You may be wondering “Why Eratosthenes?”

As a family member is considering buying a Wii, I thought I’d write down my thoughts concerning the console. As it turns out, I have far too many thoughts about this piece of electronics equipment. Specifically, I had 1,784 words worth, and that doesn’t include this excerpt. Therefore I can only recommend that you read the following if you consider yourself a veteran of the masochistic arts. (more…)

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people say they wouldn’t use Ruby because it lacks automated refactoring tools. Ruby doesn’t actually need them in the way Java does; it’s like refusing to switch to an electric car because there’s no place to put the gasoline. But programmers are a stubborn bunch, and to win them over you have to give them what they think they want.”

-Steve Yegge on the “Next Big Language“

We recently caught a mouse in our apartment with one of those old school snap traps. The results were less than pleasant, so much so that had I planned on forfeiting the apartment to the next rodent to place a single paw in the door.

But when I when I saw a mousetrap that used an electromagnet and infrared sensors to catch a mouse without harming him AND using entirely excessive technology, I am ready to take up arms again if need be.

Anon: god
Anon: i have a problem
Anon: with hubris

Red: me too
Red: specifically,
Red: I had to look that word up

Anon: haha

Once in a while I get comments on old blog entries. Presumably people somehow end up on a given page through google, and are disoriented enough that they accidentally end up  commenting.

But recently I got a comment that has me puzzled, which is as follows:

3. you suck

Comment by emily — February 1, 2007 @ 3:48 pm

I have a suspicion that this person will be more closely aligned with one of two groups, either people I know or people I do not now (This does not acknowledge people I will come to know in the future as it is currently standard practice in an investigation to rule out the existence of time machines). As far as I can remember, I know exactly two Emilys, and I doubt that either of them are responsible for this. There is a possibility that one of them was offended by the quote containing the slur “overly gay,” but she has a strong sense of humor and I suspect is not the type to get riled up about such things.

The other possibility is that I do NOT know this person, which would further break the possibilities down into: I managed to offend her (perhaps my quote was overly long?), emily enjoys taking others down a notch so that she might feel better about herself (Also known as the Seesaw syndrome), and “other”, where “other” might include “it’s a code informing me that the stock market is going to crash in exactly 37 days”, “I don’t particularly like hot sauces”, “I am fat and sassy”, etc…

Or perhaps I’m just a dick.

Anon: it looks fun
Anon: but I’m surprised the universe didn’t explode from that much concentrated nerd

Me: It was quite concentrated
Me: we had victor calculate whether it would be enough nerd to cause the universe to implode before we held the event
Me: you know, for safety reasons

Anon: ha

Me: He figured out that actually calculating the amount of nerd would actually be nerdy enough in itself to decimate the universe, so he just guessed that we’d be cool.

I’ve never really thrown a party.

Not the paper hat and cake type, but more the beer and conversation oriented type of party. Don’t get me wrong, when I was in LA many a party was thrown in my apartment, but it was never my doing and people were always looking at me with a “who invited this schmuck” type of face. Hardly conducive to an evening of enjoyment and relaxation.

So when we needed to plan a social event for the Linux User Group, I sent out an email that began as follows:

“We haven’t had a social meeting this month and there’s no better way to get engineers together than playing video games on the hot new console, which is why we’re having:

===Wii Doubles Tennis Tournament===

A series of 2 vs. 2 Wii Tennis matches which will determine the participants’ fortune in not just some silly game, but in LIFE ITSELF.”

We ended up with 9 two person teams and had to close down registration because, quite frankly, my apartment isn’t that big. Team T-Shirts were heavily encouraged and those teams that showed team spirit did significantly better than their counterparts, as can be seen from this photo just before the championship match between Team Bohemia and the Rockaholics:

In the end we had 25+ people all packed into my apartment, and it seems like everyone had a really good time, despite the close quarters. I’m looking forward to planning similar events in the (distant) future.

The number one way to get me interested in something is to describe, in heart-stoppingly dense detail how the technology around it works. I had already been planning on watching the Super Bowl, of course, but this article is the first thing to get me excited about it.

The article details the workings of the yellow first down line, the new super slow motion cameras, the Cablecam, and even the production trucks that will be present at the big game. It’s a downright fascinating read.

The part that surprised me the most, however, is that “NFL Films shoots, as its name suggests, on film. They value the look of 16mm film and shoot more than 25,000 ft of it, making them Kodak’s number one 16mm film stock customer.”

The volume doesn’t surprise me, but I’m as shocked that Kodak still makes film as I am that NFL films buys it. The next thing you know they’re going to be transporting players to the game in covered wagons.

A California State legislator wants to outlaw incandescent light bulbs in favor of more energy efficient counterparts.

The actual name chosen for this proposed law is ” The How Many Legislators Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb Act”.

The most surprising point is that the answer to this law’s title would actually be “one”.

More information here.

“User generated content” is the phrase surrounding “web 2.0” companies, which means create a community and have them do all the work to make you rich, while giving them no money and a false sense of empowerment.

digg is the poster-child for this new business model. It’s essentially a news site, where ordinary citizens like you and me choose which stories get to the main page. It’s interesting to see what’s valued in a complete democracy that doesn’t discriminate based on age; so far CAPS and exclamation points!?!?!?!!!! seem very important, while spelling and accuracy are seen as the excrement a bygone generation. I submit to you, from this article:

“Jeremy Schoemaker, a Technorati top 100 blogger, has been subpoenaed to testify about comments made on his blog. This will be a case to follow and could set a president for who is liable for what in comments of websites.”

Apparently this Schoemaker case will re-define how we choose our country’s leader.

On google news, if you’re logged into your gmail account, it keeps track of what links you click on so that it can recommend “personalized” stories that google thinks you’d like to read.

Trust me when I say you do not want to know what google thinks of you. About 20% of the articles are politically related which I’m not ashamed of, I’m proud to say I maintain an interest in world politics.

But about 50% of my “personalized” feed is… not what I’d like to think or admit I care about. Currently here’s a story about Jennifer Garner’s fiance, another about David Beckham starring in a new Disney movie, and a third about… *sigh* …Kevin Federline. I want to blame google, admonish it for giving me bad picks, but the truth is, when I’m bored, I click on this celebrity gossip, though I normally don’t make it most of the way through the article.

I’ve decided to take this in a positive light: Google has made me realize I have a problem, which is the first step towards healing. I now catch myself when I start moving my mouse towards the latest Paris Hilton/Brittany Spears story and look forward to the day when the space once filled by this trash is occupied by tech writers righteously masturbating to whatever the new Apple rumor is. Because that’s the kind of article I’m proud to be associated with.

I’m going to print up cards with this conversation and hand it out whenever I hear it starting up. It should save a lot of people a lot of time.

Atheist: “Religion is irrational.”

Believer: “Oh yeah? Atheism is a religion too, because it’s a cause that’s believed on faith! See Merriam-Webster’s 4th definition of religion.”

Atheist: “Atheism is religion the same way that NOT collecting stamps is a hobby.”

Believer: “You can’t prove the non-existence of God. And belief without proof is faith. Check Merriam-Webster’s second definition of faith. Therefore, atheists are irrational by definition.”

Atheist: “You can NEVER (or almost never) prove a negative. Besides, some things are so obvious that proof is unnecessary. Do you believe there’s a monster under your bed? You have no proof that it doesn’t exist. Therefore, by your reasoning, it’s only reasonable to believe there MIGHT be a monster under your bed.”

Believer: “Hey, you never know.”

From here

“Getting A Self-Charging Smoke Alarm Is Better Than Dying In A Fire”

From here.

Jane: iPods don’t weigh 3 pounds, do they?

Anon: Depends on how many songs you have on it.

In my psychology class, the teacher will often assign fluff questions as homework, usually just to start a discussion or illustrate a point.   The teacher will then anonymously read some of the responses to the class. They’re silly things like, “If I could ask an omniscient being one thing, it would be…”, or “If I could take one famous sea mammal to a baseball game, who would it be?” But as they’re anonymous, once in a while someone comes up with a good one. Today, my favorites were:

Prompt: I know my life would be better if I just…
Response: abondoned my morals.

Prompt: If I couldn’t fail, I would…
Response: Gamble.

When looking through craigslist at rental properties, I often read mistakenly read “NO POETS” instead of “NO PETS”. Oddly, in the instant before my brain recognizes its mistake, I accept this prejudice as completely reasonable. It’d probably make sense to outlaw writers in general, as well as those working for web 2.0 startups.

I mean, lets be real, I have a television to feed.

As cereals go,
It may be delicious
It may be nutritious
But buying “Organic High Fiber Os”
Will make me feel old.

Last night Lauren and I went to her Beginning of the year company party.  The picture below represents one of the better pictures of the evening (which should tell you something about how the night went….), after sending it through an image editor.

I know this feeling quite well:

“Few things make me feel less manly than getting my car serviced. On some level, I feel I should be doing that stuff myself, even though I know the engine was designed on Krypton and forged in the fires of Mordor. Still, I feel uneasy that I can’t fix it with a rock and a house key.”