PSA: Share the Sidewalks

Over the past year, I have replaced my primary means of transportation. I have gone from strictly relying on my status of being bipedal, to relying on the bi-pedals of my bicycle. With this change in transportation scheme come a fair number of excitements and sometimes excruciating difficulties, and it is upon these facts that I intend to write. I'll point out the fact that I stated that it is purely my intent of remaining on this topic, for those of you who have read my posts in the past would know that "pointed" is hardly a descriptor to be used in description of my rambling writings.

The first topic that comes to mind when I think of "what I've learned while riding a bike" would definitely be how grateful I am for the fact that my bike is a road bike and not a mountain bike. This gratitude appeared as a result of the comparative ease with which I was riding home from class in the HPER E building on the University of Utah campus...the relative ease in comparison with those of my pseudo colleagues who were riding far inferior "mountain" bikes. I credit this ease to the significantly smaller coefficient of kinetic friction caused by the differing materials and patterns present in the respective tires.

Okay, enough of that pretentious writing. I was simply trying to make a point of how annoying it is reading something written by someone who pretends to have a large vocabulary. Now, let's get to the real stuff I wanted to talk about.

While riding a bike, I have discovered that there are very different levels of skill in regards to walking. Seriously though. I have never realized in the past, how difficult it can be for someone to walk in a straight line. I sincerely wish that this difficulty could be blamed on intoxication, but given the fact that people tend to suffer from it at as early as 7:20 in the morning, I either think the problem is with walking itself, or some people really need to cut back.

Let me illustrate an example. I don't mean illustrate as in drawing a picture...bad things would happen if I even attempted that feat. In fact, I'm convinced an orphan dies every time I try to draw something. So, I will merely try to paint a picture with words. Because I know words.

So I'm riding home from class (pretty much entirely downhill), and as I approach someone who is walking in the same direction as me, I make adjustments on the path of my ride as not to hit them...naturally. Then, out of some subconscious desire to be severely injured, the person takes a step to the side, impeding my already-adjusted course. I have to then correct again, and I have to ride off on the grass to avoid the straight line-challenged individual (I know....of all the terrible things that could happen to someone on a road bike, riding on the grass is basically the worst option.)

I have discovered that, more often than not, the person who makes the poor decision of suddenly changing lanes on the sidewalk is playing with their phone. So what is it that causes our internal compass to go all awry when we're looking at an object we often hold way too close to our faces? I think discovering that may be my calling in life.

The other scenario occurs when I'm quickly approaching someone from one direction, and they are walking perpendicular to my path. The person sees the rapidity of my approach, and a sudden sense of uncontrollable fear grips them, and they freeze. Now, mind you, I have determined that my path will not hit them if they proceed at their current rate of travel. So, when they freeze, all of a sudden the variables of my mental calculations have changed, and my solution is no longer valid. This causes a required swerve on my part, and, once again, I end up on the grass.

So, why am I taking the time to write this out. I intend this simply as a public service announcement to those of you who find yourself walking in areas where bicyclers share the lanes of travel.
1)Pick a target at eye level and a reasonable distance, and walk towards it. It's the same principle that they teach in driver's ed (even though you'd think that walking would be that much easier to handle since you've been doing it so much longer than driving.) Don't suddenly change lanes...you never know what's approaching from behind (unless you hear someone yelling "STOP THAT MAN." In which case, I would recommend you do all the "lane changing" that you desire.
2)If you see a biker coming in your direction, don't fear...we won't hit you. If we do, you'll just get insurance money. It's really a win-win situation, so let's overcome that fear. What do you say, patcha?

Share the sidewalks!

A Little Something for You Ute Fans

This won't die just yet. Click on the photo.

Innovation

Okay, I'll admit, the majority of the posts that have accumulated in this-here blog could be easily categorized as "rants," and if you have a problem with that, I would advise that you immediately avert your attention towards something that would be undoubtedly more profitable for you on a intellectual, emotion, physical, and metaphysical level. I bet you're just quaking in your boots, itching to learn what I'm going to rant about today. Well, I am pleased to to announce that you have to wait no longer.....than a short moment while I tell you a COMPLETELY UNRELATED story.

So I was at Subway today grabbing a cheap lunch, and I saw some guy who just looked trashy (judge me all you want, but I look at appearances .) He clearly had his girlfriend with him, and the thought that came to my mind (judge me) was "How would a self-respecting girl really want to be involved with someone who doesn't respect himself." (note: I could only see her from the back.) So she turned around as I was explaining this to my coworker, and I stopped mid-sentence: "Oh, well, that explains that." to everyone: take care of yourself.

So...rant: patents. That's what I'm going to talk about. Patents. Not Patients. Patents. Completely different. If you don't know the difference between patents and patients, I recommend hooked on phonics. I was even nice enough to give you the link right there. Get hooked. Studies have shown that phonics are more  addictive than meth and crack COMBINED. And by studies, I mean "studies," as in, the ones I just made up right now. Actually, it'll probably talk more about litigation of patents, but I guess that works too, right?

The motivation behind this rant is thusly: when I'm at work, and I just can't seem to focus on figuring out code for any longer, I'll peruse some tech blogs. The past couple weeks, these blogs have been riddled with various accounts of companies suing other companies over things claimed as infringement of "intellectual property." Now, I'm extremely far from being a lawyer, but if I understand it properly, intellectual property is essentially an idea that has come to fruition in a tangible form. For example, if you remember from one of my first posts, I brought up an idea for a product that my friend had thought of called the "Spatchet" which is a spatula and hatchet combined to be the ultimate cooking utensil. If I were to build this, I could file for a copyright, or trademark, or a patent. So this is the general idea behind the litigation.

There is a certain company, which I will call A****...hmm, too obvious, I'll call it *pple. So this company developed a tablet device, which some of you may know as the "iPad," which millions and millions of people bought, if for no other reason than they are incapable of using rational thought. (I'm kidding. I'm sure it's a lovely device. It should model.) So this company is in the process of suing Samsung because their tablet device "breaches intellectual property." It was found today, also, that in that litigation is also contained a suit against Motorola for their tablet. Oh, and they're also suing HTC because their devices contain code which also "breaches intellectual property." There are plenty of other instances in which App...I mean, this company is attempting to remove competition. I'm not going to discuss so much the operating system suits as I am those pertaining to the tablet devices. For your information, however, Apple was granted a preliminary injunction against the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Germany, preventing sales of that product in any of the European Union nations.

Like I said, I'm far from a legal analyst, so there are probably many little nuances in the law that I just don't understand. I mean, there are reasons why I chose to become an Electrical Engineer....which we won't get into. Apple enthusiasts would claim that Apple is fully justified in their suit because the Samsung tablets resemble the Apple tablets to the point where if you had been drinking, and squinted JUST right, you may get them confused. I mean, their operating systems are virtually identical, right. I should note, that the patent claimed to be infringed are entirely "look and feel" patents, and not relating to the operating system (in these instances.)

The fact that the patents are being "infringed" means that the patents were granted. Here's how I picture it going down. Guy at the patent office gets the application, looks at it, studies it, thinks about it, and thinks to himself, "Yeah, okay, whatever. This will never catch on," and he approves it. I bet he's kicking himself now (the fact that I made conjecture means that it actually happened...in my mind).

But, to be honest, this could all be solved if companies like Samsung would just pull the stick out (I don't know of what), and just alter their design. I mean, what's so bad about sharp corners on a tablet any way? Or, even better, what if instead of having a back-lit LCD screen they used a projector. they could just drape a cloth over the opening and have the images project on to that. Then they could implement a Kinect-like technology and have the whole thing be worked solely through hand motions. Hmmmm....looks like I'll be making a trip to the patent office, if I do say so myself.

What I'm getting at is that this whole thing is ridiculous. I don't like Apple, but I don't hate them (2 years ago I did). Now I've come to the point where I think that anything that spurs on invention and innovation is something that should be encouraged, and it's more important that people find a device that they actually like, rather than one that other people tell them that they should like. In the official Google blog, this is what they said,

         "Instead of competing by building new features or devices, they are fighting through litigation."

That's where my problem with it all lies. So what do you think?

Demon Infested

Let's just get straight to this. I've had something happen to me in the past week that has never happened before. Long story short, my voice is absolutely gone. Like....gone gone. Typically, in the past when my voice was damaged, it would simply drop in pitch. So, instead of hearing my typically semi-whiny, tenor voice, those around me had the privilege of being soothed by my melodic, Barry White-esque tones.  This time, however, the sound production took a sabbatical for an undisclosed amount of time (yes, it's undisclosed. Despite my frequent entreaties to determine the length of its absence, it has yet to respond. I blame that on irresponsibility...or possibly an inability to hear those entreaties.) Because this has never happened to me before, I'm going to share the evolution of such an experience as well as some fun experiences I've had in the mean time (note: I use the term FUN very liberally both in this post and in my personal life. You've been warned.)

It all started Saturday, the 30th of April. I arrived home after enjoying some friend time at about 10 p.m. because I wasn't feeling super great, and I commenced watching some TV show...or something. Well, the coughing started, which prevented my efforts to sleep, so what did I do? Looked at computer components. Yes, the same activity that anyone in their right mind would engage themselves in (As a side note, if you're looking to upgrade computer components, make sure you check compatibility, otherwise the purchase of one item will necessitate the purchase of another, and so on and so forth, and eventually there goes your paycheck.) Eventually, around 3 a.m. I was able to sleep, however, much to my chagrin, I woke up the next morning (the waking up was to my chagrin...on second thought, that makes it sound like I have some sort of death wish, which I don't. Pfff. Pffsh. . Anyway.) Generally speaking, when I wake up, I let out some sort of noise (let your imagination run wild). That day, it was a groan of sorts. I noticed immediately that my efforts to produce sound were hampered by something; I don't know what. (Another side note, being an engineering major, I find that whenever I feel to use a semi-colon, it's basically a leap of faith. And they say my generation is disbelieving and faithless.) As the day progressed, I found I was able to produce lower pitched sounds, but not in the same way as times past (refer to first paragraph if you're confused). I had to consciously make an effort to lower my voice to make any noise, which just wasn't going to work considering how lazy I am. So, whenever I would speak, I would produce some sort of demonic sound that has hints of human speech mixed with voided nothingness. So, that's where I am now. (This explanation was far longer than I expected, but you know how when I start rambling I just kind of go on and on and on and on. If you don't know that, learn it quick...or else (this is not a threat. I have to make sure I say that for legal
reasons) <---Rambling. Case and point.)

The funny things that happened probably won't be funny unless you either visualize them happening to me, or you put yourself in my shoes and imagine how you would react should it happen to you. First thing: I don't know if my parents have short-term memory loss, or if they were intentionally toying with me, but I think that they started asking me more questions when my voice was gone. So I would be walking through the room in which they were, they would ask me a question, and I just had to stop, look at them and shake my head. Funny, right? Right? Okay, moving on. I was at work today. Someone was calling me...no one ever calls me, let alone while I'm at work. As a note (yes, another note), whenever I see someone is calling me, the first thing that goes through my mind is "does [insert callers name here] know they're calling me? I bet it's just a butt-dial." And then I have to evaluate whether or not I should answer. Typically, if I don't answer, I wait to see if they leave a message. If they do leave a message, I know their call was intentional, and I'll return it promptly. That's just for you to note should you ever call me.) Where was I? Ah, yes. Phone call at work. So I looked at my phone to see if I recognized the number. I don't know why I thought that...ever since the introduction of cellular phones, my desire to memorize phone numbers has simply gone to something that's really small. Anyway, I picked up the phone. Here's the conversation as could be overheard:
Me: "            "
Person: "hello?"
Me:
Turns out my short-term memory might not be great as I forgot my voice was gone. Silly me. The third thing that's funny is thusly: I sing...a lot. Whenever I'm alone, I'm singing (unless I'm playing video games...because at that point my focus is very intently...focused...elsewhere.) I get home from work, and I'm listening to a song that has some sort of rousing chorus. So the verse ends, a brief stop, and as I attempt to join in on the chorus, nothing happens. What the...oh yeah. Try it sometime, you'll laugh too, except you will have a voice and you'll sing, which probably will lose all the humor. So, on second though, don't try it.

So yeah, I bet this post was one long "had to be there" type situations, or recounting of situations. Whatever. Die (don't actually....again, for legal purposes.)

As ANOTHER note, I realize that the pictures in the post have absolutely nothing to do with the post itself. I'm just getting bored with purely text-based posts, and I figured a few pictures would spice things up, even if they were irrelevant. What do you think? Good idea? Ptsh. What do you know...

...also, I have no idea what's in that Magic Eye photo, so don't get mad at me if it's, for some reason, vulgar...or vulcan.

Takin' a Trip Back

So I make it a point not to share personal details about my life in this blog. This post, however, is going to be devoted to something that I don't feel too personal, but I think it'll give some of you an idea about who I really am and why I am the way I am.

I came home tonight from spending some time with my friends and discovered that my mom have found an old notebook from my Elementary School days. When I was in elementary school, we had these vending machine type things that you'd put two quarters into and it would give you these little notebooks. This is the one that my mom found for me tonight:

As you can see, I was very particular in how I wanted my notebooks to look. I also wanted it to be extremely easy for those around me to understand my notebooks, so, considering that, you can clearly see how many individual tire treads there are. Isn't that nice?

So, I'm going to come clean right now. This post is going to walk you through some of the drawings I found in this notebook. So, why don't we just jump right in?

As a small sidenote, I understand that some of the text may be difficult to read, so I'll do the honor of transcribing those for you. This one is a triceratops. I guess I drew these while I was going through a dinosaur phase (which, I'm pretty sure was 85% of my childhood.) He's clearly "a run away from t. rex". He's saying, "you. ha. rire." Yes. I think the meaning is evident. You can also see two disco balls and a...bomb. Or two grenades. Or two pineapples? You be the judge.

This time we have another dinosaur of sorts. It could be of the same family as a triceratops, but this one is hairy and has weird spines. It is also "run away from t. rex". There's nothing else dissimilar from the others, so we'll move on.

Woot. Change of pace. Now we have a very geometric helicopter...which also has a jet engine in the back. Best. Helicopter. Ever. I'm just going to say this now: it seems that keeping secrets wasn't really my forte when I was young. Clearly, the box this helicopter is carrying is labeled "top secret," but someone did the good pleasure of labeling what is "in side box." How rude.

Now we have a somewhat similar helicopter carrying another box labeled "top seceret." This one was more secret because it had an extra 'e'. Once again we have that same jerk telling everyone what was inside the box. We have an allosause, which is probably related to applesauce. This time the divulger of secrets was also careful to tell you which box the allosause is in just to clear any confusion which may have come from 

previous drawings.

This time we have a trick in the box. I have to warn you not to open it because it may be a trick, but it also might be a trap.

This is my personal favorite. We have a man-like being, possible something out of one of the Mario Brothers games, but with a rake for an arm. He's saying "Rooooooooorrrrrmmmmmmmmmmmmmmbbbbbbbbbddddddddddddddduuule" followed closely by "I don't now wat I am saing" (translated, I don't know what I am saying.) This reminds me most of myself these days. A series of unintelligible noises quickly followed by a disclaimer. Good work, 10-year-old me.

More helicopters. But this time, the artist got wise to the stuff the other jerk was doing. The artist wasn't about to let the other person divulge what was in the box, so he beat him to the punch. Top seceret (Gun's) possessive. Figure that one out. It's like "hey, this box is very top secret (by the way, it has guns in it ." For you grammar nuts, I intentionally included the wink inside the quotes because he was quoting someone else's action of winking. Don't think that makes sense? Well, grow up.

We'll conclude with this. Guns. Every man child's goal: be good at drawing guns. But, I decided to take it a step further: why only draw awesome guns? Why not get down the grenades, bombs, and explosions at the same time? Plus, a lot of people can draw guns, but I can draw a Nerf gun (top right. It says Nerf, if you can't see it.) What's more intimidating to evil-doers than a Nerf gun? That's what I thought.

So, these are the types of things I imaged as a child. If you're a little bit scared, then you're probably on the right track. Hope it's been an enjoyable look in the psyche of my youth.

Skyline isn't just a High School

I determined to spend this post writing about a topic that I haven't spent much time discussing as of late. If you've noticed, posts on my blog tend to take on three different topic: interpersonal behaviors, video games, and movies. If you took the time to go through my past several posts (I would advise against doing this), you would notice that I haven't recently posted my thoughts about a movie, and so that is what I intend to do here. Rarely do I come across a movie I absolutely loathe (notice, I use the word loathe fairly liberally. When I don't like something, I laugh at it, so bear that in mind). I mean, sure, I see movies available on Netflix regularly that seriously make me wonder if there's any hope from mankind (Killer Klowns from Outer Space anyone?), but it is rare that I indulge myself in watching it. Last week, however, was different. A little over a week ago I saw a preview for a movie right on my Xbox dashboard which both caught and released my attention (unfortunately, the releasing part was halfway through the movie, and by that time I was committed). For those of you who don't know what it is, which is all of you, the movie is called.......Skyline.

If you plan on watching the movie, I would seriously discourage you. If you still plan on watching it, I would stop reading this post as I plan on divulging everything about it. And I mean e..very...thin...g.

So, let's start with the cast. It stars such notable actors as Eric Balfour and Scottie Thompson. I know! Star studded cast. But, to be honest, I felt a little more validated on this by the fact that Donald Faison did grace the screen with his presence. If you don't know who that is, go watch Scrubs. Seriously, go watch it..but at the same time, Turk (I'll now refer to Donald as Turk because it just feels right), felt like a fish-out-of-water in this more serious role. Also, I felt violated when Turk dropped the F-bomb halfway through the movie. But, if there's any consolation, he got what was coming to him and got eaten. More on this later. So, in a nutshell, there was no reason to really be attracted to the movie by the cast, so this wasn't what motivated me to watch it.

Now on to the storyline. Okay, so think Independence Day....and you've basically got the gist of Skyline. A mysterious Alien ship comes and hovers over a major metropolitan skyline (get it? GET IT?!) The begin abducting people. Sounds familiar. But this way is different. In this movie, they do it with light. Yeah. I know. Light. Oh wait, it turns out that the light doesn't actually abduct people. It just puts them in some sort of hypnotic trance where their veins turn black. I don't really know what that has to do with  anything except give the make up artists more work. So they get abducted, and that's it. They're gone. This is the process that the writers chose to whittle the cast down. One of the more enjoyable abductions happened when a guy - I guess one of the main characters, although I'm not exactly sure how - decided not to go quietly, so he turns on the gas burners from the stove, and he lights a cigarette with a lighter. Man. Showed them...except the lighter didn't work. Oops. Should probably check those minor details before hatching an elaborate plan to blow up an alien outside your apartment from inside your apartment. Turk gets eaten. I guess that's a fairly important detail. When the people get abducted, they're actually consumed. See? It's so bad that I don't even care about putting that detail in its proper spot chronologically. I'll get into the ending later.

So, the story wasn't new. It wasn't hip (whatever that is). So what about the special effects? Think Independence Day. Okay, it's slightly different. Instead of sending out small alien fighter ships, they send out....oh wait, small alien fighter ships. But wait! It has a shield that deflects any type of firefight! AND the human fighters end up firing a nuke when nothing else works, but this time it WORKS. As far as effects go, nuclear explosions are awesome...except this one was from a distance, so you could only see the semblance of a mushroom cloud. Wait a second....the light I talked about earlier. Super neat right?! No, it's just a light...that had something behind it, but I couldn't really see what it was because the light obscured any background image. For all I know they could be holding up a tortilla (shout out to all my Latino friends) behind the light. Ugh.

Okay, it wasn't the effects that caught my interest. In fact, I don't even know what made me watch it, but hopefully the ending saved some sort of respect for the movie. Remember Independence Day? WAY different. In fact, our two lead characters get abducted. Yeah. Didn't see that coming, did you? But wait, that's not the end. Oh, I should probably mention now that the two leads are in love. Okay. After the abduction, we pan into the alien ship and see just a heap of human bodies slowly being harvested. But it's not their whole bodies being harvested, it's just their brains. The human brains are taken from their bodies and placed inside those of the aliens. Why? They need to know how to make a really good sandwich? I don't know. That's not the point. THE BRAINS are TRANSPLANTED! CAN YOU HEAR ME!? Surely the couple will find a way to take down the alien ship from inside. But no, the guy's brain is taken. All of the brains, when placed inside a human, turn a glowing blue, but not this guys'. His stays red. Could it be? Yes. His human passions are still in tact. The end. Seriously. I can't make this crap up.

One thing I need to mention: this whole movie is filmed at one apartment complex. Every time they try to escape (a la Turk) something happens (most often someone dies). Low budget anyone?

Okay. I sound bitter. I recognize it. And sure, I had the chance of stopping the movie at any point. But it was an instance of the Train Wreck Effect (TWE), you know, it's so bad you can't look away? Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. Don't watch this movie, people. That's all I have to say (that and everything I have hitherto said).

New Name, Same Game

So this is more just an FYI than anything else. I think my level of nerdiness reached a new level. When I found this domain name...while at dinner...at a restaurant, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to purchase it immediately. In fact, I was basically laughing to myself for 5 minutes at the prospect. So here we are. New location, same information. Www.GiveMeAVirus.net has never looked so good.

Here's a picture of a random sequence generated just for good measure.

No. this really is meaningless, in case you were wondering, although I'm told that a certain line contains an encoded message that will lead you to the lost Ark in the secret government storage facility, a la Indiana Jones. Prove me wrong.