FlashLadyBug.com

As a partial reason/excuse for the low activity here these past weeks, a few of our affiliated pages have been developed and are currently in their nascent forms. We have been working on these rather hard and hope they will be become popular and useful.
Now, please keep in mind that both of these sites are for curiosity, information, and entertainment, not a license to go out and actually *do* them.
I am please to announce the beginning of the two sites: Explosiontheory.com and Explodes.us. These two sites complement each other. Explosiontheory.com has the theory, the mechanism of how explosives work, while Explodes.us provides you the stunning media, such as images and video of such explosions in action. We hope both of these sites will grow with time and become an entertaining and safe online compendium of the ever enthralling explosion.

I know…a person who ships and buys so much stuff that he has accounts at the shippers 😛
ShipGooder is a nice little utility that people who ship alot ought to like very much. You type in the package start and destination points, and it tells you which shipper will be the least expensive. Nice little thing when you really dont have a preference. Although, i have a preference towards DHL…
Anyways, link: ShipGooder

the trailer for a new movie.

Harry Potter and the Chronicles of the Lord of the Golden Compass of the Jedi.

http://io9.com/341233/when-adventure-becomes—-repetitive 

A *masterpiece* of a film, it is truly a unique piece of work.
Now, seriously…its a trailer made of combined footage from the above mentioned movies as well as Eragon, Beowulf, and Bridge of Teerabitha.
As io9 put it, this shows when adventure becomes….repetitive. However, to their credit, all of these movies were very well done movies.
Many people like all of these stories even if there are striking similarities between them.
Its the way that each story was written and the elements that are put into them that make each one unique. To be completely honest however, Tolkien may have started off the entire fantasy chain. However, as one commenter put it, Tolkein was a genius, Lewis was his evangelistic buddy, and most fantasy writing has been based off of these two. I’m surprised that Robert Jordan didn’t make it in, but then again, no movies have been made on his Wheel of Time series.
Overall, I guess what this trailer shows is that there seems to be a general idea that just attracts people to these books, but that doesn’t mean that each story is simply a copy of another.On a different note…the maker of this movie…really did have nerve to potentially annoy those movie companies 😛
Thank you io9 and Anniemayhem

Now…ignoring old Bill Gates near confession that his own product has ahem…more to be desired, you HAVE to admit…vista is like some supervisor that thinks your 2 years old. Granted, it *could* help people who have problems with computers…most people can indeed figure out that running Word is NOT a harmful thing. That…opening a file…like, a .ppt is NOT a bad idea. For those of us who understand this, and cannot survive another “Do you really want to install X program”…we have Vista4Experts. You want to disable security center screaming at you to turn on window’s pesky firewall? Gone. Automatic update that you dont want on? Gone. CHANGING THE POWER BUTTON ON THE START MENU TO TURN OFF YOUR COMP? DONE. (That is the most idiotic thing I have seen…) There are some other things that are not to be trifled with…but all in all, a very nifty tool indeed. Check it out: Vista4Experts

As we have returned from our hiatus, our layout shall be changed. This current one may be the one we choose, but whichever one we decide on will still need much revisions. Some of our pages may not work, our RSS icons have disappeared. Please excuse us as we prepare for our final exams :P. Afterwards, you can expect a lot more activity on the site.

On a slightly random note…
Ad from Microsoft:
Does your computer randomly play Fur Elise or It’s a Small, Small World? Don’t worry! It’s not a bug. This is a design feature! If this occurs, please place your computer in the fridge as it is overheating, fan is not working, or your power supply is on the fritz. While it is cooling, check out the help pages!
Your Computer is Playing Classical Music Randomly

A few days ago, an unlikely individual published a paper on the theory of everything. This guy isn’t a college professor or any typical “Einstein” like figure. And yet, he has struck upon a possible theory of everything based on a mathematical pattern. The Theory of Everything 1.0 Beta was essentially Einstein’s Space-Time continuum. TOE 2 was String Theory. It is still a widespread theory though still contested heatedly. And now, TOE3 arises from a mathematical pattern named E8. It is an intricate pattern of 248 points distributed over 8 dimensions.
To introduce the Theory of Everything…it is the holy grail of physics. It is the quest to find a mathethematical set of formulas that would unite the forces of Electromagnetism, strong force, weak force, and gravity. Standard Model as of now unites 3 out of these 4. It leaves gravity alone, as no one has been able to make gravity “work” with the others.
This individual, Garrett Lisi was studying the E8 pattern and realized that some equations about this structure resembled the equations governing particles. He was able to place particles on each of the points. Any blank points left are supposedly particles that we have not yet discovered, such as the elusive graviton. Using the family of patterns that E8 belongs to, he was able to fill the object. By rotating the pattern using a computer and projecting it into 2 dimensions, he could see different interactions between the particles. He could see gravity-electro-weak interactions between particles. So far, all the observations made using this pattern have fit real-world observations. This model uses nothing but simple math and of course…8 dimensional geometry. However, this appears at first glance to be much more elegant and simple than String Theory. We may be seeing the discovery of the Theory of Everything…or, simply a spectacularly wrong theory that is elegant nonetheless. Read the article on NewScientist

Woot!
I guess the Korean’s didn’t end up killing the whole Blizzard convention over this decision. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone declared it a holiday or something. Starcraft II is going to have new units to Protoss Terran and Zerg races, a 3d engine with realistic physics, BIG units, and a much larger army size. Its going to have a single player campaign that CONTINUES the story….meaning…its not over? 😀
And, it has an improved map editor.

Zerg: zerglings can mutate into little bombs 😛
Terran: Reapers are here, with dual machine pistols and have jumpjets, bypassing walls as a base defence

Protoss: Zealots have a charge ability to move quickly to chase down someone
Immortal: Creates impenetrable shields under heavy arms fire, such as seige tanks, but small arms fire can kill em quickly
Colossus: Big..monstrosities 😛 that have dual lasers hehe
Stalker: teleportation unit
Pheonix: flying unit like valkries except extremely powerful shots. its vulnerable after fire
Warprey: air unit that fires a laser that gets stronger when fired longer
Mothership: Major…BIG ship. You can only have one of these. They have Time Bomb which creates a shield against incoming missles. Planet Cracker destroys whatever is under the ship, and the ship can move while its doing this…a flying ship of DESTRUCTION.
Finally, it has Black Hole, which triggers….a black hole, sucking everything near it, say…4 terran battlecruisers into the abyss.
I am lookin forward to this hehehhe

Its in pre alpha…so, expect this in the future 😛 The exact words of release date: “When its DONE”
Which, I take to be very good…no need to rush out a half done Starcraft…make it juuuuust right 🙂
Heres a few images hehe

Other than us, people who make their living off of it, and Adobe? Especially when you can use PhotoWipe to erase things from the image and leave it looking perfectly spotless? Ever taken a picture and realized, ooops, theres a bar in the way? Or, theres someone in the way of the picture? PhotoWipe by Hanov Solutions uses a processing library to erase your selection and extrapolate what should belong there. It might not be perfect…but, this looks much better…

I would like to see how it extrapolates, exactly…but hey, it works 😛 Check it out: PhotoWipe

Yes, someone made a list….of things that make geeks happy. And funnily….all of these make me happy.

1) My gmail notifier lights up. It could be a friend asking if I want
to meet up for a drink later or a nigerian prince who has a financial
proposition I simply can’t refuse. Either way those few moments before
I actually read the message always fill me with a bit of euphoria.

2) API’s – I know that it is fun to screen scape websites and collect
information that you can manipulate yourself, but it is a lot better
when they give you the information legally and you can write more
productive code. Ex: Flickr, Facebook, USPS, etc. (get the hint ESPN)

3) Someone submits something I wrote to digg. Sometimes it makes the
digg homepage, sometimes it doesn’t. Either way it’s flattering to have
something I wrote submitted by someone else who thought it was
digg-worthy.

4) A new referrer pops up in bSuite. Whatever analytics you use on your
website, it’s always nice to see someone spreading the link love.

5) Seeing something in the real world that correlates to something in
the geek world. Ever have a total ring up as 404 or 13.37 and enjoy a
bit of silent amusement? Yeah, me too.

6) When the shipping status changes to “on truck for delivery.” I buy a
lot of stuff online, this is the final step before my package arrives
and it pretty much makes me feel like I’m windsurfing on a sea of
spectacular. Is work frustrating today? Did my upstairs neighbor keep
me up all night by making noises that sounded like they were giving
birth to an elephant? No worries, I’ve got some awesome shit coming in
the mail – all is forgiven.

7) Someone posts a real comment on one of my blog entries. Hell yeah, I
blogged and someone responded without trying to sell me ringtones.
Fan-freakin-tastic.

8) That little green icon in the lower left of my browser indicating
that my page validates. W3C all up in this biznatch – oh how I love
that green icon. I wish you were a nightlight beside my bed.

9) My code works perfectly on the first try. It’s rare, but it happens.
Usually I’ll triple-check to make sure it’s actually working.

10) Seeing binary code written on a shirt and knowing what it says,
laughing to yourself and then laughing out loud because only another
geek would understand.

11) Hearing a co-worker say “for the win” or “for the loss” in basic conversations. That’s it…no other reasons

12) Having an idea about a project that you want to work on and then
someone else launches the exact idea but right around the same time
that you thought of it. For most people, that would be upsetting, but
it just means that you get all of the functionality and can work on
another project. It makes me happy.

13) Technorati and Alexa Ranking that increases each week. I like to
see my numbers jump greatly over time which supports my theory that
people actually read my blog.

Yup….all of those make me happy…specially the change from processing to shipping to out for delivery. Thats just awesome to get in email 😛
How bout you? Thank you ArmenianEagle

I was doing some reading for Lit class, and i stumbled into an awesome parody of The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock. If any of you have read this poem, you will appreciate this parody very much. For the rest of you, read it, and if you get any of the references…hehe….just think about it. 😉
Check it out, its by Jeff Duntemann:

Let us go then, you and I,
For fast Chinese and talk of years gone by
Filled with random jumps and custom cable;
Let us go, recalling joys of FORTH and MUMPS,
The cluttering lumps
Of threaded code in frantic ten-hour hacks
To get that midterm project off our backs:
With code that twisted, doubled-back and bent
And set into cement
But came through with an underwhelming “B”…
Oh, do not ask, “What was it?”
I don’t care what it does, just how it does it.

On the Net the expert systems come and go,
Bragging about how much they know.

Over yellow chad that chattered out from teletype machines,

Over yellow tape that rattled out encoding fever dreams
That curled into the data center trash;
We lingered, inventing novel sort/merge schemes,
Or ways to thwart collisions when we hash–
And seeing that we’d been logged in since late last week
Took one last slug of Jolt and fell asleep.

On the Net the expert systems come and go,
Bragging about how much they know.

No! I am not Bill Gates, nor would I want to be;
I’d rather parse the fish than own the knife;
(Imagine! Having moby bux but chained

to ninety million lusers, what a life…)
Am a flamer, goateed, pallid, overweight,
Willing to pull two shifts, then (hell) a third,
To save a session from a deadlocked state;
At times, (to put it mildly) unrestrained–
Almost, at times, a nerd.

I grow old…I grow old…
dBase II and Wordstar are no longer sold.

Shall I start a BBS? Do I dare to try to teach?
I shall take my palmheld portable and hack upon the beach.

I have heard the networks passing packets, each to each

They have no traffic for the likes of me.

I have seen the Altair live and die
And software startups score on sorry score–
And millions made by men like Mitch Kapor.

We hackers linger by our leading edge
Forgetting what is pending in the cache
Till practice hurtles past us, and we crash.

Thank you Duntemann