Chuggnutt!

Month: May 2004

  • Silly math tricks

    For some reason, these kind of math gimmicks always remind me of upside down calculator spelling. They’re amusing, but I really have to wonder who sits around and thinks these things up? Anyway, here’s what I just received via email from a friend (slightly edited):

    “Chocolate mathematics”

    1. First of all, pick the number of times a week that you would like to have chocolate. (Try for more than once but less than 10.)

    2. Multiply this number by 2 (Just to be bold)

    3. Add 5. (for Sunday)

    4. Multiply it by 50.

    5. If you have already had your birthday this year add 1754. If you haven’t, add 1753.

    6. Now subtract the four digit year that you were born.

    You should have a three digit number.

    The first digit of this was your original number (i.e., how many times you want to have chocolate each week).

    The next two numbers are:

    Your age! (Oh yes, it is!!!!!)

    This is the only year it will ever work, so spread it around while it lasts.

    Incidentally, yes, it works.

  • Détente

    Sam Ruby, in his excellet post Détente:

    The key takeaway here is to beware of anybody who preaches one true format or one size fits all. Each format has its strengths. And none of them are going away any time soon.

  • Map of Springfield

    Too cool: The Map of Springfield. You know, Springfield from The Simpsons. Amazing amount of effort going into this.

    Via Slashdot.

  • vCard

    I’ve been playing with the vCard format for a project at work and I gotta say, there’s a technology that’s begging to be re-implemented in XML. I mean, here’s the behind-the-scenes formatting of a vCard file:

    BEGIN:VCARD
FN:Mr. John Q. Public, Esq.
N:Public;John;Quinlan;Mr.;Esq.
BDAY:1995-04-15
ADR;DOM;HOME:P.O. Box 101;Suite 101;123 Main Street;Any Town;CA;91921-1234;
TEL;PREF;WORK;MSG;FAX:+1-800-555-1234
END:VCARD

    …with a bunch of arcane rules for delimiters and encoding. Uh, hello? EDI? 1989 called, and it wants its format back.

    Wouldn’t something like this XML mockup of the same thing just make more sense?

    <vCard>
  <name>
    <family>Public</family>
    <given>John</given>
    <additional>Quinlan</additional>
    <prefix>Mr.</prefix>
    <suffix>Esq.</suffix>
    <formatted>Mr. John Q. Public, Esq.</formatted>
  </name>
  <dob>1995-04-15</dob>
  <address>
    <type>Domestic, Home</type>
    <po>P.O. Box 101</po>
    <extended>Suite 101</extended>
    <street>123 Main Street</street>
    <locality>Any Town</locality>
    <region>CA</region>
    <postalCode>91921-1234</postalCode>
  </address>
  <telephone>
    <preferred />
    <type>Work, Message, Fax</type>
    <number>+1-800-555-1234</number>
  </telephone>
</vCard>

  • Apology

    I got an email from Al Fasoldt yesterday that was in response to this piece I wrote last year. He wanted to know what I was thinking when I wrote it, and basically called me on it. I remembered being harsh when I wrote it, but since it was last July I didn’t remember any real details (it was on the software Hotbar, and Web tracking in general), I went back and re-read what I wrote.

    Wow.

    I wasn’t just harsh and sarcastic, I was downright nasty. Looking back on it now, it was pretty uncalled for, and I honestly don’t know why I was so rude. So, I emailed an apology to Fasoldt, and I’m doing the same publicly (since I lambasted him here in public): I apologize for being so nasty and writing that entry up the way I did.

  • Back

    Yes, back from Portland since yesterday, but I’m finally catching up on everything—internet connectivity has been spotty at best here for some reason, so last night after not being able to connect to anything for the umpteenth time, I said, “Screw it!” and gave up.

    Portland is where it’s supposed to be. Bend is where I left it. Good enough.

  • Gone for the weekend

    I’ll be offline all this weekend and most of Monday. We’re going to Portland: the kids have another eye doctor appointment with someone new on Monday, so we’re making a weekend out of it and heading up tomorrow.

    I’ll check my email Saturday morning but after that it’s au revoir.

  • Poor choice in words

    On the radio today I heard a commercial for the Obsidian Opera, with possibly the dumbest choice of words for promoting opera that I’ve ever heard. They said, “opera is like going to a topless bar for your eyes and ears.” Aside from the crude juxtapositioning of opera and topless bars, wouldn’t something that’s like a topless bar for your eyes and ears be… a topless bar?

  • Blog software chart

    For anyone looking at other weblogging software (Jake), this is really good: Blog Software Breakdown. It has a fantastic chart of features on ten popular weblog packages.

    This chart displays attributes of different user-installed blog software packages side-by-side for comparison. Only server-installed scripts will be included in this list. (Sorry, no Radio, Blogger, etc.)

    Via Ensight.

  • Matrix Cheat Codes

    At work today a couple of us were jokingly speculating as to what earlier versions of The Matrix would be like—or, more accurately, what we would imagine they’d be like—and I came up with Half-Life. Basically, imagine the Matrix v1 as a first-person shooter.

    Makes perfect sense! All they essentially do in the Matrix is run around fighting, with or without weapons. Matrix Savants (or whatever the hell the people like Morpheus and Trinity are called) have managed to hack the command line and discover some cheat codes. But The One not only knows all the cheat codes, but is also able to change the server environment. Flying? Simply set sv_gravity 0.