| I'm trying to control an outbreak and you're driving the monkey to the airport |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 2nd, 2008|03:52 pm] |
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It's kind of amazing to me that I have internet friends that I have never met, that I never will meet, that I care so much about. |
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| Microsoft Weirdness |
[Nov. 2nd, 2008|11:23 am] |
A friend brought me a laptop recovering from a virus sickness. She had reinstalled windows but could not get the sound card working. A bit of googling showed me that the audio driver would not install without a specific MS patch (nonstandard hardware on a panasonic tough book)
This was a generic virgin install of XP which included SP2.
The needed hotfix is not directly downloadable from MS. You have to fill out a webform and submit a request. Then they send you a link and a password via email.
Using IE6 on this brand new installation I could not submit the webform due to JS errors on the page. I had to use FF to submit the request. |
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| Election |
[Oct. 25th, 2008|09:59 am] |
I doubt anyone reading this will be interested in who I'm voting for or why, but I'm going to tell you anyway. It wasn't an easy decision but I've finally decided to vote for McCain.
To do that, I had to overcome my initial reactions about both V.P. candidates. My gut reaction about Biden? Very qualified. Palin? Unqualified and a poor choice. So given O/B vs McPalin I am slightly inclined to GoBama.
But what does that say about that choice? I'd be saying, "Obama has no experience but he has Biden to back him up". The alternative is "Oh McCain would be a good president but omg what if he dies??" So would I really be voting for Biden for President by proxy?
I do think McCain would be the better president. Obama is too liberal for me. McCain has an indisputable sense of honor and duty that I think I value more than anything else. So that's who is getting my vote. I'll just pretend he has no running mate. |
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| Fire! |
[Sep. 25th, 2008|10:37 pm] |
me:
oh
and the fire is out
so thats a good thing......
friend:
yay no fire
what fire?
me:
son's car
friend:
omg
me:
battery shorted out, started an actual fire
but it's a toyota, so once we cleared away the refuse, and the sparky part
friend:
woah!
me:
it went "OHAI! I WUZ ON FIR BUT IMOK NAU"
friend:
lol
awesome
me:
hey thats a LOLCAR! |
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| I have looked into the abyss |
[Sep. 14th, 2008|11:56 am] |
and it's name is Ikea. What an organized madhouse it is. We have to redo a bedroom in fairly short order at the condo. We are replacing the 20 year old bunkbeds that have survived remarkably well. $wife bought a semi-antique rugged heavy brass bed on craigslist and that has been sitting up in the hallway since last spring.
The room has to sleep 4, so the plan was to get some kind of convertible couch and/or chairs. But that leads to stuff like little tables, lamps, a bureau, etc. So off we go to Ikea. Holy crap! My guess is that it's at least double the size of a big Home Depot. Thats BIG. Big parking garage, big parking lots, and WOW, staff IN the parking lots directing traffic....ok this does not bode well crowd-wise.
There's a greeter at the door enthusiastically handing out maps. Yikes, I need a MAP? Oh yes I do. There are teeming masses. How can the person-density be this high in a store this big?? How can we ALL be looking at beds at the same time? Why is there a 6'x 8' x 4' crate of toilet brushes? How does this "self serve" thing work? ohhhh.... thats kinda clever. People-wise, we were very much in the minority. It's pretty obvious that Latino, Bengali, Asian, and European (speaking polish/german/etc) all share a common love of moderately priced upscale dorm furnishings. We escaped $1,400 later with a Toyota Sequoia bursting with ready to assemble cardboard boxes.
The ski rental season is rapidly approaching so I have to get my butt in gear and do the following:
- Drive to condo and unload the load
- disassemble 2 sets of bunk beds and refill truck
- strip the wallpaper and paint the walls and ceiling
- Assemble new bureau, 2 tables, and 2 convertible chair beds
- Assemble Craigslist bed and new mattress
The plan is thurs through sunday. I guess if they can do it on those home shows, I can do it too :)
we shall see. The worst case is that I have to take another day off from work and hang around VT another day, oh how horrible that will be! |
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| unfinished projects |
[Sep. 11th, 2008|11:07 pm] |
Three or more years ago I started this exact project as a way to learn c#.
Two years ago I restarted the same project to learn Ruby and Rails.
Last year I restarted the same project to resharpen my java skills. I really did. In fact I probably blogged about it here somewhere. I busted up files into chunks, encrypted them, base64 encoded them and stuffed them into XML CDATA to be passed around like hunks of a torrent. It really is an excellent useful idea. I hope they make millions. If they do though, I will see yet another of my many excellent ideas brought to fruition by someone with more ambition than me. |
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| iPhone Stuff |
[Aug. 24th, 2008|12:57 pm] |
This weekend has been freakin gorgeous! Sun, no humidity, light breeze. Just exactly the kind of days you'd want to really enjoy because you know they won't really last much longer....or at least thats what I think it was like as I looked out the window.
I spent almost the whole weekend so far coding. The goal is to make a few iPhone apps worthy of the app store. I have a couple of good, simple ideas and now I have to make sure I don't lose momentum. The learning curve for the SDK is significant. Objective C is not completely intuitive. The IDE takes a bit of getting used to, no... a LOT of getting used to. You think it's doing a lot of magic when you drag/drop controls (i.e. Visual Basic) but there are critical lines of code you must write by hand in the behind-the-scenes controller to make it work.
So 2 books, a handful of tutorials, and at least a dozen disposable apps titled deleteme1, deleteme2, deleteme3 later, I can now write simple ugly apps with the most basic controls and I can make stuff happen. The next step is to make something attractive and usable!
Now I have to go finish digging a hole, filling it with stone, mow at least a little, run, and then go to a meeting at 6PM! |
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| Rick Romero works for the MA DMV |
[Aug. 12th, 2008|08:50 pm] |
So because $wife will now be commuting 3 miles to/from work we thought it would be cool to get something like a vespa or honda scooter. It turns out that in MA there is a big difference between a scooter and a moped. Mopeds must not be physically capable of going over 30MPH, through the use of a governor. A scooter must not "be operated at a speed greater than twenty miles per hour" but the law makes no distinction if a scooter can be physically capable of going over 20.
And of course the last category is a motorcycle.
So, the one we're looking at is a Honda Metropolitan. It meets 100% of the requirements of the law if and only if (IFF for you math geeks) you drive 20 or less. HOWEVER it is capable of going over 30, so right there it cannot be a moped. It's got a 49cc engine and nobody would mistake it for a scooter. I want it to be a scooter, it should be a scooter and again, it can't be a moped.
So will the cops call it a scooter if it CAN go over 20 even if I'm driving slower? The distinction is important because if it is in fact a scooter I'm golden. I don't need to get a motorcycle learners permit. I don't need to take the motorcycle test, I don't need to get motorcycle insurance and I don't even have to register it. So clearly I want it to be a scooter. Well I guess I'd better check with those fine people at the DMV. And here is their fine reply:
"A scooter cannot be classified as a motorized bicycle (moped)/motorized
scooter if it does not meet the definition of a motorized bicycle
(moped) or motorized scooter."
And by the way, tautologies are tautological. |
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| Riff of the Day |
[Aug. 2nd, 2008|11:58 am] |
Ladies and gentleman, I give to you Rodrigo y Gabriela
The savvy among you already know of them I'm sure. For the rest, I hope you like it as much as I did!
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