HD PVR - recording satellite HD with Windows Media Center.

Recording HD video from cable and satellite set-top boxes to a media center PC is not nearly as easy as it should be.  Digital HD signals (HDMI, DVI) are encrypted (using HDCP), so only authorized receivers can process them.  This doesn't work out so well for people (like me) who don't want to pay the cable or satellite companies a monthly fee for DVR capabilities, especially when we have a PC that can perform this function while giving us more control.  CableCARD was supposed to be the solution for us, but (a) it was not widely adopted (b) it required renting the card from the provider (and I thought part of the point was not paying them for DVR).  Of course, there are plenty of tuner cards that record non-HD content from set-top boxes and free over-the-air HD (basically, local channels).

The best solution that I came across was Hauppauge's HD PVR.  It's a small external box that converts component inputs (YPbPr) from the set-top box to H.264 video that it streams to your PC via USB 2.0.  However, this is not supported by Windows Media Center straight out of the box, and the software that comes with it is pretty terrible in comparison.  Fortunately, there is a software package called DVBLink that allows for WMC integration (for an extra $40 on top of the $200 for the HD PVR).  It basically creates virtual tuners in WMC and then streams the HD PVR output to them.  The setup process was not completely intuitive, but it wasn't too bad either.  If you can follow directions from the website, it should go alright for you (I, however, get a little impatient sometimes and make bad assumptions).  All in all, hooking up the HD PVR and setting up all the software took me somewhere around 3 hours, including time where I played around with some settings.

So here's my analysis after watching my first recording (NBC's Thursday night line-up):

Pros

• HD satellite TV fully integrated into WMC!  This includes watching, pausing, and recording TV, along with Guide information.
• No monthly fee for DVR service.

"Cons"

• $240 price tag - this would take 2 years at $10/month savings to break even.  May be worth it in the end.
• Setup is not seamless, but shouldn't be too bad for someone who has a media center PC (especially if you built it yourself).
• Video quality maxes out at 720p or 1080i due to component inputs (note that cable/satellite HD quality doesn't go higher than this anyway).
• External box that sits on top of the computer, as opposed to an internal card.

While it seems like there are more cons that pros, none of the "cons" are really that bad at all (hence the quotes).  I'm pleased with it so far, after only one night of use, and I think most people in a similar situation would be as well.

Welcome to "Shades of Black".

While migrating the blog from my 1and1 hosting service to Blogger's servers (due to their discontinuation of FTP publication), I've renamed the blog and made some other enhancements.  Thank you to Jerry Pipes for suggesting the new name.  Thank you as well to Nathan Rosenstock for suggesting another name that I almost chose.  Despite the change in location, the blog URL only changed by one character and a slight rearrangement (obezma.com/blog -> blog.obezma.com).  Hopefully this yields a better reading experience...

My revised plan to save the world.

This is not one for the faint of heart, though it is less so than my initial two iterations of plans along the same lines (which are too harsh to post).  The inspiration for this comes from a debate held earlier today at the St. Louis Ethical Society, which I caught wind of through the St. Louis Atheist Meetup Group, concerning the following question: "Should China's One Child Policy Be Adopted in Other Poor Countries?"  The debate itself was not very good - the only halfway-decent speaker was a pro-life Missouri Lobbyist on the wrong side of the question.  Presentation skills aside, though, the two on the good side (both members of Citizens for Global Solutions of St. Louis) outlined a good argument for the protagonist view.

First of all, I should point out that this argument is pointless unless you accept the fact that the world population is excessive, and thus a contributing cause of many of the problems we face - the earth's resources are finite, after all.  And according to the below Wikipedia rendition of a graph from a recent UN report projecting population growth, things could get worse unless some action is taken:

The CGS members' view, set forth in a handout, was that there are three (though they combined #2 and #3 into one) reasons for recommending the one-child-per-family policy in poor countries:

1. China was able to greatly increase the well-being of its own citizens by use of this policy.  Other poor countries could do the same.
2. China also greatly helped to limit the population growth of the world as a whole, thus preserving (or rather, minimizing the destruction of) the natural resources available worldwide.
3. Policies of national governments are one of the major factors in dealing with the population problem.

They also provided a few qualifications of their position.

1. Although their claim is a normative one, they do not advocate that poor countries should be compelled to adopt the policy - they believe that it should be evident that such in a policy is in their best interest.
2. They recommend flexibility for particular situations - e.g., minorities and families in rural areas - when adopting the policy.
3. They recommend the use of strong financial incentives and public opinion in implementing the policy.  This includes making population control measures (condoms, birth-control pills, tubal ligations, nonsurgical vasectomies) freely available and offering privileges (free education, subsidized health care, guaranteed unemployment income) only to first-born children.
4. They expressly reject the use of abortions, instead recommending that unwanted babies be made available for adoption by rural families (where additional labor would be useful).
5. They recognize that the policy should be brought to an end if a country thinks that some unanticipated situation requires a change (e.g., an epidemic or natural disaster).

Of course this plan is not without potential problems.  The opposition brought up the following worries:

1. First off, such a policy may seem to amount to a restriction of freedom, and this would probably be the case if implemented in a brutal, authoritative fashion.  One might be able to justify strict enforcement, and therefore limitation of liberty, by some utilitarian argument - thus overcoming the harm principle.  Regardless, the plan set forth relies on economic incentives, allowing people to choose not to comply at the risk of losing these incentives.  My worry, though, is that this may be a naive view: poor and uneducated people in these countries may not understand enough to make what I take to clearly be the proper choice.  There's also the worry that people will try to cheat the system.
2. The lobbyist pointed out that China resorted to forced abortions and other brutal measures to implement the policy.  This may be the case, but the CGS does not advocate the use of abortions.  As mentioned above, implementation would be mostly financially driven.
3. Another worry by the lobbyist is that unborn females would be targets for abortion since parents would prefer their single child to be a male.  In China this has resulted in a 1.17:1 ratio of males to females in the latest generation, which he claims has caused Chinese men to resort to illegal trafficking of women from neighboring countries.  Even if this is a pervasive problem, which I doubt, there is a logical limit to its effect.  At some point people have to realize that aborting females is a bad idea.  Maybe not being able to marry off their sons will be a way of sparking this realization.
4. Yet another counterpoint was that China has too few young people to support their aging parents and grandparents, especially as life expectancy increases.  While I can sympathize to an extent, I would choose the problem of not being able to care for old people over that of having children continuously born into inescapable poverty.

All in all, I believe that the basic idea of such a policy is a sound one, and that it should be adopted in the Third World.  Furthermore, the arguments presented against do little to weaken it.

I need a new name for the blog.

Google recently shared the news that they will no longer support publishing on Blogger via FTP, meaning that I will no longer be able to host my blog from "my" server (I use the quotes because I don't really own the server - I'm basically renting server space from my hosting service, 1&1).  I'm somewhat ambivalent toward this news.  On one hand, I lose the pseudo-ownership I have when the files are on "my" server, where I have access to all of them in their raw glory.  On the other, having the blog reside on Google's servers means that I can integrate more of the features and widgets that they have available.

While I'm moving the blog (which I'll probably be doing in a month or two), I figure it's a good time to come up with a new name.  I created the current name "Blog" when blogging was a relatively new phenomenon (here's my first post ever from back in 2004, though I doubt that link will still work once I move the blog), and I did not really take into consideration what a name might signify.  In truth, the name is not really that horrible - it's just the blog section of my site - but now that my feed is integrated into different applications on the web (Facebook, Google Reader, Google Buzz) it is grossly lacking in descriptiveness..."Oh, look...there's a new post on Blog.  What the hell is Blog?"

So to all three people out there who occasionally glance at my blog, I am seeking your help in coming up with a new name.  The name should be relatively unique (so that the blog can be easily identified) and somewhat interesting, but should not pretend to be something that it is not.  I will illustrate with a couple of examples:

"Obi's Blog" or "Obezma's Blog": While these make it pretty easy to figure out what's going on at the blog, when I read them I think "Blah!".

"Alternative Brotha" or "Casual Elegance": These have both been used to describe my style of being.  While I don't necessarily like to be pigeonholed by a description, I will admit that I do take these two principles into consideration in doing some of the things that I do.  The problem with these names, though, is that they seem too ambitious.  They almost sound like a place where you could go for daily/weekly tips on how to live such a lifestyle.  I don't post nearly that regularly or frequently, and I don't really have any advice to give anybody.

So in short, give me an interesting and unique name that doesn't generate expectations.  And...go!

Lala - my not-so-new favorite thing.

This post is long overdue.  If you have seen any of my recent activity online (Facebook, Google Reader, or certain posts about top music), you might be aware that I have become an avid user of Lala.  The short story: Lala is a free online music service without advertising.  The longer story follows.

You can read Lala's official story about their features at their How it works page.  I'll expand on what I like about these main features, and one additional minor feature, to show what I think makes Lala pretty awesome.

1. Play over 8 million songs for free.  They have a pretty extensive music catalog, of which you can play any song for free once.  After the first free listen, you can listen to 30-second clips of songs you don't own (you can always listen to full-length songs you own - see #2).  I especially like that they organize music so that it is easy to queue up albums, which is how I prefer to listen to music.
2. Play your music, anywhere on the web.  You can match your music collection on your computer to Lala's catalog so that Lala recognizes what songs in their catalog you own (no, it does not matter how you came to own the music).  If you own it, it can always play it for free on the web.
3. Discover new music through friends and experts.  They've got some social networking and cataloging aspects.
4. Buy new music starting at 10 cents.  You can buy any song as a "web song" for 10 cents.  This gives you unlimited plays of the song via the web, but you can't download it to your computer.  You can also buy songs for download, usually for 89 cents.  Note that if you have previously bought a song as a web song, you only have to pay the difference (79 cents) to buy it as a download.  The song files are DRM-free variable bit-rate MP3s.  In my experience the bit rate is usually around 240 kbps, which is excellent unless you're an audiophile.
   
   I will add here that Lala's download prices are pretty phenomenal in comparison with the competition.  For example, here are some comparisons with two other major MP3 vendors for four new album releases that I bought this past Tuesday (yes, I went kinda crazy):
   
   Four Tet - There is Love in You
   iTunes - $9.99
   Amazon MP3 - $6.99
   Lala - $6.49
   
   Charlotte Gainsbourg - IRM
   iTunes - $9.99
   Amazon MP3 - $7.99
   Lala - $7.49
   
   Basement Jaxx - Zephyr
   iTunes - $9.90
   Amazon MP3 - $6.99
   Lala - $6.49
   
   Jaga Jazzist - One-Armed Bandit
   iTunes - $8.91
   Amazon MP3 - $6.99
   Lala - $6.99
   
   As you can see, iTunes is kinda ripping people off (though I will concede that they pioneered the MP3 selling business and make selling/buying music very easy for both producers and consumers), so it's a good thing that I don't even have an iTunes account set up.  I used to use Amazon MP3 quite a bit, but I have more recently been buying the majority of the music that I purchase through Lala
5. Scrobbling to Last.fm!  Listening to music is pretty much worthless to me unless I can scrobble it to Last.fm, my ultimate music listening cataloger.  Without this minor feature I don't think I would have begun using Lala nearly as much as I do now.

I've actually been a Lala member since early 2007, back when their main thing was trading CDs, though I never really used it.  They've since dropped that business model and are now a digital music service.  I rediscovered them this past fall when Pitchfork started using Lala to share music that they reviewed and Google started including Lala previews in music searches.  Since then I've been using Lala to check out new releases, listen to recommendations from friends, and listen to my collection from work (don't tell Boeing).  It has greatly contributed to the amount of music I listen to and to the amount of music I actually purchase.

I was a bit disappointed in December to hear the news that Apple acquired Lala.  Although Apple appears to have used Lala technology for at least one good purpose (providing browser-enabled previews for iTunes songs), my fear is that Lala will be absorbed into iTunes and I will lose some of the features I have come to love.  For example, I'm pretty sure this would result in increased music prices.  Also, if the web streaming becomes part of Apple I think Boeing will get wise to the goings on pretty quickly as users jump on board, and therefore block it.  I hope these worries do not materialize.

Skinny jeans are ruining mens' fashion.

For me, at least.  I'm not saying this because I think skinny jeans are stupid - some people (though not all who wear them) pull off the look very well.  I am not one of those people.  I have what I like to call a "black people butt" and "black people hips".  Besides making me feel like I'm wearing figure skating pants, they tend not fit over my butt all the way (or at least not as much as I would like pants to fit over my butt).  I'm also partial to a wider leg opening that falls over the shoe, instead of showing off my shoelace knot and socks.

Skinny jeans don't directly affect me since I don't really ever wear jeans, but the skinny/slim trend has moved over to pants.  This in itself would not be a problem either, except that all the creative effort into making interesting pants is now diverted to making interesting skinny pants.  And there aren't many people out there making interesting mens' pants in the first place.  Every cool-looking pair of pants that I have seen over the past few months has been of the skinny variety.  Case in point: I've ordered 3 pairs of pants off diesel.com (one of very few places I've found that has interesting pants for men) only to return them because the fit is too skinny (even though I took care to check that they are not described as skinny or slim).  Maybe I should just resign myself to the fact that Diesel does not make pants for black people.

So if you see a pair of cool-looking non-skinny (preferably boot-cut) pants out there somewhere, let me know and I'll be all over it.

Top Albums of 2009, Part 2

We saw in Part 1 that Phoenix topped the aggregate top albums list.  In Part 2 we'll break down all the individual top 10 lists.

Brian George (Obscurity Award, WTF?! Award)

1. Converge – Axe to Fall
2. The Juan MacLean – The Future Will Come
3. Agoraphobic Nosebleed – Agorapocalypse
4. Future of the Left – Travels with Myself and Another
5. Pissed Jeans – King of Jeans
6. Girls – Album
7. Shackleton – 3 Eps
8. Khanate – Clean Hands Go Foul
9. Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
10. The-Dream – Love vs. Money


Christy Cronin

1. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz!
2. Manchester Orchestra – Mean Everything to Nothing
3. Metric – Fantasies
4. Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
5. Passion Pit – Manners
6. Arctic Monkeys – Humbug
7. Coconut Records – Davy
8. The Big Pink – A Brief History of Love
9. She Wants Revenge – Up and Down EP
10. Matt & Kim – Grand


James Kolpack (I Didn't List Phoenix Award)

1. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
2. Atlas Sound - Logos
3. Office - Mecca
4. The Thermals - Now We Can See
5. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
6. Flight of the Conchords - I Told You I Was Freaky
7. Papercuts - You Can Have What You Want
8. Max Richter - 24 Postcards in Full Colour
9. Bear in Heaven - Beast Rest Forth Mouth
10. The xx - xx


Jason White

1. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
2. Wilco - Wilco (The Album)
3. Pearl Jam - Backspacer
4. Manchester Orchestra - Mean Everything to Nothing
5. Them Crooked Vultures - Them Crooked Vultures
6. Green Day - 21st Century Breakdown
7. Monsters of Folk - Monsters of Folk
8. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
9. The Decemberist - The Hazards of Love
10. Mute Math - Armistice


Obi Orjih

1. Mew – No More Stories...
2. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion
3. Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
4. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It's Blitz!
5. Pictureplane – Dark Rift
6. Röyksopp – Junior
7. Metric – Fantasies
8. Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest
9. Fuck Buttons – Tarot Sport
10. Doves – Kingdom of Rust


Robert Schwartz (I'm With Obi Award)

1. Mew - No More Stories...
2. Regina Spektor - Far
3. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
4. Beirut - March of the Zapotec/Holland EP
5. Metric - Fantasies
6. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
7. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimist
8. Bon Iver - Blood Bank EP
9. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
10. The Mountain Goats - The Life of the World to Come

Top Albums of 2009, Part 1

The results are in.  My cloud has determined the top 10 albums (actually 12, since the last 4 tied) of 2009.  Ignore all other top 10 lists (except maybe Metacritic's, which actually shows you everyone's list) and only pay attention to this one.

Each participant submitted a personal top 10 list, and I aggregated them using a 10-to-1 point system to generate the list below.   Here's the list of critics:

Brian George
Christy Cronin
James Kolpack
Jason White
Obi Orjih
Robert Schwartz

Since there are 6 individual lists, the maximum possible number of points for a single album is 60 points (if it was number 1 on everybody's list).  Without further ado, here are the top albums:

1. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix [35 points, 5 lists]

2. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion [24 points, 3 lists]

3. Mew - No More Stories... [20 points, 2 lists]

4. Metric - Fantasies [18 points, 3 lists]

5. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz! [17 points, 2 lists]

6. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest [16 points, 4 lists]

http://lala.com/zf5S

7. Manchester Orchestra - Mean Everything to Nothing [16 points, 2 lists]

8. Converge - Axe to Fall [10 points, 1 list]

9 (tie). The Juan MacLean - The Future Will Come [9 points, 1 list]

   Regina Spektor - Far [9 points, 1 list]

   Atlas Sound - Logos [9 points, 1 list]

   Wilco - Wilco (The Album) [9 points, 1 list]

Check out Part 2 for each critic's individual list.

Reciprocal altruism.

I have had an e-mail starred in my inbox for 5 months now, intending to write a blog post about it.  It's about time that I actually do it.

The motivation is an article sent by my friend Rob: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/opinion/23wright.html

It concerns one of my favorite topics: science and religion, and whether they are reconcilable.  The author seems to think they are.  I, for the most part, think they are not.  At least, science is not compatible with religion as the institutions exist today.

As the article notes, religious apologists often argue that science cannot explain our moral instincts of right and wrong.  Wright points to the notion of "reciprocal altruism" (benefit through mutual cooperation), which may have played a part in the evolution of our moral senses.  I think this is right.

I would only add that this evolution occurred on a cultural scale.  I don't think that we are born with an innate sense of right and wrong, but are instead raised to learn right from wrong.  Through teaching, observation, and rational thought, we learn how this works.

Wright seems to imply that "convergence" on moral instincts due to reciprocal altruism is evidence that objective moral truths exist.  I happen to disagree with this idea, but I do not completely dismiss it (there are also non-theistic motivations for thinking they exist).  I do, however, think that the analogy to stereopsis and perception of three dimensions is a bad one.

The main point of the article is that science and religion are compatible.  Basically, you can use the scientific theory of evolution through natural selection (along with this notion of reciprocal altruism) in conjunction with belief in a creator that set it all in motion.  Note, however, that in order to use this approach, believers must still abandon the Judeo-Christian conception of an omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent God; but they can still keep a creator.  This is why science is not compatible with current theology, though it is possible that religion could evolve into some sort of deism that is compatible with this approach.

Wright argues that in order for peace to be achieved concessions must be made on the atheist side as well.  I will grant him that the idea of a creator is compatible with science, and I feel like most atheists (though not the really stubborn, belligerent ones) would do this as well.  However, that is not the argument that theists are making.  If/when religious discourse abandons irrationality, then real dialogue can begin.  It seems logical to observe complexity and wonder if that is evidence of a designer, or to observe "convergence" and wonder if there are objective truths.  Debating from that point of view would be more worthwhile than using beliefs based on blind acceptance of a book of myths.

This is not a New Year's resolution.

School's out!  W00t!  Note to self...do not wait until finals week to start your 10+ page philosophy papers.  Those last couple of weeks almost took me back to my days of pulling all-nighters as an undergrad.  Yeah, you can't do that when you have to work 40 hours a week.  This is where I pledge to manage my time more effectively next semester...and then end up failing horribly again.  Speaking of next semester, I'm switching to 2 math classes and 1 philosophy class (after Boeing made some massive changes to their tuition reimbursement program...but that's a topic I'm probably better off not blogging about).

So now that I don't have work, school, or soccer (and haven't for the past 5 days) until work on Monday (I guess Sunday for soccer), it's time to get my life in order.  Here's how bad things are...

I have a puzzle that's been sitting in the same state (only the border is complete) on one of the desks in my home office for the past year. I haven't gotten around to filing the CDs that are sitting around my living room since I moved into my house 2 years and 7 months ago.  Nor have I put up the artwork that I bought right before that time.  In the last year, I've almost bought as many books, intending to read them all, as the number of pages that I've so far read in all of them combined.

I need to get that task list under control.  My excuse has been that every time I've had a significant break from work/school, I've been on a trip somewhere around the world.  I can't say that this winter break, so it's time to do something about it.  The break has been semi-productive so far, but not as much as I would like it to be.  Perhaps I should be a hermit for the next few days and straighten all these things out.  My goal for next year, then, is to have everything in its right place.  Maybe I'll make that my new theme song...

Mew @ Metro (12/7/2009)

The first time I saw Mew in concert was at the Pitchfork Music Festival, where they played an abbreviated set (which is normal unless you're a headliner).  Being the fanboy that I am, I was eagerly anticipating seeing a proper Mew show, and had high hopes.  The band for the most part met expectations, though they did not significantly exceed them.

Tom and I showed up to Metro (a block away from Wrigley Field) about halfway into the opener's (All The Day Holiday) set.  Mew did not have a band touring with them during their brief North American jaunt, and instead chose to have bands audition to open for them in each city.  All The Day Holiday wasn't a bad choice, and I dug a couple of the songs I caught enough to give their album a listen yesterday.

We viewed the Mew set (the whole show, actually) from the upper balcony of the Metro.  The venue was a lot smaller than I expected.  This is generally a good thing, as it makes for a more "intimate" time with the band.  However, there were a couple of layers of people between us and the railing, so our view could have been better.

Their actual performance was pretty good.  They started off with four songs off And the Glass Handed Kites, including the trademark back-to-back "Special" (which I dedicated to Tom) and "The Zookeeper's Boy" move, followed by a couple from Frengers.  After this they rattled off five from my favorite album this year, No More Stories... (I'll spare you the full 23-word title), before finishing up the main set with one more oldie.  The encore was also heavy on Kites, with one from Stories, and one freaky interlude which featured a talking teddy bear.  I was quite surprised that they did not end the show with "Comforting Sounds", which seems to have been their standard closer (and what they closed with at Pitchfork).  "New Terrain", which seems like a natural opener (it was used this way at Pitchfork), was not played either.  You can find the full setlist here.

Speaking of freakishness, I would guess that a not insignificant portion of the crowd had nightmares that night after watching the videos projected during their set.  The images were by no means horrifying, but there were certainly some strange looking children or animals in most of them.  Jonas must have some weird things going on in that head of his...

Tom noted that Jonas looked "dainty" on stage, something he had not noticed during their Pitchfork performance because he was people-watching then.  At that show, Robert had described Jonas' stage persona as "meek".  I would agree more with the latter than the former, as I was not led to question Jonas' manhood in the way "dainty" connotes.  Strangely, though, I did think that he was a little less meek during this show than the last one.

So, what could have made the show better?  For one, the sound mixing seemed off on a few songs, during which I could barely hear Jonas' vocals.  This is a shame, as Tom describes his singing as "instrumental".  Bo could have also played a couple of the songs a little cleaner, though I can certainly understand the difficulty in reproducing the riffs used in "Introducing Palace Prayers" and "Repeaterbeater" in a live environment.  They had a couple of mini-jams (we all know that I don't like jams), but they were usually appropriate as intros or interludes - there wasn't a case where they just refused to end a song, which is one of my pet peeves.  They also left out a couple of my favorite songs: "An Envoy to the Open Fields" and "Cartoons And Macramé Wounds".

Overall, though, I was quite pleased.  If it wasn't for the freezing cold conditions and the fact that I had an early flight back to St. Louis the next morning, I would have insisted on waiting around afterward to try to meet the band.

4.6/5

Inspirational documentary of the month: Food, Inc.

First came An Inconvenient Truth, which turned me into a tree-hugging, earth-loving hippie for a couple of years.  And then I changed my mind and pondered making my own documentary entitled "So Spring Comes a Little Earlier Each Year: What's So Bad About That?".*

Then I saw Sicko, and jumped on the universal health care bandwagon.  Yeah, I've pretty much done a "John Kerry" 180-degree flip-flop on that one.  While I definitely like the idea of covering as many people as possible (I'm a softie for taking care of the people), Tim convinced me that health insurance should basically not be treated differently from car insurance, home insurance, or any other type of disaster insurance.  I could go on more about this, but that's out of scope for this blog entry.

Now, it's about the food we eat.  This topic was first broached by King Corn, which documented the industrialization of corn, how it has killed the family farm, and how corn now permeates the majority of the food we eat.  Food, Inc., further, "examines large-scale agricultural food production in the United States, concluding that the meat and vegetables produced by this type of economic enterprise leads to inexpensive but unhealthy and environmentally-harmful food" (description stolen from the linked Wikipedia article because I'm too unoriginal to come up with a better one).

Food, Inc. is definitely a movie worth seeing, if only to raise awareness and/or stimulate discussion.  My first instinct after seeing it is to become a vegetarian or only eat organic produce.  But I've had this reaction before, and it didn't last very long.  It seems that the lifestyle that I prefer (often on the go, never cooking for myself) is not very compatible with this choice.  And then there's the worry (briefly dismissed by one of the organic farmers in the movie) of whether we could feed everybody if the system shifted to organic policy.  I have some other solutions to the overpopulation problem that drives this concern, but I fear those are too radical for dissemination.

In any case, I invite anyone who has not seen this movie to do so.  Afterward (or if you've seen it already), you can engage me in rational discourse to convince me that I am overreacting, or underreacting, to it.


* - I should confess that I'm still a bit of an environmental hippie, but not for the same reasons.  In general, I think reusing, reducing, and recycling is a good thing, but a lot of my motivations are more financial these days (even though I still pay more for electricity), as opposed to attempting to save the world from impending doom.

about:me

Here at the Blog, we rarely take time go to get in touch with our inner feelings.  This is no exception to that generalization.

about:me is a Firefox add-on that "provides a fun way to see personalized patterns in browser usage, including trends in browsing history and download activity".  Some of you fellow nerds might notice that the name is a clever play on the about: URI scheme used in many web browsers.

I installed this add-on a few months ago, but rarely remember about it.  Of course, when you run out of ways to procrastinate instead of writing that philosophy paper, you remember all sorts of neat things that "deserve" to be blogged about.

So what truths has about:me revealed about my surfing habits on my main home computer?  You can see the results directly below (click to enlarge):

For one, I am in denial about how much I use Facebook.  It seems that I can't go around anymore saying condescendingly, "Oh, no.  I *only* get on Facebook whenever someone does something on my wall or sends me a message."  The same seems to go for OkCupid, though to a far lesser extent.

Other than that, the sites listed are for the most part what I would expect.  Google (and its various subdomains), Wikipedia, GMail (which is broken out from Google for some reason), Last.fm (because I obsessively want to view the charts about my recently listened music), and ESPN Soccernet are all mainstays in my Internet routine.  I'm a little surprised to see CNET, YouTube, and Blogger on there - I definitely use those sites fairly frequently, but I don't feel like I'm on them *that* often.  The one notable absence, though, is Yahoo!.  I feel like a check my Y!Mail often enough for it to beat out a few of the sites listed.

In addition to the sites I browse, the times at which I browse are also interesting, though there are no real surprises there.  I apparently hit the web hard sometime around 9 PM after a long day of doing whatever I do in the "real" world.  It's not unusual for me to still be surfing up until 1, or even 2, in the morning.  I'm guessing that the daytime surfing is mostly from weekend activities, when I'm not at work/school/soccer.  The graph also confirms that the period between about 4 and 7 AM pretty much does not exist to me.

So there you have it...a little insight into Obi.  But because it's somehow tech related, that's probably about the most you're gonna get here.

Join the Wave!

LifeHacker had another Google Wave donation thread today, and I was fortunate enough to score an invitation (thanks Daniel!).  Now it's my turn to share.  I originally had 8 invitations to give out, and I've sent out 3 so far.  If you would like an invitation, let me know by commenting or by sending me a message.  If you don't know what Wave is, you can find out all about it here.

I honestly don't think Google Wave will be terribly useful in my daily life, but it definitely has a cool factor.  Maybe once some friends join up and start collaborating I'll see things differently.

Google Location History - my new favorite thing.

First there was Google Latitude, which allows you to share your location with your friends using your cellphone's GPS and your data plan that connects you to that nebulous interweb thing.  This seems to draw polarizing opinions from people, as some think it is the coolest thing since sliced bread, while the paranoid among us think this is tantamount to life in Orwell's Oceania (despite the fact that you have control of who can see your location data, and to what level).

Latitude now has a feature called Google Location History, where Google tracks and maintains a history of your location in your account.  The coolest part is that you can play it back like a movie.  Here's where I went today:





You can see that I got a late start to my day, and that I made trips to City Hall (where my attempts to renew my driver's license and license plates resulted in epic failure on both counts...but I'll leave my complaints of government incompetence for another post), Qdoba (free burrito!), and the dry cleaner before heading in to work.  Curiously, my GPS triangulation is not perfectly consistent throughout the day, as I appear to have made a dash to the airport at some point even though I'm pretty sure my phone stayed in my stationary car the whole day...

This was a bit of an accidental discovery, as I normally do not keep my location shared after I'm done using Google Maps on my phone. However, I left it shared last night while I was trying to get Google Location Alerts to work with Steve.  Location Alerts is another cool feature, where Google will send you a message when you come within proximity of a friend on Latitude.  Unfortunately, I have yet to succeed in causing an alert despite two attempts while sitting next to or across from a friend.

Anyway, if you are not one of those privacy advocates who think this is the work of Big Brother, friend me up on Latitude.

Who else loves Tim Lincecum's hair?

So it was announced today that Tim Lincecum barely beat out the two Cardinals aces for the NL Cy Young award in what was one of the closest votes in history.  I'm not that big a baseball fan anymore, but those three pitchers (Lincecum, Adam Wainwright, and Chris Carpenter) have to be three of my favorites in the game.  Two of them are obviously so, because they play for my hometown team...and they're really good.

Lincecum, though, has other interesting characteristics.  By complete coincidence, I happened to catch his first career MLB start on May 6, 2007.  I'm not even sure why I watched that ESPN Sunday Night Game between the Giants and Phillies, because by that time I had already lost most of my interest in baseball, which had peaked during the golden days of fantasy baseball in college and a little after.  In any case, I remember being impressed by the Giants starter, who had a shaky first inning debut but ended up striking out 3.  He was a young guy of relatively slight build (for a pitcher anyway), and he had some lights-out stuff.  In my mind, he immediately drew comparisons to Roy Oswalt.

Anyway, it's about two-and-a-half years later, and that kid has two Cy Young awards to his name.  Since that day, I've seen Lincecum pitch in person - I was lucky enough to draw his starting position in the rotation when I went to a Giants-A's game in San Francisco earlier this summer (June 12).  He didn't absolutely dominate that day, but he tossed a complete game without giving up any runs.

So when it came time to decide who to root for in the Cy Young race, I had a tough time choosing.  I figured that one of the Cardinals would get it, since the Giants didn't do very well this year and Lincecum had a low win total.  But between the two Cards pitchers, I couldn't pick either - Wainwright tossed more innings and had more wins, but Carpenter had mostly better statistics otherwise.  I was pretty surprised to learn that Lincecum took the award, but in a way I way was glad.  It would have been nice for a Cardinal to win it, but I couldn't choose one over the other.  And my favorite pitcher over the last couple of years did win after all.

Oh, and did I mention how awesome his hair is?  I mean, look at that thing:

This is a screenshot of the video of his reaction after winning the award today, which you can check out here.  Maybe his hair is the reason he won it.  You don't see mops like that on many major league players.

A stroll through PC World's top 100 products of 2009

Around this time of year, PC World releases their list of the top 100 products of the year.  The list is a combination of products from many varied categories: social networking websites, desktop applications, operating systems, gadgets, consumer electronics, and pretty much anything tech related.  You can check out the 2009 edition by pointing your computer in this direction.

As I went through the list, I certainly encountered many familiar items (I'd list some of my favorites here, but there are just too many).  However, I also found others that I was either previously unaware of or had previously dismissed as uninteresting.  Here are some new gems that kept me up late tonight:

#8. Canon PowerShot SX200 IS
I'm in the market for a new "pocket megazoom" camera.  My requirements are at least 10x optical zoom and HD (720p) video.  I can now add this to the shortlist, which was previously occupied only by the Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3.

#25. Boxee
A free open-source media center application.  This will come in handy for my office PC, especially while my media center PC is down with a faulty hard drive.  One of the big selling points of Boxee is the integration with online content, including Hulu.

#39. Qik
I've had their application installed on my Nokia N97 since I got the phone, but I never really knew what it did, besides that it was somehow related to video sharing.  Turns out that I can use it to stream live video from my phone to the interwebs.  Yes, seriously.  Stream.  Live.  Video.  From my phone.  To the web.  You could sit anywhere in the world with an Internet connection and watch live video streamed from my phone.  I tested it out.  It works.  And it's blowing my mind right now.  Oh, and you can share your videos on YouTube, Facebook, etc. after you're done recording.

#86. Hillcrest Labs Loop Pointer Remote
I've wanted a device like this ever since I heard of the Logitech Air Mouse.  This crazy design has me pondering whether I would prefer a mouse form factor (but movable in the air like a wand) or another potentially more ergonomic shape.

Our Lady Peace @ The Pageant (10/30/2009)

During the show Raine (OLP's lead singer) claimed that the last time the band was in St. Louis they were going through a rough patch, the show that night sucked, and the show tonight would be much better. I was also at that show four years ago, and apparently I disagree with Raine.

I don't remember exactly why I rated their show back then so highly (4.5). Contributing factors might be: (a) Augustana opened for them that night, and I went backstage to visit with Josiah, and I caught some of the OLP performance from the side of the stage (b) I tend to overrate bands the first time I see them, and then decrease the rating on subsequent viewings. In any case, the show tonight is not getting nearly as high a rating.

When Christy and I showed up around 8:20 (20 minutes after the concert started), we found out that there would be two bands playing before OLP took the stage at 10. Instead of sticking around we headed across the street to grab dinner, where she had her first taste of Thai food (which is surprising for a young, hip, CWE resident). We returned to The Pageant a few minutes before OLP started.

The performance itself was disappointing, especially Raine's vocals. Part of it seemed to have to do with the sound setup, which did not seem to be mixed quite right. More to the point, though, might have been the way that he was "oversinging", as Christy put it. His unique way of singing is part of the band's schtick, but he seemed to be overdoing it with the level changes. We were both distracted during much of the show by the way he tilted his head back as he oversang every few words. It doesn't bode well that this was not the only thing that we were distracted by. We shared a few chuckles watching the dance movements of some of the members of the crowd who were enthralled by the band.

Other criticisms include Raine trying too hard to get the crowd to sing along - I'm not a big fan of the forced singalong...or the forced clap-along...or the forced stand-up. He also ruined one of my favorites of theirs, "One Man Army", by singing it wrong (in my opinion, at least). And they played the first half of "Is Anybody Home?" acoustically, which did not please me.

They played a few songs of their newest album, which I have but had only partially listened to. Unfortunately, the new songs that I didn't know did not inspire me to go listen to the rest of it.

Other noteworthy events included when they threw in a cover of MGMT's "Kids" during the "Naveed" interlude (Christy hated this, but I was fine with it). They also had one of their friends, a fellow musician, fill in for Raine for one song ("Automatic Flowers") during the encore - he did a decent job.

Perhaps I'm being too harsh on the band. After all, I do like a good number of their songs, and I think Happiness...Is Not A Fish That You Can Catch is a great album. So a disappointing show for Our Lady Peace means that they barely fail to make 80%.

3.9/5

Mute Math @ The Pageant (10/23/2009)

Remember the season premiere of The Office where Michael, Dwight, and Andy try to make a Parkour video, and Andy ends up getting hurt? Well, that could be me for the next week or so. Except instead of yelling "Parkour!" like an idiot, I'll be yelling "MUTEMATH!!1!". More on that later.

The show started off on a good note, as the first song by unknown (to me at least) As Tall As Lions appeared to portend a new surprise find. Sadly, though, this turned out to be their best song of the evening. The rest of their multi-instrumental performance wasn't bad, but it didn't inspire me to check out more of their music. A few of their songs had pretty interesting riffs and melodies, but the singer often appeared to be singing to a different song, as his key didn't quite match the music. Perhaps he did match, but I just wished that he had gone in a different direction.

The main performers made up adequately for the misfiring openers. They played a good mix of songs from both the first and the new albums, with their biggest hit, "Typical", showing up somewhere in the middle. It was during this song that we saw the first glimpse of the crazy acrobatics that these guys had up their sleeve, as Paul (the lead singer) started off the song by jumping off the top of his main keyboard stand. Some high moments included "Odds" (my favorite song off the weaker new album) and their first jam session, which was one of the best that I've seen live. It consisted mainly of a danceably furious pounding beat and some synchronized light work. It's too bad that their other jam sessions were more like the typical (pun intended) fare that most bands provide. They also had a few nice props, including a moment when Darren (the drummer) beat the first half of one of their songs on 4 virtual drums set up by the big screen.

By the end of the show, the guys realized that they had to prove that they are totally nuts. First, Paul did some hand/shoulder stands on his keyboard stand during one of the songs. And then on the very last song of the encore, which was announce as "Reset" but ended up segueing into "Break the Same", all hell broke loose. By the end of the song all of the following had happened:
(a) Paul hopped his keyboard stand
(b) Greg (the guitarist) walked on Paul's keyboard stand
(c) Darren took the bass drum to the crowd, had them hold it up, and then climbed onto it and stood up on it. After a few gestures indicating that we could not deny his supreme awesomeness, he hopped off it and back onto the stage.

So it's only natural that after the show I took every opportunity I encountered to hop off a railing, curb, chair, or some other furnishing in a manner that allowed me to practice my own brand of freestyle walking. And each time that I did it, I yelled out "MUTEMATH!!1!" in the spirit of "Parkour!". We'll see how long this fad lasts.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that Darren duct tapes headphones onto his head during the show. Crazy, I say!

4.2/5

Online dating statistics show that we're a bunch of racists.

OK, so maybe that characterization was overly harsh. But perhaps not by as much as you might think.

In the process of checking on some recent activity on my OkCupid (a free on-line dating and networking website) profile, I stumbled across the site blog, which has a few posts that provide interesting insight into patterns in online dating.

For example, one article shows how their users of different races and religion match other potential partners. The statistics suggest that religion plays a significant role in the matching potential, but race does not.

Another post, however, reveals that message response rates don't correspond to match potential when segregated by race. A couple of interesting points of note: black women are the most responsive yet are the least responded to, while white men are the least responsive even though they are the most responded to.

I think it's fantastic that OkCupid publishes studies like this. I echo the blog author's sentiments in wishing that the major online dating sites would do the same.

Chinese people know how to throw an effing parade.

I've never really liked parades. But maybe that's because I've only seen the weak sauce that they use here in the States. In comparison, China's 60th anniversary parade puts anything that we do here to shame. Check out pictures here:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/10/china_celebrates_60_years.html
Reminds me of the awesomeness that was the opening ceremony at the Beijing Olympics.

But then again, would I rather be Chinese and have awesome parades, or be American and have weak ones? Hmmm...I guess I'm good after all.

Michelangelo's David might not be the coolest statue any more...

Those crazy Japanese people have built a 60 foot Gundam statue in Tokyo. And it moves. I wish that (a) this had been started when I was in Tokyo last year (b) I had known about it at the time. You can probably find better pictures and videos elsewhere on the web, but here are a couple of links:

http://gizmodo.com/5294231/full-size-gundam-video-it-moves-it-moves

http://gizmodo.com/5289548/activated-full-size-gundam-robot-looks-totally-absofrikinlutely-zomg




Unfortunately, the statue has recently been disassembled.

How many of these mispronounciations do you use?

http://www.yourdictionary.com/library/mispron.html

I'm guilty of about 5%, which isn't too bad (assuming the source is authoritative). Thanks to Jen for the link.

No, I did not change my mind about not wanting that desktop shortcut.

Dammit, Apple...why do you have to be so insidious about shortcuts to your software? When I first installed Safari (which I must admit is actually a pretty good browser - perhaps good enough to displace Opera and IE in my hierarchy), I deleted the desktop and taskbar shortcuts that you placed there without asking me. Now, after updating Safari, and having to uncheck the box that would install iTunes (which I never wanted in the first place) as a tag-along, you have replaced the desktop and taskbar shortcuts once again without asking me. Why can't you just:
(a) only install what I ask you to?
(b) ask me before placing shortcuts?

Your current behavior is not helping you to win me over.

Even government employees can appreciate my racially charged jokes.

We had a technical review with the government today for our USAF suite update. The presentations were running late, so the guy who was slated to go after me wasn't around to give his presentation. His name is Mike Eschweiler, and he's white...this will be useful information later. So I volunteered to give his presentation for him, since I was working on that item, and was familiar with it. When I got up to the podium after the meeting reconvened, these were my first words: "Alright...so I guess I'm the younger, darker version of Mike Eschweiler...". Thankfully, I received many laughs (a.k.a. LOLz), so I didn't have to worry too much about having offended someone.

P.S. - I also found out today that I was promoted. W00t! Oh, wait...that doesn't really change anything, except for the number after my job title...and a little extra change. So I guess I can't complain.

Phone tech update.

A couple of developments regarding phone tech over the past few days...

First off, I received my coveted invitation to Google Voice. The mass message with my new phone number will be sent out shortly.

Secondly, I acquired a new cell phone - the Nokia N97. I selected this because it was one of only a few phones currently available that had all the features I was looking for (3G/GSM, GPS, Wifi, Bluetooth, touch-screen, physical QWERTY keyboard). I had to wait until my trip to Chicago to get it because I wanted to actually use it before I committed, and they are only available at Nokia stores. One advantage of this is that it is unlocked, so I can use it on any GSM carrier - which fits in with my desire to avoid cell phone contracts for the rest of eternity. After reading a few reviews, I was fearful that I would be disappointed with the phone because of the "archaic" Symbian S60 operating system and the inconsistent menus (some take one tap to select, some take two). However, I'm pretty pleased with it so far, though the UI is not as fancy as the iPhone or Android. Overall, it's a win.

Africans in America.

CNN ran a story about Africans in America (http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/14/africans.in.america/index.html) that was interesting to me for a few reasons (thanks to Greg for the link).

First of all, I am a second (or first, depending on how you define it) generation American with Nigerian roots. I can definitely relate to some of the experiences that the subjects discuss in the story (e.g., relating more to values of white Americans, and being teased because of this).

Another hilariously interesting point the article makes is how (in addition to stereotypes black Americans have about Africans) Africans have stereotypes of black Americans - Africans portray them as a bunch of gangsters and criminals.

Lastly, as a kid I lived in the same neighborhood in Nigeria as one of the guys mentioned in the story: Chinedu Ezeamuzie.

This brings me to the my dislike of the misnomer "African-American". Not only is it too many syllables when a simple word like "black" would do, it does not accurately describe the group it is used to represent. Not all Africans are black (see this related story). In addition, black Americans in general have pretty much no connection to the continent of Africa these days. I don't object to being called an African-American - because I indeed am one. However, if all you mean to say is that I am black, just call me that instead.

5 people that I wish had Last.fm accounts...

...and used them...and were my friends on there. In case you don't know, Last.fm is an online social cataloging website that tracks the music that you listen to.

1. Brian George. He basically introduced me (though I had heard one of their songs before) to my most favoritest band in the whole wide world. He's also turned me on to quite a few other good bands.
   
2. Chike Orjih. After living with my bro for almost a year, I'm realizing that our musical tastes are more alike than I had previously thought. I've definitely had a few "Hey, what's that you're listening to?" moments that have resulted in pleasant discoveries.
   
3. Adam Tsacoumangos. Although he hasn't yet given me any referrals, we have significant overlap in our musical collections. We also have a lot of the same interests in general.
4. Jason White. Similar story to Adam, and a top concert companion. I'm still waiting for him to blow my mind with something.
5. Robert Schwartz/Tom Musick. What top-5 list isn't complete without your best buds? So what if that's technically 6 people?
   

A racial divide in online social networking?

This article is an interesting read. The author hypothesizes a white flight of sorts from MySpace to Facebook (or, as I refer to them at times, MyFace and Spacebook). I think I was part of that flight. Does that mean I'm white? Don't answer that.

Tired of junk mail?

I know I am. I came across a website with some tips on how to stop people from sending you junk mail: http://www.ecocycle.org/junkmail/index.cfm. I've done a couple of the things on there and it seems to have helped a little bit, though not too much. They also provide a link to the website of an organization that you can pay $41 to significantly reduce your junk mail (by about 80-95%) for 5 years. A novel idea, but I don't think I'm quite ready to pay someone to do that just yet.

What is Google's civil responsibility?

Here's an interesting article about a two-pronged lawsuit that's being brought against Google:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10278274-2.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

The first claim that Ascentive makes (though they are not the first to do this type of thing) is that Google wrongfully allows other companies to purchase ads using Ascentive's trademarks. More on this in a bit.

The second claim (this is where they are trailblazers) is that Google unfairly removes their websites from search hits. The article goes on to explain why Google had dropped their sites (due to a malware warning), but to me this is immaterial. As the legal expert quoted in the article says, there's no way this claim gets anywhere in the lawsuit. I don't see how Ascentive can allege to have any say in how Google provides search results. Despite the ubiquity of Google search in society today, we must remember that this is a service provided by a private company - the pages of google.com are not owned by the public. As a side note, not many people realize the possible implications of having so much of their data on the servers of such private companies. And those that do don't seem to care (e.g., yours truly). But that's probably a separate blog post...

Back to the first claim. At first glance, it might seem wrong for Google to allow advertising with registered trademarks. But who's really doing wrong? I submit that the fault lies solely with the company that advertises using a trademark that they do not own. Google simply provides a service - it is the other company that misuses the service. It shouldn't be incumbent on Google to check that every ad they sell does not violate a trademark.

If I were the judge on this case, it would get tossed out faster than Matt Levine at a country line dancing bar (inside joke).

A wiki for Nigerian names.

I just stumbled across this:
http://www.nigerian.name/w/index.php?title=Main_Page

There aren't that many names currently, but both my first and middle names (Obinna Chukwuemeka) are listed. So people should believe me now when I say that my name is pretty common in Nigeria.

Speaking of which, there seems to be some Obinna Orji guy who may have as much of, if not more of, a web presence as I do. I'd take him on, but he seems to have studied at Harvard, so I don't think I have a chance (Harvard is the singular university I was not admitted to when I applied as an undergrad).

Chike's portfolio is now online!

http://www.chikeorjih.com

There might be a reason that singles are chosen as singles.

Tim Mason once asked me an interesting question along these lines (I am paraphrasing because I don't recall the exact question):
Do singles tend to be people's favorite songs off an album because they're the best songs, or because they're popular (since they are the singles)?

While we pondered this, one approach we took was to consider the experience of discovering a new band. When this happens, I tend to latch on to a song or two that become immediate favorites. These are the songs that I look forward to, and perhaps repeat, while listening to the album. These usually end up being my favorites even after I have become fully familiar with the album (though that is not always the case). We wondered how often these favorite songs, end up having been released as singles (unbeknown to us). A hidden assumption here is that we didn't discover the band as a result of hearing the single, as this would increase the chances of a correlation.

I guess the point of this post is to point out a recent correlation. I have been downright obsessed with the song "My Girls" by Animal Collective (whom I recently discovered) for the last couple of months. It turns out that it is the first single off their most recent album, Merriweather Post Pavilion. Reviews of the album (their 8th) suggest that it is their most accessible to date. I would agree after going back and listening to a few of the earlier ones. I still wouldn't have expected to hear them on the radio since their sound is definitely not mainstream (though I never listen to radio). I was pleasantly surprised when I heard this song on the radio last weekend while visiting in KC. Since then I looked up some info on the band and found out, in addition to the singles, that the album has done fairly well on the U.S. charts (peaking at #13). I will say, though, that the second single, "Summertime Clothes", from the album is not my other favorite - that distinction goes to "Brother Sport".

So is there any real conclusion from this? I guess not. Perhaps I should commission a study to see how often this actually occurs in my music experience...

Your web browser can soon be your web server.

At least that's the goal of Opera Unite (http://unite.opera.com/). I can definitely see the web headed in that direction, though I doubt (unfortunately) that Opera will be leading the charge...I'm sure Microsoft, Google, or some other bigger name company will steal this idea. My question: will such browser/servers provide enough functionality for me to ditch my paid hosting service?

The Amtrak experience.

This weekend I rode on Amtrak for the first time for a trip to Kansas City to visit Justin and Ashley. I have to say that I was quite satisfied with the experience. The round-trip ticket from StL to KC cost $52, about $10 more than I would expect to pay for gas. The trip was also longer (5 hours and 40 minutes vs. ~4 hours), but I didn't have to drive (w00t). The accomodations on the train were pretty good - there's lots of space between the seats, and a 120-volt outlet is provided for every seat. The ride was also surprisingly quiet - the loudest part was when they would blow the horn. I would definitely consider using Amtrak more in the future, but the only major cities with direct service from the Lou are KC and Chicago.

Yet another web browser - but this one is kinda interesting...

Flock - The Social Web Browser
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flock_(web_browser)
http://flock.com/

Why it's interesting:
It integrates many aspects of your social web presence into the browser.  For example, there are widgets built into the browser to manage a myriad of your accounts, including Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, GMail, Yahoo! Mail, Blogger, etc.  In fact, I'm using the blog post feature of the browser to create this very post.

Other points of note:
It is based on Firefox, and has a somewhat similar feel...sorta.

Will it become my new default web browser?  Highly doubtful.  But it's still pretty neat.  Perhaps the new order of preference will be:
Firefox
Chrome
Flock
Opera
Internet Explorer

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Compton Hill Water Tower

After 2 years, I finally made it up to the Compton Hill Water Tower, which is only a few blocks away from my house. The tower is open on the first Saturday of the month during the spring, summer, and fall, and admission costs $5. While it's nothing terribly impressive, it was probably worth the 5 bucks to go up once. Here are a couple of shots from my excursion:

My first official Wikipedia edit.

I've made a couple of minor anonymous edits before, but I just made my first edit (actually, 2) with my Wikipedia account. I was reading a story on CNET about Jeff Moss (a.k.a. Dark Tangent) being named to the Homeland Security Advisory Council, and decided to look up his Wikipedia page. I noticed that the page did not have too much information on it, and lacked this recent piece of news. I dutifuly added this to the page with a reference to the source article. Go me! You can see my contributions here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Obezma.

World stats

http://www.worldometers.info/

Interesting.

Anticipated tech: Google Voice

Since I can't take my cell phone into work with me, some people have a hard time reaching me (because they don't have my work number, and because they don't realize that I'm an e-mail addict). With Google Voice, I would be able to have one phone number dial all three of my phones. Brilliant! Unfortunately, Google Voice is only in a closed beta right now. However, the FAQ page indicates that they will opening it up in a matter of weeks. You can learn more about it, including its other cool features, here: https://www.google.com/voice/about#.

Wolfram Alpha

Wolfram Alpha is the new "computational knowledge engine" that everybody's talking about (well, all the nerds are). If you don't know what this is or haven't seen a demo, check out this video: http://www.wolframalpha.com/screencast/introducingwolframalpha.html. It's kinda long, but you'll probably get the idea after a couple of minutes.

I don't think this is gonna put Google out of business or anything, but it does look pretty awesome.

Meat poisoning and geeking out.

Note to self: don't enter another eating contest against Steve Mitori. A group of 11 coworkers (and some friends/family) got together last night for dinner at Bacana, a classy churrascaria buffet. Steve and I wanted to settle once and for all who had the bigger appetite, as we were uncertain after past dining experiences together. Despite his slight stature (I would guess 5'-5'', 130 lbs), the man can put the food away. This time, I was to match him bite for bite - everything he ate, I had to eat as well.

I hung with him for a good hour or so through many cuts of meat (my favorites were the garlic fillet and the bacon-wrapped chicken), a plate of sides, and a plate of salad. In the end, however, he prevailed by eating an extra cut of tenderloin and a lime mousse desert. The triumphant moment was immortalized in picture, and I don't look forward to its appearance on Facebook. Congratulations, Steve.

After dinner, a few of us joined a few others (11 in total) for the Star Trek movie. The movie was pretty solid (3/5 on the Netflix scale) and I didn't throw up during it from meat poisoning, but there was a guy sitting in front of us whom I wanted to punch in the face several times for making annoying comments that I'm pretty sure only he thought were humorous. Being the grinch that I am, I was also annoyed when the audience erupted into an ovation at the end of the movie - this is one of my pet peeves.

Speaking of Star Trek, I was surprised the other day to find a Star Dates calendar had been added to my Google Calendar account. I later found out that those tricky Google folks had done this automatically for anybody with a Star Trek event in their calendar. Sneaky, sneaky...

How good are you at eyeballing stuff?

Play this game and find out: http://woodgears.ca/eyeball/.

I'm not bad, but then again I'm not as good as I would have hoped.

Believe it or not, my presence on the Internet is not so unique.

As of right now, if you do a search for "Obinna Orjih" on Facebook, I will not be the only result that shows up. This is because my name on there is "Obi Orjih". But this raises the question of whom exactly is this other Obinna Orjih on Facebook. I wondered this, so i sent him a message to say hello. As a consolation, if you search for "Obi Orjih", you get both of us.

Real-time shoe sale tracking.

This one's for the real nerds out there. Zappos, the online shoe retailer, has an application which shows the location of shoe purchases in real time on a map of the United States. Enjoy: http://www.zappos.com/map/.