Another $800 oil change.

So I showed up at the dealer this morning for my oil change appointment (15 minutes late, of course), and I asked them to also look into this vibration my car's been having when driving at high speeds and braking. About an hour later, Craig (the service associate) called me over and told me that I had two bad tires (which he showed me) and a third that appeared to have a leak. I opted to have them replace the two (for $300) and fix the third while I waited. A little later, Craig came back and told me they've figured out why the third tire was low - its wheel is bent (he demonstrated this on the wheel-spinner-thingy). Of course I had to get this fixed as well.

So I ended up paying over $800 for two new tires, a new wheel, and an alignment...oh, and an oil change. Plus I didn't get out of there until after 13:00, five hours after I arrived. At least my drives to work and home were the smoothest that I've had in months. Tina's coming up on her 5th birthday, so maybe it's time to start thinking about her successor.

Intelligent design is not science.

This article, about yet another debate over whether evolution is the the only theory of human origin to teach in science classes, caught my attention. As a good atheist, I have long thought that creationism is BS. The intelligent design argument has never sat well with me, but until taking a Philosophy of Science class this semester I have not had a good reason to argue why it should not be taught in science classes.

Creationism is blatantly religious, and most educated people would recognize that it has no place in science. Intelligent design, however, has more subtle supernatural undertones. Many people would argue that it is a viable theory, and that it is pretty much impossible to disprove. Therein lies the rub. One of the fundamental requirements of a scientific theory is that it is testable. Although, the balance of the currently available evidence supports the theory of evolution, if we were to discover fossils that demonstrated that humans lived before the early primates that scientists believe were our ancestors, the theory would no longer be justified. There is no corresponding test for intelligent design. One could claim that any evidence fits into this theory. This is not science. See here for more insight on this issue.

Another angle the proponents of intelligent design take is that they claim to be skeptical about the evidence for evolution. I tend to be skeptical about many things, so I can appreciate this position. However, in this case there seems to be very little to be skeptical about. The evidence supporting evolution is bountiful and coherent. There is no disagreement about this issue in the scientific community. Attempts to claim this is not the case are worse than claiming that there is no scientific consensus on climate change, and probably on par with the ad campaign the tobacco companies undertook years ago to try to convince people that scientists did not agree that smoking is harmful.

Although I disagree with intelligent design, I have no problem with people posing it as a possible explanation for our existence...as long as they don't do it in a science classroom. If someone can come up with a better *scientific* explanation than evolution, I'm all ears.

Time traveling.

I have long vehemently contended that time travel is impossible. Facebook has just proven me wrong:

I am the definition of yuppie.

From dictionary.com:

–noun (often initial capital letter)

a young, ambitious, and well-educated city-dweller who has a professional career and an affluent lifestyle.

Also, yuppy.

Origin:
1980–85, Americanism; y(oung) u(rban) p(rofessional) + -ie

If there was one word that described my lifestyle, this has a high probability of being it. I don't know how I feel about that, especially since I would like to consider myself as transcending labels.

Time to switch toilet paper?

I'm a fan of the Charmin Ultra cuz it's so soft. However, it looks like it's not so good for the environment. Check out a comparison chart here: http://www.nrdc.org/land/forests/tissueguide/ratings.aspx. It also looks like Bounty paper towels, my brand of choice, are pretty bad in that respect. I don't think I can switch from Bounty unless the "greener" brands make select-a-size rolls.

Kid A, no. Kid B, no. Kid C, yes.

Apparently we are now capable of screening human embryos for diseases and other characteristics, thus allowing potential parents to select their desired children: click. While this is not a trivial (or cheap) procedure, it raises some controversial questions.

This takes natural selection to a whole new level. I like the idea of being able to screen for debilitating or fatal genetic diseases, but I'm not sure how I feel about the idea of designer babies, i.e. choosing gender and other physical characteristics. I don't think I can say that I'm opposed to it, though.

The strugling economy is apparently taking a bite out of recycling...

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/02/will-recycling-survice-the-recession.php

An interesting essay on the impossibility of reconciling science and religion.

http://www.tnr.com/story_print.html?id=1e3851a3-bdf7-438a-ac2a-a5e381a70472

Jerry Coyne's piece, entitled "Seeing and Believing", in The New Republic is a review/critique of two books which attempt to unite science and religion in a Darwin Year (the 200th anniversary of his birth). The article is a pretty long read, but there are quite a few portions that are worthwhile if you have any interest in the topic.

A few excerpts that caught my attention:

"It is a depressing fact that while 74 percent of Americans believe that angels exist, only 25 percent accept that we evolved from apelike ancestors. Just one in eight of us think that evolution should be taught in the biology classroom without including a creationist alternative. Among thirty-four Western countries surveyed for the acceptance of evolution, the United States ranked a dismal thirty-third, just above Turkey."

"True, there are religious scientists and Darwinian churchgoers. But this does not mean that faith and science are compatible, except in the trivial sense that both attitudes can be simultaneously embraced by a single human mind. (It is like saying that marriage and adultery are compatible because some married people are adulterers. ) It is also true that some of the tensions disappear when the literal reading of the Bible is renounced, as it is by all but the most primitive of JudeoChristian sensibilities. But tension remains. The real question is whether there is a philosophical incompatibility between religion and science. Does the empirical nature of science contradict the revelatory nature of faith? Are the gaps between them so great that the two institutions must be considered essentially antagonistic? The incessant stream of books dealing with this question suggests that the answer is not straightforward."

"In other words, God is a Mover of Electrons, deliberately keeping his incursions into nature so subtle that they're invisible. It is baffling that Miller, who comes up with the most technically astute arguments against irreducible complexity, can in the end wind up touting God's micro-editing of DNA. This argument is in fact identical to that of Michael Behe, the [intelligent design] advocate against whom Miller testified in the Harrisburg trial. It is another God-of-the-gaps argument, except that this time the gaps are tiny."

"Most scientists can tell you what observations would convince them of God's existence, but I have never met a religious person who could tell me what would disprove it. And what could possibly convince people to abandon their belief that the deity is, as Giberson asserts, good, loving, and just? If the Holocaust cannot do it, then nothing will."

"And they fail for the same reason that people always fail: a true harmony between science and religion requires either doing away with most people's religion and replacing it with a watered-down deism, or polluting science with unnecessary, untestable, and unreasonable spiritual claims."

"It would appear, then, that one cannot be coherently religious and scientific at the same time. That alleged synthesis requires that with one part of your brain you accept only those things that are tested and supported by agreed-upon evidence, logic, and reason, while with the other part of your brain you accept things that are unsupportable or even falsified. In other words, the price of philosophical harmony is cognitive dissonance. Accepting both science and conventional faith leaves you with a double standard: rational on the origin of blood clotting, irrational on the Resurrection; rational on dinosaurs, irrational on virgin births."

"So the most important conflict--the one ignored by Giberson and Miller--is not between religion and science. It is between religion and secular reason. Secular reason includes science, but also embraces moral and political philosophy, mathematics, logic, history, journalism, and social science--every area that requires us to have good reasons for what we believe."

You can also read some interesting responses to the article (including posts from both authors that were criticized) here: http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/coyne09/coyne09_index.html.

Some of the best words that I could ever hear from my father...

"Just keep it up, you are in no way falling short of what I am hoping that you would eventually become."

Thanks, Pa.

Boeing cafeteria goes green.

When I went to the cafeteria at work today, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that they had replaced the styrofoam plates with ones that are made out of 100% recycled paper (and are compostable). The only downside is that there is no convenient plastic cover for these plates like there was for the old ones, though they did have some plastic wrap available to cover food. I guess this is part of our commitment to ISO 14000.

If I ever become a vegetable, please let me die.

A recent article about the death of an Italian woman who had been in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) reminded me of the Terri Schiavo case. I'm pretty sure I fall on the "right to die" side of that argument. It seems to me that in these cases one thing that made the choice of whether to disconnect life support (or not) more difficult was that the conscious parties involved did not know what the vegetative person would have wanted. So this is my attempt to make my preference in that undesireable event clear: if I am in a PVS for more than a year, please pull the plug. And after I'm done, go ahead and donate my organs and cremate my remains.

A humurous take on the "base" metaphor.

What does it mean when someone says that he reached second base with another person? Today's XKCD may help answer that question, and is sure to entertain in the process. Check it out here: http://xkcd.com/540/. I think some of it will be lost on non-techies, but it is worthy nonetheless.

More proof that wikis are awesome.

Even the U.S. intelligence community uses one to share information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellipedia. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of the general public will never see an article on there, though.

Free e-file with no strings attached.

I have always felt that the ability to electronically file your taxes for free should be a right as a citizen of the United States. If the government makes you pay taxes, you shouldn't have to pay someone an additional fee to figure out how much you need to pay. It looks like the Free File program has finally achieved something close to how I think things should be.

For years there have been ways to e-file taxes (both federal and state) for free, but there have been stipulations that limit access to these options, such as caps on income. For the past couple of years I have semi-manually filled out my tax returns because I refuse to pay to have my taxes done. Thankfully, the IRS had PDF forms that you could fill in, though you had to perform the calculations yourself. Missouri went a step further and provided PDF forms that automatically performed the calculations. The drawback was that I had to print out my tax returns and mail them in.

It now looks like the IRS is offering Free File Fillable Forms that perform calculations and allow e-file! It is completely free for the federal return and there are no limitations, including on income. I should note that this option is similar to filling in the paper forms, except that it is all done electronically. People who are not comfortable with crunching the numbers or deciding which schedules to fill out are probably better off with the commercial software packages/websites that guide you through the process, though usually at a cost. In any case, you can bet that I will be utilizing this service this year. Unfortunately, this does not apply to state returns, so I would have to either pay for a Missouri e-file (head shake) or mail in the state forms as I have done in the past (head nod).

An interesting take on the U.S. rail system.

I've been an advocate for enhancing the national rail system in the United States, especially after riding the trains in Japan. I knew at least one person (Michael Schwartz) shared my sentiments. I now know that there are others. This article has some interesting ideas on the issue. The guy who is interviewed basically wants to create a system modeled after the European one. It would be viable, more efficient, and more eco-friendly alternative to flying.

An SD card that does WiFi!

Seriously...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye-Fi. I kinda want one.

That's why you get a battery back-up.

I was using my office PC almost 2 hours ago when the power went out. This was the first time I had experienced a power outage since I moved into my house. I didn't understand why it had happened, because there was no snow or rain outside, though it had drizzled a bit the night before. Fortunately, I have a battery back-up for my office computers and my media center PC, so they did not experience a power interruption. Since I no longer had a working Internet connection, I decided to shut down my computers.

I called up Ameren, and their automated system helpfully informed me that there were about 650 houses without power in my area, and that the problem was being worked. The estimated completion time was 15:00, which wasn't too bad. I'm now at my mom's house, but hopefully the power has been restored at mine.

Everybody's got an online social network.

...even Boeing. Only theirs is supposedly for networking and collaboration within the company. It's called inSite, and it was rolled out the last scheduled work day last year...which is good cuz you can't expect productivity to be very high at that time. Unfortunately my productivity has not improved this year because of it. In order to help put an end to my addiction, I set a goal of 100 connections by the end of the week. I already reached this goal at 15:59 Tuesday afternoon, so I guess I have to go back to doing real work for the rest of the year...

Z2K9 update.

The Zune problem was apparently caused by a software bug related to leap years. Here's Microsoft's official response: http://forums.zune.net/412486/ShowPost.aspx. I hope mine actually works tomorrow.

Curse you, Zune gods!

Last night (actually early this morning) I discovered my Zune 30 frozen on the logo screen. I thought it was related to the issues that I had with it during my recent trip to Asia. The two times it froze there (while I was trying to switch songs), draining the battery and restarting seemed to get things back to normal. This time that didn't work. I've spent the last couple of hours looking up Zune freeze fixes, and even tried disconnecting the battery (which requires popping open the case).

I eventually found a couple of articles which lead me to believe that I'm not the only one with this problem, and it is actually a bit of an epidemic (I hesitate to use that word since so few people actually own Zunes). See http://mobilitysite.com/2008/12/z-day-hits-zune-30s/ and http://gizmodo.com/5121311/30gb-zunes-failing-everywhere-all-at-once. Microsoft even posted the following Zune service status:

Customers with 30gb Zune devices may experience issues when booting their Zune hardware. We’re aware of the problem and are working to correct it. The Zune Social might be slow or inaccessible. Sorry for the inconvenience, and thanks for your patience!

My brother Chike ran into this DIY fix: http://gizmodo.com/5121618/how-to-revive-dead-zunes-30s. I'm a little hesitant to try it, since Microsoft is working on a fix. But then again, my Zune is already well past warranty and I already opened it up. I hope they come out with some direction soon, so that I can start listening to my Zune soon.

Fried chicken, chocolate cake, and chicken tikka masala.

During my recent trip to Japan, I found out that many Japanese people celebrate Christmas by eating KFC and a Christmas cake, which I think is quite hilarious. So I suggested to my mother that for Christmas dinner (yes, we have Christmas dinner even though none of us is really Christian) this year we should have fried chicken and chocolate cake. She more than obliged. The dinner consisted of a fancy salad, fried chicken, rice, shrimp scampi, chicken tikka masala, beans, cakes (one variety, one chocolate), and pie (apple and pumpkin). I'm normally a fan of the standard ham dinner, but this might have topped it.

Asia travelogue.

I have started my travelogue for my trip to Asia. You can find it here.

Yes we can.

Two years ago I predicted that the U.S. would not be ready for Barack Obama to be president in 2008, and that 2012 would be his year. It's a good thing that nobody pays attention to my political predictions.

So where was I when I found out that he was officially projected to win? Well, I had been following the race all day yesterday, and saw that he had a healthy lead before I left my mom's house for my indoor soccer game. I didn't find out that he was the winner until I returned home around 20:20, 20 minutes after he was declared the victor. I did have a suspicion, though, when on my way home I received a text message from my friend Robert which simply said "Yes!"

But what about Missouri? This is only the second time my state has been "wrong" about the president in over 100 years...and the margin was tiny - less than 6000 votes (49.4% to 49.2%). How did the Democrat Jay Nixon manage to win the gubernatorial race so handily (58.4% to 39.5%) if the presidential race was so close? I'm guessing due to a combination of a few factors:

1. Nixon, having served as the attorney general for 16 years, was already very popular in Missouri.
2. Hulshof, his opponent, was not the ideal Republican candidate.
   
3. Obama is (at least perceived as) too liberal for Missourians.
4. St. Charles County had the highest voter turnout by percentage in the state.
5. Missouri may have more pro-white racists than pro-black racists.
   

As an aside, I am also happy that Proposition C (which mandates investor-owned electric companies provide certain percentages of power from renewable sources, with a target of 15% by 2021) was passed. I'm not exactly thrilled that all the other state-wide amendments and propositions passed, though.

In any case, my enthusiasm for politics, which always peaks at election time, has already begun to wane. I hope that Obama does well in his first term as president, but it's time for me to return to being mostly apathetic.

Can I die from eating blue cheese?

Thanks to Wikipedia I just found out that blue cheese is made by adding Penicillium spores. I am allergic to Penicillin. I've been eating blue cheese for a while with no ill effects, so I assume I'm good to go. I hope I can't get sick from eating it because it is near the top of my list of favorite cheeses. Apparently (from a quick Internet search), there are people with Penicillin allergies that are affected by blue cheese, but it appears that this is pretty rare.

How 'bout that Blu-ray?

It's been a while since Blu-ray emerged as the winner of the next generation high definition video disc format. I had long maintaned that as soon as a Blu-ray drive went under $100 in price I would snatch it up, and to that end set up a couple of price alerts on Newegg (my main source for computer parts and all things tech). When I received the alert e-mail a couple of months ago, I was quick to buy this baby. Despite the exclusion of the advertised PowerDVD CD and SATA cable (the Newegg people say that OEM models don't come with that extra stuff, though I guess retail versions do), I was able to successfully install and set up the drive in my media center PC using an extra cable that came with my motherboard and the wonderful BitTorrent protocol. So far, I've only watched a couple of (bad) Blu-ray movies (The Forbidden Kingdom, 88 Minutes, Baby Mama), but I'm pleased with my purchase. Now if only a good Blu-ray movie could come out so I can have some people over to check it out...

Climate Time Machine, Proposition C.

This is an interesting little site with some quick interactive climate change demos: http://climate.jpl.nasa.gov/ClimateTimeMachine/climateTimeMachine.cfm.

By the way, I support Proposition C in the upcoming Missouri election, and I think you should too. While I'm typically not a big fan of mandates, I feel like this ballot measure (if passed) shows the power companies that the consumers want renewable energy. I will admit that Ameren offers a program called Pure Power that allows one to buy the equivalent of her/his energy consumption from renewable sources for an extra 1.5 cents per kWh (or approximately a 25% increase). Although the price increase seems a little ridiculous, I just signed up for the program as an act of proverbially putting my money where my mouth is.

The Mac is finally on the network.

Until tonight, my Mac Mini had not been connected to the Internet since I bought it when I moved into my house 16 months ago. This can be attributed to a few factors:

1. I actually tried to connect it to the Internet several times without success.
   
2. I'm lazy and give up easily.
   
3. I have 3 other computers I could use instead.

I finally figured out today (technically yesterday) that the version of OS X that shipped with my computer last year still included the "old" Airport software which doesn't support WPA wireless encryption, which I use on my network. I temporarily disabled the encryption, connected to Software Update to acquire the new software, and then was able to connect after re-enabling WPA. I'm not sure why I never even tried connecting unencrypted or with WEP (which the old software supported). In any case, all is now well.

And then there was Chrome...

Not more than a few days after my last post about upcoming upgrades to Microsoft and Mozilla web browsers, Google surprised us all with a beta release of their own browser: Chrome. Features include a novel tab organization scheme, Incognito browsing (like IE8's InPrivate), domain highlighting in the URL (also available in IE8), an "Omnibox" address bar (mixes history and search), a novel "new tab" page, a simpler interface, and a slew of interesting "about:" pages. While the new browser is fairly sleek, it is not as full-featured as the big boys. Also, even though the project is open source, it does not (yet) seem like developers can write extensions like Firefox allows.

Getting more done on the web.

Mozilla Labs is introducing Ubiquity, which I think is one of the coolest ideas in a while when it comes to browsing the Internet. It enables users to create "mash-ups" with web applications, allowing them to get more done within the same browsing session. The implementation is quite immature right now (alpha status, if you will), but this definitely has some potential.

At the same time Microsoft is releasing the second beta for IE8. There are actually a few things that are pretty exciting about this version. One is Accelerators, which provides functionality that has a similar concept as Ubiquity. Some of the other features (e.g., Web Slices, Search Suggestions) are similar to things that Firefox has already offered for a while, whether in the base package or by extensions, though some of the features improve on the Firefox implementations. The most original new feature is probably InPrivate browsing, which allows the user to browse without leaving tracks on a computer. Some people refer to this as "porn mode".

Hilarious headline

Nigeria 2-1 U.S.: Obinna winner dooms U.S.

The best part: another goal was set up by Chinedu.

DEFCON 16

It's been a while, so I figured I should post on here just to prove that I'm alive. Anyway, this past weekend was the second of four consecutive weekends out of town, and I spent pretty much all of Friday through Sunday at DEFCON 16 in Las Vegas.

I arrived at the Riviera early Friday morning (~9:30 Vegas time) and didn't leave the hotel until I caught a shuttle to the airport Sunday evening (~18:00). Note that this made for a very early Friday (flight left St. Louis 7:00) and a very late Sunday (flight arrived in St. Louis 1:00 Monday morning). The conference itself was pretty good. The DEFCON badges are pretty cool, and they supposedly turn TVs off, but I haven't tested this yet. There were many interesting talks, including one on hacking social networks (especially MySpace), one on hacking Internet kiosks, one about the security of e-voting, and one about hijacking internet traffic using BGP. Of course Dan Kaminsky's DNS vulnerability was also big news (from Black Hat a few days earlier), but I did not brave the large crowd that turned out for his talk. Another significant development was the restraining order that prevented one group of presenters from giving their talk on hacking the Boston subway payment system...too bad their presentation had already been given to all the DEFCON attendees on CD. See the DEFCON site for more info on these and other interesting happenings. Also, here's my new favorite t-shirt (that I don't own...yet):



The weekend before I was in Chicago for Lollapalooza. This weekend it's off to Toronto for my fourth Radiohead concert this summer before a roadtrip to Bloomington (wedding) and Indianapolis (air show featuring F-22) the following weekend.

Google Street View comes to St. Louis

Sweet.

Coolest remix EVER

This dude did a remix of Radiohead's "Nude" using electronic hardware in a novel way. Check it out on Vimeo or on Youtube. Note that the proper song starts about 1 minute in.

Some people are more fanatic than I am...

...and I'm happy about that fact. Take, for example, the creator of this site. It tracks all the setlists for Radiohead's shows on their current tour and compiles some ridiculous statistics about the songs played (and not played). I'm glad people like him exist.

Another reason to love Google.

The Google home page has gone black today to help raise awareness of Earth Hour. See below...

The concept is that in cities all over the planet people will turn off their lights tonight from 20:00 to 21:00 local time as a sign of recognition of the human impact to climate change. Kind of a neat idea.

Too bad at that time tonight I'll be at a rock concert. Doubtful, but perhaps they'll forego a light show for the opening band...

I wanna see this in person.

The F/A-22 Demo Team is making the rounds at air shows this year, including a stop in Chicago. Check out this sweet video:

The crib stands out in Google Maps, for now.

I was surprised yesterday to find out that Google Maps recently updated their satellite photograph of St. Louis. The noteworthy aspect of this is that the picture was taken last summer, when my house was the only one on the block that had been completed.

I had originally intended to post a direct link to a close-up of it on here, but a friend cautioned me that letting the whole wide world know where I lived might not be the best idea. No, I am not deluded enough to think that more than 5 different people ever look at my blog...but still. Thanks, Jules.

So if you do happen to know my address and are curious, look it up on Google Maps. I'll be the only one on the street with a lawn. Ignore the brown, dying patches in the back...I didn't take good care of it initially...or now...

60 minutes sees it my way.

Ever since I returned from Australia and New Zealand, both countries that no longer have pennies, I have joked about creating a petition to abolish the U.S. penny. While I don't think that's actually going to happen, I came across a 60 Minutes segment which discusses the fact that pennies cost way more to make than they are worth, an argument that I use (in addition to the fact that pennies are worthless wastes of space). You can check out the segment here. They mention that nickels, my second least favorite coin, are also unsustainable to produce.

On a related note, my buddy Greg has decided to champion the cause of the $1 coin, a notion which I second...except for the fact that I lose so much change from my pockets that I would probably lose a fortune under my car seat. This was also inspired from our travels abroad, where coins seem to actually have value.

Call it a comeback!

Despite a couple of early projections that Hillary would win Missouri (see here and here), our boy Barack has pulled of the victory. If only the rest of those states would follow suit...

Missouri...black and white.

As the results come in for the Missouri Democratic presidential primary on Super Tuesday, I can't help but note a sharp contrast between the voting patterns in metropolitan areas versus rural ones. Currently, Hillary Clinton is leading Barack Obama by a slimming margin of 49% to 48%.

However, Hillary has carried every single county in MO except for 6: Boone County (where Columbia is located), Cole County (Jefferson City), Jackson County (Kansas City), Nodaway County (WTF?!), St. Louis City, and St. Louis County. Barack ran away or is running away with those 6, many of which have a significant population in relation to the rest of the state. He also came close in St. Charles County (48% to 50%), but apparently it is sufficiently far enough from St. Louis City for rednecks and hicks to inhabit.

Even with 90+% of precincts reporting, the race still appears too close to call because the remaining precincts are mostly in metropolitan areas. In any case, whoever wins the Democratic nomination will make history (you know...cuz one's a woman and one's black), so this is huge.

Do I look that old?

I took my youngest brother, Nedu, to get a suit at Men's Wearhouse earlier today. When I informed the salesman of our intentions, he asked if I was Nedu's father. This is not the first time this has happened. Do I really look like I'm old enough to be the father of a 20-year-old?

Back from Oz.

http://www.obezma.com/excursions/downunder2007

Rose Bowl!

The 9-3 Fighting Illini football team are the fortunate beneficiaries of the BCS turmoil this season, and will be headed to the Rose Bowl game on New Year's Day. There, they will face those pesky Trojans of USC (boo...hiss...).

My major complaint about the BCS selections this year is the absence of Mizzou (it's a friendly rivarly...for me at least). The Tigers beat two teams who will be playing in BCS bowl games (Illinois and Kansas) and their only two losses were to another BCS-bound team (Oklahoma). They should be playing in the Orange Bowl instead of Kansas.

Green building comes to Missouri.

On my way to my buddy's house for the annual Army-Navy football game yesterday, I drove by a housing development with a sign which claimed that it was the first "GREEN" development in Missouri. Being the tree-hugger that I've turned into, I had to stop by the sales office on my way home after the game. I picked up some information about the place, and it seems pretty nice. Obviously, I'm all about the sustainable and energy-efficient aspects of the development. The cons are that they are only multi-unit buildings (4 and 12) and that it's out in St. Peters/O'Fallon. It's definitely worth checking out if you're looking to move out into those parts: Highland Park.

There's also a "green" high-rise condo development being built in downtown St. Louis called Roberts Tower. This place looks pretty cool as well.

Considering that I've only been in my new house for about half a year, don't expect me to move out into one of these places any time soon. However, it's definitely nice to see that environmentally friendly developments are sprouting up in the area.

This week's fortune.

You will receive unexpected support over the next week. Accept it graciously.

Test the speed of your Internet connection.

While there are many sites that offer this service, my favorite has to be Speedtest.net. They have a great user interface which allows you to perform the test using one of a multitude of servers around the world (the default is the closest to your geographic location). They also maintain a history of all your tests so you can go back and look at past results. You can also get statistics for internet connections all over the world. Pretty neat if you're a huge Internet nerd like I am.

Maybe I'm a grinch.

Isn't it a little early to have Christmas lights up? After all, November just started today. I saw two separate display of lights on the drive home today. Perhaps in this commercial society that we live in it is appropriate to start the holiday season as soon as we can get away with it. I guess most Christians don't even celebrate the true meaning of Christmas anyway.

In need of MP3 advice.

I have a $50 gift certificate that I could use at a bunch of places, including Amazon.com, Best Buy, and Circuit City.

I want a new MP3 player with the following features:

1. Color display
2. Video playback
3. Good, if not spectacular, battery life
4. At least 30 GB of storage
5. Black case
   

I've narrowed my choices down to the following, in order of preference (prices are shown before gift certificate deduction):

1. Creative Zen Vision:M - 30 GB
   
   • $289 @ Amazon
     
2. Microsoft Zune (2nd generation) - 80 GB
   
   • ~$250 @ Amazon or Best Buy or Circuit City
     
3. Microsoft Zune (1st generation) - 30 GB
   
   • $140 @ Amazon
4. Apple iPod Classic (5th generation) - 80 GB
   
   • ~$250 @ Best Buy or Circuit City

If you have a glowing recommendation or just some simple advice, please feel free to share.

Although slowly, the wheels of justice do turn.

Updating a previous posting, our boy Genarlow Wilson has been freed. Wright Thompson, author of the original E-ticket article that caught my attention, weighs in on it here. Good luck in the future, young man, and may your decisions be made with more care.

This week's fortune.

When the flowers bloom, so will great joy in your life.

This week's fortune.

Tomorrow is a good day for trying something new.

Here's a good idea...

Kiva allows "ordinary" people to help make a difference in the lives of the less fortunate around the world. Through them, you can loan money with minimal interest to entrepreneurs in developing countries. Yes, loan...not donate. The idea is that this isn't just a free handout, but a way to provide people some help through opportunities that may not ordinarily be afforded them. You can find out more by checking out their website: kiva.org.

This week's fortune.

Someone thinks you are wonderfully mysterious.

New Radiohead in 10 days!!!

The new album, In Rainbows, will be released on October 10. Interestingly, it is initially only available for download from their website:
www.inrainbows.com
or
www.radiohead.com

Even more interestingly, YOU decide how much to pay for the download (WTF?!?!), excluding a potential 90 cent surcharge. Of course if you're a fanboy like me, you'll skip that option and buy the discbox (which includes, in addition to the aforementioned download, a CD of the album, an extra CD of new music, vinyl copies of both CDs, a booklet of lyrics, and some artwork) for $80 because it makes absolutely no sense.

Joy!!!

This week's fortune.

When in doubt, let your instincts guide you.

This week's fortune.

A pleasant surprise is in store for you soon.

This week's fortunes.

(another lucky double-fortune cookie)

You will receive unexpected support over the next week. Accept it graciously.

You have a charming way with words. Write a letter this week.

This week's fortunes.

(courtesy of the lucky double-fortune cookie)

You will soon receive an usual [sic] gift freely given. Accept!

You should enhance your feminine side at this time.

Vegetarian Week recap.

I did it! A week without meat. And I don't even have the shakes, either. I feel like this is something I could do for longer, though I don't really have a desire to. After this past week, I have realized that the reasons I couldn't make vegetarianism permanent are twofold:

1. I'd be missing out on too many appetizing dishes. There are a plethora of perfectly good meals with meat out there that are just screaming my name, beckoning me to consume them. I can't let their calls go unanswered, can I?
   
2. It's sometimes hard (though not as hard as I thought) to find a substantial meal that does not have meat in it. I think this is mostly a product of the society that we live in, though. You can't go to a fast-food joint and expect to find something good without meat...usually the best you can hope for is that they can prepare something without the meat, which is a significant portion of the meal. It's definitely easier at sit-down restaurants or when you do your own grocery shopping, though.

I would like to thank and congratulate my fellow temporary vegetarian Tom Musick for his support and inspiration. Without him this experiment would never have been conceived, much less successful.

Vegetarian Week

For the next week, I will (attempt to) be a vegetarian.

Tommy Musick and I were inspired by the lack of meat at our friend Nishant's wedding a couple of weeks ago, and vowed to have a vegetarian week in the near future. The future is now.

From 0:00 on 4 August 2007 to 24:00 on 10 August 2007 we are not allowed to eat meat. I assume we don't have to go completely vegan or anything, though. My personal goal is to last at least 2 days. We'll see how that goes...

This week's fortune.

Linger over dinner discussions this week for needed advice.

This week's fortune.

Listen these next few days to your friends to get answers you seek.

This week's fortune.

You will always be surrounded by true friends.

This week's fortune.

You may end up saving the day.

NYC travelogue is up.

Check it out here.

This week's fortune.

You tend to be contemplative and analytical by nature.

7 West moved to 7 East?!

Vanessa and I dropped by St. Louis Children's Hospital last night to pay my mom, who is a nurse there, a surprise visit. When we finally found her floor, we were greeted by a sign which said "7 West has moved to 7 East." My mom works in 7 West. We thought this was so hilarious that we took a picture of it with my phone. The picture didn't turn out all that great because my phone doesn't have a very good camera, but you get the idea. Funny sign + surprising and hugging momma + ice cream = BEST ADVENTURE EVER.

This week's fortune.

Good things come in invisible packages. You will be delighted.

Crib update.

Happy Earth Day!

I celebrated by buying a bunch of compact fluorescent bulbs from The Home Depot, in addition to getting one for free. OK, so maybe I actually forgot that it was Earth Day until I got in the store and got my free bulb...

28 seconds too slow.

This past Saturday, I fell short of my goal to run the Spirit of St. Louis 5K in under 25 minutes. However, I did post a time that was good enough for 60th place overall. Check out the full results here.

Technology for the good of mankind.

CNET is running a series on technologists who are helping the the world's poor people. One of their stories is about a guy who is involved in the One Laptop Per Child project, which is something in which I have been interested for a while. You can read their story at this link. Another interesting note is that the first deployment of these laptops is in Nigeria.

Crib update.

This week's fortune.

Good things come in invisible packages. You will be delighted.

Crib update.

This week's fortune.

Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself.

Editor's note: I try to live by this principle.

This week's fortune.

You have the ability to channel your energies into constructive activities.

Crib update.

Illinois athletes are emulating the Cincinnati Bengals.

This is probably not a good thing. Two football players have joined their basketball counterparts in a competition to determine who can get in the most trouble with the law. Read the story here.

A couple of tidbits.

I just returned from a snowboarding trip to Cascade Mountain in Wisconsin. I had a lot of fun and didn't injure anything. I can't quite say the same for our bus, though, which was hit head-on by a car which skidded out of control. Thankfully, nobody was hurt.

Also, I am apparently giving up soda for Lent, as decided by one Greg Wilcox. Don't worry...I'm not turning religious anytime soon.

This week's fortune.

Actions speak louder than words.

Crib update.

U of I has lost the fiscal support of one alumnus.

I have always maintained that the day University of Illinois gets rid of Chief Illiniwek is the day that I stop donating money to them. Well, that day has come. I'm sure they will not miss my annual gift of $50 ($100 after Boeing match). At least they kept the Fighting Illini name. Go here for more information.

My newest toy.

Despite my previous musings, I didn't get the Black Carbon or the iPhone. Instead, I purchased an NEC N908, which could almost be the offspring of the other two. You can check out CNET's review of the phone here.

This week's fortune.

Others are attracted to your endearing warmth.

Crib update.

This week's fortune.

You are compassionate and understanding.

$100 for doing almost nothing.

Well, not exactly.

Remember when my luggage was lost in Italy? If not, see here. Well, I faxed in a claim to cover expenses incurred by not having my luggage for a few days to Alitalia when I returned home. When they sent me a letter asking for more information, I gave up the cause, as I either had not kept or did not get receipts from those purchases...plus I was too lazy to be bothered with filling out all the paperwork.

Anyway, they sent me a letter today saying that they're going to send me a check for $100. I never expected to see any money from them, as I thought there was no further action regarding my claim...especially since it's been a few months. Assuming I actually receive the check, THREE CHEERS FOR ALITALIA!

Fitness update.

I've long espoused the belief that the age of 25 years is when an athlete, or a man in general, is at his prime. As that is my current age, I feel that it's time for me to get in the best shape of my life...or at least since high school wrestling.

To that end, I began training for the Spirit of St. Louis 5K run in April last week. I guess a few months of playing soccer once or twice a week has gotten me on the right path, as it seems to be going fairly well so far. I ran a 7:05 mile a couple of days ago, which is faster than I can ever remember running a timed mile (but still over a minute above one of my life goals). The race is still over 10 weeks away, so I'm thinking about upgrading my target from sub-29:00 to sub-25:00. This would take some work, as it would shatter my personal best by over 4 minutes, but I still have plenty of time to prepare. Hopefully I don't burn out.

I've also seemed to have lost some weight, as I weighed in under 160 pounds earlier tonight. To be fair, this was after a soccer game followed by a 1.5 mile run, and before I ate dinner. However, it would still seem that I'm somewhere around 165, which is a weight I haven't seen in a while. This isn't too surprising considering I haven't lifted weights (I gain the most weight while I'm lifting) in almost 1.5 years. Too bad this also means that my once-threatening guns are fairly puny these days.

A grave injustince.

I often argue that people who get in trouble with the law must at least partly blame themselves for being in the situation. While I think this is probably true in this case, I still think that Genarlow Wilson has suffered a grave injustice. You can read more about his story here.

You may now call me Master Kenobe.

Earlier today I picked up a diploma which certifies that I earned a Masters degree in Computer Science. So I guess it's official now.

This week's fortune.

Ask advice from everyone, but act with your own mind.

Things I missed most about this last power outage.

1. Warmth
2. The Internet
3. DVD player
   
4. Light

Things I did NOT miss after the storm and aftermath was over...falling trees. Our electricity was out over 3 days, but at least half of that was due to the fact that one of our neighbor's trees fell on the power lines (the folks across the street had power restored a couple of days before our side did). Another tree fell onto our driveway, causing a little damage to the front edge of our roof, and missing Tina by millimeters.

Revamped music page...sort of...

I removed the Song of the Week sections, which I have neglected for a while, and added some charts from Last.fm which should update automatically as I listen to music. Check out the new page here.

Which phone?

I am in the market for a new cell phone to replace my antiquated little egg. I was pretty sure that I was going to get the Samsung SGH D900, a.k.a Black Carbon. That is, until Apple rocked my world, and the rest of the cell phone industry, with the iPhone. I'm pretty sure it's the best thing since sliced bread. So my quandary is: do I get the Black Carbon now, or wait until June for the iPhone? If you scroll down (unfortunately, my template is too narrow and changing its size messes up some previous posts...plus Blogger doesn't do the best job of HTML generation), you can see a head-to-head comparison of the two:

Category	Black Carbon	iPhone	Winner
Cool factor			iPhone
Cellular Networks	Quad-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900 MHz), EDGE	Quad-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900 MHz), EDGE	Push
Other Connectivity	Bluetooth	Wi-Fi (802.11b/g), Bluetooth 2.0, USB	iPhone
Display	2.1 in 240x320, 262K color TFT	3.5 in 320x480, 160 ppi	iPhone
Camera	3.0 megapixels	2.0 megapixels	Black Carbon
Music playback	AAC, MP3	AAC, MP3, Audible, Apple Lossless	Push
Video playback	?	H.264, MPEG-4	iPhone
Input	9 dedicated buttons, 2 soft buttons, flat number pad	1 hard button, touch screen	iPhone
Other features	Standard cell phone fare + document viewer, TV out	OS X	iPhone
Battery life	6.5 hrs talk	5 hrs talk/video/browsing, 16 hrs audio playback	Black Carbon
Size, weight	4.1 x 2.0 x 0.51 in/106 x 51 x 12.9 mm, 3.3 oz/85 g	4.5 x 2.4 x 0.46 in/115 x 61 x 11.6 mm, 4.8 oz/135 g	Black Carbon
Storage	60 MB internal, microSD	4 GB or 8 GB internal	iPhone
Price	$400 (phone) + $75 (2 GB microSD card) = $475	$499 (4 GB) or $599 (8 GB)	Push
Availability	Now	June 2007	Black Carbon

Let me preface this by saying that I like Rex Grossman...

...but this picture is HILLARIOUS!



Thanks to Tommy Musick for forwarding that to me.

Proof that Christmas is actually Halloween.

Being the übernerd that I am, I found the following proof which I saw on a board at work humorous. The crux of the proof is that 25 in decimal numerals is equal to 31 in octal numerals (see the Wikipedia article on octals if you don't understand this). Since DEC(25) = OCT(31), one could argue that December 25 is October 31. Therefore, Christmas is Halloween.

This week's fortune.

Your enthusiasm inspires people.

The future crib.

Updates to follow...

So I just googled myself...

...which I do from time to time, and I found an entry in a transportation related blog called Trans-Talk which references a paper that I wrote for a graduate class at Wash U this past spring. Even though it's just a blog and not a real publication, it's still kinda exciting. You can check out the blog entry here.

On a related note, earlier in the summer a co-worker was looking up a topic for work on the internet and came across the same paper. It almost makes me feel like I'm making a contribution to society.