OMG it’s sooooo nice out today! Sunny and warm, like winter is truly over…
However, in a cruel joke, I hear this weekend will be crummy.
Ah, well, I’ll enjoy it while I can.
I ate out on the patio at lunch, if I can I’ll get a walk in this afternoon.
Flickr just added the ability for paid users to upload 90-second videos along with photos.
To test this out, I uploaded a 6-second clip of me circa 2005 (not sure when in 2005 it was taken).
Amazing what a difference 2-3 years can make!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tevk/2403576636/
I’m tempted to recreate the clip sometime in my current incarnation and put them side-by-side. =)
I downloaded the Photoshop demo installer from Adobe, and IT WON’T INSTALL!
Reason?
Adobe doesn’t support case-sensitive file systems!
I didn’t know it would cause such problems to install with case-sensitive turned on, but apparently there are a lot of lazy fucking programmers out there.
Sigh… there is no way to switch to a non-case sensitive filesystem, the only option is to wipe the system and install everything from scratch, which I’d rather not do.
Only other options are to put in an additional HD with non-case-sentitive FS selected, or create a disc image to install onto…
Bleh. None of those are good options.
Lazy programmers suck.
For the record, I do not believe “FILE.TXT” is the same as “file.txt”.
Adobe and H&R Block, however, think they are exactly the same.
Yesterday I drove to Sumerville (on the outskirts of Boston) and met Snooj at Good Time Emporium, an arcade/bowling alley/bar. I met Snooj and Kyle there.
From there Snooj and I went to eat at the 99 (Kyle stayed at the arcade), we were running late so had to kinda scarf our food down.
Then we drove around Sumerville looking for parking, and then walked to the Sumerville Theatre for the They Might Be Giants show.
I was a bit worried because we got there like 25 minutes late (the Sumerville Theatre directions recommend taking public transportation, since parking is so hard to find), but luckily there was an opening act, we got there just as they finished and had 15 minutes or so to relax before TMBG came on.
It was a good show, we had seats just about as far back as possible, balcony, last row, but we could see ok. They played a good variety of songs, and came on for two encores. During the intro song everyone was invited to stand up, and everyone remained standing for the whole show, which was fine, but I think Snooj’s legs got tired, he had been playing In The Groove 2 (spiritual successor to Dance Dance Revolution) for a while beforehand at the arcade.
After the show we went back to the arcade, played a few games. I played some Police 911 (quite a workout, it’s a gun game where you physically dodge for cover by ducking and moving your body side to side), Fast and the Furious (with motion seat), Tetris (kicked Kyle’s ass), and Soul Caliber 2.
Then it was time to drive back home. Snooj and Kyle followed me, since they were coming by to crash on the couch and floor at my place. Got home around 2am, got to bed about 3am, then had to get up at 4:45am and drive Adam to the Logan Express bus in Framingham. Got back home around 6am, slept until 9:30am.
Made Hastings Cakes (hollandaise flavored) for everyone for breakfast, hung out with Snooj and Kyle until 11am when they had to head out.
Now I’m finishing up my packing and Dave was nice enough to agree to drive me to the Logan Express in Framingham at 4pm.
I’ll catch the 5pm bus, get to the airport around 6, giving me plenty of time till my plane leaves at 8:30.
Then I’ll get to Vegas at about midnight Vegas time, which is 3am EST.
“Busy busy busy is what we Bokononists whisper whenever we think of how complicated and unpredictable the machinery of life really is.”
-Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut“GON OUT
BACKSON
BISY
BACKSON
C.R.”
-Winnie-the-Pooh, A.A. Milne
Ok, so this is the coolest story I’ve heard in a while… I’ve read about this being done with mice before, but this is the first human case I’ve seen.
Basically, this guy accidentally lops an inch off the tip of his finger. His brother, who is a medical researcher, sends him some powder and tells him to apply it to the finger.
A month later, the finger has completely regrown. Flesh, blood, vessels and nail, regrown in 4 weeks.
And this happened over two years ago.
The powder? An extract of pig bladder, called an extracellular matrix, which triggers the body to regrow itself.
Needless to say, there are a lot of interested parties, and tests are underway to see if it will regrow bones, removed cancerous areas, burned skin, whole fingers, heart tissue, and a number of other things.
The military, who happens to find itself with a whole lot of recently wounded soldiers, is going to test regrowing fingers that have been blown off. In theory, a whole limb could be regrown.
It’s things like this that make me think that maybe medicine is finally making some serious progress.
I just paid off the last $200 on my student loans!
It took me like 10 years to pay it all… I was only paying like $100 a month, since it was fairly low interest, so was in no rush to pay it off ahead of other debt.
Now now my debt’s just down to house, car, and a bit on a credit card.
Paying off the car would be nice, since the payments on that are evil (think the number of the beast) – basically the previous car loan got rolled into the current one, so it’s very expensive. However, to pay it off I’d have to cash in some of my stock options, which I’m loathe to do when the market is so crappy.
I seem to be going to a lot of shows coming up:
Friday: They Might Be Giants
Sunday: Penn & Teller
Monday: Spamalot
End of April: Eddie Izzard
Finally, some intelligent discussion of video games and their impact on children (even though the book has a rather sensationalist title).
“Video game popularity and real-world youth violence have been moving in opposite directions. Violent juvenile crime in the United States reached a peak in 1993 and has been declining ever since. School violence has also gone down. Between 1994 and 2001, arrests for murder, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assaults fell 44 percent, resulting in the lowest juvenile arrest rate for violent crimes since 1983.â€
Part of a 3-part openeducation.net writeup on the upcoming book “Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games”
Playing Eye of Judgement rekindled my interest in card games… not to my college level of forgoing sleep to play cards games all night, but definitely got me thinking about them again.
I’ve started working on a card game of my own design, kind of like the classic Mille Bornes with a medical twist.
When I have it more fleshed out I’ll need to playtest and refine it.
Who knows, if it turns out decently, maybe I’ll even have it printed commercially.