A bit closer to reality

Quickcam Drivers for Rachael

kevincw01 — Fri, 09 May 2008 00:02:50 +0000

Download and save to desktop then browse to this folder during found new hardware wizard.
Quickcam Drivers

How to Sniff a Cellular Bluetooth Headset

kevincw01 — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 05:15:26 +0000

This is a pretty cool idea. It’s worth pointing out that you must first sniff the bluetooth address which is similar to a MAC address and then you must guess the pin. Most devices are apparently set to a default of ‘0000′ so if you’re concerned, set yours to something else. Of course there are only 10^4 or 10,000 unique pin combinations, which isn’t that hard to brute force.

you owe $null

kevincw01 — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 05:36:36 +0000

It’s as if someone sent me a joke in the mail. I love it. Maybe I should write a check to Mercury car insurance for $null amount?

cout thread safety

kevincw01 — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 03:38:21 +0000

Came across this today and thought it was post-worthy:

I would expect any program that uses cout in more than one thread,
without locking, to fail in random ways. A deadlock or crash means
you got lucky, because by the specs in that case it’s allowed to
erase your disk and impregnate your sister.

I found it here in a discussion of using cout from concurrent threads.

hello pneumatic world

kevincw01 — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 06:25:27 +0000

I got an air compressor for a couple hundred dollars from autozone today. It’s not bad, it came with a bunch of cheap-o air tools too. Of course I didn’t have the right size sockets so that screwed things up. I bought it because the toyota dealer was charging double for an oil change to rotate the tires too. So when I got home to do it myself the lug nuts were on tighter than they’d ever been before…probably not a coincidence since the guy was not real happy that we figured out his scam. So my quest to save $30 cost me around $300. But it’s not like I wont use this thing for a lot of other stuff.

Hoop Jumper

kevincw01 — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 00:11:16 +0000

Lately this picture accurately describes my work day. I do this all day long. I think the only difference is that I’m not smiling anymore.

A single(1) PostIt note for $26 and $6 shipping

kevincw01 — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 06:29:49 +0000

This ebay seller implies he’s selling a $100 coupon but he’s actually selling a green PostIt attached to the coupon. He goes on to truthfully describe the coupon which he is NOT selling. You gotta admire the ingenuity of this scammer. Then again, I also hate him
link to auction

almost done with csci571

kevincw01 — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 17:39:49 +0000

The more I take classes for my masters, the more deeply rooted my love-hate relationship with school becomes. This is my second class with professor Crowley at USC. The guy is amazing and I find myself reusing the stuff I learn in his classes daily. But I also spend most of my non-working life writing code for his homework assignments. In this 11 week class, I’ve probably spent an average of 3 hours a day; not just on the 2 days of class, every single day, including weekends! I’m not gonna do the math but I know that’s got to be some serious time I lost from my life. I could take an easier teacher; everyone knows who they are. But after the class I feel this sort of liberation from my ignorance of the subject he teaches. I’m even using my skills that i learn in his class at work. So [insert aerospace company here], you are at least getting some of your money’s worth

The Wave Board

kevincw01 — Mon, 14 May 2007 03:06:21 +0000

I heard about this thing called the “Rip Stick” from a B-1 pilot and thought it sounded fun. It turns out that there’s 2 companies (at least) that make them and the other company calls it “The Wave”. They were both on sale for $89 at Sports Authority and they look almost identical. The Wave, only comes in silver and looks a bit bigger and possibly more sturdy, so I got that one since it seemed like the manly thing to do.

Before I bought it, I had read some online reviews and they all came to the same conclusion: Hard to learn, but once you get it, it’s really fun and similar to surfing and snowboarding. I ripped the thing out of the box as fast as possible (passing up the instructional dvd) and set it down on my sidewalk to get going.

The reviews were right, getting the thing going seems completely impossible at first. It basically a slim skate board with 2 wheels that pivot like office chair wheels(360 degrees). The catch is that the center of the board has a spring loaded pipe that can twist 45 degrees in each direction. Picture yourself standing with your right foot heal up and your left foot toes up and that’s how this twistable pipe works on the board. By rotating the pipe using your ankles and at the same time cutting the tail in front and in back of you, the board starts going. It suffers from a similar problem that snowboarding and surfing does in that if you don’t go fast enough, you can’t balance and fall over. Starting is the hardest since you need to balance with you right foot while you place your left foot. And there’s no changing of your stance once you’re on because the board will move with your foot if you try and move it.

Anyways, 5 minutes into the learning process and I hand the basics down and it was really fun. Only thing I noticed was that after about 30 minutes of use the back wheel was pretty beat up from the asphalt street in front of my house. I’m guessing I’ll have to replace the wheels with a harder set in a couple weeks.

California Weather

kevincw01 — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 23:50:57 +0000

For all the times that people tell me that moving away from california is a good idea, this is what they’re up against: