I really don't like the word Blog

A scrape in time will save nine.

2011-08-18T11:26:00.000-05:00

As I sit here I am watching Keagan crawl up her wagon backwards, I can't imagine how it will turn out without her falling down. It is tough to watch her get into a position that may lead to her getting hurt, but I think to minimize being hurt over the long-term it is worth letting her get hurt in controlled environments so that she realizes what she can and can not do, so that she can avoid those situations in the future possibly when she could get hurt much more. It is hard as a parent to watch the events play out that will lead to them getting hurt, but a bonk on the head now may save a fractured one later.

Oh, and she made it off the wagon alright, just a bit of controlled slide did the trick.

Tip of the morning to ya

2011-08-17T12:17:00.000-05:00

You know what I really like? When I hit something, say like a bottle, and it tips a bit but doesn't fall down, but then -and this is the magical part- when it rocks back and forth subsequently it falls down. Miracles, how do they work?

Homeless people of the world: don't steal my idea.

2010-07-15T15:07:00.001-05:00

If I was homeless this would be my shtick to get the monies.

I would have a sign with a question on it, like “Which is better Coke or Pepsi” and then have room for tally marks underneath. Then I would hold a sign that says “1 vote is free, 3 for $1, 20 for $5, 100 for $10” and then ask people what they think and make sure that everyone sees me adding to the tally board so that they know it is a legit survey.

I would then make sure I was always was in the same place so that people could “check in” to see how the tally is going, and then rotate to new questions every couple of days. The reason it works is because people want something for their money, and the one thing that everyone wants to share is their opinion, so they might feel that they are getting something in return for their money given. Heck, if I saw it I would give a buck to vote (and I don’t give money to homeless people).

I would be so rich if I was homeless.

Can I get a Witness?

2010-07-13T15:59:00.000-05:00

I was going to write a post about creativity and wit being something that make humans unique. But while putting it off because I didn’t know how to address it I was luckily saved by something else I did. [But on the topic of wit. 1) It is something I just don’t think that robots will be able to learn how to do, I think true wit comes from making new ideas, not just searching through patterns in old ideas. 2) Likewise if a person is not capable of creativity or wit what good are they beyond a complex robot? OK, on with the more compelling post.]

At work I have a myriad of little “toys” that I play with while thinking about things or reading emails. They are things like push pins, bent paperclips, pencils to tap, and the like. I usually have these objects strewn all over my desk so at any time I need it I have one ready.

Today I went to Sonic for lunch, but it wasn’t just any time at Sonic, I went during Happy Hour (2-4 pm). So during lunch I got a half price Route 44 cranberry iced tea (light on the ice). I enjoyed the tea immensely while I ate my Sonic burger and medium onion rings (dipped in ketchup with salt). Everything was going swimmingly. And you know, since today has been a good day I thought I might extend the Happy Hour joy into my work hours, so I went crazy and got a (half price) 44oz strawberry lime slush to drink at work.

Back at work my plan was going fine. I had some emails to answer and a 44oz slush to hold me over. Nothing could go wrong. Well that is unless when I go to set down my slush I placed, no –merely grazed, the bottom of the cup on one of my “point sticking up” push pins. Queue a slush stream to come rushing out of the bottom of my cup. Slush was going everywhere! Not knowing what to do I set down my cup to assess the situation. Here’s how it looked: One cup with 42oz of slush in it. Said cup had a hole in the bottom of it. Holding the cup up made a stream of slush to come out of it, but currently the cup is heavy enough to not allow the slush to come out from it, but since the hole was not on the edge of the cup I knew there was a pool of slush already waiting for me under the cup.

Solution: Chew one piece of gum until all the flavor and things that make it extra squishy are gone. Then quickly pick up the cup, note the large area of slush under the cup that was set free when I lifted the cup, lick the area around the pin hole clean, and then quickly place the gum on the bottom of the cup and then set it down on a post-it note so that I don’t gum my cup to my desk. Result: 40oz of drinkable slush, the gum on the bottom of the cup made a perfect seal which froze hard because of the slush, and one cool cat with emails still to respond too.

Let’s just see a computer come up with that solution. Also, my arm is now sticky.

A DMV by any other name

2010-07-07T15:00:00.000-05:00

For those that need to define people in terms of political affiliation, I am Libertarian, or as I see it: the party that expects citizens to be responsible and punishes those that are not. I agree with the party ideals that government should be as small as reasonably possible, without their meddling in my personal life. So I bet you will never guess what I am getting ever more mad at –the government turning over things such as motor registration, licensing, and tax collection to the private sector. That leads to a smaller government right? Well, no.

Let’s take the example of motor vehicle registration. At some point the government decided that this would be a swell way to make money. So they make everyone pony up when they switch from ponies to motor vehicles. OK, this is a bad idea, but that decision has already been made and “is the way it is” (<- I hate that phrase), so let’s skip on past this point. So now the government is making money on this new tax or fee or whatever they want to coat it as. Fine. But then lo’n’behold the government says: “Whoa, we are spending a lot of money collecting these fees, let’s outsource them and just collect a percent.”

See that? Right there. That can not happen. Now private businesses are making a profit from fees that the government can’t be bothered to collect. So now there is a host of private businesses that are feeding from the hand of the government, I hesitate to call them private though since they are really working as a proxy government office. In my mind government has been expanded by this act. Sure the government isn’t using taxes more, but they have given authority of something that they deemed mandatory to another group of people. Since I HAVE to now deal with these people they are still, from my perspective, part of the government. We should be looking for ways to actually reduce government and not just reduce taxes collected, which is not the same thing, and we should keep that in mind. Anyone that has government ordained power over us is still the government, no matter where the money ends up in the end.

(Side note, the only way a private business can even exist doing the government’s collecting is if they are getting a cut, which means that the government has set the fee at a level that includes them outsourcing the collection in the fee itself.)

Outer Knowledge in Dreams?

2010-07-02T09:09:00.000-05:00

In my dream last night I was visiting Garden City and I was late for a concert (Jars of Clay if you want to know what band). Well, it turned out I was really late because it was 8:20pm and the concert started at 8, oh, and look, the concert is in Hutchinson. OK, here is where it gets interesting. In my dream I didn’t know how far Hutch was from Garden, like I just had no reasonable guess, and when I did guess I said about an hour, but the people riding with me knew it was about three hours, which turns out to be correct (three hours and seven minutes on Google maps).

So here is the question: who am “I” when I dream. Obviously the characters in my dream had knowledge that I know when awake, even though when I was sleeping my first person self did not remember that fact. This makes sense - I am making up this whole world in my sleep so these people must have my knowledge and not their own, but I had always thought that the other people in my dreams were more of “rag-dolls” that I can interact with but not really gain any knowledge, at least knowledge that my first-person self in the dream did not already have.

Does this mean that really anyone that I dream about is just different aspects of myself in that dream? Do they know things that I don’t know consciously, and that knowledge turns out to be (more-or-less) correct? If all these other people are more of me, why am I still stuck to myself in my dreams, why can’t I dream from the direction of anyone else and see myself in third person? I never really took much of dream interpreting to be real, but since others in my dream have knowledge that I didn’t consciously leads me to think that there may be at least something at a very basic level that could be true about it.

Also; sorry Dave for bending the rear spoiler on your car when I jumped on it in my dream… I was just trying to jump over the car so I could get into the van to go to the concert, I didn’t think I would bend it so bad.

Tableau and Football Dynasties

2010-03-09T15:16:00.002-06:00

I have been working on two of the things that I like at once, football and spiffy graphics.

The above graph is made from Tableau, a free data visualization program. The data is my NFL Dynasty data (more about it here from last year). From the graph we see that the Colts, even though they lost the Super Bowl, are now the "biggest" team in the NFL beating out the plummeting Steelers.

Click around on the graphic it should have interactive filters.

Unobtainium in 3D

2010-01-06T09:36:00.003-06:00

I recently watched "Ferngully II; Dances with USB enabled 10 foot tall Smurfs" (Avatar). The movie was good, the story was very thin but I only had one "cringe worthy" moment: they are mining for something called "unobtainium ". Really guys, is that all you could come up with?

But that is not that is not what I want to talk about, my big thought coming from the movie is that "3D" technology is heading in the wrong direction. Sure Avatar is darn good use of the current technology but I don't think we aren’t going to be able to get very much further on the road that we are traveling.

To me the current "3D" movies seem instead as 2D with depth. The problem is that the movies are still be recorded with one focus point, that means that while the movie is going on there is only one thing that is in focus, and if I am not looking at that then everything is going to be blurry. Take this to contrast real life 3D, whatever I am looking at is in focus while everything else is blurry. The result of this type of 3D is that we get a superficially looking 3D movie but the viewers are still restrained to look at a specific spot and depth in the movie.

I think that this is a good first step, however, since we are about to get ESPN broadcast in this 3D technology it may take a while to move on to something that is better.

Oh well, for now we will just have to put up with those stylish glasses in the theatres... and soon at home.

I got it!

2010-01-04T10:07:00.003-06:00

Let's just get past the obvious things, so I can get on with the other stuff. Nicole and I are expecting our first baby in May, Christmas and New Year's was great and Caesar Salad dressing made with Egg Beaters takes the same as with raw eggs (so just use that instead). Nicole does a much better job of keeping up with the events of our lives so check out her blog to see details.

For Christmas I got a set of metal puzzles. After I figured out the pattern of how they work I made pretty quick work of all but one of them. I sat and worked on it for a good 10 minutes before I decided to work on it some more, but from in front of the TV. I worked on it a good time more (maybe 30 or so more minutes... but to give me credit I was watching TV at the same time.) Anyways, I couldn't get it.

Nicole's mom asked to try, so I gave the puzzle to Nikki, my 3 year old niece to pass on over. I the time it took her to make it to Niocle's mom, she says "I got it!" and the two metal pieces are separated.

Grumble.

Let's see her try to figure out how to check for type I error rates in the way that we have implemented neural networks. She wouldn't get that one in 10 seconds.

Say no to "Art".

2009-12-02T15:15:00.000-06:00

Out of all the swindlers I believe that "artist" get off the easiest. I should clarify that I don't mean all artists, just those that tend to hide behind the phrase "you can't criticize my work because it is art". Those people -they have a racket going.

Take for instance this new "art":

It's a rotating kitchen. Neat? Yes. Somewhat of an experiment? Yes. Art? No.

I am getting tired of these "artists" who just do *something* and then claim it's art. That isn't art, that is just doing something new. I don't see why they get a pass as soon as they say "but it's art!". Hog. Wash.

Let's celebrate the people that actually have talent, not those that just get away with anything because they hide behind the term "art".

And He Said "Let there be couch"

2009-11-03T11:36:00.000-06:00

So it was. And they sat. And it was good.

This weekend Nicole and I finally joined the 16th Century and got ourselves a couch. But this isn't just any old couch, it is a Jigsaw Puzzle Couch, and as you can see from the picture it is quite awesome.

Many thanks to Daily Piglet for her review of the couch over on her blog. (The review is actually how I found out about her blog.)

Now we just need to get a TV so that we have some reason to sit on this couch.

State Song

2009-10-28T10:47:00.000-05:00

When I was growing up my Grandpa has a tape of a song that had all the states in it. We listened to it alot and I even think some of the girls got some money if they memorized the song.

The song he had was very close to this one form the Animaniacs except this one is states and their capitols:

Amazing, and not in a good way.

2009-10-12T11:09:00.000-05:00

Sometimes it is amazing to see what other countries are struggling with:

Alarm Will Sound

2009-10-02T09:00:00.003-05:00

This morning I had a dream that I was in a store (like a pawn shop or something similar) and I was tired of being there so I decided that I wanted to leave. Right next to the counter was a side exit door that was propped open a few inches. When I got to the door to leave I noticed a sign on it that said "Don't Open Door - Alarm Will Sound". I kind of chuckled to myself because the sign was obviously wrong since the door was already open and there was no alarm going off. So I went through the door out into the sidewalk - and them my alarm went off, as in my 7:30am alarm to wake me up went off - just as I was walking through the door in my dream.

I am sure someone in my brain had that one all worked out and through it would be hilarious joke to play.

Why didn't I heed the sign?

Parenting

2009-09-16T10:56:00.003-05:00

I think this is the definition of a good parent:

Update: Good job MLB for taking that video down, I would use your official video of it (I even like the commentary better) but I can't embed it on my blog.

Update2: No thanks to MLB it is up again. I agree with alot of others around the nets that the MLB is hugely stupid in clamping down on this clip. They did a good job of turning a great clip into a black eye for themselves.

The Internets Are Alive

2009-09-10T10:11:00.005-05:00

With the sounds of awesome.

It seems that with increasing frequency there are neat things being made on the internet. One of the latest things to catch my eye is a site called animoto.com that takes images, videos, and a soundtrack and turns them automatically into a pretty good slide show.

Here is the one that I made as a promo for the two fantasy football leagues that I am running this year (my teams are the Tea Republic ones):

Not too bad, the only trick is that the timing of the images are preset so I had to edit the music some to fit the amount of images that I had. In the end I am happy with the video it made though.

In other news work is keeping me busy, so I haven't had the time lately to post. I am working on things though that should give me more stuff to post about, so stay tuned for that.

Soda one Soda all

2009-08-07T10:01:00.004-05:00

Whenever I am on the road I only stop at gas stations, not because I don't like smelly rest stops (it's true though). It's because I like buying different drinks. No, really. If there is a gas station that I stop at and I don't go in to see if they have any crazy new drink I feel like I might have missed an opportunity to find my true love in the beverage world. (Surge was my soul mate until Coke killed it and replaced it with the impostor Vault... It's ok Vault I still like you, just not in THAT way.)

Anyways Coke has made a machine that is made of hopes and dreams:

Coke has placed a couple of these in the wild down in Atlanta, let's see what the natives think:

If there was one of these machines anywhere in Oklahoma I would make a pilgrimage to see it.

Peach Vault, you may still yet win my heart.

Awesome begot Awesome

2009-07-28T10:18:00.004-05:00

Apparently Woot! had their 5th birthday yesterday, and to celebrate it a company called ChronoShark (random watch-a-day deal site) sent Woot a marching band and cupcakes:

How awesome is that?

Now the question is would the company that you work for do that, or get that from a rival? Probably not, you know why? Because companies have decided that they are in business to make money and not have fun. Woot on the other hand doesn't take things too seriously and has awesomely funny jokes and great deals. They enjoy making their money. People see that, they like it, and they treat Woot better for it.

Isn't that how we should work and live? I guess another word for it is karma, but I like the term "Awesome begot Awesome". We spend too much time just getting by and not trying to go above and beyond, we need to do that. And not to make quarterly profit totals or whatever cooperate BS companies have, we need to do it to make the world awesome. Woot does it, Chipotle does it, the business model works.

You say Hammer, I say...

2009-07-13T11:03:00.006-05:00

Anybody who is anybody at my work uses a yellow legal pad when they take notes. So not to be one to miss out on a trend I too use yellow legal pads (actually, I think it is more of a case that in the office supplies we only have yellow legal pads, but whatever). But I don't like getting a new pad when I use up an old one, instead I like to find and use pads that someone else has started to use and then abandon it. And that is rather easy to do here since there are a couple of kids that come to work with their parents once in a awhile. Usually I can find a pad that has the first couple of pages drawn on and the rest of the pad ready for my more sophisticated notes (i.e. my Master's level doodles during meetings).

In one of the pads that I started to use I flipped through first first couple pages of drawings to find a building list: a Nail, then a picture of a nail, a Board, then a picture of a plank of wood, then:
That's right, a Wamer. I believe that wamer describes to function of the tool way more than hammer. I propose that we use the name wamer from now on.

Normal Plushies and Etsy Stores

2009-07-09T08:53:00.008-05:00

My wife, Nicole, has always been the crafty type. When we were dating (if you would call it that... we didn't actually go on that many dates) she would make candles, clothes, and wrapping paper out of candy wrappers. When we got married she continued on her crafty ways with making Christmas cards, knitting, and sewing pirate costumes. Now that we have a house she has found new hobbies to add to the list. Stained glass, very fancy Renaissance dresses, and making soft toys.

Recently though she has been working over time with the crafts, the reason is that she has made an Etsy store and people are actually buying the things that she is making. The name of the store is Nausicaa Distribution and it features things that are statistics (and math) related. So far the most popular item is the Normal Distribution Plushie.

She has been so successful with the store that she has made enough money to buy a new table to make stained glass on, and even buy her own domain NausicaaDistribution.com. Last night I sat down and fixed up her web page so that it looks all pretty, well, at least for Firefox users (my rigorous testing was of me making sure it looked fine on my browser).

If you have a minute go check her store out, the audience is kinda specific (those that like cute and statistical things), but maybe you will fall in love with math all over again.

2 smart 4 knives. (or the padded path to doom)

2009-07-02T10:15:00.005-05:00

Just a reminder about banning guns: if we ban guns we will just ban knives next (because criminals will just use them instead). And we aren't just talking about big knives but I also mean steak knives. It sounds stupid but England is showing us our society without guns:

"As knife crime remains a problem in many of our towns and cities, it beggars belief that so many traders are still prepared to sell potentially lethal weapons to children," said Ron Gainsford, chief executive of the Trading Standards Institute (TSI).

...

Knives have become a status symbol among some young people and the increase in searching by police officers means some young people dash into shops to buy knives for "instant arming".

article

Yeah.

How about we just hold our children accountable and make them responsible. It is the child that is babied his whole life that utterly fails when grown up, the same is true for societies.

False Security

2009-06-30T11:45:00.000-05:00

I don't know exactly know why, but the only logical reason I can think of as a justification of having to change my password on my company computer every couple of months is so that in the rare case that I leave the company I can't access the computers after a couple of months.

They (the IT guys) tout this measure as added security but I believe that my passwords are now less secure. Why? Well because I was able to remember them, but after so many changes I can't think of anything else that I know I will be able to remember after a weekend. So what do I do? That's right, sticky note next to the computer. Anyone at my desk can now find my password by just looking, not by guessing like that had too before. This is far less secure.

However there is even a more sinister security hole that is made with frequent password changes that require many types of characters -they appear to be strong words when in fact they will be very predictable.

For example, a typical password choice might be: 12#$TY . Seems pretty secure right? I doubt it is, and I bet it is on the short list for password crackers. Why? Because the password is just 1234ty, with shift being held down for the 34ty part. It is easy to type, easy to remember, and satisfies the three types of characters requirement.

So are our computers any safer now that we have to have complicated passwords that rotate every so often. I doubt it; determined hackers will easily be able to find patterns in the passwords or physical evidence of passwords. However, is it a pain in the butt to have to keep coming up with new passwords?

Y0ubEtch@

Jones for the Green

2009-06-27T10:29:00.000-05:00

I general I don't care much about cars. Sure some look cool, or would be fun to have, but if I was handed millions of dollars I wouldn't go out and buy some fancy car -cars just don't interest me.

That is except for Green Mustangs. Red Mustangs, eh. Green Chargers, pass. But paint a Mustang Green and I think it is the coolest car ever.
That is all.

1984? More like 2009.

2009-06-25T09:01:00.004-05:00

Really, was 1984 not required reading in England? It have been.

First they put up CCTVs everywhere. But it's not just to record public spaces in the case of crime, no, they have people watching them at all times and even scold people who are behaving badly. There should be public outrage, but there is little.

And its not like the English government is trying to cover up what they are doing. Here is an actual poster made to promote the new CCTVs:
How does this poster even get made? It is almost flaunting the fact that England was 15 years late to 1984.

Now, just to make life "better" famous quotes will be broadcast in the subway system. Sure it is a good idea to do, but not through government mandate. That will get all too old all too fast. And when will "anti-terror" quotes start to get slipped in?

It is amazing how someone can so fully understand people and foresee what will happen, and then actually write the prediction down. Bravo Orwell, you win again.

Friday Fun

2009-06-12T15:21:00.004-05:00

I have many things I want to write about (such as why people that have no idea what the normal procedure at a restaurant is feel like they should give orders to others who go there all the time) but I found this clip and, well, it is more entertaining than I would be.
Enjoy:

The start of the end

2009-06-08T09:31:00.004-05:00

First watch this video (it is from Project Natal, on the XBox 360):

If half of this video is true we are in serious trouble; it will be the start of computers replacing people as companions. Sure there are a couple people right now that attach themselves to the odd story book hero, anime girl, or new hot American Idol, but those characters can't react back to your affection. This program on the other hand, has a personality, idiosyncrasies that take time to learn, interaction in both physical and mental.
It could be argued that the interaction that is taking place (at least from the standpoint of the human) is real. And as long as it feels real for the human it will push all the buttons that a real human interaction will normally push, this means that there won't be a reason to have human relationships. Why try to date somebody that will just break your heart in the end? Why have a baby that will wake you up in the middle of the night? Why put so much effort into a kid that will not appreciate the effort until far too late in life? All of these can be replicated in the program, and you get none of the inconvenience.

The human race might have just met its hardest foe yet -can we survive when the other option is bliss?

Cure Terrorism or the Flu -I'll choose the latter.

2009-06-05T08:36:00.006-05:00

After getting a warning email about how we all need to get more proactive to prevent terrorism, such as notifying authorities immediately upon finding an unattended bag, and being aware of people that frequently visit the Middle East I started to do some reading up on death tools.

"Using State Department figures, he [Alan Harris] assumes a worldwide death rate from international terrorism of 1000 per year--that is, he assumes in his estimate that there would be another 9/11 somewhere in the world every several years."

full article

So say that even including regular 9/11 terrorism this number is a bit low and terrorism is on the rise, so 2000 people a year world wide will die from terrorism each year (twice the projected rate).

Also:

"According to the CIA World Factbook, as of July, 2005, there were approximately 6,446,131,400 people on the planet, and the death rate was approximately 8.78 deaths per 1,000 people a year. According to our nifty desktop calculator, that works out to roughly 56,597,034 people leaving us every year. That's about a 155,000 a day."

full article

So 155k people die each day (56597k a year!), compared to 2k a year from terrorism worldwide.

Even if all 2k people died in one day the death toll for the day would probably not be significantly higher since so many other people die every day.

The flu kills 56k a year in just America according to the CDC. If all terrorist deaths in a year were to occur in America you still would have 28 times the chance of dying from the flu. If we get the flu do we start writing our will?

In the US 43k people die each year in car wrecks. Do we still drive to work every day?

27k people in the US die from poisoning each year. Do you take a food tester with you and use it every time you are about to eat something?

We don't need to shriek in terror from unattended bags, we don't need to "keep an eye on" the tourist from Egypt, and we don't need big brother to "keep us safe".

The fact is that you will not die in a terrorist attack. But you will be affected by the laws that are placed to stop an event that has such a small chance from happening. Our fear is causing us to sacrifice our precious few freedoms, and fear mongering will not help us survive any longer.

To make a real impact on our chances of surviving we should just wash our hands more.

Things I can't do

2009-06-03T11:49:00.005-05:00

I think that I can handle almost any task that I am assigned. If I don't already know how to do it, I think that I would have no problem learning how to do it. I figure if somebody else can do something then I should be able to figure it out as well.

However there is something that I am finding out I am terrible at: wiring down letter or numbers while someone tells me them to me. It often happens at work that I get a customer on the phone that I will need to contact later after I have some time to work on the problem, so I must either get their phone number or email address. Oh how I fail at this simple task. Phone numbers I can somewhat handle because they are a set length and there are only ten options for each space and each number sounds different.

Email addresses on the other hand shut my brain off. As soon as letters start getting rattled off I lose all function to write and remember and after I get the first two letters down I am lost until the domain.com part. Then I have them say it again and I get another couple of letters but that is it. I just can't do it. To save the customer from repeating it a third time I just guess at what the other letters should be (usually it is their last name, or can be found in our companies database) and get to work on their problem.

Sometimes the simplest things are the hardest.

Weight Watchers Points Diet

2009-05-29T09:23:00.004-05:00

Callie has decided to go on a diet, and after a bit of complaining about the normal boiled chicken diet routine she said that she was going to try to points diet. If she hadn't said anything I would have suggested it because that diet is the only one that I have seen that actually works. (I stole the rest of this from the comment I left after her blog post.)

I never have needed to diet, but people in my wife's family have had to and the points diet is very good, and it will work as long as you follow the rules.

The reason it is so good is the reason why other diets are so bad. Other diets deny food and force a life of crazy weird tasteless food. Who wants to live the rest of their life eating boiled chicken and not sweets, even if they are thin?

The points diet is so good because it teaches people how to eat healthy. And yes even cheese burgers are healthy if eaten in the proper portion, with other food to go with it. The points diet does not deny food, but just makes you justify eating chocolate by showing how many points could be used instead to have a huge dinner.

The best thing is that even after you get tired of counting points you will have a good idea about what you should eat, and how much to eat of it. So a person on the points diet becomes a better person after the diet is over, whereas a person on the other kinds of diets have no better chance as staying fit than before when the diet started.

Cargo Bridge

2009-05-20T08:44:00.004-05:00

There is something about the "build something and then see how well it does" genre of games that I really like. Cargo Bridge falls right into this category (Fantastic Contraption is another game of this type that I like). The point of Cargo Bridge is to make a bridge that spans a gap or two that is constructed well enough to hold the workers and the cargo. The trick comes in that you only have a limited about of money to buy supplies with so some planning has to be used. The game starts with just wooden pieces that are light and cheap. After a couple of levels there is also an option to use metal pieces which are more rigid, and can have longer spans, but are heavier and cost more. The challenges given always seem fairly easy but they have twists thrown in, so different building style has to be used. This game is getting heavy playing time on my computer, you might want to give it a shot as well.

Oh, also the workers give off a satisfying yell as they fall to their death, so even when I don't make a good bridge I still get some entertainment from it.

Mom knows best. (p.s. Mom = Government)

2009-05-13T09:00:00.003-05:00

Well... it's not like this is a surprise.

The Senate Finance Committee today is hearing proposals on how to pay for President Obama's proposed universal health care plan, which is expected to cost more than $1 trillion. Among the proposals, as Consumer Affairs reports: A three-cent tax on sodas as well as other sugary drinks, including energy and sports drinks like Gatorade. Diet sodas would be exempt.

"While many factors promote weight gain, soft drinks are the only food or beverage that has been shown to increase the risk of overweight and obesity, which, in turn, increase the risk of diabetes, stroke, and many other health problems," Michael Jacobson of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which is pushing the idea, said in his testimony. "Soft drinks are nutritionally worthless…[and] are directly related to weight gain, partly because beverages are more conducive to weight gain than solid foods."

Previously on "As the Government Bans":

You came for the drugs, and I said nothing, because I had no drugs.
You came for the cigarettes, and I said something, because I saw where this was going.
You came for my food, and I am getting really pissed off.
(full post)

Due up in 2012: Ban on trans fat
In the batting circle in 2016: Ban on large portions of food
Clean up in 2024: Ban on "unhealthy" food
(full post)

The "in" thing right now is for cities to ban smoking in public places. This is because "innocent" people (who choose to go to the restaurant or work at the restaurant) have to breathe the second hand smoke.
(full post)

A sin tax is the first step to bannage.

State symbols

2009-05-08T08:39:00.003-05:00

Sometimes when I need a good laugh I'll take a look at the lists of state symbols from Wikipedia. Here are some good ones:

Missouri state desert: Ice cream cone. I guess the state senate must have had a majority of people that was lactose intolerant at the time of the vote.

North Carolina state blue berry: With a surprising result, it is the blueberry. Really what else could it have been? Guess what their state straw berry is.

Arkansas state fruit/vegetable: Tomato. They didn't even have the guts to call it one or the other, they just know they like it.

Oklahoma state menu item: Barbecued pork. Chicken fried steak. Sausage. Biscuits and gravy. Fried okra. Squash. Grits. Corn. Black-eyed peas. Cornbread. Pecan Pie. No wonder Oklahoma is one of the fattest states in the Union. It also goes to show why you should wait for voting on state foods until after lunch.

Indiana state beverage: Water. Why did that even come up as a topic to make official?

Delaware state colors: Colonial Blue and Buff.

Georgia state colors: Colonial Blue and Buff. I bet it is going to be awkward when Delaware and Georgia see each other at the dance wearing the same thing.

Maryland state individual sport: Jousting. Jousting? Really? Didn't that happen 500 years ago?

That's all I got for now, but seriously? Ice cream cone?

Words that I read wrong.

2009-05-04T09:04:00.005-05:00

For whatever reason there as some words that when I read them I pronounce them in my head incorrectly. They are:

Smoking: On signs I always read this as smorking. I know why too -Engrish.com. Sometimes I have to make a conscious effort to not say smorking instead of smoking when I talk. The strange thing is that I only pronounce this word wrong when it is associated with cigarette smorking.

Parking: Along with smoking parking gets transofrmed in my head to porking (thanks engrish). I don't have as much problems with this word, however I do say this one outloud sometimes, just for personal irony.

Elevator: My strangest mental mispronouciation is elevator which I read as elevatop. I know why I do this; because the Games Workshop store in Manhattan has a sign up that says ELEVATOR but someone took off one of R's legs to change it into a P. Then whenever I would go to the store I would read it and laugh about it (it almost describes what an elevator does better than the actual word). But something happened, and now every time I see a sign for an elevator I read it as elevatop.

I am sure that there are other words that I read incorrectly, but those are the main three.

News is dead. Long live news!

2009-04-27T09:55:00.004-05:00

I have been opposed to the idea that bloggers can't cover news as well as "News" organizations, but I can see that the average folk won't put together an investigation piece. However I just stumbled upon a Twitter feed of a "doctor" who pitches "news" ideas to media. Getting an inside view on how "News" actually happens is quite enlightening:

Only one goal in local newsrooms: FIND FIRST SUSPECTED IL SWINE FLU CASE!

Swine Flu Angles: shortage of Tamiflu at your hospital? Increased anxious ER patients? Any use of masks? (TV would love the visual).

Watch Jay Leno story closely. Very high interest. Have expert ASAP if his illness is interesting.

We're told health trumps money. Not in this economy. Media obsession with money stories makes placing health challenging.

Credit Card debt a big story. Nice angle is always "compulsive shopping" treatments. Have an expert? Pitch it!

Once again recession stories dominate. Try to tie any medical advance to cost savings (e.g. new procedure decreases time off work)

Avoid "morning after" pill stories. Too controversial. You can't win.

Another Chicago boy killed by baseball pitch to chest . Offer cardiologist for seasonal "commotio cordis" story.

Large practice needs help getting docs to "buy in" to marketing campaign. Wants me to convince them as fellow doc.

Cute potential story: hospital gowns redesigned to be more modest. New ones at your practice or hospital? Pitch it!

All the stupid jokes on cable news about "tea-bagging?" Just what is journalism turning into?

Typical. MSM first exaggerates risk of NMH TB. Now, having got your attention, slant is to reassure public the risk is minimal.

Just buy good PR? First Chicago Tribune considers "Pay to Play" news stories. Now LA Times front pages "advertorial." NyTimes today.

I kind of had an idea this stuff was going on, but not so blatantly. Pitching pointless stories, working on fear mongering and headline grabbing, even bringing up the idea of pay to get something published. He even has the ironic "why is media covering stupid money stories and not stupid medical stories".

Here is the problem for conventional news organizations. When blogging was just people covering their lives and events that they were immediately effected by the Media could snub their nose at it. However now bloggers include experts in every field, Media just can't keep up with it. If I want to know about new happenings in web start up companies I check TechCrunch, if I want to hear about consumer issues I go to the Consumerist. Media can't compete with this, especially when they think that their angle is to grab headlines and then fill their space with crap and fluff. The end is neigh for the old way to get news, soon the experts will be the ones that we go to for news, and the people that generate the "News" will be out of a job.

Can't come soon enough.

Ah, non-memories

2009-04-24T13:04:00.004-05:00

I am closing in on 2,500 posts on my blog soon, so it doesn't surprise me that I don't remember everything I have posted. However I don't remember this at all (original post):

"One of the joys of working for a master's degree is getting to know a good amount of people that are not from America. Sometimes they shed light on subjects that I have not ever thought about.

At today's data mining class I brought the rest of my twizzlers that I had started to devour yesterday (I would have ate them all, but I only took half of them with me to class last time.) I offered some of them to my professor (from China) and a classmate (from ?). My prof. tried it and said that they were ok, and tried to get my classmate to try them as well, which she refused. Then my prof. said that: "it was good, kind of like fruit jerky, and smells like toothpaste." Well if I had never tried them before I wouldn't have after that description.

But was it true? Are twizzlers fruit jerky toothpaste mix? I smelt them, and sadly I have to admit they do kind of smell like toothpaste.

Needless to say my classmate never did try them."

I am glad I wrote stuff like that down, cause it is too funny to forget.

The myth of childhood

2009-04-20T14:59:00.007-05:00

[Edit: It took me longer than one day to write this post, and in between the days I got a B-Day present from my mom, which was the book Do Hard Things. (I know I'm not a teen, but I think the principle of teens holding themselves to greater goals than what society has set for them is right, so the book interests me.) Anywho, while thumbing through the book I noticed one of the chapter titles was "The Myth of Adolescence", in which they basically were saying the same things that I wanted to here. So my desire to finish this post was shot, however, I didn't want to move on until it was done... so what you get is a half way finished post. Enjoy!]

Having no kids of my own, and not taking any part in raising any I feel that I have quite enough authority to talk about raising kids. Let that set your expectations about how well thought out my post will be.

This weekend I was thinking about the current role of a child in America. We can basically sum it up: go to school and have fun. Any expectations beyond this is definitely not the norm for everyone.

So has this always been the case? In not so modern times have we allowed our children to run free without a care in the world besides school? I doubt it. In fact I bet that children of old would think that our kids were slackers. Should we feel sorry for the kids in the past that had to work more than play? No -I bet their lives we just as happy as our are today. I might even go as far to say that kids now days have less rewarding childhood as those of old.

[Edit: Next is the outline for the rest of the post. You get the idea of where I am going with this.]

School made childhood, which in turn made adulthood.
Now we save all responsibility for adulthood.
No responsibilities prevents children from developing. (Now even college aged students are expected to party instead of learn to actually live, they are in their 20's! You can have fun but be responsible.)
We have shifted to a society that teaches jobs, instead of apprenticing jobs.
Before children would spend their time learning a craft, now they learn books.
It is fairly obvious that learning a craft that can directly lead to a job has more responsibility than learning about things that most likely will not be directly used in a job.
Kids now days have little responsibility and play probably as much as kids of old, however the play they do now is nowhere as developing (video games vs. building forts)

[Edit: That is where my outline ends, but I am sure I would have come to some brilliant conclusion, and then would have ended the post off with yelling at the kids these days to get of my lawn. Pulitzer Prize here I come.]

Nerd!

2009-04-17T09:34:00.005-05:00

As an intellectual and a visionary I have to balance my nerd karma, or at least justify the guilty nerd pleasures with activities that are acceptable to the rest of the world. For example my main hobby in life is painting and playing with toy soldiers. The games that I play are made by Games Workshop and range from small skirmish battles to epically large battlefields, all set in various lands of fantasy (there are two time periods that Games Workshops makes games in, one that is clearly pulled from "Lord of the Rings", the other is in the distant future.) I can spend hours painting the models and further hours playing with them, and yes, when no one wants to play with me I have even been known to play the games by myself. But wait, I say, do not feel bad for me, for I am not a total nerd loser.

You see my other main activity in life has been playing hockey. Throughout my time at K-State I played with the hockey club there, and during the season I would spend every other weekend on the road playing games. Not only that, but I was an assistant captain for our team a couple of years and then captain my final year with the team (I also won the MVP for our team one year.) So don't cry for me about being a nerd, I clearly can pull my weight in other areas of my life.

And really I think most people would be ok with me playing with toys and not feel pity or repulsed by it solely because I have another activity in life that I have excelled at that is definitely not a nerdy activity. But why is this? My act of sitting down to paint chunks of plastic and metal are not any different than anyone else's, however because at other times of my life I play a sport it is ok? It seems that our problems with 'nerdy' activities is not an actual bash at the activity itself but the lifestyle that a typical person with that activity holds.

Take video games for example, not too long ago if you were hardcore into video games you would be labeled a nerd. However now there is so many people playing games that we see that you can still be a normal functioning person in society while still finding enjoyment in pressing some buttons on a pad that makes something happen on the TV. Nerdiness must come from perceived lifestyle, not the actual activity involved.

So then why are nerdy activities looked down upon, or why is a nerdy lifestyle generally perceived to be unattractive? I think it has to do with not making a contribution to society. Leveling a night elf to 60 might take a lot of work, but in the real world (IRL for you internet cats) nothing really changes. Drawing comics does not result in great literature, and painting a unit of dwarfs does not actually make my house more protected from intruders. But if I can prove that I can contribute to society through other actions, like leading a hockey team, then my non-contributional free time activities can be overlooked. However, I think that is the wrong way to look at the activities, I feel that I am more successful at work because of the creativity that I used when thinking up scenarios and campaigns. But I think that society does not count building your brain as a useful activity, actually one may say 'nerdy'.

So I urge you to take some time, read some comic books, argue about Captain Picard versus Han Solo in a fist fight, and break out your leggings for the Renaissance Festival. Just remember to contribute to the society while you are at it, lest you be labeled a nerd.

Also avoid Dungeons & Dragons, you don't want to be a dork do you?
(I didn't play D&D growing up, but this video brings back memories of playing Warhammer with my friends in High School.)

Backpfeifengesicht

2009-04-15T11:00:00.001-05:00

I don't hide the fact that I do not like Owen Wilson. If he is in a movie I will go out of my way to not see it. Sort of like Keanu Reeves, the presence of the actor just changes my ability to enjoy a movie. However, unlike Keanu it isn't his acting that I have a problem with, it is Owen Wilson's face.

For some reason I really can not stand the way he looks, it just drives me crazy. I am sure that it is just his zany nose pose, but it is almost painful for me to watch him. Fortunately for me the Germans have a name for this sort of face: Backpfeifengesicht, meaning a face badly in need of a fist.

I am glad that a whole culture can sum up my feeling of an actor with one extra long word. I guess it shouldn't surprise me that it was the Germans though...

(I did like the move Armageddon though... maybe I was naive then.)
(Oh, also, these guys make me want to go backpfeifengesicht on their face as well.)

Do Blind People See in Heaven?

2009-04-13T09:38:00.002-05:00

While watching Family Guy last night I got to pondering something (everyone watches Family Guy and ponders the world at the same time, right?). The joke was that Peter was doing a magic trick for a blind crowd, and asks if he pulled out the proper card. Obviously the blind guy doesn't know what the original card was, so Peter asks if the card was red. The blind guy then yells at him "I don't even know what red is!" Ha, funny indeed.

Well for some reason I got to think about what happens when the blind guy gets to heaven, obviously he would be given the ability to see when he got there, it would be cruel to confine him to an eternity of blindness. But then I got to thinking about people that have extraordinary abilities, such as photographic memories or people that can see four primary colors. For them wouldn't our existence be of similar eternal handicap?

There are only two conclusions that I can come to. Either we go to heaven just as we are (sorry no legged buddy, you just can't make it on the hockey team in heaven), or we will be given so many extra senses that equating our current life to the afterlife would be impossible. I tend to think the latter.

They are who we thought they were.

2009-04-02T12:02:00.003-05:00

I find it amazing that most situations, people, or companies can be gauged within the first couple of moments with them. I guess it shouldn't be surprising that years of natural selection has resulted in humans that are able to accurately discern the nature of a situation within seconds of encountering it, but it still is interesting that we can do it.

It is no secret that I like eating at restaurants, and I will try a place that looks good for fun, however trying to get me to visit a place that doesn't look right is sometimes very difficult. So how do I know what place looks good and what place doesn't? I don't know... but I will give two examples.

Back in my Garden City Community College days I would spend the summers working for my dad up in Longmont, Colorado. There was a smallish restaurant that had an image to it that made we want to try it, I had only drove by the place a few times, but it just looked like a place I wanted to eat. We fianlly were able to stop by the place to give it a try and the line happened to be backed up to the door. We were greeted by a guy working there and in a few minutes everyone in line was given large soda cups for free. I knew then that it was a place that I would love eating at. Little did I know that in the comming couple of years Chipotle would grow from a small Colorado chain to a nationwide burrito awesome fest. Not even concidering the awesome food and the free drinks they gave us, it was obvious just from the look of the building that Chioptle was awesome.

On the other hand there is Goldie's Patio Grill, a Tulsa restaurant tradition. From looking at the sign I knew that the place would be horrible... no udderably horrible. But despite my best judgment one day I decided to give it a shot, really how bad could it be? It turns out that I had overestimated it, the food was barley editable. Even thinking about it triggers a bit of gag reflex in me now. But can I blame them? Not really, as soon as I saw the sign I knew that the place was not for me, at all.

My point is that we have "gut feelings" for a reason -they help us survive. Our ancestors that knew that a cave just didn't seem right, or felt that one water hole was better to drink out of than another, was able to survive better when those hunches were triggered unconsiously by observing the slightly visible cues. Fortunatly we don't need to use these feelings to keep us alive (for the most part) anymore, but we still have them and we can use them for our benifit. If there is a situation, or a store, or a person that just doesn't seem right, it propbably isn't. You might not know why you feel that way but we have an inate ability to process more than just what we think, and something in your brain has thrown up a warning flag. It is usually prudent to at least acknolwedge the feeling.

Now, I'm not saying to make snap judgements about people or decisions, but I am going to say that the first reaction is most likely the one that you will come to in the end after careful thought. Call me crazy, but I just have a hunch about that.

Rivals

2009-03-24T11:48:00.003-05:00

There is really only one city that I love, Garden City, Kansas. Sure there are cities that I like more than others: Denver, Tulsa, Wichita, and Manhattan (KS). But these cities are just places I like and I want them to succeed just so that I have more things to do while visiting or living in them. However, I want Garden City to succeed because of the city and the people in the city -I know that I am biased but it really is a good city.

Almost as much as I like Garden City I tend to dislike Dodge City, Garden City's rival town. Yes, THAT Dodge City; the smaller, dirtier, Applebee's in Boothill, "special" cousin of Garden City. There are a few reasons why our cities are rivalies. First is city size, we both have approximatly around 30,000 residents, Garden being a little bit larger. Second is that the trip over to Dodge is less than an hour away, so the cities are spread far enough apart that there isn't constant interaction between each other, however they are close enough that decisions in one town can effect the other. Third, there is no other sizeable towns in the area. The next biggest town to the east is Wichita (200 miles away), to the south is Amarillio (230 miles away), to the west is Colorado Springs (250 miles away), and to the north is Rapid City South Dakota (580 miles away). This means that there is no other local town to draw away the "rival spirit" from. There is no question that Garden City and Dodge City are rivals.

However our rivaly is not just limited to sports. The proximity of the two cites makes luring businiess a tricky ordeal. Sometimes when a buisness desides to move into the area they build in both cities at the same time, which was the case when Applebee's moved into both towns. Most of the time though a company will only chose one city to build in. News that something is going to be built in Garden is doubly good becuase that means that not only do we get a new store, but chances are Dodge City will be shut out for also getting the same store. With every step forward Garden City takes Dodge City doesn't just fall back because we moved up, they fall back because they are now prevented from taking the same step forward. So stems why some of the rivalry is so intense.

My main point here though isn't to just point out that Dodge City sucks; because they have a meat packing plant in the middle of their town and that the smell of the refined fat is nauseating, nor that I had never seen a cockroach in real life until someone brought one back in a blanket that they used in Dodge. No, my point with this post is to say that having a rival is important for building a strong community. I know that poeple in Garden try harder than they would normally just because they want our city to be better than Dodge. The proximity of a similar town keeps the pressure on everone to keep on improving. And for that I am thankful that Dodge City is around.

How I Belive in God

2009-03-17T09:10:00.005-05:00

I find it amazing that people are basically split into two groups, those that believe in God and those that believe in science. I, for one, believe in both. Here is how:

1. The Bible can not be taken literally. There are many places in which Bible experts explain confusing or seemingly contradictory passages by looking at what these passages mean for the people of the times of the Bible. They use the culture and the language of the era to show what each passage means when taken in context. Now why we must abandon this sort of interpretation (from the standpoint of somebody with a 1AD understanding of science) when it comes to matters of science is beyond my comprehension. Was the world made in seven days? No –that goes against the laws of the universe, God doesn’t need to break his own rules to make earth. Were seven days figurative to represent to cycle of the formation of earth and life? That seems more reasonable. We should not use a book given to us as a work of religion as a text for science. God gave us the ability to perform experiments, to think the results that we get from science are there to intentionally mislead us is tomfoolery.

2. Miracles are in the timing. For some reason when "miracles" are explained by natural phenomenon this ruffles some feathers of the devout. I think that we need to stop thinking about miracles as the action but instead as the timing. I find the idea of God needing miracles to direct human history as a bit degrading to his power. Think about it -there are thousands of parameters that need to be set to make the whole universe contain matter that doesn't just degenerate into a soup of energy waves, yet we are to believe that he didn't plan ahead enough to part the Red Sea at the right time? God has already set into motion every miracle that will happen, and they will play out through provable science techniques. Saying that God has to change the rules of the universe just because of actions of people is mighty arrogant of our part. The miracle not that the Red Sea was parted, the miracle is that it parted when it did.

3. Science only leads to more questions. When it comes to the nature of the universe science is very good at opening doors but very terrible at closing them. Instead of four elements (earth, fire, wind, air) we now have 117 elements, which can be broken down into subatomic particles which have anti-particles, which are possibly all made up of infinity thin quantum strings which adhere to quantum mechanics that dictate that every possible outcome does actually happen. ...Right... Currently science is saying we have no idea how the basic building blocks of the universe work. Even when we figure out a unified theory of everything it will just lead to a pile of new questions that need to be answered, which in turn will lead to even more questions. I don't understand why learning about the universe that God placed us in is somehow a violation of God. I trust that if there is something that he does not want us to know about he would have the ability to hide it from us. Heck, there might be all the puppet masters in a parallel universe pulling their strings into this one, and we have no way to detect it. This point is that for me science does not make God worthless, instead it shows us how much there actually is to all of this, it makes God all the more needed to make the ends meet. There are true answers to the questions- however the more we learn about our surroundings the less we “know” the answers.

4. God can not be proven/disproven. It seems to be quite obvious that God can not be proven or disproven by science. And to think that we can do so is akin to thinking that we can prove that there is a city named Boston by measuring the temperature that water boils at. The nature of science is so far away from being able to disprove God that to think that we could through experiment is vastly overestimating our abilities as humans, and quite arrogant.

You will see that I have shied away from the topics of why I should believe in God and all the stuff like that that normal discussion of God turns to. That is really quite another subject, and one of even more faith. The bottom line of this post is just to point out that science and God can co-exist, much like a car and a driver. Figuring out how the car works has no relation as to why it does.

Music Catch 2

2009-03-13T12:42:00.003-05:00

Music Catch is a very simple game where you want to get blue, yellow and purple while avoiding red objects. While the rules are simple the game is quite fun because of the presentation. If you need a couple minutes of relaxing give this one a shot.

NCAA Expands March Madness To 4,096 Teams

2009-03-11T10:00:00.003-05:00

NCAA Expands March Madness To Include 4,096 Teams

Just a reminder if we go to a playoffs in NCAA Football, the teams that make it to the playoffs are only there because they legitimately could be number one, not because they "deserve to make it to the playoffs".

But I do agree that Xenon will take the Central Kansas Region, and my money is on the Oklahoma Horseshoeing School in the Southern Oklahoma Region.

"Hello Lance"

2009-03-06T10:52:00.003-06:00

I have been requested to explain why I have a shirt that says "Hello Lance" on it, so that I shall do. It all began when they built a Hobby Lobby in Manhattan back when I was going to grad school. We were walking around and noticed that you could buy blank t-shirts and iron on letters for a good price. So we bought a couple of shirts and a couple sets of iron on letters.

Then came the hard part -thinking of something to actually write on the shirts. Nicole decided upon a shirt that said "Snotvia" in homage of her homeland. Jenette made a "Nani?" shirt, and Chris made his that said "Don't be a wanker". I thought about mine for a bit and went for "Chinastronaut". However after I made it I realized that there were a few people in the Stat. Dept. from China that might not like the idea that I was aspiring to be an astronaut from China, also, I didn't want to have to explain my obviously funny t-shirt to them. So I had to make another t-shirt.

I pondered over another shirt for a bit and thought that it would be funny to make a shirt that says hello to somebody, and the best person that I could have thought of was my K-State office buddy Lance. So I made a shirt that would greet him every time he saw it. "Hello Lance" was thus decided upon.

I wore the shirt a couple times at K-State and then it got packed up when I needed space in my apartment closet. I had forgotten all about it until I looked through my old boxed clothes and ever since it has been back in my regular t-shirt rotation.

I think I still have all the stuff to make two more shirts... I need to get on that.

Intent

2009-03-04T09:11:00.003-06:00

When I become the king of the world, (yes, the king -I don't want to have to deal with re-election issues every couple of years) I will mandate that all laws shall have their intent recorded with the actual law. then when enforcing the law if there is a case that technically breaks the law but is not included in the intent of the law it shall not be counted as breaking the law.
An example would be jaywalking, clearly the intent of the law is to stop people form crossing the road at any point so that cars have an idea of where to expect pedestrians. Now there was a story in the news where a person helped out some old ladies cross the street but got a jaywalking ticket for doing so. He obviously wasn't crossing the street just to get to the other side, but to help someone out.

I would also mandate that every city that has more than 5,000 residents have an official soccer team and make a massive worldwide league.

Building a Better Football Poll

2009-02-25T09:53:00.003-06:00

One of the things I have been thinking about lately is a way to build a completely objective football ranking system that accounts for the quality of play on the field and can not be "gamed" by coaches.

The original idea of a way to include quality of win was by looking at the win margin. It is obvious that a team that won by a large margin is much better than a team that won by only a small margin against the same team. However football coaches knew that this was a factor so when they played easy teams the would pile on the points to help out their rankings. I believe now the computer components of the BCS are not allowed to take the margin of victory in to account when they make their rankings. So this lead me on to think about ways we can measure how good a team is, more than by just who they beat.

The first measurement I want to propose is to look at the "Time of Win". That is, how much time was left on the game clock when the eventual score that won the game was made. So if a team runs back the opening kickoff and then holds their opponents to less than a touchdown for the whole game, their Time of Win would be essentially 60 minutes, where as a hail marry at then end of the game would result in a Time of Win of a couple of seconds. This measurement would allow polls to take into consideration how much one team dominated another without encouraging the scoring to spiral out of hand. It would, however, make the teams play defense throughout the game.

I thought of a second good measurement last night while laying in bed: Offensive Yards per Point. This number would incorporate a few aspects of a teams performance into one figure. It would measure how well a team can finish off long drives, reward teams for creating turnovers, and also give a bonus for a team that has a good kick return game. It also would be somewhat difficult to game because scoring as many points with the fewest amounts of yards obtained is already a primary goal for coaches, so they can't really make much of a game plan change to reflect this being measured.

Other factors that I would consider would be power rankings, like the Massey rankings, which looks at who beats who. Also if the game was home or away. I would also like to include a couple of other measurements but it is kind of hard to think about relevant ones that can't be taken advantage of. Anyone else have any good ideas for ways to build a better football polling system?

Heroes

2009-02-23T14:19:00.005-06:00

Update: My dad has a follow-up post here.

This morning I read an article about some construction workers that are building a new edition to a cancer treatment building. They have been spray painting the names of the children in the hospital on the girders as they go up. Take a second and read the article about it here. (No really, I would rather you read that article than go on and read the rest of what I have to say.)

There is a video about this on YouTube, where in the comments Katie (well xoxkatie127xox to be correct) says:

the KATIE sign in the window at 40 sec was mine and i was treated at the jimmy fund when i was three and to this day i remember my name oh the iron across the street and remember how excited i would get and how special it made me feel... these men were heros

When I first read this comment I thought: "Those aren't heroes, they didn't do anything heroic." But I thought about it, and I think that my first thought couldn't be further from the truth. I think that these guys are a prime example of being a hero.
We get caught up in what movies and TV shows make out to be heroes, the daring of James Bond, the evil fighting of Batman, and the goodness of Frodo. We forget that we can be heroes, and we don't have to have some super power to do it.
I don't know what the definition of a hero says, and I don't really care, because there is nothing more like a hero to those kids than what these construction workers are doing. They aren't saving the kids from cancer, they are just making them feel special.
Real life heroes don't save the lives and do good deeds, day in and day out, instead they touch lives and make life better for those that they encounter.

Why the Bears are not a dynasty

2009-02-16T09:16:00.007-06:00

Here are my thoughts on the questions that I posed before. Looking at the data three teams bring up question marks about their place as a dynasty in the NFL. The Bears of 84-88 who were not classified as a dynasty the first time I looked at the data. The Bills of 88-93 who were counted as a dynasty, yet never won a Super Bowl during this time. And the Rams of 99-01, whose rise to power was dramatic however their team was quickly eclipsed by the Patriots. The Rams also never reached the height that other teams that are considered a dynasty did. Below is a plot of those teams with other relevant teams plotted around them. Each point on the plot is the teams' five year average of playoff performance, with a weighting further rounds more heavily.
1. Can there be more than one dynasty at a time?
I do not think so. I think that there can be two really good teams at the same time, but I don't think that the second best team over a span of time can be called a dynasty. This leads me down a path that I don't particularly like though, since I do not like having two dynasties at the same time I must ignore a team that is building until it is the best team, this means that when I look back at when a team is a dynasty I can not include the previous years that it was building up to be the dynasty team.
The larger implication of one dynasty team at a time has is that it is possible that there could be two teams that trade off Super Bowl wins over a couple of years but only one team can be named the dynasty for that time. This is my main argument against the Bears being a dynasty team. It turns out that during the same years that they were good the 49ers were even better. You can see in the chart above that for every spot along the graph the 49ers were still averaging a better playoff performance for the same time. More about this in question three.

2. How important is the regular season, how important is the playoffs?
I agree with most people here. The regular season is important but performance in the playoffs is what makes the team a legend. Lance made a good point of the 15-1 Vikings from 1998, they had an awesome regular season but history generally pushes that off to the side when talking about the 98 season, we know the Falcons went to the Super Bowl that year, we don't all know the Vikings great regular season.
I have though about adding a small component of the analysis that takes into account how well a team did over their regular season, but since I don't have the data already typed up I believe that it isn’t that important.

3. You can't just look at one year at a time, so how many years do we look at?
This is probably the trickiest question here. First because the span of years to look at changes which teams are considered the best, for example for we look at a four year average the Bears do become the best team for two years. Secondly it really seems like there should be a mathematical way to define how long of a span than we should look at, however I can't think of a way that satisfies me completely.
First let me explain the way which I decided upon 5 years. The initial thoughts were because it just seemed like a good round number to deal with; however hunches are not good since we are trying to let the data do the talking for us. So the idea that I came up with is to look at the length of playoff streaks (years in a row that teams went to the playoffs). Below I made a chart of the length of all the playoff streaks.
This seems to suggest that we should look at 4 or more years since a playoff streak of that length is better than the average streak. However if we look at playoff streaks that allow one year skips (so over four years a team goes to the playoffs 3 times, it still would count as a three year streak), we see that 5 or more years is above the ordinary length of a streak.
I will argue that the "One Skip" is a reasonable way to look at this problem, since we agree that missing the playoffs one year during a dominant stretch should not disqualify a team for being considered a dynasty.
Now if we look at a chart of 5,6 and 7 years we find that there isn't too much change among the three graphs, however the longer the span the smoother the ride at the top seems to be. Also with the 7 year average we see then the Bills and Rams are knocked out of being the top team. Does this give credit to the idea of a 7 year span?

4. Is winning the championship the only quality that makes a dynasty?
When I looked at this data I used a scoring system that favored winning in the playoffs. A team got 1 point for losing the Wildcard game, 2 points for losing the Divisional game, 3 points for losing the Conference Championship game, 5 points for losing the Super Bowl and 7 points for winning the Super Bowl. This was my way to weight the teams performance where getting to the Super Bowl was more important than just getting to the playoffs.
Earl suggested that winning the Super Bowl is the only thing that defines a dynasty team, he suggested that if a team wins it 3 times out of 6 years then that would be grounds for declaring a dynasty. Let's see how a chart of winning the Super Bowl looks (over 6 years):

Using this criterion we find three dynasties, the 49ers the Cowboys and the Patriots. I don't think that anyone would argue that these three teams are dynasties, so this method does work. However I believe that it is just a bit too conservative when looking for the good teams (also it is so straight-forward that it isn't much fun to talk about ^_^).

5. Can a dynasty last for only one season?
Take a look at the Steelers and the Raiders here. Both teams are the best team only one year, the Raiders in 1983 and the Steelers in 2008.

My initial thought was to disallow these two teams from being considered a dynasty because they were on the top for only one year. However, I have thought about this a bit more and I think that they are OK. Each point on the plot is actually 5 years of data combined, so that means that over the last 5 years that team was the best, not just that one year. Even if a team later eclipses the teams performance that should not take away the accomplishments made for those five years. Say the Steelers get overtaken next year by the Colts. That still means that for the last 5 years the Steelers have been the best team. (I have run the numbers and basically the only way the Steelers to lose their top spot is for the Colts to make it to the Super Bowl next year.)

That settles it right? :)

Sports Dynasties

2009-02-11T09:10:00.004-06:00

Some questions that I have when thinking about what makes a dynasty in sports.

1. Can there be more than one dynasty at a time?

2. How important is the regular season, how important is the playoffs?

3. You can't just look at one year at a time, so how many years do we look at?

4. Is winning the championship the only quality that makes a dynasty?

5. Can a dynasty last for only one season? (This question is somewhat related to the first question since only allowing one dynasty at a time means that some dynasties will get clipped to a very short time frame.)

I will give my answers soon to these questions when I think about them a bit more.

Sidenote: Is there anything that Obama can't do?

Ponderables

2009-02-06T11:40:00.002-06:00

Currently I am working on a follow up to the last post I made about dynasties in the NFL, addressing questions like how long of a time span should we look at at one time, can there be two dynasties at the same time, does more than playoff performance matter, and other ponderables. If you have any thoughts about what defines a dynasty, and it doesn't just have to be in the NFL, I would like to hear them.

Know Thy Football History (Part II)

2009-02-02T10:18:00.005-06:00

First I should congratulate the Cardinals and Steelers on a well played, very entertaining Super Bowl. The Cards weren't given much of a chance going into the game, but I think next year people will take the more seriously. As always we had a good time at the Super Bowl party which was held at Nicole's mom's house this year. You can find out more about our party here and here.

OK, now for the football history. Leading up to the Super Bowl I was thinking about how to define and mathematically find NFL "Dynasties". My first thought would be just to look at overall records for each year including playoffs. However, when I thought about qualities of a successful team in the NFL their regular season record has little consequence in the long run. I don't think anyone would classify Patriot's season this year as successful even though they went 11-5 in the regular season. History really only remembers the teams that make it to the playoffs, so I know that I needed to look solely at the playoffs to find which teams were dominate throughout the recent history of the NFL.

What we decided upon was to give points to each team for how far they made it in the playoffs each year. Then I looked at the 5 year moving average of each teams success in the playoffs. After all the data was compiled I got the following graph. (Note: I removed any team that was not the best team at any point, the lower part of the graph was pretty crowded.)

From this graph we see that the Cowboys have been the most dominate team at any one point, with their height at 1993. (93 Dyn5 means that I am looking at 1991-1995, 93 is the center point of the average.) Also, recently the Patriots have been the team to beat although with the Steelers win in Super Bowl XLIII they are now the team. It is interesting to see that besides the 49ers most teams have a pretty regular peaking cycle that has their rise to power about as swift as their fall.

According to my analysis, these are the football NFL Dynasties for the "modern" era of football (1978 on). I am shifting my years, so that each year listed is at the end of the average, so 1982 means I am looking at playoff performance from 1978 to 1982.

1982: Cowboys
1983: Raiders
1984-85: 49ers
1986-87: Redskins
1988-92: 49ers
1993-94: Bills
1995-96: Cowboys
1997-99: Packers
1999-2001: Broncos
2002-03: Rams
2004-07: Patriots
2008: Steelers
*Both the Packers and the Broncos had the same rating in 1999.

So what does this mean for current football history? It looks like the Patriots are on their way out, it is hard for me to think that this is possible since their team still has a good core but they are heading downwards. Also it looks like the Steelers are on their way to being the dominate team for a couple of years. Looking at the full graph the only other teams that are tracking significantly up are the Giants, Chargers and Cardinals, so they are the teams to watch for the next couple of years.

Know Thy Football History Part I

Easy Quick Million

2009-01-28T10:20:00.002-06:00

Just had an idea. To make cleaning key boards easier they should come with crumb trays that you can pull out to clean, like a toaster.

This is just one of the many good, no, great ideas I have each and every day.

Steal me

2009-01-24T01:09:00.004-06:00

A quick bit of art that I did on my tablet while listening to Jupiter Sunrise (clicky for huge version). Here is the song that this is from (take a listen, it is good).

About Color

2009-01-21T15:02:00.004-06:00

Growing up in Garden City (Kansas) has allowed me to have a completely different outlook on the subject of race relations in America. Garden didn't have that many blacks but more than 50% of the population is made up of "minorities", mainly mexican and asian. When I was younger the idea that someone is judged solely on race was an idea that I had thought lived in the past, since it was never a case in Garden (that I saw).

My ideas started to change when (ironically) I got to college. I noticed that some people were treated slightly different, but nothing really that huge. During the same time I would grimace when I would overhear a group of white students talk in the coffee house about race relations and about how everyone was raciest out in western Kansas because we don't have blacks, and that they had a black friend, or whatever snooty thing they would say.

One major observation occurred when I went to a graduation at college and they talked about how going to college is good because of the "integration" that it has. Then I went back to a high school graduation at Garden. That was integration, there we had mexican families celebrating with white families, asain parents talking to black parents (Garden has gained a fair amount of black population recently). Mixed race families were common. No one mentioned race during graduation, and no one talked about a need to work together. That is just the way life is.

Currently I live in Tulsa and I have no doubt that racism goes on. People here make it quite obvious that people of mexican heritage are on a lower rung than the privileged whites. Ironically everyone here also has some sort of reverend for native americans, probably because they feel guilt for living in "their land". At times the comments are annoying, at times they are infuriating. I really had no idea that so many people made their decisions about people based off of what they thought their heritage was.

Now let's move to the election of Obama. We all have heard about how it was a historic day because he was black. But there has been some outcry because of this, take for example this thread on BGG on a topic about the significance of Obama's color:

stayman:I was mentioning to my 7 year old son that we have a new President. He says, "yeah dad, it's Barack". I then mention that it's kinda historic day, to which he seems puzzled. I explain he's the first African American President. He was still puzzled.
It then occured to me that my son (remember he's 7) is utterly and completely oblivious to race.

jpat:I say this without any criticism, but I seriously doubt that your son (or anyone else's in this country) is complete oblivious to race. While he may well not be bigoted, it's nigh-impossible to be unconscious of it. Nor do I think colorblindness (or "postracialness") is a goal we can afford at this juncture in our political history. It's too much to me like forgetting rather than forgiving, and it's often been an ideal promoted by whites, who as a group have been able to "afford," in a broad sense, to ignore race.

To that I replied

As a white person I view the election of Obama, as "the best person for the job won". However I think the black population as a whole felt that the election showed that really ANYONE could make it, and a fulfillment of MLK Jr.'s Dream. So I think the significance for the day is different for each race.

That being said I believe that race can be as non-issue as hair color if we let it be. When was the last time that the press questioned the lack of red heads in coaching positions? Race should only tell people about your heritage, like eye color, or height, not who you are.

The thing is that the election of Obama is a historic day. And it is historic like Jackie Robinson playing MLB baseball, or Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech. As a matter of fact it is even bigger than those, because yesterday Obama proved that there is no excuse that anyone can't become the most powerful person in America (the world?). The truth is that until someone actually fulfilled that spot, like Obama did, it was still an unrealized dream. But now there is credit, an example, when someone says that anyone can make it, just look at who has done it in the past.

It was a historic day for everyone. But here is my personal hope now. We have witnessed the last, greatest, "barrier" being broken down. Race should now not be an issue. I don't ever want to hear about how someone was the first black to win the curling championship. I don't want to know that no mexican has ever been vice president. It is not news anymore, Obama was the last one, the biggest one. The only way that this stuff will continue to be news is if we let it be news. It must stop.

It would be stupid to say that racisim is over, it is not, I know that. But the fact is that most people are good, and most people do not make decisions based on race. To allow the news, and the "minorities" to cling to the idea that failures occurred in life is due to race, without proof, is a disgrace and a disservice to them. We should not expect "minorities" to get ahead in life in spite of their race, we should expect them to get ahead in life due to their own hard work and abilities.

We are now past the issue of race in terms of something that makes barriers for people.

A final related anecdote. At some point when I was going to college it was asked of me if I know anyone who was black. I thought about it for a long time and said no, noting that Garden doesn't have many blacks in general. But then I remembered, one of my best friends in Garden had a black step-father. I would saw him multiple times each week. I had forgotten that he was even black; to me he was just his dad, and I should say -a really cool guy. I am thankful that I had that experience because that showed me that it is possible to be "colorblind", and not see someone for the race that they are born with, but by the character of their soul.

2009-01-20T11:44:00.000-06:00

Plastic Cups.

2009-01-15T16:34:00.005-06:00

My semi-open letter to Panera (I typed it into a survey thingy for them already):

My big problem is that the soda cups that you use now are the clear plastic types. My normal lunch ritual is to soda during lunch and then on my way out grab a cup of coffee in the same cup. This may or may not be "allowed" -but the fact is I do it and that is one of the reasons why we choose to eat at Panera for lunch, especially when it is cold outside (my office seems to think that ice is the best room temperature setting.) Now that you have clear plastic cups that are not suitable for coffee I can not do this. This will cause me to think twice about eating at Panera since one of the things that I enjoyed about the experience is now not possible. When we do eat there I will just get water now since I am not a Pepsi fan, and I only could justify the purchase of a soda because of the coffee afterward.

Ookami of the Snow

2009-01-13T10:37:00.004-06:00

Marvel has a nifty web app where you can make your own Superheros. I think that I would make an ok superhero.

Check it.

Long hair and stunning good looks will do that

2009-01-12T09:23:00.003-06:00

Problems for Daily Piglet's kid reminded me of a story about my past that I chortle to myself about:

When I was growing up I would get called a girl a fair amount of times.

My favorite time was when I came up to a men's retreat with our church, and other churches in the area. I came in later in the morning, during a talk one of the guys from another church was giving. There was only about 40 of us in the room, and at the end of his talk he said something to the effect of "and that is something every guy, or girl -motioning to me, could be proud of." In his defense I did have long hair at the time. But common it was a men's retreat, for guys, I had to be pretty convincing as a girl for him to ignore that fact.

Afterward at lunch he apologized a bunch.

c-cedilla

2009-01-09T11:12:00.000-06:00

I used to have a real problem with the way some people would pronounce ramen noodles, they would say "ray-men" which is not right, it should be "rah-men". Likewise anime should be "ah-neh-meh" not "an-ee-meh". That is because Japanese letters don't have the short a sound. Interestingly it used to really annoy me when people would pronounce crepe with on overly French accent. I know, I can't have it like that logically, but that is why I stopped caring about stuff like that much. We speak English, the language of amalgamation, it comes from everywhere and is spoken in many different ways.

However there is something that annoys me so much so that I usually stop reading after I see it. C-Cedilla: Ç. Come on that isn't even an english letter. We have like five ways to pronounce c -just use c and we will figure out a way to pronounce it. People that use it seem like they are just putting up a facade.

Ironically I really like the letter æ, so I guess you could call me a hypocrite. Or we could just write ˈhi-pə-ˌkrit and be done with it all.

Variance in Time machine

2009-01-07T10:16:00.003-06:00

I started to think about things one morning when Aaron texted everyone about getting shipped off to Hawaii and about how seemingly small decisions made huge outcomes in his life, like how a certain session of Star War Galaxies lead to him meeting his future wife. I got to thinking about how it would be neat if there was a machine that you could look through that would show how important each action that we are doing is for changing our future. So someone eating cereal wouldn't be changing their future much because most of the decisions they make during that time will result in the same outcome. While a person that is flipping a coin to decide what restaurant to eat at would show up as a pivotal decision about to be made.

I started to think about how such a machine would work, and I think I have it figured out: Suppose we exist in the "superposition" universe where each possibility can and does happen, so if a coin is flipped it lands on heads in some universes and tails in others, however we only experience one instance of the universe, so we only see one outcome of the flip. Now also assume that we can find a particle that can travel faster than light and when reflected travels back through time (yeah, that is a tall order, but it is what would make this machine work.) The Variance in Time machine emits these very fast particles which goes out forward in time through all possible future universes given the current one we are in, and then gets reflected back to the machine. The machine then displays the areas where the biggest variations in the future are found (where the particles reflected back come from the most directions, or change in some manner). The results are normalized so that only the decisions that have the biggest effect on the future would show up and also you could tune the time to hear back from the reflecting particles to that you can "see" different times into the future.

So looking through the machine in a restaurant we see no significant changes to a person reading the newspaper, but a huge red dot on a waitress that may or may not drop a plate of food. The question that this machine brings up is that even though we know that there is a pivotal event to happen, we don't know if it is good or not. Say we are driving on an icy road and the machine picks up that a huge pivotal event is about to occur, the first reaction would be to stop since it might be that you have a wreck, however it could have been that you saved the life of a future president if you would have kept on going. However it could be useful when picking lottery numbers.

Obviously if we had the machine and used it when I was deciding to write this post or not it would have been going off the charts, because by me posting this I have laid the blueprints to what will make me billions of dollars. The Variance in Time machine.

City Scape V1

2009-01-06T11:35:00.000-06:00

The City Scape cipher is based around the same principals as the Patches cipher. It is read from left to right, top to bottom, in groups of 2x2 blocks. There are no spaces, and letters are directly substituted in. The roads are drawn on for decoration and have no relevance in translating the text.

The block of text says: "I reall(y) dont like the word blog" I sort of missed that y when I was writing it out and didn't notice until I got to the word blog.

Enjoy.

Sukiyaki Western Django

2009-01-05T15:40:00.005-06:00

This weekend, among other things, we watched Sukiyaki Western Django on Blu-Ray at Chris and Jenette's. I have been wanting to watch it since Charity showed up the trailer on Youtube. Now that I have seen it I don't really know what to think about the movie, but it is awesome. Sukiyaki is a western set in Nevada around the year 1100, with a Gatling gun at a settlement full of color-coordinated English speaking Japanese gunslingers. If that doesn't sound like your cup-of-tea, this movie isn't for you. However if that description piques your interest check out the trailer; it is basically what the movie is like.

If you ask me this will revive Japanese Cinema to overtake Hollywood.

A Tale of Heroism

2009-01-01T10:48:00.000-06:00

I broke the zipper on my favorite pair of pants not too long after I bought them. Nicole came to my rescue however and fixed them for me. The zipper that she put in them is a really big industrial sized metal monster, which will never break again. The problem with this new zipper is that it is so study that it can zip over most material without a problem.
About a week ago I was wearing these pants to work. After lunch I went to the bathroom, while unzipping my pants I noticed that the zipper got stuck and wouldn't zip down any further. No problems, I had my fly open far enough that I could still use the bathroom. When I finished I tried to zip up my pants only to find that the zipper was stuck. Really stuck. Like the zipper has ate the opening of my boxers on both sides of the zipper. Like the bottom part of the zipper was completely riding on my boxer flap -I have no idea how this is even possible. I tried yanking on the zipper to get it to move up or down, but let me tell you it will not move at all. After about a minute I just about gave up and figured I would just finish up my day with an open fly, I don't tuck in my shirt at work so my fly would only be slightly noticeable. There is only one small problem with that plan.
You see boxers are not as uniformly made as briefs are, and each one has its own personality. One group of three boxers I own was made in a magical way that allows part of me to get on out there if everything is moved just right. Normally this is no big deal as I have pants on, so all parts of me are covered anyways.
Now that day I happened to be wearing a pair of these boxers that have this problem. And now to compound this problem my stuck zipper has completely ate the opening flap for the boxers, basically begging me for a wardrobe malfunction.
This would not do, walking abound with an open fly is one thing but playing indecent exposure Russian roulette with every step I take is another. I was basically stuck in the bathroom in my office contemplating if I really needed to come out for the final three hours of my workday.
By now I had given up on calmly solving the ordeal and figured my pants needed to get zipped up even if it meant the demise of my underwear. I pulled as hard as I could and in every direction until, at some point, the zipper just got bored and let go. Nothing even got ripped up.
I went back to work like nothing happened.

Patches V1

2008-12-30T11:33:00.001-06:00

For Christmas Nicole got me a Bamboo Tablet, so now I can draw like a pro on my computer. My first official action is to work on digitizing the alphabet-code-things that I have been doodling for the last couple of years.

Patches was one of the first ciphers I made that wasn't just plain making different symbols for letters. It is based off an earlier code, but I can't find that one right now (I have all of my recent ones in the same notepad).

To use this cipher read a 2x2 group of boxes, from left to right, top to bottom. There are no spaces. The encoded block in the example page says "I really dont like the word blo" (I didn't want to leave the g hanging around in its own row, so I just left it off.)

What it's not about

2008-12-29T12:46:00.003-06:00

Before I get to my post proper, I just remembered something interesting that I thought about the other night. For me at least, I can make myself think of things that I have not thought about for a long time, such as a dart gun that I used to have before I was even in kindergarten, or in middle school being let out of class to look at a solar eclipse. All I do is to tell myself to think of things I have not thought about and memories start to pop up in my mind that I haven't thought about in so long. How can a brain do this? Is there some sort of "last time accessed" region that knows when I last thought about something? It is strange.

Well the reason I start to post was to talk about what it means to grow up, however my brain is sidetracked by figuring out how I can make myself think about things I haven't thought about for awhile. So I will just quickly write my thoughts about growing up.

In summary, it seems one good way to measure how much someone has "grown up" is to measure how much that person thinks, and acts, that the whole world revolves about themselves. For example a baby can be viewed as being so much about itself, that it doesn't even care to figure out what is wrong with itself, it just wants others to fix it for them. A toddler knows how to do things for others, a school aged kid can do deeds for the parents without asking, a college aged person can commit their life to someone else, and an "adult" can give their life to raise a herd of other people.

It is a bit simplistic, but I think a part of overall maturity would include a measurement of how much a person is not self centered. And in this regard there can be selfless kids that are more mature than some material craving adults.

On a different note, our hockey game got cut short this weekend because of a brawl between a ref and a player, after said fight the player returned to the rink and hit the ref with a hockey stick. The ref lost some blood and an ambulance was called. I think getting in a heated fight in a rec league about anything would mean you would test low on a maturity scale.

K-State Purple

2008-12-22T09:13:00.004-06:00

Outside of Kansas it is hard to find K-State merchandise, here in Oklahoma it is all OU and Oklahoma State at the sports stores, and in Colorado it is Broncos, and the other pro teams. What makes finding K-State stuff even harder is that K-State purple is a very distinct purple, and alot of companies that put out mass collegiate apparel don't realize that it is easy to tell when they get the color purple wrong. So I'll do my part here to point out the differences of the two colors.

First I will start with the right K-State Purple. Now I'm sure that this purple isn't the exact right color, but I tried to match the color on my monitor with the color of my hat, which is the right color. The first thing to notice is that K-State purple is a blue purple instead of a red purple. I think the proper name for blue purple is indigo purple.

Now this is the most commonly used wrong purple that is used for K-State. It is most definitely a red purple (violet purple) and seems a bit sun faded compared to true K-State purple. Alot of times K-State items that are discounted are of this color.

I have a couple of ideas why people get K-State purple wrong. The first is because the color is very hard to replicate on TV. It seems that there are two main options when most networks decide to broadcast our games on TV. The first is to make the purple look almost black, which I think looks fine. However, the more common color that gets shown as is that red purple that is certainly not the right color. It is a rare case when the color is actually broadcast correctly on TV. The second problem is that K-State purple is sort of a unique purple color in the sports world. It is similar to the Colorado Rockies, maybe a bit bluer, but most sports teams, such as the Phoenix Suns actually use the red purple instead. This means that, unlike say red or kelly green, there has to be someone who knows what color they should be using. And I bet most of the times companies just get something purple without actually looking at the color. The final problem is that it seems even some apparel that starts out the correct purple color fades into the red purple (while some really good quality stuff fades into just a lighter version of K-State purple). So some of the problem at stores could be just old apparel that started out the right color but have changed slowly into the wrong color over time.
I could go on about how K-State ink purple isn't the same color as normal K-State purple, and what colors should be paired with purple (K-State's only official color is purple), but I can tell from your face that you have had enough of this topic. Cheerio.

Mega Super Fun Game Post

2008-12-18T09:33:00.005-06:00

I have been hoarding some good games in my bookmarks and I never get them posted, so lets just get them all out so I don't have to think about posting them again.

Age of War - This game is brought to you by my office mate, which has been his poison of choice recently. The point of the game is to eliminate the opposing city and to do so you make troops and improve technology. There are also mega attack things that are free to use and kill lots of stuff, however you have to wait for them to be available again once you use them.

SeppuKuties - A platformer where you have to sacrifice cute animals to finish the level, be careful though, you only get one set of animals to play though the whole game with. I am currently stuck on level 9 and I can't seem to figure out how to beat it.

Robokill - A sweet game where you are a robot and you kill other robots and get upgrades to your own robot. It turns out that this is only the first "world" and you have to buy the expansion to continue playing, but the free part of the game is long enough that it is still very fun to play.

IncrediBots - This game is alot like Fantastic Contraption only there is way more options to choose. It is a little too detailed for me to like it as much as Fantastic Contraption but it is still fun. Going though the tutorial before you start with the levels is a big help.

Powerpool - This is the game that I have been playing when i need a 15 minute break from my normal work routine. The goal of the game is to sink all the ball, except the cue ball, like normal pool. But in this game some of the balls have special powers. Zanyness ensues.

Super Stacker - You get blocks and you get a platform to build on, just make sure that the blocks don't fall off the platform and you pass the level. could it really be that hard?

Go ahead try them all!

Branding.

2008-12-15T15:48:00.005-06:00

For as longs as I can remember logos have fascinated me. I like the idea of a symbol being able to both name and define an idea. Today while sitting around I started to think about what in my past made such a deep impression on me about logos and branding. I started to think about good logos and bad logos, and why I thought a good logo was good and what made a bad logo. Then it dawned on me, I know why I had a deep approval for good logos. Back in 1989 K-State changed from their "fuzzy head" wildcat to their current Powercat logo. I bet that the change in logo during my formative childhood years (I was 9 at the time), along with their rise in the reputation of the football team ingrained a scene of success with strong logos, especially compared to other weaker logos that were around since then.

Now the reason that I started thinking about this today is that I found a video on Youtube that is an interview with the lead designer of the Obama logo (see the end of this post). Despite my political feelings about Obama I do admire the way that he ran his campaign. He did a very good job of branding himself and his ideas and his logo was a brilliant step in getting out his name and ideas in an image that did not depend on any words. I can only imagine that from election forward that actual logos (not just word art) and branding will start to take a major role in political elections.

It could be argued if working on branding candidates actually gets us closer to getting good people elected however.

Obama logo design video:

My Love/Hate with Christmas

2008-12-11T16:33:00.004-06:00

When it comes to getting gifts I liked to be surprised. But with that want of surprise also lurks something that I hate, acting surprised. The truth of the matter is, that even with the best gift possible I probably wouldn't give as much of a reaction as an average person would give an average gift. There are two reason why this is: 1) I have problems emphasizing emotions. 2) As soon I unwrap the gift I think about it instead of acting all crazy. For instance, say somebody gave me a million dollars for Christmas, I would probably say something to the effect of "cool" and then start to think about how much needs to be invested, and if my house should get paid off, etc. Yeah, that makes getting presents for me difficult since the givers joy is diminished, but that's all I can offer. Its not that I don't like the gifts that I get, it's just that I don't communicate my approval for the gift in the same way as others. It seems my "thought" response is usually way ahead of my "emotion" response.

But don't forget: I do like getting gifts. :)

Cake in your face

2008-12-08T12:31:00.003-06:00

Nicole has been tracking an interesting idea:
Couples that don't shove cake into each others faces during their wedding reception have a higher chance of having a better marriage.
I was thinking about this last night when I was getting ready for bed and I think I have one reason why this might be the case: When one of the newlyweds decides to shove cake into their spouse's face they are basically deciding that the attention and laughter of others is more important to them than how their partner feels. Obviously that is not a good first step for a marriage, and an indicator or how the person will feel when the initial infatuation love wears off.
As always there are exceptions to the rules, but in general this seems to be the case from what we have seen.

New food update

2008-12-04T10:58:00.002-06:00

This week we have been cooking with three new focus ingredients: horseradish, liquid smoke, and beets. I figure I should let you know how things turned out.

On Monday night we made Portobello Mushroom Burgers which used homemade horseradish sauce. We couldn't find ground horseradish because either the store didn't have it or I couldn't describe the product good enough (they had more than enough prepared horseradish sauce though). So instead we bought fresh horseradish mushed it up using this recipe, and then used this recipe to make the horseradish sauce. The 'burgers' came out fine, at times they tasted like BLTs with mushroom and at times they tasted awesome depending on which bite I took (the stem of the mushroom tasted much better than the head). The horseradish sauce was good, but not amazing, however after a couple of days of rest in the refrigerator I bet the flavors will be a bit more developed. I will have to look for some more uses for horseradish now that I have a tupperware full of it.

Also on Monday night we started work on the liquid smoke recipe Kalua Pig in a Slow Cooker since the meat was to cook for 16-20 hours. We made a 2 pound roast instead of the 6 pounds, but besides that we did everything as written. Come Tuesday night the whole house smelt of cooked pig. We did end up having to use some water in the crockpot since our roast was small. Even before dinner I was looking forward to eating the roast and I wasn't let down. It is amazing what pork roast + liquid smoke + salt + cooking for 16 hours can equal, in my case awesome. I think that the liquid smoke did play an important role in filling out the flavor, however I couldn't really pick out the 'smoke' flavor since the roast had caramelized quite a bit on its own during the cooking.

Last night we took the biggest leap of faith and made Ukrainian Red Borscht Soup. Since this was my first cooking experience with beets or any Ukrainian anything I was a bit leery about making a freakin huge pot of it. While getting everything ready the first thing that I noticed was how cool beets are. They produce alot of magenta dye and after peeling look really spiffy. It turns out that beets kind of taste like dirt potatoes, or maybe like turnip. They are kind of a pain to work with since everything turns so pink and I was constantly in fear of staining everything in my kitchen. After everything cooked for an hour or so we gave the pink soup a taste and it turned out to be fairly good. Adding the sour cream to the soup at the end helps alot and I would describe the soup as a tomato-vegetable soup with a definite beet flavor. It is good, and I will probably make it again, however it makes alot and it would be difficult to reduce the scale of the recipe.

So whats for dinner tonight? How about Kalua pork sandwiches with horseradish sauce and borscht soup? You bettcha.

BCS all up in here

2008-12-01T16:38:00.004-06:00

Earl talks about the problems that the BCS faces this year, and me being the expert on everything has weighed in on the subject, but since I also am lazy (and I know a good post when I see one) I will just repost my comment about his post here.

***

Here are my two cents on the subject of the BCS.

When we talk about the BCS we need to realize two things:

1. The BCS was a huge improvement over using polls at the end of the season to figure the number one team in the nation. Besides different polls crowning teams national champions there was no guarantee that the number one and two teams in the nation leading up to the bowl games would even play each other. The championship game that we get now at least gets the top two teams to play against each other.

2. The BCS was devised to make the hard decision about what the top two teams are. In the case that there is a clear cut number one and number two all the polls and the BCS will agree and all is good in the land. However the BCS was made so that when there isn't an obvious matchup for the championship game. This means that when the BCS is most needed is when it has to make the tough decision about who are the best teams. So when the BCS is the most useful it will be criticized the most because it is there to pick only two teams. There really is no "win" situation for the BCS because somebody will always feel like they are getting left out.

Now I would much rather have a playoff system, as would much of the civilized world, however I doubt it will happen since there is just too much money tied up right now. Even an act of God (or Obama, whichever comes first) will probably not break the BCS logjam.

However if we do go to an 8 team playoff system we need to keep one thing in mind to keep it from becoming a pissing match. The point of the playoffs is to crown a single champion. And the point of the regular season is to be number one going into the playoffs. If we get to thinking that all our team needs to do is get into the playoff so that they can get a shot at the championship we will just fall down the slope of "well we are ranked 9 but are better then #8, we should get in too!" We can not, no, must not, think this way. We should think that the top 4 teams deserve to get into the playoffs, and the next for teams taken are there just in case there is some dispute about the top 4 teams. So the #8 team that got into the playoffs doesn't deserve to be there, it just got lucky.

If you liked this comment check out my blog. (Translation, I'm just gonna repost this comment over on my blog.)

Holiday Wish

2008-11-27T13:00:00.000-06:00

Happy Birthday Giving!

A brave new (food) world

2008-11-26T10:51:00.007-06:00

Every once in a while I get to thinking about the trends in the food that I have been eating. Recently there hasn't been a main theme, but for awhile soups were getting made a couple times a week, there have also been spans of eating alot of pork, apple dishes, mustard, and cooking with beer. So yesterday I thought about what ingredients or cooking methods interest me and I decided on three ingredients that may be the focus of my new culinary experiences.

First off are beets. My first experiences with beets are from the younger years of my childhood when my mom would cook pickled beets as a side dish. Besides the very cool color there wasn't much to like about them, they smelt horrible when cooking because of the vinegar and they didn't taste that good either (I seem to be very picky about what things I like pickled, some I love some I can't stand). However now that I am older I have thought about it and have realized that I have never actually had un-pickled beets. So beets are the first thing on my list of cooking focus.

The second thing that I have been thinking about is liquid smoke. The reason I started to ponder it was because I was thinking about the "next big food" which, incase you missed it, is currently bacon. I thought that maybe cooking with smoke flavor would be a natural extension of the bacon craze. Specifically I was thinking that having a wide selection of types of liquid smoke, each from a different type of wood would be huge. So I did some research and found out that liquid smoke is actually condensed smoke, and not just a chemical concoction (plus one point for that) and there is already is at least a couple kinds of liquid smoke already made. So the last time we were at the food store I picked up a bottle but I have not cooked with it, although I have alreday picked out my first target recipe.

The last ingredient that I will try to use more of is horseradish. It seems like every three years or so I get a carving for horseradish, and yesterday when I was thinking about new foods I stumbled upon a website about horseradish. I generally don't like this type of ingredient; radishes taste like spicy dirt, wasabi is ok at best, and I get tired of ginger (which to me tastes about the same to me) real quickly. However a good horseradish sauce made with cream for meat, or horseradish and lemon potatoes sounds really good, so I will take a look to see what other uses there are for horseradish.

One other idea that I have seen tossed around that I will look into trying is to use tea leaves to cook with, I don't know how exactly that works out, but it sounds interesting. Does anyone else have new dining horizons ahead? I would like to hear about them.

p.s. While scouring the internets for pics I found a recipe for beet chips with horseradish dip, I might have to try that.

Auditorium

2008-11-21T11:22:00.005-06:00

As is generally the case, the easy post trumps the hard posts. So the other posts I had thought about writing today will not happen: My Geekyness (Out of a bookcase full of interesting books I chose the basic stats book as reading material for the bathroom) and The Govt. Bailout (the worst idea since unsliced bread) .

Instead I found one of the coolest looking games to play, Auditorium. The basic Idea is to get the stream of particles to go through the sound bar things to make music. The way you direct the parties is through movable deflectors and other particle manipulators. As the bars light up parts of the overall song turn on until the full song is playing. The game sounds great and looks even cooler. It is like somebody went on board the Starship Enterprise, found what casual game they were playing and then made it for us to play. (It's a little know fact but Deanna Troi is an avaid casual game player on the comand consoles.) Now you can play visual awesome too. Clicky.

In good company

2008-11-19T09:27:00.004-06:00

Every morning we listen to Mike & Mike on the radio on the way to work. This morning, among other topics, they discussed how you would feel about the following:

1. A bank makes an error of $50,000 in your favor, and no one will ever know about you getting the money. Do you give it back?
2. A store rings up an expensive item incorrectly in your favor, do you alert them?
3. You seen an old lady drop en envelope that you find has $500 in it, do you return it to her?

Mike and Mike were talking about it and said that it would be a hard decision to make in each of them (they were assuming for the sake of argument that they were living from paycheck to paycheck and in general needed money.)

I can not see how these three issues are even close to each other, even for the money needing folk. Here is what I think in reverse order.
3. Obviously give the money back, while this isn't stealing form the old lady it basically is, and it is defiantly the right thing to do. The loss of $500 will directly effect a person.

2. This is a bit tougher, for me it would depend on what store I am at, how much I like them and what the circumstances are. If it is at a store that has crazy sales all the time I would just shrug it off as a deal that I happened to miss. If it was at a locally owned store I would ask about the price. Walmart often rings up produce wrong, and sometimes I point it out sometimes I don't (even when the error is not in my favor).

1. If this situation was occurring to me it would completely matter which bank it was at, if it was one that I think tries it's best to do well such as BOk here in Tulsa or Community 1st in Manhattan (KS) I would tell them. How ever if the bank is stupid like Commerce or if the bank just got a gift for the government for being irresponsible (see bailout) I would keep it. And I would think nothing of it.

You see here is where I differ than many, I do not think that we should treat businesses like people. Why should we give them the benefit of being responsible people, when they will have no such care back to us. They are out to "make a buck" usually at any cost to us, so why should we not be out to get as much from them as we can? Should the screwing not be a two way street?

I do however think that there are some companies out there that are trying their hardest to be good and treat their customers like people, and in those cases I will also try back to help them out. But Walmart, cell phone companies (besides T-Mobile), banks, and insurance companies, you are on your own. How much work would we have to go through to get $50,000 that an insurance company did not pay out when they were supposed to?

Note, however, that reporting errors on their part is different than stealing. Going into a bank that I don't like at taking $50,000 or shoplifting is NOT the same thing as giving back something that they gave me in error. Even if companies want us to think that it is.

On the same note Target has dropped a notch in the "I care about them" category. I got Nicole a fancy food scale for her birthday that turned out to not work correctly (it was very difficult to get it to "tare"). We tried to take it back last night to get a different one but they wouldn't let us return it without the receipt because it cost too much. What would they say if they wanted back something that they rang up for me wrong but I wouldn't give it back because it cost too much. They wouldn't be too happy about it I would figure.

The New Religion

2008-11-13T11:22:00.003-06:00

He says it better than I can.

Update: Lance took a post off from his week long hate fest of his alumni (the grand school of K-State) to also talk about the idea of Environmentalism as a religion. He found a video of an interview with Michael Crichton were he talks about this subject. His views are quite interesting.

Triumph

2008-11-11T16:03:00.003-06:00

I have to say that the most successful recent mission that the NASA has undertaken in terms of PR is the Phoenix Mars Lander. Besides the amazing discovery of actual water ice on Mars, the Lander had a twitter account with a following of almost 39,000 people. It was enjoyable to get up to the minute results from the Phoenix Lander as it happened on my phone, and it was very sad when recently the Lander sent out it's final goodbyes thanking everyone for their support.

Gizmodo has the final words from the Phoenix Mars Lander.

If you are reading this, then my mission is probably over.

This final entry is one that I asked be posted after my mission team announces they’ve lost contact with me. Today is that day and I must say good-bye, but I do it in triumph and not in grief.

As I’ve said before, there’s no other place I’d rather be than here. My mission lasted five months instead of three, and I’m content knowing that I worked hard and accomplished great things during that time. My work here is done, but I leave behind a legacy of images and data.

In that sense, you haven’t heard the end of me. Scientists will be releasing findings based on my data for months, possibly years, to come and today’s children will read of my discoveries in their textbooks. Engineers will use my experience during landing and surface operations to aid in designing future robotic missions.
...

(read the full note here)

I am glad that NASA has stepped up and used new technology that is freely available to increase the awareness of the projects that they are doing. This keeps interest in space exploration up and it also lets us know that the money we are spending on the projects are actually going to something useful. I will miss my daily tweets from the Phoenix Lander, and maybe when Martian summer rolls around in 2010 the Phoenix will have more updates to give us.

(There are some more NASA missions on Twitter: The Cassini Space Probe, The Mars Rovers, and The Mars Science Lab which will be launched in the fall of 2009)

King me

2008-11-10T11:18:00.004-06:00

So last night when I was halfway asleep I had an idea for my blog post today, and now that I am more awake it doesn't seems as much of an awesome topic as it did last night, but it is at least something I have not thought about for ages, so worthy of a post. Behold.

There are two types of checker pieces that we had at school. Which pieces to use always was a weighty topic on my mind when we had indoor recess. On one hand there were the pieces that had the little star in the middle; there was always a complete set of these, but they were dull and the small star looked so wimpy. On the other hand there was the pieces that had a large shiny star in them which were defiantly the coolest looking piece, however, there was never enough of these to make a full set, so if I chose to use these then I would have to use at least a couple of the "small star" kind. The big problem was that the big star and small star pieces had different sized teeth cut on them, so they don't stack, so when they get paired together on a King they don't lock together right, and that is very annoying.

So the dilemma was: a complete set of lame looking pieces, or a partial set of cool pieces that don't lock with a few lame pieces. What was my solution? The obvious thing of course, I would use the cool pieces and then sacrifice the lame looking pieces as soon as possible. Note, it was against the rules to substitute the lame pieces on the board with cool pieces that were already captured, so there had to be a conscious effort to get rid of the small star pieces as soon as possible.

Because, you know, the point of playing checkers is to have cool looking pieces, right?

p.s. I liked the red pieces in checkers, however in all other games I prefer the black pieces over the other color.

Splitter

2008-11-07T15:34:00.003-06:00

Time for some fun. In Splitter you take the role of a chef that has a very sharp knife that can cut through wood and other objects. The goal of the game is to get the smiley faced ball into the orange disc. This physics based puzzler is a good way to pass by the odd 15 minutes. I wouldn't say that this game is the best puzzler ever but some solutions are clever. However, if you do get stuck they do give an option of watching a video that shows how to solve the level. Check it out.

How the Republican Party Failed Me

2008-11-06T12:24:00.006-06:00

It pains me to say it, but given my choice of candidates for president, my ballot had Obama marked on it when it was entered. Luckily I live in the second reddest state of all, Oklahoma, which only had 34% support for Obama. My vote was less of a vote for him and more of a vote against what the Republicans have become. If the race here was closer, I would have had to think much deeper about who to vote for, and probably would have not chosen either. But in the end of the day I did vote for Obama.

I had to think real hard about what is going wrong with the Republican party, because I have never voted against them, even when I had the luxury of voting for a 3rd party candidate. And the best single answer I can think of is that the Republican Party, as it currently stands, thinks that defending against terrorism is the number one priority for our government.

Now the idea of the government trying to protect its citizens is a good idea, but the way we have gone about it is wrong. Basically we are being protected through fear mongering. We can't take liquids on plains because of terrorists, we have to surrender our laptops at border crossing because of terrorists, we can't take pictures of structures because of terrorists, the list go on and on of ways that we are being "protected" from terrorists.

And here is where I have the real problem; we can't talk about fear at the same time that we talk about freedom. As the government becomes more fearful they must take away freedoms to protect against these fears, and once one fear is shored up a new one takes hold. This sort of thinking is leading us on a path directly to 1984.

Let me give an example; I have been thinking about... ...there are crazy people out there. But since I have to dance around this subject, like I am now, just so that I don't get called down to the FBI office means that I don't really have the freedom to talk about this subject. Even now I am thinking about deleting this above paragraph.
[Note: I did delete the paragraph, just left the start and the finish. If a kid can get hauled off to jail for writing a zombie story, I can't take those chances. Hurray freedom of speech. ]

So, what can we do? For one the government needs to stop being so paranoid. Also the GOP needs a major reform before I will vote for them again. I can not vote for people to take away my freedoms under the guise of protection. That is just crap. The Republicans used to stand for family and freedom, now they cower in fear. Hopefully one day they will get past the terrorist attacks. But until then I will vote other places.

Chin up Ron Paul, you didn’t fail, it was the party that failed.

Up in smoke.

2008-11-05T10:58:00.005-06:00

Another election, another slice of freedom gone, but this time it doesn't effect me directly since I am in Tulsa.

Manhattan (Kansas) passed their ban on smoking in public places this time around. Now everyone can enjoy their "freedom" of eating in a smoke-free environment at the cost of business owners deciding what legal activity their patrons can partake in.

Freedom doesn't mean that you can do whatever you want, how you want. Freedom means that the government will not limit what you can do.

Due up in 2012: Ban on trans fat
In the batting circle in 2016: Ban on large portions of food
Clean up in 2024: Ban on "unhealthy" food

Suck it personal choice, hurray government dominance!

Update: Ever since starting my job here in Tulsa I felt the need to post again about how no one does correct statistics in their studies. However, my comment that I left is close enough to scratching that itch that I will just post it here and be done with it (for now).

The first time that I actually looked at a study that was conducted, just to see what it had to say, was a study that the American Heart Association did on second hand smoke. What I found shocked me.
While the study was used to say that second hand smoke was dangerous and bad, the study actually found that unless you live with a smoker that smokes multiple packs a day for many many years second hand smoke does not hurt you.
They were lying to us about the outcome of the study.
This got me interested in other studies, mainly global warming, since the quick analysis that is presented to the general public is flawed. Sure enough, they aren't finding anything like they are claiming, but some how it gets reported that the problem is dire and completely our fault.
Now that I work answering statistical questions from people doing studies all over the world it is quite obvious -
It is rare for someone to do an actual statistically valid study.
I don't think that people are intentionally misleading people, or doing bad science on purpose, I think that it is a matter of not knowing what they are doing statistically.
And it is sad to say, but if you do the best experiment in the world, but then do a wrong analysis or misinterpret the results your study is for naught, or worse you come to the wrong conclusion.
So here we are with "evidence" for a need to protect peoples health with a smoking ban. Policy is made without regard to actually knowing the truth.
But we can all sleep better at night, right?

Halloween Followup

2008-11-03T11:14:00.005-06:00

Alright, here is the pic of the pumpkins that we carved.

On the left is Nicole's. She carved a dancing Katamari, from the ball rolling game Katamari Damacy. My pumpkin is in the middle, it is a hand turkey the size of Godzilla destroying a town, scary, no? The pumpkin on the right is Charity's (friend from K-State) who carved pumpkins with us. You can't tell the differences in shading, but the hair glows in real (jack-o-lantern) life. So that was a good time.

Also, we dressed up for work since there was a costume contest, I didn't know that this was going to be the "offical" contest entry pic or I would have got a bit more prepared for it, like getting my leather bound book that I brought with, but, oh well.

If you can't tell, and no one could, I am a Data Sage that can do magical things to your data without regards to the underlying study or mere mortal rules of math and science, since this is a popular request from some of my customers. However, this was a bit too complicated to convey to people ourside my brain in the time they gave me to answer "what are you?" so I was going undercover as a wizard most of the time on Friday.

Nicole had the same problem that I did and didn't get properly dressed for the picture, she was a spiffy hat, but that is ok since she still won second place overall.

The winner of the contest was Jim, who had an awesome costume as a nerd, and really played the part well too.

Just for future reference: Jim looks nothing like this in real life.

Trick-or-Traditions

2008-10-31T10:09:00.003-05:00

Halloween used to be the holiday that I would look forward to the most right after Christmas. I think that I really liked doing the decorating for the holiday and then there was trick-or-treating to get excited about. Recently Thanksgiving has taken the number two spot in my mind, but Halloween is still fun.

When I was growing we would follow basically the same routine for Halloween night. We would eat dinner at the normal time, which as I have learned is early for most people. While eating we would get our first trick-or-treaters at our door. After dinner we would get dressed up and get out the door around sunset. Either my mom or dad would go with my sisters and I around the block and neighboring blocks. Then we would walk down to my grandparents house and trick-or-treat along the way (her house was about half a mile away. After visiting my grandmas we would get picked up in our car and we would go around to my family's friends and trick or treat at their houses. We would end up with a large bag full of candy, which was a good haul for one night, but we didn't overdo it either.

As far as I can remember we had basically free reign to our candy when we got home, which actually didn't disappear all that quickly, I know that I would hide my candy and eat it throughout the year, and I would even have to throwout the old candy that was left when I put the new batch in the same place. (Stupid orange and black peanut butter things.)
When I got a bit older we would play candy poker which is just poker with candy as the chips, having designated values for each candy. We would get to keep the candy that we would win, so after a couple of high pot rounds one of us would get gun-shy and not bet anymore candy and the game would end.

My favorite costume that I can remember is when my mom made me a Link costume (from the Legend of Zelda). The part that I like the best was the shield that she made for me which rocked. I have heard that I dressed up like Pac-Man which was a good costume, but I don't remember wearing it. So it doesn't count.

The problem that I have now is that I don't get excited for Halloween until a couple of days before, recently it has been so hot still that it still feels to early in the year for it. But this year it got nice and cool so the holiday felt correct. Also, we carved some rockin pumpkins this year, which may account for way I am more excited about it this year than the last couple. (Also we got to dress up for work.)

Twitter

2008-10-29T15:38:00.001-05:00

Just to let yall know I am on twitter and I have actually been using it a bit more than in the past (i.e. about once a week).

And now the talking points:

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

BOk Center On Ice

2008-10-27T11:50:00.005-05:00

One of the big things that Tulsa was pushing for with its Vision 2025 was to build a new arena downtown to revitalize the area. The BOk Center was completed a couple of months ago, and Nicole and I got tickets to see the Tulsa Oilers (CHL) play their first game in the new arena.

The first thing that most people comment on when talking about the new arena is that the architecture looks cool. I have seen the outside of the arena many times but this was the first time that I was inside it. I was glad to see that they made the inside reflect the same kind of sweeping lines that the outside has. Inside each entrance the space is open to the top of the arena which looks pretty spiffy.

The arena consists of three levels, two for us mortals, and one level that is completely full of corporate boxes. I am glad to see that they put the effort into getting local companies to buy into the arena to help support it. I noticed that the big wig level had nice tv's, couches, and all the fixins that they like. I think that one of the keys to get teams to stay in a place is to have the backing of the local big businesses, if the money is always flowing in the team can withstand the ups and downs of the community support.

The part of the arena that the rest of us gets to enjoy was also nice. There is a fair variety of concessions -all at normal to low cost for arena food, depending on what you get. My favorite choice is In The Raw which is the local hot place for sushi. While I think that they charge way too much for sushi at their normal stores they kept the prices basically the same for the arena which means that sushi at a hockey game is one of the best options. That alone will get me to go to some games since having a solid food choice at the game will mean I have more options to go without having to think about the implications for my dinner.

For this game Nicole and I got close tickets just so we could be near the ice on the first night. They spared no expense where the action takes place because the ice looked good, the drop down scoreboard was impressive and there was plenty of (filled) seats. Nicole and I both thought that the arena was very similar to the St. Louis Blues arena, and we both liked Tulsa's better.

It is good to see something get planned out and pulled off so well. From the murmurs I heard in the crowd people were impressed with the arena and once construction gets done parking shouldn't be too much of a problem. Now if only the Oilers could play a little bit better. (They lost 5-1)

An illusion of choice

2008-10-23T12:14:00.006-05:00

When trying to get little kids to do something a handy trick is to give them a choice about what to do, with both options resulting in the desired result. For example if you want to get your tyke to go to bed instead of asking him if he wants to go to bed, present him with the options to either get a piggy back ride to bed or to pretend like he is a spy and sneak into bed. No matter what the choice is the parent wins, because the desired result is accomplished, and the kid is happy because he got to make a choice.

That is what is going on with the United States political system.

It is sufficient to say that the big wigs in the political parties are very happy with their position in the current political system. Sure the GOP would like to see more republicans get elected, but if it doesn't work out in one election eventually things will return their way down the road.

Now, the Republicans and Democrats obviously want to stay in power, and the problem is that they have been in power for so long that they have been able to reshape the political system so that they will always stay in power. This idea of the absolute dominance of the two political parties has been tugging at my brain for a bit during this political season, but I was confronted with the problem head on yesterday.

You see this is the first time that I will be voting in a state other than Kansas. And down here in Oklahoma things are dome a bit differently, namely there is almost a complete absence of third party candidates on the ballot. I have two valid choices for president: McCain or Obama. That is it. No write in votes are allowed, no third party candidates onto the ticket. (Due to new laws in Oklahoma.)

So, for almost all my elected officials I must chose either between a Republican or a Democrat. But this problem is just limited to the great state of Ok. There are many rules and regulations that are made that are purposely put in place to keep all other parties from gaining a foothold in the political system. It's not that surprising, but when Republican and Democrat officials make rules about what parties can realistically run for president they basically said that only big parties can run, and what makes a big party? Well if your party is one of the ones making the rules.

So why doesn't this cause problems in America? Why isn't there an outcry about the fallacy of choice that we have? Because we do get a choice. Just like a parent herding the child to bed, we are given a choice either result is a win for a parent. Do we want Generic Republican Candidate A or Generic Democrat Candidate B? Since we are given this choice most people don't realize that there are more candidates out there, and some of them have actual ideas that aren't the same as the Democrat/Republican Party. The focus on "one or the other" has made us blind to choosing the one that is right.

So where does that leave us? Well, we know that only the Republicans and Democrats can play the game as it is now. And we need to get the laws changed, so it would be nice to get some third party candidates into office so that they can change the laws, but that is a bit Catch-22 don't you think? So here is an option that has a chance to work; destroy one of the current parties. If one of the parties can rip itself apart, it would cause, by default, a three party system. And when we open a debate to three parties it is much easier to get other ones in as well.

So how can you help? Well the best option always would be to always vote for third party candidates whenever it is possible if you feel that they are a better choice. They may not win now, but it will give them momentum to become bigger for the next time around.

What about situations where there is not choice like in Oklahoma? In these cases we need to try to push the stress in political parties to edge them closer to breaking their monopoly on the political system. For this election this means that, and I HATE to say it, the Republicans need to lose, badly. If Obama can win the election by a huge margin then maybe the party will buckle and split into a Freedom Loving - Small Government Party and the rest remain as the Domestic Surveillance - Big Business Rights Before People's Rights Party.

The split probably won't happen, but any crack in the status quo in Washington will help the parties that want actual change come to the surface. And once a third party is available to choose more parties will emerge. And if the kid asks if option C is OK instead of A or B, then the kid will start to think about what other options are possible as well. That is when we can start to put the government into its correct place. That is: It serves us, instead of it herding us into the direction that it wants.

People argue that voting third party is a wasted vote. I believe that voting Republican or Democrat is more of a waste.

A for Awesome

2008-10-22T12:03:00.004-05:00

It is not secret that I do not like V for Vendetta. I have a problem with the tone of the movie, the script of the movie, and the fact that you are rooting for the villain in the movie.
Well guess what "movie" does what V for Vendetta did, but with a double punch of awesome and awesome-r. Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.
This short film does a much better job of showing why some evil people are good and some good people are evil, and gets me to actually root for the villain. Other pluses are that it is funny, free, and a click away. Watch it.

Wanna Bet?

2008-10-16T12:06:00.005-05:00

Lately I have been working on various ways to predict scores in football for my fantasy football league. But since I am trying to predict something that doesn't really happen (i.e. fantasy football games) I can always claim that the models that I predict are right. So I decided to give a whirl at predicting some NFL football games versus the spread. So lets see how this goes.


Game    M1  Conf. M2 Conf.
SD@Buf  Buf .36   Buf .73
NO@Car  NO  .25   NO  .66
Min@Chi Min .28   Min .52
Pit@Cin Cin .78   Pit .09
Ten@KC  KC  .20   KC  .75
Bal@Mia Mia .12   Mia .95
SF@NYG  SF  .44   SF  1.00
Dal@StL Dal 1.00  Dal .30
Det@Hou Det .31   Det .32
Ind@GB  Ind .45   GB  .45
NYJ@Oak Oak .47   NYJ .39
Cle@Was Was .74   Cle .09
Sea@TB  TB  .89   Sea .70
Den@NE  NE  .79   NE  .20

M1 and M2 are based on the same model, one just includes blocking on team defense. Conf. is the scaled confidence each pick has for the method.

I wonder if I can pick better than chance doing this.

Update: If I was going to bet $100 multiplied by my confidence, I would have ended up this week with the totals of: -$322 from the M1 system, and -$199 from the M2 system. No so good. I'll give it another try this week.

Can I touch them?

2008-10-15T18:29:00.003-05:00

Michelle usually beats me to posts this sort of thing, so I better get it up now.

Play to Dream

2008-10-14T16:37:00.007-05:00

Alot of people are opposed to the idea of lotteries, saying that it is a tax on the poor or that it is tax on people that are bad at math. And I agree that basically no one will win the Powerball, but I think that playing (in moderation) is a good idea. And, no, my reason isn't because it gives the government money.

The reason that I think the lottery is good to play is because it gives people something to dream and hope about. When we were kids we were able to dream about what presents awaited us at the two greatest times of the year, birthdays and Christmas. For two months leading up to these holidays the wild ideas of what awaited filled my head. But as adults we don't generally get really excited about those holidays anymore, at least not enough to think about at night when going to bed.

I think we should play the lottery so that we have something to think about, to make us think "How big of a house is really too big?" Of course you will never win the jackpot, but the price per week to play will make up for itself in the hope that maybe you will win, and be able to buy a vacation house in Alaska, or maybe build an awesome library onto the house.

You shouldn't play to win, you should play to have the chance to win.

Friday Ball Games

2008-10-10T11:07:00.005-05:00

Come right up and get a three pack of ball games for your Friday needs.

We will start off easy with FunkyBall. The object of this game is easy, just get your pink ball into the pink box. You move your ball left and right with the arrow keys. The key to this game is to always keep your ball under control because once it starts bouncing around all willy-nilly it is all over. On the easy level I finished up with a time of 14:54.

After you have warmed up a bit it is time to move on to The Eyeballing Game. The point of this game is to get as close to the actual geometric answer as possible. The tasks involve making a right angle, picking the center of a circle and bisecting an angle. I actually had a good time playing this game. My overall average was 7.97.

To round out the three-pack we have These Balls Are Made for Hiding. In this game you direct a laser that bounces around on hidden spheres. The point of the game is to not let any of the spheres reach the bottom of the screen, while trying to get a high score. The more spheres you hit in one shot the more points you get (click the mouse to take the shot). Every 15 shots or so the level changes and the spheres get a bit smaller and different walls are available to bounce the laser off of. This one is oddly addictive. I got to level 4 (the second red stage).

Check them out.

Apple of my ears

2008-10-08T12:08:00.004-05:00

There is nothing grosser sounding that eating an apple. It must be something about the firmness of the flesh that turns real juicy upon bite impact that requires slurping from the lips and all of this is amplified by the shape that the mouth makes when eating the apple so that every sucking sound is directed right into my ears.

I dare you to find a grosser sounding food to eat.

Update: I must really dislike this sound.

Making the right mistakes.

2008-10-07T14:32:00.004-05:00

Soon six computers will be throwing it down Turing Test style. Maximum PC has an article about it here.
The Turing Test is a test where a researcher chats with the computer, and if the researcher can't tell if he is talking with a computer or a person then the machine passes the test. The article has an example of the test; here is the part of the computer conversation that I want to highlight:

KW: What mysterious subjects?
Subject: Think deeply about mysterious dubjects.
KW: What's a dubject?

KW is administering the test. "Subject" is the computer.

Why would a computer misspell the word subjects? I am guessing to be tricky. You see, computers can't make a mistake, so having a computer make a mistake will throw people off the trail. However, when I was reading the two conversations in the article this exchange made me immediately think that this was computer making an intentional mistake.
Why was it so obvious? I think the first thing is that a real person who is trying to prove that he is a human will first make sure that he doesn't make obvious mistakes. Why? Because everyone is looking at what you type and you don't want to look like a fool. So I doubt that any mistakes made would be done in obvious places like the first letter of a word. A better choice would have been to misspell subjects as subects, or subjectc.
Also I think that a human would pay more attention to focus of the sentence, perhaps the computer should have misspelled the word "deeply" or 'about" instead.

So how would I instruct a computer is purposely misspell words? The first thing that I would do is to make different levels of chatting. Writing text for a casual conversation will have more mistakes than when writing for a formal matter. Secondly, I would weight the chances for each word to be misspelled based on their importance in the sentence. I would also place the misspellings in the center of the words since it is harder to catch those when checking over the sentence for errors. And finally I would reference a large bank of words that are typed, maybe gathered from the internet, that has common ways to misspell a word so that the misspelling seems more natural (because you can't just pick a word to misspell, you also need to know how to misspell it.)
I would think that having a computer make logical mistakes would be one of the simpler things for a programmer to figure out.

Those are my ideas on the dubject.

Dilemma: Raccoons or Kids?

2008-10-03T12:03:00.004-05:00

Going into today I was going to post about Free Range Kids. However I just found an awesome video with raccoons.
Which one to post? Which one to post? Umm... I'll go with....

Raccoon Party!

Soul Smothered Food

2008-09-30T10:00:00.005-05:00

Mrs. Hall got me thinking more about cooking and eating out. I do like eating out but I also like to cook, but besides a few family recipes that I have learned growing up I wasn't too impressed with the food that I could make at home. That was before I found the third most important website in the internet: AllRecipes.com. (#1 is Google, #2 is Wikipedia)

AllRecipes is a recipe warehouse that instantly makes all cookbooks obsolete. There are thousands of recipes and for each specific dish there are many versions of it. For example there are 121 recipes for peanut butter cookies. Now that many recipes might sound overwhelming but this is where AllRecipes really shines, all of the recipes are open to rating and reviews. That means that the good versions rise to the top and the mediocre fall by the wayside. Not only that but the reviewers almost always have a couple of suggestions that make the dish even better.
Ever since we have found this website our cookbook purchases have gone down and the amount of awesome food produced in the kitchen has gone way up.

To get you started on your new path to cooking glory here are a couple of my recent favorites from the website:
Soul Smothered Chicken - Simple chicken dish that is awesome over mashed potatoes.
Orange and Lentil Soup - A very easy soup that I could eat day after day.
Ultimate Twice Baked Potatoes - They aren't healthy but they are yummy.

Enjoy.

50K

2008-09-26T17:05:00.002-05:00

I just noticed that I have now passed 50,000 visitors to my blog. I have heard that you only need 100,000 visitors a month to be able to make $75,000 a year from blogging. I would say that I am almost there.

Thanks everybody for stopping on by to see what I have to say! Here is to another 4 years and another 50,000 views! Huzzah!

Also enjoy the first weekend of Fall.

Never trust a fat chef

2008-09-24T15:25:00.003-05:00

When I moved to Tulsa I was happy to find that the restaurants per capita* was above average of the rest of the nation for major cities. As you may know I love eating and I love eating out, so I was looking forward to trying all the restaurants T-Town had to offer. After living here for a couple of months I am kinda disappointed, the average quality of restaurants here is below that in other cities.

I got to thinking about why this is, and the best I can come up with relates to my own personal idea of "never trust a fat chef". I figure if a person is a chef and is skinny he will be more likely to only serve good food where as a fat chef may be prone to serve any food, be it good or not. Since the fat chef eats a lot I assume that it means that he cares less about what he does eat. (I know that is morphing the original meaning of never trusting a skinny chef, but it works.)

So why would a city with more restaurants have worse restaurants on average? I think the best way to think about this is to imagine the opposite: why would a city with less restaurants have better restaurants? I think that this would happen because if there are less restaurants to keep track of the quality of each restaurant will be more widely known and thus bad restaurants will fail sooner. Now if there is alot of restaurants it is harder for people to know about all of them so that means that bad restaurants will get some business just because nobody has heard anything about them. This prolongs the life of the restaurant and thus drags the average quality down overall.

*(astute readers may raise your hypocrite flags, although it is a pretty standard phrase)

The Central American Super Conference

2008-09-22T15:32:00.008-05:00

Like a soap opera there is constant talk about what colleges are thinking about leaving their conference to join another. For a couple of years there has been talk of Mizzu getting picked off to join the Big Ten, or Colorado State jumping the Mountain West ship to join their Colorado rivals in the Big XII. I have been thinking about possible solutions to the big TV contract that the Big 10 has and that the Big 12 would like to have, and here is my solution: merge the Big Ten and Big 12 into one super conference, with a big TV contract and many powerhouse teams.
I would break the Central American Super Conference into four divisions of 6 teams each, based on location. Here are the alignments:

CASC North (Prev. Conf.):
Illinois (Big Ten)
Iowa (Big Ten)
Iowa St (Big 12)
Minnesota (Big Ten)
Northwestern (Big Ten) *Notre Dame?*
Wisconsin (Big Ten)

CASC East:
Indiana (Big Ten)
Michigan (Big Ten)
Michigan St. (Big Ten)
Ohio State (Big Ten)
Penn (Big Ten)
Purdue (Big Ten)

CASC South:
Arkansas (SEC)
Texas (Big 12)
Texas A&M (Big 12)
Texas Tech (Big 12)
Oklahoma (Big 12)
Oklahoma St (Big 12)

CASC West:
Colorado (Big 12)
Colorado St (Mt. West)
Kansas (Big 12)
Kansas St. (Big 12)
Mizzu (Big 12)
Nebraska (Big 12)

The structure for a football season of a member of the Central American Super Conference would be:
3 games out of Conference
5 games inside division
3 games in other divisions (one in each other division, based on a rotating schedule)
1 floating game

The extra floating game would be used to seed the championship game, where each of the top teams in each division would play each other, the winner of which would play in the CASC Championship game (for example the North Division winner plays the East Division winner as a play in to the CASC championship game). All of the other teams in the CASC will choose who they play on the last week by draft. So the best CASC team that does not lead it's division can pick any other available CASC teams to play at home, then the next best remaining team can pick, until the final week of the season is set. This will allow teams decide what they need to get accomplished in their last week of the season, do they need to rest their players, or do they need to make a statement win? It will allow the better teams to get home field advantage and make the last week of CASC play very interesting.

Since the Big Ten and Big 12 are merging I would hope that the BCS would grant 2 BCS bowl bids to the Super Conference, so both teams that play in the CASC Championship game get into BCS bowls. The winner of the CASC Championship would almost be a shoo-in for the NCAA Championship.

Just imagine the power that the Central American Super Conference would have in sports. Especially if they could swing some sort of revenue sharing deal including TV coverage and Bowl games. The SEC would tremble in their swamping boots (and then quickly eat the ACC. Also the Pac-10 and Mountain West would merge.)

Bet we see this happen before we see NCAA football go to a playoff system.

Edit: Switched the North and East division teams to match geography, added Norte Dame as a replacement for Northwestern. There is possibly a better spot for Notre Dame in the East, but that would take a bit of team shuffling.