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Timmerov's Blog
Saturday, December 30, 2006
  worst pun ever
her full name is the beautiful and talented alisa. sometimes we just call her "leese" for short. so the other day she was mixing up a batch up cookies. that makes me happy. which makes me feel "helpful". so i came up behind her and gave her a big ole timmer hug. she said something like, oh you think you can just do that whenever you want? i said, of course. (wait for it:) i'm the leese holder.
 
Friday, December 29, 2006
  opengl
opengl is pretty cool. it's especially cool if you do things with it that every game in the universe does. it's especially NOT cool if you try to do something with it that it's supposed to be able to do in theory but in reality chokes and dies. the magic phrase today is multiple render targets. works on my pc. doesn't work on my mac. sigh. someone at apple/nvidia is definitely getting coal in their stocking.
 
Thursday, December 28, 2006
  woik
this year is more of a working christmas than most. sigh. i got the mova contour capture system working. we capture the performance of an actor's face and drive a computer model with it. it's pretty cool. unfortunately it takes many days to turn the raw footage into a an animation movie. boss not happy. my job is to do it in real time. with fewer computers. it's fun to be me.
 
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
  prankster
so there's a bit a prankster in me. i got joe real good one time. a long time ago. see back in the day computer monitors were cube shaped things that weighed a frikken ton. and you could write an extension and drop it into the system folder and the next time they restarted their computer your trojan would be doing its thing. fixing things was usually a simple matter of finding the offending file and dropping it into the trash can. you could be nice and name it something like 'definitely not a prank'. or you could name it 'printer driver' and give it a system looking icon. and change the date to match the system. and mark it invisible. etc. just to make it a challenge. this particular one turned the image on his screen upside down. that made it a bit more fun to find the offending extension simply because it's much harder to find things when they're upside down. it's easy enough to boot with extensions off. that's almost like cheating though. so he found it, removed it, and said, ha ha. a few days later i put it back. yeah yeah ha ha again. a few more days later came the payoff. he automatically restarted with extensions off. but everything was still upside down. oh shit. now what? i think he pulled everything out of the system folder. no luck. finally he boots on an external cd drive because his system was no longer bootable. and everything was still upside down! now hang on just one gosh darn minute here. i had hefted that monster screen, spun it, and sat it on its top. it was symmetrical enough to pass casual observation. especially after the conditioning of the previous two pranks.
 
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
  oots
my favorite online web comic order of the stick just keeps getting better. go rich go.
 
Monday, December 25, 2006
  holy foreskin
someone stole the foreskin of christ our lord. this holy relic has been kept by a priest in a shoebox in the back of his closet for years. every year he'd haul it out and lead a parade of the faithful around town with the only piece of flesh the saviour left behind on this earth. anyway, it's gone now. someone really wanted the skin of a dead jew. maybe they're making a lamp.
 
Sunday, December 24, 2006
  shortage
sheehs. it was so easy to blog when i could just bash bush whenever i didn't have anything exceptionally clever or witty to say. guess i should have voted republican.
 
Saturday, December 23, 2006
  holiday fun
so we ordered an ipod for aunt julie from apple computers. after we placed the order we realized we told apple to ship it to my work address. which was just wrong. so there on their web site it clearly states wait 30 minutes before calling to change the order. so we did. then they said oh it's too late. if you had called right away we'd have been able to cancel it. dumbass shit fuckers. so we ordered a second ipod to be delivered to our home. apple told us to refuse delivery of the work ipod. unfortunately that didn't happen. so now it's gotta be sent back. fun fun fun fun fun.
 
Friday, December 22, 2006
  iraq
it's a darn good thing iraq turned into a quagmire. if we had rolled over the country and pacified it quickly would we have stopped? would there be elections in iran today? what would russia and china have done? fortunately we can only speculate. it's entirely possible we owe a gigantic thank you to the "insurgents" who defended their homeland against an invading army. (shouldn't we call them patriots?). and a grudging grunt of a thanks to the sadistic homicidal sociopaths who joined them. gawd what a mess. and there's no way we could have foreseen this? i call bullshits.
 
Thursday, December 21, 2006
  iran
iranians seem to have elected moderate conservatives. go them. obviously they weren't using diebold touch screen machines.
 
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
  oaths 2
apparently swearing an oath is an act of evil. at least according to the book of matthew. heh. well, that explains congress. the things you learn blogging.
 
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
  blogs
i have a cold today. actually, the pain's more like a sinus infection. wee. so instead of working i'm going to blog all day. as if. but i really should given that i'll spend more time fixing the mistakes i make today than i would if i didn't do anything today and wrote everything i tried to write today when i feel better. anywho, rob posted why he blogs. why do i blog? a) it beats working. b) i have things to say. c) it's a great way to maintain social contacts without leaving the silicon altar. d) i blog therefore i am. e) all of the above.
 
Monday, December 18, 2006
  ddo w b
ben and i were playing ddo together the other day. it was fun. yeah sure he's only 8. but i've grouped with adult players way less competent than he. he wanted to play a cleric. and smack the bad guys. i made a dwarf that kinda sorta looks like me. just for fun. damn i'm an ugly dwarf. anywho, my character is on a 10 day trial account. maybe if we continue to have fun he'll get his own account. too bad there's no major gift giving holiday approaching.
 
Sunday, December 17, 2006
  heh
my neighbor's license plate starts with 5TFU. it gives me the giggles every time i see it. guess there are still a few holes in the old profanity filter.
 
Saturday, December 16, 2006
  awesome
alisa doesn't rpg. i've been looking for ways to get her into it for years. no luck. however, her favorite tv series of all time was firefly. which hopefully may become an mmorpg . i'll try it. it's not dnd. so i'm predisposed to hate it. but if alisa plays you can bet i'll be there. btw, watch the series before watching the movie. if you like the series you'll like the movie. if you love the series you'll hate the movie.
 
Friday, December 15, 2006
  getcha?
so did i getcha? i blogged about mpaa going too far. some folks figured out it was a gag. did you? if not you're not alone. clearly the industry is out of bounds when people are willing to believe they would actually do something like that. good thing i don't claim to be delivering news. otherwise that one would have cost me $100k.
 
Thursday, December 14, 2006
  walks
the boys usually ride their bikes to school every morning with mom. sometimes i put my skates on and go with them. sometimes the weather doesn't cooperate and they have to walk. these are my favorite days to tag along. on the walk home alisa's hand finds its way into mine. makes for a good day.
 
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
  $1 email
computers and people excel at different things. it's very easy for a person to tell the difference between legitimate email and spam. it's very difficult for a computer. my brilliant idea is for people to filter spam. if you send me spam i get to charge you $1. there are no technical barriers to creating such a system. the resistance is that people might have to actually freaking pay for emails they send. gah! the horror. one weakness is that sometimes legitimate accounts will be compromised. eg i could steal your password. and then i can send emails from your account. at least until you run out of credit with your mail server. then they cut you off. how many would that be? 100 or so? sure beats the millions of spams that a compromised bot sends out in a day. you'd be inconvenienced. most likely you can call your mail provider and plead theft. they chastise you into securing your system better. maybe they keep your money. remember they already paid the people you sent spam to. maybe they split the difference with you. either way. you learn very quickly to cover your assets.
 
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
  spam
the "news" is that spam is back. whoop. like it ever really went away. spammers are using more pictures to get through the text filters. some technocrats are talking about how to parse the pictures to see if they're hiding spam. good luck with that. parsing pictures is a much more difficult problem than parsing text. they will have to install more computers. many more computers. the cost of fighting spam is going up. and the cost of sending spam is going down. hijacked computers are getting more powerful and more numerous. this isn't all bad though. we might be at the point were we can trash the current mail system and replace it with one that has a hope of working.
 
Monday, December 11, 2006
  sand
snips and snails and puppy dog tails. ha! don't you believe it. little boys are made of sand. it leaks out of their pores and ends up in my bed. they sweat it into their pockets, their underwear, and farther south where it ultimately accumulates in their shoes. don't believe me? grab a kid. rip off his shoes and turn them upside down. (the shoes, not the boy.) just see if sand doesn't pour out.
 
Sunday, December 10, 2006
  carved crayons
so pete, what do you do for fun? i carve crayons. oh. pretty. link
 
Saturday, December 09, 2006
  bad form
define bad form. bad form is when you crap in the crapper when the roto-rooter guy is roto-rootering the sewer line. bad form. i couldn't help it. nature called. i had to answer. i didn't flush but it was still embarassing to fess up. $250 later and the heritage oak tree in front of our house no longer diverts crap to the shower and tub. yay!
 
Friday, December 08, 2006
  oaths
by god you will swear your oath on the holy bible! regardless of your religion. i think the bible is full of filthy lies and hate-mongering guilded as truths. well, not really. but let's adopt that position for the sake of discourse. of what value is my oath sworn on this toilet paper? none. or less. the idea is to swear your oath on an ideal. if i believe the ideal is treacherous then you can reasonably expect my service or testimony to be corrupt.
 
Thursday, December 07, 2006
  going too far
"The MPAA defines a home theater as any home with a television larger than 29" with stereo sound and at least two comfortable chairs, couch, or futon. Anyone with a home theater would need to pay a $50 registration fee with the MPAA or face fines up to $500,000 per movie shown." you can't make this shit up.
 
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
  thy enemy
there's lots of low hanging fruit for how we as a nation can conserve energy. one of the easiest and most overlooked things is to tax incandescent light bulbs. fluorescents are 5x as energy efficient. and leds are 10x. household lighting is a substantial chunk of your household energy usage. i'd say just ban their production. but might as well make a few bucks in the process.
 
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
  "news"
the primary news source for the group of people who are most misinformed, ie have their facts wrong, is fox news. i believe it's extremely important for people to trust their news sources. and yeah sure a particular slant is fine. but presenting fiction as fact should be punishable. like say $100,000 every time fox news says "democrat foley". won't happen though. at least for the next 2 years. fox news is run by bush's cousin.
 
Monday, December 04, 2006
  cc2
shuck yourself, farm girl. cheshire crossing
 
Sunday, December 03, 2006
  dress up
we went to visit joe and mary for thanksgiving. our boys disappeared with their girls. we pretty much didn't see them for two days. the house was full of guests. mary has the most amazing collection of dresses. the women played dress up like little girls. a good time was had by all. alisa looked wonderful in her ivory dress. cut low in front and back. i'm sure i looked wonderful in my goofy grin. couldn't help it. i love that beautiful and talented woman.
 
Saturday, December 02, 2006
  planet killing despot
a friend of mine described big oil as a planet killing despot. he's wrong. doubly. the planet's a ball of iron with a thin film of crud on top. it doesn't care if people crawl around on it or not. it'll still be here long after the last human sinks into the muck. i suggested civilization killing despot. he agreed. but that's still not right. we can burn all the oil on the planet and it'll cost us some 20% of the gdp. hardly civilization killing. now however, if we burn the coal... of which we have some 10-100x as much as oil... now we're talking about the extinction of modern humans.
 
Friday, December 01, 2006
  new topics
i'm not really a flaming leftist. i'm really pretty much down the middle. i only seem like a looney lefty 'cause the right was dragging my life way off the course i want go. if the liberals take over all branches of government i'm pretty sure i'll make fun of them too. i'm an equal opportunity mocker. which the right isn't. bush: suck me. the right: how hard? i'm hopeful the coming arrangement will allow me to happily ignore the d.c. clowns and post crazy opinions on new topics.
 
most every day i wander the corridors of my mind and open a door at random.

blogs of friends
bad astronomy
freedom to tinker
joe's

web comics
casey&andy (complete)
cheshire crossing (complete)
indexed
middle age
order of the stick
smbc
wildelife
xkcd

comics
dilbert
doonesbury (sunday only)
foxtrot (sunday only)
frazz
wizard of id

defunct
azriel's
bob's
byron's
caitlan's
cool science facts (idle)
exploding unicorn
flyingvan
phil's
ratface's
rob's
some ex-intern's
tina's
hyperbole and a half

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