Achmed the dead terrorist

I got this link from my brother in law, and am passing it on to those I know: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uwOL4rB-go Absolutely hilarious! Not safe for work (language, pretend-racist-jokes)

Hospital transfer reasons seem overbroad

This story is interesting, although something of a red herring I think. Both some doctors as well as Coloradoans for Patient's Rights is concerned about the transfer, but for what in my mind isn't a valid reason, here's the quote:

"We respectfully disagree with the attorney general's opinion," said CPR spokesman Roland Halpern in a statement. "It wrongly approves cutting off critical services to patients who have no other viable options in the affected area, and permits the hospitals affected to move from general services to narrow, sectarian purposes."

The thing is, the additional restrictions are vasectomies, tubal litigations and pregnancy terminations. I think it's interesting because these are somehow 'critical services' (in most cases they're not necessary to continue living, and if you need an emergency pregnancy termination you can get an ambulance to a nearby hospital, assuming that a doctor there wouldn't do it anyways as it's an emergency), and because they're only available there. I'd like to disagree - there are other hospitals in the metro area, and if you are near the highway, like Wheat Ridge is, then you can go just about anywhere in the metro area within 30 minutes. Now, maybe I'm wrong, but I think that I can probably wait an extra 30 minutes for my vasectomy. Finally, I feel it's very "PR"-ish to say that the hospital, with these additional restrictions, is somehow moving from general to 'narrow' purposes. Yeah, 'cause now they only do Catholic-themed surgeries. Puh-lease. How slanted their view is. (Note for those who may visit this and not know me: I'm not catholic, I'm not even christian, I'm noachide/jewish.) As a side note, I can't seem to find a website for Coloradoans for Patient's Rights. Either that, or Google hasn't picked up on them yet..

For US readers who need to find a recycling place

Let's say that you have a now-burned-out CFL. And you know that you can't just throw them in the trash. What to do? What to do?! Well, go to http://earth911.org/ and type in what you want to recycle (compact florescent bulbs) and where you are (zip code). Batteries and cell phone drop off sites are also listed. Now I can collect my CFLs that are burned out and turn them in.

jewish intactivism

Well, jewish anti-circumcision is finally making it into mainstream press. Very cool (in my opinion) as I'm rather against routine infant circumcision (although I think adults and teens should be able to decide for themselves).

CONTACTS

So, and I went to our local optician to get an eye exam for getting contacts. We both want to be able to see well without requiring contacts, and it'd be nice if we could use extended use ones that you can wear for a week or a month. Although we can get contacts, looks like we're stuck (at least for now) with daily use ones, but reused for awhile. They're temporary ones that aren't quite right, but close enough to drive/read/etc for a week. We get our proper ones next Friday (that bill ought to be great). It cost more than I'd hoped, but it won't quite break the bank. It was .... fun, yeah fun, trying to actually put contacts on. If you have ever worn contacts, you understand. Trying to put something on your eye is HARD - you keep stopping yourself from poking your eye out. And getting it off is fun too, but not quite as bad as putting it on. We'll post pics of us pre and post contacts.

Vegan Sufganiyot

Being as can't have egg or milk, we had to search for a vegan sufganiyot recipie. We finally found one, and it came out great! I'll probably use a warmer bowl when I make them again, or do it on a really warm day (as today was definitely NOT a warm day...).

Software Engineering Explained

Copyright unknown, if known please contact me to update this entry.

iPhone developer finally!

Okay, I finally got the 0.30 toolchain for making binary iPhone applications working on my mac. I've been hacking up the hello world application this evening, and finally got NSURL and UITextView to work to download the raw HTML code from work's front page and display it. Nothing special, doesn't look very cool, but it's cool from the perspective that I can use UI elements and I can access the network and retrieve data. Next: responding to real events and not just onLoad type events. Because then I can probably hack up an alpha of a LJ client or something.

Yay!

Yay! HouseFront's iPhone widget (which I created) is finally listed on Apple's official web apps page. This will mean even more users for it.

This is why I don't know that we'll ever go "real trick-or-treating" with our kids.

For those of you wanting to get on the internet...

Munich

In case you've seen Munich, Best Buy has it available at only $10! I was very surprised, usually the good movies are more expensive. Admittedly, it's definitely NOT for kids, or even those easily upset. That said, when bug is older (early teens I think) he will definitely have an assignment to watch and critique/discuss/etc.

Two sites for iPhone users: Flickr's iPhoneWallpapers group and iPhone-Wallpapers.net. I get to choose cool wallpapers. Yay.

Video to iPhone/iPod converter (free download)

Here is a free, legal (as far as they allow free use of the product, it's not shareware or commercial-ware) program to convert FLV and other video formats for use on an iPhone or video iPod.

iPhone

Okay, new update: we own iPhones now. We just couldn't resist. I really think that they are going to usher in an age of, not just portable computing, but mobile computing. Previous cell phones just don't come close to matching the iPhone's usability, which directly affects if users even want the device. That said, I wish it had built-in IM. Well, I'm also reloading my personal laptop, so I'm going to get back to that now.

iPod Shuffle

So, we now own an original iPod Shuffle (not the newer ones). Need to replace the battery as it doesn't hold a charge. We are "drinking the Apple juice" according to one of my coworkers.

Prototype, Firefox, and Iframes

If, for some reason, you are using iframes, and you try to call a parent frame's AJAX function from within that iframe, and care about Firefox compatibility, use window.setTimeout(realFunctionHere, 0) in that parent window's function. Because Firefox doesn't like iframes calling AJAX in a parent frame/window at all. Info gotten from here, I ran into this because FF stopped working for one of my AJAX handlers where I was coming from an iframe. I thought the iframe might be the culprit, and that it was an anti-XSS issue, but nothing was saying "security violation". Specifically, I was getting '0x80004005 NS_ERROR_FAILURE prototype.js :: anonymous :: line 1035' (in case anyone's Googl(e)ing this entry). Also, being as to Google is now a verb, how does the active tense work? Does it have an 'e' or not? Hmm... things to ponder.

Many IM networks in one client

For those of us who login to a bazillion IM systems (okay, 6 or so for me), WengoPhone is pretty nice. Unlike Pidgin (prev. Gaim) or Adium, WengoPhone does SIP without crashing on my machine. So I can log in to my SIP, AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo! and Jabber/Google Talk accounts all with one IM program. Which is nice, since I still have to login to Skype for work, and I'd like to keep the number of programs/windows I run to a minimum.

ubuntu UI goodies

Okay, to get a really cool UI in Ubuntu, first run "compiz --replace" - this will replace your window manager (for this session) with a 3d-accelerated one. This is cool enough itself, but then install awn. This installs a Mac-like taskbar on the bottom of the screen. But even just using compiz is cool enough on it's own.

Call Me via GrandCentral

GrandCentral

You know, VOIP is pretty cool. We're already on AT&T CallVantage, and I love paying just over $25 including fees per month (compared to my mom paying > $50/month and not getting much long distance with that), but GrandCentral is even cooler. I can do custom routing per group, and have multiple groups. So I can route friends one way, coworkers another, and everyone else a third way. I can have it ring my home, cell, or even Gizmo (a VOIP/IM/SIP client). Wish it supported forwarding to Skype without using money (as it has to route through the PSTN network), whereas with Gizmo it's all VOIP/SIP so there's no charge (at least right now). I can even listen in while you leave a voice mail and pick up at any time, like the old style answering machines. And, the real cool thing, I can get international numbers. I could have an Israeli number, an Irish number, or a Russian one, among others. Very very cool, IMHO. It doesn't do outbound calling, but just having a local-for-your-friends inbound number is cool, and the advanced routing and other features are great as well. Of course, right now it's only set to forward to my Gizmo login (so as not to use cell minutes), it is of limited use right now. But definitely something to play with, and see if I would be willing to pay a nominal amount for.

HP parody

Here's a parody of book 7 of Harry Potter - do not read until you've read the book. I found it rather funny, personally (the parody, that is).

I want this. Now. I think it's really cool. Can you imagine a wall of these, or making transparent ones and having a HUD display while driving? Could completely eliminate the need to "look down" to check your speed.

Connecting to the internet from a SmartPhone emulator

A good article on how to get the emulator to actually talk to the internet. Why does it do this automatically?!

this is a test

this is a test post from PocketPoster, SmartPhone Edition. Need to tweak the UI a little, but functional.

Sacriledge

Apple's iPhone: will it blend? This, good friends, is HORRIBLE. A perfectly good iPhone, which I would take if given one, had to die to prove that their blender blends anything. The horror, the pain.

I have just discovered that my VX8300 phone can do near-infrared photos! (Verified by using a TV remote, it saw the light!) Now I need to play more with infrared photos on my phone.... Need a filter. Edit: And, as if it's my birthday, our camcorder does it too! I just tested it, then I put the developed unexposed transparency film (a cheap infrared-pass filter) and it worked! I'm charging it's battery now, I may take it with me tomorrow to test at lunch (the best time to do IR photos).

A cool optical illusion

Here is a cool optical illusion. It took me about a couple of minutes before my brain decided that she was going the other way, and it seems to flip randomly. Rather cool.

I HATE MICROSOFT

I hate Microsoft. They are in a class all by themselves, and it is not a distinguished class - the class of those incapable, truly incapable, of writing a decent web browser. In developing a recent module for HouseFront's system, I discovered the "joy" of working with complex JavaScript in a web browser written for < expletive removed before posting, read: poopoo-heads >. Firefox, even without the developer's extensions, runs spheres, not just circles, but 4-d *super-SPHERES around Internet Explorer. Opera's not that great, but at least it ran my code, and Safari seems fine at first glance. But IE *sucks*. Sucks sharp rocks. With mossy outcroppings. Hallucinogenic moss. 'Cause that's what they were smelling when they wrote IE's code. (Except that they really didn't, they 'used' the code from Mosaic and hacked it up in a furball containing cancer-causing substances outlawed in California. Good thing they're based in Washington state.) So, to sum up: Microsoft sucks. They suck because they can't seem to truly innovate, and instead they take things others make, and make them worse. (Kinda reminds me of that commercial about the company that doesn't make things, they make things better. Only the reverse.) IE, as a browser, sucks. Everytime someone asks, and even sometimes when they don't, I'll let people know what I think of IE and FF. This userpic really sums up my feelings vis-a-vis IE. It should die a quick death, followed by a Windows Update for Firefox with a critical tag.

Windows sucks

From :

...IE is still the #1 PC browser and it's a pile of crap with holes so big you could drive not just a Safari, but the whole of the African plains through it.

I love it.

First infrared photo

My attempt at near-infrared photography: I used a cheap method for making it, though, so I have to filter out the blue of the image, and I wasn't sure if it would work right. I hope to do more in the future.

Meetup badget

My recent doctor's visit

So, the lab results from my check up came back. Since I was 30, I wanted something of a baseline to measure against. Sadly, it wasn't a clean slate. Looks like my HDL (good) cholesterol is low, so I need to exercise more (ok, knew that), and my triglicerides, which should be <145 or so were 273. Triglicerides from mostly from sugars, including carbohydrates. So, I need to reduce my sugar intake. That said, I've seen online posts where guys had 1100 for their triglyceride count, so I'm not dead yet. :) So, I need to start doing my nightly walks again, and if I don't have with me I should jog instead. And start lifting weights (as I'm about 40 pounds above where I should be), and eating healthier. Which I've actually been doing - I just need to keep moving towards a healthy diet.

Today (Sunday)

Okay, so today we ran around buying stuff, breakfast (McDonalds, got the ham biscuits and I got the hash triangles), lunch #1 (McDonalds, got a Big Mac), lunch #2 (half of a Divide sandwich from Whole Foods), and got food for the crockpot dinner tomorrow (a beef roast with curry and veggies). Rather expensive day for us - tomorrow will be much cheaper (nothing with the exception of the crockpot stuff that we bought today). We don't normally buy this much food out - we really can eat more from home. Actually, as I write this up, I'm watching Food Network and getting hungry, but we didn't really eat dinner at all.. I may go get some food now. Tonight we did attend the Aurora ASL meetup group for it's first meeting. Although I don't know many signs, I want to relearn those I've forgotten (not many, trust me) and learn more - both to teach but also to know myself. Tomorrow, in addition to watching Harry Potter movies, I will be testing and putting into production better owner picture code for the system at work - my first version works well if the picture is within certain dimensions, but needs tweaking for larger images.

He's weird

Okay, as I was driving down Buckley, I figured out what went wrong Years Ago. You see, I accidentally loaded homynyms_en.txt and synonyms_en.txt into my dictionary table instead of dict_en.txt and dict_en_US.txt. Oops. That's why, when I was looking for the word "airbag" in a recent discussion, I came up with airport (but the thought in my head was Apple's Airport) and then airplane (as the rest of my brain pondered words similar to airport). Sadly, I don't know that I can issue a ROLLBACK TRANSACTION at this late date - probably a very bad idea. So now I need to look into doing a massive LOAD DATA INFILE or something...

Male Bathroom Etiquette

You must view this video - I had to force myself to breathe around the laughter.

YouTube video of the best scene of the best TV show ever - West Wing, 2nd season, Noel.

Rain

I do love the rain. It's storming right now. Had a little hail and lightning earlier. I should move somewhere where this happens more often - it's too rare here.

Master of the washer!

I am master of the washer! Earlier yesterday, called me at work to tell me that the washer was leaking. After picking up a book from my mom, and running the spin cycle to clear the tub of water, I found out how to open the washer's top, and did some testing to see when it leaked - when the water was 4 rows of holes high. And lo and behold, at around that height is this thing on the side of the tub which leads up to the console - it's the "water level sensor", or really an air pressure sensor. That's because when the water gets to that level, it blocks the air in the tube, and the sensor can track the air pressure in the tube, and therefore how high the water in the tub is. And that tube had popped off, so a) the washer would leak from there, and b) the washer thought the tub wasn't at minimum water level yet, so it would keep filling forever. Reattached tube, and problem was fixed. That's when we discovered the absolute GUNK that this thing has accumulated over the last 10 years. Took me an hour to clean it out. So now it's up and running again. We're going to save up for a new washer/dryer combo, hoping that these last at least another 6 months, if not a year.

Smoking vs. Gay

Smoking places second-hand smoke into the environment. I go for a drink somewhere with smokers (Only one or two), I come home smelling of cigarette smoke. I go for a drink somewhere with homosexuals (Only one or two), I do not come home gay.

Has interesting points, which really relate to any religion. I did not know that the ranking Democrat in DC was Mormon (LDS), for instance.

Why did it have to be the spider dæmon?

Water coolers

So, should you buy a water cooler, say from Hamilton, and the instructions indicate that you can safely use pliers on a silicone seal, don't. We get to take ours back to Target and get another because the instruction sheet clearly shows someone doing just that, and the text just says "See illustration". Sadly, using pliers will rip the silicone. I talked to some people from Lowe's, they said that those instructions seemed bad and to call the 800 number and get new seals. Well, this American customer does not know the word patience. :) So, I will take it back, get the other box they had, and this time take it off by hand (which is how the 1st one came off, although it did take some work). So now we'll have a water cooler in the kitchen. I was able to sanitise and clean out the old water cooler - turns out it was the water bottle and not the cooler, so we're going to go back to using it (or at least we'll see).

Police Academy

has NOT ever seen Police Academy. I've now added it to the TOP of my Netflix queue. How this happened, I'll never know...

The real reason behind Easter eggs

For those NOT easily offended: http://community.livejournal.com/metaquotes/5993308.html.

Google Maps mashup coolness

Go to this page. It's a GeoRSS mashup supported by a recent change in the Google Maps API. It's just the sort of coolness that I can add to the site on a Sunday night in less than 2 hours, including testing.

We went over to the family's today for Easter. Burned my non-pork subsitute (fish), so I didn't eat any of that. Instead had lots of potato/mushroom much, Jell-o(tm), and deviled eggs. Went to Whole Foods (one of the few places open this Sunday (weird, eh?)). Got some eggnog, white chocolate milk, other junk.

Here's another C#/.Net code sample. This one takes a CSV file, optionally with quotes around fields, or not, or mixed within one line (THANKS Excel 2007, for throwing that in the gears..). IT converts it into a DataTable, optionally with ColumnNames from the file. Actually, looking at the code, it HAS to have ColumnNames in the first row. So, if you want to use it that way, adjust the code. I could have used this code yesterday, so I decided to post it for others.

        private System.Data.DataTable ConvertCSVToTable(String file, bool firstRowHasColumnNames)
        {
            System.Data.DataTable dt = new System.Data.DataTable();
            String[] lines = System.IO.File.ReadAllLines(file);
            foreach (String line in lines)
            {
                System.Collections.Specialized.StringCollection parts = ParseCSVString(line);
                if (dt.Columns.Count < 1 && firstRowHasColumnNames)
                {
                    // this row contains column names
                    foreach (String part in parts)
                        dt.Columns.Add(new System.Data.DataColumn(part.Trim('"')));
                }
                else
                {
                    // FIXME TODO: Adjust to dynamically create new columns as needed if a row has more items than we have columns (due to broken CSV implementations, or if we didn't have column names in row 1)
                    // this row contains data
                    System.Data.DataRow dr = dt.NewRow();
                    for (int i = 0; i < parts.Count; i++)
                        dr[i] = parts[i].Trim('"');
                    dt.Rows.Add(dr);
                }
            }
            return dt;
        }

        private System.Collections.Specialized.StringCollection ParseCSVString(String line)
        {
            System.Collections.Specialized.StringCollection sc = new System.Collections.Specialized.StringCollection();
            String buf = "";
            bool inQuotes = false;
            foreach (Char c in line) // each character
            {
                if (c == '\"') {
                    inQuotes = !inQuotes;
                }
                else if (c == ',' && !inQuotes) // if comma and NOT in quotes, delimit!
                {
                    sc.Add(buf);
                    buf = ""; // add new item, clear buffer
                }
                else
                {
                    buf += c.ToString();
                }
            }
            if (buf != "") sc.Add(buf); // add remaining buffer as last item
            return sc;
        }

Raise!

I got a raise! This evening, just as I was about to leave work, my boss asked me to step in the office for a few minutes. He told me that he's very pleased with my performance, and I'm getting a raise (can't say how much online, sorry) to recognize my value to the company. 3 months ahead of schedule even! Well I for one will certainly appreciate it. and went to Mom's Night Out (although I understand there was only one other mommy there tonight), so , Tiny, and I all went out to run some errands. Went out to Old Chicago for dinner afterwards. Was fun, we may or may not go hiking this weekend depending on the weather - Colorado has decided that winter isn't quite dead yet - it's been cool these past couple of days (for which I am thankful!).

22-33-104.5. Home-based education - legislative declaration- definitions - guidelines.

2 (c) "Qualified person" means an individual who is selected by the parent of a child who is participating in a nonpublic home-based educational program to evaluate such child's progress and who is a teacher licensed pursuant to article 60.5 of this title, a teacher who is employed by an independent or parochial school, a licensed psychologist, or a person with a graduate degree in education.

Might be easier for to get licensed as a psychologist than as a teacher..

Religion and son's birthday party

Ok, so I recently felt like I wasn't going to go down the Jewish path, because I couldn't convert to Judaism. After discussing it some with (who admitted that she's gotten used to my doing this), I've decided that I'm going to keep on this path, but that doesn't stop me from looking at other faiths as places from which I can learn things. I may, someday, find a Rabbi who can convert me, otherwise I'll be the shul goy. (Not exactly a pun..) So now going back to no pork, etc., and I'll figure out the rest later. I would like to find a community where I fit in, though. The Jewish community here has no problem with my attending and all, but I'm not really *part* of the community, it's like I attend but don't belong. So that's something for me to ponder as well. This Saturday, we are having 's first birthday party! We've been working on getting the house clean and ready for 12 adults + more possibly, and 4 kids from 12 to 18 months (or so). Fun fun! Really all I have left is some laundry, my bathroom, and the office if I can manage it. We're planning to have a cake for him to eat (we'll see), one for adults (although the other one is just fine for adults, too!), and some trays of veggies for people to eat (may have a little more, we'll see).

Say it ain't so!

Best Buy is buying SpeakEasy. So, one of the last bastions of real peer-to-peer, servers allowed, static IP internet is going away. I'm not fooled for one minute: Best Buy sucks, and they won't be able to resist mucking about with SpeakEasy's policies and procedures. I really found this quote cute:

"We have a high regard for Speakeasy's employees, their culture, and their valued relationships with customers and vendors," Jackson said. "They have a strong customer service-oriented approach, which is an excellent fit with Best Buy's culture and direction."

Well, that should make one choke on one's coffee/tea/lemonade. Ugh. Best Buy != Good customer service.

Work (friends only)

Ok, what I couldn't say on the public post is "UGH!". We are running, screaming, away from Microsoft's ASP.Net AJAX implementation. I haven't had anywhere near as much trouble with JavaScript and AJAX as I have with this - I'd rather write my own AJAX implementation! As it is, I'm going to make a "semi" final decision in the next couple days on either Prototype, Scriptalcious[sp], Rico or Yahoo! UI. Leaning towards Yahoo!, but we'll see. I really just want something to facilitate the XML/JSON/SOAP/whatever calls, and let me handle the UI (as it'll be really pretty and dynamic and whatnot). I may keep ASP.Net for the backend, as I'd rather not touch PHP, I don't know enough Ruby, and I don't really know Java (and setting up Java is a pain in the tuchis).

Work

We're live! Yay! HouseFront.com is now live. You can text an address to HOUSE (46873) and get back a couple of SMS messages with details, and then review the properties (and get more info) on the website. We've put in a lot of hours for the past months, and now we can finally put it out there for people to use.

Fun at work

Friends locked as it discussed pre-release stuff at work. [Edit: No longer friend-locked due to age and non-relevance to current status of work.] *sigh* Okay, so Tuesday I cleared my queue of everything so that I could work on implementing the new web design Wednesday. Wednesday I went in, and basically blew off the whole day as I was told not to use the web design given, as they were going to work with the designer to change key parts of it. Today I get in, and finally I can use the web design, but more will dribble in, and various little bugs were found in production (no biggie, expected, planned for), and then the company we get our data from starts having problems resolving addresses. Argh. I only got two pages done today of implementing the new design - there are 2 more, plus a master page (kinda like template page), and then polishing the edges where I didn't quite complete whatever I needed to do to make each page actually work. I really hoped to have the new web design integrated by noon Friday, I'm thinking now that it won't be until noon Monday. :(

Busy network

I have quite the busy network. I run the free basic version of Network Magic on my personal laptop (just 'cause, honestly, it doesn't really do anything for me..). Anyways, here's a breakdown of the devices that it detects on my network (and it's accurate): My Personal Laptop (Windows/Ubuntu Linux) My Work Laptop (Windows) My Desktop (PowerMac G4) 's Laptop (iBook G4) 's Primary Desktop - Games (Windows) 's Secondary Desktop - EQ Trader (Windows) CallVantage VOIP Telephone Adapter (VOIP) Printers sharing Laptop (Ubuntu Linux) Wii (Nintendo) Xbox (Microsoft) That's 10 devices. Ten. Wow. And all except the Xbox are wireless.

Wii

Yay! We just picked up a Wii, a 2nd controller, and are now downloading updates, creating Mii's, and such. So far it seems like lots of fun (we tried out 's Wii previously and decided that we did like it.

Bnei noach

Okay, so for now I've given up on converting to Judaism. Why? Well, even the liberal movements won't convert into an intermarriage, particularly when there's a kid involved (and while I'm bringing him up with exposure to jewish/noachide beliefs, events, etc., we won't force our son to be any particular religion). So, I get to default to being a Noachide. I started reading up on this awhile back, it's just taken me this long to give in. So, I'll try to learn as much as I can about those areas I can do something in, and maybe someday when is older and grown up, I'll be able to convert then (as I'd be too old to have kids of either kind, jewish or gentile). But then I sometimes see things that I see as anti-Gentile (as opposed to antisemetic), like this snippet from about half way down the page of http://www.noahide.com/rebbe.htm:

The Seven Laws must be explained in away that the nations can relate to and, because non-Jews do not possessgenuine free will, they will be willing to change more quickly and easily than a Jew.

--Hisvaduyos 5748 3:183, cited in "The Deed is the Main Thing," Kol Boi Ha'olam, p. 385-386.

Now, I'm pretty darned surprised that I didn't have "genuine free will". Pretty darned surprised. I'm going to chalk this one up to some guy having a bad day years ago - everyone has them. But boy does that quote burn in my gut right now.

Newest quote: I knew this day would come, but I'd hoped it would happen 6 months after I'd left. Made by: Me, at the office today, upon relating to Wade my intern that we needed to support multiple data providers. Prior to launch. Which is in less than 2 weeks.

Apple ad clones

Okay, apparently everyone is making clones of Apple's funny ads. Thankfully most of them aren't too bad.

Weekend

Well, I turn THIRTY this weekend. Wow. I will be an old man. Ooooooooold Maaaaaaaan, dude! Hehe. I guess I do feel older, I'm definitely not a teenager, or even near the lower 20s. Between my bifocals and this crick in my neck, I can tell that I'm not one of the newer models. I'm hoping to go to shul for the first time in Months (yes, capital M there) this Saturday - will probably take with me, will invite as well. Hopefully either Saturday afternoon or Sunday sometime my inlaws can take the little bug so that and I can enjoy some downtime. Mind, I have no clue what we'd do - play games, go to a movie, or just eat out without a kid. Maybe we'll do Chili's or something. Work is coming along, we decided to delay rollout until March 1st to ensure a good user experience. We're also looking at MySql (currently in use) vs. DB2 (which has a free version that allows 4GB RAM, 2 CPU and unlimited size DB, way better than Oracle/MSSQL servers). MySql's cluster/replication won't work for us (as it's an in-memory setup, and we'll have way too much data for that small of a space), and DB2 does support clustering (when you pay to upgrade, and when we got there I'm sure we could pay the licensing fee at that time for that feature). So it sounds tempting, but we need more info before we decide to port all of our data/SQL over to it. Wade's (my intern) researching into other options for MySql (if only because the other associated companies in the office have experience with it, whereas no one does for DB2). Well, back to work so I can finish up and get home.

Super Geek

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Outcast Genius 65 % Nerd, 69% Geek, 56% Dork

For The Record: A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia. A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one. A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions. You scored better than half in all three, earning you the title of: Outcast Genius. Outcast geniuses usually are bright enough to understand what society wants of them, and they just don't care! They are highly intelligent and passionate about the things they know are *truly* important in the world. Typically, this does not include sports, cars or make-up, but it can on occassion (and if it does then they know more than all of their friends combined in that subject). Outcast geniuses can be very lonely, due to their being outcast from most normal groups and too smart for the room among many other types of dorks and geeks, but they can also be the types to eventually rule the world, ala Bill Gates, the prototypical Outcast Genius. Congratulations! THE NERD? GEEK? OR DORK? TEST

New Icon!

New Userpic! Haha. I adapted it from an Adium dock icon (a multiprotocol kick-aabsolutely wonderful MacOS-only :( IM client). Not that I have a MacBook. Although with our SIXTEEN HUNDRED BUCK refund (total), I could. Not that we're that irresposible. We're going to buy a Wii - come on! Well, that and put some money away for Isaac's college fund (which we'll be starting), possibly getting a couch, etc.. I'm getting a refund for the first time in like 3-4 years. I think Signal just didn't do the taxes right any year (which might also explain why we switched to a PEO to do things like insurance and payroll. Anyways, I've been busy at my new job. Can't say much yet, but we're going to be the real estate website for searching for homes. It's been fun trying to figure out what we want to do, setting up blogs, servers, databases, web applications, working with external companies to get the data, reviewing the site, etc.. I really hope we're able to get up and running this week, but we'll see (you can check www.housefront.com to see if we're up and running yet).

Cntrl-Alt-Del

If you're not reading Cntrl-Alt-Delete, you should. Start at the beginning - like all good things, this will take time. And make sure you have plenty of time - you can't read just one.

I just retook the beliefnet.com what's your religion quiz (I just googled it, sorry, no link). Here's my results: 1. Reform Judaism (100%) 2. Liberal Quakers (79%) 3. Sikhism (79%) 4. Baha'i Faith (78%) 5. Orthodox Judaism (75%) 6. Unitarian Universalism (74%) 7. Islam (73%) 8. Jainism (66%) 9. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (65%) 10. Neo-Pagan (64%) 11. Mahayana Buddhism (54%) 12. New Age (54%) 13. Hinduism (49%) 14. New Thought (44%) 15. Secular Humanism (44%) 16. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (43%) 17. Orthodox Quaker (43%) 18. Scientology (41%) 19. Theravada Buddhism (40%) 20. Jehovah's Witness (32%) 21. Taoism (32%) 22. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (30%) 23. Seventh Day Adventist (29%) 24. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (27%) 25. Eastern Orthodox (24%) 26. Roman Catholic (24%) 27. Nontheist (20%) Interesting that Judaism is still up at the top. I guess answering that God is noncorporeal and singular would limit my choices :).

Ubuntu

Ok, color me impressed. I worked with Linux at my previous jobs, and certainly at home. I distinctly recall switching back and forth between Debian (got the job done, was rock solid, but was also older than the hills...) and RedHat/Fedora (had new stuff, looked cool, but had RPM hell and no good package manager (aptitude/synaptic-quality)). Eventually, I got a Mac, and I got spoiled for an easy-to-use UNIX-like OS. I stopped using "Linux" pretty shortly thereafter. Well, recently I've used my laptop more than my desktops, and it's a Windows laptop with a now-deleted OEM partition. I decided to put Ubuntu there, as it combined the best of both worlds - Debian's package management (Sun: pay attention. pkgsrc sucks broken egg shells.) and updated and modern packages. I expected to have to do tweaking - it's laptop, after all. I had a wireless network at home, and a widescreen on it, so I expected problems. After installing it and doing TWO, count them, TWO things, it's working fine. Because I have a Broadcom 1390 wireless card (the computer's a Compaq C304NR (C300 series) laptop), I had to unload the bcmwl5 driver, blacklist it, and compile the current ndiswrapper and install the windows driver from compaq under linux. Okay, that required loading g++-4.1, but in the future this shouldn't even be necessary - there is a driver in the kernel, it just doesn't know about this firmware yet. The other thing was the widescreen - just loading 915resolution using synaptic, a quick run of it told me how to set it, Cntrl-Alt-Backspace, and my X was nicely at 1280x800. I proceeded to load LogJam (an LJ client), configure GAIM, and connect to my wireless network. All in all, not too bad. I will have to play with this more - I am very pleasantly surprised with how they've changed the linux desktop market in the last year or so - these are major strides in usability.

Multithreading ThreadPool class replacement

Some very useful code for wanting a ThreadPool that actually multithreads (as .Net's builtin ThreadPool object only runs one thread at a time):

namespace Wiegand
{
    public class ThreadPool
    {
        private System.Collections.Queue _queue = new System.Collections.Queue();

        public long QueueLength()
        {
            lock (this._queue) { return this._queue.Count; }
        }
        public Object Dequeue()
        {
            lock (this._queue) { return this._queue.Dequeue(); }
        }
        public void Enqueue(Object value)
        {
            lock (this._queue) { _queue.Enqueue(value); }
        }

        public void RunThreads(int threadCount, System.Threading.ParameterizedThreadStart pts)
        {
            // now, start the threads
            // since threadpool only actually runs one thread at a time, it is not ideal for this situation
            System.Collections.Generic.List threads = new List(threadCount);
            for (int i = 1; i <= threadCount; i++)
            {
                Thread thread = new Thread(pts);
                threads.Add(thread);
                thread.Start();
            }

            foreach (System.Threading.Thread thread in threads)
            {
                thread.Join(); // wait for each to finish
            }
            // done!
        }
        public void RunThreads(int threadCount, System.Threading.ThreadStart pts)
        {
            // now, start the threads
            // since threadpool only actually runs one thread at a time, it is not ideal for this situation
            System.Collections.Generic.List threads = new List(threadCount);
            for (int i = 1; i <= threadCount; i++)
            {
                Thread thread = new Thread(pts);
                threads.Add(thread);
                thread.Start();
            }

            foreach (System.Threading.Thread thread in threads)
            {
                thread.Join(); // wait for each to finish
            }
            // done!
        }
    }
}

My newest quote

My newest quote:

One thing I've learned from Disney: there's a HUGE difference between good magic and bad magic. Good magic always comes with good clothes. Bad magic never does. So the next time you're being transformed from a mermaid to a human, check your dress afterwards!

Today

Well, I got a lot done at work today - got the UI about half way integrated with the business logic/data access logic. Also pulled those two things out into a separate library (made making the service-which-became-a-scheduled-task easier, and will make writing those unit tests that I'll have time for next century easier). Yes, you read that right, there's not really time for proper unit tests. But, I may have time soon: we're hiring an intern. Wow, I never realized how little they pay those guys. Hehe. Anyways, he'll be doing DBA-like stuff. I get to teach him how to do OLAP (yeah, I'm such an expert, but at least I do know some stuff), and how to properly indent SQL (well, at least from my POV), and sprocs in MySql (which is the worst implementation known to man - why, for the love of {insert divine entity's name here} did you NOT use @ for the parameter variable names!?). I hope that we're able to get him in soon so that I can teach him the current setup, get his opinions on it, and get him to start writing some queries/reports. I think we're doing pretty well on the timeline - I'm actually about a day ahead of where I wanted to be. We ( and I) went to CompUSA today to get Yoshi's Island 2 for the DS for her belated Chanukah present. So maybe in a week or two she'll get her belated Christmas present. :)

Male lactation

A video on male lactation

Just thought I'd share.

Daily interaction with religion

Recently, and I were discussing religion, and I mentioned that Judaism is constantly in one's life: one has to keep kosher was the example I gave (although there are so many more, the laws of niddah (not touching those who are in an "impure" state), daily Torah study, etc.). I also mentioned that these laws have an effect, intended or not, of keeping Jews separate from non-Jews. He said that Mormonism, on the other hand, doesn't really have anything that would really separate him, or try to separate him from others. After some thinking about this, and recognizing that I am NOT attacking either religion, or saying one is better than the other, does it make sense (to us humans) to have our religion constantly "in the way"? To a point, having laws that cover every situation, and that dictate the correct reaction to all situations, would be very stifling (well, there IS a reason I'm not an Orthodox Jew). But would I want Judaism to be something that I don't think of on a daily basis (OK, there are certainly days when I just chug through the day and so it really doesn't bubble up into my conscious much..)? If I were to take out kashrut (keeping kosher of some form) and all of the other parts of Judaism that are observed daily, and are rather visible, would it matter? Would it still be Judaism? Would it be as good for me (would it benefit me to the same extent, either spiritually or in other ways)? How would having a Mormonism that had more rules, or that was more public, more obvious change things? (Hey, we've already cornered the market on kippot/yarmulkes, but maybe y'all can wear head bands, or the same ring, or dye your hair green, or something. :) Also what was interesting to me is that Mormonism is apparently the only Christian church that is NOT "one-true-way"ish. Of course they think their way is the most direct. But that they don't think that other ways are false (well, i'm sure some are from their POV), but that not all are automatically false, that is kinda cool. Maybe Christianity is maturing (we older religions don't seem to have this problem, but the younger ones generally do, at least that's how I see it). Not to imply that Christianity is immature! Just that it's aging, mellowing, getting to know the neighbors and seeing that we all share more than one might think. Hmm... I definitely see that I'm going to be looking at my own religion more now that I'm interacting with someone from another faith, who has no problem (so far!) discussing religion with me. Which is probably a good thing.

Recent stuff

Yesterday: So, , and I went over to a couple friends' house yesterday. We guys had fun, watched the kiddos and discussed lots of stuff. Quite a bit about Mormonism (they're Mormon, I'm converting from nothingism to Judaism). Now, I recall reading up about Mormonism before, back when a family member was thinking of joining (not to mention, I love studying other religion's beliefs). But I've forgotten quite a bit, and honestly, I never mind learning more. So I'm reading up on it, and the various sects, and I found out that just like Judaism, Mormonism has an "Orthodox", "Conservative", "Reform" and "Reconstructionist" split. To me this is interesting (almost funny, but not quite). [source]. Anyways, I may check out a book or two about it to learn more. And of course discuss it with more (assuming he's OK with that).

Yesterday dinner: All of us (,, myself, , Tiny and ) went to Yak and Yeti, a wonderful Nepalese/North Indian buffet/restaurant. The food was great! The lamb was good, the various chickens were good. I couldn't spell half of the things I ate there and liked, but if you happen to be near enough to Broomfield, you might try it.

Work: I got the database, data access layer and business logic layer done. Well, mostly that is. I've still got to create a PropertyComps structure (not even going to call it a class), a function to call them up, and a MySql ASP.Net membership provider (although I'm really reconsidering using that, I think it'll depend on how the UI is supposed to work). Speaking of the UI, I should be getting the web design from them Monday, so I will probably review it, make my test pages use the proper UI, and create those simple pages that I hadn't yet because they were so simple. I'm on-target. Oh, and I think the pay side of things will come out alright in the end: Signal was paying me a certain amount, these guys almost the exact same amount. Signal was putting in an extra $500 a month to help defray medical insurance. Well, I was paying $800/month for a family on that. I can get private insurance with similar benefits (a little higher on the deductible, but office visits are just $25, and pregnancy isn't covered) for $300/month, which is kinda what I was paying out of paycheck before. So, we'll see with the first full paycheck, but I think things'll be OK. I get a REALLY nice work laptop too (been using my personal Celeron 1.8GHz for awhile now...): 3.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 1.5 GB ram, 120GB hard drive. It will kick butt. I could (and probably will) totally virtualize the devel web server and devel db server (to help test the configuration). I get it (in theory) on Thursday. Fun fun fun!

The future: Well, we've got a friend who's almost certainly going to move in, at least on a trial basis. Got to make room for them (her and her 1yr old kid). That means clearing out the baby room (which we don't use except to change , and he's getting big enough to do that on the floor now), putting that stuff in either the inlaws' basement or our garage. It also means clearing out the garage of all of the junk. Which means I need to get a dumpster out here. Gotta remember that, maybe for end of month.. Need to find winning lottery/PowerBall ticket (yeah, that's going to happen, but if it does, you'all will be the ... er... 10th or so to know). My brother's finally getting married, although I don't know how much of a ceremony they'll have. It'll be July 4th, though, so it'll be easy to remember. I'm looking forward to all of this snow melting. We got the 4th, yes 4th, batch of snow since Friday. Driving this morning was not fun, let me tell you.

Well, I'll probably sign off now. Need to finish eating the macaroni and cheese. Oh, one last thing: We got the Avatar: The last airbenter DVD (1st season, all episodes) box set yesterday, so we've been watching them a lot recently.

School

Reference: Denver Post, today Okay, I think these are great ideas. Particularly the one about testing students at the end of 10th grade, and from there determining if they would be better off going to a trade school/community college or staying in high school to eventually go to university/college. It's been 10 years, but I clearly recall students who really were in school because they had to, either because of parents or to get the diploma. PLENTY of students I went to school with never went to university/college, and ended up getting retail, construction, or other blue collar jobs. Allowing them out early would remove some of the students who cause problems now in school, AND give them a career path earlier that really should fit them better. And that's not to say that they can't go to college, just that they would have the option of short-circuiting to trade school/community college. Germany has a similar setup - you go to a trade school, finish normal high school, or go to a university-prep high school. I think it makes a lot of sense, and hope to see it in Colorado someday.

First day

So, it was my first day at my new job. It was going to be a slightly different company, Relogic, but they've actually transferred me to a different one. Due to company confidentiality, I can't discuss exactly what we're doing, but the job itself is interesting. It'll be a lot of stress at first, ramping up and learning all I need to know (and getting the job done, of course). Oh, and my new job is 2 blocks from the Union Station light rail stop. So I'll probably start taking that in instead of driving (as there's not many spaces for parking at the office). And I get C# experience. That brings up my first issue: C# has delegates. Now, I think that that's ok, itself. It's how websites and books describe them. Here's the way to describe them: function pointers. If I had read that sentence, I would have saved 30 minutes of my life trying to figure out how the books were using delegates and why you'd use them. ARGH. Finally I figured it out, and had the ah hah! moment. My only other issue is how VS.net formats C#, it does this: private Object ReturnSomethingCool { // put your code here } and I would rather see: private Object ReturnSomethingCool { // put your code here } Oh well.

2007

Well, a new year. Everyone else is listing their new years resolutions. As and I have a couple so far I'll list them: * Drink more water. * We're going to try to keep to the FlyLady system for cleaning/organizing the house more. Apart from that, let's review how I did on my December goals: 1. Drinking 8 cups (2 liters) of water a day: Well, dunno how well I did. I do know that at Signal we had a nice water dispenser (converted from bottle to a filter for piped water, which was much better than the bottles they were getting!). I liked the water, and it was easy to get and drink, and I did find myself drink more water (probably ~4 cups alone at work). I'm hoping to keep doing this this new year (see above). So I think I get a point for this. 2. Daily prayer: I flunked this one. Totally. I think it's because I'm just not used to it - my family was practically atheist, and I'm not really used to it. I don't know if I want to try this again, or wait and if I should try again... I'm kinda lost on this one. I really need to get back to visiting my shul and Rabbi once in awhile (first Isaac, then my work, and now my new work conspire to take the time that I would use to do this..). 3. Start serious work on PocketPoster 2.0: Well, I got a couple classes started. I'm trying to do test-driven development, and it's slower than traditional development methods. Also, I've had to work on getting a new job, and learn the differences between VB.Net and C# for my new job. No points here. So, here's 2 for January. Since I've got 2 for the year as a whole, I'm going to just try two per month. 1. Wow my new coworkers, or at least don't get drowned. I guess I'm really afraid that I'm just not good enough. I'm afraid that these guys are super competent and that I just don't know enough, or that I won't know as much as we all thought I did. Luckily time will solve this one... 2. Dunno. I'll probably edit/comment and figure this one out later. :) Oh, and as a completely unrelated note: Staples now has a Colorado store - in Boulder! , and I all went there to get Easy Buttons. I've always wanted one.