Poked.net

Heh. When I was in high school, I tried to work out an algorithm for solving the problem of scheduling classes so as to produce the greatest number of students who got everything that they requested. I figured a computer could solve the problem much faster than a human. I've since learned how to represent this problem as a huge set of mathematical equations that can be solved. Unfortunately, this also proves that the problem belongs to a set of problems called 'np complete'. There is no known way to solve these problems in polynomial time, so basically put, I couldn't solve this problem with the fastest computer around - it can be proven to be too hard. Glad I didn't waste my entire life in high school on the problem. :)

"Those who are ready to sacrifice freedom for security ultimately will lose both."
--Abraham Lincoln

"Those who would sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither."
--Ben Franklin

"There ought to limits to freedom"
--George Bush

"Our first priority must always be the security of our nation..."
--George Bush's State of the Union

Apparently a worm fired off this morning online...not much info know at this point, but it spread extremely rapidly and started issuing rapid fire ping floods amongst infected machines. In lay terms, it clogged the toilet. Most major internet backbones got hit extremely hard with packets flying at speeds unimaginable. The internet was broken. And guess how the worm infected machines? A bug in Microsoft SQL Server found not too long ago. Microsoft at least has deniability in that they did release a patch well in advance of this, but honestly - end users play with SQL. Do you think they constantly check Microsoft's Security updates. Release secure code please. Microsoft broke the Internet this morning.

Well, after having much fun with the fake tongue ring, I will let the cat out of the bag. Nonpierced

Someone (who wishes to remain anonymous) finally convinced me to do this:

I swear I'm having too much fun with this site:

Tag-Board now has 1/8 of 1 million boards running on it's servers. Add to that 650,000+ known individuals who have posted on one of 1.5 million stored messages on one of those boards. The most commonly used custom smilie trigger - :love: Ain't it grand when we all love each other.

Go UPS!!! Wohoo!

Um Yeah.

Ever googled your own name? A search for "Greg Grothaus" reveals that I did indeed create Tag-Board, that I am a Sexual Assault Investigator , a football player, a Treasurer, a programmer, and something in some other language that I can't understand. Who knows which of these are accurate?

I did some thorough cleaning today in between runs of straight coding (I can never code for more than 2 hours or so straight). Cleaned out some old luggage and found a small plastic bag from my trip to Niagra Falls. This was back in High School, as in about 3-4 years ago. I wonder what's in my fridge (j/k).

Apparently there is a class action suit against the music industry for price fixing during the years 1995-2000. Anyone who purchased a CD between those years is entitled to a share of the sixty some million dollars available. The maximum is $20 though, but hey you can buy a CD with that (chuckle). If the distribution is low enough that everyone's payouts would be under $5, the whole sum will be donated to some non-profit or something. Either way, it sounds worth doing. If fewer than those 60 million dollars worth of people claim their money, the music industries keep the remainder. The website is here: http://www.musiccdsettlement.com/. They ask for your name, mailing address, and last 4 digits of SSN. The SSN thing is supposedly so that if two people with the same name (John Smith) ask for a settlement, they will both get payments. It is legit. Kinda cool.

I've just found blogrolling.com via a pyrad on blogger, which you can see on the right hand side of this thing. It's a pretty simple little system to add links to your site, and the site is designed well too. All in all, the system is well appreciated and I donated a couple bucks to help out the creator.

Oh yeah, and I must say that yesterday's Air Force vs Virginia Tech was a great game. One of those games where you are really on your seat until the last second. AF needed a touchdown to tie, and they were on like the 5 yard line or something as the time ticked out.

Well, HAPPY NEW YEAR. I think this may be the one 'safe' holiday that nobody can get pissed at you about because of religious backgrounds. I had a number of complaints when sending out a Happy Thanksgiving mailing from Tag-Board, either from Canadians who picked a different date for Thanksgiving, or from Native Americans who considered Thanksgiving a day of mourning(a perfectly valid reason to be upset, might I add).