Apathetic Zeitgeist for 2011

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It’s Apathetic Thursday and it’s time to take a look at all the terms which sometimes inexplicably lead people to my site.

I’m going to refrain from talking about the data too much and just let the number speak for themselves. Most this information is really only valuable to me and this is an easy way to archive things. So enjoy!

Here are the top 10 searches, provided by WordPress’ built in web stats (now part of JetPack.)

Search Term Number of Searches
portal test chamber sign 266
pi shirt 190
metroids 143
pi shirts 121
chamber music hero 102
mario games 91
i ate sum pi 78
portal test chamber signs 78
m&m addiction 71

WordPress provides me with the top 500 search terms, so I ran the list through http://textalyser.net/ for frequency analysis.

Word Occurrences Frequency Rank
portal 83 5.4% 1
chamber 57 3.7% 2
airtunes 57 3.7% 2
test 52 3.4% 3
mario 38 2.5% 4
out 36 2.4% 5
sign 26 1.7% 6
airport 25 1.6% 7
kart 24 1.6% 7
flickr 19 1.2% 8

Sorting though the list of 500 search terms, using only my vast intellect and Apple’s Numbers:

Term Search phrases containing term total searches containing term % of total searches
Portal 93 880 21.96%
Pi 77 862 21.51%
Chamber 66 857 21.38%
Sign 57 753 18.79%
Test 57 684 17.07%
mario 44 390 9.73%
Metroid 22 356 8.88%
Airtunes 59 328 8.18%
Kart 36 198 4.94%
M&M 13 126 3.14%
addiction 10 111 2.77%
flickr 25 88 2.20%
WordPress 20 69 1.72%
Tetris 7 47 1.17%
bug 6 45 1.12%

(*Note, some searches contained more than one term, so percent will not add up to 100)

Comments:
AirTunes. Clearly wireless technology such as AirPlay is still giving some people problems. I don’t imagine this will get any smoother as more devices start becoming wireless. The posts people are digging up are from 2007 and the same issues are still plaguing people today.

M&M Addiction. There must be some sort of conspiracy theory or television reference to M&M Addiction, because I get a lot of hits on that. I know I’m addicted to chocolate, but I didn’t know this was “a thing.”

Portal. I’m glad my Portal sign got some attention this year. I was kinda hoping it would hit some of the mainstream sites, but it never went completely viral. Maybe next year.

Bug. My “bugs in keyboard” post has generated more traffic than I expected it to. Although I had a spider run and hide in my keyboard, apparently other people have bugs coming out of their keyboards… *eeeewwww*

Chamber. While a lot of the “Chamber” searches were people looking for Portal things, a good portion game from people where looking for the Foxtrot “Chamber Music Hero” comic, which I linked to shortly after it came out.

Awards:
The “What is this I don’t even” Award goes to the 2 people who searched for:
“why do tiny ants on my cumputer”

The “Grammar King” award goes to the two people who searched for:
“if ms word file incomplete then how save complete”

The “How on earth did you find my site?” award goes to the two people who searched for:
“gooseberry drink”

Video Game Music

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I listen to a lot of video game music. My iTunes library consists of 7000+ video game songs (11 days, 9 hours, 54 minutes, and six seconds)* including OSTs, Remixes, OCRemixes, ZREO Orchestrations, and more. Most of the music is from games I have played and enjoyed, some is from games I have never even heard of (until I found their soundtrack). I enjoy the music in part because it is mostly without lyrics (a musical feature I find distracting during certain activities like writing.)

One thing I enjoy is listening to the different styles for each game. It’s almost like a fingerprint. I consider myself a meager video game music connoisseur and my bother and I sometimes play games where we need to guess which game the music is from. MegaMan has a very distinct musical style, much different than Zelda. Metroid, Kirby, Donkey Kong, Halo, Final Fantasy, the list goes on, are fairly easy to distinguish between musically.

Of course some of the games are similar in music as well. Some remixes blend and shift the musical style and make it hard to pinpoint. Other times a single song from a game will have qualities that point towards a different game all together.

Take Nayru’s Song for example: (This version is from ZREO Music.)

Often when I listen I am not looking at the song information and when I first heard this song I assumed that it was either from Metroid Prime or one of the sequels. Only recently did I notice that the song was from Zelda: Oracle of Ages/Seasons.

Originally I thought the music was somewhere from Metroid Prime 2′s Light Temple, since I had distinct imagery in my head when I heard the piece, but upon further investigation it appeared I was wrong.

MP2 Light Temple:

Out of curiosity I hunted out other potential doppelgangers for the song.

MP Chozo Temple: 

MP2 Sky Temple Gateway: 

MP Phendrana Drifts Chozo Temple: 

None of the songs were quite as close as I had originally expected, but there are definitely some similarities. Many of the Metroid songs have high pitched flowing melodies. with deeper undertones and harmonies. The only thing that the Zelda piece is missing is a strong beat, and perhaps using voices to sing or chant the lower parts.

Part of the confusion might come from the re-orchestration provided by the ZREO team, because when I went back to listen to the original it wasn’t quite as Metroid-y.

Still it is very interesting how different games present themselves musically and have a specific audio branding.

*Notes:
1 – I only have about 9609 songs in my entire library, if that gives you an perspective on my listening habits.
2 – I use to have more video game music but I recently deleted a few soundtracks I was beginning to find annoying, such as the mario golf and mario tennis songs.

*EDIT:* Due to conflict between the MediaElement.js plugin and the Jetpack plugin the audio tracks were not showing up when I first wrote this post. Before publishing I disabled MediaElement and went with the Jetpack version, but that only uses flash and doesn’t have an HTML fallback. Today I had some time for research and discovered an alternative tag I could use with MediaElement.js and now the audio here should be playable on all devices, including iOS. Just thought you’d like to know.

Ask Better Questions

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When shopping for calculators, computers, tablets, televisions, cameras, and other electronics the number one question I hear asked is ‘which one is best’? This is the wrong question to ask… Or at least, an incomplete question.

Let’s go hammer shopping and I’ll show you what I mean.

HammerDuring high school I worked in a hardware store. If you came in looking for the best hammer, I would probably point you towards one like this. It’s just like the hammers my dad and grandpa have. It works well and it’s cheap, so it must be the best. Right?


HammerWell, a few years later when I worked construction with my uncle. He gave me a hammer like this. It’s solid steel, so there is nothing to break in the handle. It’s a but heavier, but drives nails faster. So clearly, this is the best.


070609btThat is, unless you are trying to break a concrete wall. In which case I would direct you to a sledge hammer. Its strong, heavy and can take out any wall, concrete or wood. The strongest and heaviest hammer must be the best, right?


Hammer timeUnless you don’t want to destroy what you are pounding on. Maybe you really want a rubber mallet. If you are working with wooden pegs, maybe this is the best hammer.


HammerAlthough, if you plan to give this hammer to a 5 year old child, you should maybe plan to buy a small plastic hammer, or maybe one of those squishy hammers.

So what did we learn today?

We cannot answer the question ‘which is best’ without a use case.

So ask better questions.

One problem is that most people don’t understand the the technology to know what to ask. You have to slowly walk them through their options and find out what they want to use the device for.

Which means both the user and the helper have to ask better questions.

How do we solve this?

As better questions.

EDIT: When looking for images to accompany this post I discovered that there are a lot more hammer types than I had thought. I didn’t need to go into more detail to make my point in this case, but the Art of Manliness website has a post on How to Handle a Hammer and they list 10 different hammer types, along with hammer safety and usage tips. (And this doesn’t even begin to cover war hammers, masonry hammers, judge gavels, etc.)

The New Server

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Every now and then I like to go back and look through documents I wrote years ago. (Like, 3-5 years.) I usually stumble across a number of ‘gems’ I don’t remember ever writing. While I usually don’t feel it’s my best work, I sometimes find it entertaining, and feel like sharing it with the world.

So here’s something I came up with in 2007, most likely inspired by Dilbert, though probably not as funny.

Also, I think this is meant to be a cartoon, but since I can’t draw, you’ll have to imagine it. If you can draw, and wanted to draw this, feel free. I’d love to see what you could do with it.

Sales Rep: Sir, your company NEEDS a server like this, it is packed with amazing technology. First off, it has plenty of bandwidth so you can connect all your computers to it, and it won’t slow down. It’s got 18 cubic feet of storage space, so you will never run out of room. Plus it has some great custom features as well.

Since most viruses spread through email attachments, we’ve disabled attachments completely, and since most people receive 400 spam messages a day, we also simply blocked the sending and receiving of messages.

But that’s not the best part! Lots of websites have annoying pop-up windows, so the server is set to block those too.

And since some viruses can be downloaded, it also disables downloading of files. Also, bad websites could be a problem, so it disables the downloading of any page.

To prevent hackers, it won’t let anyone log on, change, save or add files, and it reboots every 42 and a half seconds to prevent crashes and data loss.

Boss: How Much Does it cost?

Sales Rep: That’s a good question. I usually sell them for $370,000… but I’ll tell you what. I’ll give it to you for $250,000.

Boss: I’ll Take it!

Main Character: Let me get this straight. You bought a cardboard box with the word Server written on it in crayon, for $250,000?

Boss: It was a good deal, I saved $120,000.

Main Character: You could have picked one up of the side of the street for free!

Boss: Look, he even threw in the cables!

Main Character: I can’t believe my boss bought a cardboard box for $250,000… How on earth did he become head of a company?

Worker 1: Yeah… Had I known he was that gullible, I would have tried that years ago.

Hobo: Hey, that’s my house!

Main Character: What? No, that’s our new server…

Hobo: Server? What is a server?

Main Character: I mean it’s not our server…

Hobo: No, it’s not. It’s my house. I’ve been living in that cardboard box for 3 years, until some one stole it yesterday.

Main Character: Hmm.. tell you what, why don’t you just take it back, and we’ll call the whole thing even.

Boss: Main Character, I have bad news for you…

Main Character: Let me guess, the server is missing?

Boss: No… is it?

Main Character: Um… no… why do you ask?

Boss: No reason… anyway, I just came to tell you you’re fired.

Main Character: What?!?!

Boss: We’re having some financial difficulties… See this server cost more than I anticipated…

Main Character: No.. no.. You are NOT firing me over this stupid cardboard box!

Boss: …and I had to buy some upgrades and stuff…

Main Character: Are you even listening to me?

Boss: And with this new financial advisor I hired, I can’t keep you around…

Main Character: IT’S A %^*& CARDBOARD BOX!!!!

Boss: Besides, you are the most experienced employee I have…

Main Character: Which would make me the least logical person to fire…

Boss: Which means that you have the highest pay, you’re the most logical choice.

Main Character: I can’t believe my boss fired me over a stupid cardboard box. I can’t imagine who would even try to sell a cardboard box as a server, let alone succeed in doing so.

Sales Rep: Can I interest you in a Toaster? It may look like a grocery bag…

Through the filters: FBI SPAM?

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I received this spam message today. It somehow made it through the Yahoo Spam filter. (Yahoo’s not quite up to Gmail standards yet.) Here is my line by line commentary of the letter. (I noted a few of the gramatical errors, but didn’t feel like marking up the entire document, so most are left untouched.)

To: MrBobDobolina
From: FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (admin@hzhky.com)

Yup, definitely from the FBI.

Subject: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)!!!

Little known fact, the FBI is a heavy backer of exclamation marks.

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
Anti-Terrorist And Monitory Crime Division.
Federal Bureau Of Investigation.
J.Edgar.Hoover Building Washington Dc
Customers Service Hours / Monday To Saturday
Office Hours Monday to Saturday:

I’m glad the FBI has such open office hours. It makes me happy to know they are working so hard, except on Sundays. I assume the baddies take Sundays off too.

Dear Beneficiary,

Because the FBI has no idea what my actual name is.

Series of meetings have been held over the past 7 months with the secretary general of the United Nations Organization. This ended 3 days ago.

Yes, I remember hearing about that in the news.

It is obvious that you have not received your fund which is to the tune of $850,000.00…

Oh it is glaringly obvious.

…due to past corrupt Governmental Officials who almost held the fund to themselves for their selfish reason and some individuals who have taken advantage of your fund all in an attempt to swindle your fund which has led to so many losses from your end and unnecessary delay in the receipt of your fund.

Can anyone say ‘run-on sentence’? Also, I’m glad the Government Officials only had one selfish reason.

The National Central Bureau of Interpol enhanced by the United Nations and Federal Bureau of Investigation have successfully passed a mandate to the current president of Nigeria his Excellency President Good luck[sic] Jonathan

Why can’t our leaders have names like Goodluck Johnathan? I would totally vote for him.

to boost the exercise of clearing all foreign debts owed to you and other individuals and organizations who have been found not to have receive their Contract Sum, Lottery/Gambling, Inheritance and the likes.

Now suddenly we are talking about Contract payments, Gambling, and Inheritance? What happened to the corrupt politicians who were forced into compliance three days ago?

Now how would you like to receive your payment? Because we have two method of payment which is by Check or by ATM card?

Gold bricks.

ATM Card: We will be issuing you a custom pin based ATM card which you will use to withdraw up to $3,000 per day from any ATM machine that has the Master Card Logo on it and the card have to be renewed in 4 years time which is 2014.

Current date: Dec. 3, 2011. Clearly this letter is a year old, I hope the offer still stands. Why couldn’t they have told me about this sooner!?!??!

Also with the ATM card you will be able to transfer your funds to your local bank account. The ATM card comes with a handbook or manual to enlighten you about how to use it. Even if you do not have a bank account.

Oh good. Because I don’t have a bank account and I have never learned how to use an ATM.

Check: To be deposited in your bank for it to be cleared within three working days. Your payment would be sent to you via any of your preferred option[sic] and would be mailed to you via UPS.

Say what?

Because we have signed a contract with UPS which should expire in next three weeks you will only need to pay $135 instead of $420 saving you $285

Wait, three weeks from now or three weeks from then?

So if you pay before the three weeks 2011 you save $285

2011 is only three weeks?!?!?! I’m confused. Also, can anyone say “punctuation”?

Take note that anyone asking you for some kind of money above the usual fee is definitely a fraudsters

Those dirty fraudsters. Asking for money above the usual fee…

and you will have to stop communication with every other person if you have been in contact with any.

I’ve been in contact with my mother, does that count?

Also remember that all you will ever have to spend is $135.00 nothing more! Nothing less! And we guarantee the receipt of your fund to be successfully delivered to you within the next 24hrs after the receipt of payment has been confirmed.

Note: Everything has been taken care of by the Federal Government of Nigeria, The United Nation[sic] and also the FBI and including taxes, custom paper and clearance duty so all you will ever need to pay is $135.

There is only one United Nation!

DO NOT SEND MONEY TO ANYONE UNTIL YOU READ THIS:

Ooops.

The actual fees for shipping your ATM card is $420

WHAT!?!? Are you a fraudster?

but because UPS have temporarily discontinued the C.O.D which gives you the chance to pay when package is delivered for international shipping We had to sign contract with them for bulk shipping which makes the fees reduce from the actual fee of $420 to $135 nothing more and no hidden fees of any sort!

Oh, whew! You had me scared for a second.

To effect the release of your fund valued at $850,000.00 you are advised to contact our correspondent in Africa the delivery officer Scott Mandy Will with the information below,

Punctuation. Capitalization. The word “help”.

Email: scott.mandy@yahoo.cn
You are advised to contact him with the informations as stated below:

1) Your full Name:
2) Home/Cell Phone:
3) Occupation:
4) Age:
5) Sex:
Preferred Payment Method (ATM / Cashier Check)

So in order for me to get my money, I first need to give a bunch of extraneous information to someone in Africa. Okay, that makes sense. I like how I don’t have to give an address. Just a name and phone number.

Upon receipt of payment the delivery officer will ensure that your package is sent within 24 working hours.

Working hours. Africa time or my time? Because I’m pretty sure I’m working at all hours. Just like the FBI

Because we are so sure of everything we are giving you a 100% money back guarantee if you do not receive payment/package within the next 24hrs after you have made the payment for shipping.

Yours sincerely,
Miss Donna Story
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20535

Note: Do disregard any email you get from any impostors or offices claiming to be in possession of your ATM CARD,

Like you? Oh, don’t worry. I will.

you are hereby advice[sic] only to be in contact with John Will

Wait, who is John Will?

of the ATM CARD CENTRE

Oh hey! We are British now!

who is the rightful person to deal with in regards to your ATM CARD PAYMENT and forward any emails you get from impostors to this office so we could act upon and commence investigation.

Which office? What address? Because I think I have an email from an impostor.

I honestly don’t know how any English speaking person could fall for this. Is the target audience foreigners?

A Technology Rant

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To all of you PC and Linux users who say that the PC is a superior platform because you can “tweak” it, and it’s for “smart people” to use.

You’re right. I feel so much better, having spent an hour troubleshooting the lack of sound in my video game. That hour I could have been playing was much better spent in frustration and tedious research. Had I been able to play for another hour I would have more quickly realized that my game would freeze for an unspecified reason at a specific point every time I tried to move to level two of my game. Without that initial crash I would not have lost my save data and remembered that I couldn’t rely on autosave, and would not have had to play through the first two hours a second time.

These machines we own, these piles of plastic and metal are nothing but toys. Cheap, pathetic toys and it’s a surprise they even run at all.

Half of you are currently scrolling to the comment section to tell me that I need to update my drivers. Others are blaming the software vendors. A few of you have already typed “get a Mac” and are about to press “submit.”

That’s not the point.

The point is that THIS IS NOT THE FUTURE.

THIS IS A DISASTER! We are living in A MESS.

I have an old and unhappy smart phone. It runs android. It’s crashed on me. But it’s crashed on me less in the last two years than my PC has crashed in 3 months. My iPad’s crashes can be counted on one hand. On both these devices apps can be deleted an reinstalled with minimal fuss in only a few minutes. You don’t even have to loose your data!

It’s often been joked that “Linux is free, if you don’t value your time.” This is almost becoming true for any PC. The time it takes to care for the stupid little critters is hardly worth the cost of owning one.

I know how much some people cringe at the though of a closed garden and closely groomed ecosystem. But IT WORKS.

Technology is suppose to make our lives easier. We spent the first 30 years of personal computing making our lives harder. We have finally started to learn how to correct this and our technology has finally reached a stage where we can make this possible.

Our solution always tends to be “we need newer technology.” The updated software and hardware has done little to ease our burdens. We just get frustrated and annoyed faster. We don’t need “better” technology, we need BETTER DESIGNED technology.

We need things with LESS FEATURES. We want LESS TO GO WRONG. We want all our things to WORK.

So stop telling me this video editing app is better than that one. They both have problems. Stop telling me OGG is better than MP3. Because nothing can play it. Stop telling me that a free system is better than my paid ones. You get what you pay for.

Let’s stop supporting the crap that doesn’t work start perfecting the stuff that does.

Apathetic Dictionary: Fanboy

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Fanboy, noun: an enthusiastic devotee who is continually irritated about inconsequential changes.

Examples:
Gamer: I see they are coming up with a new Final Fantasy game.
Fanboy: I know! It’s going to be awesome, but they changed they changed the name of my favorite character and now all the hair styles are the same, which is SUPER irritating.

Gamer: I hear they are remaking an old Final Fantasy game.
Fanboy: Oh, I just can’t wait for it to come out. The only problem is that they upgraded the graphics so it’s not going to have the retro feel, so it’s almost like ‘why even bother?’

Gamer: So they are bringing an old Final Fantasy game to a new platform, complete with all the old graphics and everything!
Fanboy: Yeah it should be pretty good. Except they are using the American version and not the Japanese version, which is pretty much the same, but some of the characters have different colored hats. And I heard they are fixing all the typos from the original, which I’m sure is totally going to ruin the experience. That and it would be cool if they upgraded the graphics to HD.

See Also: Nintendo Fanboy

Nintendo Fanboy, noun: an enthusiastic devotee of Nintendo products and owner of at least 8 copies of The Legend of Zelda, Ocarina of Time.

Tetris Shelf – Redux

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I finished a second set of Tetris Shelf pieces this last week. It’s actually my first complete set, since I only made four pieces the first time.

Tetris Shelf - Second SetI put the new pieces on the bottom, since I used screws and wood glue to hold them together. The first set only has glue and nails and in a piece or two the glue bonds broke when the pieces were incorrectly handled. (Read: dropped.) I may go back and strengthen the bonds with screws, but for now they sit nicely together without falling over.

Tetris - Full shelf

eBay is My Playground: Episode 2

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I sold an item on eBay to someone who wanted me ship overseas. After haggling over shipping charges, I finally found something he could agree to and sent an invoice. A week later he requested I send the invoice again. 20 days after the auction ended and two invoices later, I sent this message.

To: Shawn
From: MrBobDobolina
Date: September 12
Subject: Payment

Dear Shawn,

I hope all is going well with you. I sent you an invoice for the total, which came to $***. eBay should have sent you a message listing the price of the item as well as the cost of shipping. If it’s not in your email it might be in your eBay messages.

I know you are very eager to have me ship the item out and it is all packed up and ready to go as soon as I receive payment.

I once had paypal freeze my account and when I tried to order something on eBay it took several weeks for the shipment to finally come through. It was very sad in the end, because I had ordered special birthday candles for a surprise birthday party and they came several days after the event. For the party I was forced to use cigarrettes instead of candles and when they were blown out they made a huge mess and many of the guests were upset about the second hand smoke.

When the real candles came a few days later, I tried to hold a second party, but no one came and I fed the cake to my cat.

mrbobdobolina

Sadly, I never heard from him again.

Two days after eBay automatically went through the unpaid item process and re-listed my item, I had an email from someone else.

To: MrBobDobolina
From: David
Date: September 29
Subject: International Shipping

Hi, I was wondering if you would be willing to ship to Hungary?

Thanks.

David.

To: David
From: MrBobDobolina
Date: September 29
Subject: RE:International Shipping

If you are really willing to pay for the shipping charges to ship the item overseas, I would be more than happy to send it to you. However, I recently was approached about having the item shipped to India and the shipping total came to $***.** and I was told that the cost was too high and the bidder backed out and never paid me.

These recent experiences have cautioned my formerly carefree shipping attitude and made me the wiser man that I am today. Although I also attribute my wisdom to both my rigorous exercise routine and my daily doses of vitamins, which most days consists of Vitamin C, D, E, B and usually a handful of M&Ms or the sugar-free Ice Breakers Sours. I’ve recently grown fond of these sour candies, yet I have a tendency to chew them, which is probably not their intended method of consumption. I honestly wouldn’t mind if they came in a sugar-filled version, but they probably wouldn’t sell as well and the last thing I would want is for a large company like Hershey to throw money away on a product only I would buy.

Assuming from your last email that you are from Hungary, I also assume you must be all up in arms about the new ‘chocolate tax’ that has been proposed to parliament. There are a lot of political issues that I find confusing, but I think if more candidates told me how they felt about chocolate I could really relate to politics more. I could actual cast my vote on important matters, such as sugar consumption, rather than silly things I don’t care about such as health care and budget cuts.

If I ever got into government my platform would be all for free sandwiches on Fridays. I really love sandwiches and I think Fridays would be the best day to have free ones. I would also try to switch around everyone’s work schedule so they worked on weekends and had weekdays off. I think this is a good plan, and I know that I would vote for myself if I was ever given the option.

MrBobDobolina

Again, my email elicited no response, but a different person did buy my item and I shipped it out to a US address a few days later.