my hair is my glory and, is that santa claus?

So, without going into too much detail about it, I got a jacked up hair cut about 5 weeks ago. That was bad, but what was worse is that my hairdresser also straightened my hair WITHOUT ASKING ME.

ANNOYING!

Because I LIKE being called Medusa (with blond hair instead of snakes, because you know I don't like snakes). I ended up getting this amazing hair mask and my hair is slowly getting back to normal.

So last night I was having a drink with my friend Jessie. She has really long black hair and it's curly like mine. She was commiserating with me about my still a little jacked up hair. She's small but she gets loud after a few drinks. Anyway, a black woman in the bar (it's a bar where homeless people hang out some times, but I wanted to go there because it's right down my street) came up to me and said "Your hair is your glory! Grow your glory!"

I didn't know what to do so I said "Okay, um, I won't get it cut for a long time."

But the woman wouldn't stop going on about my hair. And then a guy walked in with this weird pointy beard. He was super short and looked like one of those guys that starts a cult and then kills all the members.

So we decided to go to another local bar (it's so local they check your ID to make sure you're from the hood before they serve you a drink). Jessie wondered, loudly, why people on crack like me so much (I'm often approached on the street by homeless crack heads - they don't ask me for money - they just want to talk to me). People started sneak looking at me. Then I told her a story and she started laughing so hard everyone in the bar turned around to look at her and this time she noticed a white haired guy sitting at the end of the bar.

She was like "Oh my god! Is that santa claus?"

At which point I decided it was time to walk her home. While we were waiting at a stop light I checked my crackberry and saw I had a text from my brother so I said "Oh, I got a text from Bob." And Jessie said "That's your brother's name? That's what I named my vibrator!"

She laughed about that the whole walk home.

I'm not so sure about this "socializing" stuff.

why researchers need to hire a stand up comedian

I just read an article on NPR about how researchers managed to send a message through 787 feet of stone using a beam of neutrinos.

A quote from another article said:

For the first time, scientists have used neutrinos — the exotic fundamental particles that routinely pass right through Earth — to send a message through the ground.

Guess what message they sent? Remembering that neutrinos are exotic and that this was a ground breaking experiment with potential to change, if nothing else, the way we communicate (at&t will have to kiss all those gov dollars for maintaining phone lines bye bye for starters). And that, if CERN figures out whether or not a neutrino did travel faster than the speed of light that we could send messages back in time. And that this wasn't an overnight experiment, surely it was years in the making and all the scientists had to be thinking about what message to send...

They sent one word: neutrino.

Um, what? Are you fucking KIDDING???????????

Why not "Rosebud was his sled", "first neutrino spam message", "my neutrino went through the center of the earth and all I got was this lousy t-shirt", "neutrinos are particles too", "I've been shot!", "neutrinos do it faster"...

And those are just stupid things that I thought up in one minute.

It's a happy day for science, and a sad day for creativity

Reminds me of my dream where I was allowed to look through a telescope to see the secrets of the universe...

the gift that keeps on giving me shit

I should have known not to get too excited about my new laptop.

I turned it on yesterday late afternoon so I could start migrating stuff off this old dying dog.

BUT -

My name is spelled wrong on my account so I wasn't able to connect to the network; also, it took me a while to figure out where the spelling error was (they replaced the "a" in my last name with a "u" - interesting).

They sent me the wrong passwords for both my Admin and user accounts. Luckily I was able to guess them both.

They sent the laptop loaded with nothing but windows 7 and some other crap. Seriously? Like, they couldn't take the FIVE FUCKING SECONDS to load MS Office so instead I wasted 5 hours downloading it off a server that's probably in fucking India.

The instructions for the set up were completely wrong. Like wrong at step 2. How fucking incompetent do you have to be that in a 4 page 20 step document EVERYTHING is wrong after step 1 (which was "log on"). I just started winging it (I know, for YOU set up of a laptop is not hard - but I am in an INSANE corporate environment and have to do shit like encrypt my hard drive, add passwords to disks, link up to a security site that checks my laptop once a week for sensitive information compliance and I had to also figure out what fucking server my mail is on - WHO KNOWS THAT??????).

I probably would not be so pissed if I hadn't been up in the Boulder office where they load up the laptops and seen most of the staff there talking or playing solitaire. I think one guy was working on a laptop. No, better to have me waste my time doing this shit than someone who IS GETTING PAID TO BE IT SUPPORT.

Don't worry. I have a job interview on Friday.

the squeaky wheel gets the biggest laptop ever

My new laptop arrived. It's a lot bigger than my old one and weighs as much as I do.

It fucking better be faster and more stable.

Can't wait to lug that power supply around. I thought batteries were getting smaller.

We are a high tech company.

the wifesitter

My writing buddy Kevin just made a trailer for a tv show called The Wifesitter. Check it out. He plays the husband.

a strange underwear drawer of their own

Generally, it's hard to be friends with mathematicians. Sure they occasionally provide some useful information. But for the most part, they're smart asses. Like this mathematician I know that I was trying to get to help me think of a practical use for the Goldbach Conjecture should it ever be proved (I like to stress myself out by thinking about problems that can't be solved but that don't involve Pakistan):

I wrote:

I've been taking tests for an hour to see if I pick the golden rectangle out of a series of rectangles and I can't do it. Like, 90% of the population can do it. I'm so depressed.

I've been reading a book about chaos and numbers. Discovered a neat card trick, which is how to suspend a card completely off of a table using only four cards and no glue. And have been caught up in wondering about a practical use for the Goldbach Conjecture.

And, ha ha:

There are three types of people: those who count precisely and those who don't.

I'm bored. When are you getting home?

He wrote:

I'm home. I’m remembering that one time during the week I had an insight about chaos theory, but I’m too rushed right now to articulate it. Remind me later.

The original interest in Goldbach’s Conjecture was to use it as a gravel screen in the search for prime numbers I would assume. But that has probably gone by the boards these days, with modern machine searching algorithms.

I wrote (to be a smart ass):

It's this:

Every even integer greater than 2 can be expressed as the sum of two primes

So the multiplication of 2 primes can be used to encrypt data because it's so hard to figure out what the two original primes were, I was thinking about, if Goldbach's conjecture could be proven to be true is there a practical application.

He wrote:

I know/knew what Goldbach’s conjecture is, and was merely speculating on its usefulness myself. But think of your encryption proposal this way – it will only be useful if the GC remains unproven, just because any proof of the GC is liable to include a calculation engine that will determine the primes involved that sum to a particular value. In other words, you would only have a trustworthy, computable code if the GC were proven. But, if the GC were proven, then its proof could be applied in the deciphering of your encryption. Zero sum game.

Best place to hide stuff is still across the borders of adjacent second order mathematical languages – i.e. book codes and the like, that are generated anew for each message and user.

Though, your underwear drawer can work pretty good, too. No one ever stole my credit card numbers from there.

And since he said "your underwear drawer" (people are normally good at math or english, and, he's a mathematician) I wrote:

Why are you hiding your credit card numbers in my underwear drawer?

You're right. No one looks in there.

It should be noted I don't have an underwear drawer.

He wrote (because he can't admit he's made even an english mistake):

Think of your underwear drawer as my personal version of cloud computing, except that your underwear drawer won’t be subject to repetitive hacking attempts.

Okay. Denial of service attacks, maybe.

Anyway. Everyone should have one. You know... they could arrange a strange underwear drawer of their own.

 Um, what?????

Though, I did laugh about the cloud comment. Reminded me of the obnoxious consultant sitting in his own personal cloud.

it turns out, I'm not a dinosaur

I just took a quiz on fake science to find out what kind of dinosaur I am.

Be...normal?

more on mittens

I was just reading an article about Khodorkovsky, the Russian billionaire wrongly jailed by Putin. While he was awaiting trial he was forced to work in the prison colony's mitten factory.


Interesting tie in with my cringle crisp story since, for punishment, the croco-diamond and the kangawrong have to knit mittens as punishment for trying to steal the ton-o-tap full of cringle crisps. And to think someone told me that was a "ridiculous" punishment.

rooting my xoom

My brother Steve sends me links to stuff all the time, probably in the hopes that someday I won't be such a fucking idiot. But half the time I don't understand what he's sending me.

For example, on Wednesday he sent me an email titled: root your xoom. I didn't open it for a few days because I thought his email might have gotten hacked. Then curiosity got the best of me and I opened it. It said:

http://cornea.site40.net/

 

I had to re-root my xoom, this program is much easier than the way I did it the first time.

I was like, um, what? So I sent him an email back:

Not to be totally stupid, but what does rooting do?

I didn't mention I had no idea what a xoom was.

It turns out xoom is the new tablet I just bought. For those of you with tablets that are curious, here's what, according to Steve, rooting your xoom will do (besides invalidating your warranty):

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Root-Your-Android-Phone,review-1688.html

I rooted my xoom so I can back it up and so I can make the external sdcard read/write. But at the end of the day I bought the device, it is mine, I should have control over it, not the other way around.

I need to write up an article on the must have droid apps for new users, but here is a short list for you (root or not):
- es file explorer (manage your files, connect to remote, I use every day)
- airdroid (manage your device and file with easy transfer from your computer, excellent app)
- mx player (plays most videos)
- dolphin hd (best web browser, add-ons capable)
- mobo player (plays most videos)
- hacker's keyboard with english (keyboard replacement, I alternate with smart keyboard but smart is $)
- Amazon app store (new free app every day)
- Skype (xooms are awesome skype devices)

 As if I would ever skype anyone. I hate the idea of my computer listening in on my conversations.

And now I'm going to go around asking people if they've rooted their xooms so I can feel intellectually superior.

 

shop rock

I was in safeway today buying garlic powder (I just learned how to make a kick ass Greek salad dressing - I will never buy pre-made dressing again - why does store bought salad dressing taste so bad?) and, as I was trying to figure out which aisle might have garlic powder, I noticed that van halen's hot for teacher was playing.

Way, way back in the day I remember that song being banned from my elementary school because van halen was considered at the time to be obscene. Ha. And now they're playing at the grocery store?

I'm also not a fan of listening to top 40 music when I'm in a hotel lobby. Every hotel I've stayed in the past year has had some kind of top forty music playing in the lobby.

I miss the good old days when they played classical music. Or even jazz. I'm not sad that they aren't playing muzak anymore. I just don't want to listen to van halen while I'm trying to decide which grapes to buy. I don't like talking over the fray when I'm trying to check into my hotel.