Woot-Off Debriefing

Well, the Woot-Off is over.

For those of you not in the know, Woot.com is a website that sells one item a day, for a pretty good price. You can get cheap computers, cheap pens, basically anything.

But every once in awhile (about once a month) there is a "Woot-Off." They sell an item until it is sold out, then they put up another. The prices are usually really cheap, and you can get great deals. Alicia has blogged about this previously, so you can read her thoughts on her blog. She describes it better than me, so do give her post a read.

This Woot-Off started the day Alicia began her bar exam, so we couldn't follow it very well. But now that she's done, I have been compulsively pressing refresh to see what else was up for sale. And I got two items!

Mighty Kite Mini-Kite

They were only a penny each, plus $5 shipping (every single item is $5 shipping, whether it is ten pounds of salt or a penny kite). But, since the difference between getting one and three was $5.01 versus $5.03, I GOT THREE!

Satzuma USB Fish Tank

This guy is a USB Aquarium (fake fish) for only $3.99 plus standard $5 shipping. Not bad, considering it will make a nice addition to my USB gadget collection. Huzzah!

It was really exciting, considering these two came up one after another.

Too bad there weren't any Bags of Crap. I read online that if you can manage to get one, they've been valued up to $1000. And they only cost 5 bucks each. It's basically the lottery. Maybe some other time.

WOOT!

Rock Band versus Guitar Hero

Unless you've had your head under a rock for two years, you've no doubt heard of Rock Band or Guitar Hero. I've purchased Guitar Hero 1, 2, and 3, as well as Rock Band. Those who know me know I've been into music games since way back before College.

Since both Guitar Hero and Rock Band have a similar concept, it seems one of the biggest determining factors now-a-days is the music included in each game. Today I was reading an article in Ars Technica about the music licensing in the next two games (Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero: World Tour). Here's my favorite part:

"Right now the holy grail of music licensing seems to be the Beatles, and it's hard to fathom the amounts of money that Activision and MTV Games would throw at Apple Corps for that music."

Indeed. I know I have salivated over that thought. It was about a year ago that I seriously started to listen to the Beatles.

What is strange is that the Beatles' music is not available online at the moment. It is curiously missing from iTunes catalog. The link in the middle of the quote above is to a separate article about the Beatles and licensing. It hints that a deal may be inked within a few weeks, but that was back in June.

I might have mentioned before that I don't like the Guitar Hero franchise anymore, and that I'm strictly with Rock Band now. If Activision (the makers of Guitar Hero) managed to make an exclusive deal with Apple Record (who controls the Beatles music), I would begrudgingly purchase Guitar Hero again.

Also new in the apartment...

Alicia purchased the new shelf during our first trip to Ikea back in June. It's nice having a place for straws and napkins. The picture above the table is also new. She added the green backdrop. It didn't work until the orange shelf went up, now it looks pretty good.

Alicia actually spray-painted the shelf herself. Good job? Indeed!

Hacker Conference

Last weekend (July 18, 19 and 20th) I attended The Last H.O.P.E., a hacker conference here in New York put on by the magazine 2600, the Hacker Quarterly. H.O.P.E. stands for Hackers on Planet Earth.

What's a hacker conference about? Well, this one was about the hacker community, security, and general internet connectivity. Plus a lot of computer geeks.

Really, I don't consider myself a hacker. I could understand the presentations, but it just isn't my cup of tea. I don't really want to spend a lot of time learning computer security systems, coding, etc. I'd have stayed as a Computer Science major if that was the case.

But this conference was exactly the kind of thing that made me excited to live in New York. You just don't see these happening much in the Twin Cities.

Ultimately, I fluctuated between really enjoying it and being a bit bothered by it. Given that it was a conference made up of 80% guys between 15-30 that pride themselves on their ability to stay indoors, body odor was a problem sometimes. But there was some interesting stuff. And great speakers!

Here's some tidbits:

The ID card you got to grant you permission to the conference areas was a white circuit board as pictured below:

The backside had a small battery. It was a functioning tracking device. Basically, it could tell where I was when I was within the conference areas. I was able to log in to the conference website and see where I currently was, where I had been, what talks I had attended, where others who registered were. Near the big conference rooms, there was a screen displaying the current data:

Theoretically, I'm one of those red dots. If there weren't so many dots, mine would have read 3225, which was the id number. It was pretty cool, as the tag flashed red every five seconds or so as it sent out a signal.

There were talks from about 10am until midnight Friday, Saturday and Sunday (talks ended at 7pm). As you can see from the empty conference room below, attendance was at capacity. The conference rooms were named after famous Computer Scientists, the one below is named Turing:

I didn't take the picture of the crowd, so theoretically you can see me in there somewhere (but don't look too hard. I knew where I was and I couldn't find myself). This talk was made during Steven Levy's talk. Levy is a technology writer who writes for Newsweek. He also wrote the book "Hackers" back in 1980ish.

Other cool speakers include Lazlow (who co-wrote GTAIV and has done radio work for many of the previous other Grand Theft Auto video games), Adam Savage from Mythbusters, and the guy who was the consultant for Sneakers (early 90's spy movie with Robert Redford).

I learned about safe cracking, lock picking, telephones, internet testing, and a ton of other things technology related. Speaking of lock picks, here's the beginner set I bought:

Alicia and I have both gotten a tiny luggage lock, but that's it. Neither of us has managed to get the master lock pictured. It really feels like an art. You use the S shaped thing to spin the lock like a key would. Then, while providing torque (turning it), you use the blue handled tools to push the "pins" into the lock. When you first start, it feels easy. But then you have trouble getting the pins right. It just doesn't wanna work.

All in all, the hacker conference was great for getting out of the house and doing something. I don't go to many bars, and I'm kind of a bum about seeing music shows. This made me feel like I've gotten something out of living here. Huzzah!

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Footnote: I've usually only posted pictures I personally took so that copyright issues weren't a problem. I couldn't find much in the way of credits or limitations on some of the photos in this post, so I've included links to their original source. Just click the picture for credits. If you own the rights to any of these photos and do not want me using them here, feel free to email me. You can find my email at the top right under "about me."

Status Updates on the Right

Perhaps you've noticed my status update on the right side of this blog. That is courtesy of Twitter, a big name on the internet as of late. It is entirely centered around status updates a la Facebook. Each update is called a "tweet," and you can follow people who are texting their "tweets" via cell phone.

I haven't really gotten into the Twitter community. Apparently, it is all the rage in the blogosphere (world of blogs where everyone reads everyone else). But it makes it easy to let you know what I'm doing. It's much easier to write a tweet (160 letter maximum), so you'll see that updates much more often. And if you'd like to twitter back and forth, I'd love to follow your tweets. Comment me up!

Yeah, yeah, yeah

Okay, so maybe you can never trust me on this blog when it comes to my posting frequency. I'm sorry! But you got a really long one! With pictures!

Apartment Shuffle

I've been living in my apartment in Brooklyn for over a year. Which is a lot, considering I've moved four times in the past five years. Outside my time back home in Eden Prairie, the longest tenure I've had in an apartment is one year 10 months, give or take (this was when I broke up with my ex and was essentially living with Alicia in her place).

So Alicia and I starting thinking about this place. We are paying $1600 a month, which is a lot, but much cheaper than Manhattan. Was it a good deal? Should we stay another year? Is there a better neighborhood to move to?

With those questions in mind, Alicia and I had fun surfing the internet looking at apartments in New York. Part of the fun was the thought of actually moving, part came from verifying whether we had a good apartment.

At first, we thought we were getting screwed. I got out the tape measure and discovered our apartment is somewhere between 450 - 550 square feet. Which is small, compared to what other apartments had. This was amplified by our feelings of claustrophobia, brought on by all of our stuff. Sure, we've lived with it for a year, but it took a year to realize we had a very full apartment. There wasn't much open floor space, most walls were covered with shelves, and our living room really felt cramped. Suddenly, having 700 square feet sounded really appealing.

The listings on Craigslist.org and others indicated that most one - two bedroom apartments in the 700 square feet range were about what we were paying, $1600-1800 a month. Moving was sounding better and better.

But I had to see the apartments. I managed to check out two open houses. The first was $1700 a month in a nicer building just four blocks away from where we are now. The problem was the space was in very awkward places. There were no right angles in the apartment and it turned out (by my estimate) to be nowhere near 700sqft as advertised. Really, it felt like there was no advantage over this place. It was almost equal. Not worth moving for.

Next, Alicia and I tried a step up in price ($1800 a month) for bigger (actually 700 sqft), but in a worse neighborhood (about two subway stops deeper into Brooklyn). We arrive at a newly built building that was originally meant to be condos until the real estate market took a turn for the worse. The agent brought us to this incredible apartment with a deck, huge windows, a nice stainless steel fridge, beautiful bathroom, full kitchen, . . . I could go on. So, what's the catch?

It's the model, and it is $2200 a month. We go down the hall to see the $1800 a month apartment. Still feels like the same size as our apartment. The kitchen is smaller, there's no deck, and there's no decent light. It just isn't worth taking the trouble to move into. Plus, $200 more a month? No thanks.

The implications of moving were becoming clear. For our price range, we weren't getting any improvement. And it would certainly be more expensive every month. But that model apartment, Wow. It was nice. We've come to the agreement that we should hold out on moving until we can step up to that level.

So Alicia and I start looking at our apartment and tried to determine what we could fix. As some background, when we moved here over a year ago, we were very excited. We spent two or three months planning the layout of this apartment. Every piece of furniture was in its ideal spot. But still, everything felt cramped. If only we had more storage. . .

Here's our solution. We went to the new Brooklyn Ikea and purchased two "Wardrobes" to act as a closet. These huge monoliths hold our clothing, freeing up both closets to be used for other things. They are from the Hopen line, which matches the dresser you see to the right, my bed and my bed side table. I love the frosted glass!

I won't kid you, these were rather expensive. Not four figures, or even close. But their price is justified in my mind when I consider how much moving costs alone would be. And if Alicia and I live in this apartment for another year at $1600/month instead of somewhere else at $1800/month, we've just saved $2400.

But they've worked. The space we have taken up in the bedroom is now free in the rest of the apartment. What used to look like Alicia's closet now looks like this:

We've got all of our food, most of our cleaning supplies, and lots of other junk in there. That is all junk that used to sit in our living room. Now, it is tucked away in our newly acquired storage space.

The most startling shuffle in the apartment that resulted from the Ikea wardrobes is the lovesac's new home:

I know what you're thinking: "Aren't you shunning it??" The short answer is yes. I've had the Lovesac for four years now. It is the most comfortable piece of furniture I own. This apartment just doesn't have the space for it in the living room. Heck, it took up 1/4th of the floor space! It has it's own little corner now that I can still sit on it to read, and it stays fluffed almost all the time. And by shoving it back there, look at the living room now:

What is hard to convey is the floor space. This room doesn't heat up as much anymore. It feels wide open and comfortable. It has made this apartment feel half as cramped as it used to feel. Heck, I can even use my orange chair now.

The configuration you see above isn't permanent. Alicia is planning on shuffling the desks around after the bar exam (she's done Wednesday, 7/30!).

The best part is that the apartment now feels fresh. I'd be happy living here for another year, and that will save us money.

Update

Hey everyone! Thanks for checking this guy. I've had a busy week (or two), but I've got several blog posts lined up for the upcoming week. Check back every day for a new one!

To make up for the lack of updates, I've got two more coming down the pipe today.

Morning Newspaper

When the internet was new, one common thought was that it would replace the standard newspaper. That turned out not to be the case, as it is very nice to have something to hold and read away from the computer. Plus, reading websites like the New York Times wasn't very pleasant.

But around 2001, the internet heralded a new journalistic phenomenon, blogging. It changed the news front by making regular publishing on any topic (and at any frequency) easy. The problem (in my opinion) is that checking twenty different websites was simply a burden.

One technology that I didn't pay attention to was RSS feeds. I was familiar that blogs and other websites used these feeds to publish. Basically, a feed is a very simple website that computer programs called "Readers" know how to read. This enables you to have a program that will go to twenty different websites for you and aggregate them in one place. I think I had tried two or three previously, maybe around 2006, but I didn't like what I saw.

Earlier this year, Google released their own web based Reader, Google Reader (reader.google.com). Instead of a program that checks RSS feeds whenever you ask it to, Google Reader checks them constantly, 24/7.

Google Reader has become my morning paper. Along with my email, I check Google Reader every single morning without question. I love it because it is so customizable. All you need to do is sign up for an account and click on the RSS feed button on various websites. The button looks like this:


Optional, but very helpful, is downloading the Google Toolbar. Then, clicking on this button in your browser will automatically ask you if you'd like to add it to Google Reader. Then, whenever you go to reader.google.com, you'll be able to read any new posts.

The real advantage is that you no longer have to remember what websites you'd like to visit, and you never visit websites that haven't updated. You can try out websites for just a few days to see if you'd like them, and you can scan the headlines of websites that publish a lot, just like a real newspaper.

I love it. It saves me time when I am surfing the internet, and I never have to repeatedly check a blog that only posts once a week or so. It's gotten me to read websites I might normally find too boring, because I can simply scan the headlines.

Plus, there are several blogs that are good fun. One called Photoshop Disasters has a single picture every day where it is obvious that they were photoshoped (digitally altered). Another funny website I might not check if not for Google Reader is Gullible.info, which posts five or so fake facts every other day. I usually laugh about how believable these "facts" are.

But you can put a sampling of newspapers, like the Wall Street Journal, NY Times, etc. Here's a list of my favorite websites:

http://consumerist.com/ - The Consumerist is made up of stories of horrible customer service, and what we can do to avoid them. They firmly advocate making sure you get what companies promise, even if that means emailing the executives of the company.

http://ikeahacker.blogspot.com/ - Ikea Hacker has one article every day that shows someone using Ikea products in ways they were not intended, usually to fix some problem or need.

http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/ - Passive-Aggressive Notes features a passive aggressive note every day, usually directed at a roomate or some neighbor. Lots of fun.

http://gothamist.com/ - The Gothamist is my daily news for New York.

http://arstechnica.com/index.ars - Ars Technica doesn't post as much as other technology blogs, but they go into depth in their stories. I usually just browse the headlines, but I read at least one full article a day.

http://www.boingboing.net/ - BoingBoing is probably the biggest blog on the internet. They post on a ton of different topics, from copyright policy to Disney World. In terms of internet celebrities, these bloggers are the biggest.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/ - The Google Blog is the official blog of Google. It is usually how I learn about new Google Products.

Teaching

Well, it is Tuesday. Only three more days of work for me. I've finally started getting used to the 3Hr 45Min classes.

As you may recall, I'm teaching at New York City College of Technology this summer, teaching a class for students just entering the college out of High School. These are students who got lower than 18 on the Math ACT exam, which is required to enter the "for credit" math classes. CUNY (City University of New York) offers the class I am teaching for free to give these students a chance to get back into regular math curriculum.

The class starts at 8:30 and runs until 12:15, so it is something of a marathon. The hardest part of teaching so far has been keeping the students interested. One way I've done it has been bringing in candy. I know it is silly, but it does seem to wake the students up when I am throwing a mini snickers at them. Alicia gave me the idea, saying one of her Law Professors did it and it was very effective. I usually give the candy away if a student catches one of my mistakes, or answers a trivia question I'll occationally throw out.

As for the math curriculum, I'm trying something different. I'm teaching them about polynomials without using subtraction or division. I'm hoping it will simplify things.

I'm giving an exam every single Thursday, so I've already returned one. The average was 86, which is pretty good. There were students still getting 62, and I'd love to reach them. I just hope the exam wasn't too easy.

Of course, the hardest part so far has been waking up. The subway ride is only about half an hour (CityTech is in Brooklyn), but I can't be late as I'm the professor. So I usually leave the apartment by 7:30. As a result, I'm awake around 6:30. Sunday night darn near killed me though. I couldn't get asleep until about 1:30am, so waking up at 6:30 was harsh. I ended up going to bed around 9:30 last night, thus the reason I'm up at 5am today. Oh well!

Update from the backyard

Hello! Sorry about the week off from blogging. As you know, I started teaching last week Monday. I've managed to procrastinate blogging since then. But not too much to take some photos!

This is my garden after about 5 or 6 weeks of growth. The Zinnias didn't come up in a grid (which I started), but are coming up great in places I just clumped seeds. There might be something up with the left side's soil, as the right side of the garden certainly has almost full growth. Or, it could just have to do with what was accessable when I was kneeling and spreading the seeds.

Here's another shot from the side so you can see how tall everything has grown. The highest Zinnias are around 7-10 inches. No blooming, or anything yet. But, there is this girl:

Alicia and I have been calling her (pretty sure it is a her) Oreo, but that is only because we are not very creative in our naming. I've started feeding it out of pure want for a cat. I went to the 99 cent store and picked those bowls up, bought a pound of cat chow and five fancy feasts at Walgreens, and it lasted almost two weeks now. I don't feed her every day, but everytime Alicia and I am out there. It makes Oreo very friendly. She's cute, doesn't hiss, and likes affection. We haven't figured out whether she is owned. She always comes from the same direction when I come outside, perhaps from her owner's house? She doesn't have a collar, but she is not afraid of people. I've checked outside at midnight, and she was still hanging out, so who knows?

Alicia has more photos and her thoughts on her blog, http://aliciaglaser.blogspot.com.