a gthing science project

Posted by Sam at December 29th, 2006

I just got back from Utah from my yearly pilgrimage to the motherland of Colorado. My trip was full of beautiful blue skies, wonderful times with family, Christmas presents, and lots and lots of driving.

The drive to Utah is usually a 7 hour ordeal. Hop on highway 6 right out of Springville down to I-70 and straight over to Denver. My brother and I left on our journey Saturday afternoon expecting no delays. The weather looked good and it looked like a clear shot over.

About an hour and a half into the trip I got a call from my hometown friend John who now lives in Montana. John was flying to Denver and had a layover in Salt Lake City. He explained that during his layover, Delta had canceled the remaining leg of his trip and that he was now stranded. Delta could not even get him on a flight to Denver until Thursday. Yes, that’s right - Thursday (that’s today). That would be 6 days in the airport. They would not comp him a hotel room, and they would not even refund his ticket fully. He ended up with a partial refund and a cheery “screw you” from Delta.

Conveniently enough, we had made a late start to Denver, and that’s where John needed to go too, so I offered to pick him up - there’s no way I’m going to leave a brotha stranded in Salt Lake City for 6 days. Being 1.5 hours into our trip, it was double that to get back to where we started - 3 hours to go back to the same place. another hour up to SLC Airport and and hour back would be 5 hours, and then another 1.5 hours back to where we were when John called was a total of 6.5 hours. This effectively doubled the trip.

Fortunately for me, I was able to call in a favor to McSteve who was kind enough to run up to the airport and grab John while I headed back to Provo. This saved a couple hours and saved my mood. I owe you one, McSteve.

We decided to leave the next day in the morning and made it over in time for Christmas Eve. John was so thankful that he paid for all the gas on the way over and even a few snacks. Rock on.

This is the part where I talked about Christmas, the snow storm in Denver, what I did, etc. I’m just going to skip it and talk about the drive home.

Dan and I got up at about noon to drive home today. While heading up I-70 out of Denver we saw a sign that said “I-70 closed at Georgetown.” This was sad news as I was eager to get home today. We kept driving hoping something would clear up by the time we made it to Georgetown.

It didn’t.

Several miles from Georgetown I-70 became a parking lot. We sat in it for a while an ultimately took an on-ramp (Yes, an on-ramp) to the frontage road. This got us all the way into Georgetown without many problems, but it was a madhouse. Wrecked cars everywhere, people filled up all the gas stations and restaurants while they were waiting out the storm.

We hung out a bit, grabbed some Subway and talked to some other stranded travelers. The visitors center there had televisions showing different areas of the highway in real time, and I-70 beyond where we were was covered in about a foot of snow. The fire marshall told everyone to head back to Denver.

I wasn’t about to head back. I would stay in Georgetown all day long and sleep in my car all night if I had to. I already had to drive back to Provo at the beginning of this trip - no more backtracking.

We headed back down I-70 a ways until we found a road that went up into the mountains (highway 40). It was really snowy, but traffic was at least moving. We spent the next 3 hours driving up highway 40 and eventually rallying it on some dirt road for about an hour until we finally came back to I-70 on the other side of the storm. My car pwn3d the mountain. Success!

Since all the other cars were still sitting on the other side of the mountains, I-70 and highway 6 were completely void of cars. The roads were dry and it was smooth sailing the rest of the way home. I now sit safely in my bed, while hundreds of travelers lay freezing in their cars on I-70. Last I checked the pass was still closed.

Suckers.

Here is a final map of our route. View it full size (click on it) to see how awesome it was.

Posted by Sam at December 21st, 2006

A friend of mine at work (Jordan) modded his 486 IBM Thinkpad into a tru-blue through and through Macbook Pro. I call it the IBM ThinkMac. It runs Windows 95, has 16 Megs of memory, and is capable of emulating a Nintendo almost flawlessly.

There she is. The outside case was painted with something that gives it a look very much like an aluminum Macbook Pro or Powerbook. And yes, that’s a parallel port on a Mac - the first ever!

This Apple logo was hand cut into the back of the LCD. Looks pretty good and even has a clear plastic piece fit into it.

Here is the computer open. This is also the first Mac to have one of those little trackball nub things.

Yes, the Apple logo glows white from the LCD’s backlight.

Posted by Sam at December 19th, 2006

Ah yes, it’s that time of year again. The holidays are upon us and in full swing. The one time of year that everyone looks forward to most.

Wait, I don’t know anyone who looks forward to Christmas. If I do know anybody with such a disposition, they have not made it clear to me. Who invented Christmas anyway? Jesus wasn’t even born in December, so we do Him a constant dis-service every single year by forgetting his birthday, then celebrating it 8 months late.

Imagine a friend of yours coming up to you and saying; “Hey buddy, sorry I forgot about your birthday in January, but it’s October now and we are finally going to throw you a party!” Not only are you “over it” by now, but they add insult to injury by not even giving YOU any presents. They only give each other presents to celebrate your birthday.

Presents. I say presents are for children. Adults know what they want and they usually go out and buy it. I wish the gift I could give every year was to tell everyone they don’t have to buy me a gift, and in return I won’t buy them one either. See there? In exchange for my $20, instead of buying you something you might kinda want but probably really don’t, you can spend your own $20 on something you really want. It seems win/win to me.

Once you hit 18, your on your own. You’re an adult, you can fight in a war, you can move out, and you can vote. Certainly you can make up your mind better than anyone else about what you should give yourself for Christmas.

And the timing!

Who came up with December? December is when you have to square off all your debts from the past year! Everyone comes knocking on your door asking you to settle up. So not only do you have to pay out the rear to settle your debts, but you have to buy a bunch of stuff for people that they don’t even want - and don’t dare buying cheap gifts! You can buy crappy gifts, but please, no cheap gifts.

Okay, okay - Christmas isn’t all bad. Normally I would enjoy the opportunity to take some time off work, travel home for time with the family and friends. But then there’s Thanksgiving. We just got together last month - why get together again? It hasn’t even been a full month and I have to pony up for travel expenses, take time off work, and this time buy crap for everyone.

So you’re saying I’m a scrooge, and maybe I am. But presents at Christmas are overkill every time. Pick a name out of a hat - that’s a good solution! Buy one really kick ass gift for someone rather than 10 marginal to crappy gifts that will be forgotten by the next month. There’s no need to give gifts to show your love - people you love should know already.

The timing of two holidays make sense. Easter and thanksgiving. Easter is, well, lined up with Jesus’ really real birthday somewhat but is also some pagan holiday having to do with fertility. Okay - spring, Jesus, fertility - got it. Thanksgiving is the end of the harvest - when there’s lots of food. Lots of food, feast, got it.

Christmas on the other hand, is … well, nothing really. It’s cold and miserable, a bad time to travel, not timed well financially, and doesn’t even correlate to anything worth commemorating that I’m aware of. The obvious choice would be to move it to April, and consolidate Easter and Christmas. The easter bunny becomes Santa’s helper and replaces the elves (where did they come from anyway?).

This brings a problem with tax season, though, which would have to be moved. We also still have thanksgiving hanging out there in November. So either taxes or Jesus’ birthday have to move. Since even Jesus had to pay taxes, and He’s not used to getting the party on the right day anyway, I say we move Eastermas later and Thanksgiving earlier. Sometime when it’s still warm out, and sometime before school starts.

July. There’s a good month. Traveling is a pleasure - it’s a great time to take off of work, you can consolidate and take some extra time off to go to the beach. It’s not a huge pain to drive around and buy presents for people. Easter egg hunt in the morning, a reasonable number of presents in the afternoon, and a feast in the evening. One day and you can go off and do whatever it is that you would rather be doing. Far enough away from taxes and the end of the year debt collectors.

Call me a scrooge if you want, but I bet a lot more people agree with me then they let on. I hear a lot more complaining about the holidays then hopeful anticipation. Also, remember that Scrooge had a monocle and a tower full of money that he swam in - so the guy couldn’t be all wrong.

Posted by Sam at December 19th, 2006

My boss and I have a never-ending debate about PC vs. Mac. He’s a bit outnumbered in our office, but it got me thinking about all the reasons I switched after so many years o using Windows. These kind of debates never usually go anywhere but it’s fun nonetheless to evangelize something I have come to enjoy so much.

These are all the reasons I listed about a year ago as to why I would never buy a Mac, and why I changed my mind. Most of these are basic Mac vs. Win qualms. My debates with my boss have moved on to far more advanced reasoning tactics like which operating system uses more pure 1’s and 0’s and how many scandinavian dwarves does it take to screw in a lightbulb when they have a Mac vs. a PC (Mac: 327, PC: 312 - a clear win for the PC).

1. Availability of Software

If you switch to Mac you’re cutting yourself off from a huge library of available software, right? Yes, that’s right. No longer will all those viruses and spyware programs run on your new shiny Mac. Right there you can cut out tens of thousands of software packages you may already be running every day on your Windoze machine.

Seriously though, think of the programs you use. Unless you’re a serious gamer, you’ll be hard pressed to find something that doesn’t have a Mac version or equivalent. I spend most of my time in firefox, thunderbird, ecto, adium, and a few other apps. I thought I would miss a whole host of little odds and ends I loved on my Windows machine. Well, I never miss them - and I realize more and more that the odds and ends I collected (and yes, I do have a vast collection of awesome Windows software) were programs to get Windows to do what I want. With OS X, I already get everything I need. No hunting around the net for a utility to do XYZ.

2. They’re so expensive.

This is one that keeps persisting. Anyone who knows anything about notebooks should know by now that this simply isn’t true. Go price out a Dell and a Macbook Pro with the same specs. First of all, you won’t get everything on the Dell like the backlit keyboard, the eyesight, the motion sensor that improves your hard drive’s life, or decent battery life. You won’t get the magsafe connector, the slim form factor, the light weight, the excellent sleep mode, or the two-finger mouse pad, either. Even so, all spec’d up the Macbook pro comes out a few hundred less than the comparable Dell.

Just because you can buy a PC laptop for $400 doesn’t mean it is comparable to a Mac. Some PC laptops are $2000 and there is a reason why. You get what you pay for.

3. One button Mouse? Get with the times!

I love context menus, I do. I used them all the time. Context menus are a feature of OS X. But how do you use them? There’s only one button on the mouse!

Classically, you had to hit ctrl-click to bring up the context menu. This is a bit annoying, sure. But the latest Macbooks and Macbook Pros all have a super-spiffy trackpad that can detect multiple finger presses at once. Need to click, tap the pad or the button. Need to right click? Tap the pad with two fingers, or hold two fingers on the pad and click the button. It’s much easier on your fingers than a two button mouse, quicker to perform, and accomplishes the same thing. As with all things Mac, it looks good while you’re doing it but happens to work too.

4. What’s with the Mickey Mouse operating system?

That is a quote from myself. I used to think OS X was a mickey mouse operating system. One button-mice, fancy window effects, bubbly scroll bars. Seriously - this thing is for kids.

The truth is OS X doesn’t have to be complex. You can do everything you need to very easily. And if you can’t, well under the hood is a full BSD operating system complete with shell access. It’s hard to describe, but after using OS X for a few weeks you never want to go back. The only thing I can compare it to is driving a nice car vs. a crappy one. They both get you where you want to go, and they both do it in a similar manner really, but at the end of the day you want to drive home in the nicer one.

Apple made a smart move by allowing people to boot Windows on their newest computers. Buyers, including me, rationalize - okay, if I don’t like it I can always run Windows. There is a reason to this strategy and it works. People are moving over in droves because they’re being shown the light. They try out OS X and realize that using your computer doesn’t have to be a hassle. These Apple guys really have it figured out!

And if you should choose to run Windows, even after trying out OS X, be prepared to own the fastest Windows laptop on the market (at the time of it’s release anyway).

One thing I love about OS X is installing software. In Windows you have to unzip the file, click on the installer, go through the install process choosing your install folder, and then you finally have it installed. It appears in your task bar, your start menu, and on your desktop. Traces of the program hit your registry, your application data directory, and the install directory. Worse when you uninstall you’re never really sure the software is gone.

In OS X, you simply drag the program (yes, it’s one file - or at least appears to be to the user) to the applications directory or wherever you want to keep it. You can run it all you want, and when you’re done with it you drag it to the trash. No registry. No hassle.

Multitasking is also a chore in XP. You’re fine with 3 or 4 programs running - but once you hit 8 or more it’s a real mess to switch between windows. You may be good at it, but you know nothing about multitasking until you use OS X and understand it’s paradigm. Expose is amazing, and tools like spotlight (or quicksilver) make finding exactly what you need when you need it a breeze. The dock can come too, as a replacement for Windows “task” bar.

I also appreciate the choices offered with a Mac. When you’re ready to buy a PC you have to spend weeks researching brands, different options, form factor, etc. etc. etc. This can be annoying - believe me I was there a few months ago before I got my Macbook Pro.

Now, some people like choices. I like choices too. But nobody wants a choice between a crap machine and a awesome one. Everyone wants an awesome machine. Where they differentiate is in things like screen size and cost. Apple has these options covered. They offer the best machines, and a few form factors - that’s all you need. I don’t need a choice between bad, crap, worse, medium, okay, and decent. I just want awesome with a few details, and that’s what Apple is selling.

That’s all the reasons I can think of right now. But let’s be honest, I’ll go wherever the best operating system is. I was reluctant to switch to XP, but it was the best at the time so I used it. I tried various linux and BSD distros but always came back to XP. The only thing I’ve tried that has swayed me away (and easily at that) is OS X.

Vista may prove to upset OS X’s spot at the top of the OS food-chain, but I doubt it. Microsoft themselves admits they’re shipping before it’s ready. Users are already reporting being baffled at the interface. Apple has consistently claimed to make the best stuff, while Microsoft has only ever offered something that kinda-sorta worked enough for them to sell volume licenses. It’s not about being the best, it’s about getting your crap onto the most computers and getting people to pay you for it.

Still, there will come a time when I give Vista a good honest try. It will be hard because OS X has never pushed me away like XP did, but I will do it. If it proves to be a better operating system I will switch.

The old views mentioned in this article are fading away. People are realizing you can cut the tech support cord from your parents by simply getting them a Mac. You don’t need to remember to defragment your drive. You don’t need to reinstall Windows every 6 months. People are realizing that someone has finally made a viable option to Windows and that it’s better, faster, cheaper (OS X costs $100 as opposed to whatever incarnation of Windows you decide to buy), and more powerful.

Edit: I almost forgot to evangelize my most favoritest feature ever. Sleep! My Macbook Pro is instant on and off with superior sleep mode. The battery lasts long enough to keep my computer running for weeks with no charge. Try that on a PC!

Posted by Sam at December 18th, 2006

I came to work today to find this post-it stuck to my monitor. Then Jon came by and touched my arm. Now I’m a bit nervous.

2:56 is in about 20 minutes. I have to say I had a good life. Full of tons of babes and parties.

Posted by Sam at December 13th, 2006

When I recently bought a new phone and had to return it, I returned to a corporate Cingular store to make the transaction. After waiting for about 45 minutes with nobody talking to me or acknowledging my presence, I left and decided to come back later. I came back an hour or two later to try again. This time I was taken care of promptly.

I was trying to figure out which phone would be best for me and the person who “helped” me was anything but helpful. I didn’t want to deal with it so I simply returned the phone and left. I took my business to a 3rd party cingular store owned by Spring Communications. I got them to give me the same deal as the Cingular store, so I was happy.

Until this morning.

I received a call at exactly 10am from someone over at Spring. He was trying to sell me a data plan that costs twice as much as the one I already have ($40 as opposed to the more realistic $20). I politely declined. He then started explaining how the plan I was on wouldn’t work on my phone and I wouldn’t be able to receive email. Apparently these things have all been in my imagination for the past few weeks because everything works fine. I declined again.

He then started talking about how I would not be able to receive the rebate for $100 I was offered unless I got on the right plan. Whether or not the rebate will be denied is in question, but I am well within the fine print on the rebate form (I checked again to make sure). If I am denied it will be their fault for misrepresenting the offer, not mine.

I declined again.

He kept pushing. I told him that I don’t care about the rebate. I’d rather save $100 over the next 5 months with the cheaper data plan than get the rebate that would take that long to arrive anyway.

He kept pushing, explaining why my logic was flawed. Finally I had had enough so I declined again, then gave him a detailed technical explanation of the difference between the two plans (which is not much, actually - and cingular doesn’t even set people up to receive the benefits of the more expensive plan - they are left to figure it out themselves). I explained to him about external IP addresses, NAT addresses, circuit switched data, and how I could still use all the services I needed to. I also told him that he was misrepresenting the rebate and that he should check the fine print again, and he was trying to sell me something I didn’t need. I declined once again.

He told me I was wrong and hung up, just like that. Don’t people say goodbye anymore?

I’m a little disappointed Spring would send some guy after me to try to up-sell me on something I don’t need. I’m more disappointed that the guy didn’t give up after the first several times I declined his nonsensical offer. I am more disappointed that he was apparently angry with ME after wasting MY TIME for no reason. I am disappointed that someone from Cingular called and didn’t know anything about what they were talking about, and that me (a customer) knew more both about the rebate offer and about how their data plans work.

Would it be that hard for Cingular to do a little training on these things? Rather than sending people out saying “tell customers they need this just because they do” maybe they could learn what it is they’re talking about. Furthermore, maybe they could be trained to give up after the customer declines a few times. Maybe they can train their employees not to hang up on people.

I checked my plan a little later just to make sure he didn’t change it out of spite. I’m considering returning the phone to Spring and going back to the corporate store. I don’t need goons calling and hounding me out of their own ignorance.

Nice one Spring.

Posted by Sam at December 13th, 2006

Dean Hunt (deanhunt.com), some no-name just getting started in the world of SEO, recently posted a letter that he claims to have received from an on-line business owner. In the letter, the business owner says that Dean’s site is ranking better on some term (we’re not told) that is important to his business, and asks Dean to remove himself from the rankings on that term.

Dean wrote the man back and told him to stuff it, basically. The man wrote back again and this time threatened legal action if he does not remove himself from the google rankings.

I call BS.

First of all, anyone remotely smart enough to be checking their ranking on “terms” knows that this isn’t how the game is played. The supposed business owner claims that retail sites are more important than blogs and so he should be ranked higher on this term. Either this is fake, or the business owner is the dumbest person on the face of the planet.

Every person who has spent more than 2 minutes on the web knows this isn’t how it works. Google ranks on relevancy, period. It doesn’t matter if you’re retail, a blog, or any other kind of site. If google deems you relevant, you get better rankings. I would expect anyone doing Internet retail to know this already.

Now, there is also the issue of the smoking gun. Here is a post on Dean’s blog about how he is about to mount a big viral campaign. Hmm… could this suspicious letter be part of that viral campaign? If so, it has been a huge success - getting him over 40,000 hits and tons of inbound links.

If this isn’t his viral campaign, I’d like to see what is! The first rule of a viral marketing campaign is that you don’t talk about your viral marketing campaign.

The story was submitted to slashdot by, you guessed it, an anonymous user. Oh gee, could it have been Dean himself? I wonder.

Dean didn’t grace us with the details on who this business owner is, or what the term is that is supposedly in dispute. Could he have done this so that he wouldn’t miss any of the inbound links? He wants people linking to him, and not the business owner (which doesn’t actually exist).

Also, Dean claims to have nothing on his site about the term in question. This makes it doubtful that this scenario could even be true, and if it were - surely Dean would not be a difficult person to outrank with a little effort.

There are other things that tip this off as a definite fake - like for example the business owner says he is sending something by post, but doesn’t have Dean’s physical address (and the domain was registered by proxy so it’s not in the whois). I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole site was a fake.

Hey Dean - nice one.

Posted by Sam at December 12th, 2006

If you don’t know, grouphug is a site where people can post anonymous confessions (I’ve mentioned before). Some are sad, shocking, disturbing, plain wrong, and downright dreadful. Others are funny, entertaining, and witty. Most of all, reading grouphug makes you glad that you’re not any of these people. You learn quickly that people are very sad.

Anyway, I read this confession on there earlier:

i hate the fact my girlfriend beats me in every single area of my life
[sic]

I have to say, that is one lucky dude. The only thing I want in life right now is to date up. This guy somehow lucked out and found a girl who was way better than him and still puts up with him enough to date his sorry butt. Sign me up.

Posted by Sam at December 10th, 2006

I remember my bank/insurance company (yes, they are the same) offering me something about renter’s insurance. I researched it a little on their website and decided to get a policy. This is something that was recommended by people who own high end phones as an alternative to the $6/mo phone insurance that Cingular offers (and, in fact, they wouldn’t even cover my last phone because it was too expensive and prone to breakage).

So I called up my insurance company and took out a $5000 personal property plan with a $4000 computer-specific option. So if any of my computers are stolen, damaged, or even if they get a virus, they will be covered up to $4000 with $0 deductible. If any of my other stuff gets stolen or broken (camera, cell phone, etc.) it is covered up to $5000 with a $250 deductible.

How much does all this cost? Surprisingly little, actually. It’s a little over $100 a year. Remember the $6 phone insurance plan? For about twice as much money per month you can have all your computers and other personal property covered. That’s a pretty good deal in my book - but of course we’ll have to wait and see how easy it is to make a claim when and if the time comes.

It is nice to know that my carputer is covered from theft. Despite all my security measures, it is still nice to have insurance to fall back on.

Posted by Sam at December 10th, 2006

Okay friends - I need your help.

I have lost my hat. You know the one - the big mohawk knit one? It’s been missing since last spring - and I’m pretty sure I left it at someone’s house. Hopefully a friend’s house. Hopefully a friend who reads my blog.

I want nothing more than the safe return of my hat. If you know anything about it’s whereabouts, please contact me immediately. A reward of one jr. bacon cheeseburger is offered for it’s safe return or tips leading to it’s whereabouts.

Here is the hat in question: