/mark [mark husson]

This blog has moved

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 03:49:00 +0000

This blog is now located at http://blog.mhusson.com/.
You will be automatically redirected in 30 seconds, or you may click here.

For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to
http://blog.mhusson.com/feeds/posts/default.

New Years Resolution

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 03:44:00 +0000

I have been meaning to post this for a while now but am only now getting around to it. I don't normally do new years resolutions, but this year I am. Last october I noticed that every time I went to the restroom at work (or in public) I would take at least two paper towels to dry my hands after washing them. I tried to see if I could cut down to one. It worked, though my hands would still be slightly damp, but that seems like a fair trade off.

Since then I only use one paper towel to dry my hands. I figure this means I am saving a minimum 520 paper towels a year. It's easy if you're ever looking for a new years resolution.

The Internet is Hard

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 03:34:00 +0000

This is unbelievable. Apparently tons of people who want to log into Facebook don't go to www.facebook.com, they type "facebook login" into google and click the first result regardless of what it links to. Today, the first result happened to link to a news article from the excellent site ReadWriteWeb.com about AIM's new integration with Facebook.

The people that clicked this link thought they were on some new version of Facebook despite the gigantic red ReadWriteWeb header and URL. Panicked, these users scanned the site for a way to sign in and found a link that lets you comment on ReadWriteWeb by using your Facebook credentials. The link says "Log in with Facebook" so these users thought they were logging into Facebook.

This is unbelievable.

You can see hundreds of comments by "upset Facebook users" on the article here. You should read the first couple of pages of comments, they are hilarious. "I WANT THE OLD FAFEBOOK BACK THIS SHIT IS WACK!!!!!". "i need the old facebook this new one is very bad...". An employee at ReadWriteWeb chimed in:

... it's real. We've determined by looking at our traffic stats that people are doing Google searches for "facebook login" and coming upon RWW. They see the FB Connect button and assume that RWW is the "new Facebook."

Sigh.

The Internet Is Hard.

This has me thinking that if users are this unaware of what they are doing online, it's no wonder phishing scams work so well. It's no wonder users complain when Facebook makes a layout change. It's no wonder users don't like using a single box for entering an address. It's no wonder there are so many Hotmail users.

This just proves we have so far to go before we can assume users know what they are doing or know how the internet works. As one RRW commenter wrote, perhaps we should teach basic internet use in school (much like how we learned how to address letters and write checks in school). I'm starting to agree.

Sara and the Case of the Angry Appendix

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 03:59:00 +0000

It was an unsuspecting afternoon. I had just got back to lunch with some coworkers. Sara IMed me and told me her stomach hurt, kind of like a stitch in her side. I gave her a sadface. A while later, she told me it really hurt. I asked if I should take her home but just then I got a call from her boss saying I should come get her.

Sara was in so much pain she had to stand (*not* lay down) at an awkward angle to get some relief. We went on a painful ride to urgent care. There we waited 15 minutes or so to see a lady who had us wait 15 minutes or so to see a "doctor". The "doctor" came in and asked a few questions, then made Sara lay down (the most painful of positions for her) while he pressed directly on her torso and abdomen right where her pain was. "Does that hurt?" he asked her. I punched him. Of course it hurt. "Well, we don't have an ultrasound machine here to see what's happening so you'll have to go to the E.R." Awesome.

On the way to the E.R., Sara was in so much obvious pain, I was honestly worried she was going to pass out in the back seat. We got to the E.R. at Rose Medical Center and despite what the news reports say, they were not over-crowded and the wait was only seconds-long. They took her back and within 20 minutes she had her first and second doses of morphine. That didn't help. She was still sitting on the edge of the gurnee with unbearable pain. Dilaudid helped somewhat. They did the ultrasound and found no gallstones or kidney stones or anything. They did a chest x-ray and found no problems with her lungs. Then the doctor told us they were going to do a cat scan which "is an expensive test" (his words). The cat scan came back with everything looking normal except a little swelling in the appendix. After consulting a surgeon, they decided she should have surgery in 30 minutes. Happy Wednesday!

Sara hasn't ever had surgery before and neither of us have ever had any serious procedure like this so it was kinda scary. She did incredibly well and her parents were there with me to see her off to the operating table. She actually looked very cute in her little surgery hat and I took a picture that I'm not sure she knows about. About 2 minutes after she went in, my parents got to the hospital. After an hour or so, the very tired-looking surgeon came out and talked with us for a uncommonly long time which was very nice. He was able to do the procedure laparoscopically so she only has 3 less-than-an-inch scars on her belly. I stayed with her through the next evening when she was able to go home.

She is doing relatively well now but still has a lot of pain and a stupid headache. Thanks for all the well wishings so far, I know she appreciates it.

Restrictions on Creating Passwords

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 23:29:00 +0000

I hate passwords. I'm pretty sure everyone does. You create one password that you use for everywhere so you don't forget but you know that it's not very secure.

The other day I had to create a password on a site I will end up using once or twice a year. For this reason I wanted to use a common password of mine but the site only allowed passwords with a length of 6-10 characters and needed to include one number. Well my regular password did not fit this description so I have to make up a new one that I have never used. Now, I guarantee, the next time I go to log in, I won't remember this password because of it's restrictions. Then I will fail to log in and have to create a new password where it will tell me those restrictions again and I will remember what password I probably made for the site. This is why I hate password restrictions like that.

The worst thing I've come across is a site where you have to enter your "pin" as a password. I always spend forever entering in all the number combination I can think of only having to reset my pin, only to find out that your personal identification number can include alpha *and* numeric characters. Awesome.

I also came across this list of passwords twitter doesn't let you use because they are too common. My favorites: computer, hooters, marlboro, qwerty, thx1138, and the ever classy trustno1

4,457 Songs Rated

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:23:00 +0000

When I first got an iPod in December 2003 I found a cool feature. You can actually rate your songs as your listening to them. I thought this would be fun to do as I listened to music and I would eventually have all my songs rated. Well, here we are, 6 years later and I finally finished. I have rated all 4,457 of my iTunes songs, one by one on my iPod.

I thought I would share some info on my ratings.

First, I should point out that I am a tough rater. You have to earn those stars. I find I rate lower than my friends and wife. Here is my scale:

5-Star: This has to be an amazing song. In the top echelon of the music I love. It's really hard to get a 5.
4-Star: To get 4 stars, it has to be one of my favorite songs. Albums I love might have a few 4-star songs on them.
3-Star: I decided the criteria for a 3-star song a long time ago and have stuck with it: A good, solid song.
2-Star: Songs that maybe I don't care for or didn't make the mark but they're not bad, per-se, just not good enough.
1-Star: These are songs that I dislike. They are on the chopping block for getting deleted

For the bored and interested, I have compiled some statistics about my ratings.

4,457 Songs Total
5-Star: 213 songs (4%) (Made up of 100 Artists)
4-Star: 598 songs (13%)
3-Star: 1245 songs (28%)
2-Star: 1629 songs (37%)
1-Star: 787 songs (18%)

Most Played (and Highest Rated) Song:
Mike Doughty - The King of Carrot Flowers (Neutral Milk Hotel Cover)

Albums With the Most 5-Star Ratings:
1) Mike Doughty - Haughty Melodic (7 tracks)
2) Neutral Milk Hotel - The Aeroplane Over the Sea (5 tracks)
3) Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness
3) Ben Folds - Rockin' the Suburbs
3) Ben Folds - Songs for Silverman

Artists With the Most 5-star (and incidently, the most 4-star) Ratings:
1) Ben Folds (18 5-star tracks, 31 4-star tracks)
2) Mike Doughty (16 5-star tracks, 24 4-star tracks)

Artists With the Most 3-star Ratings (thought this was interesting):
1) Ben Folds (59)
2) Green Day (54)
3) Mountain Goats (53)
4) Smashing Pumpkins (50)
5) Mike Doughty (41)
6) Decemberists (31)

Most 1-Star Tracks on an Album:
Beastie Boys - Check Your Head (19 of 20 are 1-star rated) [Disclaimer]
Live - The Distance to Here (11 of 13 are 1-star rated) [Aaaand.. that's when I stopped buying Live's albums]

Note: if you want to look at some more diverse music listening, check out my last.fm listening statistics page.

Somebody's Listening!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 02:59:00 +0000

No not really, probably it was just a good and somewhat obvious idea, but on Feb 20, 2008 I wrote a post entitled "I Want a New Google Reader Feature" and here we are a little over a year and a half later and today they implemented it! Just thought I'd share. Nice.

Why am I like this?

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 05:55:00 +0000

The other day Sara was working from home. I stayed a little late at work and when I got home Sara had taken the dog for a walk. After a while she was walking back to the house and the neighbor invited her in for a chat. I saw her out the window so I walked over there. I was also invited in. I wanted to go close my door because there were about 5 landscapers hanging around on our front lawn near the street. They must have been working on a neighbors house. I didn't feel like leaving our house wide open (you can't see our house from the neighbors very well and there have been burglaries in our neighborhood over the last couple years). However, I didn't want to be rude and just walk over and lock the door in front of them.

I decided to go back to the house, through the front door, and lock it. I then went out the back, closed it but picked up an extension cord. I took it with me around the side of the house and around front- visibly holding it as I walked by the landscapers so they would know my neighbor needed borrow it- and over to the neighbors.

Of course when I got there I had to explain to my neighbor why I was holding an extension cord for no reason.

Poker Video

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:22:00 +0000

My father in law finished 4th place in a free online poker tournament, beating out 9,996 people. One of the benefits of winning is being able to submit an "audition" tape to be on a poker show of Fox where he might be able to play with some big name poker players and win a million dollars. Here is the audition tape we made on Sunday (please help us out and rate it 5 stars):

p.s., Tim is my cousin. He's cool.

XM Radio Online Auto-Login Greasemonkey Script

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 04:40:00 +0000

We got XM Radio a few months ago with the Cube and Sara and I have fallen in love with the Serius XMU radio station which plays all sorts of amazing indie music.

Despite the high quality service and great iPhone app, their online radio player leaves a lot to be desired. I decided to fix some things that I could with a greasemonkey script and bookmarklet.

The short of it is you can launch XM Radio from your bookmarks toolbar and have it start playing on its own.

Without this script, you have to go to XMRadio.com, click on listen online, click log in, log in, click launch player and click on your favorite station. This cuts the number of steps for this primary use case from 6 steps to 1 step.

I created a combo bookmarklet/greasemonley script for launching XM. I saved the details for the script page on userscripts.org. You can see and install the script (and bookmarklet) here.

P.S. A few weeks ago I updated my Filmwise Invisibles Answer Checker to actually work again after being dead for 2 years.

Unpost

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 04:56:00 +0000

The other night at the bar, our friend Travis was trying to come up with words that start with the prefix "un" that wouldn't work without it.

As an example, you can't "un" off the word unkempt. "Wow sir, you are looking quite kempt in that double-breasted suit and monocle." No, doesn't work. No one would ever use that in a sentence, I mean really.

Okay, side note, I did this whole post but now I am looking up the non-"un" versions of these words and they are almost all real words, but come on, who uses these words? You're right, no one. Oy, this post is a failure.

Here is the list we came up with without using a dictionary or the internet:

Unkempt
Uncouth
Uncanny
Unscathed
Unruly
Unprecedented
Unbeknownst
Unfathomable
Unrequited
Unequivocal

We also noted that using any one of these words makes you sound pretentious which is kind of funny. It's fun to try and think of some yourself, but don't use the dictionary or the internet. Post yous in the comments and I'll add them to the post.

From the comments:

Unadulterated (Matt B)
Unabashed (Nick)
Undermined (Michael)

A Work IM Conversation With the Wife

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:35:00 +0000

me: great... my coworker is writing his IMs and emails in comic sans
her: I have a client that does that.
they're also in, like, 16 point font.
really? does it need to be that big?
me: hard for me to say "those people shouldn't exist" because I like the guy.
maybe I should change it to "those people need to be taught a lesson"
her: I gave my client such a hard time about it that the last time I IM'd him - it was gone.
me: nice.
her: You're doing something amazing here. You're ridding the world of Comic Sans one person at a time.
her: I don't know if he did it because of me or if it was a coincidence, but I don't annoy him anymore and I think he likes that.
me: You should get a trophy.
her: oO - a trophy would be lovely.
me: I'll bake you one.
it will be of Bill Gates' bust
her: sweet!
me: not his head either, I mean just his bust-proper... Gates' man-boobs
her: yumm
me: i probably shouldn't write that at work, "man-boobs".
it's gonna get flagged
her: probably.
they'll think you're a sexual harasser
me: I think you just coined that term as a noun.

NYC & UAE

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Fri, 15 May 2009 06:14:00 +0000

Every time I go to post on this site I never do because it's not really fun anymore. Hopefully it will be fun again at some point. I'll catch you up anyway.

Sara and I went to New York a couple weeks ago and it was pretty cool. It was the first time I had been but the third time from Sara. We got to hang out with our friends Heather and Jon while we were there a bit which was great, even though they're super busy planning their wedding which is in Denver in about another week. I loved it. We went a bunch of places: Mid-town, downtown, West Village, Harlem, Brooklyn we were there for a long time, six days I think.

Also, we bought a Nissan Cube which we love. We are now, without meaning to, a Nissan family. I think the Cubes a really good car for the price. And it looks good too.

Nick is moving back to the U.S. in a week which is great. Not to Denver, but to Houston which is pretty close. I'm just excited to be roughly in the same time zone as him, although I have got good about knowing what time it is in Dubai and greeting him accordingly (Good *morning* Nick! or Good *evening* Nick!, it can get tricky). I'm also excited because now he will be able to watch and discuss TV shows and see flickr pictures and such. Sara and I are going to have to visit him soon.

iPhone 3.0

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 04:56:00 +0000

Yesterday Apple revealed its new iPhone 3.0 software. I have to say that as a user, I'm not super excited about any of the new features, but I always do appreciate a software update. People have been asking (very loudly) for all of these new features, but personally they aren't too big of a deal for me. The features are:

Copy and Paste
In the 2 or so years I've owned an iPhone, there has only been one time I've actually thought "I wish I had copy/paste right now," however I'd bet when it's available I'll be finding a lot more reasons to use it. Hopefully it doesn't get in the way when I am not using it.

Landscape Views in Default Apps
I've had friends (JL) who have been craving this in the SMS app and others in the mail app, but I have to say, I have got so used to using the portrait mode keyboard that when I try and use the landscape keyboard (like in Safari) it slows me down. The keys seem too far apart. I prefer the portrait keyboard.

Push Notifications
This is referring to webservices (like AIM and Facebook) being able to push notifications and badges to your phone, like "bobby841 says: You there?" or "Brett Grubbins added you as a friend on Facebook", etc. I love the idea but my big problem is I always keep my phone on vibrate and there is only one vibrate style. This means I will have to pull my phone out of my pocket every time it vibrates just to see if I got a text message or if someone commented on my photo. Hopefully they will add more vibrate patterns in the future and let you customize the heck out of the notifications.

Spotlight
Spotlight is a way to search for your whole phone (search across music, photos, email, text messages, calendars, contacts, etc all at the same time). This looks pretty cool but we'll see how much I end up using it.

Overall I am most looking forward to whatever small tweaks make it into the new software more than any specific feature, but I think the features will make a lot of others happy.

Refereeing

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 05:10:00 +0000

This post has nothing to do with routers.

In my hockey game tonight, I had a conversation with the ref toward the end of the first period right before a face-off:

me: "Hey, you need to start calling more penalties. It's getting bad out here, someone's going to get hurt."
ref: "What things should I be calling?"
me: "Penalties."
ref: "You guys are falling down out there. It's hard to tell what's you falling and what a penalty."
me: "Um, it's your job to know the difference."

Then the ref called for another skater to take the face-off. Classy. I guess that's the kind of refs you get in the lowest league.

We lost 3-2 but we had a goal that went all the way in the net and bounced out that they didn't give us. The best part about hockey is no matter how bad the refs are, it's still fun and great exercise.

Router Troubles

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 04:48:00 +0000

I recently received an Eye-Fi wireless SD card for my digital camera (which I will talk about in another post soon) which sends pictures wirelessly to your computer over your wireless network, among other things. The problem is that it only supports networks with WPA or WPA2 encryption, but my network (a D-Link DI-524+) is using WAP. No problem, I decided I would just change my network's security to WPA. So I updated the routers firmware and set the new encryption type. Then the network started cutting out every five minutes for a few minutes at a time.

Also, my TiVo's network card doesn't support WPA. Luckily my neighbor had a spare fancy TiVo wireless adapter that *did* support WPA, so he let me borrow it the next day, so that problem was solved. But the network kept dropping out. Still. I did everything I could think of: I changed the channel, I tried different passwords, I changed the router's auto-updating time service, nothing worked. I came across a forum post that said you could install some new firmware on your router that made your DI-524 think it was a DI-624. I was out of ideas and getting frustrated so I tried it. Others had luck with this (other than some overheating) so I wasn't super worried. I flashed the firmware and lo and behold, it thought it was a DI-624. Also, lo and behold, it was still cutting out every five minutes.

To make a long story even longer, I ended up giving up and buying a new D-Link DIR-628 which is pretty sweet, it supports 802.11n, g, and b running on a dual band (so my N devices won't be downgraded to a G network just because there are other G devices on it) and it's pretty fast overall.

If you have made it to the bottom of this incredible boring post, I commend you and as a token of my appreciation for how bored you must have been to make it here, I present you now with this timeless and classic joke: A pirate walks into a bar with a sailor's wheel sticking out of his pants. The bartender says, "Why do you have a sailor's wheel sticking out of your pants?" and the pirate replies, "Yarr, it's drivin' me nuts!"

p.s., The problem all along was (most likely) that I upgraded my firmware in the first place to its most current version which apparently is completely unstable.

"Yea all that over at the Eagle Hotel? Huh, it's beyond everything."
(If no one gets this is a day, I'll add another quote, so guess fast)

Face Tagging

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 02:37:00 +0000

Last week I convinced myself I should buy iLife '09 which includes a new version of iPhoto. Apple added a new feature to iPhoto called Faces, which auto-detects faces in photos and lets you name them. I have to say, the feature is great, it's easy to add names to faces with keyboard shortcuts and it even auto suggests names for faces.

After the first hour and a half, I commented via twitter that "going through the face-detection in iPhoto '09 and naming/confirming faces in photos is actually surprisingly fun and kind of addicting."

But now, I am in hour 4 of face tagging and I have to say the joy and novelty is gone. And I'm only half way through my photos. I can see this having been a great tool if I used it from the beginning, but at the moment it feels like a chore. I suppose it will be worth it when I'm done when I can type a name in and see all the pictures that have that person's face in them.

In closing, here's the funniest thing that's happened:

Lost Netflix

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 01:22:00 +0000

It seems we lost one of our Netflix movies. We can't remember seeing it in a month. We usually have one or two movies rotating through on a regular cycle but the third can take a while to watch (like Hotel Rwanda, Helvetica, or maybe some other various documentaries) so it's not uncommon to not watch our third movie within a month.

We might have accidentally thrown it out in the recycling bin along with our junk mail.

The problem is I don't want to accept that it's lost and pay the $20 or whatever it is, mainly because it's not a good movie. If I ever find it I won't want to be stuck with it. If it was a descent movie I'd have no problem because I would know that if I found it I might watch it a few times. Maybe even make a proper-looking DVD case for it.

It's Tropic Thunder. There, I said it. Who knows how long I can hold out without "buying" the movie. I'm not happy about this.

Update: After biting the bullet, I paid for the DVD on Netflix but then got this wonderful message: "If you find the lost DVD within one year, please return it to us for a refund." That's awesome, exactly what I would have hoped for but never expected. How cool!

2008: A Review

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 05:14:00 +0000

Here is my review of the past year in 6 words:

2008: High highs and low lows.

Regardless of how bad things may have been this year, I got married which was probably the best decision I have ever made. Here's to aught 9 being better. Cheers. Gobama!

p.s. I'm drun. (You see, it's fuunier if you say "drun" without the 'k')

a minute with the mrs.

noreply@blogger.com (sara) — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 17:33:00 +0000

All through middle school and high school I had a very good friend – a best friend. She and I spent almost all of our free time together. We were basically inseparable. Eventually, as friendships tend to do, we grew apart when we started college (well I started and she sort of started then stopped). She spent more time with her co-workers and I meet new people at school – people that held the same hours as me.

One day my friend experienced a tragedy and I thought that I could help her get through it by becoming her roommate. What I wasn’t expecting was for the entire experience to be a nightmare. She lied to me and clearly had no respect for me, my things, or my feelings. I cried almost every day that I lived there and, after 6 months, I left. We’ve never talked since and that’s been about 5 years now.

The main reason for this post is that, while I’m disappointed in her and the way she treated me and the situation we ended up in, I would still have dreams about her and how we had reconnected. I think the dreams really started when Mark and I started getting serious. We always talked about how we would be each others ‘maids of honor.’ I think that is why it was strange to me that she had never met my (at the time) boyfriend and it is really weird that she has no idea that I’m married. There are whole parts of my life that she knows nothing about – things that I always thought she would know.

A couple of weekends ago I saw her. She looked unhealthy skinny and had two boys (I can only assume these boys are hers since they are in her facebook picture as well). TWO BOYS! I was very surprised by this. I don’t think she’s married (and worry that they – or one of them – is the result of activities with this douchebag she was with when we lived together). There are whole parts of her life that I know nothing about. Things I always thought I would know about. I didn’t throw her a baby shower!

We have become two very different people now. I don’t think we will ever reconnect, but I do hope that she is healthy and happy. I guess I will never know.

Christmas Lights Are Hard

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 04:52:00 +0000

I think that hanging Christmas lights are the next big step after home ownership. I mean, it's a pretty big deal. When you're starting fresh there's a lot to consider. Strand length, bulb type, light color, attachment systems. I have heard that everyone should start moving to the LED lights but the only ones I've seen in stores are sparse and quite expensive. All the others seem to be primarily the little tiny lights which don't seem like they would hang up very nicely.

I've been trying to look up online how people do lights these days but I'm not finding any useful information. I'll probably just end up putting it off another year. Merry Christmas everyone!

Spam Does Not Taste Delicious

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 02:53:00 +0000

For my birthday, my parents got me some Spam Singles™ as a joke. When I was in High School I had a Spam shirt that I wore frequently. I decided to actually try the Spam because for some reason I don't want to go my whole life without trying Spam.

It was extremely terrible. The smell alone when sliding the oozing "fully cooked meat product" out of the packaging almost made me reverse my decision to actually attempt to consume any of it, but I had to press on. I decided it would be best to pan fry the product so it would at least be warm and have some texture. It needed no cooking oil, for the provided mucusy membrane the Spam Single™ was packaged in was enough to keep it from sticking to the pan. Once cooked I was going to put it on some bread and have a Spamwich, but I thought I needed to try it first. I took a bite off the corner. It was soft and malleable in my mouth. Like a warm paste, the meat formed on my tongue and teeth. I wasn't chewing, I was molding. The taste was salty but also sweet. I had to remind myself this was meat. I almost spit it out but no one gets this far only to quit. I had to swallow. It took a considerable ammount of effort to convince myself that the prominent "USDA Approved" logo on the package wasn't forgery and that I could successfully consume this product. I swallowed. I instantly needed something to override the taste that was in my mouth so in went a handfull of pine nuts and a shwig of cranberry juice. Sadly (or not) I tossed out the rest of the Spam. Why'd you have to buy me two mom?

The best part of the whole thing was the marketing on the front of the package that states "Get Ready to go to Crazy Tasty Town℠!"

launchCAST Closing Down

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 03:36:00 +0000

I loved launchCAST radio. I haven't been able to use it in a year or so because it's Windows only (even though you listen to it through a browser). It was Yahoo!'s personalized internet radio. It played you songs based on how you rated other songs/artists. It was brilliant. It was like my awesome music friend who would tell me about great bands. launchCAST is solely responsible for introducing me to some of my favorite bands:

Mates of State
Say Hi to Your Mom
The Mountain Goats
The Streets
The Decemberists
Neutral Milk Hotel
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
Islands
The Unicorns

That list could almost double for my "favorite bands" list.

Well today Yahoo! announced they are killing off the service. Awesome. Their blog post talks about how they're transferring all their pre-programmed and auto-populated stations they used to offered to CBS Radio, but that in my opinion wasn't a very interesting part of the service. The killer feature was the ratings and recommendations (the personalized radio) which they say "was never a money maker" even though they limited it to Windows Users using Internet Explorer and never tried to make it any better or any more accessible to users.

Over the years I have rated 752 Artists, 755 Albums, and 2,288 Songs on the service. The worst part about putting all that time and effort into rating is that there was no way to export those ratings for use elsewhere (like iTunes or last.fm). Even their own Music Player which let you write plug-ins didn't give you access to the ratings because they considered it a proprietary, differentiating feature they didn't want people to have access too. Now they are simply deleting the data for good.

So I'm sad to see the service go. It introduced me to a lot of great bands. It's just to bad it is being killed off in a manner that leaves it's most loyal users with nothing.

Film Personality Test

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 05:07:00 +0000

I'd rather not propagate internet memes, but I am trying to post more so I guess you're stuck with it.

Today Kottke posted about a different type of personality test. The Idea is that you take some directors who have directed popular and dynamic films and pick your favorite from each of them. Knowing which of the films someone likes might give you a good idea of their personality (or something to that effect). Here's the list:

1. Joel Coen: No Country for Old Men, The Big Lebowski, Fargo, The Hudsucker Proxy, Miller's Crossing, Raising Arizona, etc
2. Wes Anderson: The Darjeeling Limited, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Royal Tennenbaums, Rushmore, Bottle Rocket, etc
3. Hal Ashby: Being There, Shampoo, Harold and Maude, etc
4. Kevin Smith: Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Dogma, Chasing Amy, Mallrats, Clerks, etc
5. Quentin Tarantino: Grindhouse, Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, etc
6. Stanley Kubrick: 2001, The Shining, A Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket, Dr. Strangelove, Lolita, etc.
7. P.T. Anderson: Boogie Nights, Hard Eight, There Will Be Blood, Punch-Drunk Love, Magnolia.

I skipped Kottke's 8th director (Errol Morris) because I don't know him (should I?). So here is my list of answers:

1. The Big Lebowski
2. The Royal Tennenbaums
3. Harold and Maude
4. Chasing Amy
5. Reservoir Dogs
6. A Clockwork Orange
7. Punch Drunk Love

Couple things about this. Harold and Maude is the only Hal Ashby film I've seen (or even heard of) but I loved it so I guess it makes it my favorite by default. Also, fun fact, Bud Cort played ~~Maude~~ Harold (obviously-- thanks kottke) in Harold and Maude when he was 23 years old and played God (as a Skee-Ball playing man) in Kevin Smith's Dogma when he was 51. [Update: In the comments, Kottke also points out that Bud Cort had a role in The Life Aquatic too which I didn't know] I was going to put down Bottle Rocket as my favorite Wes Anderson movie but after I really thought about it, The Royal Tennenbaums is a great movie and I have to say that it's my favorite.

Sara had her own little Tiny Chime today (if you don't know what the tiny chime is, you should be listening to Jared's Podcast). I was talking about John Hodgeman's twittering and she said "It's funny how small the world is these days. They say there's 6 degrees of separation or something, but I'll bet with the internet we can get that down to three or four."

Tryptophan & Zycam

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 03:57:00 +0000

I think in the past year and a half I may have taken one sick day off from work. This isn't because my body is impervious to bacteria or viruses nor is it something I'm proud of. No, it's because my body hates me and decides to wait until a weekend or holiday or vacation to get me sick.

Tuesday night I started to get a cold. At first I thought it might be allergies from a puzzle Sara and I pulled out and decided to do. Who does puzzles anymore? No one. But guess what? We did. Turns out it wasn't allergies, it was a cold. Despite me feeling like crap I ended up having a really good time with family over the weekend and was feeling good enough to play hockey last night.

And now, like every other time, Sara is starting to get sick just as I get back to normal, despite out best efforts to prevent it.

"We still have over a bottle's worth."
"Ovar Ubottlesworth? Isn't that somebody's name?"