. The Dalai Lama (currently Tenzin Gyatso) is the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism. While Tibetan Buddhism is popular, it is not the only form of Buddhism that is practiced. Buddhists such as myself believe what the Dalai Lama says: "I am just a simple monk.". As a simple monk, he is the "face" of Buddhism. I do carry great respect for the monk, but I do not believe he is anything more than that.

7. Buddhists believe in the "fat Buddha" who, if you rub his belly, will bless you with good fortune. This is also not true. The "fat Buddha" who you see everywhere is called "Hotei". Many people use his image as a good luck charm, but this is in no way related to Buddhism. In the Japanese and Chinese Buddhist tradition, Hotei was a monk, who carried a bag around full of treats, and would travel to different places, giving the treats to small children. His smile was from giving what he had, to those who wanted it. Thus many people take this to mean that he will give you what you want. Instead, you should take that the act of giving will bring you happiness.

That's all I can think of at the moment. I'll happily answer any questions or comments on the subject.

Nonsense Latin-like text getting you down?

2006-11-06T10:56:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has a solution! (history of the 'Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet' text...)

Games

2006-11-06T09:20:00.000-07:00

First off, I just want to say that I finished having a wonderful month and a half, and I'm looking forward to doing it again.

Neverwinter Nights 2 (NWN2) ... I could not play this due to a problem I had with my video card. It kept saying that it didn't have more than 128mb of video ram, and then it would crash. After searching the internet, I found the problem was that my DXDIAG was reporting: "Approx. Total Memory: N/A". I tried many things, none of them worked. Here's what did work. I booted into safe mode, and went to device manager. I deleted all the video adapters. (yes, all!) and then booted into normal mode. I re-installed my video drivers, and rebooted. I also got back my DirectDraw and AGP acceleration... which is strange because I have a PCI-X card 0_O... anyways, I've been playing NWN2 since, and I suspect it will keep me occupied until the end of the month. I just felt I had to post this on my blog since I know a lot of other people will have the same problems.

China gone crazy?

2006-10-31T13:27:00.000-07:00

Has China gone crazy or what? Look at these two articles and you tell me:

buggy Samsung SGH-T509

2006-09-15T08:10:00.000-07:00

In May, I got a new phone, a Samsung SGH-T509. It seems to work okay for daily tasks, but it has some bugs to it.

1. If you set an event that spans over two weeks, you cannot open that event or delete it. What happens when you do is that the phone will reboot automatically.

2. Alarms - they go off at the scheduled times, but if you specify an MP3 alarm, and you hit the 'off' button at just the right time, the alarm never stops going off. You have to turn the phone off and back on.

3. Missing messages. There is a little icon that blinks in the top portion of the display, something that looks like an envelope with an red square on one side, and a white box with blue lines on the other side. It is useless, because you didn't get any unread messages. There's only one place to check for messages, and that's the 'inbox'. And my inbox is fine. However, sometimes when I reboot my phone, I get that stuck message like 'missed call' or something, and then it stops flashing... but it always comes back.

...Yep, just checked it again, its back. For a total of 2 minutes I didnt have to see that stupid worthless blinking envelope.

4. The SIM card fills up too fast. It seems to prefer putting messages on the SIM card first, so after that's filled then it uses the internal memory. It doesn't have an overwrite option either. If the memory is full, it just flashes something saying "MEMORY FULL - DELETE MESSAGES" or some crap like that. I got an idea, why don't you overwrite my oldest messages?? If I didn't take the time to 'lock' the message, then fine, I'll lose that message. I'm okay with that.

5. I.M. client sucks. If I have a conversation open with someone, and someone else sends me a message, I won't know until I end that conversation, or go back to the phone's 'home' screen. How about a visual indicator on the conversation window that tells me someone sent me a message?

6. Countdown timer is included, but it's useless without some kind of BEEP or sound which tells you when the count is over. A kitchen timer, this phone is not.

There are others but I have to go to work...

Another Interesting Snack

2006-09-03T12:09:00.000-07:00

Here's something I put together, it's pretty self explanatory, so here you go... of course, explaining how it tastes won't really do justice. Try it! One note: use unsalted pecans.

another good quote

2006-08-29T10:24:00.000-07:00

I found this insightful and interesting, thought I would share it with you...

‘Nature’s law dictates that, in order to survive, bees must work together. As a result, they instinctively posses a sense of social responsibility. They have no constitution, no law, no police, no religion or moral training but, because of their nature, the whole colony survives.

‘We human beings have a constitution, laws and a police force. We have religion, remarkable intelligence, and hearts with a great capacity to love. We have many extraordinary qualities but, in actual practice, I think we are behind those small insects.

‘In some ways, I feel we are poorer than the bees.’ - Dalai Lama

Why do I use Hotmail?

2006-08-28T10:30:00.000-07:00

I keep asking myself this, because I constantly get spam in my inbox which is identical to ones that I have reported as spam. It's as if Hotmail is the new AOL - constant spam. I say "report and delete" but I get identical spam in my inbox month for month, year for year. Does Hotmail have some kind of deal with these spammers? I have no clue... maybe their junkmail filter is crap.
Then I realize why I use it... because I've had it for the last 10 years. When I sign up for an ISP, I don't even bother setting up an email account with them. I know I'll move or change providers soon enough. Hotmail the only email address of mine that hasn't gone away after all these years. I've never lost any data from it or anything. It's kinda crazy that I've even been on the internet that long. Now I mainly use my gmail account, but I keep my hotmail account just because I've had it so long. I can't bear to part with it. Besides, I still use my MSN account (which is tied to hotmail) all the time. And all the emails from msn or 'windows live' authentication go there. So, I'm also stuck with it as long as I'm using Microsoft products or services.
I'd like to have my email account seperate from my logins to various sites. I don't want to give my email address to websites. Why do they need it? So I can reset my password? So they can email me a lost password? I don't lose passwords, and if I really need to reset it, why not authenticate me by asking me my birthday and driver's license number? or my birthday and the last four digits of my ssn? maybe the last four of my tel# and ssn, or the serial number of my keyboard...

Dr. Pepper + Pomegranate Juice = wow!

2006-08-22T19:03:00.000-07:00

Tonight I tried an experiment. I tried adding Dr. Pepper to some pomegranate juice.. well, I won't tell you how it tasted, I'll just give you a picture, and suggestion on how to mix it.

1 part pom juice

3 parts dp

Banana Bread!

2006-08-22T19:00:00.000-07:00

Last week I made some banana bread for the first time, and it turned out all too perfect. ..

Tremulous

2006-08-20T11:14:00.000-07:00

If you like Natural Selection, give this game a try. It's the same concept, aliens vs humans. In this game though, you each have 1 base, and you must defend your base while destroying theirs. There aren't any "resources" to collect, no multiple hives for the aliens. Both sides play style is the same. Aliens attack humans, humans attack aliens. It's simple. What's cool is the wall walking of the aliens and the Jetpacks on humans. The aliens can build structures on the walls! One downside is that there is no voice communication. Well, the graphics are great, as it's built on the Quake 3 engine. If you like strategy, go with Natural Selection. If you just want a fun Team DM game, go to http://www.tremulous.net/. It's completely free, GPL.

Rebtel

2006-08-19T23:34:00.000-07:00

I just signed up for Rebtel today. It allows you to create a phone number for someone in another country (or state) that allows you to call a local number and be connected to them. So... NO LONG DISTANCE FEES! NO INTERNATIONAL FEES! You call a local number, it's forwarded to their number, and that's it. What's the cost? $1 each week you use it. Not $1 a day... $1 a week! Totally unreal, but I've tried it and it works great.

So, here's how it works: You setup a local phone number in both locations. You dial the number that is local for you. It rings your friend. They hang up while you stay on the line. They call the number that is local to them, and the call is connected. If they do not call back within 30 seconds, then a long distance fee is charged to your account.

Accidental Expert

2006-08-04T13:43:00.000-07:00

I just read this story, and those of you studying Zen or Buddhism will find it both humorous and enlightening at the same time. Read: "The Cucumber Sage". I think it was so amazing that the author chose not to take credit for the work. It is truely buddhist nature.

WRT54G strangeness

2006-07-05T11:22:00.000-07:00

So, I moved into my new apartment. The cable guy said that the cable would be hooked up the day before I moved in. Well, it wasn't. So, I didn't have any internet. I already had a wireless card with external antenna from living with my father. I scanned for networks, and instantly found "famous sams wifi". It was a weak signal, but it was internet. I used that for a while until I found a stronger signal that was closer by. However, it didn't have the SSID listed. So what did I do? I downloaded a trial of "COMMVIEW" for Wifi and found out that the SSID was just "linksys". I added linksys to my networks and connected. It was internet, but for some reason, it was stressing my computer out. I know it sounds strange, but when I was connected to it, my computer's processor usage was pegged at 100%. I connected back to famous sam's and my processor usage was fine. So, I reconnected to the linksys and poked around a bit. The settings looked like the standard settings. I didn't see anything unusual. I decided that there must be something funky with it and I took the liberty of upgrading the firmware on it to the latest open source DD-WRT firmware. I still had the same problem, but I found out that the DD-WRT firmware kicks butt. I was able to boost the signal strength and enable "wifi media" which boosts the priority class for smoother video and audio via wifi. It still didn't solve the processor usage issue. I eventually fixed it by telling DD-WRT to reset everything to default. I reconnected to the wifi, configured it exactly the same as it was (so the owner could connect to it still, as if nothing changed) and it worked. Processor usage was back down to reasonable. The network was faster too.
Anyways, I have a D-Link DGL-4300 which has some of the features of DD-WRT, but I wish that they open sourced the firmware for it. The WRT54G is a fine wireless router, but imagine what they could do with a more powerful one such as the DGL-4300.

83.95

2006-07-03T14:53:00.000-07:00

I bet my sister will like this one: time your typing speed! It's a short test, probably will only take you a minute. I got 83.95 words per minute (with 4 mistakes) - and I did the test twice with the exact same number each time. Wait for the page to load, then click in the box and type exactly what appears above it. You must correct each mistake. I have to put that on my resume now!

IBackup comment spam

2006-06-08T07:38:00.000-07:00

I hate iBackup, and whoever uses it should be shot. Why? Twice in as many weeks I have gotten comment spam promoting their site. So, be warned. Don't ever do business with them. I have now turned on comment moderation. If you are not a member of the blogger.com community, I will have to personally approve your comment if you want to comment on my page.

Pictures from the trip to Italy

2006-06-07T22:09:00.000-07:00

here http://www.flickr.com/photos/spiderx

Back From Italy

2006-05-28T20:03:00.000-07:00

I just got back about an hour ago, and it was amazing. I can't really form any sentences now about it... anyways, I'll write more later.

Gone for the week

2006-05-19T21:40:00.000-07:00

Alright peeps. I'm off to Italy in the morning. I'll report back sometime next week with pictures and everything. I am so excited!

Stupid People

2006-05-16T15:22:00.000-07:00

Why anyone who protests "Da Vinci Code" is a retard: It's fiction! The book is a work of fiction! Nobody raised a stink for the book anyways, they are trying to get publicity for the movie. I for one, vow never to watch the movie. Not because I disagree with the FICTION author's imagination, but because I dislike the fake protests and marketing used to sell the movie to me. Newspapers need to stop reporting on these nonexistant protests.

2006-05-15T10:49:00.000-07:00

My messy room - panorama. I created a panorama with this cool software called autostitch. It's really worth checking out. Anyways, yes my room is messy. I was in the middle of doing laundry, and preparing for my trip to Italy.

Aeroporto

2006-05-14T15:21:00.000-07:00

Questa fine settimana, sto lasciando il paese e sto andando in Italia per una settimana! Sono in modo da eccitato!

Just Two Things

2006-05-08T17:03:00.000-07:00

1. Hospitals Suck
2. Kidney stones suck.

I Hate Linux

2006-04-23T18:50:00.000-07:00

Why? Driver support! I have a Wireless NIC card, works beautiful in windows... install SUSE 10, works great with my mouse, keyboard, monitor, sound card.. FUCK NO when it comes to my DWL-AG530. Why? No fucking clue. It doesn't connect to my AP for some stupid reason. No error messages, nothing. It just doesn't wanna fucking connect. I fought with it for a good 4 hours before giving in. Fuck linux. Oh, and another piece of hardware that won't work even though its supposed to? my Plextor PX-TV402U. Yeah, try to get that sombitch working. I really wanted to like Linux, but all this shit about not supported hardware, or half-assed supported hardware has got to stop. My hardware says its supported, but apparently it's supported by toothpicks. If anyone has gotten SUSE 10, 64bit, working with their wlan DWL-AG530, then what did you do? If you say you just let it detect, configured it for your ssid, I will personally strangle you to death!!!!!!!!!!

Sodoku

2006-04-17T21:17:00.000-07:00

Tonight I discovered the game of Sodoku. It's a number game. You try to get all the numbers in the grid without any number being in the same row, column, or 3x3 cell twice. I just completed my first ever, and it took me about an hour and a half. Anyways, check it out: Sodoku.

Call me on Ether

2006-04-06T21:21:00.000-07:00

I updated my price to just $25 per call to coincide with Ether giving the sellers $25 to call someone.

New Undies

2006-03-28T13:45:00.000-07:00

Damn, I need to buy some new underwear... These are getting faded. Still, I think they are pretty comfortable. I'll have to find some good boxer briefs.

Just Say No To Drugs

2006-03-27T10:36:00.000-07:00

"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."
Carl Sagan

Dinner Tonight

2006-03-22T20:02:00.000-07:00

Tonight I drove home with my windows open it was so nice out. I think it was around 72 degrees here. I felt like having something home made, so I stopped by the local supermarket. I bought corn, carrots, mushrooms, onions, soy milk, vegetable broth, some saffron, and a baguette. With my father's help, I was able to make one hell of a stew. It was good, and it seemed it kept getting better as you were eating it.

Too Good Stew

2 breasts of chicken, cooked and diced
1 quart of vegetable broth
1 medium white onion, diced
2 corn cobs, slice the corn off the cob for fresh, sweet corn.
6 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 celery sticks, chopped thin
1 lb of mushrooms, diced
5 cloves of garlic, pressed
1 pinch of saffron (I just dipped in one chopstick to get some saffron on it)

Seasonings:
celery salt
paprika
white pepper
black pepper

Boil the broth, add the veggies, chicken, and saffron, then season to taste. Let it come to a boil, then cover and simmer for 35 to 40 minutes. The saffron turns the whole thing yellow, except for the carrots of course. This is just enough to serve 4 people as a main course. It's a hearty stew. If you want, you can substitute for 2 quarts of chicken broth to serve more people. It's pretty thick with just 1 quart of vegetable broth.

free online storage

2006-03-22T12:17:00.000-07:00

Here's something else that's cool - 1gb free online storage. Box.net gives you 1gb free online storage in a slick user interface. It works as advertised. A lot of the time, these 'free online storage' sites act like webpages. This acts like an application. With others, it feels as though your files are locked up in some intricate box. This just feels like you can do anything you want with your files. Check it out. If I get 5 free signups, I get my account upgraded free.. woohoo. I'm using it to store files I need for work.

call my service

2006-03-20T17:02:00.000-07:00

spiderx

1-888-MY-ETHER ext. 01374453

Try my service, I'll fix your computer over the internet, $30 for 45 minutes!

Dungeons and Dragons Online

2006-03-12T22:32:00.000-07:00

This weekend I bought Dungeons and Dragons Online: Stormreach. I felt that I should give my thoughts on it. I played the beta and had fun. However, I've played the final product, and it is great. The voice chat works good (not great, but good) and the experiences you have in the dungeons is superb. Today I did several dungeon crawls. One was where I had to protect some box from thieves, another where I had to hunt down these kobolds, and one where I had to recover a magic book. All three felt very different. They were all very fun. If you like Everquest for its dungeons (and not really the wide open "free for all campfest") then this game is for you. Don't expect to powerlevel in this game. I played it for about 6 hours today and I got to level 2. The same 6 hours in EQ or WOW, and you'd probably be level 8 or 10 already. So, leveling is slow, but the game is enjoyable enough where you won't really care that you aren't leveling up that quickly. It's just a lot of fun. The voice chat is really good for this, but it needs a bit of improvement to make it what it should be. First off, the voice chat didn't work at all at first. I had to enable it, then change my sound mode from 'hardware 3d' to 'software'. once I did that, people were able to hear me, and I was able to hear them. Changing it back to 'hardware 3d', I was able to keep using voice chat. So, I'm sure this is an issue that will be fixed in a later update. The voice activation worked pretty well, but my problem was that I wasn't using headphones, and it kept echoing everything back. What I like most about the game though, is the dungeons. The dungeons are what make this game fun. There are traps everywhere, levers to pull to open doors, hidden rooms, treasure chests, ambushes, waterways, crypts, puzzles... and more. It seems every one is a bit different. One had water everywhere, another was dark and covered with thick fog. I was pretty impressed. The graphics are nicely done, and it seems to use all the latest features of my video card without slowing down the game. The animations of slashing and attacking have just enough of a motion blur so you can see how your weapon is moving. Hmm... one more thing... I have a "guest pass" that came with the game. I can let my friend borrow the game, copy it, and use the guest pass, to login and try it for 10 days (with the option to buy later). Now I just have to decide who is worthy enough for it...

Start Smoking Now!

2006-03-09T10:38:00.000-07:00

Have you ever considered old age? No? Have too much money on you? Then smoking is for you! You aren't worried about getting cancer or emphysema, heart disease, or ulcers. You want to trade fresh, clean air for smoky, carbon monoxide filled air. You wear perfume (or cologne) AND want to enhance that smell with the smell of a freshly burned cigarette. Yes, smoking is perfect for you. As a reminder to continue smoking, you will get "reminder" headaches - these remind you that hey, you are overdo for your next cigarette! As an added bonus, you will get "smoke mouth" where anyone who kisses you will get the distinct taste of "ashtray" free of charge!
(yes, sarcastic)

Posted from a public bathroom...

2006-03-01T13:39:00.000-07:00

More advice on using a public toilet safely:
When you pull down your pants, don't pull them down farther than your knees. If they are around your ankles, it leaves your wallet close to the floor where it would be easy for someone in the next stall to nab. Also, this gives you the opportunity to inspect your underwear. Is it starting to show some wear? Might be time to buy a new pair...

McDonald's overcharged me!

2006-02-24T19:28:00.000-07:00

Today after work I stopped by my local McDonald's to have some dinner. I go up and order a Crispy Chicken Club and a Spicy Chicken ($1 menu item). I get charged $5.58. I wait for my food, and they bring it out and say "thanks" to me. I look, and I didn't get a Crispy Chicken Club, I got a Crispy Chicken Sandwich. What's the difference? The Club has cheese and bacon on it. I bring it back to the counter, state that it's not what I ordered, and they promptly order me the correct sandwich. I get back to my table and look over at my receipt...


Chicken Club - CPY $4.09
Spicy Chicken      $1.09
Tax                $0.40
------------------------
Total              $5.58

I thought that chicken club was pretty expensive, so I check the menu... It lists it as $3.89. hmm... So, I go up to the counter and notify them of the mistake. The guy behind the counter says "that's what we charge for the chicken club." I reply to him, "the sign says 3.89. Either change the sign, or fix my bill." He replies "sorry, that's what we charge. The price went up. To which I reply "Can I speak to your manager?" He turns around and asks the lady behind him (who has 'shift manager' printed on her badge) and she tries (and fails) at doing the math in her head... I say "20 cents is the difference between the price you charged and the advertised price of the sandwich. I just want a refund of the difference." So, the guy looks at the manager, they both look at me, and she says 'ok' and the guy pulls out a quarter! $0.25!! I hand it back and tell him "Perhaps you don't understand. I'm asking for $0.20 not $0.25" He says "it's okay keep it." I reply "Sorry, but I just want it right. Do you have two dimes in there?" He then takes the quarter and gives me two dimes.

Now, in the heat of the moment, I neglected to ask for the 10 cents for the pricing error on the Spicy Chicken. Regardless, if you go to McDonalds, double check your receipt!!!
Here's what it should have looked like...


Chicken Club - CPY $3.89
Spicy Chicken      $1.00
Tax                $0.39
------------------------
Total              $5.28

Why would they do this? There are several reasons. I'll name the most likely.
1. McDonalds is secretly overcharging people everywhere. They make more money that way.
2. THIS McDonalds is secretly overcharging people. They skim the extra off the top, and some unscrupulous accountant pockets the money.
Regardless, it's certainly not an honest mistake.

Why I use NoScript for Firefox

2006-02-13T10:45:00.000-07:00

why-i-use-noscript-for-firefox
Originally uploaded by sp1d3rx.

This is why I use NoScript for Firefox. There are all kinds of scripts running from different servers on each page you visit. I don't want to run scripts from any site other than the one I'm visiting, which is why I use "NoScript". It will disable scripting from all sites, unless you choose to enable a specific site. It requires Firefox, but once you have this installed, your browsing will be faster and safer (and you'll have less ads) with NoScript.

One Sentence: An Entire Life

2006-01-30T11:46:00.000-07:00

"If happiness consists in satisfying the senses, life in old age will be a great torment, forever deprived of happiness, because aging means, among other things, the degeneration and decay of the sense-faculties." -- Prayudh Payutto (4/22/1996)

Hard Disk Compression: Faster or Slower?

2006-01-30T09:58:00.000-07:00

I have been a computer technician, technical trainer, tech support, network administrator, and now implementation analyst. I have about 15 years of computer experience. I educate people every day about their computers. One subject that comes up is hard disk compression. This is something of a 'pet issue' with me, so I thought I would write about it.

What is hard disk compression? It's where you are trading processing time for disk space. What happens in Windows is you set a file, folder, or disk to "compressed" mode, and any file is analyzed then compressed before being written to the disk. Obviously this analyzation and compression step adds a couple steps which take a certain amount of time to complete. This is the tradeoff you make to gain extra disk space, because compressed files take up less space on the disk than uncompressed files.

Now, I suggest enabling disk compression, yet a lot of people recommend never enabling it because they believe it will hurt performance. I reason that it does not hurt performance when used properly, and may even increase it in some circumstances.

So, what are these circumstances? I'll first explain how the compression works. When files are written to disk, the files are split into chunks that the drive can manage (bite sized chunks if you will). If a file is say 60 chunks, (assuming you enabled compression of the file) then NTFS takes the first 4 chunks, and runs it through a compression program. If those 4 can't be squeezed into 3 or less, then they are not compressed and are written to the drive as-is, and marked as not compressed. If they can, then they are written as compressed. This is called "block level compression" or "streaming compression". The reason why it is done this way is so that you don't have to read the entire file to uncompress it.

Ok, that's all good, but how would this improve performance? Hard drives are the slowest part of the computer. Processors are the fastest. The speed you gain by compressing a file comes from the decreased amount of time it takes to READ from the disk. So, disk compression is recommended when files will not change frequently. A few times a day isnt considered "frequent" in this case. Let's work out an example. You have a file that is 200 megs uncompressed on the disk. With NTFS compression, that makes it 100 megs on the disk. If your hard drive reads the disk at 50 megs per second then it will take 4 seconds to read the uncompressed file, and 2 seconds to read the compressed file. If it takes 0.5 seconds to uncompress the file, then you've saved 1.5 seconds. Obviously these numbers aren't exact. They are pretty close to reality though.

What files should be compressed? Any files that are used on a daily basis, but don't change on a daily basis. Your whole "program files" folder would be a good one to start. Your programs would generally load faster. Your "system32" folder in Windows would also be good. In fact, most files on your hard drive would benefit from compression. It's probably easier to list the times when you would want to disable compression.

What should I disable compression on? Games - for most games, a steady throughput with low processor overhead is better than high throughput with high processor overhead. Compression is okay for FPS games where everything is loaded into RAM (pre-cached) before the game starts, but for games like Everquest, or any online game (Second Life comes to mind) which streams content or loads content while the game is being played, you will want to disable compression, unless you enjoy having the game stutter while reading from the disk. Also, any 'download' folders should be uncompressed. Most of the time, anything you download will be compressed anyway, so why waste processor cycles on trying to compress a compressed file? If you regularly download tv shows or movies, do not set that folder to compressed, or you will experience stuttering while watching those too. Another thing is your temporary folders, c:\windows\temp or c:\temp won't benefit either. Database files should never be compressed, unless they are archives, or in 'read only' mode. If you are still not sure about which files to set to 'compressed' -
trust Microsoft. Use the disk cleanup wizard. Open "my computer" click
on your hard drive (usually C:) and select "File" then "Properties" and
choose "Disk Cleanup". Let it analyze your computer, and select
"compress old files". If you have never run this before, you may want
to let it run overnight.

Hopefully those of you that have older / slower hard drives can get some more use out of them using this guide. Regardless, now hard drives are so cheap, I've seen them for as low as $0.50 / gig. That's $150 for a 300 gig hard drive. So, if you are running out of space, and you have the money, it might be easier to just buy a new hard drive. Installing it is another matter...