Oh as an ef-why-eye, I’ve been working closely with FT Rea to launch Richmond’s newest community blog: The Fan District Hub.

FDHub is a much grander undertaking than WotBN.net. Think of it more as a ‘zine — which is great since FT has some serious ‘zine experience. Also, I designed FDHub as well as developed it. I don’t get a chance to design things very often and I enjoy when I get the chance. It is definitely something that is very difficult for me, but I like how this one turned out.

So if you live or work in the fan now you’ve got a great source of news, events, and info. If you’ve got tips send, make sure you email them to FT!

The guy that invented FORTRAN died this month, John Backus. For those of you without the wonderful sublime pleasure of knowing FORTRAN, it was the first high-level programming language ever invented. This means that it was the first one to sort of kind of look like English. If you have actually used it before, you know that “sort of kind of” is the operative word there, but then again, if any of you have programmed in assembly before, you also know what a wonderful gift to the world FORTRAN was.

This guy has an awesome quote which describes I think a defining motivating characteristic of Computer Scientists and Programmers:

Much of my work has come from being lazy. I didn’t like writing programs, and so, when I was working on the IBM 701 (an early computer), writing programs for computing missile trajectories, I started work on a programming system to make it easier to write programs.

Why spend an hour doing something when you can spend 5 hours figuring out how to get a computer to do it for you? There is no good reason.

Another interesting tidbit is that FORTRAN was apparently the first programming language to come with a manual. This is a feat that is still yet to be equaled even today by much of the community.

Here is an illuminating quote from one such manual:

“The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names to constants; instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every appearance, the variable PI can be given that value with a DATA statement and used instead of the longer form of the constant. This also simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi change.” —Early FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers

On a final note, an interesting thing about Computer Science is that it is such a young field. Right now, many of the people that invented some of the major first steps are still alive, or, in this case, are dying now. That is always crazy to me, since so many other things were invented so long ago that you only hear about the people in history books, instead of in the news.

RIP, John, you will live on in the dreams and nightmares of engineers and programmers everywhere (respectively).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Backus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortran - WARNING: contains numerous awesome nerdy FORTRAN jokes

Recently a release from the Tennessee Center for Policy Research scooped Al Gore on his giant Tennessee mansion that is basically made from the burning carcasses of dinosaurs. In 2k6 he ran up an average monthly electricity bill of 1,200$ and an average monthly gas bill of 1,080$ (so says the i-nets, ymmv).

The inventor of the internet’s big thing is carbon neutrality. So to offset his enormous carbon expenditures he participates in a Tennessee Valley Authority program called Green Power Switch. This program allows you to pay a couple extra bucks a month (really 4$ per 150-kilowatt-hour block) to subsidize the power company to collect electricity from renewable resources (solar, wind, and methane gas). The electricity then gets fed into the same grid everyone else uses:

TVA has the capacity to provide as much as 97 million kilowatt-hours of green power annually. Physical laws determine where electricity is ultimately used, so power from these sources will go into TVA’s electric system as part of the Valley’s total power mix, rather than to individual homes or businesses. When the green power resources aren’t operating — for instance, when wind speeds are too low to generate energy — TVA’s other resources will continue to supply reliable electricity.

While it is great to be carbon neutral, isn’t it better to be carbon neutral at a lower level of usage? Spending 500$/mo. on natural gas to heat your pool seems like a ridiculous and non-essential expenditure — both of dollars and carbon — to me. Wanton consumption is as much of a problem as anything.

It would be great to see Al make some changes in his personal life as a result of this latest brouhaha.

Also, does Virginia have an equivalent to Green Power Switch?

So I am back on my (culturally insensitive) Star Trek Jihad. As netflixing all seven seasons of Star Trek: Voyager will take literally* six years, I’m asking for your help.

Does anyone have all seasons of ST:VOY for me to borrow? Thx.

*My new pastime is using “literally” when I mean “figuratively.” I love love love when people do this. And by love I mean hate.

Earlier we, you and I dear reader, had talked earnestly about launching an uber local news resource. Well, dear reader, that time has come:

WotBN.net

Thus far, WotBN will provide you with succulent news bites and a succinct schedule of events focusing on our neighborhood — get excited.

The idea behind a community driven news resource is, well, the community. If you live or work in the West of the Boulevard area I fully expect you to embrace this new project and contribute to it. There are a couple things that would be helpful in getting WotBN.net off the ground (ordered by difficulty, least to greatest):

• Visit WotBN.net a couple times a week.
• Read and comment on the news / stories posted. You know, partake in a discourse.
• Submit tips and events to the WotBN editors. Really, we are desperate. We will post almost anything.
• Write a featured article. If you have a great idea for something more in depth than a news blurb please please please let us be your outlet. Of course we might turn you down because we are jerks, but you never know.

See it is easy? Get cracking.

Technorati Tags: blogging, Richmond, technology, Virginia

I love Netflix and I talk about it a lot — because let’s face it, I love love love it. Sometimes I’ll hear about people who have broken up with Netflix because their relationship had grown cold and loveless. They’d get home from work, eat their teevee dinners and never touch one another. This breaks my heart people, breaks it right in two. To prevent this I’d like to share a couple ways you can turn your Netflix relationship from sad to fab!

Send it back

The first rule of hearting Netflix: SEND IT BACK. If Weekend at Bernie’s II: Cruise Control has been sitting under that copy of Sailing Magazine for the last eight days you need to send it back. If, some day in the future when oil has peaked and a killer comet is headed straight for us, you want to watch Weekend at Bernie’s II again you can always put it back on your queue. Don’t let it stop your flow like a tampon.

Never have three* at home

If you have all three netflix at home at the same time you have failed — as a person. Obviously you didn’t read rule number one and Bio Dome has been sitting on top of your dvd player for three weeks. Or maybe you are lazy. Regardless, you want to stagger your netflix arrivals so ever couple days you get a new red envelope in the mail. You never want four day gaps in between red envelopes.

*Or however big your queue is.

Know your mail schedule and watch for weekends

To prevent having three at home you need to know your mail schedule. My mail(wo)man picks up the mail at 1pm everyday, so netflix need to be in the box before then. Simple.

Mail is analog as shit fyi. It actually stops on Sundays. Remember this as your plan your netflix staggering. You’ll want enough to get you through the weekend but have one going out on Friday so you can get a new one on Monday.

Switch up genres — including TV shows

Nothing is worse than watching six Naomi Watts horror movies in a row — except for maybe just, like, seeing Tara Reid six times. You’ve got to have a good mix of genres in your queue to keep things interesting. The next six movies in my queue have the following genres: horror, documentary, classics, comedy, foreign, drama. SNAP!

TV shows are tricky. You can’t possibly watch all episodes of ST:TOS (Star Trek: The Original Series) in a row. Believe me, I’ve tried and failed like Lt. Reginald Barclay. Try alternating between a TV show you are hot on and other movies. This will keep you into your stories but won’t let you get bored.

Netflix.com the best website … ever?

Finally, get acquainted with the Netflix Friend Page. It’s called the Netflix Friend Page not because it contains detailed information about your Netflix friends — which it does — but because this page is your friend. Why trust an evil soulless algorithm to recommend movies to you when you (presumably) have friends? Checking out your friend’s queues is the single best way of finding awesome movies to watch.

Technorati Tags: netflix

I have a Wii. It took standing in a line for eight hours Saturday night (until Sunday morning) to get one (in the freezing cold), but I got one. Wolf, I saw your brother there. He has a massive dog.

Here are some initial thoughts on the Wii:

• The position/orientation sensor of the Wiimote is awesome. The best demo of this is Baseball on Wiisports. The onscreen bat behaves just like you would expect it to. You can even “waggle” it around pre-swing like they do “in the pros.” After playing around a bit with it I am convinced you could make a kickass sword fighting game. The other great thing about the position/orientation sensor is it is radio based, so you don’t need to have the Wiimote pointed at anything in particular.
• The pointer sensor of the Wiimote is “ok.” I mean it works great, but it is infrared. So if you want it to work while laying on the couch you have to make sure your two big dogs don’t walk infront of you while you are trying to use the boomerang to collect some hearts and rupees. This will be frustrating. I think they want me to sit directly in front of the TV — I am too lazy for this.
• There were lots of ladies in line for the Wii. It seems like Nintendo’s push to bring in non-traditional gamers is working. My wife personally loves WiiSports Tennis.
• I really really wish the Weather Channel and News Channel were up and working. Wikipedia says that those will be up on Dec. 20th and Jan. 27th respectively.
• Speaking of Channels the Internet Channel (ie. Opera Browser) comes out sometime in June. SIGH SO FAR AWAY.

I’m not really going to talk about the games because I don’t want to ruin anything for anyone. But yeah. Nintendo = my boyfriend.

Technorati Tags: video games