Long time, no update

But i guess that's just how it rolls in a busy semester.

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Alllllllll freaking day it's this stuff. when does science start bringing in the ladiez?

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Light sticks and old MRE starter fuel for when the zombies attack!

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New badge! Horray!

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"BADGES! We don't need to stinking badges!"

Srsly? Defcon had shipping and customs issues so i have this plastic badges until further notice.

DEFCON tomorrow

Got some money in the bank, a new digital camera, and my lappy.

Totally ready for a nerdy Vegas trip.

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Iced coffee and coconut macaroons

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Kitteh, lappy and relaxing after my workout

Best Song in the World Today

Lee Moses, parts one and two

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Amazing breakfast

Ubuntu 8.04 install

I keep wanting to switch to linux full time but for a few reasons i stay with windows. After Vista crashed around five times yesterday and each reboot takes years i decided to install ubuntu 8.04 on my 20 gig partition.

Installation is pretty easy but the bare system doesn't have the bells and whistles that i enjoy. Setting up compiz, awn and tweaking the settings so i have it just the way i want it is actually turning out to be pretty hard. I'm still working on desktop applets that monitor network traffic and ram/hd usage.

Here is what i got going on so far:

Best sunday ever? Possibly

Slept in late, got some coffee and the NY times. Sat around reading the paper at the coffee shop and spat my best game to the cute redhead that works there. Killed around three hours soaking in the A/C (the A/C is critical to my enjoyment, for those of you who aren't in Chico it's around 110F up here and there are buckets of smoke from the fires).

Feeling a little hungry i start my walk home and find this awesome jewel in the street


That's right, $20 fucking dollars! Most epic day ever and it's not even 3pm!

Look at how thrilled i am

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Testzor

Geekin' out on drinking night

Seriously, who wants to go out drinking when they really could be up all night doing pen tests with their roommate?

anti-science

http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/22048474.html

Gov. Bobby Jindal has signed the legislation that renewed the debate in Louisiana over the role of religion in the classroom.

Jindal signed Senate Bill 733 by Ben Nevers of Bogalusa, which supporters say is designed to open up "critical thinking" about scientific topics such as evolution, cloning and global warming. Opponents say the bill is really a veiled attempt to introduce religious views about man's creation into public school science classes.

The Legislature's Web site says the bill was signed earlier this week.

The bill says teachers must stick to approved science text books, but can supplement those books with other materials about scientific topics.

Grrrrreeat. Let's supplement real science with a bunch of religious unscientific antiscience. USA! USA! USA! Welcome to the new dark ages?

CSU Woes

So i finally got to register for classes for this coming fall semester. I was pretty excited to be taking some upper division engineering courses, it felt like the move up here was going pretty flawless.

Then, as it turns out, on registration day i learn that the second semester of calc based physics is totally full along with third semester calc. They filled up before i was even allowed to register. WTF.

I've done pretty much all that i could be expected to do. I've contacted the professors that teach the classes i want and asked them to place me on a wait list. I've contacted the department chairs asking if there will be any additional classes added because everything filled up so quickly. I got a unanimous response from the dept chairs saying that budget cuts are keeping them from offering any more classes and the professors said 'good luck' but they worded it a little more polite then that.

So now i'm sitting on my ass enrolled in 9 units that i really don't want to be taking and footing a bill of $2,004 for this inconvenience. I don't want to think about the ass pain i'll be going through trying to expedite my proof of enrollment with the VA once i get into the classes i need so i can become a full time student.

I guess all i can do now is wait for time to pass and hopefully people to drop classes. And really, really hope that the VA doesn't fail me a second time on late payments because come August i'm going to be down to my last bit of cash.

DEFCON 16

I've been waiting to go to defcon since my freshmen year of high school but never got the chance to go. Hell, i even remember asking my parents if i could take a bus out there when i was 16. Well finally now i have the chance and i get to stay at a friends baller timeshare. Sweet.


Oh, btw, i'm typing this on my eee pc. Way too cool.

New developments in CAPTCHA tech

http://alipr.com/captcha/

taken from slashdot.org

Researchers at Penn State have developed a patent-pending image-based CAPTCHA technology for next-generation computer authentication. A user is asked to pass two tests: (1) click the geometric center of an image within a composite image, and (2) annotate an image using a word selected from a list. These images shown to the users have fake colors, textures, and edges, based on a sequence of randomly-generated parameters. Computer vision and recognition algorithms, such as alipr, rely on original colors, textures, and shapes in order to interpret the semantic content of an image. Because of the endowed power of imagination, even without the correct color, texture, and shape information, humans can still pass the tests with ease. Until computers can 'imagine' what is missing from an image, robotic programs will be unable to pass these tests. The system is called IMAGINATION and you can try it out." This sounds promising given how broken current CAPTCHA technology is.

Happiness is

-ASUS Eee PC 4G Surf - Galaxy Black Intel processor 7

-Transcend 2GB 200-Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Laptop Memory Mode

-A-DATA Turbo 8GB Secure Digital High-Capacity (SD/SDHC)

I've never felt so compelled to click the overnight shipping option as i did a few moments ago. The only thing keeping me from doing so was the fact that i have my last calc test coming up, and i want to spend my time reading myself for in instead of playing with my new toy.

Master plan includes the following: 1) create awesome web site, 2)use new lappy to code awesome web 2.0 applications, 3) make millions by selling personal information to private companies.

I'm also trying to find an awesome decal to put on the cover all the while trying to not look like a high school kid decorating his new trapper keeper. I'm between trying to find TIG images off of hacked.net, hackaday.com and pauldotcom.com.

I'll post pictures after assembly.

test

test

Unit Circle Clock

This will make me millions!

Just add hour and minute hands. What time is it? Oh damn it's three pi over two already?

It's summer here

In southern california and especially in the town i'm living in there are two seasons: summer and the two weeks in december when it rains. The weather is back to summer now and to celebrate this i drove around today with the windows down listening to Vampire Weekend. Check it out, yo. It's my CD for the remaining months until the fall semester begins, then i'll switch to something more academic sounding. You know, the type of music that allows you to justify the fact that you're spending weeks holed up in your apartment studying.

Teh Area of ne Triangle

public double TheArea()
{
Semipermeter = ((SideA+SideB+SideC)/2);

return TriangleArea = Math.sqrt(Semipermeter*((Semipermeter - SideA)*
(Semipermeter - SideB)*(Semipermeter - SideC)));

}

2 + 2 = 5

http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSN1929595320080219

"TALLAHASSEE, Florida (Reuters) - Florida education officials voted on Tuesday to add evolution to required course work in public schools but only after a last-minute change depicting Charles Darwin's seminal work as merely a theory.

Bending to pressure from religious conservatives, the State Board of Education on a 4-3 vote included the "theory" language as part of a retooling of the state's science standards for public school education."

Le sigh.

I _should_ be doing my physics homework

but then i couldn't bring to you all of the awesome things on the internet!

To: Disney
Re: My unfortunate home life

Dear Disney,

I am writing to apply for a position as anything with your company. I don’t care if you have me parking cars. Yesterday was the three month anniversary of looking for work, and my dad says that I can’t find a job because I’m not a gay crippled immigrant, so you can understand why it’d be nice to move out.

Joey Comeau.

from asofterworld.com


katebeaton.com

indexed.blogspot.com

argh

When i display images in my posts using IMG SRC the images get truncated, i cannot solve this and it is driving me crazy.

In other news i'm moving to Chico in May to continue this Electrical Engineering biznass.