For those of you reading the news (like anyone reads anymore), or watching CNN, or following the stock market, I’ve found a bit of comfort: (or link) (note: it’s a bit cut off; click on it for the right tenth)

What does the above mean? The S&P 500 is an index of 500 different US companies; the index can be taken as a rough estimate of the US economy as a whole. As seen above, our economy isn’t actually as bad as it was in 2003-2004.

The comfort is hopeless, because we’re facing a sharper drop than before, and we’ll probably continue to decline, but, from this graph, we aren’t that bad yet. Although actually we are. So, for those of you who don’t care, we’re fine. For those of you who do, we are fucked.

I just bought josh-stroud.com. As you can see, nothing is happening, but I’ll get it to forward to my blog (this site) ASAP. Hopefully, I will finally be NUMBAH 1 when you google josh stroud. Right now, I’m like 8. The asswipe holding joshstroud.com, as you can see, is making great use of it, so I performed a whois on the site and saw that the registration expires the seventh of october, 2008. I’m there that day, baby. Until then, here’s to the birth of the Josh Stroud google entity. (not “Workout Wednesday With Josh Stroud” here)
UPDATE: On yahoo, I’m already number 1. Sweeeeet. On MSN, though, I’m not even on the first page. *tear*

Technorati Tags: josh stroud, personal

Browsing around on hackthissite.org, I came across a tutorial on redcoding. That is, the assembly language of the programming-based wargame “Core War.” I had heard of this, briefly, while perusing the hive mind, but never really tried my hand at it. It has been featured in Scientific American, and seems to be pretty well known in the wargaming community. So, over the course of the next week/month or so, I’ll try my hand at a little slice of it, and report back on this blog. Obviously I won’t become pro in a week, but I’ll see how it is.

In a total side note, I have decided to start writing all of my posts using raw html in ScribeFire, instead of relying on the little link buttons. My html knowledge, 6 months ago decent, has devolved to googling everything. So, I’ll just do it by hand. In XHTML, no less. Beat that, rotting-hunk-of-meat-that-is-my-brain.

In other news, I got back from my defensive camp today with the rest of my football team. (The [sic] Championship Grading System! is thumbs up/down; truly, the System by which Champions are made) Over two-and-a-half days, the highlights and lowlights (shutup, k?):

• Highlights:

–>Ordering (virtually) everything on the menu at Sonic Drive-in (the watermelon slush makes my knees go weak)
–>Cracking my first (true) joke. So John Risko says “I hate people who think they are cool but really are not.” (possibly referring to me, or maybe someone else. I wasn’t really paying attention) So, sensing my moment, reply, wait for it… wait for it… “I didn’t know you were filled with such self-loathing.” YES!
I went there. TOTALLY OWNED. PWNAGE until kingdom come. Felt good, that did.
–>FINALLY playing tackle football again. Tackling other people, no less.

• Lowlights:

–>Getting tackled by big sweaty men.
–>Getting tackled by medium-size sweaty men.
–>Getting tackled by smallish-size sweaty men.
–>Getting tackled.
–>Smelling like ass and balls, blended into a refreshing mix at the same time, yet knowing that the next day, I have to put on those delicious-smelling pads for another day of camp.

Not that I’m complaining. It was pretty fucking awesome. Plus, I’m not a rookie anymore. (don’t even get me started)

In even less important news, I have a bruise on my arm which looks like a tattoo loosely meaning “03″. Double points if you can guess what that means.

Finally, the blog post has seemed to have published itself two-nay-three-nay-four times. Fucking scribefire.

UPDATE: wait, five times.

Technorati Tags: musings, josh stroud, football, recode, core war,

So another a list. Yes, there will be five. Like 5ives. And like a couple others. This one is on the sites I visit often (my therapist thinks too often, but what does she know, she’s just an “occupational therapist;” my psychatrist thinks it’s fine). In order from least to most viewed:

5. Gizmodo.com - I’m addicted to news, as some of the rest of this list will tell you. Specially tech or gadget news. I have gadget lust; clinically proven according to the guidelines of the APA’s definitive guide, The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

4. Lifehacker.com - See above, except slightly more so, and optimization instead of gadgets.

3. arstechnica.com - The site I use for much of my tech and science news. This, NewScientist (the magazine, not the website), and other piffling odds and ends (Slashdot, NYTimes - Tech, Wired) make up the entirety of my news. Oh, I sometimes read “The Wall Street Journal,” or “The New York Times,” but only on Sundays.

2. Facebook.com - No surprise here. This absorbs so much of my time that it, well… hmm… it just absorbs a lot of my time.

1. Number one goes to…

Newgrounds.com - For those uniniated, it’s YouTube, on crack. Its YouTube, except for flash (read animation) videos and games. It also has a lot more rewarding user participation (writing reviews, viewing new submissions, etc.); think a RPG-type style where you level up after voting a certain number of times each day. Then you get more votes to get more exp to level up to gain more votes… ad naseum. And some really quality work there, too.

Bonus: technically I can’t add this, but the number one was actually my blog. Posting to it, editing it, changing settings, it all adds up to the true number one slot. But I decided not to add it to this list because I added it, just now, right above where it says “Bonus:…”

These results were found using Firefox 3’s usage statistics (a tutorial).

In other news, Firefox 3 kicks motherfucking ass is good. Sorry, Mom.

I wrote this little threat to tell a friend why to get a photo of him on his facebook profile:

If you don’t get a profile photo:
Step 1: I will come to your house.
Step 2: I will detonate your house using blasting caps of mercury fulminate on the explosive pentaerythritol tetranitrate (aproximately 1.6 times the explosiveness of trinitrotoluene)
Step 3: I will incapacitate you using a rubber chicken coated with the gastric acids of the, now dead, rodent infestation of my house.
Step 4: I spray you with fresh urine and dust you with powdered octanitrocubane (2.7 times the explosiveness of trinitrotoluene).
Step 5: I douse a gasoline trail a couple of blocks, and light the gasoline.
Step 6: You combust, destroying approximately a block around, and leading to my arrest and and conviction of nine counts of murder in the first degree, and four counts of unnecessary cruelty to animals.
Step 7: I am declared criminally insane, and locked in Brattleboro Retreat for the rest of my life, where I live peacefully, until killing a nurse and being shot in an attempt to escape.

So, a tip.
Get a profile photo.

In case you don’t enjoy a sense of humor of my caliber and wit (Steven *ahem ahem*), this is (possibly) a joke.

So, anyway, I was browsing zinio.com for interesting magazines. Zinio.com, in case you didn’t know, is a purveyor of magazines for both discriminating and undiscriminating tastes. But first, some background:

It started with a bang. I sat there in a cold sweat, feeling a lump in my throat. The computer screen gaped at me, a hungry void which needed to be filled. A shiver limped down my spine.

I pressed Enter, and the world collapsed from the infinite quantum states which could have been to the one which was. The world darkened. Flickered, as if the electric current wasn’t quite what it should have been. And went out. And I sat there, alone in this … place. Never before had I felt so alone. It was a darkness so complete, I felt nonexistent. I sat there, in a nonexistent chair staring out into the nonexistence with nonexistent eyes, contemplating a world which no longer existed. And I cried.

That was the prologue from my new novel, Atalkhaphur of Karabbabazabahaababa-La-Maltacair. (pronounced ah-TALL-khahp-furr & car-AB-ah-ba-ZAHB-ah-HA-ah-ba-ahba-lah-mal-tah-CAIR)

Anyway, so I completed a survey to the kind people of zinio.com, and recieved a freeeeeeeeeeeee! subscription to any one of their hundreds if not thousands magazines. So I searched for some of my fav mags. Wired, sure. PC Mag (kind of), yep. NewScientist, unfortunately, no dice. Then I tried Scientific American. Well, see for yourself. Scroll down a page for the, well, full effect. Scientific to perhaps a biologist (or Freud).

Now Reading: Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein, your mind.

Now That To Which I Am Listening: Not really anything new. See my zune card (yeah, I’m non-conformist. Suck my ****s)

Now Playing: Still Rock Band (since release). I’m broke so I can’t afford GTAIV or COD4. Pity me, I’m poor.

Now Watching: The Original Twilight Zone (series).

UPDATE: My Mom just informed me that she reads my blog. I therefore edited a specific part of it before she reads it (unless she already has and is informing me of her readership to basically tell me that I’m fucked screwed)

The Onion - Point, Counterpoint

Just follow the link.

I think I cried by the end of it. Classic.

Technorati Tags: humor, funny, the onion, wtf

Well, in the mad rush by at least 1.7 million people to download Firefox 3, the site is down. Yes, going to getfirefox.com, firefox.com, spreadfirefox.com, mozilla.com, all of these sites give you a “Network Timeout.” Cue dramatic trumpet stab.

The only thing which still seems to be up is the google/firefox start page, and the wikipedia article. Truly, the Paradiso promised to everyone is lost; that’s what you get for handling more information that iPhone launch day. Take that, Mozilla! But really, a big round of applause to Mozilla’s talented developers, and the dedicated community to develop extensions.

UPDATE (11:10 am): Seems that going to firefox.com and mozilla.com,  you get a

Http/1.1 Service Unavailable.

Going to http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/ actually works, but just shows the old (as of yesterday) page with the download link for Firefox 2 and the FF3RC2 link. No mention of the release date of FF3. Here’s to hoping.

UPDATE (11:18 am): Upon further research, the guys over at The Mozilla Blog had this to say:

The outpouring of interest and enthusiasm around Firefox 3 has been overwhelming (literally!).  Our servers are currently feeling the burn and should be back to normal shortly.  Download day will officially commence once the site goes live.  The 24 hours period will be clocked from that moment.  Thanks for your continued support.

Obviously, this explains nothing at all, but hopefully it will be up soon.

UPDATE (12:13): Over the course of the past hour, the getfirefox.com has been updated with the new firefox 3 logo/page. The download link is up, and it’s downloading now. Now its done.

Extracting…

…

Installing…

…

…

…

Firefox 3 is a go.

Probably one of the first to start blogging about Firefox 3 (2 in the morning). Well, the official release candidate is released today. Previously, it was FF3RC2, or release candidate 2. The past couple of weeks/months has been spent to iron out any/all bugs for the final version. And, today, (although not yet), you can download this NEW version. I’ve got to say, 3.0 is so much better than 2.~. Snappier, less memory, tagging, the new autosuggest thing (places, is it called?) is great. Plus, it imports all your old extensions, settings, bookmarks, etc from your old firefox 2 (if you have it [YOU BETTER]). The only problem is that some of my favorite extensions (Greasemonkey, Firebug) do not yet officially work with 3.0. Here’s to hoping, though. Scratch that. Just checked, and all of them have updated in time for the release. SWEEET.

Firefox 3 is here!

UPDATE: Originally, the post was titled “Jiminiy Cricket.” Fixed the spelling as of June 8, 9:03 pm.

For the first time in the three years that I have had my beloved Gmail account, I have received spam. Yes, spam. In the new mail folder. Waiting there to be read.

I feel violated. Here I was, expecting Google to have wiped slice (heh) of spam out of my Gmail inbox, and yet, here it lies. It offers me the princely sum Seven Hundred and Twenty-Five Thousand British Pounds Sterling (£725, 000.00) as part of a new Microsoft promotion. The address is, of course, microsoftpromotion7@gmail.com. Obviously, Google has failed twice.

Why, Google? I have always been a loyal customer, and yet you allow some nefarious bot to create a spam account, bypassing your suppossedly infallible CAPTCHa to spam me, and thousands, no, millions like me. I must fight back. I must rise up for the oppressed masses, huddled against their dim computer screens, crying themselves to sleep; the mere thought of spam, intruding on my clean inbox, drives me to anger, rage, resentment, action.

But what can I do? What can I do, your great and powerful Googliness? I am merely one man, against the mongrel spam hordes, crouching over their fires, and plotting your demise. I must spread the word. The country, nay, the world must know of this travesty being wrought against us. Those men armed with bots come to steal our money, our passwords, our way of life. We must never surrender. We must never admit defeat. And now the world knows.