Categories
fun

Game of Thrones, Season 6, Episode 10

  • Young guy gets star carved into his forehead
  • Upsets old guy
  • Kid held back by knight
  • Lady with short red hair drinks wine
  • Old guy gets stabbed to death by kids
  • Young kid with star in forehead gets stabbed by child
  • Wine cellar full of barrels with antifreeze in them
  • Antifreeze blows up and destroys giant building
  • Young king slayer asks old king slayer, Mr Filch, why they need him
  • Young guy is let into big library
  • Lady tells dude they burned someone at the stake
  • Old guy pissed girl was killed
  • Lady wants to die
  • Young man lets lady go. Tells her to ride south
  • Old guy threatens lady, she rides off in the snow
  • Young man and young lady talk about a bedroom and trust
  • Old woman and young woman talk vengeance.
  • Ex Machina lady talks about marriage to dude
  • She blows him off
  • Angry Elf talks to Ex Machina lady
  • Ex Machina lady gives angry Elf a pendant
  • Young servant girl slashes Mr. Filch’s neck. He dies.
  • Dude talks about sitting on the iron throne with lady at his side 
  • Zombie looking dude drops off kids in forest
  • Tree has a face with bleeding eyes
  • Kid touches tree face has dream of young woman dying. Blood everywhere 
  • Whispers into mans ear
  • Man takes baby
  • Young man and lady talk to hall full of men talk war
  • Child shames other men
  • Shamed men grow a pair
  • Dude on horse arrives in city where antifreeze explosion occurred. Looks pissed
  • Lady with short red hair is named queen. Dude looks unhappy
  • Bunch of ships sailing
  • Dragons fly by
  • The End
Categories
fun Life Uncategorized

Dumpster Bike: Day 1

When I was a kid my brothers and I were into BMX racing. We were good, big fish in a little pond you might say. We rode for Dick’s Bicycles here in Exeter, California. We were co-sponsored by Vans so our team racing shoes were supplied to us. We just picked a style, back then it was high or low tops. They were blue and gold like the rest of our team uniform. Jerry, my middle brother, was co-sponsored by SE Racing so he had the privilege of riding new gear before SE released it. 

Anywho, long story short, we know bicycles and spent many a day tearing them down, re-greasing, and reassembling them. Good time.

Move ahead almost 40 years and I still admire nice bikes. Especially older steel frames with beautiful lugs. I’ve wanted to rebuild and old steel lug frame into a fixed gear cruiser for a few years know, but I’ve never been able to happen upon a nice steel lug frame (I have one that might be worth something, so I’m afraid to strip it down to bare metal.) 

Recently we had a City cleanup day. Basically you can take anything you want to our local City Yard, pay a $5US fee, and the city properly disposes of it. This year I needed to cut down a dead tree so the cleanup day way the perfect opportunity to dispose of it. 

While I was there I thought to look for some bike frames and parts. I happened across a 2007 Giant Boulder SE. Frame, forks, and cranks just laying on the ground. I adopted it. 

Giant Boulder SE

I spent day one stripping off the chain, derailers, and handlebars. I was unfamiliar with how the forks and headset were assembled so they’re still in the frame and the bottom bracket is pretty rusty so I need a crank puller to remove the cranks. A guy at our local bike shop taught me how to take apart the headset so I can get that taken care of next. 

Once I get this thing stripped down I plan on stripping all the paint and giving it a nice fresh coat of Burnt Orange paint. Then I’ll reassemble it into a nice casual to ride bike. Nothin fancy.

I plan on keeping a little journal as I fix up what I’m calling “Fahrni Dumpster Bike Mark 0.”

Categories
fun Life Movies

Christmas Movie List

Say 'Hi' to the Christmas Turkey!My brother, Jay, mentioned a few movies he thinks of as Christmas Movies; Christmas Vacation, Die Hard, and he gives honorable mention to Elf. Not a bad list. Believe it or not, I’ve never seen Christmas Vacation. Die Hard and Elf are great films, regardless of the season.

Here’s the list of movies we watch, I may miss a few, but here goes.

Of course we don’t watch A Christmas Story until Christmas Eve when TBS does 24 Hours of A Christmas Story. I watch it a few times while I’m wrapping presents for my wife late into Christmas Eve, because, you know, there’s nothing like waiting until the last minute to wrap your wife’s gifts, right?

UPDATE: 12/24 – Here’s a list that’s a bit on the dark side, I thought I’d add these while I was updating the list above.

Categories
Design fun

Facebook to buy Dropbox

That’s right, I’m calling it. Facebook will acquire Dropbox in the very near future. How do I know this? History is on my side.

Designer Tim Van Damme has a unique superpower. His companies are acquired by Facebook. He was with Gowalla when they were acquired by Facebook, so he left for Instagram. Not long after Van Damme arrived at Instagram, that’s right, you guessed it, they were acquired by Facebook.

The first thing I thought yesterday when I read Mr. Van Damme was leaving Instagram for Dropbox? “I wonder when Facebook will acquire them?”

Has anyone set the line?

Categories
fun

Techmeme Job Openings

Techmeme Part-time Editor: “To apply: Send a single email to jobs@techmeme.com, briefly introducing yourself and describing your motivations for seeking this job. Use the subject line “[Name] (@[TwitterID]) – Techmeme Part-time Editor”, and include a resume, either as a link, an attachment, or pasted to the end of your email. In addition, please provide numbered responses to the following questions, answering each succinctly, in four or fewer sentences:
1. What were Facebook’s most significant product launches for mobile devices in 2013 and how were they received in the marketplace?
2. Explain why Yahoo bought Tumblr from the perspective of the two companies.
3. What are the factors believed to have contributed to Apple’s slide in the stock market over the past three quarters?
4. Recent hacking episodes of note have involved defaced websites and reports of stolen data. How are companies and governments responding?
5. Contrast the 4 publications featured most often on Techmeme with respect to what they bring to Techmeme’s coverage.
Finally, suggest two pieces that you think would make Techmeme better if they were posted as headlines (at the time you emailed us). Just give the urls, and number them S1 and S2. No additional words or sentences needed for this one.”

I thought it would be fun to answer their questions without applying for the job. So, here goes.

  1. I’m not a Facebook user, but if you didn’t hear about Facebook Home you were probably unconscious or you disconnected yourself from the Internet. The product got a lot of press but the reception from uses has been luke warm at best. Hardcore Android fan boys didn’t like that it took over their springboard experience and hid often used applications. The reception for the HTC First was even worse, carriers lowered the price to $99.00 shortly after it was announced.
  2. Yahoo has been around for a long time and is a valuable internet property, but they’ve been stagnant for far too long. They needed something to attract younger users, Tumblr is that something. On the flip side Tumblr hasn’t figured out how to make money, Yahoo should be able to fix that with years of experience in this area, if they don’t screw it up.
  3. I think it’s simple. There’s some strange force field surrounding Wall Street that makes people believe a company that is super successful and making billions of dollars is somehow doomed because their UI isn’t flat. I can’t figure these people out. Your guess is as good as mine.
  4. Yeah, you lost me there. I haven’t paid much attention to this.
  5. Write some real stories. Forget about the cheap tabloid type material, everybody is covering that crap. Go long!
Categories
Amazon Apple Football fun Life Mobile Movies Social Sports Twitter Status

Saturday Morning Coffee, Afternoon Edition

My brother, Jay, or rather Jerry as you know him, usually has a piece on his weblog called “Saturday Morning Coffee.” It’s something I look forward to reading. There’s always something I find interesting. It looks like we’re not going to get a post today, so I thought I’d run one.

Let’s get started. Here’s how Jay starts his post:

“So much happens each and every week that it’s hard to keep up sometimes. Here are some of the tabs that are open in my browser this morning along with some random thoughts….”

Rob's Coffee MugOh, he also includes a picture of the coffee mug he’s using. Here’s mine. Unlike Jay I only have one I use regularly. Not that we’re lacking in the coffee mug department, we have quite a few, but this one is mine. It’s a hand crafted masterpiece I purchased at our local Farmers Market.

Super Bowl

Unless you’re one of those folks that don’t like football you know tomorrow is Super Bowl XLVII, in beautiful New Orleans, LA. The Baltimore Ravens will face the San Francisco 49ers. I’m pulling for the Ravens. I’ve had a hate-hate relationship with the Niners since “The Catch.” I was a Cowboys fan at the time and even though I’ve moved on to the Bears the hate for the Niners remains. Let’s hope Baltimore can pull a rabbit out of the hat.

Speaking of Baltimore. It looks like Ray Lewis has caused a bit of a crap storm over his quick recovery from a torn triceps early in the season. PEDs, or performance enhancing drugs, are not new to pro sports. This is just another in a long line of pro athletes being called out. I’d wager to bet he did use something to help him recover, so did Lance Armstrong, and Barry Bonds. Hey, it’s a part of pro sports. I’m probably in the minority here but I say let them use PEDs under the care of a licensed physician as long as they’re aware of the problems associated with them. They’re adults, let them make the decision.

Hey, how about this for goofy move. CBS has banned SodaStream’s Super Bowl commercial. Really weird. From a Forbes report:

“CBS banned SodaStream’s Super Bowl spot because, apparently, it was too much of a direct hit to two of its biggest sponsors, Coke and Pepsi.

Please pause and read that sentence again.”

That says a lot about how fragile Coke and Pepsi have become as a business. It looks like it’s time for those companies to rethink what they do if they’re scared of SodaStream. Things change. Roll with the punches guys. Good luck SodaStream.

Don’t call me RIM

It looks like BlackBerry is not the official name of the company formerly known as RIM. Does anyone else remember the “RIM Jobs” website. Good one. Anyway, BlackBerry announced the new BlackBerry Z10 and Q10 phones this week. The Z10 is a touch based device while the Q10 holds true to a traditional BlackBerry device and has a physical QWERTY keyboard. At first glance I thought the Z10 looked a lot like an iPhone 4, and tweeted as much, but later I realized it’s not as similar as I thought. At first glance the back of the device looked like the all glass iPhone 4 back, it’s not.

I think the Z10 looks pretty nice and the Q10 is a great choice for the keyboard loving BlackBerry loyalists. Will they succeed? Only time will tell.

Twitter Hacked

It looks like hackers were able to gain access to 250,000 user accounts. Whoops. I find the choice of headlines in the weblog post announcing the hack disingenuous. The headline read “Keeping our users secure” then goes on to explain:

“This week, we detected unusual access patterns that led to us identifying unauthorized access attempts to Twitter user data. We discovered one live attack and were able to shut it down in process moments later. However, our investigation has thus far indicated that the attackers may have had access to limited user information – usernames, email addresses, session tokens and encrypted/salted versions of passwords – for approximately 250,000 users.”

Come on guys. Quit spinning bad news like it’s a good thing. You should’ve said something like “We’ve been hacked. We’re sorry.”

Weekend Box Office

It looks like Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters is number one at the box office. We haven’t seen a movie since The Hobit and have missed a bunch of great films that have released since the fall. I think my wife and I need to get out a bit more often. Maybe we can catch Hansel and Gretel soon.

The Twilight Zone, A.K.A. The Stock Market

As Jay pointed out last weekend, Apple took a hit on the stock market. They reported record revenue. The largest revenue of any corporation, ever. From an Extreme Tech article:

“Yet again, Apple has broken its own record and posted revenues of $54.5 billion — the greatest quarter of any company ever — driven entirely by sales of the iPhone and iPad.”

Of course the stock tanked.

On the flip side we have Amazon. A great company? Absolutely. They did however report a $39 loss million for the year. Their quarterly report wasn’t great either:

“Net income fell 45% to $97 million, or 21 cents a share, down from $177 million, or 38 cents a share, a year ago. Street consensus was for EPS of 27 cents. Sales were up 22% to $21.27 billion, from $17.43 billion a year ago. That, too, missed Street views of $22.26 billion.”

The stock was up, of course.

The market is a fickle thing.

The End

Have a great weekend and make sure to visit Jerry’s site next weekend for the real deal, not this wannabe version of Saturday Morning Coffee.

Categories
fun Life

Instagram to Canvas

CanvasPop: “With CanvasPop, it’s easy to create your personal gallery of photos to canvas, directly from your Instagram account”

Nifty service. I have one Instagram photo I’d like to put on canvas. Now I can.

Categories
fun Life

Discarded Bicycles

Get your tools!Life Hacker: “If you want to try bicycling on the cheap and support keeping waste out of landfills, consider restoring a discarded bicycle as your next project. While the time and money investment will vary depending on the condition of the bike, you still should save a decent chunk of money and will have learned essential repair skills.”

When my brothers and I were growing up we spent most of our waking hours on bicycles. We raced BMX on the weekends, and loved tearing our bikes down to grease the bearings and give them a good cleaning. Good times.

A few months back I noticed a discarded 10-speed frame; complete with cranks, gooseneck, and forks! I instantly thought to myself “Hey, I’m gonna take that home and fix it up!” I expressed that thought to my wife, she thought I was crazy and asked when I’d have time to work on it? True, very true. I wouldn’t have the time to spend on it, and since we’ve moved to San Luis Obispo we’re limited on space. It was a great thought, and I’d really love to do it, but it the timing just wasn’t right.

Bikes are something I feel really confident working on. One day I may take a chance on an old discarded bicycle and fix it up.

It could happen.

Categories
fun

Random Links

Watch out! It's a blog fly!Lamebook – Funny stuff on Facebook.

Parents Shouldn’t Text – The title says it all.

PayPal, idiots – Heartbreaking article about a stupid PayPal policy.

Eubonicode++ – Funny programming language, by Tom Distler.

Motivational Poster: Programming – Another Tom Distler creation.

Categories
fun

Visio-Ho-Ho

Visio-Ho-Ho

This image was created by Matt Towers and Chris Roth, I’d say around 1993-94. And, yes, they probably used Paint Brush on Windows 3.1. Painful.