Category: Fun

Fun things, like games, trivia, and the like.

FreeBSD, Jumping In With Both Feet

I’ve decided to try running a pure FreeBSD installation from total scratch and using it as an experiment. I’m comparing how different the experience is to that of Linux.

Tonight I’m letting TiVo do it’s thing, snarfing up the Friday sci-fi lineup off the SciFi channel, while I do other things. In this case, installing a fresh copy of FreeBSD from scratch to use as a stand-alone server.

In the past, I’ve tried FreeBSD and found the experience slightly frustrating compared to Linux. However, after a number of emails with a FreeBSD-loving friend, he’s answered some fundamental questions and got me all excited about trying the new release of FreeBSD.

This is actually an interesting excercise for me. I want to see what it takes for a Linux person to setup and migrate a system over to FreeBSD. If all goes well, I should have a pretty exotic development server when I’m done.

Flight Simulator Must-Have: X-Plane

Looking for an absolutely killer flight simulator? Check no firther than X-Plane.

A friend turned me on to X-Plane a few days ago, and my copy just arrived, and I’m in awe. Total awe.

This is like the flight simulator to end all flight simulators. It has gobs of air vehicles from real planes to science ficition ones, it has totally fantasic topographical data, amazing imagery detail laid over that, and can utilize incredible input devices. So good is it, I’m given to understand the FAA will allow time in the simulator to count as flight time.

Even more impressive, the software was written on a Mac so that it is capable to work on Linux and Windows as well. The price is cheap, cheap, cheap …like in the $59 ballpark. For that you get seven DVDs jammed packed with the software and detailed world images. The rendering is more realistic than any other simulator I’ve seen. And you can add real-time current weather! Plus, if you want to splurge, for an additional $15 bucks or so, you can get two moer DVDs with the full topographical and image data for Mars. Yes, Mars. Fly a plane, or even the space shuttle, around Mars.

A downloadable demo is available online, and honest to God, undoctored screen shots are presented on the site. The software even lets you make movies of your flight, plus the software is deliberately networkable and hackable, so you can play with other people, beam your data to programs, or have your software control the planes.

And that’s not all, if you like dog fighting in the dark verse, snag a free copy of Space Combat. All platforms supported!

Chipotle: Unit of Measure

Found something kinda funny when a coworker brought me lunch from Chipotle. On the bottom of the bag was a unit conversion table. It’s worth a closer look.

If you’ve gotten in on the IPO for Chipotle stock (NYSE: CMG) and enjoy the upward growth, you can thank me personally. I eat there a lot.

That said, it should come as no surprise to you when I mention that a coworker came into my office and dropped of a Chipolte bag with my internet order in it on the way back to the office.

It came in a decent sized brown bag with handles, and when the empty bag toppled over, I noticed text on the bottom of it in a small table. I thought it was one of those “this bag made by” or a “please recycle” blurb.

Nope. It was a unit conversion table.

I ignored it for a split second and then wondered what that might be there; could it be the fault tolerance of the bag, listing volume, dimensions, and lifting capacity?

Nope. So I went to give it closer inspection. And, it’s reasons like this I like Chipotle. Here’s the table:

Burrito Qty Unit Equivalent Weight
1 miligram 566,999 milligrams
1 gram 566.999 grams
1 kilogram 0.566999 kilograms
1 grain 8,748.80 grains
1 ounce 20 ounces
1 pound 1.2488 pounds
1 troy ounce 18.14398 troy ounces
1 pennyweight 364.58 pennyweight
1 carat 2,834.997 carats

While cute, I wondered why 566.999. What happened to that other lone milligram?

The answer, I suspect, lies in whoever did the conversion, most like using the program units, or web version that does the same thing, ended up with a rounding error and didn’t recognize it.

LiveJournal Poetry Contest

I sponsored a LiveJournal contest, with cash reward, for anyone to submit stories about Duct Tape, and now we have a winner.

About two weeks ago, I posted a Live Journal Contest in which I’d give away $20 cold cash to the person that submitted the best poetry about Duct Tape.

Today that contest closed, with the winner being announced.

Here’s the winning entry:

    Ode to Duct Tape
    by Rob

    With your shiny silver sheen
    of all that I have ever seen
    you are the most amazing thing
    your super sticky side
    makes me burst with manly pride
    from keeping diapers from bursting forth
    to hanging siding on the porch
    from keeping bloody guts inside
    to removing hair from my hide
    need a way to fix the whole in the clothes you wear
    our friend duct tape will be there
    whether patch, thread, suture, or wire
    duct tape will always aspire
    of all the sticky things you do
    this tape is definitely for you

11:59:60.00, come again?

Apparently the Earth has been rotating a little slower, and we added a leap second this year.

The New Year is upon us, time to start swearing at ourselves at the supermarket counter as we write 2005 on our checks and have to cross it out in correction for the next month or so.

Turns out the Earth has been slowing down a bit and to compensate, a leap-second was added to 2005, right at the end. The last minute of the year had 61 seconds, meaning your clock officially read 11:59:60.00 before midnight, and not 11:59:59.