My name is Jeff Gordon and I build websites. When I'm not working, you can probably find me daydreaming about things like space ships or dinosaurs. Maybe a dinosaur flying a space ship. That's awesome.
After a couple requests and a lot of procrastination, I've created an RSS feed for the Facebook-esque newsfeed on my homepage. I don't know why you'd want to be alerted via RSS whenever I love a song on Last.fm, but now you can. It also includes whenever I favorite a video on YouTube, whenever I write a new blog post, and whenever I update Twitter.
Welcome to Stalker Towne, population: You.
Jan 17, 2010 Update: I've changed my blog around and this link no longer works.
Keith pointed out to me today that my last few posts on Twitter have been nothing but complaints about Microsoft products. It started off with a red-ringed Xbox, followed up shortly by disappointment resulting from an upgrade to MSN messenger (it is really ugly, please don't upgrade). I've complained heavily about my Zune before, but my frustration with their software resurfaces whenever I try to sync a large amount of songs. To my surprise, my complaint about the Zune software on Twitter today was somehow received automatically by the ZuneFAQ Twitter account. It was surprsing because requests to any kind of Microsoft support system usually result in a series of automated replies. The last one I recieved denied support to me because it somehow assumed I lived in the UK, where Zunes are not sold. I think the guy (or gal) behind the ZuneFAQ twitter account expected me to reply with a fairly trivial support problem, because after replying with 4 major flaws that I've found in the Zune software, I did not receive a single reply in return. Nice.
In the past, I've attempted to register my Zune online in order to request it be sent in to fix a battery problem, but I was unable, due to a horribly broken request form. It asked me to fill in my name and address, but the address fields were both disabled and required. Submitting the form just brought me back to the same page, telling me that I needed to fill out the entire form. Maybe if you would let me, I would. I ran into a similar problem when I tried to register my recently broken Xbox online to see if it was still eligible for warranty. I went to the registration page where I was told to fill out a form, but there was no form. Just a header saying "Register Your Console" and a blank page. I guess they figure the harder they make it for customers to request repairs, the less they'll have to spend fixing their own mistakes.
Microsoft, if you are reading this, I am going to pirate Windows 7 just like I pirated Windows XP and Windows Vista. I am going to pirate it and send it to my friends so they can use it for free, too. You don't deserve my money.
I read an article today in one of my feeds about a new material developed that will bring "printable circuitry" closer to a reality. In a nutshell, printable circuitry means you could literally print out circuits using some kind of magical "circuit printer", resulting in much smaller electronics. The advantages of this would be that Apple can now make the iPhone even smaller and more expensive.
Anyway the point of me writing about this is how most of the article went entirely over my head. Here are a few quotes from the intro paragraphs:
The n-type semiconducting polymers have proven to be one of the biggest challenges, and some have raised the prospect that matching current p-type polymer performance wasn't even possible due to the nature of how polymer bonding influences the formation of electron holes and free electrons. A new paper, however, describes an n-type polymer with excellent electrical and processing characteristics and its use to form fully functional polymer transistors, produced entirely by printing.
Okay.
The polymer being used is the dauntingly-named poly{[N,N9-bis(2-octyldodecyl)-naphthalene-1,4,5,8-bis(dicarboximide)-2,6-diyl]-alt-5,59-(2,29-bithiophene)}, which, naturally, one gets from reacting N,N9-dialkyl-2,6-dibromonaphthalene-1,4,5,8-bis(dicarboximide) with 5,59-bis(trimethylstannyl)-2,29-dithiophene.
Naturally.
I am glad there are people out there who figure this stuff out and can understand it, because I don't.
