Santa suit

Yesterday we noticed today that the city had put up signs that prevented street parking on our block and the next block up. Today we decided to go out for coffee in the freezing wind and snow, and noticed a large number of trailers the next block up, near the park and the old Park District building. We decided to change course and investigate.

It turns out that the trucks were movie trucks. We noticed a tall man outside, smoking a cigarette and chatting with a security guard by the Park District building entrance. The tall man was dressed head to toe in a Santa outfit. Another guard told us that that that man was Vince Vaughn, and the movie was Fred Claus.

Wish I had a camera with a good zoom lens on me.

Untraceable, uncensorable documents

Wikileaks is developing an uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis.

I was just thinking about how I would post something anonymously for the world to see yesterday. Good timing! More nefarious/criminal/profitable uses: posting insider information on a company to affect the stock price in one direction or another (does anyone have a Wikipedia aggregator?)...

Our primary interests are oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in the west who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their own governments and corporations.

Site link here.

Women dress to impress when ovulating

New research has found that women "dress to impress" when they are at their most fertile.

Link here. Note: this is a little old, but new to the blog...

Personalized highway billboards

MINI USA, the company that makes Mini's, is doing something very cool.

The idea is simple, first give MINI USA some irreverent information about yourself (nothing too personal). Then MINI USA then sends out a special keyfob (4-6 weeks after sign-up) that identifies you to each of the Motorboards you pass. When the boards detect that you are about the drive by, they deliver a personal message based on the information you originally gave.

So, if I have a Mini and drive past one of their billboards, I can have it say, "Jason, you are one handsome man!" for the world to see. In Chicago, the billboard is on 294 near O'Hare.

Watch stuff without downloading

Let's see how long the site lasts before getting taken down. My guess: 1 month.
http://www.peekvid.com/
(Thanks Angie.)

Bush's "responsibility" for the Iraq War

My favorite quote in response to Bush's "acknowledgement" of responsibility for the War in Iraq.

And what the hell does it mean that "the responsibility rests with me"? Not "I take responsibility" or "I accept responsibility," but responsibility coming, apparently under its own power, to rest in the general vicinity of George W. Bush. It's his way of saying, "I can't really get away with denying responsibility, so by default I'll let it attach itself to me." It's really pathetic.

There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of animals Chuck Norris allows to live.

As we sat waiting for our delayed flight in the airport, Chuck Norris was on TV kicking someone's ass. My manager turns to me and says, "There is no chin under Chuck Norris' Beard. There is only another fist." He then points me out to the Chuck Norris Top Ten list.

http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com/

Quote of the day

"He (Bush) should resign straight away and be tried by the same kangaroo court." - Mahathir Mohamad, former Malasian premier

What is a "kangaroo court"? Turns out it's a well-known phrase, one that I had never heard before. Although the picture below indicates a better vision of what I thought was meant.

There is no Spoon (or fork)

Look closely: the spoon and fork are suspended from the table, balancing across a toothpick on the very edge of the glass. I took the pictures, and they were not manipulated in any way. (I should have taken a picture of the full glass, but couldn't find the right angle). Can anyone explain how it's done?



EDIT: Here is a wikiHow article on this stunt. Unfortunately, the explanation is not really helpful.
EDIT: I think the center of gravity of the spork-combination must be directly below the edge of where the toothpick touches the glass. Is this true?

Open source Electronic Medical Records software

Chirag mentioned that the Department of Veteran's Affairs has recently released the VA Vista EMR as an application, as a result of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Having studied large-scale EMR systems to some extent, this made me a tad nervous as I hadn't yet heard about it.

After a bit of research, turns out that I need not worry about this system replacing the likes of Cerner or Eclipsys without government intervention (no pun intended...). At the very least, it is a system that should be watched carefully to see how its use evolves.

The following from a site compiling open-source EMR systems. The bold text is my emphasis. (And, by the way, has anyone heard of the M programming language??)

• VISTA
• The U.S. Veteran's Administration Software.
• Available free due to the Freedom of Information Act
• Becoming easier to install the basic system on Linux due to the packaging efforts of World Vista Team.
• Still very difficult to set up a working installation due to detailed working knowlege of M programming language, and other detailed knowlege of the system required. I suspect the arcane knowlege required to set up and maintain it ensured job security for the team of programmers who spent their entire careers working on VISTA for the VA. This worked well at the VA where the users contributed the ideas and the develpers responded, but resulted in extreme dependence on the developer team provided by the VA. This may be VISTA's Achille's heel for the open source transition. Hopefully VISTA can eventually be packaged in a way that mere mortals can set it up and maintain it.
• The M language used is still good, but newer open source programmers are not familiar with it, which hampers recruitment of new developers.

The new trend in shoe retailing

Two large-name sites have come up with semi- to nearly-fully-independent entities to sell shoes online since Oct 2006.

• Gap --> PiperLime.com
  
• Amazon.com --> Endless.com

There are also three other major contenders out there.

• Zappos.com (the leader in the category)
• Shoes.com
• ShoeMall.com

It should be interesting to see how Gap and Amazon take on these somewhat entrenched players. Also of note, Amazon's site offers free overnight shipping. At ~$20/pair, this is a significant investment to drive traffic.

(Note: the link between Amazon.com and Endless.com was noted by TechCrunch. All five outlets are reviewed at Trunkt.net)

Checking the tread on your tires

I used the Lincoln Penny method of checking the tread on a set of car tires today, to determine if it is time to replace them:

• Take a penny and place it between the treads, Lincoln's head first
• If you can see all of Lincoln's head, your tires have approximately 1/16 of an inch of tread left
  
• If you only see part of Lincoln's head, you are okay for now

Found this method online here.

How to: Disable your Passport's RFID chip

The new passports have poorly secured RFID chips installed in each. What does this mean? If someone with a reader happens to walk by you, they may be able to pull down all of your personal information.

Wired has a good discussion on how to disable the passport's RFID. See it here.

Hotel Regulations

A friend of mine (David) sent me this some time ago, and I thought I would post it for the world. They are hotel regulations from a hotel that they stayed at in Dingri, Tibet. (Bold = my emphasis added)

1. Guests are requested to show their own valid papers to prove their identi-ties and to tell the reason for lodging when they check in at the hotel.

2. Every guest has the obligation to abide by the rules and regulations of the hotel, cooperate with the personnel in carrying out their duties and take good care of the
property in the hotel.

3. No guest is allowed to up anyone for the night or let anyone use his/her own bed in the hotel.

4. We are available saft-deposit box for valuables, cash ect at front desk. Entrust local public security bureau to keep your Weapon and important documents. Other wise the hotel will not be responsibility.

5. NO birds, domestic animals or other insanity articles are allowed to be brought into the hotel.

6. NO inflammable, explosive ,poisonous, radioactive or other dangerous articles are
allowed to be carried into the hotel. Nor is burning articles or letting off fireworks and firecrackers permitted in the hotel.

7. It is impermissible to install electrical equipments or use electrical heat-ers such as electrical stove, microwave stove, etc. in the guest room.

8. Strictly forbid any illegal and criminal activities such as fighting, gam-bling, drug taking or prostitution in the hotel. No guest should put up or circulate salacious books, pictures, photos, nor play such recording or videos. And drinking excessively making great noise or playing recorder loudly in the hotel is forbidden.

9. The authority of the hotel has right to reason with anyone who has violated regulations mentioned above. Those who violate the "Regulations Relating to the public order, Administration & punishment of the people's Republic of China" or other administrative laws will be punished by the public security organs in accordance with the law. To those who have violated the "Criminal Laws of the people's Republic of China" the public security and judicial organs will investigate and affix their responsibilities for the crime in accordance with the law.

DINGRI PUBLIC SECURITY BUREAU
JULY 8,2004

New Microsoft Office 2007

Why would a company upgrade to the new MS Office 2007? This WSJ article discusses the technology, and while the conclusion is positive, MS has created a "steep learning curve". My favorite quote:

The entire user interface, the way you do things in these familiar old programs, has been thrown out and replaced with something new.

And another:

As if this weren't enough, Microsoft has also changed the standard file format for Office files. Older versions of Office, on both Windows and Macintosh computers, won't be able to read these new file types without special conversion software.

Bet on the Weather

Interesting site soon to be released that allows an accredited investor/business to trade options based on weather. Coverage at TechCrunch.

Stockpickr

Stockpicr an interesting site that tracks users' and professionals' stock picks, and generates recommendations based on your portfolio.

Is this something you would use? What would make it better?

KFC from Space

You can now see Colonel Sanders from space.

The International Obfuscated C Code Contest

The IOCCC (International Obfuscated C Code Contest) has kicked off again. The goal: solve a relatively simple problem in as difficult a way possible.

Here is a 2004 winner:

#include
#include
#include

#define _ ;double
#define void x,x
#define case(break,default) break[O]:default[O]:
#define switch(bool) ;for(;xint##if?
#define true (--void++)
#define false (++void--)

char*O=" <60>!?\\\n"_ doubIe[010]_ int0,int1 _ Iong=0 _ inIine(int eIse){int
O1O=!O _ l=!O;for(;O1O<010;++o1o)l+=(o1o[doubie]*pow(eise,o1o));return i="1,x=">I?atof(I[eIse]):!O switch(*O)x++)abs(inIine(x))>Iong&&(Iong=abs(inIine(x
)));int1=Iong;main(-*O>>1,0);}else{if(booI<*O>>1){int0=int1;int1=int0-2*Iong/0
[O]switch(5[O]))putchar(x-*O?(int0>=inIine(x)&&do(1,x)do(0,true)do(0,false)
case(2,1)do(1,true)do(0,false)6[O]case(-3,6)do(0,false)6[O]-3[O]:do(1,false)
case(5,4)x?booI?0:6[O]:7[O])+*O:8[O]),x++;main(++booI,0);}}}

What does this crazy code do? It graphs a polynomial. For instance, running it with parameters '0 0 2' will graph y=x^2. Quite noteworthy.

Cat-burning

In 16th century Paris, a popular form of entertainment was cat-burning, in which a cat was hoisted on a stage and was slowly lowered into a fire. According to the historian Norman Davies, "the spectators, including kings and queens, shrieked with laughter as the animals, howling with pain, were singed, roasted, and finally carbonized."

(Can't quite find the source of this one...)

Calculating how many Bibles are sold in the US

Calculating how many Bibles are sold in the United States is a virtually impossible task, but a conservative estimate is that in 2005 Americans purchased some twenty-five million Bibles—twice as many as the most recent Harry Potter book. The amount spent annually on Bibles has been put at more than half a billion dollars.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/061218fa_fact1

Writing documentation, late, late at night

I found a picture of my workspace at one of my old jobs recently.
I know, it's a simple workspace.
What I had forgotten until looking at the picture was the quotes I had pasted to the wall. The top was found in the developer's documentation. If you can figure out what it means, I am all ears:

The key of the attribute of the SCAttribute property is represented by an XML attribute named Key on the Attribute element.

What is this blog about?

For years I have been finding interesting stuff on the web and in print. And for years, I would send the interesting stuff to some of my friends, some of my family, and/or some of my classmates. This blog simplifies that for me, and records that stuff in one place. If you are interested, the best way to follow along is to subscribe to the blog or to check back often. I expect to post here ~2-3 times per week, given the frequency with which I find interesting stuff... but if there is a gap, don't worry; I do get busy sometimes.

Jason