Here’s another interesting unintended use for Google… Evidently many Webcams have a feature that lets you view the feed from anywhere on the Web. Unfortunately, said feeds are completely un-password-protected by default, letting anyone who knows the URL spy on you. No problem; just don’t give out the URL, right?
Wrong. Each camera has a standard script responsible for rendering the feed. If you Google for the name of that script, you get a huge list of unsecured cameras. Just click the link, and see who’s on the other end.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&c2coff=1&q=inurl%3A%22MultiCameraFrame%3FMode%3D%22 http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=mozclient&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&q=inurl%3A%22ViewerFrame%3FMode%3D%22 http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=inurl%3A%22view%2Findex.shtml%22&btnG=Search http://www.google.com/search?q=inurl%3A%22axis-cgi%2Fmjpg%22&btnG=Google
Right now there’s not much to see in North America (too dark/businesses are closed) so I’m watching someone’s goldfish in China, and a coin laundry in Japan.
Read more...2004 year in review...
January: I was fed up with the meat market atmosphere of clubs and dating services, and wondering who I was going to spend the rest of my life with. I read an online review of eHarmony.com, and was intrigued.
A couple weeks (and a couple disappointing matches) later, I had my first date with Diana. I was struck by how much we were on the same wavelength. We met again the next night, I spilled a beer on her, and she didn’t care at all. It was about then I began to suspect she might be the one. (Getting her hooked on Tetris Attack sealed the deal.)
February-April: Diana’s son Lenny was a year and a half old, cute as heck, and already sporting an impressive vocabulary. I was a tad freaked out about changing my first diaper, but it quickly became routine. I think Diana decided I was father material when he puked on me and I didn’t freak out. We would play little games together, drumming on the table, or babbling back and forth. The only part I really disliked was getting up at 6:30 AM, weekday or weekend, to watch him. Good thing he napped a lot.
Diana and I made several trips out into the desert to photograph mountains and cacti and flowers. I still consider my shot of the Superstition Mountains to be my all-time best. We also went out to karaoke night with Diana’s friend Holly (and others, but she was and is the mainstay) quite a bit. Some of our tabs got to be rather hefty, but I could afford it more readily back then.
I was still with the Business Support department at work (working for a micromanaging boss I despised), but was collaborating with the Commercial Development department on a project, and earning rave reviews for my programming and documentation skills.
May: My apartment lease was up. Moving in with Diana after five months was a little too short a time for me, but waiting another year was definitely too long, so off I went. There was a period of adjustment (learning to share a bed all week round, dealing with a one-hour-each-way commute), but I’m glad to say it wasn’t a mistake.
At work, Commercial Development began filing the paperwork to create a position for me within their department. The departure of several fed-up developers helped free up space in the budget for me.
June: Diana, Lenny and I drove to Texas to visit with Gram for what would turn out to be the last time. Dad, Betsy, Glen, and April drove down from Omaha to meet us. Gram and Murlin (who had recently gotten married) were gracious hosts as always. We ate very well, and had fun swimming in her pool under the Japanese maples. Everyone adored Lenny.
It was a fun trip, but Diana and I caught colds on the drive down, and still had them on the drive back. Not fun when you have to be behind the wheel of a car. It put a damper on an otherwise enjoyable time. We won’t be taking a road trip of that magnitude again soon.
In other news,Diana had wanted a dog ever since her last one (Chewie) had died, but my allergies posed a serious obstacle. The solution - a poodle, which she had learned didn’t shed and didn’t trigger allergies.
I was horrified at the thought of being seen walking a neatly-sheared lap dog down the street, but relieved when she told me she wanted a STANDARD poodle (which are nearly three feet tall when fully grown). Now THAT was a poodle no man would be ashamed to own. Of course, I was horrified all over again when she told me the breeder she’d found wanted $1000.
But I’d always wanted to own a big dog, and could tell that saying no would break Diana’s heart. So, we made the three-hour drive to a military base in Yuma where the breeder lived, and I handed over a $1000 check. (Diana also spent nearly $300 on bedding, toys, and trimming gear, and we still pay $50 for a monthly professional grooming. He’s the gift that keeps on taking.)
We named him Max, since Diana had called him that name in a dream a month before we got him. (Yes, she wanted a dog that bad.) He was a handful; it took a couple weeks to get him fully housebroken, and he still jumps and gnaws on hands to this day. But he also combined an aristocratic air (he sits taller than I do on the couch) with lamblike energy and playfulness. I’d say he’s worth it.
At work, I completed my move upstairs. I cannot describe my relief at having a full-fledged development position, and at not having to live in fear of my old boss any more.
July: Diana’s dieting efforts were proving unsuccessful, and she was having chronic neck and back pain from the weight. With clinicals coming up at her nursing school, where she’d have to be on her feet twelve hours a day, this was going to be a real problem. So I reluctantly agreed with her decision to have gastric bypass surgery.
I was seriously afraid she might die during this (evidently the odds are about 1 in 200), so I was immensely relieved when I got the call to say everything had gone well.
She was still gone for several days, though, and largely out of commission when she got back, so caring for Lenny, the house, and the dog fell to me. I was stressed, celibate, and worried about money, and I snapped at Diana several times when she really needed support. It was probably the roughest patch our relationship has seen. Fortunately, we made it through, and are probably stronger for it.
August: We flew to Omaha for Glen and April’s wedding. I was a little irked at having to pay full adult price for a seat for Lenny (since he had just turned two and was no longer eligible to ride on our laps).
I was in the groom’s party, along with John and a few of Glen’s friends. Glen’s childhood friend Ryan Pretz was best man. John’s fiance’s car broke down the morning of the wedding, and he had to drive four hours round trip to pick her up. He barely made it back in time for the wedding. April still hasn’t fully forgiven him.
The trip was way too short; we had to fly back the next day. Diana and I never even got a chance to visit my friends. At least they got to meet John and Lacey.
October: I accidentally nuked my Windows installation while trying to install Linux, leaving the latter as my sole OS. I’m pleased with its customizability, severely annoyed by its lack of polish. When I finally have time, I’m going to reinstall Windows on dual boot. I do think I’ll stick with the penguin as my main OS though.
November: I learned my Gram had multiple brain tumors. She opted not to go for chemotherapy (by then it probably wouldn’t have helped anyway). Dad and Betsy went down to see her, but her strength was too limited to see the rest of the family. She died a couple weeks later.
At least I got to see her earlier in the year, and she got to meet Diana and Lenny. It would have been a lot harder otherwise.
December: Flew to Omaha, and rode with Dad and Betsy down to Topeka for Gram’s memorial service. Her ashes were being committed to the family mausoleum there. I don’t really believe she could hear me, but I said goodbye to her anyway, just in case. My Gram was always cool and in charge, and yet very loving. She’s one of my idols.
It was hard combining grieving with celebrating, but we went back to Omaha and had our Christmas festivities as well. We more than made up for the short August trip, getting to really hang out with my parents, my brothers, and my friends. I love Lenny, but I’m very glad he wasn’t with us, as we finally got to be grownups and stay out late. His grandmother was probably less glad, though, as he was staying with her, and he formed a double ear infection while we were gone.
Like the rest of my company, I’m using up all my remaining vacation, as we lose it at the end of the year. Diana’s off school, too. It’s given us plenty of time to play with the TiVo I got her, and the Game Boy Advance she got me (I already have a NES emulator working on it). I’m not getting any programming done, to my chagrin, but after a busy year like this I could really use the break.
Read more...Been playing around with my GBA Movie Player, which I got not to play movies, but to emulate NES games. I picked up a 512MB Compact Flash card ($50 minus a $30 Fry’s Electronics gift certificate from Diana’s folks) and a USB card reader, put some ROMs onto it (even with all my favorites, it only takes 10% of the space), and found that 75% of them didn’t work.
It was only then that I learned of the limitation that the player could only handle ROMs up to 200K in size, which rules out almost any NES game made after 1989. Fortunately, I discovered that someone had written a special utility to compress ROMs, and had rewritten the PocketNES emulator to work with the special format. Voila - almost everything works perfectly now.
That gives me several dozen classic games on a single cartridge, and still leaves about 450 MB to use with the MP3 playback function. Now if only I’d had this during my flight to Omaha a couple weeks ago…
Read more...Flickr searches by photo tag...
Flickr is a service that lets you upload photos to share with the world. You can also browse other peoples’ albums. http://www.flickr.com/
Photos can have “tags” associated with them, which are like keywords denoting their subject. This lets you view everyone’s photos by topic: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/
I’ve found that these tags tend to have the best-quality photos associated with them: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/sunset/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/nature/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/architecture/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/autumn/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/flowers/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/macro/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/reflection/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/trees/
Here’s the URL of an RSS feed that combines all these tags (thumbnails will be embedded in the summaries): http://www.flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne?tags=sunset,nature,architecture,autumn,flowers,macro,reflection,trees&format=rss_200
Read more...We just finished a frenzied gift opening session...
Lenny got more toys than he knows what to do with (the Bob the Builder ones are his favorites). We’ll probably store some and break them out bit by bit over the year.
Diana, unfortunately, found her Tivo early (when Amazon shipped it in its original box), but she’s out there playing with it even now. She also likes her Lord of the Rings: The Third Age, which we’ll play together later.
We’re also going to play Judy in a game of Scrabble on the new board we bought her.
Diana REALLY spoiled me: a Game Boy Advance SP with 3 games (one from Judy), a new watch to replace the one I gave Glen (since it didn’t fit anymore thanks to my weight gains), and a new monitor for my PC (my old one needed to be smacked occasionally to bring it back to full brightness).
Read more...By way of showcasing Yahoo!'s new video search...
…I give you - karate monkey!
http://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?ei=UTF-8&fr=sfp&p=monkey+karate
Read more...Here’s a sampling of the terminology used in Chapter 1 of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style:
appositive posessive singular pronominal posessive indefinite pronoun parenthetic expression nonrestrictive relative clause restrictive term of identification
The chapter’s titled “Elementary Rules of Usage”. No wonder people are daunted by language studies…
Read more...Went to Wal-Mart over lunch to score birthday presents for Mom and John (figured I’d save some shipping since I was going to Omaha anyway). Unsure whether Mom had a DVD player (did we buy her one last year or not?), I checked out the prices just in case…
Wow. A 5-disc DVD changer for $60. A compact DVD player for $40. And the real surprise - a DVD RECORDER for $150. (It can record TV, video, or firewire input.) These aren’t exactly top-quality, of course; they all looked plasticky and had subpar components (and the recorder was from some company call ILO, who I’ve never heard of). But they’re obviously exerting downward pressure on prices from major manufacturers - Sony had a player on the shelves for $90.
Oh, did I mention the $350 digital camcorder we bought? Yeah, they’re finally cheap enough for us to join the crowd. Diana’s camera work definitely needs editing for length, though. :) Sometime next year I’m gonna get a firewire card so we can clean it up and distribute DVDs.
Read more...Don't be so sure about the reasoning behind this.
Evidently Blockbuster, tired of losing eyeballs to Tivo and Netflix, is axing late fees. You have a one week grace period (fee-free) after the due date, after which they’ll charge the item to your credit card (minus the rental fee), and it’s yours to keep. You can return it anytime within 30 days for a refund (minus a $1.25 restock fee).
I’ve racked up late fees that are more than the cost of the movie before, so this is a needed change. I’m not giving up Netflix anytime soon, but at least now when I want a movie tonight, I’ll be willing to CONSIDER going to the video store. And this also makes me view Blockbuster as a promising alternative to retail stores - it’s like a no-paperwork return policy. Best Buy, hope you’re watching…
Read more...Looks like Viz has just released both the anime and manga for Here is Greenwood. Finally, I can get rid of the last of my VHS tapes! (Hmm, wonder what they’d brin on eBay?) I also no longer need to feel guilty for just letting the fan translation drop for the manga.
Of course, I should probably save my purchasing/auctioning/rejoicing until I see how badly they’ve screwed up the translations…
Read more...