shop4tech.com

Shop4tech.com has some awesome dvd media for what was bout 22cents a disk with a coupon last time i ordered (100 of them).
enter the coupon code "Thanksgiving" up throgh Nov. 26 and get 10% off storwide and 30% off 2nd air shipping (not worth it)

check out the Sonic DVD-r 1x-4x bulk media. i think that's what I got and have had only 1 bad disk in the 25 i burned. great price!

define work

check out Wired's The Geek Guide to Kosher Machines which i read last nite.
1. define work. is this a physics thing? doesn't the human body consume energy?
2. review the 4th commandment. it does not discuss machines.
3. if industry is going to persue nitche markes, where is my stylish LL Bean bullet proof, knife resistent vest for inner city school kids?

I want to write a well formed reply to wired and see if it'll be published next month.
any ideas on how I should word it?

free magazines

when I lost one of the cube mates at work he took all of his magazines with him. they were free magazines, but still fun to read and every now and again they actually had something interesting to say about the industry.

I have found a place to get TONS of free mags if you are so inclined
http://www.reed4success.com/

you never know.. you might learn something!

so I filled out a few free subscriptions with my work address. for job title I put SENIOR ENGINEER, which i'm not but I'm gonna see how long it takes for someone to notice since we have a comunal mail drop.

suitcase worth considering? nah.

in looking for a rebuttle to keith's unfounded watch ad observation, I found descriptions of a 20,000$ suitcase with more info here. That baby had better come with a build in ice-maker that gets it's water from vapor in the air and a desalinator for the ocassional executive plane crash or i'm gonna feel jipped.

10:10

I thought 10 after 10 was the best time for se.... ahh. you get the idea =) but it didn't even make into the article!

Shill Bidding

so I read an article on geek.com about shill bidding. this is the process of artificially inflating the bid amount on a product. I have mixed feelings if this should be legal or not. I'm kinda thinking it should be LEGAL. you represent yourself... the auction house or person represents getting the most money for a product that they can. if they find a good way to sucker you into it then you were too weak to begin with! what do you'all think?

cube crap

I sit in a cube that has 4 spots. that is if each person gets a corner which is pretty typical in this day and age. we had one person transfer across teh country and another person transfer to a different department (temporarily or so he claims) so that leaves 2 of us in one cube. We are much enjoying it. no one plays stupid music anymore, we waste less time in a day because there arn't as many people to talk to. all in all it just a better deal.

the problem is there is some extra desk area. so my cube mate and I have been using it off and on for some of our projects but about 1/2 of the space in the cube is unused. so a different team broght their crap to the cube for me to play with. after I was done playing with it they wouldn't take it out, because they don't have any room. so I just got a big box, dumped all the crap in. now the desks are back to clean. if they want space they can get their own. my desk is not their space.

halo 2 released

Halo 2 reviewed here is released today. it's going to be a good evening.

Blender

check out blender.
after reading about the game engine keith found, this seemed like a logical extention for making the graphics (as several of the developers are using it)
it's got more math and options then i'd use. maybe i'll start with a box or something.

*disclaimer*

I found this on Adventure Game Studio web site, it is an SDK to help you write your own game. I love the disclaimer....

NOTE: AGS is not for everyone. To make more advanced parts of a game, such as cutscenes, you will need to be prepared to learn the scripting language. It is recommended that you have at least a basic knowledge of computers before attempting to use AGS - such as, you know what a PCX file is, you can think logically and you know the difference between your hard drive and your RAM.

nation wide walki-talki

talk about FREE advertising. I am totally sick of the phones that you can use as a walki-talki (sp?) that are very loud and anoying. if it wasn't bad enough that everyone and their dog is now on a cell phone they now have to make a public display out of it. the best part was when one of our coworkers had an argument with his wife in walki-talki mode and the dept. got to listen in. you could her it half way across the building it was so loud.

then today I hear someone basically reading the paper into one.

please STOP!

I can't wait until the perfect thought based communications so I don't have to be invovled in everyone elses absent personality. they are there (in person) but mentally they are 100/1000 miles away with the person they are talking with. its like walking past a bunch of zombies.

Posting on Dan's behalf

Now imagine it inside.

ghost for linux

I spent a little time awhile ago looking for a ghost like tool for linux and came up with limited answers.

DD
some command that can be used to copy an entire partition.
pros: copies everything?
cons: copies entire partition or disk, cna't remember, so if you didn't 0 pad your disk your backup file will be HUGE.

partimage
a rudimentary partiion backup tool that runs on linux, its part of knoppix so you can take a look. i'm not sure how well it'll work with NTFS. mayabe one way around this is to use FAT32 so that its much easier to backup with opensource tools?

as you can see I need someone that knows backup for linux to post a comment!

office xp and a lost key

the pastor who had his files recovered last week is now doing a full reinstall.
he purchased his computer a few years ago from Dell as a refurbished notebook computer and got a software bundle that included office xp at a premium price.
He managed to save everything except the box and the keys for office (on the back of the origional sleeves, which he did not catch) because he did not have to install anything: all preinstalled.
2.5 years later - NOW he realizes no keys.
so, 2 hours on the phone with dell, they conclude he should call micorosft and also give him a key that does not work.
20 minutes on phone Microsoft concludes it's dell's problem as they can't generate keys with out the volume liscening information (true) so we call dell back and they say to talk to microsoft. we escellate the problem to 'supervisor' level and they conclude that they can only give us the origional key as that is the ONLY key that will work with those disks (odd, ok, considering they already gave us another key, AND a key I had worked - AND the key I cracked in the time we're on the phone worked) - so they just wanted to give him a key for ms word, not the office suite - AND just give him 100$ office 2k3 discount coupon (good if your a nonprofit - but who knows if dell honors that during software resale)

so, he is prompted to go home and fax them documentation demonstrating that he purchased office xp from them. I told him to put the disks on the scanner as the origional receipt probably just says 'software bundle' just like dells records.

translation - don't loose your keys.

oh yeah, the key crack took about 6 minutes using 75omhz.
sad when google can get you stuff faster then legemite customer support.

I'm Home

Last night I got released from the Hospital. That was very good since they didn't expect me to go home so early. It still hurts pretty good when I move around and I won't take more drugs that I really need to take. Speaking of which I slept well last night and didn't wake up needing drugs. I should be able to be back at work parttime next week. Once there I also should be able to do more than 'think' about what I can do and we should have first si on the first mobile ddr product coming out. (mobile ddr = ddr for your cell phone). I got to keep the hardware out of my back it looks pretty cool and is fairly light weight (aka titanium). I need to go find my tools and finish putting it back togather and get some pics online for you all to ooogle at. Many of the nurses were impressed by the hardware they pulled out.

My back is still stiff and hurting but hopefully I'll be up to snowshoeing and stuff by the time t-day rolls around. Since kevin was probably wondering there were lots of warnings on the release forms about engaging in sexual activity before you should.

Dan

Cheap ISP

Every so often it can be useful to have dial up access. I was pointed to access-4-free by this financial advice from Modest Needs. Pretty straightforward, a one time setup fee of $4.95, and then it's free up to 10 hours/month. After that it's $1/hour up to $10, with $10 being the maximum monthly rate (which is still less than most ISPs). The beauty of it, though, as I see it, is that you can sign up sometime when it's needed, use it, and then forget about it until the next time. You don't have to worry about cancelling it because there's no fee for less than 10 hours/month. The other cool thing is that it's high quality, offering v90 and v92 in most places with virtually no dropped connections. Oh, yeah, and no ads.

Pi

I looking for my birthday in pi, i stumbled across a slashdot article discussing some flaws with using Pi as a springboard for compression. I've concluded it's not very likely it would work, but it sure is inturesting to think about.

dans slam

my rebuttal to DANS SLAM

way to work in a slam in the PS.

unlike you I haven't become a trator to test yet. there are alot of people that have become trators and I'm glad to see your one of them! =)

it seems just when people start to learn what is going on and are able to be productive they pack up.. pull up roots and move! usually they get a raise too cause the pay in test SUCKS.

someday I too may pull up stakes but I'm happy where i'm at.

as for not working at work? did you miss the post where I talked about writing a teest for a guy that did what took him 2 days in 3 seconds? (it took a few hours to write the test) but 3 seconds is ALOT better than 2 days..

i'm not defending my actions, just pointing out a case history of NOT being a slacker. at times there really is nothing productive to do, or more likiely the brain is too fried to work much out. most would just do something and then redo it the next day. I prefer to sit and think for awhile, and then do it right the first time (the next day) and we actually have management support for this method.

I quote: "if I come by and you guys have your feet kicked up on the desk looking into thin air I'm just going to assume your thinking about something in your head".

so...... we think in our head alot.

oops, oops, oops ... my bad.

a coworker described to me at lunch how he'd been to an airport a while back, and noticed one of the little tractor/trains baggage train loose a suitcase. it sat there for a moment until another tractor/train came along and Darin describes how he thought the driver may go around it. It didn't work out that way - the tractor hit it at full speed and each traincar went over it too.

fog lamps -installed

got the fog lamps installed. bailing wire comes through again making it only necessary to drill two holes (one for each lamp) to secure it to the bumper.
I went cheep on the install and did everything under the hood - only comes on with brights, and no dash indicator lite - maybe on version 2. but the circuit is self contained and fused and requires the ignition and brights to be on in order to trip the relay - so it should work.

keith sure does know how to pic spontanious gifts.

once I get the factory fogs working, that baby'll be all light and i'll get to watch the deer splatter accross the hood instead of wondering what it was.