snow driving

so we are getting a little snow, which turns my 1 hour commute into a 1.5 hour commute. [each way]. today, I was driving through a small town and some suzuki sidekick or something very similar was driving about 5 car lenghts in front of me in the fast lane. I was in the slow lane (imagine that). there were two lanes going south bound, and two lanes going north bound. we were going about 40 mph and no divider to keep us out of oncoming traffic. so this guy just locks up his tires, never lets ups, and skids at about a 30deg angle into oncoming traffic. a truck (chevy tahoe?) in the oncoming fast lane had to pull into our fast lane to get around him. VERY CLOSE to a headon collision. this jerk ends up in ditch on the other side of the road.

Things we can all learn from this.
1) Be prepared. see Studs article
2) leave plenty of room. had I been behind him I would have got hit head on.
3) if your in a slide, use a little common sense. I know not everyone has taken a mechanical engineering class so let me clue you in. you only have so much friction. if you want to waste it all in a skid, be my guest, but a better thing to do is let up a bit on the brakes so you are no longer skidding, and use what little traction you have to STEAR YOUR VEHICLE. luck, experience, and common sense all play a part in how much stopping you will need and how much stearing you will need, but next time you find yourself in a skid into oncomming traffic think about it.

run jen run

the blog run jen run (notice the all lower case like another jen I know) had a great piece on no adjustment necessary

cow tipping

I went on over to snopes.com with high hopes that I could prove or disprove the legend of cow tipping. Unfortunatly its either a bad night for searching, or they just don't have the info. I stopped by wikipedia.org and looked at their Cow Tipping They seem to be of the mindsent that cow tipping is indeed urban legend. do you guys think cow tipping is for real or not? lets get some first hand accounts, or maybe even, "i once had this friend..." comments.

accidents

have you ever heard it said that '80% of car accidents happen less than 5 miles from home' or some other rediculous claim? well it may not be all wrong. check out what chase has to say about it HERE

Christmas gifts!

post your best and or worst christmas gift. if you don't have a worst christmas gift for this year post your worst from years past.

christmas stockings

without using the internet... why is it tradition to put an orange in the toe of the christmas stockings?

art

today we stopped at the museum. I asked the security guard if I could take a few snapshots and they said it was fine as long as I didn't use a flash. so, I got the following. my question to you nerds is WHAT IS THE WHITE THING WITH 2 RED STIPES? you see, all of us are convinced we know what it is and it is two VERY different things so the only way to settle this is the good ol' democratic way. highest vote wins. after I get a few guesses i'll post what we think it is. I don't want to bias the responses upfront.

Time consuming but freaking funny

You know all those stupid Nigerian email hoaxes flying around inboxes everywhere? This guy, Brad, decided to have a little fun with them.

Sewing machines

listen up nerds. my mother-in-law is making another dress for my wife. the dresses come out AWESOME. however, since she last sewed for my wife she has sold her sewing machine and will be purchasing a new one for this project. I know some of you sew (admit it kev) so give me a rundown on whats good, and whats not, and what I can get in probably the sub $500 (maybe sub 300$) range. thanks.

title - monster

i'm taking a snapshot of that right now for archival puposes.
that is one huge title.
i'm assuming sarah granted us that! (based on the use of YAY)


we all use to be students together but have since graduated [most of us] and moved on in life. the posting group is comprised of an Electrical Engineer (Professinal engineer certified), a Computer Engineer (NOT certified), a chemist that is about a year away from PhD certification, a business/computer expert (BS), a mechanical engineering student 4'th year(projected BSME), a biologist that just graduated with her MASTERS (yay), and even a professional librarian turned web developer!(AS in graphics arts) thus the term 'nerdy tales'. Repeat readers that don't always post include, A teacher, a professional assistant, and of course all the nerds that write. Feel Free to inject a comment either ontopic or off as it makes it lots of fun! We especially like insightful comments, witty comments, and comments that prove our assumptions were/are way off.

Google revisited

Since I know that you all love Google as I do, I thought you might like the Google Doodles:
This Christmas
Last Christmas
The one before that
The one before that one

Athens Olympics
Salt Lake Olympics
Sydney Olympics

4th of July
Aliens

cell choices

so jen and I are thinking of getting cell phones. KEY WORD THINKING..... we are leanging towards att, but who knows. what cell service do all your guys use or IF you were to get a cell phone who do you think you would go with so if I get free M2M (mobile to mobile) I want to know who I could talk to unsafely when I should be driving.

Fun with geography

Fun, fun, fun! Test your geography skills (I sincerely hope yours are better than mine...).

warioInc

I got jen a new game (GBA) for christmas.. well, kinda new, no one had it in the store so we saved 5$ and got it for 25$ at a used shop. the guy was really nice and I'd be surprised if he wasn't the owner. just the right amount of interaction with the customer without being 'pushy' or 'overwhealming', so I'd definatly go back.

the game we got? Wario Ware, INC. yeah.. I think its been out for about 1.5 years now, but it seems like it should be fun. a nearly complete guide can be found HERE.

bomberman

free networkable bomberman

Google sets

have you nerds check out Google Sets yet? the idea, or best I can figure anyway.. is to give it a few things and see what it predicts will be in the set.
Car, Motor home, Motorcyle results in a PIRATE SHIP
Plastic, wood, metal, glass results in TOILETRIES
Visa, Mastercard, Discover results in YARDAGE MARKERS

those all make pretty good sense to me. whats the best you guys can find?

Don't Bid on Old Food

they let it rot in a safe... just hilarious!
truffle goes home

Cat Scan

So, to follow up on Jen's radiation post... I got more x-rays today and bought a copy of my cat scan that was done about 2 months ago... it cost $5 and came with the same software the radiologists use :)... here are a couple of snap shots (oh and keith you can see the screws are poking in my body... all but one of the screws went into the vertebral body. One did not, and a couple went through the respective verterbral body.







And a cool animation on spinal surgery :)
Cool surgery animation

abusive car

My car has taken so much abuse and it only has 92,000 miles on it so far. by abuse I mean the verbal kind, not the dented kind. first dan insulted it by citing some obscure reference to the golf as being 'the gayest car on the road'. now while not the most politically correct, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. now It seems I got stuck on a thread on bad drivers on geek.com and someone said according to NPR the jetta (basically the same as the golf in my book) is the most recless vehicle on the road.

Dave!! (dice): nice to see you check into the blog! you gotta email me and let me know what your doing for christmas!

blog whats due

over on bearcatenglish it shows a good example of a teacher blogging to the students what is due and expected. do you guys think that is a good use of technology or is that expecting too much.
cons:
*not all students have internet, so its unfair
*teacher could be publicly scrutinized for the method used
*what if teacher doesn't update, does that mean what was said in class is not due?

pros:
*parents know FOR SURE what was assigned and how to direct the children
*all students get the same expectations, no 'special assigments'
*students cant say they lost the assignment
*teacher isn't called at night to be asked what the assigmnet is
*teaches use of modern technology as well as the subject at hand

is it good or not?

lightweight validation: google style

go to labs.google.com and choose Google Suggest, which is still in beta.

i thought it was an rpc call.
turns out it's a bit more: read allinthehead.com's take on it.

google labs is cooking up some pretty cool stuff.
check out the auto complete 'search' tool they are working on.
very fast, very lightweight, very cool.

drivers?

so What kinda drivers are you guys anyway? I myself use to drive exclusively in the right lane (except for lane changes) but after 80,000 miles of commuting to work I find myself in the left lane much more than the right. where do you guys drive?

Patents

not as cool as ibm's (i think it was them?) old site where you could look up all patents, but perhaps cooler in its own way.
fresh patents. basically watch new stuff just before it gets approved or denied. kinda cool, i think i'll have to add it to my stuff that i am supposed to read but sometimes don't get to (i have about 70 table's of contents in my e-mail that i should read right now).
now can someone explain rss to me?

from k2h: check out xml.com RSS

HyperPhysics

slow brain day... so i was downstairs staring through the microscope trying to reconcile some things about polarized light for specific colors since the substrate i used seemed to circularly polarize the light and i was trying to figure out how i could use the analyzer to determine the structure of my sample. ahh..ya don't ask me to explain.

anyway i got stuck thinking too hard (late school board meeting last night impeeds thinking) so i popped on over to hyperphysics (found via google since web address is too long to remember) to get my energies and wavelengths straightened out. and what a cool chart i found (i got distracted by all the cool stuff on the site after i answered my questions). it is a chart on radiation and the body, that's pretty cool to refer to for those times you just can't remember if those x-ray eyes from a super hero are supposed to hurt someone =).

clik the nerd

I noticed that Jen did this and I wondered how many of the rest of you were in the dark on clicking Nerdy Tales? If you are reading the comments on a post if you scroll to the top of the page and click on the header (Nerdy Tales) it will bring you back to the main page.

Made in China

Everyone is complaining about the outsource to china innitiateves. so to show that not EVERYTHING that comes from china is crap how about everyone post the first thing they come across that says made in china on it and after awhile we can see if it is crap or not. (it has to say MADE IN CHINA on it, usually on the back)

i'll get things started. I have a Casio FX-115MS $15 calculator. I actually like it better than my 150$ HP calc (the HP-48G probably costs $99 now ,but who knows). the reason is that its cheep, and simple. to do more complex calculations I just use my computer.


jen's made in china item (not crap at all, it is my work buddy)

Meteor Shower

Theres suppose to be a good meteor shower tonight. 60-120 an hour during the peak time. this is called the Geminids meteor shower. Last years show was tarnished by the crappy moon, but this year it is setting earlier or something so bring on the burining rock! check out msncb.com that seems to be a straight rip off from space.com

k2h fixed the title

Poor guy, must have had a splitting headache...

segway (mild curse)

first off i'll explain the mild curse... the only encounter with segways i've had is with one exceptionally stupid lady that 1. ran into the table that i was eating at outside (yes into the table with the velocity increasing rather than decreasing) 2. rammed into the door when she came to 'fix' a problem with the computer in a classroom. so my only experience with the things consitutes needing and airbag.

anyways, i was looking at some of the pictures on somethingawful.com and came across some that were fake games.
this then reminded me about the guy who took one from washington to massachusets. now that's a good use of technology!

photoshop contests

photoshop contests rule! check out somethingawful.com
heres a sample

$1 car wash

theres a place on my way into work that is a doityourself car wash for $1.00. that buys you 4 minutes of time. options are the sprayer that includes at least 3 kinds of soaps, wax, rinse solution, water rinse, and then theres the brush scrubber option. so you can mix and match anyway you want for 4 minutes.

with one person my results were mediocre, but since I don't wash my car but once every few months I did notice an improvement. If there had been another person to run the brush while I ran the sprayer (or vice versa) the results would have most likely been more impresive.

This whole experience got me thinking that next time I need a little extra cash i'm going to put a sign out in front of the doityourself car wash and offer to wash peoples cars. maybe do it for 2$. 1$ goes to quarters, and 1$ proffit. if you worked non stop for an hour that would be a proffit of $15, assuming you could get a line of cars. now that may not sound like much but if kev and I put on a good show (like we always do when we do stuff like this) i'm sure the tips could tripple our takehome.

who wants to help me make $50 in an hour?!! any takers?

naked sandunes

one of my coworkers spent the t-day holiday in the dessert like he usaully does but this time he was 'lucky' enough to hook up with a similarly minded person and get naked. now he actually had proof of such a thing and volunteered a website with photos that he had taken. being a kind soul I helped him clean his cache/history and memory of this happenins since the girl no longer returns his email. this guys like 50 years old so today I made the comment "you must have meet elvis!" and he said.. "na.. but my sister was in a movie with him" so when he remembers what the name is (he's old, it may be a while) I'll have to watch it.

Rand Corp haox

remember kev posted awhile ago that submarine exchibit was touched up to look like a computer? seems common people arn't the only ones to fall for it. check it out on geek.com Sun microsystems CEO fell for it. kev was way ahead of the curve on reporting this to us. way to go. crap. I thought it was kev. now I can't find the blog entry. who found this awhile ago?

ok.. ok. i'm calmed down. i found it here on our very own nerdy tails and it was kev.

free cms

I desire a free/open source jump starts to a strong website, mostly php based.
content management systesm.

check out cmsmatrix.org for some ones in development and for comparisons.
then visit opensourcecms.com for some live demos.

I'm currently harbering a little rebel project and tryhing to see what i can cook up for FREE on my own time that runs in open source (for distrobution reasons, and largely becuase of dan's influence) so we can re-program our website into something remotely mangaged by the in house users/audience and the core may be useful to churces/ other conferences.

i've liked mambo, cpg-nuke, phpwcms, typo3, xoops.
anyone have any suggestions or war stories?

i really need to manage files, have security for those files and usergroups with varied permissions. a calander that can filter based on context (public or private, department, ect) and web-managed dynamic forms if possible (a huge problem, people wanting info but not wanting to manage email, dynamic webforms would be nice so we can just scrape it outta a database)
a forum would be nice with layers and users, but is not essential for .1 release.

OUT OF THEIR MINDS

if dans posting we know things have gotten lax. contrary to popular belief I actually DO work and have been busy. thats my excuse. the other excuse is that its just a plane old slow news day! I've got nothing much to say.

if you guys ever see farscape episode 2-09 OUT OF THEIR MINDS jen and I got a big hit out of the cross gender plot. yeah.. yeah.. call me a sick-o but it was funny. a full review here, but it lacks the humor of some of the scenes. you'd have to see it to appreciate they always say....

off to the QNX RTOS class/sales pitch.

3D Projection for GPS data

Okay, I haven't been too active on the blog but I came across this really fun software that creates 3D projections from GPS data, so take your latest epic adventure track and look at it on a 3d projection. It's a little slow and quirky but definately worth burning a few hours.

http://www.gpstrailmaps.com/map3d/index.html

Daniel

Domestic Engineer

heres a small insight into what its like to have an adventure as a domestic engineer (housewife). I think I have a bit more respect now.

"I didn't pay this on time because my husband chased me around the house with a meat cleaver and tried to cut off my head."
Before I could add, "No, really, I just didn't have the money," I heard the rattle of keys typing and then the bill collector said to himself, obviously bored,
"So, I'll just put that under....medical."

cat digging

whats the best thing your kitty has ever dug up? jens mom had denise bring in a snake and play with it in the toilet (thats a fun surprise). our kitty brought in a woodpecker and let it go in the master bedroom at 6:30am. nothing like waking up to a bird flying through your hair. our kitty also brings mice in from OUTSIDE. you'd think it be the other way around but its not. today I talked with a guy from work that said his cat dug a 'floater' our of the toilet!

Congrats to Janell

Hurrah!! Janell passed and I deem her nerd of the year!

boulder....

now jen, why can't you act a little more crazy, act like your origins!
the source will remain nameless less a certain individual be persecuted.

The University of Maryland claimed to have mustered no less than 553 naked students to streak three miles one evening in March 1974. This beats the record claimed by the University of South Carolina of 508 a few nights earlier. These efforts, however, are paltry compared with the 1,000 claimed by the students at Athens, Georgia, or the 1,200 claimed in Boulder, Colorado ("Economist", March 16, 1974)

Hoodia

Hoodia i think is a diet pill made from a cactus.
any takers?
it's saying there are no side effects - which makes me think of eating glass marbles. also a natural substance that would produce no side effects. It may be technically true, but what if a marble were to crack?

Just wanted to say...

Rabbit rabbit!

firefox refresh: on windows

not sure how this works on other platforms, by my windows firefox flavor does not tend to do a full refresh when i hit f5 or [refresh icon].
upon reading about this annoyance, SHIFT+[refresh icon]Click grabs the page from the server, not the cache during the refresh. odd. i though that was the pupose of refresh.
at least now i can see my posts!

ye olde home computer

Picture from 1954 Popular Mechanics' Magazine....

Scientists from RAND Corporation have created this model to illustrate how a "home computer" could look in the year 2004. However the needed technology will not be economically feasible for the average home. Also the scientists readily admit that the computer will require not yet invented technology to actually work, but 50 years from now scientific progress is expected to solve these problems. With teletype interface and the Fortran language, the computer will be easy to use.

This was sent by a coworker via email, so I sent him a link to the discussion on snopes.com and he said 'well done watson, i expected as much'.
google comes through again.