dronak

08:24 pm: "Purity" of Scientific Fields
On Friday, the xkcd web comic posted one called Purity which arranged fields of study by purity. Its order in increasing purity is sociology, psychology, biology, chemistry, physics, with representatives all commenting that the one before them is just application of their field, and the physicist noting that it's nice to be on top. But mathematics is far on the pure side, with the mathematician commenting about how far away everyone else is. However, the image's alt text says, "On the other hand, physicists like to say physics is to math as sex is to masturbation." :) BTW, I think this is supposed to be a bit more about the attitudes of the fields (people in them) than a serious ranking, and I suspect there's some truth to it. I think that stereotypes or things like it usually come about because there's some degree of truth to them.

A number of social news type sites linked to it, and people commented about it. One of the comments that I found interesting included a link to another ranking with a few more fields. The first reference I saw for it was to something from the Annals of Improbable Research, specifically the mini-AIR newsletter from March 1997. Astronomer Vinay L. Kashyap wrote the following:

Speaking of ranking the various disciplines --
Politicians think they are Economists.
Economists think they are Social Scientists.
Social Scientists think they are Psychologists.
Psychologists think they are Biologists.
Biologists think they are Organic Chemists.
Organic Chemists think they are Physical Chemists.
Physical Chemists think they are Physicists.
Physicists think they are Mathematicians.
Mathematicians think they are God.
God ...umm... so happens that God is an Astronomer.

I like this one. :D

09:45 pm: Palm Centro Smartphone
Since I write long posts, here's a summary: I bought a Palm Centro with service by Sprint and got the Everything 450 plan for unlimited everything (except anytime minutes, 450 of them) for it. Due to purchasing time, conditions, and rebates, I'll end up getting paid $50 for getting this smartphone. And I'm now wondering if I should port my current cell phone number to the new device or not (please comment if you wish).

After thinking things over for a while, I decided to buy a smartphone. It's something I thought about doing a few years ago, but decided not to, in part because I didn't really need or want a cell phone. I did eventually get one and have had it for a while now, on a "pay as you go" style plan. After having some difficulty with my landline (mentioned before) I started thinking about going cell-only, which brought back the idea of getting a smartphone to combine my PDA and cell phone into a single device. It had to be a Palm OS device so that I could keep and transfer practically everything in my current PDA to the new device. This turned out to be a major limiting factor, because Palm has very few smartphones right now. There were some differences in between them, but they didn't seem especially important, so I went with the Palm Centro. This is their newest model, and a bit smaller than the Treos they've had for a while. I think it's being advertised as something of a starter smartphone, but it looks like it will handle everything I normally do (and more) well. I've also seen reviews and such that said it basically comes with everything one of their top-end models comes with, just in a smaller package. Only two carriers support this smartphone -- Sprint and AT&T. Given the choice, I opted for Sprint for two reasons: one, my current carrier (Virgin Mobile) uses the Sprint network and I haven't had any real trouble with them, and two, my mother has talked with people who have AT&T cell phones and those calls get dropped on a regular basis. I may not have the ability to use it all over the world like I think I would with an AT&T phone, but I almost never leave the country, so that's not really an issue for me.

I don't have the device yet, it's coming tomorrow, but I'm excited to try it out. I think I was also kind of lucky on when I did this. Amazon is currently selling the Palm Centro for $0.01 -- that's right, 1 cent. They're including their own discount which they'll revoke if you break some terms, but it seems easy enough not to (don't change anything for 6 months). On top of that, there's a $50 rebate offer that's about the expire, but I'm getting my purchase in before the deadline. That means I'm getting paid $50 to take this device. As you'd expect, I had to select a contract, so I'll be entering a 2-year commitment. I had two main factors in this decision. I didn't need a ton of anytime minutes because I don't use the phone *that* much and most of my longer calls are night and weekend ones. I did want an unlimited data plan though, anticipating that I might make some use of data services and didn't like the idea of paying $0.03/kB and never knowing exactly what my bill would be. After examining at the options, I went with Sprint's Everything 450 plan which (according to the web site) gives me 450 minutes (7.5 hours) of anytime minutes and unlimited everything else -- texting, e-mailing, web browsing, GPS navigation (bound to be useful), picture messaging, video messaging, push-to-talk, NFL mobile (don't care), NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile (care even less), Sprint TV (cool), 150 radio stations and channels (cool), and access to the Sprint music store ($0.99 song downloads, I think). All of that is $70 a month, plus taxes, fees, and junk. It's definitely more expensive than what I'm paying now, but it's going to offer quite a bit more than I have right now, too. I can see using the radio in my car while driving to and from work since my radio was stolen years ago and I never bothered to replace it. While looking up info on the Everything plans (there are three variations of it), I noticed that they seem to be a limited-time offer, too, expiring at the end of May. So as I said, lucky timing -- free phone at Amazon, plus a $50 rebate, and a nice unlimited plan. I could get the same kind of unlimited service with a combination of other plans and options, but I think the Everything plan is about $5 cheaper, making it the better deal.

So, after all that, one thing remains -- should I port my existing cell phone number to the new device? AFAIK, I can do that, and it would let me keep the number I already have. However, so few people use it that it wouldn't be a major problem to change the number. I plan to keep my current phone as an emergency backup. If I don't port the number, I might be able to get keep it if I reactivate the phone in the future. They could release it after X months of inactivity though, too, in which case porting might have been better. My current cell number is in a different area code from my landline, but my new smartphone number is in the same area code. This doesn't matter that much, but it might be nice to have both numbers in the same area code. What do you think about the porting issue?

09:39 pm: Going Cell-Only?
I've been having problems with my regular land line phone service with Verizon for a while, and repeated attempts to have it repaired have been unsuccessful. The basic problem is that after it rains, my phone hums, sometimes so loudly as to make the line unusable. I'm now considering dropping the land line and switching to using only a cell phone. I currently have a pre-paid cell phone with Virgin Mobile, but could switch that up to a monthly plan. However, if I'm going to change, I think it's more likely that I'll buy a smartphone to have a PDA and cell phone together. Since I want a Palm device like I have now, there aren't many options, and I'm leaning towards the Palm Centro with Sprint (I've heard it's better than AT&T, the other Centro choice). I'll probably look into porting one of my existing numbers, too.

I know this is becoming more popular, so I was curious about other people's experiences with going cell-only. Was it an easy enough transition to make? Are there any major disadvantages to not having a land line? Anything in particular I should know about before doing this, or things to keep in mind if I do it to make it easier? Feel free to leave a comment with your suggestions. Thanks in advance for your help.

07:46 pm: Five Surprising Salaries
I found an article on CNN.com today called Five Surprising Salaries. I checked it out, and guess what? Astronomer was on the list (I have an astronomy Ph.D.). Here's the entry for this job:

What they do: Astronomers use their physics and math skills to study the universe and its origin, which includes galaxies, solar systems and the planets within. They use this research to analyze and solve problems dealing with satellites and space travel.

Surprising salary: $95,740. Though maybe it shouldn't be all that surprising considering a doctorate is the standard level of education and there are only 1,700 astronomers in the U.S.

Suffice it to say, I'm not making that much money. Of course, I'm also not currently doing astronomy work either, but I do like my job. Still, it gets me wondering.

If anyone's still reading my blog, what do you think? What would you do in a situation like this?

10:41 pm: My Parakeet, Ruffles
I probably mentioned before that I was getting a parakeet/budgie from my brother last year. Well, if you're curious about him, I can point you to some more information. I just joined BirdChannel.com and set up a profile for Ruffles there. The site basically makes the page from information you submit in a form. I've posted a little bit about him in the forum there, too. An interesting aspect of BirdChannel.com is that by registering and doing things on the site, you gain points that can eventually be exchanged for items if you get the tens of thousands of points needed for them. They also have awards like Bird of the Week, which I think come from votes on the profiles, so if Ruffles gets enough votes in the right time frame, he might have a chance at winning one of the awards.

Another place you might like to check is my YouTube channel, where I've posted some videos of Ruffles. They're not the best quality, because I use my PDA's built-in camera for this, but they're good enough to let you see the little guy in action. I've also posted about him at the Talk Budgies Forum, if you feel like looking around there and reading. (I suspect watching the short videos will be more entertaining though.)

That's about it for now. I enjoyed making a little web page for Ruffles, as basic as it may be, and thought I'd mention it, and the videos, for those who want to see them. Enjoy!

10:14 pm: Another Office Move
Well, it looks like I'm going to have to move offices at work again. And it's not just me, it's most of our company, everyone who's in the same hallway as me. This will make two moves in three years, but unfortunately this time it's a downgrade. We're going from nice, outer offices with windows to inner windowless offices. And on top of that, most if not all of the inner offices will have to be shared. Needless to say, no one is particularly happy, but we don't really have any choice. I suppose having the nice, outer offices was too good to be true and couldn't last forever, but that doesn't make it any less depressing to be pushed back to grad school like office conditions. *sigh* Oh well, what can we do except attempt to make the best of it? :(

06:03 pm: Green Laser and Tai Chi Sword
The reason this post's subject line has those two items, which aren't related to each other, is because they're my most recent purchases.

As an astronomer, I've wanted to get a green laser pointer for some time, because they can be used to point out objects on the sky at night. It took a while to get around to buying one, but I finally did. I ordered the CORE model from Wicked Lasers on Thursday, and it's scheduled to arrive on Monday -- very fast service and shipping! As an official distributor of Wicked Lasers, LaserPointer.com sells the same one and has a little extra info about it on their site. The CORE is a 5mW laser with a wavelength of 532nm and is supposed to have a range of up to 10000 feet (~1.9 miles or ~3 km) in darkness. And since the human eye is more sensitive to green light than red light, it's about 50x brighter than a red laser of the same power. This will be good for general pointing, like at presentations slides or to play with pets, as well as pointing out objects on the sky. It's a very low-power laser at only 5mW, but that also makes it relatively safe, and keeps it within the USA's power limit for laser pointers (also a good thing). It's possible to buy much more powerful lasers, Wicked Lasers has ones up to 300mW and Tech Lasers goes up to 600mW, which can do all sorts of fun things like have a visible beam in daylight, light matches, pop balloons, cut electrical tape, melt plastic, etc., depending on the power. While that is fun and interesting, it's not all that practical and you've got to be much more careful and take more safety precautions with these high-powered lasers. I think the 5mW CORE will be quite sufficient for my needs, and I'm looking forward to trying it out when it arrives on Monday.

I'm not always good about practicing the tai chi I learned, and I tend to do it on and off. I'm on for a while, then get lazy and go off for a while, then realize I really ought to be doing it, and go on again. Well, I'm in an "on" phase now, in part because I rented a DVD on tai chi that included a sword form. I've been interested in that for a while, so I'm going to see what I can learn from the DVD. Granted, it's not as good as a teacher, but I was taught a barehand form, so that should help me pick up the sword form. But I didn't have a straight sword, so I wanted to get one. I looked at some of my martial arts / tai chi bookmarks and went to Wing Lam Kung Fu where I ordered a retractable metal tai chi sword complete with tassel and carrying case, plus a book on the tai chi sword form. I think that having something new to learn and practice will help encourage me to practice some more, so I think it's a worthwhile purchase. I'm planning to get some other DVDs on tai chi, in styles different from the one I learned, so it will be interesting to check them out as well. My tai chi order is scheduled to arrive on Friday, because it's coming by UPS standard ground all the way across the country, which takes 6 days. If I'm lucky, it will be here Friday; I suspect it may get delayed (e.g., from not actually going out on Friday) until the following Monday. But still, I'm doing more tai chi again, which is a good thing.

So there you go, how green lasers and tai chi end up in the same topic. :) Anyone have comments about either one? Feel free to comment. Sometimes talking about topics I like helps keep me interested in them.

10:24 pm: Faster DSL
My DSL connection here at home seemed to be having a lot of issues the past few weeks. It would get really slow now and then, and sometimes it looked like my computer would lose its Internet connection briefly before regaining it. A few times, the DSL seemed to be out completely, and for more than a moment. I looked into upgrading to a faster speed, and while I can't get the fastest speeds I've seen advertised, I was able to upgrade to basically double the speed I had. My download went from a 768k line to a 1.5M line. The change just took place today, and web pages, downloads, etc. have been going noticeably faster now. Since I also have to share the line with everyone else in the house (the rooms are rented here), having a bigger pipe is certainly beneficial since it gives everyone a better connection. So hopefully we'll have less problems now that we have a faster connection.

10:47 pm: The Nerd Handbook
I saw this mentioned on LifeHacker, a site I read regularly. To quote their post: "An insightful essay on understanding geeks called 'The Nerd Handbook' isn't a life hack for you, it's for your family and friends." If you're curious about it, here it is, The Nerd Handbook. Personally, I think some of it exaggerates too much, but the general points it talks about seems to fit for geeks/nerds. The comments on LifeHacker also mentioned an article called Caring for Your Introvert, which looks kind of interesting, too.

11:27 pm: Some Thoughts on Gmail
After finding out that Gmail is able to fetch mail from other accounts, I decided to start doing that for some of my other accounts (primarily Yahoo) and seeing how I liked using Gmail. First on the fetching, apparently it only does this for messages in the other account's inbox, but it seems that moving any old messages into the inbox allows them to be fetched. I did this with some of my mail, and I'm still using a very small portion of Gmail's quota, so no real worries there. Hotmail / Windows Live Mail couldn't be fetched from Gmail, but from what I read, that's not Gmail's fault -- it's Microsoft's stuff that won't let the transfer take place. This isn't necessarily bad though, since I think Hotmail accounts are deleted after a few months of inactivity, so by having to log in, I'll make sure the account remains.

On the sending side, the ability to let Gmail send mail as if it's from another account is also useful for my mail consolidation effort, especially since I can automatically reply using the address the mail was originally sent to. This is also nice for things like forwarding accounts (e.g., some alumni addresses) that have no actual mailbox -- set up Gmail to know that account's yours, and you can send messages from it pretty easily. Multiple signatures for different accounts would be a nice feature to add though. I've seen some code that will allow multiple HTML signatures, but I prefer plain text e-mail, so I'm still kind of stuck.

On the reading side, Gmail threads messages by default, so replies are grouped with their parent messages. This makes it easy to follow all posts in a discussion. I've also noticed that at least some quoted text is automatically hidden. So far this hasn't been a problem, but I'm not completely sure how this hiding is determined. Using labels instead of folders for classifying/grouping messages was a bit of an adjustment, but labels work in much the same way as folders with the added advantage of being able to apply multiple labels to a single message. I've been getting along fine with labels, using filters to automatically classify most incoming mail. The spam filtering is very good; it's not perfect, but what is? In my experience so far, it's definitely better than Yahoo's spam filtering though, which is certainly a plus for Gmail. IMO, it's also been a bit better at doing plain text messages and replying/quoting the way I prefer.

So far, I have no real complaints. Gmail is working fine, and has some advantages over Yahoo, which has been my main personal address for a while. Switching over hasn't been bad, and since I can still use the Yahoo account through Gmail, I don't really have to do a complete switch-over. I've only been using Gmail actively for a few weeks though, so if anyone has some favorite Gmail tips, feel free to share them in comments. Thanks.

08:31 pm: Random Updates
Here are a few random updates, since I've got some time to kill and it's been a little while since I wrote.

I ordered some more Japanese pencil puzzle books. I was able to find/figure out how to do nearly everything in the Puzzle Box 8 book that I didn't already know how to do, I decided to get the rest of that series that's currently available (only 6 and 7, unfortunately). I also decided to get some books from the quarterly Puzzle Communication Nikoli magazine, which seems to be similar to the Puzzle Box books. I also got a book with nothing but very large puzzles, Giants Best Selection, which contains some of the best puzzles from volumes 1-6 of their Puzzle the Giants series. In about a month, I'll have a lot more books and puzzles to keep me busy.

I've started working with Gmail a bit more now, and have it set up so that I can send mail that looks like it comes from some of my other accounts, and I also have it fetching mail from a few of my other accounts. I can't seem to get it to fetch from all of the accounts I'd like, but as long as the main ones can work together in Gmail, this should help me consolidate my mail a bit. I'm trying to work out the filters, tags, etc. to get something resembling what I'm used to already, and trying to keep the mail on my separate accounts in case I want to use them there. On a related note, my company is planning to have Gmail host our company e-mail accounts. Hopefully we won't have to change again after this.

I've got a new phone at home, one with caller ID and a digital answering system. I decided to pay for the caller ID service so that I could use that feature of the phone, and figured it was worth it. I'll be able to tell how many people called (and usually who called) even if they don't leave a message, and I won't need the answering machine to screen calls -- I can pick up when I see it's a family member. I also have the option of rejecting anonymous calls, people blocking their numbers, but I decided to leave that off for now and let it go to the answering machine. If I end up seeing a lot of anonymous calls, I might reject them, but for now I'll let them through. I ought to try again to contact the phone company and ask them to fix whatever problem with the outside wiring is causing my line to hum loudly whenever it rains. I might try covering the box on the house with some plastic wrap first though. A co-worker suggested that, and it might help if the problem is water getting into that box. If not, the phone company will have to do something about it.

Last week, I received an e-mail on an old school account from the principal of my high school. That was unexpected enough, but the reason for the e-mail was that I was nominated for the high school's Scholastic Hall of Fame award. I hadn't heard about it because they started it after I left, but the basic idea seems to be that they recognize some of the best students to come out of the school, who are continuing to do good work in their fields, by placing a plaque/plate with their picture and brief bio in a showcase in the main office hallway of the school. I sent in my bio, which the principal seemed impressed by, and am looking for a photo I like that would be suitable for this. While I do the work I do because I enjoy it and think it's generally useful (mainly in the sense of adding to humanity's body of knowledge), it's always nice to be recognized for doing good work.

I've been doing a little work with LaTeX again, after seeing it come up as a recommended format for submitting a paper to a conference we plan to attend. It's been a while since I worked with LaTeX, but I used it a lot during school and it's a good way to produce documents that are pretty easy to read in plain text (it's basically marked-up text). Actually, having gotten used to that in school, I was a bit surprised to have to use Word so much at work. Anyway, to get a little practice again, I started working on a LaTeX format of my resume. Unfortunately, the template I like the best doesn't save me any space compared to the Word template I used before, but it looks good. Since updating both should be easy, I might keep them both around. I might also try copying that conference paper we submitted into LaTeX format when things are slow enough at work and see if it looks any better or easier to work with. We wrote the paper using a Word template they had, and since there wasn't much besides text (no equations, symbols, etc.) it probably worked out fine. But I suspect the LaTeX template will make things a bit easier to work with, and a little practice to remember how to do TeX stuff wouldn't be bad.

Oh, a few of my lithops plants at work appear to be spreading open and growing a new pair of leaves underneath. I guess that's a good sign that they're still fairly healthy and I'm doing OK taking care of them. Only a few have done this so far, but it's still winter and cold. Maybe with time and some warming weather, others will follow suit.

Well, that's probably enough for now. Comments, questions, etc. are welcome.

10:21 pm: Puzzle Books Update
Over the last few days, I've managed to get at least rough translations for the titles of the games in Nikoli's Puzzle Cyclopedia and the new ones I haven't seen before in their Puzzle Box 8 book. With some more web searching, I've found more sites that have rules for some of the puzzles, but they're usually in Japanese. I used Babelfish to automatically translate them to English, and while they're not great translations, they're often good enough to give me the idea I need to understand the basic rules. A little trial and error on a puzzle can often help me clear up any confusion I may have about particular rules, too. Of course, there are still a lot of puzzles for which the only rules I have are printed in the Puzzle Cyclopedia, making it hard to learn how to play them. I still hope to get some human help on those eventually, if I can find a Japanese speaker or other puzzle fan willing to help.

Since I now know how to do almost all of what's in the Puzzle Box 8 book, the next time I order, I plan to get the other Puzzle Box books they have available (only volumes 6 and 7, I think). I might also decide to get a copy of a Puzzle Communication Nikoli book, a quarterly periodical, to see how many of the puzzles in that I can understand. If I can understand most of the puzzles in it, this may be another good option for getting a nice variety of puzzles in one book. I generally prefer variety over quantity and already have all of the ones with English instructions (the Penpa Mix books), so I need to explore the other options to get more puzzles and a greater variety of them. For example, Puzzle Box 8 has 32 types of puzzles, but Penpa Mix 4 only has 12.

So that's how things are going. I've made progress on some of the new puzzles in the books I have, but could still use help on many of the ones in the Puzzle Cyclopedia. Still, these are definitely fun to play and provide some mental exercise, so I'm happy with them. :)

10:33 pm: Nikoli Puzzle Books
After waiting about six weeks when the estimate was three weeks, the Nikoli pencil puzzle books I ordered from Japan finally arrived. The books I bought this time are Penpa Mix 4 (I bought the first three of this series last time), Puzzle Box 8, and Puzzle Cyclopedia. The Penpa Mix books have English instructions, which is why they were the first books I bought; the mix of puzzles in them changes slightly over the years, so I've gotten some new puzzles in the later books. I bought Puzzle Box 8 because it's another book with a variety of puzzles, and there are more types of puzzles in it than the Penpa Mix books. Unfortunately, there are no English instructions. However, I already know a bunch of them from the Penpa Mix books, and some other puzzles have instructions in English on the web. A few are word puzzles, which I won't be doing, and hopefully I can figure out the other types that may be in there.

The most interesting book to me is the Puzzle Cyclopedia. It has 215 different types of puzzles in it and this is the main reason I got it -- the huge variety of puzzles in a single book. The book is thinner than I expected, even with about 1-5 puzzles per type plus instructions, what appears to be an interview related to each one, and a few extra pages with lots of text (so I can't figure out what it is). There's also a timeline of some type at the front, and each puzzle has a year and month (I assume), that I'm guessing is when it was either created or first published. However, it's completely in Japanese, and there are no English translations of the games' rules. I'm currently working on figuring out the names of the puzzles, and then I'll see what ones I can find English instructions/rules for. After that, I'll need some help. I know it's a long shot, but does anyone reading my posts know enough Japanese to be able to help me with this? You can let me know in the comments. Thanks.

09:34 pm: Calendars and PocketMods
Looking over some of the tech-related sites, I found a few interesting articles. The first was for a monitor strip calendar that you could put on a computer monitor. It comes in vertical and horizontal versions, and each is in color and black and white, so you get four strips on one page. I read about this one on LifeHacker.com. I printed this out and put it on the cube-thing I have my work monitor sitting underneath. It's nice to have a full year displayed in such a compact space.

The left menu on the strip calendar site has a pattern for making a calendar on a dodecahedron (a 12-sided solid, like a 12-sided die for any gamers out there). It also links to the site I saw a while ago for making a 12-sided calendar, the advantage of this link being you can design your own. I made this, too, but I'm not sure I'll use it. The strip calendar above is more practical, but this one is more eye-catching.

Looking around also got me to this Compact Calendar, which looks interesting. It's small, but leaves room on the page for notes, so you could keep the whole page and annotate the calendar as needed. The Printable CEO series of posts on that site looks kind of interesting, too.

A comment on the LifeHacker article mentioned in the first paragraph pointed to PocketMod.com, which has what they call "the free recyclable personal organizer". This is pretty cool. With a Flash application, you can pick from a variety of widgets like ruled lines, grids, calendars, tables, blank pages, and others, place them on a template, and print it out. With one cut and a few simple folds, you end up with a small booklet, which is handy for taking notes or whatever you want. Also check out re:PocketMod, which seems to be running an older version of the application at PocketMod, but with more widgets for you to use. You can also get an off-line version of the re:PocketMod one, and a converter at the PocketMod site that will turn 8-page PDFs into PocketMods so you can make your own exactly the way you want. Less than 8 pages gives you blank spots, and more than 8 gives you more than one pocketmod, so keep it to 8 pages. You just need to be able to make PDFs (try PDFCreator if you need a tool to do that). WeDoThat.com has some modules that you can use with the downloadable version from re:PocketMod. They're not too hard to get working, but you should read the instructions to make sure you do it right. And by the way, I don't think these pocketmods are all that difficult to fold up. I've read some complaints about it, but I didn't have any real trouble (just a little figuring out which way to fold the middle flaps so they were ordered correctly). Apparently the PocketMod was a hot topic back in 2005, but I wasn't reading the same web sites and news articles then as now, so I only came across it now. Oh well. It's still interesting.

I kind of like these simple paper objects, and I'm sure there are bunches of other things like this. I've seen paper wallets and paper business card holders, for example. There's also the Hipster PDA, which is kind of the analog version of the Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), and is basically just a bunch of index cards clipped together. I was never big on this one, maybe because I have a real PDA, but some of you might like its simplicity. It's fun to check out things like these, and hopefully some of them are useful, too. Enjoy! :)

08:19 pm: DEWmocracy Top Three
The top three sodas have been selected, and I have to pick one of them to continue. Unfortunately, I don't really like any of the top three choices, so I haven't picked one yet, even though it's been about 5 days since they announced the choices. I'm also disappointed at the lack of variety in the top three choices. Take a look below.

My choice: Supernova, Fruit Fusion Orange with Guarana, Yellow

Choice 1: Voltage, Raspberry Citrus Blend with Ginseng, Lavender
Choice 2: Revolution, Fruit Fusion Wild Berry with Ginseng, Slate Blue
Choice 3: Supernova, Strawberry Melon Lime with Ginseng, Pale Violet

Notice that they all have ginseng and they're all in the blue-violet color part of the spectrum. This is what I meant about lack of variety. The fact that none of them match my choices is another factor.

In terms of what's near mine, the only exact match is in #3 with the name, and while I definitely like Supernova, the name doesn't affect the taste of the soda. There's a partial match in #2 with the primary flavor being Fruit Fusion. And the game claims that #1 is the closest match to my original choice. How it decided that when nothing at all matches my choice, I don't know. I can try to ignore the name and color choices since the flavor is what really makes the drink, but I'm still not a big fan of any of the flavor options left.

So now I'm stuck and don't really know what to do. I can follow it through to the end just to be part of the process, but I'm not sure I want to continue because none of the three choices sound all that good to me. Is there anyone else doing this who'd like to offer some suggestions?

10:41 pm: DEWmocracy
I just received a Mountain Dew newsletter announcing DEWmocracy, "where you will have the opportunity to choose the flavor, color, name, and look of the next Mountain Dew." It's a way to have a voice and vote in the next Mountain Dew product. Helping to create a product sounded like fun, especially when it's for one of my favorites.

You can visit the site for more information, but basically you'll go through a series of levels in the process of making the new Dew. The first three levels allow you to select a flavor, color, and name. At that point, the three most popular combinations will be selected, and you'll be placed in the one of three teams that most closely matches your pick. After that, the teams will work to create a logo, label, and tag line, and in the 7th and final level, you'll get to vote for the product you want to see become a reality.

I just went through the first level and it is kind of fun. I picked Fruit Fusion with Orange and a boost of Guarana, then played through all of the games in the level for maximum points. They also have an Easter egg type thing in there, where you can search around for hidden places to click on "dew drops". Seven drops are hidden in each level. It took me a while, but I eventually found all of them. The next level won't come out for about a week, so I'll have to wait a while to continue the adventure.

If you're a fan of Mountain Dew like I am, I'd suggest you take this opportunity to have your voice heard in the making of the next Dew product. Enjoy!

10:56 pm: The Nerd Test, ver. 2.0
I saw this on Digg and decided to check it out. I consider myself more of a geek than a nerd, but thought it would be a fun way to kill some time before bed. Tests like this often don't have exactly the choices I'd want, so I always consider the results to be somewhat variable. It's the Nerd Test ver 2.0 and my overall result was "Cool Science Geek". My "nerd percentile" was very high for science/math, around the middle for technology/computer, and kind of low for dumb/dork/awkward, sci-fi/comic, and history/literature. Except for the dumb/dork/awkward one which I'm not sure how they're judging, the results basically match up with my general level of interest in these areas, so the outcome isn't a big surprise. I might try some other quizzes on that site for fun sometime, but I'm going to bed now.

04:13 pm: Lithops Update
After my business trip the week of the 13th, I came back to my office on the 20th and naturally checked on my lithops plants. Sadly, one of the plants seemed to completely shrivel up, and I suspect that it's dead now. :( That wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't the only orange-ish plant of the bunch. I only had that one in that color, and it looks like it's a goner now. Oh well, what can you do? I'm not sure what killed it. Lack of water shouldn't be the problem since they're catcus-family plants. Maybe it got a bit too hot sitting near my window, and it overheat? I'm not sure, but I'll keep an eye on the others. I did notice that some of them seemed to start wrinkling, which is probably a sign that they need water. I gave the soil a good soaking, so hopefully they'll be OK for a while. I've read that you have to be careful not to overwater them, so I think waiting for wrinkles before watering them is a good way to go. I'm making note on my PDA of when I water the lithops so that I'll have a record to use for future reference. So far, so good (except for that one plant).

10:38 pm: Mountain Dew Game Fuel
While doing my grocery shopping today, I saw a new Mountain Dew product in the soda/snacks aisle. It's called Mountain Dew Game Fuel, and the label says it's "Dew with an invigorating blast of citrus cherry flavor". Since I'm a fan of Mountain Dew, I had to try this new variety. It tastes almost like a carbonated fruit punch, sort of a mix of their regular citrus Dew and the cherry Code Red flavor. It's really good, probably my favorite. They say this is a limited edition, but hopefully it will sell well enough that they'll bring it back and keep it as a regular flavor. Their orange flavor Live Wire was originally advertised as a limited edition, but I think they decided to keep that around. The grape flavored Pitch Black didn't seem to make it though. I saw it around Halloween a some years ago and haven't seen it since. They also have a Baja Blast variety that's only sold at Taco Bell, IIRC. That's good, too, but I don't eat at Taco Bell much, so I don't get it often. So yeah, I really like this new Game Fuel flavor and hope that they do keep it around.

02:10 pm: Goodbye Student Loan
I've just written my last student loan check. :) That is, assuming there are no problems with the mail or the loan company processing my payment correctly and on time. I trust the mail more than I do the loan company; they've made some mistakes in the past. They weren't horrible mistakes, but they were annoying. Hopefully they won't make any mistakes with this time (they're usually good). I've been overpaying each month since I had to start paying back the loan. Fortunately, my living situation and such allowed me to do this, which helped speed things up significantly. The loan finally got down to an amount that I could just pay in a larger chunk to get rid of the loan, so that's what I'm doing. My check has to account for future interest though, since that accumulates daily, so I used what the company calls a 10-day payoff. They give you a total amount that includes 10 days future interest, and as long as they get the payment within 10 days, you should be done. If it comes later, you may need to pay more. Hopefully there will be no problems, and my student loan will be gone before the month is over. Thanks to my situation, it's only taken about 2 years to pay off a loan scheduled for 10 years. Not bad, huh? :) I'm definitely glad that this over. I can now start thinking about replacing my aging car with a newer one, and switching from student loan payments to car loan payments.