tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-187791812011-07-07T20:29:14.770-05:00This blog gives you a view into the life of Jay Shaffstall. Expect an odd mix of various areas of my life, all suitable for public consumption.Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.comBlogger891100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-30478019161674707842009-09-16T09:38:00.002-05:002009-09-16T09:41:51.863-05:00

It's been quite a while since my last post here; I've been using Facebook more and more for casual updates, and so haven't had the motivation for a big update here. And this is no different, this won't be a big update.Just wanted to share an article link on the topic of the drinking age in the United States. The basic idea in the article is that raising the drinking age to 21 hasn't stopped

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-69230489720423036972009-05-30T18:49:00.002-05:002009-05-30T18:52:37.542-05:00

The GamesByTeens contest is over, and concluded today with an awards ceremony for the participants. You can see the list of winners over at the GamesByTeens contest site.The contest was a trial run, to see if that sort of thing would do well in this area. My budget was pretty low, so I could only support 15 contestants this time around. I ended up with 14, and 10 of those submitted games.

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-50294026958088013362009-05-20T09:41:00.004-05:002009-05-20T10:01:29.011-05:00

Okay, so I've created a new blog."What, another one!?" Yes, another one. Here's why:In the spring of 2010, I'll be teaching a course on developing web applications. I wanted to go beyond the simple HTML/Javascript/PHP model that many such courses use, and give my students experience with something more advanced.So I decided to go with the Google Web Toolkit and Google App Engine. Both are

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-45153412452544152112009-04-22T11:44:00.003-05:002009-04-22T11:51:33.100-05:00

It's been a while since my last post, but I just ran across something pretty interesting, and frightening.There's a book out called The World Without Us that looks at the impact of humans on the environment. It takes as its premise the immediate removal of humans from the world, and extrapolates forward what might happen. I haven't read the book, but if you follow the link above you'll get to a

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-75709595077741361522009-02-04T09:44:00.003-05:002009-02-04T09:52:38.372-05:00

I ran across lately a series of web pages talking about gaming in libraries.Apparently the national library organization released some goals for libraries, in terms of how they help children develop. A big part of those goals involved improving their critical thinking skills, and gaming advocates jumped on that to support libraries offering board games and role playing games (both being

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-45359742000089737192008-11-17T12:38:00.005-05:002008-11-17T12:44:47.270-05:00

I was doing a bit of web research for a map folding problem (yeah, that's the sort of thing I do in my spare time), and ran across the science of Computational Origami.It's all about using computers to simulate paper folding. That might seem like a huge waste of time, but they've applied origami techniques to a wide number of engineering problems. For example, here's a link to a page that

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-42426742900551189782008-10-12T20:21:00.002-05:002008-10-12T20:26:36.736-05:00

We needed to have some limbs pruned in one of our trees in the back, so I managed to find an excuse to pull out my harness and ropes and go climbing.It wasn't totally just an excuse, since our neighbor was helping me, and his tallest ladder didn't reach as far as we needed to go. It did get me to the point where I could grab onto the lowest branch and start climbing, though. So there I was,

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-82742012856642881122008-10-10T10:45:00.002-05:002008-10-10T10:57:19.656-05:00

It's interesting to me how languages evolve. We teach language in school as if there's only one correct version of a language. We study the parts of speech, nouns, verbs, adjectives, conjunctions, we diagram sentences, and generally put it all in front of young people so often some of it sinks in. And yet languages are fluid, and change constantly. Slang terms are coined by every generation,

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-82845414409885031772008-10-01T10:31:00.003-05:002008-10-01T10:40:32.396-05:00

This weekend is my fall trek to the Akron area for Con on the Cob, a great local gaming convention. I go for the role playing, but there are board games and all sorts of other games going on. The con is famous for its kids activities, which usually include costume contests, art activities, movies, etc. The Wild West LARP I ran last year went well, so this year I'll be running a LARP called

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-4271125241420880592008-09-19T12:04:00.002-05:002008-09-19T12:13:14.129-05:00

One of the things about web sites is that you're not really sure if people like the info you're providing or not. Blogs are great for that, because blogs allow comments. People can leave a comment to say if they like what you said, hate it, or whatever.When my wife and I started our recipe web site, Healthy Recipes For Your Family, one of the things that we wanted was to allow comments. But

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-34110364745205929712008-09-15T19:49:00.003-05:002008-09-15T19:52:20.260-05:00

If you're into anime, I ran across a contest with a cool looking prize. You can win an autographed Ouran High wall scroll by just leaving a comment on the post linked to above, which is easy enough. You'll be contacted by email if you win. For my students who are doing the blogging part of Intro to Computing, that's an easy way to get credit for one of the blog comments, and possibly win a

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-81778270927333289442008-08-17T09:48:00.003-05:002008-08-17T09:53:37.435-05:00

It's that time again, when fall semester will start up soon.I'm always rushing right about now, trying to prepare everything I need to prepare to teach the new classes, making changes to the old classes, installing software on the computer labs, etc. I typically end up about a week ahead of my students in the new classes, although at busy times during the semester that sometimes drops to only a

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-62324463472413348462008-07-01T08:43:00.003-05:002008-07-01T09:04:29.129-05:00

I've recently arrived home from Origins 2008, and it was a blast!This was the first year that we did the whole hotel experience, since we no longer live in Columbus. It was also the first year that my daughter Amelia went for the whole convention. Last year she stopped in for a couple of hours, but that was it.Staying on-site was terrific. I had loaded my schedule with late night games so that

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-83503683659511959062008-04-28T09:39:00.002-05:002008-04-28T09:49:33.085-05:00

It's nearly the end of the semester here, and as usual I'm behind in my grading.I'm not as far behind as most other professors I talk to, but I'm still behind. And look at me, I'm writing a blog post instead of grading! This week is the week before final exam week. Another week to get through, then exams to grade, and the summer can start. I have a lot of tasks planned for the summer. I always

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-22589054262012848872008-04-11T15:19:00.002-05:002008-04-11T15:25:19.324-05:00

Okay, so I'm optimistic.I recently bought the big collection of all the Stargate episodes, over 50 DVDs full of every season of the show, plus all the "making of" specials that have been done. When this monster package first came out, it was priced near $300, I think. That seemed reasonable to me, but I didn't have the money.I have the money now, so I hopped onto Amazon and found that the

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-39966961177026068362008-03-19T09:24:00.002-05:002008-03-19T09:32:35.535-05:00

I just ran across the website of a man in Australia who is selling his life on Ebay. For full details, head to his website, ALife4Sale.The short version of it, though, is that he's tired of his life and wants a fresh start. He considered selling his house and just starting over that way, but eventually hit on the idea of just scrapping it all and starting over with nothing more than his wallet

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-37627203418684100242008-02-11T10:28:00.000-05:002008-02-11T13:20:33.847-05:00

Okay, this has to be just about the coolest thing I've seen lately.For a while, before we started using Skype for long distance, we used calling cards. You could get some truly great deals, down to the 1 cent a minute level, in exchange for the annoyance of having to dial a ton of numbers and listening to an advertisement before getting to your actual call.So I still look online now and then to

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-22883684862531635732008-01-10T13:54:00.000-05:002008-01-10T14:03:41.216-05:00

Lisa and I started a new website as a place to feature our collection of homemade healthy recipes. The site's still being added to weekly, but there's enough there that you can get a feel for how the site will be laid out and how it'll all work.The focus is on the recipes that Lisa has created over the years that we've changed our eating habits from the traditional American diet into something

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-29682134305300249182008-01-02T10:11:00.000-05:002008-01-02T10:14:07.201-05:00

I get emailed about a lot of these surveys, and I pass on most of them. This one, though, was about environmentalism, so I figured I had to take it. Here's the results:

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-21619464173681108372007-12-06T10:37:00.002-05:002007-12-06T10:47:09.140-05:00

Wow, two posts in a day! I've needed to rant about insurance for quite some time, but haven't gotten around to it yet. Mostly the rant is about health insurance. Car insurance and Home insurance, for the most part, I don't have a problem with. Life insurance also seems okay, if not quite the investment now that it used to be.But health insurance is another matter. We're generally healthy,

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-10332095617877068182007-12-06T10:14:00.000-05:002007-12-06T10:19:21.258-05:00

It's nearing the end of the semester here, so my schedule has shifted into "hurry hurry" mode.I'd caught up on my grading a few weeks ago, so I don't have that much of a backlog to get through, but there is some. I also have to print and copy exams, make sure that I've put review notes up, verify when all the exams are to be held, etc, etc.Next week are the actual final exams, so I'll have a lot

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1447107475010975592007-11-13T10:08:00.001-05:002007-11-13T10:14:47.009-05:00

I spent part of last weekend at a gaming convention.I normally go to this convention every year to run some games and to play in some games, but this year I had something else to do part of the weekend, so I was only able to run a couple of games.One, Saturday night, was a Wild Western horror game. I got to the convention about 6pm on Saturday, and my game was at 8pm. They have signup sheets

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-28382414933591959702007-11-01T21:16:00.000-05:002007-11-01T21:19:22.303-05:00

I've always tipped people based on how much I enjoyed their service. Friendly people get bigger tips from me. I'm a sucker for someone who makes it seem like they're actually enjoying their job, too.I took a recent survey on tipping, which is why this subject came up. Here are my answers to the survey:What about you? How much do you tip, and why?

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-72296857068357092452007-10-10T05:39:00.001-05:002007-10-10T05:45:33.050-05:00

Well, I've moved to the town where I teach college.This move has been over a year in the making, if you count from when we started looking for a house. We finally bought one in May, but it needed a lot of work. The previous owners hadn't really taken care of the place, so there was lots of fixing up. Plus, we wanted a few new bits and pieces added, like a screened in deck. Construction is

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-40911286527170942472007-09-15T14:31:00.000-05:002007-09-15T14:38:34.116-05:00

I didn't manage to miss the usual round of flu that hits a college when students come back together after the summer this year. My daughter came down with it first, and only had a couple of days of being sick. So when my wife and I started showing symptoms, we figured we'd have a couple of days of feeling bad and that'd be that. Apparently my daughter's immune system kicks butt. So far we've

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-69186346366316700002007-08-25T23:33:00.000-05:002007-08-25T23:37:06.739-05:00

My daughter is just a bit over two-years old and isn't saying many words yet. The words she does say are generally announcements, very deliberately pronounced and used for a specific purpose. When she really wants to communicate, she uses a combination of sign language and vocalizations. I have to say, she does a much better job of getting her point across like this than most people do with

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-70855139588385665542007-08-08T20:51:00.000-05:002008-12-11T09:34:37.226-05:00

I participated in the Muscular Dystrophy Association's local Jail and Bail fundraiser today.They're supposed to choose prominent people from the community, the sorts of people who have large networks and can raise a lot of money for the cause.Somehow they ended up with me. They actually pick a lot of people from the community, so there were many people who weren't highly placed executives. I

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-14990225245489138532007-08-01T14:52:00.000-05:002007-08-01T15:10:09.888-05:00

I've recently joined payperpost, a marketplace where you can get paid to write blog posts.Before you start to worry, I don't intend to have every post I write here be a paid post, and I don't intend to start writing reviews for fishing lures. All the paid posts I write will be posts I would have written anyway, with the only difference being that I now get paid for it.It was a bit of a pain to

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-3484545990131717652007-08-01T10:54:00.001-05:002007-08-01T10:57:58.464-05:00

The latest word on my trouble ticket with Mvelopes, concerning their problems getting my transactions automatically from my credit union, is that they've given up.This is really disappointing! The software looks great, and it would save loads of time over using Quicken for envelop budgeting. But just as I'd gotten into the idea of never entering another transaction again, I find out I'm going

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-64907467932635355532007-07-22T01:04:00.000-05:002007-07-22T01:10:30.172-05:00

I wrote before about Mvelopes.com, online budgeting software that uses the envelope budgeting concept.I signed up for the free trial to see if it looked like I could easily switch over from Quicken. Doing envelope budgeting in Quicken is possible, but you have to jump through a number of hoops. And envelope budgeting is the absolute best way to manage your money, so I'd love to have a system

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-51984760660349534272007-07-16T02:43:00.000-05:002007-07-16T02:54:34.036-05:00

It's been about a week since Origins, and I'm just about recovered.I played a variety of roleplaying games, both tabletop and live action. The most fun of the live action games was a Wild West game that used rubber band guns as firearms. There was one section of the adventure where we had to do the traditional shootout storming bandits in the rocks that was a lot of fun. Rubber bands don't

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-25183197658969253302007-07-08T22:53:00.000-05:002007-07-08T22:56:18.099-05:00

Well, Origins, the big gaming convention here in town, is over.I'm exhausted! I had my best day Saturday, with three live action roleplaying games that were absolute blasts. Unfortunately, by the time I drug myself home at about one in the morning, I was so wired from the excitement of the day I couldn't get to sleep until about 7:00am. Then it was up at 10:00am to get back in time for some

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-54677924154858711432007-06-30T15:01:00.000-05:002007-06-30T15:08:09.393-05:00

Our basement is finished, but we had water problems and needed to replace most of the drywall. It was going to cost a couple of thousand to paint, so we had the bright idea to paint it ourselves to save some money.I've never painted anything outside of middle-school art class. My Mom came for a visit to help us out by playing with Amelia, our two-year old. Amelia isn't one to sit idly by while

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-32365362240235699512007-06-26T18:34:00.000-05:002007-06-26T18:38:02.074-05:00

The Origins gaming convention is coming up very shortly. For anyone who enjoys roleplaying, board gaming, card games, or pretty much any sort of game, Origins is a great place to spend three or four days playing old favorites and trying out new games. It's been our favorite summer vacation for years. Typically we're registered by January, and have our weekend gaming schedule set by May. With a

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-67859415327967478872007-06-11T09:56:00.000-05:002007-06-16T10:10:09.559-05:00

I've been a proponent of envelope budgeting for a long time, and have run weekend courses to teach others how powerful a concept it can be. I even had a trademark on the term for a while, before letting it lapse.The basic idea is that you put away money from your paycheck for future bills. When the bill comes due (like an insurance policy you pay yearly) you already have the money for it in the

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-48776149426231757942007-06-09T19:05:00.000-05:002007-06-11T10:07:43.271-05:00

While it's always been possible to apply for credit cards online, I've had the devil of a time finding cards that matched my needs. For the longest time now I've been looking for one that had the best rewards program, because we use our card for pretty much everything (we also pay it off every month, which I highly recommend...if you can't do that, stick with cash). We've been getting a gas

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-33384404841178354632007-06-03T23:59:00.000-05:002007-06-04T00:05:49.974-05:00

There's something about the tradition of having cake on your birthday that seems really important to some people.My daughter had her second birthday party yesterday. My Mom seemed to really want Amelia to have cake for her birthday. On her first birthday, we gave her a birthday pear, because that was what she really was enjoying those days. Plus, she'd had reactions to wheat, so cake was out

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-28539081569878752342007-05-27T09:08:00.000-05:002007-05-27T09:58:55.885-05:00

It's Memorial Day weekend, which means we spend a lot of time at Native American pow-wows. We enjoy the drumming, the dancing, and the relaxed atmosphere. This year, I was reminded of something I'd noticed in previous years. One of the families there had lost a member, and as a way of celebrating the life of their loved one, they gave everyone at the pow-wow a small gift. They also donated

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-40925519818690307432007-05-21T00:27:00.000-05:002007-05-21T00:37:31.159-05:00

Social networking is all the craze these days. In fact, that's really what web 2.0 is all about, letting people network online in varied and interesting ways. For example, I recently started using MyBlogLog. I don't have the widget with the faces installed yet, but I do have the tracking code so I can know how many people are reading this blog, and what links they clicked when they left the blog

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-46146503772518035242007-05-17T17:15:00.000-05:002007-05-17T17:32:13.323-05:00

As a college professor, typically during summer I spend until the first of August or so doing non-school related projects (e.g. I goof off). This summer, I have the best of intentions. I want to prepare all of my material for my fall classes before I goof off for the summer.We'll see how it goes. I've had some excuses to slack off a bit recently, since I have to order textbooks to review and

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-43678169116814301622007-05-14T12:07:00.000-05:002007-05-14T12:48:23.224-05:00

I've created almost a dozen lenses (web pages) at Squidoo. Some are about topics I'm passionate about, some are experiments in affiliate marketing, some are mostly placeholders I want to expand someday.The very first lens I created was about roleplaying with kids. This is one of those subjects I'm passionate about. I firmly believe in spending quality time with your kids, and encouraging them

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-21910531579040447142007-05-13T18:32:00.000-05:002007-05-13T18:43:22.801-05:00

I did a search on myself on Google today, as a belated part of my last post (Who's Looking For You?), and found all the usual places I tend to turn up.Except for RateMyProfessors.com. This was the first time I'd found myself there, in fact the first time I'd heard about it. You can see my entry here.This rating was left a few years ago (2/26/03), when I was teaching face to face at Franklin

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-33531665471702724432007-05-11T14:13:00.000-05:002007-05-11T14:27:12.357-05:00

When I was in high school, a friend of mine was interested in making horror movies. So he'd recruit people to play zombies and record the action on an old 8mm camera. Eventually he got more and more skilled through all this, and managed to get some funding from a famous horror movie producer to make his own movie.Before he was funded by the famous producer, I believed enough in him to lend him

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-20870817695447638982007-05-10T18:51:00.000-05:002007-05-10T18:59:38.910-05:00

I've ranted a bit about this before, but it never ceases to amaze me.My daughter is just about two years old now. Over the past couple of years I've watched various adults interact with her on their first meetings, and generally the fall into one of two categories.Some people treat her with the same respect they treat other adults. They talk to her like an intelligent person, they respect her

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1954246041087762772007-05-09T21:24:00.000-05:002007-05-09T21:28:44.939-05:00

I've recently discovered Yahoo Answers.Yes, I know it's been around forever, and as a self-respecting computer geek I really should have known about it before. I actually did know about it, but had never taken a look at it. I finally took a look at it, and saw a question I knew how to answer. So I answered it.Now I'm hooked. I think it's worse than an online game, because when you get hooked

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-22291329569912913602007-05-08T15:42:00.000-05:002007-05-08T15:52:39.462-05:00

I teach at a local college, and one of the courses I teach is the Intro to Computers course. We cover a lot of material, including the Microsoft Office tools.If there's one thing that I want students to remember about Microsoft Office, it's this: Don't forget your password!Here's the scenario. You have an Excel spreadsheet that contains confidential information, so you protect it with a

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-36755708839373348342007-05-07T11:14:00.000-05:002007-05-07T11:26:03.314-05:00

The Gender Genie website says it can tell your gender based on a sample of your writing.I tried it with some old posts from this blog, and they all came out male, which is right. Then I tried it with some newer posts from another blog I write, and they all came out female. Seems like it has more to do with writing style than gender. In particular, there are certain words that they say are "

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-658746335922593162007-05-06T06:04:00.000-05:002007-05-07T22:09:46.248-05:00

A quick update to yesterday's post. I came across another real time online game, Human Age. In this one you try to keep a caveman alive and help him (or her) to evolve through various ages of history.Somehow, cavemen have jobs and markets and money, but other than that it's an interesting enough game. Each age is supposedly different, so by the time you figure out prehistory and start to get

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-48825154321060280602007-05-05T21:53:00.000-05:002007-05-06T06:14:08.384-05:00

There's a new breed of online games out there since the last time I was looking.Normally, the term "real time" means something fast paced that doesn't wait for you to think about what you want to do. These days, on the web, "real time" means just that...actions take minutes or hours to complete.Take Knight Fight, for example. You take on the role of a knight, and can choose to be good or evil,

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-64780239020607406572007-05-01T22:50:00.000-05:002007-05-01T22:53:56.546-05:00

Wow, it's been some time since my last post here!That's what having a baby will do for you. Amelia's just about two years old now, and keeping me quite busy! I thought I'd make a quick post carrying on with the topic of the last one. Cambrian House is alive and well, and still working to help their community create and implement business ideas. It's well worth a look, and now you even get a

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1152761790035649492006-07-12T22:16:00.000-05:002006-07-12T23:03:52.300-05:00

Wow, the summer sure goes fast! I've been busy with my daughter, who turned one year old in June. She's changing every day, and is so obviously aware and intelligent that I'm in awe. We're planning on homeschooling her, and are wondering who will be teaching who!On the geek front, I ran across Cambrian House lately. They're a company that wants to generate ideas from the Internet community, build

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1148180914003572702006-05-20T22:01:00.000-05:002006-05-20T22:08:34.023-05:00

So, I have this huge to-do list this summer, and recently added writing some AJAX applications to the list.Now, I like the way that the AJAX techniques allow web pages to be more interactive, stateful, etc. But I wasn't at all looking forward to fiddling around with Javascript on the client. Javascript has evolved far beyond its original purposes, and isn't that fun to use for a large application

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1147967705542266312006-05-18T10:47:00.000-05:002006-05-18T10:55:05.553-05:00

This early spring has been lovely, but brought an unexpected drawback.I actually had to mow my lawn in May, rather than waiting for June. All the flowers had gone to seed, and even some of the grass had gone to seed. All you could see of our cat as she walked through the backyard was her head. It's about that time that Lisa starts suggesting it's time for the first mowing.So, I mowed. But first I

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1147381417969934862006-05-11T15:54:00.000-05:002006-05-11T16:03:37.983-05:00

I've officially submitted grades for the spring semester, and now have a summer of total freedom stretching ahead of me.Well, okay, I am teaching an online class for another university. And my wife has that long list of projects to be done. And I have my own list of projects. And I have four classes to prepare for in the fall. Where am I going to find the time?Seriously, this should be a fun

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1146966326850663822006-05-06T20:29:00.000-05:002006-05-06T20:45:26.866-05:00

I'd posted here earlier about Blue Security's opt-out list for spam.Recently, Blue Security was the target of a denial of service attack, allegedly by a spammer who decided that Blue Security was too dangerous to continue its opt-out list. There's been a fair amount of controversy about the incident, some of it targeted at Blue Security for what seemed to be poor handling of the attack itself.I

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1146057239049988292006-04-26T08:10:00.000-05:002006-04-26T08:13:59.073-05:00

Any computer science students reading this should go directly to http://code.google.com/summerofcode.html and read about what Google's doing this summer.But, if you're still reading this, I'll recap. Google is funding student work on open source projects. Basically, open source projects register with Google and specify defined tasks they want to have completed on their projects. Students apply to

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1145841685683628312006-04-23T20:04:00.000-05:002006-04-23T20:21:25.693-05:00

I did another stint at digging up weedy bushes this weekend.It was an odd weekend. I woke up early each day, and then by lunch was dead tired. So tired I did something unheard of for me, which was to take a nap. I don't normally nap, since I wake up from them feeling worse than when I did before the nap, but this weekend I napped both days.True to form, I woke up feeling pretty bad, so I went

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1145756586976037542006-04-22T20:36:00.000-05:002006-04-24T15:20:05.506-05:00

Spring time brings out some interesting behavior.We live in a suburban neighborhood, and one of the spring time rituals is the first mowing of the lawn. Each year, the men in the neighborhood seem to compete to see who can be the first to mow their lawn. This year I think someone got the prize by mowing their lawn in mid-March.Lawn-care seems to be contagious, too. On an otherwise relaxing

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1145631979643301572006-04-21T09:53:00.000-05:002006-04-21T10:07:59.376-05:00

There's a board game called A Game of Thrones that some friends of mine love to play.Normally I stay away from tactical war games. In high school, my group of friends loved to play tactical war games, the more detailed the better (at least that's what it seemed like to me at the time). And I played, but never did very well in them.Lately, I've been playing A Game of Thrones, and it's a nice

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1145445330867976192006-04-19T06:10:00.000-05:002006-04-19T06:15:30.880-05:00

I'm not sure what term is the opposite of sleeping in, but that's what happens to me more often than not.It's the scenario where you get up in the middle of the night, maybe to go to the bathroom, or feed the cat, or whatever, and you discover that it's only 23 minutes until your alarm goes off. That's enough time to make you drag during the day, but not enough time to do you any good if you go

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1145287375767961822006-04-17T10:17:00.000-05:002006-04-17T10:22:55.783-05:00

Wow, I'm way behind on my blogging. The good news is that it isn't a sign of being less interested in blogging, but more a sign of being way too busy elsewhere. Or is that a bad sign?We've been getting lots of rolling thunder and rain lately. We're glad to see our ten month old daughter doesn't mind the thunder. We both love that sort of weather, so it would have been strange if she didn't as

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1143644217000538072006-03-29T09:43:00.000-05:002006-03-29T09:56:57.046-05:00

It's been some time since my last entry. Spring at college is a strangely downbeat time, as everyone is ready for the summer break and tired from working hard through the fall. So as the critters and flowers are getting ready to explode into action, students and faculty seem to be gearing down.I found a great site filled with science gizmos lately, while looking for interesting activities for

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1142689142101302242006-03-18T08:32:00.000-05:002006-03-18T08:39:02.136-05:00

I don't know if it was the full moon or not, but it certainly seems like some sort of madness descended on the Internet lately.I participate in a number of email lists on various topics, and this past week the majority of them descended into flame wars over various silly topics. It wasn't even so much people arguing principles as people becoming annoyed at the way in which another person was

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1142389322525827392006-03-14T21:15:00.000-05:002006-03-14T21:22:02.553-05:00

Okay, the downside of a 2GB USB stick is that it takes quite a while to completely backup the files to a hard drive. And while the Travel Drive I have seems reliable, I've had USB sticks corrupt files before, so not doing a backup isn't an option.So I went looking for software that would keep the USB stick and the hard drive synchronized, by copying over only those files that have changed. What I

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1141609162123266062006-03-05T20:32:00.000-05:002006-03-05T20:39:22.163-05:00

I'm officially on spring break right now.Since I was paid to be a computer geek for years, and now get paid to teach other people how to geek, it's a nice change to have some time to be outside. I usually forget, in the press of getting things done during the normal semester, to take time to just enjoy being outdoors. I spent some time today in our woods doing some cleaning up. Picking up broken

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1140130743109595672006-02-16T17:52:00.000-05:002006-02-16T18:01:15.296-05:00

No, this isn't a rant on how Google's spam filter works, it's an observation on how two different technologies can come together in unexpected ways.One technology is Google Mail's spam filter. Nothing new about that, and Google's spam filter probably isn't any better or worse than any other. It does tend to put most spam into a folder labeled, appropriately enough, Spam (okay, it's not a folder

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1139889600605140722006-02-13T22:48:00.000-05:002006-02-16T06:33:24.376-05:00

At the risk of spamming my own blog, I'll make a second post today.This is one I've been meaning to make for some time, but have always forgotten about. In September, I picked up a 2GB Memorex Travel Drive USB stick. I'd been using a 512MB USB stick, and ran out of room, so I decided to skip the 1GB stage and go right for the most space I could afford.Naturally, with all that space, I had to see

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1139840917708718942006-02-13T09:17:00.000-05:002006-02-13T09:28:39.663-05:00

A few years ago, we signed up for opt-out lists for telephone solicitations and for postal mailings. The lists were a great idea...telemarketers and mass mailers theoretically used the lists to prevent contacting people who weren't going to buy anything anyway.It worked pretty well, too. Lately, though, with our daughter born in June, we didn't have any time or energy for shopping for Christmas,

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1139116207930596612006-02-05T00:00:00.000-05:002006-02-05T10:40:56.056-05:00

Okay, how about a bit of geek fun? Skype is a fun little program that allows you to talk to anyone else in the world running Skype using a headset with a microphone. Suitable headsets are pretty cheap these days, and Skype makes the whole process easy.So, let's say that your family is in another state, but has a computer. You can call them using Skype from your computer to theirs for free. The

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1138849924543895192006-02-01T22:03:00.000-05:002006-02-01T22:12:04.560-05:00

I'll probably be accused of getting way too introspective in this blog lately, but I've been thinking a lot lately about self-defeating emotions. We all have them, to one degree or another. I'm talking about the sort of lack of self-confidence that tells us it makes more sense to do the wrong thing, and be secure that we know it's wrong, than try to do the right thing and be uncertain. It can

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1138292325410227922006-01-26T11:07:00.000-05:002006-01-26T11:18:45.423-05:00

My 7 month old daughter started talking just recently.Okay, so we can't understand what she's saying, but she's got the cutest way of saying it! It sounds a bit like "gnab gnab blah", repeated over and over again. She's clearly processing our speech and working it into her neural pathways, trying to reproduce it.The whole process of infant learning has been wonderfully fascinating to watch. They

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1137294558047224472006-01-14T12:49:00.000-05:002006-01-14T22:09:18.163-05:00

I'd read a science fiction story lately that talked about a possible cause for intelligence arising in early humans. The idea is that for thousands of years, humans went around with basically the same brain structure, but not really advancing in intelligence, until suddenly (at least in evolutionary terms), intelligence started advancing. The story talked about one possible cause that, like most

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1136996612360509992006-01-11T11:17:00.000-05:002006-01-31T20:25:09.250-05:00

Starting a new semester is always a bit like jumping off a cliff, hoping to sew together a parachute before you hit bottom. Each week you're writing lecture notes for the next week (or for the next day!), and trying to make sure that what you're asking students to do is actually possible.Now and then, though, you get time to do some aimless wandering on the web, and I ran across this geeky

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1136480150125257132006-01-05T11:46:00.000-05:002006-01-05T11:55:50.140-05:00

My break between semesters is just about over, and a new year is starting.The Christmas break is always a bit hard for me. I teach at two schools. At one school, spring classes start the first week of January, at the other they start the second week of January. So I basically have two weeks of Christmas break before I start back to the first school.Into that two weeks I try to cram as much

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1135193123326079262005-12-21T14:16:00.000-05:002005-12-21T14:25:23.336-05:00

Having a baby certainly makes you think about things.Watching our daughter, Amelia, learn during her first six months has led me to wonder how much of what babies do is because we react to it. As an example, every time we've taken our daughter out in public (which hasn't been that often), she acts like a normal baby, tasting everything, sucking on her fingers, her Mom's hair, her clothing,

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1134822183982114922005-12-17T07:12:00.000-05:002005-12-17T07:23:03.993-05:00

Okay, it's way too early in the morning, but I was up for my daughter's diaper change, and can't go back to sleep yet.If you've been following my book reviews blog, you'll know I love science fiction. At the Baen Free Library, you can get quite a few free science fiction books that Baen has published over the years. From their point of view, they get to hook readers onto new series and new

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1134160516304787642005-12-09T15:04:00.000-05:002005-12-09T15:35:16.313-05:00

I'm just coming off a two-day migraine, and needed to vent.I've lived with migraines for as long as I can remember. They run in my Mom's side of the family, and I take more after her physically than my Dad. Normally, I live with them without too much trouble. Sure, they hurt like hell, but when you've hurt like that quite often your entire life, it's hard to know any differently. I've come to

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1133701517938097262005-12-04T07:49:00.000-05:002005-12-04T08:05:17.953-05:00

I've already talked about roleplaying several times on this blog, but haven't mentioned Risus yet.Risus is a wonderful little free roleplaying game. The game was designed to be a "universal comedy system", e.g. a roleplaying game that could be used for comedy games in any genre (fantasy, science fiction, soap opera, etc). But you can use it for playing more serious games, too.Most roleplaying

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1133286858391878892005-11-29T12:42:00.000-05:002005-12-02T10:39:20.163-05:00

Since having a picture of your cat on your blog is the thing to do these days, I figured I'd jump on the bandwagon.Our cat is named Cat.That's not so surprising, since we tend to name our neighbors according to what's most memorable about them. At an apartment we lived at, there was Bird Lady (she had a really noisy bird), and Smoker Lady, etc. So our cat is named Cat.Cat started out as a stray,

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1133107796997387182005-11-27T11:01:00.000-05:002005-11-27T11:11:14.026-05:00

I'd posted earlier about live roleplaying with kids, and I've just started looking into systems for tabletop roleplaying with kids. My daughter is just about six months old now, so I have some time before she'll be ready, but I'm pretty excited about the idea.I found a great system called Shadows that looks like it'll work great with kids. The basic idea is that each person has a good side and a

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1132886200003070062005-11-24T21:34:00.000-05:002005-11-24T21:36:40.013-05:00

Okay, I know this is my third post today. You'd think I would have better things to do with my time than inundate my blog with posts.But I just ran into this site, and thought other people who have played video games in their past would enjoy it. The site is http://www.twingalaxies.com/, and it's a collection of high scores for pretty much every video game ever made. Think you were pretty hot

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1132881791012405642005-11-24T20:14:00.000-05:002005-11-24T20:23:11.026-05:00

We had a great Thanksgiving here.We spent the day at home, not traveling. Normally we would drive about an hour and a half to be with one side of Lisa's family during Thanksgiving, but this year we decided to spend the holidays at home. Amelia's just about six months old, and not doing too well at long distance traveling yet, so we decided to have a peaceful holiday season, instead of a

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1132832821747852382005-11-24T06:35:00.000-05:002005-11-24T06:47:01.766-05:00

Some of you may remember that I have a new daughter, and a new digital camera.That's a recipe for needing a lot more hard drive space in my next computer. But I didn't realize how much space I'd need until I started playing with the video mode on the camera.Anyway, taking videos of my daughter is fun, and we like looking at them later. They'll be a great way for her to see what she was like when

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1132716795263152032005-11-22T22:23:00.000-05:002005-11-23T00:12:48.510-05:00

I recently came across a cool programming contest for female college students (details available at http://g4g.cs.uiuc.edu/ ).Of course, I encouraged all my students to get involved, and almost invariably they said something like, "Programming a game is too hard!"So I took a close look at the software used by this contest, and I must say I'm extremely impressed. Game Maker was written by Mark

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1132327323684501612005-11-18T10:09:00.000-05:002005-11-18T10:44:38.683-05:00

I drive about an hour and fifteen minutes one way to work, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.Now, I know there are some of you out there driving longer distances, and doing it every day besides. But I'm a person who has always made it a point to live within walking distance of work, or at least within bicycling distance. Driving for long periods other than for pleasure driving on vacations is not

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1132151613068147212005-11-16T09:09:00.000-05:002005-11-17T09:09:28.026-05:00

Call of Cthulhu is an interesting tabletop roleplaying game.For anyone who hasn't played a tabletop roleplaying game before, I'll contrast it with live roleplaying, described in a previous post. If live roleplaying is like improvisational acting, tabletop roleplaying is like improvisational storytelling. With dice used now and then to provide some unpredictability to the story.Anyway, Call of

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1131563845969559142005-11-09T14:05:00.000-05:002005-11-09T14:18:57.550-05:00

I've been using a digital camera for about a year and a half, and loving every minute of it.I've always been attracted to photography, but the lack of immediate feedback kept me from really getting involved. A digital camera's ability to show you what you just took has helped me to get a feel for elements of composition and lighting, much more effectively than what I could with a long delay

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1131495517074898002005-11-08T18:50:00.000-05:002005-11-08T19:18:37.083-05:00

A local school had a camp to get kids more interested in outdoor activities lately, and I got to participate. The camp organizers had contacted some friends, who participate in live roleplaying with me, and asked them to do a live roleplaying game for the kids. Apparently last year the kids started sword fighting with their marshmallow sticks, so this year they decided they needed an outlet for

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18779181.post-1131493500344399242005-11-08T18:39:00.000-05:002005-11-08T18:45:00.346-05:00

Welcome to my personal blog. This is a place where I'll put random thoughts and news from my life. As my interests include computer programming, computer gaming, roleplaying games, board games (okay, pretty much any sort of game), bicycling, teaching, reading, rock climbing, etc, etc, you can expect to see posts on pretty much any topic (although I tend to avoid politics, except around election

Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02060167708095988408noreply@blogger.com0