Radiolab is probably my favorite “arts” podcast despite it doing science most of the time. Normally I wouldn’t post about an episode but their latest interseason bit is absolutely wonderful. If you like cello music, I strongly recommend you hear this. Quantum Cello
SimStapler destroys a friendship
SimStapler is quite possibly one of the dumbest applications for the iPhone. You press the stapler on screen, and it plays an animation of someone using a red swingline stapler. Every 10 presses, a woman’s voice says “splendid!” I’ve currently pressed it about 4000 times and everyone who sees it call me an idiot; until they try to see how fast they can use it.
Teejay Green challenged Sam Lodise to a friendly competition of who could get to 50 first. Teejay got 50 presses in 22.23 seconds where Sam beat him out narrowly at 22.18 seconds. Teejay had knocked back a few beers at this point and what I assumed was a friendly competition was not: Upon learning of his loss at an utterly pointless game Teejay said the following: “You cock-sucking mother-fucking Chinese bastard”.
This is why I don’t drink. In other news, Teejay stated to me that he’d pay me 10 dollars if by 2018 he didn’t have a personal fusion generator in his basement. With God and the blogosphere as my witness, I will have my 10 dollars.
Florida, ole!
Why I volunteered to help Kyle move from Florida is beyond me. Our trip to Penn State still stands out as my worst trip ever. We left at 7:30 in a GMC Sierra and 27 hours of podcasts for 42 hours of driving. The trip down was marked by false hope:
I thought this was the furthest south Wawa and shed a tear leaving it, until I saw signs for the next 3. Boo…
At about 1 AM we encountered an “I-95 South Closed” sign. Hm…. So we took a detour around
CAPE FUCKING FEAR!!! I want to become a dentist in this plaza and knock out the light behind “Cape” so I can be the dentist at Fear Plaza. Later, there was another delay.
A jack-knifed trailer. I’ve always been stunned by the jack knifed trailer on an on-ramp. LIke some how one thinks that throwing the wheel will magically fix your truck once you realize you’re going the wrong way.
I was hell-bent on going to a Waffle House after reading a review in Maxim that they were superior to IHOP. This died in my chest after Kyle pointed out to me that the car was being cased by four separate people and I spotted two pimps. Go Carolina! We switched after 11 hours and in Georgia I noticed a sign where the design was identical to the Brass Ring Cafe in Hopewell/Pennington.
We arrived in Florida and began Operation:Packupkyleslife. I wanted to pack-up and return to PA the same day, but biology interfered. I met Kyle’s cat Dunyazad. A cat that fits into the category of animals with awesome names that are abbreviated to something retarded, in this case “dunners” or “duny” or something equally dumb.
I had an idea to increase our efficiency on the way back:
BED SAIL!
Packing was an ordeal with the ultimate goal of “protect the suade couch and queen sized bed”. I was angry at Kyle for dragging his feet until I realized he was leaving his life behind, frown. We departed the next day after packing in the rain which only stoked the fires of my determination.
The drive back was awesome in that I got to drive 1100 miles at a maximum speed of 63 MPH, w00t. Our overnight stop involve Dunderella nearly becoming potty trained.
We had to pull over about 6 times because something was about to bounce out and kill someone. I ran out of podcasts around Fredericksburg, Va and was reduced to listening to old episodes of Security Now! and listening to PC security problems from 2005. Anyway, observations:
Virginia had signs that said “Overheight Vehicle Detector ahead”. Isn’t that just a bridge? Virginia also had the best custom plates: “LRIGTAB”, “Uh huh”, “W00K1EE”, “Nerdc4rt” and “FLAMING”. The last was on a Hummer H3, no idea. Finally, Virginia had many illuminated signs that said “DUI Crackdown In Effect” with metal signs beneath that said “CRUSH CRIME”. Best crimefighting initiative name ever.
Please note that Hell is in comic sans.
Salvation came when we did find the furthest south (on I-95) Wawa. It was glorious. Most rest stations had hand blow-dryers. I much prefer a paper towel but this Wawa had retrofitted a jet engine as a hand dryer. I was nearly knocked over initially by its force.
I have more pictures available on my Flickr Feed of this trip.
I’m glad I made the 2200 mile trip alive. The 800 mile trip to Glen Ellyn will be a cakewalk. Go 5-Color Worlds!
Back from Florida, dumb stories in a bit
Driving to Florida to help Kyle move to PA. BRB
Most Intense Upgrade Ever
I jailbroke my iPhone today. It’s the first time I’ve literally sweat using a piece of hardware. I’ve pulled out RAM from a computer in use to prevent it from catching on fire, I’ve hot swapped drives and flashed at least 20 BIOSs. I’ve frozen hard drive, and whacked them against tables to get actuators moving again and once dove across a room to remove a screw driver that’d fallen into a CPU fan. Nothing compared the exhileration of possibly destroying a $550 to replace phone in the course of jailbreaking a phone so I could get an unsigned app to get rid of the stupid “Stocks” icon. Oh, and also for the possibility of allowing me to use my phone as a wireless highspeed modem by tethering it to my laptop. That too.
Fuck Comic Sans… again
I was shuffling through the pictures I took during camp so I could start uploading them to flickr and remembered this little gem:
Yep, a napkin dispense with text in Comic Sans. There should have been a note below
We did the above sign in comic sans because our research shows people like it as a way for businesses to be “fun”. We also chose it because it looks sloppy and poorly made like the food you’ll inevitably spill on yourself. Mouthbreather.
The idea of using comic sans in any professional setting is ridiculous moreso on a napkin dispenser and this rage has led me to a new term: fontracide. If you find a good example of fontracide I strongly recommend you add it to del.icio.us or flickr.com with that tag.
Argument Site Name
As I promised many moons ago, I’m going to get my debate and argument site going but first I need a name. These are some of the one’s both available and vaguely germaine:
Fatmanlogic
Debatewarrior
Logicwarriors
Debateblender
Logicblender
Ragefueledlogic
Rulesofenragement
Dumbcorker
Idiotcorker
Debaterocks
Suggestions?
128 kbps vs. 256 kbps
I’ve started moving my stuff from camp to home and after 2 hours of lugging I settled in to enter 2 months worth of Pepsi Stuff points I’d picked up off the ground. I purchased a song that’d be stuck in my head and as I listened to it I realized I’d downloaded previously after it’d gotten stuck in my head about a year prior, one was 128 kbps while the other was 256 kbps. I’d always assumed the two were identical until the 2nd movement when I noted the tell-tale gurgle of a cluster-fuck of algorithms trying to make sense of 15 instruments in small groups playing across a four octave dynamic range.
This changes everything. I’ve spent years borrowing albums from the library copying them at 128 kbps and returning them and compared to the clarity of a slightly better sampling rate everytime I listen to the string part of “Cantus In Memory of Benjamin Britte” I may as well be listening to an infant gurgling peas while playing with a blender full of carbonated AstroGlide. Gha…. There goes my vacation.
Patch Victory
I enjoy a good auction. I enjoy running one even more. Auctions are battle of wits and represents a very strong suspension of disbelief from the audience with the I’ll-pay-this-much-if-you-convince-me-it’s-worth-that-much methodology as the cornerstone of success. Normally I shoot for 50% above regular market value as my target price for a given items and there are a few ways to help this along:
1) Every item is special – it doesn’t matter if you’re selling something out of a God damn gumball machine, the what-ever you’re holding is unique the audience just needs to know why.
2) Convince the bidder that they’ll be taken down a peg in the eyes of a cruel and calculating God if they let the bid stand with someone else on an item they’ve bid where the high bid is less than the combined value of their wallet and retirement.
Anyway, I’ve set a new personal record. A patch that normally sells for $8.00 sold for $42.00. I win.