Black Holes

I love Google+, it is fantastic  for many reasons, let me give you one.

Right now I am having a discussion on Google+ on black holes and how exotic matter influences them. Now, I am certainly no expert on black holes, but the experts don't seem to mind holding my hand and helping me to understand.

Take THAT Facebook.

Relax...

I get to work fairly early (6 a.m.), I  just wake up  early. I work all day and at  the end of the day I am frustrated. Not overly so, I think its a normal amount. I am frustrated at the  technical debt that my company is paying off, I am frustrated that sometimes I feel like I am adding to it, I am frustrated that we had a free company lunch on the day that the cafeteria had "cubano" sandwiches. Yeah, I missed out on a sandwich  with two  types of ham. TWO!

So when I get home, I want to relax, I  want to accomplish something, I want to contribute. So, like many developers I have a  pet project that I work on in my free time. The nature of the project we can discuss in a future post, but in short, I collect every bit of digital data about my life and I store it. Every. Bit. Its a fantastic challenge and oddly rewarding. I found some weird patterns in my life.

The past week I thought "I need a better, unified, mobile aware front end to my data."  God dammit. Now I  feel like I am going to work to relax. Javascript is horrible. It is Satan's tool to undermine all that is good. Ok, maybe not, but its also fairly weird. So its Objected Oriented right? Cool, so I get that, lemme just work out the syntax and any minor anomalies... Yeah. Go to hell. I cant even  discuss this, just read this:
http://alexsexton.com/blog/2013/04/understanding-javascript-inheritance/

I'm out.

Parris, we hardly knew ye...

Parris used to work with me, when he left, I sent this email mourning his imminent departure. This was several months ago, but somebody just reminded me of it, so  I thought that I would post it here. This is the unedited email that sent, typos and all.
=============================

As I am sure you are all painfully aware, Parris will be leaving the show at the end of this season; while this saddens us deeply at the network, we also see this as an opportunity to recast the role of "PaulC's sidekick" and possibly pick up a new demographic.

When we first brought Parris on, the network execs were  concerned that his tattoos and white trash comments might hurt the shows "house mom" demographic, knowing that PaulC had an exceptionally tight grip on women 35-55, they brought Parris on in hopes that he would play well with males 18-34. And man did he play well. 

The network wanted to terminate Parris after the third episode titled

"NNaaww, but that bug cost us $500,000"

but the advertisers convinced them to keep him on until the end of the first season. What nobody could have possibly predicted was that Parris would be such a huge hit in the GBLT community. His tattoos, heavy drinking, questionable recreational drug use and involvement in homeless Republican midget knife fighting gave him the "bad boy" moniker, while his left leaning politics, infatuation with Twilight, love of cats, and Smart Car, made him an instant hit with gay men. As you are surely aware, the internet forums are on fire with news and photos every time Parris goes to Provincetown with his "wife". A recent Gallop poll indicates that every Gay Latino on the planet (every. single. one.) wants to take Parris home to meet his parents; Parris is a macho, "man’s man", but knows how to treat a man. What father wouldn't be proud of his son for landing Parris?

So  if you, or someone that you know (but don't particularly respect) is interested, we are now making casting call appointments for PaulC's new sidekick (possibly henchman). Note that we are not necessarily trying to replace Parris's personality, but we would like to try to keep viewers that Parris brought to the show. 

Things to  think about:

* If you were going to Provincetown for a long weekend, and the hotel brochure said that this was "Bear weekend" and that the pool would turn into a "veritable Bear stew", would you cancel your reservations, or make sure that you have an extra battery for your camera?

* Do you even get the above reference?

* Is Bruce Jenner just "the dood from the Kardasians"?

* Is the absolute value of the sum of a series of numbers equal to the sum of the absolute values? 

* Do you think that its "ok" to make lewd comments about PaulC's 23 year old daughter?

* Regarding the above point, do you think that its "ok" for PaulC to meet you in the parking lot and kick the living shit out of you?

* If you lose a bet, do you do  the honorable thing and "take your medicine" or do you try to worm out  of it? (Just to be  clear, Parris never  tried to welsh on a bet.)

* Do you think that it’s funny to make bets that will, either directly or indirectly, make people do silly/absurd/possibly dangerous things? Examples include, but are not limited to: Take shots of random liquids at bars, sponsor a Wendy's $1 value meal menu challenge, make bets where the loser has to eat a 2 year old ham, bet that a person can’t eat 1/4 of three separate birthday cakes in 10 minutes, etc.  

* In the sidekick (or possibly "henchman") role, are you ok with the leading man making clear, undeniable commitments, and then blowing them off, repeatedly? 

* Do you have a REALLY creepy smile that you can flash at will?

* Do you consider Reddit a respectable news source that you read for hours every  day?

* Do you enjoy sending NSFW links to co-workers during business hours?

* Does putting habanero oil on the rim  of a  coworkers coffee cup make you giggle?

* Do you own a "mind molester"?

* Do you think that trying to game/troll the internet via bogus Yelp reviews, Reddit, etc, is fun?

* How are your banana handling skills?

* On "American Dad" one of Rogers alter egos is an 80 year old woman named "Abigail Lemonparty". Did that make you laugh?

* Do you have a tag line? (other than "I'll slap a ho", that was Parris's and we can’t re-use it for both legal and ethical reasons)

* How do you feel about swimming in tighty-whities?

* Do you think that torturing your workmates  by manipulating SVN to such a degree that it could actually  harm the company is "funny"?

* Really, how uncomfortable does this email make you?

That wolf better have papers.

In a twist reminiscent of the Twilight Zone, there is talk about taking gray wolves off of the endangered species list. Their numbers have grown such that there are enough to be a sustainable community. Good.
BUT,  the  MEXICAN Gray Wolf is still going to be endangered, and thus it will  still be a federal crime to shot one.

SO, check the papers on the next  gray wolf you shoot and only shoot those  mangy American Wolves, because the native Mexican Wolves are protected...

The Radicalization of America

Sorry for the long hiatus, but I'm back...
I understand that we have concerns about the "radicalization" of young Muslims. Is it a valid concern? I certainly think so. Its far too easy to fire people up and make them do crazy and violent things. And even if they don't do something crazy, just having radical people in the wild is not good for society. It creates discontent, unrealistic societal goals, and general stupidity. I mean, right? So why is it acceptable for Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, Alex Jones, and Fox News to preach radicalization and hatred? So if imams do it,its bad, but if Fox does it, its good?

I was talking to somebody a couple days after the Boston Bombing, and they said that we need to put tracking chips in Muslims that are granted citizenship.
Stop reading this; go get a glass of water and let that sink in.
...
So this guy is saying that we should put tracking chips in US citizens based on their ethnic background. We would have two levels of citizens, those that we trust, and those that we don't. The ones that we don't trust we put chips in to track them.
 3 speeding tickets? CHIP!
Download copyrighted material? CHIP!
Killed a hooker while drunk? We'll let that go, you're prolly a politician.
Destroy the entire US economy over greed and a new car? CH.., no wait, BONUS!

Ok, do they get Miranda rights? Can they vote? Can they own property? Where does it end? And that's not even the point, you want to treat U.S. Citizens like cattle? Hell no. You don't want them to be citizens, that's one thing, but once they are a citizen, they are given all the rights and privileges of that appointment. This isn't 1850, you don't get to strip people of their rights based on your bias and paranoia.

So these two Muslim kids bombed Boston, that is horrific and one of them paid the ultimate price while the other will certainly wish that he had died with his brother. But had you tracked them, what would be different today? Nothing. This is such a TSA response, focus in on the minute detail and get lost in it. "Dood put a bomb in his shoe? NO MORE SHOES!!!" Xenu.

How would chipping Muslim Americans stop Tim McVeigh? Yeah, remember him? American born and bred. How would chipping Muslim Americans stop Arab Muslims from bombing Americans over seas? It would probably make it worse. "We want to you stop hating us, and to that end we are going to treat ALL of you like shit and hope for the best."

You want Muslims to stop hating us? Here's a thought, and I'm going to pull this right from the religious book that these American's use to radicalize people: "do unto others as you would them do unto you" Yeah. Think about it: don't shit on people; treat them with respect. Hey, a Muslim kid blew up the Marathon. When the Muslim community hangs their head in sorrow, don't scream at them, don't accuse them, give em a big hug. Let them know that you don't hold THEM responsible, help them stop the radicalization.

When I travel overseas the thought of people holding me accountable for everything that the US has done just scares the shit out of me.

Rebecca Black, best video ever

There, I said it.
I think that the Rebecca Black music video "Friday" is one of the top 10 Music videos of all time. Yes, I don't like it personally. I am 45 years old and I don't give a shit WHICH seat you choose while "kickin it" and the fact that you wake up with makeup on both scares and annoys me. BUT, I am not in 8th grade. Also, learn to sing in tune so that you don't need that dam auto-tuner that makes you sound like a robot. Yeah, I can't sing either, thats why I don't have a music video.

This is a music video by an 8th grader about her weekend. For the love of Xenu, let her have her innocence. She isn't worried about the economy, or the (false) threat of terrorists, or about her weight, or her kids, or her retirement, or, or, or. She is singing about what goes on in her (clearly privileged) life. Is that SO offensive? She loves Justin Bieber (that no talent little puke) she likes makeup and probably watches iCarly on Nickelodeon (but who doesn't? amiright?)

What is SO offensive about her innocence? Yes, its totally unrealistic, she will go grow up someday and realize that, but does it really hurt to let her be a teenager? Why so much hate? I don't get it.

Anyway, her video has 100+ million views, prolly just jealousy.

Why I’ll never buy motorola

Read this article about the latest generation of Android handsets from Motorola and why they are so hard (maybe impossible) to hack.

OK, THATS why I wont buy motorola headsets anymore. Moto is saying that if I purchase their phone that I can not then subsequently upgrade, modify or otherwise play with my phone. So you SOLD me a phone for $500, and I cant play with it? Ok, I only paid $200 cash and the rest is on my two year Verizon contract, but still, I AM paying for it. And about that two year contract…

I bought my Motorola Droid (which DOES take custom kernels) the first month it came out. I got it on a two year contract. One year later Motorola has end of lifed the phone and I can longer get support, maintenance or upgrades. Uhh, hello? You sold a phone on a two year contract and EOL’d it after one year? Ok, that’s not cool, but at least I know how you roll and I can act accordingly.

Enter the next generation Androids from Moto. So you buy one today on a two year contract, and in 12 months Moto stops support, THATS when Google comes out with Android 3.1 and it fixes some big bugs and has some great features. Tough. You can’t install unauthorized kernels so you don’t get the upgrade. You can only install OS upgrades (kernels) that come from Moto, and they EOL’d your handset.

Yeah, THATS why no more Moto for PaulC.

Its like buying a new Ford truck and saying “Hey, nice engine, but I want to put a Cummins in it.” and Ford saying “No, you spent $40k on that truck, but we say you can’t replace the engine.” I get that you can’t do that on a lease, but I am talking about a purchase. Or even closer to home, you buy a Dell and 12 months later Microsoft comes out with a security patch and you can’t install it because Dell has EOL’d your computer.

See this is why you don’t want your hardware manufacturer (Motorola) supplying your operating system (Google). Imagine if Motorola said “you can only install applications that we approve”. And really that's not such a stretch, I mean that's what they are saying with the signed kernel. Yeah, then you would have Apple.

At first I thought “this MUST be a Verizon thing.” But if that were the case, why doesn’t Verizon require Samsung, HTC, and others to use a signed kernel? Nope, this is all Motorola.

The Droid X has been rooted…

Reading that headline you might be thinking “Great PaulC, welcome to 2 weeks ago.” BUT, lemme ‘splain.

The new Droids have a new feature called “efuse” that is built into the CPU. Efuse is used to confirm that the kernel on the phone is valid, if its invalid the phone can be bricked. NOW, Motorola DOES use efuse for its latest Android handsets BUT they don’t use the brick feature, they just boot into safe mode. That means that if you install an unauthorized kernel, the phone won’t boot until you replace it with an authorized one.

As you can imagine the interwebs are all a twitter over this, and many pundits have opened up cans of false bravado by the case and said “Ahh, but this is just another small issue that our brave hackers will over come in our fight against tyranny!” And now that the new handsets have been rooted they point and say “SEE! We have overcome!”

Not so fast dingus malingus.

Yes, the new Android handsets from Motorola have been rooted, and that is AWESOME. It took hard work, intelligence, perseverance and a probably a fair amount of caffeine. Now users can install root applications on their phones. Want to wirelessly tether your laptop to your phone? Root your handset and install the software. Done. Right? hmmm…

The problem is that rooting does NOT let you install new kernels, efuse has NOT been defeated, just sidestepped. So if you want to install tethering and get rid of that horrid moto-blur crap and change the font, you can. BUT, if you want to install a new kernel, then you are screwed.

It has been said that efuse uses an encrypted boot loader. That means that motorola uses the private key at the factory to generate a fingerprint  for the kernel, and the CPU in your handset uses a public key to verify the fingerprint. Read that again. Yeah, your fucked.

Does that  mean that efuse will NEVER be defeated? Nope, but it means that we are still a long way off.

Read this article to find out why you care.

New Google voice features

SO,

now that Google is finally integrating the integration of the VOIP provider that they purchased, we can now get some of that voice over IP love in Google voice that we have been craving.

The "call phone" button just showed up in my GMail today, so thats cool, I can call people from within GMail. yeah, I guess thats cool, I have a microphone and a headset, so why not. BUT, when I go to google voice and look at my settings, I now have the option to route inbound calls to GMail. So when you call my cell phone number, it will ring at my desk, my cellphone, my house, and now on my computer in GMail all at the same time.

Shhhhhh, do you hear angels singing?

Add to that the fact that Google opened up Google Voice to the (North American) public recently, and of course the tight integration of Android and Google Voice, and you have a nice little communications subsystem at your disposal.

How cool?

WAY cool.

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Bruce Schneier on security

Bruce Schneier’s blog “Schneier on Security” covers everything from cryptography to terrorism and in this day and age I would call it a “must read” for every American. Period.

He’s pretty level headed and many of his posts talk about how the government uses “movie-plot threats” to keep people afraid and to appear as if they are doing something useful.

Anyway, he has a new article on CNN that I would consider required reading, so read it. :D Here’s one of the many money quotes:

“But even as we do all of this we cannot neglect the feeling of security, because it's how we collectively overcome the psychological damage that terrorism causes. It's not security theater we need, it's direct appeals to our feelings. The best way to help people feel secure is by acting secure around them. Instead of reacting to terrorism with fear, we -- and our leaders -- need to react with indomitability, the kind of strength shown by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill during World War II.

By not overreacting, by not responding to movie-plot threats, and by not becoming defensive, we demonstrate the resilience of our society, in our laws, our culture, our freedoms. There is a difference between indomitability and arrogant "bring 'em on" rhetoric. There's a difference between accepting the inherent risk that comes with a free and open society, and hyping the threats.

We should treat terrorists like common criminals and give them all the benefits of true and open justice -- not merely because it demonstrates our indomitability, but because it makes us all safer.

Once a society starts circumventing its own laws, the risks to its future stability are much greater than terrorism.”

Peanut Butter

Ok, you know that I loves me some peanut butter, but I really hate hydrogenated oils (well, hydrogenated anything really), so I have been buying natural peanut butter lately; saltless, sugarless abomination. Its actually pretty unpalatable and makes me want to punch a baby. BUT, if you lay down some honey on your toast, THEN the natural peanut butter, its all good.

The problem with natural peanut butter is that the oil separates and you have to stir it in, no big deal I guess. See, the thing is that by the time I get to the bottom, its all dry, prolly because I failed to properly mix in the oil. :(

Well I found a solution to my peanut butter problem! (thanks Wired How to Wiki) When you get home from the store, put your natural peanut butter in the cupboard upside down, then flip it every day. Well, I am too antsy, so I flip it twice a day, but you get my point. After a couple of days when you open your jar of peanut butter its all mixed up! I still give it a quick mix “just to be sure”, but there is no dry part at the bottom anymore.

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YAPR #2

Or “Why is your site so dam slow?”

I can not believe how many sites take more than 10 seconds to load, its absolutely astounding. Pay attention and note how many times you have to wait for a page to load, its unacceptable.

I get that there may be some congestion in the pipes and that will slow down the interwebs, but that is rarely the problem, its almost always bad site design. When I go to a page and I see a “Loading…” I immediately close the browser and skip that site. If you have a message that means that you DESIGNED your site to be slow.

I get that some sites need to run an application and will therefore be slow, for example almost any game site (kongregate for example), but when I go to a blog or other information site there is just no reason for it. For example, I went to the Mary Lou Retton site (don’t ask) and it throws up a “Loading” message for about 15 seconds. Really? REALLY?! And this site isn’t TOO bad, at least it shows the main content and its only loading a small portion (Achievements), but why would you rub my nose in the fact that your site sucks? Why not just load in the background and NOT point out to me how bad you suck? And while I am picking on Mary Lou’s site, note that when you navigate on her page the entire page flashes and reloads, but only the center content changes, so why not just change the center div?

Its unacceptable, I have a 16mbps internet connection and all you are trying to do is show some text and a few 50k images and I have to WAIT?

 

YAPCA

So Andy and I have had several discussions lately, and as you would probably predict, we end up using the same argument to make the same point in multiple discussions. So we started naming them. Hey, it made sense at the time, and in fact, its a handy shortcut. For example in our discussions regarding the Verizon early termination fee, I used both the Dvorak Keyboard argument as well as the Star Trek argument.

So here is the first “Yet Another PaulC Argument”, the first one that I will document is the “dvorak keyboard” argument, and it goes like this:
Two years ago I switched to the Dvorak keyboard, I no longer use a QWERTY keyboard layout. There are many stories out on the interwebs about how the QWERTY keyboard came to be, but the fact is that its inefficient, regardless of how it came to be. For example, with your fingers in the home position on a QWERTY keyboard you can type 300 words, on a Dvorak keyboard you can type an astounding 5,000 words without moving your fingers off of the home keys. Turns out that its pretty easy to switch your keyboard layout, so I switched. Dvorak is superior in every way, and since I switched my hands no longer hurt from typing and I can type even faster. OK, here’s the punch line: I already know how to type QWERTY at about 80 words per minute, so why switch to Dvorak? Because the QWERTY layout is so inefficient and stupid that it offends me.

So the Dvorak Argument is basically that inferior technology is offensive to point that it may actually need to be shunned. But of course it can also be applied to non tech issues.

For example, Andy and I were discussing cell phones (get ready for it Jim) and I applied the Dvorak Argument to the iPhone. Is the iPhone a great phone? Almost certainly. Will I ever buy one? No. Its a closed system, it can’t multitask, the screen resolution is low, etc. So while its an acceptable phone, these technical issues (which many people just don’t care about) are enough to make me not want to use it. So rather than go through the entire justification, I just called the Dvorak Argument shortcut. 

An example of a non technical discussion was the Smart Car. The U.S. version of the smart car is a tiny, slow, expensive car that gets 43 mpg, the EU version gets 69 mpg. Yes, the EU version gets 26 more miles per gallon. Why? Because its a turbo diesel. The Volkswagon TDI gets 50 mpg and its a real, full sized car that costs the same as a “Smart Car”. So, I won’t buy a smart car; Dvorak Argument.

Cookbook errata

Everyone go  get your Malecha Valek Family Cookbook, I’ll wait here.

Got it?

Good, turn to page 346 (note that page 347 is “Chocolate Revel Bars” so I KNOW that you have it bookmarked) make the following changes to the recipe “Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies”:
It should be 12 oz chocolate chips, not 6
recipe is missing 1 tsp salt (kosher is best, no iodine taste.)

That is all.
Carry on.

p.s. If you are reading this wondering why you don’t have a cookbook, please contact your local Malecha Union Rep and they will get you one. I myself have 6 that I am more than willing to distribute to the  faithful.

StoneKettle Station

Every week or two I cruise through my list of “Recommended sources” in Google reader. Sometimes I get lucky and find a good blog, but I rarely find a GREAT new blog, and I FREQUENTLY find really bad blogs. Part of the problem is that I tend to fall on both sides of almost any issue. :(

Guns. Love ‘em. Gimme. Want. BUT, I don’t want to carry it around and I don’t want YOU to either.  They are just such great gadgets aren’t they? 40,000 psi? 2,700 feet per second? 6,700 joules? And they come in lever action? And advanced optics?! All that and they are LOUD! I mean COME ON!

Abortion. Yeah, don’t do that please. Its REALLY hard on a person’s brain, really, please think LONG and HARD before you do it, but really, its your choice and I’ll support it. But again, please get help from a mental health professional if you decide to do it, its a brain buster and pretty depressing. :(

War? Hate it. Never, ever do it, especially when its unjust and you lied about the reasons. And if you THINK you have a good reason? You don’t. But if you’re going to do it, then lets. Get. It. On. Don’t dick around, don’t lie, don’t blame the military, just man up and do it. And when its done, support the men and woman that you sent off to die. Every dam day you get your ass out of bed and say a silent prayer to those who answered the call. And when it comes time to pay their benefits that you promised, you better pay up.

I could go on. But here’s the problem: Google has me pegged as a Right Wing, homophobic, toothless, gun carrying, woman hating, bible thumping, drunk. Ok, I do like to drink, but who doesn’t? So when Google reader recommends blogs to me, they are very likely to be technically what I like “ohh! shiney gun!” or “ohh! new algorithm for calculating similarity between two seemingly unrelated text sources!” or “ohh! how to use your Arduino to control your thermometer” But almost always politically batshit, well, in the case of technical blogs they are almost always neutral, but gun blogs have to be read with the greatest of care, you might step into a big steaming pile of fascism. :(

So this week Google recommends the blog StoneKettle Station written by Jim Wright Chief Warrant Officer, USN RET, lives in Alaska, his personal motto is “Don’t be a dick” (which as of right now I am co-opting, T-shirts need to be printed). He seriously thinks that he can become Ultimate Emperor of the Universe, CLEARLY batshit as I will beat him to it and never give up the post.  Tool. MUST be a raging homophobic giant douche bag that… Well, wait  his profile lists “SciFi”, “Space Exploration” and “Military” under “interests”, ok, well that's all in the good column. Pfft, I’ll bet his favorite movie was “Twilight”, lemme check… hmm “Serenity” and “McClintock”, “McClintock” is my favorite movie of all time, yes Andy, ALL TIME.  Probably a troglodyte that can’t read, his favorite book is probably “Mein Kampf”, oh, I see that ALL of his favorite books are sitting on the shelf next to me and many are on my kindle. Huh, “Dune” is first on the list and I see a few Heinlein in there too…

Hmm, I guess I better read his blog…

After spending the better part of three hours reading his blog (dude can write) I have decided that this is the rare gem that Google has thrown my way. Its not one of those “yeah, I’ll add it to reader and read it I guess” its a “I need a new category to put this in so that I don’t miss an article.” He is not a PaulC kind of blogger, he’s more of a “I have something to say and will take as many dam pages as it takes” kind of blogger. Its refreshing, and frankly very odd; that genre of blog usually makes me think “I feel like I should read this, but its sssoo BORING”, whereas Jim’s blog makes me think “HEY! Where the hell is the next article?!” Well, that and “No more cats dammit!”

Just cruise through his blog and see for yourself, very entertaining and informative. There is one problem though: dude likes cats, and I don’t mean in a “honey fire up the bbq” way either, I mean in an Andy way. :( Weirdo.

New Workflow

On December 11th Twitterfeed stopped feeding my blog posts to Facebook, but the Twitter feed was still fine. The only answer that I could find was “its a free service, what do you expect?” 

Wow. Well, fair enough, it is a free service. I really like twitterfeed’s UI and the bit.ly integration, but being down for a week and a half just wasn't worth it to me, so I switched (back) to  friendfeed. I have had a friendfeed account for a couple of years and haven’t used it in awhile but I knew my password so no problems there.

I am SO happy that I went back to friendfeed, yes the twitterfeed UI is much slicker with its AJAX sliding divs and fading text, but friendfeed just works and I never have to worry about it. So now I have friendfeed setup as the nexus of my online metadata. Everything that I do online is gathered by friendfeed and then published on my friendfeed RSS feed, available here. I have further setup friendfeed to push those updates to my twitter feed as well as my facebook wall. In practice this means that if I share an RSS item, share a video on Qik, favorite a YouTube video, set my status on Google Talk, etc, it will automatically get distributed correctly.  This also means that I only need to set my status on a single service, and it will propagate to the other services automatically. The only thing that is lacking in my new workflow is bit.ly integration.

Bit.ly is a URL shortening service that also tracks clicks. For example with twitterfeed if I shared an RSS item I could tell how many people clicked through to the underlying article and where they got the link from. It was interesting to note how many clicks I got from twitter vs. facebook for example. Bit.ly doesn’t know who clicked, just that someone clicked. I may be able to integrate bit.ly into friendfeed, but I haven’t figured it out yet.

FriendFeed has other groovy social features as well, for example I can “follow” other users and get their updates as an RSS feed and even emailed to me either live or as a daily digest. It also has a nice commenting system to discuss shared items.

If you have a blog or are using Google reader to share RSS items, get yourself a friendfeed account so that I can keep up with you in a single location. :D

Engrish

You know how sometimes we make random sounds that SOUND like a specific foreign language, but aren’t? Think Eric Cartman in “The China Problem”, or the Swedish Chef, or anytime that PaulC cooks French food. See here’s the thing, English is “foreign” to a LARGE majority of the worlds population, so what does English sound like to non English speakers?

Thankfully in 1972 some Italians recorded a music video that answers this exact question. They are NOT singing English in this video, they are making sounds that they interpret as sounding English. Wild. Just, wild.

Sooo, its gibberish, yet the video seems to fit the “song” perfectly. I feel like if they WERE singing actual words that it would be about cars, I have no idea why.

via boingboing

I AM a great dancer…

I think that Dr. Peter Lovatt is my new hero, nay, I will go so far as to say my new SUPER HERO.  First of all, his area of specialty is “Psychology of dance”; too funny. Sure you COULD call him a “cognitive psychologist”, but really, why would you? Does he have an advanced degree in the “Psychology of dance” and work at IBM? No, he actually runs The University Dance Lab at Hertfordshire, and he really takes his research seriously (as well he should.) For example, in this entertaining and educational video we learn what makes a dancing female attractive (or not).

And of course the reciprocal, what makes a male dancer attractive (or not). This was filmed  on my favorite show “The Graham Norton Show”, he is SO funny. Watch the entire video, the Dr. Jones homage at the end is typical for Graham.

BUT, by far the most interesting study that Dr. Lovatt has done is:

University of Hertfordshire (2009, December 16). Men think their dance moves improve with age. 

Where he determined that as a man ages, he THINKS that he is a better dancer, he may or may not actually BE a better dancer, but he thinks he is. Of course in my case, I am actually a better dancer. :D

I mean, right?

Hybrid Hysteria

Ok, really, this hybrid shit has GOT to stop. Yes, I get that you can make an all electric car that hauls ass and takes names for a mere $125,000. And strictly from a “wow, that is SO cool” perspective, I have to say, wow, that is so cool. But come on, can we PLEASE get real? And I don’t mean “real” as in a Toyota Prius. Are you kidding me? The NEXT generation, that will be out in TWO YEARS does 12.5 miles per charge?

Here, I have an idea, why don’t you take the Smartcar, and actually MAKE it smart, rip out that crappy little (but still overpowered) gasser and put in a nice electric motor and… oh, someone did that? AHHH, that’s the stuff. Seats two, 71 mile range, top speed 62 mph, 0-60mph is not published, but I heard that 0-30mph is ~6 seconds.

It  will never sell, at least not in the U.S. Americans love their gas guzzling rockets; a two seater that can’t do 0-60mph in under 10 seconds (hell, under 7) is doomed. Me personally? I don’t see it as a chick drawing, testosterone generator, I see it as a way to get from point A to point B efficiently, and thus cheaply. I can’t recall the last time that I travelled at speeds in excess of 40mph in a car. Almost all of my driving is around town, and when I go to see Melanie and Rick (120 miles) I jump on the motorcycle and take the scenic route. And if I need to go when there is ice on the roads, I can rent a compact car cheaply for a day or two.

My only concern is trivial, and that's GPS and cell phone charging. :D When I am in the truck and I need to charge something, I just plug it in. But in an all electric I would be thinking “How much distance does charging this device cost me?” Yes, its so negligible that it defies measurement, but that's how my brain works.

Anyway, its a frakkin souped up golf cart, and you know, for <$20,000 I’ll take one.

Passwords and Synchronizing

So as you undoubtedly know, Andy, Sam, Hanson and I got new Droids a few weeks ago, and the shinyness STILL hasn’t worn off yet. They are great little phones and every day I find something that makes me go “oh, yeah!” Then I spend a day or two playing with the new feature/software, and it either gets rolled into the PaulC SOP or discarded. Well this week I have TWO new applications that have made it past the first cut and they kind of go “hand in hand” so I will just do a single post.

First we have Keepass. Keepass is an excellent password keeper. You enter all of your usernames and passwords for all of the sites/applications that you use and Keepass encrypts them with your passphrase and organizes them for you. It’s important to note that its not “password protecting” your passwords, rather its encrypting them. That means that no brute force attack is going to work to hack your data, it would require that the hacker knows your passphrase, so pick a good long one. For example my passphrase is several mixed case words and is dozens of characters long.

When you open a page that requires your password, you just hit "<CNTRL> <ALT> A” and it auto fills the username and password. Its a very complete application and has  many organizing features. For example you can create folders to organize your records, and even have folders inside of folders and you can also assign icons to folders and records. Records are not just username/password pairs, you can also add notes; so for example I keep my bank info in Keepass in the note for my banks record. It will even auto generate long, secure passwords for you. All in all, very cool, and very secure.

So when I am on my desktop PC I go to Google reader and hit “<CNTRL> <ALT> A” and it autofills my username and password and logs me in. But what about my laptop? And Keepass has an Android client that I run on my Droid so that I have my secured sensitive information with me at all time. So how do I get the data to my Droid and my laptop?

SugarSync. SugarSync is an excellent application that synchronizes your data across multiple computers, and of course they have an Android client. I run the SugarSync client on my desktop, my laptop, and my Droid and they all have access to my Keepass data. If ANY of my computers (including my Droid) edits the data, they ALL see the update. SugarSync has many plans including a free 2 gig plan. So for free, you get 2 gigabytes of storage and unlimited access for up to three computers; for $49/year you can up that to 30 gig and they have other larger plans as you can see here:

I use the free version now as I have modest data storage needs, but as my needs grow its good to know that upgrading wont cost me an arm and a leg. And my needs will almost certainly grow as SugarSync can do so much more than just share a single file between your computers.

For example Andy and I have been sharing ringtones, so we setup a folder on SugarSync that we both have read/write access to, so now when one of us adds a ringtone, the other can see it immediately, across all of our computers and cell phones.

The Droid SugarSync application has a great feature where it automatically synchronizes my camera phone photos, so no more downloading photos from my phone, I just take the photo with my camera phone and when I get home it’s sitting on my desktop computer and my laptop. And if I want to share any photos I can easily copy them to a shared folder or just click a button to share it on Facebook. Wery nice.

So all in all, Keepass and SugarSync are a perfect match. They both have Android (and probably iPhone) clients and they both work exceptionally well.

If you are thinking of signing up for SugarSync, PLEASE use this link, if you do I get the referral and free storage. :D