| Puzzle Hunt |
[04 Oct 2009|05:49pm] |
I participated in Dash 2009 a while back. It was a good time but I've had a little trouble describing the puzzles. Thankfully they posted them online, some of them are presented differently than we received them but they are the same for the most part.
My favorite of the day was the "Avalanche Casino" puzzle. Desmond Tutu... hehe.
http://playdash.org/2009/
Please remember that when trying to solve these that we were working as a five person team, three of which were seasoned veterans. My contribution involved bringing snacks for the most part. Also if you attempt the puzzles linked above make sure to use the code sheet. When in doubt alphabetize, and don't be afraid to use a hint.
|
|
| Roomba Reboot |
[16 May 2009|03:06pm] |
My roomba lost its mind recently and started endlessly circling in a tight 1ft loop. Taking it apart and cleaning the bumper and other components brought it back to life for about 30 minutes before it started failing again. 6 months out of it's year warranty I took it back to costco.
The experience was a little mind blowing. I walked up to the counter and told them it didn't work and I wasn't able to fix it. They processed my return, asked me how it was failing and then credited my credit card.
I feel bad returning a product 18 months after I purchased it. But that kind of consumer protection will probably keep me purchasing big ticket items there for the foreseeable future.
|
|
| Cheap Digital Camera |
[22 Apr 2009|09:03am] |
|
I'm working on a project that requires a small digital camera. This camera has a high likelihood of being destroyed when I take it apart. Let me know if anyone has an old digital camera they'd like to sell for cheap or whether I'm better off heading to rite aid and taking apart one of their one time use cameras.
|
|
| Sweet Deal on Dell Vosto A90 |
[20 Apr 2009|06:36pm] |
The recent business version of the Dell Mini 9 got released a few weeks ago. This is particularly cool because it integrates the neat webcam and bluetooth features and has the same internals of the super hackable Mini 9. Folks have installed OS X on them and modded them to do some pretty cool stuff (http://mydellmini.com/).
So when I saw the $50 off deal today for the Ubuntu version I jumped at it. This brings the price down to $199. I'm getting the baseline unit with an 8Gb SSD and 512Mb of RAM which I'll upgrade later using crucial.com since I can save some money that way.
I think the deal expires tonight so jump on it if you can.
http://www.techdealdigger.com/deals/dell-mini-9-199-at-dell-small-business/8484
|
|
| April 15th Everyone is a Fiscal Conservative |
[10 Apr 2009|02:03pm] |
I'm a pretty liberal guy in comparison to most of the US. I tend to take the devil's advocate position to the extreme a little too often but I vote solidly democratic (like my parents) and take out my recyclables once a week.
But man on man do I hate doing my taxes, paying my taxes and preparing for my taxes. I feel a cringe in my gut when I see how much the federal goverment takes out of my paycheck every week (25%+) but in the end I can get behind social security and medicare. I'm more wary of where my federal withholding is going. But along with the Department of Defense I also get the Department of Education so I can let that go without too much trouble. (Death & Taxes - Direct Link). However come tax day I absolutely loathe our tax system.
So far with the help of Turbo Tax I've managed not to stab myself in the face but I've come pretty close. According to Turbo Tax I owe abut $403 (EDIT: Was $890, now $403) after entering all the important information and putting money into my IRA. If it weren't for charitable contributions that number would be much much higher. While I have nothing to compare it to our tax system is so opaque and hard to navigate that even with something like turbo tax I constantly feel like I'll have federal agents bust down my door for an audit. And every 15 minutes of pain is accompanied by a sigh and I wonder what a flat tax system might be like. (The answer is "awful and expensive")
|
|
| DVD Sorting Methods |
[02 Apr 2009|08:09pm] |
Democratic Method - Loosely sort your collection from best to worst. Invite your friends over and have them shift movies
Kevin Bacon Method - Place movies that have an actor or actress in common next to each other.
Rainbow Method - Sort DVD box covers by color
Director of Photography Method - Organize by the last initial of the Director of Photography, Followed by the Editor, Followed by the Best Boy, Followed by the Gaffer
|
|
| Note to self |
[30 Mar 2009|02:00pm] |
If you work in any sort of computer related job at one point or another you'll be responsible for some sort of downtime. This can range from something small and isolated like someone's workstation being fubarred all the way up to taking down a mission critical system that millions of customers/users interact with and depend on. When dealing with large scale websites this can be an even more ominous specter as depending on your daily traffic can translate directly to lost revenue for your company.
I've been directly responsible for unplanned downtime before. At my current job I've been personally responsible for about 15-45 minutes of downtime over a period of 10 months. That includes the 20 minute outage that I caused today. The funny thing is that the downtime isn't what I dread most. It is strangely the most straightforward and easy to handle. You identify the problem, develop a resolution and then implement it. This is usually followed by a standard email that explains the problem, the duration of the outage and follows with what you're doing to prevent it from happening in the future. The thing that I have an issue with is the near constant barrage of person to person contact through the remainder of the day. "Hey, I heard the site was down..." "Site back up yet..." "What happened with the site?" It's like pissing your pants and then after excusing yourself from the office, putting on a fresh pair and then coming back to the office you're assaulted with your coworkers "Hey, I heard you pissed your pants..." "Stop pissing your pants yet..." "What happened to your old pair of pants?"
Note to self: Do not trust your boss when he implies that it's just a quick thing, test, test test! Also do not piss pants.
|
|
| Gran Torino (2008) |
[18 Mar 2009|07:32pm] |
|
Clint Eastwood is the crochetiest, most racist old man ever...
|
|
| Influenza + Inauguration == Pandemic ? |
[18 Jan 2009|04:35pm] |
Warning: What follows is speculative. ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) carb is not a real doctor and has only played one on TV twice. carb also has no public health experience.
Take a look at the Maryland and District of Columbia entry for the Google influenza tracker and notice the moderate flu activity. Then take into account that the inauguration is expected to bring in 2 million people. Most of which will likely be from high density urban areas.
So 2 million people gather together at major travel hubs (airports, train stations).
Get crammed together for 1-6 hours on their mode of transport.
Disperse.
Get crammed together at the national mall for the inauguration in the below freezing weather (High of 31 predicted with a chance of snow).
Disperse.
Get crammed together for more time returning home.
Disperse.
Factor in the stress imposed by travel on the immune system and I think we could be looking at a lot of illness in the next 7-14 days. Granted looking at the trends on the google link above that may be a given.
|
|
| Older, Fatter... Happier? |
[14 Jan 2009|11:00pm] |
I turned 27 back in August. I'm currently at my all time high weight. Conversely I'm doing remarkably well. I'm happier, life is great, work is good and when sandtiger is around things couldn't be better.
Now the only thing left to worry about is meteors... I'll let you folks know what happens with that.
|
|
| Photo Printer? |
[07 Dec 2008|04:56pm] |
|
Does anyone nearby have a photo printer I could borrow for a few weeks? I'll take care of the ink and photo paper. I'm working on a Festivus related project.
|
|
| Hate Snail Mail Spam? |
[29 Nov 2008|01:46am] |
I hate postal spam slightly more than electronic spam. Mostly the extra effort required to dispose of it. Especially pre-approved credit card offers which I feel I need to either shred or burn to dispose of. The site below seems legit and I should know within 90 days whether I've eliminated the majority of my snail mail spam.
https://www.dmachoice.org
|
|
|
[19 Oct 2008|10:06pm] |
I have returned from the wilds of the east with fanciful tales and herbs and spices of the orient...
For those curious my Honda Fit got 32.52mpg on the way to Spokane and 39.00mpg on the way home from Spokane. I'm not quite sure how that happened but I can only assume that Spokane Shell station gas is of superior quality to Seattle Shell station gas.
294.8m - 9.065g for $3.099/g in Spokane
32.52mpg
$28.09
285.0m - 7.308g for $3.399/g in Seattle
39.00mpg
$24.839892
|
|
| Netflix Nickels and Dimes |
[08 Oct 2008|12:22pm] |
I realize I'm being a 90 year old man regarding this issue but I hate being nickeled and dimed. I lauded Netflix when they reduced their price last year. Most companies raise their prices but here Netflix was reducing their rates for an already remarkable service.
A few months ago I took the Blu-ray leap and bought a HDTV and PS3. Blu-ray looks great and I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Netflix had an awesome feature where they would change your account to support blu-ray. If you enabled support for it all of your queue would be switched to blu-ray if it was available on that format. AWESOME! In practice it wasn't so great since only about 3 or 4 titles out of 30 were available. But it was neat to watch the Sand Pebbles on Blu-ray instead of DVD.
Then I got an email today informing me that they would be charging $1 more for blu-ray support. Netflix, don't nickel and dime your customers. They might get cranky like me and cancel their account over it. I'm not sure what kind of Analytics support Netflix has but I'm guessing they can put a price on the head of everyone of their customers. And given that I typically rent classics and documentaries and forget to return DVDs for months at a time (at least recently). I'm guessing my account probably has a slightly higher profit margin than some other accounts.
So in the end I closed my account. Their online form didn't give an option for "You started charging for blu-ray" so I'm going to have to try and track down an email address and let them know. Strangely their customer service phone number is all over the place but a generic email address seems to be non-existent.
|
|
| Costco |
[04 Oct 2008|03:49pm] |
I took a trip to Costco to pick up some essentials. Believe me I'm well aware what shopping at Costco for essentials means. A 3 gallon jug of peanut better may not be an essential in your life but you don't know how to live life like I do.
While there I was able pick up copious amounts of Halloween candy on the cheap. I remember the glee of tricker-treating and coming across the house that skipped the "fun-size" treats and went with the regular or king-size treats. So I picked up 3 packages, 30 count each, of the full size bars from various companies. Although a neighbor is telling me now that they usually get less than 10 kids a year. So if anyone is looking for Halloween candy I'm willing to part with some.
I also picked up some stamps, 100ct. My hope is that these will last me for years. And as I was walking out and the receipt checker looked over my receipt he caught that I didn't have the stamps in my cart. He saved me $41 and a trip back.
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
earlier |
] |
|
|
|
|
