Mustard Hamsters

Big Ol' News

noreply@blogger.com (Dean) — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 23:40:00 +0000

My computer came today. It is as beautiful as I expected it would be. And more.

More relevant to your interests, my payment went through to the server space company. I am now the proud owner of mustardhamsters.com.

I am working on developing my own WordPress theme as we speak. I had one made, but it was lost in the shuffle of changing computers... I am also planning to post most, if not all of my photograph library. Somewhere aroung 4000 pictures.

Things are looking good.

Update

noreply@blogger.com (Dean) — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 03:33:00 +0000

I've officially moved into college. My order status on my new iMac is "Not Yet Shipped", but as soon as it arrives you can expect more frequent updates. I'm working on some new comics, and I'm going to post my latest electronics projects.

The future is bright.

Best Bands At Archive.org

noreply@blogger.com (Dean) — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 17:04:00 +0000

Archive.org is one of my favorite websites. Really, this is what the internet is about. You can download pretty much anything that is not copyrighted, or has become public domain. They have sweet movies (try Nosferatu), books, educational resources (try this AP Calc AB lesson), and most notable a massive audio archive.

The audio archive is amazing. They have so much Grateful Dead that the band has its own section.

The best part of the audio archive is the Live Music Archive. All sorts of bands and music groups post their concerts in this section, available for download for free. Naturally, since there's so much and anyone can upload, there's a lot of crud to wade through. This is my list of the best of the Live Music Archive.

Béla Fleck and the Flecktones

These guys have over 200 concerts available on the site. They're really a top notch jazz fusion band. Béla Fleck is making new moves in the world of banjo, Victor Wooten is pushing the limits of bass, Futureman is evading taxes. They're a blast. Check out Live at the Irving Plaza.

Aquarium Rescue Unit

Awesome. Oteil Burbridge on bass makes for some serious grooves. Tight band, wailing guitar. They've been around for a while, you can find concerts from 1989 or later in the archive. Check out Live at the Astoria Lounge.

Buckethead

Our favorite masked shredder has 35 concerts available on the archive. Some serious grunge and rock going on there. Check out "Meta-Matic", "Stick Pit" and "Nottingham Lace" on Live at Southgate House. Be warned: too much Buckethead is a bad thing. It gets repetitive real fast.

Disco Biscuits

More funk and jazz to fill your soul. Disco Biscuits has over 700 concerts on the archive, and they're rarely repetitive. Try "Humuhumunukunukukupuaua" on Live at The Palace Theatre or "Liquid Lazer" on Live at Cervantes Masterpiece Ballroom.

Umphrey's McGee

These guys are a pretty serious staple of the jam band genre. Not one of their almost 900 concerts is the same, and they're all amazing. I highly recommend "The Triple Wide", so much so that I found you a concert with a preview. Really awesome all around.

Way of the Groove

I'm going to finish up with a band that only has a few concerts available, but still rocks my socks. Way of the Groove has some serious... groove. That may have something to do with the fact that TWO of the band members are the sons of the legendart Jaco Pastorius. They put down some serious tracks, mostly at the Alligator Alley. It's a shame they don't have any recent concerts to go to, I'd love to hear them play some of their dad's old songs. Check out "The Chicken" for a reminder of ol' Jaco.

Note: I believe Felix Pastorius is now working with Jeff Coffin of the Flecktones on Coffin's solo album. That's going to be major.

Enjoy the wealth the internet brings you.

World Records

noreply@blogger.com (Dean) — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 01:56:00 +0000

I found some interesting videos searching YouTube for "world records". Whether these are actual world records or not is debatable, but they're still interesting. Here are the highlights:

Skateboarding Grind

Fastest Expert-Level Minesweeper Game

Probably the most fun had while breaking a world record:
Largest Scalextric Track

This one is seriously made of win. The looks on their faces as they race, and how excited the racer girls are is priceless.

Skateboard Slalom

15 years of training. Awesome.

A world record for... human grocery store ride?

Most 90 Degree Push Ups

And most badass.

Most T-Shirt Worn At One Time

Fastest Banjo

iMac: The Resolution

noreply@blogger.com (Dean) — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 22:49:00 +0000

Welp. My iMac is getting replaced. I got a call yesterday shortly after Apple's debut of the new iMac to set up the replacement. I got another call today confirming that I will receive the model Apple released yesterday. AppleCare is upgrading me almost 5 versions: from a 17 to a 20 inch screen, from PowerPC to a dual-core Intel chip, from a 160 to a 250 gig hard drive and from no iSight to a bitchin' built in one. Oh, and the super awesome new case design.

AppleCare protection plan: totally worth the money.

My Computer: Update

noreply@blogger.com (Dean) — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 20:36:00 +0000

As I have explained before my computer is messed up.

I just did an erase and install, and the computer froze during the setup procedure. Unprecedented. It even has the same problem.

We'll see if anything improves when they replace my logic board, RAM, and hard drive tomorrow.

More lolsharkage

noreply@blogger.com (Dean) — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 00:46:00 +0000

i maded ans lolshark

noreply@blogger.com (Dean) — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 17:04:00 +0000

I also found this thread while looking for the shark picture I used.

I Stumped The Experts

noreply@blogger.com (Dean) — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 15:48:00 +0000

My computer isn't working properly, and nobody knows why. I'm pretty good with Macs (I've been using them since the old SE 30), so there's rarely a problem that I can't fix myself. Recently though, my iMac has been running its fans up really high, and the noise was getting really annoying.

I opened Activity Monitor to try to find out what the issue was. Apple's Mail program was reporting back as using between 80 and 90% of my CPU. And it stayed that way. For hours. The CPU percentage would even go over 100%, usually to about 140%, at least once to 2000%.

For the first time in years I called Applecare. I have the extended warranty, and their tech support was very helpful at first. To sum it up, we tried these steps:

I archived my hard drive and reinstalled Mac OS X.

I erased my hard drive and reinstalled Mac OS X. (Unfortunately I lost a lot of stuff....)

Now Apple's Finder causes the problem, Mail is OK.

I drove two hours each way to drop my computer off at an Apple Store.

They replaced my RAM.

My parents drove two hours each way to get my computer back.

Apple sent a technician to my house to replace the logic board (aka motherboard).

I was given my own specialist, who sent my info to the developers and said he would call me back in two days.

A week later he hadn't called. I got a new specialist who said he'd call me back the next day.

My computer starts crashing regularly.

Two days later he hadn't called. I spoke with a person from the corporate level of Apple who labeled my case as a high priority.

My computer crashes every time I attempt to work on it.

I got a call from the second technician apologizing for not calling back the next day. His kid was sick. He instructed me to erase my hard drive and reinstall Mac OS X again. Apple is also sending a technician to my house to replace my RAM, logic board, and hard drive.

I got a call from Apple's corporate supervisor making sure that I was contacted by their specialist.

I've really stumped these guys. They don't know what the problem is, and they've never ever heard of anything like it. It persists through numerous checks, reinstallations, and replacements of crucial parts. It's been a month since I first called, and I leave for school in three weeks. I hope my computer gets fixed soon.

iBookin'

noreply@blogger.com (Dean) — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 21:04:00 +0000

I just finished work at the middle school. I was too efficient for my own good, and burned through everything they had for me to do.

I did walk away with two badly broken and scrapped iBooks, worthless for almost anything. I really enjoy taking computers apart, which was probably the best part of the whole job. I just shredded laptops to pieces all day. It was amazing.

I'm working on finding good uses for the iBooks, but it's a little harder than I expected. One has a bad, barely operable, screen and a broken hinge. I've made a picture frame from it, but I'm not satisfied with just that. The other has no screen, but I have adapters to allow it to be plugged into a TV.

They're slow, and they're very broken, but I love them anyway. I'll post pictures soon.

A Fond Farewell

noreply@blogger.com (Dean) — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 14:38:00 +0000

Last night on Hell's Kitchen both Josh and Julia were sent home.

I've never followed a reality tv series before. I always thought it was pretty ridiculous to get all excited about Survivor or the Apprentice, but I figured I'd try this whole craze out on Hell's Kitchen. I love cooking shows enough to tolerate reality for them.

Josh got thrown out during the dinner service when he took a big risk by cooking food ahead of time. Chef Ramsey really reamed him out and screamed at him. It was pretty awful, but that's the "reality" portion of the show. You know it's real because no one would ever get fired like that.

At the end of the show Chef Ramsey let's some ditzy other shmuck contestant pick the two shmoes she thinks ought to be eliminated. It's down to the final four and the decision is pretty tough.

Rock, the only guy left had a pretty rough service, getting all mad when he was supposed to be cooking. Julia, who has been the underdog the whole time as a Waffle House short order cook, didn't perform perfectly either. The other girl, Jen, is a snothead.

So this doofus lady picks Rock and Julia, because she figures that Rock will get thrown out. It was a reasonable assumption, Julia is Chef Ramsey's favorite. She's my favorite too, she does a bang up job and has clearly learned the most from the experience.

After clearly painful deliberation in his own mind, Chef Ramsey sends out Julia. Although she's learned so much, she has a lot more to learn. Chef Ramsey promises to personally send her to culinary school. Reality continues as previously scheduled.

The Free T-Shirt Project Continues

noreply@blogger.com (Dean) — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 12:25:00 +0000

Tony and I continued calling companies yesterday. Since it was Sunday, it was harder than usual to get an actual person to talk to. Most of the offices we called we closed.

We did however get some good information:

Adobe Systems does have shirts. They just won't mail them to us. You need to have a business account with them. You can also buy shirts and other Adobe gear here.

FedEx will totally send you free shirts if you have a high volume shipping account or a business account with them.

We also called Ford, Buy.com, and GMC. They were all lame and closed on Sunday.

Soda Physics

noreply@blogger.com (Dean) — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 20:12:00 +0000

Sodas in the refridgerator are there to get cold. You may have noticed that if you put a new bottle of soda in the refridgerator it won't become cold as quickly as a soda that has been opened before. This is because a new bottle of soda has a higher pressure than an opened bottle.

The Ideal Gas Law explains that the pressure of the bottle multiplied by the volume of the bottle is equal to the number of moles contained multiplied by the gas constant multiplied by the temperature.

Since a full soda bottle's contents will always have the same volume, the same number of moles, and the gas constant is... well it's constant, we can say that the pressure of the bottle is directly proportional to the temperature of the bottle. The higher the pressure is, the higher the temperature must be. This means that a refridgerator has less of an effect on a bottle that has not been depressurized.

I want cold soda, and I want it sooner rather than later. It helps if you unscrew the cap once before putting a new bottle of soda in the refridgerator.

Why Coon Skin Hunting Caps Are Better Than Laptop Computers

noreply@blogger.com (Dean) — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 18:03:00 +0000

Head-warming capabilities.
No error messages.
Works just as well off-line.
Fur.
Ladies love em.
Less expensive.
Good place to hide things.
INfinitely more rock n roll.

Social Networks

noreply@blogger.com (Dean) — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 15:33:00 +0000

While poking around on Dosh Dosh I found a website that's apparently getting pretty popular. It's called Mashable! and it seems to be trying to combine the blog news community with social networking. This is an interesting idea, as normally on the blog news community you don't spend much time with other users. Mashable! promotes that sort of user interaction in the social network format. Obviously it's good for other things too, and the site is taking off. Dosh Dosh cites a BusinessWeek article that reports 4 million pageviews per month for Mashable!

This whole social network business got me thinking about what it takes to set up your own social network. Blogs have Wordpress, which lets you download a template and run a blog on your own server. There doesn't seem to be that sort of free template for social networks. With the viral flood of web users joining online social networks, it seems like someone should have that capabilty.

Ning comes closest to what I'm thinking of. Ning allows you to join one site and become a member of hundreds of online social networks. The fewer forms I have to fill out to get into these things, the better. It seems to be adopting the Wordpress format, where you make a user with Wordpress and your account works with any Wordpress run blog, but it doesn't allow you to download and customize the code for your social network as Wordpress does. As far as I know. Ning still looks like it's worth checking up on.

140

noreply@blogger.com (Dean) — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 02:05:00 +0000

Today the market closed with Apple Inc. stock at a value of EXACTLY $140.00

140 was the year Pope Pius I succeeded Pope Hyginus as the tenth pope.
140 in roman numerals is CXL.
140 is four less than a dozen dozen, or a gross.
140 was the year Ptolemy completed his Almagest.
In Number 140 some guy mistakes frisbees for his contact lenses!

COINCIDENCE?

I THINK Nyea, probably.

Magnetic Fingers Update 3

noreply@blogger.com (Dean) — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 00:14:00 +0000

Just briefly:

I messed around with some other superglue. Be careful about what type you use and how much you use. You might have difficultly getting the magnet off if you use extra strong stuff.

See the original post and both updates if you haven't already.

Higher Learning Techniques

noreply@blogger.com (Dean) — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 18:16:00 +0000

I would like to impart upon you an interesting anecdote I came across today. I found the website folklore.org today in my websurfing travels. Essentially, it is a collection of stories from the original Macintosh computer's design team. They're pretty excellent stories, a nice mix of humor and technology that came with their 90 hour a week work schedule.

Some of them are about the people who worked there. Some of them impress you with their simplicity. Most of the stories are just plain hilarious.

One of the anecdotes is particularly revealing of the genius of the people who worked on the original Macintosh. You really get an idea of what it takes to become the kind of person to grasp something so complicated. Try thinking about things the way Burrell Smith does in this story: Make a Mess, Clean it Up!

Magnetic Fingers Update 2

noreply@blogger.com (Dean) — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 18:28:00 +0000

I have experimented with larger magnets, more magnets, and touching lots of cool stuff now. I am ready to draw some conclusions about magnetic fingers.

Supergluing magnets to your fingers is safe enough. The superglue degrades pretty quickly with a little rubbing, and it comes off of the magnet before it tears your skin. You may have to tough out a little pulling on your skin, but it *shouldn't* tear.

Supergluing magnets to your fingers is super cool. You can feel some pretty awesome sensations you couldn't feel before. I'm looking forward to finding an electric motor to test with.

The downsides of supergluing magnets to your fingers as opposed to having magnets implanted is that things are not quite as easy to remove from the magnet as they would be if it were under your skin. Superglue is not an amazing adhesive, despite its name, and after lifting a few heavy things with the magnet it tends to come loose. Regluing is a pain in the butt.

Having a magnet on your finger, implanted or not, has its own downsides. Lots of stuff sticks to the magnet, whether you like it or not. That takes some getting used to. It may not be as bad as it seems. Also, while my computer was being repaired today my brother gave me a funny look when I showed him the magnet glued to my finger. I imagine that funny looks, especially around computer equipment, are mandatory when you do this.

I recommend that you do this because it gives you a feeling, pun intended, for other senses. I think this is a neat and safe experiment for anybody who cane get a hold of the right magnet.

These magnets from Radioshack seem to be the right size (1/8") and are probably about the correct strength. If you have an iBook, check under your keyboard for a circular magnet about that size. You don't have to remove any screws to get at it.

I recommend that you use your ring or pinky fingers for the same reasons that the original article does. Give it a shot and let me know how it comes out at mustardhamsters@gmail.com

Magnetic Fingers Update 1

noreply@blogger.com (Dean) — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 14:37:00 +0000

I've made a new discovery in my experimentation with magnetic fingers. As I walked down the hall here at work, I tried touching everything in sight to test out my new "sense". The building has those special fire doors that are designed to shut when the power goes off. The doors have metal pads that stick to an electromagnetic base on the wall. I put my magneto-finger up to the electromagnetic base and I felt the exact same sensation of whirring that the original article mentioned.

Perhaps the sense is not dependent on the magnet floating under the skin. That definitely felt pretty cool.

I had to glue the magnet back on a little bit, as the glue came loose from the magnet's smooth surface after sticking to a few things too hard. I have a few larger sized magnets I could test with, maybe when this magnet comes loose again I'll give one of them a whirl.

Magnetic Fingers

noreply@blogger.com (Dean) — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 14:10:00 +0000

I recently read this article in WIRED magazine and was immediately engaged. The idea of being able to sense magnetic fields is pretty cool, but obviously the cruddy implants is not so cool.

Months later, today, I'm at work. I spend most of my time dismantling iBooks for parts. Each iBook has three or four small, but powerful magnets in it for the latch, the sleep sensor etc. I remembered that article and superglued a tiny one to my right hand ring finger.

So far I can feel obvious magnetic attraction, like other magnets and metal. I haven't experienced any sensation from a live current, yet. I also have not been able to feel the hard drive spinning in my computer as the article suggests. My ideas on this are that:

A: I'm not used to the magnet enough yet.
B: I can't feel these things because the magnet is not free floating like in these guys' fingers.

We'll see how long this superglue lasts, and whether my finger gets ripped off or not because of it.

Free T-Shirt Update

noreply@blogger.com (Dean) — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 02:31:00 +0000

My good friend Tony was searching the lovely Digg network today when he came upon this:

http://gethuman.com/print.html

This should make asking for free shirts significantly easier. I'm getting a voucher for a free shirt soon I think. We'll see how that turns out.

Extreme DDR

noreply@blogger.com (Dean) — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 13:44:00 +0000

Automatic Redirect?

noreply@blogger.com (Dean) — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 02:42:00 +0000

Sorry about that. Sometimes there's a cost to messing around... I should remember to delete added lines of code before I just waltz off.

iBook Picture Frame?

noreply@blogger.com (Dean) — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 17:35:00 +0000

I've started disassembling iBooks for work this morning. Some of these are really destroyed: the worst are the ones where the frames for the screens are snapped or otherwise ruined.

I'm starting with those. I took one completely apart, down to the last piece. The second one I took apart, but tried out the old picture frame style so popular in the modding community. It's pretty sweet. The whole thing lays flat on the desk, and I turned the screen around so it faces up. There are a couple more with ruined frames like this, maybe I can make one for the school to use as an awesome message display and ask for one for my own purposes in return?

Probably not, but it doesn't hurt to ask.