Category: Ramblings

Why I’m Not a Copywriter

We had our bi-weekly company meeting this afternoon. Snacks and alcohol are served at the meetings, usually in the form of a keg and an Ice-tub filled with bottled hard ciders. There are also tubs of sodas and water, for those of us that usually don’t drink.

I decided to have a couple of pear ciders at the meeting this week. Afterwards, I headed back upstairs to do a bit more work on a website that is supposed to go into reviews next week. (The process where each department gets to take a look at it before we post it to the live web server.) Anyway, I realized that I didn’t have any copy for the email sign-up section. So until someone gives me that, I wrote some placeholder:

[Quote]

You know you want to sign up for our mailing list. The next few paragraphs explain why. It’s super – neato nifty cool.

There are some more reasons why you want to sign up. Or rather, why WE want you to sign up. Marketing folks love email addresses. It’s like candy to us or something. Sure, we’ll send you updates about when new stuff goes up on the site, but if you’re really interested you’ll probably be checking back anyway.

Since we are an ethical company, we’re not going to sell your address. You’ll only get spam messages from us. Yup that’s right. We’re good little boys and girls over here.

Someone should really keep the webmaster from making up copy when he’s got a couple of drinks in him.

Anyway, before you can sign up for our email newsletter, we’ve got to check your age. Click here to begin.

[Quote]

It amuses me.

Echoes of the Web Team

Way back in 2001, I worked with a team of web development types. Collectively, we were the “Web Team”. Then, there were several rounds of lay-offs, finally leaving me pretty much by myself in April, 2002

Anyway, we used to have this whiteboard whic began collecting wierd little quips or statements made by one team member or the other. As the board got filled up, older things were removed to make room for new out-of-context gems. Below is a list I just found while doing a a bit of cleaning. It’s scrawled on an old legal pad in my handwriting. The heading at the top says: “Echoes of the Web Team” and contains what was left on the board after everyone else got layed off:

[Quote]
Yoink!
Fear My Code, Bitch!
Squeeze and tuck
I destroyed my snoot
Hey Look! It’s a monkey!
There will be two paths to submission…
The “We need a name for this contest” contest
Who’s been messing with my big dipper?
YATTA!
Any unidentifiable piles belong to me!
Spanked like a naughty puppy.
[Quote]

Some days, I really miss working with those guys.

Edited on Mar 4th 2003, 02:29 by Hooloovoo

03.03.03

I had to run the rent check orver to our landlords this morning. When I wrote it out, I noticed how cool the date was. Just think, 9 more years where this will happen, (the same 2 digits for day-month-year,) and then we have to wait until 2101.

I just thought it was neat.

Edited on Mar 3rd 2003, 22:15 by Hooloovoo

Diving back into linux…

I have a passing familiarity with linux. I kind of have to, seeing as how most of the web sites I maintain (both work and personal) are hosted on linux boxes. I want to learn a lot more. I’ve played around with a couple different distributions over the last few years. hooloovoo.net started life as an old HP vectra funning FreeBSD. (That box, minus the HD, has been riding around in the trunk of my car since 1999 – I wonder if anything on it still works…)

I got ahold of a copy of RedHat 8.0 last night. I stuck the 4gig HD from the old FreeBSD system into my current PC and set up a dual-boot Win98/RH8.0 machine. The setup went smoothly, and I think I’ll have a lot of fun mucking about in this version of RH, but I won’t be able to do anything “useful” until I get an internet connection working.

I know that my internal modem is a winModem, and while I might be able to get it working, it’s probably going to be a pain in the ass. I’be been poking around a bit online, and I think I have a couple of solutions, but I need to double-check the modem’s chipset to make sure I’m grabbing the correct RPMs and such.

I’m almost tempted not to bother, and just dig out an old 56k external modem and be done with it. Or convince my wife we really do need broadband. 🙂

-Hool

Culled from the bowels of…

Here are a couple of links I found while trolling my company’s internal message board.

Pencil Carving: http://www.infofreako.com/jad/enpitsu-e.html
This one is just cool – very intricate woodcarving using pencils as the medium.

Flash Mind Reader: http://www.cyberglass.co.uk/assets/Flash/psychic.swf
Try it out, its pretty cool. More information, (including how it’s done) can be found in the spoilers. Visit the site before reading them. If you want to know how it’s done, come back and click the spoilers link.

[Spoilers]
Okay, so this is a pretty slick trick, and involves some interesting numerical relationships.
(Spam, somehow I think you’ve got it figured out already. Being a math-geek and all…)

The instructions tell you to pick any 2-digit number, add the digits together and then subtract that result from your original number. Then, you find the symbol which matches your result, and click the crystal ball. Amazingly, the symbol in the ball matches the one you picked. Go ahead, pick a different number and try again. The crystal ball knows.

Not really, take a look at this:

99 – 18 = 81
98 – 17 = 81
97 – 16 = 81
96 – 15 = 81
95 – 14 = 81
94 – 13 = 81
93 – 12 = 81
92 – 11 = 81
91 – 10 = 81
90 – 09 = 81

“Okay, they all equal 81, so what?”

Well, when you take a 2-digit number, add the digits together and then subtract the result from your original number, you end up with a multiple of 9. What’s more, for each group of ten 2-digit numbers, you get the same multiple of 9:

00 –> 09: 00
10 –> 19: 09
20 –> 29: 18
30 –> 39: 27
40 –> 49: 36
50 –> 59: 45
60 –> 69: 54
70 –> 79: 63
80 –> 89: 72
90 –> 99: 81

So all you have to do when setting this trick up is make sure that the symbols for 0, 9, 18, 27, 36, 45, 54, 63, 72, and 81 are all the same, and you’ve got a “psychic” flash movie.

“But, but, the symbol wasn’t the same when I did the trick again.”

Well, no. But that’s because the table changed when you reloaded the movie. Do it a few more times and pay attention to the multiples of 9. They’re different each time you do the trick, but that group of symbols always matches. You don’t really notice it at first, because the symbols are repeated a few times on the chart, so swapping a couple (okay – 9) of the symbols around each time is probably going to go unnoticed.

In any case, it’s still a cool trick. I hope these spoilers didn’t, well, spoil it for you, or anything. 🙂
 [/Spoilers]

Contrary to popular belief, I don’t want to work in a "cave"

Something’s been bugging me about my workstation all day, and I finally put my finger on it. One of the strips of flourecent lighting that is usually off is on today, and its causing glare near the top of my monitor. It’s been bugging me on a subconcious level. I only figured it out after playing with the angle of my screen and seeing the glare move.

I prefer to have the lighting directly over my head turned off, which was fine when I was in a bull-pen with like-minded individuals, or in a cubicle on my own. I was finaly able to compromise with the folks I’m sharing working space with now. The flourecents in the bullpen are off, the fixtures that create ambient light by bouncing it off the wall are on. (The light sources themselves are hidden abouve acoustic tiling, and there is a about a 3 foot gap between the tiling and the wall, allowing light to bounce down.) I actually like this set up much better than just having everything off.

There is a good-natured, running joke around here that some people would prefer to work in a cave. The fact is, they are just trying to cut down on monitor glare from the flourecent lights. I think the ambient light solution (described above) in this building is great, and I wish it was used a lot more. Why can’t all the fixtures just bounce light off the ceiling?

Anyway, I went over to the wall and played with the switches for my immediate area. I was able to get rid of the glare on my screen, and I don’t think I’ve affected anyone else’s light levels too much. The people that are still here in my immediate area are fine with the changes I just made. I guess I’ll see if I have to do some negotiating about the lights when I come in tomorrow.

Another advantage to the current lighting: my lava lamp looks so much cooler now. 🙂