7610

Getting (my) things done

I've recently been bitten by and "Getting things done" bug. Most of it is because of a site called 43things.com. However, I think subconciously, it was is more about getting organized since I felt a slight bit of personal discombobulation and disorder since the election in November.

For me, not being in control of how my life is going, or not knowing where it is going, causes me some anxiety and makes me search for some order.

I was the 7,219th person to join 43things on February 9, 2005, although that's not important. There have been much psychological analysis on what motivates humans, what makes us tick. One of the most obvious and simplest motivators that has proven extremely effective, is to make a list of tasks, goals, things to do.

This is where 43things comes in. Anyone can sign up, either create their own list of 43 things that they want to do, or peruse other people's lists and choose to join other people's goals. You can only have up to 43 things, and you can re-order them in any way you'd like. The 43things site is funded by Amazon, and run by the Robot Co-op.

One of the goals that I have is to stop smoking. I've been smoke free since April 20, 2005. Yes, ironically, that is 4/20. It hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be, but it's definitely not easy either. I've since completed that goal, so I've moved on to: Quit smoking.

Once you enter a goal, other people can give you what's called a cheer. A cheer is kind of a "Yay, I support you" kind of gesture that you can give one person doing one goal.

43things can also be integrated with your blog, running either Blogger, Live Journal, Movable Type, and WordPress. It's already been integrated with flickr, the photo-sharing site that was bought by Yahoo! It's also been integrated with Upcoming.org so you can find upcoming events in your city.

Anyway, some of my goals are long term goals like inventing something, and some are going to be done next month like visit England. One in fact, is done now.

Post breakfast bathtime

I like to clean myself after I eat breakfast. There's nothing like liver and chicken for breakfast, but sometimes it's just so messy. And who wants to walk around all day smelling like liver? Not me!

Paper pinhole camera

So, you say you want an SLR camera. Go download one. It looks like the one on the right when you're done making it.

Straight from the 1970s Communist run Czechoslovakia, when the state ran all the media. This project does not seem like it's meant for the light of heart. There are 24 pieces and a 4x Carl Zeiss zoom lens! I'm kidding. There are 24 pieces though for real.

I don't think I have the patience to try to make this thing. I'm going through a transition period right now, so there are quite a few things on my mind, and in my life. If and when I have, I wouldn't mind trying to make this little bad boy.

URL forest

This is a very cool (but unfortunately java-based) app that will map any URL you specify into trees. Here's their explanation:

...accesses the source code of a web domain through it's url and transforms the syntactic structure of the web site into a tree structure represented by an image. this image illustrates a tree with trunk, branches and ramifications. first each tree is initialized, than all html links are detected, chronologically saved and finally displayed.

24 is so so so good

If you've been reading 7610 for a while, you know that I'm a HUGE fan of 24 on Fox.

Since I have APA Pool matches on Monday nights, I cannot watch 24 when it airs. This is different than last year, when 24 aired on Tuesday nights. So, this year, I've had people taping it for me. Some of the episodes have been recorded by my sister, and some by Maura and some I've even had to go to NYC to watch at Snowdog's place. Thanks to everyone who's helped me out watching this season.

Anyway, here is the point of this post. This season just continues to be an absolute thriller. I tell all of my friends that 24 is the best show on TV. There are only 5 episodes left now, but it's literally the best season of the 4. After I watch 24, my heart is still racing. I can't say that there is any other show on television that does that to me. It's probably not very healthy for me, but hot damn.

Now, I know that there are inaccuracies, like how no one on the show has ever gone to the bathroom, or how they mention blowfish (in this week's episode) and how CTU has a special proprietary algorithm to crack blowfish. Blowfish was designed by Bruce Schneier and even mentioned on his blog.

Nonetheless, I love the show.

Awesome hacker

/. has a story today that tells about what is aptly called the World's most moronic hacker.

It's just too funny. Here's the synopsis (it's in irc):

<bitchchecker> tell me your network number man then you're dead
<Elch> yes exactly that's it: 127.0.0.1 I'm waiting for you great attack
* bitchchecker (~java@euirc-9ff3c180.dip.t-dialin.net) Quit (Ping timeout#)

Marshmallows: how do they work?

Are you one of those people that think about how things are made, how things run, how stuff works? One of the curious type?

Well, marshmallows are the topic for this post. The picture on the left is actually a marshmallow plant (Althaea officinalis). It's more commonly used in herbal remedies for things like sore throats or cuts. There's even a plant called the hairy marshmallow. That just sounds naughty.

No, marshmallows don't grow on marshmallow trees. The sap from these plants used to be used in the old recipe for marshmallows. Marshmallows are now made with plain old gelatin. In fact, if you want to make your own marshmallows, you can use this recipe. Although, if you don't have a marshmallow pan, then these will be square.

The evite is out

for Chuqo de Mayo 6. Enjoy. Email me if you didn't get yours.

Tokyo Breakfast

This is too funny. I don't know what the background or the story is, but this looks like it was aired on some television, recorded in front of a live studio audience too. Although, man it's way too funny.

Transparent laptop screen

I powered on my laptop about a month ago, and I could see through the screen! I could see Blur right through it!

If you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you. If you're interested, here is a step by step tutorial on how to do it. It is just slightly more difficult than it looks, or than you would think. I found that anyway. The biggest problem that I had was that the flash on my camera kept going off, creating a glare. I guess that's because it was pretty late at night when I started the project.

Also, I've stopped using the date stamp on my camera since all of that information is stored in the EXIF tags anyway.

If you're interested, w00kie has more pics.

Real or Computer Generated

Computer based art (computer graphics or CG) has come a long long way. I think that is pretty evident mostly based on the movies that have come out in the past few years. The special effects that we see on the silver screen are very rarely real.

One scene that was real however, was the house explosion from Bad Boys II (although I didn't see the movie).

Anyway, take this quiz to see just how sharp your eye is, and see if you can pic out which images are real, and which are CG. Try to beat my score of 7 out of 10. No cheating.

Jaleo in Bethesda

My roommate's mom is in town this week. Apparently the first time that she's been back to the US in about 10 years. I still have her beat not having been to Korea in 15 years now. Anyway, it's not about me. We went to dinner at Jaleo in Bethesda, MD. It was pretty good. I don't know if I'd choose to go there again anytime soon, since I don't really like tapas.

We got there kind of late (8 PM-ish) so there was plenty of seating. To start out, we got 9 tapas dishes. Among them were fried squid with aïoli, garlic shrimp, date and bacon fritattas, duck confit with pear, seared salmon with cauliflower puree, and all washed down with a pitcher of sangria. All of them of which I enjoyed. Although I will say that I'm not so much into sweet food for dinner, but it was still a good dinner.

After that, we had the lobster chicken paella. That was a little on the salty side, but pretty good.

The chocolate and hazelnut mousse desert was very good. Although our waiter forgot my cortado, I'll forgive him.

That car is ugly

You know that most of us hate the H2, the Chevy Avalanche, and the Dodge Magnum.

Lots of people agree.

Qwest and MCI

Qwest has offered MCI $9.7B in a takeover bid. The offer was made late Thursday, and contained a clause where MCI had until today (Saturday) to declare Qwest's bid a "superior" offer. MCI has done so.

Verizon, who made an offer back in February for $7.5B, has 5 days to revise it's offer, or walk away with a $240M fine that MCI would have to pay to break off the VZ-MCI deal.

I'm not sure what the issue is here, the largest and strongest of the telecoms is Verizon, then SBC-AT&T, then MCI and then QWest.

Should Verizon ultimately win, the combination would create a global goliath on a par with the combined SBC-AT&T. Should Qwest win, there would be three major competitors -- the combined Qwest-MCI, Verizon and SBC-AT&T.

My largest concern is not so much the telecom aspect of this merger, it's the internet part. MCI owns an enormous part of the United States internet infrastructure. After MCI purchased PSI Net and UUNet, 75% of all internet traffic in the United States passed through MCI's network at some point.

Assuming Qwest wins this bid war (which is unlikely) what happens when Qwest decides that it has to shut parts of MCI's network? I don't think I should worry yet. Unless Qwest wins.

Then I think I'll buy a vineyard somewhere near in upstate NY.

All around fitness

I've decided in the past few weeks to get a little healthier. To this end, I've been jogging a few miles here and there, and since Tuesday night, I've only had one cigarette. Go me! This is the most exercise I've had since I don't even know when.

Anyway, it looks like my running days are going to be on hold for a little bit. After running yesterday, I had some (significant) pain in my upper inner thighs. Sounds to me like a groin pull (warning: link uses java), or actually more of a groin strain.

Apparently my adductor muscles have slight tears in them. I don't have the bruising, but the pain is definitely there, even when I walk, it's slightly painful. Perhaps I should be doing more stretching, the first of which looks like the "kimchi squat". I'm going to have to take a break from running, which is nice since the weather here sucks right now.

The smoking things though, tonight will be my big test when I head into Zacks to play pool. By the way, Zacks is closing on April 30. You know where I'll be that night.

Happy Earth Day

Today is the 35th Anniversary of Earth Day according to the EPA. Please visit the Earth Day Website.

This however, seems to be an Americanized version of the first Earth Day. Apparently, it's supposed to be the first day of Spring, the Vernal Equinox. The US missed that by about a month, but we in America, celebrate two Earth Days. The American version of Earth Day has been celebrated on April 22, since 1970, while the international Earth Day varies.

What can you do today to help? Decorate shopping bags, become an Earth Day trustee, clean up a beach, attend the Unplugged concert etc. Just look around, you'll be able to find something. What am I doing today? I haven't decided yet.

After Midnight (technically Friday) Cat Blogging

Please stop taking my picture and go to sleep, it's 1:02 AM, I'm going to sleep.

NOAA data threatened

The National Weather Service provides XML data feeds for all types of weather information. Here is the RSS feed for the District of Columbia. Here is the local forecast for Washington DC.

There are thousands of RSS aggregators (XML Feed readers) to read this XML data. Best of all, it's all free.

Think about this: the commericial company, Accuweather has successfully lobbied Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) into introducing a bill to stop the National Weather Service from "competing" with private sector firms such as Accuweather and The Weather Channel, both of whom offer their forecasts online for free on ad-sponsored websites.

"If someone claims that our core mission is just warning the public of hazardous conditions, that's really impossible unless we forecast the weather all the time." "You don't just plug in your clock when you want to know what time it is." said Ed Johnson, the weather service's director of strategic planning and policy.

The article goes on to say that there is the possibility of a new niche market where the amount of free data can be repackaged by small companies. Here are the freshmeat.net projects that use NOAA data, and here are the SourceForge projects. I used to use this epplet back when I used E on my desktop.

I also have a pair of Motorola T5950 NiCD two way radios that pick up NOAA channels. I wonder if those are going to go dark as well.

openssl + fedora core 3 + mod_ssl on x86_64

I ran across this error today:

+ SSL library version: OpenSSL 0.9.7a Feb 19 2003
Error: Cannot find SSL library files in any of the following dirs:
Error: . /lib /usr/lib /usr/local/lib

while trying to compile apache-1.3.33, mod_perl-1.29, and mod_ssl-2.8.22-1.3.33.

I remember this error when trying to compile apache on fedora and RHEL ES3. So, I thought, oh ok, openssl-devel isn't installed. Sure was. Maybe krb5-devel? Nope, that's there. weird. SSL_BASE was set to system, and it found that OpenSSL 0.9.7a-40 was installed.

The resolution?

ln -s /lib/libssl.so.0.9.7a /lib/libssl.so

then it works fine. My hopes are that someone else gets this error with the same error on the same hardware, and this page helps them out.

Linguistic English test

This has no bearing on anything, but here is my linguistic profile:

My dinner

This is a picture of the noodles that I ate for dinner tonight. Look carefully, there is something seriously wrong with this nutrition label.

Actaully, it's not the sodium in these noodles. It's the serving size and servings per container. Leave it to us Asians.

Picture of the day, April 20, 2005

Greg and Richard standing outside of GW hospital after seeing my coworker who is being treated there

Color codes for web designers

I found a great site, Colorcombos.com that allows people to check how color combos look next to each other. I like combo 128 for kaplink. Yeah, it's not so different from what you see now, and I'll probably get rid of that 4th color (the purplish one), and use the maroon color above.

It's kind of like your virtual Benjamin Moore color samples.

Ever seen a tarantula shake?

Have you ever seen anything like this?

There are people out there that are that sick? There must be. I really hope this isn't real.

En-grish-ified movies

Somethingawful.com bring us: Let's Japanize.

USDA's new food pyramid

Yesterday, the USDA decided to release a new symbol to replace the 13 year old food pyramid. Today, it's clear that it's now a new food pyramid with stairs. I'm sure that you remember the old one that hung in pretty much any and every cafeteria in American schools. South Beach creator Dr. Arthur Agatston claims that it's this old food pyramid that is responsible for the obesity epidemic in America.

Carnival of the Cats on Watermark

Carnival of the Cats #56 is up on Watermark. Mr. Blur is featured on there, (look for 7610 presents Friday Cat Blogging). I got to it a bit late because I've had a pretty busy weekend.

I played a round of golf with some friends at Generals Ridge in Manassas, VA, where my friend Z got a hold in one on a par 3, 184 yard hole. Congrats Z. I'm jealous.

Changes to 7610

Changes are coming to 7610. I have finally, (due to procratination) learned quite a bit about CSS. I'm going to be making some changes on this "production" site since I don't have a staging site yet. I suppose that wakbooshow is one, but it would take too long to set that up to look like this.

And now, I can use subversion to track all the changes. How brilliant of me!

You may notice a couple of things already, depending on how often you come here. One is the border on the side bar. Eventually, I'm going to make smaller boxes within this box and make it look nice. I have to find some more colors to use as well. Speaking of color, another change is the color of visited links, although it's not really noticable. Trust me, it's there. If you want to see the change, click on one of the links from a list on the left, say, May 2004 (since my birthday is in May. Then come back to this page and look at that list again. Another is my 43things.com blurb.

I'm basing a lot of these changes on this page. I'm also going on some of the feature requests and functionality requests that either I've gotten or I've thought of. One is a photo album in MT that's user friendly, and doesn't require uploading files via ssh. I am absolutely positive that this functionality is already out there, I just need to get it installed and configured.

I also want to fix the archive pages, since the font is different at the top of the pages, just like the Comments sections.

Stay tuned, but feel free to email me ideas suggestions/flames, whatever. I really want the feedback.

Sand Sculptures

I remember walking around on Venice Beach in CA, looking at some of the sand sculptures. There was one of an alligator and another of a lion lying down. I was pretty impressed with them. However, I think those were a little easier to make since they are close to the ground. If you're talking about a bear on it's back paws rearing it's head, then we're talking. Don't get me wrong, I don't think any of sand art is easy. But, this is just phenomenal work. Just look at this one and this one.

Why Friday Cat Blogging?

While viewing some of the sites that I visit everyday, I noticed that sometimes on Fridays, there are pictures of cats. Category: Friday Cat Blogging.

I noticed first that my friends Eric and Chris are Friday Cat Bloggers. Also, Calpundit Friday Cat Blogged as well (he doesn't anymore).

Where did this start? Apparently, the rumor is that Kevin Drum of Calpundit started Friday Cat Blogging phenomenon. Apparently, Friday Cat Blogging has been linked to Liberals. This cat eats brocolli! Why do Republicans do this?

Friday Cat Blogging

First thing in the morning, I love to stretch!

Just Rose (Lose) It

Here is Eminem all Asian like, and all Walmart-like, performing his hit song, from the Encore release, Just Lose it.

Picture of the day, April 13, 2005

My First Picture of the Day. My sister made me dinner!

Cool Links for April 13, 2005

I can't write a blog entry on all of these since I'm pretty tired, but here are a bunch of links:

• Floating Signs
• Women pee standing up
• mozbackup
• How to select meat
• How to cut vegetables
• Internet Showdown
• Femdefence
• Encourange Women in Linux

Today is Penguin Day in SF

Apparently there is a Penguin Day. Today is Penguin Day in the Bay Area.

Brief history: Penguin Day started in Philadelphia in March 2004 by a working group of nonprofit technology organizations: Aspiration (www.aspirationtech.org) NOSI (www.nosi.net) and the LINC Project (www.lincproject.org) Established with the intent to bring together open source developers and technology support staff for nonprofits, the event began an important conversation about the challenges and opportunities we face.

So I signed up. Maybe we'll get a Penguin Day here in DC.

Daily photo

While perusing 43things, I also came across the idea of Take one picture a day as a way to document my life. This is an interesting idea. However, what do you take a picture of? I guess just whatever you are doing at some point in your day? Sounds like kind of a pain to me. However, I think I'll try it. Starting tomorrow.

Prepare to be bored.

Subversion

After seeing Start using Subversion and Learn Subversion on 43things, I decided that I would start using subversion. One of the issues that I've had with it is the authentication.

With a relatively large development community, organizations need what some have called a "blame log". This is essentially where people's changes get tagged with their name, so if it's broken, everyone knows where to point the finger. There are many authentication mechanisms you can use: mod_auth_mysql and svn+ssh come to mind.

I prefer svn+ssh personally since it's tunneling through ssh. However, we're using mod_auth_mysql at the office for authentication, and the configuration directive that was breaking it for me was not AuthMySQLCryptedPasswords or AuthMySQLScrambledPasswords, but AuthMySQLMD5b64Passwords. The documentation that I had was not as complete as I'd wanted, but I guess I should have gone to the SF page.

My Weekend

This weekend, I was quite active. My parents came down on Friday, stayed with my sister, and we went to the National Cherry Blossom Festival around the Tidal Basin of Washington DC. I took some pictures, but my sister took more. The weather was perfect but there were so many people out to look at the sights that it was insane.

Then we went to Dim Sum at Lei Garden in Chinatown, the dim sum was horrible, service was terrible, and it was a little pricey. For dinner, I cooked for my family, Kalbi Chim and Spinach soup. Yum.

Yesterday, I went golfing with Ji and Peter, up at Fairway Hills Golf Course in Columbia, MD. It was such a nice day. I shot a 104, which isn't terrible, but it's not too good either. But, for what it's worth, it was my first time out this year.

Virtual Tourism and sightseeing

With the new Google Maps with Satelite imagery, you can "visit" places online via a site called Google Sightseeing. Places such as Mount Rushmore, The Empire State Building, Niagara Falls, Area 51, and even the the White House (with Top Secret Photoshopping), as well as the US Capitol with more top secret blur filter.

With the google maps's satellite imagery, another "flickr" phenomenon has emerged: memorymaps. Another voyeuristic view into people's pasts.

Subversion and ssh

I'm trying to get subversion working with openssh. This is proving to be quite the PITA. There are configuration problems, apache configuration problems, ssh problems, and OS level permission problems.

For now, I have it working, but not allowing apache to serve it up. I figure either because I'm too stubborn to read the install/configuration instructions or even the book. I'll have a peek at it this weekend. I've got a test machine at home that I can use.

What is subversion you ask?

Subversion is a version control system similar to cvs or rcs. LJ has an article claiming that subversion is a "newer generation" of cvs. I agree with them.

Subversion was written by Karl Fogel and team around the turn of the millenium. Basically the re-write of cvs was because of a lack of functionality in cvs. Simple things like renaming a file and renaming a directory were manual processes.

Shake your booty head

I stumbled across a website today, where the instructions are simply:

1. Put camera in front of face
2. Shake face or Prrr (what's that)
3. Send us the picture

Now, thinking this would be funny, I perused the gallery, and then got almost nauseous looking at people's expressions, eyes, hair, lips, and yes, the folds in people's cheeks. It's actually pretty nasty, although a brilliant idea.

I wonder if this idea will make it to flickr or not.

Daylight Savings to be extended?

According to CNN, Congress is mulling over extending Daylight Savings Time for two months.

This is supposed to save us 10,000 barrels of oil a day. However, does anyone else see a problem with this? How about all the clocks that hvae been programmed to automatically switch from Daylight Savings Time and Standard Time? The watches clocks and other timepieces that show up in a standard household are not what I'm worried about. It's things like computers (although all servers and desktops should be running something like ntp) that control much of the nation's infrastructure. Like the computers that run air traffic control, street lights, schedules, punch clocks, banks, etc. What fun! It's another Y2K problem all over again. But, this time, it'll have to be fixed before another time change.

Dancing: Xiao Xiao Style

Many people remember the Xiao Xiao stick figure animations [1, 2, game].

Here is a dancing video made in the style of xiao xiao.

Great White Shark Robot

After recently watching Open Water, and still in pursuit of my SCUBA certification, I've noticed myself paying a little more attention to any mention of sharks.

I think this Great white shark submarine takes the cake though. Fabien Cousteau, grandson of Jacques Cousteau, has helped create this exploratory tool that looks so realistic, has a rebreather in it for the diver, and uses closed circuit pneumatics to make it swim like a shark. It also has a few cameras, one disguised as a remora.

There's even an escape hatch in the shark's head should something go wrong.

FBI cracks 128-bit WEP in 3 minutes

At a recent Information Systems Security Association meeting, a few FBI agents showed how the cracked a 128-bit WEP key in about 3 minutes.

Indeed, it is worth a read, since it gives step by step instructions on how to do it. Foilhat types, get out your hats.

More from Best Buy

Here's my reply from Best Buy:

Dear Mr. Yang,

Thank you for bringing possible inaccuracies in your Best Buy customer record to our attention. I have sent your request and information to the proper team for investigation. Please be assured that Best Buy takes our customer’s privacy very seriously and we will do what we can to address the situation. Unfortunately, I am unable to provide any additional information as to when, or if the situation will be resolved.

I would like to thank you for your patience while Best Buy addresses this matter.

Sincerely,

Trisha
Customer Privacy Representative

TRACKING NUMBER: A00004041652-00014203387

I'm calling them tomorrow.

YaGooHoogle it

YaGoohoogle is the new search engine of choice. It will show you, side by side, yahoo search results and google search results.

Pretty neat.

Chuq o de Mayo Parte Seises

This year, Chuq o de Mayo will be on May 14, the day before my actual birthday. I'm not quite sure where yet, but I don't think I'll have it at my house like I did last year. Mostly because it's not easily accessible by the Metro.

Maybe I'll have it in some bar on the Hill or somewhere in Dupont. Suggestions are welcome.