Silicon Asylum

http://www.portfolio.com/interactive-features/2007/06/salary_comparison It loads a flash animation...move the slider left/right. Gist: 1970 - CEOs made 28 times more than average workers. 2005 - CEOs made 465 times more than average workers. Gouge!

Homonyms are words that are similar, but have different meanings. Examples of homonyms include: two/to/too, accept/except, and there/their/they're. All of which I have no problem with. The one that always catches me is affect/effect. I've tried to google up some simple rules but haven't had much luck. According to YourDictionary.com there are 5 rules for their use. Including 2. It is appropriate to use the word "effect" if one of these words is used immediately before the word: into, no, take, the, any, an, or and. As if I'm ever going to remember that (along with 4 others) while I'm writing a document. Some people say it's simple. That "affect" should deal with influence while "effect" should deal with result or causality. But to me that doesn't clarify it sufficiently, sometimes something can be interpreted as both resultant and causal. For example, I had to send an email this morning with the following line: Not to mention ...

I'm a big fan of Numb3rs which is usually on Friday nights, the good news is it's now back with new episodes (post-writers guild strike). It looks like CBS has put together a spoof on Apple's PC vs. Mac commercials. I found it kinda amusing so I thought I'd post it.

Found this great collection online today and thought I'd pass it along. Freaky Light Graffiti Gonna have to play with this concept a little over the summer with my new DSLR.

I've NEVER seen anything like this before. You know you goto parties and there's always an annoying person that has to make their crystal wine cup sing but that's just completely annoying and ear breaking compared to this. It's safe for work. Just watch it. You'll need headphones. Crazy Crystal Glass Music Making

I found this amusing so I thought I'd pass it along. Gallery of trees "eating" things , you know if you leave something on/against a tree long enough the tree will claim it as it's very own. I really liked the motorbike and Christmas light pics. The bike doesn't loot that old but it's leaning against one of those crazy fast growing tropical trees.

For anyone geeky enough to care, NOAA is reporting that Solar Cycle 24 has begun (as of Jan 4th). This means that solar activity (storms, flares, wind etc.) is now on the up-swing. The solar activity maximum is expected around 2011/2012. For anyone that doesn't know solar storms can seriously mess with our little planet by disrupting satellite communications, power grids ( MTL 1989 ), etc. For all the latest greatest on astronomical events which might affect us check out spaceweather.com .

Well it's a New Year so I'm going to start with a new rant. I hate the forward button, I understand it's place in the evolution of email etc. but it seems that the only time I hear from certain relatives is when they're taken in by a stupid forward/chain email they got. This time of year there seems to be a reoccurring one suggesting that people should refrain from purchasing gas on a particular day. You know the email, I'm sure you've seen it. Basically it states that if everyone refuses to buy gas on a certain date it will cost the oil/gas companies so many 10s of millions to billions of dollars. Here's a few reasons why these forwards/chain mails are complete stupidity. The calculations are always wrong. 1) Yes, there are ~33.3million Canadians, but guess what? NOT ALL OF THEM DRIVE. Even if we assume the entire population between 15 and 64 drives that's only ~23million. Now what happens to that ~23million if we remove say 10% for public transit, 10% ...

http://www.dragonmount.com/News/?p=326 "Tor Books has announced that Brandon Sanderson has been selected to complete A MEMORY OF LIGHT , the final novel in the Wheel of Time saga."

In a Past Life... You Were: A Kind Priest. Where You Lived: Turkey. How You Died: Killed in Battle. Who Were You In a Past Life? Wow, I was a priest? and a kind one at that. Are there many mean (or unkind) priests around?

Looks like various forces in the industry are trying to get USB 3.0 "SuperSpeed" out next year. @ 4.7Gb/s it will be 10x faster than today's 480 Mb/s. http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/11/29/intel_seeks_usb_3_contribs/ I wonder if Apple et al are working on Firewire 4000?

I recently came across this article Firefox Homepage JavaScript Execution , which asks the question: "how often do you click on the Homepage button?" To which I think to myself, "as often as I need to visit about:blank....ie: never." How often do other people use the Home button? Personally I always found it kind of useless.

Will wonders never cease, eh? Reading through some comments on Bad Astronomy BLOG I came across this . "11 kilopicoseconds as Earth’s escape velocity makes no sense. http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/correct.htm" At first I didn't understand what the commenter was talking about. "kilopicoseconds, wtf" I thought to myself. After reading the colostate URL info it struck me, Phil had written "11 kps" in his blog. "The symbol for a compound unit that is a quotient of two units is indicated by a solidus or by a negative exponent. * RIGHT: km/h or km·h-1 (for kilometers per hour) * WRONG: kmph or kph (do not use p as a symbol for "per".) * BUT: It is correct to say or write "kilometers per hour"." I know lots of people that use p as "per" but now I know better. I'll stick with the "/" in the future.

The green sign above says it's an Exit (even Green for GO!!!!). The signs to the left say 1st floor stairwell & "-> Exit this floor". The sign on the door says "Not an Exit". WTF? In case of fire, get stuck in logic loop, burn, die....GAH!

I've decided to wage a small war against the use of "and/or" in English. I'm going to fix the world one small step at a time :D http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Grading_scheme#Grading_Template_Needs_Copy_Editing Well I probably won't fix the world but at least it makes me happy to try and fix the problems I see. Edit : The historic link is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template_talk:Grading_scheme&oldid=175558152#Grading_Template_Needs_Copy_Editing

Found over here: http://img.moonbuggy.org/provide-us-with-the-email-address-we-should-not-contact/ You've all heard the line from the song "Things that make you go hmmmmm", well I suggest we apply a slight modification making it "Things that make you go DUH!". Serious how could any even barely technology savvy individual think this was a good solution to the issue?

Well as expected my previous writing rant did NOT (sadly) "automagically" fix the world :( However, I have been able to encourage others to see the light. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Copyedit#Copyedit_Tag_needs_copy_editing Wikipedia's CopyEdit tag used to display this text: "This article or section needs copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone and/or spelling." So I encouraged them to change it: " 'and/or' isn't really valid so it's kind of funny to see it in a statement regarding copy editing. Simply using "or" sufficiently indicates that any combination of grammar, style, cohesion, tone, and spelling need to be addressed. Either that or it should be changed to "and/exclusive or" but even that is implied by a simple "or" while avoiding the awkwardness of reading "and/exclusive or". Wikipedia even has an entry about "and/or" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And/...

Well probably not really quote of the day because we all know now that I'm still not caught up on all the things I wish to blog about. Anyway, I came across this today and thought it was great. I was readin the blog of someone I worked with a number of years ago. He had a big on Book: Softwar - an intimate portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle . Ending with the following quote which I felt the need to mention. "People regularly mistake obedience for intelligence. That’s why we think that dogs are more intelligent than cats. .. A dog will fetch a stick every time you throw it. A cat will look at you and wonder: If you wanted the stick, why did you throw it away in a first place? Get it yourself, idiot." - Page 335, Softwar : An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle

Just caught this on slashdot . In the midst of trying to complete the 12th and final book in the Wheel of Time series Robert Jordan has died of "ardiac amyloidosis" which he has been fighting since at least March of 2006. It seems hopes are still high that enough notes etc have been made to complete it ( linkage ). However, I haven't heard anything yet about the prequel trilogy he'd been working on as well ( book one is out ).

The first in what will surely turn out to be a recurring topic. We'll start with "and/or". WTF is with people who use "and/or" can they not figure the logic out? It boggles my mind. Note : The OR allows for the same True result as the AND (bottom right corner), while also allowing for other combinations producing True results. Therefore all written usage of "and/or" should simply be "or".