April Fool's Day Bliss

One of the best things about following video game and tech websites is April Fool's Day. They love it, maybe too much. There is something about being shunned and beat up and looked down upon and shoved into a locker as a kid in middle and high school that makes one so vengeful as to want to abuse one's power and prank everyone on the internet with gaggery (I just made that word up). And I feel their pain. So, here's a few of my faves from yesterday.

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33

Well, since 33 is right around the corner, meaning I will be 33 years old, I thought I would do a little tribute to 33. Cause it's cool, or something. 

First, a wikilink to 33 (the number, not the year and not the disambiguation). Which isn't funny if you've never been a wiki-ite. Anywho, so you don't have to read the whole wikipagia on 33, I'll give you the highlights. I will be 33 and that's about it. No, seriously. 

• 33 is the name of the first episode of the new Battlestar Gallactica. And I'm a geek.
• 33 is the country code to call France. I've been to France, see the link.
• 33 is the atomic number for Arsenic. Arsenic kills people; no relation.
• The intellectual cycle, one of three fundamental biorhythm cycles is 33 days long. The intellectual cycle regulates intelligence, logic, mental reaction, alertness, sense of direction, decision-making, judgment, power of deduction, memory, and ambition. On my birthday this year I will be at the peak of my 33 day intellectual cycle, meaning I will be smarter than everything and everyone. I'll be taking that day off. Check out yours.
• A normal human spine has 33 vertebrae when the bones that form the coccyx are counted individually in which pass 33 pairs of nervous groups. So, technically everyone under 33 is spineless...Eat that.
• 33 is, according to the Newton scale, the temperature when water boils. And it relates because I like Fig Newtons and I'm hot.
• Allegedly, some guy named Jesus (no lastey, like Cher) performed 33 miracles and died when he was 33. I'm smart, I've spread out my miracles a little better so I can live longer. Also, Krishna, the god with 16,000 wives and 180,000 sons, died to repurchase the Karma of the humanity at 33.
• 33 rpm is the speed of an LP. I used to own LP's.
• 33 is the coming of age of a hobbit in The Lord of the Rings. I have better feet than a hobbit, but I still haven't come of age as of yet.
• Dante wrote the Divine Comedy in 3 canticas - each consisting of 33 cantos. His name begins with D and I was thinking about getting a game called Dante's Inferno.
• The highest title you can recieve as a member of the Free Masons is rank 33 or the Illuminati. I have the Illuminati Trilogy at home, I haven't read it, but I have it.
• Title 33 is the U.S. Code that deals with Navigation and Navigable Waters. I'm a Water Resources Engineer.
• The Planck Limit of quantum physics describes the smallest possible theoretical particle in the known universe as having a size no smaller than 10-33cc (cubic centimeters for you stupid Americans). 
• The place where 33°30'N, meets 33°30'E, is near the Southern end of the island of Cyprus, in the Mediterranean Sea, believed to host vast, unexplored archeological resources from nearby ancient cultures, allegedly even the lost city of Atlantis. Recent sonar imagery of the region reveals underwater structures resembling canals measuring 330 ft. wide with 33 ft. high walls. Dig that shit up.
• Number 33, 1949 by Jackson Pollock has me in it with one of my voices sitting on my shoulder. No, it's not a Rorschach and I'm totally serious. And now I'm creeped out.
• According to R. Allendy, "this number shows the free activity of the being in the organization of the world. It shows the free creature related to the plans of the Creator by links of justice and love or by the providential intermediaries". This number is seen thus connected to the Karma - 3 + 3 = 6. 
• 33 is the number of turns in a complete sequence of DNA. Last I checked I have a complete sequence of DNA.
• Vintage Queens Number 33 (Agent Lynch) is a Londoner, a redhead and hot, all things I dig (big-time).

 

In short, 33 is effed up; in all sorts of ways. And it's old. Cheers.

It has a beautiful symmetry to it, doesn't it? I wonder what it means when the lines cross.

Halo....Reach...(cont.)

Must I wait until May?

the sun is cool too

Oh NASA, you always do the neatest things. 

please update

One of the fun things about my friends at squarespace is the amount and kinds of statistics I can pour through concerning my readers. All 4 of you. But seriously, data is fascinating, it doesn't matter what it's about. It can, however, also be scary... worrisome... perhaps horrifying is the correct word. Let me tell you why. Squarespace (and frankly any semi-sophisticated web site) knows what your IP address is, it knows what browser you are using and it knows what operating system you are using. Ipso facto, I know what your IP address is, I know what browser you are using and I know what operating system you are using. So, as a matter of pride and personal responsibility I feel I need to provide this PSA to my readers out there who need to hit the Windows Update site, of which there are FAR TOO MANY. I think perhaps a list of what I'm seeing followed by its remedy and how-to would be the best procedure here, so let us begin. 

Prologue: I should start this by saying Apple users need not read below; you already drank the kool-aid, Apple wipes your ass for you then helps you pull up your pants (to maintain their tight control over you) and you don't need me to do it. Bye now.

Browsers: I'm making browsers big because they're your intertubes experience. However, experience is not everything, security is super important. 

Internet Explorer 6 - If you are still using Internet Explorer 6 (and I know at least one person is) you need to print this out, close your browser and update immediately. I'm not joking. ie6 is so chocked full of holes that someone has probably already taken over your computer. Go here and download ie8 NOW!! 

Internet Explorer 7 - Same as above, except not AS dire, but seriously, get with the program. 

Internet Explorer 8 - I still use ie8 for a lot of things, watching hulu, anytime I want to use Silverlight, checking my work email (exchange), simply because it feels better at it. I do like it, it feels reliable, albeit slow. However I am using it less. Why? Because it has 70 some odd percent marketshare and it gets attacked by every 30 year old hacker still living in mom's basement. It's a huge target, it's perfectly good for everything you want to do, but most exploits hit it first and I'd rather not take chances. 

Mozilla Firefox 3.6 - Firefox is great. I've used Firefox for years, since before ie could do tabs, and I love me lots of tabs. It's pretty reliable, very safe and saves your passwords (which you can actually find later {cough, internet explorer}). 

Safari 4.0 - Safari is pretty, I'll give them that. I've used it occasionally and I liked the "ease" of use, but it felt and looked too much like iTunes...which I hate. Yes, hate is a strong word and I hate iTunes. I haven't tried Safari on Win7 so I don't know what the experience is like. But knowing Apple, when they update Safari, they'll try to get you to install iTunes, Quicktime and possibly even Aperture and Numbers or something with it, beware.

Chrome 4.0 - Chrome is fast. Damn fast. I'm trying to not drink the Google juice, but it smells so good. I'm not exactly thrilled about Google having my data and using it to give me ads suited to my needs, which is why my yahoo mail is still my main personal email account. Zeus knows what ad-sense would think about that. Regardless, I've been running Chrome for a few weeks now and am quite happy with it. For one thing I really hate all of the tab bars, search bars, address bars, bookmarks bars, bars bars bars every other browser seems to have. I want that valuable screen real estate to go to what I'm browsing, not my browser itself. Chrome has none of that. Address and tabs. Period. I like it. 

OSes:

WinXP - If you're at work, you have no control over your OS, but, why are you reading this? I know most offices are probably sticking with XP for a little while longer because every piece of software they have works on it. It's stable, reliable and pretty safe. They've been using it for a decade now and they know how it reacts. Plus business don't like spending $200 a pop on OS upgrades. If you're using it at home it is time to move on and I have three potential avenues to rectify this situation:

1. Buy a new computer, PC. There's a thing called Windows 7 out (that's 2 versions past what you are using now). It is awesome. And your computer is old.
2. Buy a new computer, Mac. See Prologue above.
3. Buy Windows 7. I don't recommend this for most of the people I know, especially since I don't want to be your IT department when you're installing it. 

Win Vista - See WinXP above. 

Linux - I have nothing bad to say to you, except you rock my world. I cried a little when I saw a fellow Linux adept browsing little old me. Who are you? I love you, will you marry me? 

Miscellaneous:

While we're at it, let's do a little maintenance. Go to Windows Update. Update everything. Microsoft releases updates and patches on the second Tuesday of every month, get into the habit. Go get Microsoft Security Essentials, it is a free anti-virus/malware/spam. Uninstall Norton, McAfee, Trend Micro, all of that other BS. Seriously, it's not as wonderful as they say it is. Stop paying for it. Back up your data. Go out and buy an external hard drive, or use an online back up service like Carbonite. Get your pictures, documents, movies, songs, emails, et cetera backed up somewhere. I don't care where, just do it. You don't want to lose the first 2 years of your child's life because the pictures you took are gone. 

Happy Computing. Cheers.