| UPDATE |
[Apr. 26th, 2012|11:26 pm] |
HAY!
It's been a while. I found this page while googling my own name.
I thought I'd share a little bit about my life, since I haven't posted in so long. Let's see... where to begin
Since we last spoke, I have:
1) Grown a beard.
2) Shaved it.
3) Cut myself
4) Not shaving the beard by the way, I went through a "cutting" phase, but I've learned to love myself
5) Got back into the cutting thing, real heavy this time, like deep wounds, it's bad, it's real bad
6) Drew a picture of a horse shitting itself into a future version of itself's old future horse mouth
7) Fell in love with a girl whose picture i found while i was fighting for our freedom overseas
8) Wrote, directed, and starred in a film about it
9) Not the falling in love thing, the horse thing, the film was about the horse shitting into a future version of itself
10) It's called "The Lucky One"
Also, I've got this new project, here: http://birdhelmets.com
It's something that's fun for people of all ages, but also brings to light the danger of unprotected bird skulls. |
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| science vs. fate/religion/nonsense |
[Dec. 23rd, 2010|11:41 pm] |
Why is it that so many good tv shows end up having episodes where they entertain the idea of fate/religion vs science, and leave the viewer with an ambiguous message?
Why can't the writers, who are clearly agnostic/atheist/critical thinkers, just say, you know what, let's end this the way it should end.
It's a cop out. It's saying to the viewer that, hey sorry we, the writers, couldn't make the story interesting without exploiting the shit-trope of fate vs. reality, and leave you, the intelligent viewer, with a completely ambiguous, "We're pussies," ending.
Anyone know what I mean? House, MD does this a lot.
This is where I complain about things. |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 14th, 2010|02:52 am] |
Another article for the future, ignore if in the present (2010)
Predictions From the Past: Kevin P. Quinn and Robot Dogs
In November of 2010, Kevin P. Quinn posted a livejournal entry about the pros and cons of robot dogs versus standard dogs. We now, of course, call them google dogs, and regular dogs. But [Kevin Patrick Quinn's] clairvoyance of the future should not go unnoticed. It is now the year 2050, and 90% of all households with pets, have a google dog instead of a blah blah blah. Now that it's 2050, I will remind readers that the standard journalism practice is to state the year that we are writing. We also make a point to state this in every article that we "future journalists" write. Also, we refer to ourselves as "future journalists," despite the fact that it is currently the present for us. But you future readers, of course, already know this...
it's on record, that's good enough
fucking robot dogs
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 14th, 2010|02:18 am] |
This article is written for the future. I just want to get a head start. So if you're reading this in the present, just ignore it.
Robot Dogs Vs. Regular Dogs, Pros and Cons, by Kevin P. Quinn
Since 2040, 78% of pet-owning families have opted for robotic pets over their natural competition. The most popular family pet, regardless, remains the dog. So why are so many families opting for a robotic dog instead of the traditional carbon-based, organic dog? The advantages are abundant. No feces to put into a bag, no laborious training necessary, etc. But there are still some advantages to having a standard dog as your family pet. For one, standard dogs don't have to be updated through your GooglePet update.
You know what, I'm done with this future article, I don't think I can make this concept funny. I'll post it, no one reads this anyway |
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| World Cup Vuvuzela Solution |
[Jun. 18th, 2010|12:29 am] |
If you hate the Vuvuzela as much as I do, I have a solution. I don't have the resources or desire to go about trying to invent this, but if I did, I would invent:
The Anti-Vuvuzela.
What is it?
From Wikipedia article, "Active Noise Control"
Sound is a pressure wave, which consists of a compression phase and a rarefaction phase. A noise-cancellation speaker emits a sound wave with the same amplitude but with inverted phase (also known as antiphase) to the original sound. The waves combine to form a new wave, in a process called interference, and effectively cancel each other out - an effect which is called phase cancellation. Depending on the circumstances and the method used, the resulting soundwave may be so faint as to be inaudible to human ears.
It would basically be a horn that emits the antiphase of the vevuzela sound.
So, how you say, would I be able to get the amplitude from different people, with different lung capacities, and frequencies of horn use to align with those of the vevuzela blowers?
I wouldn't have to. This would work, if in aggregate, roughly the same amount of people in the staduim that had a vuvuzela, had an anti-vuvuzela. If we assume that on average, random people's random inclinations are equally random, then the sounds from both the vuvuzela, and the anti-vuvuzela would cancel each other out.
Done. Problem solved.
Someone give me some money.
In reality, I think one of two things would happen that would make perfect noise cancellation improbable.
1) People love the idea of canceling out the vuvuzela too much. More people get the anti-vuvuzela than get the standard vuvuzela. Then we have created an, albeit likely more faint, but possibly more annoying sound than we had to begin with.
2) People just aren't that excited about blowing a horn that eliminates a sound they feel they shouldn't have had to hear to begin with.
In either scenario, the sound from the vuvuzela would be decreased. Everyone wins.
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 5th, 2010|08:26 pm] |
I made a movie on xtranormal.com
Enjoy!
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 4th, 2010|10:12 pm] |
You know those restaurants in big cities that are so popular that they have no reservations, and 2 hour waits?
They should increase the price of the menu for every minute the wait increases. In fact, all restaurants should do this. If the line become 30 minutes longer, the prices should go up by say, 15%. You could even automate it so that for every person that enters the door, the menu automatically increases by some amount. Why, you say? Supply and Demand. If people are willing to wait 15 minutes on a Thursday at 5 pm, and 2 hours on a Saturday at 7pm, then the value of that table on a Saturday at 7pm is higher than it was on Thursday at 5pm.
Therefore, the menu is undervalued during a higher demand, with a steady supply.
If restaurants did this, they would actually make more money. You may say, but wait, wouldn't people be turned off by the increased price, and leave?
Yes, they would. And that would be a good thing for not only the restaurant, but also for people as a whole. In fact, I would go so far as to say it is a moral imperative that restaurants price progressively.
So, why would it be better for the restaurant? In the current system, there is a huge demand to be seated at a table, but a maximum amount of tables. Were the restaurant not limited spatially by the real estate it occupies (parking lot size, maximum occupancy, etc) they could simply allow as many people to enter as they wanted, and increase or decrease the size of the parking lot and restaurant in real time. Of course this is physically impossible, so they cannot. But consider a manufacturer of widgets. They, unlike the restaurant, have the ability to scale up at a rate nearly consistent with demand, by buying cheap land, building another factory, and producing more widgets to sell to distributors. Unlike a widget manufacturer, a restaurant must satisfy the exigent demand for food, and do so within an inflexible, finite space.
The result is a market inefficiency. The solution is for restaurants to simulate the benefits of scaling up, by enacting a progressive pricing scheme. The reason it would work, is because it would maximize the occupancy of the restaurant throughout the day and night.
This concept already exists to a certain extent in what's known as the "early-bird special." The idea is to incentivize people to park in the parking lot, come in, sit at a table, and give them money, albeit slightly less than during peak demand times, when they otherwise wouldn't do so.
So, what's the difference between incentivizing people to come in during low demand times, and disincentivizing people during peak demand times? Nothing. They should do both.
If you disagree that this is actually a moral imperative, you are not only wrong, but likely inconsistent and wrong. If you believe that it is unfair to raise the price of a menu at a restaurant when demand is higher, then you should also call Ferrari and tell them to sell their cars for the same price as a Honda, and if you are paid $20 dollars an hour, then you should tell your boss to pay you the same as a fry cook. Because the logic is exactly the same.
Consider the fact that there is already an "underground market" of sorts for buying tables for their more accurate market price. Restaurant patrons will often slip the host or hostess $20 or more to be seated earlier, or at a better table. Shouldn't the restaurant simply raise the prices for the food and drink, rather than allow the hostess to be bribed?
Another solution to this problem would be to simply openly allow hostess bribery at restaurants, with a clearly labeled schedule of prices for skipping in line. Then the restaurant could decrease the hostess pay to compensate. In fact, they could give the hostess a negative wage (hostess pays the restaurant per hour to work there), should the amount of bribery warrant it. This would essentially be the exact same system, with merely a different method of collecting the money.
What it all boils down to, is the fact that restaurants are grossly underpricing their patrons, and the result is unsatisfied customers, and inefficiently long lines out the door and on to the sidewalk. |
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| Dream Log |
[Sep. 15th, 2009|11:11 pm] |
I had a dream a few nights ago that I met Joe Rogan on a street corner in Atlanta. He asked me if I would like to be on an episode of Fear Factor, to which I agreed, despite the fact that he was wearing filthy, tattered clothing, hadn't shaved in weeks, and smelled horrible. He told me I would be doing an obstacle course around town, and ushered me towards a rusty 70s model ford with a broken door and shattered windshield. Before I got into the car, he said he needed to see my ID, so I pulled out my wallet. He said we needed to hurry up with this, so he took my wallet, and said he would find my ID, but I should just go ahead and start driving. I accepted this plan, with some apprehension. When I got into the car, there was a distinct smell of old beer and cigars, and there were several empty scotch bottles in the passenger floor. When I looked in the rear view mirror, I saw Joe Rogan running off with my wallet.
Best dream I've ever had I think. |
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| iphonez |
[Aug. 10th, 2009|05:49 pm] |
Do not ever try to update your iphone software while on the phone. It wipes out your data. All of it. Phone numbers, apps, sms, everything.
When I called Apple for support, the Apple Genius tech support nerd faggot shithead basically tacitly told me that I was a fucking idiot and I shouldn't have done that. Then I asked him why he had an "Eat Shit, I'm better than you attitude," and he told me "well you wouldn't think that you could drive your car around while a mechanic worked on it," so I told him that his analogy was shitty and that I shouldn't be expected to intuitively know that. He disagreed.
That's what happens when you call apple. I guess they know that I'm not gonna switch to a different phone because it's the best, but I could do without that shithead customer service.
Steve Jobs, you're still on my list you cunt. |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 20th, 2009|06:58 pm] |
Whenever you go out to eat with a large group of people, there will always be one guy who complains about the waiter/waitress, and gives them a hard time about every little thing they do wrong, or things that are simply not quite up to their standards of perfection. And if they forget to not put onions in their house salad, they don't leave a tip, or leave considerably less. Most of us normal people call these people assholes.
But consider this. Not tipping bad service is actually a good deed. We should be congratulating these people on doing their due-diligence to society. Tipping is obviously an incentive system to reinforce good performance, but what it does better is provide a disincentive to do a shitty job. If you tip a waiter or waitress despite the fact that they did a poor job, then you are contributing to a feedback loop of poor service for future customers.
So the next time you see someone undertipping because of a warm beer or a cold soup, you should actually be thanking them, not calling them an asshole under your breath. |
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kevinquinnyo's journal