Tech

Speedy Delivery

Jenn was nice enough to leave me her power adaptor for the night, since she is working anyway. I just checked my order status at the Apple Store and they say the package was shipped earlier today. FedEx says on their tracking page that estimated delivery will be Friday, much sooner than next Wednesday, so that is nice. I kinda figured by Friday, from past experiences.

So, I have a computer for the night and am therefore going to watch HellBoy, as my iBook is the only working DVD player in the house right now. All the others crapped out (PS2 doesn’t like newer movies, and DVD player downstairs seems to have taken a big shit all over itself or something).

I haven’t made it to Bay City State Park yet, and with work and talk of rain I might not this week. We will see though, I do have Friday morning.

So, there is tonight’s mini update to this afternoon’s update.

Later,
nick

Ouch

I was sitting there using my computer, and I realized the light on my power cable that is usually green, was not on. This would imply that the computer was not charging. After fiddling around with the cable, trying other plugs, and various other things, I wound up ordering a new cable from Apple for $75 after tax and what not. Not something I wanted to do, but I seem to have no choice.

So, I will not be online for a while, since the adapter is not scheduled to arrive until next Wednesday by Apple’s estimate, and I have 2:05 in computing time in my battery by my iBook’s estimate. Although, I can always go see Jenn and use her charger.

So, I will see you around, and this will probably be the last blog post until I get the power adaptor in, unless something really cool happens or I am bored at work in the next 3 days.

nick

Oops

Sorry, I have been neglecting my blogging duties.

Christmas went by without too much issue. Jenn and I went to her parents on Friday, her grandmas Saturday, then back here to my grandparents Sunday. Lots of cool gifts from all around, including a lantern, clothes, and cash.

Suchyta is in town for christmas, so I saw him Monday. He burned me a Tiger DVD so I upgraded to 10.4 yesterday. Having fun with that. It’s faster because it’s all newer, better formed code, and I erased HD so bitrot is fixed, but is also slower sometimes due to higher memory use.

So, since I had to reboot to install (actually, like 5 times, as I install, upgrade, install, upgrade, etc…), I lost my uptime. I did manage to wait for a bit of a milestone though: 45 days, 3 minutes. That comes out to November 12th at 10:07 PM as my last restart. In that time, I downloaded 1.8GB of data, uploaded 425MB, read 42.5GB from the HD and wrote 48.5GB. Now, I guess I need to shoot for 60 days.

I am waiting to hear on new job as a tech page at Bay County Library. YMCA just isn’t for me, and the 2 I applied for at Delta’s library didn’t sound promising, most were taken already. Beth Rye at BCLS sounded like I have a good shot though. Should know tomorrow.

My final grades came out as A, A, A, A-. Not sure if I mentioned that. I am needless to say a little proud.

WordPress has a WP 2.0 Release Candidate out. That means sometime soon I will be upgrading from WP 1.5 to 2.0. Not sure if I will mess with the RC beta or not though.

There is probably more, as I haven’t blogged in a while, but can’t think of anything now. I will post again if I think of anything though.

In case I don’t blog again within the next 3 days, Happy New Year.

nick

Untitled 8

So, the great debate on my computer has returned. There is a security update out that I have been ignoring for a week now, but with a current uptime of 28 days 1 hour and 16 minutes, I am hesitant to install because I don’t want to restart. You may remember about a year ago I reached an uptime of 21 days 8 hours. I will let you know the final record when i decide to restart.

I was going to mention it last time, but didn’t, but decided I will now. I may have a job. I am at about 99% sure. I applied for work study at Delta and got a referral for a custodial/maintenance position at the YMCA. I went in to fill out the application and have an interview Thursday, and it seems all is set. They even went through my schedule to figure out when I can work. So, I am figuring I will find out Monday for sure, but like I said I am 99% on it right now. It is only $6.50 an hour, but no taxes are taken out because it is considered financial aid. If I get it, I can add a work category to the blog maybe.

OK, I am off to watch some TV, finish homework, and go to bed. See you all later.

nick

Radioluminescence

Isn’t that a fun word? Say it, Radioluminescence. See, told you so. I am doing a bit of a report on it for manufacturing. We have to pick a product and do a report on the manufacturing processes required for it. I decided on making radioluminescent exit signs, powered by glass tubes coated with a phosphorescent and filled with tritium. The tritium which is a heavy form of hydrogen having 2 neutrons rather than none, decays into helium-3, releasing an electron.

1 proton + 2 neutrons -> 2 protons +1 neutron + 1 electron

That electron strikes the phosphorescent creating a flash of light, in the same way the electron beam in your Tv or monitor fires electrons at your screen, which is also coated with a phosphorescent. The beta particles are mostly absorbed by the phosphorescent, and those that are not are either absorbed by the glass or reflected by it until they are eventually absorbed, releasing no radiation outside the glass tube. By placing a few of these into a housing and butting a cut-out with the letters EXIT on it over the face, you have yourself a lighted exit sign that requires no battery backup, wiring, light bulbs, or any other maintenance whatsoever, and can last from anywhere between 10 and 20 years. Yes, there are some associated risks like vial breakage and gas release, but tritium is actually the safest of all radioactive isotopes, and the beta particles emitted cannot pass through skin and any gas inhaled is passed through with your urine, and not absorbed into your bone marrow. Also, since it is still hydrogen, the gas dissipates in the air very quickly, and there is rather little in each vial anyway. Very cool stuff.

Also, i watched the Jerk today. Very cool movie, very funny. If you have never seen it, do yourself a favor and do so. It is on TV semi-often, or you can just rent it.

Other movies seen recently include Fantastic 4 (good, must do sequel, as there was maybe too much intro plot, and not enough save-the-world plot), Mr. and Mrs. Smith (good), and Elektra (not so good). Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle is sitting here too, since jenn fell asleep and missed half of it last time. I liked it, so we get to watch again. Also a very good movie if you haven’t seen.

OK, I guess that is all. Go back about your merry lives till I decided to honor you with my presence again.

nick

Finally!

Some quick announcements.

This is post 330.

The word “Alpina” has been removed form all posts, and exists only in this one. They have all been changed to the correct spelling of “Alpena”.

All links to pages on the old site (homepage.mac.com/nslyax/…) have been either removed to changed to point to the same page on this site (hooji.nfshost.com/…).

All 296 old blogs have been edited, and as far as I know, have the correct dates. Oddly, all the ones mis-dated to 12/31/1969 @4:49pm were from December 2003 or 2004. Anyway though, it’s finally done, and only took 89 days.

After 16 years of asking her, Dave Letterman has finally convinced Oprah to appear on his show, airing December 1st at around 11:35.

I finished my F@H unit for 241 more points, for 3045 points total.

That is all.

Clarification on the Poll

I have pretty well decided that my domain name will be hooji, but my top level domain (TLD) is still in question. My options currently would be anything but a .com, as hooji.com is in use until June 2006, but may become available after that. So, the poll has most of my possible choices, but the full list is .com, .net, .us, .info, .name, and .ws. There are others, but they don’t really fit. Actually, these don’t all fit, as .com is supposed to be for companies, .net for ISPs, and .info for sites that provide reputable and useful information. So, that leaves .us, which is a country code TLD for, well, the US, .name, for people’s names I suppose, and .ws, the country code for Western Samoa, but more often used as a short for website. So then, we come down to other factors, like price. .com costs $7.17 a year, .net, .org, and .info are $7.43, .us and .biz a mere $5.95, .name $7.22, and .ws $8.45. .us and .biz are actually $6.35, but are on sale apparently, and .com, .net, .org, and .name have an additional $.25 a year reg fee that the others do not. Beyond price, is availability, as I said, all are available but .com, which may or may not come available in June 2006. If I wait for it and it doesn’t, I will need to either wait another year, or just choose a different one. So, all this put together, it seems to me that /us would be my best bet, as its designated use is correct for me (actually, its the only one, since I am not a buziness, non-profit organization, ISP, company, live is Western Samoa, provide much useful info, or plan on using my name as the domain). Also, it is cheaper than most of the rest. But, just the same, I am asking for your opinion, since I honestly wouldn’t mind going for .net, and a .com is always the coolest choice, I’m just nervous of waiting and it turning out for nothing.

So, thats a “short” explanation of the poll.

If you want to choose other on the poll, or would rather see a different domain than hooji, voice that opinion in the comments for this post.

Happy Birthday Scott!

Jenn and I were driving down Wilder and I said “Ohh, we could go see Scott”, so we did. We talked for a bit about laser guided temperature probes, but then his pizza arrived so we left. Just an hour ago though, when I came home, I was greeted by iCal notifying me It’s Scott’s Birthday! I can’t believe I forgot. If you asked me what day his birthday was, I would tell you it’s today, but I just didn’t remember. So, sorry Scott. Happy Birthday.

After 72 hits from the Ask Jeeves robot in 2 days, I decided to turn off counting for robots. So, my counter will slow way down now, but its for the best. I thought it was going up pretty quick, I am at 914 after less than 3 months, but old blog took over 9 months to get that far.

I am, for the time being anyway, giving up on writing a poll. I finally did find one that works fairly well, and think I am going to stick with it. I managed to get as far as taking a vote from a form, writing it to a file, and telling you what your vote was. Reading from the file was next, but graphing is what daunted me, as well as writing in a format that was easily read from. Searching strings for specific text has always been one of my weaker points in programing.

Today we had Famous Dave’s Barbecue. Not bad at all, though a bit pricey. Jenn Chris and I went, and I think I would like to return sometime.

That would seem to be about it. No, the newer poll isn’t turned on yet, but soon. And remember to change clocks tonight.

nick

Why does a chicken coupe have two doors?
Because if it had four doors, it would be a chicken sedan!

More Updates

I made a lot of updates to the website. First, was the addition of a poll in the blog sidebar, though I may be swapping that out for a better one soon. Next, was the addition of links in the blog sidebar to the gallery and homepage. These were both by request. Then I got into the bigger stuff though, and added a header to all the site pages and changed the sidebars to only show links within the section, rather than a dauntingly long list of links you didn’t much care about. So now section links are on top, and inter-section links on side.

Also, I added all-new galleries, as well as finally getting my resume up, a to-do list, and more. There is a list of updates on the front page too. You can keep track of what I am working on on the to-do if you like, or email me with anything you want added, or just IM me.

Anyway, something else…

I finished a work-unit in folding@home finally. I got 138 points for it too. Hopefully I get smaller ones for a while now.

Jenn got me a cellphone, cause working at Covenant gets her a good deal on an add-a-phone.

OK, I think that’s all for today, probably bored you more than enough with an all-tech update.

ttyl

nick

Happy Fall

Fall is my favorite season. It’s cool out, all the trees change to cool colors (technically, yellow, orange, and red are warm colors, but you get it, right?). The air smells good (yes, even the sugar beet plant, I can smell the sweetness inside there somewhere), the last of the produce comes ripe, including the wonderful squash. It’s all just so nice. I need to go out camping in it. Maybe in 2 weeks. I love fall.

I am a little bothered that I haven’t done much here lately, but I have been busy with school and homework, so at least I wasn’t just being lazy. I need to update some webpages, work on the gallery, and fix more old blogs. At least I changed the theme. Not now though. Maybe later tonight.

Speaking of the site, Apple updated .Mac. See, long ago, .Mac was called iTools, and was free. Then, evil spammers started using the service (and Apple saw a chance for profit) and it had it’s name switched and a $99/year fee applied. So, on the day this happened, many people all signed up at once. Now, each year in September, all these people fret and complain that they, 70%-ish of the .Mac subscribers, used to get the service free, and that Apple better upgrade the service if they want them to stay members. So, Apple does. And, being September, they just did. From the original 100MB, to last years 250, and now 1GB of space, along with a few other things. Now, granted, GMail gives you 2GB, but it’s just for email, .Mac lets you use it as a remote disk. So that’s cool, but I don’t need 1GB, nor do I have $99. If there was a $20 100MB and it came with PHP and MySQL so I could keep WordPress (which I vastly prefer over iBlog) I would consider it. But, since that didn’t happen, Apple will be 1 more member short come next Saturday.

School is OK. I had a Pre-Calc test Wednesday, so no homework for the weekend, woohoo. I have a major, and a plan, and it excites me. I need to talk to a counselor at Ferris though I think, or maybe one of the counselors at Delta could help me, I don’t know.

I am running Folding@Home again. Only as a screensaver though, not the full background app. I haven’t completed a work unit yet though, after like 3 or 4 days of running it.

River of Time is this weekend. You should all go, because it’s cool. It’s another good part about fall.

Not sure what else.

I guess that’s it.

Yeah, that’s it.

Enjoy the fall.