December 2007 Archives

Gotta love exponential growth. Yesterday Beth had her 20 week (a.k.a. halfway) ultrasound. It took the kid 20 weeks to get to about 13oz. It'll take another 20 weeks to add 6-7 (average) pounds to that.

He (it's better than calling the baby it--we won't find out the gender until May) is already a thumb sucker. You could see his hand by his mouth and his jaw moving.

I had a problem this morning when I went to connect to my computer at the office via remote desktop (rdp). It wouldn't show me the taskbar. For those of you that use Windows XP, you know that with the "new" layout (yeah, I've grown accustomed to it over the classic) really doesn't let you accomplish much without the task bar--especially when you have Outlook set to minimize to the system tray.

I figured that there had to be some keyboard shortcuts associated with remote desktop. Anyone that has used rdp knows that your normal keyboard shortcuts (alt+tab, for example) work locally and don't translate remotely. I figured there HAD to be something.

After a bit of searching, I found that there are indeed some shortcuts, and I figured that I would put them here for posterity.

Remote Desktop Keyboard Shortcuts (and most other MS Windows keyboard shortcuts).

I'm sick of your ads against the Big Ten Network. I really don't care if you are "looking out for the interests of the consumer" (yeah, right). I don't care that you seem to be getting buddy buddy with your source of revenue.

I've heard more of your ads than those of the BTN, and every time I hear one of yours, I think of the old saying. Be careful when you point at someone because there are 3 fingers pointing back at you.

If you really cared about the consumers, you wouldn't have a double standard with the SEC network, the Golf Channel, and Versus (all of which are on the basic tier, all of which you have an investment in), and you would give them the BTN as well. Instead you spend all this money to alienate your customers--you know, the ones moving to Dish Network and DirecTv?

What's next, the NFL Network? Oh wait. You've already moved that off into a sports tier that you make >$5/month/subscriber profit.

If I ever am forced into having Comcast, rest assured, I would rather have network TV instead of give you any of my money.

Today's xkcd cartoon is spot on. A little while ago I decided to program one of their previous cartoons about the knapsack problem.

Searching the xkcd forums, I found a very elegant python solution. I decided to rewrite it in php, and the code was far more complex, and far uglier. Some things in python just work. Looks like I need to learn me a new language.

Basic recursive functions are in the extended entry for those that care.

As some of you may remember, my company got bought a little while back. They have been assimilating us little by little into the mother ship.

About a month ago we were sent to Indian cross culture training, and now I know what the wiggly head means, among other things.

Recently we've been charged with getting our benefits all signed up and stuff. I was looking over the information on our health insurance and something caught my eye:

In addition, there is a unique feature of the plan, that also provides for an option for treatment in India, should one be interested.

Apparently, they will cover airfare and lodging for you and a companion, as well as treatment at a facility in India, as long as the services are expected to be expensive here. That's an interesting benefit, and in the event that I have to have an expensive procedure done, I may even consider it for the trip to India :). Although, being a fairly healthy young lad, I probably won't need that anytime in the near future.