Geico....They're everywhere!

Geico.........Its more than you know.

I've realized that Senior year really isn't much different that Junior year. I know I wrote an earlier post where I thought something new and different was going to happen, and so far it hasn't. I've discovered that Twilight is a very dangerous book, because I thought that with the start of my Senior year, I would find my Edward. Or...at least a Jacob. Damn you Stephenie! :D

I know this is going to get so critical on guys, but this is just my opinion. If you are a guy and feel this is way out of line, please leave me a comment and correct me.
I know I'm still in high school, but I'm virtually 18 years old, and every guy I've ever known (besides a few) is just a complete jerk. Is it just my high school, or what? But it's beyond impossible just to....say or do something which will change my mind. EVERYONE tells me that "...I'll meet the man I'm going to spend the rest of my life with" in college, but that's got to take a few years. Obviously I'm not looking for that now (HELL no), but....I just don't see it. And I look at girls at my school who have had a boyfriend for 2+ years, and I wonder, "Where's that guy for me?" Either he's just completely non-existant, or there's something biologically wrong with me. I know it's still high school but...I'm already making plans to go to college and live by myself. Everyone else I talk to is so afraid to take that leap, and I'm ready to fly out of here like a bat outta hell.

Whatever. :(

On a better note, I'm a teacher's assistant! Grading papers and running to deliver mail - oh, it's swell.

I stated in an earlier post that we were doing AP Boot Camp for my AP econ class. We're now done (thank god), but...one of the days, while we were doing a teamwork thing, I came very close to losing it. I almost had a panic attack for no real reason at all. I was telling my friend about this. I came close to being on the verge of tears because everyone had to crowd together and get in close proximity of one another and....a lot of human contact, and that just sends my heart racing.
She told me I might have a minor form of Social Anxiety Disorder.

I can't do anything about what happens. I just start to freak out, and I feel panicky and cold and confused - like when you're 4 and you get lost in a department store. I just started to flip.

I hate, hate, hate HIGH SCHOOL.
Ugh.

That's just my little rant/complaint/whatever. I'm not in a very good mood.

Oh, and we had a stow-away Gecko in our luggage from Hawaii that we decided to keep. We named her Huna. Her eggo is preggo with 2 baby geckos :D

Write again

-M

"TONIGHT AND THE REST OF MY LIFE" - NINA GORDON
[audio http://www.superiormotors.com/tiger/ninagordon.mp3]

As I rolled within 12 feet, her stride started to shorten. Miles of moving walk still rolling out ahead in this old rope factory. Not a single person in sight, quickly and fleetly she bound up on the black moving handrail and continued to run down the rail as fast as she ran on the walkway. Not so stupid as to attempt to ride the rail on my wheels i tapped the nubble on my snogue and pulled up the overlay on my right eye. I was starting to get winded and the spittle on my chin could not have looked attractive. I scrolled down to option/speed/30 MPH and winked it on. The kick of the servos pierced through my good leg and quickly pulled me within an arms length of her perfect rail running legs. Her nylon stockings with the seem up the back were, on closer view, modified from an old style aerodynamic suit, now made to look a bit dressy. At this distance i could see the heels without heels that she was running in looked more like a bicycle shoe; but there was a strange almost pulsting quality to the soles, where the spiked heels would have attached. Gecko!  Nuts, i thought, they already had the Gecko nano ported over to shoes and from the speed and agility of her running they had done a good job. No, a great job. They had created a shoe that could be transformed from a hot spiked runway heel to hot sticky walkway runner.

I was within grabbing distance, so i reached up and hopped, as though i was 12 years old again, rounding the sidewalk on Lady Slipper Lane jumpin' curbs. I palmed her right hand as it swung down, slingshoted ahead enough to spin 180 degrees looking her deep in the eyes and asked her to dance.

She had no choice at this point. She smiled and besides she wanted to dance more than me by the sound of the tune that started to pump from her.... chest speakers! Those were no queen sized pillows with gold buffalos, this was a thumping chest speaker putting out a Gnarls Barkley-like track. Holy cow, i know where i remember her from: she looked a lot like that billboard bot from that old advertising campaign....the vodka drinkin' robot directed by Kraftwerk, early in the time of the naughts...

"When was the last time that you danced....step with me sweet heart. No one is watching."

She strode off my right shoulder spinning with her left leg, deftly collapsing my wheels, she was a lot heavier than she looked, stalling me cold as she backflipped behind me and continued running down the moving walkway. Snap. I turned and redeployed the wheels. This time i blinked them up to 35 MPH and added a some sparks for bling as a reared back quickly approaching the former Clickety Clack turned Gecko Rockerbot. Not playing this time i grabbed her bare shoulders, her silken robed dress flowing like a really buff angel, but her legs kept pumping and she broke my graps easily as she flailed with her spikes, stabbing my shoulder down to the bone. Strange buzzing sound. Yikes. This is certainly a new kind of pain; i am done. And she was too, no more dancing tonight — she bolted down the walkway at twice the speed we were dancing, dress torn from her body by her speed, wrapped flexi-cord and braid  coiled up and around her thighs disapearing through her running thong,  the smell of Tiger Balm and Marvelous oil trailing.

The speed and balance of her dance reminded me of a bot, military video I saw years ago....or was that an animated stop-motion thing....queasy buzzing like angry hive of honeybees....they are all females, the workers, the drones with big anime eyes just for breeding....eyes feeling heavy, glazing over....Unfortunately for her, and the consortium I thought, she was running with....the consortium, that's right! I now remember the consortium as i rubbed my temple, sweat dripping and burning into the blood oozing from my left shoulder, a brass spike sticking out like a golden trans-continental ornament. Her....or is it its  brass spike.... fogging over....rolling down the moving walkway like a piece of salted, exotically mentholated meat.

OMG FRAKKIN' AWESOME.

Ora vi chiederete: allora la differenza qual è? La differenza è che rispetto a Firefox è stato scritto nativamente con leggerissime librerie gtk2+  e si integra perfettamente con l'ambiente Gnome, ma sopratutto è indicato per chi fa uso di sistemi minimali (come openbox) in quanto in termini di leggerezza e velocità supera sia Firefox che Epiphany.

Il vero vantaggio di kazehakase è che potete "appesantirlo" a vostra discrezione. Il browser infatti dà la possibilità di essere utilizzato in tre modalità diverse: beginner, medium, expert. In ordine di difficoltà troverete nel browser altre chicce, ad esempio per avere accesso alle estensioni o modificare le opzioni più avanzate dovete utilizzare la modalità expert. Cambiare modalità è semplice, appena aperto il browser cliccate sulla voce View nel menu a tendina in alto e scegliete da UI level, il vostro livello utente. Una volta scelto il livello utente potete fare tutte le modifiche che ritenete oppurtune e poi ritornare al livello beginner. Sotto la voce Tools (in modalità expert) trovate le estensioni, eventualmente ampliabili scaricandole da web.

Provatelo su Archlinux con pacman -S kazehakase, su Debian/Ubuntu con apt-get install kazehakase-gecko.

So far I've personally slaughtered two giant horseflies, one little cockroach, and a couple mosquitos.  My first day shopping for anything, I picked up a big bottle of heavy duty pest murdering spray, and it has served me well; it sends those big flies immediately to the ground, spinning into a circle until they go comatose... which is kind of creepy.  Since then, though, no big flies... Except the one I saw caught in a spider's web.

My love for these spiders reached an even higher peak the other day, when I saw a giant centipede on one of the webs just outside my apartment's entryway.  It was still alive and dwarfed the spider in size, but I thought perhaps it was being worked away by venom.  Unfortunately, I came back to find it was gone, and now it could be anywhere, just ready to crawl up and bite me.  These centipedes are poisonous and could make me bloated for a month, though I've heard from other islanders here that have been bitten but not experienced this side-effect.

Last night, I found a little gecko in one of the upstairs rooms as I was coming in from the balcony after hanging clothes to try.  It was so cute it practically sent me into convulsions, and though I'd adopt it as a pet, it's very shy.  I couldn't get much of a photo of it, unfortunately.

I finally started cooking at home last night, and I'm being quite careful to avoid leaving any food smell lingering in the kitchen and anywhere else in the apartment.  Luckily, I already had a standing, oscillating fan to work with, plus a range fan built into the wall.

And for cuteness overload, here is the world's smallest lizard - a gecko that fits on a dime:

To learn more, check out this article over at New Scientist.

-John

But it does. Suck.

On Sunday, we got all of our stuff schlepped over to our new apartment in Ohio, and we sweated, groaned and struggled to do just that. I have places that hurt on my body that I did not even know had the ability to ache.

Oh, well, it's over now, and we spent much of yesterday evening beginning to get all of our crap organized. We still have a long way to go.

On an exciting note, however, we absolutely love our new home. It is by far the best place either of us have lived. We even have a laundry room! And for those of you who have been spending your quarters on coin-operated machines, you know just how glorious that little factoid is.

We are back in Pittsburgh now, and will be spending the next three and a half weeks with my parents. Dan has some work to finish up here before we make the final move to Ohio.

It has been a while since I have slept at my parents' for more than a day or two, let alone bunked with my youngest brother, Isaac. So, needless to say, last night was an "interesting" experience. Dan, of course, shared a room with the teenage brother (Luke) who passed out nice and quietly last night. Lucky for them. (;

I, on the other hand, not only roomed with Isaac, but seven other animals and a bag of crickets. Isaac owns a gecko, two frogs, baby turtle, lizard and food for a few of the critters (gecko and lizard) to munch on. Add the amphibians and insects to my two cats sleeping on my bed with me, and I felt like Dr. Doolittle last night.

I nodded off to Cooper and Emerson crunching their kitty food, water swirling in the turtle's aquarium and, of course, Isaac's childlike, incessant questions (gotta love him) of "What if the world ended right now?" and other matters of the sort. When the crickets started chirping at 3 a.m., I considered submerging my head in the turtle's water or smashing Gary the gecko's cage over my head.

I exaggerate, but I am wondering if perhaps Isaac could at least consider turning off the multicolored lights that adorn the cages. Dimming them?

I woke up in the middle of the night, unsure if I had stumbled into a bad, bad, horribly-themed college keg party.

With amphibians.

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]]> http://edusanver.wordpress.com/?p=468 Sun, 27 Jul 2008 14:33:24 +0000 Eduardo Sanchez Vera http://edusanver.wordpress.com/?p=468 Orca Browser es un navegador creado por la misma gente del Avant Browser, solo que ha diferencia del anterior el Orca Browser renderiza los elementos con Gecko el mismo motor que utiliza el Mozilla Firefox.

Una vez instalado el Orca Browser te darás cuenta que es un navegador muy veloz incluso podria decir más que el mismo Firefox, tendrias que probarlo para creerlo, la principal diferencia que hay entre el Firefox y el Orca reside en las opciones que puedes configurar de manera amigable y no tener que entrar en el "about:config"

Permite bloquear las animaciones Flash, imágenes, sonidos y vídeos ahorrando hasta un 95% de ancho de banda consiguiendo mayor velocidad de navegación. Estas opciones se encuentran en el menú de Herramientas.

Incluye el plug-in RoboForm que te ayudará a guardar contraseñas de modo seguro y protegidas por una clave maestra. Con RoboForm, podrás además rellenar cualquier formulario con sólo un click.

Aún esta en fase de desarrollo (Alpha 3) y en Agosto lanzarán una nueva release.

Web:
http://www.orcabrowser.com/

Descargar:
http://www.avantbrowser.com/release/alpha3/obeta.exe

Via:
http://www.ghacks.net/2008/07/22/orca-browser/

Operationswunden werden heutzutage mit Nadel und Faden zugenäht. In der Zukunft lassen sich Wunden eventuell einfach mit einem speziellen, abbaubaren Klebeband schließen. Wissenschaftler vom Biozentrum der Universität Basel und vom Massachusetts Institute of Technology in den USA haben ein neuartiges Klebeband für die Medizin entwickelt, dessen Funktionsweise sie sich bei Geckos abgeschaut haben.

Geckos sind Reptilien, die besonders gut an glatten Flächen senkrecht oder sogar kopfüber an Wänden klettern können. Bei manchen Reptilien ist das möglich, da die Füße eine Art Saugnapf haben, doch bei den Geckos sind es Millionen von kleinen Härchen, die gleichzeitig für Haftung als auch Beweglichkeit sorgen.

Dieses Gecko-Prinzip versuchen Forscher seit einiger Zeit mit künstlichen Oberflächen nachzuahmen. Ziel von Andreas Zumbuehl vom Biozentrum in Zusammenarbeit mit Kollegen vom Massachusetts Institute of Technology war es, eine Art Klebeband zu machen, das nicht mittels eines Klebstoffs sondern mit dem Gecko-Prinzip zusammenhält. Statt Nadel und Faden zu gebrauchen, könnte der Chirurg bei einer Operation die Organe einfach wieder "zusammenkleben". Eine Art Klettverschluss, der sich nach einiger Zeit von alleine auflöst.

In Zusammenarbeit mit dem Massachusetts General Hospital, gelang es den Forschern eine solche Gecko-Oberfläche zu entwickeln, die auch im Kontakt mit Wasser kleben bleibt. Die Wissenschaftler fabrizierten mit Hilfe lithographischer Methoden Oberflächen mit kleinsten flachen Spitzen, die dann mit einem klebeverstärkenden Zuckerpolymer bedeckt wurden. Zumbuehl und Karp konnten zeigen, dass die von ihnen entwickelte Oberfläche auch auf tierischem Gewebe haften bleibt.

Damit ist der Schritt zum Einsatz beim Menschen nicht mehr weit, und die Chancen, dass das Klebeband, bald Einzug in den Operationssaal hält sind gross, da es zudem abbaubar und biokompatibel ist.

Quien sea usuario de Liferea, en sus últimas versiones y especialmente en distribuciones que estén usando el último motor de renderizado de Mozilla; Gecko 1.9, se abra dado cuenta que el uso de Liferea se hace prácticamente imposible debido a su consumo continuado, al nivel del 100%, de la CPU.

Hace un par de semanas he leído en el blog oficial de Liferea, del propio desarrollador, de la existencia de un problema serio con XulRunner 1.9. La mala noticia viene de la siguiente afirmación del desarrollador: Right now I'm sorry to say that I have no clue what causes this, debugging is still going one. Hopefully we will find the problem.

Viene a decir literalmente, que: en este momento siento decir que no tengo idea de qué causa esto, la depuración sigue en curso.

He tenido varias veces el pensamiento de usar Google Reader. Pero todavía uso Liferea, las otras alternativas de software no me convencen por ahora, abriendolo sólo para refrescar, leer y cerrar y así sucesivamente. Espero que ahora con la ola de aplicaciones web libres se desarrolle una alternativa a Google Reader con licencia AGPL. Mientras toca esperar la solución del grave bug de Liferea.

This is why the earth isn't covered with lizard carcases.

"READ THE WORD!  ARRRGH!"

Cheap thrills (until yer hair gets caught).

Speaking of Cheap Thrills: These guys were so ahead of their time they had to go retro, and still didn't get a hit.  Here's Ruben & The Jets.

These guys couldn't get a hit either, so they covered Ruben & the Jets.  Here's The Persuasions' great a capella version.

Speaking of The Persuasions, this cd is a must-have in Bunk's opinion, so here's another cover:

[Magnetic Movie found via Neatorama, Gecko here, Mr. T  here, Spinnergirl here.  Others found via serendipitous cosmic debris]

Back to Helsinki. GUADEC was great but you already know that. Also, in no specific order:

• Actually my preferred topic of discussion was freedesktop.org and how to help the critical projects there.
• GTK+ 3.0 will come and break. Finally. I liked how the GNOME Release Team was there shoulder by shoulder.
• Chris presenting Gecko/Firefox and Alp presenting WebKit for GTK+: spectacular. Watch and see how this (r)evolves in the web runtime side of things.
• Federico exposed brilliantly the problems of user Oralia finding files. He dismissed the relevance of the mobile ("who has a touchscreen anyway?") but somehow I feel that mobile platforms for devices sharing content with local and online computers will push the solution of Oralia's problem. Not a desktop doing local searches.
• Gitorious, Transifex, Bazaar shirts and Mark Shuttleworth - something intense is going on in the crescent world of collaboration tools.
• Interesting to see the most used applications in the Online Desktop.
• Some speakers seemed to have fun joking about Python. Some other seemed to have fun showing cool stuff developed with Python. Computer Science is such a science.
• Sorry guys but this time the GUADEC organizers beat everybody with the best shirt.
• Glady surprised of seeing ARM in the list of sponsors.
• Stormy Peters is not just great. She is also born in Barcelona and speaks fluent Spanish. We started talking business.
• Offered to the board hosting a GNOME hackfest in the Maemo Summit.

And because not everything is free software in this life:

• Istanbul Modern is cool. I was surprised.
• Büyükada is beautiful. I was delighted.
• Fener has an interesting history. I was touched.
• Mosques and bridges fit together.
• Pide, artichokes and aubergines forever - I expected more from fish though.
• Still intrigued about women covered with black veil, specially those walking with other women or husbands dressing jeans.

Last but not least, Katja was impressed about the people and the ways of working and sharing in GUADEC. But I had been telling her about GNOME the project, the people and the events during 3 years at least. There is a marketing & communication problem here, since we cannot send the World to GUADEC to let them see with their own eyes. Should GNOME produce good video marketing?

As a result, I think my gecko, in part, died because of lack of interaction.  It may have also been his time - he was a rather old gecko.  But leopard geckos are the worst when they get old, because they just stop eating (or all of the ones I have had, have).  They're desert animals, so it takes forever for them to die.

I cried today.  Not necessarily because of the death of my gecko, because everything has a time to go, but more because the poor creature had to die alone.  I think to an extent that all creatures are as scared of death as we are, although it may resurface and rework itself in many different ways.

Along the bike trip, throughout the day, we would pass by on the roads various roadkill.  From birds (I think there was a hawk at one point) to deer to groundhogs and squirrels, the roadkill we passed counted as objects to avoid riding over.  As a result, our trail markers often marked the area around them - drawing a flourescent pink circle around them (that was the color of the trail paint) - and one particular volunteer would place mardi gras beads on top of them.

It was meant as something to make the riders smile, but it also held a solemn note - we were saying goodbye to the deaths that no one was close enough to, to realize, to mourn, to recognize.

The entire earth is a community.  I don't mean to make us all cry every day for the many, many animals, plants and other organisms alike that pass on, but an occasional moment of solemn awareness, a recognition of the gravity and importance of death, is a good way to start.

My high priest once knew a woman who would go out and draw or photograph roadkill.  Then she would name it, frame it, or in some other way categorize it.  I think that's taking it a little too far.  But if no one notices the dead, how are we supposed to truly appreciate the living?

The ladies were really nice, very interested in hearing about my travelling and history, asking me things about why I left the states, what made me decide australia, etc etc. I'm happy with my answers and I think I proved to them that i'm the right person for the job. They didn't say when they'd make their decision but i'm hoping its soon.

As for "Gary", he's our pet gecko! actually, he moved in about a week after we did and suddenly disappeared - we thought he'd met a nasty end in a door or something. Turns out he was making his way down the hall to the laundry room, where he was spotted one evening, then detoured through the bathroom on the way to my room! which is where i found him today while getting ready for my interview! I don't mind, he's since moved from one side of the room to the other, and i'm hoping will either go back to living above our wardrobe or vacate the room to go into the spare room. Don't get me wrong I like the guy but he creeps me out a little with how fast he moves when he's scared and how still he stays when i'm watching him. Photo's coming soon.

Besides that things are cruising along well, still throwing applications in anywhere that will take them so i'm sure i'll be employeed soon, if not with this company, then hopefully somewhere else and soon!

Hope everyone's well, missing you all xoxox