| URL Shortening |
[Jul. 8th, 2009|09:28 pm] |
First came tinyurl. It produced URLs like this:
http://tinyurl.com/xxxxx (and eventually 6 and 7 characters, as it got more popular)
Then came a huge assortment of services with shorter domain names, some with interesting features...
http://is.gd/xxxxx
http://bit.ly/yourowntext
But the ultimate URL shortener, in terms of length, has been achieved... The admins of the TK top level domain (owned by the country Tokelau) have started a service called Tweak.tk, which registers a domain name for every shortened URL, so your long URL shortens to something like this:
http://xxxxx.tk
That's it. No path, no extra stuff, nada. It really can't get much shorter than that (sure, you could do 4 characters, but those are more likely to be registered for real, and there are far less of them).
Bit.ly users can rest assured that Tweak.tk won't be offering custom names, since that would undercut their domain registration business, but they will probably end up offering all the other popular features. |
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| Intent, risk, liability. |
[Jul. 7th, 2009|09:36 pm] |
Six guys sit around a table playing russian roulette, with the gun pointed at the guy next to them. One of them inevitably ends up shooting another. Has that guy committed a greater crime than the other 5? The intent and risk was identical every time. They all knew the chances that someone would die when they pulled the trigger, they all chose to take that risk.
Two people buy the same car. Bob just starts driving his. Joe does thousands of dollars in aesthetic customization first. They get in identical wrecks, being hit by Sue and Amy (who are completely at fault). The chance of your car being hit is predictable, just like getting struck by lightning or having a tree fall on it. If Sue and Amy had stayed home that day, the chance of Bob and Joe's cars being hit would not have changed in any significant way. Joe took a greater risk than Bob by putting a more expensive car on the road, but our society puts the burden of Joe's risk on Amy, who took the exact same risk as Sue. Why is that? Why does Joe not bear any liability for his riskier behavior?
Somewhere out there is Sam. He has that same car again, and spends even more than Joe making it prettier. But Sam recognizes that he is taking a greater risk by putting a more expensive car on the road, and he does the responsible thing and gets comprehensive insurance. Why is Sam not the norm?
In almost every part of life, sensible people can come to a consensus that with greater risk comes greater liability and responsibility. In this particular situation, and a few other similar ones, that consensus is shattered. Why? |
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| Weight |
[Jun. 30th, 2009|04:24 pm] |
Oh, and I have lost 10 pounds in 8 days on the "nothing that requires chewing" diet. Milkshakes, smoothies, scrambled eggs, mashed potatoes, grits, etc. |
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| State of the Sparr |
[Jun. 30th, 2009|04:35 am] |
Roommate's car got keyed while I was away, leading to a police report and a shouting match with the neighbor that did it. I think we are going to break our lease here. Between the pool failing inspection (closed for 3 weeks now), semi-monthly interruptions to water service, 80%-nonworking security gates, and a host of other small things I think we will be ok if they try to come after us.
On that note... I am looking for a new place. I need an apartment/house or room for myself, or an apartment/house or rooms for myself and my current roommate, or a house for *sale* (<$120k) for consideration by a friend who I am sorta house hunting with. ITP on the north or east cooridors would be great. Sandy Springs, Chamblee, Decatur, or anywhere between downtown and those locations.
Origins was fun. Daytime volunteering cut into gaming, need to get some night shifts next year. Made some new friends when I found a ride home, and finally got contact info for some folks that I only get to see once a year.
I arrived home from vacation to find my PC with a dead video card. Hopefully that's the only dead part, but an erratic router and a dead power supply for an unrelated device tells me we probably had a lightning strike and I will have to check all my electronics that were running. So glad I found a netbook on woot recently or I would be computerless right now, and that would be no good for a lot of reasons.
My dental troubles continue to mount. Good news, less pain due to less pressure, and less bleeding overall due to more regular flossing. Bad news, less pressure due to crowned-after-10-years-of-impacting wisdom tooth, leading to unstoppable bleeding at one site. Eating is seriously difficult, I have been on a mushy-foods-only diet for over a week now. I need a thorough teeth cleaning and can't find a dentist in Atlanta that will do it for less than $500, and on top of that I need 3 wisdom teeth out. Fortunately I can get the teeth out in Nashville for 1/10th what it will cost in Atlanta, just have to get up there ASAP. Recommendations on diet, dentist, and/or oral surgery options would be appreciated.
Finally, I am really enjoying having a scooter. I miss my bike, and being able to take it on MARTA, but not enough to switch back. |
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| TCPA, Cell Phones, Magistrate Court... |
[Jun. 16th, 2009|07:51 pm] |
I am thinking about suing businesses that robodial my cell phone, or call with prerecorded messages. I will make some enemies, and possibly lose some services*, but weighing that against the potential monetary judgements (a gentleman in DC who does this makes thousands of dollars per year) is pretty tempting.
The TCPA provides for laws and regulations that cover all of this, to the tune of $500 per infraction, some individual calls being multiple infractions (robodial, pre-recorded message, etc).
In Georgia I would have to file in Magistrate Court, since we do not have a Small Claims court. That means defendants could bring a lawyer, which would hurt my chances of winning.
* - My gas utility provider might cut my service off if I sue them, but they have made at least $10000 worth of infringing calls to my cell phone already this month. If I can recover even 10% of that, it would be well worth switching gas companies.
( Legal Citations ) |
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| Downs and ups... |
[Jun. 10th, 2009|11:12 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  pleased | ] |
I started the day realizing I had deleted over 100 hours worth of work done over the past 6 months... I spent about 3 hours trying to recover it in various "obvious" ways.
I ended the day having just remembered that I foresaw this contingency and set all that work to be backed up in another location, where it still sits safe and sound.
Maybe my really shitty birthday week is finally over. |
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| Sad tidings |
[Jun. 5th, 2009|12:27 pm] |
My bicycle got stolen last night, from the bike rack at Peachtree Center. They cut my cable. I am going to file the police report on my way to work today, and investigate security cameras in the area (at least 6 can see the bike rack, that I can see).
:( |
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| CybeRaver |
[Jun. 1st, 2009|11:26 pm] |
  Uploaded on 1st June, 2009 by sparr0.
Took a few photos at the Jungle on Saturday night before my camera battery died (forgot to charge it after the Cosplay photo shoot earlier that day). This one worked out pretty well. |
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| Scooter shopping |
[May. 28th, 2009|06:53 pm] |
I am probably going to buy a scooter soon. I am looking for something <=50cc, seating for a passenger, preferably 4-stroke. Can anyone recommend a reputable dealer, or point me in the direction of someone with a used scooter for sale? |
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| Driving from Nashville to POC? |
[May. 21st, 2009|11:32 pm] |
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I need a small package delivered from Nashville to POC. If you're making the trip and willing to make a stop in Hermitage please let me know. |
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| Gerrymandering in a nutshell |
[May. 20th, 2009|12:39 pm] |
This came up in conversation recently and it bothered me how hard it was to explain to some people. I decided to find a good illustration to hopefully make this more clear.
Consider a county containing a city, composed of "Magenta" voters, surrounded by rural area, composed of "Green" voters. The county has 64 total voters (or 640000, if you prefer), 24 of them "Magenta" and 38 of them "Green". The county gets to elect 4 candidates (representatives, judges, school board members, whatever). You would, ideally, expect to see 1-2 Magenta candidates and 2-3 Green candidates get elected (24:38 is between 1:3 and 2:2).
Now, consider what happens when the people drawing the district lines on the map belong to one party or the other...
You can end up with the "fair" results of 1:3 or 2:2 in various ways, but much less fairly you can also produce results of 0:4 (no representatives for the Magenta party) or even 3:1 (a massive representative majority for the minority Magenta party).
If you want to further explore this phenomenon, I suggest you check out The Redistricting Game, which explores gerrymandering in the format of a flash "puzzle" game.
Your thoughts on this illustration, or the socially-ignored issue of gerrymandering, are welcome.
PS: If you think the examples above are unrealistic, check out this (thankfully illegally non-compact, in most states) real "shove all the Hispanics into one district" map from Illinois' District 4 in 2004...
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| Windows Media Center |
[May. 18th, 2009|10:41 pm] |
So, I finally got to sit down at the home theater of a Microsoft fanatic, hoping to finally see the good in their media experience...
10 minutes later I had figured out that there is no way to stretch SD television to fill the screen, and that the software is somehow magically able to produce thumbnails for videos that it claims not to have the codec required to play (which, btw, was 80% of the videos I tried to play, in various containers and formats, from his own network file server).
There was maybe a 80 chance I was not going to try an X-Box 360, or a Windows MCE machine, as my home theater machine. Now it is 100%. That leaves plenty of alternatives... Boxee and MythTV here I come! |
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| Weekends |
[May. 18th, 2009|04:55 pm] |
Last weekend was a blast. 80s night on Thursday was packed, because Hell was closed AND the Diesel Boy fans were still there. Club Fetish on Friday was pretty cool, convinced a friend to un-hermit and hang out for a while (note to self: Majestic is not an option after RHPS lets out). Then I went to Nashville for a party Saturday night, which was a whole lot of fun. Got to talk to a lot of folks that I haven't seen a lot lately, cleared up some misunderstandings. Actually got homesick for Nashville, but only a little :)
This weekend is Play On Con. You should all come to Birmingham. Cookouts, gaming, and parties.
I need a ride out there as early as possible on Friday, and a ride home Monday late morning. I also have a bed to share. Could trade bed for ride, if that's a good fit for someone, or just split gas on the ride and rent out the bed, so let me know if anyone wants to do one or both of those. |
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| Electrohurtz |
[May. 8th, 2009|09:33 pm] |
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Anyone going tonight? It's close to where I work, so I was thinking about it. |
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| Holes in my nightlife calendar |
[Apr. 23rd, 2009|03:29 pm] |
After the recent unpleasantness, I know there are a number of people on my friend list who aren't attending events at S4 any more. Unfortunately some of our favorite events remain there, so that leaves some holes in my otherwise dense nightlife calendar. I can draw from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) dark_atlanta to fill some of the gaps, but that leaves plenty. So I turn to you, my friend list, to help me out. What other fun stuff happens the first Friday of every month? Recurring Friday or Saturday nights? Particular other weekend nights? |
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| Roommate wanted, maybe |
[Apr. 23rd, 2009|03:11 pm] |
One of our roommates is moving out. That leaves two of us (26M, 26F) in a 3BR/2BA apartment, ITP in Sandy Springs. Rent for the room is $300/mo, plus $100/mo average utilities. Have to be a good fit for us, so it helps if you already know Amy and/or myself. Get in touch with me if you are interested or know someone who might be. |
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