Downriver Cruise

AtomicInternet Archived News

Archived News starting from 06-25-2005 and earlier

06-25-2005 Downriver Cruise

Today was the downriver cruise, a smaller version of the Woodward Dream Cruise which is more of a parking lot than a cruise. 1998 is the last time I remember being able to drive above 1MPH at the Woodward cruise so I make an effort to stay away from it every year. Fortunately the downriver version is fairly free flowing and has a good amount of interesting cars. We were invited to a BBQ/Pool party prior to the cruise, and then did our lap around the event.

No Comments Entered for 06-25-2005

06-22-2005 Return of the Weather Station

NO COMMENTS

With the downfall of my old WM-918 weather station I decided to order it's replacement, the WMR968 (Froogle has more sane pricing). The new station connects to the outdoor sensors wirelessly so static buildup no longer has a direct route to my computer. It also has really cool solar battery packs to transmit to the base station. I finished installing it today which means Tim can once again rest assured the desktop weather app and weather page are accurately reporting the weather around my house.

No Comments Entered for 06-22-2005

06-21-2005 Tree Monster

2 COMMENTS

Coming home tonight at the last bend before my street I was greeted by a wall of yellow caution tape and a county worker truck. It took a good 5 seconds for me to process that the road was physically blocked and I was not able to go through. I pulled to the side and started talking to the county worker who was waiting for a tree removal truck. He said the tree fell from wind or some forest fairy and he was getting a laugh from people like me who had a moment of disbelief before turning around. To best him, I took a few photos, punched him in the face, and left.

User Comments for 06-21-2005:

Sorry about that, I was just looking for pinecones, and the dumb thing fell over! Stupid emerald ash borers.
Brian

I say put up a toll booth where the tree once stood and make some money.
tim

06-20-2005 Network

15 COMMENTS

You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it. You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations; there are no peoples. There are no regions; there are no Arabs. There is no third world; there is no west. There is only one holistic system of systems; one vast interwoven, interactive multivariant multinational dominion of dollars, petrodollars, electrodollars Reich marks, rands, roubles, pounds and shekels. It is the international system of currency that determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today. It is the international system of currency that determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things. You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and you will atone! You howl about America. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, ITT, AT &T, and Dupont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies. The world is a college of corporations inexorably determined by the immutable by-laws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live to see that perfect world in which there is no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company for which all men will work to serve a common purpose and in which all men will own a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxiety tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you to preach this evangel.

User Comments for 06-20-2005:

Ah, yes.. However you forgot 1 thing. I see a greater future where IBM, ITT, AT&T, Dupont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxom are all eatten alive by a simple website called... Google
Stavos

What the heck?
Missy

It's a quote from a movie called 'Network' from 1976.
Brian

I was born that year. Had a lot of other things to do than see movies. I was working on learning to talk and walk.
tim

Brian is a Google cheater! Good movie nonetheless.
AtomicInternet

BTW isn't AT&T basically gone now since cell phones domiated the phone market? And they failed that market as well and Cingular now owns them? HAHHA hi2U At&T thanks for over charging for long distance back in the 90's karma's a bitch!
Stavos

Google is now thinking of overtaking Paypal and eCommerce giant eBay.... all hail your new world leader.... Google.
PuckPuck

thats why I still use Yahoo. I'm not ready to put the mark of the beast on my forehead. We'll all have a google ID # tattooed to us.
tim

Brad already has his Google ID# tattooed to his butt!
Missy

Only a select few have witnessed this Google ID on brads Butt...
Stavos

I, for one, am welcoming our new Google overlords. Seriously though, i'd rather have a company like Google (whose motto is "don't be evil") running things than IBM or MS. Then again, you can't really hold any publicly owned company to their word--stockholders come first.
brian

and the pretty colors are so friendly how can a evil company have pretty red, blue, green, and yellow colors? : ) : )
Stavos

Aren't Lepracons evil? They like all the colors in the RAINBOW.
PuckPuck

This is true.... welp my theory just went to shit, god help us all
Stavos

I couldn't get past the 8th word before I looped back to start over again and again and quit after the 27th loop.
Excelcier

06-17-2005 MS.NET 2.0 B2 Framework Installed

1 COMMENT

This server now has the MS.NET 2.0 Beta 2 Framework installed. If you have an account on this server you no longer have any reason not to download the Visual Studio Express Beta and start developing. If you do not have an account now is the perfect time to take advantage of my connection vulnerability or any unknown vulnerability that exists in the beta framework and create one (or just format c:). Whatever you decide I'll credit the new framework and hopefully get a few apps of my own for you to hammer away at.

User Comments for 06-17-2005:

But how will this make me rich?
Stavos

06-16-2005 Visual Studio 2005

1 COMMENT

I spent all day today at a Visual Studio 2005 developer conference. I did not win the Xbox or portable media center as hoped, but I did get some free stuff and learned alot about the new features in VS2005. I'll again point to the free Visual Studio 2005 Express Beta and suggest you take a look. They even have a version for Linux and OS X now. At the conference, I met someone who is programming an interface in C# for aircraft sensors. Things like fuel gauges and airspeed sensors would reside on a common bus and report to a single computer. This would reduce the overall cost of repairing and operating aircraft. The project is funded by NASA so I immediately attached myself to this person until security removed me and the restraining order was issued. Free stuff and free food, along with lots of geek talk got me all fired up about the 2.0 framework. I'm consequently installing the framework after this post so if your computer burst into flames unexpectedly it's most likely a short. However, that short may be caused by your visit to this .net 2.0 enabled server. Something to keep in mind while you're downloading Visual Studio 2005 Express Beta.

User Comments for 06-16-2005:

where's the CSS themes damn it!
Stavos

06-11-2005 Niagara Falls Trip

1 COMMENT

My quasi-annual trip to Niagara Falls was this weekend which involves sightseeing the first day and a Cougar meet the second. This year Missy, Ron, Jen, Pierre and Dale made up the tour group. Unfortunately the whole weekend was in the 90's for both temperature and humidity. Nevertheless we went behind the falls and visited the mini-vegas of Clifton Hill. Later, we stopped at the park before the falls and took photos of the abandoned scow stuck in place since 1918. The highlight of the trip was definately my spare tire burnout performed for the sake of entertainment. Hooray!

User Comments for 06-11-2005:

And it was a blast as always! Can't wait till next year.
Excelcier

06-09-2005 PROTONX Power Surge

6 COMMENTS

Today at 3:25pm the GnomeCam captured what looks like hail falling in my yard. Shortly afterwards, the server went down. I came home to find my WGU624 Router with only the power and wireless link lights on (no LAN/WAN). I cycled the power and wound up with the exact same problem. Next I cycled the power on every computer component and noticed the router, cable modem and weather station were all extremely hot. I discovered the WAN port on the cable modem, LAN ports on the router and server, and the COM port on the weather station were all dead. The only thing I can think of that would cause this is a power surge of some type either from the SmartUPS backup or through the weather station anemometer (mounted on my roof). The UPS passed all diagnostics so my working theory is a static buildup above my roof discharged through my anemometer. From there it travelled to the weather station, through the COM port on my server, and out the LAN port to kill the router and cable modem. There is no evidence it was strong enough to melt or short circuit anything so evidently none of these ports take kindly to even a moderate power spike. Ironically there is an RJ45 power suppressor on the power strip I use for the server. The incoming weather station cable is an RJ45 jack so if I had run the incoming cable through this suppressor none of this would have happened. I thought a 75 minute UPS backup made my server impenetrable to power surges and didn't realize I have a lightning rod connected to the COM port on my server. Fortunatley the cable modem has a USB connection as well as the Ethernet port so the server is currently serving this page via USB. Consequently there is a direct connection between the cable modem and my server so take note hackers (Steve), now is the time to make your strike

User Comments for 06-09-2005:

Oo.. Windows directly on the Interweb! Living dangerously!
brian

Sometimes i'm wondering if i'm hacking Atomic Server so I run a netstat -a feww I'm still connacted. If i'm not hacking Atomics site this guy is stavos.homeip.net/detroitarchive/weeklyShocker/hacking_ramzi.wmv
Stavos

I don't think anything went down. I think you just like to talk about all the stuff you have cuz you're a show off
tim

True.. True
AtomicInternet

Yeah, that's my Brad!
Missy!

Brad is server and hardware challenged.
Excelcier

06-08-2005 Help Me Choose a Camera

8 COMMENTS

My Nikon Coolpix 2100 camera is nearing the end of it's life since I've busted off the power switch and have to trick it to turn on. The camera has served me well, and I love the features in Nikon's line of sub $1,000 cameras, so naturally I'm leaning toward another Nikon. I've narrowed down my selection to the Coolpix 4200 or the Coolpix 4800. The 4200 is $150 and the 4800 is $275. The extra $75 buys me an 8.3x optical zoom compared to the 3x zoom on the 4200. Both have 4x digital zoom which I don't even count as useful. My question is: would you pay an extra $75 for an extra 5.3x of zoom?

User Comments for 06-08-2005:

Go for the cheaper one. You really don't need zoom; just walk closer.
Brian

My answer is: Buy the $999.99 Canon Rebel it's under $1,000!!!. However if your limiting yourself to under $300. I suggest the extra zoom and would pay $200 more for 5.3X optical zoom. Remember 3X zoom is what our eyes see and anything under that is a limited wide angle lens. after 3X you start to zoom.
Stavos

Actually the Digital Rebel is about $500-$600 now. I agree with BDowney. Just move closer. It makes for a better picture anyway.
Tim

Good idea however a lot of times you can't move closer. IE. Zoo, Airshow, concerts, basically anything you want to take a picture of. I'd take optical zoom over megapixels
Stavos

You suck at math.
Gabe

The 4800 is $225 not $275. My math is good, but my writing is not so good.
AtomicInternet

I might be in a new camera market soon. Where did you find those prices?
gabe

Froogle, just choose "Low to High" sorting and skip ahead until you find the first instance of the actual camera. A bit time consuming, but you get the absolute lowest price Froogle can find.
AtomicInternet

06-05-2005 Shirtless Landscaping

3 COMMENTS

Folding under high temperature and popular demand, I decided to go shirtless for my latest landscaping project. You can see me in my shirtless glory from 12:15pm - 4:00pm on todays GnomeCam. I asked Missy to go shirtless as well to which she replied "This isn't Canada you know." Fortunately she did put on a bikini top which distracted my neighbors enough to not call the police on my tasteless display of flabby whiteness. I moved 2 cubic yards of dirt and replaced it with just under a cubic yard of rock. Once the shirtless urge strikes me again, I plan to get the second cubic yard of rock and claim victory.

User Comments for 06-05-2005:

Hope your site is prepared for bandwidth overload. I'm most displeased you didn't go shirtless while working on the car with me.
Brian

I didn't want to compete with the carpenter ant.
AtomicInternet

Made my weekend, I was glued to the Gnome cam with my popcorn
Stavos

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