Okay Marc. Since the list is up, I guess I need to ask you to forward all the usernames and passwords to me for Gina and the kids. I know mine but I have no idea what anyone elses are. I think this happens every year, doesn't it?
GJ said 9 days later
Prepare for a lot of spam, Eric. Robots hit this site all the time, and your email most certainly got harvested. Hope that one's your honey pot!
Marc can't give you the passwords, he can only reset them. They're invisible to him, stored as a one-way hash in the database. At least...they should be, right Marc? :)
Marc said 9 days later
That's correct GJ, I'll e-mail the usernames Eric and reset the passwords to be "password". I'd recommend changing them. And you're right, it happens every year, I think I even told GJ that over Thanksgiving. :)
GJ said 9 days later
You would be correct on that count!
GJ said 12 days later
and today I managed to forgot both my username and password again. I really enjoy getting senile.
Marc said 12 days later
An easy way to resolve the issue would be to use e-mail as the username and then I could setup a way to reset your own password, however the reason I didn't do that in the beginning is because I figured the little kids wouldn't have e-mail addresses. But perhaps I don't need to have it enforce a unique e-mail address per user.
GJ said 13 days later
or in my case, a brain implant.
Geoff said 13 days later
implant...I not only remembered my username/pass, but Michelle's and Ashlyn's. Booyeah!
Parsla went for a second interview yesterday and today got the call that she got the job! Woohoo! She'll be working contract for Chrysler, in the Mopar Service group. Her responsibilities will include coming up with ways of fixing common issues that don't take as long as a typical service manual procedure is. For example, if something needs to be changed that is difficult to get to, the service manual usually tells you to tear a bunch of stuff apart, and the labor hours are quite large. Her job will be to engineer a quicker way to service that part, to keep warranty costs down. Should be a challenging and fun job. We're both really excited, especially as tomorrow is her 1 year anniversary of getting laid off. She starts on Monday.
Awesome, congrats Parsla! Need to be a kick butt engineer to find a job in this economy, let alone in the Detroit/Michigan area. Good luck, I'm sure you'll do awesome!
GJ said about 1 hour later
Great news--thanks for sharing! Happy Thanksgiving to the both of you!
Kristen said about 11 hours later
That's great Steve and Parsla!! this will be a much better holiday season I'm sure!! Steer clear of those tornadoes now!?!
We're going to the dome! Burnt Hills is our school district, and they've managed to make it back to the Class A state finals a second year in a row. Last year, they lost to Sweet Home (Amherst, NY) 35-28 in the finals--but we're back with several new faces, and we're facing none other than Sweet Home again this year! They also managed to make it back a second year--so here we go!
Anyhow, the game is at 6pm in the Dome on Saturday. Don't know if anyone else is a big football fan--or if Geoff, being from Western NY, wants to come to cheer on Sweet Home. :) Tix are $10.
I might be interested...let me check with Michelle and see if she is interested.
GJ said about 5 hours later
k, let me know--will be ordering tickets today.
Geoff said about 6 hours later
why don't you pick up 2 tickets for Michelle and I...and if we can't go you can scalp them ;) jk, I'll owe ya $20
GJ said about 7 hours later
ok, I'll order them
GJ said about 9 hours later
Tix ordered--they're about $11 after the "convenience" charge. General admission. Tickets are good for all games that day, but we're only planning on attending the 6pm game right now. Gotta have time to play Dominion. :)
Abby said about 9 hours later
Hmm, I'll have to see if any of my friends are going. If they are, I might have to organize a meet-up ;)
Marc said about 12 hours later
I'll still be in town and would be glad to join you guys if you can still order up tickets or if I can order them. It would just be me, as Laura will be flying back to NC on Friday.
You have probably seen this on TV or in the papers--the United States Preventative Services Task Force has issued recommendations that say something to the effect that women under 50 do not need early-detection breast cancer screening--that it provides little to no value and causes much harm / cost due to the high false positive rate. Not surprisingly, there has been a lot of passionate defense of the current recommendations (that women between the ages of 40 and 50 get this test once a year).
Now, I'm no medical doctor, but one of my favorite bloggers is. Yep, he's a skeptic too, big surprise there, but he's also a cancer specialist. That is to say, that's his day job, so he knows a wee bit more than yours truly and probably more than anyone else reading this blog. So, without further adieu...check out his article on this study and what it really means, sans all of the passionate (but ill-informed) arguments you've probably seen to date.
And not surprisingly, it's caused quite a lively debate over there. If there's one thing we skeptics do well, it's argue. :)
Kristen said 1 day later
Good article. Very interesting to think of the tumors that we now find that never would have surfaced to be life threatening. Without mammography these women wouldn't be the wiser. Now they wage a physical and psychological war against the cancer enemy...all for what might have never mattered. What we really need then, is #1 a more accurate screening method with fewer false positives and #2 a way to figure out which tumors are or will become life threatening.
I have to admit though, that I do not want to be the first person to be diagnosed with breast cancer at 49, with a tumor that could have had a much better chance of being fought if it had been found the year prior, but of course I wouldn't have a mammogram that insurance wouldn't cover.....
So far, at least Dominion (both the original game and the Intrigue expansion) and Killer Bunnies. Anybody want Catan and/or Ticket to Ride? Anything else?
How about Wii games? Any suggestions? NHL06 for the genesis? :) I played that on the big screen the other day and fell back in love with it. :)
I was gonna say, NHLPA96 might be more like it. :)
If the kids like Dominion/Killer Bunnies then those two are probably fine. I'm definitely game for some NHL06, that's always fun to beat you guys up in.
GJ said about 3 hours later
hehe...you and geoff leave me often yelling...."Kaaaaahn!" after you guys finish pummeling the crap out of me in that game.
GJ said about 3 hours later
And actually, 1993 was the only version of the NHLPA game. Beginning in 1994, it went to just NHL94.
And frankly, the 1993 game is still the best game in the universe.
Marc said about 5 hours later
I need it was early or mid nineties and the NHLPA was the best.
Kristen said about 19 hours later
Don't forget to call mom, it's her birthday today!
I won't be home for turkey day--I'll be driving Drew home from the hospital after hip replacement numero uno. I have to give him shots as part of the recovery plan...hehe...I guess I'll bring up everything I want for christmas then.
GJ said about 20 hours later
good luck with the hip replacement!!
Geoff said 2 days later
I'm back from driving all over US and Canada...ugh. Sorry I missed out. Ticket to Ride, definitely. I'm game for anything else!
Steve said 5 days later
I've now played Dominion 4 times, and it is indeed fun. I don't really like the beauracrat card. Have yet to play with any of the other attack cards, but have heard from a friend of a game he played where the winner was the one with the least negative victory points! Sorry we'll miss it at Thanksgiving, but would love to play it at Christmas.
GJ said 5 days later
The Bureaucrat card has its place--it's a great money making card in games that lack card like the Mine and such. I think the most fun in the game is finding out how to make the set of cards in the current game work for you, and work against the others!
November 10, 1975, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald was lost with all hands on deck in a fierce November storm on Lake Superior. The younger ones probably haven't even heard this song, but it was a staple of AM radio in the late 70s. It's a great, moving song--give it a listen.
Definitely heard the song before, good tune. Never knew the back story, nor the lyrics, but I'm not much of a lyric guy usually anyway. :)
GJ said about 16 hours later
In that case, you're probably allergic to Death Cab for Cutie. :)
Geoff said about 18 hours later
My words exactly Marc. Very good song, never understood a word he said or what it meant.
GJ said about 20 hours later
Must be his Canadian accent. ROTFLMAO. I'm in one of those moods, sorry. :)
GJ said about 20 hours later
For those lyrically challenged, here you go:
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy.
With a load of iron ore - 26,000 tons more
Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty
That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
When the gales of November came early
The ship was the pride of the American side
Coming back from some mill in Wisconson
As the big freighters go it was bigger than most
With a crew and the Captain well seasoned.
Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
When they left fully loaded for Cleveland
And later that night when the ships bell rang
Could it be the North Wind they'd been feeling.
The wind in the wires made a tattletale sound
And a wave broke over the railing
And every man knew, as the Captain did, too,
T'was the witch of November come stealing.
The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
When the gales of November came slashing
When afternoon came it was freezing rain
In the face of a hurricane West Wind
When supper time came the old cook came on deck
Saying fellows it's too rough to feed ya
At 7PM a main hatchway caved in
He said fellas it's been good to know ya.
The Captain wired in he had water coming in
And the good ship and crew was in peril
And later that night when his lights went out of sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Does anyone know where the love of God goes
When the words turn the minutes to hours
The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
If they'd fifteen more miles behind her.
They might have split up or they might have capsized
They may have broke deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters.
Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
In the ruins of her ice water mansion
Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams,
The islands and bays are for sportsmen.
And farther below Lake Ontario
Takes in what Lake Erie can send her
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
With the gales of November remembered.
In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed
In the Maritime Sailors' Cathedral
The church bell chimed, 'til it rang 29 times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
Superior, they say, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early.
Steve said 2 days later
I'm very surprised I never heard this song on the radio on Tuesday. One of these years, I'm going to go down for the ceremony they hold every November 10th to commemorate all the sailors lost on the great lakes.
Steve said 2 days later
oh, and I have touched the anchor of the Edmund Fitzgerald. It's at the Great Lakes Maritime Museum at Belle Isle in Detroit.
GJ said 2 days later
Cool, didn't know they brought that back up to the surface.
Steve said 3 days later
The bell from the Edmund Fitzgerald is at the Mariner's Church in Detroit too.
This was the coolest episode of Timewarp. I had no idea that's how a drop of water looked, but it makes perfect sense.
Geoff said about 2 hours later
I second coolness
GJ said 1 day later
Guess I didn't realize this was Time Warp. I think I've watched bits and pieces of it, but it didn't catch my interest because they were doing boring time lapse stuff. Some stuff is *very* interesting, like these water droplets. The stuff that isn't is where you slow it down and find it's just a smaller replication of what you're seeing on the macro scale. Plus, I think they were covering some things I've seen a zillion times at high speed.
Now, if you were into circuit design, nothing is cooler than playing with the timings of chips where the time steps are on the side of 60KHz--that's a square wave electronic pulse triggering things on and off 60,000 times a second. Oh, did I say cool? I meant absolutely freaking mind blowing frustration when your flip-flops won't trigger right and you're pretty sure it's a timing issue...time to drag out the oscilloscope! Ahhh, those were the days.
Marc said 1 day later
Or when your professors finally tell you...oh BTW, it's not a perfect square wave, there's a very small fraction of time where 0 and 1 is indistinguishable and you need to handle that. And I'm not even talking about that silly quantum computing! :)
Time Warp sometimes has neat things, like seeing the sound barrier being broken at the crack of a whip, etc. But you're right, for the most part it is gimmicky slow motion.
GJ said 1 day later
Yeah, I know, it's technically a zigzag triangular wave and you'd best stay the hell away from that transitory period. However, if you have the right combination of resistors, this shouldn't be a huge issue. I seem to recall that so long as one of the two needed was way bigger than the other, this transition period was very small relative to the size of the actual pulse, but it's been a few years so I'm a bit fuzzy on the details--kind of like this transitory period!
Geoff said 2 days later
geeks, please, take this trapezoidal wave jargon elsewhere, your hurting my head ;)
GJ said 2 days later
Just wait till we start talking about Schroedinger's Cat.
I got a good laugh today when I went to register for autopay on my student loan (which has been repurchased by the original company that gave me the loan....). It came up with one of those security screens in which you have to type in the word that shows up as cryptic looking letters. Many times they are nonsense words, or words that are totally random. Often you have to tilt your head in funny angles and sound out the word to figure it out. I almost fell out of my chair after I very slowly and carefully enunciated the following word:
F-A-R-T-E-D
Too funny!! I tried to print it out, but of course because it is a security feature it prints in different letters. Bummer, because I would have sent it to Jay Leno. I'm going to keep it open as long as possible. Maybe I'll take a picture with my phone.
If you're on a PC, hit your "PrtSc" or "Print Screen" button and then go into MS Paint and go to Edit -> Paste.
If you're on a Mac, hit Command(Apple key) + Shift + 3 at the same time and you'll see the image file on your desktop.
Kristen said about 1 hour later
Dang, it timed out before I could!! It was pretty darn funny though!! I tried to hit print screen but didn't know about the ms paint step.
Eric said 1 day later
Typically you have to hit "Alt" + "Print Screen" to copy the window. Then you can paste it into Paint, Word, Powerpoint, Excel, or basically any program that allows you to paste pictures into it. In case you get something like that in the future. But I doubt you'll be lucky enough to catch that again!
Abby said 1 day later
Since when? I've always used just Print Screen to copy my screen. :] I've actually never heard of combining it with the Alt key.
GJ said 2 days later
Combining it with the Alt key copies just the current app, not the whole screen. Saves you from having to edit your pic later to remove the rest of the desktop, should you just want a copy of the app's window.
Geoff said 2 days later
haha I never knew that...I just used print screen. Although with Windows 7, you get a built in screen capture program which gives you lots of flexibility to copy whatever part of the screen you want. I was kind of surprised to see that included in Windows 7....too bad for SnagIt.
Marc said 2 days later
Windows 7's screen capture program is pretty sweet. Mac OS X has one as well that's essentially the same, which lets you visually pick a window, the whole screen, or a selected part of the screen.
The Alt combination is quite useful though, good suggestion Eric.
Kristen said 3 days later
I will be fully armed with copying procedures the next time my computer tells me it farted! Thanks guys!
