In my research for a book project I came across an absolutely wonderful website called Urban Dictionary. As the name somewhat implies, it is a dictionary of "urban" terms. It has loads of them too, it's great. I've found such gems as "Abercrombified," which refers to, "A person who is obsessed with Aberombie & Fitch, wearing only that article of clothing," and "L'Oreal," which contrary to normal logic means, "The most evil cosmetics company in the world. As a company they are backstabbing scum who treat their suppliers like dirt promising big orders but rarely delivering. And when you get an order their quality people reject everything based on archaic byzantine specifications thet they provide little training on. The supplier is expected to essentially become a branch of L'Oreal."

Some of the words make absolutely no sense, as they are new, very strange, definitions of existing, commonplace words. One such definition was Urban Dictionary's version of the word scene. According to them scene is defined as (I'm paraphrasing this) someone who is self-obsessed and tweaks their MySpace account endlessly. If you feel so inclined I've put the entire definition in my extended entry.

As might be expected a vast majority of the words have very explicit, lewd, or vulgar definitions. However, it is nonetheless a useful resource if it ever becomes necessary to find out what tegrabra means.

(Tegrabra apparently is a slang manipulation of "integra bra (brother)," meant to be uttered when an Acura Integra is seen)

On my latest driving escapade the radio was tuned to some station which was, at that point, airing an ad. It turned out to be for Microsoft Student Helper Plus Ultra 2005 (or something like that). Here's how the ad broke down:

Mom: You need to do your homework.
Kids: Okay, we will do it right now.
Boy Child: Hey dad, how do I solve y = x + z if y = x squared ?
Girl Child: What is the capitol of Bolivia ?
Boy Child: How do you conjugate this verb in Elbonian ?
Mom: Hey I know !
Dad: What ?
Mom: Let's use Microsoft Student Assistant Mega Plus 2005 Edition !
Kids: Wow, that is a great idea.
Announcer: Microsoft Student Assistant Mega Plus 2005 Edition is great if your kids go to school. It has a built in question answerer and graphing calculator, which will undoubtedly assist your child if they go to school. You can find it at all stores that sell it.

Okay, so I paraphrased a little bit (a lot), but the main thing I got in there was the bogus math problem. It is not possible to solve an equation of just variables. Well - that's not true - it is very solvable. There is an infinite number of solutions. But that's not what the ad seemed to indicate, unless the voice actor playing the boy child is really a bad actor.

While I have no idea how much education the person who wrote that ad had, it would be reasonable to asuume they went to college, since their ad was running on national radio. Bearing this in mind, it is very hard to believe such a blatant mistake would be made. This might have been marginally more acceptable if the ad was for Solanskee Surmoyski the Superb Psychic, but Microsoft sells software written by engineers, who hopefully know more than just simple algebra.

I guess this is just another reason I use a Mac.

After reading an article about the direct correlation between youth cellphone usage and smoking in Japan, I came up with a solution to combat the growing girth of many Americans. I must admit though, before I get into the plan, that it is incredibly ironic that someone who has never even been remotely overweight devised a solution to the weight loss problem.

So here is my idea : using a complex yet-to-be-determined mathematical formula, an amount of time a person must move prior to being allowed access to weight-gaining activities, based on their habits would be generated. If properly executed the potential dieter would only need to make minimal change to get the diet working.

First they would need to buy my specially designed wirelessly networked computerized pedometer, which would track their movement. Then, they would place power regulators on devices, such as their TV or DVD player, to limit access. On their computer and other devices with programmable interfaces, software would be designed to check how much they moved prior to allowing access. Finally, a piece of software would be installed on a networked computer to orchestrate the entire ordeal.

All of that - combined with a potential change in diet - is a brilliant way to force people to lose weight, or just stop watching TV. Of course a certain amount of will power needs to be in place to stop the dieter from just deleting the software or putting their pedometer atop a front-load washing machine.

The last teacher I would expect to hand out an abysmal assignment sheet would be an English teacher. They really ought to be good writers, as that is one of the core aspects of an English class' curriculum. However, the assignment sheet handed to me in the twilight of my Sophomore year is so awful I am having a hard time doing my homework.

Not only is the assignment poorly written, but the various activities from which students can choose vary greatly in difficulty and educational value. The assignments range from assembling a ten-song mix-CD, with explanations as to how each of the ten songs reflect an aspect of the book, to writing a minimum four page journal discussing various aspects of the book. While an equal amount of effort could theoretically be put into both of those assignments, one is inherently simpler and invites minimal effort.

Nonetheless, it is partly my fault I do not know what to do - I most certainly would have been able to ask questions for clarity had I foreseen these obstacles. Though, usually questions should not be, "What is the assignment exactly?" and more to the effect of, "Can I write my paper in pencil?"

Programming for Mac OS X in Cocoa with Objective-C is something of a mixed blessing. For one thing, it is incredibly hard to grasp initially and there is not exactly an abundance of learning resources. On the other hand, once a sufficient level of Cocoa comprehension has been reached, creating complicated applications becomes painfully simple.

At the moment I am working on a Cocoa project to both hone my Cocoa skills and solve a problem. The problem being a lack of a halfway decent recipe organization tool for Mac OS X. I tried several different recipe management tools, all of which were dismal. So I said to myself, "Self, you should just make your own," and so I did.

Of course, it is not quite finished yet. There are some particularly peculiar problems I am having trouble dealing with. I am slightly disappointed with the number of tutorials available for Cocoa programming, but then, there are not exactly droves of people programming in Cocoa.

I really have no clue when I will finish this masterpiece, but when I do, it will be the best recipe management tool ever created. Once I get all of the features mostly working I will post a public beta, which people can try. I am thinking that anyone who really beta tests it will get a free license. I will also need people for localization in languages other than English and French. They will get free copies too. Pricing for my product is yet to be determined, however it will most likely be in the range of $25-$80.

Bill O'Reilly seems to love giving people labels and then arguing endlessly about them. While it may not be very substantive, it is pure genius if you are trying to assassinate someone's character. At least, this is the conclusion I came to while watching the O'Reilly Factor earlier today before the movie I was going to watch came on HBO 2.

I did not get to see a whole lot of the Bill-O Show, but the first fifteen minutes was mostly an interview with Joe Trippi, the former Howard Dean advisor, and now the conference call guru for protesting mother Cindy Sheehan. The entire interview - or as Bill called it a "discussion" - consisted of O'Reilly trying to call Sheehan someone from the, "far-left," and Trippi explaining why that was not necessarily true.

While Ms. Sheehan's comments have not exactly been mainstream, there is no reason to spend fifteen minutes discussing a label. They could have spent some time discussing the real issues surrounding the camp-out protest. I love it when people like Bill O'Reilly or Ann Coulter say they are trying to, "elevate the discourse," and then they pull a stunt like that.

So much for the no spin zone.

Sadly the movie was not much better than the Factor. Though, if Spin-Mater Bill ever calls The Day After Tomorrow a piece of leftist Hollywood propaganda, I might be able to see his point. But to counter, only Dubaya would not realize global warming was a problem if half the northern hemisphere was covered in ice due to global warming.

For the people offended at the last sentence, it is called hyperbole.

In my entry Broadband Woes I detail, to some degree, the problems the US has with their broadband system. However, in just the last few days, things have gotten worse.

On 5 August 2005, the FCC put in place new rules that would allow phone companies to do as cable companies do and restrict who can access their phone lines for DSL service. How stupid could the FCC possibly be ?

It is, for the most part, because the Japanese and South Koreans forced the phone companies to open up their networks to any provider who wanted to do anything that they have such great DSL. Now the FCC has done the exact opposite. There still could be some hope in some weird miracle, but usually doing the exact opposite thing will yield different results.

Come on America, we need to pull it together.

This may be because of my bias, but when I read about Rupert Murdoch's buyout of MySpace, the online social networking service, I could not help but feel elated. I have admittedly never understood what was so great about MySpace. It is just an easy to use service that allows you to transmongify an already ugly web page into an even uglier one with all of your photos and witty comments. Additionally, on the two occasions I did visit the MySpace portal the top MySpaces (if that is what you call them) seemed to be single women looking for dates, who had posted very risqué photos of themselves. Only on the prestigious internet.

So what does this have to do with Rupert Murdoch ? Well, Rupert Murdoch is known for his conservativization of the various arms of his media empire. Anyone who has ever watched Fox News Channel will know what I am talking about. At any rate, Murdoch will undoubtedly try to crack down on these users posting what he considers to be posting inappropriate photos. Subsequently, since most people using MySpace are probably pretty progressive, users will scoff at the idea of censorship and disband their MySpaces.

Hopefully in just a few months after Murdoch's takeover MySpace will be the tattered remains of what it formerly was. Then I will not have to sit through people raving or whining about their pointless and incredibly hideous online blogphotopages, or whatever they are supposed to be called.

There are far better ways to show off your photos, share your thoughts and allow people to comment on them. This blog is a great example. Hopefully this great MySpace exodus will open people's eyes to the vastly superior services available that do the same thing.

Plus, come to think of it, Rupert Murdoch might lose money. It's win-win (in a sense).

In Japan, South Korea, Singapore and other developed Asian countries, high-quality broadband internet service is about as expensive as tap water. It is possible to get a 20 megabit per second internet connection, along with unlimited international internet telephone service, for about $25 a month. In contrast $25 a month in the United States barely gets you a .25 (one-quarter) megabit internet connection, which is not even fast enough to support unlimited international internet telephone service, which would be another $40 more dollars a month - if it even worked.

For some time I wondered why many of these countries were leaps and bounds ahead of the United States in these fields, since, after all, the vast majority of the technologies used were developed in the United States. My first thought was the density of the population, which is partly the cause, but not to the extent I thought.

It was not until I saw a technology analyst on Charlie Rose that the whole thing clicked. In the countries with such great broadband the government not only helped, they developed an entire strategy for broadbandifying the country. This is likely why South Korea has the most broadband subscribers in the world.

So, while South Korean government officials were busy passing legislation forcing phone companies to open their lines, and encouraging competition, the bureaucrats in Washington were busy passing legislation doing exactly the opposite. It as if every time a good idea for bringing broadband inexpensively to the masses pops up, some corporate big wig decides to crash the party.

Take the project to blanket Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in WiFi that would have been connected to a high-speed fiber line. It was brilliant. Blanket the whole metro area with free high-speed WiFi. Then not only could law enforcement, fire, and other institutions take advantage of it, but any citizen in the giant hot spot could get a WiFi computer and get online.

However Verizon, the local telco in that area, and Comcast, the cable company, did not like the idea. So, they whined about it endlessly. Eventually, a law was passed which squashed the entire project. Brilliant ! As John C. Dvorak said in his most recent column relating to this subject, "Just make the CEO of Comcast the governor. Cut out the middleman. You'll save money."

Now people I used to think were halfway decent politicians, such as John McCain, are doing more to protect the phone and cable companies, but this time at the national level. The Broadband Investment and Consumer Choice Act is essentially going to ensure the cable companies and telcos can continue to charge outrageous amount of money for very little product.

If the United States is going to remain competitive in the global marketplace we need to be on the cutting edge, or at the very least a whole lot closer to the cutting edge than we are now.