Scavenger hunt!

This was awesome, the hardest part was printing the cookie file because I had to find a stupid printer, we should do this more, because we rule at it, and want more points! Bwahaha! But now he just said they're supposed to be longer, so I guess this has become the hardest part. Lets see, what to say... Well, I think the last time i did a scavenger hunt was at the begging of the year when the school made us do one, it was cool, we had to find things about the school and do math and random stuff. My team won, because they had me, and I'm awesome, pretty much. Alright then, that seems like a fair bit, I'm just going to have to hope this is long enough to appease his desire on the blog requirements, maybe I should make my font bigger, nah, he'd notice that. Ok then, wish me luck....
Oh, and thanks to Justin for helping me, you can find his blog on http://andrewfry.blogspot.com/ near the bottom right in the list of student blogs.

An Island, the size of Gibraltar.

The biggest purchase I'd make online would probably be anything shy of a house or car. When you buy things online, the point is that it's convenient, cheaper, faster, or a combination of things. The problems with buying things like houses or cars, is that these are things you generally want to see in real life to get a feel for what they're like. To buy a house entirely online would be kind of a bad idea, because there's a lot of things you could miss. Now, I might use the Internet to direct me to houses I'm interested in, like, certain locations or sizes, but to do the entire procedure online would be difficult. So all in all, my limit for an online purchase probably is... anything, that I feel comfortable with buying based entirely off pictures and description alone. This also is affected by the reputation of the seller and other people's experiences, but if I go online, and I know I want a certain car, that I've drove before and liked, and I can go online to trusted site and get that exact car, I'd do it.

How to serve communities (get it? like man, in the twilight zone? aw, never mind)

So, what does is take to make a community? Well, first and for most, people. Without people, a community is, well, probably a lot of left over food or a really boring website. As defined by google:

• A community is a set of people (or agents in a more abstract sense) with some shared element — in particular a group of people who live in the same area is a community. The substance of shared element varies widely, from a situation to interest to lives and values. The term is widely used to evoke sense of collectivism.

Well, there you have it, that's pretty much all you could say if you were being brief about what a community is. I'd say one thing though, this puts emphasis on where someone lives, but, in the case of Internet communities, people could be living anywhere, so in a sense, you live on the Internet too if you use it, and to be more direct, you live on websites that you contribute to in a sense. Think about it, you spend time there, you talk to people there, you complain about small pointless stuff, sounds like a community to me. I'd say a community can be taken as a loose term for any group of people who interact with each other on a regular basis. And what easier way to interact with someone else than the Internet? See? They were made for each other, that definition should include " See: Internet ". Yep...

Heh, oh yeah, I was supposed to do that wasn't I?

Since this blog is part me, and part class topics being put on the blog for grades, this post is to be all about my topic for presentation for class coming up soon. Lets start with the basics, my topic is (insert title here) which is about (insert description about technical topic) and I'm going to have to do a presentation on it for (insert amount of time here). Good thing I chose (Insert topic here) it sounds pretty interesting, I'm hoping to finish the book entirely by the time I have to present, since I'm looking forward to my presentation on (insert date here). I'm sure the main character, (insert name here), will make it out ok by the time I'm done, most books like this one have good endings.

Alright, in seriousness though, I lack a book, which is bad, so, right now, I'm going to google and see what I can find online, be right back.
Well, after a few minutes of searching, possibly I might have to go with 1984, as cool as it sounds, the downside to doing a book everyone knows well is that any mistakes you make are enlarged ten fold. Oh well, it might change, I'm going to look more tomorrow when I have some time to check things out.

Internet Services, like room services, except, your room is your computer.

The internet can be used for many things, such as buying useless stuff (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYokLWfqbaU) or selling useless stuff (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYokLWfqbaU) but of the many services that the Internet provides, I'd say the most used, and most useful, is the ability to share information anywhere everywhere. I mean, think of this service in real life, lets say I wanna share my video, so, I go to a tv company, and tell them, "Hey I wanna share my video, will you guys run it for me?" and they say "sure! 500k please, in cash" and then I'll say "ha, yeah, good luck with that" and after a few days of trying to find places to share it, I end up carrying a battery powered tv around on my shoulder to the park and showing random people till the cops take me in for believing I'm crazy.

Now, do you really want the cops to think you're crazy? Didn't think so.

Or, you could go online and post a video on youtube, share it with thousands of unsuspecting victims, I mean, viewers, and now only the general public thinks you're crazy! Much better.

What I'm really trying to say here is, the Internet provides a service more powerful than anything you could do in real life, the ability to share! (Kindergarten power go!) heh, but you get the picture. How else am I supposed to watch hodepodged parodies of old tv shows? (http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=LittleKuriboh)

Did I really just buy something?

That's pretty much what I'm thinking right now, I bought a few domain names I've been thinking about for awhile, but it makes me think "what did I really just buy?" probably less than a floppy disk worth of information on some random server I'll never see. Was it easy? oh yeah, way too easy, they make sure buying nothing is as easy as it's gonna get. I suppose I feel that what I payed was a little bit much for just random data off somewhere, but it's the idea of owning it that makes it valuable I suppose. At least with paypal I feel a little more comfortable buying things online, like theses few domains or the DVD of the animated CAD series I got a few days ago, dunno why I feel more comfortable, maybe because they make a bunch of claims of "security" heh. Anyways, for anyone out there buying stuff online, here's some tips:
1. If the computer has ever been used to surf the web with Internet explorer, DO NOT use it for purchases, Internet explorer is like shopping at a shady convenient store with a crazy guy in the back while you're buying your energy drink, you have a high chance of being robed, and once Internet explorer has been used, that guy can stay back there and rob you every time. This also applies to a computer that's used for email with people who open attachments with "exe" in their name (yes, there's people who still believe paper.doc.exe is a word file) and computers where people use heavy p2p and other untrusted things.
2. Don't be stupid. Get firefox.
3. Did I mention not being stupid yet?
4. Please, for love of anything, look at the site, don't be stupid.
K, now that that's done.
5. Under no circumstance will a website HAVE to use money transfers and other BS. Here's how it goes, if the website is selling something you want, unless it's pornographic, the website is eligible for being able to use paypal, thus, it should be using paypal, if it doesn't, LEAVE. (Paypal does not support pornographic sites, thus, if you want to pay for one of those, you're stupid, it's the internet, try harder)
6. K, here's the last one, only buy something online if : It can't be bought in stores, it saves you a considerable amount of money (remember, there's shipping, but, in most cases you don't have to pay tax), it's easier to have it shipped than picked up, or if you're just so lazy you can wait a few days to have it handed to you rather than go out and risk an encounter with the UV ball in the sky.

Buying things online is useful, but you gotta be smart, just like anything else, if you can buy it in person, and it's not a big deal, then do it, take as little risk as possible.
-Lukas

Ryan Fitzgerald, the million minute man.

http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&ct=us/8-0&fp=462d41b1efbbf7db&ei=1TstRqaGCpiMqQOshKQm&url=http%3A//seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/1700AP_YouTube_Calls.html&cid=1115654663
I was reading on Google news about Ryan Fitzgerald, a guy who setup a youtube video saying "anyone can call me on my cell, just give me call and we can talk about anything" (not directly quoted) and people have been calling him non stop since Friday. I recently just got off the phone with him (sadly I got disconnected) and asked him how he's paying for it, and how the calls have been. Apparently, people have offered to setup a paypal to help him pay for his phone bill, and right now he's in New York being lodged in a 5 star hotel. He hasn't agreed to the paypal yet, but if I were him and knowing t-mobile, he might want to. It's amazing what a phone number and some syndication can do. Also, I'll be posting my phone call with him when I get home later tonight, sadly, my voice wasn't recorded, but you can hear him.

Halo 2 for Vista! Comming soon to a PC near you, well, not really, most people still have xp.

Halo 2 will soon hit Vista, this is good news for those of us who have Vista, bad for those of you who still have xp. From what I've heard it will only work on Vista, but, knowing our loving community, that'll be changed in about 2 weeks, if not less. Interestingly enough, I think this will be one of the first working "Game for Windows" title, where you put it in and it plays right away, and installs in the background. Not something new for console users, but, gives PC users something to shove in the faces of console fan-boys. One of the most awesome people in existence, Tim Buckley, got a copy of Halo 2 PC and posted about its cool new ability to load instantly. Though as he says, most of us can wait the 8 minutes or so to install a game we're going to be playing for the next few hours. Halo 2 for Vista comes out May 8th to stores where you preordered it near you. Yes, preordered is a word, from now on. You should get it, so I can beat you, because I am awesome.
-LukasLook! It's back in H3!

Kills 99.9% of boredom! Guaranteed!

http://www.gametrailers.com/umwatcher.php?id=57998
3D Animation at its best.

Exit133 and you

It's amazing how influential someone's blog can become in just a matter of less than a year if it's 'good' and 'interesting'. Exit133 (www.exit133.com ...duh), the blog all about Tacoma and its greatness, has become a hub for people wanting to be informed and involved in their Tacoma community. It's really powerful what you can do with the Internet, anything you can say can be shared instantaneously with anyone in the world. Where else do you have a voice that powerful? Well, minus some people, but still, the possibility for instant syndication makes it simply amazing when you really stop and think about it. Maybe someday I can think of something worth reading by more than the poor souls forced to do so in my class, oh, by the way, I'm sorry to you all, lol.
-Lukas

Great noises!

Fenix Down, a band in New York, a few months ago released their first independent album, I highly suggest checking it out on their site, FenixDown.com, you owe it to yourself.
-Lukas

Scientist: "I got an idea! Lets replace the Internet with something we say is better but really just makes it easier to spy!" Suit: "hmm, yes, I like"

http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,21563794%5E15302%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html
Sounds good in theory, but would probably mess up the whole thing, destroying any sense of anonymity we think we have, and ultimately cost so much that the only people who would benefit are the government and companies making the new equipment. Ultimately, the online community would rise up and kill all the scientist. Now do you people REALLY want that to happen? yeah, didn't think so...

Using water to put out a magnesium fire

I just realized when I fixed my Analytics code it bumped my first post (the one with my code) off my page, good thinking there Lukas, I've moved it to the html code used to make the template, sooo, if you're reading this now, you should refresh a bunch to up my page views!
Vote Lukas!
Er, nvm....
-Lukas

Analytics...GO!

I just realized my analytics code was missing a '<' thing. Dang, missed all the page views from my 2 posters, lol.

\/ /-\ /\/ | 7 ¥

So we had to do a vanity search thing on Monday, a vanity search being a web search for your name. So first we got the search - "Lukas Grove" - and I got the first result from the UWT website for working at the school newspaper.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Lukas+Grove%22
Next I tried without quotes: - Lukas Grove -
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=lukas+grove
I still got `Me` from the UWT website, woohoo! I'm number one! heh.
Next I went for just - Lukas - and:
http://www.google.com/search?q=lukas&num=100&amp;hl=en&lr=&as_qdr=all&start=900&sa=N&filter=0
I quickly went through with a search of 'UWT' for 10 pages of 100 results each (Google limits you to 1000 results that are shown) so apparently I'm not in the top 1000 for my first name, ohwell.
For my research query, I looked up on Google information on sugar batteries that they are working on:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=sugar+battery&hl=en&lr=
Got some interesting results.
Shopping query:
http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=QX6800&hl=en&btnG=Search
(The new intel chip, which from what I quickly found, cost about two and a half human souls ($1400) or so)
Contact query:
Google has a residential phone book which hasn't been completed yet, to find it type in the search bar rphonebook: (first last) name and it'll go to it. So far, I haven't had any luck with it though, so here's me in the dexonline (and this was assuming I could find it, which apparently I can't, can't even find my parents number...)
Anyways,
Definition query:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=define%3A+mendacious
I use google (define 'word') to define mendacious.
So I guess that concludes my search session.
-Lukas

UWT Web Cam not a Web Cam?? I must fix this!

For those of you who check your 'myuw' sometimes you see a picture of the campus that says 'My View' and has a picture titles with 'UW Tacoma Web Cam' and has a still picture. Well, a still picture is no fun, and it's definitely not video, so I copied a quick script to make it the closest to video it can get, check it out:
www.l-streams.com/uwtcam.html
heh, it's a grand total of 1fps progressive, impressive isn't?
alright then, back to hmwrk.
-Lukas
P.S. If the picture is too big, try hitting F11 for full screen, or get firefox and install the image zoom plugin (it may come standard now FF 2) and you can set image size for all images on a page to a certain percent through the view menu.
Oh, and if you were wondering about my color scheme I setup for my blog, it's the same one I use for pretty much everything, my myspace, my website, ect. It comes from AIM (5.9 FTW!)

That day that was three days before yesterday or after tomorrow if you're living back a week and a day.

We had an interesting class discussion last wednesday about publications that exist both in the real and digital realms of existence. One of my personal favorites is www.newegg.com since it sells the latest stuff for cheap and has super fast shipping, but then, it's more of a self torture since I lack great monetary support from myself for luxuries. It's a catalog I'd say, which started entirely online. Another one of my favorites is Ctrl-Alt-Delete web comic, based of Ethan and his adventures of being a video gaming guru. I remember being one of those people who would tear apart a 60 page newspaper for the one page of comics and mess up the whole thing in the process, only to wonder "how in the world do people read that thing when it's so big and clumsy to handle?" which is still a question that I think plagues me today.
It's hard to think of a published medium that hasn't be completely out-done by computers. The one that strikes me the most is when I'm reading something on my computer and I wish I'd be able to hold it in my hands like a magazine. Maybe it's the way of reading-looking-down, or just the feel of it, but there's times when I find that more pleasant. Anyways, I'm rambling, computers are the future of publication, syndication, and probably a whole lot of other things we haven't even thought of yet.
So, I pledge allegiance to the computer AI lords that will take over the world, please let me live to help you figure out how the hell to increase the half open tcp/ip limits in vista. Maybe if we work together we can figure it out.
heh, ok, I'm done,
-Lukas

Email and Me, a tale of mediocrity.

A little while back in class we discussed email, how we all use email, and how it differs from real mail. I myself use a variety of emails for different purposes, leisure, important, standard, official, and so on. I like using gmail, yes, gmail is creepy if you read about it sometimes, but I find it works a lot better than the alternatives.

<--- We love our Google. I know I do. heh.














But, back to email, like a lot of systems we build, the digital email system works similarly to the physical mail system. The 'letter' itself, exchange centers, servers, delivery, protocols, there's a lot that is a mirror of an already working system, and why not? If it works, why change it? Until someone comes around and thinks of something better, it probably won't change.
I think if everyone manged to use email properly and didn't abuse it, there'd probably be even more people using it than there are. The only problem with data is: it's not a physical object (within reason) and it's security concerns. Besides those, it's pretty solid, even when it comes to something simple, like email.

The 'Joys' of Vista!

Well, as some of you should know, Vista has been out for awhile and people have mixed feelings about the new OS from our friends at Microsoft. I've been running it since it came out, the Ultimate edition, and so far I've had good luck with it. Graphics drivers are o.k. at best, they need a whole lot of work before they're ready to compete with XP though. Now, I can live without perfect 3D accelerating graphics driver, but so far their new networking stack has been a thing of horror for me. Random black outs where I can't make new connections (exmp. A program already connected will stay open and online, such as a messenger program, but if you go to make a new connection, such as opening your BROWSER, you get a 'so sorry' message about not being able to connect, and the only cure is a restart) to a limit of 10 tcp/ip half open connections, which is great and dandy for people who are 'virus prone' and it limits the spread, but borderline riot-tastic for those of us who can keep clean computers and need more but can't get them; Oh joy, Error 4226 again!? TCP/IP has reached the security limit imposed on the number of concurrent TCP connect attempts! Really? You don't say? Who's security limit? The National Organization Of People Who Believe Everyone In The World Should Be Controlled By OS Limitations For Security Because We Are All Too Dumb To Make Safe Choices? (just for the heck of it) The TNOOPWBEITWSBCBOSLFSBWAATDTMSC? I guess they figure 10 is enough for all of us, you know, or they just don't want people to be able to use non-server copies of vista to be run as a server OS. They don't call you M$ for nothing do they Microsoft? Anyways, I found a way around the random blackout by disabling one of their own, apparently incompatible, services: the infamous ICS (Internet Connection sharing) service, and for some unknown reason that helped, I tried replacing the tcp/ip.sys file with an 'improved' one from XP with 50 connection limit, and managed to get my favorite color screen of all time, the blue one, (I know! don't you just feel warm inside knowing they kept it!) so guess I'll have to find another way around that. So, if by some very very random and unlikely chance someone sees this and says in their head "hey, wait a minute, I KNOW HOW TO FIX THE VISTA TCP/IP.SYS FILE!" you, that person, should totally leave me a comment telling me how to do so.

In other events of my grand existence my friend dropped of a drive with a "Directory is Corrupted" error (forget the exact wording) so I'm doing the a scan (with one of my old programs of choice) that checks for existing files without using the file table list and all that other good stuff that tells where, what, who of files and generates the files by guessing more or less where they start and end and what they're called, I don't know the exact details, eh, it's worth a shot though because I've had luck with it in the past.

Alrighty then, I better get to posting about things I'm actually supposed to be posting about.
Vista blackout,
er,
Lukas out.

HTML from the past.

Well, a long while back I made this type of web page from reading a tutorial online, probably, six of seven years ago. Luckily I've learned a lot since then (not nearly enough, because I'd always love to learn more) but awhile back I made www.l-streams.com to try and do a radio station idea, but lacked the funding to support that type of bandwidth. Anyways, this looks like a pretty good project to give people the idea of how a web page an exist, since in this case it exist on your computer. I do however like the picture of an early windows screen-shot of 'AIR Mosaic' showing your supposed outcome. Well, class is over, gtg,

-Lukas

The beginnings of something mendacious...

Well, here's my blog, damn I hate the word blog, I don't even know why I dislike the word so much, maybe because it just sounds like, I dunno, blotch, like smudge, something bad. Anyways, I'm going to try and see how much they'll let me customize it, because as it is, it's 'common' looking, hopefully they allow some good stuff like myspace does, but we'll see.

-Lukas

Edit: They don't allow my own font? awww...
Edit2: NVM, can change it in the html, woot
Edit3: They have the same html stuff, but it's hard to work around like I'd like, oh well, I've got it to look like
my AIM windows at least.
Edit4: Smoothed things out a bit, for a few minutes made my entire blog appear white with random shapes somehow, but it's all good now.