schtuff

The other day, I was doing a bit of "independent thinking" - I was daydreaming. And I was thinking about wiki's (think wikipedia, and how you can edit whatever you want) and how useful they would be for a group project. Instead of passing versions of the same document around, and having people rename it when they do change it, and then reposting it again, or emailing it out again, why not have the document in a single location and have people go to it to change it? Damn good idea if I do say so myself. So then I got to thinking, "Maybe I could create a website that lets people post whatever they want to it, and lets other users (everyone or just restricted users) change it and do work on it." Then I also got to thinking, "Someone's probably already done that." So I googled "free wiki" and I found www.schtuff.com. Great site. It lets you post whatever you want, under different "spaces" and then whoever looks at that site can click the "edit" button, and edit that document however he/she sees fit. It'll make a site like this: http://whateveryouwanttocallit.schtuff.com. So remember schtuff.com next time you're doing a group project, or something that needs to be collaborated on from afar. Again, good luck with finals. Also, check out caribou coffee in oakland, on forbes ave, across from starbucks, in the old cricket wireless building. Great coffee. Oh, and Peter works there too.

Oh, I made a test wiki for this btw - http://mostlyramblings.schtuff.com

go edit it - defile my space, I don't care - it'll be fun.

haha, moderate, moderate

I just looked up on my little blogger "create a new blog page" and saw the button "moderate comments." I thought it said "moderate" like "average, bland, fairish, not-too-extreme" instead of the intended meaning. Silly mind.

It's snowing right now, and it's weird, cause the snow falling directly next to the house next door, is falling diagonal to the right, and the snow falling directly next to my window is falling diagonal to the left. Weird snow.

I've been under a lot of stress recently, although I think i'm over most of it. It's just normal finals week again, and I really could give two shits. I'll study for the tests, hopefully do well, and that'll be it. That's the way it normally goes. But - the difference this semester, was the almighty "Group Project" times 3. Two of them are completely finished, and I just have to put the finishing touches on the third one, but man did they suck. I'm not saying that some people in the groups didn't do enough of the work, but some people in the groups didn't do enough of the work. Wow, look at the size of those snow flakes. oops. ADD. pardon me. Anyway, specifics aside, I'm not sure if I've ever been so stressed all at the same time. And I still have more work to do, but i'll tell you, sitting around for a few minutes a day and just breathing works pretty well. No seriously, take 5 min and just breathe.

Which brings me to one last thing - I've made a realization - I'm not a chill and relaxed person. I thought I was, for the longest time, but I'm really not. I mean, even when people had to tell me to CTFO (chill the [favorite f-word] out), the thought never crossed my mind that I don't just chill much. It actually hit me when I asked claire "you would describe me as a chill person right?" Her reply: "Umm, not really.." It scared me at first that I'm not this person that I thought I was, but I think i'm good with it now, because i really enjoy decompressing now. and i'm working on relaxing a lot more. It's good for me. Maybe i'll live longer or something too. Nice.

good luck with everything this week everybody

Borrowing from Livejournal:

Music: Auld Lang Syne - Barenaked Ladies
Lighting - A Cucumber Mellon Candle / The window
Mood: Relaxed ;)

rochester, ny

Ok, I'll make this short and sweet.

I decided (after saying au revoir to everyone online, and getting ready to hit the hay), to hop on to deviantart.com and browse around for background images. (long story short, my hard drive crashed late last week, got the new one today, and have rebuilt it). So I looked around at some images of tux (the linux penguin logo), and those were pretty cool, but then i got an idea - do a search for... rochester.

I proceeded, for the next hour to browse through all 866 images that came up and found all the shots I like. If you want to see them, they're really cool, especially if you're from rochester, and you see something you recognize embedded in the vast eternity of images that is deviantart.

In conclusion, I miss rochester.

I don't really wanna host all the photos myself, so here's a yahoo photos link:
Rochester baby

techy hour

I recently switched to linux - like, hardcore style, on my primary machine. I first tried Fedora Core 3 which is RedHat's desktop operating system. Then after forgetting to install all the packages and being unable to install some other stuff (and then peter telling me he likes suse linux better) i installed SUSE linux (by novell). And just like peter, I like it better too. Not only did it install everything that I need it to (and do it well), it has a really easy way of finding the packages I need to install to install other stuff. YAST is pretty fuggin cool.

Anyway, obviously SUSE is not Windows XP so I can't run any microsoft software on it natively, so I need to find replacements for everything I would do on XP on linux. Which brings me to the point of this entry - Things that (sadly but true), I miss from xp.

1. Microsoft OneNote - Notetaking software that let's you drag images (like powerpoint slides) to the "paper" and you can type on them, next to them, on top of them or anywhere you want. You can actually download a trial of it on microsoft's site for 60 days. It's really good software, and I'm going to miss it. I tried to find other software that is a "clone" of it, but there's nothing close enough for me to actually use it. So until I find that software, I'm just gunna have to fill in the "notes" section in powerpoint (openoffice.org impress btw - microsoft doesn't make office for linux - but sun does)

2. Microsoft Wireless Configuration - Each time I want to connect to a wireless network (which is how i get my internet, all the time) I need to run the wireless connection dialog. So in windows, when you click "connect" it does it (and if it needs a WEP code, it asks you for it, and then saves it) then it connects you to the network, while letting you know that you're connected in real time. The suse version of this isn't very functional because it tells you that you're connected (kinda) but when you click "connect" to a different access point, it says "it was unable to connect" - but you are connected (the other dialog says!) This is bad because someone that doesn't know how to use ifconfig in the terminal might not know that they're connected.

Regardless of who you are, the windows one did it better. Guaranteed.

3. The little windows icon button to open the start menu - yeah, it's silly that I would want the windows button to open the linux main menu, but it is nice for someone who likes to use the keyboard more than he likes to use the mouse.

4. MSPaint - Ok - "The GIMP" is great - it's good software that is almost as powerful as adobe photoshop (really powerful shit), but it's also just like photoshop with ease of use. Really fuggin difficult. When I want to just use something like Paint in windows, it's not there. I think I remember seeing something like it in Fedora Core, but I don't remember what it is, and SUSE didn't install it. As for paint, I actually just did an entire assignment in paint - it's really fun to use the skills that you gained when you were in like 7th grade computer class drawing naughty pictures with paint.

5. Mp3 and DVD Support - Maybe I messed up the install somehow, but the audio and video software didn't play anything. So - I had to find a new mp3 player (it's pretty cool - looks like winamp) and I'm still working on getting DVD's and Divx to work. I know that DVD decoders don't necessarily "come with" windows, but most machines that you buy have the support built in. Freaking A. I've never worked so hard to watch Rain Man in my life.

Alright, I'm done.

Don't get me wrong, I'm really enjoying using this new operating system - There's just a few things i miss *tear* from *gasp* windows.

Oh, one thing I don't miss is pop-freaking-ups. I'm not sure I've gotten one of those yet. Go linux!

many things to discuss!

I was driving back from bringing claire to duquesne tonight when a few things happened. a car was driving at me going the wrong way on fifth ave. I got out of his way first, and then gave him the standard alert for "you're driving down a one way street the wrong way" - *honk honk honk honk honk honk honk honk*. he got the clue about 4 blocks down. nice job buddy.

then there was a car pulled over in the bus lane with 2 cop cars, complete with lights, and two black guys handcuffed sitting on the sidewalk. they were going through the car with white gloves on and such. guys, if you have a car with drugs in it, don't drive the wrong way down the street in the bus lane. someone will notice.

and now to things of much importance.

lately i've been having some ideas/"things i want to do in the future" pop into my head. shit, what were they? hold on. i have a horrible memory. i can't even remember to take my memory booster medicine. oh ok, there we go. the first thing i want to do, but probably can't, is make a video of pittsburgh. like pittsburgh scenery, pittsburgh people, pittsburgh business/education - stuff like that. i have a good song for the background music - in fact, the whole thing kinda looks like a backwards music video in my head - putting the music to the scenery. this is the song (i won't post the whole thing cause pitt's server gives me like 7k of room)

The beginning would start out with sunrises coming over buildings in the pgh area - the cathedral, the ppg building (big glass castle looking like thing) - heinz field and such. when the drums kick in, i'd speed it up a little bit, kinda making it feel like you're waking up and getting on your feet. Then the next kind of sound that sounds a bit like a higher pitched alarm i would move from building to building fast, then slowly pan around the building, switching shots with a blur motion between each measure. i would show people walking - fast, then slow, then fast, then slow. i dunno - a showcase of the area. i think that would be fun. i think that would take a lot of time, and a G5. eric, when you getting your tower?

The next two things i want to do are arrange songs for the pendulums. i want to arrange 2 songs, but none of them know i want to do these songs. First, is the friends themesong by the rembrandts. which would be fun. You've all heard that song. no need to fill you in on what that sounds like. only here's the difference. i don't want to use syllables. i think that it would be freaking great to do just kind of sung. it would probably sound more like a "prim and proper" choral group like the women's chorus, but since it's the friends themesong, i figured that it would be fun to do. kind of like "enormous penis" by da vinci's notebook. there's no syllables there, but it's fun, and it doesn't need them. so maybe i can pull that one off.

the other song i wanna do is called "salty dog" by flogging molly. this one i will put up there in it's entirety - riaa - fuck you.

anyway - it's just a funny ass song. and i think it would be hilarious to have some guy (or gal) standing up there singing the solo like some sailor. we need a bit of comedy in the pends, and i think we could do that with this little diddy. here are the lyrics so you can follow along (it's not long, just listen to it)

I'll wait for you till I turn blue
There's nothin' more a man can do
Don't get your bollocks in a twist
Settle down, don't take a fit
Ya drank with demons straight form Hell
They almost nearly won as well
Ya wiped the floor with victory
Then puked until you fell asleep

Blackened was the banshee's wail
These boot will never fill her jail
So you crawled into an empty boat
For the Gulf of Mexico
Till Cortez came an' when so did you
From the ashes charred and blue
Smellin' like a Salty Dog
Back from Hell where you belong

Anarchy, the scourge of every sea
The Antichrist aboard a rig
With us your cutthroat thieves
The ship went down we all near drowned
Ya stood there on the deck
Till the Spanish came and flogged yer arse
And dragged you from the wreck

They threw a rope around yer neck
To watch you dance the jig of death
Then left ya for the starvin' crows
Hoverin' like hungry whores
One flew down plucked out yer eye
The other he had in his sights
Ya snarled at him, said leave me be
I need the bugger so I can see

Well that's all for the evening. If i haven't accomplished at least one of these things in the near future, you need to kick my ass. oh, that is of course after i finish building my pictureframe PC - i'm taking an old laptop and putting it inside a pictureframe so that the picture changes - here's what one of these looks like. but i broke part of it already, so i ordered another one on ebay. i love you ebay.

wow, well anyway - looks like this post was brought to by..... the hyperlink! thanks tim berners-lee
(psst - he invented the internet)

g'night all

holy autunmal equinox batman

It's almost like the person in charge of the weather paterns was like, "hmm... i think i'd like to squeeze a few more death incuring hurricanes out of my ass, so i'll leave the summer thing going a bit longer than usual.... yeah, that could be fun. oh, the transition is supposed to be smooth? fuck that, let's throw'em right into fall." well, ok, maybe not just like that, but damn close. it was like months and months of 85 and sunny days, and now we're into just barely making it to 70 days. i'm not complaining - i like this weather. but, i do wish it was a bit more.... gradual. anyway.

I have some screenshots of microsoft windows vista (codename longhorn) for you. It's pretty cool. Check out this shot of me writing this entry:


Don't ask me how i have this software.... i'm not really sure either. Anyway. Enough about that.

Anyway, I have a lot of work to accomplish right now, so I'm gunna go do that. yeah, me work, i know, i know, stunning, stunning. enough.

-matt

Cars : Grills :: People : Faces

Have you ever noticed how cars have a look about them that is strangely animal or human characteristics? I have. Here are a few of my favorites:


The Jeep Wrangler
It looks like a bulldog - look at it with it's big eyes, upturned lip, and 2 giant nose holes. It's the pissed off, but kind of dumb look on it's face that gets me. Looks kinda like this:




Porsche 911 Carrera:

Here's another good one. This one looks distinctively european, with it's goofy looking smile that turns up just a little bit from being straight across, like this smiley: :-| It's got giant eyes that are kind of set back a little because if you were this guy, you'd be saying "wooooahhhh man we're goin fasttttt" maybe a little like this cartoon character (pardon the self drawnness)




VW Passat:
Duh, I had to do it. To me, it looks kind of like I look most of the time, I have my eyes open (lights on) but i'm generally not paying too much attention. There's a little curve of a smile on the bottom (black) grill, but it doesn't know what it's smiling at. Totally clueless. Or maybe, it's just sitting there watching you. Like stewie. Plotting. To kill you. Or mistakenly run you down when i'm too tired to see that red light.



Dodge Viper
Ok - yeah, had to do this one. It looks like a snake. A viper. What more do you need to konw. It's got a slightly larger front end than how big it is around at the middle, which is kinda like how the snake's head is bigger than it's body, or at least wider. Although, I have no idea how it ever finds anything to eat - it's crosseyed right now.

The last one:

Saturn Sky (not released yet - just saw it on the chicago auto show site)
It looks like a sportscar, but it's a little tall, and it's face looks smooshed, so it looks like an asian guy, with a pushed out bottom lip. (by the way - don't so a search for "asian" on google images. bad news) I couldn't find that one specifically, so mix this one of the girl with this one of the dude (apparantly his name is kent)


So there we have it. My car look alike contest. Essentially.

What car do you think you look like?

early morning delight

"Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking you've gotta get a lotta sleep tonight. So when the buddies ask you to go play poker, you say 'yeah, I'll go' but you're only gunna stay for a few hands. But what actually ends up happening is that you play a few hands, and then a few more hands, and end up coming in a 4 in the morning. And then you gotta get up at 7 for work. But your wife likes early morning sex, so she wakes you up even earlier for that, so you don't get any sleep."

That's what I woke up to this morning on my radio, blaring at 7 am.

Stupid 8 am class.

Anyway, this past weekend, I had a party. It wasn't a bad party (we had 90 beers, we have 52 left, you do the math), and that was probably from dan playing beer pong the whole night. Sorry to bust your life's perfect record for beer pong eric, but it had to be done. it had to be done. I definitely wish more pendulums would have come - next time i have a party like that i'm planning it like 3 weeks in advance, and make them mark it down on their calendars or something.

I'm running out of time on several things. 1) Returning my iPod to apple to get a new battery put in because the class-action lawsuit requires that i do it by september 30. 2) Talk to someone at study abroad and see what options I have left at this point. 3) Well i'll be damned. I plum forgot what 3 was. I had it a second ago.

[beats head with a stick] damnit memory stop not working! My memory sucks. I can't remember anything. I really can't - i just had that thing i have to do in my head, and now it's gone. I'm even taking a memory suppliment to help me remember shit, but that doesn't seem to be working either. What the frick. Well anyway, that's just great. I'll let you know what #3 was if and when I ever figure out what that was.

I know not what weapons world war III will be fought with, but world war IV will be fought with sticks and stones
-albert einstein

(i like the italicized ending, simon)

The one where he figured 84 posts is enough to stop using the "the one where" heading...

Yeah guys, I'm getting sick of it. Every time you look at my profile, all you read is that "the one where" part, think to yourself "wow mendick's stupid," and move on. I've had enough. So, for the 85th post, I shall retire "the one where he..." R.I.P. silly friends title scheme.

I'm listening to something very weird. A bunch of months ago (probably like 6 or so), I got a wired magazine issue in the mail that had a free CD in it - it was called Rip, Sample, Mash, Share. It's filled with weird music that you've probably never heard of, nor will you ever hear of again if you don't listen to this cd. But the interesting thing about it, is that all of the music carries a copyright license that allows you to either take whatever you want from the song and do whatever you want with it (sample it, mix it, whatever) and then share it as your own, or in some cases you have to give the original artist credit. Either way, it's kinda cool that they are just kinda giving it away. Not that I would actually want to, or have the ability to do any of that, but i just think it's kinda cool.

I'm sitting outside the information science building, waiting to go into my class. Now, the reason i'm here so early is because of this:

So i show up to class at just about 2:00. I hop into the room, and look around a little bit, and see like one familiar face, and a big fat guy talking at the front of the room. I'm like, "um, maybe there's a guest speaker... but um, is there a guest class too?" So i bust out the computer, look at my schedule, and see that i'm a half hour early. And i was too embarassed to just leave the class, and go elsewhere, so i just stayed and listened for 10 minutes to what he had to say. Fun stuff huh? What would you have done - i want to know: would you have left and looked like an idiot, or would you have stayed and passed it off on being really, really late for the class?

The one where he wondered what the internet has become...

Comment spam? COMMENT SPAM? COMMENT SPAM?! You've gotta be kidding me. This is rediculous. Ok, let me draw you a little scenario. You're reading my blog entry for the day. Yay, you liked it. Yay, now you're bored. so you click on the little "view next blog" button to see another random blog, perhaps one that you'll be interested in reading. I've done it - it's pretty interesting if you're really bored. But, um, sometimes you'll stumble upon a blog that is just garbage. each entry is just filled with random keywords that look like they were pulled out of the "top 10 words searched for on google" list. It's just a place for spammers to put their product name on the web, to raise it's rank on google by linking to it (i'm assuming - correct me if i'm wrong).
Then, you go to check to see if anyone has commented on your blog, and you see that someone has anonomously posted a comment. That's cool, especially when your girlfriend is slightly tipsy and she's trying to make fun of your friend for his comment, and doesn't want to log in. no problem there. but, when it comes in the form of some dickhead spammer who is trying to get people to look at his product names and shit that he's getting paid to plaster the internet with, it's very upsetting. What is the world coming to? Why must people be constantly (and most rudely) trying to sell you something? Google has it right - put the ads off to the side, and make them relevant to what you're looking at currently. It's obviously working because their adsense software is extremly profitable for them. *sigh* i guess that's the nature of what we have created. A network that reaches to everyone, reaches to everyone we don't want to grant access, because they're going to use it for foul reasons.
Consider this: travelocity is a great utility for people planning a trip. It even gives them real-time information about how full a plane is, and what seats are empty on a given flight. But couple that information with terrorists trying to pick the most fuel heavy flight to play bumper cars with the world trade center, and you've got a great tool. The plane with the least seats left is going to be the heaviest, and going to need the most fuel before takeoff. Why don't we use that one, they might say to themselves. A network that is far reaching, and grants tons of access to many harmless people is wonderful, until it's taken advantage of by a few horrible individuals like terrorists, or in the previous example, spammers.

fucking spammers.