Reality Me

Author: Doug McCaughan

  • Paraskevidekatriaphobes – It’s your day!

    Taking a sick day today? Staying in bed? Oh, I wish I could use this day as an excuse to stay in bed!

    The sixth day of the week and the number 13 both have foreboding reputations said to date from ancient times, and their inevitable conjunction from one to three times a year portends more misfortune than some credulous minds can bear. Some sources say it may be the most widespread superstition in the United States. Some people won’t go to work on Friday the 13th; some won’t eat in restaurants; many wouldn’t think of setting a wedding on the date.

    In other news, Happy Birthday Dad!

  • Lost Screen Grabs

    These are spoilers if you missed last night’s Lost episode. I thought I saw a single image in Eko’s encounter with the monster. Boy was I wrong! These are frame by frame grabs of the encounter. Is the monster somehow passing judgment?
    I can’t get enough!

  • Bellsouth’s Privacy Director

    Good information on Bellsouth’s Privacy Director I love the service but for about 2 months now I’ve had a recorded message trying to get me to talk to someone. Their poor system thinks someone is answering the phone but Privacy Director cuts them off before the recording identifies itself. No human ever calls. It’s laughable but they call everyday.

    Privacy Director gives a recorded messages to callers that are anonymous asking that the caller identify themselves (much like you would with a collect call). The phone rings at the house and after listening to the brief recording I have 3 options: take the call, reject sales call (gives the caller a no solicitation message), or reject the call. It drastically cut down on phone solicitations!

  • How cool!

    Blog Stats

    There are currently 32 posts and 32 comments, contained within 32 categories.

    Of course, this post messed that up. Numbers are so cool.

  • Protect your member only area

    Programmers need to review this tech tip explaining how to use the FireFox User Agent Switcher extension to access member only areas of some websites. Effectively you simply add “Googlebot 2.1” to the description and user agent.

  • ColdFusion on the rise!

    Yes! ColdFusion jumps to position 16 in the TIOBE Programming Community Index for January 2006! In January 2005 it was position 25 which isn’t too shabby in my book.

    see also these alternative CF servers: Railo, IgniteFusion and BlueDragon

  • The Prejudice Map

    Kim at Bacon and Eh’s points out The Prejudice Map summing up how people of the world are viewed. For example, this one is either for the United States or perhaps only New Mexico:

    strength
    dislike of walking
    geniality and hospitality
    guarding their rights
    anti-Muslim politics

  • National Delurking Week

    National Delurking WeekHello, hello, hello
    Is there anybody in there?
    Just nod if you can hear me.
    Is there anyone at home?

    National Delurking Week

  • Who needs cable when you have kids

    Amy toots her own horn 3.56MB avi – if I knew how to compress movies I would (I recommend you have your sound on for this one)

  • Habits Meme Redux

    My wife enjoyed my Habits Meme so much that she’s asked for more.

    Pocket Rules:

    1. If at all possible, I must carry two quarters, a nickle and a dime so that if I become bored I can balance the nickle vertically on a horizontal quarter; then the dimeCoin Stackinghorizontally on the edge of the nickle; and finally the remaining quarter horizontally on the dime. (click picture to enlarge)
    2. Minimal “pocket stuff”: 2 pocket knives, 1 American Red Cross breathing dam for CPR, 2 sets of keys (1 for each car plus store discount cards etc), loose change (see #1), 1 handkerchief, 1 pen, 1 cell phone and 1 wallet. [I frequently make an effort to leave with only 1 pocket knife, wallet, cell phone and 1 set of keys. I rarely succeed.]
    3. The pocket knives and ARC equipment go in the front left pocket. If the cell phone cannot clip to a belt it also goes in the front left pocket. Loose change and keys in the front right. Handkerchief and pen in the back right. Wallet in the back left except in crowds when it is moved to the front left. Wallet and keys are removed when sitting down for long periods of time. Wallet and keys are always kept together because when I removed only the wallet I kept leaving the house without it.
    4. I prefer to have empty pockets so I used to carry a purse (a “man bag!”) which allowed me to carry more stuff including juggling balls, lock picks, kleenex, eye glasses, sunglasses, a pda, and a journal (just to name a few things). My wife didn’t like my man bag. I don’t have a purse anymore. Once I was denied service at K-Mart because I wouldn’t leave my purse at the customer service counter despite it being far smaller than most of the luggage the female customers were carrying. During the scene that ensued more than one woman approached customer service, unprompted, to offer their purses in order to point out the ridiculousness.
    5. I always pat down my pockets before leaving the house. Two pats to the front pockets; one pat to the back pockets. I can usually tell by feel and jingling if everything is in its place. I’ve been mistaken before and been uncomfortable without the missing item (usually the cell phone) even if it wasn’t needed.

    There. Ammunition for my wife to decry OCD.

  • Of Grasshoppers

    Student: Lost
    Master: Oh yeah!

  • Thermal-sensitive polymer

    “The secret? Thermal-sensitive polymer.” Just the sound of that is cool. I could think of so many uses for this material. These people made vases.

  • Raggy! Roomba Rooba Roo!

    Molly restsI wish I could have had a video camera! Molly was resting on the floor and the Roomba whirs over and bounces off her nose. She doesn’t flinch! Since her long nose is obviously new territory for the Roomba, it immediately kicks into “outline the perimeter mode” where it moves a little bit then rotates back into the barrier and repeats over and over. So here’s poor Molly trying to get a nap and this robot is noisily tracing her snout!

    After about the 5th bump she nonchalantly raised her head and let it pass. If you have pets and are concerned your pet and Roomba won’t be friends, I’d put your fears to rest.

  • A peek at your next Windows OS – Vista

    Bent User highlights Windows Vista, Microsoft’s next major operating system release. Looks cool but hasn’t knocked me out of my chair yet.

  • Blogger comments now with your real name

    Blogger, that horrible company which deleted my account without correspondence and which still refuses to answer my emails, doesn’t care about customer service but is very quick to cover their own butts. In answer to Mr. Bush’s further shredding of the Constitution, Blogger comments are now done with your display name instead of your Blogger alias.