Just random nonsense

Life, Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness and a 100Mb connection...

2009-10-15T10:57:00.002-05:00

So first I gotta say that I'm all for it. Think what you will, but the internet has to be one of the great inventions of our time. Just think of how many things it has made obsolete and then think of just how important those things were 20 years ago.

What do I mean? Well, for example, encyclopedias. Honestly, when was the last time someone came to your door and tried to sell you an encyclopedia? I'll bet it hasn't happened in a while! And how many people even still own one (or if they do, when was the last time a single volume was even opened)? I know when I grew up, I used them quite a bit in school. But they're outdated! It was printed text! It didn't change! Enter wikipedia. Maybe not the most accurate online resource, as it CAN be modified inaccurately, but it's FAR superior to any encyclopedia.

Another example? Okay. When was the last time you sent a letter (by mail) to someone who also has an e-mail address that they commonly check? I'm betting that you haven't! Heck, I don't even know what a postage stamp costs any more. All I know is that the last few times I've tried to use one, the mail was returned due to insufficient postage.

I digress. So Finland (the country in Europe, not the community in Minnesota) has decided to mandate that it's population has the right to high speed internet access. Starting in July, everyone will have access to a 1Mb connection, with the goal of 100Mb by 2015. Wow.

Before you think this is a bad idea, understand that it doesn't make it free. It just means that it's available to everyone. Like water and electricity. It's something you need.

2009-10-11T22:26:00.000-05:00

I don't know about you, but this would make me take the stairs!

What a silly little backwards town...

2009-08-13T13:10:00.004-05:00

http://www.enewscourier.com/local/local_story_224213331.html

Wow. Give me a break. So much for all the live music playing where I work...

I hate lawnwork.

2009-07-11T11:12:00.007-05:00

First of all, I have pretty bad allergies. Spring and Autumn (and most of the summer), most of my time is spent taking care of my nose. Just ask my parents, I'll make any excuse necessary to get out of it. Heck, I'd rather spend the day scrubbing floors than cutting grass. Well today was the first time I'd done any sort of lawnwork in years. The result?

FAIL!!!!!!

Why exactly? Well, I have a 'touch' of OCD and tend to want anything that has lines to be PERFECTLY straight and all angles to be right. Vacuuming carpet has the same result... I'll go back over the same spot 10 times just to get the lines right...

So, 4 hours later, I'm sneezy and my lawn looks 'decent'. But I'm not happy with it. I guess the only good things are that 1) I won't have to do it again for at least another week, and 2) The visible mowing lines should be gone by tomorrow...

*sigh*

~dx

NOT English and NO help available...

2009-07-09T15:44:00.003-05:00

So does anyone else still use MySpace? I mean, I know that it's outdated and that Facebook is FAR superior, but surely SOMEONE can help me with this...

I don't know what happened. I don't know what language that is, and I DON'T know how to fix it.

Help!

Columbus Day

2008-10-12T14:13:00.004-05:00

Columbus Day. A day that honors the founding of civilization in the Western Hemisphere by the Spanish, led by Christopher Columbus. His small fleet of only three ships, the Santa Maria, Pinta and Niña landed in America on October 12, 1492.

Hmm... How many errors do you see in that statement?

Christopher Columbus -- Wait -- Let's get this right: Christoforo Colombo was his birth name, if you believe most historians. There are a few who believe otherwise*.

Christoforo Colombo, a Spaniard -- Wait -- Let's get this right: He wasn't from Spain, he was Italian! Sorry, not quite. Christoforo Colombo was born in Genoa. Yes, Genoa is now a city in the country of Italy. However, 500 years ago, Genoa was actually it's own republic. The Republic of Genoa became part of Italy, when it unified in 1861. So to be historically accurate then, we should say "Christoforo Colombo, a Genoan -- Wait -- Christoforo Colombo became a citizen of Spain and changed his name to Cristóbal Colón.

...

Right. So where does that leave us?

Cristóbal Colón, a Spaniard, his journey having been finance by the King and Queen of Spain -- Wait -- In reality, most of the financial backing for his voyages came from private "Italian" investors. The Spanish did agree to help him financially (after several other bodies like the English and Portugese said no), but having just recently ousted the Muslims in Granada, they were a little tight on money themselves. He set sail with his three ships, the Santa Maria, the Pinta and the Niña -- Wait -- Actually, it was the Santa Maria, the Pinta and the Santa Clara. The name Niña was only a nickname.

At 2:00 AM on October 12, 1942, a sailor on the Pinta sighted land. Wow! Guess they could see better back then. I can't even find the keyhole on my door at 2:00 AM, and don't tell me they weren't drinking. They were sailors, afterall... Now unlike many of us learned, they were NOT discovering what would later become the USA. In fact, they found the island later named San Salvador in the Bahamas. During his four journeys, he did make landfall several times on what is now Cuba, but that was a close as he ever got to the United States.

Leif Ericson landed a litle closer to home about 500 years earlier. He was a Norseman (believed born in Iceland) and landed in what is now Newfoundland, Canada around 1000 A.D. In 1964, the US began recognizing October 9th as Leif Ericson Day, although not nearly as widely recognized as the 3 day later celebration of (and 500 year later discovery by) Christopher Columbus.

And honestly, can we really say that civilization was brought the west by Europeans? I'm not proclaiming myself an expert, but I'd say the Incan and Mayan empires were fairly civilized...

So, happy Colón Day! (Mine's happy, how's yours?)

~D

* It is narrowly (the opposite of widely?) believed that Christopher Columbus was actually born in Portugal as Salvador Fernandes Zarco.

Do it tomorrow. Do it today. Do it NOW!!!!!!

2008-10-03T00:54:00.001-05:00

It's official

2008-09-16T00:30:00.002-05:00

For those of you who've been out of the loop, I apologize.

For those of you in the loop, I can now tell you that it's official.

The same geekish gotta see...

2008-09-12T01:08:00.002-05:00

Came across this a while back... I posted the instructions on how to view it, but apparently it was moved pretty soon after. Well it's back up and just as "gotta-watch-able" as ever.

===================================

Quick instructions for those of you running windows:
Click on the start menu
Select "Run..."
Type "telnet" and press ok
type the letter 'o' and press enter
type 'towel.blinkenlights.nl' and press enter

Star Trek as The A-Team

2008-09-12T01:02:00.000-05:00

Another geekish gotta see...

2008-06-17T14:54:00.003-05:00

Came across this today. Definitely worth watching, just out of respect for the amount of time taken to make it. First, launch your chosen telnet application, then connect to telnet.blinkenlights.nl and watch the movie.

Of course, now's the time when those of you who know what telnet is are going, "Wait! You can't WATCH movies via telnet! It's just a dumb text interface!" But I say you're wrong. Maybe it's not the best graphics in the world, but it's still recognizable!

===================================

Quick instructions for those of you running windows:
Click on the start menu
Select "Run..."
Type "telnet" and press ok
type the letter 'o' and press enter
type 'telnet.blinkenlights.nl' and press enter

2008-05-26T15:37:00.001-05:00

We arrived in Neptune Beach late Wednesday night (well, actually, it was early Thursday morning). Went swimming in my sister's pool on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Griffin wanted nothing to do with the water at all at first, but eventually, he would get near the water to pull toys out of the pool, and then put them back in. We went to the beach on Sunday, but again, Griffin would have nothing to do with the water. When we went back to the beach on Monday, I finally forced Griffin to get in the ocean. Once he was there, he refused to get out. That figures. I guess I should have forced him in the first day we were here... He was completely willing to get in the pool this afternoon as well and I'm going to delay my return to Alabama so that he can have a little more time in the waters on Tuesday. I guess the next time we come down (which, given my past history, will be in about 3 years), he'll be willing to jump right in without any hesitation.

From Florida vacat...

Phoenix has landed!

2008-05-25T19:10:00.002-05:00

47 years ago today, President Kennedy gave his now famous "We choose to go to the moon..." speech. In January of 2004, President Bush directed NASA to make plans to return man to the Moon and beyond. Today, another robotic craft was added to the plethora of craft operating on or in orbit of Mars. The Mars Phoenix Lander touched down at mars at 7:36 EDT. If you were watching CNN or NASA TV, you would have seen live shots of the celebration starting at 7:53, when the signal from Mars was received. The new mission is a polar lander with the mission of finding water frozen in the Martian soil. Evidence of water is widespread on Mars and has been suspected to have flown on Mars' surface in the past since the first pictures from the Mariner missions in the late 60s and early 70s.

Let's hope that this mission is successful enough to keep our government aware of the use of spending money on the exploration of space.

[edited 5/26 at 8:15pm CDT]

I know some of you are asking, why isn't there a picture here. Well, I'll tell you. I was waiting for a good one. And BOY DID WE GET ONE!!! I'm putting the first color image received up as well, but more important is the image on the left. It was taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and represents another first: the first time one robotic craft has imaged another robotic craft landing on a planetary body. I'm not going to give quite the extravagant description as Phil Plait, but please check out this post if you don't get how extraordinary this picture really is.

Took a little trip down to St. Augustine

2008-05-24T19:09:00.005-05:00

So while we were in Florida we decided to make use of a good weather day to take a trip down to St. Augustine. There's an old castillo there. I'd call it a fort, but I guess that castillo is just the Spanish word for it... Took about 100 pictures while we were in St. Augustine, most of which are on my Picasa site. Gonna go to the beach tomorrow and will bring the camera (assuming the weather holds out). Check back for more!

I'm a geek

2008-05-22T16:08:00.001-05:00

And I find this funny. You may not...

VACATION!!! Whee!

2008-05-22T08:31:00.003-05:00

Finally! (At least I know that my sister is thinking that, as I've promised for at least two years that I'd take a Summer vacation at her place but failed to come through on said promise...) We're in Florida! This will be Griffin's first trip to the beach and he's already having a blast. I'll keep uploading pictures all week, so be sure to keep an eye on: http://picasaweb.google.com/daxid78/FloridaVacationMay2008.

OMG!!!!! I SOOOOOO want one!!!!!

2008-05-02T17:54:00.001-05:00

And while we're talking poetry...

2008-04-21T00:06:00.000-05:00

If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port
And the bus is interrupted at a very last resort
And the access of the memory makes your floppy disk abort
Then the socket packet pocket has an error to report.

If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash
And the double-clicking icon puts your window in the trash
And your data is corrupted cause the index doesn't hash
Then your situation's hopeless, and your system's gonna crash!

If the label on the cable on the table at your house
Says the network is connected to the button on your mouse
But your packets want to tunnel unto another protocol
That's repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall,
And your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss
So your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse
Then you may as well reboot and go out with a bang
'Cuz sure as I'm a poet, the sucker's gonna hang!

When the copy of your floppy's getting sloppy in the disk
And the macrocode instructions cause unnecessary risk
Then you'll have to flash the memory and you'll want to RAM your ROM.
Quickly turn off the computer and be sure to tell your Mom!

Some not-so-random nonsense for today

2008-04-21T00:04:00.000-05:00

<> ! * ' ' #
^ " ` $ $ -
! * = @ $ _
% * <> ~ # 4
& [ ] . . /
| { , , system halted

Can you smell the beer and hot dogs yet?

2008-03-11T21:05:00.003-05:00

It's almost time for baseball to start again. And for those of us who refuse to go and spend $100 at a game due to the INSANE prices that means watching it on TV. While that's nowhere near the real experience, having kids that play T-ball does come close. At least the fans still yell at the umpire...

Anyway, my son started his second season this year. Here are a few pictures from practice tonight.

And speaking of spending too much money at a game, I saw (but didn't get to read) an article in the USA Today this past week about some ball parks opening a single-price, eat and drink all you can section. Anyone else heard anything about that?

Finally!

2008-03-10T13:08:00.005-05:00

So after years of wanting, I finally got it. I never thought I'd be the last one in my family to get a laptop, but at least I finally have one. While I was at it, I got a new desktop machine too.

Family Fun Night

2007-12-18T22:29:00.000-06:00

On Monday, the whole family went to Santa's Village in Huntsville. I'd suggest anyone with kids take them there at least once a year. For only $15, our family of four was able to spend a night together away from the house, without having to constantly worry about what the kids were getting in to. After all, most of the entertainment value here is tailored for kids (even if the kids in question are 20+ years old...)

While a great time was had by all, there were a couple of brief moments of sheer terror. I guess that at 18 months, you're not quite ready for frozen wetness to fall on you...

Of course, you'll also want to make sure that the same 18 month old has at least some vague idea who this man in a bright red suit, covered in snow-white hair is. (ah-well... at least the 6 foot penguin didn't scare him. I guess he's just more of a south-pole kid) The 5 year old did get a great picture with Santa. Click here and you'll find it there, along with the other seventy-some-odd pictures we took that night. Pictures of "Flying Reindeer in Training" that obviously had tired of all the training and decided it would be a better idea to take a nap... Pictures of your wife accepting your "triple-dog-dare"...

There are several activities to keep you entertained: You can make an ornament in Santa's workshop; You can write a letter to Santa and give it to one of his elves (or just put in in Santa's mailbox); You can listen while Mrs. Claus reads you a story; You can take a variety pictures in the many picturesque locations to provide many versions of your Christmas card.

In all seriousness, the pictures alone were worth the price of admission. And I'd almost pay that much just for the snow. Oh, and you get a cookie!

I did it! I finally did it!

2007-12-16T10:45:00.000-06:00

Well, it may have taken me a few years, but I, at last, can put my Rubik's Professor on display next to my Cube and Revenge. That's right, it's solved!

Now, I don't know exactly when I purchased the puzzle, but I know I bought it on eBay. I was not entirely surprised when it came without a box (and thus also without the handy "How to solve" book...). And having learned to solve a Rubik's Cube at a young age, I figured "It's just a regular Cube with an extra row along all the edges, right? How hard can it be?"

Well I'll tell you. A Rubik's Cube has 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 possible permutations, where as the Professor has 282,870,942,277,741,856,536,180,333,107,150,328,293,127,731,985,672,134,721,536,000,000,000,000,000
(note: you may have to enlarge your window to see that number in it's entirety...) possible permutations. Quite a big difference... So, after playing with it off and on for a couple of years I decided that I was going to solve it. I had written down a few combinations of turns that I had figured out in the past, but still hadn't quite figured out what order to solve it in. After nailing that procedure down, I was on a roll. I estimate my final time was somewhere around 5 hours from randomized to solved (Nowhere near the world-record time of just under a minute and 45 seconds) and I'm happy with that! I'm sure that with practice I can get it down under 5 minutes, but for now, I'm going to give my hands a rest.

Next on my list? The Rubik's Revenge. While it's smaller and ultimately less complicated than the Professor, I simply haven't ever attempted to solve it. When it came in the mail, I was impressed to find that it was actually in a solved form, and I don't want to mess it up. :-)

My second blog entry

2007-12-09T10:49:00.000-06:00

I wanted to say this was my first. I really did. But, truth be told, my first blog post ever is gone. Never to be found again on the internet. (Well, maybe some search engine cached it somewhere... I'll have to try and look for it. Dangit... why did I have to go there...) In any case, I'll try to use this blog more often. You may even find out actual useful information from time to time...