More cool stuff

More urban skilz - this one is kind of long and there's about 30 seconds towards the beginning where it's boring, but after that it's pretty cool

The scientific method can be fun

When worlds collide

Post #901

I just wanted to have post number 901. That's all. It has been one of my goals in life.

Cool stuff, installment 2

Animator vs Animation

Optical Illusion

New movie

Napoleon Skywalker

Hey, Ricky. Good to hear you're having a blast. (pun intended)

Hey, everybody. This is the 900th post on this blog.

Hey, Ben and Hava. Let us know as soon as Junior makes the scene, eh?

If today is 6-6-6...

...and it is supposed to mean bad things happen, I can't wait 'til next year when we have 7-7-7. That's jackpot day. :)

Anyhow, after what Ricky said in his last posting, I'm now looking for a way to get down to San Antonio to see the Regiment. I wish traveling wasn't so blasted expensive. Besides, I really need to get back to San Antonio because it's been, like, seven years since I was last there. :)

Jarrett (and any other interested chaps): the Rootisms page is located here. This is the most recent version that I have. That page has an interesting history to it. I first started hosting it on my ProNetHost site because I thought it would be permanent. But, in January of aught-five, the server went through a metamorphosis, so to speak, and I was locked out of it. At the time, I was learning to set up my own web server so I simply grabbed everything and hosted it myself. The page is still over at ProNetHost, but it's an old version that I can't touch. The current version is on my personal server. So, if anyone has more recent Rootisms, please send them to me. I will post the changes.

Hello from Rockford, IL

So I finally had time to look for a computer here at Rockford College, so I figured I'd drop the virtual band hall a line while I could. So how is everybody doing?? Everything is going great over here, I survived brass boot camp, we have 145 of 150 sets of drill on the field with music, and tomorrow, we move to a place with stadium lights so that we can rehearse from 8am until 11pm until we leave for our first show on June 17th!!! I'm not going to lie, just about every part of my body hurts right now, especailly in the mornin's, but it is some much fun and so worth it, that the pain doesn't even matter. If by some chance you come to a show, stop by and say hi, plus, I might let you touch my tuba, after all, they are the biggest tubas in drum corps!! They have 21 inch bells and are over half as tall as I am!! Well, I hope you all are having a great summer and I'll talk to everybody later!!

a thought

SMS messages...
It's scary to have them held against you in court... but it's scarier to have them read monthly by your mission president.

Where are the rootisms?
toebaai
Elder Kobus

Bad Tech

Recently, PCWorld Magazine published a list of the 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time. Okay, so it was more like the 25 Worst Tech Products of the Last 25 Years, but in computing terms 25 years _is_ all time. :) I really thought this list was well thought-out and was quite amused at some of the picks listed in the "Hit List."

On top of the list of infamy is the Internet service provider America Online, or AOL for those of you unseasoned young'ins in the crowd. AOL started out well enough. They were an upstart from an old BBS determined to bring content to the masses. They did it, too. Them and Prodigy and CompuServe, as well as some smaller, lesser-known ISPs helped to revolutionize the Internet and begin it on the journey to what it is today. However, it was AOL that almost singlehandedly turned people on to the idea of online content. This was in the ancient times, or about 1993.

That's where it gets bad. After turning people on to the idea of the "interweb" or whatever people called it, AOL had met its match. People will tell stories of how they tried time and time again to connect only to receive a busy signal. Those who were lucky enough to connect were often stifled by AOL's limited content. You see, back in the elder-days of the Internet, each service provider provided a unique subset of Internet content. It was not publicly accessible like it is today. The things that one provider allowed its customers to see was not the same as content provided to another company's customers. And there was no Google, too boot.

Anyhow, AOL became synonymous with bad quality and lack of service. Not only did they provide a lack of service, but they also tried to create a new continent with all the CDs they shipped out. How many AOL CDs have you received?

More recently, AOL has billed itself as not so much a service provider, but a content provider, providing "security" features and parental controls. I mean, let's be serious. How much security do you have when AOL wants you to use the hacker's delight Internet Explorer browser? How about none. I mean, that browser's a piece of crap. But AOLers seem to know of no other way to browse the Internet. That leads me to my final point about AOL: user ignorance.

Now, I'm not saying that everyone who's ever connected to the Internet through AOL is a complete moron. What I am saying is that from a tech support standpoint, my worst clients are AOLers. They often don't know basic things about how to operate their computers. And getting them to give you their email address is like pulling teeth. You ask, "Ma'am, what's your email address so that I can send you this invoice?" They say, "It's ahansen, with an 'e.'" I get the feeling that they don't realize that there are about a gazillion email providers out there. They think that AOL is the only service around.

Anyhow, I just wanted to back up PCWorld's claim that AOL is the worst of the worst. I hope that I didn't offend anyone. That was not the intent. If any of you are AOL subscribers, I hold absolutely nothing against you personally. I just find that AOL is a bit, uh, misguided in their approach to online content. Now, don't even get me started on Microsoft... And, no, I'm not a Mac guy.

Ta Ta!

Yo Ho

Here are some nice 3D rendered vids of how merchant galleons were constructed.

woohoo

check out diego's blog for some percussion ensemble pictures. Woohoo!!!

Capture the Flag

Ricky, you have yourself a fantastic summer. I'm so jealous.

Just in case anyone is interested, I posted up another 11 videos on the DC podcast.

This guy knows a lot about how paper works.

And speaking of flags, I saw a funny bumper sticker: If you must burn our flag, please wrap yourself in it first.

lols + ok, bye

My summer tour contact info.

So as I'm sure most of you know, I'm going to be on tour this summer with the Phantom Regiment Drum & Bugle Corps of Rockford, IL. I'm very excited cause this is my 1st year marching in drum corps but also a little sad that this is also my age-out year. But my excitement way covers up that!! Anyways, because I'm going to be gone, I won't see many of you (probably all of you) until I get back so if you want to get a hold of me, here are 2 ways:

1) You can send me an email to my hotmail account, tubaribonephone [@] hotmail [dot] com but it could be a long time before I'm able to get to a computer, so believe it or not, this next option is actually the best one and the fastest.

2) You can send me stuff through the mail, be it letters or packages. It really doesn't matter, just nothing to huge. It'd be nice to hear from you people while on the road, if anything to remind me of home (although, I'm not sure how much I'll miss Utah, but whatever... j/k!). You can send me a letter about how your summers been going, about how your day was, about how much you hate your girl/boyfriend or just random thoughts you've been having. It really doesn't matter. You can also send me some pictures so that I can make my bus seat feel a little more like home. Packages are very welcome and things such as cookies are greatly appreciated, especially if they are chocolate or peanut butter, or both!! So, if you choose to send me anything, here is the address:

Phantom Regiment
5050 E. State Street
Rockford, IL 61108
Attn: Ricky Lopez

Click all of this to see our tour schedule, as of 4/25/06 If you are going to be at or around any of our shows, don't hesitate to stop by and say hi.

If there is anything else regarding contact info. that I haven't put on here that you are curious/want to know about, just drop me a line. And if you want me to send you a letter while I'm on tour but don't want to write me 1st, just give me your address. Well, talk to ya'll later, hopefully before I leave, if not, then after tour.

Ricky

Yay!

Free SkypeOut! I'm excited!! Thanks for the heads-up, Jon.

Harvesting Entropy...

Cool stuff

Jason, that's awesome. Ricky that's awesome.

Here's my awesome contribution for the day: tool-assisted run of Mario 64

Update: embedded vids









"As far as we know, this is the first time in history when unlimited calls to a standard telephone network are free without any form of payment or subscription. That’s kind of cool."

Yes, my friends - SkypeOut within the US and Canadee is now free as a bird till the end of the year.

ONLY 11 MORE DAYS!!!

That's right, only 11 more days until I leave for tour with the Phantom Regiment. But more on that later. I wanted to share this pic with ya'll. It's getting to do moves like this (see below), appropriately titled "flying cadet", that are just one of many reasons I love drum corps, both as an art and a sport.

Check out the Soprano (trumpet) player in the front, FREAKIN' AWESOME!!!

Well, later everybody.

Birds!

So, it's been a long time since I've posted anything. I didn't have much to talk about, until now. So, I'm home for the summer. We have an old, broken-down car in our driveway. The battery is not there and there are many othere problems with it. So, it's just been sitting there for about a year. For the past few days I've noticed some very loud chirping outside, but could never locate where it was coming from. Then, today, I realized that it was coming from this car. I popped the hood and found these 4 little chicks in a lovely nest. All I can say is...clever bird!

Google Universe

Well, not exactly Google Universe, but it's pretty close. It's an app called Celestia and it gives you the ability to survey the solar system the same way Google Earth lets you survey our beautiful planet's surface. You need some pretty powerful, gamer-type hardware to view it on, but even at my crippled, less-than-spectacular level, it's still spectacular. Now, if I could only stop it from rendering every single piece of cosmic dust...

http://www.shatters.net/celestia/

Email me.......

Jason,
Email me at Jeffry[dot]s[dot]johnson[at]convergys[dot]com with a number that I can contact you at, and maybe you can help me to understand these things.
See, I recently purchased a Dell and am now connecting through a router and have discovered new things in the tech biz. It's fun to learn.
I'm trying to figure out virtual servers and whatnot to improve performance, and be able to access my comp from anywhere. It could come in useful.
Looking forward to it!
PS Remember that, if you're looking at the radishes from underneath, you're probably visiting a place beyond this world!!

A total waste of time

Gambling, that is. It's a total waste of time and it's way overrated. I remember trying it out in Shreveport, Louisiana once and thinking the same thing. But this weekend we celebrated Kristin's birthday and went to Wendover and tried a bit of gambling there, too. Still, it's a waste of time and I do not understand why someone would get addicted to it.

Anyhow...

So yeah, I would like to participate in the contest, but I don't really know how to use SketchUp. I'm still working my way through the tutorials. I know, I'm a slacker and should have had them done a long time ago, but I was very busy Friday and Saturday. So far, it looks fairly simple to construct a 3D object, though.

Also, Jeff, what do you want to know about web servers/virtual servers/remote connections? I just happen to know quite a bit about them and have set them up successfully. In fact, I have a web server and some remote connections set up on my home network now. My web server is currently running on Red Hat Linux 9 with Apache 2.0.40. I have remote connections via secure shell (SSH) and via Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol (Terminal Server) to my Linux box and my Windows machine respectively. I can reach these machines anywhere in the world. Virtual servers are one thing I haven't had much experience with, but I did just learn about them last week, so the information is pretty fresh in my mind. So, if you have questions, don't hesitate to ask.

Take it easy, y'all.

Oh, let me enumerate the cool cars I spied on my way back from Bend-over yesterday:

Plenty of Porsche 911s (~$97,000)
A Bentley Continental GT (~$165,000)
A Ferarri F430 (~$199,000)
An Enzo Ferarri (current mkt value approx. $1.2M)
A Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren (~$450,000)

HI all........

BOY!!! It's been a long time!!! I miss all you guys!!
Sorry I missed Suzanne's party tonight. Work calls!!!
Marching band for next year is looking great!!
We've hired a new Colorguard advisor, and have already
put together an 8-10 person guard!!
People need to email!!
Also, who knows about web servers/virtual servers/remote connection?
I have questions people!!
Laterz!

Today is the day when superheroes walk openly among us

I saw two walking around campus this morning with their multicolored capes flowing behind. Later on, they congregated in the Dee to confer graduate status on a buncha peoples.

Congrats to all who have worked hard and completed their degrees. And a pat on the back for everyone else who just finished the semester and is looking forward to the day...

I heard some good news today from my boss-man. It looks like our programming team here at work is going to sweep the Flex 2 competition and take home the grand prize of a 42" plasma screen display and an Xbox360. We might even get invited to the conference where the release Flex Builder 2.0 (full version).

Heartened by this news I am eager to start work on the other entry we will hopefully enter. All I can say about it so far is that if you like GEwar, you'll like this.

Everyone send me your DC pix. (Thanks Melissa)

***

I found out that I love racquetball. I only played once when I was a youth, but just the other day Diego/Tiffany/Robyn/Nate invited me to come play and I liked it so much I came and played with them again tonight. I'm thinking I'll build myself a studio appartment that is just a racquetball court with an adjoining bathroom and kitchenette. I'll have a cot in the corner or something. Then if we want to play, I'll just wheel my home entertainment center on a cart out of the room and we'll throw down.