So, I'm playing D&D.
The DM tells me "You see a shimmering pool through a hole in the floor below."
I think briefly. "I jump through the floor, and into the pool."
"And everyone else?" the DM asks.
The rest of the party agrees to follow. There is, after all, nowhere else to go.
"Ah ha! The pool is cursed!" the DM says, triumphantly. I knew I should have rolled a perception check.
I'm then plummeting into the pool, myself, not the character. Apparently, the DM has a flair for the dramatic. Indeed the pool is cursed: every second under the water is a year of pure agony, like bathing in acid. I try to come up for air, only to be pulled immediately back down by some unknown force.
Somehow I make it out of the pool. I then realize that everyone else is still in the pool, and drowning. I'm able to get two people out, but not the others.
For a while, we lay there, coughing up the corrosive water.
Then I wake up.
I just got done with a lunchtime forum put on by Commonwealth North.
The title was "How Will Alaskans Effectively Deliver Our Message to Washington?"
Two federal lobbyists, Republican Jack Ferguson and Democrat Daryl Owen traveled from DC to jointly present.
Before becoming a lobbyist, Jack Ferguson worked as Chief of Staff for Don Young and Chief of Staff for Ted Stevens in the 70's.
Daryl Owen was a research assistant, legislative assistant, and Chief of Staff to Bennett Johnston (D-LA) in the 70's and the 80's before forming his lobbying firm. When Owen was a staffer, he worked on pieces of legislation like the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, legislation regarding the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, legislation regarding the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, and legislation regarding the Tongass National Forest and the lumber industry there.
I think this shows both men have the experience to answer the question, "How Will Alaskans Effectively Deliver Our Message to Washington?"
Ultimately, their conclusion, based on their experience and opinions, is that any state will benefit if it has relatively senior senators, which results in effective chairmanships. Additionally, any state would benefit if it had a senator in the majority and a senator in the minority, which results in a higher chance that you will have a senator with a chairmanship, and helps spread the concerns of your state to a larger audience.
They also expressed their opinion that the most dysfunctional committees and the least productive congresses as a whole are ones that have had lots of extreme (right AND left) members.
Try this:
Let me know if that works.
Or "Anyone with the link." If you set it like that, people can't publicly search for the images, and can only arrive at the image if you use a link (with a significantly difficult identifier to guess) that's generated by Google and used by you wherever you see fit.
I don't see a specific "don't make me searchable" setting... could've sworn I'd seen one at some point, maybe they moved it, or removed it in lieu of the per-album settings.
This is probably the most helpful bit I've read so far: http://picasa.goog...wer.py?answer=48446 (picasa.google.com)
I actually just used this function last weekend to share pictures I took with doing Oktoberfesty things. Brad really loves pictures so this was a way to not have everyone in the world look at them but still allow sharing with friends and not having to go old school and copy to thumb drives for people.
Hmm. Guess i don't worry about that, nor do I understand why I could be. I only have 1 public album which is my rainier climb, and to some degree that's totally cool if someone searches those. In prep for the climb I looked at a ton of other peoples pictures of the route and mountain that were available. Kinda depend on that it really.
I doubt I would make personal pics public though, mostly ones involving drinking are probably off limits.
I definitely agree with you that you don't have anything to hide by making your climbing pictures public. Those would be just fine if someone searched them.
For me, it's kinda a convoluted and complicated explanation for why I am paranoid about what people can search about me online. It has to do with my biological father, and the fact that he regularly searched me on google. He hasn't talked to me since I was 17, but every couple years he sends me these random emails to my school email addresses talking about the great work that I'm doing and other random BS that he would only know through Google. So I just try to limit what he has access to search online, and I try to lock down privacy stuff on any online accounts I have...
I know, I'm insanely paranoid... haha. Feel free to laugh.
If it wasn't for that, I don't think I'd care so much about most pictures.
So I regularly go to this burger place in north Seattle called Lunchbox Laboratory. Its kinda an epic trip (maps.google.com) just to get there most days because its close to 30 miles away. But if there has ever been any food worth the effort its this place. The burgers, are not really hamburgers in the classic sense but a gourmet meal that happens to be between two bun like items and involves ground beef in a patty form and form me usually slices of bacon.
If anyone happens to be in Seattle I highly recommend the place, it is perhaps the best thing I have every put into my mouth and the menu is always changing.
Oh god Erik I cannot wait for tomorrow and another epic burger.
If it's indeed my turn to come up with a book selection for last time, I'm comfortable with recycling my previous choices. Original email to follow:
----
Vernor Vinge, "A Fire Upon the Deep" (391 pages)
From Wikipedia: "A Fire Upon the Deep is a science fiction novel by American writer Vernor Vinge, a space opera involving superhuman intelligences, aliens, variable physics, space battles, love, betrayal, genocide, and a conversation medium resembling Usenet. A Fire Upon the Deep won the Hugo Award in 1993 (tied with Doomsday Book by Connie Willis).[1]
[...]
A human civilization high in the Beyond (see below for an explanation of the Zones of Thought) dispatches an expedition to a planet in the low Transcend, having learned of a massive 5-billion year old archive of data there which had been off the Known Net for all that time. It offers the possibility of unthinkable riches for the ambitious young civilization of Straumli Realm, and an expedition of archaeologist programmers is dispatched to open the archive and discover its secrets."
This is probably going to be extremely "hard" science fiction, not necessarily difficult in reading, but in that it will focus heavily on science concepts and extremely nerdy things. I'm interested in this book because, well, I'm a nerd, and this sounds like it has truly novel ideas about the future and space travel that you don't find often.
Neil Gaiman, "American Gods" (480 pages)
From Wikipedia: "American Gods is a Hugo and Nebula Award-winning[1] novel by Neil Gaiman. The novel is a blend of Americana, fantasy, and various strands of ancient and modern mythology, all centering on a mysterious and taciturn protagonist, Shadow. It is Gaiman's fourth prose novel, being preceded by Good Omens (a collaboration with Terry Pratchett), Neverwhere, and Stardust. Several of the themes touched upon in the book were previously glimpsed in The Sandman graphic novels.
[...]
The central concept is that gods and mythological creatures exist because people believe in them. Immigrants to the United States brought dwarves, elves, leprechauns, and other spirits and gods with them, but their power is diminished as people's beliefs wane. New gods have arisen, reflecting America's obsessions with media, celebrity, technology, and illegal drugs, among others."
I've heard nothing but good things about this author, either from fantasy enthusiasts, or comic book geeks (Gaiman is famous for his "Sandman" series). The concept sounds pretty interesting, and if nothing else sounds like its pretty decent fiction.
Naomi Novik, "His Majesty's Dragon" (356 pages)
From Wikipedia: "His Majesty's Dragon, published in the UK as Temeraire, is the first novel in the Temeraire alternate history/fantasy series by American author Naomi Novik first published in 2005. His Majesty's Dragon won the 2007 Compton Crook Award for best novel in the Science Fiction/Fantasy genre during 2006 by a first time author in the genre. The book was also nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2007, but lost out to Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge.
[...]
The story is set during an alternate history version of the Napoleonic Wars, in which dragons not only exist but are used as a staple of aerial warfare in Asia and Europe. The dragons of the story are portrayed as sentient and intelligent, capable of logical thought and human speech. The series centers primarily on events involving Temeraire (the titular dragon) and his handler, Will Laurence. The first book of the series centers on how Laurence, formerly a Captain in the Royal Navy, becomes Temeraire's handler, and their early training in preparation for battles against Napoleon's aerial fleet."
I mean, who *hasn't* wondered how the Napoleonic wars would have gone if he had dragons at his disposal? I'd normally skip this one because it sounds a little silly, but this is one where other fantasy writers have said "Wow, this is surprisingly good, and I'm not embarrassed to have somebody read the book's title when I'm sitting next to them on an airplane."
why is it that 90% of the mechanical equipment websites i go to, and input the exact model number in a search box, and the website comes back and says " search returns no results," yet I can browse menus to find an O&M manual or spec sheet on the model number i just inputted? fix your search function!
I liken Gran Turismo 5 to the concept they had in 1984 that "War is Peace," or that the only way to keep a stable civilization was to be in a constant state of war, and to always want but never have peace. The only way to keep the racing game genre alive and well is to have development and innovation on other games, while people still remember, even falsely, the wonders of the previous GT games.
You must never have GT5, Dave. It is all the keeps civilization from crumbling beneath us. But you must continue to want it.
i change my driving styles depending on whether or not people are in the car with me or if i'm carrying something that doesnt like being jerked around (i.e., josh's couches, josh/john's mattresses, things like that). There's a damn good reason the tires on my truck are pretty bald. When i put the winter tires on, these summer tires are going in the trash.
Even when I'm driving by myself theres things I don't do that I can do in GT. the street isn't a track after all, despite all of my attempts to drive like I am on a track :)
These two posts are now hilarious when considering this:
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2010/10/13/gran-turismo-5-release-update/ (blog.us.playstation.com)
My favorite piece of vaporware continues to be vaporware!!
I folded. Like an ancient, sun-faded lawn chair.
I wanted a Professor Brothers avatar, but the detail was a bit much for 50x50 pixels.
As a compromise, I've increased static images (JPGs) to 200x200 pixels, and animations (GIFs) to 150x150 pixels. Size constraints still exist, and are the same (less than 1MB upload for each). I'm still letting you have 100% image quality on JPGs. GIFs I can't speak for.
I'm still limiting the size on each thread / item to 50x50px, but I'm displaying full size when you click on a user's page.
Go ahead and re-upload your images if you want to have the higher quality version displayed with your user page. I might in the future figure out a way to display them larger on the threads, but it'll have to be a way that doesn't disrupt the content of the message.
Let us go ahead and title this The Thread MrFood Can Safely Ignore.
Some friends of mine from the Environmental Design program at Texas A&M went on to do some fun (danprovost.com) things (tomgerhardt.com) in NYC for graduate school. After entering the work force they're continuing to do cool things, including personal projects outside employment. Yesterday they introduced a pretty fun product called the Glif (theglif.com). It is a kickstand and tripod mount for the iphone 4. Their design principles orbit around simplicity, functionality and elegance; and this little guy is a great showcase of their talent and ingenuity.
They're going through kickstarter (kickstarter.com) to try and fund the Glif as a marketable product. Within less than a day they've superseded expectations have as of this moment raised almost twice as much money as necessary (the original goal being $10,000 in 30 days) . It's less of a plea for donations and more of a pre-ordering process if you like what is being offered. The website is littered with other awesome entrepreneurial gems. These guys have been plugged by leading industry designers (namely John Gruber at Daring Fireball (daringfireball.net)) and other such snooty, elitist Apple product fappers.
I'd encourage even non-iphone4 users to check out the website (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/danprovost/glif-iphone-4-tripod-mount-and-stand (www.kickstarter.com)) to at least see an example of good product design.
From the Economist (www.economist.com):
We're definitely a little freaked out. Happiness mixed with terror.
Now, it kind of serves as a springboard for us to start a company. Maybe. Possibly.
THIS from the two New Yorkers who designed the Glif, a tripod adapter for the iPhone 4 (www.kickstarter.com). It's a hunk of rubberized plastic with a threaded bushing that will ultimately retail for $15. Last week, its designers hoped to raise $10,000 through the crowdfunding site Kickstarter. In the first three days, the total contributions were $70,000. Fund-raising will continue until November 2nd. Tom Gerhardt makes interactive kiosks. Dan Provost works for frog design, a product design company. The two are long-time friends; they have never moved an idea all the way to production on this scale before.
They started with a computer model of the adapter, created with Rhinoceros 3D design software (www.rhino3d.com). The software is $995 for Windows, but they used the beta test version for Mac OS X (www.irhino3d.com), which is free. They tested their designs through rapid prototyping, uploading files to Shapeways (www.shapeways.com)in the Netherlands. It took about ten days for Shapeways to "print" each prototype in 3D, and a day later it would be in the designers' hands in New York. Shapeway charges by material volume, so each each Glif test cost about $10. They would try out a few variants each time just to meet a $25 minimum.
With a completed prototype model, the designers turned for a manufacturing estimate toProtomold (www.protomold.com), a short-run injection-moulding production firm. Injection moulds commonly produce millions of like results; Protomold specializes in smaller runs, and can make dozens to thousands of castings at a reasonable per-unit price. The company examined the 3D model, helped refine a version that it could actually manufacture, and provided a production quote. For the Glif, the two designers needed to pay for an initial mould and enough units to cover the manufacturing costs. With $10,000, they could break even. (They will source and install the brass bore for the tripod screw at a later stage. The partners originally expected to spend a weekend with a heat gun to do it themselves, but they've already pledged far too many units.)
"We were somewhat confident that we would be able to get to the $10,000 over time. We thought it would take weeks, and a lot of effort," Mr Gerhardt told Babbage over Skype this week. (He had traveled to Moscow for his day job). After submitting their project to Kickstarter and working with the company on a message, the two designers launched Glif with a video and a small number of rewards. The first version of their video, shot on an inexpensive camera, was deemed a bit too slick; Kickstarter told Mr Gerhard that it looked like the project was already done. A second video featured the two designers introducing themselves and explaining why they needed help. (You can see their more personal appeal here. (www.kickstarter.com))
On Kickstarter, a $20 commitment to the Glif project functions, essentially, as a pre-order for the finished product. For $50, you'll get a 3D printed version right away and a production version later. At $250 you get all that and dinner with the founders in New York City, a video conversation if you can't make it. A dozen people, only three of whom the designers know, have paid for the dinner. The higher rewards are closer in nature to donations but, as we pointed out two weeks ago (www.economist.com), successful Kickstarter projects tend to make their money on $25 and $50 pledges.
When the Kickstarter project went live, Mr Provost sent a note to John Gruber, author of the tech- and design-blog Daring Fireball (daringfireball.net), which can generate tens of thousands of clicks, sometimes "fireballing" a site that can't handle the spike of traffic. Other gadget sites picked up on the project and, within hours, thousands of dollars poured in. Over 2,000 contributors now expect production adapters, but many expect the pre-production model as part of the $50 premium. Kickstarter does not release funds until a project's fundraising period expires, so the designers are scrambling to get an immediate handle on production and shipping before the promotion ends.
The $70,000 raised so far is a small sum in the consumer product world, but two or three years ago, few of the steps that the Glif took between conception and production even existed. Atom-based production is still messy, but thanks to the efficiencies of electrons, the threshold for even considering it is a good deal lower.
Wow, that really kicks ass!! I mean, I don't know about everyone, but that's one of those things that says, "Man I wish I could have X" and then making it. They probably can't quit their day job, but now I'm going to have to follow kickstarter and check out all those other sites. Lets make some gadgets!
Does anybody have suggestions for content on the front page? The "Welcome back" message was intended to only be up for a week or so, but it's been two months. On the previous version of idkfa, we had a sort of "news" section, but I'm less inclined to re-implement that, as it fell victim to neglect pretty quickly. User stats and things might be interesting, but they generally don't have a lot to do with recent conversation. The "Discussion Areas" box shows which sections have activity, and the "Latest Post" box shows, well, the latest posts.
Ideas? I feel like the home page should be useful in some regard. Right now it's just a wall of text that people may or may not read the first time they see it, and then ignore it afterward.
possible statistics:
unique visitors today
unique visitors that resulted in user account login/creation today
unique visitors that appear to be crawler, bot, or SkyNet today
unique visitors/users in past (time period)
unique visitors of previous statistics in (time period)
current rate of posts per day
current rate of user login in (time period) ("3 users have made a total of 15 user logins today")
uptime
you downloaded this page in (this many) seconds for a speed of (this many) megabytes per second (basically, different than rendered in x seconds, not that that isn't a useful stat)
I've got stuff that calculates a number of those stats. Believe me, it's not as fun when you know that more traffic hits your site by crawlers looking for email addresses to spam than legitimate traffic.
I'd prefer the index page to not be processor intensive. The previous idkfa stats page took upwards of 20 seconds to complete. I even had to put a caching mechanism in front of it to make sure people didn't bring the server to its knees by sleeping on their F5 button.
Also, the first thing people should see should be snappy and easily consumed. A wall of numbers, while exciting to programmers and engineers, may not be somebody's idea of a welcome mat.
I appreciate the ideas. Keep 'em coming. Something will stick.
just providing ideas, maybe they'll spark something in someone else's mind to refine it or come up with something...
-crowdsource content by creating a section that allows users to link to images or other webpages or something. Then, users can somehow rate posts by popularity or interest. top posts will survive on the frontpage for a given amount of time, then rotate off the page. some sort of spam or proper filter to avoid NSFW content, or appropriate warning, so those of us taking a quick break during lunch don't get....caught with their pants down?
-your own posts that are most read or viewed by all of idkfa
-"GET BACK TO WORK"
Spent the whole weekend refereeing or playing soccer or working on homework. Turned in the homework at 3am Monday morning.
In a client meeting by 9am Monday morning, forced myself to be a good, helpful, attentive consultant.
Double workload this week because I got pulled off my usual tasks last week to help someone else.
4 hours of class tonight that will include 3 presentations by me.
I'm already a pot and a half of coffee into today. The rest of this week doesn't look like it's slowing down.
Somewhere I have to find the time to look for a house to buy, clean my house for the contractors coming to replace the water heater and furnace, winterize my BBQ and deck, and mow the lawn. And put studded tires on the truck.
I could use a significant other to help with all this. Two people working on things is always more helpful than one.
So I'm exploring what seems to be left of my parents' friends' cabin. It's been trashed.
It's dark, and the electricity appears to be about. I try to check upstairs while my friend stays downstairs.
I can't see anything. I find a row of light switches. It smells like feces.
I start flipping on each switch to see if anything responds. The first one... nothing. The second one... nothing. The third one... I feel a hum inside my head. I swing around with my flashlight to see a hundred tiny eyes hidden amongst the detritus. And they start to run towards me.
I make it downstairs to find that I've come between my friend and a rabid deer with sharp, jagged, gnashing teeth.
I scream, "It's a DEEEEEEEEEEEE--"
And I wake up, screaming, "--EEEEEEEEEERRRR!" with my mouth closed. It's 3:40am.
I am finding myself liking various whiskeys more and more. I'll always have and love my Islay scotches, but recently I've been trying various single barrel Kentucky bourbons. Crown is always a good fallback, especially their special reserve.
Erik, we need to splurge and treat ourselves with the super fancy crown sometime.
Also, due to various events in my life recently, I find myself drinking whiskey more often. I need to do something about that.
So, I show up to a party. I'm wearing a bright green turtleneck. Lots of people are already there.
Josh: "Hey everyone, I brought the taco stuff!"
Erik: "...Well... How old is the taco meat?"
Josh: "Uh, I got it yesterday."
Erik: "...I guess that it'll be alright."
Somewhat later, as the taco stuff is heating back up, we're playing a Call-of-Duty-esque game. Somebody puts the game mode to "Swords."
Josh: "They have swords in this game? I thought this was a war game?"
John: "Yeah."
I proceed to go 0 and 25, absolutely slaughtered. I am agitated. I can't figure out what's going on, and I can barely see what's happening on the screen.
John: "I see you play Swords about as well as you make tacos."
Josh: "Alright. Fuck all of you."
And I storm out.
It seems like every year I have one or two nights where I have some sort of horrifying and graphic nightmare that involves hostages, shooting, hiding, running, and general mass violence and killing. And they never ever make logical sense. Like when I was little I had a dream where my aunt and mom and I were in a jewish ghetto during WWII and were trying to escape the Nazi's. I mean, seriously, wtf? Lucky me, last night was one of my nights. I got to enjoy having a dream about Arab terrorists taking over Washington, DC (at least I think it was DC, it definitely could have been NYC too...). They had the city on lock down and where going through building by building shooting people and taking hostages. So somewhere along the lines Dan and I get ourselves armed with a load of firearms and run around with our friends (yes, we apparently had a group of friends with us) as we ran into a building and locked it down to keep the crazies out. Insanely graphic, insanely bloody, and really just insane. I really wonder wtf is wrong with my brain sometimes...
If I really wanted to do the psychosocial analytical thing on myself about the dream last night, I'm sure I could attribute it to something I have watched or read about recently or something like that... but I think what disturbs me most about this all, though, is how young I was when I started having dreams like this. I never watched violent things on TV when I was young, but somehow I knew enough to have a dream like that Nazi dream when I was in early elementary school. That just seems strange. I must just secretly be a psycho killer but I keep it so repressed it only comes out in my dreams.
I guess in the worst case scenario if DC were to be taken over by Arab psychos, I (1) will be thankful yet again for living outside of DC and (2) will be thankful for Dan's closet full of old military gear. haha.
True, unless you're American. I'd say the average person has no idea, that and isn't persia associated with Iran who we "as a country" don't like anyway.
If you punch me we'd be playing right into the violence of her dreams thus giving them even more power in the real world. But yes, I was asking for it I know.
