Get better soon!

A chain of rants in (e:metalpeter,55007) make me want to throw down this self-improvement challenge.

I am ready to
a) give up salt for however long it takes
b) start doing push-ups all over again everyday for however long it takes

if someone else wants to give up something or take up something with me and be accountable for that here. It has to be something that is causing you harm or is damaging your life or is negatively influencing your life to some extent.

Too much salt and not enough muscle definitely are negative influences on mine.

Who is up for this little last-quarter goal-setting?

This is it! (e:Matthew), you need to enter the André Rieu photography contest!


Sign up on Rieu's site.

DO it now!!
Think of all the glory if you are picked!!

I felt it and I thought, wow the wind must really be picking up in Buffalo. Guess it was really an earthquake and not just the building showing its age and resonating with the wind.



LOL@ this comment on the story:

Soon to be former Buffalo schools superintendent James Willians was seen jumping up & down in a temper tantrum b/c he could not get anyone to help pack his belongings...

Seriously, do people stalk the Buffalo news site just to post stuff like this? Hahah

Last Visit 2011-08-23 05:16:36 |Start Date 2007-04-01 15:09:25 |Comments 7,566 |Entries 733 |Images 1,235 |Sounds 29 |SWF 1 |Videos 171 |Mobl 9 |

This is the longest I have been on any website anytime in all of my www existence. I feel seldom bound to any online service or site unless it's for work/school or its services are just irreplaceable. I guess knowing everyone in person has made a difference here.

I feel more at home because of you all. :)

I lost my primary credit card yesterday somewhere between home and pricerite. But take a look at who checked out my last transaction...


I cancelled it. Hopefully, whoever found it didn't have a chance to use it before they froze transactions. It was lucky that the card was not entered into the cash-from-ATM scheme.

Lucky or if you believe that last transaction... hehe.

For reference the sound card on my PanP7 is:

cat /proc/asound/card0/codec* | grep Codec

Codec: Realtek ALC272
Codec: Motorola Si3054

It has the most crappy output with ALSA sound server. The front mic used with a mic booster produces an extremely high pitched sound. I am sure it is capable of killing all bats in a 10 mile radius and driving all humans crazy or deaf or both.

The driver is meant for these following platforms. From /usr/share/doc/alsa-base/driver/HD-Audio-Models.txt.gz:

ALC662/663/272
==============
3stack-dig     3-stack (2-channel) with SPDIF
3stack-6ch     3-stack (6-channel)
3stack-6ch-dig 3-stack (6-channel) with SPDIF
6stack-dig     6-stack with SPDIF
lenovo-101e     Lenovo laptop
eeepc-p701     ASUS Eeepc P701
eeepc-ep20      ASUS Eeepc EP20
ecs         ECS/Foxconn mobo
m51va         ASUS M51VA
g71v         ASUS G71V
h13          ASUS H13
g50v         ASUS G50V
asus-mode1      ASUS
asus-mode2     ASUS
asus-mode3     ASUS
asus-mode4     ASUS
asus-mode5     ASUS
asus-mode6     ASUS
dell         Dell with ALC272
dell-zm1     Dell ZM1 with ALC272
samsung-nc10     Samsung NC10 mini notebook
auto         auto-config reading BIOS (default)

The problem is the regular sound output is extremely low. I can bet that if I put windows on this machine, the speakers will come to life. But that is just not happening with ALSA. The alternative is OSS, which I tried but had so many problems, I had to return to ALSA. I could install pulseaudio but pulseaudio has such crazy whims and fancies it is impossible to predict what will stop or start working next. It's a just a sound card, not some rocket science. Linux sound drivers just aren't up to snuff yet.

I hate rainy cloudy days like today. I hate them so much. They increase my panic over trivial things. I have my windows open and some MORON is smoking on top of all this. It makes me livid. I detest the smell of cigarette smoke and it makes me angry when I have no control over people who just force me to smell and breathe it against my will. I wish I could just go out, break their cancer-stick into pieces and strangle them right there. I have NO goodwill for smokers who continue to smoke in a CLEARLY marked NON-SMOKING building!

It's grossly unfair to the non smokers who pay with their health. We don't share your poor habits and your lack of motivation to quit so please don't poison us with your toxins.

I hate you smoker whoever you are. I wish you all the very nasty of gloom today and a complete lack of any good luck whatsoever. You deserve to be despised and I completely loathe your habit.

I am considering getting this sunshine simulator: I am not sure I have full blown seasonal affective disorder but I definitely don't like gloomy days and would like a sunlight simulator instead of or in addition to the regular CFL bulbs I have on all my lamps.

Presenting another exclusive episode of...

The world My shoe closet according to (e:Paul,54985).

I think (e:paul) was wondering how businesses actually make money from Groupon...

From:

What is missing in the typical narrative about Groupon – the one promoted by the company – is the “counterfactual”. The counterfactual is a powerful concept embedded in statistical theory. In order to evaluate the data in front of us, we must imagine an alternative world (the counterfactual) in which we allow the data to present themselves differently. To understand how medicine X might affect you, you can't just measure what happened after you took medicine X; you must also consider what might have happened if you took medicine Y and/or nothing at all.

So, instead of just thinking about the new customers brought in by Groupon, we must also consider the world without Groupon. In the world without Groupon, the regulars pay $100 for their meals, and the new customers pay $0 or some other amount (if Giorgio’s has other ways to attract them). This allows us to realize that the insertion of Groupon into that world would lower the intake from regulars while simultaneously raising the intake from new customers. For the merchant, whether Groupon is a net benefit depends on the balance between those two numbers.

This is related to the concept of opportunity cost in economics. When evaluating the value of an investment, we can’t just tally up the returns of said investment; we have to compare those returns to the returns of doing something else such as keeping the money in the bank.