Anyone who has owned a cat for even a short amount of time has eventually done this kind of thing. And it’s always funny; the hilarity ensues from the fact that the cat always looks either:
a) unaware
b) uncaring
~jeff
> Subject: Re: Resume
>
> Dear Ms. Torguswaithe,
>
> Please find enclosed the sample artwork intended to be an addendum to my
> resume to which it should have been attached, but was neglected, as it had
> become detached during the stapling process, and was left, rather than
> appended to the resume as was intended.
>
> I apologize for any inconvenience you may have suffered due to the
> inconvenience of having these two letters, rather than the one that would
> have taken place had the enclosed artwork sample been affixed in the
> appropriate manner, that is, in the envelope in which it would have been
> enclosed, save for the aforementioned neglect that led to its being put in
> a separate enclosure, that is, another envelope.
>
> I hope you continue to consider me as viable for the position for which
> you are considering me a potential candidate, and I hope that the neglect
> of the aforementioned (and herein enclosed) artwork sample does not deter
> you from selecting me as a possible worker within your firm in which I
> have applied and you already work, unlike me, who does not work for you.
>
> Sincerely,
> Joshua Newman
>
> Enc.
Since no one asked for it! The official amimorganfreemanornot.com widget is available for Dashboard/Mac OS X 10.4, in all its 0.1 glory.
TO DO:
~jeff
I don’t know about you, but my iPod’s got so much music on it that I have a hard time finding anything to listen to. I wind up listening to the same music I always have because it’s what leaps to mind. Or, I wind up trying out something that, I dunno, what was that thing? Oh, its really screetchy. I’ll listen to it later, you know?
These guys did some smart thinkin’ about it and wrote up these little smart playlist specs. Then they shared them with us!
In other news, Lawnmower Man 2: Job’s War might be the worst movie ever made. It’s in tight competition with Freejack.
Here’s a little preview of something I’ve been working on. Click to play *(QuickTime 7 required)*:
…another teaser here.
~jeff
Maybe everyone else in the world knows about this, but I didn’t:
1. Add “AOLYellowPages” to your AIM/iChat buddy list.
2. Send an IM to “AOLYellowPages”. Type “cl”, space, and then your zip code.
3. Type in a description of the local business you’re looking for. AOL will IM you back with details. It’s keen.
Thanks to “Handsome” Harry Wilson for this tip.
~jeff
Long-time friend of ldopa and legally registered California hottie Sarah Bansak wrote me with her exercise/diet advice, and for anyone trying to get in shape this stuff is pure gold:
1.drink more water. really. drink 1 gallon per day. essentially, if
you get less than that, your liver ends up helping out your kidneys,
which is no good, cuz then it can’t do it’s job of processing your fat
into energy. so drink water all day long.2. eat more often (if you’re not already). I eat 5 meals/day. 1
breakfast, 3 lunches, and 1 dinner. you can go for 6 or 7 if you want
as well. just don’t go more than 3 hours without a meal (except when
you’re sleeping of course). and ALWAYS eat breakfast. super super
important.3. clean up your diet. in other words, don’t eat any processed food.
ie, white rice, bread, pasta, anything white, anything with sugars
(except fresh fruit). make your carb sources oatmeal (steel cut, not
instant), fruits, wild rice, brown rice, yams, sweet potatoes. make
sure you’re not eating any processed meats (ie lunch meats) or
sausages or hotdogs. stick to chicken fish and eggs, oh my. chicken,
fish, and eggs, oh my! hee hee4. make sure you get enough protein. at least 1g/lb of bodyweight
a, you want protein to feed your muscles. b, protein is highly
thermogenic. more so than either fat or carbs, so eat more to burn
more.5. if you’re doing cardio, only do it in the morning on an empty
stomach. this way you actually burn fat, and not the calories you’ve
eaten. also, make sure you always lift weights in the
afternoon/evening, after you’ve had some meals and are properly
hydrated.6.HIIT (high intensity interval training) this shit kicks your ass,
burns waaaaay more calories than steady state cardio, actually BUILDS
muscle instead of eating away at it (like distance running) and it
only takes 20 minutes.. i recommend sprints, as they are simple and
rewarding. all you do is a little light 5 minute warmup, some light
stretches, and then you sprint with everything you’ve got for 30
seconds. then walk for 1 minute. sprint for 30 seconds. walk one
minute. repeat until you hit 15 or 20 minutes. then cool down and
stretch. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO DO THIS FOR LONGER THAN 20 MINUTES. trust
me. less is more on this one. plus, if you do it right, after about
12 minutes, you’re doing everything you can just to keep from puking
your guts out.7. and for when things really seem stuck and you just can’t push
forward, i highly recommend carb cycling. hell, i recommend this from
the get go, but it takes a bit more planning than most people want to
put into their daily meals. this is where you have low, medium and
high carb/cal days. for example, my week goes (from sun-sat) low,
low, high, med, high, med, low. yes, that’s all fine and good, but
what does that mean, you ask? well, it breaks down like this:everyday i get 1.5 x my bodyweight in protein, so that’s about 157g
/day. then, on my med days, i go for about 125g of carbs, and the
rest of my cals (1500) from fat. low days, i get only 40g of carbs
(mostly from my morning oatmeal), and get the rest of my 1246 cals
from fats. on high days, i get to eat 1650 calories, with 200g of
carbs and only about 24 g of fat. as i said before, protein intake is
constant. to see this in action, check out
here, where
you can see everything i’ve eaten for like, a year.if you add one of these items everytime you hit a plateau (starting
with 1 and working your way down) you should hit your goal no problem
with very little stalemating.oh yeah, and if you’re not lifting weights yet, i suggest you get on that.
50 Glittering Gold Coins go to Sarah for this excellent and insightful advice.
~jeff
The guys who brought you the wikipedia, which in my opinion has recently reached a critical mass of actual usefulness, now turn their sights onto textbooks:
>The second thing that will be free is a complete curriculum (in all languages) from Kindergarten through the University level. There are several projects underway to make this a reality, including our own Wikibooks project, but of course this is a much bigger job than the encyclopedia, and it will take much longer.
In the long run, it will be very difficult for proprietary textbook publishers to compete with freely licensed alternatives. An open project with dozens of professors adapting and refining a textbook on a particular subject will be a very difficult thing for a proprietary publisher to compete with. The point is: there are a huge number of people who are qualified to write these books, and the tools are being created to leave them to do that.
…and this, I think, is quite seriously pretty wonderful. Textbooks are typically these hideously overpriced things, the prohibitive cost of which causes problems for both students and schools alike. A free and open alternative will be an incredible resource for the members of the proletariat all of society.
~jeff
There are no words to describe this; you just need to try it (Mac OS X only).
~jeff
“TWO-FISTED TALES OF TEPID TORPOR”
by Jeff Hobbs and Josh Newman
*thanks to tucker for digging these up*
**Issue #1**
Commander Crash Nightshade climbed the ladder to the portal of his ship, smiling to himself, and secretly basking in the cheers of the crowd behind him. When he reached the top of the ladder, he put on his trademark hero’s face and the smile disappeared. He turned around and waved firmly to the throng, who cheered in response.
This was to be a historic mission - the first man to fly a rocket all the way to Proxima Centauri. His sacrifice would be great, but the hero’s welcome on his return would make it all worthwhile.
The crowd’s noise stopped suddenly as the portal closed. Commander Nightshade strode through the halls of the ship until he got to the cockpit. He put the radio transceiver voice communicator device over his ears and mouth and clicked the thick cable into a plug marked “radio transceiver voice communicator”. He spoke into the mouthpiece “This is Commander Crash Nightshade. All devices are operating normally.”
The scratchy voice came back “Commander Nightshade, we wish you the best of luck on this mission.”
“Thank you, Command,” said Crash. He pressed a button on the dashboard of the ship and the sleek silver ship pushed into the sky. Soon, it was underway to another star, and, perhaps, to meet the strange people who lived there.
Unfortunately, even at its respectable speed of 18,000 miles per hour, the rocket took 1,401,249,600 years to arrive, and, by that time Crash Nightshade was long dead.
—–
**Issue #2**
Captain John “Stash” Russell haphazardly parked his hover-ride outside of the HoloMedia store and ran inside. Quickly scanning the racks, he picked out the latest “Xanthir Corrinda” HoloCube audio sampler and brought it up to the register. The clerk nodded knowingly — a little too knowingly, perhaps? — rang it up, and asked if Stash needed a bag.
“No,” Stash replied, “thanks.”
Xanthir Corrinda, despite being arguably the finest Synthatar3 player in the entire universe, and besides possessing a beautiful mezzo-contralto singing voice, held an important secret. She was currently extremely sympathetic to the resistance, and often allowed members of the resistance to pass messages between each other through secret encoded messages in her weekly HoloCube releases.
As soon as he returned to his hover-ride, Stash inserted the HoloCube into his specialized decodec player. As he adjusted the digital controls on the decodec, the music swelled, cross-faded into static and then suddenly a man’s voice was audible.
“Stash — this is Commander Psion. It is of the utmost importance that you meet the Baron and his henchmen at the entrance of the southern archipelago tonight. That’s where the trade will be made. The future of the resistance rests on your shoulders, Stash” The voice faded off into a virtuoso Xanthir Corrinda Synthatar3 solo.
Stash immediately gunned the engine and proceeded to the wait point. He waited and waited, scanning the horizon with his MagnaScan goggles, but the Baron’s mini-sub never emerged. Most likely that was because Stash thought that an archipelago was a narrow strip of land connecting two larger land areas, when in fact, that is an isthmus.
—–
**Issue #3**
Every day Timmy and Joey would ride their bikes to the construction site of the new houses being built near Timmy’s neighborhood. There was a gigantic dirt pile at the site, and the two would spend all afternoon playing “king of the mountain”, a game where the boys would take turns climbing to the top of the hill and throwing dirt clumps at the other. They would return to Timmy’s house laughing and covered in dirt, to the constant annoyance of Timmy’s mother, who good-naturedly cleaned them up and promptly whipped up a late dinner for the two.
On one such afternoon, the two happened upon a small, newly formed crater in the ground. Cautiously edging towards the crater, the two friends discovered a small blue cube with a small red button at the bottom of the hole. As Timmy picked it up, he noticed it was still warm to the touch. The cube was covered with mysterious and exotic looking writing, but as Timmy held the cube he was surprised to realize he could understand what it said.
“You are now the keeper of the Ultimate Annihilator. It has been sent to your planet to hide it from the unspeakable forces of evil. Whomever holds this object holds the ultimate power of the universe.”
The boys were silent for a moment as they struggled to comprehend the message.
“Dude, I dare you to press the button,” Joey said. “I double-dog dare you.”
“You double-dog dare me?” Timmy replied.
Timmy pushed the button. Nothing happened, so the two quickly forgot about the whole thing and went home to eat dinner at Timmy’s house. Timmy’s mother made meatloaf, and it was pretty good.
—–
**Issue #4**
Scratch slouched in his apartment, his black hair like a bird’s nest and his eyes glazed and focus-less. His leather pants creaked as he breathed. Beside him lay his portable armory: a bandolier, made of an advanced polymer that stretched like skin and made its contents radiate the same heat as the body under it, making the weapons nearly invisible.
Scratch knew that it was time. He had had enough of this physical realm. He wanted to dart like a sparrow over the net, feel data coursing through his veins, see the invisible, feel the insensible. He had had the socket implanted in his skull just hours ago, and the bone still ached. He fingered the new strange hole in his skull, feeling the smooth edges.
Scratch reached across his weapons for the jack and plugged it into his skull. Tragically, skull jacks did not exist and the 3/4 stereo plug pierced his brain, making him unable to remember the names of anything colored red. This was disorienting enough, but when he stood up, the jack wiggled in place, making him forget how to unplug things. To this day, he wanders around his apartment with a stereo cable hanging out of his head doing himself some really serious brain damage, let me tell you.
—–
**Issue #5**
The meeting convenes within the dark and stuffy corporate boardroom of a large company. Executives enter the room and shuffle into the seats around a large table. All are dressed normally, if rather plainly, and they all sneak furtive and nervous glances at each other as they sit.
As each man’s attention wanders past the sweaty brows and faces of the other nerve-wracked executives, there’s a sudden noise at the head of the table. Giant hairy hands come down on the boardroom table with a THUD. Only the hands and silhouette of the man at the head of the table are visible, who is completely covered in shadow except for a thin trail of smoke coming from the cigarette in the ashtray to his side.
“Gentlemen”, the man thunders, “I think we all know why I called you here.”
There is a sharp intake of breath throughout the room; a palpable feeling of danger and impending accusation fills the air.
“The boys from security have completed their internal interviews. And,” he pauses, “their findings are in.”
Another pause.
“One of us… is a robot.”
Another gasp. The room breaks into a low murmur, each man turning to the man next to him.
“QUIET!” the man at the head of the table roars. The room snaps to attention. “We are going to get to the bottom of this NOW. Not later. NOW.”
“I am going to ask each of you one question, and one question only. You will answer me quickly, completely, and truthfully. We will start with Johnson.”
The man at the head of the table turns his gaze to the man seated to his right.
“Johnson,” the man booms, “are you a robot?”
Johnson trembles in his seat. “No…” he replies.
The man, seemingly satisfied, turns his gaze to the next man.
“Weinburg,” the man booms, “are you a robot?”
Weinburg straightens in chair. “No sir.” he replies.
The man eyes him suspiciously for a moment. But he eventually turns his gaze. Systematically, the man goes throughout the entire room, asking each nervous executive in turn if he is, in fact, a robot. In each and very instance, the answer is “no”. The man seems agitated; the mood in the room turns increasingly more uncomfortable.
Finally, the man’s gaze falls on the last seat. “Klanky,” the man says. “Are you a robot?”
Klanky sits silent, save for the soft hum of a hard drive spinning up. Two accordion tube arms flail upwards and pincers snap the air. Suddenly his giant metal box of a head rotates from side to side, making a soft servomotor BZZZT BZZZT BZZZT sound. There is a whirring — giant orb-like red glowing eyes flash twice –and from Klanky’s hex-bolted chest a small punch card pops out with a “ding” sound. The man slowly pulls it out and puts on reading glasses.
“It says ‘no’.” he reads.
There is silence. The man at the head of the table takes a drag on his cigarette.
“Damn.” He exhales. “It seems we will never get to the bottom of this mystery.”
Years later, it is revealed that the man at the head of the table was the robot.
(Issues 2, 3, and 5 by Jeff Hobbs. Issues 1 and 4 by Joshua Newman.)
Here is a clear and concise overview of the major open-source scripting languages available in various forms for Windows and shipping with Mac OS X. I especially appreciate that the author gave examples of each scripting language, so you can see each language’s syntax in action.
Myself, I’m increasingly impressed and enamored of what can be accomplished using Ruby on Rails; check the movie on the site for an 15-minute overview. Lots of cool web apps are using that technology now.
~jeff
…and Apple releases a four-button mouse.
The hardware seems very reminiscent of my favorite mouse of all time, the MS Intellimouse Explorer, and the driver software looks pretty well thought out as well. The 360˚ scroll ball could be a truly nifty innovation; hopefully they’ll start bundling this mouse with new desktop macs A.S.A.P. in order to shut certain folks up. And in an odd flourish of Apple design, it has a speaker inside to make noises:
>Mighty Mouse even sounds as good as it feels. The audio feedback built into Mighty Mouse provides an aural sensation that responds to your movements. A tiny speaker inside Mighty Mouse produces button-clicking and Scroll Ball-rolling sound effects.
Intel chips, two button mice; it’s all coming to an head, people. Also a plus: it doesn’t look as much like a robot vulva as some other competing products do.
~jeff
