So, in English, we had to do a persuasive speech where you and a partner would take opposite sides on an issue and debate about it.

I ended up arguing about something that most people don’t pay attention to: Meat.

Yeah, everyone eats meat. Well, except for those select few that have realized the truth.

Meat itself isn’t bad for you or the environment. But the processed and manufactured meats that we all eat today cause huge problems in the world.

First off, it’s been proven that vegetarians are healthier and live longer than normal people. And if you think about it, it makes sense.

Vegetarians aren’t all skinny and malnourished like you think they would be. Most vegetarians are actually healthier and more fit than the majority of the population.

And yes. Even though you avoid meat and pills, you can still get all your nutrients that you need. Minus the hormones and carcinogens of course.

Well, enough about you. Because there are more problems with meat-eating than health-related ones.

The KFC that you had yesterday night didn’t come from a traditional red barn on a farm in Oregon. (there, i changed it. happy?) Instead, that chicken probably grew up in a factory like this:

(Yeah, try to get that picture out of you head.)

I was reading an article in Discover Magazine about a new way to calmly kill cows. The cows are loaded on to a convener belt and a automatic gun shoots bullets through their skulls as they pass by the checkpoint.

It’s really not a pretty sight. (If I can find the article again, I’ll post a link here.)

Farm animals are fed foods laced with all the hormones and drugs in the world. If a cow can grow to optimal size in 50% of the norm, that’s a 2x profit gain. Why be "organic" when you can be rich? Yeah..

And another thing. Animals eat a lot. For the one pound of beef in your cheeseburger, 16 pounds of vegetables and 1000 gallons of water was used. Yeah, there are lots of charity efforts to send food and water to 3rd world countries. But if people stopped eating meat, there would be enough vegetables in the world to feed everyone ten times over.

So, after an animal eats, where does the poop go? Well, it goes strait into our rivers and oceans. Why bother cleaning the waste when you can just dump it by the ton? Yes, I mean ton. Farm animals produce over 40 tons of feces every second. (Something to think about next time you’re constipated on the toilet.)

And global warming. Scary right? Well meat-production actually produces more CO2 emissions than all the cars/trucks/planes/boats in the world combined.

Yeah. There’s a lot more problems about meat-eating. So why doesn’t anybody stop eating meat?

Yeah, I eat meat. So what?

And here’s a cheeseburger for you to look at. :)
The buns are actually more orange than the look.

-Roger

So, a vampire and a human had a kid, and here she is:

You can tell it’s a mix because she’s only semi-transparent in this photo.

So, it rained today, which is really cool since we don’t get a lot of rain here in LA. Everyone was using umbrellas and everything felt a lot more lively since the weather did something new for a change.

There are some aquaphobes at school that have their umbrellas out even though they’re walking under the hanging. I mean, what’s the point of that? You’re not going to get rained on if you’re underneath the roofs. Maybe they just enjoy drying their umbrellas on other peoples’ heads.

If you’re going to use your umbrella, stay out in the rain. Otherwise, put it away...

Rain makes for some nice pictures:

Yeahh.. and my desktop gadget that tells me the weather changed too:

I wonder what the hail/snow one looks like...

-Roger

Me: Okay, just tell me your IP and MAC address.
Stranger: But I use Windows...

Haha.. yeah that wasn’t funny.

For my fellow grammar nazis:
http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html

If your programs use XML, HTML, RSS, or anything based in XML, there’s a tool that will encode non-english characters into XML-safe UTF versions.

http://pinyin.info/tools/converter/chars2uninumbers.html

Yeahh, have fun.

source

(Technical post. Normal people: Don’t even bother reading this.)

The title is a bit ambiguous but I’m talking about the hardware drivers in Microsoft Windows 7. Yeahh. No more googling for drivers, I’m serious.

I already told you about Win7 and my network card. If you don’t remember, Windows 7 detected my network card and installed the driver immediately. As opposed to XP where I had to look for drivers.

So, the same thing happened with my printer today. But that’s not all.

I have a HP Printer hooked up to a Windows 7 32bit computer. But my own computer is 7 x64. Yeah, crap.

I thought about loading the 64-bit driver on the 32-bit machine so that my 64-bit computer would work with the shared printer. But Windows pointed me back to Google again.. sighs.

So, I share the printer anyways and I go back to my 64-bit computer expecting errors. I connect and BAM. It’s done.

So Windows 7 has finally fixed that problem with differences in OS Architectures. Yeah, another step to Unix-level awesomeness.

Now, I just need to figure out how to work network scanners..

-Roger

Sad...

SADAKO AND THE PAPER CRANE

2005 is the 60th anniversary of the bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, using nuclear weapons.

The United States military dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima at 8.15am on 6 August 1945. Another atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki at 11.02am on 9 August 1945.

In Hiroshima, 90,000 people were killed immediately. In Nagasaki, the nuclear blast instantly killed 40,000 people. By the end of 1945, over 145,000 people had died in Hiroshima, and another 75,000 people had died in Nagasaki. Tens of thousands more suffered serious injuries. Deaths among survivors of the bombings have continued over the years due primarily to the effects of radiation exposure.

On the 60th anniversary of this act of terror, people around the world are saying “Never Again!” They are calling for nuclear disarmament by all countries that maintain stockpiles of nuclear weapons.

For children, one important international symbol of peace and disarmament is the paper crane.

The paper crane has become a symbol in recent years as a result of its connection to the story of a young Japanese girl named Sadako Sasaki, who was born in 1943.

Sadako was two years old when the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. As she grew up, Sadako was a strong, courageous and athletic girl. In 1955, at age 11, while practicing for a big race, she became dizzy and fell to the ground. Sadako was diagnosed with leukaemia, "the atom bomb" disease.

Sadako’s best friend told her of an old Japanese legend which said that anyone who folds a thousand paper cranes would be granted a wish. Sadako hoped that the gods would grant her a wish to get well so that she could run again. She started to work on the paper cranes and completed over 1000 before dying on 25 October 1955 at the age of twelve.

In spite of her poor health, she never gave up. She continued to make paper cranes until she died.

Inspired by her courage and strength, Sadako’s friends and classmates put together a book of her letters and published it. They began to dream of building a monument to Sadako and all of the children killed by the atom bomb. Young people all over Japan helped collect money for the project.

In 1958, a statue of Sadako holding a golden crane was unveiled in Hiroshima Peace Park. The children also made a wish that is inscribed at the bottom of the statue and reads:

"This is our cry, this is our prayer, Peace in the world".

Today, people all over the world fold paper cranes and send them to Sadako’s monument in Hiroshima. To send a thousand cranes to the Children’s Monument in Hiroshima’s Peace Park, string them on garlands of 100 cranes each, and mail them to:

source

Here’s some random scripts that you can use on any webpage. Just type them in the Address Bar (Like you would do with a URL) and hit enter.

(Extra random useless space)

(more space)

(Like this.)

Change the font color to red:
javascript:document.getElementsByTagName("body" )[0].style.color="red"; void(0);

Make the text enormous:
javascript:document.getElementsByTagName("body" )[0].style.fontSize="2em"; void(0);

Infinite Spam: (Don’t try this.)
javascript:while(true)alert("SPAM");

Spam until you enter the password:
javascript:var password="123456"; var text=prompt("What’s the password?"); while (text!=password)text=prompt("What’s the password?");void(0);

Edit the page that you’re looking at:
javascript:document.body.contentEditable=’true’; document.designMode=’on’; void (0);

Random Wheel: (This one isn’t mine)
javascript:R=0; x1=.1; y1=.05; x2=.25; y2=.24; x3=1.6; y3=.24; x4=300; y4=200; x5=300; y5=200; DI=document.getElementsByTagName("img"); DIL=DI.length; function A(){for(i=0; i-DIL; i++){DIS=DI[ i ].style; DIS.position=’absolute’; DIS.left=(Math.sin(R *x1+i* x2+x3)*x4+x5)+"px"; DIS.top=(Math.cos(R *y1+i*y2+y3)*y4+ y5)+"px"}R++}setInterval(’A()’ ,5); void(0);

Random Number: (Between 0 and 1)
javascript:alert(Math.random());

Go to the the best website ever:
javascript:window.location="http://www.rogerhub.com/";

Learn more about JavaScript

Google "ISO". You’ll be surprised at what it stands for..

I guess IOS just sounds weird. Right?

Each computer on a network has an IP Address.

But you probably already knew that.

You might know that most home and corporate networks share one external IP while separate computers have unique internal IP’s.

You probably know how to find your own Internal IP.

If you don’t, here’s how:

Start Menu > All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt (Run as Administrator)

Type in:
ipconfig

And there it is!
(.. that retarded red dot made the picture have that weird whiteness at the top)

Well, you probably know that you can access the printers and shared folders on that computer by going to

\\IPADDRESS

So, \\10.10.10.104 would bring up a list of my resources.

But did you know that you can access the computer’s harddrives using hidden shares?

Well, maybe you knew that.

If you didn’t, then here’s how you do it:

\\IPADDRESS\C$

The dollar sign ($) at the end of the address means that this is a hidden share. So, normally, you can’t see it. (Or else it wouldn’t be hidden.)

All you need is an account on the computer and you can access all the files on that computer from any computer on the network. Cool right?

Example:

Yeah, but you probably already knew that.

-Roger

If you’re using Mozilla Firefox (which you should be), you might notice that it starts up a little slower than Chrome or Internet Explorer.

If it’s getting unbearably slow, try SpeedyFox.

After you’re done downloading, you’ll get something that looks like this:

Close Firefox and click the "Speed Up my FireFox" button. (But come back to RogerHub later )

That’s it.

Don’t feel a speed change?
You need a new computer..

I’m just kidding.
Yeah

-Roger

This is my first post in a series called 4Nubs. Which is basically programming tutorials for noobs. So, here I go... Tell me what you think.

If you use GMail, or if you’ve ever been to GMail.com, you’ll know that they have this cool ad for their huge storage space. It’s a number that goes up continuously. Google wants you to think that you’re gaining storage space continuously.

But what seems like a second-by-second increase of mailbox quota, is actually a simple JavaScript trick. If you look into the source code, there is a timer that increments the number every 1000 milliseconds. So here, we’re going to imitate that effect, but in a simpler way.

Say, I wanted to make a hit-counter that would update itself automatically. So, I figure out that I get 1 visitor every 23 seconds. (It’s actually a lot less )

So, here’s what I would do:

First, lets layout my new magic hit counter.

You are visitor number <span id="hitcounter"></span>.

That’s it for the layout. Now for the JavaScript:

<script type="text/javascript">
var delay=23000; //Time in milliseconds
var startvalue=400; //What number to start with

function increment(){
document.getElementById("hitcounter").innerHTML = startvalue;
startvalue++;
setTimeout("increment()",delay);
}

window.onload=increment;
}
</script>

So, every 23 seconds, the hit counter will go up by one. But to get the number of hits that have already passed, you’ll need some more programming.. Hmm. So I guess this isn’t really useful.

Oh well.
Bye

-Roger

Sadly, a lot of things tick me off. Here are my top 5

5. Reading Billboards Out Loud

Billboards, signs, anything that can be read. Someone just has to read it aloud. It’s not like I’m illiterate. Are you reading aloud billboards because you want me to pay attention to them? If you want to point something out, just gesture towards it instead of mocking my intelligence and reading it aloud.

4. Taking Things too Seriously

Not everything is meant to be a debate. If you don’t agree with me about something, just tell me. But if the conversation goes on for more than 2 or 3 sentences, just drop it.

Some people take their opinions way to heavily. It’s great to stand up for what you believe in, but don’t argue about trivial things and subjects that aren’t important.

3. 1-Word Texts

"Hey, on RogerHub I’m thinking about making a music player where people can listen to music that I put up. Maybe I’ll have a repeat option or something. And people can request songs to be put up there. I’ll just have the music stream from YouTube so I don’t have to pay for the bandwith. Do you think it’s a good idea?"

Reply:
"Yea"

Are you serious? Did you press the SEND button too early? I spent like a whole 3 minutes typing up that text, and you just reply with half of a word. "Yea". I know that I didn’t leave many topics for a continued conversation, but at least give me more than one measly word.

If you’re busy and you don’t have the time to type up a complete sentence, don’t text back at all. (Normal) People don’t spend their whole lives on the phone texting. (Unless you’re really really bored.) It’s understandable that it could take hours for a reply, but replying with a single word is just insulting.

You’re basically telling the other person, "I got your text, but more important things concern me at the moment. I don’t appreciate you taking the time to share your ideas and I don’t care about you enough to ponder it for more than 4 seconds. I am replying with a single word, both so that I don’t have to remember what you told me, and so that you wont think that I reply slowly. I am purposely leaving no room for further conversation so that you can quietly leave my life. Good-bye."

Not very pleasant...

2. Leg Shaking

When you’re little, you naturally have a lot of stamina and you tend to work it off by shaking your leg. But seriously, leg shaking is very very annoying to whoever is sitting next to you.

If you have so much energy that you can’t stop yourself from shaking, go run a mile. Still have energy? Go run another one. Go run 10 miles. Keep running till you’re too sore and tired to shake your leg anymore.

The nicer and more practical solution is to just control it. Keep reminding yourself to stop shaking your leg and the habit will disappear.

1. Spreading False Information

To illustrate this one, I will be using this comic:

If you’re not sure about something, mention it. Nobody’s going to judge you because you’re not sure about something.

If you’re going to tell other people something, make sure that you know what you’re talking about. You wouldn’t believe how quickly false information can influence people.

Back in Elementary School:

"Computers have something called IP Addresses"

"IP Addresses are unique, so you have to keep them secret."

(A few more conversations later)

"If I know your IP Address, I can overload your Power Supply and blow up your computer.

I’m not even joking.

People left and right were claiming that they blew up their enemies’ computers because they found their IP Address.

Yeah, this is pretty common amongst 8-year olds, but now, people should be old enough to research things before sharing information.

So, I’m not saying that I’ve never done any of these above things (Because I have). << Wrote that to satisfy any complaints from Kenny

Okay, I’m done ranting now.

-Roger

Hey.. wanna see something cool? Press CTRL+D

Every week in the L.A. Times, there’s a Fry’s commercial on the back of the news section. Most days, the commercial takes up the whole back panel of the section, but sometimes, the commercial actually spans 4 pages.

One product that is invariably on Fry’s commercials is antivirus. It’s a complex situation, but there’s a lot of money being made off popular antivirus suites like Norton or Kaspersky. But how effective are these solutions?

Chances are that you’ve had at least one encounter with a computer virus. Maybe it was a stupid mistake, or a pop-up ad that you got it from. Maybe you had antivirus at the time, and maybe you didn’t. When computers are so central to our lives (like they are today), viruses can be nasty and costly to remove.

So, how do you prevent getting viruses in the first place? Obviously, antiviruses are a part of the solution, but only a small part.

Let’s first look at the most common place that viruses come from: The Internet. With a secure and up-to-date Internet Browser (like Mozilla Firefox), over 80% of viruses can be stopped. (I made that statistic up) Another 15% can be blocked with a good ad-blocking add-on. (made this one up too)

But some attacks (like downloaded files) will get through Firefox’s security and without further protection, you’ll be infected with a nasty virus.

Here’s where your Anti-Virus Suite comes in. Firefox automatically scans all downloaded files with the antivirus that you have on your computer. In addition to this, your antivirus will scan the file again when you run it.

Antiviruses will add another 4% of protection to your PC, leaving you with only a 1% slot of infection.

Window’s virus patches and hotfixes are efficient, but they often overlap with anti virus and Web Browser security. So they’re like 0.1% maybe. If a Microsoft patch prevents a virus infection, you got really really lucky.

But still, 1% isn’t nearly small enough. So what do you do now? Another antivirus isn’t going to help. The solution to patch up this 1% is very simple: Backups.

External hard drives work great, but disk partitions work too. Usually, viruses aren’t after the complete destruction of your computer, but occasionally they will overwrite firmware and bootsectors within your computer.

In these rare occasions, a backup is the ideal solution. You should backup your

• Program Installers
  

• Documents and Files
  

• Pictures and Movies

and anything else that has any value to you. Of course, backups wont guarantee 100% protection for your precious data. (Because there’s a 0.001% chance that a terrorist will bomb your house.)

Windows 7’s libraries make backing up documents even easier. Instead of storing your documents on your C:\ drive, you can make a new folder on an external harddrive and set that folder as your documents folder.

So, have fun securing your computer :)

Well, that was a really boring post because there were no pictures

So, here’s a comic:

source

-Roger