tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50168212011-04-21T22:28:52.730-07:00Incoherent ramblings of a pseudointellectual psychonerdJohnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comBlogger371100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-1174889468628396802007-03-26T00:08:00.000-07:002007-03-26T00:11:08.630-07:00

Finally remembered my password for this... note that my current blog is at http://jcomeau.unternet.net/blog/. If you try the links on the past blogs you'll see that blogspot lost a lot of my past information... that was why I had to move it to my own server.

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-1072665233748877092003-12-28T18:33:00.000-08:002003-12-28T18:35:21.903-08:00

Warbussing and warwalking along Hollywood Boulevard yields many, many APs all the way to the beach, mostly linksys, and many with weak signals. The one I'm using at the moment is outside of Offerdahl's bagel shop just west of the Hollywood Mall. Nice strong signal I caught while on the bus a few days ago. Doesn't look like I'll accomplish any of my goals by yearend, but I am proving to myself

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-1071299364238424142003-12-12T23:09:00.000-08:002003-12-12T23:10:31.920-08:00

Making slight progress on my vehicle and dome. Main impediments now are lack of energy and distractions (primarily having DSL internet access.) I waste too much time with trivial frivolities (trivolities? is that a word?) I have sold a lot of my books and other stuff on eBay and Amazon. But there's no way I'll be done by year end on that score.

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-1070410204464053642003-12-02T16:10:00.000-08:002003-12-02T16:10:58.653-08:00

The list of individuals and companies that have screwed me over, in one way or another, over the past 12 months is growing and growing. TGI Fridays, UPS, PayPal, Wachovia, Salvatore Wise Jr. of Philadelphia (or someone pretending to be him), and others I can't think of at the moment. Every entity that gets money from me without reciprocating in the form of goods and services loses. Either they

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-1069925654580938852003-11-27T01:34:00.000-08:002003-11-27T01:35:01.013-08:00

Built the first prototype of my new vehicle idea today at the home depot, and managed to push/pull it home over the next 9 hours or so. I'm exhausted. Pictures should be forthcoming.

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-1069815108882363402003-11-25T18:51:00.000-08:002003-11-25T18:52:34.170-08:00

Please forgive the profane venting in my last post. Since then, PayPal has royally pissed me off also. I'm about ready to switch to other auction/payment services. Maybe Yahoo for auction and Stormpay for payments. When is online business going to jump on the cluetrain? Probably never. But at least I'll give someone else a chance, and punish the companies, however slightly, who have proven they

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-1069624994684671062003-11-23T14:03:00.000-08:002003-11-23T14:04:10.780-08:00

Fucking eBay! Their goddamned invoice doesn't include the insurance amount, and their shitty "contact us" link doesn't work because when you get to the "send email" button it tells you your browser is rejecting cookies when that isn't the case. Tried it with both IE6 and NS7. They just don't give a flying fuck about customer service.

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-1069481203922077122003-11-21T22:06:00.000-08:002003-11-21T22:07:46.686-08:00

Had another revelation this morning (well, technically yesterday morning - sometime around 6 AM EST Friday) that my consistent failures in my chem labs at Worcester Tech were due to deliberate tampering/sabotage on the part of the lab assistants and/or my co-students. I wonder if that's true or if my subconscious is just trying to pin the blame on someone other than myself. This is something that

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-1069278123057488522003-11-19T13:42:00.000-08:002003-11-19T13:48:07.966-08:00

Hot damn. Am I good or what? (See prediction in previous blog.)

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-1069136157192596142003-11-17T22:15:00.000-08:002003-11-17T22:16:42.763-08:00

Gold is almost definitely going to go over $400.00 an ounce this year (spot price). My guess is that it'll happen today, Tuesday, the 18th of November, 2003. Let's see if my prediction comes up right.

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-1068804857498092282003-11-14T02:14:00.000-08:002003-11-14T02:15:26.170-08:00

Couldn't go back to sleep. Damn. Googling for "gravity spin" brought page after page of hits on brand name clothes dryers insterspersed with a few gems like the Big Spin Model of Gravity. Nothing, though, that looks like what my dream brought to my mind.

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-1068799609562704482003-11-14T00:46:00.000-08:002003-11-14T00:50:45.530-08:00

I just woke up from one of my typically bogus nonsensical dreams with the following (probably false) revelation: gravity doesn't just pull, it spins as it pulls, like a whirlpool or coriolis effect. It probably wouldn't be noticed within earth's atmosphere unless the length of the drop were very long and the rotational friction were minimal. If this is true, it's very likely Einstein already

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-1066428180756017112003-10-17T15:03:00.000-07:002003-10-17T15:03:15.920-07:00

Back at the Fort Lauderdale airport using their free wireless and power... Unfortunately here in a metropolitan area I waste time checking my email too frequently, checking the spot price of gold, doing websearches for inconsequential things... I was better off in the Maine woods where all I could do was program. My goals for the last few weeks of the year are to finish my floating geodesic dome

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-1066189541966880002003-10-14T20:45:00.000-07:002003-10-14T20:46:09.946-07:00

In case you're wondering, no I didn't find a wireless node tonight, I'm using the computer in the lobby of the 4 Points Sheraton across from the Bangor airport terminal. They let anybody use it for free, even scraggly-looking vagabonds like myself. Had my first alcohol in over a week tonight, here at the Americana bar at Four Points: a Sam Adams Octoberfest and a pint of my cherished Bass Ale.

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-1066189113269549982003-10-14T20:38:00.000-07:002003-10-14T20:40:03.153-07:00

I can't see that I ever posted my one-pan-omelet recipe. It's something I figured out during my trip to London last June; I was staying at a youth hostel in Leicester for two weeks while studying a few hours almost every day at the British Museum, learning Egyptian heiroglyphs. To make a one-pan omelet, you put enough oil in a teflon-coated frying pan to cover it with a thin layer. Add three

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-1066165750273283642003-10-14T14:09:00.000-07:002003-10-14T14:09:19.680-07:00

Finally got my wireless node "sniffer" working reliably. Had to disable the screen saver, start up Narrator (from the Microsoft Accessibility tools) and set it to announce events on screen; and play some music to keep the Averatec from going into sleep mode. I walk along like this with the volume up, and when I passed a linksys node just past Merrimac street in Bangor, it announced "wireless

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-1065077240443204002003-10-01T23:47:00.000-07:002003-10-01T23:48:03.936-07:00

Just uploaded my latest mini-project to my website at http://jcomeau.com/lilypond/. It's a buggy python script that works kinda sorta like a piano keyboard. Nowhere near as cool as the Virtual Piano applet that used to (maybe still does?) come with Cakewalk , but it ought to help me enter lilypond music source files. I'm going to add a link to this blog at my home page. I wanted to start over

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-1064477293636526562003-09-25T01:08:00.000-07:002003-09-25T01:08:38.670-07:00

Maine seems to be good for my soul. In the last few days I've actually gotten some programming done, am learning how to use lilypond, and today I even baked some whole wheat bread. And I went all day today without my internet "fix"; of course I'm making up for it tonight.

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-1064168588069312342003-09-21T11:23:00.000-07:002003-09-21T11:23:31.313-07:00

Thanks to Verisign for blowing all my websites away with their lovely new sitefinder... spent all last night redirecting my domains to something that will (hopefully) resolve... lots of blivet resolvers around the world are well over their 5-lb capacity.

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-1063803645693830142003-09-17T06:00:00.000-07:002003-09-17T06:00:56.990-07:00

Free wireless in Bangor, a linksys router just down the hill from the Greyhound station, in front of the Masonic Temple. Actually, it may be across the street because the signal is a little weak here, but it works OK. My new Hennessy Hammock works great but I didn't get any sleep yet... didn't dress warm enough for this Maine weather...

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-1063730611944893342003-09-16T09:43:00.000-07:002003-09-16T09:43:54.546-07:00

That huge sucking parasite, the US Government, just stole $12 from me. Two Excelite bits. They were going to keep the handle, too, for crying out loud, but I managed to shame them out of that. So now it seems you can't even have any kind of tools in your carry-on baggage. They did give me the option of checking my bag, but hell, I'd rather just lose two screwdriver bits than my laptop and

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-1063672917667509372003-09-15T17:41:00.000-07:002003-09-15T17:54:59.373-07:00

That python script I talked about last time has become an all-consuming passion, now hosted at http://jcomeau.com/genome/. I'm advertising it at bioinformatics.org; I tried twice to promote it at slashdot.org but it got rejected both times. Going to Maine for a month now to visit my Ma, just told her I thought I won't be able to make it this year... want to surprise her... Found a free wireless

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-1060291092227794342003-08-07T14:18:00.000-07:002003-08-07T14:19:22.650-07:00

Forgot to mention, I wrote a python script last night to turn a fasta file (genome data) into a midi music file, mapping G to G3, C to C3, A to A2, and T to F3. Trying with different General Midi instruments, so far Pan Flute sounds the best, but I'm not really happy with it. And I'd really rather write directly to the Midi device rather than have to convert these huge files, but I don't know

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-1060290246118727142003-08-07T14:04:00.000-07:002003-08-07T14:05:17.056-07:00

Restroom design. Why is it that almost nobody gets it right? Airport architects are the best. No doors at all, just make 2 90-degree turns and you're in. The library at BCC is OK too, since you pull the doors to enter and push to leave. Why does this make a difference? Anybody who's ever worked in the healthcare industry (I was A/C mechanic at a nursing home once) has seen the film that shows

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-944277992003-05-15T20:27:00.000-07:002003-05-15T20:27:16.973-07:00

The Matrix Unloaded What happened? My guess is that the Wachowski brothers sold out to the true Machine, the Babylonian Brotherhood, which keeps our minds and bodies captive through religion, drugs, money, laws, and myriads of other methods. The first Matrix movie must have scared the living shit out of them, so they told the Wachowskis to tone down the next one or else. The Wachowskis, who may

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-941114572003-05-10T10:27:00.000-07:002003-05-10T10:27:00.510-07:00

Well, I hated to do it, but I sold my OJ contract at 85 cents on Thursday for a loss of $375. I could have waited one more day but the last day of trading can be very worrisome; if it were something with permanent value, like gold, I wouldn't mind too much, but having a truck drive up to my door with 15000 pounds of frozen OJ is quite another story. I declined to buy another (July contract), I'll

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-935534022003-04-30T13:57:00.000-07:002003-04-30T13:57:08.763-07:00

I'm taking a beating in May orange juice, down almost $1000 ($150 per penny change in contract price); no worries, I'll just roll over to the June or September contracts. Rough Rice is now in freefall after climbing beyond my wildest expectations. Palladium may be making a clean new 1-2-3 bottom formation, and some wheat contracts and milk are looking good too. This could be a great year for

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-923777612003-04-10T12:19:00.000-07:002003-04-10T12:19:58.000-07:00

Hadn't checked before I posted; May OJ saw some neat manipulation the last 2 days, triggering everybody's stop-loss orders, then zipping right back up to where it was... now it's almost sure it's going to fly high... and rough rice is still climbing through the roof, amazing... but if I were really in it I'd probably have sold by now; it can go down just as fast, as you can see with OJ. On the

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-923753942003-04-10T11:35:00.000-07:002003-04-10T11:35:40.000-07:00

Let's see if I can update this time without crashing Netscape... Some grains, lumber, palladium, all hit 12-month lows and may be on the way up, this is a good time to watch commodities! See what happened to rough rice, wow! Can't wait till I get some money to invest...

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-912892782003-03-24T09:31:00.000-08:002003-03-24T09:42:17.000-08:00

Browser problems made it difficult to update my page from home; here I am back at the library getting caught up. Commodities: I hope you cashed out of March Rough Rice in time, or rolled over to the May contract. Palladium? I really missed the ball on that one. I just couldn't believe that the meager peaks in January and early February were a distribution top, but hindsight indicates they must

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-897473742003-02-25T17:50:00.000-08:002003-02-25T17:51:53.000-08:00

Do a search for 'pinhole glasses' on your favorite search engine to get information on a strange idea which I discovered myself quite by accident; turns out many other people had the same idea. The glasses I use, however, are quite different from those I see advertised; they are simply a pair of sunglasses from the Dollar Store with a 1/64" hole drilled in each lens, at the right pupillary

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-892024192003-02-16T13:35:00.000-08:002003-02-16T13:35:46.000-08:00

Just finished Isaac Asimov's The Robots of Dawn on Saturday. Great book, I hadn't read any Asimov since my teen years... his stories certainly improved as he got older. Hope mine do!. Haven't got much to say about the book except, read it for yourself! Check out my other book reviews at http://risp.org/members/jcomeau/books.shtml if you're so inclined. Found a great bar near my current workplace

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-890025442003-02-12T16:38:00.000-08:002003-02-12T16:39:23.000-08:00

Commodities again: Orange Juice has hit a 12-month (at least) low, but it's still heading downwards. Rice and Palladium are not rising as fast as I thought they would; it seems the manipulators are still trying to scare or trick the bulls into selling. Anyway, if I don't start making some real progress in this programming gig, I won't have any money to trade with...

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-888793342003-02-10T16:03:00.000-08:002003-02-10T16:03:19.000-08:00

Started a contract job on Saturday, first full day today. Grmph. Not exactly performing at my greatest... got to catch up on changes to php, as well as remember all the stuff I've forgotten about Apache authentication. Probably won't be updating this blog too frequently for the next week or two...

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-885481762003-02-04T12:36:00.000-08:002003-02-04T12:45:46.000-08:00

If you missed buying CBOT rough rice and COMEX palladium during their recent lows (5 year low in the case of Pd), you might want to start watching OJ. While rice and palladium should still have a long way to go on the upside, you already missed a large part of the potential profits, and there are always new bargains coming along. In the case of OJ, it still hasn't hit a 12-month low so just watch

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-885444362003-02-04T11:11:00.000-08:002003-02-04T11:14:57.000-08:00

In case you haven't tried it, Amazon Marketplace is a great way to sell old books, videotapes, CD's, etc. You won't get back the money you paid for them if you bought them new, but then again you get some cash in hand for all those paperbacks you'll probably never read again. Just search for a book you have by name or ISBN (you'll find it above the UPC label on the back), let's say for example

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5016821.post-884833112003-02-03T10:27:00.000-08:002003-02-03T10:28:54.000-08:00

First post, let's see how this works. I'm supposed to be fixing the house, but here I am at the library killing time instead. Found an old friend, Andy Tannenbaum, on the web today at http://shamash.org/trb/xhome.trb.html. Still waiting for SDF to come back online, and working on a top-secret programming project... More later, got to get off my ass and let someone else use the computer.

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09761962690209123149noreply@blogger.com