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I have been meaning to post this for a while now but am only now getting around to it. I don't normally do new years resolutions, but this year I am. Last october I noticed that every time I went to the restroom at work (or in public) I would take at least two paper towels to dry my hands after washing them. I tried to see if I could cut down to one. It worked, though my hands would still be slightly damp, but that seems like a fair trade off. Since then I only use one paper towel to dry my hands. I figure this means I am saving a minimum 520 paper towels a year. It's easy if you're ever looking for a new years resolution. Labels: life
This is unbelievable. Apparently tons of people who want to log into Facebook don't go to www.facebook.com, they type "facebook login" into google and click the first result regardless of what it links to. Today, the first result happened to link to a news article from the excellent site ReadWriteWeb.com about AIM's new integration with Facebook. The people that clicked this link thought they were on some new version of Facebook despite the gigantic red ReadWriteWeb header and URL. Panicked, these users scanned the site for a way to sign in and found a link that lets you comment on ReadWriteWeb by using your Facebook credentials. The link says "Log in with Facebook" so these users thought they were logging into Facebook. This is unbelievable. You can see hundreds of comments by "upset Facebook users" on the article here. You should read the first couple of pages of comments, they are hilarious. "I WANT THE OLD FAFEBOOK BACK THIS SHIT IS WACK!!!!!". "i need the old facebook this new one is very bad...". An employee at ReadWriteWeb chimed in: ... it's real. We've determined by looking at our traffic stats that people are doing Google searches for "facebook login" and coming upon RWW. They see the FB Connect button and assume that RWW is the "new Facebook." This has me thinking that if users are this unaware of what they are doing online, it's no wonder phishing scams work so well. It's no wonder users complain when Facebook makes a layout change. It's no wonder users don't like using a single box for entering an address. It's no wonder there are so many Hotmail users. This just proves we have so far to go before we can assume users know what they are doing or know how the internet works. As one RRW commenter wrote, perhaps we should teach basic internet use in school (much like how we learned how to address letters and write checks in school). I'm starting to agree. Labels: aroundtheweb
It was an unsuspecting afternoon. I had just got back to lunch with some coworkers. Sara IMed me and told me her stomach hurt, kind of like a stitch in her side. I gave her a sadface. A while later, she told me it really hurt. I asked if I should take her home but just then I got a call from her boss saying I should come get her. Sara was in so much pain she had to stand (*not* lay down) at an awkward angle to get some relief. We went on a painful ride to urgent care. There we waited 15 minutes or so to see a lady who had us wait 15 minutes or so to see a "doctor". The "doctor" came in and asked a few questions, then made Sara lay down (the most painful of positions for her) while he pressed directly on her torso and abdomen right where her pain was. "Does that hurt?" he asked her. I punched him. Of course it hurt. "Well, we don't have an ultrasound machine here to see what's happening so you'll have to go to the E.R." Awesome. On the way to the E.R., Sara was in so much obvious pain, I was honestly worried she was going to pass out in the back seat. We got to the E.R. at Rose Medical Center and despite what the news reports say, they were not over-crowded and the wait was only seconds-long. They took her back and within 20 minutes she had her first and second doses of morphine. That didn't help. She was still sitting on the edge of the gurnee with unbearable pain. Dilaudid helped somewhat. They did the ultrasound and found no gallstones or kidney stones or anything. They did a chest x-ray and found no problems with her lungs. Then the doctor told us they were going to do a cat scan which "is an expensive test" (his words). The cat scan came back with everything looking normal except a little swelling in the appendix. After consulting a surgeon, they decided she should have surgery in 30 minutes. Happy Wednesday! Sara hasn't ever had surgery before and neither of us have ever had any serious procedure like this so it was kinda scary. She did incredibly well and her parents were there with me to see her off to the operating table. She actually looked very cute in her little surgery hat and I took a picture that I'm not sure she knows about. About 2 minutes after she went in, my parents got to the hospital. After an hour or so, the very tired-looking surgeon came out and talked with us for a uncommonly long time which was very nice. He was able to do the procedure laparoscopically so she only has 3 less-than-an-inch scars on her belly. I stayed with her through the next evening when she was able to go home. She is doing relatively well now but still has a lot of pain and a stupid headache. Thanks for all the well wishings so far, I know she appreciates it.
I hate passwords. I'm pretty sure everyone does. You create one password that you use for everywhere so you don't forget but you know that it's not very secure. The other day I had to create a password on a site I will end up using once or twice a year. For this reason I wanted to use a common password of mine but the site only allowed passwords with a length of 6-10 characters and needed to include one number. Well my regular password did not fit this description so I have to make up a new one that I have never used. Now, I guarantee, the next time I go to log in, I won't remember this password because of it's restrictions. Then I will fail to log in and have to create a new password where it will tell me those restrictions again and I will remember what password I probably made for the site. This is why I hate password restrictions like that. The worst thing I've come across is a site where you have to enter your "pin" as a password. I always spend forever entering in all the number combination I can think of only having to reset my pin, only to find out that your personal identification number can include alpha *and* numeric characters. Awesome. I also came across this list of passwords twitter doesn't let you use because they are too common. My favorites: computer, hooters, marlboro, qwerty, thx1138, and the ever classy trustno1 Labels: web
When I first got an iPod in December 2003 I found a cool feature. You can actually rate your songs as your listening to them. I thought this would be fun to do as I listened to music and I would eventually have all my songs rated. Well, here we are, 6 years later and I finally finished. I have rated all 4,457 of my iTunes songs, one by one on my iPod. I thought I would share some info on my ratings. First, I should point out that I am a tough rater. You have to earn those stars. I find I rate lower than my friends and wife. Here is my scale:
For the bored and interested, I have compiled some statistics about my ratings. 4,457 Songs Total 5-Star: 213 songs (4%) (Made up of 100 Artists) 4-Star: 598 songs (13%) 3-Star: 1245 songs (28%) 2-Star: 1629 songs (37%) 1-Star: 787 songs (18%) Most Played (and Highest Rated) Song: Mike Doughty - The King of Carrot Flowers (Neutral Milk Hotel Cover) Albums With the Most 5-Star Ratings: 1) Mike Doughty - Haughty Melodic (7 tracks) 2) Neutral Milk Hotel - The Aeroplane Over the Sea (5 tracks) 3) Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness 3) Ben Folds - Rockin' the Suburbs 3) Ben Folds - Songs for Silverman Artists With the Most 5-star (and incidently, the most 4-star) Ratings: 1) Ben Folds (18 5-star tracks, 31 4-star tracks) 2) Mike Doughty (16 5-star tracks, 24 4-star tracks) Artists With the Most 3-star Ratings (thought this was interesting): 1) Ben Folds (59) 2) Green Day (54) 3) Mountain Goats (53) 4) Smashing Pumpkins (50) 5) Mike Doughty (41) 6) Decemberists (31) Most 1-Star Tracks on an Album: Beastie Boys - Check Your Head (19 of 20 are 1-star rated) [Disclaimer] Live - The Distance to Here (11 of 13 are 1-star rated) [Aaaand.. that's when I stopped buying Live's albums] Note: if you want to look at some more diverse music listening, check out my last.fm listening statistics page. Labels: music
No not really, probably it was just a good and somewhat obvious idea, but on Feb 20, 2008 I wrote a post entitled "I Want a New Google Reader Feature" and here we are a little over a year and a half later and today they implemented it! Just thought I'd share. Nice. Labels: google
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