July 2009

June 2009 -- 2009 -- August 2009

July 6, 2009


I've been quite busy sorting through photos, and have uploaded quite a few new galleries, including the European photos from that trip I took back in October. So while it might have taken almost 9 months to do, I did eventually get them up here! In each of those photos I tried really hard to follow the 78 Photography Rules for Complete Idiots. For example, I followed the rule about making sure the lens cap is off before taking photos.

In other news, I can't believe I didn't notice this earlier, but 30 Rock is a rip-off of The Muppet Show! It all makes sense now!



July 18, 2009


Swoopo is the most amazingly brilliant online shopping idea ever. They put laptops and cameras on for dirt cheap for people to bid on in increments of one cent, and then charge 60 cents per bid. So the winner ends up getting the device for dirt cheap, but everyone else is out (60 cents * # of bids). Which means if a laptop sells for $1,349, the winning bid might only be $35.86. But then it took 3,585 bids to get that price, meaning Swoopo took home $2,151 in bidding fees for that item. The "secret' though is that bidding more often does absolutely nothing to increase your odds of winning, And every time the clock gets close to 0 seconds left, then it lets any new bids add some seconds/minutes to the clock, so you have no idea when to jump in "at the last minute". But as long as people just concentrate on the low end price, it's going to make a ton of money for those guys. Brilliant!

Apparently the famous 11-year-old from the late 90's internet phenomenon "Hello My Future Girlfriend", is still online and writing about the whole experience of being Internet famous when you're in 6th grade. It's scary yet awe inspiring how quickly something can get spread across the net, even back then.

It also looks like using a e-book reader like the Kindle has its drawbacks when Amazon can remove a book you purchased from the device. And the best part is that one of the books affected was the Big Brother novel (and my favorite book), 1984. Apparently it was due to some copyright violations because Amazon apparently didn't have the right to publish it as an ebook, but it does show how whatever you think you own, you actually don't, and it's nothing but a license to borrow the book indefinitely until they decide to revoke it.

June 2009 -- 2009 -- August 2009