AskLG

Another day in the academia grind. The highlight of the day was definitely hitting up the gym. Enough about me, its time for tech news!

OK, this isn’t exactly ‘tech,’ but its fascinating anyways. In the game of “who has bigger balls and deeper pockets,” it seems we have a temporary winner with Prince al-Walid bin Talal. He’s forking over money to build the worlds tallest building nearly a mile high. Technically speaking, its 5,250 feet which is just shy of the 5,280 feet required to be considered a mile. So you people scared of flying but wanting to join the mile high club will just have to wait a little longer. More on this story at Gizmodo.  Here’s a picture of the proposed monster-tower:

Also, LifeHack has written a great article summing up tips and tricks for writers and bloggers alike.  If you blog or just like to write, its a must read to find out how you can make your material better.  Click, here, for more about writing productivity.

I know today wasn’t very opinionated or personal, but I’m swamped with work.   I promise some better material soon.

Have you ever been in a situation where you wish you know what to do but didn’t? Well now that you’ve already gone through it, here it is for everyone else

Traveling by:

Airplane

TSA is the PTB! (Powers That Be) They tell you want you can and can not bring on to the plane. For example, you can now bring liquids and gels on the plane(carry-on) as long as you have 3 oz or less. 3 oz= 85 grams, which is slightly more than 1/3 cup. This isn’t to say you can’t bring it at all. Every needs to brush their teeth and bathe so how does one bring it with them? It’s simple, just check it in. Just do us all a favor and make sure you have room for it in your suitcase, luggage, or whatever you check in.

Something else you should know is how to mark your luggage. My family and I use neon green and red tape to help use differentiate the luggage on the conveyor. I’ve seen some items wrapped with “Caution” tape that the police use. ($5.49 at Lowe’s) Another traveling heuristic is to use check-in luggage that is larger (greater dimensions) than what you carry-on, seriously.

http://www.tsa.gov/travelers/airtravel/prohibited/permitted-prohibited-items.shtm#4

Please, if you don’t follow my advice then at least read the safety brochure on the plane. You don’t want to fiddling around when the ___ has the fan. Read it thoroughly, upside down, and backwards.

Car

1) Always always always have some sort of entertainment albeit an ipod, cd’s, person you’re riding with, or movie

2) Make sure you can tolerate the entertainment through out the duration of the trip. There is nothing worse than repeating what you just did for an hour three more times!

3) Know how much fuel you will need and all the spots to tank up

Boat

Enjoy the ride

Gaming:

THE CPU CHEATS! Accept it. I don’t care how advanced something is it is not as beneficial as practicing in real life. Obviously there are some exceptions but for the most part this holds true

Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A (select) Start

Playing while ___ doesn’t make you better but will help make for a better time (In no way am I suggesting people drink habitually or abuse alcohol)

Exits

Knowing all of your outs with poker, buildings, and with people are extremely important. Wouldn’t you believe it’s “that one time” you didn’t have a Twix that you needed it the most. Let’s not get caught with our candy wrappers down folks.

Evolutionairy Biology and it’s implications on our human psyche

Read about it. It’s faster this way

Greatness

You have tapped into an invaluable source of knowledge and experience. The problem is that your friends don’t know about me or our council. Why deprive them of the mental nutrients they can use to flourish into a well rounded person? Go now and tell everyone of the joys, widgets, and wonders that is Asklg. Yes, we are the widgets the economists speak of muah ha ha ha…. I don’t know about that last one.

Click the link to read the spoilers for the 4/3/08 and 4/10/08 Impact shows. (more…)

Looks like I predicted six out of the nine matches right. See what matches were correct and the ones I got wrong by reading the results here. (more…)

Earlier today, I was browsing the internets (namely Twitter) looking at people’s blogs.  I came across a video from a Houston developer.

Its actually not bad for a rap about tech.  I mean.. if you think about it, technology is hella hard to rap about.  Kudos. 

Found on Justine’s blog. 

WWE Championship - Triple Threat Match
Triple H vs. Randy Orton (c) vs. John Cena
(Winner: Randy Orton. The reason why I picked Orton is because I really don’t want to see Triple H or Cena back on top right now. Triple H dominated the world title scene along with Cena for nearly the whole decade. Triple H is doing the right thing by stepping down a bit and letting other stars shine. Cena shouldn’t have it right now because they should give it to him after a long drawn out fued with Orton.)

World Heavyweight Championship - Title vs. Streak
Edge (c) vs. The Undertaker
(Winner: Undertaker. It was going to end in one of two ways. Undertaker wants to keep his streak intact before he retires and he was set to have a decent run as champion last year but the injury put those plans on the back burner or Undertaker was going to win by DQ with Edge still retaining the belt and the Deadman’s streak remains alive.)

The Best vs. The Biggest
Floyd ‘Money’ Mayweather vs. The Big Show
(Winner: Floyd Mayweather. They spent twenty million dollars on Mayweather to do this match and why would he accept it if he was going to lose.)

Career Threatening Match
Shawn Michaels vs. Ric Flair
(Winner: Shawn Michaels. After Flair being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, having him lose at Wrestlemania is the best way to end his illustrious thirty-six year career.)

Money In The Bank Ladder Match
John Morrison vs. CM Punk vs. Carlito vs. Shelton Benjamin vs. Mr. Kennedy vs. Montel Vontavious Porter vs. Chris Jericho
(Winner: Mr. Kennedy. This was hard to decide. My original pick was Jeff Hardy, but that changed when he was suspended. So it came down to either CM Punk or Kennedy. I picked Kennedy because of the way he didn’t get to use it last year.)

SmackDown! vs. RAW
Batista vs. Umaga
(Winner: Batista. Umaga is the resident main event jobber.)

ECW Championship
Chavo Guerrero (c) vs. Kane
(Winner: Kane. Kane won a twenty-four man battle royal prior to Wrestlemania. I don’t think he will win the title, but he will win either by count out or DQ.)

Belfast Brawl
Finlay vs. John ‘Bradshaw’ Layfield
(Winner: Finlay. I picked Finaly because of him getting revenge against JBL for what he did to his son, Hornswoggle. Plus, I’m counting on Hornswoggle to make his return and help Finlay to win the match.)

Playboy Bunnymania
‘The Glamazon’ Beth Phoenix & Melina vs. Ashley Massaro & Maria
(Winner: Maria & Ashley. The simple fact is the WWE don’t seem to take the women’s division seriously and make it seem like a joke. Ashley and Maria will win because this match is based on Maria’s Playboy cover spread. The faces will win because the win will help promote the sale of Maria’s Playboy cover and besides a loss wouldn’t look good if they are spending so much time hyping this match based on her spread.)

Apparently we had some issues with our servers yesterday. Sorry about that.Our host, Webover, fixed it late in the wee hours, so we’re back up and running full force today :)In other news, our Alexa traffic ratings have gone up. Thanks to everyone that visits the site. We really do appreciate it. My goal is to get much higher, but for less than a year of serious blogging I can’t complain. Again Thanks

I had no class today (Yes!) so I set off to solve a long time issue I had with my life: Calendar syncing. When I am at home, I love the beauty and power of my desktop calendar, iCal. When I’m out at conferences or meetings, I take my Mac with me. No issues there. Since I don’t carry my Mac everywhere I go though, sometimes I become calendar-less. When you’re as busy (or forgetful) as I am, this is an issue. Enter the convenience of my web-based Calendar, Google Calendar. Any calendar will do, I’m sure Yahoo has a nice calendar app as well, but I’m used to gCal. Sometimes though, you just need a personal assistant. Seriously, we are all busy people. If only I could afford someone to help me plan and remember things. Oh yeah, those crazy Values of N people created Sandy (the personal assistant). So now I have my personal calendar at home, my internet calendar for school and work related information, and Sandy as my personal assistant. My life could be so organized, but its not. I spend a good amount of time keeping these all synced together by hand. There has to be a better way! Yesterday, when I briefly mentioned FuseCal, Matt (from FuseCal) left a comment mentioning CalDAV. I must say, that made me curious and led me to the solution today.

(more…)

Its becoming quite apparent that I am one of the slower ones in my high school graduation class.  Several of my friends are engaged.  Many are either married or are having their weddings this year (some in ‘09).  Also, of the married (and even some non-married) couples, a few are having babies.  All the while, I don’t even have a girlfriend.  Granted most of the recent past, it has been by choice.  Is it odd I’m not even remotely considering catching up?  Heh.  Maybe I’ll at least open the opportunity of dating someone.  She’d have to be awesome though.  We’ll see.  Anyways, good Luck to all those couples.  You know who you are.

In other news,  I thought I found a solution for an iCal to Google Calendar sync tonight.  While reading ReadWriteWeb, I noticed an article covering a new calendar app called FuseCal.  Its pretty cool, but definitely not a two way sync.  Oh well the search continues!

FuseCal is nice in is own right, though.  You can sync multiple online calendars into one mass feed, similar to how FriendFeed syndicates social content.  You can also use this calendar event feed to make a calendar for your website.  Cool indeed.  Plus all the features are included in an alpha environment.  I’m sure more will come when they make the jump to Beta.  RWW’s coverage is here. FuseCal is here.

As technology grows and the internet becomes more intertwined in our society’s culture, the FBI feels it must use this to its advantage to find law breakers.  This is a reasonable assumption, assuming they are within legal bounds to catch the criminals in the act.  Over the years, some groups have formed to combat child pornography, such as the ASACP.  Child pornography still exists on the internet and is available for download by any random individuals who wish to obtain it.  Yes, the good side hasn’t won yet.

To combat this, America’s wondrous, law abiding (ha!) investigative organization, otherwise known as the FBI, has decided to use a new technological concept to catch these perverts in the act of trying to obtain online child pornography.  The FBI  has concocted and staged (fancy term for hosted a website) their own child porn websites which log access attempts.  Agents then trolled message boards and chat rooms alike placing links to “Child Porn” as bait for unsuspecting individuals.  One of these individuals, Roderick Vosburgh, clicked on the link and is now being sentenced for trying to obtain child pornography online.  The FBI used the link as a crutch to get the conviction.  Thats fine, one more pervert behind bars, right?  Not exactly.

Like Ars Technica reported,  anyone can be RickRoll’d into going to these staged servers.  For those who’ve never heard of Rick Rolling, basically you send a link to someone saying something completely different than the link takes you to.  For example, I can send you a link titled: Nikki Jean.  You click on it thinking you’re about to see a music video or one of her daily videos, and you end up at some random disgusting video or worse (government-owned child porn site)!  Well you clicked on the link, so you go to jail for 10 years!  Thats the basis and all it takes for a conviction.

Obviously this leads us to a few other technological tactics.  Spam mail seems to be a prime place for some government placed links.  A government owned botnet would be pretty annoying.  How about some fake torrents on The Pirate Bay?  They already even have agents trolling AIM and chat rooms to talk to people for years waiting on someone to do something illegal.

If this trend continues, eventually you wouldn’t know if this blog is actually run by me or the government.  We might not be able to tell free-willed news from government influenced reports.  We could eventually become as paranoid as China.  Obviously this is an exaggeration, but it makes you think how far the government can go to trick individuals into doing something illegal.  It also makes me wonder how little evidence they need for a jury to pass a criminal judgment.  Have we become that much of a negative society thinking everyone is guilty of something illegal?  Where’s the love?