Author: sheldon

Party like it’s 1999 (LAN party that is!)

Yesterday I checked the status of my House Party application for the Windows 7 Launch Party I was hyping up with several friends and was *sorely* disappointed to see a red dot and something about how it wasn’t going to happen and how there were lot of applicants and they were sorry blah blah blah.  I had been thinking about my funny retort and how MS dropped the ball once again!  I was going to use the following key phrases:

  • LAN Party
  • Carne Asada (thin sliced marinated beef for the people not from AZ)
  • XBOX 360 Halo with 4 players!  I have 4 controllers already.
  • Try to convince a friend to bring his flat screen and XBox 360 for 8 player action!
  • At least 3 of my computers set up with Windows 7 (for demos and maybe we can play Halo or some other game with the XBox people) and a few others set up for some AoE action late in the night!
  • I already have a Kegerator with Kiltlifter and it’s more than 50% full!

It was going to be an epic post!  But then look what happened:

ActiveApplicant

I’m an “Active Applicant”!  Don’t let me down Microsoft!

Sheldon

P.S.  I know MS has no control over getting me a party invite but I’m going to blame them anyway if I don’t get in.

Blocking is broken in Google Chat on Gmail

Gmail changed my life and I have no right to complain . . . but this is driving me crazy!

I try to block people (using the chat interface there on the left) and it doesn’t work . . . they still show up and can see I’m online and then when I go back to check they are not blocked.   Plus, people that have more than one email address show up on the chat list several times I guess once for every email address.  That’s annoying but I can deal with it.

It all happened around the time that Google Contacts came out (even before the cool, easy to remember URL).  I wish I could submit a bug report or something.

UPDATE:  I just tried to block again to verify it wasn’t working and now it looks like it *IS* working.  We’ll see though.  Now I just need to figure out who is blocked and who isn’t.

Sheldon

Email and programming

Jim and I occasionally talk about programming by email where I’ll ask a question or describe a situation and he’ll tell me I’m wrong.  And sometimes he’ll email me asking about some old programming language and I’ll rattle off some stuff and he’ll gleam enough to remember the right answer.  It works great because later on when he needs help with his sprinkler system or some problem with his toilet or a ceiling fan I’m right there with the magic fix!

Anyway, today I had a question about “constraints” in c# and his answer was awesome! So I told him we should post it to stackoverflow.com but that we should reformat the question so it doesn’t look like I’m a dumb ass.

Jim proposed that he post my question and that I post his answer . . .  so that’s what we did. I hope my boy Jeff doesn’t get mad and take it down!  I need the rep Jeff!

I wish I could post the original email because it’s pretty funny but I’d have to cut though the inside jokes that are funny to us but probably offensive to outsiders. I’m sure Google will make it public and search-able someday!

Sheldon

P.S.  No, I don’t know Jeff Atwood (used full name so that his ego search will find this) but he replied to my email once so now we are best friends.

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Categorized as Programming

The evils of Google Checkout

Google Checkout is evil.  No, seriously.  Bad newz!

Whenever I see a site where I can buy something with Google Checkout I know it’s going to be easy and I won’t have to enter my billing address and my shipping address and my cc number and one more password for a site that I’ll never go to again.  It’s too easy.  I know PayPal provides about the same service but for some reason I never ran into Paypal very often.

So just now I just spent $15 at some online retailer and it was too easy . . . if I would have had to sign up for some new account and entered all my data I would have thought twice and never spent that $15.  Damn you Google Checkout!

Sheldon

Scott Adams: believer, philosophist, cartoonist

Man, this guy cracks me up:

“First, if you are American, and you believe the deficit means certain doom, you should cash in all of your investments and move into some sort of survivalist encampment, or to a country that has less of a budget problem. You don’t want to pay your share of the $19 trillion. So if you aren’t already packing to leave, maybe you are just saying you think the ballooning national debt is the end of us all, but you really think we’ll figure a way out of it. This might be similar to saying you believe in Jesus but for some reason you refuse to give most of your money to the needy. There’s a difference between real believing and whatever the heck the other thing is.”

I’m always amazed at people who are so sure of themselves when it come to politics, religion, etc and yet when someone trys to point out their failed logic they still somehow have a way to justify their belief.  I was no fan of Bush (mostly the later as I was a kid when the former was president) but I do think he had the interest of America at heart even as he was allowing our soldiers to die for a war he should have never started.  And if Bush later changes his mind and says that MAYBE, just maybe he was wrong, well, that just can’t happen and it’s too bad.