a gthing science project

Posted by Sam at July 31st, 2006

A man who appreciates toast, that’s who. And today that man was me.

Yes, toasters probably rank as the more unusual items purchased at 4am. I was going to inquire further into the matter with the lady at Wal*Mart who was running the checker, but she seemed to be a foreigner and might not have understood me, leading to an awkward situation as she stared at me blankly. Still, without the help of the Wal*Mart staff, I can reasonably guess that the spectrum of oddness ranges from not odd items for 4am (prophylactics, medicine, milk) to very odd items for 4am (toasters, entertainment centers, and inflatable swimming pools).

So I purchased my toaster. This was mostly inspired by the fact that I bought some frozen waffles about a month and a half ago yet was never able to consume them do to a lack in the toasting arena. When Jake moved out he took his cursed toaster oven with him. I wasn’t sorry to see it go, as temperamental as it was, but I was sad when I couldn’t cook by waffles and had to eat them frozen or cooked in the microwave.

To be clear, I never actually ate the waffles frozen or from the microwave. That would be silly.

The toaster I picked out was top of the line. I wanted one with some kind of cool LCD screen on it that played movie previews while you toasted things, but alas Wal*Mart sells no such toaster. I would venture to guess that nobody does though I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t. My next requirement in toasting technology was the addition of laser beams. I don’t care what they do, just shine some freakin’ lasers all over the place, okay? Is that too much to ask?

Apparently it is. Toasters are neither equipped with LCD screens or lasers. It’s like I’m living in the year 1990 with this kind of technology. I figured lasers and LCD screens would be in everything nowadays.

So I settled for a toaster with my third most important requirement, a bagel button. This button probably does nothing at all, but is purported to cook bagels perfectly. I’ll probably never use the button, because it isn’t on the front of the toaster, but it’s good to know it’s there. The more buttons, the cooler the toaster, even if those buttons are fake.

I also chose the toaster with the awesome chrome finish. I’m done with plastic toasters. Seriously, plastic toasters are for poor people, and I’m trying to communicate to people the impression that I am richer than they are. And nothing says “I’m richer than you” like a fancy toaster. That’s right, homeless guy, my breakfast was cooked in something that cost more than you make in a year.

Along with my toaster purchase, I picked up some bread (to magically transform into toast with my new device), and some butter. Actually, I was going to buy butter, but they had this margarine that was made with yogurt, and it sounded good at the time. I don’t know what yogurt is doing in margarine, but now that it is several hours later I’m not sure it still sounds so good.

I consummated the marriage of me to toasty goodness by breaking open the aforementioned package of frozen waffles. They were slightly freezer-burnt, but it’s cool because whatever they lacked in flavor and texture was masked by the yogurt butter and extreme amounts maple syrup that was piled on top - not to mention the nice even toast.

Posted by Sam at July 27th, 2006

I apparently wasn’t aware that an extreme enough form of mountain biking existed as to necessitate the need for a full helmet, face guard, and “spine protector.” I also wasn’t aware that my older brother, Ben, participated in said activity.

I got a call from my mom today. Whenever my phone rings and I see it’s her my first thought is “bad news,” although it very rarely is. This time it was.

Apparently Ben was riding his mountain bike down some hill when he wrecked, fell off an overhang, and landed on a tree trunk. Besides rupturing his small intestine, his appendix was no longer in the right place so while they were doing surgery to repair his intestine they decided to take that out as well.

Apparently he’ll be laid up in the hospital for several days. I haven’t talked to him yet because I guess he was doing pretty bad tonight but hopefully I’ll talk to him tomorrow.

Man, today has been a crappy day.

Posted by Sam at July 25th, 2006

For some reason the survival of my group depended on my brain being reset. It was all a very natural process, like those guys in Lost who have to push a button every five minutes to keep the world from exploding or whatever (never actually seen it). There was this kind of ritual. Naturally it was kind-of a scary process, but I understood that it would not hurt me, was safe, and that the cat attacking me was a friend simply carrying out his duty.

I made my way to the end of a short path, at the top of a precipice with a friend. A contraption was up there, a computer screen with a small path of it’s own leading into the side of it. The cat (your house variety) followed the path into the screen and became digitized. My job was to put my face up to the screen and meet the stare of the cat who was now an image on the screen.

At this point I came to understand that I had had this dream before, although I don’t think I actually have. I knew what was about to happen, and that it was a bit scary, but that I would be okay. Realizing this put me at ease just in time for the cat to pounce out of the screen in attack mode, claws flared, directly into my brain.

This is how a brain reset is accomplished, and it sort of puts you into a seizure for a few minutes. It’s like how my phone resets, flashing lights for a few seconds and looking like maybe it’s broken. My brain felt like it was flooded with electrical impulses and I could feel my body twitching every which way. The entire time I was relaxed, realizing it would be over in just a minute and that it was an entirely normal and necessary process.

Then the dream ended, but the electrical signals continued in my brain, as did the twitching in my fingers, and general lack of control over my body. After a few more seconds it stopped, and I came fully to. My head hurt.

What time is it? 6:30 - only two hours after I had fallen asleep. I figured I might as well get up and go to work, this was as good an opportunity as any.

Posted by Sam at July 24th, 2006

For all of you hipster MySpace users out there, you’ve probably noticed some spotty service these last few days. MySpace’s leader and boy millionaire Tom has blamed a power outage to all the problems.

It’s interesting that a power outage would take a site as big as MySpace down for two whole days. Every power outage I’ve been in has lasted a few minutes, maybe a few hours max. Big sites like MySpace shouldn’t even be relying on one data center anyway. It’s the fourth most popular english site on the web, for heaven’s sake, and a power outage is going to take it out? For two days?

Be serious.

The truth is MySpace got pwn3d. Anyone who uses it knows its buggy as all get out, the code is poorly written and the site breaks every few minutes. You’ve got to imagine that there are tons of security holes. Someone probably just found one and exploited it, and Tom wasn’t ready.

For now, all you can do is play pacman at myspace.com, and the page actually loads faster than myspace ever has. What, Tom, no ads on your “we’re down page.”

Undergoing maitenance or suffering from a power outage? Which is it Tom?
(Yesterday it was a “database glitch”)

Posted by Sam at July 24th, 2006

One time, when I was maybe 4 years old, I found a packet of that stuff that comes with new shoes. You know, it’s like silica gel or something and it has all these warnings to not eat it because it will kill you.

A four year old kid doesn’t associate a skull and crossbones with poison. A four year old kid sees a skull and crossbones and the first thing that comes to his mind is “Yay! Pirate Candy!”

So I of course opened the pirate candy and gave it a try. I left thinking that pirates must not have very good taste in candy, because that pirate candy sucked.

I had eaten enough to get violently ill. Fortunately for me I wasn’t very good at cleaning up after myself and I left the opened pirate candy on the living room floor, where my mom found it, figured out what had happened, and called poison control.

I threw up a lot, and probably got severe long term brain damage, but I’m here today to tell the story.

I made the following chart for your reference.

Posted by Sam at July 23rd, 2006

A lot of people who write blogs can sometimes hit a streak where it’s hard to come up with new ideas. You may notice that A GThing Science Project hasn’t exactly been an epitome of recency lately. This isn’t because of bloggers block, no, this is the opposite actually. I’ve had so many other good things to write elsewhere that the science project has been moved to the back burner.

So I thought I would share with you guys how to keep the good ideas flowing. With a little help from me, your own brain, and a little luck, your ideas will be flowing like women in no time.

The first thing is to identify when you get your best ideas. Once you have this figured out, keeping a bunch of good ideas in your quiver is simply a process of harvesting your most thoughtful times. For most people, myself included, good ideas strike at two times:

• When you’re about to fall asleep
• When you’re about to fertilize you’re toilet

Much human progress has been stumped because of the inopportune nature of both of these times. Just the other night I was sure I had figured out the cure for cancer, but since I don’t keep a notepad by my bed or by the john, the idea was soon forgotten.

So this is my proposal. Do nothing but sleep and crap all day. This is really a way of maximizing your brain’s best thinking times. Think about it, for a moment. If you have, say, one good idea a night, and you spend half an hour in bed before falling asleep, you could have something like 30 good ideas in a single day without ever having to even get up, shower, shave, or whatever.

Of course, you would get up, at some point, because you also have to take a crap. But the only time you’re losing here is the amount of time it takes you to walk from your bed to your bathroom. Once you’re on the John you’re thinking of great ideas again! By taking laxatives, you can stay in bed and crap all day long, coming up with brilliant ideas that will change the future.

Now, this next idea is only for advanced users. I came up with this idea while preparing for sleep, so this is an example of how powerful this time can be. The idea is simple. Crap in bed. That’s right, combine the two best thinking times into one with a bed pan or some kind of catheter device or something. Heck, get a colostomy bag and you’ll be pooping into a bag all day without even thinking about it. You really can’t beat that!

By following my simple program you are sure to be full of brilliant ideas all day every day. A pygmy or trained monkey can be utilized to carry out your good ideas, if necessary, or a laptop allows you to do writing without ever having to leave the bed. A Mountain Dew IV drip can keep you awake for those late night brainstorming sessions.

Remember, the goal is to never leave your bed for anything. Employ friends if possible to carry out your daily duties.

Posted by Sam at July 19th, 2006

All you XP users out there, here is undeniable proof that Microsoft used pirated software to create some of the content that comes with Windows XP.

Open up Windows Exploder and navigate to C:\Windows\Help\Tours\WindowsMediaPlayer\Audio\Wav

Right click on any of the .wav files there and open it with notepad. You will see all the normal .wav computer gunk, but scroll down to the bottom for the watermark. These files were created in Sound Forge 4.5 which was registered to Deepz0ne.

Deepz0ne was a cracker in the warez group “Radium” which specialized in cracking audio software back in the day. Not sure if they’re still around, but any illegal copy of Sound Forge would have been registered to Deepz0ne.

Sound Forge is owned by Sony, so I guess I don’t really care. Here is the watermark from one of these files.

Posted by Sam at July 18th, 2006

So many people always ask me “Yo, what’s an awesome player like you got goin’ on in his crib?” Just within the last week I’ve received these letters:

Hello, my name is Jenny and I live in Ohio. I want to know what your house looks like because I heard you’re a pure player. –Jennifer (Findlay, Ohio) Age: 10

Yo my dawg, whazup in da house? I been waitin’ to peep yo crib, dawg, so I can learn from da true masta! –Lemon Iced T-Dizzle (Five Points - Denver, CO) Age: 30

Hey man, I was just wondering when we’re gonna see you on MTV cribs? –Richard Richardson (Duluth, MN) Age: 18

Well I can’t keep my fans waiting, so today I offer you a special one time glimpse into the nerve center for all my operations. Click on the image to see the full sized image with commentary.

Posted by Sam at July 17th, 2006

Dreamhost, the company who is hosting the website you are currently looking at, has been down most of today. I am hosting DIY:happy on another dreamhost server and it has been effected from about noon on, coming up for a short time a little after 3pm.

I need a new host.

p.s. I added more subtitles to GThing.net

Posted by Sam at July 14th, 2006

Being the early adopter that I am, I downloaded Bon Echo and began using it as my main browser. Bon Echo is the code name for the Firefox 2 Alpha version.

Bon echo had it’s shortcomings, but that is to be expected with an alpha release. Therefore, I was naturally excited when Bon Echo graduated yesterday to full-fleged Firefox 2 beta. I was excited to see the improvements they had made because overall Bon echo is the fastest browser available for OS X.

After using Firefox 2 beta for about 2 minutes I have to say it is right crap. It has successfully started 1 out of about 10 launches, and even only stayed un-frozen for less than a minute. The same bugs that drove me nuts in bon echo are no ten times worse.

I thought things were supposed to get progressively better as it got closer to an official release, not worse!