2/28/2002
Mac Enter; PC Return
What is the history behind why Macintosh has "enter" on its keyboard and why PC has "return" on theirs? There's gotta be some reason why.
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2/27/2002
Wrigley Field Expansion
I live in Wrigleyville the neighborhood that is home to Wrigley Field of the Chicago Cubs. Personally, i hate when the community puts up such a b*** about how bad the traffic is around Wrigley Field during game days. Like duh. Of course it's gonna be bad. (personally, I don't think it's THAT bad). The pros of having a thriving popular baseball field in the neighborhood FAR outweigh the cons of some crappy traffic on for 1/5th of the year. Live with it people, or just move away. Wrigley Field has been here far longer than any of it's community residents. You move by Wrigley Field, you have to be a complete moron not to realize that you are gonna have to put up with cubs traffic.
I also made a page with links to stories about the Wrigley Field expansion. I also plan on putting up a discussion board and a poll. http://www.spudart.org/wrigleyfield
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2/26/2002
really bad banner ad
there was blinking colors, "catch the monkey", and now this...
http://www.spudart.org/etc/banner
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2/25/2002
Burrito Palace
I just got back from my ritual trip sunday meal over at the Burrito Palace (3507 N. Halsted St., Chicago). Last time I went there, the dude said to me, "chicken enchilidada to go". And i was like, "yeah dude." I couldn't believe that he remembered what i order. I'm officially a regular now. Yeah!
Every sunday at the Burrito Palace, i try to beat my time on the car racing video game they have there. You can choose from like 12 different cities to race in. I always choose Chicago. For a few months now, I've been holding the fastest time at 1:39:83. But today's race was way too accident prone. Actually, it was kinda neat spinning out and crashing so many times, because I noticed that the game even has the 311 South Wacker building on the game. (the flashlight building south of the sears tower)
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2/24/2002
24 tv show in vegtables
I was thinking of making a website with a parody of the popular tv show on fox called 24. The catch is that all the characters will be made out of fruits and vegetables.
Here's what i got so far:
Jack Bauer: lemon
Teri Bauer: kiwi
Kimberly Bauer: orange
Nina Meyers: banana
Tony Almeida: apple
Jamey Farrell: mushroom
David Palmer: potato
whatcha think?
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2/23/2002
Don't blame Ameritech
I recently recieved an email about Ameritech is going to sell your account information and that you have to call Ameritech to let them know not to do it. This email places Ameritech as a big evil meanie by doing this.
This email is very misleading. I called up that 1-800 number and asked them about it. They are not selling your information to other companies so they can telemarket stuff to you. Ameritech has parterned with Direct TV and prodigy. And they just want to make sure that it's okay if they can send stuff to you in the mail about it.
They are NOT giving your info out to other companies. You are NOT going to have more telemarketers calling you because of this.
So please don't be ripping on Amertech about this. They seem to be innocent.
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2/22/2002
more thoughts on inbetweenedness
i was just thinking more about that inbetweenedness stuff while i was playing around with a rubber band. It kinda relates to when you stretch a rubber band really far. That moment right before the rubber band snaps. How far can you stretch it? The moment before right before you push it beyond its limits.
But then I thought that doesn't quite have the quiet grand beauty to it. And it made me wonder why.
Is the idea too forced to "see how far you can push the limits" or "go to the extreme"?
With the rubberband, it's not about balance between two extremes. It's just seeing how far you can go to one extreme. The beauty behind the rain on the sidewalk and the walking on a parking meredian is the swaying back and forth. The small intricaticies that occur in that small range.
Some of these intrcatices occur over a very short period of time or a very long period of time.
Walking across the parking meredian is an example of the very short. The short period of time is neat because it's so condensed into one small moment. And capturing that extremely brief moment of flux.
The long period of time is neat, cuz the history of time is soo written into the visual record. The rain on the sidewalk. Or how one neighborhood blends into another. I like where our building is located because it's right inbetween the big buildings of the loop and all the business, but yet also right at the beginning of the shopping district. Although, there isn't that much gradientation, because there is a sharp border seperating the two...the river.
Oooo borders and espicially edges. Don't get me started on those...
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2/21/2002
inbetweenedness
you do anything crazy for 200220022002?
y'know as much as i'm a fan of this unique number and appreciate it's palendromic and balanced nature, I think the moment between balance and unbalance is much more interesting.
Like when you're walking on one of them parking lot concrete blockers. The moment right before you lose your balance completely. But if you walk across all balanced then it's too boring and stagnate. And when you fall off completely, that's also stagnant. But that brief moment of inbetweenedness where it's not quite one way or the other.
It's also kinda like when it's raining. And there's a roof. So one part of the concrete sidewalk is dry. And the other part of the concrete is darker from being wet. But the interesting part is where it gradiates from dry to wet. The inbetween area. Yeah, those are neat.
There's lots of inbetween areas all around us. It's something that i've been noticing since last fall, but just remembered it now. I think I'm gonna start shooting these and make a photo series out of it. :-)
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2/20/2002
update on 20:02, 20/02, 2002
There will be another palendromic time in 110 years! It will occur on 21:12 21/12 2112. (Dec 21, 2112 at 9:12pm). Damm, science better extend my like so i can be alive at a young age of 137 years old! Perhaps the Groundhog Croquet will still be around by then. And the last palendromic day was 29/11 1192 (Nov 29, 1192). Source: bbc
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2/19/2002
Fruit Loops
Kellogg's Fruit Loops are approximately 46% sugar.
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2/18/2002
20:02, 20/02, 2002
an email from a friend:
At 8.02pm on February 20, something will happen which has not occurred for 1,001 years and will never happen again.
As the clock ticks over from 8.01pm on Wednesday, February 20, time will, for sixty seconds only, read in perfect symmetry 2002, 2002, 2002, or to be more precise - 20:02, 20/02, 2002.
The last occasion that time read in such a symmetrical pattern was at 10.01am on January 10, 1001.
And because the clock only goes up to 23.59, it is something that will never happen again.
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2/17/2002
Criticizing Photos
I just bought Terry Barrett's "Criticizing Photographs" off Amazon.com. I've been doing alot of critiques at the awesome site http://www.photosig.com. I could always improve my critiquing abilities with this book.
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2/16/2002
Creative Workers
"If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play." -John Cleese, actor
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2/15/2002
Funny Cubs Preview
http://www.desipio.com/features/cubs/2002/021302-cubspreseason.htm
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2/14/2002
I'm gonna learn MySQL
For the longest time i've been wanting to do filemaker databases on the web with GoLive and Lasso. But the cost of hosting a filemaker database is just way too much money (around $50 a month!). But lots of hosts have cheap deals with MySQL as a standard feature. So I think I'm gonna try to learn MySQL to add some kickin database features to artiwu and some other sites I'm working on.
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2/11/2002
Potato Chips and Computers
I haven't eaten potato chips in years. Last week, I got the strange urge for some tater chips. I'm currently finding out that eating potato chips while at the computer just doesn't work. Your hands get all greasy, and I'm constantly wiping them off on a paper towel, before I put my hand back on the mouse. Ick.
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2/8/2002
G4
a nice rendition of the PowerMac G5
geekculture.com
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2/7/2002
More Irony
okay, now this is really creepy. not only did i do that email about solar flares messing with computers, but I just realized that earlier in the day I also made an email talking about missing files. (see below) Remember, all my spudart.org files disappeared around 9:20am, this email was sent at 8:30am.
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From: Maldre, Matthew
Sent: Thursday, February 7, 2002 8:29 AM
To: 'spacepics@yahoogroups.com'
Subject: RE: [spacepics] Re: 2/6 Cosmic Infrared Background
but why are black spots in that picture all bitmapped? Are black holes some sort of computer phenomemon? is that where all my missing files go?
here's the link to the picture
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020206.html
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Irony
Only 20 minutes after I made my post about solar flares and computer problems (see post below), I had my own computer problem! A big one. All the files on my website http://www.spudart.org got deleted! That's right a mere 20 minutes after proclaiming computer problems because of the high solar flares, all the files on the my spudart.org site were gone! Blast you solar flares!
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Expect Computer Problems today
We are under a current solar flare attack from our sun. A rather large coronal hole on the sun is shooting magnetic rays towards the earth at current speeds of 591.5 km/s. Expect speeds as high as 800.0 km/s.
http://sec.noaa.gov/ace/MAG_SWEPAM_7d.html (the yellow one)
http://www.spaceweather.com
Better put on that aluminum foil deflector beanie
http://zapatopi.net/afdb.html
Yes, I have been on a outer space bug lately
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2/6/2002
period.
It's so neat when people put a period at the end of a single word. It gives their statement such finality. And you'd think if you used three periods at the end of a word, that would give it extra finality. But ironically the three periods do the exact opposite of one period... they imply continuance. What a world, eh?...
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2/5/2002
Jupiter's Great Spot War
It's happening right now! The great Red Spot is colliding with the Great white spot on Jupiter. This sort of battle on this magnitude hasn't happened since 1975. The overlord red spot vs. the underdog white spot. Who will win? Who will walk away an ashamed loser? My money is on the obvious winner, the red spot. Who do you think will win? The final outcome should be known by around March 7. http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020204.html
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2/1/2002
My email to NASA about Space Balloons... Don't toss 'em away!
Balloons have been used for decades to conduct scientific studies. NASA balloons are constructed of thin, 0.002-centimeter (0.8 mil), polyethylene film, about the same thickness as ordinary sandwich wrap and are as big as the Louisana Superdome. In order to take down the balloon after the study is over, the fabric is ripped causing to gently lower down to the ground.
I recently wrote to the program that runs these balloons and I anxiously await their reply...
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On your TIGER website it says, "The balloon material falls to the ground, where it is retrieved and discarded."
http://www.wff.nasa.gov/~code820/about/about.htm
Do you just throw the materials away? I think many space-addicts like myself would enjoy have a scrap of the plastic from one of your balloons. There would be so many cool things you could do with it...
* show it off to friends and family
* make little balloons for parties
* wrap xmas presents
* cover some stuff and make funky art
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What would you do with space plastic from the old balloons? Add your ideas to the "comments"
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