Mindful Musings

Google Search: allofmp3 reviews I have been looking through many different legal MP3 venues and even tried iTunes for a little. I do have to say that 99c is still a lot of money for me for a single song. I stick to radio and to Internet radio for the most part. However, I have recently managed to stumble upon a very nice service alled allofmp3.com and I have to say that I am pleasantly surprised.

To sum up the procedure, downloads are charged at $0.01 per meg and they have all kinds of music. New, old, charts and everything in between. Payment is with a credit card and I decided to use my PayPal account to counteract the hokiness. The first link lists some articles that discusses the legality of this product. I am on the verge of downloading music legally (barely legal) from the Internet again!

A very good friend of mine thought this was appropriate for our friendship and I really wanted to share this with everyone. It makes a lot of sense to me.
Are you tired of all those mushy friendship poems that always sound good but never actually come close to reality? Well, here is a series of promises that really speaks to true friendship!

1. When you are sad, I will get you drunk and will help you plot revenge against the sorry bastard who made you sad.

2. When you are blue, I will try to dislodge whatever is choking you.

3. When you smile, I will know you finally got laid and give you a high five.

4. When you are scared, I will rag you about it every chance I get.

5. When you are worried, I will tell you horrible stories about how much worse it could be and to quit whining.

6. When you are confused, I will use small words and draw pictures to explain.

7. When you are sick, stay the hell away from me until you’re well again. I don’t want whatever you have.

8. When you fall, I will point and laugh at your clumsy ass.

This is my oath, I pledge ‘til the end. Why, you may ask? Because you’re my friend!

modified Send this link to ten of your closest friends and get depressed because you can only think of two, and one of them is not speaking to you right now anyway.

Remember: A friend will help you move. A really good friend will help you move a body. Let me know if I ever need to bring a shovel.

This is a very strange revelation and I believe I am wrong (at least I hope I am wrong). But play along with me here. This is what is needed of you.
When you are driving today, try to notice which side of a lane you drive on or tend to veer towards. Some people hog the sidewalk and others almost run into yu through the lines on the road. Once you have noticed the side, come back to this entry and click on more. Dont click on more before you do the noticing thing, you will ruin the surprise and the whole meaning of this post.

(more…)

On continuing my personal search for education and all things cool, michel led me to Russian Ternary computers from the turn of the century. The idea is really cool and seemed like it would work at the time. The basic principle was that instead of working with binary numbers, they worked with ternary numbers. Brousentsov’s Ternary Principle suggested that “the result of some weighing is expressed in the ternary number system by using three numerals namely: 1 (the positive unit), 0 (zero) and `1 (the negative unit).” The number base three idea follows from the original Fibonacci equations and formulae and were actively followed in Russia.
For those of you interested in this arcane yet extremely interesting computational mathematics, you can read more about it in “History of Computing in Russia and the USSR“. Apparently, Moscow University spent a great deal of money and resources looking at just this idea.
This would also make it easier to compare and come up with three pronged logic problems which require nested if and while loops (or extra temporary variables) to solve with our present implementation of binary numbers. I wish I could come up with a better example, but it completely alludes me this late at night.
Enjoy!

I finished doing my taxes online today. Important to note is that in spite of my status as a “Non-Resident Alien” (like I am from outer space or something!), for tax purposes, I am a “Resident” with the same pleasures and benefits of the American Taxation System. (yes, this is a retort directed towards people who claim that foreigners pay lesser taxes in America and take all their money back to their home country)
Anyways, Turbo Tax, so far, rocks my Brown Indian World!! I filed electronically (after $25.96 extra) and was done with my taxes in a couple of hours. Now, if the IRS decides to NOT decide to scrutinize my $9600 in income this past year, I should get my refund (all of 20 bucks) in about 3 weeks. However, while I was filing my return, I noticed an amended Income Tax schedule for the year and it caught my eye. I will post a screencap of it and will let my readers decide why it bothered me so.

On another note, while I was finishing my own taxes, I wondered about the President. Does he worry about filing his taxes till the last minute? Who does his taxes for him? Does he file taxes at all? Is it processed by the same people that would process yours and mine? Would it be considered a matter of national security for the person handling his taxes? Does he file out of state returns??
These are the kind of questions that keep me up at night!

Do you think there would be any interest in a pre-hacked, pre-packaged version of WordPress (just like this blog) with this template thrown in? Would there be any interest in having me setup a WordPress blog (pre-hacked and packaged of course) for someone to just blog with and not worry about the code (or the setup on their server)? Would Matt and other WordPress devs be pissed at me?

.. should be a sport! I heard of this guy on NPR The HomeLess Blogger. I dont know whether to praise his versatility or criticize his dawdle! However, blogging is a wonderful form of entertainment for most of us and much like any other form of entertainment, we should have co-ed naked blogging! YEAH! How about a mountain climber blogging from atop the Alps on his cell phone or a guy writing an entry from the depths of the Bermuda Triangle? Thats enteratining blogs right there! Step aside Howard Dean, sir!
Know of any Extreme Bloggers?
PS: You notice my catch phrase is now “Co-Ed Naked Blogging”

Matt was offering me an Orkut invite on IRC but our conversation somehow got lost. Would anyone care to send me an invite? Thanks in advance! ( I really still do not understand how their homepage says that you can “Click here to join” and then says “By invite only” after you click the link!! )

I was led to this fantastic site by DarkHound It is a site called Worth1000 Galleries. They are presently running an LOTR contest. But the galleries are definitely worth a browse. Most of the pictures are very professionally made and could add a nice flavor to any old blog such as mine! The picture on the left is Copyright of Worth1000.com
PS: this image is also a test of elastic images with an overflow:hidden hack so the image does not spill onto the sidebar in case the window size is reduced. Try making your browsers window smaller!

...Intrigued? Church Sign Generator

Incorporating mouse gestures for Internet Explorer using Javascript (on your personal blog/homepage) I dont know how useful this is, but it sure is a cool way of doing this. Many browsers (including myIE and Opera) already implement this.
Here is another one of those “Test your….” kind of links. This one is from MSN and measures your Digital IQ. For the record, mine was a 195.

This is awesome! I read about this on msn.com. They have an article on a Dog Translator which claims to interprit what your dog has to say (im simple-stupid kinda terms, but cool nonetheless) with electronics and some research from Japan. I would REALLY like to know if it works and if it does, I would like to get one!! Here is the link to the Bow-Lingual, the electronic dog translator !!

Every GNU
Down in GNU-ville
Liked Linux a lot…
But SCO,
who lived just North of GNU-ville
Did NOT!

SCO hated
Linux! The GNU Linux season!
Now, please don’t ask why. No one quite knows the reason.
It could be that their heads weren’t screwed on quite right.
It could be, perhaps, that their shoes were too tight.
But I think that the most likely reason of all
May have been that their bank account was two sizes too small.

But,
Whatever the reason,
Their wallet or their shoes,
They stood there looking at Linux, hating the GNUs,
Staring down from their cave with a sour, SCOy frown
At the warm lighted windows below in
their town.
For they knew every GNU down in GNU-ville beneath
Was busy now, hanging a free wreath.
“And they’re hanging their copyrights!” they snarled with a sneer.

“It’s free software! It’s practically here!”
Then they growled, with their SCO fingers nervously drumming,
“We MUST find a way to keep Linux from coming!”

—Excerpt from Scott Lazar’s “The Grinch Who Stole Linux ”

Imagine turning on your television any time of day or night and watching a heated debate about the impact of science on your life-from stem-cell research and cloning to the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in your food; from the biology of violence to the chemistry of addiction; from the puzzles of depression to the latest breakthroughs on aging; from the evolution of morality to the complexities of consciousness; from the exploration of space to the discovery of life beyond Earth….
Imagine a network that delivered the latest lecture by Stephen Hawking on the nature of time or by Jane Goodall on the chimpanzees of Gombe. Or archived footage of the late Richard Feynman mesmerizing an audience with his Nobel-wattage intellect and irreverent humor. Perhaps you would find yourself in the midst of a marathon reprise of landmark television series like Carl Sagan’s Cosmos or Jacob Bronowski’s The Ascent of Man, rescued from retirement. Maybe a showing of Life Story, the dramatization of James Watson and Francis Crick’s discovery of the double helix of DNA-or a Nova marathon.

This is a quote from the Cable Science Network
I dont have cable at home and I really miss the Airplane Channel and the science based channels. If you really want to know how much of a geek I am, check this out. If this TV station ever becomes a reality, even anytime soon, I will get myself the 55” High Definition Wide Screen Television that I have been wanting to get with a nice Yamaha 600W YHT-440 Surround Sound System and I will start paying for cable. There is no better night for me (entertainment wise) than to sit in front of a high-definition, widescreen TV, watching Richard Feynman explain the mechanisms of Maxwell’s Equations. This TV station/Cable station would just simply, ROCK!

tail -f /dev/mind > blog

Not my idea, gotta provide the link The Desktop Fishbowl
But it describes me fully!!

PS: w00t!! 100 posts and counting!!