This is damn interesting!

Freak 1980 Accident; Lake Loses 3.5 Billion Gallons of Water in 3 Hours

I thought this was really cool

This article is about a company that uses an internal stock market to filter out which ideas are good ideas and bad ideas. Since it's from the NY times, registration is probably required, but you should have an account there anyway, or just use bugmenot.

Yes, I Am Still Alive

I know, I haven't written much to my blog lately. I've been pretty busy trying to pull together a vacation to New York and Boston in mid-April, working on my Econ class for my MBA program, and not sleeping. The not sleeping thing is the worst part. I don't know why, but over the past week I've been having a really hard time getting good sleep. Perhaps it's stress, or maybe just a temporarily insomniatic period, I don't know. But I do know I don't function well on not much sleep. I turn into Zombie Alex (tm). I've also been looking for a new job, with some craziness on that front.

The MBA program is going well. I am now about half-way through my second class, which is called managerial economics but is really micro-econ in disguise. A lot of it is a repeat from econ I took in college, but it's still not easy. Unlike statistics, which was organized excellently, this course is somewhat of a mess. The reading material is not organized as well -- there is lots of duplicate information, the concepts are not described as clearly, and sometimes terms are used without being defined at all! I hate that. It's also been a lot more reading -- in statistics, I took on average about 4 pages of notes a week. In this course, I am averaging about 12 pages of notes a week.

On the job front, I am still looking for a new job. I interviewed with a company called Intel that some of you may have heard of. I went for a half-day interview and talked with a bunch of different people about all sorts of stuff. Almost all of the people I talked to seemed really enthusiastic about me, and I did well on the techincal portions of the interview. Consequently, I was almost positive they'd offer me a position. Only, reality got in the way and they decided not to. I was not given a reason why (in fact, I was not given anything at all), but these things happen. Maybe there was a better candidate, and it probably didn't help that the guy who I seemed to "connect with" least was the guy who would have been my manager.

I also interviewed with a company called Pianodisc, who writes software for player pianos. The cool thing is that they do a lot of work with Linux and Midi, and as some of you know, I am an aspiring wannabe musician (as in, I suck, but I wish I didn't -- oh, if only wishes were reality). Although they seemed really interested in me, they made me an offer that was simply not competitive, and I couldn't take it. From what I hear, they've had a resignation in the software department, and that might lead to an opportunity. I expect to find out more today.

Most of the other jobs I applied to I have heard nothing back, or received an email saying the position has been cancelled. So onward I search.

I am still playing WoW. Keltarin the Druid hit level 42 over the weekend, so I am climbing the levelling treadmill as it gets ever steeper. Strangely, there seems to be a marked glut of gear on the auction house at this level. I think largely because people who make twinks often don't get them out of their 30s, and most characters who get to their 40s go all the way to 60. Consequently, there's just not much supply. The cool thing was that I got a blue world drop the other day an (assault band. Unfortunately, it was only a small improvement from the green ring I was wearing, so I decided to auction house it instead. Here's hoping someone who likes to PVP buys it for what I listed it at. If I sell it, I think that would push me above 200 gold. I bought my level 40 mount, and although it's a lot faster than walking (60% faster), it seems only marginally faster than cat form with the 30% speed boost druids can get as a talent. Kind of disappointing, especially given the cost.

That's all for now! More when I've got more news.

Vista to Eat My Computer

According to this article by the Inquirer, Windows Vista can eat over 800 megs WHILE IDLING and requires up to SEVEN GIGS of hard drive space.

Seriously, for those kinds of requirements, this operating system better clean my room, make my lunch, and give me a full-body massage with a happy ending.

WoW

While talking to my friend Christina a few weeks back, I asked her if she was still playing any MMORPGs. She said she was still playing WoW, which was a great game for her because she could log on for short intervals and still get something done. I'd heard that WoW was pretty good for casual players -- my main concern with the game was that everyone would hit level 60 and there would be nothing to do. Players would get bored, leave the game, and that would be that. But all of my friends who hit 60 seemed to be having as much fun as ever, and the game got a huge population boost over XMas. Since I had a week off between classes, I figured I'd give it a whirl.

Just one problem: character creation on the server my friends were playing on was deactivated because the servers are having so many performance issues. Well, so much for that idea. I mean, I could have played on another server, but I'd rather play with my friends or not at all.

Strangely enough, about 3 days later, they opened character creation, and I jumped on the opportunity. The game took about 3 hours to install -- between the 5 CDs (which took forever to read for some reason) and multiple patches, I thought I'd never get to play. But eventually it finished, and I was able to create a character.

And thus, Keltarin the Druid was reborn again (he was my first main character in EQ1). I've been playing him regularily on the Silver Hand RP server, and he is now level 28 or so. I have joined a guild called the "Templars of Dawn", where everyone is nice, and it's great because I know 4 people in the guild in real life.

So far, I've mostly been soloing, although I've grouped up a few times here and there (mostly duoing). Tonight I will take my first experience with a full group and plunge into the deadmines. It should be a blast. I heard there's an underground pirate ship in there, which reminds me of The Goonies, and I can't wait to see it!

So yes, I'm back to playing MMORPGs again. God, I missed them.

WP Carey, Course 1 Result

The week before last was finals week for my first WP Carey course (Managerial Decision Analysis (aka. Statistics)). The final was given to us on Tuesday and we had until Sunday to finish it, which was more than enough time. The final was HARD and some of the questions were a bit tricky, but it was pretty much all right out of the material we studied. And, of course, it was open book/computer since there's no way to enforce a closed book test over the internet. I finished it up without too much hassle and turned it in, and then proceeded to wait for my grade.

There are 200 possible points in the class, and 180 is needed for an A-. Before the final, I had missed 4 points total, which meant I had 16 points to squander on the final (which was worth 100 points). Although I felt very confident about my final, when I got it back today I was slightly dissapointed because I didn't do as well as I'd expected. The median score on the final was an 86, and that's exactly what I got. The good news is that means I only missed 14 points total, giving me a total of 182 points out of 200. That's 91% in the class, or pretty much the lowest A possible. :) So I eeked it out.

The course was very useful -- we learned all about samples, confidence intervals, regression testing, forecasting, and six sigma processes. The best part was that all of the calculation work was done using Excel, which is a program I always have a lot of fun with.

Our next course, which starts Monday, is Managerial Economics (aka. Microeconomics). I took a lower division and upper division econ course in college (where we had to do derivitives), so I should be good to go for this one, assuming I haven't forgotten everything over the last 8 years.

My Nose Spray Addiction (Part 2)

As I blogged previously, I have been addicted to nose spray, largely due to chronic enlarged turbinates making it hard for me to breathe otherwise. I realize this is an unhealthy thing, but so is not getting any sleep. The thing that sucks is that they really don't know what causes enlarged turbinates, and once they become enlarged, there isn't a whole lot they can do, outside of a turbinectomy. Given that your turbinates serve the useful purpose of warming air and filtering out particles like dust and pollen, removing them completely sounds like a procedure not without consequence. And besides, I've already been under the knife once to have my septum straightened and turbinates worked on -- so I didn't really want to do it again.

A couple months ago, after consulting with my Otolaryngologist (aka. my nose doc), he informed me that I would probably be a good candidate for a minimally invasive procedure called a Turbinoplasty, which is a specialized version of Somnoplasty. The basic idea is that they shove a tube up your nose and use high frequency radio waves to superheat your turbinate tissue, effectively burning it. After being burnt, it scabs, and your body starts working on repairing it by removing the destroyed tissue and replacing it with new tissue. The end result is supposed to be that when your body is finished healing, the turbinates will be smaller than they were before, allowing more air thought. Apparently they have had pretty good results with this procedure in the past, but unfortunately since it's really up to your body to do all the useful work, the effectiveness of the procedure is ultimately determined by your genetics, not so much by your doctor. The downside is that means there's a chance it might not help much at all.

After thinking about it for a while, I decided to give it a go. My appointment was yesterday. I went into the doctors office, and he sat me down in a chair. He took some lidocaine gel (local anasthetic) and used a cotton swab to poke it deep into my nasal cavity. This is like someone jamming their pinky completely up your nose and is fairly uncomfortable, except a cotton swab isn't as girthy (I love that word) as a pinky so it's marginally better in that regard. After that, he took two thin cotton sheets, folded them up, soaked them in a lidocaine solution, and stuck them in my nostrils. Since they were absolutely dripping with lidocaine, a lot of it went down the back of my throat. I have to say, it's pretty much the most bitter thing I've ever tasted! Yuck!

After about 45 minutes, he came back and asked me if I was numb. I told him I couldn't tell, so he poked me with another cotton swab, and I couldn't feel it. He said I was ready for my injection. He asked me if I had a tendency to faint when I gave blood, and I told him no. So he took a huge needle filled with some kind of more powerful anasthetic, and stuck that in my left turbinate. Although I expected it to be quite painful, it was more of a pinching and not all that bad. And then I started getting lightheaded and REALLY hot. The nurse had to put a wet towel on my forehead so I didn't pass out.

He then took the somnoplasty widget and went to work. At first it wasn't that bad, but I calculated that the widget heated up to 157 degrees farenheit. So even though I was numb, I could still feel it, and it was quite painful. Not enough to tell him to stop, but pretty close. After a few minutes, he said he was done, and went to do the other one. Strangely enough, even though my right nostril had been soaking in the lidocaine for longer, when he gave me the injection it REALLY hurt. But at least no more lightheadedness. Then he went to work with the somnoplasty widget and did the same thing as before. Fortunately, it wasn't as painful as the left side.

After he was done, he stuck some cotton in my nose and let me rest for about 30 minutes. Then they took the cotton out, and I was free to go!

My nose dripped blood and gunk for the rest of the evening, both out of the front, and down my throat. And the worst part was that it all tasted like burnt flesh. YUCK!

I expected the first night to be hell (with my nose scabbed and swollen on the inside), but surprisingly one of my nostrils opened up and I was able to breathe through it, even though it felt kind of burning. But whatever, a little burning isn't going to keep me from sleeping! So I slept through the night, woke up this morning, and it feels MUCH better. The inside of nose is all crusty and gunky and scabby, and the worst part is that I'm not allowed to blow it hard. I just have to live with it and let my body do it's job. Over the next week, I'm supposed to be swollen and scabby, and then in about 3-5 weeks I'm supposed to start seeing the benefit.

I hope it works, because if I went through all of that for no benefit, I will be pretty damn unhappy. :)