kdb003's blog

This has to be a joke

8/23/2006 17:02:12 GMT

Judge says wiretaps invade privacy.
"Do you want people to die" - O'Reilly

What am I listening to?

8/23/2006 03:03:52 GMT

I am using a new music player, and in the preferences there was an option to enable audioscrobbler. I had no clue what audioscrobbler was, so I went to last.fm and found out it was a sort of social music recommendation website. Great, I have found another addiction.

Check out the 10 last songs I listened to:

Why I like Ubuntu

8/22/2006 18:54:07 GMT

I recently installed Ubuntu Linux and I don't think I am ever going back. It is much faster than Windows for me, and starting up is much less of a pain. I have all the software than I need, and I got it all for free. The ease of installing and upgrading software is so much more user friendly. What else can I ask for?

Top Internet Addictions

8/22/2006 18:42:10 GMT

I am addicted to many things on the Internet. I visit these site multiple times a day. Here is the list:

1. youtube.com
2. answers.yahoo.com
3. digg.com
4. facebook.com
5. gmail.com

Donnie Brasco

8/22/2006 13:54:17 GMT

I watched Donnie Brasco yesterday and I still can't get over the scene where the Japanese man at the resteraunt was beaten to a bloody pulp. I tried to find the video on YouTube/Google Video, but no luck.

In other news, Facebook now has a blog feature called notes. It had no trouble reading my RSS feed, so all my posts will now show up there.

Traffic Analysis

8/20/2006 21:00:57 GMT

Ever wonder when cops give out the most speeding tickets. I did a little bit of analysis on traffic data in Virginia and posted my results.

Speeding Ticket Analysis

I also posted the data for other people to analyze.

Google Phallocentric?

8/19/2006 19:10:27 GMT

I was searching on Google today to make sure a submission to one of my website's was unique, and I was surprised to find that Google suggested that I should be searching for he instead of she.

Here is a link: google search for: as she flew and a screenshot:

Firefox Crashes and Old Mother Dies

8/11/2006 15:45:14 GMT

Firefox likes to crash nowadays. Its getting irritating. I think I am going to switch to something else for the time being. Maybe Opera?

I am allergic to my House

8/8/2006 01:29:29 GMT

When I got sick after returning to my house for the first time in a year, I thought it was a coincidence. I joked about being allergic to my house, and at my latest well checkup I found out I actually was. I think its my cat...

Lilly's Lyrics

8/7/2006 02:03:11 GMT

I just updated Lilly Lavner's website with lyrics. Check them out!

From Green to Blue

8/4/2006 12:29:27 GMT

I was getting tired of the my websites green color. I changed the css around a bit and now its blue. I like it much better now.

Gmail Tips and Hints

8/4/2006 11:26:54 GMT

I have recently started forwarding all of my mail to Gmail, and I have been added a few filters that make checking my mail so much better.

The main thing I did is filter anything with unsubscribe in the text to a mailing list folder and for it to skip the inbox. Gmail does a pretty good of filtering spam, but it doesn't filter the mailing lists that I rarely want to read. I tend not to use the unsubscribe links, because some spammers verify your email address with these links.

One other thing I do is use Gmail as a ToDo list. I filter everything with [ToDo] that is sent from my email address into a ToDo folder and it skips the inbox. It is really nice to have a ToDo list in your e-mail. One less thing you have to check.

If you don't have Gmail, just ask and I will send you an invite.

Summer 2006 Work Portfolio

8/4/2006 11:16:17 GMT

I have compiled a list of the major websites I completed this summer at Haverford College. You can see them in the portfolio section of my website.

Lilly Lavner; Singer/Songwriter

8/3/2006 14:46:14 GMT

I have been working on a friends webpage for a few weeks now, and I think it is now officially live.

Check it out here:
Lilly Lavner

Valid RSS Feed

8/2/2006 19:00:48 GMT

My feed should now be valid.

Minor Updates

8/2/2006 18:40:31 GMT

I made a few minor updates to the RSS feeds of this website(krisbrower.com), and I soon will soon be doing a major redesign.

I also did a major update to the nodes I search on filleritem.com as well as a minor update to the actual page and the buy.com filler item finder. Hopefully there will be a lot more results that are actually appealing as filler items. There certainly will be a lot more results to choose from(about 8x as many).

New Translator

7/13/2006 23:10:17 GMT

I made this cool little translator, which takes sentences and alters them based on lexical data. I only wish I could parse a sentence and figure out the part of speech.

see the translator | digg this

Zidane is Still my Hero

7/9/2006 18:58:43 GMT

really?!?

Mmmmm Peach Mint Tea

7/9/2006 18:36:57 GMT

Tastes good to me

Amazon.co.uk Filler Item

7/6/2006 14:20:50 GMT

I have created a filler item finder for amazon.co.uk.
Digg this

More filler item finders are in the works.(not just amazon)

rel="nofollow" and affiliate links

6/27/2006 15:07:57 GMT

This is just an FYI. Don't use rel="nofollow" with Azoogle Ads. You will not get credit for any leads. I had these links up for 5 days and got about 100 clicks and no leads before changing it back to links without the rel="nofollow". Within 1/2 an hour I got a lead.

Automatic Response

6/23/2006 15:49:19 GMT

I hate any sort of greeting that I can not answer back with "alright", "ok", or "good". The reason why I hate these greetings is because I automatically respond with one of my automatic responses, and it does not make sense at all.

Joe: Hows it going, Kris?
Kris: Ok.

Pete: What's happening, Kris?
Kris: Alright.

I wonder what Pete thinks when I say that.

Missing the US - Ghana game

6/22/2006 09:27:40 GMT

I have a meeting at 10am with a professor. The game starts at 10am. What was I thinking???

Hopefully I will catch the second half.

Offsides and the World Cup

6/20/2006 00:41:31 GMT

I think the referee in the USA v Italy game Saturday confused a lot of people as to the soccer offsides rule. I currently have the #1 position for the search term "soccer offsides" on Google, and I saw a 400-500% increase in hits for that page on Saturday. Come on REF!

Frustration

6/14/2006 18:55:34 GMT

I did not think I could be this stupid.

Personalize Google with Poker Statistics

5/12/2006 18:29:08 GMT

I was fiddling around with the Google Gadget API which allows you to make gadgets that users can add to their personalized google homepage. The Gadget that I made calculates the odds one hand is going to win over another. If you want you can add it to your homepage by clicking the link below.

The Ultimate Test of the Haverford - Swarthmore Rivalry

5/10/2006 21:04:14 GMT

Actually the competition is ongoing. Which of the tricollege schools are more popular on google? Currently Swarthmore is is the lead, with Haverford trailing close behind.

Da Vinci Code Contest Atbach/Atbash

5/3/2006 14:51:13 GMT

I was doing the da vinci code contest on google to waste time and I noticed day 14 required an Atbash translator. This also does other sorts of decoding.

enjoy

Mozilla Thunderbird Extension Problem

5/1/2006 21:44:37 GMT

When updating Thunderbird, if you might get a message that says your extensions are being installed and that it could take a minute, but it never actually finishes. This happens because Thunderbird does not always install on top of the old versions or update shortcuts. Just update the shortcut and you should be fine.

Test of the Crosspostings system

4/26/2006 14:02:33 GMT

I am testing the crossposting system to see if this links back to the original page.

Python Scripts and Internal Serice Errors

4/26/2006 13:53:11 GMT

I hate get internal server errors and not knowing what the problem actually is when I run my python scripts. Here are some tips to avoid these undescriptive errors.

1. Make sure your permissions are correct.
2. Include this at the top of every script:
#!/usr/bin/python
import cgitb; cgitb.enable();
--this library will give you a traceback of the error instead of an internal service error.
3. Make sure to typecheck your python scripts in idle. These types of errors will still give internal service errors even if you include the traceback library.

Weird Names in the Directory

4/20/2006 16:26:56 GMT

I am working on an improved online directory for my school and I was angered by the way the current directory is set up. It is set up so that you can never tell what part of the name is the middle name and what part is the first name.

For example, if Billy Bob Thorton went to Haverford, he could appear in the directory in several ways depending on what name he chose to be called. He could be listed as:
1. Thorton, Billy Bob(wants to be called Billy Bob)
2. Thorton, Billy B.(wants to be called Billy)
3. Thorton, B. Bob(wants to be called Bob)
4. Thorton, B. B.(wants to be called something other than Billy or Bob)

In any case, it is impossible to know whether Bob is a middle name or part of the first name. It would be listed the same either way. I guess it does not really matter, but it makes my database of names in the improved directory potentially incorrect.

Eurotrip

4/19/2006 14:05:02 GMT

I am really excited to go to Europe this summer.

Paris -> Munich -> Salzburg -> Vienna

Websites

4/19/2006 04:34:11 GMT

I am updating my websites.

Check out Filler Item if you need to get free shipping on amazon.com

I hate comment spam.

At the Mall with Molly

1/30/2006 23:20:10 GMT

I am going to start changing people's names to things so I can actually keep track of who is who. I find myself at the mall with nelson, scratch, and a few other people. I am not sure if this is a mall that I have dreamt about before, but I do know that it is enormous and that I was visiting places I have never been or dreamt about before. Nelson was on some sort of shopping frenzy. She was traveling around wildly in search of shoes. I think she was really drunk. While we are in one of the stores I am introduced to Molly. Her first question is if I am part of the tri-college community. I tell her I am. She then asks pointedly if both of my parents are smart. I do not respond. She seems to think that means that they are not intelligent. She seems disappointed. Nelson continues to wonder through the mall. She wants to find a particular store, but her sense of direction is terrible. We end up taking an escalator that is extremely fast. After traveling four floors in a matter of seconds we finally reach the store Scratch was looking for. The place is packed. People are milling about outside the store. Molly says there is no way she is going in there. She tells us that the store is weird and has some sort of matchmaking service. I am confused. We walk past the store towards the elevator. Scratch tells me to watch out for Molly, because she is the worst person ever. I ask Molly why she asked me if my parents were smart. She told me that she did not really know. She asked me if two red chickens have a baby chicken it is going to be red. I asked her what would happen if a red and a blue chicken had a baby chicken. I asked her if it also could be red. I asked this question very awkwardly and poorly. I am not sure if she understood. She said she did not know. I then exclaimed that I was a red chicken. I do not think I was sober in this dream either. Then I noticed that Nelson was nowhere to be found. This is bad because she is probably drunk. I tell everyone and start for the store she wanted to go to. As I reach the store security grabs me and tells me that the store is full and the que is long and to come back later. As I try to tell him that I am looking for my friend, we both fall to the floor. He does listen to me and tells me to calm down. When We get back up I fall down again. I have a very hard time maintaining my balance. I go back to my group of friends and tell Scratch to go look for Nelson. He heads off toward the store. I hope he found her, because thats all I remember.

Weird Dinner

11/27/2005 00:26:06 GMT

In this dream I find myself trying to find a familiar face to sit with at some sort of banquet. Everyone is dressed a little strangely, and I seem out of place with a polo shirt and jeans. I sit down at a table of some girls one of which I don't really know but recognize from high school. They give me evil disgusted glares, and I ask if I should move to a different table. No one responds, which I take to mean I should leave immediately.

I get up and somehow find one of my friends from college to sit with. She is dressed very strangely, and I ask what this banquet is for. She claims it is a celebration of our strangeness.(the we are so strange dinner) After that I notice another friend from college. She has a huge bowl of spaghetti in front of her and seems worried that I do not have any food. In a childlike tone she asks if I want any food.

The Gym

11/20/2005 17:19:21 GMT

Last night I dreamt I was in the gym. I had never been to this gym before, but I felt like I was in a college somewhere. I am not sure if the gym was crowded or not, but I did not notice any other people there, and I never had any competition for the few machines I tried to work.

I was having the hardest time with the bench. The space around the bench was very crowded with other machines, and every time I tried to lift the weight, the actual bench was either too high, too low, or not aligned correctly. Eventually I gave up trying to use the bench and searched for a long time for the machine that works your pecks.

Eventually I found the machine I was looking for in a completely different room that I was surprised to find. I started to do the exercise after adjusting a very weird weight selection thingy. Instead of being a long metal pin that went through the weights, it was made of multiple pieces of plastic which held the weights together in a way I still do not understand.

After doing a few reps I noticed my bio lab partner sitting across from me in a chair that you would find at an airport terminal. She tried to give me a hug, but I refused because I was too sweaty.

Haircuts with Akeem

11/17/2005 10:33:02 GMT

2 seperate dreams today.

The first was short and relatively normal. I went to get my haircut with my mom and sister at some sort of salon. The hairdresser did a terrible job, and I kept on complaining to my mom that I could of got it done cheaper and better with my friend this upcoming weekend. She paid for my haircut and then gave me money for the tip. For some reason these long triangular pieces of glass were worth three dollars. I was not able to find either of the people to whom I was supposed to tip, so my mom ended up having to do it.

Then I was the main character Akeem in the movie "Coming to America". I was really frustrated because I wanted to play this board game "Settlers of Catan", but I had no one to play with. My servants always let me win, because they were afraid of my wrath. I tried playing on a computer, but I got bored of that easily. The mother that Akeem has in the movie suggested that I go America to find opponents, and presumably thats what I did.

Dreams

11/15/2005 13:17:00 GMT

From now on I am going to post dreams that I have. Mostly because I want to remember them, and my dreams tend to be crazy/weird. Anyway here is the first:

For some reason I am at the beach with my entire extended family. I think we are celebrating something for my second oldest cousin, because he has a lot of friends there with him as well. Everyone except for me begins to drink beer straight from the case. My cousin mentions that it is just like head.(lionshead - Note: I have never heard this expression before) My little cousins all want me to push them up and down in rocking chairs and are really happy when I do.

After the beers are finished we go for a swim. A strange alien like machine brings an inflatable slide and an inflatable trampoline. The slide is left very far out to sea, and my second oldest cousin swims to get it. The trampoline is headed to the shore, and I swim to get that one. At this point I realize my oldest cousin is not in the dream at all. When we retrieve the inflatable things, my grandparent make it seem like they should get to go on them first.

At this point my dream shifts to being back in the place where everyone else was drinking beers. There is a stand similar to the ones found in highway rest stops with very good looking food in it. I pick out something that looks like a rib, but it turns out to be bacon. I look for a long time for chicken fingers, but there are not any. Instead I choose this toasted sandwich with fried onions and bacon on it. There were other things on it too, but I forget what they were. It looked delicious.

Bacon Pizza is good

10/3/2005 17:01:07 GMT

I am excited for fall break. I am going to BU to see a friend from high school. We are going to a busta rhymes concert which should be interesting. I am going to be out of my element there.

Why does everyone insist on using my first and last name when they see me. Do you realize that I do not know your last name?

Intermural soccer is the best thing ever. I love to dribble. I wish I had not lost my soccer ball.

9/8/2005 16:43:52 GMT

A lot of stuff has happened since I last posted. I quit soccer, became a good student(for now), and bought an ipod nano. Maybe thats not that much stuff, but I could make a long post if I was not so lazy.

I feel really bad for New Orleans. What can I possibly do? I donated a little bit of money, but I still feel terrible.

I also made some SNEELANKA shirts. More about that later.

i am very tired

8/25/2005 09:24:07 GMT

as predicted soccer preseason is killing me

Off to school again

8/20/2005 06:45:18 GMT

I leave for school in a few hours. Soccer preseason is going to kill me.

My Doctor does not think I have Cancer

8/18/2005 10:32:38 GMT

Yesterday I went for a run. I am trying to get in shape for soccer, and I went for about five to six miles. I usually run half about that distance, but I was going slower than I usually do. I hadn't gotten much sleep the night before, but I was feeling fine, until the end of the run. I felt like I had to go to the bathroom which was a little odd because I had been running for about five miles and probably was dehydrated. My right foot also lost feeling, but I think that was just a coincidence.

I had to go pretty badly, so I went straight to the bathroom. To my surprise something unexpected came out: Blood. I know, "gross". As you can imagine this freaked me out. At this point I had no pain, so when the nurse on the phone started asking questions I made it seem like it was not too serious. Shortly after that the pain arrived. My dad was about to take me to the emergency room when the doctor called back. I answered his questions and he made it seem like I should be more scared than I actually was, but told me that I could wait until tomorrow to visit a doctor as long as the pain didn't get any worse. I was pretty happy about this because I had no desire to sit in the emergency room for hours. That night I continued to urinate blood, but the pain went down so I was able to sleep fairly easily.

This morning I visited the doctor. After the examination the doctor talked to me for awhile. The first thing he said was usually when this sort of thing happens to older people it usually quite serious, but with younger people the diagnosis is most times not as bad. Then he went on to tell me that he didn't think I had cancer or a tumor in my kidneys. I hadn't done any research into my symptoms so this was not very comforting. Then he sent me straight to the hospital to do some more tests “STAT”. There I got another urine test and a blood test. I had never had a blood test before, and I have never given blood. I expected it to be like an IV which I hated, but it was not bad at all. I also found out that I am O positive blood type, which means I should probably be donating blood since that blood type is a universal donor. I go for an ultrasound later today. Wish me luck.

I hate Dell

8/15/2005 18:21:20 GMT

I had to reinstall everything on my sisters computer because she was whining about it. This in itself is annoying, but the fact that it was a Dell laptop makes it even worse. A bunch of little things Dell does with their comptuers drive me crazy. Why do you put the activation number for windows on the bottom of the laptop???? It is very difficult to copy from the bottom of a laptop directly to a screen.(I was forced to write it down twice) Why are the resource cds not labeled correctly?? I went through about 10 of them before finding the right one. I also hate windows and norton antivirus. It takes hours to update the software............. powered by hell

Poker is so Addicting

8/14/2005 03:50:46 GMT

I am playing some online poker to see how much I can make before school starts again. So far I have made about 200. This is the third day. I feel dirty.

Panoramic View of my Room

8/11/2005 17:16:45 GMT

I found this little tool that automatically stitchs together pictures into a larger picture. I didn't believe that it would work so I tried it. I took about 30 pictures from the center of my room and tada the program stitched them together into one awesome image.

Here is the result:

You can even see the duplicated bits on either side.

Collision Game

8/1/2005 18:07:52 GMT

A week or so ago I posted some code for a flash collision script written entirely in the drawing api. I have made this script into a little game. Please note that this sometimes does not work in mozilla based browsers(like firefox), because of a bug in their code not mine.

enjoy

Off to Florida

7/31/2005 21:36:00 GMT

My mother keeps telling me to watch out for sharks, when I go on a road trip to florida. I keep telling her that getting bitten/eaten by a shark would make a great story.(as long a I survive) Wish me luck.

Bush Flicks the Camera Off again...

7/30/2005 14:13:40 GMT

You thought he might learn after the first time.

apparently not...

20 Questions

7/29/2005 23:23:30 GMT

Play 20 questions!
click here to play

Human Like Robot

7/28/2005 18:57:52 GMT

Wow now they are making robots that look like humans. FYI the robot is on the left.

A fun drive home

7/28/2005 17:32:54 GMT

I left work a little late yesterday just as very dark clouds were rolling towards me. Whenever I try to wait something out I tend to just waste time and get the full brunt of the storm anyway, so I decided to just go and drive home anyway.

As I was leaving Haverford the wind picked up considerably. There is construction going on at the local private high school and the wind had kicked up so much dirt that I thought I was driving into pouring rain.(my vision isn't perfect)

I got onto montgomery ave. without too much trouble, but that is when the real fun began. The wind was still blowing strong and had blown part of a tree onto all the westbound lanes. Unfortunately for me I was going west. In order to get around this tree the cars ahead of me were swerving into oncoming traffic whenever there was enough time to do so. I followed suit. The rest of the trip was relatively uneventful. Parts of trees continued to break off and hit my car/create smaller road obstacles and it eventually started pouring. All in all a fun drive home.

Lack of Sleep

7/28/2005 10:21:07 GMT

My little brother was scared by the movie "Scary Movie 3", which is supposed to be funny. He kept on bothering me until the wee hours of the day. When my little brother can't sleep, I can't sleep.

Ball Collisions with the Macromedia Flash Drawing API

7/25/2005 22:38:21 GMT

I used nothing but the macromedia drawing api to create a little flash movie that randomly creates balls, and sends them in a random direction. The balls have elastic collisions with each other and with walls. It is not perfect and needs some major tweaking. Here is the source code. Just copy it and paste into the first frame of a flash movie's actionscript.

Microsoft vs Google

7/25/2005 13:00:58 GMT

Google clearly will win, unless Microsoft sues them and steals their employees.

The StumbleUpon Toolbar

7/25/2005 12:56:25 GMT

I highly recommend the StumbleUpon Toolbar.

My Last Week of Work

7/25/2005 12:53:34 GMT

Work is coming to and end which means school is coming soon. This summer is too short.

No More Dead Links

7/25/2005 00:00:01 GMT

I have removed all the dead links from my site. What a pain...

Radio Blog

7/24/2005 05:53:13 GMT

Check out my radio blog... not really a blog. It just lets you play songs in a very lossy format.

Hooray!

7/24/2005 05:23:29 GMT

Here are all the links to various places where you can see my blog from now on:
krisbrower.com
livejournal
xanga
blogger

A New Host

7/24/2005 03:54:36 GMT

If you see this, that means this site has been moved successfully to a new host.(A Small Orange)

Drawing with the new Macromedia Flash API

7/22/2005 14:41:47 GMT

Check out my experiments with drawing with the new flash api.(i think it is new at least)

drawing with flash(click once on the flash to start

Do it in the Dark

7/8/2005 00:58:07 GMT

So I am sitting on the toilet in a public restroom and someone walks in looks in the mirror for about five seconds and leaves. As this person is half way out the door they shut the lights off.

Why would anyone do this? This bathroom is not in the boonies. It is in the campus center of my college. It is being used almost constantly. I can understand this person not realizing I am in the bathroom, but shutting off the lights is ridiculous. I love to save electricity as much as the next person, but I also like to aim when going to the bathroom and I don't have a lot of practice in the dark! Plus the electricity wasted by turning the lights off and on in this regularly used bathroom far outweighs the tiny bit of electricity saved.

So I am left sitting in the pitch black bathroom twiddling my thumbs wondering if I should make a quick dash for th lights. Thankfully for me, another person came in the bathroom within a minute or two and turned on the lights. I can only imagine what they were thinking when they saw me sitting on the toilet in the dark.

Buying a New Computer

7/7/2005 13:41:53 GMT

I am thinking about buying a new computer, but I want it to be fast and cheap. This forces me to wait until fast and cheap parts are available to me. :(

Poker Stats

7/7/2005 13:09:52 GMT

I started working on a new website: texas holdem statistics

Cashing Check

7/6/2005 22:51:54 GMT

I love going to the bank and depositting checks. It is so fun!

Live 8

7/5/2005 17:57:15 GMT

Live 8 was definitely an experience. It was really hot and crowded. My biggest impression was that some people do not really care about anyone but themselves, and they will push people out of the way just to get a view of the stage.

Getting a view of the stage is not the easiest thing either. Why did they put the stage behing a giant statue? Worst idea ever.

My Smartphone Homescreen

7/5/2005 13:57:17 GMT

My windows smartphone looks like a Mac! I could not be happier.

Do Not Buy Archos Gadgets

7/5/2005 12:43:02 GMT

I made this mistake once. My Archos Multimedia 20 makes annoying buzzing noises and runs out of batteries every 2 seconds.

My New Smartphone: Audiovox SMT 5600

7/5/2005 12:38:07 GMT

I just got a new phone. It is the Audiovox SMT 5600. This phone does everything and is smaller than my old black and white crappy phone. It plays and records music, photos, and videos. You can customize the look and install programs. I never realized just how much you can do on a phone nowadays. I also bought a 512MB mini SD card, which I am slightly dissatisfied with, because the card will not let me record video directly to it. The phone's battery life is not bad either. I only charge it every 2-3 days with normal use.

Poker is so Addicting

6/30/2005 14:38:48 GMT

Once upon a time I started playing poker. I am not really sure how it began, and I am not really sure how it will end. I do know that I am so addicted that I made a program that calculates lots and lots of poker statistics. I ran the program yesterday for about 25 hours only to find out that I had messed up the algorithm for determining if there is a straight or not. I fixxed the problem and now it produces results close to the theoretical probabilities of each type of hand. Now I have to run the program again. Then I will probably post this on the results on the Internet and make lots of money off of them.

Websites are being Updated now

6/22/2005 22:43:59 GMT

After a long period of neglect, I am updating all of my websites.

I also have a few ideas for new websites, which should be pretty interesting.

I have an enjoyable Job

6/21/2005 14:11:35 GMT

For the first time ever I am enjoying a "real" job. I am working with one of my professors to develop labs for introductory computer science courses. The courses used to be in c++, but now we are trying python. Python is now by far my favorite programming language.

Winter Break

12/19/2004 13:55:21 GMT

I have an entire month off. Now that finals and all college work is over, I can work on updating my websites a bit.

New Hosting

12/19/2004 13:53:29 GMT

I lost my free hosting because I did not participate in the community enough, so now it is being moved. This means the new domain krisbrower.com is actually being used now.

Freshmen Writing

9/1/2004 05:21:01 GMT

I had my first class of the writing seminar entitled "My Blog, Myself" today. I did not realize that it is one of if not the first of its kind.

Some people commented on it at monkey filter before trailing offtopic. The joe user forums(dead link) also had a few things to say about the class.

I am half embaressed by the current state of my blog, but that is alright because it looks as if we are all going to be using livejournal. I am still unsure as to what kind of class this will be.

My Guide to Poker

8/20/2004 05:13:24 GMT

Here are some ideas to follow(but don't follow exactly) when playing poker

1. Counter your opponents.(ie if they are playing really tight[tight means they don't bet unless they have really good cards], bluff a lot)
2. Don't bluff too much(unless playing with extremely tight players)
3. Don't be predictable
4. Try to win as many hands as possible without showing your cards.
5. Cut you losses.
6. Make your winning hands worth as much as possible.

On a side note...I have been doing quite well at poker.
Its not that I am especially good. Its just that my opponents are especially predictable.

This page is no longer ubermegasupercool

8/18/2004 05:14:44 GMT

I don't think it deserved the title.

Now its just plain "the brower blog".

Who to Vote for?

8/14/2004 06:59:30 GMT

Perhaps a better question is who not to vote for.

Lets examine the choices.

George W. Bush = complete idiot
John Kerry = not George W. Bush
Ralph Nader = not going to win

The choice seems simple.

Tornado Warning

8/11/2004 19:41:54 GMT

If I never post again, you will know I died in the tornado.

FillerItem.com Update

8/11/2004 15:59:41 GMT

I have updated the Amazon Filler Item Finder.

Now there are cheaper items and giant instructions on how to use the site.

Simple way to Ping using Php and XML-RPC

8/11/2004 06:14:22 GMT

Here are a few easy steps to pinging with XML-RPC with PHP.

1.go to http://keithdevens.com/software/xmlrpc/source and download the xml rpc library
2.save the php file as xmlrpc.inc
3.Paste the code below into your blogging script immediately after a new entry gets added to the database
4.change the url and title to your own site
5.your done!
*If you don't want the error/confirmation messages, delete all of the foreach loops.

include 'xmlrpc.inc';
$method = "weblogUpdates.ping";
$params = array(XMLRPC_prepare("YOUR SITE NAME"),XMLRPC_prepare("http://YOURURL.COM"));

//weblogs.com
$site = "rpc.weblogs.com";
$location = "/RPC2";
list($success, $result) = XMLRPC_request( $site, $location, $method, $params );
foreach ( $result as $key => $value ) {
echo(" $key => $value "."
");
}

//technorati.com
$site = "rpc.technorati.com";
$location = "/rpc/ping";

list($success, $result) = XMLRPC_request( $site, $location, $method, $params );
foreach ( $result as $key => $value ) {
echo(" $key => $value "."
");
}

//blo.gs
$site = "ping.blo.gs";
$location = "/";

list($success, $result) = XMLRPC_request( $site, $location, $method, $params );
foreach ( $result as $key => $value ) {
echo(" $key => $value "."
");
}

Finally I can ping all the feeds!

8/11/2004 05:55:05 GMT

Now that I have figured out how to ping weblogs.com, technorati.com, blo.gs, etc., I can not believe that I did not figure it out earlier. It is so simple and I was making it so hard.

Pinging places like Blo.gs

8/10/2004 06:38:13 GMT

Someone needs to write a php script that pings all the places like technorati, blo.gs, and so forth. I am stuck using ping-o-matic.com.

Driving at Night is o so Interesting

8/10/2004 05:07:34 GMT

Here is a list of things that I have seen when driving the short 2 mile trip home on back roads.

-At least 3 deer(1 was in my yard and kind of freaked me out)
-A racoon(which I almost ran over)
-A meteor
-2 policemen(remember these are back roads late at night)
-Fog

I thought this post was going to be interesting but just realized it really sucks. Oh well. Post.

Odd or Even - A fun game

8/8/2004 20:52:18 GMT

Here is what you do.

1. Walk up to someone you know.(that has hair)
2. Pull out some of their leg/arm hair.
3. Say "Odd or Even"
4. If they hesitate go to step 2.
5. If they answer incorrectly(an odd or even amount of hairs pulled out), go to step 2.
6. If they answer correctly go to step 1.

These 6 steps are the ticket for fun!

FreeIpod.com

8/8/2004 07:58:57 GMT

If you don't want the house to win, then don't play the game. I wish I came up with freeipod.com. They are probably swimming in cash. Pyramid schemes are never good for the people in the pyramid.

Filler Items and Amazon

8/1/2004 06:27:05 GMT

I always need to get free shipping when I order from amazon, but I can't always find something that adds up to $25. My only option was to make the Amazon Filler Item Finder.

enjoy

My Girlfriend is the Best

7/31/2004 07:59:48 GMT

Just a quick FYI
My Girlfriend is the Best

Buca di Beppo

7/31/2004 07:58:47 GMT

Buca di Beppo is now officially the worst resteraunt ever. Don't get me wrong. The food is decent.

The problem I have is with the way they portion the food. If you have never been to a Buca di Beppo, I will try to explain. Instead of having meals for one, they serve either a small or a large dish which serve 2-3 and 4-6 people respectively.

The problem with this is no matter how hard you try you will never be able to eat what you order. If you order too little or just enough food, everyone eats sparingly in order to make sure everyone else gets their fill of food, but in the end no one does.(no one wants to be the asshole that ate the last bit of pasta when everyone is still hungry) Therefore the only way to get your fill of food is too order way too much food, which just pisses me off.

Then the bill comes and what do you do. You have to split it evenly because everyone "shared". Your friend bill ate about 4 times as much as anyone else and had several milkshakes, and you end up paying for it. Or maybe its the other way around. You are Billy and don't want everyone else to pay for your raging hunger so you eat less and leave unsastisfied. This resteraunt angers me.

New Cell Phone

7/31/2004 07:42:36 GMT

If your in the market for a new cingular cell phone in the upcoming months, I would suggest the Motorola A630. Its compact, flips out to reveal a qwerty keyboard, and has all of the features that you could ever want in a cell phone. The only problem I have with it is its battery life. Hopefully it comes out soon.

Blogging Project

7/30/2004 04:23:47 GMT

I have started working on another project.

quick journal

I'm trying to get the basic blogging features done properly, but it is turning out to be more work than I anticipated. Above all I want to keep it uncomplicated and functional. It definitely isn't there yet.

Haverford College

4/28/2004 00:29:25 GMT

Here is a quick FYI.

I will be attending Haverford College next fall.

KrisBrower.com

4/14/2004 00:46:18 GMT

I am now the proud owner of krisbrower.com!

XHTML 1.1 is such a Pain

3/25/2004 03:01:03 GMT

Why can't I use the tags? I usually avoid non-link underlines anyway, but how am I supposed to underline book titles. I am way too lazy to add another class to the css just for one underline. My page is officially valid XHTML 1.1 again. It probably won't stay that way.

False Advertising

3/20/2004 18:45:26 GMT

You may or may not be aware of the collection of false advertising.

I made one of my own:

from this image:

The Devil's Survival Guide

3/16/2004 01:46:12 GMT

I seem to be spending way too much time on school projects nowadays. I hope people outside my class will find The Devil's Survival Guide interesting or humorous. At least then my work will be justified. For those who are interested, the project was based on The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis.

College Acceptance

3/10/2004 22:38:33 GMT

I got into a college! The acceptance letter came in a big folder and the message contained comments specific to my essay. I also was awarded a "prestigious" scholarship. It covers a signifigant portion of the tuition no matter what, but it increases based on need. Unfortunately, I probably will not qualify for very much extra money because of my parent's income. I don't want to post the name of the school until I decide where I really want to go.(assuming I get into any other colleges)

Wierd Submission

3/4/2004 04:11:53 GMT

There have been very few submissions of pictures to my soccer site(exactly 2) and some of the submissions have nothing to do with soccer at all(exactly 1).

However, I am having a hard time deleting the picture because it looks neat. If anyone has seen this wierd image before please send me an email. For some reason I think it is original and would hate to delete it.

MIT Fling Failure

2/19/2004 05:53:29 GMT

Thank you for choosing fling.mit.edu as your casual sex provider! Our
sophisticated market analysts came back... drunk, and three days late.
Nonetheless, we are proud - and somewhat surprised - that popular
opinion
seems to consider us to be the *less* sketchy Valentine's Day
alternative!

We suffered through the jealousy of the runner-up services (our poster
boy
came back black and blue, claiming to have been injured in the line of
duty). We selflessly spent several hours *not* having sex while we
wrote,
tuned, and carefully verified our advanced computer-programmy stuff to
help
YOU get nookie! We even threw all caution and sanity to the cold, dark
wind and altruistically offered ourselves up to satisfy YOUR needs!

Matches were symmetrical; if you see someone on your list, you also
appear
on their list. Similarly, if someone does NOT appear on your list, you
do
not appear on their list - if they contact you and claim to have gotten
your name from fling, they're lying.

Each potential fling is listed with an email address, name, and score.
The
score indicates relative compatibility between you and your potential
fling, with higher numbers indicating a greater probability of nookie
ensuing. Because people have been trained from a young age that all
dimensionless numbers should be percentages, scores have been scaled so
that 100 is the maximum. All positive scores indicate a plausible
match;
matches with negative scores were not included. Keep in mind that
while
all email addresses have undergone minimal verification and
confirmation,
we cannot guarantee that you will receive a response.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Unfortunately, we were unable to match you! It's possible that you
were too
picky about the sort of person you were willing to accept; people
were
completely ruled out based on failing to meet the required gender,
age,
affiliation, and relationship status criteria. If you said that you
were in
a relationship and looking to cheat, that you required someone who
was not in
any other relationships, or that you were not human, this is likely
to be the
source of your difficulty; these choices unfortunately made you an
unpopular
match.

In any case, we would like to thank you for your participation in the
Black Morbid Fling Together, and wish you better luck next year.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Since our market analysts are still hung over, we need YOU to send us
your
stories - lucky successes or miserable, soul-crushing failures - so
that we
may better service you next year. We appreciate the feedback you have
already given us, and will consider it carefully. Please visit our
website
next week for tasty statistical tidbits, as well as our customer
satisfaction
survey!

This casual sex was brought to you by the numbers 6 and 9, the letter
N, a
Krispy-Kreme induced sugar high, and the generous support of SIPB.
Thank
you for your participation! We wish you a lucky Black Morbid Day and
hope
you'll stop back again next year.

-The Black Morbid Fling Faeries

The most popular Brower

2/17/2004 23:54:50 GMT

My latest and greateste goal is to become the most famous brower.(according to google) In order to accomplish this goal, I have renamed the site from kris's blog to the brower blog. Along with the fame that will surely follow, it does have a nice ring to it.

Simple Encryption and Decryption

2/17/2004 21:30:30 GMT

a particularly psychotic school friend of mine began sending me encoded messages the other day and demanded that i decode them. naturally, i did. being the geek that i am, i not only decoded them, but also made two scripts that would encode and decode for me. first i did a letter shift decoder, then a caesar box decoder, and then a letter reverse decoder. these were all ok and worked just fine but they were all bland and unoriginal.

so my friend(code name vinnie) came up with his own code. it works by starting with a random letter and then adding new letters so that the sum of the two letters equals the encoded number. for example ondklty would be o+n=b, n+d=r, d+k=o, k+l=w, l+t=e, t+y=r to read the encoded message “brower�?. i made both an encoder and a decoder for this technique. i also made the space character the 27 letter to allow for spaces. any other characters will mess up the encoder/decoder.

you can see the encoder and decoder.

My Latest Free Hosting Web Site

2/16/2004 21:55:21 GMT

I hope my latest web site will be useful to people. Previously, I had always had trouble finding free web hosting, but now have great hosting and want to share how to get it. So I made Free Web Hosting. Look for more articles there in the future. I also am trying to keep the database full of hosts that are quality and that I myself would use.

Some New Websites

1/11/2004 04:43:07 GMT

I am glad to finally have permission to post the National Honors Society site to the public. I think I put more work into this than I did any of my other sites.

Also, I am announcing my next project, namely Written Humor. With any luck I will get some people to submit some hilarious writing to the web page and give it a kick start.

More Websites and a bit of Flash

1/5/2004 22:47:51 GMT

Now I have been commissioned by my science teacher to make a chemistry web site. Somehow it has got out that I can make web sites and I don't think anyone else can(or they are just being stealthy).

This certainly isn't a bad thing, but I will be a little more busy now.

I also have created a little Flash animation for English class. Here is the Candide Project!(link removed)

What am I listening to?

1/2/2004 19:21:45 GMT

I have recently created a "What are you listening to list, image, and top list". For anyone who wants to do this, use The Winamp Do Something Tool. It is very useful.

(image removed)

(link removed)

If someone emails me asking for more detailed instructions, I will post them along with my code.

National Honor Society Webpage

12/29/2003 18:44:43 GMT

At my school, participants in National Honor Society must get five service credits by the end of the year in order to stay in National Honor Society. Previously, these credits had been kept track of by hand in excel. I have taken it upon myself with the approval of the Honor Society to automate the process using PHP and MySQL. Unfortunately I am not yet able to publish the website to the public, but when I get this permission I will post the link here.

The website allows for the Honor Society Officers to create activities, contact members, and manage credits. Members of Honor Society can check at any time and see how many credits they have, where they got these credits, and even sign up for new activities.

I'm fairly proud of this website and I don't think the people in National Honor Society realize how much work it takes to create a system like this. I get a measly two credits.

Aol Instant Messenger

12/22/2003 21:15:02 GMT

AOL Instant Messenger Bug Report
>Advertising
>>Advertising Problem
>>>How to reproduce the problem
1.) Open aol instant messenger
2.) Start conversing with contacts
3.) Out of the blue, noise starts coming from the speakers
4.) You realize it is an advertisement
5.) You try to close/pause it but you miss the button
6.) You are brought to the advertisers page in ie explorer no matter what you default browser is
7.) You close the advertisers page
8.) You vow never to buy anything from AOL again, because they just wasted your time

School Website

12/19/2003 00:00:11 GMT

It seems as if I am going to make a website for my school's National Honors Society. The plan is to make everything more automated, and I will program it with php/mysql. Its going to be a lot of work, but now I am set with credits in NHS. You can see the design at dhsnhs.tk. I would make a link, but am too lazy.

Physics Midterm

12/16/2003 03:29:47 GMT

I feel oh so confident.

In other news, I'm thinking of making my Candide project for English in flash. You can not see the Intro Candide Movie anymore

College Rejection

12/12/2003 21:13:31 GMT

Aparently Swarthmore did not feel I met their standards, and sent me a nice thin rejection letter. Oh well, their loss.

I am pretty much complete with the php and database stuff at the Internet Games website I have been developing. Now I just need to add lots of quality games. I'm finding that my old descriptions are horribly insufficent, and I will need to edit them a lot or write completely new descriptions.

New Project

12/7/2003 22:24:52 GMT

I was pondering about what kind of web site I should develop next and I began to wonder if any of my old crappy sites still had any traffic. Eventually I found my old internet games site. I figured it would be pretty easy to convert that crappy thing into php and mysql. I have already started to design the new website. You can preview the new Internet Gaming Site. As always I am going to keep the site mostly imageless and simple. I'll probably be done by this time next week at the latest.

CSS List Menu

11/29/2003 06:44:54 GMT

I have updated the menu a little bit and in my opinion it is better. Here is the code for the menu:
#menubox{
font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif;
font-size:25px;
font-weight: bold;
color: #5B6B58;
height: 20px;
border-top: 3px solid #2B3F24;
padding-left: 5px;
padding-right: 5px;
}
#menubox ul{
list-style: none;
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
border: none;
}
#menubox li{
margin: 0;
display: inline;
list-style-type: none;
}
#menubox li a{
float: left;
padding: 2px 5px 2px 5px;
background-color: #2B3F24;
background-image: url(link.gif);
font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif;
color: #232342;
font-size: 10px;
font-weight: bold;
border: 1px solid #CAE5B6;
border-bottom-width:3px;
border-top: 0px;
}

Translator

11/28/2003 04:07:11 GMT

I have recently been developing a neat little translator which translates simple sentences into complex ones. You can see the translator here: Intelligence Translator.

Once it is reasonably complete, I will make it the first addition of the new code section of this website.

The Stranger and The Metamorphosis

11/23/2003 17:40:52 GMT

I have been reading a lot for school lately, and now that were done with Shakespeare, we're reading books that I actually enjoy. Recently I read The Metamorphosis and The Stranger. I thoroughly enjoyed both of these books, and recomend them to everyone and anyone.

The Metamorphosis is the story of what would happen if one day you or one of your family members turned into a giant insect. How would you deal with your family if you were a giant bug? How would your family treat you? The well written novel recounts Gregor's transformation into a bug and his life thereafter.

The Stranger is another situational story. Suppose you had no feelings at all; completely stoic. How would you manage to survive and how would society treat you? What would happen to you if you accidentally broke the rules of society and did not care. Meursault, the existentialist in The Stranger, is the character detached with society. His story is remarkable.

RSS Feed and archives

11/23/2003 05:19:27 GMT

I have created an RSS feed and archives(although there are not very many). You can see the RSS feed here! and you can see the archives here!

Character Flaw

11/20/2003 20:42:03 GMT

I quit track today. The coach was unhappy. He said I had a character flaw. He says I quit once the going gets tough. I say Track sucks. If I don't enjoy it why should I do it. This is the first time I have quit something. I don't plan on making a habit out of it.

Valid XHTML 1.1

11/15/2003 06:29:33 GMT

I am proud to announce that all the pages on my web page are now valid XHTML 1.1. I'm not really sure what this does for me, but I know I am never going to do it again. It is a huge pain in the arse to go through every sing page and change <br> to <br/>. It does kind of give you a warm fuzzy feeling though....Wait no it doesn't.

Redesign

11/13/2003 23:09:09 GMT

Sorry for the lack of posts. I have been busy with school work and applying to colleges. Hopefully I'll get accepted into one of them.

Anyway, the site has been revamped, because the old version did not work properly with a few browsers. It seems as if fixed positioning just cannot exist without frames, and I refuse to use them.

When I haven't been working on school or applying to college I have been playing games. :) One game I have been playing is Savage. It is basically a combination of a FPS( first person shooter ) and an RTS( real time strategy ). I personally am addicted. The other incredibly stupid game that I play is Pimp Kane. I just can avoid the competitiveness of this game. Compared to other online text games, this one is fun and simple. However, they do accept money for additional "turns".

Anyway, I hope to post more now.

Redesign

10/5/2003 06:02:29 GMT

It seems that when firebird was updated to either .6.1 or .7 the fixed scrolling stopped working. In reality, mozilla just made the browser fit the standards too well for my site and fixed scrolling hack. So I am forced to redesign, and this time I am going to do it right! It will be valid xhtml 1.0 strict. You can see the basic layout so far at the following link.

(dead link)

Hurricane Brings Relief

9/19/2003 00:17:38 GMT

I was very glad to learn that my school has been closed this Friday, because of the weather brought by Hurricane Isabel. My area is in fact in no immediate danger from this storm, and the day off will be one of total relief.

Lately school and soccer have been keeping me extremely busy. I have not been enjoying the severe lack of sleep that have resulted from my overfilled schedule. I plan to sleep most of the weekend, and finally catch up on all of my school work.

Other than that, I can work on my latest project on the internet which can be found here. Hopefully my generous system administrator will apply the changes need to activate my recently purchased domain, http://soccersquared.com.

School, My Old Foe Is Again Making Much Woe

9/4/2003 00:25:06 GMT

As you may have discerned from my horribly lacking title, I am back in school. It is not my fault that the title contains a corny rhyme. I blame the school system.

My troubles began early thins morning around one o'clock. I was studiously finishing up my homework, which specifically said it was to be collected on the first day of class. Being a senior in high school, I should have learned by now that this is just a ploy by the teachers to trick the students into thinking they're nice by delaying the assignment for a few weeks. Other than that the school day went relatively well. My only other problem was English. I have every other class scheduled the way I wanted excluding English.

Here is the dilemma. The English classes are ranked as follows from hardest to easiest:
AP English
Hon English
University English
English Level 1
English Level 2

I have a choice of either AP English or Level 2 English. As you already know, my writing is not anything spectacular, but I don't have any desire to take Level 2 English, which is comparatively a remedial class. I am unsure as to what I will decide.

In other news, a student(now former student) of my high school committed suicide in the early mourning hours yesterday. He apparently hung himself after an argument with a female companion. I can not understand what would drive a person to such ends, but I am told he was using some sort of drug. I was not closely acquainted with him, but I feel bad for him anyway. I am sure that if he failed at committing suicide, he would regret the decision he made.

Music Downloads

8/29/2003 15:35:15 GMT

So the RIAA doesn't want me to download music. Ok, thats great because now I have found an alternative. While the program is very limited and perhaps buggy(especially in the windows version), it provides a way to find some new music that is not illegal.

In other news, I still have to finish my homework by next wednesday, so no updates in the blog system until at least then.

Photographs, Procrastination, and Homework (oh my)

8/23/2003 02:14:23 GMT

You heard right! You can find three new photographs in the photography section. They are entitled: Foosball, Door, and Animal. I hope everyone likes them. Oh and if you want to comment on them, too bad!

Because of my procrastination of everything that I have to do, you can't add comments to the blog, the images, or the writings...yet. However I have decided that the procrastination is going to end now. Looking at my life, I realize that most of my procrastination time is spent on the internet playing games or simply browsing the Internet.

In order to get some of my summer school assignments finished, I plan on not using the computer or internet for anything except homework. Hopefully this will expediate the homework process and allow me to spend more time later in the summer working and playing on other, more enjoyanle things.

What to do?

8/21/2003 18:46:52 GMT

I find my self in a dilemma. Should I release my new (dead link) to the public, or should I work on it further and develop a base of content from which my visitors can build on. I also want to update this website(don't you want to comment on my blog and see some more graphics) and on another very crappily designed soccer website. In addition I have school looming in the not so distant future, which includes loads of summer homework that I have not even started yet.

The only problem is that when I have lots of things to do, I can never decide what to do, and consequently never get anything done.

First Blog Entry!

8/21/2003 15:33:12 GMT

Hello and welcome to my first self made web blog. I am feeling pretty exhausted right now, because I have been playing high school soccer for about three weeks straight. During those three weeks we have played and practice twice a day for an average of five hours a day. Today is our first little break(only one three hour practice). Hopefully our hard work will pay off on Saturday when we have our first few games.