.the gpb kids.

Biology: Transparent

Posted by Mike - November 7, 2007 at 08:11:05 am

So I was looking at the pretty colors in The Colors of Your Degree article over at the Colour Lovers site. They list the hood colors for graduation gowns. It’s good to see that agriculture (maize [that's a color?]), physical education (sage green), and theology (scarlet) all have colors. But, what happened to biology? Chemistry? Are all of the sciences that they don’t have listed lumped together under science (golden yellow)? Why would oratory (silver grey) and library science (lemon) have colors when the major fields of science are lumped together? How upsetting.

Wanted: One Misplaced Brain

Posted by Jules - October 4, 2007 at 09:10:15 pm

My mind seems to be somewhere else today, because I seemed to forget everything I was supposed to do, except to go to orchestra rehearsal. Even my sleep was filled with random restless and strange dreams. This morning, I was preparing a reaction and forgot one crucial clean up step. So I had to repeat it from scratch, because, well, that little step was rather important. Secondly, I forgot that I was supposed to meet someone for lunch. So I completely blew that one as well. Thirdly, I forgot that I had A CLASS today. So I spent the day obliviously working in lab, blissfully unaware of the greater workings of the world. Then a concerned classmate asked why I had missed class. Face #1: (O_o); Then Mike messaged me that I blew off a lunch date. And then my face went like so: (o___O);; along with some of this: #%*&&!!! Oh well, at least my cloning worked. Perhaps that means tomorrow will be better.

I think I need more sleep. Preferablly not filled with dreams where I’m still unsuccessfully trying to isolate the same clone 3 months later.

The maze to work

Posted by Mike - August 27, 2007 at 08:08:58 am

I take casual carpool in the morning to work and everyone seems to have their own idea on what the best route is. There are no less than five popular routes to work.

They all start at the green symbol and exit off to the left. It’s horrible.

Sunnydale High School

Posted by Mike - August 16, 2007 at 08:08:49 am

If you recognize the name of that high school, then you must be a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan. And if that’s the case, maybe you can answer address my concern.

On TV.com there’s a poll which asks the question: “In the spirit of Back to School time - which TV high school would you like to attend?” And apparently the most responses have gone to Sunnydale High School. This doesn’t make any sense to me. Do you people not realize that there are vampires and demons and things that kill you there?

I would much rather go to East High from High School Musical, where everyone is singing and dancing all the time. How cool would that be??

On Lazy IE6 Users

Posted by Mike - July 3, 2007 at 03:07:14 pm

I read an article today about why user adoption of IE6 has tapered off. I like any article that equates IE6 users to MySpace users. Here’s the summary:

My theory of browser adoption is built on the foundation that your typical user is incredibly lazy and hates change. There are really only two factors driving browser adoption.

* Was it the default browser on the system?
* Does it make browsing the Internet suck?

Now, you may think IE6 obviously makes browsing the Internet suck because it doesn’t have tabs and tends to implement CSS and JavaScript poorly. But that’s because if you’re reading this site, you’re probably a designer or developer. Remember: ugly, buggy and slow aren’t enough to make users think it sucks enough to switch (think MySpace and Windows). In hindsight, the best thing to happen to Firefox was probably the rise of file sharing networks, spyware and pop-ups. Basically, everything that made the web suck. Everything that made the web a safer place to browse, made Firefox less relevant and quelled the urgency that made an alternative to IE6 a necessity.

What I find most interesting is that web developers (specifically those of the standards and Web 2.0 variety, which includes myself), were so excited by the Firefox momentum that we were convinced that it was a revolution. We actually thought the masses were starting to believe Internet Explorer was Satan incarnate. Just goes to show that it has to be in your face popups of wangs and cooters to make you download something different.

Source: On the Tenacity of Internet Explorer 6

Student Drivers Unsafe?

Posted by Mike - June 22, 2007 at 01:06:49 pm

I’m sure you have all heard that a lot. We all know that drivers are most at risk for crashing in their first six months behind the wheel. A student driver is being charged with vehicular manslaughter after running a red light in San Mateo. Here’s the twist, this student is of the graduate variety. This 26 year old was driving a guest lecturer from UC Berkeley to Mountain View when he ran the light and was struck by oncoming traffic which resulted in the death of the lecturer. Now the lecturer’s wife “has called on universities to end the practice of having students drive guest lecturers during visits, contending the practice is unsafe.”

Unsafe? At 26? Or is she referring to the fact that the driver was a student? What a silly woman.

Misdemeanor charge readied in Halberstam death

Online Shopping

Posted by Mike - May 29, 2007 at 10:05:39 pm

I just spent an hour looking for a good online retailer to buy a throat microphone from. After a little research I decided that the Iasus Sniper Pro would be a good all around choice for me. I mainly want the microphones for use while motorcycling but I thought they would be handy for doing other things like paintball or snowboarding or something.

I rejected maybe a half dozen websites based on bad return policies or just for having a terrible website before I finally settled on one. I get to the first step of the checkout process and actually click on the privacy policy. Like most people I don’t usually read the privacy policy, but since this wasn’t a website I had ever been to be before I thought it’d be a good idea. And lo and behold, the privacy policy page is blank. Not the best sign for me. Thus I am still mic-less. Not really sure what to do now. All of the “authorized retailers” have terrible websites. Argh.

Don’t these people work??

Posted by Mike - May 22, 2007 at 08:05:41 am

That’s something I’ve asked when I take a day off and walk around the city. I’ve never had the answer, until now! Someone over at the Chronicle wrote a column about it.

Because look out your window. Who are these people? At any given hour on any given workday, well, it turns out it’s not a workday at all. Not for these hordes roaming free, anyway. By rights our parks and movie theaters and stores should be minor ghost towns between 9 and 5 — chanced upon by the occasional tourist or late-night bartender but otherwise peaceful. Instead, they’re inexplicably packed. I didn’t doubt that the packers had sound explanations. I just wanted to hear them.

The mystery of the daytime idle: Why aren’t you working?

I’m too old for this

Posted by Mike - March 19, 2007 at 09:03:28 pm

So about a month ago I hopped onto a co-ed adult league soccer team. It’s the first time I’ve played with a full 11 person team with large goals in five or six years. It’s good to have running space again. Unfortunately, running seems to lead to injuries to me. In the first game I must have twisted my ankle or something. After the game it was swollen and hurt a little. A few days later a bruise semi-circle formed under the ankle on the inside of my foot. That’s not too bad. I’ve played two games on that, the last one with a brace which seemed to work pretty well.

Unfortunately in the last game I think I pulled or tore my hamstring. I had just got into the game during the second half and I made a break through the defense in anticipation of a through ball, which came right on target. I already knew I could beat any of their defenders in a sprint, but this time I think I ran a little too fast. I could feel something on the back of my left leg pull or tear or something. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling. I missed my shot (of course >_<) and started limping around. We got a corner kick which was deflected and recovered by me. I took another shot which was saved and then left the field to spend the rest of the game nursing my poor leg.

Those two shots were in addition to my four or so shots in the first half. It’s frustrating that I haven’t scored yet in this league. Every one was a clear shot that I should have scored. At least three were left footed and one hit a post. After I benched myself we scored two goals and won the game. Sucks to be sitting for that too.

So I’ve been using icyhot, which burns like crazy, and an ace bandage for pressure. It still hurts when I walk though. *sigh* I’ll probably sit out next game.

Click-click-click

Posted by Mike - February 25, 2007 at 03:02:47 pm

My turn signal light burned out in my Jeep a couple of weekends ago. I didn’t know it had burned out at first. All I knew is that the turn signal light on my dashboard would stay on all the time, and if I wanted to turn right, the signal would click twice as fast as usual. Also, after going a mile or two on the freeway my dashboard would start beeping. The same beep you get when you’re low on gas or there is some engine problem. Except this beep would just keep going. It was relentless. It would only go off if you signaled to turn. So I pulled off the road and inspected my Jeep. Sure enough, my right-front signal light was out. Shucks.

This weekend I popped the light fixture out to take a look and hopefully replace the light. Unfortunately I ran into somewhat of a problem.

Here’s the light in three pieces. The bulb part (to the left) broke off from the base (upper right). And The fixture that you plug the light into is also there (bottom).

A closer look at the fixture reveals a lot of corrosion (blue green) in the socket.

You can still see a little bit of water in the light housing. I actually poured about a half a cup of water out of it when I took it off the Jeep. I guess that’s a good indication of bad things whenever you’re dealing with electrical parts.

You can’t really tell from this picture but there was also water in the socket where you plug the light into the electrical system of the car. The plug part (not pictured and attached to the jeep) also had a bit of corrosion. So now what should I do? Take it to a dealership and try to get new parts? *sigh*

I also took a look at my other light, and while there’s some moisture in the housing, there certainly isn’t a pool of water in it. So I’m trying to figure out how all that water got into the housing. It’s either from a small crack near one of the screws (which I doubt) or from the socket, which had water in it. The working light didn’t have any water in this part.

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