johnminor.com

Concrete Countertops Finished!

John — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 14:40:49 +0000

Well I actually finished them a while ago but I’m just now getting around to posting my pics. Yes, the concrete countertops are finished. I’d say the whole process took 2 months or so. It was a lot harder than I expected - getting that much concrete poured, shoveled, and vibrated in the form is hard work - not to mention lifting the behemoth and installing it!

Read on to see more pictures (more…)

A Dump in San Fransisco Costs the Same as a Castle

John — Thu, 08 May 2008 20:14:52 +0000

According to this article you can buy a dump in San Fransisco, LA, New York, Boston, etc. for the same price as a freaking castle in Europe, South Africa, Mexico, Sweden, etc. Really.

Open GPS Tracker

John — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 19:20:14 +0000

This is really cool. It is a very simple GPS tracker system you can build with minimal, inexpensive electronics parts (based around an Atmel Microcontroller and a basic GPS chip) and a $20 prepaid cell phone. You simply solder the simple circuit, program the microcontroller with the open-source firmware, and plug in the phone. The device tracks the GPS location and send you an SMS text message or an email periodically with updates. You can also request the current position by emailing or text messaging the unit. There are lots of other features as well. It is all open-source, inexpensive, and darn useful! BTW, I found this via Make Magazine’s blog (here).

What is Really Means to ‘Support Our Troops’

John — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 13:02:16 +0000

From Digg: Go ahead, slap THIS sticker on your gas-guzzling SUV. Click to enlarge.

Free Money Straight Off the Printing Press

John — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:16:27 +0000

Ahh the lovely government Economic Stimulus project. This has to rank up there as one of the stupidest ideas in U.S. History. Of course, that is not going to prevent me from accepting my check. Really, though, does anyone think this will actually work? It certainly will not do anything except make everyone happy for a few minutes. Then we’ll all go back to being miserable again.

I liken the Stimulus plan to simply printing out new dollar bills on a printing press and distributing them blind. It isn’t really new money. No one earned this money. You are just magically creating this money and giving it to us for no reason whatsoever. The only difference here is that the national deficit will just increase that much more.

Oh well. I’ll take it anyway. Who won’t?

Concrete Countertops

John — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 18:52:23 +0000

We’re looking at new countertops for the kitchen. The problem is, countertops are uber-expensive! We were seriously considering tile, since the “bang for your buck” is by far the best. We were going to get granite tiles, which are about $5 for each square-foot tile at Lowes (as opposed to about $70 per square foot for solid surface granite from Lowes or another installer). I think this kind of tile countertop would be great and it would hardly cost anything, but my wife isn’t a big fan of tile countertops because of the grout. She doesn’t like having to clean the grout, which can get food and stuff stuck in the grout seams.

So, we’ve started looking at concrete. Yes, you can make countertops out of concrete. Concrete has the advantage of being a solid surface and you can custom-make it into any shape you want. You can also make it look like just about anything. You can make it pretty much any color and give it just about any texture you want. (more…)

The RepRap - A Cheap 3D Printer that Hopes to Replicate Itself

John — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 21:07:51 +0000

The RepRap is a project with the goal of becoming an inexpensive 3D printer that can replicate itself. A 3D printer is a device that can create a three-dimensional object, typically by “printing” successive layers on top of the previous to build up a three dimensional object, much like an inkjet printer that prints layer upon layer of material. Most 3D printers are pretty darn expensive (as in upwards of $4,000), but a RepRap can be constructed for around $550 with widely available parts. The design and the software that drive the thing are all open source. They are shooting for self-replication some time in 2008 - very cool! (more…)

Bush Acknowledges Existence Of Carbon Dioxide

John — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 13:14:30 +0000

From the Onion: In an unexpected reversal that environmentalists and scientists worldwide are calling groundbreaking, President George W. Bush, for the first time in his political career, openly admitted to the existence of carbon dioxide following the release of the new U.N. Global Environment Outlook this October.

Even More RPS News

John — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 14:10:19 +0000

Well I hate to keep posting stuff about RPS, but I just can’t help it - there is so much going on in the RPS world. There has obviously been a considerable amount of research of this fascinating game. This latest study has found that beginning with a scissors throw presents your best odds for winning. Something tells me that if enough people read this article, however, rock will become the better opening throw. That is the beauty of RPS. It is always changing.

Scissors Beat Paper

John — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 13:52:00 +0000

More RPS fun…
It seems like the natural order of Rock, Paper, Scissors flows through all aspects of this world.
Click the Picture to enlarge…

Paper, Rock, Scissors. Who is the true winner?

John — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 21:59:58 +0000

From digg.com. Whoever invented the game surely could have come up with something better than paper. He makes a good point.

read more | digg story

Ninja Parade Slips Through Town Unnoticed Once Again

John — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 13:39:15 +0000

For 30 years, the ninjas in Modesto, CA have paraded unnoticed. Residents turned out for the city’s annual Ninja Parade, where no ninjas were seen for the 30th year in a row.
Ninja Parade Slips Through Town Unnoticed Once Again

Ubuntu Gusty

John — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 15:45:15 +0000

Ubuntu Linux version 7.10 “Gusty Gibbon” comes out tomorrow, which is pretty awesome. I’ve been running the beta version for about a week and it is pretty solid. I prefer Kubuntu, which is set to be released the same day, but they are both equally awesome. If you haven’t tried Linux, you can download Ubuntu for free, or order a CD for free. In either case, you can try it out without installing it or affecting your computer an any way. I really think you should try it out. You know you want to!

I Like Pizza

John — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 20:08:54 +0000

I like Pizza. I like it so much I wrote a song about Pizza. I havn’t had time to write it out, but here are the words - it’s sung to the tune of the “I love you, you love me, we’re a happy family” song from Barny:

I like Pizza.
Pizza, Pizza, Pizza.
Pizza, Pizza, Pizza, Pizza, Pizza, Pizza, Pizza.

That is all I have so far. (more…)

My Definitive SNES Games List

John — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 19:08:19 +0000

This guy did a write up on the games that “defined” the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and I saw the post on digg. Some of the comments to the article noted that the list is basically just the author’s list of favorite games and not necessarily the list that actually defined the SNES. Well, so what if it is? That is a great idea! So I thought I’d make a list of my favorite games for the snes. I won’t go into the detail that this guy did, but nevertheless, here is my list (in no particular order): (more…)

No-www.org

John — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 12:20:00 +0000

“No-www.org strives to make the Internet and communications about it as fruitful as possible. To that end, we make the modest proposal that website makers configure their main sites to be accessible by domain.com as well as www.domain.com.” Sounds like a good idea to me! You can access johnminor.com with or without the “www.” So I’ll add the cool emblem now:

Take the www off of your site now!

Sunrocket is dead

John — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 12:17:40 +0000

Sadly, Sunrocket is dead. I loved their viop service, but randomly, they just fired all their employees and shut their doors. They have made no official announcements but no one can get in touch with them and their service goes on and off sporadically. I called their customer service line and got a creepy electronic hal-like voice message saying they were no longer taking sales or customer service calls. Very strange - I wonder if I’ll get my money back for the full year plus 3 months that I purchased? I guess I’d better call my credit card company. Meanwhile, I’m switching to viatalk and porting my number fast! For more info on this craziness, check out the sunrocket forum.

Weebly - looks pretty neat

John — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 13:29:10 +0000

Weebly. It looks pretty neat. They host your site for free and design is simple. Dang. Maybe I should move johnminor.com there…

The Best Venn Diagram Ever!

John — Thu, 03 May 2007 13:23:11 +0000

Ahh - this Venn Diagram says so much!

RPS Opponent

John — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 19:30:34 +0000

For those of you who don’t know, I’m an avid Rock, Paper, Scissors player. I don’t claim to be very good, but I love the game. For those of you who want to get better at RPS, there are some online opponents with which you can practice. A pretty good one is the Roshambot. I have yet to do better than 50% (0% according to the statistics mechanism the site uses) with this thing (but again, I don’t claim to be an expert player). Oh, and be sure to check out the World RPS Society. Enjoy!

Papa’s Sitting Tree

John — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 17:31:08 +0000

My brother sent me this link about a group of people using GPS coordinates and digital camera uploads map out and investigate whether such “Trail Trees” might actually be relics of Native American navigational systems. The mappers have noticed that in many cases the trees form a route, often following ridge lines, and often paralleling trails such as the modern-day Appalachian Trail. According to the post, the theory is that “American Indians would take a sapling, usually a white oak, and cut off the primary stem just above one of the branches so that the branch would become the new trunk.” The trees are being mapped out over at the Trail Tree Blog and you can see more pictures at this site.

We used to have one of these along a trail in the woods behind the house where we grew up. (more…)

Working out the Kinks

John — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 21:07:18 +0000

I’m slowly working out the kinks in this new site design. I’m pretty happy with it the way it is now. There are still some things that need doing, but we’re getting there!

Great Prank on anti-homosexual propagandist Fred Phelps of godhatesfags.com

John — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 13:20:20 +0000

Fred Phelps (the crazy guy that did godhatesfags.com) held a protest near campus a few years ago and some students asked if he would mind getting a picture with a couple of his fans. Just before the picture was taken, the two “fans” made a quick wardrobe adjustment…

read more | digg story

Ahhh

John — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 18:23:40 +0000

Well I think I’ve imported everything. It was a chore. I need to do a better job backing my site up. I’ll continue to make changes in the next few days/weeks/months/years. Expect the look to change, and expect more features. We’ll see!

New Look, New Engine

John — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 17:35:23 +0000

I’ve been slow to implement it, but I’m rolling out a new version of johnminor.com! I’m going to try to import all my prior posts to the site, but we’ll see how that goes. I switched over to wordpress since it is easy to manage and my old system wasn’t “standard” compliant. Anyway, I’ll get some updates on here and roll it out some time soon (hopefully)!

Ye Olde Check Engine Light

John — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 14:51:00 +0000

So I was driving down the road the other day and my arch-nemesis popped into existence: the "Check Engine" Light. Now I hate this thing. Some random light comes on and tells me that "something" is wrong with my car? Now that much I can appreciate. I guess I’d like to know when something is wrong with my car. But what? Herein lies the problem. There is a light that tells me something is wrong but it will not tell me what. It seems the only way to tell is - oh darn - to take it to the dealer and pay them a lot of money. It could be something minor and it could be something dangerous, I’ll never know until I take it in. So basically this light comes on and tells me that I’m going to have to pay a lot of money even though the problem may only be minor. (more…)

How to become a Ninja

John — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 14:48:00 +0000

I used to do this when I was a little kid and I had forgotten how. Now I can re-live my glory days as a true ninja. I plan to make this outfit a permanent lifestyle change.

Joke of the Moment

John — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 15:31:15 +0000

Why did the chicken go to the seance? To get to the other side.

Riddle of the moment

John — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 15:32:33 +0000

What can run but never walks, has a mouth but never talks, has a bed but never sleeps, has a head but never weeps?

Hack Crosswalk signals to immediately display “Walk”

John — Thu, 30 Jun 2005 15:33:25 +0000

Here is an Article on how to "hack" crosswalk signaling devices. Just press the button in a secret code sequence. Usually, the code is: Three short clicks, followed by two long, one short, two long, and three short.

Jenny, Are You There?

John — Thu, 30 Jun 2005 12:56:00 +0000

This guy dialed 867-5309 in every area code with the hopes of finding Jenny from the 80's Tommy Tutone song. I think he may have found her, but it is hard to tell… Here is the site.

"Freeing" the Iraqi People

John — Thu, 23 Jun 2005 12:35:00 +0000

When will the war in Iraq end? I thought Bush’s purpose for invading Iraq was to "free" the Iraqi people? How does a continuous war accomplish this purpose? Our military is clearly overextended. Some fear a draft. A draft may actually be part of Bush’s plan - apparently the Defense Department began working yesterday with a private marketing firm to create a database of high school students ages 16 to 18 and all college students to help the military identify potential recruits "in a time of dwindling enlistment in some branches." Read about this from the Washington Post here. I read somewhere that we spend three times more on the Iraqi war that we do on our own homeland security. What’s even more shocking, the number of civilians killed in this supposed act of emancipation has risen to over 22,000 according to this site that keeps tabs on civilian casualties in Iraq - and that figure is their conservative "minimum" figure. It just really makes me sad to hear that so many innocent people are dying - and for what? To this day I have yet to hear a straightforward and purposeful answer.

A Better Use of the New iMac Mini

John — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 21:04:00 +0000

Here is an interesting new use for the new iMac Mini! This is much better than using the thing as a computer!

UPDATE: I recently found this site with more information about Apple’s iToilet line of products. This really is a great read!

Learn to Tie a Tie

John — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 12:54:00 +0000

Including more stylish knots. Learn to tie a bow tie as well!

John — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 15:34:00 +0000

Handwriting Tips

Homebrew Air Conditioner for under $25!

John — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 15:26:00 +0000

Here is a guy who built his own homebrew Air Conditioner for less than $25. Good to know if you ever get too hot!

John — Mon, 13 Jun 2005 17:56:00 +0000

Government Liquidation Auctions

John — Wed, 08 Jun 2005 19:45:00 +0000

Make your own marshmallows!

Run Linux in your Web Browser

John — Wed, 08 Jun 2005 17:58:00 +0000

This is great. If you have never tried Linux, here is your chance. Linux is a great operating system and I believe that its popularity will increase rapidly if people would just give it a try. The problem is, installing an operating system just to test it is difficult and time consuming. One recent solution has been Live CDs, where users can simply insert the CD or DVD and restart their computer to run Linux. The operating system is run from the CD and there is no need to install anything. Still, users have to order or download a Linux distribution. With this solution, though, you simply open a new Browser window and a version of Linux is running within the window! Great for testing purposes. There are only two bad things about this solution: 1. It’s in German (not bad if you speak German, though), 2. It’s a little laggy. The distribution of Linux being run is SuSe. Here is the link - use the 3rd link on the page and follow the instructs below it. BTW, if you are interested in Linux, my favorite distribution is Ubuntu - I highly recommend it (and it has a version on a Live CD so you can try it out without installing it!!

John — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 19:30:00 +0000

Learning to Drive a Standard Transmission Made Easy

The Simplified Spelling Society

John — Fri, 03 Jun 2005 21:00:00 +0000

Reform English!

World Jump Day

John — Fri, 03 Jun 2005 18:41:00 +0000

World Jump Day is coming up! Get ready to change the orbit of the earth by jumping. If enough people participate (around 600 million are needed) and everyone jumps at the same time (July 20, 2006 at 6:39:13 Eastern Standard Time), we should be able to successfully change the orbit of the earth. It should be great! Register at their site to recieve a reminder the day before the big jump and to be included in the current count.

Everybody Loves Burning Books!

John — Wed, 01 Jun 2005 22:53:00 +0000

The Silly Old Conservatives are at it again. We’d better order as many of these books as we can so we can burn them up!

John — Wed, 01 Jun 2005 22:29:00 +0000

Cool but Useless Skills

John — Wed, 01 Jun 2005 21:26:00 +0000

Improve Your Academic Skills

John — Wed, 01 Jun 2005 21:10:00 +0000

OfficeGuns

John — Wed, 01 Jun 2005 20:57:00 +0000

RateMyMullet.com

John — Wed, 01 Jun 2005 20:17:00 +0000

Upgrade Your memory George W. Style!

John — Wed, 01 Jun 2005 18:10:00 +0000

Create Poster-Sized Printable Maps with Google Maps

John — Wed, 01 Jun 2005 18:06:00 +0000

Simple Steps to Better Typography