Archived News starting from 10-15-2006 and earlier
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Today at 3:17pm marked the end of my
Snappy powered
Gnome Cam and the beginning of my .NET powered one. The Snappy worked great for over 4½ years, but parallel port video capture just isn't cool anymore. The recent addition of
Gnome Cam Live was already providing me with a video source so I decided it was time to make the switch. Now that I control the entire image creation process I can put a temperature/wind speed text overlay on the captures, or network/frag stats during LAN parties, or a Florida/Michigan locator for
Joseph when he goes savage from the cold weather.
The Hitachi marketing department paid good money for
this jewel, and if I could justify the money I'd
buy one just because of the video.
School House Rockish characters should be used to explain all technology advancements.
It's too early for this already. The snow today actually set a
new record for early snow. My initial thought is that, once again, Michigan hates me, but after reading the news article, it seems Canada is to blame. By the ever useful transitive property this means
Ron is to blame.
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Working with
Visual Studio 2005 almost exclusively during my 8-10 hour workdays has me staring at two animated icons frequently. For my larger projects, I stare at each of them for up to 10 seconds at a time. The animations represent a process that will end in either accomplishment or more work to be done. I watch these icons with eager anticipation, hoping for the accomplishment outcome but more often than not receiving more work. They are such prominent icons in my world I felt the need to share them with everyone.
Build: "dots to box" -
Represents the lines of code I labor on being compiled into
MSIL in preparation for deployment.
Publish: "world to squares" -
Represents the deployment of my MSIL to the waiting server(s), where it will undergo it's
second compilation.
I enjoy my italicized names so much I'll frequently reply with "world to squares" when asked if a project has been pushed yet, or "dots to box" when a project won't compile. The reaction from coworkers is always confusion and I rarely explain myself. Probably another indicator of spending entirely too much time on a computer.
Since Lisa has
claimed me as her groom, we trekked out to
Pennsylvania this weekend to meet her grandparents. I was subsequently examined and approved by all four grandparents. My Welsh name and quick wit sufficiently compensated for my balding head. Additional approval by both of Lisa's parental units prior to our Pennsylvania trip means I am now 60% complete with the pre-marriage approval process. Lisa lags behind at 20% having been approved by my paternal unit and one grandfather. Final approval is scheduled to be completed before August 2008, the earliest wedding date currently being considered.
I just finished watching the documentary
Who Killed the Electric Car. As with most charged documentaries, it's fairly one-sided (electric cars vs. the world) but it did bring me to tears when they crushed the EV1's. The buildup and hype of the cars followed by the owners emotional attachment hooked me good. If you also get emotional about the destruction of one-of-a-kind technology avoid this film. I had the same reaction about the fate of the
turbine car not long ago. Watching this will reveal if you are a true empathetic automotive enthusiast. Lisa laughed at me and called me a sissy when I started crying so I checked the "no" box for her. Crybaby or not, I recommend stocking up on tissues and watching it. Then head to
EV1.org to share their pain.
UPDATE: found a
blog from GM about the destruction.
The
Gnome Cam was temporarily placed in a shrub from 1:15pm - 1:40pm today. Contrary to popular belief, it is not located inside the Gnomes head (a cool idea but the camera is too big). It's actually anchored to my porch light which was replaced during the shrub broadcast. The new porch light runs "ambience" lighting (henceforth referred to as "ambilight") with full brightness activated by a motion sensor. This is a big improvement from the old light which shorted randomly or didn't light at all. Unfortunately for Lisa, she arrived home seconds before me and was obviously stunned and confused by the new lighting system. I decided to help calm her down by switching to high beam on my motorcycle and
gunning it into her truck. This appeared to sooth her sufficiently as she was then able to get out of the truck and shake her head at me.
Less than two weeks after recovering my
stolen gnome, Butt the Gnome has been kidnapped. He disappeared at 9:35pm
Monday which now leaves me with no porch gnomes (Myrone the gnome was
stolen 3 years ago). Fortunately this kidnapping came with a
ransom note from some
Ohioans who had stopped by for
Karaoke Revolution earlier that night. Angry that they live in such a flat state, they decided to strike back with the kidnapping. Their lack of elevation makes them particularly brutal with kidnapping victims as is evidenced by the guard cats surrounding my gnome. I can only imagine the horrific pain my urethane friend is enduring without the comfort of a third dimension. Hang in there Butt, help will be there soon.
A
detailed agenda of our trip to the
Renaissance Festival made no mention of a particular event that was to transpire today. We arrived at the festival only slightly behind schedule due to some disciplinary action I had to give Lisa during the car ride. Once we parked, I prepared myself for resisting the urge to punch everyone dressed in tights that spoke to me. That accomplished, we went about our merry way visiting shops and watching the
Ded Bob Show. Eventually we made our way to the jousting field with appropriate food in hand. While we waited for the Knights to take the field, the unscheduled event occurred: Lisa asked "will you marry me?" I was so overcome with emotion I was only able to whisper a "yes" in response before I broke down and started crying. I wept openly for everyone on the Jousting field to see. I was overjoyed. Finally a girl thought I was pretty enough to marry, and she decided to ask me on a jousting field. What a romantic event! As my heart rate returned to normal and my emotions settled down, I realized she was asking where her ring was. Confused, I asked what she was talking about. After all,
she proposed to
me and should give
me a ring, but I hadn't thought that through until now. She clarified that the engagement isn't real until she has a diamond ring on her finger. I promptly Googled for acceptable proposals on my phone and found that our exchange was indeed a valid engagement. Unwavered, she once again informed me a diamond ring was required. Later at dinner, she told me that I had to propose to her and that her proposal wasn't real. I informed her that since the late 1920's women have become increasingly liberated from male-dominated traditions and are in fact legally allowed to propose to men. I told her it would have been polite to ask my parents first, but that her proposal was valid just the same. The debate continues, but I'm henceforth introducing her as my fiance.
UPDATE: we've reached a conclusion, it's now
official!
After
successfully defeating comment spam, I added a similar image verification to the
forums at the request of
Stavos today. A recent update to
AWStats allowing me to blacklist
referrer pages completed my defenses. Now, like a good game of
StarCraft, I wait for the spambots to bypass my bunkers and turrets to blast a big load of spam right into my
command center.
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