Archive - July 2004

Wikipedia has an interesting article on spelling reform. Though possible and successful in other languages (French and German are currently undergoing reform), any attempts at English spelling reform are doomed to fail. Unlike some other languages, the English language is not regulated by any institutions or bodies, and getting the hundreds of millions of English speakers around the world to accept a reform would be no easy task. Nevertheless, invididual countries can fall to reforms, such as America did when Noah Webster issued his 1821 dictionary of the English language. The following spelling changes can be attributed to him:

• cheque --> check
• colour --> color
• favour --> favor
• musick --> music
• phantasy --> fantasy
• plough --> plow
• publick --> public

Some of these changes slipped into British English, but others did not. Webster's 1806 dictionary included these spelling changes that didn't catch on at all:

• definite --> definit
• examine --> examin
• feather --> fether
• isle --> ile
• thread --> thred
• thumb --> thum

It just goes to show that spelling reform, unless made mandatory, is a hit-or-miss thing. And it can't be made mandatory, at least in the English language. But for entertainment value, here's a Text Reformer that converts your text into one of six reformed spelling systems. Looking at the text it generates, it's easy to see why people would avoid spelling reform: it desecrates our beautiful language. However, if U wer a 12-yeer-oeld AOLer, U probably wouldn't cair in the leest; maybe U'd eeven liek it.

If everybody says you're someone you're not, how do you prove that you're really who you are? If you can't, does that make it true?

My name, Jordon, is consistently misspelled as Jordan. Almost everyone does it. I'm not kidding. In many of my school yearbooks I'm Jordan Kalilich. In letters from the White House and the Department of the Treasury, I'm Jordan Kalilich. When I get National Geographic, I'm Jordan Kalilich. At work I'm Jordan Kalilich - my paycheck says so. I'm pretty sure a lot of the junk mail I get is for Jordan Kalilich. Some of my friends and family can't even get it right. Can't people read?

Maybe I should be grateful for where my name is spelled right: my Social Security card, my birth certificate... and in my school records (although they originally rendered me as "Jordon Kalilica"). Even on the Web many people can get it right. That in itself is surprising. I guess because there are so many different cultures using the Web, it becomes habit to check the spellings of names that you may have never heard of before. (Those examples are all I can think of off the top of my head.)

But when (if) I get my driver's permit, I better make sure they get it right lest I actually become Jordan Kalilich.

Here's some information about the Portable Network Graphics (PNG) image format. Its supporters tout it as an alternative to the GIF format. They say it's better-quality, the file sizes are smaller, etc., etc. I've fooled around with comparing PNGs and GIFs before, and the GIFs clearly win out every time. The PNG web site says that this is because Adobe Photoshop, the image editor I use, does a bad job of working with PNGs. But in lieu of blaming Adobe, I blame PNG itself for being lousy, even if that might not be true. It just feels better to blame PNG, though. PNG is currently supported (in various degrees) by most browsers. See also MNG, a more obscure PNG-like format for animated images, and JNG, and even more obscure MNG-like format that is basically like JPEG but with support for transparency.

By the way, PNG is pronounced "ping," MNG is pronounced "ming," and JNG is pronounced "jing."

Here's A Guide to Alternative Handwriting and Shorthand Systems. Writing large chunks of text using the standard Latin alphabet can be time-consuming and difficult. Cursive is only 10% faster, the guide alleges. What's a note-taking secretary, journalist, or college student to do? Learn a shorthand system, of course. Shorthand systems generally use simple strokes to stand for each individual sound of the English language. Though they can double or triple your writing speed, most are only really suitable for taking notes and immediately transcribing them to "longhand." Otherwise you may forget the meaning of your abbreviations over time.

I say bypass all the funny squiggly lines and learn to type instead.

I'm probably not the only one who feels this way, but when I'm watching a movie, I want people around me to be quiet. I don't want you saying "That's gotta hurt!" or "Did you see that?" It probably didn't hurt because it's only a movie, and yes, I did see that because I'm watching too! I'm even more likely to choke you with my popcorn if you state the obvious, like "That guy's tall" or something. I really don't like it either if I can hear your reaction to every joke in the movie, whether it's a stupid, prolonged laugh or a quick "Uh!" The thing that gets me the most, though, is when you state the obvious on a tape delay because your brain has just processed it - for example, saying "I think they're twins" when they look alike and have been clearly onscreen for five whole minutes. I just want to enjoy the movie!

Back in 1999, the Pokémon bug bit kids like me pretty hard. As a result, gazillions of fan pages popped up on this newfangled Internet thing. Around April of that year, I decided to join the bandwagon and started planning a site called "Slowpoke's Pokémon Home Page." (Slowpoke was my favorite Pokémon, so I followed the trend of "being" a Pokémon on one's site.) I still have the two-page draft, written in pencil. On it I included text (little of which I probably used), links, and images and specified the background image and font colors and sizes. (I don't draw drafts of pages now, but it's one habit I could sure get back into, isn't it?) Here are scans of the original draft (the wrinkles of the first page and the yellowing of the second page are exaggerated by the scanner):

I didn't actually know HTML, the language of web pages, yet. But one thing led to another and, well... let me let a July 24th, 2000, entry to Slowpoke's Pokémon Page tell the rest:

• Tuesday, July 13, 1999 - On this day, my birthday, I decide I want a good Web site provider. Geocities is considered, but a friend (who would later be known as Mew) recommends Angelfire instead. She later sends me a page that contains all the basics of HTML. I use this printout when starting the page.
• Thursday, July 22, 1999 - [URL of site] is created. I start to work on the site. The release date is set to be noon, July 24.
• Saturday, July 24, 1999 - Slowpoke's Pokémon Page is released to the public. It contains a few links, and Mew's News is on the main page. (Yes, it was originally called Mew's News.)
• Wednesday, July 28, 1999 - Pokémon Snap is released, only four days after the release of the site. This is the first major Pokémon event covered by Mew's News.
• Winter 1999-2000 - We're on a roll with an average 20 hits a day!
• January 2000 - Our first and only co-webmaster is hired, taking over my job as Mew. It was real hard work being Slowpoke and Mew. Also, we get a new address! [Shorter URL] redirects to [original URL] and still does today.
• January 24, 2000 - Our six-month anniversary! We must be doing something right, all right.
• June 2000 - [Domain name] is created, once again redirecting to the Angelfire address. The [shorter URL] address still works too.
• Saturday, July 22, 2000 - The first anniversary of the creation of the site, not the actual release date.
• Monday, July 24, 2000 - Today the site is booming, sort of. We never again got up to 20 hits a day, but recently we got 67. I will probably never know why this happened. I am supposing SPP was either featured as someone's site of the day, or there was a little problem with Pokémon Village (the site that keeps track of this stuff). In one year, we got 2,783 hits. It's been a good year! :)

(I'm not going to give you the URLs because two of them don't work anymore, and the other actually takes you to the site. It's plagued with ads, as all Angelfire pages are now. It also has frames, and many people don't like those. Plus, you'll laugh at how dopey the page is. So no links for you.)

During its brief but furious reign as my one and only web site, SPP (the word "Home" was dropped from the title before the site debuted) was more popular than The World of Stuff has ever really been. Eventually, though, other interests such as Where's George? took away my time, and after a final update on Sunday, October 15, 2000 (announcing the release of the long-awaited Gold and Silver games), the site fell into relative obscurity.

Anyway, today marks five years since the opening of SPP, and I feel it marks a half a decade of webmastering for me. I had just turned 10 years old then; now I'm 15. That means five whole years of pushing, plugging, and otherwise promoting pages. Five years of those good old HTML tags like <a>, <b>, <i>, and <br>. Along the way I've also learned CSS, which is becoming more dominant on my pages. (However, the basic layout of TWoS still uses tables. I can almost hear you cringing, but sometimes you have to stick to what works.) If I could still log in to update the site, I would post the following update:

The semi-redesigned flipacoin.net has been reopened, and it should be better than ever. No JavaScript necessary! The site now uses PHP instead. Unfortunately, there are no new coins to flip, but that will change in a few weeks. At least I can no longer be ashamed to have a link to flipacoin.net on this site!

This might be my last post before I leave for North Carolina on Saturday morning. If it is, then au revoir and best wishes to you, the reader. You know, reader, I really value your readership. Maybe next month I'll have a reader survey. (If there's more than one of you, that is.) Until I'm back on August 1, PLAPS will automagically post some blog entries that I've already written, so keep checking back! Once I return, I'll be sure to post a few pictures with the new camera.

Here's a novel idea. Spamusement: poorly-drawn (but all the funnier) cartoons inspired by actual spam subject lines! As of posting this, there are 15 drawings, but that they're listed chronologically suggests that more may be on the way. Turning spam subjects into doodles would be a fun way to get back into drawing. (I used to draw kind of a lot.) But, seeing as I'd have a significant lack of inspiration (as the absence of e-mail links on this site attests), that probably won't come to pass.

Here's a list of authenticated supercentenarians (people 110 years old or older). According to the list, the last living person to have been born in the 1880s died recently. Her name was Ramona Trinidad Iglesias-Jordan, and she was from Puerto Rico, USA. She was born on August 31 or September 1, 1889, and died on May 24, 2004 at the age of 114.

Imagine what it would be like to live to 110! The amount of history witnessed by these people must be amazing. Even though Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment (1875-1997), the oldest person who ever lived, was born when the U.S. was recovering from the Civil War and the light bulb hadn't been invented yet, she could (theoretically) have had her own web page. (Interestingly, she claimed to have met Vincent van Gogh, who died in 1890. If proven true, she would have been the last living person to have met him.) Actually, Calment was 122 when she died, making her one of the two substantiated members of the 120+ club, along with Japanese Shigechiyo Izumi (1865-1986). I don't know what that would make them... super-dee-dupercentenarians, maybe?

Linspire, a version of the Linux operating system, has been in the news lately due to legal issues regarding its original name, Lindows. (Guess who sued them?) Anyway, Linspire, erstwhile Lindows, has created a music video advertisement for their OS. The song is a parody of The Doors' "Light My Fire" in which the title phrase is replaced by "Run Linspire." Watch the video (Flash, sound). You can also download the song here. It almost makes me want to try Linspire, but the USD 49.95 price tag makes it rather prohibitive... for a 15-year-old, anyway.

Although parodies are protected under U.S. copyright law, I wonder how well Linspire would hold up in court since they're using the parody to make money. Well, it's probably all right because their legal department must have given it some thought!

Aston is a desktop manager that supersedes the standard Windows interface and adds new features. There are a lot of skins available, and it looks pretty cool. My friend Billy uses it.

Here are some simple instructions for making invisibility paint. Anything you paint with it will disappear!

In moving and improving flipacoin.net, I've been trying to add more CSS to the site because it's rapidly becoming the standard on the Web. CSS complements HTML, the markup language of the Web, by making it easier to control the look and feel of pages. I do use CSS, but I'm not the best at it, nor do I know everything about it, so I often search the web to figure out how to do what I'm trying to do with it.

Old browsers don't support CSS very well (the earliest ones don't support it at all), but newer browsers handle most CSS just right. So quite a few CSS web sites I visit refer to CSS-compliant browsers as "modern browsers." That phrase just cracks me up. It implies that browsers have a history dating back millennia. What would the opposite be? "Ancient browsers"? I can see Julius Caesar logging onto ROL (Rome Online) now...

It would be in Latin, of course. And AOL technically isn't a browser in itself because it uses Internet Explorer. But you get the idea.

You probably know what canines, felines, and bovines are. The following is a long list (culled from here and here) of more -ine and -ian words that describe animals. They are usually adjectives, but you can probably get away with using them as nouns as well.

• alligator - eusuchian
• ant - formicine, myrmecine
• anteater - myrmecophagine
• antelope - alcelaphine, bubaline
• ape - simian
• armadillo - tolypeutine
• auk - alcidine
• barracuda - percesocine
• bat - pteropine
• bear - ursine
• bee - apiarian
• bird - avian, muscicapine, oscine, passerine, penduline, volucrine
• blackbird - icterine
• bluebird - turdine
• bobolink - icterine
• buffalo - bubaline
• bull - taurine
• bullfinch - pyrrhuline
• bunting - emberizine, pyrrhuloxine
• buzzard - buteonine, cathartine
• calf - vituline
• camel - cameline
• cardinal - pyrrhuloxine
• cat - feline
• chamois - rupicaprine
• civet - viverrine
• cormorant - phalacrocoracine
• cow - bovine, vaccine
• crab - cancrine
• crane - alectorine
• crow - corvine
• cuckoo - cuculine
• deer - cervine, elaphine
• dodo - didine
• dog - canine
• dolphin - delphine
• donkey - assinine
• dormouse - myoxine
• dove - columbine
• duck - anatine, fuliguline
• eagle - aquiline
• elephant - elephantine
• elk - cervine
• ermine - musteline
• falcon - accipitrine
• ferret - musteline
• finch - fringilline
• fish - piscine, piscatorial
• flea - pulicine
• fox - vulpine
• frog - bufotenine, ranine
• gerbil - cricetine
• gibbon - hylobatine
• goat - hircine, caprine
• goose - anserine
• gull - larine
• hare - leporine
• hawk - accipitrine, falconine
• hornet - vespine
• horse - equine
• hummingbird - trochiline
• jay - garruline
• kangaroo - macropodine
• kestrel - falconine
• kingfisher - halcyonine
• kite - milvine
• leech - hirudine
• lion - leonine
• lizard - lacertilian, saurian
• lobster - homarine
• macaw - psittacine
• magpie - garruline
• marten - musteline
• martin - hirundine
• meadowlark - icterine
• mink - musteline
• mockingbird - mimine
• mongoose - viverrine
• moose - cervine
• mosquito - aedine, anopheline
• moth - arctian
• mouse - murine
• nightingale - philomelian
• opposum - didelphine
• oriole - icterine
• otter - lutrine
• ox - bovine
• oyster - ostracine
• parakeet - psittacine
• parrot - psittacine
• partridge - perdicine
• peacock - pavonine
• pheasant - alectorine, phasianine
• pig - porcine, suilline
• pigeon - pullastrine
• plover - charadrine
• polecat - musteline
• porcupine - hystricine
• quail - coturnine
• rabbit - leporine
• raccoon - procyonine
• ram - arietine
• rat - murine
• rattlesnake - crotaline
• raven - corvine
• reptile - reptilian, serpentine
• rhinoceros - ceratorhine
• robin - turdine
• sable - zibeline
• sea horse - hippocampine
• seal - phocine
• sheep - ovine
• shrew - soricine
• silkworm - bombycine
• skunk - mephitine
• skylark - alaudine
• slug - limacine
• smelt - atherine
• snake - colubrine, ophidian, reptilian, serpentine, viperine
• snipe - charadrine
• sparrow - passerine
• squirrel - sciurine
• stag - cervine, elaphine
• stoat - musteline
• stork - ciconine
• sturgeon - acipenserine
• swallow - hirundine
• swan - cygnine
• swift - cypseline
• swine - porcine
• tick - acarine
• tiger - tigrine
• titmouse - parine
• toad - batrachian
• tortoise - chelonian
• turkey - meleagrine
• turtle - chelonian
• vulture - vulturine
• wasp - vespine
• weasel - musteline
• wolf - lupine
• wolverine - musteline
• wombat - phascolomian
• woodcock - charadrine, scolopacine
• wren - troglodytine
• zebra - zebrine

On Friday night my dad and I went out on his new boat. (I guess it's the family boat, but since it was his idea to buy it, it's really his boat.) We cruised around some local canals, ate sandwiches in a shallow spot, and then made it out into the ocean. Several kilometers offshore, you can still hear the hum of the city (most notably the trains), but the sound that prevails is the empty clunk of small waves hitting the boat. Looking along the coastline, you can see where the glow of the city resigns to the void of the ocean's sky. Far to the east, over the ocean, distant lightning flashed. It's pretty creepy sitting on the quiet edge of two worlds. One is vast, unknown, and all-around creepy, and the other is the ocean.

You know how some web sites list "Hello," "Thank you," "I love you," etc. in different languages, right? Well, I've decided to implement an idea that has been lurking around in my head for a very long time: a "Click here" list. After all, it's a useful phrase, right? Maybe? Well, anyway, the inaugural version of the list consists of the three languages in which I know the phrase: English (duh), Esperanto, and French. Klaku ĉi tie for the list, and e-mail me if you know how it's said in any other languages.

In my June 22 post, I talked about the Linux operating system and listed four reasons why I might someday switch to it. Joshua McGee of mcgees.org comments on my four points (my words are italicized):

He has an additional correction to make:

Thanks for the info, Josh! It's very helpful.

flipacoin.net, a site that allows you to flip coins online, was once one of my main web pages before they were all organized into The World of Stuff. Over time the site fell into neglect, mainly because I had been putting off a solution for flipping the coins without JavaScript. JS is just so... client-sidey. And some people turn it off in their browsers.

Yesterday I received a solution to the problem: to use the scripting language PHP. I had toyed around with PHP before and was rather satisfied with the results. It's kind of simple, in a complex way. Anyway, now that better coin flipping is possible, I'm working on improving flipacoin.net and moving the domain from redirection.net to my fabulous host, NearlyFreeSpeech.NET. I've been working on the site for much of yesterday and virtually all of today, and so far, so good. I should be done before I leave on vacation to North Carolina next Friday or Saturday, but transferring the domain name will take a few days if I get it started tonight. The new site might see the light of day as early as next week, or it might debut the first week of August (or later if problems come up).

Remember when Magic Eye illusions were popular in the '90s? Well, I finally figured out how to do them, like, two days ago. And you can learn too! Here are a few examples to practice your skills. Magic Eye has also created illusions for various companies and organizations. Try the one for Ford; it's pretty hard, and I can't do it.

Today's my birthday, and I've hit the big one-five. Being 15 isn't a major milestone. I think 16, 17, and 18 all are, though. So maybe 15 is a milestone because it's the last year before 16, 17, and 18. Anyway, being 15 makes me feel old. I'll get used to it, though. Tonight some family members are coming over for dinner to celebrate my sister's and my birthday (we're twins). I think we're having steak. I hate steak.

I took some more photos with my new camera last night. While it was dark I tried some time exposures.

The lava lamp casts a reddish light even though it used to be blue. Over the years the blue paint faded away, leaving the actual color of the light and wax to shine through. I think it creates a nice effect on the photos. Also, I'm starting to get the hang of the relationship between aperture (how wide the shutter opens) and shutter speed (how long the shutter is open). This shot is f/5.6 at 25 seconds. I had the camera on a tripod and walked in the shot during the exposure, creating a ghost image of myself.

I like this one. The reddish light of the lava lamp can be seen in the background, and the clock casts a reddish light as well. f/2.8 at 30 seconds.

Yesterday I shot a video with the camera. It basically consists of me giving a sort of tour of my room. Check it out. (MPEG, sound, ~15 MB) It won't be up for long, though; remember, I'm a bandwidth miser.

I tried out my new digital camera today. It's great! I've taken over 40 pictures so far (but no video yet). Here are some of them. Because I'm a bandwidth miser, I'm going to post only a few, and at low resolution to boot! Muhahahaha!

I sat on the floor of my room to get this shot. At most, I was 2 m away from the magazines, so I used the handy optical zoom. Viewed at 10%, they look like just stacks of magazines...

...but at 100%, it's a different story. I've never dealt with this kind of quality before.

For this shot I used the "macro" setting for taking close-up pictures.

The image quality is just as striking outdoors. For this shot I used "beach mode," which allegedly enhances blue hues. It doesn't look much different compared to other pictures I took, so maybe it only works on deeper blues. The greens, however, are quite vivid.

I've also toyed around with shutter speeds (using a ceiling fan as practice) and shooting in black-and-white (you can also shoot in sepia, but I think it's pretty cheesy). I'll probably play around some more tonight.

Here's some information about famous recluses and mysterious disappearing acts.

For my birthday, which is Tuesday, I mentioned to my parents that I wanted a new digital camera. (You know, they just have to get me something.) I'm not too satisfied with my old 1.3 megapixel Vivitar camera that I got for Christmas in 2002. I mean, sometimes it gets some decent shots, but the 2X digital zoom leaves much to be desired. The photographs are rather blurry, especially when taken outside, and indoor photographs with low light can often be too grainy to fix.

Buying a new digital camera that has exactly what you want for a good price is like trying to dig to China with a plastic shovel. You can try and try all you want, but you'll be dead before you can find it. (And if you ever do, you'll be stuck in a foreign country with a different electrical system.) There's a plethora of different features that digital cameras can have. Heck, it's impossible trying to research that information on the Internet because there's a cornucopia of web sites devoted to the subject, complete with news, reviews, and comparisons. If you want to just get a good point-and-shoot digital camera that has all the features you want, you'd best go down to a store that has a myriad of cameras and friendly, knowledgeable employees. That's what my dad and I did today.

When we went to Brandsmart USA to look for cameras, I had the Sony DSC-P93, a 5.1 Mpel point-and-shoot camera, on my mind. My sister's friend has one, and I really like it because it can shoot video and audio with duration only limited by the capacity of the memory card thingy. We talked to a friendly guy who showed us the P93 and some others by Sony, including the DSC-P73, a 4.1 Mpel model. Upon close examination, the P73 was identical to the P93 except for the resolution. So I decided to save some money and go for the P73. I bought a 128 MB Memory Stick to boot. The camera only came with a 16 MB Stick.

I haven't actually tried out the camera yet because it takes these NIMH - oops, NiMH - batteries, which you have to charge up before you use (charger included!). That takes six hours. I could use some good old alkaline batteries, but I only have one size AA battery, and seeing as it takes two, that's not very useful. Besides, digital cameras eat up those things. NiMH batteries are much more economical. I'll try out the camera tomorrow and maybe brush up on my manual-ese to see how it works.

Using a new tool called Copyscape, you can find copies of your content on the web simply by entering a URL of yours. This is particularly useful if you publish informative articles and stuff that people can easily quote without permission or attribution. I guess Step Two is to go to the offending sites and threaten the webmasters.

Well, the dance party was last night. My parties are infamous for being lame. A few years ago people ran around in the backyard. Another time my friend took my dog for a walk. Last year I played cards with my friends. Yes, they're supposed to be dance parties, but they're more for socializing than actually dancing (if that makes any sense).

This year's party passed without incident (and dancing). Almost everybody who said they'd come did, and a few other friends whom we didn't invite stopped by. (Maybe we should invite them next year.) Again, one of the highlights of the party was the fog machine. Some people have fun with that, as you can imagine. Also, my friend's mom made her awesome nachos, and there's a lot left over. Some of my friends went into my room (repeatedly) to check out my guitars. Good thing I actually sort of cleaned my room.

Oh, right, the loot. I don't think everybody thought the party was for my birthday, so I don't think I got something from everybody. I don't mind, though. Aside from a few gifts, I got $140 in cash, a $20 check, and over $55 in gift cards for Best Buy, Blockbuster, Borders, and Target.

I'm sure some people don't like our parties (one of my friends actually threatened to walk to his cousin's house a few blocks away), but others like them because there's no pressure to do anything. Personally, I don't like party games or annoying DJs who make you get on the floor, and I'm sure most people would agree. I probably should have taken an opinion poll to see who liked the party. Only those who liked it should be invited back next year. :)

I have major news regarding my band. As you may remember, last November we discovered that our name, The Atomics, was taken by another (more legitimate) band. The hunt for a new name led to my creation of a "Name the Band" contest, which hardly drew a response. So we racked our brains for months upon months. We came up with hundreds of ideas, but the four of us could not all agree on one name.

Then in April, Nick, the drummer, had an idea. Our friend Mark had been wanting to be in a band, so we could have him take over drums, move Nick to lead guitar, move lead guitarist Sean to bass guitar, and kick out bassist Alex (I would remain on rhythm guitar). So, Sean, Nick, and I got together with Mark, and we formally inducted him into the band as drummer and shifted positions and everything. Oh, and we picked a name which I have not yet revealed due to the following conflict.

Alex, really, really wanted to stay in the band and play the bass (even though he wasn't good). So at the party last night, the five of us finally got together and hammered out a compromise: Mark is the drummer, Sean is once again the lead guitarist, Alex is once again the bassist, I am still the rhythm guitarist, and Nick will join me on rhythm guitar.

Our name? On his very first day as a member, Mark picked it from a box in my garage: Vine Ripe Tomatoes. We all liked it (except for Alex, who wasn't there) and so it remains. Thus the saga ends and a new chapter opens for the band.

I've been trying to decide what songs I want to be played at my sister's and my party tomorrow night. I don't want to pick out too many because my musical tastes are rather deviant. (I'm wearing a Beatles t-shirt and listening to Beatles music as I type this. I just finished watching one of the Beatles Anthology DVDs. Give you any clues?) I've chosen about six songs that I think would be suitable for playing without people falling to their knees and clenching their ears. Six of "my songs" would probably be the tolerable maximum. I'd rather have my sister make most of the picks. She also has deviant likes, but they're more in line with what's popular today. I think she's into indie music and stuff. She says she likes "rock." How very specific. The idea for the party, anyway, is that we should have what we want to play planned in advance, so everyone has more time enjoying the party and less time fumbling with CDs. (Usually at our parties we have guests volunteer to spin the discs.)

But all that doesn't really matter anyway, because people are going to bring in their own music (as we requested on the invitation) and there will be much fumbling with CDs. So I don't know why we're bothering.

Random thought here: I feel sorry for people named "Dakota." Imagine living your life being named after not one, but two boring states. Luckily, Behind the Name (a site I've covered before) reports that the popularity of this name is declining in the U.S. It hit a peak in 1995 as the 59th most popular name for newborn boys, and 1998 was the apex for the female version, when it ranked 253rd. Last year it was ranked 130th and 342nd, respectively. (More details.)

Another interesting point: according to last year's chart, my own name, Jordon (#573), was beat out on the male list by (in order of increasing popularity): Orion, Ariel, Jan, Octavio, Jair, Easton, Noel, Silas, Uriel, Harley, Justice, Dallas, Maximus, Micheal [sic], Zander, Corbin, Lane, Malachi, Dakota, and Hunter. That reminds me that I also hate the name "Hunter." But I'll save that for another rant.

I'm a Windows user, but sometimes you just need to poke fun at the world's largest software company.

Microsoft's Knowledge Base lists known bugs in MS operating systems and programs. Seeing as there are so many bugs, some of them are particularly wacky. Here's a list of wacky Knowledge Base articles. Some are truly bizarre and only apply to obscure or obsolete programs. Some have just plain crazy titles. Others you have to read to understand. From that list I've picked out the articles that I think are the best:

• Text on Japanese Web Site May Be Unreadable
• Network Adapter Does Not Work if Unplugged
• "It is Now Safe to Turn Off Your Computer" error message when you try to shut down your computer
• Kitchen: Known Content Errors
• Goosebumps: Known Content Errors
• Computer Randomly Plays Classical Music
• Differences Between Temporary and Permanent Relationships
• Visio2000: Wall Will Not Glue or Is Not Cleaned Up
• Streets 4.0: Street Address Displayed on Wrong Side of Street
• File Copy Animation Appears as Shredded Paper
• Personalized Start Page Appears Upside Down and Backwards
• The Italian Proofing Tools Make a Potentially Offensive Suggestion
• Flight Simulator: Airport Appears in Sky
• Error Message: Your Password Must Be at Least 18770 Characters and Cannot Repeat Any of Your Previous 30689 Passwords
• TechNet Search Query for "windows nt" Hangs Windows
• Mouse Races and Jumps Across Screen
• Homepub Error Message: Something Is Missing
• Earth Rotates in Wrong Direction
• Erratic Behavior Occurs If You Create a "Desktop" Folder on the Desktop
• The System Clock Slows If You Run a Program That Uses Sound Extensively

Okay, here's one that's actually useful: Square Root (sqrt) in Calculator's Scientific Mode. Microsoft Calculator has a standard and a scientific mode. Scientific mode offers many complex functions and such, but it's missing one thing that standard mode has: the square root button. The article describes a workaround for the less mathematically inclined.

Running Windows RG (Really Good Edition) on someone else's computer would make a great prank. Check out all the wonderful features and programs that Windows RG has to offer. Okay, it's actually a parody of Windows, but you might not realize it at first (Flash required; contains sound).

It's only three days till my dance party that's for my birthday. You might call it a "birthday party," but I won't. You don't have birthday parties when you're turning 15. You have parties for your birthday.

Yesterday was the day by which the (give or take) 36 guests were supposed to have RSVP'd. A handful of people still haven't, though. Either they're away on vacation or they just didn't read the serious fine print of the humor-laden invitation:

I'm going to hunt down the ones whose phone numbers I have tonight. I'll grill them for a yes or a no. It's terribly late not to have RSVP'd, and I'm sure some of them still think that you only RSVP if you can go to the party. Can anyone else feel Emily Post rolling in her grave?

Forty-seven years ago today, on July 6, 1957, in the hall of St. Peter's Church in Liverpool, England, two young musicians met for the first time. Introduced to each other by a mutual friend, John Lennon, 16, and Paul McCartney, 15, formed one of the most successful musical partnerships in history. The friend, Ivan Vaughan, brought Paul to meet John after John's band, The Quarry Men, played at the church's annual summer fete. Vaughan was later to say, "I only ever brought great fellows to meet John." Paul wowed his senior by playing Little Richard songs, writing the lyrics of Gene Vincent's "Be-Bop-A-Lula," and showing him how to tune a guitar - something he had been paying a neighbor to do. Within a few weeks, Paul joined the band. Several years and many lineup changes later, they became The Beatles, and the rest, as they say when they feel a burning desire to use a horrible and meaningless cliché, is history. Vaughan remained a close friend to both John and Paul in spite of contracting Parkinson's disease in the 1970s. His death in 1994 so moved Paul that he started writing poetry for the first time in decades.

Well, today I got back from my vacation, so it's back to posting blog entries myself rather than having PLAPS handle it.

The vacation started like any other trip to "the condo," as we call the condo. I brought some CDs (31, to be precise) for my listening enjoyment during the trip. The trip had started only a few minutes ago when I decided to start listening to a CD. But only the left stereo channel of my headphones worked. Sure, they've seen better days. Sure, the foamy ear cushions were ripped off by my dog on two separate occasions. But that doesn't mean they have to back down on me. Careful inspection (i.e., almost breaking the headphones) revealed that a wire was out of place. How it got out of whack I may never know, but in any case, I started moaning about my headphones not working. I decided to use them anyway.

When we got into town, my dad took me to Wal-Mart and bought me some new headphones. I told him (repeatedly) that he didn't have to, but he said I deserved it. The headphones I chose were these Sony things with ear things that surround your ears rather than cover them, like professional headphones. When I tried them on, I found that they're not exactly meant to envelop your ears. Instead, the rims of the ear things push against your ears - and with a lot of force, too. Think football players pressing against them, and you have a pretty good idea of how they feel for the first time. But I got used to them, and I think I'm going to keep them.

As I said, my friend Mark and his family were going to be at the condo at the same time we were. Mark, his sister, my sister, and I did a lot of stuff together. We played Ping-Pong and pool in the lobby recreation room (I actually won a game of Cutthroat yesterday) and went to the beach and the pool. At night we watched movies, viz. Paycheck and Welcome to Mooseport, thanks to the magic of the DVD. It was weird having them there because going to the condo has always been an escape from everything, but I liked them being there.

The highlight of the trip may have been last night, when we went up to the top floor to watch Fourth of July fireworks. (Unfortunately we weren't allowed to go up on the roof, although my family did when we were there last year.) At one point we could see about 15 to 20 distant fireworks displays going on simultaneously. Someone next to the building was shooting fireworks or firing a gun, and the bangs ricocheted off the nearby buildings. Even the clouds looming to the west decided to join in, lighting up the sky with silent cloud-to-cloud lightning better than any firework could. Then we went to Mark's family's corner place and had cookies.

Here's a joke that may be "the longest joke in the world." It's not even really funny, but it might claim the title.

Happy Independence Day! Today Americans celebrate 228 years of independence.

Of all American things (barring food), perhaps the national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner," is held of most importance. I must say that sometimes I don't like the song. People today - mostly those who sing it a cappella - drag out all the notes and beat them to death, especially at the end. (I think that's why people begin to applaud on the second-to-last line; they want to get it over with.) Some people don't like the song because it's rather hard to sing. The best way to respect the song is to have it played by an orchestra, in my opinion. And maybe a choir. Choirs can hit the broad range of notes much better than most individuals.

Anyway, the song was inspired by an 1814 battle of the War of 1812, our second and last war fought against Great Britain. The Brits were pummeling Fort McHenry in Maryland as a poet-lawyer named Francis Scott Key witnessed from a distance. Rockets and bombs were fired through the night, as the song goes, but in the morning, Key saw that the American flag boldly remained. This inspired him to write a poem called "The Defense of Fort McHenry." He took it to a printer and distributed copies. Within a few days it was set to the tune of "To Anacreon in Heaven," a popular song that had been written c. 1780. Eventually it became known as "The Star-Spangled Banner," and it became our national anthem in 1931. The flag that inspired the poem is also referred to as the Star-Spangled Banner, and it resides in the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. Here's a short history of the flag.

The Statue of Liberty, a more universal symbol of America, was a centennial gift from the French but was unveiled 10 years late in 1886. Access to the statue has been closed since September 11, 2001, and in the meantime, security has been bumped up. In March of this year, the National Park Service announced that later in the year, possibly this month or next, visitors will once again be able to enter the statue and see the view of New York City from her historic crown. Apparently the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation's campaign to reopen the statue has worked. For the cheap or very impatient (like me), here's a virtual photo tour of the statue and Liberty Island on which it lies. Until the statue is reopened, it'll have to do.

Lastly, if you've ever wondered what the President of the United States does on the Fourth of July, this page can tell you. It lists what each President did on the Fourths of Julys during which he was in office. It's somewhat incomplete but very interesting. (Earlier listings are spotty, but it's complete back to 1951.) For example, on July 4th, 1952, Harry S. Truman went to a baseball game in Washington, D.C., but left during the third inning because of rain.

The Fourth is a time to remember the freedoms we have as Americans. Or, if you're not American, it's a time to think of what America has done as an example of freedom in the world. However you spend it, have a good Fourth of July.

Here's a very useful document: The MIT Guide to Lock Picking. It describes how different kinds of locks work and basic to advanced methods of penetrating them. Though I wasn't bored enough to read the whole thing (it's very detailed and technical), the gist of the text is that anyone can learn to pick a lock. All you have to do is exploit the mechanical defects of the lock with the right pick. A pick slips into the lock and pushes up the pins inside, which rest in the keyway at different heights. The ridges (or "wards") of a key push up the pins so they rest at the same level, allowing the key to get through to turn and remove the bolt from the door frame. A good pick is able to do the same, but you need to push up each pin one at a time. Supposedly, it's harder than it seems. (At least, I think that's the gist of it, anyway.) HowStuffWorks has a similar article called How Lock Picking Works. In my opinion, it's easier to understand. It also has better diagrams.

ImplosionWorld.com ("Where Demolition Comes Alive") has photo galleries of and lots of information about buildings being demolished.