A Random Pattern

First Post! (on WordPress, that is.)

Those of you coming from my other blog on Blogger will recognize the signs after my complaint about Blogger – I’m here to check out WordPress. Still have to get a hosted service and all, but this will at least give me an idea what WP has to offer. From a brief survey earlier, it looks like WP would be better for me than MT (Movable Type – or Typepad), even though I’m not opposed to paying for good software. Anyone who wants to weigh in, please do.

This is an example of a WordPress page, you could edit this to put information about yourself or your site so readers know where you are coming from. You can create as many pages like this one or sub-pages as you like and manage all of your content inside of WordPress.

I finished the nfshost puzzle the other night. Wasn’t terribly exciting, really – I guess I was a little disappointed with the ending. Guess it shows how hard it is to craft a really good puzzle.

Luckily I found this other puzzle to keep me busy now: wefriddles. This one’s a lot more friendly, too: each page (so far) tells you what number you’re on! The creator also gives directions on the first page. Warning, though, the rumor is this one gets hard quicker.

If you’re just looking for hints on n.nfshost.com, most of what is out there is spoilers, which isn’t any fun. So I’m going to put up a “gentle tip” guide that will help you out without stealing your satisfaction. Look for that in the next day or so.

If you really just want the answers, I shouldn’t provide them, but…. they’re here if you look hard enough (sigh).

http://blog.snaggd.com/?p=7: this one at least has hints and explanations.
http://snm.imeem.com/blogentry/VuS7Z4gK,Ridiculously_Annoying_Puzzle_Game No explanations or help, just a spoiler list of all n.nfshost.com links.

From this search, you can find my new project on Google Code. Uh, my brand new project…

shareboard – collaborative whiteboard and shared document editing space

Actually, you may have noticed from an earlier post that I’ve been thinking about this for awhile. Last I looked, there wasn’t anything out there that met my needs. This time I found something (the Coccinella project), so I may have to rethink.

Anyways, for the last few days I’ve been thinking about building a mini-version of this for the Google Desktop Gadget Challenge. Don’t think I have enough time to complete it for the challenge, given my current skillset. Still, it would be nice to try.

You can see from my comments on this long-ago post with the Google Talk team that I really have been wanting this for awhile.

Anybody have any feedback or suggestions? I’d love to hear what you have to say. Is this needed? Would you use it, and if so how?

Gotta dig this stuff. We’re still holding on until Steve Jobs does the big unveil of the next Mac OS in less than a month, and these fake, dreamy screenshots are helping me survive.

Please, Steve, fulfill some dreams! My personal faves would be much improved metadata[1], as well as collaboration abilities. Here’s the number one winner of the afore-linked contest: First Place, Eric Patterson.

Speaking of which, this person stole my idea! Ok, not really, but I’ve been thinking about this ever since Google Talk came out. Props to Adam Shutsa for the very nice iMeeting concept.

Very provoking Q&A over on Yahoo Answers. Although lots of complications to the answer are skipped over, it’s probably a pretty good gross approximation. Look at this little bit of the answer:

How much money (in US$) would I get if we divided up all the wealth in the world into equal amounts?

…for an individual share value of $6,685.92….

Alright, seriously, go read the answer in full. Then come back here.

Now, think about your net worth. Looking at where my viewership hails from, it’s a pretty good bet that you’re worth more than $6700. Not to mention you probably use / manage between 10 and 100 times that much wealth.

To me, this means I’m WAAYYYY above the wealth of the average human. Huh. Kinda makes you stop and think, I hope. So if you don’t think you have money to give, or that it’s not needed….

WAKE UP!!!! You are living in the lap of luxury, and if you can’t afford to keep up with your neighbors, maybe you’re looking at the wrong people as neighbors!

Take a look at this shocking article, Microsoft says Vista to allow Google search engine:

Microsoft says Vista will allow other search engines as default.

“Our goal is to be principled and transparent as we develop new versions of Windows”

I originally had a 12 paragraph reply, which got eaten when my software crashed. I don’t have enough time to rewrite it all, so you’re going to get the short version this time. I don’t expect much complaining about that.

Microsoft has a Monopoly, and in a capitalist environment Monopolies have to follow different rules. Microsoft didn’t find this easy: the same ruthless business instinct that got them where they were, made it too easy to keep them there by illegitimate means. Several lawsuits later, Microsoft much more carefully watches it’s step.

Still, this move, as smart as it is, surprises me because it doesn’t seem Microsoft was forceably backed into it. Instead, they used the massive brainpower stored up in Seattle, and realized they probably would be forced to this. So instead they made the ethical, and competitively-friendly decision to allow distributors to preconfigure computers (gasp!).

Alright, this is getting long, and I hope you get the point. Read the article: it’s a nice move from Microsoft, which has slowly been turning the ship the last year or two with help from Scoble and the extensive Office 2007 team. Let’s see if the new blood and brains can perservere, and clean out the old, dirty corporation…

Via Nathan Weinberg’s return post on InsideGoogle, I quite accidentally discovered this delicious puzzle challenge.

There’s already a blog dedicated to Wei-Hwa’s puzzle challenge, and it seems to have most of the weekly puzzles.

If you’d like, you can Add the puzzle to your Google personal homepage (if you have one set up).

If you want some help getting started on week 9’s puzzle, the googlepuzzles blog offered this very helpful hint: Plug one of the words you need to convert into Webster’s Online Dictionary, then look near the bottom of the entry for anagrams.

I have made good progress tonight. I believe I’m at 28 now. It’s really hard to keep count! (At least for me – I can’t even keep count when playing something like racquetball or tennis ).

I’m surprised there haven’t been more questions. Let’s see… I got stuck on 7, then 13, then 17 was a bit of a challenge. From 19 on it’s been pretty good and challenging, though some were really easy as they followed on the same thought-path as the previous puzzle.

If you are thoroughly stuck, I recommend the following:
1. Don’t look up any spoilers. At least not yet!
2. Go away and try again tomorrow, or later on. When your brain’s had a rest, it’ll have a better chance.
3. No really, give it a break.
4. Ok, start over on this puzzle. Erase your previous guesses from your mind.
5. What clues are you given? If you don’t see a clue, go back to the previous page and compare it to this. What has changed?
6. The easiest way to compare is to view the source for the page. By the 20 puzzle, you ought to be pretty familiar with what the source for this puzzle looks like.
7. Did the clue not help too much? Try a little creative googling (but not for the spoiler! You can still figure this out!)
8. Once you figure out what direction the clue’s pointing in, you’re good to go.
9. Still stuck? Not even a vague idea? Alright, you can look up some hints. Ask here in the comments, read through my earlier posts, or follow the link to the digg conversation – but be very careful, it’s full of spoilers! You won’t be nearly as happy if you find something that gives it away. I like to start with gentle hints first. I’ll put out the gentle hint guide once I complete the puzzle.

Good luck!

Over the course of several days, I’ve now made it to 25 out of a reported 30. I generally try and do one or two in the evening, but the other night I had a breakthrough when I got through twenty-one, and flew straight through to 25!

It was fairly satisfying, though the puzzles were easy compared to some of the earlier ones. Still, 25’s puzzle looks promisingly challenging. We’ll see how it goes tonight…