| eightbit.org is open for business |
[06 Feb 2008|09:24pm] |
eightbit.org is ready to start taking over. Comments are open. Registration is open. All of the basic pieces are there.
I will continue to migrate comments from here to there, but I'll definitely stop posting here.
Ummm, that's it! Things are still pretty basic at eightbit.org, but I'll keep piling on the features. Feel free to send me ideas for features.
|
|
|
[06 Feb 2008|10:35am] |
Today I finally realized that I'm not very good at doing things outside of programming.
I mean deep down within my soul. It's no longer a logical concept, or a sneaking suspicion with the hope that if I just do those non-programming tasks more I can get better at them.
But that's all okay. I like programming. I just need to get a tan and move to Bangalore if I want to keep doing that.
|
|
| Rip Slyme |
[05 Feb 2008|09:00am] |
There seriously needs to be an english speaking version of Rip Slyme somewhere. Their jazz/blues inspired hip-hop is awesome. I just feel kinda silly listening to all the Japanese lyrics since I don't understand any of it.
I don't mean I want Rip Slyme dubbed in english, I just want to find some hip-hop artists with the same style.
Internet powers GO!
|
|
| One step closer to the end... |
[02 Feb 2008|07:44pm] |
I finally added the ability to add new posts to eightbit.org. Actually I haven't worked on my site in a while, even though I've had plenty of time. I just didn't feel like it.
Also, in case you were wondering what my solution was to scanning through a self-referencing hierarchical table: I sucked up my pride and just wrote a recursive PHP function to fetch comments. It's not the most efficient solution, but it gets the job done. My cruddy headless laptop seems to manage it pretty well, and I don't get a lot of comments on my site anyway.
Also, I recently signed up for an account on mozy. They offer free 2gb online backups. Really they've created the type of application that I wanted to create. It runs in the background and performs incremental backups. I haven't tested it yet, but it looks like the software lets you restore data from a specific point in time (the advantage of incremental backups.) To top it off, all the data is encrypted to soothe my paranoia.
They offer unlimited storage for only $5 a month, but I'm too stingy for that still. I'll wait until my next raise before signing up for that. So far I only have a few things being backed up: my laptop-server (via my windows laptop, mozy is windows/mac only), some eBooks, and my financial data (which is actually starting to add up to something, 60Mb!) I really want to get my pictures backed-up, but I have 5gigs worth of pictures! I guess I could prioritize which pictures I care about more... but, I'd rather just have them all saved. So I'll just wait until I sign up for full service.
Also, with unlimited space, I'd even opt to backup all my music too (all 80 gigs). The only catch is, my music is on an external hard drive, and if the mozy software detects the folder disappears (i.e. unplug the drive,) then it'll tell the server to delete those files. That certainly won't do. Even the Zune software is smarter than that. Which is amazing because the Zune software is really really shitty. (Yes Danie, I still love my Zune, but you gotta admit, the software is crap.)
Also, it kinda sucks that they charge per computer. So far I've been skirting that issue by scheduling a job to copy files to my laptop, but you gotta admit, it's a pretty silly rule. Especially when you're talking about UNLIMITED STORAGE CAPACITY.
|
|
|
[01 Feb 2008|03:35pm] |
So, the Zune Pad is nice and all (the equivilant of the iPod click wheel,) but it's also pretty idiotic. You have to physically TOUCH the pad when you push on it, or else it doesn't register a button click.
So changing to the next song with your pencil? Out of the question. I haven't tried with gloves yet, but I'm pretty sure that's out of the question too. It's also pretty annoying too if you happen to be touching the pad in more than one spot, because it might think you're clicking somewhere else.
I tried turning off the "touch" option, but all that does is turn off flicking your finger to scan through songs. You still gotta give it some skin to do anything.
I wonder how long until the touch pad breaks? Laptop touchpads don't work if your hands are moist (sweaty,) so I wonder if I'll have the same problems with the Zune? I guess we'll see.
|
|
| P-Space |
[28 Jan 2008|03:15pm] |
The bathroom at work has two urinals, but there's barely elbow room between them, and having two walls on either side makes is a kinda claustrophobic affair. I think I make a lot of people very uncomfortable by using the second urinal if the first is already in use.
My reasoning is: water is a precious resource that is virtually non-renewable (not by humans anyway, the earth handles most of it), so I'll use the device that uses 1 gallon to flush rather than 2.8 gallons. Why it takes 1 gallon to flush a 1 pint bowl of piss? I don't know. But wasting more than twice as much is unconsionable.
Really, I just do that to make up for all the extra water I waste in my morning showers.
|
|
|
[28 Jan 2008|01:59pm] |
BAM! Another hit for the real estate industry. See, I'm not crazy!
I still wonder about my own little investment. I'm sure eventually everything will be fine. After the economy really crashes and we experience some kind of hyper-inflation, I'll be glad to have the house as a buffer.
|
|
| Yahweh |
[27 Jan 2008|06:17pm] |
So these Jehovah's Witnesses have been coming around for a couple months. Josie teases me for listening to them, saying I don't go to church, church comes to me. To be honest, I don't know why I bother listening. I always dread the visit until they come, but I always enjoy the visit.
Initially I just listened to let them state their case. Everyone has a right to be heard. But now I kinda feel like we're going in circles. Here's what I've learned:
- God/Jehovah is love. Everything he does out of love. Humans should follow his example and do everything out of love.
- God is going to purge the earth of all evil, aka Apocalypse. After which 144,000 chosen people will take control/management of the new earth, where the bulk of humans will live without evil (yah, right).
- Humans should read the Bible because it is full of God's wisdom. Which we should heed because, y'know, who can tell you what's right better than the person who created it all?
I feel like we're going in circles because I just want to know if there's anything that'll tell me how to live my life better. I couldn't give a shit about the apocalypse or the after-life, que sera sera. I don't care why we're here, what the point of it all is, or anything like that. I just want to know if there's some way to look at this world in a less sucky light. So then that brings us back to more spiritual topics, because Satan is just temping all of us. Then I'm like, okay, I don't really have any spirituality. I don't believe in spirit creatures. So then we get back to who is God, and why can you trust the Bible.
I'll keep listening, but I'm just not sure where we're going to go with this. It makes me wonder what their motivations are. Not attendance, that's for sure. Conversion, maybe, but I still don't see me taking up spirituality any time soon. I just don't see or feel any supernatural evidence in my life, so it's hard for me to put the faith forward and accept that aspect of what they're saying. So I guess we'll see, I'm trying to keep an open mind.
It's interesting that I'm reading Neil Stephenson's "Snow Crash". Snow Crash seems to have a lot to do with ancient religions (although, no saying how much truth there is to any of it, since it's fiction). And tangentially, I read most of Neil Stephenson's "In the Beginning Was the Command Line", which is a long tirade about random shit. But at one point he states that Americans (TM) are all spineless shits who are programmed to not believe in anything, to accept Diversity (TM) as an ultimate mantra in life. That it's no wonder that all the people in power care to send their children to secluded, almost fundamentalist religious schools so that they still have the same belief system. That having a belief system at all makes you somehow stronger internally.
And I can see that as being true. Especially since I'm one of those spineless shits without any core values driving my life. But then comes the ultimate question: Who's belief system is right? That was the whole cause of the crusades, I guess.
Maybe I listen because deep down I desire a core belief system to guide my life?
|
|
| New TOAD |
[25 Jan 2008|09:34am] |
The new version of TOAD is such a mixed blessing. It's a lot faster at doing a lot of things, like, ohh I don't know...destroying data grids. That was the big enhancement that I wanted, especially since Siebel has really wide tables (100s of columns). The more columns you had in your data grid, the longer TOAD would take to empty and destry the old data grid before constructing a new one for your next query. You could WATCH the columns dissapear. Now it just vanishes, pop, gone, just gotta wait for the next query to return with data.
One great leap forward in terms of usability. But they also took many small steps back. For one, it keeps turning off my "execute queries in separate threads" option. The explain plan doesn't make any sense anymore. I suppose eventually I'll learn to read the new format, but by virtue of collapsing a table of data into a tree of multi-line entries reduces the readability by a lot. Oh, and they added a cool feature where it saves all of your worksheets in case of a crash, so when you start up again you can recover all those queries you didn't save to a file. Or that feature might have been there all along and I never noticed because it never crashed inexplicably every 5 minutes before.
Yeah. TOAD is an awesome piece of software, but for a $1500 per-seat license, I expect someone to come to my cube and compile a version of TOAD that does exactly what I want, no more, no less.
|
|
| Zune 80 |
[24 Jan 2008|01:09pm] |
I finally have it. I went to Target today and bought a Zune 80gig.
The stupid thing is, I can't even listen to the radio until I sync it with my computer. Grr. I'm going to have a hard time getting any work done for the rest of today.
Now I can finally stop complaining about not having an MP3 player. Which should be a huge relief for anyone who immediately interacts with me, since I've been pretty non-stop about it for the past month.
Well, I'm finally home and here is what I learned. Sync is slow as dirt, possibly because I'm syncing music off my external hard drive, to the Zune over...usb. I can probably get a faster sync speed if I copy all the music locally, but my laptop doesn't have that much free space. I'm going to try wireless sync to see if I can get a higher throughput, but I really should keep it plugged in so I can charge the battery.
Also, I was really worried about the audio quality. It turns out the "premium earbuds" that come with the Zune are absolute garbage. They look fantastic, and they fit in your ears pretty nicely, but there is absolutely no bass. Also, they seal a bit too tightly, so when you put them in you can feel the pressure against your eardrum. My 40 fucking dollar earbuds fixed everything. The audio is damn good.
The software is pretty dodgy, on the unit itself and on the PC. It's slow...on both sides. Also, the PC software eats up resources for no good reason. I can just have it open and it'll make my laptop's fan kick in. Syncing makes it blow harder. Yeah, the software blows, what's new from Microsoft? It took them how many years since NT was first conceived before XP was born?
Ohh well. All around it's pretty sexy, even the packaging is sexy. The software is usable, and of course over time it should get better. Overall I'm pretty satisfied. ALMOST makes it worth the price (compare to a simple pocket-sized external hard drive). I paid a hefty Zune-lust price, but at least now you won't hear any complaints from me about not having all of my music on demand at my fingertips.
|
|
| Taxes |
[24 Jan 2008|08:51am] |
My company's electronic W-2 website has been down ever since the promised delievery date. They have until Jan 31st to either send me a paper one, or to get their act together.
But I started filling out the online form on H&R Block's website anyway. It's nice, they do it for free if your adjusted gross is less than 52k, which is SOOOO my case. I did it last year, and it's just as much of a pain as filling out the paper form, you just get it done and over with faster.
I'm starting to realize that even with the added deductions from mortgage interest and student loan interest... I might still win out by using the standard deduction. That's pathetic.
Goes to show how (relatively) cheap my house was.
|
|
| Why Oracle Rawks |
[22 Jan 2008|08:21pm] |
My brother has asked me on more than one occasion why Oracle is better than MySQL. I don't know if MySQL even supports this, but here's a prime example of why Oracle is much more intelligent than the SQL99 standard: Recursive/hierarchical queries.
Oracle:
SELECT *
FROM journal.comment
START WITH parent_entry = 'Entry ID'
CONNECT BY PRIOR id = parent_comment;
SQL99 standard:
WITH RECURSIVE entry_comments
(id, entry_date, title, body,
author, deleted_flag, parent_entry,
parent_comment) AS
((SELECT id, entry_date, title, body,
author, deleted_flag, parent_entry,
parent_comment
FROM journal.comment)
UNION
(SELECT c1.id, c1.entry_date, c1.title,
c1.body, c1.author, c1.deleted_flag,
c1.parent_entry, c1.parent_comment
FROM entry_comments c1, entry_comments c2
WHERE c1.id = c2.parent_comment) )
SELECT *
FROM entry_comments
WHERE parent_entry = 'Entry ID';
I didn't check the exact syntax, but the point remains. Oracle wins out in terms of simplicity. Ohh yeah, and nowhere did I see where the SQL99 version let you grab the "level" (how deep you are in the hierarchy.) Oracle makes it pretty easy, you just use the LEVEL pseudo-column. Ohh yeah, and Oracle lets you sort the child levels!
I use the table journal.comment as an example because that's exactly what I'm looking to do to display comments on my new website. I really don't want to resort to writing a php function to obtain the same end. PostgreSQL (the database I've chosen,) doesn't yet support the WITH syntax, but supposedly there's a "connectby()" table function that emulates the Oracle functionality. I haven't been able to find good (any) documentation on it yet, so we'll see.
Y'know, my database is pretty small, I could easily switch to Oracle XE. But the whole point of doing this website is to learn something new. Although I'm definitely learning to appreciate Oracle more and more, I'm still gonna stick it out.
|
|
| Real estate industry |
[22 Jan 2008|12:17pm] |
[Link]
You know, a lot of the comments blame the lady for not checking the neighborhood listings, and I just want to say this: I feel that I was wronged in the same way, and I DID go over the neighborhood listings with my agent. Yes, buyers remorse has something to do with it, but I felt this way LONG before the market crashed.
The problem is the industry isn't regulated to guarantee trust. My realtor advised me to use a mortgage broker that he has been working with for a long time. The broker took care of all the paperwork regarding apprasials to get the FHA junk. FHA requires that the loan does not exceed the apprasial value of the house. I felt that the broker had some concerns about the house appraising, although she didn't say anything to explicitly indicate that. Lo and behold the house appraises for EXACTLY the amount of the loan, SURPRISE!
I expressed my concern that I wasn't sure that the house was worth as much as the asking price. My realtor dialed up the old MLS listings for the neighborhood. I bought it. Guess what? My stupid ass didn't realize that the MLS only keeps the ASKING PRICE. You have to check the New Castle County website to get the actual SALE price. I found out that I paid the most for any single-story house in the neighborhood. 20k more than houses with an addition and bigger yard, about 50k more than comparable houses.
I trusted my realtor, as I should be able to. What's the point of contracting an agent if you're just going to second guess everything they tell you? It's like the fucking healthcare industry. The insurance companies don't like paying for excessive testing, so they create rules the encourage "healthcare consumerism". I get "not-bills" from my insurance company telling me how much things actually cost so I'll be guilted into going somewhere cheaper. I get my co-pay stripped away, so I can feel a more direct impact from my doctor visits. Excuse me, did I go to medical school? Am I a fucking doctor? I need a doc I can TRUST. The rampant mal-practice lawsuits have tightened the healthcare processes so give you uniform service you can trust. Yeah, you get 100 tests, but at least you know they didn't skip anything.
I hope this lady wins, and I hope a lot of people follow suit and cause radical change in the industry. The real estate industry leaves no room for trust. Yeah, I took my realtor's advice, and I used his broker. What's preventing him from giving kickbacks to the broker, and from the broker to the appraiser? There's a lot of money to be made for my agent to sell me a house that's more expensive than it's worth. There's no incentive for him to encourage me to drive the price down.
ARGH. I just hate feeling like I've been swindled. Especially when I'll be paying the price for the next 30 years.
|
|
| So cold... |
[22 Jan 2008|05:56am] |
I hate it when the temperature drops below freezing because it means the boiler kicks in EVERY FIVE MINUTES. I might as well take a nail and jab a hole in the bottom on the oil tank. At least I would get the grim satisfaction of destroying the earth (except the DuPonts beat me to it.)
It's only really a problem because Izzy tore down the shrink-wrap that was over the living room windows. You can feel a serious draft through the windows, which makes the living room cold, which is where the thermostat is. So now I wake up toasty in the bedroom, but freezing my ass off in the living room. I'm reluctant to put the shrink-wrap back because she'll just do it again. So now we're trying this removable caulk stuff, but it's hard to even figure out which cracks need to be filled!
I for one kinda hope that Bush puts into motion this $800 per person refund. I totally NEED more insulation in my house. New windows is a bit out of the question, but the attic is seriously barren. About 10% is not covered at all, and the rest has between 1-6 inches of coverage.
|
|
| Too late... |
[21 Jan 2008|01:11pm] |
Where was this bad boy when I had the Neon? ARGH. Now I have a stupid car with a CD player, no tape deck and no aux input. The tape deck wasn't as good quality as having an aux input, but it sure beat the hell out of using an FM transmitter.
Of course, I don't have an mp3 player to need an aux input. But that's besides the point.
|
|
| Open for registration |
[20 Jan 2008|09:03pm] |
Eightbit.org is now accepting new users. I tested it with my gmail account, and it worked fine. Josie hasn't been able to get the registration e-mails on msn or yahoo yet, hopefully they'll arrive tomorrow. I didn't configure sendmail, so it might not be persistent in sending the e-mail. If you run into any issues, lemme know. The entire site is a very very open beta, so..uhh...no apologies for the mess, really. I like making changes to a live system, it's oh so dangerous. I'm LIVIN' ON THE EDGE.
There's no benefit to registering right now, but eventually it'll allow you to post comments. No anonymous comments will be allowed. Beyond that...I don't really know yet. I'm not in the habit of posting private entries in my journal. I don't plan on allowing anything else to post content on the main page. I'm sure I'll think of something eventually, or you can offer suggestions.
Ohh, and the design isn't set in stone yet either. I really don't know where I'm going with the theme yet. I'm willing to take suggestions on that front too. I'll worry about being creative later. I'm having more fun coding right now. q-: Especially since I'm not allowed to code at work anymore (not entirely true, but it's certainly heading that way.)
Speaking of registration. I registered eightbt.org. I figured I use eightbt a lot more than eightbit, so it makes sense for me to own that domain too.
Also, I applied to DelTech last week. I haven't requested a transcript from NJIT yet. I have to call to see if they'll even send it, considering my delinquency. On the plus side the remaining balance is low enough that my dad thinks he can pay it off before registration. I hope I don't have to take a lot of classes to get an associates...
|
|
| Furious George |
[18 Jan 2008|04:57pm] |
You know what pisses me off? Cops on cell phones. I won't say that I see more cops on cell phones than other drivers, because I rarely see cop cars driving around. But when I do, the cop is almost always guaranteed to be chatting on a cell phone. How about this? SET A GOOD EXAMPLE FOR THE REST OF US. I swear, cops just get into some really bad habits. Running red lights and stop signs is another one.
You know what else pisses me off? People writing checks at retail stores. Not only that, but writing an entry in the register first, while holding people in line, before cutting the check. What the fuck dude. Who uses checks anymore? I'm pretty darn sure Commerce Bank gives you a free check card with your checking account, just like EVERY OTHER BANK IN EXISTENCE. All I can figure is that check is probably gonna bounce pretty high. I'm sure the cashier figured the same thing, since she made sure to get the phone number written down before the guy ran out.
Ugh... and other drivers suck horribly.
So full of rage. Blech. I'll shut up now.
|
|
| WOO!! |
[16 Jan 2008|09:39pm] |
Check out eightbit.org! It's up and running again, and I managed to import all of my old LJ and DJ entries (and comments!). It's quite a history. I haven't started hunting for pre-DJ stuff. I doubt I'd be very successful in that hunt, but it would be interesting to try and figure out where it all went.
I used the ljArchive tool to download all of my entries and export it to XML. I gotta say this up front...XML is a stupid buzzword and it has no place ANYWHERE. But, alas, that was my only option. So I spent two days trying to figure out how to load an XML file into a relational database. It was a neat little exercise. It reaffirmed my hate for XML, but it also allowed me to get familiar with PostgreSQL and play with Python (yay! I don't get to do that enough.)
Now I guess I need to hunker down and develop a solid design for the UI, and build some code around that. I wanted to load the data first so I would have plenty to play with once the site started to come together. Why mess with test data when you have real data?
I'm really starting to get excited about this side project. I actually get to code! Not only that, but in the language(s) of my choice!
|
|
| The internet is becoming sentient... |
[16 Jan 2008|06:36am] |
...and it's trying to contact me.
For the longest time now I've been recieving spam comments on very old posts. One post in particular seems to be very popular among spammers, I think simply because I rant about money and link to a news article on money.cnn.com.
But a lot of the spam isn't trying to sell me anything. The subject line just has a string of uppercase and lowercase characters that doesn't spell anything. The body of the text will usually say something to the effect of "I like your site", possibly intermixed with garbage text, and occasionally linked to a website (which I never visit.)
The only explanations I can think of are:
- Spammers are trying to lure a response from me...to...get my e-mail address? Usually that's how it works, but by replying to the comment I'm not divulging my e-mail, I don't think
- The internet is coming alive and it's trying to talk to me. It makes perfect sense. The garbage text is because it doesn't have full control over the network.
Seriously though, does anyone else get this? I used to get similar stuff on my first cell phone. I'd get random garbage text messages, either with random letters put together or random words put together that don't make sense. (It's evolving...)
|
|
|
[15 Jan 2008|09:20am] |
It's funny looking back through my LJ. It builds quite a history of myself. A lot of which I don't remember very well. Reading this brought back a lot of memories. I guess Josie and I did good afterall! Also, I found this which amazes me that I actually authored anything remotely resembling creativity. I know there are a couple other short-stories hidden back there.
It kinda upsets me that I lost all the entries from high-school when I was running my own website. They might still exist somewhere, but I don't even know where to begin digging for them.
Ohh well. This trip down memory lane is brought to you by my inability to remember when I attended what school.
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
earlier |
] |
|
|
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
eightbt's journal