January 21, 2008
Deal-Breakers
I've joined OKCupid and have been spending my bored moments answering multiple choice questions in the hopes that it will lead to true love. After all, if I could score in the 99th percentile on the LSATs, I should be able to ace a match-making test!
OKCupid's schtick is that they give you lots and lots of multiple choice questions, which you answer. They then use an algorithm to translate your answers into a percentage match with all other OKCupid users. There are something like 3,500 questions that you can answer at your leisure, and the more you answer the more accurate it supposedly becomes.
Each question has three parts. The first part asks how you would answer the question. The second part asks how you would like your ideal match to answer. While you can only pick one answer in the first part, the second part allows you to indicate multiple acceptable answers. The third part asks you to rank how important you consider this question, with your options being Irrelevant, Slightly Important, Somewhat Important, Very Important, or Mandatory.
Once you've answered 500 questions, you gain the ability to submit your own questions to be added to the rotation. As a result, there are a lot of... interesting questions that cater to certain peculiar tastes. A classic example: "How would you feel if your partner urinated on you during sex?" I actually really like this. Having a huge swath of questions that deal with odd tastes allow more vanilla people and more kinky people to inhabit the same site and get potential unpleasant surprises out of the way up front. Which is to say, I would not be too thrilled to be urinated on during sex, and OKCupid allows me to register my personal distaste beforehand. I'd much rather answer the question now than be unpleasantly surprised in the bedroom. And, if you are into certain things, you can use OKCupid as a conventional dating site while also finding out who's into whatever your kink might be.
The downside of user-written questions is that many of them are redundant (No! I am NOT interested in a polyamorous relationship! Stop asking!), poorly worded (Is homeless primarily caused by laziness or impossible odds? Actually, I think it's primarily caused by a combination of mental illness and substance abuse, but that's not an option), or too abstract to be really meaningful in a dating context (If someone offered you a million dollars to marry them and make them a citizen, would you do it? I don't know, I'll tell you if the situation ever comes up). My favorite questions, though, are the really bizarre hypotheticals. An actual example:
You're given one chance to travel through time. How do you use it?
Alter events in history for the greater good.
Use past/future info for personal gain.
Alter something you regret
Do nothing--time travel could invoke chaos
I realize these goofy hypotheticals are intended to be only minor factors in your match algorithm, but what if you decided to mark a question like this as Mandatory? "I WILL NOT DATE ANYONE WHO DOES NOT TAKE THE INTEGRITY OF THE SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM SERIOUSLY!!"
Posted by Zach at 06:53 PM | Comments (0)
May 01, 2007
Camo
I recently got a webcam (under protest!). Now I can finally make all those self-aware YouTube webcam parody videos I've been meaning to make. Or I can put up a live feed and allow the internet to watch me at all time. It'll be like Big Brother in 1984, except that I actually paid money out of my pocket for the privilege of enabling others's voyeurism.
Incidentally, if one were to tune into my live feed, one would discover that my computer activities consist principally of 1. staring at the screen while manipulating my mouse, 2. staring at the screen while typing, and 3. staring at the screen while eating.
In other technology-related news, I finally bought a cell phone. No, you can't have the number; I don't want to talk to you. Or anyone. I dislike talking on the phone and hate all cell phones, in theory and in practice. I've gotten the cell phone out of necessity for work, since lawyers are expected to be on-call at all hours of the day and night. In the best of all possible worlds, I would be paying $40 a month to receive and place no calls, ever. And a further warning: I haven't paid for text messages, but it's impossible to get a cell phone these days that isn't text message-capable. That means that it costs me ten cents for every text message I receive. DO NOT TEXT MESSAGE ME. If you text message me I will personally break your thumbs.
Posted by Zach at 09:17 PM | Comments (0)
April 29, 2007
Fun with Word
I'm currently using Microsoft Word 2007 to write a take-home exam. So far the spell-check and grammar check haven't given my much trouble, but if stumbled upon something odd. The problem involves the generally useless Sentence Fragment checker.
According to Word 2007, this is a sentence fragment:
"The credit card companies and banks that Company X deals with have a significant amount of power over the market, as they are free to set interchange and other fees at whatever levels they like."
This, however, is not a sentence fragment (change in bold):
"The credit card companies and card issuers that Company X deals with have a significant amount of power over the market, as they are free to set interchange and other fees at whatever levels they like."
Weird. For reference, I've since re-edited the sentence to be less awkward and gangly. Also, the company's not actually called Company X; since it's a take-home final I don't want to disclose the company's name for fear of tipping off those who haven't picked up the exam yet.
Posted by Zach at 03:04 PM | Comments (0)
April 28, 2007
Basic Instructions
Via Lore Sjöberg, I recently discovered Basic Instructions. Basic Instruction's high concept is that each strip presents a simple how-to lesson, such as how to give directions or how to plan a vacation. The visual style is very simple; it's all black-and-white and appears to consist of a handful of original pieces of art that the author copies, pastes, and photoshops to suit the framing needs of each panel. The comic makes up for its lack of visual style with deft wit, and Scott Meyer manages a nice mixture of observational and absurdist humor.
I'm not Eric Burns, so I can't write a 10,000 word essay on the literary and rhetorical significance of the main character's goatee, so instead I'll just link to a few favorite strips:
How to train your back-up
How to apply the laws of physics to personal relationships
How to apologize without accepting any blame
Posted by Zach at 03:03 PM | Comments (0)
April 21, 2007
Commenting Update
Due to the extraordinary preponderance of comment spam, you must now be registered to comment on this webog. It's quick and easy! Just click the links at the bottom of the entry you wish to comment upon and sign up for a TypeKey login.
Posted by Zach at 02:26 PM | Comments (0)
April 01, 2007
I Don't Hate You
Comments have been temporarily disabled due to SPAMSTRAVAGANZA! (150+ spam comments in about 15 minutes) Will tentatively peek out from comment-free hole in a few hours to see if it's subsided.
UPDATE: And we're back. I think I might have just caught the tail end of the Spam Wave. Anyhow, comments have been enabled for about half an hour now with no more spammage, so hopefully that'll be the end of it.
Posted by Zach at 05:08 PM | Comments (1)
Teetering Uncomfortably
My backup harddrive has rather unceremoniously decided to crap out on me.
For the last two years my entire computing solution has been a single hand-me-down laptop. This is not the most secure way to store one's data. Moreover, my laptop has a pathetically small 30 gigabyte harddrive. So last Summer I bought a 50 gigabyte external harddrive, the largest I could afford at the time. I use the external harddrive for two essential purposes: First, it backs up important files that are too large to save via e-mails to my gmail account. Second, it serves as primary storage for large amounts of data of secondary importance (things like my music collection and various videos that had previously stuffed my laptop's hard drive until MP3s were leaking out at the seams).
My laptop has never had its harddrive formatted and Windows re-installed from the ground up. After three years, winrot has left the thing so slow that it takes fully a minute to launch my web browser and three minutes to load Outlook Express. It takes five minutes for it to get from the user log-in screen when I come out of stand-by mode to a point where I can actually issue commands that it will obey. It is, in short, in dreadful need of a bootstrapping.
"No problem," I thought to myself, "I shall simply scour my harddrive for all remaining essential files, move them temporarily to my external harddrive, then spend the weekend re-formating the laptop, re-installing windows, and restoring my files to their former state on my laptop." Mais non! The external harddrive has decided it does not care to accept my files any longer!
It's a bit curious; I can read data off the external, I can copy files from it, and I've encountered nothing on it that seems damaged or corrupted (though I haven't checked every single file on it). Yet when I try to copy files to it I receive a Cyclic Redundancy Check error, which, according to the internet, is a sign that either a harddrive/cd/other data medium has catastrophically failed or is on the precipice of catastrophic failure. Poop.
Needless to say, the Precipice of Catastrophic Failure is not a place I like to frequent. I generally prefer, when at the height of my daring, to venture no further than the Bluff of Irksome Setbacks. I am left, again, with only my laptop to rely upon for data storage, which naturally worries me. I have, once again, backed up those essential files that can be backed up through gmail. I've ordered a new desktop computer (not out of paranoia from this incident; I ordered it somewhat before these latest annoyances played out) and once it arrives I should have a little more breathing room. If the external should crap out entirely it won't be the end of the world; the videos are non-essential, the music is all on my iPod and I have some programs that will allow me to treat the iPod as a harddrive and remove the files I need from it, and most of the essential files are also stored on the laptop, so hopefully they won't both die at once before the new computer arrives. It will be annoying, though, not to be able to use my external harddrive as a conduit through which to channel the files I want to transfer to the new computer.
Searching the internet has yielded no easy solution to the external harddrive's breakdown. I've used Windows's check disk utility to search it for bad sectors and it came up empty; when I try to repair the file system, though, it fails within 30 seconds. The only solution the internet has offered up is a piece of professional harddrive repair software that costs $90 for first time users. I'd prefer not to lose my data, but I don't $90 prefer it. Does anyone know of any cheap/free disk repair utilities I might throw at the problem?
Posted by Zach at 01:14 PM | Comments (0)
January 25, 2007
Not Censoring
Since not everyone who reads this reads the CementHorizon front page, I should point out: The host for this blog, CementHorizon, has been experiencing a wave of comment spam, and comments have been temporarily disabled. Sorry if anyone has tried to post any comments only to have them rejected. Comments should return shortly.
Posted by Zach at 04:49 PM | Comments (0)
October 19, 2006
No Value Added Here
Engadget has a fascinating (fascinating!) article up now on the dispute between TiVo and Cable Companies over the integration of decryption features into set-top digital cable boxes before the FCC. I recommend that everyone read it. The authors, editors at the Science and Technology Law Review of a highly prestigious law school, do an excellent job of drawing out the fine legal issues involved. Indeed, this will no doubt go down as the seminal work in the area of CableCARDs and the FCC's integration ban.
Posted by Zach at 02:34 PM | Comments (0)
October 07, 2006
Profiled
I am, once again, filling out on-line dating profiles and am confronted, once again, with the uncomfortable uncertainties that accompany filling out said profiles.
To wit:
The About My Date section always makes me anxious. It's easy enough to fill out the About Me section; I know what level of education I have, whether I smoke, whether I want children, etc. I've a bit of trouble filling in the various text boxes about my interests and the like, but I get by.
Then I come to the part where I check the boxes to indicate what sort of person I'd like to be matched with. This includes categories like religion, ethnicity, profession, height, body type, and so on. The trouble is that, while I might have preferences one way or the other on such things, I generally end up talking myself into picking the "I'm cool with anything" option. I generally don't care about religion, so why should I exclude, say, a Scientologist from consideration? I come to the height box, which starts off with a lower boundary of 3 feet and an upper boundary of 9 foot 11. At first I adjust it to a minimum of 4'6"-6'6" range, but then I worry that this might make me look heightist. And where does that end? By the time I'm up to a maximum height of 9'6", I end up saying to myself, "Well, why exclude a 9'10" mate?" Smoking. Well, this is an easy one; I don't smoke, and I'd prefer someone who also doesn't smoke. But... what if they only smoke socially? That wouldn't be the end of the world. And maybe a more frequent smoker wouldn't be too bad. Soon I've checked the "Anything Goes" box and I'm off to rationalize my next maximally-inclusive choice.
I don't think I'm alone in this, because I've noticed a strong tendency towards false-positives in on-line matchmaking. My inbox is quickly filled with folks with whom I have a 90%+ match in tastes. Which is to say, because I made choices that include every possible group or variant, they match my desires in every category. And because they ticked every box, I match everything they're looking for by dint of being a member of the human race. This, I would submit, is not necessarily strong evidence of compatibility.
Or perhaps it is. Maybe the match mail should say something to the effect of, "Congratulations! You're both painfully self-conscious, politically correct liberals who are too paralyzed with fear at the prospect of giving offense to someone to express any preferences whatsoever! You're perfect for one another!"
And a side complaint: There ought to be some sort of reference to explain what the various euphemisms for overweight mean. Under "Body Type" the options are Slim, Athletic/Toned, Average, A Few Extra Pounds, Full-Figured, Curvy, Stocky, and Heavyset. It doesn't make a practical difference for me, since I'm checking all the boxes, but I'm curious how one differentiates between, for instance, Stocky and Heavyset.
I will also add that, while I attempted to waffle on the sex of my potential match ("Well, that's easy. I'm looking for women. Although... I suppose if the right man came along, I'd hate to rule that out...") the dating site in question requires a firm commitment to one sex or the other.
Posted by Zach at 12:06 AM | Comments (0)
October 03, 2006
Amalgamated Panties, Incorporated
Apropos a conversation from last Friday, there are indeed sites where you can purchase used panties on-line. The industry has gotten so large, in fact, that it now supports a sanctioning organization, The Used Panty Trust (Not work safe). The Used Panty Trust serves as a clearinghouse for complaints about double-dealing used panty sellers and buyers. They also certify sellers of panties so that the panty purchaser can purchase sweaty underthings with complete confidence in the integrity of the transaction. The Used Panty Trust is essentially the Better Business Bureau of the soiled undergarb industry.
The development of a panty sales trade association makes me wonder, though, what further organizational developments are around the corner. Perhaps a union (The International Panty Workers Union, or IPWU) isn't far behind? And from there, how long will it be before the IPWU falls under the control of the Panty Mafia, breaking the kneecaps of scabs selling non-Union panties? Finally, good hard-working American panty-workers will slowly be put out of work as their jobs are exported to cheap overseas panty-workers, willing to soil six pairs of panties for 15 cents a day. But the upshot for the used panty consumer will be discount twelve packs of used panties available at warehouse stores at bargain prices.
Posted by Zach at 10:18 PM | Comments (0)
April 30, 2006
Popping My Head Out
Hey, does anyone know a good, free Word Processor? My copy of MS Word is periodically crapping out and corrupting files I'm working on. Nothing major has been lost; I'm just taking notes for myself to take into finals, and if push comes to shove the creating of the documents is more important for my study process than the documents themselves. But: it's annoying to have to reset my computer after every five minutes of work, only to reset and find what I've done has been wiped. Also: I've got some take-home finals and essays to write over the next few weeks, and I don't really trust my Word not to eat something important.
So: Ideas? Something free, Windows XP compatible, and possesses general word processing functionality (tabs, bold, word count. spell check would be nice). It would be astounding if it could also convert directly to .doc format for easy printing, but if not I can copy and paste and hack it around to a Word doc and print from the school's computers. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Posted by Zach at 02:33 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 17, 2006
Learning When to Shut Up
One of the principal advantages of the web as a medium of expression, for the introvert, is that it allows one to cut through the crap and get straight to the point. No need to socialize, no need to chit-chat, no need to finesse. All the interesting parts of communication without all the ephemera.
The weblog, in particular, is ideal for the introverted. It allows one to shout one's opinions into the ether. If anyone's interested, fine, but there's no need to direct your thoughts at anyone in particular and no need for sustained human contact. When you're done with a conversation, you just let it end; no need for a graceful egress. If you're interested in something, you can comment. If you're not, you're under no obligation to contribute.
It has, however, been my misfortune to discover that skins are as thin on the internet as they are in person, but on-line you lack the subtle visual cues and the softening effect of personal contact that allow you to get away with more abrasive thoughts. All that bullshit tends to soften the blow, and it's a lot harder to say something stupid or spiteful or otherwise ill-considered in person than it is on a blog.
All of this is to say that blogging for the last six months has taught me that it is important to think hard about what you're posting/emailing/whatever before you post/send/whatever. Don't post things/email things when you're feeling emotional, because you'll likely regret it in the morning. Don't comment if you don't have anything interesting/constructive/relevant to say. And for the love of Pete, don't say nasty things about specific people, because they will end up reading it. Moreover, no matter how clever you think you are in avoiding naming names and using circumlocutions to keep the person's identity hidden, they will figure it out and will hold you responsible.
None of this is to say I'm giving up blogging. I do consider my (many) mistakes of the past few months to have been learning experiences. I'm getting better, I hope, at keeping careful control of what I say, which has always been a problem in the past. However, thanks to certain recent events, I shall be a bit more taciturn from now on. As I do in real life, my plan is to err on the side of caution and speak only when absolutely sure that what I'm saying will be interesting and well-taken (which means, most of the time, not speaking at all). Blogging will be on topics that are much more safe and much less personal.
Posted by Zach at 04:03 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
February 13, 2006
My Boring New Hobby
Over the last couple of days, I've hit upon a new hobby! I mean, aside from writing 12 page briefs on the proper definition of the word "authorization" while on a 36-hour sleepless stimulant binge. This site lets you look up the geographic location of IP addresses. That is, whereas a standard WhoIs lookup tells you information about the ISP that owns a given IP address, this service actually lets you find out what general area is served by that specific range of IP addresses, so you can get a general idea of where the person with that IP address is located.
I mean, this isn't the most amazing thing ever, but it's neat. I can figure out where people who comment on my site live! ... Except I kind of already know where the people who comment on my site live. It'd be more fun if I could get the IP addresses of the folks who get here by random web searches; I could figure out the exact geographic distribution of all the people who keep coming here searching for carstuck videos.
As a consolation, though, I've figured out how to find the IP addresses of people who send you e-mail. You go into the e-mail header, and look for the lines that say "Received from:" followed by server names and IP addresses. Each time a new server gets an e-mail, it adds a line to the header giving the name and IP address of the computer it got the e-mail from. So if you go down to the last line, you get the IP of the sender. So now I can use that site to figure out where people who send me e-mails are sending them from! It's fun for the whole family! ... Except, again, I generally know where people who send me e-mails live. It's pretty much New York and Berkeley. Oh, I can use this to figure out where all those e-mails ostensibly from John Kerry, John Edwards, Howard Dean, and Jimmy Dean are actually coming from.
Speaking of, apparently washed up presidential candidates think I would like to know what exciting grass-roots political action they're mobilizing from their townhouses on the Potomac. If they're reading this, allow me to disabuse them of that notion right now.
So, I've found myself a new hobby for the next few days: Going through my old e-mails and seeing where people sent them from. Maybe I'll find something surprising. Or maybe I'll just waste a bunch of time. Still, it's more interesting than the definition of the word "Authorization."
Posted by Zach at 08:52 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 13, 2006
Pastiche
According to this site, which uses computer facial recognition software to examine your scanned photo and determine which celebrities you most resemble, I look like:
Peter Greenaway (I'm not that craggy!)
John Edwards (Vaguely closeish; similar haircuts, at least)
Agnetha Falkskog (The blonde singer in ABBA)
Ariel Sharon (!)
Mia Farrow (?)
Tom Cruise (Flattering, but no)
Bryan Adams (Who?)
Henry James (The turn-of-the-century author)
Keira Knightley (Huh.)
And Annette Benning
So I not only resemble a bunch of celebrities, I resemble a bunch of celebrities who look nothing like one another.
Posted by Zach at 10:18 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 05, 2006
Columbia Spam
Columbia Law endeavors to teach its students the lesson that technology is a scary thing, not to be trusted. They do this by making our every encounter with technology as painful as possible. The computer labs have two printers, one of which is always broken, to service forty computers. The secondary computer lab has one printer for the same number of computers, and as an added bonus doesn't have a stapler. Because why would someone printing something need a stapler? Configuring your laptop to work on Columbia Law's wireless internet requires a big fifty-page manual that is so anal-retentive that it requires you to change your desktop theme to Classic (so you won't be confused when the shape of the windows in the the pictures in the manual are different than the ones on your computer). Law School tech services requires all students to run Windows XP Professional (NOT Home Edition), which means almost every incoming student has to spend $100+ on an upgrade. The only reason for the requirement is that XP Pro is mildly safer than Home edition, so tech services decided that students should pay for their liability insurance. It should be noted that no other law school, to my knowledge, mandates Pro, nor does any other branch of Columbia University.
And then there's e-mail. Everyone gets a Columbia e-mail address which is used for all official correspondence. You don't get to pick your address; it's assigned by a computer. It's your initials followed by a four-digit number, so in my case zas2101@columbia.edu. These addresses are 1. annoying to tell people, which is why I still give people my gmail account, and 2. eminently spammable. Every person at Columbia has an e-mail address consisting of [letter][letter][letter][#][#][#][#]@columbia.edu. That means there are a relatively small, finite number of possible Columbia e-mail addresses. Which means enterprising spammers can, in seconds, generate a list of every possible Columbia e-mail address.
Further: The e-mail server they use is awkward. To get the full functionality (that is, the ability to delete e-mails) you need to either tel-net in and use PINE or use their awkward web interface, CubMail. Deleting e-mails in CubMail is a three step process: You have to delete the e-mail, then confirm you want to delete it. This causes it to be stricken through. Only when you choose the "expunge deleted" option are your deleted e-mails actually deleted. Further, you can only view twenty e-mails to the page, and since deleting is such an ordeal you tend to get a lot of build-up. At one point I had over 600 garbage e-mails, each waiting to be hand-deleted by the three-step process.
The problem is exarcerbated by the 20 megabyte space limit on e-mail accounts. After 20 megabytes the servers just delete any further incoming mail without telling you. 20 megabytes gets used up fast when professors are sending Word documents and Student Services is sending PDFs.
20 megabytes also gets used up fast when you're buried under a steaming pile of spam. And not just any spam: Law School spam. The Law School sends us all sorts of e-mails, from the registrar, from student services, from student events, from the President, from tech services, from the Center for Public Interest, from Career Services, etc. And then there are the student groups. You know how in undergrad you signed up for a few student groups that you had a vague interest in, but never followed through with? You're probably still on their e-mail list to this day, getting notifications about protests occuring on campuses you haven't visited in years. Columbia Law student groups send out those same event notification e-mails, and to avoid the possibility that a student won't learn about an event they're interested in, Columbia Law thoughtfully subscribes you to the e-mail list of every group in the school. What's more, you cannot unsubscribe from this list: the e-mails are routed through Student Services (which also tells you things like when class registration starts, so you can't just block their e-mails). So Columbia Law gives you a tiny mailbox that is the only place they will send important notifications, makes it really hard to delete e-mails from that mailbox, then spams the crap out of you.
Tonight I am up until 3 AM cleaning out my mailbox. While doing so, I discovered the platonic ideal Columbia Spam. A good Columbia Spam is one that is targeted at some small niche within the law school, yet bafflingly has been sent to all 1200+ Columbia Law students. This e-mail comes from Peter Strauss, who's a professor at the school. The subject is:
"If you like sight-reading vocal music of the Renaissance..."
And what good law student doesn't?
Posted by Zach at 05:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 16, 2005
My Blog is Back and There's Gonna Be Trouble
You may have noticed that my blog (along with all other blogs on Typepad) regressed to their state from a week ago earlier today. Typepad did some routine maintenance last night which lead to massive crashes and hard drive failures and such. But now everything seems to be back to normal. Huzzah!
And, since this really doesn't deserve a post of its own: While wandering around today I saw a trio of middle-aged Asian men pitching pennies on the corner in front of a convenience store. I thought that was neat.
Posted by Zach at 06:17 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
December 07, 2005
Awwww...
Someone got to this page searching for "What kind of houses did the southern clonies live in?" I think they meant Colonists. My guess is that this was some kid doing research on the internet for an elementary school report, based on the subject matter and awkward relationship with spelling. And where did he wind up? My post on how certain banjo fingerings sound like masturbation techniques. Looks like someone got more education than they bothered for this evening. Ah, well. The kid's gotta learn about the alternating thumb roll some day...
Since it's an opportunity to mention it, some other odd searches I've run into lately: Someone was looking for "Bob Class Wonderfruit." No idea on that one. One hit for "Molten Boron Feminism." Huh. I get a lot of people looking for Al "Soup Nazi" Yeganeh and his Soup Kitchen franchises, as well as Papaya King. Occasional "Avocadro's Number" searchers, which isn't too surprising.
But the most common search term to hit my page? "Masturbatrix." By far.
Posted by Zach at 10:10 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
December 05, 2005
Randomizer
For thems what wants it: Download Queue.exe
Queue Randomizer.
Randomizes Queues in Netflix OR GreenCine.
Simply download Queue.exe. When you want to randomize your Queue, double-click queue.exe. A small green box with a white H will appear in your SysTray. (Note that this macro has the advantage of requiring no software installation). Open Opera Internet Browser (Yes, it ONLY works in Opera. Not IE, not Firefox, Opera. Deal with it). Navigate to your internet movie rental site of choice. Go to your queue. Select the first number text box, and make sure the text selector is to the left of the number. Hit Alt-G. A user-friendly pop-up will appear asking you how many movies are in your queue. Tell it, then click OK. As if by magic, the macro will replace all the numbers in all the textboxes in your queue with random numbers. Hit Update Queue and you're done. Random queue. Yay!
Now, if you'll excuse me, I've been thinking about this problem for ten hours, and working on it for 4-5 hours. It's 7 AM, and I'd like to get some sleep this, you'll pardon the poor choice of words, evening.
One other quick thing: I actually had a lot of fun putting this program together, bitchiness above aside. If there's one sure way to get my rapt attention for hours on end, it's posing a problem to be solved by manipulation of a computer program. I'm not sure what it is, but I get utterly focused and tenacious when trying to get a computer to do my bidding. Because we can't let the machines win, damnit!
UPDATE: A blinding revelation struck my brain last night, and I now present Queue 2.
Queue 2 is a Netflix/Greencine queue randomizer, like Queue, but it works in Internet Explorer and Firefox, unlike Queue. Interestingly, Queue 2 does not work in Opera, while Queue works only in Opera. Run Queue 2 exactly according to the instructions for Queue above. Queue 2 is not nearly so elegant as Queue, but it gets the job done in a ham-handed way. The upshot of my changes, in addition to Queue 2 working in IE and Firefox, is that the program will keep looping past the end of your queue. Don't worry; this is a finite loop. It will stop eventually, (and probably fairly soon, at that) just don't touch anything. This is annoying, but neccessary. There may be some gibberish inserted into your various address and search bars, but provided you don't hit enter nothing will be screwed up. Just be willing to put up with a bit of junk after it's done randomizing your queue, and be sure to scroll down and click the Update Queue button.
Posted by Zach at 07:11 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack
November 30, 2005
Molten Bron's Green Briefs
Somebody got here recently by searching for "Molten Boron 'Green Briefs.'" Huh. I was curious about the combination of the phrase "Green Briefs" with a variant on my name. Apparently I'm the sixth hit on Google for such a search, since they use Molten Boron as an alternate spelling for Molten Bron. My guess is that the searcher stumbled on my page while looking for a series of erotic stories featuring a character named Molten Bron, whose hobbies appear to include standing before people while wearing only green briefs, being ravished, and canings. Here are the excerpts Google provides for the relevant hits:
"... well developed shoulders and chest. Dressed only in green briefs, Molten Bron was a very stimulating sight. Burke made a mental note to ..."
"... Molten Bron stood between the doctor's legs in nothing but his faded green briefs. Benway tugged the underpants down at the front and began ..."
I'll leave it to your imagination (or googling skills) what happens to my fictional namesake next.
Posted by Zach at 11:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 18, 2005
Fun with Spam
Sir/Madam,
Yes?
Your current situation has been presented to the important boards, and upon vigilant contemplation, we are able to put forward to you the consequent prospect.
The Important Boards? Really? All my life I've aspired to one day wield enough political influence to attain a seat on the Important Boards! And, while this is obviously not an offer of a place in that illustrious institution, it's flattering to know that my current situation is worthy of presentation to (and vigilant contemplation by!) them.
Based upon vigilant contemplation you are eligible to acquire a attractive rield on your initial property investment.
Wow, a rield! An attractive rield, no less! I had to think about that property investment, though. I rent my apartment, so what could they be talking about? I think the biggest property investment I've made lately is in a butternut squash. I've been sitting on it for a few days, and I think it's appreciated in value since then. Nonetheless, I feel that the bubble may be about to burst on my butternut squash, so I've been considering cashing out (at dinner tonight, perhaps). Now I have to consider the prospect of an attractive rield on it if I hold out a bit longer.
By completing the consequent attached form in a timely manner we will be able to settle our appraisal, and we feel positive you will acquire not only a lowered rate of interest, but also a cash return that will perform all your holiday needs and more!
It would be nice to get a better interest rate from my butternut squash investment. And, after all, why shouldn't I be able to perform all my holiday needs on the basis of my prudent and timely squash investments? I'm worried about the appraisal, though. I got it for about $3, but that's a New York price. What if the appraisal finds it's really worth less than that? I might end up getting a better interest rate on a less valuable principal. Hmmmm...
Please go here to settle this portion of the contract.Wishing you all the best over the holiday period,
Carmela Mcgill
Should you prefer not to grab hold of this holiday prospect you can go here.
I think I'm going to ahve to fail to grab hold of this holiday prospect. Much as I'd love the higher interest rate, I think I'd be happier eating butternut squash tonight. Thanks, though, Carmela!
Posted by Zach at 02:12 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
November 17, 2005
More dorkfulness
I thought I'd pass along this link (via Teresa Nielsen Hayden). It's a sciencey toy shop in Great Britain that sells all manner of grown-up toys. I'm most interested, thus far, in the Gaussian Gun, the Non-Transitive and Sicherman Dice, and the Bikini Pen (not sexual). I feel particularly compelled to buy a set of Sicherman Dice. Then I imagine whipping them out to show friends:
Friend: These aren't normal dice.
Me: No! They're Sicherman Dice! When rolled together, the probabilities of getting any given potential sum are exactly the same as with a pair of standard dice!
Friend: Huh. So they function exactly the same as regular dice, but with different numbers.
Me: Precisely!
Friend: So why not just buy a pair of regular dice!
Me: ... Because these are cooler.
Friend: How, exactly?
Me: Well... they're... different... and clever!
Friend: I don't think we can be friends anymore.
I also recommend taking a look at the video demonstration of the Gaussian Gun (found under the Article link for the entry). I imagine that, if I had had that as a kid, I would have gotten no end of time-outs for using it to inflict harm on my sisters, likely based on the faulty legal reasoning that I shouldn't be punished for hurting my sisters with science. Science!
Posted by Zach at 03:35 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
November 10, 2005
Quick Google Bomb
Molten Boron. Molten Boron. Z. Slorpe. Molten Boron. Molten Boron Law Student. Molten Boron Columbia. Molten Boron Poke. Molten Boron Berkeley. Molten Boron History. Molten Boron Future Supreme Court Justice. Molten Boron Soy Milk.
Sorry about that. People have been finding the page searching for Molten Boron, but they wind up in the Weblogs category, which is both sparse and gives no indication that it is a slice of the blog and not the whole blog. Hopefully these links will send people to the homepage. But I have no real idea how Google works, or how to bomb it, so who knows if this'll be successful.
Posted by Zach at 10:03 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 13, 2005
The Infernal Machine
I have stared into the gaping maw of the future and seen visions of the destruction of mankind. I speak, of course, of lever-style voting machines. It's frankly frightening to think that such an imposing monstrosity is, in my areas, the agent of our democratic process. Perhaps you don't realize how scary these things are; I was certainly unprepared. The voting machine is literally a wall, a giant conduit of the kind you'd see in a submarine or in the engine room on the original Star Trek. You pull a great red lever along the bottom all the way from the left to the right. The names of the candidates for various races appear, and you flip knobs next to the ones you want to vote for. To write in a candidate, there's a column of panels along the side; you have to hold down a button while sliding a panel open. This disables the associated race's flip switches, and you can now write the name of your candidate on a piece of paper under the panel. When finished, you check that all the switches are properly switched, all the appropriate panels opened and written upon, and then, when you have prepared your soul, you grab the great lever and pull it all the way back to the left, at which point the votes are registered with a resounding *CLUNK!* To my mind at least, a sign ought to then appear saying, "Now your doom is sealed!"
For those who don't believe me, the New York Board of Elections has an instructional video about using the voting machine. Look upon our works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Posted by Zach at 01:55 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack