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Another idea not acted on

Just stumbled on who's sick, a website to track illnesses and see the symptoms.  I had this idea a few years ago, thinking it would be interesting to try to identify vectors for disease using the internet.  My idea was basiaclly to enter your symptoms and where you live/work/shop etc. and see if we could track a disase back a few vectors and maybe identify it and share useful info on treating symptons etc.  Possibly uncover some useful info on vectors: Like maybe the handle of the gas pump at a specific gas station is a very active vector and paying the attendand a couple bucks to go out and clean it every couple hours would save the world a lot of illness.

Anyhoe the folks at who's sick have done it - I haven't played with it much yet - my initial reaction of "damn, another one I thought up and didn't do" is gone.  I'm not implying they stole it - it was just another idea so good that more than one person had it - and more than me acted on it.

Banana Peels

On the drive home today a car in front of me threw a banana peel out the window.  Are banana peels garbage?  Of course they are.  Is it "ok" to throw them out your car window?  I don't think so.  It's illegal I'm sure.

Got me thinking about how long it takes a banana peel to biodegrade.  Turns out the internet has the answer, I did a Google search for "banana peel decomposition" and got the typical millions of links - but when I switched my search to Wikipedia, I found the answer in the article about biodegradation.  Turns out the banana peel is top of the list.  10 days it says - so maybe throwing it our the car window isn't so bad.  Diapers take 500yrs - meaning my great-great-great-great grandchildren could still recognize the diapers I threw away this weekend.

Baseball is back

Another season of baseball has begun. Suzy got me a scorebook to score games this year. I plan on scoring all the games I go to, and have started practicing by scoring some games on TV. I scored the red sox first game, so I was very familiar with how crappy they did.  I've got tickets to opening day at Fenway and Suzy, Dave, Howard and Chris are all going.  It'll be nice to meet back up with the "Lost Nation" folks as well.

Idiocracy

Props to Twit for recommending the movie Idiocracy - from the same people who brought you Office Space.  Very funny movie.

No more McDonalds Hamburgers

Read the book Fast Food Nation about a year ago, and since then haven't touched McDonald's ground beef.  Until Sunday that is - we we're working on the house all morning and I could feel my blood sugar dropping and knew if I didn't eat soon I'd start getting very edgy. 

At the drive through I asked for a sausage McMuffin and was told "We're on Lunch Now" and the McDonald's marketing machine forced me to choose the Quarter Pounder with Cheese.  One bite and I realized the center was pink and cold.  I should mention that the grease was extreme, dripping all over my hand - and they failed to provide the usual napkin.

I turned the car around and took it back.  The manager told one of the lackey's to "Get the Grill fixed" and he went back and reported that "It's been fixed."  I got my money back, and asked for (and received) a couple crappy Happy Meal toys for the kids in addition.  I felt disgusting the rest of the morning, and could smell the McGrease on my fingers.

So in all fairness - I gave McD's another chance and the blew it - McRoyally.

Frozen Wings

Just had a batch of the best frozen pre-cooked chicken wings I've ever had.  Willow Brook Buffalo Style Hot Wings - 2 greasy thumbs up from this connoisseur of wings.

Baseball and Painting

The final spring training game was today - the next one counts.  We spent the day painting the trim - and all I could think was that all our neighbor's think we're moving.  Why else would someone paint the trim?

The art of the Subject Line

Noticed a few emails I've received lately have pretty useless subject lines, like "sometime..." or "Important!!!" (The latter with repeating punctuation - another peeve).  It's a bit of a skill I suppose - getting the entire gist of the email into one line.  

Here's a good subject line "Chat with Doug Cox (66 lines)" - shows me exactly what to find in that email and a hint at how long it is, in case there are several chats that would have the same subject. 

It's all in the art of naming - a tricky art.  I read once that most of good software development stems from good naming techniques.