Driving in the south Jul 24, 2006
I drove to and from Virginia this weekend, which means I covered quite a bit of ground in "the south" (really anything south of New Jersey is "the south" in my opinion).  I have a few suggestions for southern drivers: 
1.  Discover and utilize cruise control.  (This isn't just a southern issue; I've seen it all over.)  Cruise control is a fancy little "car hack" that lets you maintain constant speed at all times so you don't have to keep your foot on your gas pedal.  It's great for traveling 400 miles on relatively open 3-lane highways.  Try it out some time. 

2.  Pick a speed and stick with it.  Why do people go 60 mph for 200 miles and then suddenly accelerate to 75 mph and ride my butt?  Also, why do I pass people and then get passed by the same people, over and over again, ad nauseam?  If I'm using cruise control, the problem is you, stupid southerner. 

3.  Get out of the left lane.  For some stupid reason, many of the major interstates in the south have 2 lanes instead of 3 (or 4 or 5 like NJ).  Some people don't quite understand the concept.  The left lane is for passing, unless there's no one behind you.  So even though you think "63 is fast enough", you're wrong.  Get out of the left lane.  It doesn't matter what speed you think is unacceptable.  It's not your call.  If people want to go 65, let them go 65.  If people want to go 95, let them go 95. 
I also realized a few things about driving in NJ:  Everybody says that NJ drivers are the worst.  Actually, I think they're quite good.  They've developed an amazing system of communication.  If somebody rides your butt, that means "get out of my way" or "get out of this lane".  If somebody cuts you off, it sometimes means "get out of my way" or "get out of this lane".  If somebody beeps at you or flashes their lights in your rear view, it usually means "get out of my way" or "get out of this lane".  What else could people possibly need to say? 

Also, I would hypothesize that if every car in NJ was on the road at the same time, the roads would be completely packed and no one would move.  That's because there's like 3 billion people in NJ and they all have 2 cars.  But the south has remarkably clear roads and little to no traffic.  Even when there's traffic, the alternate routes and side roads are completely clear.  What an amazing concept. #travel
Two space compliance (2) Jul 20, 2006
My site is now officially two space compliant!  This means that sentences with two spaces after the period are shown with two spaces after the period!  This sounds like a simple concept, but HTML makes things pretty difficult by only showing a single space whether there are two or a million.  Scott Reilly's Text Replace plugin to the rescue!  It's painfully simple:  It searches for a specified piece of text and replaces it with a different specified piece of text.  In my case, it looks for two spaces and replaces them with a   and a single space (a single space and a   didn't work quite right; neither did two  ).  It doesn't save the changes into the database; it's just a front-end aesthetic thing.  It's the most useful thing I've come across in a while. #technology
New favicon Jul 20, 2006
In line with the recent (and unimportant) theme trim, I just updated my favicon. 
  →  
I wanted something a little "nicer", and I ended up pretty much copying off of del.icio.us (though unintentionally at first).  I used Microsoft Paint to make the PNG and Dynamic Drive's FavIcon Generator to convert it into an ICO.  I also updated my theme to include link rel="icon" as well as link rel="shortcut icon", as mentioned in Wikipedia's article. #technology
Weather control Jul 20, 2006
I hope it doesn't rain tonight. 

And China agrees.  In order to have perfect weather during the 2008 Olympic Games, the Beijing Weather Modification Office has been shooting chemicals into clouds via anti-aircraft guns.  The chemicals actually make it rain sooner, which also increases the chances of it clearing up sooner.  It sounds about as reliable as weather prediction (i.e. not reliable), but it's better than nothing. 

In some ways, I could see how this is a bad thing.  Shooting chemicals into the air sounds like a bad idea.  But what if they were good chemicals like oxygen or hydrogen?  Then there's the whole argument about not playing God.  I can see the reasoning behind that, but it hasn't exactly stopped us from doing things in the past (crossbreeding, in vitro fertilization, etc.).  And what about the idea of a butterfly flapping its wings in Africa and causing a hurricane in Florida?  How does that translate to pummeling clouds with artillery shells?  Sounds like the end of the world to me. 

But at the same time, I could see it as a good thing.  I'd like to play basketball after work today.  If it rains, I won't be able to play.  If it rains, I won't get to go in the pool tonight.  If it rains, it'll affect my weekend plans at Busch Gardens.  If it didn't rain on August 14, 2004, I would've gotten married on a beach.  So many things are dependent on such an unpredictable and unavoidable occurrence.  Wouldn't it be nice to have a little bit of control? #entertainment
Cigarettes out the window (5) Jul 19, 2006
Every time I see someone flick a cigarette out their car window, I want to get out of my car, pick up the cigarette butt, and shove it down that person's throat.  I think that's a reasonable response.  If the smoker's rationale is that "cigarette butts are too small to do anything bad to the environment", then I'd like to suggest that cigarette butts are also too small to do anything bad to your gastrointestinal tract.  Once again, a reasonable response in my opinion. 

But honestly, what's the deal?  I've heard that smokers don't like to put the butts in the ashtray because it makes their car smell.  I got news for ya:  You smell.  Your hair, your clothes, your breath.  Everything.  It stinks.  And everyone knows you smoke.  Isn't it enough that you're destroying the environment by spewing out your noxious fumes?  Do you need to litter too?  Would it make you mad if I threw some trash in your bedroom?  Would you be angry if threw burning matches in your front lawn? 

I guess I just don't understand the problem.  I drive a car.  I eat and drink while driving, so I generate garbage.  But I put my garbage in a trash bag.  It's really quite simple.  When I'm done with my candy wrapper, I put it in the trash bag instead of throwing it out the window.  When I'm done drinking my coffee, I put the cup in the trash bag instead of throwing it out the window.  At what point did it become an acceptable practice to throw little pieces of trash out the window?  Where's the logic?  Where's the disconnect?  What the heck is wrong with these people? #science
Reliability Jul 19, 2006
Very closely related to my idea about liking other people's stuff, I tend to place a high price tag on reliability. 

I'm a big fan of chain restaurants (Applebee's and Outback being my favorites).  From a "trying-to-be-cultured" perspective, this isn't very cool.  I should have the desire to eat at a little hole in the wall, or I should be willing to try that new Thai place.  But based on my countless experiences of disappointment when trying new things, I don't try new things.  I'm more than happy with something I can count on.  And chain restaurants give me food that I can count on.  If I order a steak from an Outback in California, it'll taste exactly the same as the steak I get at an Outback in New Jersey.  That's reliability.  There's no guess work or bad decisions.  You know what you're getting before you walk through the door. 

A few years ago, I met a guitar player who bought all his guitars from "little guys" who made guitars in their own private workshops.  These weren't name-brand guitars, and they probably wouldn't even be recognized outside of the area of the country they were made/bought in.  He said it was good to buy guitars like this because you're supporting a niche industry, you're getting a hand-made top-quality product, and you're not helping the "big guys" like Musician's Friend and Guitar Center.  His rationale sounded good, and he almost convinced me.  But his argument wore off after I went to several different guitar stores and played several different kinds of guitars.  I found that most guitar brands are pretty reliable:  You know what you're getting as soon as you pick it up.  If you pick up a Martin, (in my opinion) you're playing an over-priced, over-rated piece of unfinished wood that smells like a freshly cut piece of timber (that last part is a compliment).  And if you pick up a Taylor, you're playing an expensive instrument made of expensive materials that's made to an extremely high standard of quality.  But no matter what model you pick up or what store you're in or what state you're in, you can always count on these things being true.  If I buy a guitar from Joe's Guitar Shack down the street, I can't count on his ability to replicate his own work.  If anything, I would expect his work to be somewhat varied as a result of him fine-tuning his skills over time.  But brands like Martin, Taylor, Fender, Gibson?  These things have been around for decades.  They know what they're doing.  That's reliability. #food
Jeep around the world (1) Jul 19, 2006
Ben Carlin was a guy who drove his amphibious Jeep around the world in the 1950s, starting and ending in Monreal, Canada.  It reminds me of Karl Bushby, the guy who's in the process of walking around the world.  (via Boing Boing) #travel
Other people's stuff Jul 18, 2006
I don't know what the deal is, but I know this:  I like other people's stuff more than my own.  For example, I could get lunch from Subway every day of the week.  I like their simple sandwiches and their relatively low prices.  But when I buy the same ingredients from a food store and make the sandwich myself, it's not as good.  I'm not sure where the disconnect is, but for some reason my sandwiches are always inferior.  Maybe it's because I'm using different brands of ingredients.  If anything, I'm using better brands so this should actually improve the taste of my sandwiches.  Maybe it's the fact that I make my sandwiches in the morning and eat them 4-5 hours later, whereas Subway makes my sandwiches 5 minutes before I eat them.  That could definitely be where the problem comes in.  But I've tried bringing all my sandwich ingredients to work and making the sandwich there, only to find that my sandwiches still lacked something. 

It's the same with Dunkin Donuts coffee.  I'd rather pay over $1 for 8 oz of Dunkin Donuts coffee than make it myself.  Even when I buy the prepackaged DD coffee and make it at home, it tastes like motor oil.  I suffer from a complete inability to make coffee.  I don't know what my problem is, but I know that my coffee sucks.  So I'm more than willing to pay for a cup of fresh-brewed DD. #food
FM transmitter interference (3) Jul 17, 2006
I've been using a Belkin TuneCast (FM transmitter) hooked up to my Palm Treo for about a year now (off and on).  It's a great little add-on for converting my PDA/phone into an mp3 player that can play music through my car's sound system.  Initially, the obvious problem was that it's only capable of transmitting on 4 different radio frequencies, which means there's a chance it won't work in heavily radio-frequency-populated areas (i.e. cities, Best Buy [kidding]).  But recently I've discovered a new problem:  Interference with FM transmitters in cars driving past me.  At first, I was wondering why I kept getting a second of seemingly random crystal clear radio stations while my songs were playing.  I figured I was driving through tiny little areas of radio station coverage.  But then I realized that it only happened as I drove past other cars.  That's when I figured it out:  Other people's mp3 players hooked up to radio transmitters were interfering with my transmitter.  That made me a little mad, because I'm not quite sure how their transmitters are more powerful than mine.  Maybe theirs are cigarette-lighter-powered?  Mine is battery powered.  Maybe mine isn't close enough to my antenna?  Does the passing car hear my music as I'm hearing theirs?  I doubt it.  But the whole thing gets me a little angry and makes me go back to CDs, my over-sized, under-packed wastes of money. #entertainment
Echolocation Jul 17, 2006
This article is about a 14-year-old kid who's been blind since he was 3 and has adopted echolocation (bouncing sound waves off of solid objects and observing the time it takes for the waves to return) to determine the size, shape, and location of his surroundings.  He said an interesting thing:  "I tell people I'm not blind," he says. "I just can't see."  (via Digg) #entertainment