Category: Uncategorized

We had a morale event on Thursday. Just our floor from the at Micorosft got to go. Morale events are usually planned by the group admin of our floor. We went to to Jillians, a sports bar. It’s basically a event to boost the morale of the employees. It was rather fun. It was basically a day of practically no work. I got in around 11am. I had a foosball ladder match appointment @ that time. After the match, I had to go immediately since the bus leaves @ 11:30. The drive was pretty quick. Wasn’t much traffic @ noonish between Redmond to Seattle.

At Jillians, there were pool tables, ping pong tables, arcade games, foosball, air hockey, darts and some other stuff. Each employee got 2 tickets. At first I thought these were raffle tickets, but they turned out to be drink tickets. Basically I could order any drink that I wanted from the bar. As Tekman puts it, it’s quite weird to be drinking @ 2pm in the afternoon. Haha. I played a pool game with Tekman and lost at the final 8 ball. We were about equally good, which doesn’t really say much for either of us. Then the interesting part came. We were bored after a bit and Jeromy brought his Kem Cards. So a group of use decided to play poker and the chips were sugar packets. Equal and Natural were $1 pieces while Sweet ‘n Low was $5 pieces. This was a friendly game, so no money was involved. It was hilarious how we were raising each other. “I’ll see your 4 Equals and raise you 2 Sweet ‘n Lows“. Small and big blind were $1 and $2 respectively.

Then the pool tournament started and the poker game had to be paused. The outcome of the pool tournament was interesting. We told them to LOSE so we could continue playing poker. Derek manage to play all the way to the final game and winning the tournament! My manager Anand made it to the final table too, but unfortunately lost to my office mate Derek.

For those that know me, I’m not a drinker and usually hate drinks. But I thought I might as well take advantage of the situation since it’s all paid by Microsoft and ordered a Piña Colada. Then people made fun of me for picking a weak drink which I don’t really mind. But for my 2nd drink I allowed Tekman to choose a sweet drink for me. He suggested I try a Whiskey Sour with Crown whiskey. That drink was actually pretty okay compared to the other drinks.

So the poker game continued. I was up initially with a lot of Sweet ‘n Low packets, but I kept losing and at the end I ended having to buy back in. I had a great time.

Tekman and them got really hammered with drinks followed by more drinks. A couple of them did the Irish Car Bomb and then there was a round of Yager Bombs. I didn’t participate, but you should’ve seen Tekman. Haha, he was quite a site on the bus. When we got back, no one really was in the mood to do work. I couldn’t really think straight either. We ended up playing drunken foosball with Jeromy. I wasn’t really drunk though so it was 2 vs 1.

Haha. Thursday was a blast!

Got these letters from Fresh99:

• Dear God. Are you really invisible or is that just a trick – Lucy
• Dear God, Thank you for the baby brother but what I prayed for was a puppy – Joyce
• Dear God, Did you mean for giraffe to look like that or was it an accident. – Norma
• Dear God, Please Send Dennis Clark to a different camp this year. – Peter
• Dear God, Instead of Letting people die and having to Make new ones Why don’t you just Keep the ones you got now? – Jane
• Dear God, I went to this wedding and they kissed right in church Is that Ok? – Neil
• Dear God In bible times did they really talk that fancy? – Jennifer
• Dear God – Please put another Holidy between Christmas and Easter. There is nothing good in there now. – Ginny
• Dear God if we come back as something please dont let me be Jennifer Horton because I hate her. – Denise
• Dear God, If you give me genie lamp like Alladin I will give you anything you want except my money or my chess set. – Raphael
• Dear God, I Keep waiting for Spring but it never come yet. Don’t forget. – Mark
• You don’t have to worry about me. I always look both ways – Dean
• Dear God, I bet it is very hard. for you to love all of everybody in the whole world There are only 4 people in our family and I can never do it. – Nan
• Dear God, If you watch in Church on Sunday I will show you my new Shoes – Mickey D.
• Dear God, If you let The dinasor not exstinct we would not have a country. You did the right thing. – Jonathan
• Dear God, I do not think anybody could be a better God. Well I just want you to know but I am not just saying that because you are God – Charles

You know the last kid is going to be a great cars salesman.

This site also has kama sutra clothing advertisements (NOT WORK SAFE) (from deadlock). Ads for a youth clothing company in the UK. Pretty creative marketing I must admit.

First check out my browser with all my pya! tabs. This was a little less than a 3rd of what I browsed through today:

It’s been awhile since I posted pya! stuff, so here’s the pya! FLOOD!

(img) Windows FanClub
(img) ハロウィン – Halloween Pumpkins – a great assortment of different jack-o-laterns.
(img) ボート – Boat in the middle of Beauty – wow! the scenery is so beautiful!
(vid) 武道家たち – Kung Fu Bloopers – a funny compilation of martial arts mishaps.
(vid) 出来る男 – Handsome Young Man – a parody commercial for Microsoft Live Meeting.
(img) パラパラ – Baby Puppies – they’re so cute!
(img) 回りゃいい – Extended Wheel – when you’re too cheap to see a mechanic.
(img) 降りれないnya… – What if I fall? – a cat ponders to jump or not.
(img) 何億？- Line of Ferraris
(img) レーシングゲーム – Racing Game – when modding goes beyond just the computer.
(img) トラップ – Trap – looking at the image, wouldn’t the door open the incorrect way?
(img) バット – Giant Baseball Bat
(img) 隊員 – Female Soldiers – Choose a country. Take your pick.
(vid) 炎上した車が・・・ – Flaming HotWheel – … enters your butt.
(img) トランスフォーマー – Transformer – from a Subaru WRX.
(vid) (=ﾟωﾟ)ﾉぃょぅnya – Cute Kittens
(flash) マイケルブラザーズ – Michael Brothers – a parody flash between the Michael Jackson game and Super Mario Brothers. Do remember to hit ‘B’ at the end.
(img) キックキックキックキック – Kick Kick Kick Kick – real female street fighters.
(img) 「……」 「……」 – Big faces on top of Tall Cliffs

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Random Crap:

What Grinds My Gears: (from msticazn) You ever had to remote desktop from a machine with a different screen resolution to your main computer? Welp, notice how your desktop icons get screwed up? On top of that, they also screw up the window sizings, where my aim buddy list would be shrunk to fit on a smaller resolution. I really wish there was a way where window and desktop icon settings would be saved per resolution size. Maybe I should suggest that to the Terminal Services group. Now that sounds like an idea!

Ask Ars: baby monitors vetted by geeks – You know you’re a geek when you read that and think of tiny portable LCDs.

Bargain-Hunting Tips: Shower With the Dog – One, possibly embittered, contestant advised: “Do not give money to your wife. Do not give money to your wife. Do not give money to your wife. Get the hint!” I like how this guy thinks! Women, meanwhile, were advised to spend their husband’s money and save theirs, to confiscate their husband’s credit cards and avoid the misery of marrying a skinflint. See! Women are evil! They take money from men so they don’t have to use their own. On the other hand, the men’s advice was to keep money away from the women, not take money from them.

‘Sick worker’ malady may be early RSI sign – Early nerve damage caused by repetitive motion on the job can cause “sick worker” syndrome, a fatigue or depression that can be mistaken for poor work performance, according to a study published in this month’s Journal of Neuroimmunology. So that’s why programmers so easily get sidetracked! And I thought it was because of the internet.

Waterbed Prank (from deadlock) – hilarious video of people at a furniture store testing out beds and this water bed is REALLY WATER!

How to become l33t (from tera) – How to become a l33t person, a status that will bring you friends, glory, money and most importantly the funding to buy lots and lots of boxen and give you access to what you want whenever you want … l33t means elite, the “best of the best”. For some people, the n00bs, l33t and n00b means nothing. If you do not understand n00b and l33t, you are a n00b. n00bs are not allowed to read this page, go away!

So I ordered an grilled eggplant and bell pepper sandwich for dinner tonight and CDMCC asks me if I liked eggplants. I said they’re usually pretty good when cooked correctly. Elizabeth chimes in and says, “Who doesn’t like eggplants?” CDMCC chuckles and says he doesn’t hate eggplants but dislikes them. I’m going, someone else recently told me he didn’t like eggplants too. So I’m racking through my brain trying to remember who it was. I finally just assumed it was Vandel since he visited here recently and it could’ve been him. Elizabeth says it’s most likely Vandel too since Vandel and CDMCC are so similar in habits, likes and dislikes.

However, on my drive home, I finally remember who it was! It was Tekman, my colleague at work. We were at some chinese restaurant for lunch and another colleauge orders stir fry eggplants or something like that and he looked pretty disgusted. But I don’t blame him. He’s a carnivore, a pure meat eater and hates most veggies, which I would say CDMCC differs quite differently. But as this eggplant thought continued, I was thinking… Why are they called eggplants and why do some people dislike it?

From World Wide Words: The name of eggplant was given it by Europeans in the middle of the eighteenth century because the variety they knew had fruits that were the shape and size of goose eggs. That variety also had fruits that are a whitish or yellowish colour rather than the wine purple that is more familiar to us nowadays. So the sort they knew really did look as though it had fruits like eggs.

Another interesting fact is that eggplants are fruits, but just like tomatos, they are known as a vegetable.

Honestly, if I heard the name eggplant, I’d also have some weird image of what an eggplant would taste like. You’re mixing meat and vegetables here. However, I never knew of the english name till like the middle of elementary school. In my household, I’ve always known it as 茄子 and I have to say my mom makes a pretty good eggplant dish. Then again, eggplants do have a weird soft spongy texture which some may dislike. It’s really hard to think of another food with a similar type of texture.

This week at work was pretty tough. On Thursday, I worked from 11am to 10pm (3hour in between was lunch and dinner and breaks), but I was so tired by the time I got home on, I pretty much plopped onto my bed. Slept from 1am to 10:20am this morning. A good 9 solid hours of sleep. I’ll probably have to put in a few extra hours this weekend, but it shouldn’t be a biggy.

Today, the Microsoft Give Campaign held a poker tournament, and a bunch of us decided to join. It was $50 donated to charity and Microsoft matched it. I heard the prize was a trophy. I think the tournament started with 8 or 10 tables of 10 people each. I lasted all the way down to 3 tables and got sucked out on the river. I had AQ and my opponent had AJ, both unsuited and somehow he managed to pick up the flush on the river. Sigh… Oh well, it was for charity. I did have some miraculous hands bringing me back from the dead twice. I think I lasted the longest from the my group of people who went. There was free pizza and snacks.

So my LCD finally arrives today. It came yesterday, but no one was around to sign for it. But it’s currently in the leasing office and I’ll have to pick it up tomorrow morning, most likely afternoon, maybe evening, depending on when I wake up. I did finally setup my Logitech X-530 5.1 speakers with my Philips External Sound Processor. I think there’s actually something wrong with the sound processor because the back speakers aren’t working, but the speaker system works fine with my SoundBlaster Live!

I didn’t feel too well this morning, so I slept in and decided to work from home. I think it’s because of the sleep deprivation I got from playing too much Fable made my body weak. But working home is pretty sweet! Took me awhlie to get my Private Network Connection working, but once that was working, everything else went pretty smooth. Another cool thing was I was able to forward all my office calls to my home phone just by right clicking the Office Communicator software on my laptop and click Call Forwarding: ON and select a # for it to forward to. It actually work because I actually got a few calls. I really love the integration we have with IM, phone and email.

Then there’s all the bonuses of working from home like wearing PJs, not showering or brushing your teeth, and blasting your music.

I was sad however, that UPS delayed my LCD shipment once again. But now it makes sense. I finally see that it has past Portland, OR and arrived at the Redmond, WA distribution center. Unfortunately, no one’s going to be around here tomorrow. For some reason, the leasing office is taking a day off tomorrow.

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Random Crap:

Texas Holdem Poker – Quads vs Striaght Flush
Such a painful way to be sucked out.
(from ungsunghero – who claims he was neither player)

So they unvieled the Video iPod earlier this week. Ars Technica did a full review and dissection of the monster. It’s pretty, but not iPod Nano pretty and my 3g (3rd gen) is sufficient as my bulk mp3 player. I like how they did a thickness comparison:

From left to right: 4G, 3G, and 5G iPod

Just thought it was interesting that the 4G was thicker than the 3G, but I guess that’s because of the 60GB vs 30GB hdd.

World’s Most Elusive Rat Dead After 18-Week Chase (from cari) – article was actually pretty funny, but I was pretty weirded out with this statement: Different methods were used on Otata: buried traps, peanut butter, poison and even trained dogs. Not until more than four months after its release was the rat finally killed, in a trap baited with fresh penguin. Who knew rats were into fresh penguin meat and who the heck came up with such an idea in the 1st place.

More pya!:

(img) おっ・・・落ちる・・・ – Amazing Snail – I wonder how it managed to stretch itself to reach to the other side. It sounds like that giraffe who wished he had a longer neck to reach the leaves at the top of the trees.
(video) 眠いnya – Sleepy Kitten – pretty cute kitty
(video) 舞空術 – The Art of Floating in Air – video wasn’t that interesting, but it must’ve taken them a long time to take that many photos to compile this video.

From elbandmonkey:

subject: From Weather.gov

comments: We are two completely dumbfucks in college and we don’t know why it is goddamn bright after it rains? My theory is that the rain washes out all airborne particles but his theory is that because the air is wet, it’s bright. We have a bet going. If I lose, I have to pay for his next lap dance. That dumbass…thank you. Please respond. Please.

Sincerely yours,
Daniel

From: Ron —– [mailto:w-nws.webmaster@noaa.gov]
Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2005 4:49 PM
To: Daniel —
Subject: Re: From Weather.gov

Fine particles (between 0.1-2.5µm) may remain in the atmosphere indefinitely. Fine particles are capable of scattering light, causing a reduction in visibility.

Particles are generally removed from the atmosphere by rain or when they come into contact with surfaces. Some particles may have other pollutants attached to them, which may react with those surfaces.

Windblown dusts, pollens from plants and sea salts are natural sources of particles in the atmosphere. Bushfires, agricultural and forest hazard-reduction burning release smoke particles into the air.

Combustion processes using coal and other fossil fuels, such as power generation, industrial operations and motor vehicle fuels, emit most of the particulate matter in urban areas. Other noticeable sources of particles include agricultural burning practices (e.g. burning of sugar cane prior to harvesting) and emissions from domestic solid fuel heaters and woodstoves

The rain scrubs the particulates out of the lower layers of the atmosphere –

Ron Jones
Web Manager / Internet Projects
NOAA’s National Weather Service
Office of the Chief Information Officer
Silver Spring, MD

Daniel — wrote:
Thank you for your prompt response. I apologize for our vulgar language. We didn’t expect you to actually read this. We also were not intoxicated. I sincerely hope that you took this as a joke and had some fun with it.

Daniel

From: Ron —– [mailto:w-nws.webmaster@noaa.gov]
Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2005 8:08 PM
To: Daniel —
Subject: Re: From Weather.gov

Oh yes, we certainly had some fun with it!

Unlike many web sites, all the emails sent to us are actually read by humans – and it’s refreshing to get something other than the “can you name a hurricane after me?” or ‘I have a school project due tomorrow, tell me everything I should write about weather”!

You posed an interesting question – one that made me think my first response was rain cleaned the air) – but I had to locate a valid scientific explanation of why – so I also learned from it!

Thanks for the ’email of the week!”

Ron —–
Web Manager / Internet Projects
NOAA’s National Weather Service
Office of the Chief Information Officer
Silver Spring, MD

Haha! I just learnt what [sic] means. I was reading an article and there was this quote: Just installing all the “privates” on your PC may make you [sic] machine LESS stable and will also put you out of support from Microsoft or an OEM as you are installing incorrectly issued private hotfixes. I always assumed [sic] replaces a curse word, but this sentence didn’t make sense no matter what curse word I replace [sic] with. It turns out [sic] means the word before the [sic] was incorrectly spelled, which in this case, you should be your.

Wikipedia states: [sic] Short hand indicating that a quoted source contains an error. For example, “I’ve missspelled this” becomes “I’ve missspelled [sic] this”, when quoted by a later author who sees the spelling error and wishes to indicate that the source material contained the error, it was not introduced by the quoting author.

So some more interesting I found.

Someone posted on /. about Petals Around The Rose. I was first introduced this game by my brother. I think I solved the game after the 2nd roll, though it was so simple! But I can definitely see why it may be difficult to pick up if you don’t see it immediately. If you’ve never played this game, you might not want to read this article: Bill Gates and Petals Around the Rose. Funny thing about Bill, he began to get answers right, but not consistently. He admitted that he was remembering throws he’d seen before, along with the answers, but had no plausible theory to account for answers. Remembering? Wow, first time I’ve heard someone brute forcing Petals Around The Rose.

So there is a riddle on that wwu site in my previous post asking if you think:
0.9999… < 1
0.9999… = 1
0.9999… > 1

You may want to read this thread. A lot of discussion on which is correct. If something converges as it approaches infinity, does it mean it equals that? One thing I hated about 0.9999… was that I could never represent that in fraction. For example.
0.1111… = 1/9
0.2222… = 2/9
0.3333… = 3/9
…
0.8888… = 8/9
0.9999… = 9/9?

But if that’s the case, does that mean 0.9999… = 1? They’ve proved that on multiple reasonings which I feel is fairly accurate, though I personally never really believed limits really ever reached the # (that’s why they were called limits), it just gets closer and closer, but I’ll concede that 0.9999… = 1.

One neat trick about these repeating digits is that there is always a easy way to convert them to fractions which I figured back in elementary school. Let’s say you have n repeating digits. All you have to do is put those n digits above n 9’s. For example, 0.123456123456123456… = 123456/999999.

Riddles are way too addicting. I should be play Fable!!! It’s 6am too! sigh…

The King and the Chalice

There is a king and there are his n prisoners. The king has a dungeon in his castle that is shaped like a circle, and has n cell doors around the perimeter, each leading to a separate, utterly sound proof room. When within the cells, the prisoners have absolutely no means of communicating with each other.

The king sits in his central room and the n prisoners are all locked in their sound proof cells. In the king’s central chamber is a table with a single chalice sitting atop it. Now, the king opens up a door to one of the prisoners’ rooms and lets him into the room, but always only one prisoner at a time! So he lets in just one of the prisoners, any one he chooses, and then asks him a question, “Since I first locked you and the other prisoners into your rooms, have all of you been in this room yet?” The prisoner only has two possible answers. “Yes,” or, “I’m not sure.” If any prisoner answers “yes” but is wrong, they all will be beheaded. If a prisoner answers “yes,” however, and is correct, all prisoners are granted full pardons and freed. After being asked that question and answering, the prisoner is then given an opportunity to turn the chalice upside down or right side up. If when he enters the room it is right side up, he can choose to leave it right side up or to turn it upside down, it’s his choice. The same thing goes for if it is upside down when he enters the room. He can either choose to turn it upright or to leave it upside down. After the prisoner manipulates the chalice (or not, by his choice), he is sent back to his own cell and securely locked in.

The king will call the prisoners in any order he pleases, and he can call and recall each prisoner as many times as he wants, as many times in a row as he wants. The only rule the king has to obey is that eventually he has to call every prisoner in an arbitrary number of times. So maybe he will call the first prisoner in a million times before ever calling in the second prisoner twice, we just don’t know. But eventually we may be certain that each prisoner will be called in ten times, or twenty times, or any number you choose.

Here’s one last monkey wrench to toss in the gears, though. The king is allowed to manipulate the cup himself, k times, out of the view of any of the prisoners. That means the king may turn an upright cup upside down or vice versa up to k times, as he chooses, without the prisoners knowing about it. This does not mean the king must manipulate the cup any number of times at all, only that he may.

Assume that both the king and the prisoners have a complete understanding of the game as I have just explained it to you, and that the prisoners were given time beforehand to come up with a strategy. The king was able to hear the prisoners discuss, however, so also assume that if there is a way to foil a strategy, the king will know it and exploit the weakness. The prisoners must utilize a strategy that works in absolutely every single possible case.

Now you must figure out not only how to keep the prisoners alive, but how to also ensure their eventual freedom. When can any one of them be certain they’ve all been in the central chamber of the dungeon at least once? And how? Don’t try to imagine any trickery like scratching messages in the soft gold of the chalice. The problem is as simple as it sounds. The prisoners have absolutely no way of communicating with each other except through the two orientations of the chalice. If any of them attempts any trickery at all they will all be beheaded. All the prisoners can do is turn the chalice upside down or right side up, as they choose, whenever they are called into the chamber.

Princes, Peasants, and Merchants

In the land of Gog, princes always lie, peasants always tell the truth, while merchants sometimes tell the truth and soemtimes lie. A tourist is enjoying an afternoon refreshment in one of the local pubs when the bartender (who always tells the truth) says to her: “Do you see those three men over there? One is a peasant, another a prince, and the third a merchant. You may ask them three yes/no questions, always indicating which man you wish should answer. If, after asking these three questions, you correctly identify the peasant, prince, and merchant, they will buy you a drink.” The tourist is indeed very thirsty. What questions should she ask?

Sticky Triangles

Let’s say I have a stack of sticks: all identical, inflexible, unbreakable. Sticks can touch only at their ends, not in between.

If I give you 3 sticks, you can make one triangle. If I give you 2 more sticks (5), you can make 2 triangles. If I give you another stick (6), how can you make 4 triangles?

18 Heads Up

You’re in a dark room with 50 quarters, 18 of which are heads up. You are allowed to move around the coins or flip some or all of them, if you wish. Problem is, it’s too dark to tell what you’re moving or flipping (no, you can’t figure it out by touch either). Your job is to split the coins into two groups, each of which has the same number of heads up coins. How do you accomplish this?

Where’s the father?

The mother is 21 years older than the child. In 6 years from now, the mother will be 5 times as old as the child. Question: Where’s the father?

When I solve these, I’ll put my solution in the comments section.

For those that like solving math/logic riddles, you might wanna visit Your Favorite Math/Logic Riddles?

Almost forgot about my favorite riddles site: [ wu :: riddles]