"What a day for landlording" written by Paul on estrip.org

07/15/05 06:09 - 87ºF - ID#32096

What a day for landlording

It is so hot out. We are doing all kinds of landlord work today. We ended up moving the laundry machine out of the bathroom and renting the apartment to Rosa the Cubana. Now we are working on creating a shower solution for a previously bathtub only bathroom. Being a landlord is lots of work. Other than that the sidekick offcially melted today. The keyboard actually melted in the sun. After speaking with (e:shawnr) I realized that I can use my old sidekick with my tmobile sim card.

I think I will finally be able to be mobilly online again although I may take (e:shawnr) up on his offer for his old motorola if it has any possiblilty of being a modem for my laptop.. Last night I wrote some software for (e:shawnr) to moblog video, audio and images from his new phone. I will add it to the site this week, so that he can video blog right here on estrip. Maybe someday it will be useful for me when I get the treo of my dreams.

The tortoise had fun running around outside all over today. he seemed so confused having absolutely no limit to where he went but quickly resorted to sniffing and eating everything. I miss not having a picture phone to blog from. I think having the old sidekick will be much better than no phone at all.

Thesis, I thought about it today at least when talking with Katie my creative neighbor. On sunday me and (e:jason) are going to hang the elmwood banner up across from Spot Coffee. I wonder what effect it will have on the number of users. I am torn between wanting a million more and the dealing with the responsibilty of a million more.

Permalink: What_a_day_for_landlording.html
Words: 299
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: peeptalk

07/14/05 11:13 - 80ºF - ID#32095

Ajay's moving on

Well (e:ajay) [inlink]ajay,376[/inlink], I am definately not forcing you to leave because you moved. I think moving away is a huge part of the Buffalo experience for so many people and it is precisely having a journal here that allowed for some people to keep in contact with us here in Buffalo in life after Buffalo.

However, I do understand that you would want to move along espcially workin gat yahoo, although now I am confused after reading your journal that said you are looking for a job?

Don't forget to chime back in every once and a while to let us know what life after Buffalo is like. We will miss you :)

Permalink: Ajay_s_moving_on.html
Words: 114
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: web

07/14/05 02:00 - 90ºF - ID#32094

Live Jail Booking Cam in Anderson

So I was searching the buffalo bills fan club site

when I noticed they had a radio link. I decided to check it out and found that they also have some web cams in there. But can you believe this, they have a web cam for the Anderson County Jail. That seems really unethical to me that the jail is allowed to broadcast these images publically.

and if I was one of the police in the cam it would bother me just as much. You will need windows media player to view it. Unfortunately, windows won't let me make a screen capture of it. Maybe someone else can?

Permalink: Live_Jail_Booking_Cam_in_Anderson.html
Words: 114
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: games

07/14/05 01:03 - 82ºF - ID#32093

Sexually Explicit Drama

SAN FRANCISCO, July 13 (Reuters) - The maker of the video game, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, said on Wednesday that hackers were responsible for a downloadable modification that enabled sexually explicit minigames to be played in the game.

The modification, which allows simulated sex in the PC version of the game, has led to an investigation by the industry ratings board.

Rockstar Games, a subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive Software, said that it was investigating ways to increase the security protection of the source code and prevent the game from being altered.Quoted from: Hackers Modify PC Game - New York Times

Apparently, the company wrote the scene but then removed it from the game. Someone then leaked a code to the internet that re-enabled the scene. I read Hillary Clinton is taking the company Rockstar to court. If that is true, it is outrageous does she not have better issues to deal with right now like the fact we have no money upstate and our hospitals are having to store medical waste becaus ethe company thats take sit refuses to take any more till they get paid. Furthermore, the game is already pretty violent and questionable, so parents who are even concerned about sex scenes in the game should really already be worried that their kids are even playing the game in the first place.

Also, if you think about the fact that kids have to download this code from the internet in order to see the sexually explicit modifications then have to also consider they have pretty unlimited internet access and can download any other sexually explicit stuff they want. I guarntee if a kid is about to download and install a sexually explicit patch onto a video game they can type sex into google image search with filtering disabled.

I hate to write this for fear that someone picks up on it, but should google be sued for enabling minors to get sexually explicit material. I mean maybe you should have to enter in a credit card number or your ID to get sexually explicit search results. Think about that. If you were 16 and went to the corner store and paged through a hustler magazine or tried to buy one, the store could seriously get in trouble, right?

Permalink: Sexually_Explicit_Drama.html
Words: 389
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: artvoice

07/14/05 10:24 - 84ºF - ID#32092

Artvoice Survey for best of 2005

Why is it that the artvoice best of 2005 contest

has 166 dynamically loading questions on one page. So many people keep telling me they can't even vote because their computers can't deal with such a large page. Even on broadband it takes a while. I would have the questions cached as html until a new question is added instead of being dynamically generated each time (I only suspect this by the way it loads) and definately, break it into sections for each category e.g. dining has its own page. I hope that enough people can get through to vote. Maybe they should hire me to be their web deisgner. I only want 30k/year and a hosting space for estrip.

Who are some of the other "blogs". Some of them don't even show up on the web like lake.com. And what about digitup.com. I love them - I mean I agree with them and think they have a great cause getting rid of nuclear waste but it is in west valley. I don't know if that counts as local so much. I hope we win! Vote if you haven''t

Permalink: Artvoice_Survey_for_best_of_2005.html
Words: 239
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: estrip

07/12/05 08:52 - 92ºF - ID#32091

e:strip's future after the thesis

In this case I am refering to the code running the site and not the site or community itself.

I think after some time documenting and organzing I am going to make an (e:strip) lite that is totally open source and comes with an installer. It is already pretty simply customizeable, it will just require some cleaning up and some documenting. I mean, for many communities it would be exactly the thing they need to maintain contact without having to program anything. It pretty much just requires PHP and MySQL and what doesn't these days. Wel all the RoR stuff I guess.

My biggest concern is security. I just don't like everyone knowing how this site works because I feel it gives them a major advantage if they wanted to ever hack it. That has consisently been my problem with open source projects. Also, I hate giving up control of something that is so my little baby. Another thing that kills is that I can't stand the fact that people will some how profit off my my hard work.

I know that technically I can make it so that people can't legally use my code for for-profit endeavours but that doesn't mean anything. I have seen so many of my students just rip code off the net for commercial projects and just take the credits out. Hell, I have even seen other professors using non-commerical open source code for commercial projects with the idea that no one will ever know what's going on behind the scenes. It makes me want to kill.

Permalink: e_strip_s_future_after_the_thesis.html
Words: 263
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: poetry

07/12/05 06:21 - 92ºF - ID#32090

Deleting Stuff and the Haiku

I am deleting and organizing stuff to make myself feel better. i guess it is my version of shopping [inlink]hodown,165[/inlink] Along the way I found the code for the xml version of my haiku writer. It is the last remaining copy of the code. I gave it a wrile and I got this.

submitted worried ,
about publish able what ,
be to seem want blog .

I think it really sums up how I feel these days. I deleted all the code that used to run the "advertising" module that I never wanted.

Permalink: Deleting_Stuff_and_the_Haiku.html
Words: 93
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: thesis

07/12/05 04:59 - 92ºF - ID#32089

Heat Wave

Can anyone else work when it is 92 degrees out and you thought it was bad in DC (e:southernyankee)

I am supposed to be writing my thesis today but all I can think about is developing new web applications and moving the server. Unfortunately, moving the server is far more complicated than I thought and I am not so sure if I want to do it anymore. It means I would have to get rid of vonage, cancel adelphia, and order a verizon phone line. Then I could apply for DSL but they can't promise any speed until after I have a phone line, but I don't really want the phone line if the DSL isn't going to be fast enough. I really need a solution now I am tired of uploading.

I guess when I look back on this time period I am either going to be really happy about what I accomplished or really hate myself for letting it control my life. (e:shawnr) got me to look around the web some more at what is going on and I still feel like a country mouse developer in the land of the city mice with my stupid VPS.

Permalink: Heat_Wave.html
Words: 200
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: friends

07/11/05 09:58 - 86ºF - ID#32088

Josephine has a baby

I am so jealous of Josephine. Looking at the baby made me want a baby. Maybe ten years from now though. They look so happy.

I also started writing my thesis finally. I have made it about 10 pages long today only 50 more to go. Tomorrow I am taking the plunge and buying Verizon Business DSL service to host the site at home. If it doesn't work I am going to cry. If anyone feels like donating to help defray the cost you can click ont he donate button at the top of the page. Or maybe someone knows of somewhere with some dark fibre I can use for free. That would be even better.

It is about $99/month but having it at home might mean that I have more free time n my life and can also offer better services. The only thing is that I hope 768k up is going to be enough.

Permalink: Josephine_has_a_baby.html
Words: 156
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: thesis

07/12/05 08:51 - 87ºF - ID#32087

Silly Thesis Paul is for Programming

If programming and designing the site and developing the community was like eating a large delicious meal, then writing the thesis feels like the disgusting burp that leads to a little vomit after you eat too much. There is too much to talk about and not enough interest on my part about talking about it. I might need some of you to fill out a survey so that I have some more background information on why you use the site, etc.

I can't wait till this process is over. I have another 40 days to make it happen. I just have nothing to offer over what the sociologists have already said three million times. Maybe I will have some sort of inspiration. What really kills me is that I spent $70,000 to feel this crappy.