Archive for October, 2006

Every time we have to cut up an onion for a recipe it’s always a coin toss, paper-rock-scissors, or choosies for who has to cut them up. It’s always difficult because the onion always wants to fall apart mid-chop. On top of that, though, it takes too long and that makes you cry as you hover over the onion and get the fumes from it reacting with the water in your eye which produces sulfuric acid! What we really need is the Ultimate Chopper. This thing makes short work of practically any chopping task. Check it out!

Well, Tommy, they finally did it. It finally happened, and we weren’t there for it. Tommy and I had this idea when we were kids that people should have a soundtrack for themselves when they walk. I’m sure the idea came from video games where there is always background music for no apparent reason. Now there is a wearable computer called PersonalSoundtrack that plays music from a playlist based on your current walking speed. Minor variations in speed are measured and the music speed is dynamically adjusted to match your footsteps. If a deliberate speed change is detected then a faster, more speed-appropriate song is started. I think I would have the slow Peter and the Wolf song for slow walking. I don’t know about fast walking, though. There are so many possibilities it would be difficult to choose just one.

The hardware and software upon which this is built is open source and there is a section for source code on the web site. I’m assuming this will become an open source project soon. This would be a fun project and a great way to annoy people and have fun at the same time.

It’s amazing just how difficult it can be for those who are addicted to painkilling medication like Vicodin. I know someone who had this problem. They didn’t realize they were addicted until they decided to try and cut back on their dosage and soon realized that the pain they were feeling was from withdrawal symptoms and was completely separate from the pain they were trying to get rid of when they started the medication. It is possible for some to break the addiction on their own, but for others the pain is unbearable. Meditox offers a solution that doesn’t require giving up anything in your life. Their drug detox method includes a replacement medication along with individual help and support. If you know anyone who has wanted to get off their prescription pain medication but has found it impossible, now there is help available.

I decided that I ought to test out the Dell C600 laptop I got from Krissy’s dad. I only have one stick of 64MB RAM, so I put it in the machine. I popped in a bootable Linux CD and off I went. I was able to verify everything. I ran memtest on it all night, too, and the memory I have now is good. That’s surprising considering that it’s been hopping from laptop to laptop for longer than I know anything about. I got a 20GB hard drive off of eBay that’s on its way. I’m trying to do all of this as cheaply as possible so I took a gamble on an “as is” sale. Let’s cross our fingers. I also put a bid on an Atheros based mini PCI wifi card that someone pulled out of an old Toshiba laptop. Let’s just hope I can figure out a way to connect it to the Dell laptop’s internal antenna.

While I was looking for a PCMCIA network card one of the pictures was of a scantily clad woman. I thought it must be a prank or a mistake, so I checked out the seller’s profile. They seem to be a high-volume seller basically running an eBay-based business selling computer components. The list of their sales showed that almost all of their products had, as the primary photo, which is supposed to be of the product in question, lingerie models posing. I guess it’s true what they say, as the seller seemed to be doing pretty good business.

Many people think that finding a unique gift is hard. Some people just go out and buy everything they really want, so coming up with something they don’t even know about is the answer. Some of the best sites out there for getting good gift ideas are surprise.com, Gifts.com, and FindGift.com. My personal favorite, though is surprise.com. You choose whether you’re shopping for a man or a woman and then pick a theme. For me I would think things I might like would be under “Gadgeteer.” But there are other categories like “chocoholic,” and “manly man” as well. You are sure to find something for that hard to shop for person on your holiday list.

Krissy was having so much trouble today with staining all four sides of the table legs that she had to figure out a way to hang them up. If we had a garage that would really make things so much easier, but we don’t. Krissy got the ingenious idea to hang the legs up in the bathroom by the shower rod. So I rigged up some twine (hooray for Boy Scouts!) and get it all ready for her to hang them by the bolt near the top of each leg. I must say that it worked out perfectly! That means no more showers until the stain has dried, though. And we have to run the fan in the bathroom 24/7 until the fumes stop wafting off of the wood, but it’s still better than what she was doing before!

Pictures coming soon.

I know a lot of people are excited to see this new payperpostbluemonster promotion. A whole lot of people are also trying to grab as many of these puzzle pieces as they can so they can get themselves a cool $500. This is put on by PayPerPost.com who allows companies to pay bloggers for blog ads placed on their blogs. Good Luck!

I have three programming classes right now. One of them is actually a class about computer history and structure. My 160 class has tons of homework and takes me hours to finish even though the material is all stuff that I already know. My 221 class is data structures and algorithms using Java and I’m learning Java as I go, so that’s a fun class. The only homework is a program due every two to three weeks. My 222 class is Assembler Language using i386. I thought it would be a pretty difficult class. The biweekly homework assignment is to read and then answer 4 questions then do a super-simple program that takes about 10 lines of code and 30 minutes to work through. So, what I’m wondering is: why is my intro class (where I’m not learning) more difficult than the more advanced classes where I am learning? Maybe it’s all in how you rate difficulty. I think the concepts learned are less advanced in the 160 class and probably anyone who was willing to do the work would get an A. You could get lost in the 221 and 222 classes and not even know where to begin, I guess.

I still think more work is harder than more advanced concepts, though.

Shopping for insurance is not an easy thing. There are so many things to consider it can drive you crazy. I remember the last time we looked at the health plans we had to choose from and there are some things you could easily see but other things you would know about unless you had already made use of the insurance you had chosen. Vimo is out to change everything by letting you compare local insurance carriers and showing ratings of doctors. Thew welcome anyone to rate their doctors and they use this to help you make your decisions. Right now you can get a free t-shirt for rating your doctor.

If you are looking for insurance or if you just need a better plan or better rates head on over to Vimo, clinic enter your zipcode and see how much better you could be doing.

Krissy got to work tonight on staining the entrance table a dark mahogany color. We went to Home Depot hoping to get just what we were looking for. They had the right color but we still had to buy a can of stain at least twice as big as we needed. They had smaller ones, but not for the glossy stain only for the “satin” finish. When we got home we moved the dining room table into the kitchen blocking access to the dishwasher, sink, and trash can. Now we have a pile of dishes and trash on the counter next to the sink! Let’s hope it gets even higher tomorrow.

Krissy laid out a tarp on the linoleum in front of the piano and got to work. It says to do two coats sanding after the first with a really fine-grained steel-wool. Here’s what the table looks like so far. Pictures coming soon.