a gthing science project

Posted by sam at March 31st, 2005

    When it comes time to clean, I get very creative about how to get out of it.  Tonight I was cleaning up my room , and I just couldn’t help but get distracted by a project I had been thinking about.
   
    I got this old tablet PC (read: ~100Mhz AMD) from a room mate.  It’s pretty slow, so I didn’t know what to do with it exactly.  Tonight, I decided to make it into a framed photograph slideshow picture viewer thingy.

    Here are some pictures of my device:

This is a closeup showing the contruction of my photo viewer.  The border is held onto the tablet with small velcro circles, and the frame is held on by bent up hangers.  I later removed the glass because this doesn’t seem like very good construction and it will probably fall apart randomly.
 

Realizing my hanger method of holding things together was super ghetto, I attached some small bungie chords to hold the frame on.  I still took the glass out though.  The frame can fall off without sustaining too much damage, but the glass will break for sure. 

In case your wondering, the sticker in the upper left hand corner of the tablet says “STOLEN PROPERTY CALL 1-800-xxx-xxxx.”  Although I bought it from a kid, he might have stolen it.  Oh well.

Here is a closer picture of the photoviewer displaying a picture of my family. 

And there it is in the context of my messy, messy room.

I have configured the thing to run a server application and serve a page where users from the internet can upload their own pictures.  Also, a random picture from the photo viewer will appear in the left navigation bar of my blog at www.gthing.net.  These pictures are being served directly off the device.

edit:: Visit this page to uplod an image directly to the picture viewer.  Your picture will appear periodically on the main page!

Posted by sam at March 30th, 2005

    I am now sitting in the airport in Sacramento.  I have been for a few hours now.  I took the ride I could to get to the airport, and now I’m just sitting here.  I actually paid the $7 to use the wireless (too bad I continue using it during my layover in Las Vegas!)  Anyway, you are reading my most expensive LJ entry ever!

    My grandfather’s funeral was okay. It was really freaking long this morning. It went twice as long as it was supposed to and I ended up falling asleep. It was cool though, they played a video of him singing at someone else’s funeral. Not everyone gets to sing at their own funeral, you know! It was weird seeing my family. This side of the family is so distant I didn’t recognize hardly anyone. I did recognize my one uncle Steve and I walked up to him and said hey. He just looked at me and walked away. I thought maybe I didn’t really remember his right name or something, so I asked someone and confirmed that it ws Steve. Later at the cemetary I caught him and said “Hey remember that time we were a that church and I said hi to you and you walked away?” He started talking to me and we ended up having a good conversation. He IS a bit weird, though. I brought my camera to take pictures of cool california stuff but then I forgot to take any pictures. Oh well, I do have some cool pictures of my grandpa that I will post in a bit.

Posted by sam at March 26th, 2005

    I got off work and headed right over to Muse Music where Return to Sender was playing.  I’ve known the guys for a while and they never cease to amaze me with their excellent musicianship. 

    I’ve been really weird lately.  I’ve been like a recluse these past few weeks.  I would rather be at home in front of my five computer monitors than out being disappointed in how utterly pathetic my social life feels. 

    But I will stop the whining there.  I don’t want this to become your average LJ “my life sucks” post, because thats not what it’s about.

    Shift.

    I went out early yesterday morning to take some pictures (I still hadn’t gone to bed by sunrise so I figured - eh - why not?).  Here are a few pictures from what I took:

Posted by sam at March 26th, 2005

I just realized how Google will take over the world. 

    Google keeps tabs on everyone.  And when I say everyone, I mean EVERYONE.  Every search is put in a log with your IP address.  A 28 year cookie on your computer identifies you individually.  An ISP can easily match any IP address to a user at any given time.  Even if your IP address changes, the cookie will link you to the database with all the old searches that you have conducted,

    Now, even though this sounds scary, for a lot of us, it doesn’t really matter.  I don’t care if google know that I searched for car parts today, and for cd album art yesterday.  Over time, they will build a profile of me and use it to know what kind of ads I might be interested in seeing.  That’s all fine with me.

But a large majority of people are in trouble. Google has logged all their searches for kiddy porn, harcore sex pics, suicide methods, how to hide a body, etc. etc. etc. That means that Google’s got dirt on nearly everyone. People will tell google things that they would never tell another living soul.

    So, when Google wants to take over the government, all they have to do is say anyone who opposes us will have their search records made public. That means your wife is going to find out about your cheese between your toes fetish and your addiction to animal sex pictures. Nobody will want to oppose Google.

    Of course, there will be many of us who have nothing to fear. Making our search records public will only turn up searches for cake recipies and directions to your local homeless shelter where you volunteer on a regular basis. For those people, Google will just make stuff up. Nobody can question it, it’s RIGHT THERE in the LOGS. Either that or they will be exicuted for being so pious.

    Everyone should start preparing now for the eventual Google takeover. Advertising googlebar’s will be implanted directly into your brain. Every time you say something you will hear a voice in your ear; “oo oo oo, I’ve heard of something like that! I have the perfect product for you…”

    We might as well get used to the idea.

Posted by sam at March 25th, 2005

Some lady was eating chili at Wendy’s and reports biting into a human finger.  Authorities indeed identified it as a human finger, and it appears to be form a female because of the long manacured nail.

I don’t know what that other biog chunk is, but I can identify the fingertip alright.

Here are the problems with this:

-Ladies in chili factories don’t generally have long manacured fingernails.  I mean, I can picture them and they’re not the beauty queen types.
-If someone’s finger gets chopped off in a food processing factory, it’s usually a very big deal and doesn’t go unnoticed.  “Oh, your bleeding like crazy, turn the machines off and find your finger!”  People don’t just say “Oh, my finger got chopped off, oh well, it’ll mix in fine with the meat!”

So I smell foul play.  Until they figure out whats going on I’m not eating Wendy’s Chili (not that I ever did before!)  I just don’t want more body parts to be showing up and then a murder case.  Killing someone and then feeding them to the american public seems like a good way to hide a body, but you got to make sure the chunks are small enough not to be identifiable.

-BARF-

Posted by sam at March 23rd, 2005

Yes folks, we are playing another show tonight.  The powerless reunion show.  Okay, so we didn’t take that long of a break after all.  I thought we were done and then someone told me about this show last weekend.  This one may or may not be our last - I’m not saying because I don’t want to be wrong.

So if you wanna come - it’s tonight at Muse Music (240 N. University Ave. Provo) and it’s five bucks.

Posted by sam at March 19th, 2005

    I have started a new community.  Go check it out and post in it!

http://www.livejournal.com/community/only100words/

    Basically you write a short story.  Exactly 100 words.  Go do it. If you like the idea, post about it in your journal too so some other people can find out about it.

Posted by sam at March 19th, 2005

Elsewhere was posted a 100 word short story challenge.  I took the challenge.  100 Words is not too much. 

A screech, a crash, an explosion. The street soon filled up with the flashing lights of emergency vehicles.
Dweebman was stuck in the middle of the street with no way around the mess. His only choice was to wait, and wait he did. But soon he found himself unable to control his wild passions. He rolled down all the windows in his car.
He put in his favorite techno CD and turned his stereo up all the way to eleven. He got out of his car and danced. The street became a rave of flashing lights, smoke, and techno music.

Posted by sam at March 19th, 2005

Dear Kid Upstairs-

    Marching band is a noble and worthy task.  I appreciate that you are taking the time to learn the respectable position of snare drum player.  You drumrolls have been improving. 

    The reason for my knowledge of your improving drum skills is the reason I am writing.  I am closely tuned into your drumming because it often takes place, a few feet above my head, in the early morning hour while I am trying to sleep.

    I am happy that you can do an hour long drum roll with no breaks.  It’s quite impressive, actually.  What is not okay is when that drumroll is like a thousand piercing needles in my brain.  Whats worse is when you do it for hours all morning, and then when you hear my alarm clock go off, you stop.  You know what - I’ve been up for hours already, don’t mind me!  I couldn’t sleep through the marching band.

    I also understand your need to learn how to march in place in time with your drum roll.  But you must understand the walls are thin. 

    Please discontinue playing your drums.  If you do not, I will be forced to put your drumsticks in a place where they will need to be surgically removed.

Sincerly,

Sam and his throbbing head (thanks)

Posted by sam at March 18th, 2005

this will be in the paper monday, but for all you lucky people who read my blog, you get to read it now.

This Divided State To Travel Country
By Sam Garfield

   The Center for American Progress announced in affiliation with
Campus Progress a nationwide tour for Steven Greenstreet's
controversial documentary This Divided State. The tour will make stops
at 22 of the nation's top universities and colleges. Among them are
Princeton, Yale, Harvard, Cornell, and NYU.
   The film will be the first in Campus Progress's "Reel Progress Film
Series."  It will premiere in Washington D.C. on March 23 and then
begin its tour at nearby George Mason University on March 28. Michael
Moore has been invited to the premier.
   This Divided State covers the eruption of public interest and
involvement in the visit made by Michael Moore in October of last
year. It focuses on the strong opposition the visit received, and the
overwhelming uprising of students in support of the freedom for
Michael Moore to come and speak, regardless of their support for his
message.
   The tag line for the film "Death threats, Bribery, and Family
Values" describes some of the more exciting contents caught on film.
It also covers lawsuits surrounding the controversial visit.
   The documentary even includes footage from very early on due to
Greenstreet's "film-maker's intuition."
   "I always keep my ears open for stories that have potential to
develop into something bigger," said Greenstreet recalling why he had
started filming for the documentary in the first place. In this case,
Greenstreet's intuition paid off a lot more than he had expected.
   The young film-maker spent so much time on the film that he ended
up dropping out of BYU. "I was spending all day at UVSC," he said, "I
just decided instead of hurting my grades to drop out of school."
Grades aside, the film has kept him so busy that he currently has not
made plans to continue with his film degree at BYU.  "I learned two
years worth of film school in five months," said Greenstreet.
   Not only is the film's exposure good for Greenstreet's budding film
career, but it is also good for UVSC. Phil Gordon, professor and chair
of the communications department, said "I think [the tour] is an
amazing UVSC promotional opportunity.”
   “This will really help promote UVSC’s national reputation,” said
Gordon, “all these top schools are wanting to see what our students
are doing and what our campus is like. They will be talking about our
school at Harvard, UCLA, [and] Berkeley.”
   Gordon is anticipating that the film’s promotional capabilities
will help attract new students from out of state and interest new
potential faculty members who might not have considered coming to UVSC
before.
   Greenstreet has hopes that the film will have a strong impact on
students around the country. “People just aren’t getting along when it
comes to civil discourse on America,” said Greenstreet, “there are a
lot of wedges between a lot of communities.”  He is enthusiastic that
this “slice of history will improve civil discourses” and show people
“how to get along with opposing viewpoints.”
   “The media portrays [issues] as republican vs. democrat,” said
Greenstreet, “and This Divided State shows that there are many [other]
voices that need to be heard.”
   The tour will conclude back where the film was conceived, Utah. The
final screening will be at the University of Utah on May 3.  This, as
well as all of the other screenings (excluding the premiere), will be
free of charge.
   Within a few months after the tour Greenstreet plans to release a
DVD of the documentary. In addition, a few companies have expressed
interest in sponsoring a full theatrical release of the film.
   Those seeking further information about the tour or the film itself
can visit www.thisdividedstate.com. During the tour, an online journal
will be kept by Greenstreet with updates and other tour information.