Posts filed under 'Main'
My company is moving next month (to a place that’s a 41 mile drive from my house.. but that’s another story) and the new building is right across the street from Oakland University.
Since I’ve always wanted a masters degree, I’ve decided that this might be a good time to go back. Classes would be very close to work (I could walk from work to class), and I’d have the time.
But what degree should I get?
It’s currently between the Engineering Management and the Software Engineering degree. I just can’t decide.
My bachelors is in computer science (from Michigan.) I’m leaning toward the management degree right now because it looks like the software engineering degree would repeat a lot of classes that I had at Michigan.
Any opinions? I’d appreciate them. Thanks.
March 8th, 2007
The idea behind YouTube was simple: Users upload videos, other watch and comment on them. It was so simple that it quickly grew it’s own massive social network aspect. Aside from that it was useful. It allowed users to view and upload their videos easily. It just worked and it caught on.
My question is this: Why did we start with video? Where’s the audio version? If I’m a band wanting to host music files, where do I go?
I know bands are using myspace now, but don’t you think there would be a huge promotional value to an audio type site like YouTube? It’d be a great way to find new artists CDs to buy.
Of course, you may be quick to mention that as soon as somebody tries this they’ll be sued out of oblivion by the RIAA. It doesn’t take much to see that users will quickly upload all of their illegal mp3 files to the site to share.
But does that mean the site is responsible for them?
If we look at the YouTube to mp3 scenario the courts have consistently ruled that YouTube is not responsible for what its users do with its service. That is to say if I record a TV show and post it on YouTube, I’m liable for that; not YouTube.
Of course the same law says that if a copyright holder files a DMCA request, that the site must remove the infringing videos. Sounds fair to me.
So again, why isn’t there an audio version of youtube for aspiring (and even commercial) bands to upload their music to? I’m sure college professors could even upload lectures. I’d use it.
Also, why is there the double standard? Why would any music site doing this be shut down immediately while the same laws let its video counterpart succeed?
March 7th, 2007
I just watched Snakes On A Plane the other nite. It was actually a pretty decent movie. I can’t understand why people are complaining about it. If anything, it was brutally honest. It gave you just what it promised. Snakes. Plane. Samuel L Jackson saying things like “motherfucking snakes” and “motherfucking plane.” What more could you ask for?
Snakes on a Plan delievers exactly what it promises: snakes… on a plane.
Sure, there were some factual errors. If you’re an animal buff you’ll notice where some snakes are digital and that the real snakes are all non-poisonous look-alikes, but that doesn’t really detract from the movie. I thought it was worth the rental fee.
March 7th, 2007
I have Bronchitis and it’s not fun. According to the breathing test the doctor gave me, I’m about 2/3 of the breathing capacity that I should be.
I also have a nose that won’t quit running, a wheeze when I breathe, a fever, a nasty cough, and diahreah (although I suspect that’s due to my pizza and whiskey diet.)
I’ve also been tired as hell lately (again, playing hockey twice a week while sick isn’t helping) ((although I did score 5 points last game while hungover and sick)) ((( is there such a thing as double or triple parenthesis?))) ((((I feel like a LISP programmer))))
Anyway.. I’m on a steroid inhaler and some vicodin cough syrup. If anybody ever has trouble sleeping, try vicodin cough syrup.
On a side now, the bronchitis wikipedia article is a good indication of why not to trust wikipedia. That article lists smoking as the cause, but I’m not a smoker.
According to my doctor, acute bronchitis (which I have) is viral. Chronic bronchitis is caused by smoking or pollution.
March 6th, 2007
For as much as I play poker, you’d think that I would mention it on my blog more often eh? Apparantley not. Anyway, I played in a roughly 100 person tournament this weekend (I’m not sure of the total entrants.. it was between 70 and 100). It was a charity game ran by the Axemen – they’re a professional firefighter motorcycle club that basically does a ton of charity work.
Anyway, I ended up taking 17th position (my friend Bryan took 20th or so).
Here’s how I lost:
I was in the big blind, and there was a small raise pre flop. Everybody else folded so I called the discounted price to see with some pretty crappy cards. I usually like heads up chances because I’m confident that I can outplay people after the flop – this was no exception.
The flop came up with an ace and a flush draw, I caught nothing. He checked to me and I checked to see a free card. The turn card was a 9 – that gave me a really low pair but also made a flush possible. Action was on the original raiser who came out firing with an “all – in.” Something didn’t seem right. This guy had been talking for hours about how he never bluffs (and he wasn’t forced to show one all night), but he’d gone all-in a lot recently and won a few pots with it to invest and win even more paying at ?? ???.
I asked for a chip count.
Calling his all in would have left me with exactly 1 big blind. I thought for a second, then announced “you’re bluffing, I call” and turned over my crappy pair of nines. His smile faded as he turned over his K-10. No straight draw, no flush draw, no pair – nothing. I was right!
Then the river – 10. Owell, at least the event had free food and beer. I made sure I got my $65 worth of that!
March 6th, 2007
To those of you who read this for other reaons, I appologize. My family has requested more cat updates of Who Dey, so I’m providing.
On the technical side, I just bought a $20 AirLink 101 USB video capture adapter, and it seems to have worked pretty well. The quality isn’t that great but I think it’s due to the fact that my camcorder is about 5 years old. I’m not much of a video guy.
Anyway… You might ask why the videos are being hosted on Google Video and it’s because I tried YouTube and I like Google Video better. After veryifying my email on YouTube, it still asked me to verify my email – so I was stuck waiting. Anyway, Google video’s interface seems better too, but that’s another post. On to the videos:
Here’s a good one of Who Dey Playing fetch:
She also likes to jump. Here’s a couple of her jumping… Before you complain though, it’s hard to play with the cat while holding a video camera.
here’s another:
That’s it for now. By the way, why doesn’t Google video have a category pre made for cat videos? They should!
March 3rd, 2007
One of the main reasons I use Gmail is because of the great spam filtering. In fact while I was at work today it automatically stopped 1055 spam emails from getting to my inbox. (yes, I really get that many spam emails / day sent to me…. It’s what happens when you list your email address in the whois info for 40 some domain names)
Anyway, I learned a valuable lesson today: Check that spam box from time to time.
I just opened it up and saw that there were almost 200 contact form messages from one of my websites waiting in the junk email.
But how?
It seems that some bots have been spamming my contact form with links. This started a couple months ago and I tolerated it. For every 2 real contact forms I’d have 1 full of spammy links to porn sites. I wrote it off as part of making yourself available on the web. (maybe I should have put a captcha on it, but I hate those things.)
Anyway, this same bot is most likely spamming other people who (unlike me) report it to Gmail with that “spam” button. I may have unconsiously submitted a few as well.
It would seem though, that since all my contact form emails have the same subject and from address, that Gmail started putting them all in the spam box. Whoops!
So, if you’ve sent in a contact form for freetext.biz in the last month, I just spent the last 2 hours replying to them all. Check your email.
February 28th, 2007
Boing Boing has a small post about a boat that runs on biodiesel that’s made from liposuctioned human ass-fat. Incredible!
At $2.45/Gallon my ass could be worth a decent chunk of change!
Hopefully this idea takes off. Like the post mentions: it doesn’t seem that America would run out of fuel anytime soon.
February 28th, 2007
Earlier this month I wrote a short article titled What The Hell is cpsrvd? It was a quick post about how I researched something and saw that the results I got weren’t too helpful. To fix that, I decided that I would write something better than the top Google results for my query. (“cpsrvd failed“)
As I mentioned at the bottom of the article, one great SEO technique is to find things people are searching for where good results don’t exist and make a good result. That’s what I tried to do with that post.
Anyway, I wrote that article on Feb 9th, and I’ve been periodically checking it’s ranking. Today (the 26th) it’s on the first page of Google for “cpsrvd failed”. It’s not a high traffic search term (that’s not what I was going after) but it is a way to bring highly targeted visitors to your website.
Clearly this was just a test (there’s no financial incentive here for me), but it’s a great example of how focusing on “usefulness” can result in great webpages and great rankings. Sometimes you need to step back and stop worrying about things like keyword density and just focus on making your site more useful than the competition. Try it out – it works!
February 26th, 2007
When I turned 16, the first car I was given was a hand me down 1992 Pontiac Grand Am that my Mom had driven. It ran great, had low mileage, and there was nothing wrong with it – so I bought a Chevy S-10.
After that lease ran out, I had that 1992 Grand Am again. It still ran great and had low mileage (due to sitting in the garage for the last 3 years) – so I bought a Jeep Wrangler.
Fast forward to 2006. I was driving that Jeep Wrangler almost 60 miles / day back and forth to work and bitching about gas prices (why did I buy a car that only gets 17 miles to the gallon on a good day?) when I remembered that Grand Am.
For the past year or so I’ve been driving the Grand Am to work every day, and saving my Jeep for the weekends. It worked out great!
Anyway, I’m sad to report that the Grand Am seems to have finally met it’s match.
A few months ago the heat started going (it still blows very lightly..but it works).
Then the speakers started going.. but I think I fixed them.
A couple days ago I heard a rattling in the trunk and thought nothing of it. Yesterday though, it got really really loud so I decided to take a look:
If you can’t tell, that’s my shock… sticking up through my wheel well and into my trunk.
I’m not sure what it’s going to cost, but I’m sure it will cost more than a 1992 Grand Am with 92,000 miles is worth. It’s looking like it might be time to donate this car to Mother Waddles and take the tax write off.
I’m just sad to see it go. I’ve had this car ever since I started driving. Oh the memories.
February 22nd, 2007
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