blur

• got to see/hear “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” performed live at the Bar D Ranch (along with “I’ll Fly Away” [they invited us Ambassadors to sing along] and “God Bless the USA [everyone sang the chorus twice]). big thanks to Pastor Reitz for taking us.
• How can you get away with charging $150 for a hotel room and not offer any high speed internet?
• Colorado is cool
• John Magas and Zach Bruner absolutely do not know how to fish… lol

hey tim, check this out. (slashdot.org)

AP’s technology writer Brian Bergstein reports that your 8 megapixel camera, and lukewarm+ lens/Photoshop skills may keep you from getting over the counter image printing services. Professional photographers have successfully sued processors (like Wal-Mart) for reproducing their digital works without permission. Clerks are now being told to deny print orders for some work that looks too good. Talented amateurs are having to jump through hoops, present documents, and otherwise cajole teenage cashiers into taking their orders. No doubt one successful suit costs more than a thousand denied amateurs’ orders, but sheesh. On the other hand, pro wedding photographers depend mightily on the income derived from reproducing their work, and it will take time for things to evolve to the point where clients are willing to pay a lot more up front in exchange for wider image rights after the fact. There’s no well-supported digital equivalent to a negative (as reasonable proof of ownership), so retailers are defensively resorting to near paranoia to stay out of court.”

oh goodie. hashes are falling to pieces, it seems. md5 was (at least) partially cracked almost a year ago. and now there are “meaningful collisions”… so, how did i get off on that? well, earlier i said i wasn’t sure why i’d opened registration. i’m not positive (i haven’t looked), but i’d bet that wordpress uses md5 to store passwords. i know phpbb does. and since most people use one password for everything and never change it… well, you get the idea. i’d never do that… but someone might. (gasp)

um, the pesos. i just ate at taco bell and they’re offering cash prizes from 100 to 10,000 pesos, with a grand prize of a million pesos. whoohoo. how rediculous. and it just so happens that i was thinking about an hour before i saw this:
we were at a car wash washing the ambassador van and there were vending machines offering stuff for quarters, like usual. well, i was thinking, what would happen when the value of a quarter finally drops enough? do they increase price or decrease quality/quantity of whatever you’re getting? well, i guess taco bell decided to go for the “look-good-but-it’s-really-not-as-good” approach to that one. hope the peso doesn’t fall too much against the dollar before the grand prize is awarded. taco bell might be giving away a whole lot less if they’re “lucky”

side note: i don’t know the proper term for this, but continuous input is cool. example: go here (yahoo finance), click on the drop-down box and start typing. like ‘keny’ to go to kenyan shilling. i knew you could do one key to go to that letter, but i’ve just recently figured out you can do more than one. nice to know i’m still learning. and taco bell might be in trouble… the peso/dollar thing is going the wrong way for them. but i doubt they’re losing sleep over it.

anyway, the last thing. piano players. if you can make up for/catch up on 10 months practice in, oh, 2 days or less, we (the ambassadors) could use you… we became acapella very recently and it looks like it will stay that way for the rest of the summer… nuts.

i don’t know why, but i opened up registration… i’m not sure what features it offers to users, but i figure if someone wants to, they can go ahead. however, it is not, and will never be (unless spam really gets out of hand, like, 1,000/day) required. wheee.

The procedure is simple. Think of any three-digit number, then select the corresponding buzzword from each column. For instance, number 257 produces “systematized logistical projection,” a phrase that can be dropped into virtually any report with that ring of decisive, knowledgeable authority. “No one will have the remotest idea of what you’re talking about,” says Broughton, “but the important thing is that they’re not about to admit it.” -Philip Broughton, “How to Win at Wordsmanship”