misha in cyberspace

Thursday, December 21, 2006

frosty is hit

Frosty The Snowman Brutally Attacked By Vandals

POSTED: 10:53 am EST December 20, 2006
UPDATED: 10:28 am EST December 21, 2006

COLERAIN TWP., Ohio -- 'Tis the season for holiday vandals? That's the case for an Ohio family, whose lawn decorations have fallen victim to attacks from neighborhood scrooges.

A hidden camera caught two people repeatedly stabbing an inflatable 12-foot snowman at a home on Crest Road over the past weekend.

"I thought I heard something, but didn't think much of it. But then my wife came running downstairs saying Frosty was down," said 26-year-old Matt Williquette, who has seen it happen twice before in the last three weeks. "They slashed him there and they also got him in the head twice."

Inside Frosty's mangled torso, Williquette found a screwdriver and footprints on the nylon. His neighbors also heard the commotion.

"I was in bed reading and my husband came in and said, 'Frosty got hit again,' because it's the third time," said Nadine Linquist, who lives right across the street with her young son Isaac.

"It was terrible, real terrible," Isaac said.

"They are the nicest people and I can't imagine why anybody would be after them, specifically," Nadine Linquist said.

Last week, Williquette installed a hidden camera because he knew the vandals would come back. This time he got them on tape.

The police canvassed the area and deputies arrested Robert Snell, who lives on nearby Overdell Drive. He was charged with criminal damaging.

Williquette now plans to install a second camera and once again patch Frosty with another round of masking tape.

"If anything, it makes me want to decorate more and put more stuff out," he said.

Sunday afternoon, a second suspect surrendered to police. Nathaniel Daniels, 18, was arrested and charged with one count of criminal damaging.

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

ringtones for the people

after much searching on the web for an intuitive way to load ringtones onto your phone via the web, i finally found a simple, intuitive method. much thanks to unitedheroes.net.

here are the steps, boiled down to the essentials.

the following has to be done only once:

1) add the following lines to your apache HTTPD config file (/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf):

AddType audio/vnd.qcelp .qcp
AddType text/x-pcs-gcd .gcd

2) restart apache:
/etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd restart

3) download the QualComm PureVoice Converter 3.1. (link) to your computer.

these steps involve creation/upload of the ringtone to server:

1) create a MONO, 8,000HZ, 16BIT .wav file using your favorite audio editor.
2) convert .wav => .qcp using the PureVoice Converter.
3) upload the .qcp file to your web server.
4) create the corresponding .gcd file:

Content-Type: audio/vnd.qcelp
Content-Name: my fav ringtone
Content-Version: 1.0
Content-Vendor: myhostname.com
Content-URL: http://myhostname.com/ringring.qcp
Content-Size: 4820

5) create an index.html that will link to the ringring.gcd file:

<html>
<p>my ringtones
<ul>
<li><a href="ringring.gcd">my fav ringtone</a></li>
</ul>
</body>
</html>


6) point your cellphone's web browser to http://myhostname.com/index.html

voila, you should be able to download your ringtones now..

Friday, December 15, 2006

good trax

live at mynagroove - june '06 ::: mixed by françOis : i love this, especially the last 8-10 minutes of it.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

solution for the firefox 2 memory leak

as everyone knows, firefox likes to gobble up memory unnecessarily. if you leave it on for 2-5-10 days, it can consume 300-400 megs. it's not a memory leak per se but who cares what it is, it's annoying and is not necessary in cyberspace.

i found that the following simple trick will solve the problem:

type "about:config" into the URL box.
add a new boolean entry to the table, called "config.trim_on_minimize" and set it to "true"

that should do it.

Sunday, December 10, 2006

not smoking is bad for you

i neither smoke, nor enjoy being smoked upon. i hate having to wash and air out my clothes after a night out. i would much rather no one smoked. however, the smoking ban is a greater evil than smoking.
it all sounds so right. smoking is bad, therefore it should be banned. however, there is a greater issue at stake here than "goodness" and that is of personal liberties. now, boys and girls, it is my firm stance that a person should be allowed to do anything to himself, as long as it does not cause physical harm to others body or property. and while it can be argued that smoking does cause harm to others, the others have a choice and can get away from the line of smoke, so to speak. if smoking in bars bothers you, then don't go to the bars.
furthermore, bars are private establishments. hence it should be left to the owners to decide what goes on there. i believe that's called capitalism.
what is even more troublesome, is the gradual erosion of civil liberties. how soon will nicotine become controlled? how soon will the government tell us smoking is illegal? how soon will nicotine whores be sucking dick for a pack of cigarettes?
on my way home from work i usually pass a strip club. its open sign exudes a warm glow of temptation as i zoom by it on cold winter nights. this sign has been off for the last couple of days. maybe the smoking ban turned it off?

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

i think we can go to the moon

sounds like the title of a song by the psychedelic trance artist doof (nick barber, in real life)? wrong... it's nasa's latest project... to establish an open architecture base on the moon by the year 2020... thoughts..?

the wonderful beaujolais nouveau

went into my favorite liquor store today having completely forgotten that it's the beaujolais nouveau season. thanks to the helpful clerk i procured a few bottles of this wonderful wine. to the uninitiated blogger reader who doesn't know what i'm talking about, there's a helpful wikipedia entry that talks about this variety of wine.

one of the assumptions about this wine is that it has to be distributed and consequently consumed very quickly. now dear reader, i don't know if you got the sense from the past entries but drinking wine quickly is not something that this here blogger has to graple with.