Just Say No to Freeloaders...

So, the latest thing I've been getting into is Yahoo! Answers.  I was bored on one lunch break and was just surfing Yahoo! when I came across it.  If you've never seen it, or heard of it, essentially, it allows a user to ask a question (any question at all) and then allows Yahoo! users to answer them to the best of their abilities. Answers get rated by the person asking the question, and so on and so forth.  I personally like taking a look at the questions in the Computers and Internet section since that's what I'm most interested in.

Anyway, one thing that I find completely obnoxious is people abusing this system to try and get other people to do their homework for them.  These people don't even bother re-phrasing the question, or anything.  Something like:

Write a user-defined function to evaluate this mathematical function: f(x) = 0.1 x2 – x ln x ? 

 

Are you kidding me?  Are you trying to convince anyone that you didn't just copy/paste that from your homework?  At least say something like, Hey Guys, I'm having trouble with my homework and I'm stuck on this one question I can't seem to figure out.  But, instead, they're just pulling the question straight in and expecting someone to answer.  Out of control.

Guitar Hero World Tour Rocks My Socks Off

One thing that I love is the guitar. I've played since I was a freshman in high school, tried to learn some of my favorite songs, and always listen for sweet riffs in the music that I listen to. Another thing I love is video games. I've been following the game world since original nintendo and since computer games were on floppies (of course, that's not completely impressive to the older generation... but it's basically my whole life). So, you can imagine that when Guitar Hero came out, I was all over it. Now, we own a Wii, so the first Guitar Hero available for it was Guitar Hero III (which some people apparently don't like as much as the first two, but since I don't know any better, I was happy with it), and I played through that one and loved it! I kinda passed on the Aerosmith version just because I never really was a huge Aerosmith fan. But, as soon as Guitar Hero World tour was announced, I was stoked because not only did it offer the full band option, like Rock Band, it would finally allow downloadable content for us Wii owners!! So, like a hawk, I watched for the end of October to come so I knew when I could go out and obtain the glory -- so the same day it came out, I got it. I haven't had too much time yet to play around with the music studio portion, but even just doing a quickplay song is fun. My wife likes singing along, so the addition of the microphone was also a very welcomed feautre. And who doesn't like banging on a drum set? Even if you don't know what you're doing, or you want to have your kids play along with you, you can put it in "beginner mode" which allows them to hit anything and it won't affect the band's progress during a song -- which also makes it fun at parties and family get togethers! Anyway, if you're thinking (or debating) about getting it, you definitely should!

The Not So Mighty Macbook

I decided to give Apple a try about a year ago when Leopard came out and bought a brand new Macbook.  From the moment I got it, I liked it -- the usere interface, the applications, etc.  Now, I wouldn't go as far as to say that I was a complete "convert" joining the cult of Mac, or anything like that.  Anyway, all was well until last weekend, I had the laptop sitting on my coffee table, doing nothing more than spitting out live Fantasy Football stats, when all of a sudden I hear a clicking noise.  "Uh oh," I thought to myself, "This can't be good."  Why isn't this good you may ask?  Sure, if I was typing, or using the touch pad, some kind of clicking sound may be acceptable -- but in this case, I wasn't even touching the machine.  So, if it's not something user-induced then it usually means one thing: your hard drive is about to die, or may already be dead.

I ended up using the nifty online reservation system for setting up an appointment at a local Apple store, so I was able to walk right in and get the problem taken care of... but it cost me about a day in re-configuring everything, reinstalling applications and transerring all of my data back on to it again.  Luckily, I back up my music and photos in three different places, so I know I shouldn't have one of those really bad moments where "all is lost."  It's just all kind of frustrating since I've owned the laptop for less than a year.... while my Dell laptop (going on 5 years old) has been going strong with anything I throw at it...

Convenient? I think not!

My wife and I decided that it might be a good idea to switch banks (thank you, financial institution melt down) and we finally settled on Bank of America for a couple reasons: 1) We figured it's stable enough to survive this market madness and 2) There's one about half a mile from our house. Last night, for the first time we decided to make a deposit into our Bank of America checking account at the ATM and we were blindsided. The startling fact: no envelopes required. Now, at first, this may seem like a great idea (as marketed by BoA): save the planet by not wasting paper on envelopes, it even scans your checks and uses OCR to determine the amount and then prints out a receipt with the scanned images of your checks as proof of deposit.

Yeah, that's all well and good -- but here's the problem: you can only put one check (or bill in the case that it's cash) in the machine at a time. It then goes on to scan what you inputted (assuming it didn't reject it like an old vending machine) and then asks you to verify the amount. Now, this is great if you have one check or a couple bills to deposit... but what about small-business owners, waiters/waitresses (let alone regular customers) who may have a decent number of checks or bills to deposit at once? I'll tell you: it's a bad experience. The whole time you're standing there (which ends up being the time it normally takes to make one deposit TIMES the number of checks/bills to deposit), the ATM starts making loud beeping noises like a video game or something... drawing even more attention to yourself. And then, if the ATM can't figure out (via OCR) the amount on the check, you have to type it in manually, from memory... so if you don't remember the amount of a particular check in a series of checks, you're in trouble, because you could then be looking at fines from the bank... yikes.

While I do think some of the new "features" are cool -- it really doesn't add up to being beneficial most of the time. My proposed solution:
1) Keep the new "no envelope" system as a "quick deposit" type feature that you can use when your deposits are minimal.
2) Bring back the envelope system for users who have a lot to deposit at once.... so we can do one deposit, instead of 10 or 15.
3) Display the scanned image of the check when OCR fails, so you can read the amount, rather than have to recall it from memory.

That shouldn't be too hard, should it?

Texting While Driving? Stop it now!

... and not just because I say so. Because, I definitely say so. Have you ever been behind a car in which the driver is sending a text message on their phone? I have a few times, and it's easy to spot (without actually seeing the driver). You look for a few things:

1. The car seems to be accelerating and decelerating for no apparent reason (they slow down as you approach a green light).
2. The car is swerving (by the way, that's not how I thought you spelled that word) within their lane, and sometimes into other lanes... can't keep a straight line? Texter alert!
3. They just don't seem to be paying attention to the world around them (they slam on the breaks when they realize what they're about to do)

Anyway, me yelling at them from within my own vehicle doesn't seem to have much affect, so I'm glad the governator decided to put some legislation into effect that will make it illegal to text and drive (in addition to already being able to hold the phone to your ear and drive -- hooray for hands free).

For more info, check out this article.

Although, I do think it's funny that the article states that this law is completely unnecessary since it's "common sense." While I would agree that it should be unnecessary since we should be able to assume no one would do such a thing -- I think we all know how many people use common sense!

The Fashion

My brother recently moved back to our home town, which is awesome because I get to see him more often now. We usually have plenty to talk about since our interests are fairly aligned: Music, Video Games and Football... among other things. Well, one of his new roommates introduced him to a band called "The Fashion" which he in turn introduced to me. I had never heard of them, but I thought I'd give it a listen -- it turns out that they're from Denmark (but the lyrics are all in English). I'm not sure what their official classification is, but I'd call it some kind of Alternative Pop Rock, but with a beat. Anyway, the first time I listened to it, I liked a few songs and thought it was okay... but the more I listen to it, the more it grows on me and the more I can't get it out of my head. In the process of finding one of their music videos I also learned that they're on the Madden '09 soundtrack... so they must be somewhat known -- I'd just never heard of them. Either way, it's definitely worth checking out if you haven't heard them before!

Chargers Are Disappointing...

So, Week 2 of the NFL season has completed (minus a Monday Night Football game) and the Chargers are 0-2. I'm not completely surprised; however, I don't think any Charger fan was ready for losing by 1 point in the final seconds of the game two weeks in a row. Sure, there were some questionable calls in the Denver game yesterday, but we can't just blame losses on the referees. If that were the case, there wouldn't ever be a legitimate win! Anyway, I must say that I am disappointed in the Chargers' performance... especially our defense. What is going on!? If we don't beat Favre and the Packer--um, I mean Jets--next weekend, I see our Superbowl dreams slowly fading away. But, with that said, if anyone can pull off a come back season, the Chargers can!