Blog Archive - 2005

Holiday Shopping Conundrum!	12.20.2005
Christmas shopping has become a challenge for me over the years, more so for the adults than for my nieces and nephews. Why is this? Seems like every year I ask myself, “Why it's so difficult to figure out what someone needs?” Every year I also think, “Dang! I should have written down ideas during the year when someone needed something... that would make a good Christmas gift!” However, even if I wrote down those things, I would have lost the paper I wrote it on... When I was younger, I remember watching cartoons in the morning. When commercials came on advertising a bad ass robot with a rocket launcher, or some super duper kung foo, alien slime creature, I would almost always yell out 'I want that!!" I would make such a big deal out of the toys I wanted for Christmas when I saw them. I wanted everyone to know what I wanted for Christmas so my chances of getting that cool new toy would increase! It was easy for people to figure out what I wanted for Christmas every year! Now, as an adult, I don't do that anymore. I also notice that not many other adults do this either! What happened! Yeah, we have matured. But when we watch TV commercials and see things we like, we don't make a big deal of it. We might make a mental note to ourselves that it would be nice to have what we saw. Every year, I try to be clever with my gifts. I try to get meaningful things, things that my parents, brother or sister could use. But there's one problem. I never actually witness them making a big fuss over something they want which they've seen on TV or in a store! They don't yell out, 'I want that!! I'll die if I don't get that!!' This makes Christmas shopping a lot more challenging. I'm pretty sure people have the same questions about what I want for Christmas too! Maybe I should start making a big deal by doing what I used to do as a child when I saw something I wanted. This could come in handy right around Christmas time! Ha! I can picture it now... The perfect Christmas world where all the adults and children act the same when they see things they want in a store or on TV. This would entertain me immensely. I think it would not only be helpful for letting others know what to get you, but it would be great to walk into one of the millions of big box retail stores and see grown men and women wining, fussing and making a big deal out of something they see and want for Christmas! I can see it now! Women and men saying things like, "Oh! I want this 10 piece salad shooter! I can't leave until Santa knows I want it! ah...hahaaa... I want it nooowww!!".... or when a TV commercial comes on, advertising a shop vac or super cool ladder that fits under a bed, It would be very entertaining (and helpful) to see and hear my parents stand up and start jumping up and down, pointing to the TV saying, "I want that! I want that! I want that!" over and over again until you recognize it by saying, "okay, I'll let Santa know". Ah! That would be so helpful. Then I would know what to get people at least!!! That would be a perfect Christmas world. I think for the next few days, I'm going to surf the web, watch some TV and go shopping with my family. Every time I see something I want for Christmas, I'm going to act out as I did when I was a child. I'm going to jump up and down on the coach, pointing to the TV or my computer monitor every time I see something I want! So don't be surprised if you see me in a store, acting as I once did many years ago when I really wanted something badly... I'll just be trying to make shopping easier for my family & friends. It would be great if they did the same.... ....... Of course I'm not serious... But this thought entertained me and I thought I'd share. Happy Holidays!

Can I speak with a human please?	12.7.2005
Do you ever get frustrated by automated phone systems when you need assistance with a product or service? These days, it seems like it's getting more difficult to talk to a human when calling a phone company, a bank or any other large business. Sometimes you have to push a series of numbers to move through various levels of menus. This can get confusing after a while. Even worse, is if you press the wrong number you might have to hang up the phone and try again! Only the next time, hope that you don't press the wrong menu option. Paul English has listed what it takes to get a human on the other end of the phone for 108 companies. Want to talk to a human at DirectTV? No problem! Just press 0 repeatedly. Want to talk to a human at Northwest? No problem! Just press * then 0 then 0 after initial greeting. This is a list to keep handy! You never know when you just want to speak to a human! For Paul English's interactive voice response cheat sheet, click here: IVR Cheat Sheet For more information about what the IVR Cheat Sheet is, click here: IVR Cheat Sheet Information & background

Information Overload	11.23.2005
I just read a paper written by Carrie Lee-Foreman while doing some background reading on banner blindness and she wrote about how the Internet, television, radio and email are causing a problem with information overload. She goes on to say, According to some psychologists and researchers the “data smog” that bombards us every day may be making us ill by interfering with our sleep, sabotaging our concentration, and undermining our immune system. I couldn't agree with that statement more! I've been looking at a lot of papers, reading tons of email and doing a lot of searching for random things on the Internet to solve development problems or to find out about new technologies I could use in the development of web applications... or to find a Greek recipe for my next meal. Because of this, I find myself unable to sleep at night and when I do finally get some sleep I can either sleep for only 5 hours or I eventually crash and sleep way too long! My mind is constantly involved with thoughts about life and the decisions I've made or am about to make as well as what feels like a hundred other thoughts that run through my mind. All these thoughts are due to the information overload I experience every day. My mind gets so cluttered with information noise, that my mind has a hard time quieting down. A lot of this also has to do with feeling overwhelmed by the fact that I have a ton of things to do with the pressure of time. This pressure of time sometimes makes me not want to sleep. I just want to keep chipping away at the things I need to accomplish. Bridget Murrary's paper, "Data Smog: newest culprit in brain drain.” describes this as “information fatigue syndrome.” Guess what! Yup! This is what I have. Yet another thing in my life that is harmful to my health! I've already stopped eating meat, I haven't stepped outside in a few years because the ozone layer is just about gone, and I always wear sunglasses in the house during the day because the sunlight is harmful to my eyes and I wear a mask over my nose and mouth because the air in my house is also unhealthy to breath! Seriously, I understand that not being able to sleep is not very healthy. I agree. But what freaks me out, is that I once saw some show on the Discovery channel that claimed there were scientists trying to develop a pill that would allow all of us to never need sleep again! This was an interesting endeavor I thought! After doing further research I found out this pill is being referred to as CX717. A guy named, Chris McKinstry wrote a blog entry on his website mindpixel.com which further explains this interesting topic. Although they didn't really discuss how people wouldn't have to sleep, I think they (researchers and scientists) are trying to find ways for people to live with having less sleep. How great would that be to take a pill and not have to sleep again? Well, that freaks me out since I really enjoy sleeping (when I can actually get to sleep). It also freaks me out because if that were to become a reality, humans would then start to become drones... in a way. Think about corporations changing the way they do business. Employees (yes this means you) would start working 16 hour work days! Humans would start to become drones who are always awake and constantly on the go! This seems very similar to how a computer might work! If a computer is left on 24 hours a day to work on some problem, we consider the computer to be very productive and very helpful because it is able to stay awake all the time. If a pill were to exist that would allow humans to never sleep, we would essentially be operating like computers that constantly work on things. So where was I? Oh yes... I was doing some research on banner blindness for my masters project and got side tracked when I read about this information overload thing...which then led to some random thought about not sleeping...ever... All this talk about not sleeping is...well...making me sleepy. Blogs are great for inducing sleep. So I hope you've read this at an appropriate time cause I wouldn't want you to be falling asleep at work!

Dang! my car....and the bees	10.16.2005
I went grocery shopping yesterday and opened my back door for the first time sinse last May! To my surprise, I found this little home on the inside of my door! Last May I put the beater car I've been driving here in Rochester, NY into an outdoor storage place. The car sat there in the elements for 3 months. It looks like the car sat there a little too long because the bees started to make it their home! At least this was something minor that happened to the car! Better than being ripped off from the car repair shop when I had to get a gas line fixed... I think I'd rather deal with a few bees

Coffee Experience	10.9.2005
A couple nights ago I was watching Emril Live on the Food network and saw him make this coffee. I thought it looked and sounded good so I went out last night to get the ingredients. The ingredients called for whiskey, cream and a cayanne pepper (a red pepper). I went to the liquor store to get whiskey, I couldn't find the cayanne pepper so I decided to leave it out. In addition to that I decided to get some vanilla syrup (I like my coffee flavored and sweet). I already had instant coffee so I used that. I cooked a big pot of spaghetti last night and then had this coffee. I put a little bit of whiskey in it, some cream, the vanilla syrup and some sugar.... I drank it and it was tasty! However, I'm still up! I drank that coffee at around 11pm and I'm still up... It is now 7am... Good thing it's still the weekend. I don't drink coffee very often so that's pretty much why the coffee is doing it's job...Oh, that and this week was mid-terms so I was up until about 5am almost every night trying to get things done so that really screwed up my sleep schedule even more than it already was! Moral of the story... If you don't drink coffee often...do not drink it late at night! You're probably thinking, "Duh!" Well, I already knew that I shouldn't be drinking coffee late, but I had no idea I would still be awake at this time! I might as well just stay up the rest of the day in the hopes to correct my sleep cycle....hmmm... Is that really possible at RIT?

Rusted car	9.27.2005
Things are not going well for the beater car I've been driving here in Rochester, NY. I recently took the car into the shop to get a gas leak fixed, which cost me more than I wanted to pay. They repaired the gas leak but claimed that the gas guage stopped working for some reason. They ended up fixing that...or at least claiming to have fixed it. I can not tell if it was broke after they claimed it had broke. I'm not very trusing of the place I took my car. I don't think I'll take a car there again. The place I took my car was Joe Legno's Riverside, which is located on Riverside road next to the RIT campus. After I picked my car up from the shop, I drove it a bit and then filled up the tank with gas. As soon as I got home, I noticed the gas was leaking even worse than before I brought it in! I immediately took the car back and they realized they didn't put on the gasket properly. That kinda pissed me off, but since I know little to nothing about cars, I'm at the mercy of mechanics... Of course they are fully aware of this and totally take advantage of people like me. I'd better go take an auto mechanics course sometime! Then today, I get in my car and felt something was wrong. Some guy looked at me and pointed to my car. He said something but I couldn't hear him. I got out of my car to see what he was pointing at and saw that I had a flat tire. I'm not sure how I got a flat tire. I know that the parking lot at this apartment complext is filthy from drunken college students throwing their beer bottles all over the place just to hear the glass break, so perhaps a piece of glass got lodged in the tire somehow? I had to jack the car up, but that was a challenge because the side of the car which had the flat tire was completely rusted out. I had to find a different place to put the jack and even when I jacked up the car in a more stable spot, the weight of the car on the jack bent the metal underneeth the passenger side (back of car). While I was jacking the car up, all kinds of rust kept falling from the bottom of the car. I was expecting something to fall off...like my door maybe! I had a hard time getting the hub cap off and ended up breaking it. Then because the bolts were a bit rusty, it was hard to losen them. I finally got the bolts off, but one more problem remained! The tire would not budge; it would not come off very easily. I had to take a hammer and pound on the metal to losen up the rust. Once I did that, the tire came off. I put on the spare tire and I parked my car in a place that is a little more clean (i.e. not as much debris). So now that I've spent way too much money getting the gas leak fixed, now I have to spend even more money to get a new tire. This is going to be a very expensive year for me. I think everyone is going to get Dollar Store christmas presents this year. The roter of the car

Hurricane Rita (remnants)	9.26.2005
Hurricane Rita has finally paid a visit to Rochester, NY. Although not in it's massively destructuve form, the rain left over has finally made it's way up here. Rochester gets its fair share of rain and snow during the year, but this year it's been more sunny and pleasant compared to last year when I moved into my townhouse. I have to say, this fall has been great! it's so nice to sit at my computer during the day and have the breeze on a sunny day blow by me. I have my computer set up in a corner, next to my bedroom window and it's a very nice set up. Usually, my office is in a dark, damp basement where the only outside light I have coming into the room comes from a very small window towards the top of the wall. But tonight I get to listen to the rain falling, which is nice and relaxing. It'll be pleasant to [try to] fall asleep listening to the rain for a while.... At least until someone decides to drive their car really fast past my apartment, which is something the guys who are really desperate for attention do. That happens often which forces me to close my very sound resistant window shut just to get some sleep! Here's the map and the remnants of hurricane Rita. AccuWeather.com

Getting in the Swing of thangs	9.14.2005
Well, I'm back at RIT finishing my last year of my masters program! I'm still just getting in the swing of things. I have a hard time adjusting to the quarter system here and all of a sudden I find myself with an overwhelming amount of reading and project work. This year I am being funded from a Xerox grant for eye tracking research. I feel very lucky to have received this research assistantship because RIT is not a research school. I also feel lucky because last year I also received funding as a graduate assistant! I definately have my work cut out for me with the eye tracking research! There is a lot that needs to be done! Courses I'm currently taking this quarter User Centered Design Interactive Digital Media Visit my Interactive Digital Media web page! Last weekend I was able to get off campus and go to a winery called, Casa Larga, where I was able to take a tour of their winery and taste a few of their wines. I especially liked their ice wine and learned that this wine is very sweet because they let the grapes stay on the vine until January. They let the grapes freeze wich allows the grape to get very sweet! This is a wine that you don't want to have a full glass of because it is so very rich. A shot glass is all you need. I consider this to be a dessert wine....but I don't know very much about wine at this point.

CAPTCHA - the anti-turing test	8.4.2005
I found some cool reading about those form verification tools which Yahoo & myspace use to thwart automated account creations caused by web robots! The Specific tool I'm talking about is called CAPTCHA. Justin Thorp, a fellow RIT friend lead me to this article titled, "Inaccessibility of CAPTCHA", from the World Wide Web Consortium's (www.W3.org) Web Accessibility Initiative's website. CAPTCHA stands for Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart!! Phew! That's a long acronym! I'm thinking of incorporating this tool for the SPNSCC website I'm working on despite it's concerns about people with dissabilities having possible restricted ability to use this security measure. CAPTCHA research originated at Carnogie Mellon University. You can find their website on this project here.

Red Box @ McDonalds	6.30.2005
This is kinda funny! In my last post, I talked about the documentary film called 'Super Size Me' which basically made me decide I would not eat at McDonalds again...if I could help it. But now I've discovered the 'Red Box' at McDonalds. The Red Box is just a dvd rental vending machine that lets you rent movies for $1/day for each movie rented. So now I've been going to McDonalds to rent movies. Of course I have my reasons for renting these movies which shall not be discussed here. Needless to say, I'm addicted to renting movies at the Red Box at my local McDonalds. I hope not to promote McDonalds again on this site in the future, but this vending machine thing is very cool. It's about time we get those here! When I was in Japan, they had a bunch of video vending machine 'stores' where people could rent movies just by using their credit card! I thought that was pretty cool and now I'm glad to see it here as well!

Super Size Me	6.24.2005
I just finished watching the documentary film, 'Super Size Me' and am a little disturbed. This documentary is about the fast food industry (namely McDonalds) and America's obesity problem. In this film, Morgan Spurlock eats McDonalds for 1 month straight; 3 square meals a day! During his experiment, he gains 5-10 pounds each week and his cholestoral also increases to dangerous levels. I haven't eaten McDonalds for a very very long time, however I have eaten at other fast food restaurants. This film has definately made me a born again eater. I don't think I will touch another fast food burger again! I highly recommend seeing this documentary film. It will open your eyes just a little bit. I say a little bit because I think we are all aware of how nasty and unhealthy fast food is for all of us. The information presented in the film shouldn't be an eye opener but it definately should put the way we eat and what we eat in the for front of our minds. In the bonus feature section of the DVD, Morgan compares the molding/rotting prosses of various McDonalds hamburgers & fries and compares those with a hamburger & fries made the old fashioned way; with regular meat & potatoes in a kitchen. Over a 10 week period this experiment resulted in the homemade food rotting very quickly as compared with the McDonalds products. He highlighted the fact that the McDonalds fries never rotted; they looked the same in week 10 as they did when he first purchased them. The homemade fries didn't last more than a week or two. I have to throw my bullshit flag at Morgan's experiment and comments about the McDonalds fries. He claims that there is something very wrong with fries that don't seem to rot. He failed to even mention that there was probably a ton of salt on the McDonalds fries which as some of us may already know that historically salt has been used as a way to help preserve food (way back when we didn't have refridgeration). The homemade fries probably didn't have any salt on them what so ever! So his experiment may have at first appeared to be alarming! I mean, what's up with the french fries that don't mold? It's the frickin salt you idiot!!! Overall, a good documentary film.