These are the results of looking out my window a little before midnight last night, finding out that there’s a snowstorm, and taking a few pictures.

Just when I thought the UW-Madison campus bus system was becoming more reliable, I am proven wrong.

As in the case from tonight, when I gave the bus driver a stop request over 500 feet before my requested stop, and the bus instead skipping the stop I wanted to get off at and dropping me off over 1000 feet (300 meters) away at the following stop.

Which is not exactly a pleasant distance to walk in 10°F/-12°C weather.

Yes, I realize that I published an update to an older article with the update dated December 1, 2010 (which is in the future, if you haven’t noticed). I released it early because I had time to write the article and released it right after I finished writing it, and I don’t feel like unreleasing it. If it makes you feel any better, you can pretend that it’s a special exclusive preview. Even though the final version will be exactly the same.

In other news, I talked with a Dell customer service representative earlier today about a problem I’ve been having with the connectivity between my motherboard and my laptop’s screen. I ended up getting a resolution to my problem, but the chat process was an interesting experience.

At first, I thought that she was the slowest typer I’ve ever seen – it took about half a minute for her to type “Alright.” Then, a few minutes later, she started sending me massive paragraphs of text within a few seconds of typing. I realized that she was probably using canned responses, but that didn’t explain why it took her so long to type “Alright,” because you would assume that they would add a common response like “Alright” to the list of canned responses.

Then I realized that she probably was using canned responses for “Alright,” but couldn’t find it in the list quickly enough and ended up spending more time looking for it than it would have taken her to just type it.

Sometimes I wonder how they even got their job as a support staff representative.

Picture of the Day

Keep Pizza Flat

Because we all know how frequent it is for people to transport their pizzas while holding them sideways.

(via Flickr @ http://flic.kr/p/8XDq3B)

Interesting story of the day: the web director of the Badger Herald got stranded in Milwaukee today and couldn’t get back to Madison until about 11 PM. I’m sure he appreciates me telling all my readers about this.

Quote of the Day

This conversation took place via IRC with a friend who goes by the name “Twinkie” who was watching some of my videos on YouTube.

After linking to an uninteresting video, he says, “This video is boring.”

I reply, “That video wasn’t supposed to be interesting.”

A few minutes later, he links to another one of my uninteresting videos and says, “This one’s boring too.”

I reply, “That video wasn’t supposed to be interesting either.”

After a few more minutes, he links to yet again another one of my uninteresting videos and says, “Boring.”

I reply, “Why are you so good at picking out my uninteresting videos? Watch some of my sit-down vlogs where I tell stories.”

Once again, he links to another one of my videos, and says, “Still boring.”

I reply, “That one wasn’t supposed to be interesting either.”

He replies, “OMG then just label your videos ‘worth watching’ or ‘not worth watching’!”

Quote of the Day

I came across this quote while I was working on some MySQL stuff for the Badger Herald:

“A MySQL table is completely different than the normal table that you eat dinner on.”

Thanks for clarifying that, like it wasn’t obvious.

http://www.tizag.com/mysqlTutorial/mysqltables.php

That calculus exam was tragic.

We got a sheet with the solutions to all the problems immediately after we submitted the exam, and I don’t think I got a single final answer correct…

Quote of the Day

This came from a Jackie Chan Adventures episode that I watched on YouTube. The cartoon is hilarious, and I’m glad they uploaded the episodes to YouTube so I could relive my childhood.

At the end of the episode, they always read a question to Jackie Chan that was originally asked by a child viewer, and he answers the question. One of the questions was, “have you ever turned down doing a stunt?” Jackie’s response was along the lines of:

“Oh, if they tell me do crazy thing like jump to building top, jump off building, slide down pole, jump in car, then yes, I do it, absolutely. But if they tell me jump over Grand Canyon, no way! I can’t do.”

Picture of the Day

Gnone is the New Gnome

I actually have no idea what a gnone is, but I was bored while waiting for the bus at the bus stop, saw this sticker on a One Way sign, and took a picture of it.

(via Flickr @ http://flic.kr/p/8UhwkH)