Geiodo

Archive for December, 2009

Well, I found the problem, and it was in google.

I was told, by the documentation of google, that the inut function (The function containing my loading code) would only be executed when the extension had fully loaded. Only one problem.  It was executing my loading code, before the wave API had a chance to load!

In other words, it was trying to do something, before it even knew how to do it.

Google, you drove me nutty.

Anyways, I have the system totally working.

Google wave, I have to say, is one of the only web apps that I took over an hour to figure out.

Google wave is like email on steroids. You can send multiple people a “Wave”, in which users use a comment -type content submission system.

These “comments”, are called “Blips”. Quotes “For The Win”.

Blips can be edited by all people, and I’m not 100% sure that they can be edited at the same time. I’ve tried, but it got pretty confusing. I’ll jut pretend that you can’t.

Although two people cannot edit the same blip at the same time, two people can create two separate blips at that same time, and see each other typing.

One cool feature about wave, is it’s ability to embed what they call “Extensions.”

These extensions are in a way, a replica of the flash player. They are a JS API for web based web apps. They use HTML for the JS, and GUI, which I have to say, is pretty cool.

I recently found a percentage bar extension, which, sadly, I’m not too impressed by. The GUI is great, and for that, I am using it, however, you are left to directly enter the percentage. I wanted it to instead take in a fraction, and from that generate a percentage.

So far, I have THAT done well, however I am trying, and failing at having the system save – AHA! Breakthrough… Explanation coming. – save the values.

However, when trying to resurface the values, only one attempt has worked, and I cannot replicate the results. All of my resources are pointing to this line of code – and even though ti works later in the script, it STILL refuses to work.

Line alert(”eviil” + state.get(’in1′));

Alerts have worked before, and actually ONCE returned the correct value. It’s evil. Just plain EVIL!

Until….

That breakthrough. I think I know what might be wrong. state.get(’in1′); might not be directly returning a string.

Perhaps creating a variable, specifying it as a string, and tTHEN setting it, will change my results.

Programming… I love it, but it drives me nutty when I can’t figure something out.

Here is a nice example of ad sneakiness, found on fail blog.

Most ads are much better at concealing their truth, than this, however this clearly explains what ad producers like to do.

At first glance, that ad says this: Our loss weight tea will lose you that much weight!

However, the ad simply says this person lost that much WITH the weight loss tea. That means that she could also have been doing any number of things, from liposuction, to giving birth. (Obviously the fat was from a baby.)

Depending upon “interpretation” (Word bending), Weight loss tea, can be anything between a magic potion that actually does induce weight loss, or a Japanese ritual tea that people would drink to celebrate weight loss. It could even mean that the particular flavor of tea was drunk on the day that someone broke the biggest loser all time record!

Which means, that the weight loss tea could actually be some store brand, or water with nasty leaves in it.

In other words, it could be an ad for regular tea, made to look more appealing by making it imply weight loss.

Never. Trust. Ads. (Unless the ad council made them.)

Anti Ad Intro.

Ever since false advertisement was banned (Whenever that was), ad producers have been very, very, sneaky. As the ban on false advertisement only extends as far as direct confirmation, ad producers have simply learned to work around the law; – They have found a way of doing legal false advertisement.

Implications. People around the web, and on TV, use implications to mislead readers into thinking that what the ads say is true. – When in fact, when an ad says “Done this with that”, the implication is that with means “only with”, however, if the company were to be sewed all they would have to do, is claim that the meant “with that, amongst other products.”.

Just for fun, and no practical reason, when I surf the webs, and see a false ad, I’ll blog about it, and point out all the sneakiness.

A couple nights ago, I decided to look out the window, at the stars,at 12 AM. To my surprise, I found that three of them were smudged!

I immediately thought “Galaxy!”, however the night time air had made me so tired. My mind struggled between sleep, and staying awake; Which very much frustrated me.

The second night, I realized that I was awake, at four in the morning. I could also see the “Star Smudge” (Galaxy in my mind) from my window.

I had talked to dad about the smudge the previous morning; All he said was that he didn’t know what to make of it.

At that point, I was set on getting the details. I scrounged around for a pen, and notepad, and drew out the constellation around it. It looked sort of like the Big Dipper, but with the cupped part missing, and in it’s place, the smudge. I was thinking about naming it “The molten Dipper” (At that time I had no clue it was Orion’s belt), due to the fact that the cup looked like it had melted, and was falling to the floor.

After that, I began to think about blogging about it, and making a photo shopped recreation of it. I ended up not, however I’d like to now…

It’s not nearly as apparent, but that gives you a sense of what I was seeing.

On the final night, something about the thought “Sleep” got me to sit straight up (Ironic…), and remember the “Galaxy”. I looked straight out the window, to find the sky FILLED with stars, thousands of them! (Imagine if the street lights had been out on that night!), and right in the center, more visible than ever before, was the “Galaxy”. However, I at that point thought it looked more like a comet..

The best thing was, it was only 11:30! My parents had started getting ready for bed only half an hour ago!

I struck at my chance, and asked dad to take a look. All he said was “it’s just the stars” – I immediately protested “That is not the halo of stars! No other stars have that around them!!”. Luckily, my mom had followed, and she had a go. I directed her eyes at the three stars at the top of the image, and had her look down to where the smudge was. “It’s a nebula.” she said! That thing had been bugging for three nights! (Possibly four, but I remember three…). I was relieved to know what it was!

She told me it was part of Orion’s Belt, and pointed my attention to a bright yellow star. I cannot remember if it is moving away, or towards us, but I remember reading from a Steven Hawkings book, that light waves bend in spectrum when the source is moving away/towards you. I think that red means it’s heading towards you, and yellow was away.

Someone from Star Trek should at that to their warp effects… (And not make the stars look like they are going that fast, and then when out of warp have them be that far way) (It took warp 3 to get to Jupiter, and yet they still had stars buzzing by at that speed as if you were going across the galaxy!)(Episode about a pre-warp five test.)
I just realized that I have devoted an entire paragraph to criticizing Star Trek…

I’ll get back on track… The skies at that time were beautiful, filled with stars. I’d never seen so many in my life, except once, at a camp – Shooting stars all over the place. I have always wondered how there could be so many [shooting stars] in that place, and so few here. But it just now hit me! We have street lights here, and those shooting stars are kind of faint. Also visible, straight up, was a HUGE circular nebula! It was the coolest thing I had ever seen.