Tom's Blog

Genetic disease screening

2010-04-24T03:03:00.004-05:00

I recently came across 23andme.com a personal genomics company (sadly I missed their $99 sale that was going on yesterday).

There's another interesting potential use for genetic disease screening.

Say there's a disease for which there is a genetic test, and there are also good preventative care options for this disease.

Ideally, you would take the test, find out if you're at risk, and if you are at risk have the insurance company pay for the prevantative care.

This would be good for the insurance company too -- the preventative care would cost them less than paying if you actually did get sick.

I'd imagine that would save billions of dollars per year for both consumers and insurance companies. I think a third party that makes such tests could be quite a profitable business venture...

kinetic energy recovery systems

2009-10-22T20:18:00.005-05:00

(edit: after a bit of googling it seems I am not the only one with this idea. and I am starting to think it will also be beneficial in full electric and gas/electric hybrids. also, this would be great in many other application such as trains/cranes/etc)

In all present road vehicles, braking is achieved by an absurdly crude and wasteful method: The kinetic energy of the vehicle is turned into heat by friction in the brakes, where it is (literally) thrown into the wind.

The main benefit with battery electric hybrids is regenerative braking. And with electric vehicles the mechanical energy has to be converted to electrical and then back to mechanical. There are losses in efficiency in this conversion.

What I am curious about is why I cannot find very much information about mechanical kinetic energy recovery systems (eg storing the energy used in braking in a flywheel). I found some stuff about F1 using something similar with a cvt controlling the flywheel. however I cannot find any information on efficiency gains nor can I find anything pointing to anyone (major manufactures or small startups) trying to develop such a system. edit: http://green.autoblog.com/2007/10/31/more-details-about-the-flywheel-kinetic-energy-recovery-system/

I cannot help but think that the efficiency gain would be huge (eg energy would not be wasted starting and stopping, essentially highway mpg would == city mpg). Not to mention the possible improvement in performance (eg have power delivered to the wheels from the flywheel AND the engine) while reducing the wear on the brakes. While yes, you might be carrying around an extra 30-40lbs, the energy needed to move that weight I would imagine would be far surpassed by the amount of energy it could store and reuse eg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotational_energy

If the efficiency gains are large it might not be a bad idea for myself to work on creating such a system that can be easily adapted to any automobile (would not make sense for gas/electric hybrids since they already have regen braking).

Still, it looks like the small companies that are working on it do not actually have a product that is out to market yet (just F1, nothing for consumers yet). Probably quite a bit of room for some competition. I need to get a crappy car and a few thousand dollars to develop this now...

EDIT: here are a few high level mock ups of current systems (without a kinetic energy recovery system) and with a kinetic energy recovery system using a flywheel. Ideas on how it can be improved... let me know in a comment.

Eg when you first start driving or when there is no energy in the flywheel:

Used for braking/slowing down:

Reusing only the energy stored in the flywheel from braking/slowing down:

Using energy from both the engine and the flywheel for added efficiency and power:

other notes:
"A flywheel system offers up to twice the efficiency of a battery storage system. The overall in-out efficiency of 65 to 70 percent compares to 35 to 45 percent for a hybrid battery-electric system. That is because it's an entirely mechanical system. In a battery system, kinetic energy has to be converted back and forth to electrical and chemical energy, thus the efficiency losses."

"The energy stored in a lightweight steel and composite flywheel spinning at over 60,000 rpm can be used to accelerate the vehicle. The FIA defined the amount of energy recovery for the 2009 season as 400 kiloJoules per lap, providing an extra 80 horsepower over a period of 6.67 seconds. Its low weight, about 55 pounds, is also very important in motorsports."

article from 1993

what would be cool would be to also implement is a type of cvt. eg totally replace the friction brakes and depending on how hard you press on the "brake" pedal the higher ratio the cvt has thus the more quickly the energy will be placed into the flywheel. likewise the "brake" pedal could also control how quickly the energy can be displaced back to the wheels. granted this can already be done with the regular transmission.

edit: it's probably best to leave the engine in gear while decelerating
"When coasting with the engine running and manual transmission in neutral, or clutch depressed, there will still be some fuel consumption due to the engine needing to maintain idle speed. While coasting with the engine running and the transmission in gear, most cars' engine control unit with fuel injection will cut off fuel supply, and the engine will continue running, being driven by the wheels. Compared to coasting in neutral, this has an increased drag, but has the added safety benefit of being able to react in any sudden change in a potential dangerous traffic situation, and being in the right gear when acceleration is required."
yes, there will be more drag, but I doubt it would take more energy than the energy used in fuel to keep the engine idling.
The optimal solution would be similar to the VW Lupo (I think) that would on the fly be able to turn the engine off while decelerating and was able to start the engine automatically within like .5 seconds... No reason to run the engine when it is not needed.

Very unscientific (and knowingly incorrect) ROI analysis for a block heater

2009-10-07T00:01:00.003-05:00

I recently purchased a block heater. I bought it for the purpose of increasing fuel mileage and also to have heat working sooner when I drive off in the winter.

To me it seemed like basic physics. An engine runs at its peak efficiency when it is at it's optimal operating temperature which is around 195F. I did not initially do any research as what the ROI would be for this purchase. But I am doing some rudimentary analysis now.

I could not find any ROI analysis for a block heater so I figured I might as well create one. Some of the data I used is incorrect since said data does not exist and I do not have the tools to properly collect said data.

I have also found some data (not really 100% credible, but there is no real reason for them to lie) that suggests that the efficiency gains (in terms of reduced fuel consumption) of a block heater remain true in the summer as well as winter.

The unit cost $30 from amazon.

There are 365 days in a year and I estimate that I will use the heater 95% of the time so about 347 days each year I will use the device. In Illinois electricity is about $0.09/kwh. The device consumes 0.2 kw/h and most forums online say it only needs to be plugged in about 2 hours before driving to heat the engine to an optimal temperature (maximization problem with the curve that I am ignoring). So for each day I use it I will probably only have it plugged in for 2 hours. So it will probably take less than $13/year in electricity costs.

Here is where my data is non existent and I used another model which I assume is similar. I am assuming that driving my moms 2002 chrysler 300m takes about five minutes of driving to reach it's optimal temperature (for efficiency). This may be a bit conservative, it probably take a bit longer.

Then I used http://www.metrompg.com/posts/warm-up-idling.htm to get an average of how inefficient the engine would be for the first five minutes (again, no correct data was available but I can see the numbers on that site being reasonable).
So from their data (1.5+1.1+1+.8+.7+.7)/6=.966 so .5(fuel consumption at optimal temp)/.9666(avg of fuel consumption for first 5 minutes of operating)=.517 so 51.7% efficiency.

My mothers car gets about 25mpg when running at optimal temperature, full tires, 10w30, no wind...

so 51.7% of that is 12.93mpg for the first five minutes of driving. I would estimate my average speed for my first 5 mins of driving is about 40mph=.66 miles per minute. so in 5 minutes I travel 3.33 miles where I am only getting about 12.93mpg.

so 347 days*3.33 miles=1156 miles I was driving per year where I was getting 12.93mpg. With gas at $2.55/gallon and assuming that having the heater plugged in for 2 hours will get the engine to it's optimal temperature where it gets 25mpg it would save about $110 in gasoline per year. This is not subtracting the $13/year in electricity costs nor is it taking into consideration the initial $30 purchase price.

I am too lazy right now to do a breakeven analysis to find out how long it would take to break-even and start saving money.

some other info I would like to take into consideration http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-prius-main-forum/23749-some-hard-numbers-block-heater-operation.html#post296616 possibly later (eg, using the heater I think would only provide 19mpg on average for the first 5 mins thus only $73 saved on gas per year)

This is ignoring the obvious benefit of the comfort of having a warm car right away when you drive off on a blisteringly cold day and also ignoring the benefit it would have on the engine (oil is more viscous and it is a lot easier on the engine to start it warm vs cold thus it will probably last longer). It also ignores the heat dispersion/etc and a bunch of mathematical and scientific stuff for now. It also ignores time value of money stuff. investing an extra $5/month for 25 years at a 10% return would result in almost $7k at the end of the 25 years. Again, this ignores the fact that the car will have a longer useful life (hopefully) and yes I know, it's not mine.

Let me know if you find a proper ROI analysis for block heaters.

Been Awhile

2009-10-06T23:57:00.002-05:00

It's been 8 months since my last post and I feel that this trend of infrequent posts will continue but not to the same extent. Possibly I will update this blog once every 1-2 months or whenever I feel I have something important/interesting enough to post.

I used to post here to keep friends and family up to date and I was posting about quite a bit of frivolous stuff. I have found that twitter helps to fill this niche. I'm still not sure what would be classified as important/interesting enough to post here vs twitter. I guess I will figure it out as I go along.

wow

2009-02-28T16:28:00.002-06:00

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/401779_schene28.html

6'2 195lb cop on "administrative leave" (still getting paid)

1. beats the shit out of a tiny 15 year old girl
2. shoots a mentally ill man 11 times
3. Gets a DUI

omg he was "assaulted" with a shoe...

why did the cop who was with him not arrest the other cop? at the very least he could have used means to stop his partners abusive behavior.
all cops are the same. if there were any good cops, there would be no bad cops.

fucking cowards.

why/why not?

2009-02-17T22:59:00.002-06:00

why bailout the auto industry? If there was value to it, private investors would back it. Why make the taxpayer have to pay for something with no value?

why not cut spending rather than "stimulate" the economy? the only way we are going to pay for this "stimulus" is debt/print money/taxation, all of which will be like not using lube...

while I agree that spending money on infrastructure is great, why not keep it at the state level like it's suppose to be. The fed should not get involved in that.

i could go on... but hopefully this provides *some* clarity.

25 things about me

2009-02-13T09:46:00.000-06:00

1. I get bored very easily causing me to never finish anyt

chromium on debian/os x

2009-02-11T22:35:00.004-06:00

thanks to codeweavers

http://www.codeweavers.com/services/ports/chromium/

works fairly well (well... heh, screenshot might suggest otherwise).

Cannot wait until google finally releases an official port for linux/mac (cannot believe they did not make it platform agnosticish from the beginning).

One thing I hate (but I understand the reasoning, complexity=bugs/problems, but i think soon [probably even now] the benefits will outweigh the costs) about firefox/epiphany/etc is that they are all single threaded and do not take advantage of multicore cpu's very well.

this becomes somewhat of a big deal if you are like me and use google for just about everything (docs/calendar/reader/mail/blogger/finance/search). most of their stuff is very ajaxy and requires a bunch of cpu power (yay for php+javascript+whatever else for ajax to work).

Working on a google docs spreadsheet in firefox is aweful. you see the one core pegged at full load (the one firefox process eatting up 100% making the entire browser unusable) and the other core sitting idle.

Even though firefox 3.1 is much quicker at javascript (on par with chrome) it sucks not being able to do anything in your browser while you are waiting for 10+ seconds for your spreadsheet to finish applying some formula.

chrome is great, and while yes, it takes about the same amount of time to update formulas, I can actually do something else like check my gmail while I am waiting.

I understand it is probably going to be very difficult to make firefox multithreaded, but would it hurt to look towards the future and create a multithreaded branch for developers to start working towards a multithreaded firefox?

All I can say is, thank god for competition. if it were not for chrome, it would probably be a much longer wait for firefox to implement.

and now I go back to accounting homework...

Barack Obama is tired of your motherfucking shit

2009-02-06T15:27:00.000-06:00

not sure if this is real, if it is, lol

Differential Synchronization - google tech talk

2009-02-06T15:21:00.001-06:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2Hp_1jqpY8

microsoft, this is fucking brilliant

2009-02-01T04:08:00.001-06:00

Songsmith is creating beautiful art. sheer genius.

billy idol's White wedding interpreted via songsmith

good/bad

2009-01-27T23:48:00.002-06:00

well, cannot get internet access in my room anymore, neighbors ap won't even connect anymore :(
hopefully this awesome neighbor gets it fixed up soonish.

on the plus side I found a faster network (400kbps vs 50kbps), but it can only be accessed from downstairs where it's really cold and I don't have my table/whiteboard/monitor/keyboard/etc

both essid's were "linksys" thus the compy seemed to be confused about which it was connecting to.

and thanks to http://64.223.189.234/node/808 (change settings on router w/o password) I was able to move to the clear channel 1 (probably why I get 400kbps). I am surprised by how huge of an exploit that is, only discovered this past year and so many millions of linksys ap's with the stock firmware from before 2008...

update your firmware if you care about security!!!

i would ask for permission, but i'm not harming anything, and it's their signal on the property. not to mention how weird it would be to go door to door to strangers asking if you can use their wifi to browse the web. might get shot...

dammit, miss my desk so bad. so damn cold...

I know I am retarded

2009-01-26T04:32:00.003-06:00

but is this really all that difficult?

"prove the identity of each of the following boolean equations, using algebraic manipulation:
wy+w'yz'+wxz+w'xy'=wy+w'xz'+x'yz'+xy'z
"
what I have so far (not even sure if it's right)
w(y+xz)+w'(yz'+xy') (the yz' +xy' would both=0 thus drop out)
wy+wxz+w'

any help?

*EDIT
turns out it is very difficult and took our professor ~4-5 hours just to do this problem. nobody else got it.

pie is good

2009-01-24T02:09:00.002-06:00

Proofreading is not a good place to cut the budget

2009-01-24T00:31:00.002-06:00

the lab book for my computer organization class is horrendous.
I have only gone through about 25 pages and have already come across:
1. grammatical errors. This would not be a problem typically (heck I do it all the time), except it is since some key points are uninterpretable.
2. Spelling errors. Not as big of a deal, usually you can figure out what they are attempting to convey.
3. Telling you "the following LED's should then light up" and then being like "wtf, they are not lighting up" only to find out that they tell you 20 pages later how to wire the lights. I shit you not.

The first two I would normally shrug and go on, but every 3rd paragraph contains errors.

these tardbuckets expect people to be able to "easily learn assembly" when they cannot even be bothered to proofread?

What the fuck happened to the world when I was not looking?

*cracks open another beer^
^out of whiskey :(

waiting game

2009-01-22T10:18:00.003-06:00

CH 12 ][ Elapsed: 3 mins ][ 2009-01-22 10:17

BSSID PWR Beacons #Data, #/s CH MB ENC CIPHER AUTH ESSID

00:1F:33:46:8A:76 0 2 0 0 1 54 WPA TKIP PSK TSU1998
00:18:F8:B8:99:29 0 44 5 0 6 54 WEP WEP mike
00:22:A4:20:6F:99 0 41 0 0 7 54 WPA TKIP PSK 2WIRE957
00:18:F8:C0:58:6D 0 350 2 0 6 54 WPA TKIP PSK soling family
00:21:7C:AD:53:29 0 106 0 0 5 54. WPA TKIP PSK 2WIRE942
00:18:39:62:0E:A8 0 1986 23 0 6 54 OPN linksys
00:1B:5B:69:94:D9 0 2242 0 0 6 54. WEP WEP 2WIRE354
00:18:3F:0E:69:E9 0 2219 0 0 6 54. WEP WEP Wilmot
00:18:F8:C3:8E:D6 0 874 2 0 6 54 WEP WEP Black Label Society Network
00:22:6B:02:A1:88 0 2237 0 0 6 54 WPA TKIP PSK @MikeAsh
00:1D:5A:61:D8:41 0 1351 13 0 6 54. WEP WEP PATRICIA
00:1E:E5:B3:02:FA 0 2183 0 0 6 54 OPN @Home02FA
00:18:3F:89:55:C1 0 1515 0 0 6 54. WEP WEP 2WIRE997
00:18:3F:86:CE:51 0 15 0 0 6 54. WEP WEP 2WIRE163
16:3D:9B:02:7C:6D -1 294 0 0 6 11 WEP WEP
00:18:3F:0D:8B:21 0 4 0 0 6 54 WEP WEP 2WIRE515
00:1F:B3:72:D6:51 0 10 0 0 7 54. WPA TKIP PSK 2WIRE405
00:1B:5B:69:97:D1 -1 0 0 0 11 -1
00:18:39:E9:E9:CA 0 13 0 0 6 54 OPN linksys

BSSID STATION PWR Rate Lost Packets Probes

00:18:39:62:0E:A8 00:13:02:A6:8F:9A 0 1- 1 0 26 linksys
00:18:39:62:0E:A8 00:16:E3:C8:05:9C -1 1- 0 0 2
00:1D:5A:61:D8:41 00:1D:7E:05:69:B8 0 12- 1 0 33
16:3D:9B:02:7C:6D 00:00:00:00:00:00 0 0- 1 8 294
(not associated) 00:13:72:C1:D8:31 0 0- 1 0 3 RickJames
(not associated) 00:14:A5:79:5E:47 0 0- 1 0 30 Secret,ConklinRE,linksys,Beezelbub
(not associated) 00:17:3F:FD:14:D7 0 0- 2 0 4
00:1B:5B:69:97:D1 00:40:F4:FF:F7:D7 0 0- 1 0 14

All of these AP's and all are running on overlapping channels except for one. it's like a bunch of people shouting in an echo chamber. the one (one other, on 1, but it's WPA which could take years to crack) that is on a non overlapping channel (11... unique channels are 1,6,11) says
"" which means it has no idea what the essid is (not broadcast). if I wait for a host to connect to it, I should be able to snag the essid (from my understanding, it will be sent in cleartext).

no idea what, if any, kind of encryption there is (please be WEP).

flash 10: min system reqs: 128mb vram

2009-01-18T20:07:00.000-06:00

that's fucking nuts

Ronald Jenkees!

2009-01-07T10:48:00.000-06:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ-FC3DLKwc

buy his album

Once you go Debian, you don't go back

2009-01-05T06:59:00.003-06:00

Ubuntu is a great distro, and they do put quite a bit of polish into it. But in all honesty, it's basically Debian's Sid (unstable) branch.

Nothing wrong with that, but after awhile, the whole "whoa, new feature" thing gets a bit old and the idea of staying about a year behind so the majority of the bugs can get ironed out kicks in. Bleeding edge is usually not worth it.

Summary:
Ubuntu/Debian Sid: damn whipper snappers. Firm release dates releases often contain critical bugs. releases are more like RC1 releases which they attempt to fix after it is pushed out the door.
Debian Testing: packages that have 1-2 years worth of testing that have (for me) a perfect balance of features, and stability. Very few major bugs.
Debian Stable: 2-3 year old packages, about as close to bug free and stability as you can possibly get. It's ready when it's ready, even if the target release date is missed by years.

conclusion:
choice is good.

web 2.0 ide

2009-01-04T03:12:00.002-06:00

almost everything is being taken online.
see: google docs/google mail/etc

one area that has been overlooked is taking an IDE online.

would be really nice to have the eclipse platform integrated right into google code in a fashion similar to google docs.

code anywhere, seamless collaboration/bug tracking/etc

guess i am not alone in my thinking

2009-01-03T07:54:00.000-06:00

"Word to the wise, if your girlfriend or wife is a nurse and you claim that your engineering degree was harder then their nursing degree because they never took calculus, be prepared to spend the night on the couch. Just a tip.

Still, my $TYPE engineering degree makes me more then qualified to do any profession. Why, with a few books from the library and maybe a couple Google searches I could probably give your friend that kidney transplant they need. How hard could it be anyway, those overpaid doctors never had to work with Laplace transforms!"

-104614

"Well, there is something to what you say. Having worked both in an engineering capacity and as a skilled tradesman, I've noticed that there is a distinct difference between between the two. Doctors and nurses are skilled tradespeople, like highly trained auto mechanics. No one is ever going to ask a doctor to design a better human being, any more than anyone is going to ask an auto mechanic to design a better car. This is not to say that it's easy to be able to instantly recognize the symptoms of disease (x), or the bad interaction of drugs (y) and (z); just that it's not a particularly creative field of endeavor. Engineering and the hard sciences (including programming) are less about being able to instantly reference huge volumes of memorized information, and more about taking a small amount of basic knowledge and putting it together in new ways."

-230075

wow, people really are idiots

2008-12-29T16:38:00.002-06:00

http://change.gov/openforquestions
is full of really bad questions by people who have no idea what the governments role is. very sad.

there are a few good questions that make me somewhat proud (sadly I have not figured out how to link directly to them) like "why are we wasting trillions of dollars occupying countries which we have no business occupying? we are just pissing people off."

or questions regarding the reasoning for marijuana being illegal.

and they are very few and far between.

most are "I want the government to do X for me" X being tell private companies how to run their businesses/give tax credits for things the government should not get involved in... etc

i really hate school

2008-12-28T00:53:00.001-06:00

need to get out of school, but looks like I will be stuck for another 3 or so semesters...

how to get straight A's

2008-12-21T18:25:00.003-06:00

This is how to handle the situation:

Schedule an appointment with your professor(s), then walk into his office (shutting the door behind you) and grab his tie. Yank it down so hard that it chokes him and his head slams into his desk and say with your other fist clenched,

"You punk motherfucker - I'm not going to waste my time on this bullshit and you're going to give me an A as if we didn't have this little discussion, capiche?"

If he says anything other than "yes" then grab his stapler and pistol-whip him with it. Directly after this break into his home and hang his pets from his ceiling fan, but take one of the pets, behead it, and place its head on your professors' bed. Then write, "I see you" above his bed using his favorite pet's blood.

If the plan outlined above doesn't work, you just might have to play hardball.

(somewhat stolen from some anonymous entity).

for gods sake, use generics

2008-12-19T20:37:00.003-06:00

I could attempt to explain it, or I could just sit here and post a link to someone who already has.

really, it's more useful than you might think and few people know how/where it is appropriate to use generics.

having to cast when writing something that is object oriented generally means you are doing something horribly wrong and you need to rethink it.

such is the case for using generics. less possibility of doing something which could get you in trouble later.

oh that is just too awesome

2008-12-19T19:50:00.003-06:00

totally pwns timemachine and is on par with vistas "earlier version" thing.

a lot more polished than timevault (which it seems the developer has not touched in like a year).

apple, please, versioning for backups. you're literally over a year behind windows/linux/solaris

Mazzy Star - Fade into you

2008-12-17T16:59:00.000-06:00

enjoy

I know you believe you understood what you think I said

2008-12-14T11:18:00.000-06:00

but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant!

Official guide to Tom

2008-12-14T06:50:00.002-06:00

somehow I stumbled upon one of those Myers-Briggs personality test things. I am without a doubt INTP.

Needless to say I was stunned by the incredibly accurate descriptions of many of the personality traits that I’ve always assumed were just weird quirks unique to me.
I’ve always had a strong desire for people to understand what makes me tick, which is probably why I write about my thoughts and observations on this here weblog, but I’ve never understood myself as much as I did after reading this profile, so I imagine it should do a bang-up job of filling you folks in. Or it could be a complete waste of your time. Either way, it makes me feel less guilty about not posting anything substantial in a while.

First and foremost, INTPs are logical thinkers and detached observers. They yearn to understand concepts, and once understanding is achieved, they lose interest and move on to something else. As a result, they tend to be competent in many different areas, but proficient in few, because proficiency requires not just comprehension but practice, which is routine and uninteresting.

While most of my dabbling occurs in the realm of computers (so you might say I’ve become proficient at computers in at least a general sense), the individual skills in which I dabble vary widely. While I understand a staggering number of concepts and technologies, I wouldn’t call myself an expert at any of them.

“Lazy” and “aloof” are probably among the first words that come to mind when I think about how I might describe myself to someone. In fact, one of my favorite phrases (usually said with a thoughtful look and a slight smile) is, “Well, I could do x, or I could just sit here…”

I can’t stand appointments of any kind. I’m exactly as the profile describes. I overload with increasing anxiety as the appointment nears, not because I fear or dislike what will happen, but just because. The mere knowledge that there is something I must do at a specific time on a specific date fills me with dread. I hate it.

Scheduling social events is somewhat easier, but is still accompanied by a similar feeling of uneasiness. This is why I’m always reluctant to schedule weekend activities of any kind, since that makes me feel as if my weekend isn’t mine. I’m willing to give up my weekdays and even, with some coaxing, my weeknights, but in order to remain sane, I have to have unscheduled weekends at the very least. It’s an absolute necessity. If I have something scheduled on more than one weekend in a row, I go completely nuts.

I don’t want to live by myself. I don’t mind the loneliness so much, but after living by myself for over a year, I felt like a complete and utter slob.

I never vacuumed. Not even once. I used disposable dishes and silverware whenever possible, to avoid having to do dishes, yet when the dishes inevitably did pile up, they tended to sit for weeks or even months. Indeed, dirty dishes and trash accumulated in piles around the couch and on my desk, which was where I ate my meals. My meals usually consisted of a canned item eaten cold from the can (again, an attempt to avoid unnecessary dishes). Occasionally I’d treat myself to macaroni & cheese or ramen. Once I went for a week eating nothing but canned green beans and ramen because I am such a big spender.

My rare attempts at cleaning usually involved spraying hot water at the dishlike things and adjusting the locations of various piles of stuff so that they made new and interesting patterns which I would be completely incapable of seeing after about five minutes.

In short, it's sad/miserable/depressing.

"Since the INTP normally wishes to hide his emotions; when they do come out, they do so in outbursts with an almost childlike innocence."

Anyone who’s seen the pie dance knows this to be true.

well, enough procrastinating for me, I have finals starting on tuesday and my sleep schedule is fucked. I think I have pretty much straight A's going in (except possibly accounting, which is sad). fucking deadlines...

The Brian Jonestown Massacre - Wisdom

2008-12-12T10:50:00.001-06:00

the epitome of stoner rock (well, at least pretty close to it)

even if the dude is a douche, he makes good music.

screenshot

2008-12-12T05:45:00.002-06:00

now you can urinate on your computer!

2008-12-11T14:54:00.003-06:00

http://code.google.com/p/urinecontrol/

eh... it works, and got a chuckle out of a few people, so I am happy.

And I finally think I have subversion figured out for the most part now...

few exceptions are thrown (not serious enough to terminate the program) in some of the various java libraries, I'm probably asking them to do something they don't like much... if you see any bugs, let me know and I will give you svn access so you can fix it if you want.

figuring out how to double buffer while drawing images was interesting and quite complex (i thought). but it is very smooth and looks great.

now... time to decide if I should make it multithreaded... too tired now... possibly later.

taboogame: all the joy of taboo

2008-12-09T22:57:00.002-06:00

http://code.google.com/p/taboogame/

far from even alpha status by my standards.... but it does work.

now... to finish urinecontrol...

latest firefox beta ~ about as fast as chrome

2008-12-08T07:42:00.002-06:00

with my unscientific "dude! i don't have to wait 2 mins for igoogle to properly load!" and gmail/docs/etc being about as fast as a native app... and so far no crashes or memory leaks (that i know of) I have to say, it is worth giving it a shot (and keeping a copy of 3.0 just in case) and finding bugs.

not multithreaded, but still darn snappy.

Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons' -Beggin' Pilooski remix

2008-12-04T15:10:00.000-06:00

simply awesome

rents storage unit, fills it with pancakes, leaves

2008-12-04T14:29:00.000-06:00

never mind the blood on IHOPs floor, granted some of it is mine... snotty waitress said she would not serve me a whiskey sour straight up! bitch.

Just like you can decide not to feel pain when someone hits you,

2008-12-01T07:02:00.001-06:00

right?

I mean all the beating did was send a bunch of electrical signals into your brain. Pain itself is all in your head.

You're In Control (Urine Control)

2008-11-28T01:52:00.002-06:00

computation to enhance the act of urination...

Finally, a good idea for a CS project.

might need some help with electronics/sensors though...

have a grid of sensors on a urinal which can detect when they are being peed on.

use the data from the sensors for the controls for a game. Have a screen mounted above the urinal. example game might be: you are a flying squirrel and you have little dogs (who want to eat you) below you that are worth different points, when you successfully pee on the dog, you score, and the dog turns yellow, screams, and dies.

Need to find a way to let chicks enjoy the action as well... possibly a strap on water bottle+hose?

would be great for potty training for kids, and would improve sanitation, providing drunks a reason to pee in the urinal and not on the floor.

how well can I really know someone

2008-11-27T02:34:00.003-06:00

how much do I really want to know...

I only see two things in people... What I want to see and what they want to show me. I have never underestimated the capacity of other people to let me down.

grumble... desktop is dead again... grumble

2008-11-23T02:23:00.004-06:00

last time the PSU gave way, bought a very nice (somewhat expensive, thinking something else would break and I might have to build another system) one, been working a few months, now she (the whole system, hopefully not the PSU again, else I would think something is causing that to happen, and I have a UPS, so it's not the power) is dead again.

different symptoms however.

all fans and lights and drives power on, however the bios is supposed to beep after the POST, does not happen and the screen does not even get powered on...

luckily had some backup software (sbackup) scheduled to back pretty much everything to my external hard drive (lets hope that does not fail). main thing I am worried about is my ~80GB of music which I have collected since... forever. god I hope that backup is alright

oh and IIT student Ben Collen is dead

Palin+turkey slaughter=I don't think I need to make any jokes

2008-11-21T13:46:00.002-06:00

the future of the republican party according to the MSM

Probably the most awesome presentation I have ever done

2008-11-20T21:56:00.000-06:00

sad... since it's still not that good...

the foxes...

2008-11-20T00:53:00.002-06:00

ah, OSS

2008-11-09T14:00:00.001-06:00

thomas@swankbox:~$ metacity --replace
Window manager warning: Received a _NET_WM_MOVERESIZE message for 0x3000007 (ClearWeath); these messages lack timestamps and therefore suck.

fuck you obama

2008-11-07T12:31:00.001-06:00

erm... constitution?
"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

"When you choose to serve -- whether it's your nation, your community or simply your neighborhood....

Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year."

live results from the AP

2008-11-04T17:16:00.000-06:00

only 2000 or so votes counted thus far

three stooges

2008-11-04T13:33:00.004-06:00

the whole "you have to vote either republican or democrat" reminds me a lot of moe and curley, where moe would put up two fingers and ask curley to choose one, and no matter which one curley would pick, he would get poked in the eye.

I voted for Bob Barr even though he was not crazy enough for my taste (I would have loved to vote for Ron Paul, but he specifically encouraged people to vote Libertarian or Constitution party, and Baldwin was crazy in a bad way).

Bob Barr is good guy. His conversion, I believe, is sincere. But he just does not grab your heart like Paul.

I’m for two guys/girls fucking on the floor. I don’t think Barr is. Although I don’t do drugs I’m ok with shooting heroin, and I don’t think he is.
I could keep going, but I think the point is clear.

I think Barr has the best chance of scaring some sense into the duopoly.

Quoting Morehouse:
"I’m voting for Barr to do what economists call “signaling”. That is, rather than allowing my vote to be swallowed up in a sea of votes for major party candidates, and to add myself to the numbers who are basically giving sanction to the anti-liberty positions of both major candidates, I want it to at least send a signal to those who analyze elections that there are some who value liberty and limited government. Since Barr is running as a libertarian, he will be identified with limited government views. The higher percentage of voters vote for what is seen to be a limited government choice, the stronger the signal is sent to major party candidates now and in the future that they can win those voters by promoting less government."

too bad people who agree with her probably cannot read

2008-11-03T08:15:00.002-06:00

toyota...

to heck with smartphones

2008-11-02T20:11:00.001-06:00

3G eee

Pretty neat hack, again, if I was any good at soldering, this would totally be worth it.

no more asus 8.9' netbooks

2008-11-02T17:21:00.002-06:00

sad

but, well, at least I have probably the last 8.9' model. Weirdos, design something where they sell over 1.7 million units in one quarter and then mess with the design?

I love the size+price+battery life (and performance is about that of a 1 yr old laptop).

Plus I have had two chicks point at my crotch and say "I've never seen such a small one of those".
Not sure if she meant the laptop or...
sadly, I don't think they fully appreciated the situation.

mmm

2008-11-01T14:52:00.001-05:00

pie

I like pie too.

finally on twitter

2008-10-29T06:13:00.002-05:00

http://twitter.com/blackphiber

crossover free today only

2008-10-28T05:34:00.000-05:00

http://lameduck.codeweavers.com/

usually $40-70 i think

humble: I like to think I have a 12 inch cock...

2008-10-27T11:36:00.002-05:00

I think most of what people do is an attempt to compensate for the strictly limited size of our skulls.

The people who do best in life (well, chances are they are severely depressed, but I digress) are those who realize how shitty/stupid/pathetic they truly are. They are humble.

The people who fail at life are those who refuse to see how inadequate they are. Ego gets in the way.

The more you compensate, the better you will become.

The more humble you are, the faster you will improve.

not quite a nipple

2008-10-26T14:29:00.000-05:00

awesome dog

god I love gtk

2008-10-26T13:53:00.002-05:00

what would probably have taken me several hours using swing I was able to do in about 40 mins using Glade+libglade+libjava-gnome-java+gtk

granted, I have yet to get to the coding part (well, in terms of interacting with the gui) but if this is any indication, it seems like it should be pretty smooth sailing.

now i need to find another project to work on

2008-10-23T00:00:00.002-05:00

Hi Tom,

Regarding your blog post:

http://blackphiber.blogspot.com/2008/09/new-album-notification.html

I actually built such a website:

http://www.muspy.com

Check it out and let me know what you think.

Cheers,

Alex

www.muspy.com

It is really, really nice. Probably better than I could have done, MusicBrainz integration is really neat and way simpler than what I was going to do.

Kudos Alex...

Now I am working on an online Taboo game... far from finished with that, but most of the basic stuff is in place.

eee 901=awesomeness

2008-10-18T01:38:00.007-05:00

I do miss the nipple, and it really sucked with the stock xandros OS... really old crappy packages (seriously, still firefox 2)

but after installing ubuntu with netbook-remix, it's flippin awesome.

I do wish the keyboard were a tad bigger (typing this post from the eee). The number keys being 1 off is a bit weird too...

about 6-7 hours of battery life, 1.3mp camera works well, stereo mic works well, speakers are a bit weak, have yet to get compiz working properly... don't really care about that though. screen is a little on the dark side but not bad. resolution is not bad at all. wifi indicator light is way too bright (yay duct tape). updating the bios was extremely easy.. although their built in update tool did not cut it, just had to copy a file to a flash disk, reboot while hitting esc i think.

multitouch is great, sadly pinching does not zoom in ubuntu (guess shitty asus patched the synaptic driver and did not post the code... bastards). scrolling is nice though with 2 fingers.

bloody thing screams however with the little atom processor. i wish the chipset was a bit more efficient, could probably get ~14 hours of battery life.
the tinyness is great, perfect to carry everywhere. sleep works well, no hibernate though since I did not want any swap partition (probably should have and just set swappiness to 0... oh well).

guess this has predraft wireless n which i guess will be pretty nice... oh yeah, and dual core... woot

netbook remix's interface is one of the most clever and functional interfaces I have ever used. really gives you a good bang for your buck in terms of screen real estate. the tab based approach is well thought out, and the home screen is particularly pretty and neat (granted, I find deskbar [like spotlight] more convenient if you know what program you want to open).

check it out at ars (subsequent updates have made it a lot more polished than this ars article, however still the same premise)

oh yeah, while idle, it uses under 8 watts of power (12 watts when using wireless/etc) vs the thinkpad using I think about twice that...

oh, and it's silent with it's SSD, only sound is when the fan kicks on when it gets mildly warm, it is pretty much impossible for it to burn your manlyhood.
funny since now I am noticing the sounds of other things (60hz transformers, external HD, etc).

in John Cleese we [should] trust

2008-10-15T18:22:00.000-05:00

god I love this guy

the only way to make a significant difference

2008-10-10T18:31:00.002-05:00

is to take over your local government and work up. Get some friends and like minded people and start running for city council, judges, etc....

If you want to stop voting for the lesser of two evils, stop voting for the flawed two-party system. Simply vote third party to show that you want to be involved but hate the choices given to us by the corporate controlled parties.

It doesn't matter if you vote for Chuck Baldwin, Bob Barr, Cynthia McKinney, Ralph Nader or Alan Keyes.

People need to start demanding that these 3rd party candidates get air time and in the debates. I'm really hoping that google or someone else has a debate with some of these candidates.

I turn to Badnarik on the whole "wasted vote" argument.

If the "wasted vote" argument ever held any water, it doesn't any more. The two major parties have moved toward a weird, non-existent "center" for the last 50 years, to the point where it's difficult to tell them apart.
We could argue all day about whether Bush or Kerry is the "lesser evil." The fact is that they both support the war in Iraq. They both oppose gun rights. They both supported the PATRIOT Act. They both support the war on drugs. They both support confiscatory taxation. They both support ruinously high levels of spending, huge deficits and increasing debt.
It's hard to tell them apart on the real issues. They spend their time scrapping over "swing votes" in the gray area of the "center" -- which means, in practice, "how do I not make too many people too angry to vote for me?" That's no way to do politics. Politics, in my view, should be as unimportant as possible -- but where it's important, it has to value freedom, remain rooted in principle and be forward-looking.
All I can tell the "lesser of two evils" folks is that if they keep voting for evil, they'll keep getting evil. If you don't like the way things are, how do you change it by voting for more of the same?

this is why BGA sucks

2008-10-10T03:10:00.004-05:00

Same thing mine is doing. Probably because the chassis is way too flexible, thus causing the BGA's solder joint to crack...

Found a guy that will fix it for $50... however, looking around, it seems the value of the laptop is ~$100 total for the whole shebang
spending $50 to fix something that is worth $100... probably best to just get something new like that eee 901.

wow, I did not know the foo fighters kicked so much ass

2008-10-09T05:22:00.002-05:00

Initially I thought it was Queens of the Stone Age...

b-day ram

2008-10-09T00:51:00.002-05:00

I would add it to my amazon wishlist, however ram is f'in expensive on amazon, much better selection/prices on newegg

thus...
my newegg wishlist
my amazon wishlist

in which thomas hates solder

2008-10-08T02:24:00.002-05:00

ugh, I think I am about to give up on old laptops

apparently this is a common problem

I'm going to go the lazy mans way and just stick some paper in between the gpu/keyboard...

they say it starts happening after the t40 is about 2 years old... and this guy is about 5 years old...

would do it now, but don't have any screwdriver here at the townhouse...

and so it begins

2008-10-03T23:38:00.003-05:00

google code: albumnotification

If you feel like it, you can grab the code from googles svn repository, but really, the only thing I have done so far is gotten user registration/login started (and it's probably prone to sql injection).

while in theory it's not too complex, getting a really well thought out design implemented is going to be a bitch.

I would really appreciate some feedback and ideas... the design phase always kills me.

right now I have an object for handling the database, somewhat of an object for displaying the page (depending on if you want it formatted as an RSS feed or html...).

anyhow, at least I have something. Long way to go...

(if you want to be a project member, email tomwolfe -at- gmail.com)

Anafranil is THE shit ;)

2008-09-29T03:09:00.002-05:00

2 days of silly euphoric high=good
who knew... from a little 10mg pill...

getting a bit over my head

2008-09-28T01:22:00.003-05:00

will probably need three different tables

one listing the various Feeds with their unique ID's/title
BandID BandName
1 Local H
2 Boards of Canada
3 Led Zeppelin
4 Chevelle
5 Tool

one for users: unique ID/email/password

UserID E-Mail Password
1 tw@gmail.com ubersecret
2 mkw@yahoo.com sldkfjsldkfj
3 moe@hello.com ssdifii

and finally map the userid and bandID
UserID BandID
1 1
1 3
2 1
2 4
3 5

ugh, my head hurts.

i don't know anything about sql... going to have to read up I guess since right now, I need it.

stick that in your pipe and smoke it

2008-09-25T00:18:00.002-05:00

you will live longer... really

"A 1979 United States Surgeon General report on smoking indicated that exclusive pipe smokers smoking less than five pipe bowls a day had a lower mortality rate than non-smokers"

chances are this is mostly because people who relax and enjoy their pipe a few times a day are way more laid back.

Correlation does not equal causation...

gilligan had it right

2008-09-18T03:22:00.004-05:00

I really love hammocks.

Especially in the summer. Extremely cool, literally. No sweaty back, plenty of airflow. plus swinging back and forth, extremely relaxing. Conforms perfectly to your body, weight is perfectly balanced (god, i sound like an infomercial)...

Right now since I am a cheap bastard, I setup a poor mans hammock in between two support beams using two old shirts and a bedsheet. Works, but really flimsy and about 3 feet too small (have to have my legs stick out). chances are it will tear and i'll break my neck or something...

don't really take much space.

on the other hand I also like huge bean bag chairs... remember those from the 80's? About a year ago during finals the library was open all night and they had a few huge bean bag chairs... extremely comfy. only thing... they take up quite a bit of space and are nowhere near as cool (in the winter it would be welcome...)

New album notification

2008-09-13T21:05:00.003-05:00

I like hundreds of bands. The problem is that I have a hard time keeping up with all of their new releases. I'm not into musical genres as much as I am into artists (think this is true for most people). For every band I like, there are 10 or 20 or 50 I don't care about. Beyond subscribing to magazines, visiting individual band web sites or hoping someone tells me about a new album, I don't find out about releases from individual artists and bands.

What I'd like is to input a list of all the artists I'm interested in. Then have a service that generates a single new releases RSS feed of my favorite artists (one RSS feed per band and use some magic to create a custom RSS feed for each user, yes it is possible). When a new release comes out from one of my favorite artists, I would be notified via RSS. This could then be integrated into music players (rhythmbox/banshee/itunes/etc). Let the user login from the music player, ask the user if they would like to input all of their current artists into the service, etc. have an option to "ignore this album from now on". Be able to "Download album" from Emusic/Amazon/Magnatune/Jamendo

One could also make a general news feed based on the same favorites list using google news. Then they would know when their favorite artists tour, participate in side projects or get arrested in a drug raid. Amazon integration based on the favorite artists list? These feeds would save people a ton of time, would drive music sales at Amazon/Apple, and they would definitely encourage me to buy more music.

I am surprized Amazon/Apple/etc have not created such lists...

Anyhow, seems like it could be a fun project and could be expanded to "New (whatever) notification"

Think when I get some time I will start a site where people login and can add artists they care about along with adding albums that that artist has released.

Just create a general database that matches which user subscribes to which rss feeds.

Since it is probably too big of a project to work on myself, I will probably release it on google code. All I need now is some time.

As for "how will you generate revenue" idk... many options.
1. Dual licensing like virtualbox (basic OSS edition and a pay for proprietary version which is based on the OSS edition which has some extra little features)
2. first 50 artists you track are free, after that you have to pay for a subscription (code would still be free, if someone wanted to start a competing site and absorb the bandwidth/hosting cost they could, but it would probably require them to have ads to support the costs... and they would not have the huge amount of user generated data: see point 6)
3. adsense from google
4. competitive bidding for which features get developed first
5. Have amazon/itunes/emusic/magnatune pay us for the referrals (eg if someone uses the link to download the album and they actually buy the album, we should get paid since without us, they probably would not have made that sale... Itunes has a 5% commission/amazon is up to 15% in referral fees/emusic only pays $6 per person you get to signup for a free trial/magnatune? I will have to contact them and ask I guess)
6. If someone wants to create their own such site we could sell them the user generated data and possibly a subscription to keep that data up to date...
7. some combination?

would like to avoid doing anything evil... I would list support, but I doubt that would be something people would want from a web app. I think there is quite a bit of potential (granted once amazon/apple/etc catch drift and notice they could make some $$ this way I am sure they would create something similar, although since this would be cross platform and work with any music store...)

and since it would be OSS I am sure someone will utilize

Think I found what I needed

2008-09-07T17:05:00.004-05:00

~70mpg

Kawasaki Ninja 250R

power to weight ratio of 0.075

Perfect for spring-fall. not much to them, very basic and probably easy to fix (and it's very popular=lots of parts if I need them).

95% of the time when I am going from point A-B I just need myself and my messenger bag (books/etc).

Question is if I should spend an extra $500 and get a brand new 2008 model (4th generation) or get an old 1988-2007 model (3rd generation).

I would imagine 20 years of improvements would probably be worth an extra $500.

Why encrypted rootfs is not that great of an idea

2008-09-06T15:33:00.003-05:00

airlied - developer for redhat, mostly works on ATI (now amd, whatever) graphics drivers... really bloody smart guy.

I think encrypting the user directory is probably the best bet.

If you are really that paranoid... should also take a look at PaX

oh, and don't forget what princeton has to say...

tempted

2008-09-04T00:46:00.003-05:00

http://www.ipmart-forum.com/showthread.php?t=270531

now, if only my hand did not shake so much...

Anyone out there willing to do the soldering for me for (insert amount of money you would like to be paid)?

Really would like to get the most up to date maps (v8 vs my current v7) on my tomtom one v3 but it only comes with 1gb of memory which is not enough for the new maps.

I already have a microsd card+adaptor and an old ribbon cable. All I really need is a jewelers screwdriver to take it apart, and someone who is good at soldering.

the warranty will be void in a few months anyhow, the whole unit cost ~$100 so it's not a huge deal...

star wars porn: kevin smith->genius

2008-09-03T22:21:00.001-05:00

finally, kevin smith at his finest.

could be a fun project

2008-09-01T00:20:00.002-05:00

I used to really love the board game Taboo...

The fact is that while Taboo is a wonderful game, it's lost it's magic. Yeah, I will still play it every now and then, but it has become predictable. Playing is not fun anymore, it has become just another way to waste time. Instead of grinning like a madman and trying my best to not make any gestures every time I pull out a new card, I just hear a little voice in the back of my head saying, "This is becoming too much like work."

Like a blackjack dealer I have memorized the best course of action for every possible hand, it's become mechanical. Since there are only ~500 cards, it was bound to happen.

So screw it. You only live twice on her majesty's secret service, and all that jazz.

What I really need is a way to have a never ending flow of new cards.

It has been a long time since I had done anything irresponsible, and somehow that just does not feel right. So, time to strap myself to a chair, put myself in front of my monitor, and force myself to go without food, water, or pie until I have created a working taboo game that utilizes a reverse dictionary to create a virtually unlimited number of cards.

Could be somewhat troublesome since I only know of onelook being a reverse dictionary and don't know of anything equivalent and I don't think onelook has any API. So I might need to make my own which would be way above my head...

suggestions/ideas? oh and I have to write it in java... which really is not that bad...

yes... the chinese beat us...

2008-08-30T22:13:00.002-05:00

byd f6dm

Plug in electric, 60 miles on just battery power, can charge to 70% in 10 minutes, and will be available before the end of this year... in china, won't be in the US until 2010...

Have to wait until late 2009/2010 for the Saturn vue (first plug in electric vehicle in the US) which will only be able to go 10 miles on battery power, and we have to wait until 2010 for the chevy volt which can go 40 miles on battery power...

I am thinking the vue might be the way to go... most trips I make are under 10 miles, it would work well in the winter (it's an SUV), and will get ~30mpg for trips over 10 miles.

this would be oh so handy right about now

2008-08-30T00:11:00.002-05:00

I hate paper... I really really do.

no more losing documents or having a huge bin full of paper documents which takes hours to search through.

~$400

bit too much money for me at the moment... but still, being able to just bring up tracker/beagle/spotlight/google desktop search/windows desktop search and be able to find exactly what you want in 1-2 seconds... beautiful. not to mention elimination of clutter.

need to find one with TWAIN driver support...

here we go

2008-08-29T14:14:00.001-05:00

hundredpushups.com

on day 3 atm... the "rest one day in between" varies for me. I have to rest at least 2-3 days in between before moving to the next day...

stop it: avoid using var more than once per function

2008-08-26T00:40:00.003-05:00

javascript's var statement simply declares and possibly instantiates variables in the scope of a function.

overuse of var and using it inside of a loop... not a good idea. just wastes cpu cycles (esp if in a loop) and precious bytes. redeclaration of a variable on each iteration, yeah, don't do that.

I have been guilty of this for quite some time, kudos for Ryan for pointing this out to me.

let us take a look:

BAD

function getFooName(countyName, tagName, root) {
var elements = [];
var root = root || document;
var countyName = countyName || '*';
var stack = root.getFooName(tagName);
var regex = new RegExp('(?:^|\\s+)' + countyName + '(?:\\s+|$)');

for (var i = 0, length = stack.length; i < length; ++i) {
var el = stack[i];

if (el.countyName && regex.test(el.countyName)) {
elements.push(el);
}
}

return elements;
}

GOOD

function getFooName(countyName, tagName, root) {
root = root || document;
tagName = tagName || '*';

var elements = [],
stack = root.getFooName(tagName),
length = stack.length,
regex = new RegExp('(?:^|\\s+)' + countyName + '(?:\\s+|$)'),
el, i;

for (i = 0; i < length; ++i) {
el = stack[i];

if (el.countyName && regex.test(el.countyName)) {
elements.push(el);
}
}

return elements;
}

Seriously, I love shit like this. I know people out there have their own tips, please share dammit!

Again, thank you Ryan G.

jobs I applied to

2008-08-23T18:32:00.002-05:00

meh

thinking about applying to (EDIT: applied ;)

1
2

2 computers dead... one to go...

2008-08-20T23:32:00.002-05:00

well, the PSU in my desktop died...

Try to power it on, cpu fan kicks on for a second, beeps, turns off.

Unplug hard drives/cdrom/etc, turn it on, comes on okay...

I have another PSU, but it is only 130 watts and does not have any sata connectors (and I am not sure about using 2 psu's for one box (PS-ON wire should signal the Power supply to turn on, and it can be manually turned on by shorting it to the ground... problem is, what wire would that be?)... one just powering the sata drives, the little 135watt one powering everything else.

So, about 40,000 hours and it died... and most seems to be rated at 120,000 hours... so it died way too soon.

Anyhow, ordered this guy on newegg.

I just wanted something quiet (120mm fan w/ variable revolutions, the old one that I had came with the case and was loud as hell), efficient (this one is >80%), good warranty (this one has a 5 year warranty, old one only had a 3 year warranty... which, yeah, been about 4 years...), modular (just pure awesome... less clutter), at least 4 sata connectors, at least 1 PCI-E connector for when I do upgrade my mobo/etc, did not want to get one with a really high power output since if it is too high it will really kill efficiency and can cause problems, had active PFC, at least two 12v rails... yada yada...

I wanted to spend a little more so that I will be able to upgrade other stuff later and not have to buy yet another PSU.

At the moment, I am fine with my athlon xp 2600+ with 1gb ram and an nvidia 5600. I don't play any games like Crysis, I never seem to use over 30% of my memory during normal use (thank you firefox3), I rarely do CPU intensive work.

The thinkpad, the mobo is still fucked and I don't think it is worth replacing (few hundred to replace the mobo, might as well just get an asus EEE or dell latitude at that point). don't know if I would get more money selling it as a damaged laptop, or selling the individual parts.

I am drifting more towards the latitude at the moment, for me the Pointing Stick is a huge selling point, even though the eee has multitouch. Plus it is much more powerful and only slightly heavier. If they could get a pointing stick+G45 chipset in the eee and drop the price down a bit more ($500 is a bit too much i say). I really love SSD though, having a moving platter in a device that people carry around while running is just a bad idea.

on the old ibook now, and that seems to also have a problem, right speaker keeps flaking out...

I hate computers.

how did I miss this??

2008-08-20T00:15:00.004-05:00

video

and yes, they are in their twenties...

fucking democrats

2008-08-18T12:28:00.003-05:00

from the WSJ
Obama's Tax plan...

39.6 percent personal income tax,

52.2 percent combined income and payroll tax

28 percent capital-gains tax,

39.6 percent dividends tax,

and a 55 percent estate tax.

fuckers... Um, hello guy, capital formation is the only way we have been able to build these cool businesses that employ the cool people that pay the cool taxes we collect. Screw up the capital side and the smartest most ambitious people on the planet won’t be able to fix anything.

as much as I don't really like Bob Barr... he is easily the best in the lot... (libertarian candidate).

You tell me that I make no difference
At least I'm fucking trying
What the fuck have you done?
-Zach

damn... that is sexy

2008-08-13T22:22:00.003-05:00

must resist urge to spend compulsively...

yay
1. clit mouse
2. g45 gpu (lots more support for hardware acceleration+integrated=speedy, yet just sips battery=good for watching movies/composite for 3d effects/playing the occasional game when there is nothing better to do)
3. 3lbs w/ 6 cell battery
4. (1280 x 800) LED Display
5. Solid State Drive up to 128GB
6. optical backlit keyboard
7. Metal hinges
8. easy to toss in a 3g card.
9. wireless n + bluetooth

boo
1. No atom cpu (core2 duo instead, i don't want a super fast cpu in a laptop, i want efficient)
2. only 2 usb ports (not a huge deal)
3. it's a dell... they are nowhere near IBM quality...

hope the price is low (netbook territory, looking for something under $500) and I am also curious how the battery will hold up. Their top model boasts ~20 hours battery life... impressive.

the e4200 is tempting since it is 2/3's the weight of the e4300 (no optical drive, which I don't need, although no clit mouse... which idk, I love my clit)

so much potential...

2008-08-07T21:50:00.003-05:00

grand central suggestions

damn, and I was hoping for some uber cool feature additions:

eg. integration with gmail
transcribe voicemails to text and create an email for it.
ability to access your email via grandcentral (so many times I have needed to check my email but no computer was in sight).
They already integrated chat with gmail, ought not be that hard to integrate grandcentral with gmail. not to mention it being infinitely more useful, plus much more opportunity for ad revenue.

conference rooms with PIN's/etc

comply with standard SIP (so I can use any SIP client [ekiga/etc] to make/receive calls instead of their crappy web interface)

ability to place calls on hold.

integration with google calendar
say you have to call someone at a certain time (eg conference call you have to join). Put that into your calendar and set it up so it calls you at the correct time (avoid missing important calls/etc) and says the title of the event in the calendar and then "press 1 to place the call" or even better, voice recognition for the menus for handsfree operation.

ugh... sad

2008-08-06T00:00:00.003-05:00

Cost of using some crappy software called teamviewer to remote desktop into a pc at work ~$8-900 (which everyone else seems to be using all of the sudden... something I have been able to do for quite some time... with no trouble)

Cost for me to setup an ssh tunnel (or i can openvpn in, either way works) $0... and no weird issues like screen corruption/not being able to lock your screen (can use standard vnc or whatever)...

sometimes I wonder...

it may look bad

2008-08-03T20:15:00.004-05:00

but it's okay because

I knew Jesus would be with them!

lollapalooza 2008-friday

2008-08-03T15:42:00.003-05:00

pretty funny when Zack stopped the show to tell people to take 3 steps back so nobody would get too fucked up and everyone started a chant of "fuck you I won't do what you tell me" as some chick was coughing up blood from being pummeled against the stage.

Must have been at least 75 thousand people, was fun running through the streets of chicago, with that many people right after watching rage.

Mike had a wee bit too much to drink (~20 oz of wine) and just became a total drunken asshole. but of course since keith and I were his friends we had to take care of him, sort of ruined watching the toadies/rage (keeping a ~200lb drunk guy from running off and making an ass of himself/possibly getting arrested/thrown out is not fun).

but yeah, my voice is sore as hell, almost everyone was screaming at the top of their lungs for rage, and wicked sunburn.

Wish I could go today as well to see NIN. Also wish Tool would have been there, they have been at past lollapallozas... granted tickets probably would have been ~$130

Amazing show, toadies, rage, ting tings, interpartysystem, etc etc. Ting tings/interpartysystem, their records suck, but live they are pretty damn good.

enjoy the following videos from the concert...

compilation-rage

good to see he has not drank the obama kool-aid

I lol'ed

2008-07-29T23:51:00.002-05:00

"#3 - Find a local swimming pool, strap on a pair of rollerblades, get a bicycle."

I actually tried this and found I worked up a sweat very quickly. But a word of warning -- when cycling with rollerblades in a swimming pool, stay in the shallow end. The deep can be treacherous and the bike will weigh you down like you wouldn't believe.

--spir0

I am tempted to go to the local pool and give this a shot just to see what people would say/do.

ever want to speedread?

2008-07-29T00:06:00.000-05:00

now you can

God, I wish I knew about this long ago, would have saved me oh so much time/stress

best financial site ever: mint.com

2008-07-23T22:16:00.003-05:00

http://www.mint.com/mint-demo.html

Still beta, but it is the best financial software out there at the moment.

Once they get the investment category to go live... blows the socks off of quicken.

Ways to save is really nifty too (actually looks at your spending habits to find ways to better spend your money). Again, beta, so it's not perfect, but still really, really cool.

Check out the demo before signing up...

having your own VPN=win

2008-07-22T01:04:00.004-05:00

esp when 92% of your job can be done by just vnc'ing in and esp since everyone is behind a corporate firewall (eg ssh tunnel won't work, needs an open port).

just wish my wrt54g v2 had more NVRAM (not sure if it has enough to store the script to start openvpn, if it uses all of the NVRAM ~4mb it won't boot and you have to resort to JTag'in it, and those cables cost $$/time to make)

plus wherever I go I can access everything as if I am there locally (hello bonjour services working as if I were on my LAN)

not to mention using our 1337 hax0rz skillz at work today. old server, nobody knew the admin password. Terry/I were the only ones who knew how to go about using a live linux CD to decrypt the password (been a long time since I have done it, good to see I am not alone in knowing how. sometimes some people surprise me since I think I will be the only one who would know how, other times... they let me down). actually hacking our own system.. ironic no?

the website is down

2008-07-12T01:39:00.001-05:00

have yet to watch

is this for real?

2008-07-12T01:37:00.001-05:00

since I have to ask you know what I am... so.. yeah, so what?

stick with DVI-I for backwards compatiblity

2008-07-09T23:24:00.001-05:00

While it's bulkier (and more sturdy), thanks to carrying the VGA signal as well it doesn't have HDMI's (sometimes show-stopping) disadvantage of being unable to drive the still most common projectors with analog inputs.

why we need a 3rd party

2008-07-09T21:12:00.001-05:00

makes perfect sense

The customer comes first

2008-07-06T13:07:00.002-05:00

I have been quite frequently getting calls at my desk from random customers who have dialed the company switchboard and then punched in a random extension in the hopes of reaching a human who can help them with a problem.

In a perfect world, this would be a reasonable strategy. In a perfect world, I would know everything about every Ultra product, I would be able to help this poor desperate customer, and then maybe they would tell their friends what a great company Ultra is because they randomly dialed a Technician who was happy to give them the help they needed.

Unfortunately, the world is not perfect and I know very little about the products we offer. I don’t even know everything about some of the things I work on. The odds that someone with a tech support question would dial a random number and actually reach me rather than one of the other 650 Ultra employees are infinitesimally small. So, naturally, the people who randomly dial my number invariably ask questions about products that I know nothing about.

By the time someone resorts to dialing random numbers, they’re pretty desperate. Sometimes they’re very upset. They don’t care that I’m a Tech working on something completely unrelated to whatever it is they’re having a problem with; to them, I am the human personification of Ultra the Big Faceless Corporation, and they expect me to have at my fingertips the entirety of Ultra’s corporate knowledge.

When I explain that I can’t help them, they expect me to be able to transfer them to someone who can, and they find it incomprehensible that, as a Ultra insider, I don’t have a handy list of Top Secret support phone numbers. Sometimes this makes them angrier, and sometimes this makes them ask again really, really nicely in the hopes that I’ll decide to rebel against my cruel superiors and transfer them to one of the Top Secret numbers.

In the end, I’m unable to help these desperate people. I give them the support phone number, but usually the questions they’re asking are about something for which (as far as I know) there is no phone support.

It’s not that Ultra doesn’t care; we do. It’s just that there’s no (economically feasible) way we could possibly hire enough human beings to provide personal support for every one of our hundreds of thousands of customers. It’s a simple problem of scale; no company in the world could afford this.

Even so, whenever this happens, it pretty much ruins my day.

Obligatory disclaimer: the opinions expressed in this post are mine alone and do not represent the views of my employer.

funny because it is true

2008-07-04T15:55:00.002-05:00

bigtime consulting

screw it, they are all damn good

old dsl modems and routers... to charity?

2008-06-26T22:50:00.002-05:00

heh, with the megapath switch we need the stores to send their old dsl modem/router back to us. erik was telling them on the phone "you can send that back to us, we are going to give it to charity"

obviously he was a bit confused. and for some reason I find it hilarious. Giving a router and dsl modem to charity... wtf? when I think charity I think people (esp little kids) who are so poor that they often go without food, thus the inanity of giving a router to a poor starving kid.

I kept picturing giving some starving little kid (holding out a bowl, scrawny bones sticking out, and swallowing, while their stomach growls) a router and modem, while smiling and patting em' on the head as the kid tries licking the router/modem. could not get the image out of my head and just had to burst out laughing, thus I probably looked a bit crazy, mission accomplished.

meelu.com

2008-06-24T23:40:00.002-05:00

horrah movies.

bit angsty right now. it has been a really really long time since I have done something irresponsible, and it just feels wrong. I guess this is a pre early midlife crisis thing...