BACON: Making Procrastination More Efficient Since 2010.

I have never been a huge reader of webcomics, myself. I would read a couple here and there, and for the last couple of years I have been a fairly avid follower of XKCD. But I've never been one of those guys who reads fifteen different comics every morning. This semester, though, through the suggestion of a friend of mine, I have picked up a few more. My friend introduced me to the wonderful world of Cyanide & Happiness, the absolute brilliance of Buttersafe, and the instant classic, Daisy Owl. I'm quite upset that I didn't discover Daisy Owl when it was still being actively produced. I also stumbled across the amusingly quirky Packed For Laughs. It's cheesy humor, but I like it.

Anyway, I dabbled in a few others here and there, but as the number of comics increased, so did the hassle of navigating from site to site to read them all. Then I learned that a friend of mine here at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Mike Stark, along with a few others, have put together an awesome open source project to solve just this problem.

BACON (Bring All Comics Offline Now) is a Java-based project that allows you to add the dynamic-content page for a webcomic and identify the img tag wherein the comic lies. You can then simply boot up BACON every morning and cycle through the comics right in that window, without having to traverse the whole internet to find them.



An important thing to mention: BACON does not save the files on your hard drive. This is for good reason. The awesome people who make the webcomics you read are usually collecting money from ads and such. If you want to read an old comic, head to the website and check out the archives. That way, the authors don't lose money on the deal. BACON is starving-artist-friendly!

Anyway, I love it. I'd love for more people to find out about it. So check it out. If you like, pass it around. Also, remember, it is open source, so if there's something wrong with it, fix it.

Alright, That's all for today.

- Ken Bellows

Sphere

Recently I've become very into jazz music. I'm actually a little behind on the times, I know, but hey, better late than never, right? I have found Jazz to be so free and unrestricted in it's workings compared to the fairly formulaic pop and "Rhythm and Blues" (that's a laugh) artists of today's music culture. It has really been a breath of fresh air to step back away from that restrictive, boxy music realm and backwards in time to when art could really flow from your music.

Probably my favorite jazz artist thus far is Thelonious Sphere Monk. What I love so much about him is his total commitment to and love of jazz, not only as a music style, but as a philosophy. As a lifestyle. Ev'-ry-thing about this guy was jazz. You watch some of the recordings of him on stage and you can see what I mean. He was the king of improvisational jazz piano, if you ask me. He was famous for his unique style of playing the piano; he would stab at the keys, leaving odd spaces and gaps between sections.

He took it further, though. In the same way that he left gaps in his playing, he would randomly get up out of his seat and walk around the stage as the other instruments continued to play. He would even walk off stage at random times. Never for long, but enough to keep things interesting.

His lifestyle was as unorthodox as his music and his stage attitudes. First off, he was born with what is probably the most unique name of the 20th century. He was known to say very unexpected things, dress in odd ways, walk strangely, and make odd facial expressions. He was the very epitome of jazz music. He simply didn't care at all about what anyone thought of him.

Thelonious was a true jazz musician, and a true jazz icon in every facet of his life.

Where's the love, guys? Where's the people love?

Man... Disclaimer here, my non-existent readers. This is going to be a long rant about how dumb people can be.

So, yeah. I haven't lived up to my "Hello World" promises. But I'll try to get back on it.

I was just listening to some Thousand Foot Krutch on YouTube. I could barely hear the freakin' songs over the arguments going on below! So much crap about completely unimportant stuff.

Now, I could rant and rave for pages (or pixels, I suppose, since this is a blog...) about how much I hate the way people act on YouTube. Instead, I decided to compile a list of the major topics of any given Christian music video on Youtube. Actually, let me clarify a bit: any given Christian music video that secular people can enjoy as well (i.e. TFK, Switchfoot, Demon Hunter, Relient K, etc.). Remember, these are simply the basic topics. Go ahead and mentally sprinkle the following liberally with all the expletives you can think up, remove a letter here and there, intentionally ignore punctuation, and occasionally spend an hour writing your 2000 character comment with perfect grammar and spelling, scouring the interwebs for the perfect witty, biting words, all in order to sound \u252ber intelligent so you can win the argument once and for all.

Here goes:

1) This Band isn't Christian. Despite their Christian label, Christian lyrics, and public proclamations of Christianity, they obviously aren't.
2) Yes, yes they are. You're stupid.
3) No, you're stupid.
4) You guys are both stupid. Who cares if they're Christian?
5) Yeah, who cares? Christian are stupid anyway. Who even believes in God anymore? Stupid noobs, probably.
6) Man, you're stupid! You're so stupid! You're so stupid that I don't even know why God loves you! Oh, and God loves you. But you're STUPID!
7) (@*!#$&(* @#&!(!*@!&!!??!! (383*&!?$@ (*#&$(*@# &$(*@#$& *#&!(@@!
7) Hey guys, hey, heyheyhey stop the violence, man. Where's the love? God wants peace. God wants music. The music is all that matters, man. Christians are cool. So are you no-God-guys over there. I'm not Christian, but I am spiritual. So come on. Where's the people love?

8) YOU'RE    ALL    SO     STUPID!

AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHI need my meds.

.
.
.


There it is. That's basically the eightfold path to insanity on Youtube. God bless those poor souls who have to moderate it. Granted that they exist. I mean, man, have you seen some of the crap on that site?

....So much Rick Astley....


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Today's Quote: Just to lighten the mood, I present to you Dwight Schrute, everyone.

"Once I am officially regional manager... I will need a new 'number two'. My ideal choice? Jack Bauer. But he is unavailable, fictional, and overqualified." - Dwight Schrute, The Office

Music Review: The Ascendicate

So, recently I have been looking for more good Christian metal. The problem I have with most "Christian" metal bands is that there is really nothing "Christian" about a lot of them. Bands like Haste the Day, Norma Jean, and even Underoath rarely if ever speak about their faith in their lyrics, or else they are intensely cryptic with the messages of their lyrics.

So, to further my search, I used everyone's favorite music discovery tool, Pandora. I believe the station I used most successfully was either a Demon Hunter station or a Decyfer Down station... at any rate, I soon made the greatest musical discovery I have made in a while. The Ascendicate.

To quote from the highly acclaimed JesusFreakHideout.com,

 The Ascendicate  battles ahead of the mediocre while serving up some thought-provoking and catchy melodic tunes...Thanks to [lead singer] Marlowe's singing and the frenzied manner of the music, [their debut album] To Die As Kings rises above most, especially as a debut. While a majority of bands spend two or three albums trying to perfect their own style and sound, ... [The Ascendicate's] polished sound and maturity are evident in every growl, every pronounced lyric, and every guitar smashing chord. If you enjoy melodic hard rock, but aren't necessarily a fan of the more chaotic symphonies often found in the genre, then The Ascendicate's rocking debut is worth checking out.
                                   

To put it simply, I love these guys. I absolutely love their sound; they have brought a whole new level of interest to the metal genre, let alone the Christian metal subgenre. Their artistic combinations of growling and melodic singing, often within the same line or even the same word, just adds so much to each song.

More importantly, I am so pumped to find a metal band with a sound that I like who are also straight-forward and bold with their message.

Here are a few lines to demonstrate what I'm talking about:

From "Scottish":
Shake me, break me,
Make me into something free,
Make me complete, ‘cause this is where I want to be.
I wanna be where he abounds,
I wanna be where he abounds.

From "Burden":
I feel this pain, I feel it burn in my heart
I know that this is a test
To make me stronger
You tell me this is my cross
That I bear for the weak
I'll give you all that I am, You're my blood
You're my strength
Now learn, and live through this
and let it burn.
Don't let this burden flee from me
till the lesson is complete
Because the pain is teaching me
Who I need to be.

From possibly my favorite song by them thus far, "Fighting Words":
You’re never gonna hear what I say ‘til I stand up and say what you want me to,
And I’m gonna stand right in your way, pray God will have mercy on all of you,
You wanna know what’s inside of me,
You wanna know what we’re all about,
You keep it up and you’ll be finding out.
No way – you’re not stopping us,
It’s here in our hearts,
No way your fighting words will tear us apart.
I think it’s time you started watching your mouth, ‘cause God never called us to be walked on,
And you’re never gonna figure us out,
If you know what is best, you’ll leave us alone.

So, yeah. I'm pretty psyched about these guys. I can't wait to see what they come up with next. Check them out:

http://www.solidstaterecords.com/artists/276/The_Ascendicate/
http://www.jesusfreakhideout.com/cdreviews/ToDieAsKings.asp
http://www.myspace.com/theascendicate


Today's Quote, featured in The Bible:
"Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? Of course not! And if worry can't do little things like that, what's the use of worrying over bigger things? "
- Luke 12:25-26

Most Excellent JavaScript Codes EVER! And I HATE when people type words in all uppercase just to emphasize a point! But this is WORTH IT!

So, my first non-introductory post here will knock off the Programming/Web Design section, though it is more scripting than either of those. But that's okay.

Anyway, this is for those who have not already seen these, though they have appeared in several different blogs and posts all over the Interwebs. I'm probably posting them mostly just so that I don't forget about them.

If you've done any kind of hacking or Web Security work, you probably know that you can use JavaScript in the Address Bar to do cool stuff, such as

javascript:alert(document.cookie);

which will bring up an alert box with the current page's cookies. There are a lot of really cool things you can do with JavaScript injections like that. Today, I rediscovered one of my old favorites, and from there made a few new awesome discoveries, one of which being the coolest thing I have ever seen done with JavaScript.

• My old favorite, the universal page editor:
  

  javascript:document.body.contentEditable='true'; document.designMode='on'; void 0

  
  This will allow you to edit the web page you are viewing, move and resize pictures, change some text, etc. It won't permanently change the page on the server, so don't go thinking "Oh, man! I can totally hack anything now!", because you can't. Not with this. It is fun to use, however, if a roommate or coworker steps away from their computer for a minute or two with a webpage open. =D


• The next one I found, the Window Shaker:
  

  javascript:function Shw(n) {if (self.moveBy) {for (i = 35; i > 0; i--) {for (j = n; j > 0; j--) {self.moveBy(1,i) ;self.moveBy(i,0);self.moveBy(0,-i);self.moveBy(-i,0); } } }} Shw(6)


  
  This one is just plain fun. For any developers out there, include this as a part of any javascript app you design. It'll get great reviews.


• Finally, the all-time coolest thing you can do with address bar JavaScript, The Content Spinner:
  

  javascript:R=0; x1=.1; y1=.05; x2=.25; y2=.24; x3=1.6; y3=.24; x4=300; y4=200; x5=300; y5=200; DI=document.getElementsByTagName("img"); DIL=DI.length; function A(){for(i=0; i-DIL; i++){DIS=DI[ i ].style; DIS.position='absolute'; DIS.left=(Math.sin(R*x1+i*x2+x3)*x4+x5)+"px"; DIS.top=(Math.cos(R*y1+i*y2+y3)*y4+y5)+"px"}R++}setInterval('A()',5); void(0);

  
  This one will grab elements off the page and spin them in circles! It's so cool! Right now the above code, as is, is set to spin images. go to Google Images and search for... whatever, paste this in the address bar, and watch the magic happen! It also works well on Facebook, specifically on the news feed, where there are lots of pictures. If you study the code, you will find the little chunk DI=document.getElementsByTagName("img");. By changing the phrase inside the parenthesis to a, p, li, h1, input, etc, you can change what part of the page is spinning! (Can you tell I'm excited?) I think img is the coolest, but that's just me. Oh, another thing: this tends to eat up memory, especially when you do something involving text, so the spinning mass of characters will eventually become choppy and freeze up. When this happens, I've found that you can jiggle the mouse to keep things moving. Just refresh the page when you get tired of it. It'll go back to the normal page.
  

So those are all of the really cool ones that do graphical, visible stuff. There's a few others that are more useful than aesthetic:

• javascript:alert(document.forms[0].to.value="something") - This will allow you to change the value passed to a script by a form.


• javascript:void(document.bgColor="blue") - This specifically changes the background color, but if you know what you are doing, you can use a void() function in this format to change any value on the page.


• javascript:alert("The actual URL is:\t\t" + location.protocol + "//" + location.hostname + "/" + "\nThe address URL is:\t\t" + location.href + "\n" + "\nIf the server names do not match, this may be a spoof."); - This little number can be useful if you think a site is a scam site imitating another. use this to display what the site really is and what it claims to be side by side, so you can tell for sure. (source: http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread165903.html)

And these are just a taste of what you can do with JavaScript in your address bar. To find out more, just Google "JavaScript injections".



Today's quote:

"Once I am officially regional manager... I will need a new 'number two'. My ideal choice? Jack Bauer. But he is unavailable, fictional, and overqualified."
                                                   - Dwight Schrute, The Office

Hello, World!

Yeah, I know, but I had to do it. I'm a programmer, and it's my first use of blogspot. What do you want?

Anyway, I figure the best way to start off is to indicate my intentions here. I suppose I don't have any really specific intentions. I hope this blog is as diverse as my interests.

Speaking of which,
My Interests:

• Programming
• Web Design
• Web Security
• Artistic Ventures, by which I mean:
  
  • Drawing, sketches, etc.
  • Poetry, generally freeform
  • Short Stories
  • Literature
  
  
• Humor, specifically Sarcasm
• Philosophy, Religious Philosophy and Speculation*
• Artificial Intelligence and its implications
• The occasional political debate

That's just most of them. I'm sure I forgot some stuff. But I'll remember it eventually. Anyway, these are the topics upon which I intend to post, along with probably some interesting anecdotes from my everyday life. Specifically, I hope to post an article on each of the above within a month or so from now. We'll see what happens.

So yeah, that's my "Hello World" post. Use it wisely.

To end today's post, and hopefully all following, if I remember, I will display a quote that I have found in some way interesting. Today's quote is plucked from the big, mushy gelatin mold of absolute genius that is Bill Watterson's brain.

"That's the whole problem with science. You've got a bunch of empiricists trying to describe things of unimaginable wonder."
- Calvin, Calvin and Hobbes

*I just wanted to mention that when I do discuss religious philosophy, I will be thinking from the perspective of a long-time Christian, since that is what I am, but I will attempt to address an issue from both sides.