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The Last Question and WordPress Combine for Unsettlingness

Cal — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 23:28:53 +0000

I just re-read Asimov’s “The Last Question” after having lunch with my folks. It’s probably my favorite story from one of my four night-stand mainstays (Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Treasury, that also includes “Flowers for Algernon” which I cannot assign enough importance to).

When I get back to my computer and hop over to my Gmail tab, I’m greeted by “please moderate this comment” email from WordPress. After dealing with the spam, I notice the yellow banner of “New WP version out, update now kplz.” I then hit “Upgrade Automatically” and it all works out (like it always does). (I even updated a plugin auto-magically.)

I was not sure at the time (and am still not) if I should have been more unnerved by a successful or unsuccessful outcome.

If it had mentioned anything about “insufficient data” though, I’d probably still be screaming.

Playing with Wolfram|Alpha

Cal — Sat, 16 May 2009 20:06:02 +0000

My life expectancy (based on gender, nationallity, and current age) is 76.42 years… that gives me until until Monday, June 18, 2063, which is 74 days after the Vulcans make first contact.

While it does a lot of neat things with one piece of information: a name, a date, some math, it doesn’t seem to be able to deal with the sets it’s using to produce the information. So, while I now know that Isaac is the 41st most common name for (male?) births in the US, I can’t get to what the 40th or 42nd names or, what the 41st most common name for girls is right now.

For that, Google gives me good results for “names US births rankings” in no time, and I also learn that the Social Security Administration’s website doesn’t like Chrome.

Thanks to Lifehacker for the idea I’ve shamelessly stolen.

Where did this thing come from?

Cal — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 22:36:05 +0000

Upgrading to the latest WordPress has introduced the ‘Â’ character into a number of posts. As I have no idea why this happened and my phpMyAdmin-fu is weak, this fix will have to wait for a while.

EDIT: Just fixed it today after a rather simple find-and-replace on the wp_posts table. (Export -> Do Notepad++ On It ->Drop Table -> Import Editted File.) It was simple but oh so scary. Let’s hope I didn’t break anything.

Stock Photo Showdown

Cal — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 01:54:00 +0000

In the spirit of the Stock Tips post on the lovely DreamHost Blog, I bring you TypeFrag’s totally rad gamer pics:

Obviously a badass.

Hey… how you doin’?

How you doin’ take two.

HERPES!

ZOMBIES!

Token minority!

What the fuck is up with her eye shadow?

HERPES take two!

dot dot dot

Cal — Fri, 02 May 2008 16:35:23 +0000

Right as soon as I log onto Xfire:

[09:31] matty: do u play mohaa
[09:31] Cal: no…
[09:31] matty: kk
[09:31]

What the hell?

GDP grows (slightly) as a result of falling dollar.

Cal — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:07:49 +0000

Yes folks, economics does work out. Exports Help Economy to Modest Growth, from the NYT.

I just find it hilarious that people fail to understand that a falling dollar makes our exports more attractive. That of course helps close our insanely-high trade defecit and guess what, helps the economy.

It’s just like China… except without the artificial undervaluing… and less widespread human rights abuses (hopefully).

Secretary

Cal — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 18:40:34 +0000

So, I just watched Secretary (on the prompting of f13) and… I really don’t know what to think. Well, outside of realizing that “Yes folks, James Spader can get more creepy.”

I liked it quite a bit though, I must say.

My last.fm page LIVES!

Cal — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:36:09 +0000

Zuse rocks. It basically takes songs from your Zune Social stream and lets you submit them to last.fm. Super easy to set-up and it seems to work just fine.

Wheeeeee.

Starting off the Semester Wonderfully…

Cal — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 16:51:54 +0000

Apparently, the fine folks at EOP&S don’t have me in their system, which means I got here early for nothing. Not just that, I can’t even make an appointment for my (required) counselor visits.

Also that I’ll be making mildly angry calls for like the rest of the week.

In other news, bacon.

Dems Debate in LA

Cal — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 22:55:21 +0000

Madness, and signs, ensue.

We were there a few hours before the debates started and it was really something.

Then, surprisingly, when the debate actually started people turned around and watched. Cheers occurred, sure, but for the most part it seemed like people were actually watching.

More than I at least, my feet hurt and I went and ate crepes during the Health Care portion if I recall.