Random Things

The End

2006-08-18T08:43:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, I am afraid I am going to be leaving Blogger. Their new (Beta) features are just too little, too late. I'll keep this one open, and mainly use it to inform about various guides I'm writing, but maybe not even that.
So, where to find me now. Without a doubt, the best free blogging platform on the web is Wordpress, and the guys who head that open source software project created a commercial version entitled, you guessed it: wordpress.com. It is superb. So my new blog is on it. Now I have a catchier title too: Life, the Universe, and Nothing. I wanted my URL to be nothingatall.blahblahblah... but I had to settle for lifeuniverseandnothing.wordpress.com. So, go and check it out! And Blogger, it was fun while it lasted.

Perplex City Live Event - Right Now!

2006-08-12T11:04:00.000-07:00

The Perplex City live San Fransisco Connection event has started! Head over to http://emergency.perplexcity.com/main/main.php as we need as many people as possible to help!

My Eagle Project

2006-08-04T21:26:00.000-07:00

HPIM0444 Hosted on Zooomr

My Eagle Scout project is tomorrow morning. This is a photo of the trail where it will be held.

Working on it

2006-07-07T20:05:00.000-07:00

I'm once again making progress on the new iPod guide. It will be done someday.

Oh, I'm writing this post from Flock, which is an awesome new beta browser based on Firefox! It's Firefox, only with more features. Check it out.

Blogged with Flock

Encrypt your mail: do it for the children

2006-06-15T21:59:00.000-07:00

Seriously, it can keep children out of your email. I would love it if everyone at least had encryption keys, because you can't encrypt unless both people have them. I do now. It is really easy, just follow the guide at lifehacker. [Link].
For the guide, you need to be using Thunderbird, but if you aren't, you don't know what you are missing anyway. So just do it now. I've added a spam proof link and my public key to the footer of the blog.
Update: The public key doesn't fit at the bottom of the post so here it is (copy and paste everything in the quote block):

-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.3 (MingW32)
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=P0RQ
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

*End post*

Maybe new DVD to iPod Guide

2006-05-17T22:05:00.000-07:00

The current guide I wrote is just a little bit ugly. It just doesn't look right. If I feel like it, I might redo it in a few days. I write a new post when/if I do it.

Wii Should Get Together...

2006-04-27T21:43:00.000-07:00

...to buy the Nintendo Revolution, um, I mean Wii. Yup. That's the new name for it. Don't ask me why, but here are the ideas I've read:
ii means good in Japanese (Gamespot)
Wii sounds the same as "Oui" which is French for Yes
Wii is implied to represent "We" on the official Nintendo website (revolution.nintendo.com)
The i's also represent the controller and the people playing it (again, Nintendo)

I am divided at the moment, but there is nothing we can do anyway, so get over it. Judge the system off of the games, not the name.

Pandora, Last.fm, and PandoraFM

2006-04-25T18:30:00.000-07:00

I don't know if I've mentioned Pandora or Last.fm any time on this blog, so I will now. Plus: the (now authorized) mashup of the two!

First: Pandora. It's a great place to discover new music. Just enter a song or artist you like. Then it will play songs that are musically similar. It works really well. Few community features though. That's what Last.fm is for...

Second: Last.fm. They have a music streaming service to discover new music, but it doesn't work nearly as well as Pandora does. However, what makes it great is that it will keep track of the music you listen to and let you find people with similar musical tastes. Hint: download the Audioscrobbler Beta software, it is overall better in my opinion.

Third: PandoraFM. The great results of Pandora with automatic submissions to Last.fm! Originally a "hack", now the author has been given access to the Pandora API, and is semi-sort-of-official.

American Idol

2006-04-19T20:59:00.000-07:00

Hey! I don't believe I've mentioned it here yet, but I have an American Idol blog! Just visit myidol.americanidol.com/blogs/villageidiot to see it. What makes mine unique? Tuesdays I do a "live" report. Every commercial break I click "Post to Blog" and you have my up-to-the-minute comments! Check it out!

F-Shaped Pattern

2006-04-17T17:16:00.000-07:00

People read in F Shaped patterns when browsing the web. Important information for all web developers.

Wow. Never would have guessed. I'm going to have to remember this for the future.

read more | digg story

How to pull an all-nighter.

2006-04-07T23:12:00.000-07:00

Great tutorial for those long nights of coding.
**From digg**
About time somebody wrote this.

read more | digg story

Numb3rs & Video Gamers

2006-04-07T22:34:00.000-07:00

First, Numb3rs (Fri, CBS, 10pm) is a great show. I like it. You should watch it. However, tonight's episode, is doing a typical media move. Yes, they are pulling a "video gamers are shooters." Sigh. It just seems like they unfairly pick on people who play games. I agree with Tim of Ctrl+Alt+Del. It takes someone who is already a little messed up in the head to have video games trigger violence. And that's all I have to say.

Top 87 Bad Predictions about the Future

2006-03-29T21:19:00.000-08:00

"Nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality in 10 years." (Alex Lewyt, president of a vacuum cleaner company in 1955.)

"We stand on the threshold of rocket mail." (U.S. postmaster general Arthur Summerfield, in 1959.)

"They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist-" (Last words of Gen. John Sedgwick, 1864.)

This stuff is just plain hillarious. Check it out.

read more | digg story

Way too long...

2006-02-18T17:13:00.000-08:00

Whoa! I haven't blogged in almost 2 months! Time to just start doing it. I am really active in KoL. If you want to see me in game, my name is village_idiot. Lots has happened, like me making my first million (meat)! Whohoo! 1st Semester finals happened. I did fine. Things are going well. Also, I really like the new Strong Bad Email podcast and the Happy Tree Friends podcast. (Latter is not for people who hate gore.) Still love Accident Hash. Also, I'm going to update the little badges on the side to be more relevant. Maybe even update the theme of the site. Who knows.

Christmas & Loathing

2005-12-26T22:12:00.000-08:00

Christmas was great this year. I've had better, but this one was still great.

In the online game Kingdom of Loathing, they celebrate a Christmas equivalent called Crimbo. It was good this year. Much content, some of which helped me nearly double my in game currency. Also, if you aren't a member of the game yet, there has never been a better time to join. As I type this, they are moving to super fast new servers that (hopefully) will nearly eliminate the lag seen before! Yay! Merry Crimbo!

Winter

2005-12-13T18:26:00.000-08:00

It's winter here in Walla Walla. It's REALLY cold. We didn't even get above 30 today. I don't like this. Winter is here for us. The good news: just a few more days until Winter Break.

Firefox 1.5 , New Audacity, & More

2005-12-04T16:13:00.000-08:00

Rejoice! Firefox 1.5 is finally out! Get it now from it's new home at mozilla.com! Also, Audacity came out with 2 new versions in the last month: a new stable release and a new version beta with lots of features. Also, I won NaNoWriMo! I'm (not) working on typing it up.

Sleep. Need Sleep.

2005-11-20T18:31:00.000-08:00

Haven't blogged in a while. LOTS of news. This could take a while.

National Novel Writing Month. I haven't gotten a lot of sleep this month. 20 straight days of 7 hours of sleep (or often less). I can handle that, right? Check out the novel blog (need to update it too) here. Also, check out my profile on the NaNoWriMo site. I'm actually doing well: I'm less than a day behind!

Help me get a 60GB iPod (Video!). Help yourself get one! Click here.

Sony. They don't deserve my business anymore. They are just stupid. First, they make PS2s that I've heard break without a lot of trouble. Not a big deal for me. Then they go and do some weird thing to ruin Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis. That made me angry. Then there is the rootkit scandal. They hide their DRM with a rootkit that opened a backdoor for viruses. Sure, they didn't make the DRM, but they were negligent in not investigating it. Then they use open source code in their player, without acknowledge it, and violating the license agreement. Sony is just stupid. Yet they will survive. I don't know why, but they can't be shaken. I don't want to give them my business though.

Finally, ummm. I forgot. Something for you to do though: listen to the Radio Adventures of Doctor Floyd. It's a great funny (and slightly educational) podcast. Subscribe to the audio and video podcasts at www.DoctorFloyd.com (subscribe to both: they contain different content). New radio season starts in January!

DVD to iPod Video: A (Relatively) Easy Guide

2005-10-31T17:31:00.000-08:00

DVD
to iPod Video: An Easy Guide

Welcome to my first real
guide. It will show you how to take a DVD and make it ready to sync
to a brand new iPod Video! Note that for this guide I will be ripping
the Pixar short film Knick Knack from the “Finding Nemo” DVD –
Disk 2.

WARNINGS:

This WILL take a
long time. Probably overnight to do, depending on your system.
Some of the
software used in this guide may not be legal in all jurisdictions. I
have no problem with “backing up” DVD’s, as long as you OWN
the DVD.
DON’T PIRATE.
ONLY DO THIS FOR MOVIES YOU LEGALLY OWN. This guide is not
intended to aid piracy!

Materials:

The DVD you will rip
Latest version of DVD Shrink (other software may be
necessary. DVD Shrink doesn’t work with all DVDs).
Videora iPod Converter

Part
1: DVD to Computer

For this first step you will need to download DVD
Shrink. You can get that from FileHippo.com. They should have the
latest version. It is under the “CD and DVD Tools” section.
Install and open DVD Shrink. Then insert the disk you
want to rip. Close any program that might have opened to play the
DVD. Then click the “Open Disk” button. Select the drive the DVD
is in.
Next the program will analyze the entire DVD to
see how to decrypt it. This will hopefully take under 10 minutes.
Next, click “Re-author” because we don’t need the
whole DVD’s contents (because the whole content includes menus and
stuff, which iPods don’t read).
Now you need to find the part of the DVD that you want
to rip. Most likely you will want “Title 1” as that is most
often the main movie. To check, click the part you want to check,
then click the little play icon. If it is correct, then double-click
it.
Now click “Backup!” Choose to save it to a hard
disk folder, and pick a folder. REMEMBER WHAT FOLDER you choose.
Then it will take a while, but less than the running time of the
movie.
Now the DVD is on your computer!

Part
2: Computer to iPod-Readable format

Now you need to download the very nice free converter
program Videora iPod Converter. It is available from videora.com.
Then install it and open it.
Click on the Setup item and choose the Profile Picker
tab. Pick the profile that best fits your needs. For widescreen
movies pick “MPEG-4/Movies (Proper amount of time here)”. For
other items, just read the descriptions.
Then click “Convert” and choose “Transcode New
Video” and navigate to the folder where you saved the DVD. Choose
the “VIDEO_TS” folder and just choose the only file that shows
up.
Make sure the profile is correct and click “Start”.
The process will take a while, and for me it never went past 0% the
first time I did it, so don’t worry. To make it go faster, do
nothing on your computer and choose priority “High.”
When it says done just search your computer for
“VTS_01_1.mp4”. Add that file to your iTunes library. Then right
click the file in the library, and add proper tagging, to make it
look nice in your iPod.
Next time you connect your iPod Video (while iTunes is
open), it will load to your iPod!

DVD to iPod and other...stuff

2005-10-31T15:39:00.000-08:00

Well, I am working on my brand new DVD to iPod Video guide that I am making for someone from school. It is really quite easy. It will take a while though, I am doing screen shots. In other news, NaNoWriMo starts at midnight! Woohoo!

NaNoWriMo Season

2005-10-11T17:42:00.000-07:00

It's Noveling Season! I have picked the title, "The Gift," and you can read my process of pre-writing, and eventually the novel, at the novel's site. Powered by WordPress. I would use Blogger, but WordPress has static pages, perfect for writing the chapters.

The Gift

About Time

2005-10-08T17:02:00.000-07:00

Well, it's about time Google made a web based RSS Reader. Nice interface, and it allows you to search for RSS feeds. Yay!

Google Reader

Fun Fun Times

2005-10-08T11:41:00.000-07:00

Well, the bomb threat person has now done 3 bomb threats in less than two weeks. Way to go, felon! It has gotten very... I don't know. Just stupid, I guess. It's just gotten old. The reward is now $1000. Homecoming game was last night. We lost. Moses Lake won 34. We (Walla Walla) got 0. At least the homecoming dance will be fun. If we don't get blown up! Ha Ha Ha!

Bomb Threat at School

2005-09-28T20:02:00.000-07:00

This is believed to be a world first blog post on this piece of news. I checked the Google Blog Search and Technorati.

Today at Walla Walla High School there was a bomb threat. Fortunately, it turned out to be nothing (whew!). It was discovered yesterday and, according to rumors, the bomb was to go off at 2:00 PM today. The school district and high school used their right to "search and seizure" to search students' backpacks during 1st, 2nd, and 5th periods. (Not everyone has a 1st period, and 5th period is right after lunch, and our school has a semi-open campus policy.) Then at approximately 1:50 PM, the school evacuated and they had fire trucks on hand. Students were sent back to class at about 2:08 PM. However, because many students "didn't feel safe at school" today, about half the school went home today. (I didn't, and I think most of these students just wanted to go home.) Also, the sheriff's patrol was on campus all day long with bomb sniffing dogs. This is the most seriously I've seen a bomb threat be taken at our school. If you have any info on this (like who did it) contact the school administrators.

just some keywords (alternate abbreivations for Walla Walla High School):
wa-hi wahi wwhs

Viva la Revolution!

2005-09-27T20:38:00.000-07:00

Weird. The revolution's controller is just plain STRANGE. Like, really weird. Check it out.

http://www.nintendo.com/newsimagelarge?articleid=TfyOgnUc7zB-ZlzdQvMhKJOgS5LsR2nK¤tNo=0&page=