A person leaving the library just reminded me of this…

Earlier last week a woman came up to me, very upset, because someone had been logged on to the computer that she wanted to use since 6:30(am) (It was around 9am when she complained I believe). I gave her a questioning look, for a few reasons. Mainly because the computers automatically log off after 10 minutes of inactivity, but also because she was so upset about it, and there were tons of open computers.

I asked her which computer she was trying to get on, and she pointed to the one on the end – which is permanently logged in to the library catalog so people can search for books without having to wait to login to a computer. I explained that to her, which did not make her happy, and then told her that she could use the open computer right next to it.

… Is there a reason why some people feel the need to complain and get angry about something that really isn't a problem? Even if someone had been logged into a computer for almost 3 hours without using it, is there any way that such a reaction can be justified? ESPECIALLY when, standing talking to her, I could see at least 10 computers with no one logged in, INCLUDING the one directly next to the one she was complaining about?

Someone please buy me a ticket to New Zealand.

Kthxbai!

Spudart shared an interesting idea in his post "Send me a dream through instant messenger" – what if you could influence someone's dreams through an instant message?

Since there's currently no (known) IM to brain link available, and because the idea intrigues me, I started trying to come up with a way to make it possible. It's not as elegant and simple as instant-message-to-brain technology, but my solution would come as close as our current technology allows.

The Setup

A new IM or Twitter account set up specifically for receiving dream suggestions.

A program that watches for or checks for new messages. Twitter would be easiest as I could easily make a program that watches for new tweets and downloads them.

A function in the program that outputs (using text to speech) dream IMs or tweets that have been received.

The Function

Before going to sleep, the dreamer would notify the program that it should start looking for submitted dreams. The program would then update the dreamers status on various sites (Facebook, AIM, Twitter, etc) asking people to send dreams. The program would then check for new submissions and wait a set time (maybe 30 minutes) to allow the dreamer time to fall asleep before reading out suggestions using the least harsh sounding text-to-speech engine I could find.

It could be set up to either repeat each dream suggestion at set intervals for a certain amount of time before moving on to the next (to give the suggestion more time to sink into the dreamer's subconscious), or repeat available suggestions randomly (to cram a bunch of suggestions in with each other.)

The dreamer could set up a blacklist of words to block from being allowed into their dreams, and could use a function like PHP's "soundex()" to filter out dream spammer's attempts to bypass that filter.

Am I really worried about dream spammers? Eeesh.

The Test

Now, I'm not brave enough to undertake a project like this – my dreams are crazy enough as it is. But I'm sure someone out there is both interested and feels like guinea-pigging themselves. If you're such a person, I'd be more than willing to help you set this up. 🙂

Actually, giving this a second thought before I schedule this to be published, maybe I would be interested in experimenting on myself. I'll have to think about it.

That's really all I have to say about that.

Also, I'm really digging the COMPLETELY redesigned dashboard in WordPress 2.7. It's really sexy.

I've decided to offer my services to the world as a "Life Consultant". If you're confused as to what exactly a Life Consultant does.. they consult with you about aspects of your life. It's very similar to the idea of a "Life Coach", except to me coaching makes it sound like a sport, and sports usually involve an outcome that is either winning or losing. I don't like that.

Why? Because if you've read ANY of my blog posts, you'll know that I have a.. umm… unique way of looking at things, which could provide valuable insight into a situation or idea that you've become stuck on.

Oh, and I'm offering these services for FREE.

So here's how it'll work, for now: if you have a question, you can ask it in the comments below, and if you want a private response, just make a note of that at the end. If you have something you'd like my consultation services on that you'd rather not share with the world, just leave a comment with something along the lines of "email me please", and I'll send you an email and keep everything 100% confidential and private.

I have a feeling that this is going to go down like most of my other recent ideas and no one will be interested or respond, so I'm considering this my "market research" on the idea. If enough people respond though, I'll look at the idea of charging a nominal and reasonable fee (probably a couple bucks or whatever.)

Kthanks. 🙂

So, the numbers are in.

The December 3rd and 4th posts that included "zero result" searches brought in 825 visits from people searching for those phrases.

Here's a breakdown by phrase, sorted by number of hits:

• 496 – "ate a violin"
• 107 – "people are too civil on the internet"
• 72 – "his penis shattered my world"
• 70 – "it turned out her bottom half was a robot"
• 41 – "driver-side bidet"
• 23 – "sarah, plain and tall and a cyborg"
• 12 – "aww, a baby hooker!"
• 4 – "my little horse must think it gay"

It's been a fun ride, but it's not over yet! Thanks guys 🙂