Sorry for the title, but that’s my favorite LOLcat. In case you couldn’t parse it, tonight we are treated to a total lunar eclipse. (note that if it had been only a partial eclipse, the cat woulda been in ur penumbra. +10 to the first person to make a your mom joke.) Normally shadows don’t excite me too much, but today it seems to be a sign of my good fortune. I suspect that the following were caused by the moon’s gravitational influence:

• I kicked ass on a tough Data Modeling assignment.
• I beat the Giants 21-20 with a 70 yard hail-mary to Troy Williamson with about 30 seconds left on the clock (Madden08, although I could do it myself in reality.)
• I got an interview with Lockheed Martin.
• Wally’s had Tacos for lunch.

The sky should be crystal clear tonight for eclipse-watchin. It should also provide absolutely no protection from the cold. -27 when I left for class this mornin’ (-32 in the shade.) Probably warmer this evening but once you get below -10 it doesn’t really matter.

On an unrelated note, I hate iTunes. However, the Party Shuffle is pretty awesome. As I was Shambin’ I came across the most unlikely song. Now I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure that Limp Bizkit’s “The Only One” is basically Fred Durst’s way of saying “I’m Worth Waiting For”. Pretty tricky Fred.

Thanks for listening!

P.S. for those keeping score it’s Moon’s Gravity: 4, Troll Dolls’ Tummy Bling: 0

EDIT: Changed the title from the original “im in ur umbraz, abzorbin ur infraredz”. Obviously it isn’t abzorbin the infraredz. My sincerest apologies for the mistake.
EDIT EDIT: Changed the edit from the original “Obviously it isn’t abzorbin the infraredz because we see them” to “Obviously it isn’t abzorbin the infraredz”. The fact is that we cannot see infraredz regardless of the position of the moon. To be perfectly correct, the moon is in fact both abzorbin and reflectin infraredz, however the balance of light reflected to earth during a lunar eclipse is shifted towards long wavelengths, and therefore the most concise statement would be “im in ur umbraz, reflectin more of ur infraredz than i is ur ultravioletz”. Unfortunately this statement lacks the poetic flair that a Shamby title deservz, so I’ll leave it be.

Happy valentines day everyone!

In the spirit of the day I thought I’d post something interesting I found a while back on the ol’ interwebs. Intimate Objects (PDF). The basic idea is that on the computer screens of two individuals in a relationship, there would be a red dot. Over time, this red dot would fade in intensity. When clicked by either of the individuals, the intensity would partially restore. A simple way to say “I’m thinking about you.” I wasn’t able to find an actual implementation of “Intimate Objects”, so those of us actually in long-distance relationships are out of luck. What I think is really interesting about the whole thing, is that this idea enables you to communicate with your loved one in a meaningful way using only a few bits. It’s Love Compression!

Well that’s the news from Lake Bemidji. Sorry I don’t have any nerdy valentines to show off.

Edit: Removed the last piece because, well, it was stupid. Happy Love!

First off, I’d like to wish everyone a happy Bob Marley Day.

Now down to business. You may or may not be aware of this, but with rechargeable batteries you’re supposed to completely deplete and recharge them at least once a month to ensure a long life. The problem I have with this is that if you wait to recharge them until they’re almost dead, then they may just kick out on you when you need them. This is the problem I have with my iPod. To make matters worse, whenever I use it in my car the amp charges it up and so it never gets to even half depletion. Luckily I have devised a solution. I made a video that I can play on my iPod to deplete the battery. The video is 8 hours long, and weighs in at a meager 2MB. Every now and then you can leave the iPod playing when you know you aren’t going to be needing it, and then put it on the charger when it’s dead. It’s a rather boring video, the image only changes every hour, but it’s not meant to be watched. If you want it, you can get it here: (|right click -> Save As…| or however your browser words it) iPodBatteryDrain.mp4.

Have a good week!

I have this thing about anthromorphism. Metaphor and abstraction don’t come very easily for me, but for some reason I almost constantly compare things to people. I’m told that this is common among computer scientists and mathematicians, so I had the idea of trying to personify numbers (hence the title, I don’t know about you, but a serif number 1 reminds me of someone praying, pleading or looking up.) It’s really more of a thought experiment on myself, but if you ever wanna tinker with your thinker, try it out for a week.

A first-post BLOB for you:

I thought I’d have to create SOMETHING for my first post, so i did what any uncreative person does under pressure: vandalize other people’s work. No, actually I used my CS3930: Advanced Web Programming skills to change the web page (I’d feel bad if someone at wikipedia actually had to take the time to screen that one out.) Unfortunately the class is only two weeks in and wordpress disables PHP in posts so i can’t program anything really cool into my blog posts.

I’m sure everyone’s sick of talking about how cold it’s been, but I actually enjoyed today. It was 0 degrees out when I left for class but in a way it felt like spring. Any time the temperature jumps 20 degrees over night the next day is wonderful. I notice that when it gets below -10 people tend to walk intently, without expression or distraction. Kinda like robots. Today however, people were looking around, walking in groups, talking, doin’ that “whats up” head thing to strangers that they accidentally make eye contact with. It was uplifting.

Have a nice day!

Edit: Changed the picture, first one was thiiis big (arms across monitor).