Well the sick days are running out so I better get well soon. I seriously cannot go to work when I am this gross. I am sniffly, sneezy, coughing gross.

I spent the morning touching up some of my old portfolio. It is a relic because it is the only web thing I have going on where ethe data and the markup are all mixed together into an actual static document. It's been that way for about three years. Every other thing I have on the web is some sort of content admin based system where the data is stored in neat little database tables. I supposed I could easily convert it, but there is some sense of nostalgia to an actual web page. At least having one of them. I mean even it is divided up into server side includes but still.

I still have to deal with the content itself but for now this is the new style.



Last night I finally figured out how to make GPS and my phone play good together. Sometime soon something good will come out of my obsession with GPS. I am just trying to decide what. I think a part of the Remember BUffalo Porject will be based on it.

[size=m]Paul's Sick Soup Recipe[/size]
I have eaten this soup each day I am sick, it makes me feel better. Once again the proportions are probably not very helpful but it tastes good.



1 box of chicken broth
some salt
lots of group pepper
a bunch of olive oil
some greens or brocolli florrets (escarole, spinich, whatever)
about 6 cloves of garlic sliced
a lot of shrimp
some pastina

boil it all togther accept the pastina. Once it smells good, very soon after beginning and the water is boiling well, just throw in some pastina and let them cook. Then eat it.

Sprinkle liberally with grated parmesean chesse (hint: conservatively == bad even with parmesean cheese)

BEfore you read this - I ended up helping him more - he turned out to be cool and from denmark - we chatted a lot.

This is the moblog



I guss everyone hates their own countries

17:57] paulsidekick: the farthest north I ever got was kopenhagen
[17:58] paccer01: i live in copenhagen :)
[17:58] paulsidekick: cool
[17:58] paccer01: but im tired of denmark
[17:58] paulsidekick: why
[17:58] paulsidekick: i always thought it seems so great
[17:58] paulsidekick: compared to amerika
[17:58] paulsidekick: i rememerb when I was in germany
[17:58] paulsidekick: they built that bridge
[17:58] paccer01: i hate people in denmark
[17:58] paccer01: i mean
[17:59] paulsidekick: bridging part of denmark
[17:59] paulsidekick: and people seems so excited about their community and their country
[17:59] paulsidekick: compared to here
[17:59] paccer01: if someone falls - people look away pretend they didn't see it... and denmark is pretty racist too
[17:59] paccer01: hate it
[17:59] paulsidekick: oh ya
[17:59] paulsidekick: racist i can believe
[17:59] paulsidekick: i went dancing one time
[17:59] paulsidekick: with some turkish students
[17:59] paulsidekick: when we went to denkamrk
[17:59] paulsidekick: and they wouldnt let themn in the club with us
[17:59] paulsidekick: it was horrible
[17:59] paulsidekick: i was liek fuck you nazis
[18:00] paccer01: pisses me off
[18:00] paulsidekick: is weird
[18:00] paccer01: and you also live in denmark without knowing your neighbour.. and people looks like your insane if you smile at someone
[18:00] paulsidekick: here too
[18:01] paccer01: i wanna move to australia, i think


So I get an IM while laying there sick as hell and figure its twisted so I answered for once. Then it's some dude who read online that I solved (e:shawnr)'s nokia 3220 corrupt jpeg problem and wanted help although I had posted the solution online.

I originally hadn't responded to his email because he ask for a procedural version of the script and I refused to produce it as I had already posted the OOP one and I am too busy rewrite it. I asked him what he was using it for and he said for a moblog. Then i started to feel bad for him. I thought, " oh how sad, I can imagine having a camera phone I cannot use on my blog" and started to help him out.

Mind you I hate helping people nowadays. It has gotten really out of control. Everyone wants my help all the freakin time. My general rule is that I refuse to help on anything commecial unless they are paying me but that doesn't stop all you motherfuckers from harassing me to get information so that you can make more money. Just stop!! You know who you are!

At the end of the conversation after I pretty much held his hand about it because he said he was using it for his moblog, he tells me it is for a dating service he is starting and he will need to process many of these photos per seconds. You can see the conversation below. I am putting it here to deter future commercial help requests.

-update - afterwards I got this explaining it isn't a commercial dating servicel. I guess I shouldn't get so angry so fast. I am just a jerk sometimes but I am also stressed out with helping people. I could have asked for more details but I didn't.


[14:43] paccer01: hi paul
[14:43] paccer01: sorry to disturb you - hope you don't mind
[14:44] paccer01: have you read my email about the 3220 jpeg fix?
[14:45] paulsidekick: i did
[14:45] paulsidekick: but i have been really busy
[14:45] paccer01: ah - okay
[14:45] paulsidekick: i only write OOP
[14:45] paulsidekick: i have no idea how to write it otherwise
[14:45] paulsidekick: as that is all i learned
[14:45] paulsidekick: lol
[14:45] paulsidekick: but basically
[14:45] paulsidekick: what you need to do
[14:45] paccer01: oop example is fine ;)
[14:45] paccer01: i just perfer non-oop
[14:46] paccer01: because oop is harder for me to read
[14:46] paulsidekick: you need to read you image into a varibalre with file_get_Contents
[14:46] paulsidekick: then pass the data to imagecreatefromstring
[14:46] paulsidekick: if you run that in a command line php program
[14:46] paulsidekick: it will spit out an error
[14:46] paulsidekick: tell you there are so many extraneous bits of data
[14:46] paulsidekick: before marker whatever it says
[14:47] paulsidekick: it will tell you before which marker
[14:47] paulsidekick: then basically you can open it up in a hex editor
[14:47] paulsidekick: and find those bits
[14:47] paulsidekick: delete them but record what they are
[14:47] paulsidekick: or wherr they are
[14:47] paulsidekick: then write a program to remove those bits everytime
[14:47] paulsidekick: it relaly deopends on the phone model
[14:47] paulsidekick: and its a little bit time consuming
[14:47] paulsidekick: but it works everytime
[14:48] paulsidekick: are you on windows or linux
[14:48] paccer01: both... :)
[14:48] paulsidekick: it shoudlnt matter
[14:48] paulsidekick: well on windows just run the php file form the comand line
[14:48] paulsidekick: and from linux run it in the temrinal
[14:48] paulsidekick: it spits back an error that you otehrwsie will not see if you run it through apache or IIS
[14:49] paulsidekick: that error tells you exactly where the problem is in the image
[14:49] paulsidekick: then you just have to write the progrwm to cut that part out
[14:49] paccer01: its just odd that your fix did not work in my case
[14:49] paccer01: its a 3220 too
[14:50] paccer01: it does not find chr(0x28).chr(0x36).chr(0x28).chr(0x2B) in image for an example
[14:50] paulsidekick: it could be different in differtn for your model
"color:red">[14:52] paccer01: shouldt it be possible to just set phps error reporting a bit higher instead of running it from shell[14:52] paccer01: i had no idea that there was a difference
[14:53] paulsidekick: Corrupt JPEG dta: 74v extraneous bytes bedore marker 0xd9
[14:53] paulsidekick: is what your image says
[14:53] paulsidekick: the erro is not a PHP error
[14:53] paulsidekick: its actually an error being output by the jpeg library
[14:53] paulsidekick: that php uises
[14:53] paulsidekick: so php doesn't catch it as a module for a server
[14:54] paulsidekick: but it does spit it out to the command prompt
[14:54] paulsidekick: that is why these images wont work with gimp either
[14:54] paulsidekick: well they do but it warns of an error
[14:54] paulsidekick: anything using the jpeg libs in GD will reject them
[14:54] paulsidekick: unless they are fixed
[14:54] paulsidekick: in your case
[14:55] paulsidekick: because it is 74 byres befoe d9
[14:55] paulsidekick: which is at the end of a jpeg
[14:55] paulsidekick: you need osmethign similar to my eat function which keeps
[14:55] paulsidekick: removing a byte before whatever character
[14:55] paulsidekick: and then testing again
[14:55] paulsidekick: until the image is correct
[14:55] paulsidekick: and imagecreatefromstring returns true
[size=m]AT THIS POINT I FEEL TIRED OF EXPLAINING IT TO HIM SEEING AS I HAVE ALREADY DOCUMENTED THIS ALL ONLINE WHICH IS HOW HE FOUND ME - SO I ASK WHAT HE IS USING IT FOR BECAUSE IF IT IS COMMERICAL I AM NOT GOING TO HELP ANYMORE[/size]
[14:56] paulsidekick: what are you using this for
[14:56] paccer01: a moblog
[size=m]I FEEL BAD FOR HIM AND CONTINUE[/size]
[14:56] paccer01: at the moment, i just write the files directly to disk - but i'd like to convert files into jpegs before writing them to disk
[14:57] paulsidekick: ya
[14:57] paulsidekick: you can't manipualte them ihtout fixing this
[14:57] paulsidekick: alternatively
[14:57] paulsidekick: you can pipe the images out to imagemagick'
[14:57] paulsidekick: which can handle them
[14:57] paulsidekick: its a linux graphic program
[14:57] paulsidekick: or to photoshop or something
[14:58] paccer01: i was actually thinking about that
[14:58] paulsidekick: by using exec() with PHP
[14:58] paulsidekick: alhtough
[14:58] paulsidekick: this method is better
[14:58] paulsidekick: because it is native
[14:58] paulsidekick: if you can figure out what exactly need sto be cut form your images
[14:58] paulsidekick: some phoens it is easier
[14:58] paulsidekick: for exmaple with my PPC 6700
[14:58] paulsidekick: oits always the exact same string near the beginning that needs to be removed
[14:58] paulsidekick: so I just detect is it fromt heppc6700-
[14:58] paulsidekick: if so cut this data
[14:58] paulsidekick: no need to keep retesting it
[14:59] paccer01: how do you detect its from a 6700?
[14:59] paulsidekick: open the file in a hex editor
[14:59] paulsidekick: tehre is always something unique about it
[14:59] paccer01: the attachment?
[15:00] paccer01: one of my problems is that i don't really have much to test with
[15:00] paccer01: or compare with
[15:00] paulsidekick: what do you eman
[15:00] paulsidekick: mean
[15:00] paccer01: well - to find unique stuff - i need to compare it with something.. to find out whats unique and whats not
[15:01] paulsidekick: there are a million jpegs on the web
[15:01] paulsidekick: lol
[15:01] paulsidekick: a bizzilion
[15:01] paulsidekick: really
[15:01] paccer01: heh - yea.. of course
[15:01] paccer01: i was thinking mms'es
[15:01] paulsidekick: if you opent hat file in a hex editor
[15:01] paulsidekick: the 3220fixme.jpg
[15:01] paulsidekick: you can see ff d9
[15:01] paulsidekick: are the last two bvytes
[15:01] paulsidekick: meaning you need to delete the 74 bytes before that
[15:01] paulsidekick: if you take more pictures with your phone
[15:01] paulsidekick: you might find out that it is always 74 bvytes off
[15:02] paulsidekick: in that case just deete the 7 bytes
[15:02] paccer01: as
[15:02] paulsidekick: 74
[15:02] paccer01: so all i have to do is run a substr like you do
[15:02] paccer01: before the last two bytes
[15:02] paccer01: i think i got it now :)
[15:03] *** paulsidekick wants to directly connect.
[15:03] paccer01: pretty easy actually ;)
[15:04] paulsidekick: i am trtying to send you the fixed image
[15:04] paulsidekick: basically just rememeber each set of 2 letter in hex is one byte
[15:04] paulsidekick: e.g d9 is a byte
[15:04] paulsidekick: ff is a byte
[15:04] paccer01: i might need to open a couple of ports in my router to recieve
[15:05] paccer01: maby you could send to paulsidekick@paccer.dk ?
[15:05] paulsidekick: i emailed it
[15:05] paccer01: great
[15:05] paulsidekick: back to whatevfer you sent from
[15:05] paulsidekick: mms3220fix@paccer.dk
[15:05] paulsidekick: to there
[15:05] paccer01: :)
[15:05] paccer01: fine
[15:05] paccer01: got it
[15:05] paulsidekick: i just deleted all 74 bytes
[15:05] paulsidekick: so the more images you have from your comera
[15:05] paulsidekick: the more you can test till you ffigure it out
[15:05] paulsidekick: inthe case of my friend shawns nokia 3220
[15:06] paulsidekick: it was different everytime
[15:06] paulsidekick: but it always came before the end
[15:06] paulsidekick: so i just kept deleteing 1 and then check
[15:06] paulsidekick: in a loop
[15:06] paulsidekick: until imagecreatefromstring returns true
[15:06] paulsidekick: then you are all set
[15:06] paccer01: doesn't running imagecreatefromsting in a loop eat ALOT of resources?
[15:07] paulsidekick: no
[15:07] paulsidekick: its no big deal at all
[15:07] paulsidekick: you can run that script ina couple seconds
[15:07] paulsidekick: its not actually working when it returns false
[15:07] paulsidekick: milliseonds
[15:07] paulsidekick: i meant
[15:08] paccer01: hm
[15:08] paulsidekick: how many iamges do you expect to uplaod to your blog
[15:08] paccer01: have no idea actually
[15:08] paccer01: to start with - a few
[15:08] paulsidekick: i mean if you were sending 3000/mnute
[15:08] paulsidekick: you might want another solution
[15:08] paccer01: k
[15:09] paulsidekick: it only needs to run it on nokai 3220s for your blog
[15:09] paccer01: yea
[15:08] paccer01: at most, it will be one pr second, i thin
[15:08] paccer01: but maby it will be a part of a dating service i am working on
[15:09] paulsidekick: i cannot help you anymore if its comercial

The last two days I walked to work because (e:terry) had to tak ethe car at 7am. It's probabaly why I got sick but it was a nice glimpse of what it will be like when the warm weather comes and I can walk to work everyday.



According to my coworkers, it is fucking freezing in ur office during the summer. In fact my boss kleeps an extra jacket in his office for the summer. It's a little ridiculous because right now it is about 90 degrees in the office and on one side they have giant tubes that pump cold air in during the winter so we don't overheat too much. There is something to be said for efficiency. It actually freaks me out that the building I am in is where a lot fo the cancer research - sort of the forefront of science - yet they cannot figure out the enviornmental control systems. I know, it's not the same scientisist but it is the same organization.

I hope the new building we are moving to soon, doesn't have the same environmental problems. There is nothing I hate more than being freezing in the summer.

I took this picture and afterwards realized it looked like I was worshipping my phone.


The good news is I found out that my superphone is the only one sprint does not charge for tethering with. Happy tethering to me.

I really need to cut my hair off. I wish it would just warm up before the buzzcut. I cannot believe it just does this naturally. I haven't used a styling product since the 90s. I guess that is self evident.

I am really sick right now. I caught whatever (e:matthew) has and I just wanted to go to bed. I think I may be to sick for work tomorrow. Anyhow - I was programming this file sharing app at work today and when I got home I thought, hey, this could really work for the epeeps to let the share files with other peeps. The application is called gather and there is a link to it about the hangman game when you are logged in. You basically just upload files and oit gives you a secret url where other peeps or yourself can grab the file from later. You can even set the files to expire. Only logge din peeps can pick up and drop off files.

When I went to go upload the Little Link button to it, I accidentally erased the old chat. This left me in an awkward situations because ethe new chat had already been programmed for the geek meet but I didn't really feel like integrating it at 2am. I had no choice at this point because the old chat system would have also taken some work to get it back.

I think you will appreciate ethe new chat a lot more. I need to fix some media stuff up but generally it is much faster.

[size=m]New chat features/changes[/size]
1. The input box only shows up when logged in. When not logged in the chat refreshes every 10 seconds.
2. When logged in it refreshes near instantaneously, even more realtime than before.
3. The sound system has been completely redone using flash instead of quicktime. This makes the system more reliable but also ups the number of people with the plugin. Best of all it doesn't do that stupid window pop forward thing that eveyrone was bitching about. Blame apple, they started it.
4. The new chat is a complete rewrite of the system from the ground up. It is now an xhtml ordered list that uses DOM manipulation to insert nodes at the top. The only thing I am using innerHTML for right now is to post parse out the silly words and links.
5. The new version no longer uses MySQL but is based on SQLite and PDO.

The next thing to get upgraded is the text editor. Maybe even tomorrow. The code has also been rewritten from the ground up as is much more extensible so that we can add new features easily to the editor.

Then last the media library need some fanciness.

So I decided I am done thinking about the hotel. I really don't care now that home of the hits is included in the future of elmwood. It is a waste of my time when I should be spending it on other stuff like buying a house, finishing rememberbuffalo.org before none of the original buffalo is left and working out.

I am so torn between buffalo and one hundred other cities where I could make twice as much money. I will probably end up staying here out of pure laziness. I am so motivated when it comes to programming but so unmotivated when it comes to picking out a house or say finsihing my thesis which is now screaming - LEAVE OF ABSENSE.

Technically, I already own one big house but it is on Prospect near D'Youville and honestly that part of Buffalo is just not part of my immediate future. Sure, it is improving and someday will be great but not great enough for me to live there and not great enough ever in my lifetime. When am I going to put down this freakin laptop and buy a house. House, house, house, now.

One think I have remained commmitted to besides programming is going to the gym. I have managed to continue to going three times a week. The hardest part is eating all the freakin' food but soon I will be seriously tough. Then instead of debating stuff I am just going to kick everyone's ass.



I looked up our current residence at the historical society and it seems like our landlord paid $26,000 for this house in 1986. Now it costs around $200,000. Should I buy a house like this now - will it keep going up - or is it going to crash?

I never said I was for the Hotel [inlink]dragonfire1024,16[/inlink]. Apparently, I am part of a radical anti-progress fringe group. Having grown up along the various parts of elmwood I have to say that this along with the coop's box and the giant box house store extravaganza across the street from the coop are really changing the atmosphere of the elmwood strip. How many of you residents actually go to Abrahams Jewlers? Ok now compare that to how many of you went to Home or the Hits, Mondo Video, or Don Apparel?

For all you people that keep complaining about the condition of those houses, you cannot overlook that person who wants to have the hotel built is the one who owns them. He also tried to build a walgreens there in the past. It's just like complaining that the Atwater house in in bad condition so they should let Pano tear it down, even though Pano owns it and let it get really run down.

I am totally anti-progress and anti-change - at least in the direction it is going. Just as the coop ripped down and put up their box, and the hotel will do the same, what is going to stop a walmart or a rite aid?

Speaking of which, if we could bring in some bigger chain stores like have in other urban cities, we would be set with the mall. Maybe a gap, how about a banana republic, a rainforest cafe, a glass ceiling and oh ya security guards to keep it "safe" and drug free. What about a foodcourt? It would definately need a McDonalds in it, but not just any McDonalds - a fancy upscale appearing McDonalds that appear to be "elmwoodfied" would be required. Maybe they should dhave a thing that the workers need to appear urban too.

Just as I said before with the coop it is setting up an example for the tear down and suburbanize policy.

Pretty soon, it is going to be too upscale for all the people that made it elmwood the place it is and become a lot more like a fancy mall with upscale stores.

My question is why does elmwood need to be upscale to attract tourists? The whole Ithaca outdoor mall/ elmwood reality is coming true and once it's complete I am moving to Williamsville. I really want a place by glen falls. How about Williamville.com? I mean by the time I decide to purchase a house in my newly gentrified neighborhood it will cost about $300,000 anyways. Already so many houses are hitting the $200,000 mark in the area all around the coop.

So those of you that are confused about the location. You can fly around it with microsoft Local Live Here is the direct location.

The actual location is on the corner there. I marked the atwater house. It is so cute, I wish I owned it. I remember they used to have the best stciky buns there.

At wegmans it says we should eat rainbows. I keep trying.



Everyone in our house is sick so it hasn't been the most exhilerating weekend. I caught up with some star trek and programming and decided today that I would try my hand at cooking. Cooking is deifnately not my strong point. I hate following recipes which useually is not good but I guess I kind of ahave an idea of what geos together from vegan yearts when I actually cooked.

I tried to make Italian Wedding soup. It is this relaly yummy soup with little meatballs, clear broth and escarole. According to wikipedia, "The term "wedding soup" is a mistranslation of the Italian minestra maritata, which is a reference to the fact that green vegetables and meats go well together."



No, ecarole (WIKIPEDIA - ecarole) is not snails but rather a type of bitter green lettuce. Because I rused to use a recipe it probably is not much like the real thing but it tastes pretty good. I used

I subsituted cow meatbalss for buffalo ones. I put so much garlic in because we were sick. I had a hard time not eating all the meatballs before they got in the soup. In fact I had to pregame it with garlic shrimp because I could not wait.





Here is my recipe:
little buffalo meatballs with garlic fried
2 boxes chicken chicken broth
4 cups escarole, thinly sliced
1 1/2 cups orzo or ditalini pasta - I used rice for mr gluten intolerant
3 stalks of celery chopped
1 carrot chopped
some basil
lots of garlic - lots

Cook broth plus veggies in a large pot, salt and pepper.
Fry meatballs after mixing with lots of garlic and some oregano
Put meatballs in soup
Add some noodles

I just got a message on the site saying

Hey Dave! I guess you must have saw my pix on here cuz I'm good friends with ladycroft. Drop me a line sometime! aj_cich AT adelphia.net

But I am not dave, maybe that will help someone else out.

On another note I have finally completed the new chat which looks about the same but the code is so amazing you can't imagine. I will release it this weekend. I only wish that I had the inspiration to promote it more. (e:shawnr) showed me a chat at 3 bubbles that is much like our chat but they are pimping it out as a blog comment chat solution.

Mine is just better. no iframes, no stupid javascript embedded in the xhtml, everythign is perfectly separated, XHTML and CSS styled. It doesn't even require mysql anymore. If you turn styles off on their page, there isn't even a chat. Plus no image dragging, thumbnail popping ufn. So now I am torn. Do I pimp my chat solution out as a solution for other sites or sit on it because I cringe at the thought of someone else possibly profitting from my programming.

So while looking at other stuff online at AJAX matter.com I discovered this ad from yahoo. I guess they are either really in the future of ajax or they have really bad AI for their advertisment robot.

This is the first wb survey I ever blogged [inlink]ajay,446[/inlink]. You should be happy (e:ajay)

1. Did you support President Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003?
No - I never support any war unless it is on my doorstep and they are trying to take my house.

2. Do you think this Administration deliberately overstated the threat posed by Saddam in 2002 in making its claim to Congress? (ref. Gulf of Tonkin resolution, 1964).

Yes - I believe they wanted an excuse to control oil and for Bush to get back at Saddam in regards to a previous feud with his father.

3. Almost as many people were killed by Katrina as were killed in 9/11. Do you think the reaction of this Administration has been even-handed to these two events? If not, why not?

No, why didn't we shoot missles at the clouds, they did harbor weapons of mass destruction afterall.

4. Do you think the enmasse wiretapping of phonecalls of American citizens by the Administration that has been revealed recently was illegal?

Yes, I see no reason to ever wiretap without a warrant.

5. Do you think gays should have the right to marry?

Yes, well at least have the same rights and priveleges as a married hetero couple, e.g. tax breaks, hospital visits, inheritance, etc.

6. Do you support a woman's right to unhindered access to abortion?

Yes, die babies, die

7. Do you support the idea of mandatory prayer in schools? If yes, would you support a Muslim Imam leading the prayers in your child(ren)'s school?

No

8. Do you support the right of a person to grow a little bit of pot in his/her home and consume it as s/he sees it fit? Assume the same laws about DUI, DWI, etc. apply.

Yes

9. Do you support the idea of a national healthcare system? Why, or why not?

Yes, because I am willing to pay higher taxes to help people who can't afford health care. It just seems decent to me.

10.For self-identified Democrats/Republicans/Libertarians/Greens alike: would your answers to any of the questions 1-4 above be different if the President was (or was not, if you're Republican) from your party? If yes, which ones and why?

I don't belong to a party [inlink]paul,1447[/inlink]