CERN is firing up the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) tomorrow for its first run.  Although I doubt the world will implode it does mark the beginning of one of the most important physics experiments to ever be performed.

If we are all still here tomorrow I promise to make a concerted effort to start updating this page more frequently!

You can view the live webcast here http://webcast.cern.ch/

also see Wired’s blog for more info.

The Nintendo Wii is proving to be one of the most elusive gifts to find for this holiday season. It has been hard to get your hands on one since they came out. Now that the busiest shopping season of the year is upon us, finding a Wii will become even more difficult. My mom managed to get her hands on 4 of them in the past month so I ask her how she did it. Turns out she didn’t have to do anything too crazy or spend a penny more than the retail price. Based on her advice, here are my tips for getting your hands on a Wii before Christmas.

1. Ask when the truck comes in. This method applies to all retail stores. Best Buy, Target, Wal-Mart, Meijer, K-Mart, etc. Just ask the store manager or someone in the electronics department when the next truck comes in. Then show up at the same time. Most Wal-Marts and Meijer stores are open 24 hours so you may have to go at 2 a.m.
2. Wait in line. Stores that aren’t open 24 hours will often let you line up a little while before the store opens and will give you a “ticket” with a number. If you have a ticket you get a Wii, simple as that. I would recommend calling a head to see which stores participate in this method, but I know for certain that Best Buy does.
3. Order Online. This may be obvious but in order for success, I recommend staying away from the “big name” stores like Amazon.com and the like. Smaller electronics-only retailers like Newegg.com often have them in stock. Google can be your best friend when finding the right store. Make sure they are a reputable retailer and guarantee shipping dates.
4. Don’t buy from E-bay or online auction sites. You may be able to find 100’s Wii’s available on E-bay, but chances are you will pay a premium and have to pay extra for shipping. I love E-bay but for time-critical situations like this, I wouldn’t risk it.
5. Be willing to drive. One of the best ways I have ever found to find that elusive item, whether it be a Wii, or any other popular holiday gift is to be willing to drive. I live in an area with lots of small towns close buy. Each one of these town usually has a Wal-Mart or similar retailer that have popular items in stock. The smaller the town the better in this situation. I once drove around a big town all day checking every store I could find for an elusive item for my son. No luck. On my way home I drove through a small town with a Wal-Mart and thought I would just “check”. Low-and-behold they had not one, but multiple of the item in stock. Call ahead to these small town superstores and see if they have what you are looking for in stock. You may be surprised!

I hope this short list provides a tip that lands you a Wii. Come to think of it, this list is a good start for getting any hard-to-find item. Good luck and happy shopping!

Ann Arbor 10th Anniversary Slashdot Party

See you there!

I upgraded from 7.04 “Feisty Fawn” to 7.10 “Gusty Gibbon” last Friday and have been completely thrilled with the results. The system fonts have been refined, icons have been tweaked and 1000’s of updates have been applied. Most will go unnoticed by the average user but the one feature that stands out, at least in my opinion, is the integration of Compiz Fusion windows manager. Many Linux users may know of Beryl, a popular eye candy producing add-on for the X desktop system. Well, Compiz and Beryl, have become one (again) and created a desktop environment that makes Vista’s features look weak and feeble. For more on Compiz Fusion, read here.

Check out the video below to see all the completely kick-ass features. I was able to get all of the working on my system with no problems what-so-ever. My daughter loves the “Fire writing”.

The Simplified Spelling Society (SSS) started in 1908 with the aim of updating English spelling. The Society publishes leaflets, newsletters, journals, books and bulletins to promote spelling reform of the English language.

Looking for difficult words in the dictionary, English spelling can be a puzzle. Spelling problems for children and dyslexics are largely misunderstood and the aims and objectives below spell out a road map for change.

In short, they want things to be phonetic. Imagine opening the newspaper or even reading this blog written in something that looks like this:

“METHODZ ov teeching reeding hav graevly impruuvd sins Max Müller roet dhe wurdz kwoeted abuv. Neverdheles, eeven nou lurning to spel iz a far longger proeses for dhe Inglish chield dhan for children in meny udher kuntriz, such az Jurmany, Italy and Finland, and eeven dhe naetiv children ov dhe Goeld Koest and vaeryus udher parts ov Afrika.

Dhe diferens iz not to be eksplaend bie asueming infeeryorrity on dhe part ov Inglish teecherz. It iz due to dhe unfonetik karrakter ov Inglish speling. Dhe speling ov Jurman, Italyan and Finish iz faerly fonetik, whiel dhe nue orthografiz ov Fante, Twi, Ewe and a number ov udher Afrikan langgwejez ar kompleetly soe.” (read the entire crock of crap here.)

I am lacking words to describe how ridiculous (redikalus) this is. Someone else has already said it better so I will use their words: (This was written by Daniel Tammet, who I will be writing a future post about.)

1. Which pronunciation would we use to spell words like: tomato, aunt, status, tuna, amen? What about words with varying numbers of syllables depending on how you pronounce them, such as: athlete, every and chocolate?

2. How would sound-based spellings distinguish between homonyms (homographs) such as: weigh/way/whey, i/eye/aye, to/too/two, rite/write/right/wright and air/e’er/ere/err/heir?

3. Foreign languages with words found in English would be harder to learn. Currently easily recognizable French words such as conversation, succès, triomphe and idée would become something like: ‘konvuhrsayshun’, ’sahrkses’, ‘treyeahmph’ and ‘eyedihr’ in ’simplified’ English.

4. The spelling of many words in English tells us something of their history and origins. That would be lost under a system of simplified spelling.

5. Being a lover of words, I think there is a strong aesthetic case to be made for the present English spelling of words as compared to the equivalent ’simplified’ spellings.

6. Finally, I dislike the implication in the idea of ’simplified spelling’ that the best way to educate people is by lowering the bar. We should instead be focusing on the most effective ways to teach the hugely important skills of spelling, reading and writing.

Please share you opinions on this one. I would love to hear your reactions.

It was released July 21st, just 3 days ago. I sat, a grown man, waiting for a (so called) children’s book. It arrived early Saturday morning, around 8:30 a.m. via UPS. The box was striped with bold lettering, “Do Not Open before July 21st!” I ripped the box apart and saw the off-yellow cover of the book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

It felt weird holding a book I had been waiting nearly 10 years to read. I knew that inside an adventure that began in 1998 (US Release) with the book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was finally coming to a close. I had read each previous installment feverishly, at a pace that usually involved nothing else being done for about 10 hours. I read then again when I was bored. The books brought me back to a place I used to visit frequently in childhood with books like The Castle in the Attic or The Indiana in the Cupboard. In this place I became lost. My mind entered the book and the world around seemed to disappear. I could see the characters faces like they were in front of me. I feet their triumphs, failures, hope and loss. The Harry Potter series took me back to this place and sometimes I didn’t want to leave.

The final book Harry Potter book was hard to read. I knew that once I started I wouldn’t stop until I was done. I knew that if I started it would be the last time I read a new adventure of Harry Potter. I spread out my reading over two days. I spent a majority of Sunday reading and finished it off last night. I feared that if I did not read it quickly some bastard on the news or elsewhere would irresponsibly share details of the book that might spoil the ending.

It may sound odd to most but I found myself, at times, tearing up as I read the book. The emotions I felt as I turned each page are hard to put into words. I didn’t want to reach the end but I had to know what happen to the boy wizard I had been following for so long. My daughter, wife, mom and sister have all read the books and have eagerly awaited each new addition but I get the feeling that they don’t quite feel the same way I do about them.

Here I sit, a grown man with kids of my own, mourning the end of of a series of children’s books. Thank you, J.K. Rowling, for your books. They mean more to me than I can put into words.

An fellow Google user was using the GoogleTalk application while chatting with a friend. This user has his own personal website that contains ads provided by Google. (as does mine) During the chat, the user jokingly prompted his friend to click on his ads while he was viewing some picture of his new baby. It is against the Google AdSense terms of service (TOS) to solicit clicks in any form, so the user clearly violated (admittedly) the TOS. The part that threw up a red flag was the e-mail from Google the user received the next day. This is an excerpt from the chat and the e-mail message:

1:11 PM my buddy: oh csection yeah that takes a while, what was the weight?

me: http://spanglenuts.blogspot.com/

there are some pics

8lbs 12.5 ounces

1:12 PM my buddy: yeah thats a good size

1:14 PM me: Ya, he’s cute.

1:15 PM my buddy: yeah very nice i’m lokking at the pics now

me: you can feel free to click on some ads.

The following day(today), less than 24 hours later, I received an email about my Google Adsense Account Status. Here is the email. In bold are the highlights…

#######################################################

Hello Google User (name removed for privacy),

It has come to our attention that invalid clicks have been generated on
the Google ads on your site(s). In the future, we may adjust your
payment for any days during which invalid clicks occurred in order to
properly credit advertisers for any invalid activity.

As a reminder, any method of generating invalid clicks is strictly
prohibited. Invalid clicks include but are not limited to any clicks
that are generated through the use of robots, automated clicking tools,
manual clicks by a publisher on the publisher’s own web pages, or a
publisher encouraging others to click on his ads.

Looks to me like Google tracks what GoogleTalk users are chatting about. This conversation must have thrown up a red-flag.

If you know nothing about him or how Google came into fruition you might find this story well worth the read. 

Full Article

I rarely post about anything political, and for future reference, I rarely will, but I came across a site a few months ago that I think might strike a chord with some of my readers. You may have noticed the big button on the left advertising Unity ‘08. I am not paid nor do I receive any monetary benefits by placing the link. I simply want to spread the word about something I feel is important. Here is a brief summary of the idea behind Unity ‘08:

Unity08 believes that neither of today’s major parties reflects the aspirations, fears or will of the majority of Americans. Both have polarized and alienated the people. Both are unduly influenced by single-issue groups. Both are excessively dominated by money.

For most of the 20th Century, the contest for the U.S. presidency was waged over those “in the middle.” Recent Presidential elections, however, have not been focused on the middle but on the turnout of each party’s special interest groups — with each party’s “base” representing barely ten percent of the American people.

We believe that, while the leaders of both major parties are well intentioned people, they are trapped in a flawed system — and that the two major parties are today simply neither relevant to the issues and challenges of the 21st Century nor effective in addressing them.

As a result, most Americans have not been enthusiastic about the choices for President in recent elections, the key issues they ran on, or the manner in which the campaigns were conducted.

Therefore Unity08 will act to assure that an alternative ticket is presented to the American voters in 2008.

If you are at all interested, go to www.unity08.com or click the button at the top of the left sidebar. A more detailed description of the goals and ideas behind Unity ‘08 can be found.