Scott Seligman
The Dissenting Pebble

main
ce stuff
my shots
sample code
personal pages
programming
web toys
reviews

rss

Xbox Live Member: sm360
   Time Off  (8/31/2009 7:59 pm)
      Filed under: Personal


I'm finally enjoying some time off, I'm sure in a week when I head back to work I'll be wondering where all the time went.


    Comments (0) | Permalink

   Maybe they'll make soda bottles illegal  (8/24/2009 6:04 pm)
      Filed under: Personal


It turns out it's pretty easy to make Meth with even the small amounts of pseudoephedrine that you can buy over the counter even with the most insane anti-meth laws.

I predict in one year you'll only be able to get Sudafed (at least, a version that works) via prescription.


    Comments (0) | Permalink

   Aflac is a Joke  (8/18/2009 1:00 pm)
      Filed under: Health, Personal


I'm sure the entire insurance industry operates like this, but I had a fun experience with Aflac:

"Will I be covered if event happens?"
"Most likely, it depends on your exact medical history and how hard you squint when you read the coverage."
"Here's my exact medical history, how does it apply?"
"I'm just a customer support rep; you're only allowed to talk to the claims adjusters when you actually make a claim, not now."
"So, you can't tell me if I'll be covered if event happens?"
"Correct."

It's easier to cancel than pay to play that particular game.


    Comments (1) | Permalink

   Fun with Facebook  (8/10/2009 8:55 pm)
      Filed under: Personal


I've had a Facebook account for a while now, and I finally decided that their RSS feed isn't nearly rich enough. Since I'm me, I decide to use their publically available API to write my own app that will access my Facebook account and provide a much richer RSS feed.

What's the end result? I've learned a very valuable lesson. If I ever want to write a wildly popular site that gives access to third party developers make the API as confusing as possible, then make sure to make the documentation as confusing as possible. Apparently developers all over the world will take this as a personal challenge to write useful applications in a hostile environment.


    Comments (0) | Permalink

   Timing Things Perfectly  (8/4/2009 5:56 pm)
      Filed under: Personal


Now that the weather has finally restored itself to sanity, I'm starting to feel like I might have a cold coming on.

This is perfect, it's as if my body can't handle the super cold weather of 75 degrees. Grr.


    Comments (0) | Permalink

   Too Hot  (7/29/2009 10:44 pm)
      Filed under: Personal


It's officially too hot. I really don't want to see triple digit temperatures again when I get into the car. Of course, I didn't get to see the temperature for too long, since once I got into the car I started to melt.


    Comments (0) | Permalink

   Heat antidote  (7/27/2009 4:48 pm)
      Filed under: Personal


I can't deal with the heat, so here's a dose of a too-cute dog to take my mind off of things.


    Comments (0) | Permalink

   Quaternion  (7/21/2009 10:56 pm)
      Filed under: Computers


Most of the fractals I've posted so far are drawn by using complex numbers. With a complex number, it's rather intuitive how to turn one number, which is really composed of two real numbers, into points on a plain. This means you can take a simple formula like zn+1=zn2 + c, and calculate for all the points on a plain.

There does exist a mathematical concept known as a quaternion, which can be thought of as a number with four component real numbers. This lets you take the same fractal formulas and render then in three dimensions (Four, really. More on that later.). Here are the Mandelbrot and Julia fractals rendered in three dimensions.

Of course, what's fun for this for me are the silly lengths I went to do create these. Not only did I create the engine to calculate the fractals, but I even went so far as to write the ray-tracer to render them. Yeah, I know it doesn't sound like fun to you, but I'm enjoying it.


    Comments (0) | Permalink

   Fun with DRM  (7/17/2009 1:26 pm)
      Filed under: Personal


I've always been of the opinion that just because you can do something, it's probably not a good idea to do it. Granted, not much will probably come of this, but I'm hard pressed to understand why Amazon would willingly piss off customers by deleting eBooks off of their Kindle's after they've purchased them.

Of course, even beyond the business issues, I just don't get authors like Rowling, and now Orwell, that have such a fear of electronic versions of their books. Sometimes I wonder if they'd be happier if I had to sign an agreement to only read their books in quiet solitude, sitting in a nice comfy chair, drinking some Cognac.


    Comments (0) | Permalink

   Unique Baseball Feats  (7/13/2009 11:11 am)
      Filed under: News


Okay, I've seen a lot of odd feats in baseball, but I've never seen number four on this list, a player stealing first (and that's not even the feat).


    Comments (0) | Permalink


Newer stuff... | Older stuff...

What is the Dissenting Pebble?