June 2003 Archives

So after I first tried BitTorrent I got really excited. Everything seemed so fast. It was great. I started to write this glowing post about how it worked and what it did and how cool it was. After using it for a few weeks now, my opinions have changed a little and that write-up will probably never get posted.

So what changed? Well first off I've had a much harder time getting files. It seems to me like you need to try for the file at just the right time; if you try to early after release, you have to bear the brunt of the wait and then other people pull from you. If you wait to long, everyone else has killed their windows and the file is no longer available. The other problem is that the network seems small. All of my neighbors seem to have full connections, thereby isolating me from the file.

I have had a few really good experiences, pulling large files at very good speeds (hundred Kb/s). However, lately it hasn't been as good.

Note: I'm currently using shareaza as my bittorrent client since the python gui spontaneously broke.

Ever wanted your blogroll in a dropdown menu? Well, now you can. I've written a small script in php that you can incorporate into any php aware page. The function takes a blogroll rpc address including your token as the first parameter and turns it into a dropdown of class dlistbroll so you can style it using CSS. Feel free to let me know if it works or doesn't work for you. Not being a user of blogrolling myself, I'm not sure what things you can change on the other end that may break it.

To see it in action, check out jasmeet.net and remember that you can use CSS to change the appearance to fit your own site.

o2bee.com: woke up, it was a chelsea morning
Trials and tribulations of a woman who's mother has died of cancer. The posts are touching and sad, but easy to relate to if you've ever lost someone.

I can't wait. This game will rule. I mean, as soon as you read about the game, didn't you want to play? I mean really. Sure you did!

Over at Baseball Musings David Pinto has a post about the DH. It's interesting, but he hits on a point I don't understand.

Now before I ask my question, please note: I'm a baseball fan, I did my time in little league, and I follow the Red Sox pretty closely. However, I'm not a fanatic. I don't memorize stats and my knowledge of players is limited to my team and a few of their closest competitors. Please don't hurt me.

My question: David says "Notice that the DH for the years in question is less offensively valued than the first baseman, the rightfielder and the leftfielder. DHs should be doing at least as well as the first basemen." What determines how well a first baseman should be doing offensively? If a manager can arrange the batting order however he likes, then shouldn't it be more like "Notice that the DH for the years in question is less offensively valued than the third batter, the fourth batter and the eight batter."?

The only thing I can come up with is that because the first baseman doesn't do much throwing (whereas an outfielder might be expected to be able to reach the plate for a tag out at home) their size and physique is a little different. Can someone explain this to me?

In his last two entries, here and here, Dave Hyatt discusses the test suites available for standards, specifically those used to test things like CSS 1, 2 and 3. His point is that because the test suites aren't there, charts showing browser support are not very useful because they don't give designers a good idea of the depth of support for a feature.

This is a great point and one that could be fixed. Can't the W3C make a list of things they need test cases for and then let the public claim them and write them? I wrote a system like this for links that were being reviewed. Anyone could add a link to the queue. Then anyone could reserve a link, write their review, and then come back and post a link to it. It seems like a similar system would be extremely useful. Instead of having a few people writing the suites, people could contribute thereby invoking the lazy web.

Last night I went to Barnes and Noble to get my copy of the newest addition to the Harry Potter series. It was a lot of fun.

I reached the store at about 10:45. There was no parking nearby so I had to park a few stores down. Entering the building, I was greeted by a B&N employee who asked if I had preordered and since I hadn't directed me to a table where I could get a ticket in order to get in line for a copy. As I made my way towards where he had pointed I was amazed by the number of people and the Potter fever that was everywhere. People with lightning bolt scars, people with wands, people dressed up like Myrtle, people dressed like the knight in the painting, people with capes and hats and Griffindor t-shirts and scarves and more. What had done this? A book! And not just any book, an 890 page monster. Incredible.

I had a great time waiting for the books to go on sale watching the excited kids and adults as they passed the time. When the book finally went on sale, groups of ticket holders were called up front thirty at a time. It was handled very well avoiding a lot of the nastiness usually involved in some long awaited consumer product. The lines moved quickly and orderly, the doors weren't blocked, and people managed to keep a smile on their face all the way to and out of the door. It was great.

I'm really excited to have the book and to start reading it. I'll let you know how it goes. In the meantime, do you have your copy?

So there's this guy named Burke. He says human beings use and misuse symbols (translation: we use words). Burke claims by looking at these symbols, how they're organized and grouped, and in what situations they're used we can determine meanings that are systemic in nature; we can find meanings that are implied but not explicit.

I know what you're thinking. "This crap is so boring." I disagree. This type of analysis is important in figuring out not what was said, but what was meant.

Now here's my contribution. Words=Characters=Binary. In my opinion, and without a lot of AI, it should be relatively easy to construct a web of symbols from a text, linking portions together by their constructs (i.e. phrases to particular usages of the individual words in them). It would then be possible to create a simple burkean analysis of a piece of work much larger than what has been done in the past. However, this burkean analysis could be taken further.

What happens when you begin to explore the thoughts of a group? Burkean analysis of the warbloggers? Of sports bloggers? By looking at social networks and the words they use and the way they use them (while keeping in mind that what is said is just as important as what's not said) I think we could come up with some interesting ways to study memes in the blogosphere.

Now I'm not the first to claim this task is automatable. There's a guy named Rod at the University of Texas doing similar things, only his work seems to be based on dictionaries. I'll have to download and try his stuff to see how it works.

And just like that, I'm spent. Feel free to add to the convesation if you'd like. I'd be interested to hear what people in other disciplines think.

BTB is hosted by MongoHosting, where we get great hosting for a great price. However, Ron is running an amazing deal right now: Sign up for an account and pay only $25 a year for the lifetme of the account! You can't beat that. We're talking no setup fee, a free domain name, 1Gb of space, 5Gb of bandwidth a month, unlimited email accounts, and more! Ron's a great guy as well: always there to answer a question or fix your problems.

If you have any questions, feel free to drop him an email. If you'd like to sign up, stop by MongoHosting and fill out the form. If you do sign up, please mention that you were referred by me here at BinaryToybox. It never hurts to get into your hosts good graces!

Blogmedic : day to day in ems
You guys know I'm a fan of the Blogmedic, Andy Gienapp. Even the mundane day to day things interest me. The story of his career is a constant reminder that we take a lot of things for granted everyday, such as the fact that in an emergency there are people like Andy who will look after us.

Check out his blog if you haven't already. His stuff is an excellent read.

So I'm currently reading the Foundation trilogy by Isaac Asimov. I managed to score a paperback version with the first three books together for a buck. Can't beat that, right? Problem: try and find a picture of the cover. Problem Two: I'm too lazy to scan it. In any case, the Foundation trilogy is to science fiction what the Lord of The Rings trilogy is to fantasy. Excellent set of books. What I didn't know is that there are more of them, written by other authors though. Anyone know anything about them?

I'm not currently listening to anything in particular. I go through spurts where I buy books, and then through rushes of CD buying. This weekend I managed to grab The DaVinci Code as well as (don't laugh!) Hillary Clinton's memoir. I know, I caved. Who knows, though... Maybe it'll turn out ok... Back to music (where I started) BB King released an album last week supposedly, so I'll probably look for that. I'll let you know if I find it.

What are you reading and listening to?

So Wednesday night a friend from work invited me to attend a Red Sox game with her. She had received tickets and the person who she had been expecting to go with her had to cancel.

Now this wasn't just any baseball game. First off, this was interleague play against the Cardinals. The last time the Sox had played a series against them was the 1967 World Series. Great rivalry between these teams, but not to many chances to explore it. Secondly, this game saw the return of Pedro Martinez from the disabled list where he'd been for a month. Thirdly, while the majority of the weather during the last month in New England has been rainy and cool, Wednesday night cleared up and remained warm. All in all it was a perfect night for baseball especially in Fenway.

Fenway is an amazing park, and I hadn't been there for a while. Going reminded me of being a kid and seeing Clemens on the mound, summer days, and hotdogs.

The game was amazing. Pedro had a spectacular return, the Sox went up by seven in the second inning, and won by thirteen with a homerun by Nixon and Ramierez. I had a blast. I even got to harass some Cardinal/Rams fans.

This game has revitalized my interest in baseball, a process which had begun with working in Boston as well as the changes on the team (Theo Epstein, Grady Little, this is the year!). I'm actively following games, of which two in the last four days have gone over thirteen innings. Good times!

Man. It's almost starting to feel like summer...

The song is called Imprint. The lyrics you'll remember are "One step I make an imprint, two steps is commitment, three steps I'm not done yet, draw my other leg up and the pace is set".

It seems like everyone uses that line and no one gives attribution. That's the song. There you go.

WSJ.com - Poultry in Motion: With Invention, Chicken Catching Goes High-Tech

Early devices included the chicken vacuum, which sucked up birds and shot them through tubes to waiting trucks. But the birds tended to plug up the tubes and turn somersaults as they traveled inside the contraption. "We had too many die on us," recalls Buddy Burruss, vice president of operations at Tip Top Poultry Inc. of Marietta, Ga., which tested and quickly abandoned the pneumatic approach two decades ago.

I've been reading Sam's site for a while now, and over the time I've been reading it, I've grown to appreciate his commentary and knowledge. His latestmove has caused quite a stir.

If you leave a nasty comment on Sam's site, he has started to mark them as flame bait, even going so far as to mark up certain portions of comments.

Did you ever do something you knew was wrong, only to have someone catch you and chastise you later? Ever do something that afterwards you didn't feel so great about? Well now, Sam is marking it up and pointing it out to the whole world (or at least to everyone who reads his site). Can't think of something nice to say? You better now say anything at all then, because otherwise Sam may memorialize it in red struck text. Take that!

Sam has every right to do whatever he please on his blog, however maybe there should also be a way to retract statements that are inflamatory as opposed to branding them and drawing attention to them. At least give the commentor the ability to admit their mistake, apologize, and take it back. I mean hell, doesn't google cache enough trash as it is?

I own a GameCube. I've been a Nintendo fan from the beginning, owning a NES, SNES, N64, GameBoy, and GameBoy Advance. I've never owned any other consoles. Lately, though, I've been wondering about Nintendo and where they're going.

I wasn't as impressed with the latest Zelda as I have been with some of the other installments in the series. A Link to the Past on SNES was an amazing and ground-breaking game. As this article points out, Wind Waker, although beautiful, is basically the same as Ocarina and Majora. Disappointing.

Owning my GameCube, I've played Metroid, Zelda, and Star Fox Adventure. I think this Penny Arcade sums it up pretty well. Lately the only games I've been coveting are those on other systems.

I'm not sure where this leaves Nintendo, but I don't think its anywhere near the market for older, more experienced gamers. That's a sad thing, as they're innovating (I mean the cell-shading was cool), but they're not releasing anything for the gamers who grew up with them. Come on Nintendo: make a game for me.

I've been feeling a little out of sorts lately, so I haven't been posting much as I haven't found anything truly post worthy. However, here's some things:

I've started reading penny arcade more often. They're pretty funny, and very talented.

In the same vein, Cox and Forkum rule.

The Red Sox are breaking my heart again. Damn you Theo! Damn you! (and you too, Pedro!)

The other night I saw the Ducks win they're first game of the series in overtime. It was amazing. It hooked me. Last night I watched again, and was rewarded with a similar ending and a tied series. Do they script this stuff in order to attract viewers? If Seacrest shows up on the ice, I swear I'll kill someone.

I'm currently plodding through Physics for Game Developers, an O'Reilly book by David Bourg. Extremely dense and difficult, but interesting.

Look for a php script that turns blogrolls into dropdown menus coming soon, inspired by Jasmeet, coded by me, and tuned by Scott.