Author: Krunk

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Windows Live Local

New Microsoft Service was released: Windows Live Local. It’s basically replaced MSN Virtual Earth. Some may say it’s a duplicate of Google Maps, but there’s several features that I like better about it. Well, first, lets get off the bad things. It has problems with Firefox, which basically limits my usage on it. But one of the best thing is the bird’s eye view. It appears they sent planes or helicopters across many metropolitan cities and tooks pictures of it so you have a better zoom which is awesome! It’s awesome that I can see my backyard and even my car tent in front of my garage back home in Monterey Park. Other neat features I found is the middle click which allows you to draw a rectangle which it will then zoom into. I’ve always HATED the magnify glass cause I would usually have to zoom multiple times to get it to just the area I want. But now with the box zoom, problem solved! One last thing is the right click feature. Ever seen a map and knew you wanted to go to point x but you didn’t know the address, so you had to give an intersection or something to get to the correct place. I never really got why this feature wasn’t implemented in the 1st place. I know where I want to go on the map. I don’t know the exact address. Give me the directions to it. Well, it’s now just as simple as a right click and selecting Drive To, Drive From, or Add Pushpin. If you have time, might want to give a test drive. Checking out the city in bird’s eye view was definitely really fun.

By the way, did you get a chance to play with the printing. Oh my god! It’s so much better than any other mapping service that I’ve seen. In the print options, it gives me quite a few things I’ve always wanted. Who the heck needs all the directions for getting from one’s house to the freeway or vice versa? Windows Live Local allows to omit parts of the directions if you don’t need them, which ends up saving paper and not having to go through 13 directions when you only need the last 4. Another great feature is the options of printing the route map, route summary, directions, and/or notes. In the route map, you can select 2 different map styles, and 3 different map sizes. Next to each direction is a checkbox if you want to include a small detail map next to it. So if a map like driving from point A to point B of a freeway isn’t needed, you can turn that map off but leave others on. I can’t believe Microsoft actually did something so much better this time.

If you don’t like all these confusing options, they have 3 default presets:

  • Print the map and directions
  • Print the directions only
  • Print the map only

which should be plenty easy for you.

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Inside the SFPD Videos

San Francisco police suspended over video sketch – San Francisco is suspending 20 police officers who participated in video sketches portraying police ogling women, ducking emergency calls and going to a massage parlor on duty. I really wanted to see the videos, but they were already taken down from InsideTheSFPD.com by the time I found the site. Google nor any search engine had a cache on it either. Right now all the site has is a statement of thanking support.

After searching the web for a while, I did fine some of the videos, but they were videos of videos (meaning someone took a camera and shot at the computer screen):

Producer Responds To SFPD Video Scandal
SFPD Officers Suspended over Online Video

There seems to be 6 videos in all and several clips and several news stories and interviews with Daniel Horowitz, Andrew Cohen’s lawyer. Andrew Cohen was the person who filmed it. During the interview with Horowitz, lots of stuff he was arguing about didn’t really make sense and seemed actually more like stretching the truth. You should watch the interview and let me know what you think. I personally think the videos were in bad taste, although I agree there were some funny parts. But one of the stupidest arguments Horowitz was defending was the fact that Cohen did not distribute it publically and it was the mayor and police chief’s fault for blowing this beyond proportions. But all these videos were posted on a website and ONLY some of the police officers knew the web address. Personally, anything published on the world wide web that doesn’t require authentication should be considered releasing to public, even IF the search engines haven’t crawled to it yet. I actually found Horowitz trying to make his point a lot funnier than the videos themselves.

If anyone has access to the real video files or know where to get them, please let me know (by leaving a comment).

Random Crap:

Tortoise Adopts Baby Hippo (from deadlock) – I posted this story from Yahoo! some time back but this one has more cute pictures so I thought I’d share again.

The top 10 weirdest USB drives ever (from /.) – I’m actually not too satisfied with this list. Most of the items listed were just USB jump drives in weird shapes. I’d rather see the top 10 weirdest groups of USB devices, so usb storage may be one group and usb lamps or fans or phone chargers could be other groups. There was this really tiny USB flash drive that was interesting: iDisk Diamond, even in your ear. It’s so tiny, it smaller than my finger print! Quite easy to lose also I presume.

Car crash, heavy traffic turn out Christmas light show (from deadlock) – Sheriff’s deputies asked the owner who lit up his house with 25,000 Christmas lights synched to music to turn off the display after a traffic accident Tuesday night. Deerfield Twp. resident Carson Williams agreed to shut down his holiday decorations indefinitely. Too bad the musical christmas lights are no longer up for display. The display caught attention across the nation on network TV and on the Internet because the lights on the Williams house and filling their yard are synchronized by computer with music broadcast to car radios. There are three songs in the 12-minute display: Frosty the Snowman by the Jackson 5; God Bless the USA by Lee Greenwood and Wizards of Winter by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Does anyone know if the other 2 songs have been captured and placed online? I’d really like to see it.

Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan (押忍！闘え！応援団) (from Microsoft Newsgroup) – It appears to be a new game for the Nintendo DS that seems to be a cheerleading game. You can read IGN’s review on it. Check out this video of the gameplay. At first I thought this was another one of those DDR spin offs like what they have for drums and guitars and dancing nowadays, but once I figured it was for the DS, the video made a lot more sense when those bubbles and arrows popped out. Not exactly sure how drawing those lines and connecting those dots really reflect cheerleading, but I heard it was a lot of fun. The song they’re using in the video is actually Full Metal Alchemist opening.

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Archive links in Drop-Down Menu (Combo Box)

Here’s a simple hack you can modify your default theme in WordPress to get your Archive links to show in a drop-down menu (combo box) instead of having it spawn 10+ lines and take up precious space. Under Presentation -> Themes -> Theme Editor -> Sidebar Template, modify the following code

<li><h2>Archives</h2>
<ul>
<?php wp_get_archives('type=monthly'); ?>
</ul>
</li>

to

<li><h2>Archives</h2>
<form name="archive" action="post">
<select name="archiveLinks" size="1" onchange="parent.location = this.options[this.selectedIndex].value;" >
<option value="">Select an Archive</option>
<?php wp_get_archives('type=monthly&format=option'); ?>
</select>
</form>
</li>
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Santa’s Reindeers

Got this from a Microsoft newsgroup:

According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, while both male and female reindeer grow antlers in the summer each year, male reindeer drop their antlers at the beginning of winter, usually late November to mid-December.

Female reindeer retain their antlers till after they give birth in the spring…

Therefore, according to every historical rendition depicting Santa’s reindeer, every single one of them, from Rudolph to Blitzen had to be a girl. We should have known…

Only women would be able to drag a fat-ass man in a red velvet suit all around the world in one night and not get lost!

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Remove Ads for Registered Users

Don’t have Adblock? Don’t like seeing ads? Well, if you register now, all the ads on my blog should be removed. This does not include the Gallery, which I’m stll investigating. Enjoy!

I also have a plans to port my entire old blog onto this new one, but that’s going to take some time. I’m not sure if I want to work on the new layout more or work on importing the old blog more. What do you guys think?

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Lymph Nodes

I learn this fact from Jeremy, a friend from work. Lymph Nodes are like white blood cell graveyards, which I found fascinating. That’s why they swell up when you get really sick. Dead white blood cells accumulate there and when you’re really sick, a lot of white blood cells die. What’s worse is that white blood cells takes germ and disease cells with them to the grave, so you end up with a big hodgepot of diseases and germs. Interesting right?

Speaking of which, deadlock gave me this video today: Mechanism of action for new cancer therapy. It’s quite a fascinating new way to treat cancer cells. Even though it can only kill 2/3 of the cancerous cells, that can easily reduce a stage 3 or 4 cancer to stage 1 or 2. You can find more 3d animations here: BioDigital Systems 3D Animation Gallery.

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The Keg

This entry should’ve been written several days ago, but I just got side-tracked. My officemate and neighbors who worked on Windows Server 2003 R2 shipped earlier this week and decided to celebrate. I didn’t really ship yet, but I joined in the fun with Derek, Jeremy, Tekman, and Vani. We went to The Keg Steakhouse & Bar in Kirkland and it was a mighty fancy place. To give you a perspective how how fancy this place is, it’s rated a 9.0 while the Ruth’s Chris Steak House in Seattle is rated a 9.2. However rumor is the best, but also the most expensive steak house around here, is most definitely the Metropolitan Grill, which recieved a score of 9.7. The food was delicious, but I think steak houses have a tendancy of undercooking their meat. I ordered a medium rare prime rib, which was really delicious, but it was awfully pink. We had a great time. What was neat is that first time comers get a free shrimp cocktail appetizer and the manager himself comes to your table thanking you and asking what brings us to The Keg today. The service was awesome also. One way to tell how good the service is how many times your glass of water becomes empty. I don’t think my glass of water ever became empty that night.

Speaking of food, here’s a word of advice, DO NOT BOIL YOUR EGGS STARTING WITH BOILING WATER. I was boiling some yam tonight and halfway through, I thought I’d dump in 2 eggs so I can have boiled eggs too. BAD MISTAKE. Almost immediately upon impact with the boiling water, the eggs cracked and started leaking white goo. So yah.. that’s my advice for today.

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Donnie Darko

Just watched Donnie Darko today. It’s quite an intriguing movie. Though it left a lot of questions unanswered, but deadlock says the Director’s Cut explains a lot more, so I guess I’ll be rewatching it. Actually, after discussing with deadlock, most of my questions got answered. In fact, it turns out I watched the Director’s Cut. Haha. You can watch the trailer here. There’s also the Director’s Cut trailer. IMDB users rated this movie an 8.3. You can get the DVD at Amazon.com or the Director’s Cut.

donnie darkodonnie darkodonnie darkodonnie darko

Spoilers:

The movie starts off with a plane crash and a sequence of events where Donnie Darko, the super hero of this movie, meets his imaginary friend Frank, a giant evil looking bunny, who saves his life. They only found the jet engine, but no actual plane crash and the jet engine landed smack into Donnie’s bedroom. However, Donnie is a sick boy with mental problems and he was sleep walking thanks to his imaginary friend. The story continues with an fantastic ending.

MAJOR SPOILERS TO FOLLOW!

Several of the questions I had included what would happen after Donnie Darko’s death. Would the timeline be the same? Or would it be completely different? I’d imagine that the plane crash would still have to occur since if the plane crash doesn’t occur, no jet engine would travel back in time, and no dead Donnie Darko. However, because of Donnie Darko’s death, he would not have a chance to burn down that Fear guy’s house. That will lead to the gym teacher not asking Donnie’s mom to take the dance team to compete, since the reason why the gym teacher couldn’t go was because that the she was a big fan of the Fear guy and wanted to be at his hearing or trial to support him. With Donnie’s mom not taking the dance team to the competition in LA, neither her daughter or she would be on the earlier flight home which became the plane crash.

One does wonder if the Fear guy operating the underground kiddie porn network would ever be revealed.

Another question I was wondering was what did happen to the mother of Donnie’s girlfriend. If you remember, she came looking for Donnie at the Halloween party saying her mom disappeared and the house was a ruin. One could only assume that the stepfather found them. Yes, the stepfather that stabbed the mom’s chest 4 times.

Another question was regarding Grandma Death. What was she waiting for? Was she really senile? Did she know that Donnie was going to give her a letter? Will she not wait anymore now that Donnie’s dead?

Also, the legend regarding Grandma Death hoarding a lot of money and gems, and the fact that the 2 punks actually tried to rob her on Halloween, leads me to actually think who she really is. They never elaborated much about her past besides that she used to be a nun, wrote a book called the Philosophy of Time Travel and became a teacher at Middlesex school.

“Cellar Door” was noted as the most beautiful phrase/words by the English teacher (played by Drew Barrymore). I actually think that it’s quite beautiful, but I wonder if any linguist ever really said that.

Welp, that being said, if you’ve never seen this movie, go watch it! It’s rated in the top 100 movies of all time!

One special note that the movie mentioned that I never knew was that Smurfette was actually a spy sent by Gargamel to infiltrate the smurf camp. According to Wikipedia: Smurfette, a female Smurf with more delicate features than the male Smurfs, was chemically created by the sorcerer Gargamel as obnoxious and with stiff, black hair. She was transformed through a spell cast by Papa Smurf, wearing a white dress, white high heels and having long wavy blonde hair (surgery in the comics). It’s a fact that I never knew. There’s jokes about how she’s the only female smurf and would mate with all the other smurfs to have babies, but apparently smurfs can’t reproduce. Baby Smurf (male-gendered) joined the village later, brought in by a stork, which increased the number of smurfs to 101. (The number eventually went higher as more Smurfs appeared.)

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Blingo!

Won again at Blingo! But still only a $10 iTunes Gifit Certificate. Has anyone tried the Blingo Movie Ticket yet? How easy is it to use it?

Blingo

I currently have a balance of $21.58 on my iTunes account balance, none of which were paid by me. My first iTunes gift certificate was from Liam. Then I got $20 more in gift certificates from Blingo. Now I’ll be getting $10 more. Will I ever pay a penny at the iTunes music store? Still I’m curious on how I got some weird balance left of 58 cents. Boooo! They’re charging tax! When did this start? I’m getting charge 8 cents more per song. Hmmmm… I wonder if my address is still in CA or if that matters at all. Nope, I updated to Washington. My purchase history shows earlier purchases didn’t incur any sales tax. I wonder if it’s because I updated my address to Washington… Going to change it back to CA and see what happens with my next purchase.

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Mad World

A quite interesting flash video given to me by deadlock: Mad World Collab. At first I thought it was just a compilations of random flash videos to fit the music, but apparently they’re all created for this flash video, but different authors I’m supposing. The song played was taken from the Donnie Darko (Score). It was titled Mad World by Gary Jules. You can listen to a sample here. The original Mad World song was sang by Tears For Fear. You can listen to a sample of it here. I personally like Gary Jules version a lot more, but maybe because it’s softer and utilizes a piano.

According to deadlock, apparently many of the scenes were taken from Donnie Darko and the movie was highly recommended by him. IMDB gave it a 8.3, so I guess I’ll be checking out the movie sometime soon.

Random Crap:

New IM worm chats with intended victims (from /.) – A new worm that targets users of America Online’s AOL Instant Messenger is believed to be the first that actually chats with the intended victim to dupe the target into activating a malicious payload, IM security vendor IMlogic warned Tuesday. According to IMlogic, the worm, dubbed IM.Myspace04.AIM, has arrived in instant messages that state: “lol thats cool” and included a URL to a malicious file “clarissa17.pif.” When unsuspecting users have responded, perhaps asking if the attachment contained a virus, the worm has replied: “lol no its not its a virus“, IMlogic said. A similar article on Ars Technica: New virus chats with you on AOL IM. I guess if you ever see me sending you a *.pif link, DO NOT CLICK IT!

Work bores Japan’s young, many want to quit-survey – Almost three-quarters of Japanese in their 20s and 30s have no motivation when it comes to their jobs and half would quit if they had the chance, a survey has found. Sounds quite like what happened in Serenity. I guess one day, they’ll just lay down and stop eating and breathing.

Woman Allegedly Hires Hit Man for Cheese – In an unusual case of mistaken identity, a woman who thought a block of white cheese was cocaine is charged with trying to hire a hit man to rob and kill four men. The woman also was mistaken about the hit man. He turned out to be an undercover police officer. Wow! What a chain of events. Mistakening a block of cheese for cocaine, then hiring a hitman, only to find out the hitman you hired was an undercover police! What a bad day for this lady…

Square Wheel Car Propels Itself by Shifting Weight – Possible MEMS Locomotion – The first prototype consisted of a car with 4 square wheels, in the general configuration of a typical car, with all 4 wheels mechanically connected together so they must all turn in unison. Furthermore, the rotational orientation of the wheels are sequentially off-set from one wheel to the next by 22.5° (¼ of 90°), moving around the vehicle in a CW or CCW direction as viewed from above. It’s an interesting idea until you see the demonstration and how unsmooth the movement is. You can check out the video demonstration here. Along with that, there was this link: Riding on Square Wheels – Stan Wagon, a mathematician at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn., has a bicycle with square wheels. It’s a weird contraption, but he can ride it perfectly smoothly. His secret is the shape of the road over which the wheels roll. Now this is actually very interesting. Because the shape of the road, it allows different shape wheels as long the point on any corner of the wheel creates semi-circular humps.