Health Advice

Some very important health advice:

Floppy RAID

Floppy Drive RAID . Screw the Segway, THIS will be the next big geek lust item. :-)

Java Gotchas

Java Gotchas are quirks in the language or standard libraries. Some might call them bugs, some features, some nasty surprises. Here is a chart of some dangerous waters.

That site also contains the sometimes horrifying, sometimes amusing guide How to Write Unmaintainable Code .

Woz

I went to a talk by Steve Wozniak today at NC State . It was a very entertaining talk, mainly due to Woz's great stories about getting started in electronics, adventures in phone phreaking, the Homebrew Computer Club, and designing the Apple I and Apple II. Woz is an amazing storyteller. Even though I had previously read about most of the incidents described today, Woz really engaged me with his friendly style and ability to provide a level of detail not seen in published material. After the hour long talk, there was a Q&A which allowed Woz to discuss more current issues, like his educational projects and his (fairly) new company, Wheels of Zeus .

Lotus Notes Sucks

Lotus Notes is shit. This page explains why.

TriJUG

There's a TriJUG meeting tomorrow night that, work permitting, I'll attend. The topic is the Collections API and the underlying performance characteristics of the various collections. It should be a good refresher on complexity of basic data structures and algorithms.

I've been reading Hacking Log 3.0: America's Blog , the weblog of TriJUG's president, after finding it through JavaBlogs . He just got a 17 inch PowerBook, so hopefully he'll bring it to the TriJUG meeting and everyone can drool over it.

Razzle Dazzle

I saw Chicago last night. It was really good, or, as the reviewer on IMDB put it: "So good, it practically jumps in your lap and dry humps you."

I'm normally not a fan of musicals (the South Park movie excluded). When I think of musicals, I think of '50s Technicolor and dubbed singing (e.g. crap like My Fair Lady ). But Chicago was different. It had so much energy that you couldn't help but just sit there and grin at the screen occasionally. And the director doesn't try to make the staging of the musical numbers plausible at all - so you can just suspend your disbelief and enjoy the ride. Chicago definitely gave me the old razzle dazzle.

Case and Heatsink

I got my new Antec SLK3700 case and Thermalright SLK800U heatsink (odd how both companies chose to use 'SLK' in their product numbers). I took a few pictures for my friend Phil since he is considering purchasing this case. You can view the pictures at photos.uncledirtae.com , part of the burgeoning Uncle Dirtae empire. (Yes, my photography sucks.)

IRA

I opened a ROTH IRA recently. Since I opened it before April 15, 2003, that means I was able to make a contribution for 2002. Now I need to determine what I'll buy with the cash in my account. My original plan was to plow all of my contribution into Vanguard's S&P 500 Index Fund (Symbol: VFINX ), but with Apple's (Symbol: AAPL ) stock so low, I've been think about picking up some shares. The stock seems undervalued, given that today's closing price was $13.12. According to this article , Apple's cash and short term investments alone add up to around $12.50 cash per share!

Boobies

Looks like I have a fan! Keep 'em coming girls.

The Post OOP (POOP) Paradigm

Great Slashdot comment .

Registration

I registered for classes for the Fall 2003 semester today. Here's what I'll (probably) be taking come August:

• EECS 341 - Intro to Database Systems
• EECS 345 - Programming Language Concepts
• EECS 375 - Autonomous Robotics
• EECS 425 - Computer Communication Network
• PSCL 313 - Psychology of Personality (Term paper on Steve Jobs?)

Bischoff

Eric Bischoff is one of my favorite WWE personalities. He's the kind of asshole I've always aspired to be. I mention this because his theme song just played in iTunes. His theme is perfect for his personality and many times in everyday life I've wished that I could just blare his theme for all to hear.

Maybe with some X10 equipment or a Sony Ericsson phone and Sony Ericsson Clicker , I could rig things up to have Bischoff's theme play whenever I enter my apartment.

Taxes

I've just completed my taxes, and it looks like I'll be getting a refund at the federal and state levels. Unlike some people, I don't get excited over refunds - they essentially mean that I've given the government an interest free loan.

Quiet PC

I'm extremely picky about PC fan noise , as many of you know. In an effort to quiet my PC (Athlon XP 1800+) I'm making a few modifications:

• Moving the machine into a new case - the Antec SLK3700 . This case can take two 120mm fans (bigger fans tend to produce less noise), has a rubber grommet mounting system for hard drives (reduces vibrations), and has a front door (reduces optical drive noise).
• Replacing the stock CPU heatsink with a Thermalright SLK-800U . This massive heatsink can take an 80mm fan. I'll use a Panaflo fan.
• Removing the northbridge chipset fan and replacing it with a heatsink .

Future modifications could include a quiet power supply, video card heatpipe cooler , and use of Fan Mates . We'll see how happy I am with the noise level after the first round of upgrades.