Category: play

36 Cube

So I’ve been geeking out over a puzzle that I got for Christmas this year. The puzzle is called 36 Cube. If you have this puzzle, and haven’t solved this cube, or would like to in the future, or have any other reservations about reading spoilers,

PLEASE STOP READING.

This is not a hints post, and I do not ease you into a solution slowly. This is a post about how I solved the puzzle and some interesting facts about the puzzle I found out afterwards when I began to dive deeper into the solution set. As well as the programming that went with it.

If you would like some proper hand-holding, please see How to solve the 36 Cube puzzle – hints & solution for hints (and samples of the program that got me started down my path).

AGAIN, IF YOU DON’T WANT SPOILERS, PLEASE STOP READING!
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hacking iTunes paths

so unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that we’ve moved to Slovakia. during the move, I was unable and unwilling to pack my computer up to bring with us. it was just too large to be feasible. the next best thing was to backup my digital life onto an external hard drive–which chelsea so conveniently gave me for christmas–and bring that with us instead. one problem with this is that, as with every other time that I had to wipe my hard drive, I would be forced to re-import my entire iTunes library into iTunes, and if you’ve ever tried to import an iTunes library, it’s better than starting from scratch, but it sucks. playlists don’t sync properly, especially if they are based on other playlists. and the add date for all your songs becomes the same date, which I use in many of my playlists (recently added, etc.) but I think I found a solution to my problems…

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i miss raves

I miss the pounding, pulsing rhythms that you can’t ignore. The drums that move your body without any effort on your part, and when you do put some effort into it, it moves you that much more and in ways that you never imagined. I miss the feeling you get as the sounds that no earthly instrument can make, the sounds that echo around the room and come back with friends to enter your brain, cause your body to melt from within. I miss the driving bass lines that have no business being in your chest, but are there nonetheless, moving your feet whether you want them to or not. And then, just when it’s getting really good… it all stops, if only for a moment, and the whole room feels it, and waits in anticipation for the release which always comes and brings all of it back and then some.

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downtown bratislava

Another picturesque street scene

Saturday Cameron took us to downtown Bratislava, in the pedestrian only zone, and then we went to the mall, Aupark, across the Danube. It was a chilly but sunny day, but it was so nice to get out and about finally. I read a few historical things about Slovakia before the move, but it is entirely different to then come here and actually see thousand year old churches and structures;  to be where another countries history took place, such as WWII or the Russian occupation, where it actually happened; to walk down these cobble streets, it makes you wonder who else has walked this path and under what conditions. It is very impressive and it made me feel more a part of our world and long history. I felt unimportant and small, humbled even, but very grateful to experience a tiny piece of another rich history, which really is my history too, since we all reside on one planet.

(more pictures after the break)  Continue reading “downtown bratislava”

leap second added at end of 2008

for everybody who will be celebrating the coming new year, make sure you don’t start (or end) your new year’s countdown early.

the international earth rotation and reference systems service (IERS) has announced that a leap second will be added at the end of 2008, making 2008 one second longer than it should be.

so either start your countdown at 11, or end your countdown at -1, either way…

enjoy the extra long year!  (it has both a leap day, and a leap second)

thoughts on proprietary file formats

so we got a new camcorder for christmas (mrs. claus was nice enough to bring one by for us), and I broke it out, started using it, got it home, and tried to hook it up to the computer…  well, that failed with a cryptic error message, but no big deal, the memory card is easily removed, and the camcorder conveniently came with a USB card reader. so i plugged that in, attached it to the comp, and tried to open the files with my favorite in-a-hurry audio/video player, VLC…

nope. try again.

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“i told you so” just doesn’t sound strong enough…

Microsoft Internet Explorer is about to ruin your day. Read the story for more info:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7784908.stm

Done reading?

Now, do yourself a favor and grab one of these:

Linking to specific moments in a YouTube video

A co-worker of mine pointed me towards this entry in a blog.

It talks about linking to a specific time in a YouTube video. I’ll repeat here in case you don’t want to link offsite.

Have you ever recieved links to videos that say something like “It gets really good around 1:47”, or something similar?

Now you can link to a specific moment in that video by putting the time as follows in your link: #t=1m47s

What this does, is when somebody goes to that link, it not only starts at the given time, but it doesn’t buffer all the stuff that comes before it, so you don’t have to wait for the part you’re interested in.

For instance, try the following link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP1-5uxZffE#t=5m45s (SFW)

That’s just awesome.

How I met my wife, part 1 — Meeting my second love

So a few years ago, I was thinking about what transpired to make me the person I am today, and how things work to open your eyes to the people you meet, and eventually to the person who matters the most to you. I started thinking back to the events that led to me meeting my wife, and realized that it goes back quite a ways, and includes events in my life that I never would have imagined would lead to me meeting my wife.

This is the story of those events, and it’s a long one, so I’m breaking it up into several installments.

It begins in the first grade (I know, right? first grade!).

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new browser

being a web developer, i try to keep up with what’s going on in the browser realm of the interwebs. today saw the release of the new Google browser: Chrome.  a new browser release is nothing new, but the fact that Google has, for quite some time, been the main ‘internet’ company, providing everything from search engine and page cache, to email, web documents, and calendar, all online, makes this browser release something to look at.

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