Thoughts

Monuments and Memories

~ randyaa ~ Leave a comment

History is kind of like science. It’s true whether you believe it or not.

The thing is though, if we forget it we repeat it.

  • The confederacy WAS about slavery.
  • The monuments ARE celebratory of traitors AND aggressive toward people of color.
  • The monuments WERE erected DECADES after the end of the war, DURING Jim Crow.
  • The ideals and celebration of the confederacy NEED to be wiped from our country with the exception of museums and the history books.
  • Germany DOES have monuments and statues related to nazi Germany but you know what they depict? The absolute defiance of the Jewish people and the horrific atrocities committed to them. You know WHY?

So they fucking remember.

Go.

See them.

Dachau is one of the most stirring experiences of my life. When I think of it, there are tears and it was almost 25 years ago.

On top of the various statues and monuments, the thing that has stuck with me the most is the gate.

Arbeit Macht Frei

Work Makes one Free

I can’t exactly place my finger on it but this has always seemed pretty close to attitudes and ideas from our current administration (including the lie).

IF we allow these statues, monuments, street names, and military base names to remain we will be doing nothing more than supporting those traitorous a-holes AGAIN.

ANYONE that thinks this crap needs to remain needs to remove themselves from this country right along with it.

The Past Failures of Rochester

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Although I love Rochester, it’s not a city that has been recently known for success. I suspect every city comes with a list of failed projects but in recent memory Rochester doesn’t seem to have anything but failures.

First there was the Fast Ferry, then there was Renaissance Square, whatever is going on with midtown tower and just recently the RTS Transit Center. I just happened to stumbled on this site about Abraham Lincoln visits across New York and got a bit of a chuckle when I read one particular line. I heard recently that Abraham Lincoln made a stop in Rochester and I was curious what he said so I went looking. Turns out, not much:

I confess myself, after having seen large audiences since leaving home, overwhelmed with this vast number of faces at this hour of the morning. I am not vain enough to believe that you are here from any wish to see me as an individual, but because I am, for the time being, the representative of the American people. I could not, if I would address you at any length. I have not the strength, even if I had the time, for a speech at these many interviews that are afforded me on my way to Washington. I appear merely to see you, and to let you see me, and to bid you farewell. I hope it will be understood that it is from no disposition to disoblige anybody, that I do not address you at greater length. [Abraham Lincoln – February 18, 1861]

Reading the article it seems like Rochester’s project organizational skills have been lacking for quite a while now:

Largely because of arrangements made and unmade, the majority of people waited for Lincoln at the wrong place

September Birthday Water

~ randyaa ~ Leave a comment

Charity Water is running another September campaign.  My birthday is in September.  I felt this appropriate.

Please Donate

It’s hard to imagine a world without clean water.  It would literally change everything you know and every behavior you have.  Water conservation wouldn’t just be about being green it would be about survival.  You wouldn’t worry about cold water, clean water (no matter the temperature) would be enough.

I’ve given to charity: water before, and I’ve asked others to do the same.

For my birthday this year, consider donating some money to help those who really need it.  After all, I really don’t need that new pair of socks.

Please give as much as you can.

Online Identities

~ randyaa ~ 1 Comment

Some people use online identities to protect their real identities.  To me this is sort of silly.  I host a blog so I’m obviously fairly open about just about everything and have nothing to hide.  I’ve used many different identities over the years but most have been variations on a theme to let my friends find me easily. I’ve gravitated towards using variations of my real name for services and social networks and variations on my old PlanetSide character for video games.

I’ve compiled the list below in an effort to document the many different identities I’ve had over the years.

Disclaimer: The identities only changed when I found other users with my same name so there is obviously more people out there than me using these names.  As such search results are mediocre at best.

rand1094 – the oldest one I can remember (although there were older) created October of 1994 and still used today on AIM

xeroed
xer0ed
ravenger
randroam
randya
ravennger
randyaa
randiesel
dieselrand
xeroin
xeromax
xeroprime
xero mills
xero daniels
xero crown
kratos gwar
infinity vo
infinity
infinity daniels
infinity collins
infinity tullamore
infinity ballantine

PS if you do decide to search for any of them let me know if you find anything interesting.

Friend Quotes

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Continuing with the quote theme, the following is a list of quotes from my friends, last updated in 2002.  Some are funny, some are just weird.  Sorry.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing has been added or made up. Names have not been changed. Screw the innocent.

Eating a Wegmans Cream filled donut is like an orgasm in your mouth.
~Brian

Randy: but I think I’m actually going to make money on the deal 🙂
Anthony: lol
Randy: they already gave me $270
Anthony: With you involved I’d be disappointed if you didn’t

The thing that drives us in life is coincidentally.. death. Without mortality, humanity would never strive to make things better for ourselves and more importantly for our children
~Brian

Partying without you 2 (Randy & Brian) is like sex without the ass slapping
~Tim

Jen from store 82: not that I have even come close to proving my thesis
Jen from store 82: because I don’t even understand my thesis

Randy: Yeah they’re gonna know we had a women navigator cause we’re late.
Anthony: Yeah but they’ll know she wasn’t in the drivers seat cause we actually got here.

If she and I were the last two members of the human race, stranded on an island; I’d rather **** in the ocean and hope to inseminate a fish than **** her.
~Jeff

my balls are like dynamite, wanna bang
~Jeff

Be careful in the winter this summer
~Rachel

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. my teammate wrote a class, I wrote a class.
they interacted but they didn’t. I adapted and he didn’t. I was right, he was wrong. I won he lost.
~Random CS student

freeman is becoming a non-exister. I say let it fly. it can’t hurt us, only him.
~Matteo

if somebody washes that kid before the next class I’ll give him a cookie….
~Lars

Brian: btw Zack is gay

Don’t criticize someone until You’ve walked a mile in their shoes, that way, when u criticize them you’ll be a mile away and you’ll have their shoes!

There are 10 types of people in this world; those who understand binary, and those who do not.
~Tim

Randy: hey
Auto response from Anthony: off takin pic’s of my cocker 😛

There is a priest, a rabbi, and a golf pro and they all come up to this lake. Priest goes, “Bless this lake”, Rabbi goes Mimpf Minshkoosh Mincki which means, “Bless this lake”. The golf pro walks up and goes, “Wheres my ball”. And the lesson of this story, “The Devil took the ball and the lake”. No really…there is still no point to this “joke”
~Rob

Patience is:
-letting that driver in front of you go slow without pulling up to the side of him and swearing at him (actually…its usually a her).
-learning to slow it down once in a while in this fast paced society.
-just waiting for her to happen.
-expecting to be disappointed and growing on it.
-realizing how short life is and accepting what you are doing with life.
-finding a target “her” and realizing its still out of reach.
-hearing someone out before you panic
-taking a chance
-is life
-is reading this whole thing and adding your own instance of choice.
~Rob

Fighting for Peace is like Screwing for Virginity
~Anthony

Sometimes I wish I was you…
So I could have sex with me
~Lindsay – AIM Profile

Elena: poor canada
Randy: truer words have never been spoken

Randy: dork
Auto response from Corey: Randy is a dork!
Randy: hey thats not cool I didnt even talk to you yet
Auto response from Corey: yes randy is still a dork

but you were all about boobs your senior yeat
~Randy

Yeah…perhaps…I don’t think so… I don’t know.
~Randy

Matteo: did you hear about the new S-Box??? It’s great. Even better than the real thing. Yep. Microsoft teamed up with Satan to create a hybrid video game system that will make you scream. The X-box hasn’t been doing good and a new IMPROVED game system should change that statisic. I just saw a commerical yesterday for it and it was so funny. Satan was marketing it and had a little boy playing with a few of the games. Here’s a few that I can remember. Satan vs. Jesus, Hitlers final solution, Angel wars, and my favorite Terrorist Air 666!!! All great titles that will make this the greatest game experience you’ll ever see. Konard from Gamestop gave it 8 fingers up!!! He is preordering 3 of them. Stocking stuffers I guess. Well, thats about all. It’s going to be HOT!!!

My chaps are lipped.
~Rachel

make sure the munchkins put some rocks in their pockets tomorrow,
we don’t want them blowing away
~Liz

a true wise man does not play leap frog with a unicorn.
~Brian

Randy: dork
Mary Beth: am i giving you a huge…….?!
Randy: ?
Mary Beth: lolllllllll
Mary Beth: wrong screen!!!!!!

Randy: so what the hell do you want anyway?
Liz: I want you to lick Brian’s foot
Liz: that what I want

A Whole lot of nothin….
~Rachel

SmarterChild: Whatcha laughing about?
Randy Aldrich: your face
SmarterChild: Yeah? I think you’re the one with the funny face.

So it’s easy to understand and it’s understandable.
~Kristy

Professor Quotes

~ randyaa ~ Leave a comment

I kept track of funny things my professors would say all throughout college but never shared. Unfortunately the various locations at which I kept them have been lost to time. The most recent list I could find was from 9/5/2002 from an archive of an old website I used to maintain (http://randy.instantws.com). The wayback machine has some very interesting stuff if you’re interested…

DISCLAIMER: Nothing has been added or made up. Names have not been changed. Screw the innocent.

Don’t Be A Twit (to Alonso)
~Beltz

When we make our groups, I want to try mix the dumb people with the smart people.
~Dr. Vegso

I guess size does matter…<looks down>…in more ways than one.
~Szewczak

i dont know how you can have a fraudulant noble trade
~Lutz

you don’t have to tell me the president of the company is higher than the bathroom attendant of the company. I know that.
~d.s. hart

now lets say we have a force tugging on a spring. ok that force is you. Well just say the whole force is F you.
~Anderson

Professor Lutz… what diet program are you on?
~Vallino

Practice safe Construction
~Lutz

Don’t pervert when you convert
~Czernikowski

Czernikowski: what’s your name sir?
Student: John
Czernikowski: Siker??????
Student: John!

I call it my tickle file…
~Rechylmier

You can’t go from 0-60 in 3 days
~Poularious

Dr Heliotis has provided a peta file for you to use…
what?… ok, this peta file… oh geez…
~Adams

I have 2P in two places.
~Poularious

Let me just give you a quickie here…
~Reek

Friends let each other touch their private parts
~Adams

Its a little early for beer…Down it quickly!
~Poularious

Don’t goto Dicks.com. Its not the clothing store!
~Reek

I am not paranoid its just that all these people are against me!
~Poularious

Let me go psychedelic here
~Poularious

Does anyone have Redi-Whip in a can? For those romantic moments?
~Richmond

I remember my college days, fondling…
~Richmond

you can go to other countries where the penetration is less
~Adams

I FULLY expect problems
~Kern

I Don’t know how to teach this class
~Etlinger

You only get a few words, like… you know… whatever they said in telegrams.
~Gregorio

Mexican Moonshine

~ randyaa ~ Leave a comment

Legend has it that some ancient man ‘discovered’ tequila when an Agave Plant got flash-fermented by a lightning bolt.

Outside Magazine recently ran an article in which the authors took a tequila tour in much the same fashion as a typical wine tour. Those of us living in the finger lakes know what that’s all about. No, it’s not about drinking as much as you can for free (you’re supposed to spit remember?). Wine tasting is all about finding the wines you really enjoy and refining your palette to enjoy those you don’t already.

I for one hate tequila. At least I hate the typical tequila shots you take. I’ve never understood what the excitement was all about. It always burned more than it tastes and the only part I enjoyed was the lime afterward.

From reading the article it sounds like tequila gets a really bad name. This is because most people (myself included) have only had bad fake tequila. As the article reads:

Tequila is made from a single species of agave, AGAVE TEQUILANA WEBER…and comes only from Jalisco – a Mexican state about the size of South Carolina.

Sounds a lot like Champagne doesn’t it? You can’t get the real flavor of good wine from trying Franzia Box wine and you can’t get the real flavor of good tequila by doing shots of Jose Cuervo at the bar. In fact no two tequilas are the same. Their flavor can range from caramel to apricot, anywhere in between and beyond.

To taste good tequila you need to hook up with Miguel the zucchini farmer and try some of his De la Sierra. You’ll have to get in line though, his home brew is a local favorite and he only makes about 20,000 liters a year.

After reading the article I definitely have a new respect for tequila and I would love to go on a tasting of my own. Anyone up for the trip?

Maybe they should make a wine that can be used as shots.

Go Digital with Your Discs

~ randyaa ~ 1 Comment

Old DiscsThere are several reasons to get rid of your discs. This includes software you’ve purchased, backup discs, games, and even operating systems. I had two reasons to get rid of my discs. One was that the rack of discs was another piece of clutter in my home office. The other more important reason is CD’s and DVD’s have a shelf life. I recently pulled a disc from the rack and attempted to use it. It had no scratches or scuffs but was completely unreadable.

To get go digital with your hard copy discs follow these simple steps:

  1. Take an Inventory
    You can’t determine how to get rid of what you have unless you know what you have. I suggest creating 3 piles.

    • Discs you can easily replace for free. These will probably include backup copies and driver discs.
    • Unimportant discs you haven’t used in the past 6 months and probably won’t use within the next 6 months but need to keep. These most likely include things like Software Installation Discs.
    • Discs which you use occasionally and discs that are too important to lose. These will most likely include things like games which need to be in the drive to play and operating systems.
  2. Throw out your replaceable discs
    They’re replaceable. You don’t need to keep them around. Things like drivers can easily be downloaded and are often well out of date anyway. Backup discs are an old method of backup and should be replaced with off site storage of some sort.
  3. Box up the unimportant discs you haven’t used in 6 months
    There’s probably a reason you haven’t used them. Either they’re for software you keep installed and have no reason to reinstall them or they’re for software you don’t use often at all. In either case chances
    you won’t use it again for 6 months or more. Why keep it around cluttering your office.
  4. Rip the important discs to ISO disc images
    You probably have plenty of storage. Why not use it to store your discs in a reliable way? It also makes accessing them easier as all you need to do is locate the disc on your hard drive and mount it.
  5. Put purchased discs that you can’t part with back in their box
    You’ve already ripped them so you can access them any time you want. Put the discs back in their box and put the boxes on a shelf or in a box.
  6. Throw out the remaining discs
    Clean up your office by getting rid of all the discs and the cd rack itself.

More and more our software is moving to downloadable or even online applications. Get rid of your hard copy media now and stay ahead of the curve!

Feed Oriented Browsing

~ randyaa ~ Leave a comment

RSS ImageHow do you browse the internet? It’s a funny question to ask really, but you’d be surprised at the different ways people will respond.

  • I look at the front page of Digg
  • I check my friends new Del.icio.us bookmarks
  • I search
  • I visit my bookmarks and see if there is anything new of interest
  • I browse my friends profiles on Facebook
  • I check MySpace updates
  • I watch top rated YouTube videos
  • I see whats new at CollegeHumor

There are many many many more ways to browse the internet and far too many to list here.

I use none of these and yet all of them. I prefer to call how I browse the web Feed Oriented Browsing or FOB for short. It’s something I’ve only begun doing this year. As my final post in 2007 I thought I’d share it.

What is Feed Oriented Browsing? It is a way of browsing the web that gives you the most relevant and up to date information at your fingertips without looking for it.

How can I get the information I want without looking for it? It’s not as hard as you might think. Instead of checking if there’s new information, you are told that a website you found interesting in the past has a new update.

Everytime you go to a website you already make a relatively quick decision on whether or not the site contains relevant information for you or not. It could be the information is not immediately useful but could be used as a reference in the future or it could be the answer you’re looking for right now. Normally, in these cases you would bookmark it either in your browser or using a web service such as del.icio.us.

Bookmarks are stale and not useful. We all know that technology in general changes so fast what you know today is outdated tomorrow. Since Bookmarks point to a particular page this means that information is likely to be outdated by more relevant and better information somewhere else. Does this mean you should just forget the site and move on? No! Your mind has already made the determination that the site contains relevant and useful information. Chances are the website you found is likely to share new information that you will find interesting and relevant in the future. This is the power of Feed Oriented Browsing. Instead of bookmarking a stale link to the site, add the site’s feed to your Reader. If the site doesn’t have a feed create one using a service like feed43 or feeditiy. Often times the feed will contain items that does interest you and items that don’t interest you. If that’s the case use a tool like feedrinse or yahoo pipes to clean up the feed so that it best matches your interests.

The real benefit of FOB appears after you’ve built up a good set of feeds. At that point you can stop browsing the old way all together. Instead use your reader to find new relevant sites. If you like discovering new feeds and new sites still, rather than searching for common phrases all the time, subscribe to a feed of your search. You can easily do this on sites like Digg and Del.icio.us. You can subscribe to searches or tags so that if a new item appears in that list you’ll get notified. If you’re using FOB correctly it will be rare that you need to leave your reader except to discover a new feed and even that is possible within some readers.

Observe your browsing habits. If the first thing you do after leaving your reader is visit the front page of Digg then it’s time to subscribe. If you then hop over to your friends blog to see if he posted last night… it’s time to subscribe.

It takes time to build up a good list of feeds. Making the switch to FOB doesn’t happen over night. You begin the process by visiting your reader first every day. Only once you’ve read all the items or marked them as read should you move on to the other sites you use.

Once you adapt this method of browsing the web it will truly change your web experience. A few months ago I read a study that made a bold claim that 2 out of every 3 ‘clicks’ on the internet were wasted because the content at the other end of the link had not yet been updated (I cannot speak to the accuracy of the numbers but the point is clear regardless). Meaning if someone checked a particular website three times in a day chances are that the website would only be updated one of those times. What a waste!

Often times you search the web to find the answer to a particular problem. You find an excellent resource that tells you exactly how to solve your problem and then forget all about that site again. If you have the same problem in the future you can always get back to that site by searching again right? Well, maybe. Search indexes change and you may or may not be able to remember the search you used. However; If you subscribed to the feed for the site, that piece of information will be in your reader and if you use a reader (such as Google Reader) that allows you to tag and search items it will be incredibly easy to find.

In addition to finding old pieces of information, it is likely that the site that had that great piece of information for you in the past will have more great information for you in the future. If you subscribe you’ll see new information posted by them whenever they update which means you’ll get new information before you even realize you need it.

if you subscribe to every feed you come across won’t your reader get so bloated its unusable? Yep. That’s why you need to be selective in your feeds. Determine whether or not the site has relevant information to you or not before subscribing. To find out if the site has other useful information browse for a moment and see if any other articles besides the one you’re looking at are interesting. If not then don’t subscribe simply use del.icio.us or digg or some other such service to bookmark it. You have already subscribed to your bookmark feed right? If so then that one article will show up in your reader and nothing else from the site.

Once you subscribe to a feed your job is not done. That feed needs to satisfy your interest. If it doesn’t then it needs to go. I give every feed I subscribe to one month. If i don’t receive at least one more piece of relevant and interesting information within one month of subscribing then that feed is gone. Additionally if the ratio of articles posted to articles I find interesting is too low I either attempt to clean it up with feedrinse or yahoo pipes or simply unsubscribe.

Hopefully Feed Oriented Browsing will get you started on the road to a better web experience. It has certainly helped me.

If you’re struggling with feeds and need to learn a bit more before you dive in check out this great video presentation entitled RSS in Plain English. RSS is a type of feed.

If you found this post interesting you might like to subscribe to my syndication category in which I try to post tips to help you deal with all the available feeds out there.