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August 3rd, 2008
05:14 pm - The Human Factor and the Internet, or Why My Roommate Isn't Known on Last.FM
Computers are wonderful, but they're still susceptible to the Human Factor. We humans aren't so good at coming up with common categories that are spelled exactly the same. I've heard horror stories of database records with free form 'name' fields and the myriad of different spellings and wordings that end up in there for the same or similar things. Combine this with the tendency of "the internet" (as if it were a single entity with a mind of its own) to archive things in a rather permanent fashion, and you get interesting results.
( Read more... )
Current Location: Home
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/ibrad/smile.gif) happy
Current Music: The Eagles similar artists (Last.FM)
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August 2nd, 2008
10:12 pm
Update.
Current Location: Home
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/ibrad/yawn.gif) tired
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December 18th, 2007
07:10 pm - Poor Santa
Santa just rode around the apartment complex on a fire truck covered in Christmas lights. I think I was the only person to go out and wave to him. Poor Santa.
Current Location: Home
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/ibrad/licklips.gif) hungry
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September 1st, 2007
10:18 pm
I completly forgot to post to my journal after I moved. So here's how things are now:
I have an apartment in Gainesville, VA (45 minutes from DC) with my good friend John. I currently have a 2-month contract with the Fairfax County Police Department for their PC replacement project. Basically I go out to each station or other location, inventory all of the computers, and replace the oldest ones. I'm really hoping they will extend the contract, I enjoy working there and they seem to like having me around to help out.
My birthday was this weekend, so my parents came up from North Carolina and my grandparents came down from New Jersey. Saturday we took the train into DC and visited the International Spy Museum and the National Building Museum. Lots of fascinating stuff at both. If you're in the area, go check out David Macaulay: The Art of Drawing Architecture at the National Building Museum, fascinating stuff.
And now I think I'm going to go pass out, its past my bedtime.
Current Location: Home
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/ibrad/asleep.gif) sleepy
Current Music: 99.5 WPER
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June 5th, 2007
10:41 pm
Today's moving update:
John got me exact measurements on the room and door/window positions and figured out what will fit well in there and which furniture stays here. I have sanded all of the pieces of my desk and we made the rest of the cuts today. The top needs to be glued together, cut to finish and sanded. The legs also needed a finishing sanding and then everything will be stained and assembled. Yay! Tomorrow I go to Lowes and get a 4x8 sheet of 3/4 plywood (ouch in the wallet) and two more 2x4s. The work bench is going to grow significantly and become the living room computing/workbench area. I will have to leave one piece of furniture, and that is the writing desk. It doesn't do much beyond hold my PCs right now anyway, and my mom will make use of it as this becomes the guest bedroom.
I have all of my stuff out of the attic (goodness how did I get so much?). I've packed up all the books and all of the kitchen stuffs that I've been collecting. I'm hoping to put a sizeable dent in all of the loose stuff in the room this week so I can do the serious packing next week. Anyone know how to pack a filing cabinet? I wont be able to stand it up in the van (four drawers), so I need to do something else with the files to avoid insane messes. I might look for filing boxes at Office Max this week.
Only three more days of work left! I'm going to go eat lunch with my mom and her class at school tomorrow, and my boss is taking me to lunch on Thursday. I think I'll have one last meal at The Cookout on Friday :). Just a week and a half left before I move, eep.
Things that need loving homes
- KayPro 2x, with daisy wheel printer and CP/M and Wordstar disks
- 8088 IBM PC Clone, includes the keyboard and your choice of amber or green monochrome monitor, I also have a LOT of 5.25" floppy disks
- 286 (also a clone), includes everything the 8088 does except maybe the disks, I have no problems throwing this one out though
- Possibly my Apple //c, includes the color monitor (hook it to a VCR and instant TV) and joystick as pictured here: http://www.ekriirke.com/images/Apple2c.jpg
- Wyse WY-150 dumb terminal, amber screen with two DB-25 RS232 ports, keyboard included
- Large stuffed tiger in lying down position, 3 feet long from paws to rear (not including flexible tail) wearing a custom made graduation cap (easily removable)
- Green student pillow
- Toshiba SD-V291 DVD/VCR combo, has been known to lock up and refuse to play/eject DVDs on occasion, includes remote
That is about it, there are some smaller things but nothing worth shipping. All items come from a home with dogs, if you are allergic you may want to avoid the tiger and the student pillow. If anyone is interested in anything, just leave a comment or email me at qbfreak+lj@qbfreak.net
Current Location: Home (for a little while longer)
Current Mood: hungry
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May 29th, 2007
10:14 pm - Got any empty boxes?
I have been quietly thinking and planning for a while, and I have decided to move up to Gainesville, VA with my friend John. It may appear sudden, but plenty of thought, prayer, and advice of those I respect has gone into it. I gave my two week notice at work today, and will finish up working on June 8th. I'll spend a week packing and on the 16th my car, my parents nice big van, and likely a trailer will make the seven and a half hour trip north. Whee. I'm looking forward to having John around again, silly friends moving away on me...
It will be a new experience for me, being out on my own away from family. A little scary, but mostly exciting. Now all I have to do is make sure that Mandy doesn't lock me in her closet again. *eyes Mandy with suspicion*
Current Location: Home (for a little while longer)
Current Mood: happy
Current Music: Steven Curtis Chapman - I Will Be Here [91.9 FM WRCM]
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May 28th, 2007
11:34 pm - The icecream monster will get you!
The new wafflecone iron where my sister works doesn't always make them properly, on occasion a mutant is born. Run for your lives, the icecream monster is coming!
( Pictures inside the cut )
Current Mood: happy
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April 21st, 2007
11:12 pm
*Rattles closet door*
Hello? Mandy? Can I come out now?
Anybody?
Current Mood: hungry
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April 17th, 2007
02:07 pm
I just thought I'd post again so everyone knows that ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) soaringdragon42 and the_fool76 did not manage to kidnap me. I am not posting this under duress of a crazed draggy who has locked me in her wi-fi enabled closet, nope, not at all.
HELP!a;lkja;kjld
kjajsafkj
[End of post]
Current Location: The closet of DOOM!
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/ibrad/uhoh.gif) scared
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April 1st, 2007
10:56 pm - I'm not dead yet!
I thought I should let everyone know that I am still alive.
I saw Meet the Robinsons this weekend, it was pretty funny. I even got some nifty 3D glasses from it. Too bad they wont work on the PC without an external alternating polarization filter.
Anyway, I am alive.
Current Location: Home
Current Mood: hungry
Current Music: My whirring computer fans
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October 3rd, 2006
12:30 am - Cool engineering
Ahg, make the puns stop! :)
The problem
Ah fall, that wonderful time of year when the weather cools off and I can no longer use my room as an oven. I've been keeping my window open with a few small fans for several weeks now. The fans help cool down the room temperature a little bit, but even with two fans the computers keep it pretty warm in here.
The idea
I've come up with this idea several times before; if the computers are making the room hot, why not pipe all the hot air outside? Sadly I never went through with it for various reasons. I figured that anything I could build wouldn't work very well and would cost a bit of money. Besides, how would I get the air from the rear of the computers across the bed to the window?
( The solution )
Current Location: My chair
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/ibrad/biggrin.gif) accomplished
Current Music: Naomi - Heavy Little Lights [SOMAFM]
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July 28th, 2006
02:44 pm - NEW: Action Figure Mulder with Extreme Klepto Action!
Somewhere amidst Season 4 of the X-Files my friend John and I started really noticing Fox Mulder's kleptomaniacal tendancies. He pockets at least one thing in nearly every episode, at one point he even stole his own car.
Oh right, you wanted to know about me, not Mulder. In the spirit of 'A picture is worth a thousand words', I present 3000 words on my new car:
1995 Chevy Lumina
And that is all I have for now, work is calling me and I've been late enough times this week already.
Current Mood: hungry
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May 2nd, 2006
03:45 am
I almost forgot...Windows tastes funny.
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03:04 am - A "real" update?
Hmm. Looking through my past entries I haven't said anything real about life since January 5th, so much for thinking everyone was up to date... Stuff happened today anyways, so it's update time.
As you may or may not know, my nice temporary job at Kodak managed to stretch for 14 months. Sadly that came to an end on December 30th. I did the whole job looking thing without much success for over a month. By February I gave in and went back to Tony's, so I'd have some sort of income while I keep looking. I'm still there, still making $6/hr + tips. Some days that pays better than the $13/hr I got a Kodak, some days it's worse.
I've been keeping my eye on Careerbuilder and Monster.com for anything in the area that I'm qualified for. So far I haven't really found anything. I was given a name and e-mail address of the CEO of a support company in Matthews. I emailed him and he replied saying he was just back from vacation and needed some time to get on top of things at work before he could discuss any potential job opportunities with me. He told me to e-mail him again if I hadn't heard back by thursday. It has now been a week and a half and I've e-mailed him several times with no response.
I've had a couple of different ideas for things to do as a part-time home business. I talked to my neighbor who runs his own electrical business to find out what all I needed to do to be 'legit'. Today I went down to the court house to register the business name. I have verified that the name I want is available, I just need to get the form notarized. Not knowing where the nearest notary was I tried to call my dad, he didn't answer so I headed over to Kodak. If he wasn't available I figured someone there would know.
When I got to Kodak, someone else had just come in and was talking to my dad, wanting to get a small data-conversion program written. My dad suggested he talk to me, since I've done a few things like that for Kodak and I'm looking for work. So now I've got a little bit of work, $200 for something that wasn't too difficult to do. Tomorrow I'll take it over and see if they have any more sample data. I think it's done but I'd really like to test it on more than 10 or so records. I also need to get down to the bank some time this week and get that form notarized and back to the courthouse. And do laundry. Clean laundry would be nice.
It's time for sleep now, I managed to get up "early" (9 am) today, and being that it's past 3am it has caught up with me. I intended to be in bed two and a half hours ago...
Current Location: My chair :)
Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Sofa Lofa - Counts the Accular (Groove Salad [SOMAFM.com])
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April 30th, 2006
02:33 pm - *sniffle*
Apparently I'm not a friend if I don't update at least once a week
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/ibrad/frown.gif) sad
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April 18th, 2006
February 27th, 2006
08:55 pm - Avatar
Swingerzetta is the awesome. Look at the shiny new avatar he made me! This is actually the second one I've gotten from him.
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So cool 
Current Mood: happy
Current Music: Unforscene - Minus (Groove Salad [SOMAFM.COM])
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February 15th, 2006
02:36 am
The evil sleep, it is caaaalling me.
I went to visit my friends in Cullowhee again (Western Carolina University). Drove up friday and came back tuesday. I stayed with Micah, Levi, and Andy in the house they're renting. The couch was quite comfortable but I must say, when the temperture drops to 17 degrees, its nice to have more than just a space heater. The central heat burns oil (or was it kerosene?) but costs a small fortune to fill the tank up.
It snowed Friday night and most of Saturday and Sunday, much yayness there. Drove around a bit on Sunday afternoon and took a few pictures. The mountains (or hills as wants to call them :p ) always look so pretty in the snow. I also got a few pictures of Levi's snowman, more specifically what Micah and Andy did to it...
( Snow pictures )
I got to stick around for another Campus Rock large group meeting, always good stuffs. Afterwards as we were cleaning up Aron and I decided that lamps can make good art:
( Lamp picture )
Before I left tuesday I scavenged through all the old junk Andy was getting rid of. I managed to dig up a few decent PCs to gut for parts, as well as one for my sister. I also got a 133Mhz Thinkpad and some sort of Sharp tablet PC that doesn't exactly work.
All in all it was a really good trip. And making it better I found out that Aron will be back (to Charlotte) for the weekend in two weeks and Micah will be home for the weekend in three weeks.
Current Mood: tired, hungry, and happy
Current Music: Adham Shaikh - Emergence (Sub Dub Remix) [Groove Salad]
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February 10th, 2006
03:33 am - Shocking and amazing!
I had a bowl of cereal tonight. I havn't had cereal in years.
I'm weird :)
Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: that groovy salad thing (somafm.com)
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January 23rd, 2006
11:06 pm
Its 82 degrees in here. I wish my sisters weren't so perpetually cold... The worst part is that its not the heater, its the wood stove, so I can't just turn it down.
I think I shall escape to walmart, I need to get out anyway :)
Current Mood: lightly toasted and hungry
Current Music: none, muahaha!
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