particlestorm.net

It is fractal. My thoughts go everywhere and often repeat themselves. As long as the voices in my head can understand fractal geometry then we all should be fine.

A few of my cotton based animals just hanging out.

For some reason this caught my eye in the latest M&Ms commercial. The M&Ms are eating a bag of M&Ms. They are cannibals. They eat their young.

My upgrade to the latest Ubuntu, version 7.10 aka “Gutsy Gibbon”, went off without a hitch. Open Office feels faster, I now can use the version of Thunderbird in the main repository, and I have some really cool desktop effect with Compiz Fusion. Check out the screenshot below… real transparent terminals and drop shadows around my windows. Little eye candy to make the best Linux distribution even better.

Stolen from Kevin, who stole it from someone else. When did Congress gain power over the sun, and why can’t they cause Seattle to be sunny year round?

It turns out that this article was actually published by the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, but the author meant it as satire. Hopefully, the editors of the newspaper realized this as well when they published it.

I’m missing the great nights we had listing to Social Distortion in Bako…. Aaron, Ryan, Brock, this one goes out to you:

[Warning... a little bit profane]

Finally, someone scientifically proves that requiring the males in the household to lower the toilet seat does not minimize “the total cost of toilet seat operations per household.” I have been arguing this point with my wife since the day we moved in together. Now, I have game theory analysis on my side. Unfortunately, because the correctness of leaving the toilet seat up goes against currently entrenched social norms, I don’t see the male gender convincing society that their actions are inefficient anytime soon.

Article: THE SOCIAL NORM OF LEAVING THE TOILET SEAT DOWN: A GAME THEORETIC ANALYSIS

I have been a fan of these online videos for quite some time but never got around to spreading the word. Not only is this level of laziness on my part inexcusable it is also very dangerous when the videos are done by a ninja. Not wanting to become the ninja’s latest victim, here is one of my favorite episodes, dealing with “TechNINlogy”. Check out more ninja goodness at www.askaninja.com

Ask A Ninja Question 31 “TechNINlogy”

My Grandpa forwarded me a neat math trick which you should try:

1. Grab a calculator.
2. Key in the first three digits of your phone number (NOT the area code)
3. Multiply by 80
4. Add 1
5. Multiply by 250
6. Add the last 4 digits of your phone number
7. Add the last 4 digits of your phone number again
8. Subtract 250
9. Divide number by 2

The amazing result: Your entire phone number. This is a neat trick. But, being the ubergeek that I am, I had to figure out how it works.

First Step: Write out the instructions as a math equation. Let the first three digits of the phone number be ‘X’ and the last 4 digits be ‘Y’. The expected result will be 10000X + Y (your entire phone number).

[250(80X + 1) + 2Y - 250] / 2 = 10000X + Y

Next Step: Reduce the equation.

[20000X + 250 + 2Y - 250] / 2 = 10000X + Y

[20000X + 2Y] / 2 = 10000X + Y

10000X + Y = 10000X + Y

Final Step: It checks out, both sides are equivalent. Isn’t math fun!