Calculator nostalgia
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
I've been looking for a new calculator, preferably, one with statistical functions available. I.e. standard deviation (the n-1 one), et al.
Technically speaking, I don't need one, as I already have a Casio calculator: the
FX-7000G. Since, I haven't used it for around 10 years, the batteries are completely dead. It takes two nickel sized battery replacements, which are more expensive to replace than the cost of brand new calculator.
I bought this particular calculator in the last decade of the last century (Around 1990). I used the money earned from my part time job (I was in
high school) at a local Red Lobster Restaurant - I was a dishwasher engineer; later promoted to food preparation engineer. I know what you are asking: how did one prepare me for the other. I don't know, but that seemed to have been the progression. The next stop was either waiter, or cook. I left, so I will never know.
If I had a choice, I'd get a
Casio Fx-4000p, however, they don't make them anymore. So, I have to settle for a newer model. I opted for the
Casio fx-991MS Plus: it's plastic, it's not programmable, and it's big. It's a descent calculator, but I like the older models better.
I guess you can call it nostalgia, for the yesteryears and the yestercasioproducts.
Gmail invites
Thursday, September 23, 2004
I have 2 gmail invites to "give" away.
You don't have to do anything, but, if you have a cool link you'd like to share, send it over to:
jose.sandoval@gmail.com, together with your request.
SPAM, SPAM
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
Spam email brings the best and the worst in us.
The worst
I wish I could find the spammers who send so much crap to my email addresses. And if I did, I would...I would...Unplug them.
It's very likely that a spambot harvesting email address found my email address on this very web site and decided that:
- I need a penis enlargement
- My women are not at all satisfied
- I can get many University degrees for the low price of $100.00
- My mortgage rate is too high
- I'm paying way too much for pharmaceuticals
- I could already be a winner of various lotteries
- King Mutumbu's secretary needs my bank account number to deposit some illegal surplus of money left by some US oil company on some African country
- My Viagra prescription is running low
- I'm way too fat
- etc, etc...
A human couldn't do it - It has to be an evil manbot doing all that profiling. May I have a shrink now?
Which brings me to the best
On the other side of evil spambots, there is a team of dedicated programmers fighting to get rid of so much useless email.
One of the results of their efforts is a program called
SpamBayes. This little tool uses Bayesian statistics to learn which email message is a legitimate message and which one is not, then filter appropriately to separate them from good email and evil email. Surprisingly, it works quite well. I've been using it for some time now and the spam email I need to sift through, has decreased quite considerably. Of course, there are many other products out there; however, the price of SpamBayes is just right - FREE software anyone.
Other dedicated programmers do analysis and use pretty pictures to show what we already know: there is too much spam on the internet.
I found a blog entry from someone on the net, who has plotted his incoming spam email throughout a period of 4 years or so. He calls his entry
A visual history of spam (and virus) email.
Search results
I always find interesting as to how people end up in my web site. These are some of the things people are looking for when they end up here:
Listing the first 20 queries by the number of requests, sorted by the number of requests.
reqs: search term
----: -----------
95: software developer resume
13: jose sandoval
11: resume software developer
6: j2ee developer resume
6: shawn riegsecker
6: versos de amor
6: web developer resume
6: dell d600 heat
5: getdate java
4: sandoval de la reina
4: cache:mcxauz5wbwgj:www.josesandoval.com/hotdells/index.asp dell latitude d800 heat
4: developer resume
4: brio resume
4: programmer
4: darren louie
4: cache:1dhrqm15t7uj:www.josesandoval.com/blog/entries/racejuly16_2003.html terry fox adidas shoe
4: cache:po6pysxauaqj:www.josesandoval.com/resume/ software developer resume
4: cache:mcxauz5wbwgj:www.josesandoval.com/hotdells/index.asp dell inspirons heating issues
4: senior software developer resume
4: database developer resume
656: [not listed: 609 search terms]
The top searches are mostly for my
resume.
Gmail
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
I wanted a gmail account just to have one - I already have around 10 email addresses, what harm can one more do, right?
Google's email service is still under beta, so you can only get an account if an existing member invites you. No body had invited me, until,
Azeem Jiva (from Sun) took a chance on me. Thanks Azeem.
My gmail account:
jose.sandoval@gmail.com. Cool, eh?
I blog
I've tried to keep a blog for some time now, but I never stick with it. I'm going try to use blogger again, and see how it goes.
In the mean time, I will convert my original
blog to a collection of my writings.