Happy Pi Day 2013!!!

Happy Pi Day 2013!!!

Might I suggest you pick up some Pie and watch The Life of Pi.  :)



(NOTE: Images taken from Wikipedia, Imdb, and this blog)

Happy Pi Day 2012

Well, I have been a slackerific blogger these past few weeks, so I figured I'd better make a post. And what better way to hop back into the blogosphere (or any sphere, really) than with a bit of Pie.

For those math geeks, you likely already knew this. For the rest of the world, you'll chuckle and laugh and shake your head.

But today is March 14...or 3/14, which is the beginning of the magical number Pi (3.14159...).

That makes today officially PI DAY!!!

So get out there and eat some Pie and contemplate the universe.

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Today's Quote from Quoting Quotes:

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Happy Pi Day

That's right. Today is Pi Day. Go have a slice of your favorite pie in celebration.

Thanks for visiting - all 7000+ of you

Wow, I can't explain it...but somehow in December my blog got over 8000 visits. Thanks to whoever decided to spread the word. I seriously doubt I can keep up that kind of visitor rate, but it's a cool accomplishment.

All I can say is...WOW...and how.

Wicked!

On my commute to work this morning, there was a traffic report on the radio. Apparently there was an accident up in Park City slowing things down a little bit, but all other freeways were traveling at posted speeds. The announcer felt compelled to announce one other trouble spot..."Expect heavy congestion around 200 South and West Temple due to heavier than usual pedestrian traffic near the Capitol Theatre box office."

Yup...this morning, tickets for Wicked officially went on sale for the April-May touring show here in Salt Lake City. As you can see in the image (taken from a traffic cam), pedestrians are wrapped down the block and around the corner (Capitol is the building in the upper/center portion of the image). Trying to access the online ticket site continued to time out either with a simple "the server is not responding" or sometimes with a more detailed "Operation could not be completed. (kCFErrorDomainCFNetwork error 302.)” (kCFErrorDomainCFNetwork:302)"

All I can say is that I'm glad I ordered up my tickets (and some spares) at the pre-sale this past Monday. Looking forward to a great night in April!

Edit:

Here's the same spot an hour later...still wrapped around the block:

James Bond versus Twilight

As far as I know, James Bond has never gone up against a family of vampires (I've seen most of the movies and read a couple of the books, but I suppose I could've missed something). And yet, this holiday season, the elite British spy will be engaged in a battle against the undead of Twilight.

Last weekend, the latest James Bond film Quantum of Solace was released in theaters. This coming weekend, Twilight makes its major debut.

Now, in my mind, there is no need for a contest. I acknowledge that the Twilight crowd is huge and ravenous for the adventures of Bella and Edward (yes, I have read the book). But the James Bond crowd is no less excited for the latest chapter in the saga of a perennial favorite.

So why am I claiming the need for a contest at all? Because the market has decided that there is a contest to be had.

Last week when my wife and I made plans with a sitter so we could go see Quantum of Solace we began scoping our nearby theaters to decide where we'd go. When we go to movies, we have two choices based on the variable of time. One choice is to go into "the city" (Salt Lake) to the large, high quality theater with great audio/video and comfortable seating. Our other choice is close (within ~3 miles of our house) but isn't a high quality theater...the theaters are small with bad sound (thin walls) and less comfortable seating. It may seem obvious that we would "always" choose the higher quality theater...but with kids and sitters, we are sometimes forced to choose based on time.

Anyway, being a high energy action film, our first choice was the big budget Cineplex. Unfortunately they were only showing the film in one-and-a-half theaters (meaning they had one theater completely dedicated and another one that was only showing a "10 o'clock" show after they vacated a 'younger' film). Because they were showing the film all day, their "7 o'clock" film actually started at a little after 8 o'clock...which would mean an extra late night for the sitter & kids.

So, we decided to look at our 'local' theater...and were shocked to find that our local theater was not showing Bond at all. In fact, the only new movie they brought in was The Secret Life of Bees and other films were beginning to stagnate. Having driven past the theater on my way home, I knew they were advertising hard for the midnight showing of Twilight so on a hunch, I used the "buy advance tickets" feature to look at their showings for next Friday. The only two films listed are Twilight and Bolt. (I won't fault Bolt since it has a smaller demographic audience and will likely only be in one...maybe two theaters).

Now, I don't know yet just how many theaters they intend to actually fill with Twilight but it was evident that they decided to put all their money in the Twilight bucket rather than even bring Quantum of Solace into one theater and bump out lesser films (like perhaps Beverly Hills Chihuaha???)

To wrap up the ticket buying story, we headed North to an older theater in Layton (I haven't been there in at least 5 years) which has good seats and decent audio (although their lighting wasn't great) so that we could see the show in a time appropriate to our kids/sitter. I'll post a review of Quantum later.

What I did learn is that the market has made its bets and for some reason local theaters seem to believe that the big year-end movie battle is between Quantum of Solace and Twilight.

James Bond has been around for 50+ years in written form with 12 novels & 2 collections of short story and 40+ years in film with over 20 movies. Edward and Bella showed up in the Twilight novel 3 years ago, with 4 books in the series now and this movie marking the first film.

Still, the fanatacism surrounding Twilight has been huge, and vampires are immortal/timeless, so simply stating that James Bond is "older" than Twilight is probably silly. Only time will truly tell if Twilight can stand strong for the next 40+ years or if it will turn to dust after sunrise.

What's interesting to me is that these two films are pitted against each other despite having (for the most part) widely varying target demographics. True, I can foresee teenage/college males purchasing tickets to Twilight, but only because their girlfriend/wife/mom/sister/etc wants to go. At the same time, I saw plenty of females heading to Quantum but as far as I saw, they were all on the arm of a guy.

Don't get me wrong, I know there are some males who will of their own volition decide to go to Twilight and there are some females who will gladly head to Quantum of Solace. I'm definitely speaking in generalities and stereotypes...but I'm also confident that those stereotypes will hold true in many cases when it comes to the main decision maker for the ticket purchases on either of these films.

I suspect there will be some bartering going on in relationships..."I'll see Bond with you this week if you take me to see Twilight next week". You know it will happen.

Bartering aside, I suspect that most audiences who opt for Quantum of Solace will not be seen gracing the seats in front of Twilight and vice versa.

So as this battle rages on between these two disparate films, I pose the question...why is there a battle at all? Why do some theaters (such as my local theater) feel the need to put all their eggs in one basket? Why not grab copies of both movies so they can bring in the big audiences from each? It just seems like good market practice that if there are two big shows guaranteed to draw a crowd, that you'd want both of them. Instead, they'll fill all/most of their theaters with only one of these "hits" and then they'll be stuck as demand starts to drop. They'll have 5+ screens showing a film that people aren't coming to see anymore because those who truly cared hit it opening weekend and the remaining crowd doesn't need a showing every 30 minutes.

I'll possibly be seeing Twilight in the theater. If not in the theater, I'm certain we'll catch it on video. (I leave the theater/video decision to my wife on this one...I read the book, but wasn't compelled enough that I must see it on a big screen).

What about the rest of you out there? If you had to choose...would it be Quantum or Twilight and why?

Battle ax attack

Not quite sure what to say, but I figured I'd be remiss not to share this article.

Yummy

Watch this video about a man who swallowed 236 metal objects (including scissors, pins, and more) and had them in his stomach for months before this operation.

Naked mole rats impervious to acidy pain

Just read the article. I don't know what else to say about it. ;)

The joys of crazy world travel

Some great pix over at Tree's blog. Makes you appreciate the simple things in life. Though sites like these aren't unique to South Africa. I saw similar sites down in central America and I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see any of this in the U.S.

Still...funny to see.

It's National Pack Rat Day

I just discovered a new holiday to add to my favorites. Today is National Pack Rat Day. If you've seen my various "collections", you'll know why this holiday appeals to me. In honor of the holiday, I suggest everybody try to 'pack rat' something away for good measure. :)

Secure in their insecurities

I'm not going to mention names, but I want to throw this out and get some opinions.

I'm working with a company. We're developing a "rich internet application" (flashy cool web site). We are using FLEX, the cool new Adobe flash tool/language for developing rich internet applications. Flex requires the latest version of Flash Player. Our standard minimum requirements for all of our web tools is: Internet Explorer v6 or v7, Firefox v2+, or Mac Safari.

The year is 2008.

That's the background on our side.

Now for our biggest client so far for this tool. They absolutely love the concept. They love the design and the layout. They love what it will do for their company. This is a multi-million (billion?) dollar nationwide company with over 3000 physical locations.

In a meeting last week, their IT team got the first glance at the tool and our minimum requirements. Here comes the joy.

Of their 3000+ locations, fewer than half of them are on IE6 (running Windows 2003 server). Most are running IE5.5 (running Windows 2000). None of them have any version flash player installed. And they refuse to allow their IE5 users to upgrade to IE6.

Through some strange whim it was promised that we would look into the possibilities of our site running on IE5.5. (For some reason, I thought when you set a "minimum requirement", it was implied that you weren't going to try and support specs less than the minimum).

Fortunately, our site doesn't do anything fancy that caused it not to work with IE5.5. Even more fortunate, the latest version of Flash Player still supports IE5.5.

However, their IT team adamantly refuses to install flash player on their systems. We are still trying to get at the true reason for this, but the current thinking is that they fear it as a security risk. The company is looking into the possibility of setting up "kiosk" machines which will exist on completely isolated networks on which they will install flash player. Each location will have one of these kiosks setup in a corner of the office somewhere for each user to go to and logon to the system. However, the logistics of them doing this means that no one in their company will actually be able to use this system until ~4 months after we deliver it to them.

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OK....now that you've read this story, please let me know....am I off the mark in thinking this is just a little bit ludicrous? I know not a lot of people are fans of Vista, and for a business infrastructure and server environment, Vista doesn't make sense. I don't fully understand the network/IT logistics and architecture of this business. However, it seems crazy to me that their primary business machines are Server boxes. Having half of the servers on 2k and the others 2k3 isn't awful, but not allowing the 2k systems to upgrade to IE6 (and thus receive better stability and security) seems absolutely ridiculous.

Is it just me, or should this company be more concerned about running outdated and unsupported (or at least, less supported) software than they should be about installing Flash Player to access a web site? Let me add the caveat that security is a huge concern on our development site because we will be storing some personal data on this site...not a lot, but enough that we are taking security very seriously and will be making all necessary precautions in our code and on our servers.

Please, let me know your thoughts.

Is Flash Player really so insecure that a company should be terrified of installing it (and to taint the question, keep in mind that the company is running Win2K and IE5.5).

Ahhh...flavorful condoms

A tad risque for work (depending on where you work), but a pretty funny commercial nonetheless. Enjoy.

Charlie goes to Candy Mountain

If you haven't seen Charlie the Magical Unicorn's voyage to Candy Mountain...let me just say it's a must.

Thanks to Banzai for forwarding it over to me again. I showed it to my wife and sister-in-law a couple of weeks ago and they asked me if I was stoned.

Still, I love it. I think it's a "you love it" or "you hate it" kind of thing....or even a "you cringe at it and wonder 'why'" kind of thing.

I'm in the LOVE category. ;)

Enjoy

Toddlers can no longer marry in Arkansas

In case you have a youngster you hoped to marry off in Arkansas, you just missed your window. Lawmakers have revised the malformed bill passed last year that basically removed the minimum age for marriage as long as parental permission was given. So if you were hoping to marry off your newborn, you'll have to look elsewhere.

The Settler from Catan

For those of you who have not played this game, this won't make much sense and you'll just think the guy's a freak. For those who have played the game, you'll still probably think the guy's a freak...but you might laugh along with the video as well.

Enjoy. :)

10 worst jobs in science

Well, Popular Science released their list of the 10 worst jobs in science for the year.

Most of the list wasn't terribly surprising...dealing with tasks that disgust the average human (such as researching whale feces or swimming in hazardous waste). I almost think they should just create a single 'lump' entry for all 'disgusting' animal/bodily/etc. type jobs since in reality there are surely enough jobs that are in the same vein as those listed that the entire list would be comprised of those jobs.

A couple of items on the list were somewhat surprising as I wouldn't have thought of them as the WORST things that could happen...however, on thinking a little more I can see their point.

I was definitely surprised to see "Microsoft Security Grunt" on the list, but reading the description and thinking about it, I can see that could definitely be a stressful job. It may not be disgusting in the sense that you're investigating maggots crawling through a corpse, but it could definitely take its toll.

I also enjoyed the "oceanographer" entry which seemed semi-political in placement. Oceanography in general seems a very high-level job description that covers many aspects so this almost seemed like an intent to call humanity to task for the destruction of our oceans. Seen in that light, I suppose the job of an oceanographer is likely depressing and frustrating (as well as dangerous as indicated by the brief account they relate).

Anyway, let me know what you think of the list and if you have any science related jobs that you think would be better fits for the top 10.

I hate stuff like this...especially close to home.

This was going on during my morning commute this morning. Basically there was an inmate up at the University hospital for some type of procedure...he somehow managed to overpower and shoot a police officer and then steal a car and lead a high speed chase from the University down to an Arby's few blocks from where I work.

As I neared work, I noticed 2 helicopters hovering over the area. The radio news updates let me know that things were winding down.

I never worried for my safety or anything like that. But it still makes me sick that things like this happen...that people can have such a disregard for human life...for other people...for anything other than themselves. The inmate's record apparently includes burglary and forgery with at least one "weapon's crime" but he's currently in for a 'parole violation.' Something tells me he won't be eligible to break another parole anytime in the near future.

It's a sad world we live in. Ugh.

Sick, sick, sick - boy tied in the car so his mom could finish her date

OK...I admit freely that taking your kids to a restaurant can sometimes be a very trying experience, but this is just awful. Apparently this couple was trying to enjoy a meal in a restaurant and partway through the meal, the man takes the 6 year old boy outside and comes back without him. Where's the kid? He's been locked inside the car with a rope around his ankle to keep him from getting out.

Granted, the man wasn't the child's parent, so his parenting skills are obviously non-existent. However, plain common sense and a sense of humanity should have restrained him. Beyond that, the boy's mother (likely on a date with this guy) should've shown some sort of parenting in the situation...expressed the patience with the child...told the boyfriend (or whatever he is) that he was way out of line.

Something. Anything.

How can people be so awful without thinking twice. Ugh.

Beware the deadly Wi-Fi routers

And now, after my two movie posts, here's something completely different. :)