Geneffects: November 2005

I'm growing suspicious

Different domain name registries are showing different availability information. It started with that THE.AT and it continues. Some will say a domain is taken while others will say available. I'm wondering: What the heck?

n00.bz

I also just purchased n00.bz. This could be a great brand for tech support, help desk, or online FAQ. Again, GoDaddy has let me down.... not even selling the .bz. I had to (goan) go through NetworkSolutions. What a great name that is, by the way! They had their pick of names, and boy does it show! I mean, wow. NetworkSolutions. Try saying it out loud. It just rolls off the tongue.

THE.AT

I feel a little manipulated. Friends of mine will know that a hobby lately has been to check out odd suffixed domain names. About a half an hour ago I discovered that the.at was not take. Imagine that! According to about.com "the" and "at" are the first and twenty-second most popular English words, respectively. What an awesome domain! I could image cool logos and catch slogans instantly. Okay then, let's head over to my buddies at GoDaddy to buy that sucker. Okay... typing it in... still available, okay, let's buy it.... What the fuck?? 80 dollars!? No way, Jose. I head to Google to find some other registrars. Some kinda shady ones are offering it for 38 euros which is about 45 dollars. Not bad, but I don't know how I feel about their shadyness. EuropeRegistry looks legit, let's just perform a search to see if.... holy fuck. You're kidding me. You're fucking kidding me. "the.at" is already taken? No fucking way. I knew it! I knew these shady registries checked out what you were searching on and then would (sometimes, given parameters) auto-buy those domains before you! Mother fuckers! I race back to GoDaddy and hit reload... hmm... it seems to still think it is available. Something's fishy, but I'm panicking, so I shed a little tear and pony up the 80 bucks hoping that EuropRegistry is just full of shit and GoDaddy knows what it's doing. Things seem to work out. So there you have it. I own THE.AT.

Happy Ending: SomethingAwful came up with some work-safe porn we can all enjoy.

Canine defibrillation instructions: URGENT

I am a hopeless romantic who just can't get a break! Nikki is the girl I've been courting ever since I started working at StarNetworks out in RTP as a contracting admin. I was nervous working there at first, but soon I was getting along with everyone; Fitzgerald the loudmouth, Patrick the timid clerk; O'connell the always-on-edge copyrepairman, heck, even Simonson the tightlipped but heart-of-gold division manager... Jesus this is taking too long but I feel I have to give you the whole story so that you won't think I'm crazy or some sort of psycho. Okay. Dang! Nikki works as the receptionist and has developed the reputation as having a sassy come-back for every retort. I've been working at StarNet for about a year and the moment I walked through that glass door and (I'm such an idiot!) accidentally spilled my briefcase on her desk I was smitten! Crap. Okay okay to the point. So despite being super attractive, Nikki has not had any sign or mention of a boyfriend. I'm not too smooth with the ladies and every time I try to impress Nikki I just come across as a bumbling, stammering buffoon. All my best intentions always end up backfiring. Like that time I enrolled in a cooking class I heard Nikki was taking and ended up accidentally spilling chili powder in the soufflé she was going to enter in the contest or that time when I learned to rollerblade because she jogs then I end up getting caught in a st. bernard's leash and being pulled all around Lake Lynn before slamming into a septuagenarian couple! Oh man oh man this time though I think I've gone too far. Nikki's been complaining that her sink is broken and really stressing because her estranged mother is coming to visit but she hasn't had time to fix it so I thought I'd sneak into her apartment and fix it but she has this cute, but very feisty boxer she calls Rockwell (or Norm or Rocky) guarding her house. I thought maybe if I put a sleeping pill or two in a hot dog that would take care of my problems but of course nothing works out right for me and when I crawl in the doggydoor I see Rockwell there on the floor, flatlined. Seriously, please, I need to start Rocky's little doggy heart up again or Nikki will never speak to me again! No Rockwell! Don't you do this to me! Don't you leave me Rocky, you stupid dog!

Oh my God!

While I was yelling I was pounding Rocky on the chest out of frustration and in a vain attempt to resuscitate him, but then this half-eaten piece of hot dog shoots out of his mouth and Rocky starts to move! He waddles a bit then sits right up and licks my face! It's the first time Rockwell hasn't growled at my presence... He was just choking, my god.

Hot Rod Circuit, Valient Thorr

Sunday night Valient Thorr and Hot Rod Circuit made a guest appearance in my living room and made a quick recording of Hank Jr's Family Tradition (listen!). Thanks for the JimmyB, boys. I'll let you know if I find that two-hundred dollars.

It is Easy for Skinny People to Stay Thin

Theory: Skinny people have a higher surface area to mass ratio than the non skinny. That means that heat from their bodies dissipates more. Therefore they burn more calories relative to their mass in order to maintain core body temperature. It's simple thermodynamics. It's easier for skinny people to get cold and so skinny people have to burn more calories, thus keeping them skinny. It is a feedback cycle. I'll bet there is a certain threshold of surface area to mass ratio that mus be attained if you are trying to lose (or gain) weight, then after that it become much easier to attain your goal.

Tangrams

A fun tangram game. My scores:

922
1058
958
967
1015
1060
1081

I found that if you comlete the first puzzle before hitting "begin" you will always get 100 points for that round. However, hitting "begin" then starting could net you more. A little cheat is to get the first puzzle almost all the way finished, click "begin", then put in the final piece. (I did that with the final score.)

ITMS Price Hike: WTF?

It sounds like our $0.99 a song, $9.99 an album pricing at the iTunes Music Store is going to be going up, and the reasoning seriously makes no sense. Here's a quote from this MacWorld article:

Record labels have been grumbling at Apple's refusal to change its current price structure. They have wanted more flexibility on price, claiming that digital music sales aren't sufficiently compensating for loss of sales at retail.

Loss at retail? Are you kidding? I don't get it and there are three main reasons that are keeping me from getting it:

1) It was my understanding that when you factor in production, distribution and retail markup a $20 CD nets record companies nowhere near $10 profit. Sales at iTMS are essentially pure profit as you cut out the parts of the process dealing with the physical creation and distribution of a CD.

2) Are record companies factoring in the customers, like me, who never go to record stores? last week I bought a (laugh if you will) M.I.A. album. That purchase would never have happned had it not been for the iTMS. I love the ease and instant gratification of buying music online. I do not have to bike downtown then be judged by the insufferable hipsters to the point where I feel compelled to say, "oh, this album's for my sister."

3) Are record companies factoring in the sales they are not losing to illegal downloads? Heck, it's a no-brainer to take your laptop to a public WiFi area (so the record companies can't trace you by your IP) and download whatever you want.

So record companies I beg of you, please pull your heads out of your - um - butts. You will be killing yourself with this new pricing structure.

A New Geek Pin-Up Girl is Found!

Welcome, Britney Gallivan to the realm of math-boy fantasy!

Skype Me

I just a Skype account. Handle: geneffects

Of All the Things

There was so much fodder in tonights events that it seemed like it'd be difficult to narrow down my laser focus for this blog entry to just one topic... then... then one thing immediately took the prize.

I swallowed a glass shard.

The way this glass made its way into my esophagus is quite amazing. I was restocking beer and one Red Stripe I put in just up an exploded. I felt it hit the back of my throat and stood erect, shocked. Fuck, did that just happen? Moments later my sternum area starts hurting.

"Hey, Frank, you're gonna laugh, but do you have a phonebook? 'Cause I just maybe swallowed some glass."

The nurse in the emergency room I spoke with on the phone said that if the piece was smaller than a dime then they usually sayy don't worry about it. I don't know the size, really, but I doubt it was bigger than a dime. Frank assured me he'd take care of any bills, but let me confide in you, dear reader, a big reason that I didn't go to the hospital is I have this fear of being an inconvenience. Like, what if I didn't actually swallow anything and it's all psycho-somatic? Anyhow, there's no trouble swallowing or anything, so I'm gonna let this piece of sharp glass (if it does exist) pass through the meters and meters of my remaining digestive tract.

0.5k/hr

So it look like when you factor in starring at the floor and bath-a-room breaks and whatnot that I'm raking in about 500 words per hour. So I need to invest like four hours a day writing. Four! In all actuality, more than four 'cause I'm writing a lot of stuff that I will most likely want to edit out. Like musicians will write a bunch of songs for their next album but only include the best. M C Hammer did it, so will I.

Greg Jansen is My Hero

Big ups to that GJ for helping me get past square-one on a WSDL2Java problem.

Not the Best of Circumstance

It is on the difficult side to write quality when there is some shitty metal band (from Winston Salem, I just learned!) blaring and on the bigscreen is a fucking depressing movie with Helena Bonham Carter in a wheelchair. If only someone were also suckin' on my hog - that would complete the trifecta.

Nix NaSo, it's NaNo for Me!

Wired's got a good little article on it.

Update: I'll bet publishing houses totally hate December, thank you very much, nano!

Roll Up Your Sleeves

A few days later, Worthy advised Brown: "Please roll up the sleeves of your shirt, all shirts. Even the president rolled his sleeves to just below the elbow. In this [crisis] and on TV you just need to look more hard-working."

link

I remember hearing as a child that if you roll your shirt above your elbows you were lowerclass and below meant upper class. That translates for me, the rolling to below the elbows that is, as, "I'm an upperclass asshole who is going to prettend to work or maybe just work just enough so that we can call it work then I'll turn over the real work to the hippies, negroes and sexual deviants."

My Horoscope

It may have been for Libra, but when I attended MSU I felt that this The Onion's horoscope really spoke to me:

Your future is looking unusually bright this week, which is no surprise, considering the incredible amounts of burning magnesium it contains.

Renomer

The Wired article Catholic Schoolgirls Unravel DNA would be more appropriately titled Geek Masturbation Fantasy Realized.

NaSoWriMo

Sparked by conversation with Lance and fueled by vacuum in NaNo left by Karen, I think it'd be a good idea to do my own NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), but for software. Come Dec1, look for a new addition to the Geneffects family!

The Lonely Island

Of course everyone knows about this site, but having just found it I'm having a blast.

Geneffects