Is anybody in the New York area able to do a computer tune-up?  The gig includes fixing up one computer for a small business and is paid work.  It also includes fixing up the PTA computer at a public school and is volunteer work.  Normally, I’d do the work myself, but I’m totally swamped, so I told them I would try to find someone who could do it for them. 

Let me know if you are interested.

Bakugan are action figures and toys based on a show on Cartoon Network. 

Each of the action figures has a G power rating that is a number between 200 and 700 and is printed directly on the figure.  The higher the number, the more powerful the figure is in the Bakugan games. The more powerful the figure is, the more valuable the figure is to people who trade them. 

The Bakugan game is played with the figures and trading cards that, when played, alter the G Power of the Bakugan.  The winner is determined by which Bakugan has the most G after all cards are played.  A Bakugan that has a higher G power to start is much harder to beat. 

Side Note: I actually like the kids playing the game because it requires them to do quite a bit of math in their heads.

At Isaac’s school, Bakugan are like money among the 5 to 10 year olds.  Trades and matches are negotiated and brokered with the seriousness of Wall Street.  And, like on Wall Street there are hustlers as well. 

One of Isaac’s friends claims to have a special card that can permanently boost the G power of a Bakugan, not just in a match, but forever.  Since the card is from Japan and is written in Japanese no one can read it.  Not that anyone would have a chance otherwise; for one reason or another the boy is unable to bring the card to school to show to his friends.  At any rate, this card makes it very hard to beat his Bakugan in matches because at one time or another all of his Bakugan were permanently boosted.

Now if the story ended there with some kid cheating his way through school yard games, it wouldn’t be all that special.  However, like all of the Wall Street stories that have been coming out, it doesn’t end with just a little cheating here and there.  The latest thing is that this kid is now trading Bakugan that have had their G power magically boosted.  For example, just today he traded a Bakugan with Isaac.  The Bakugan is rated at 300G, but Isaac was led to believe that it was really a 600G Bakugan because it was boosted with the special card. 

This isn’t just cheating anymore.  More powerful Bakugan actually cost more real life money with the most powerful fetching up to $50.  Convincing kids to trade high powered Bakugan for lower powered Bakugan by misrepresenting their G power is a form of stealing.  It’s not Bernie Madoff stealing, but on a school yard scale I thought it was still a big deal.

When Isaac got home from school today, he asked me to help him change the number on his new Bakugan and explained how it had been permanently boosted.  That’s when I decided that I would have to explain this to him.  I tried, but he didn't believe me at first. He really wanted to believe that he had just scored a really powerful Bakugan.  Finally, I sent a message to Action Figure World and they helped me set him straight, but I was wondering if I should leave it at that.  Isaac was heart broken when he realized that he had been cheated.  I don’t know if it was the realization that he had lost a valuable toy or that his friend had lied to him, but he was really upset.  Should I have just let him believe?  Should I have helped him change the number?

Well, I’ve already explained it to him, so I can’t undo that, but is that it?  Do I just let him take care of it and try to get his Bakugan back, or do I take a more active role and make sure that the trade is undone?  And what about the situation in general?  Do I leave the con going or do I alert some of the other parents or teachers.  I really don’t want to make too big a deal out of it.  I was wondering if I can take the geek / web 2.0 way out and just blog about it and hope things resolve themselves.

What do you think?

I’ve written a new Facebook application called My Playlist. The application displays a playlist like the one shown here on your profile either on your wall or on your boxes tab.  It works by reading an XML file version of your playlist off of any FTP or WWW server on the internet.

The easiest way to get an XML export of your playlist is to use a plug-in for your music player.  Brandon Fullerhas written plug-ins for iTunes, Windows Media Player, WinAmp and Yahoo! Music Engine.

Brandon has also written a Facebook application that will show information about the last song you played.  I took that idea and expanded it into the entire playlist.

I used the Facebook.Net toolkit to write the application using .Net in VisualStudio 2008.  There were some interesting hoops I had to jump through to get the playlist to show in the profile at all and to get the “Add To Profile” button to show up on the application start page.  I think that story deserves an article all of its own.  I hope to get around to writing that sometime soon.

Testers Needed

Right now, I need a few patient people to actually test this application out.  I say patient because there is a little bit involved in getting the plug-in installed and working and because after going through all that, there’s a small possibility that it won’t work at all.

One of the problems is that Brandon Fuller’s plug-in costs $15.  I will get a license for anybody who is willing to test this for me.

Another problem is that the output of the plug-in, the XML file, needs to be hosted somewhere on the internet where it can be downloaded by my program.  This means an FTP or WWW server.  I suspect that most people don’t have their own servers and wouldn’t know how to find one.  Luckily, I do have an FTP server and will gladly host a place for you to put your XML file.

All this leaves is actually installing the plug-in and setting a few settings and I can help out with that.

If I haven’t lost you yet and you are still reading and you are interested in trying this out, let me know. 

If you’re not sure that you want to help out, don’t worry about it.  This is just for fun and isn’t important at all.  I won’t hold it against you if you don’t try my application.  Really.  If you still want to help put, leave a comment on the application page or become a fan.

[Link to application on Facebook]

Something has been bothering me for a few days now.  A friend of mine posted something about being on Facebook for 5 years now and how time flies.  I thought to myself about how I totally agreed.  I was thinking how I couldn’t believe that Isaac is almost 8 years old now or that I’ve been married for 12 years now.

However, someone replied about how fascinating it is that people are still joining Facebook and how they all think it is novel and amazing.  Now, I’ve had my fair share of being called a poseur for coming to some fad or another too late, but when it comes to the internet, you don’t get too many earlier adopters than me.  I was all set to reply with something along the lines of, “Listen noob, I’ve been using the internet since you were in diapers.”  However, I’d be seriously dating myself, so I figured I should act my age.

There is a point to be made here though.  I got my first internet email address in 1988.  Actually, it was BITNET back then, but the idea was the same. I was able to send email to my friends at other universities and even chat using Relay (which later became IRC) and we had access the Usenet BBS.  Later we eventually got Archie and Veronica(not the comic book characters).  Back then, there were so few people on the internet that it was actually big news when another university came online.  People wrote volumes and volumes of help documents (called FAQs) just to help the new users get up to speed quicker.  There was a real sense of welcoming the new users.

The first time I sensed a backlash was when PPP became prevalent around 1993 or 1994.  All of a sudden, people could access the internet directly from their GUI desktops instead of having to use all of the esoteric commands on shell accounts.Suddenly, it seemed like the population on the internet doubled over night and most of the new users had no idea how things worked.  Their GUIs were shielding them from all of the technology underneath, but they were also keeping them from learning the ins and outs.  This was probably the first time I came across the term “newbie”.  There’s only so many times one can answer the same question over and over before it gets old.  A lot of us that used to be helpful guides were becoming rude out of frustration. 

But PPP really was easier and the conversations really were getting better.  I jumped on the PPP bandwagon right away, but there were others that stuck to their shell accounts and got nastier and nastier.  I suspect that a small few of them are still pecking away at their shell accounts, but I’m sure most of them came around and joined all of the “newbies”.

The next time things got nasty was when AOL got internet access.  Again, it seemed as though the population on the internet doubled over night and again it seemed as though all of the new users were completely clueless. By this time, the WWW was ubiquitous and again the conversations were getting better and the content was getting more interesting.  Don’t forget, AOL virtually introduced instant messaging to the internet, and for the first time one was able to send email to people without a degree in computer science; even my parents got email.

Anyway, my point is that there is no end to the new people that will come to the internet, but as the population grows, so does the usefulness.  Face it, social networks wouldn’t be half as interesting if there weren’t millions of people using them.  I know I for one am glad that I’m not still trying to remember all of the command line options to IRC and ZModem.

So, the next time someone remarks about how novel something on the internet is, remember that you’re not the first to be in that situation and he or she’s not the last to one marvel at it.  And be glad, because that new user means that the internet is growing and will inevitably be even more interesting and useful in the future.  Oh, and don’t be a troll.

Answer honestly and try not to appear cool -- it doesn't work amongst friends. After answering, tag those whose musical taste you wish to know more about.

1. What are you listening to right now?
   As I’m writing this, I am listening to “What Would You Have Me Say” by Blue Sandcastle .
   However, if you want to know what I’m listening to right now, you can look at my playlist.
2. As a teenager, what was a band you were ashamed to admit to liking?
   As a very young teen, it was Men at Work.  Later, all of my friends and I were into “Alternative” music, but I still really liked Dire Straits too.
3. And today?
   Wow, there’s so much to be embarrassed by.  One that comes to mind is Avril Lavigne.  I got exposed when Carl’s daughters were teenagers and it just stuck.

Have you met an artist you admired? How did it go? I once literally bumped into Bono.  He was making a cell phone call on the street and wasn’t paying any attention.  When he hung up, he turned around and walked right into me.  He said, “Sorry mate.”  I didn’t say anything.  This was the day that U2 recorded “All Because of You” video in New York.  It was the day before Thanksgiving and later that night Deb and I were on our way to see the balloon blow up party at AMNH and it happened on 90th & CPW.   Since I didn’t say anything this hardly counts as having met him, but the story is definitely worth telling.  I didn’t say anything to Deb about it until a block later and she still bugs me about it. Also, just after I graduated from college, I worked as an audio technician for a company that did work for NPR.  I met several artists that I admire including Neil Young, B.B. King, Charles Brown and Bubba Hernandez.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have more than a few words with any of them. Finally, I’ve been friends with Courtney Taylor of the Dandy Warhols for a long time and can honestly say he is one of the nicest people I know.

1. Have you had dreams about bands or artists?
   I’m sure I have, but I can’t think of any.
2. What was your first gig attended?
   It was either the Ramones at Spit or 10,000 Maniacs at Malibu, but my first big-arena concert was The Alarm opening for Pat Benatar at Nassau Coliseum.
3. Which living artist have you not seen, but desperately want to?
   I can’t think of any, but I’ll let you know.
4. Which artist or what band would you like to resurrect and see live?
   Haven’t they all regrouped already?
5. Which song/riff/solo would you like to learn to play and sing just right?
   I don’t play or sing, so being able to play or sing anything even poorly would rock my world.
6. How many records do you own, or how many songs do you have in your iTunes?
   There are 5796 songs in my iTunes right now, but about a thousand of them are not in rotation.

I just stumbled across the following in Wikipedia:

The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon occurs when a person, after having learned some (usually obscure) fact, word, phrase, or other item for the first time, encounters that item again, perhaps several times, shortly after having learned it. This is a specialised version of the effect of serendipity.

I’ve been searching for the name of that phenomenon for years now.  In fact, if you’ve known me for any time at all, I’ve probably asked you if you knew.  I cannot effectively describe the sense of completion I am feeling right now.

Now that I’ve finally discovered the name for this phenomenon, I totally expect to hear it again in the next few days.  In fact, I totally expect someone who reads this to comment that he or she just learned about this in the past few days.

I had a heck of a time writing my last post.  I had trouble formatting all of the code.  I wanted it to be formatted correctly, in a mono-space font and indented.  It took three or four tries before I got it the way I wanted it and in the end, I had to work with raw HTML to make it happen.

I was aware that BlogEngine,the blog software that I use, has an automatic code formatter, but I didn’t know how to use it.  I tried a web search looking for some clues and I found a post on RTUR.NET that not only explains how to use the automatic code formatter in BlogEngine but also lists a few plug-ins for Windows Live Writer that will format code.

I was intrigued.  Windows Live Writer sounded cool, but I didn’t understand how it would allow me to post into BlogEngine.  I figured it was just an HTML editor and in the end I would simply be pasting HTML into the raw HTML editor in BlogEngine.  However, I was wrong.  Apparently Windows Live Writer will automatically insert posts directly into BlogEngine!

So, this is my first attempt at using Windows Live Writer. So far it seems to work well.  Here is some code just to see how it will look:

   1: class SummableList<T> : List<T> {

   2:     public T Sum() {

   3:         T result = default(T);

   4:         foreach (T item in this)

   5:             result += item;

   6:         return result;

   7:     }

   8: }

It looks pretty slick. 

Since you’re reading this, it’s safe to assume that everything went well. 

The old website died several weeks ago and proved too much to fix. The underlying code was programmed in my old development environment and it's too tedious and time consuming to get it to work in the latest version. I really wanted to keep using my own code for the website, but I never got around to getting the old code to work.  I thought about starting over, but that was too daunting.  I'd rather spend my time adding content and working on the video game that Isaac and I are working on.  So, this version of the website is using an open source package called BlogEngine.Net. So far everything seems to be working very well.  I'm very happy with it. 

The new site doesn't have a photo album.  All of our pictures are on Flickr now, so I again resisted the temptation to reinvent the wheel and will simply link to that.

I've got a few ideas for some programming articles that I've been meaning to write.  Now that I have someplace to put them again, I'll have more motivation to get working on them.  I've also copied a couple of things from my Facebook notes, so there's actually some content already.

So, let me know what you think.

-bill

There seems to be three popular plans for dealing with the current economic situation. The plan coming from the right calls for lots of tax cuts. The idea is that the people who receive the tax cuts will use this savings to invest and these investments will spur business growth and this growth will create jobs and generally help the economy. It seems to me that the savings we are talking about is really money that people already have and that there's nothing preventing them from investing it right now. Also, let's assume that some people are reluctant to spend this money because they might need it to pay their enormous tax bills. If we lower those tax bills there is no guarantee that they will go out and spend that money. They could sit on it just like they are doing right now. Obviously, I am not a big fan of this plan, so I will leave it to others who do support it to explain it better.

The plan coming from the left calls for lots of government spending. The idea is that the government, instead of lowering taxes, takes the money it gets from taxes and spends it in all kinds of ways. I like this plan because it guarantees that the money is actually spent. Now there are good ways to spend money and there are bad ways to spend money. It seems to me that the government could very easily spend lots of money without creating very many jobs. However, that could easily be said about any investments made by those receiving tax cuts. In fact, as I've already noted, there's nothing preventing the recipients of the tax cuts from sitting on the money, or worse investing it in foreign business where it would create few if any jobs at home. By having the government spend the money directly, we have a chance to legislate how the money is spent. It seems to me that rather than arguing whether the government should spend money or arguing how much it should spend, the congress would be much more effective if they spent their time arguing about how to spend the money. They can argue over whether the money is spent on infrastructure or construction, or on education or energy independence, or anything else. Pick something. Pick them all for all I care, just get the money out there.

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What are your favorite song lyrics?

Kevin asked for everone's single favorie song lyric. I offered the first verse of Dylan's Visions of Johanna, but I can't leave it at that. In fact, I prefaced my entry by saying that I would be second guessing it for a week. I've decided to keep track of all of my second guesses here in hopes that I might be able to comfortably stop thinking about it. So, following is a list of what might be my favorite song lyrics. Please comment with your own favortes.

Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're tryin' to be so quiet?
We sit here stranded, though we're all doin' our best to deny it
And Louise holds a handful of rain, temptin' you to defy it
Lights flicker from the opposite loft
In this room the heat pipes just cough
The country music station plays soft
But there's nothing, really nothing to turn off
Just Louise and her lover so entwined
And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind

Visions of Johana
Bob Dylan

Daylight licked me into shape
I must have been asleep for days
And moving lips to breathe her name
I opened up my eyes
And found myself alone alone
Alone above a raging sea
That stole the only girl I loved
And drowned her deep inside of me

Just Like Heaven
The Cure

In my dream I was drowning my sorrows
But my sorrows, they learned to swim
Surrounding me, going down on me
Spilling over the brim
Waves of regret, waves of joy
I reached out for the one I tried to destroy
You, you said you'd wait till the end of the world.

Until the End of the World
U2

I could live without so much
I can die without a clue
Sun keeps risin' in the west
I keep on wakin' fully confused
I never seen no mountain
Never swam no sea
City got me drownin'
I guess it's up to me
I can't live without your touch
I can't live without your touch

Within Your Reach
The Replacements

Moves like a fist through the traffic
Anger and no one can heal it
Shoves a little bump into the momentum
It's just a little lump
But you feel it
In the creases and the shadows
With a rattling deep emotion
The cool, cool river
Sweeps the wild, white ocean

The Cool, Cool River
Paul Simon