The blog of Matthew A. Smith and Michael Chappell, on topics from A to Z

Just a quick word of congratulations to my friend David on his recent acceptance of a job offer! Dave is a very talented engineer and will be graduating from LSU in December. It seems he had one of the best problems imaginable, especially given the current economy: he had too many job offers! At any rate if you see him, be sure to congratulate him on his accomplishments!

We’ve decorated headquaters for Halloween. It’s about as ghetto as it gets, but it’s all in good fun.

Apparently we’ve disturbed a few neighbors, some of whom thought that it says “ho” as in “whore.” Not to fear, that’s a Q.

Watch it in HD here. This is my first edit with Final Cut Pro (thanks Dave, it’s cool software), I think it came out ok. Let me know what you think!

It’s late on a Friday afternoon and I’m watching the clock count down the last mintues of the day. Thankfully, I remembered my friends David and Jon keep their musings online (much like Chappie and myself, though Jon posts a lot more than Chappie). You should probably skip on over to this link and find out why you should eat an ape.

6. Eating is perpetuating life. In the case of humans eating animals, the eating of animals is therefore perpetuating the capacity for morality, which perpetuates morality itself. Eating animals serves the highest ethical good.

Also, for those suffering an extra few minutes before the weekend arrives, this about page is quite entertaining.

A couple of days ago, while eating at Zaxby’s with my roommates (a favorite dining location), conversation touched briefly the topic of “pirate radio.” The last time I discussed such things was in a series of conversations with Chappie last summer. We contrived a concept for a distributed radio transmission network using small, distributable, network connected transmitters which would be installed in several locations around an area and then controlled via the Internet. Transmission could be achieved via simultaneous activation of all transmitters for greatest power, or randomly switched between stations for stealth. Various other combinations of transmitter activation could attain directional fields or other interesting effects. Contrived mostly devised as an exercise to entertain our engineering minds (and the rebel within), we never proceeded beyond the concept stage.

However, during yesterday’s conversation, I came to a realization: we are nearing or at the point where the FM transmission step can be eliminated. Because of the growing presence of mobile Internet connected multimedia hardware (such as the iPhone), the hassles of classic radio transmission can be bypassed, opening up the potential for everyone to ‘broadcast’ their own audio content to an audience that no longer needs to be tethered to a computer. Currently, services such as Last.fm or Pandora provide native applications to stream audio directly to the iPhone (even over the Edge network, though it requires more buffering). While I haven’t done much research, I believe there are also native iPhone apps that allow you to stream music from Live365.com, which brings live broadcasting to a wide number of users for a price substantially lower than what one would pay to set up a traditional broadcast station. However, for those who have more time to configure their service, there are ways to stream live music using QuickTime. Apparently the Tuner application in the app store will provide connectivity to a generic shoutcast stream (but it isn’t free for the end user).

Just another way that our connected world is providing new opportunities for more and more people. Oh, and of helpful note- the iPhone cannot make or recieve calls while using edge data, so I would only do this on wifi or the 3g network (which does support simultaneous data and voice).

If you are browsing the site and find a link that is broken, be sure and let me know (just leave a comment) and I will attempt to rectify the issue. Over the past few days I came under a little scrutiny from my webhosting provider to remove some media content (mostly streaming MP3s) from the server. I have performed the cleanup (and am now contemplating a move to a new hosting provider), but there may be some broken links around the site. Let me know and I’ll get right on it.

Also, if you have recommendations for other shared hosting providers that are reasonably priced, please let me know!

The weekend is two dreadful hours away. I can almost taste it (or maybe that’s the taste of the coffee I drank earlier). At any rate, it’s a three day weekend with a nice weather outlook (unlike the forecast for last night’s trip to the fair, I think this one might just stick). I’m attending a five-year highschool reunion tonight, after which I will get to hang out with Matt for a little while. Tomorrow, I’m not exactly sure what’s going on, but I think a few friends and I are headed to Milledgeville to investigate the festivities. Sunday holds a trip to Six Flags for some classic adrenaline-junkie fun. Monday is still open.

Maybe on Monday I’ll have a few minutes to sit down and finish some other articles I’m working on.

Anyway, have a good weekend and enjoy your Columbus day (even if you have to work)!

If, for some reason, you stop by looking for the friendly faces at digivation, only to find an error page, never fear, we won’t be gone for long. I’m simply trying to straighten out some small issues with my hosting provider. I’m pretty sure a peaceful resolution will be found and everything will continue as normal.

While hurricane Ike was busy bashing the gulf and shaking it’s metaphorical fist at Texas, I decided to leave Georgia and travel to Louisiana (and closer to Ike, as my mother reminded me). Despite warnings of dire circumstances, my trip was hurricane and disaster free, instead filled with friends, fun, and football. That’s not to say my trip was without adventure.

Thursday afternoon, I packed my car and started the first leg of my trip. I was headed to Montgomery, Alabama, where I was to spend the night with my friend Matt who would be accompanying me for the remainder of the journey. Strangely enough, less than twenty minutes outside of Warner Robins, I ran into the hardest rain I would see for the duration of my expedition. Fortunately, the rain slacked up and turned into more of an annoyance than a hazard after about thirty minutes and I continued on my way. In Columbus, I began to notice strange electrical issues – radio shutting off, various vehicle electronics restarting, lights dimming, etc. Knowing that my battery was rather old, I stopped at a friendly Wal-Mart to purchase a replacement. To my chagrin, the weather decided that it would be funny to unleash annother torrential downpour. Undeterred, I purchased the new battery and proceeded out into the tempest, where I was immediately soaked to the bone. Despite the unfortunate weather, I proceeded to hunker over the trunk of the BMW, attempting to replace the battery using nothing but the clumsy “tools” provided in the on-board tool kit. Finally, after several minutes and the liberal application of “blue words,” my task was complete and my car functional once again. Note to BMW: please include better tools. Of course, the minute I completed my task, the rain stopped. Thankfully it was late in the evening; otherwise I’m pretty sure the sun would have come out just to spite me.

Annoyed and wet, but happy that my car was functional once again, I resumed my travels and after another hour or so arrived at Matt’s humble abode in Montgomery. I enjoyed getting to spend the evening catching up with the latest events in Matt’s life, such as law school. Ever the gracious host, Matt managed to make a delicious dinner and scrumptious chocolate cake, between furtive glimpses at the imposing mountain of textbooks lying unassumingly on his desk.

Friday, Matt had to attend law classes from early in the morning until sometime in the afternoon, after which we planned to embark on the final leg of our journey to LSU. I awoke sometime after noon and decided, after watching the television for a few minutes, that I should venture out into the city and have a look around. After checking the car out and topping off a few fluids, I proceeded gingerly away from the apartment. Once out upon the main road, I headed off in search of something, assisted by my trusty iPhone. And then I ran across a Best Buy. After leaving the electronics emporium, I decided that I should find the school Matt attends and surprise him. Unfortunately, I googled the name of the law school (Thomas B. Goode School of Law), not the name of the actual college (Falkner University). Thinking I was headed in the correct direction, I followed iPhone’s directions right into… the middle of nowhere.

Finally realizing my mistake I called Matt and remedied the situation in short order. Upon arriving at the campus (which wasn’t terribly far away – middle of nowhere ended up being the edge of somewhere), I was taken on a brief tour of the law school, which ended in the library where Matt was hurriedly attempting to “finish up some work” before leaving town. I should have noticed the theme then and there.

Anyway, after running a few errands and totally missing our goal of leaving Montgomery by 5 pm, we hit I-65 around 7 pm. A few miles out of Montgomery and we hit the second (and final) rainstorm of our trip. Weird, all that rain and none of it in Louisiana (hah, take that mom). After trekking through the bleak stretches of Alabama and rolling along I-10 and I-12 for a while, we arrived at our destination unscathed! After getting settled in, out came those textbooks once again.

Law school, gee what fun!

The game day festivities were all wonderful as expected. We spent part of the time walking around LSU’s campus and doing that whole ‘tailgating’ thing that’s oh so fun. After that got old, we headed to a nearby apartment to watch the game on TV, with all the comforts of indoor living complemented with substantial quantities of beverage and food. What great fun!

After the win, we headed back for a night of rest and to prepare for the trip back, which was relatively uneventful and boring. Sunshine, no rain, etc. One thing did strike me as curious - while I was busy tailgating, I kept getting these strange reports of outrageously priced gasoline, all the way back in Macon. Rumors of gas shortages, $5/gallon gas, etc. However, in Baton Rouge, prices remained the same and there were no lines or panic at the pumps. However, the closer we got to home, the higher the prices seemed to creep… by the time I arrived in Macon, gas was $1/gallon more than in Baton Rouge.

Weird.

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