Canadian skill?

McDonald’s commonly holds contests to have people win something if they provide feedback about their service. Well, I was browsing their Customer Satisfaction Survey and found something quite interesting in the disclaimer:

Ha! Upon further inspection of the Official Rules reveals some more interesting details that this “skill-testing question” is a mathematical question. I found this odd and did a wiki search to reveal the reasoning Canadians must prove their “intelligence” because Canada bans “for profit gaming”. But if there is a game of “skill” involved, then it’s free of the law.

So what does Canada consider skill:

“A court decision ruled that these [an arithmetic exercise] must contain at least three operations to actually be skill testing”

I’m not even going to go there . out.

Benjamin Willis

Benjamin Willis needs Core Stability

Dearest Lori,

I noted your concern about my well being in a recent comment on a blog post of mine. It is not above me to admit I have many, many problems (83.45% mental, 15.34% physical, 1.2% other) leaving me with a small portion of sanity/normalcy. Do not think I have let your kind thoughts and gestures (“I’m here if you need help…..”) drift aimlessly into the forgotten caverns of my mind. I have taken it upon myself to re-orient the path that is my life by enrolling in a Core Stability course in my final quarter at RIT. The course “will focus on developing/strengthening the body” which I undoubtedly need.

In just my first session I must say I was excited to get started. Well actually, I showed up a little late and wasn’t sure I was in the correct room until I saw several females in front of the instructor- then it made sense because it’s usually women who need the most Core Stability. I snagged a corner spot behind all of the other pupils and began to soak in the environment. We began several exercises of which I intently focused on the tight concentration of those in need females.  With the intensity of the class, I was soon feeling mentally and physically exhausted. The class was over before I knew it and it left me feeling relax, tired and for some reason, hankering for a cigarette.  With 19 more classes left, I was feeling excited that this was truly going to help.

Lori, I appreciate you putting me in this position to help me help myself. I would recommend anyone else with as many problems as I have to join a class like this one.

Born Again,

Benjamin Willis

Core Stability class description:

Core Strength Conditioning will focus on developing/strengthening the body’s core muscles, lower back, abdominals, hips, & gluteus. The body’s core muscles are the foundation for all other movements of the body. Through use of Resist-a-Balls, weights, bands & conditioning exercises, the focus will be to develop and strengthen the body’s trunk and pelvis area where the center of gravity is located. Benefits include improved posture, increased flexibility & range of motion, increased strength and protection of the spine, more stable center of gravity and controlled movement. This class is designed for all fitness levels. Instructor lead exercises and explanation of core principles and proper technique will be covered. A course fee applies. Check SIS for quarterly course offerings (Core Glutes/Abs) options.

Seam Carving

Ok, what useful things ever came out of Intelligent Systems? Not much, but this topic is inspired by the area Computer Vision. Overall, this is one of those useful things that could have been done a long time ago, but the principles, though simple, were never applied. Here is the video, prepare to be amazed

A researcher who helped implement the algorithm is employed by Adobe so expect to seem some cool applications in the coming future. Maybe they will integrate it into browsers eventually and cause a whole new world of pain for front end web developers . Or, expect to see some awesome dynamically resizing videos for different devices, easily watch a widescreen dvd on your new n800.

Benjamin Willis

n800 + Ben = trouble

I broke down and have ordered the n800 internet tablet. Go ahead and look through the pictures-it’s really sweet, I’ll wait……Awesome huh? Some people say that it’s an iPhone without the phone, but I totally disagree, they are not even comparable. The n800 is really just a tiny ass computer that you can do anything on, because it runs a modified version of linux.  So, unlike the iPhone, Nokia has given anyone the ability to develop applications for this sweet tablet. So if someone hasn’t already added that sweet feature you wanted, you can do it yourself.

Here are some of the existing built-in features that make this device kick-ass:

• Cheap, less than 400$
• 2 sd slots, with 1gb (20$) and 2gb (40$) prices falling you have great storage ability
• Web browser (Opera or Moz) with Adobe Flash 9 support
• Skype compatible
• Built in video camera
• Google Video Conferencing
• Streaming Media Player (for your youtube or pron)
• Email
• RSS Feed Reader
• Bluetooth connectivity
• and much more…

As soon as I get this I will post pictures and movies of my in depth review, unless I’m too busy playing with it. But now I can do remote blog postings from almost anywhere-just need Google to take over the world and give everyone free wireless access.

If you absolutely need a constantly connected device, just wait, this same device is coming out next year with wiMAX ability – see here.

Excitedly yours,

Benjamin Willis

iPhone Hack

Quick post:

The typical nerd from my school Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and also a fellow New Jersian just hacked the iPhone to allow it to be used on other cell networks (tested on T-Mobile). His blog about hacking the can be found here. He is also planning on trading in his original hacked iPhone for a $30k car from the Fast and the Furious, a bit unusual, but we all have our weaknesses. Hopefully he doesn’t do to this car what The Hulks son did to his FnF car. I def give props to this guy and hope he doesn’t get too much trouble from Apple’s Law team, though there are no immediate legal issues.

It’s pretty ironic that Steve Wozniak-one of the founders of Apple-is coming to RIT for Brick City Festival as a distinguish speaker. Maybe this will raise some interesting talk this year, if not, Howie Mandel will certainly be able to think of a stupid game to wake everyone up.

Sextastically yours,

Benjamin Willis

Concept Maps…wtf

Warning: boring content ahead, again for you illiterate users just watch the video and look at the pretty pictures.

I have always found it hard to tell someone in detail, technical or not, to do a knowledge transfer. It usually consists of sitting down with someone for a long time while they take notes and look very confused. After hair pulling questions a general concept can be understood, but the details are almost never transferred. Every time I do a coop or short job term it is always the same thing, how do we get what’s in my head out into someone else’s? Well, starting about 12 years ago the solution for this problem was coined with the buzz word Knowledge Management. There have been a bunch of tools that are used, the main stream ones are obviously wiki, blogs, forums, comments etc. One other tool that is not commonly used struck me at a previous job to be quite ingenious.

When I worked a while ago and I did some interesting work with a free tool called CMapsTools (there are a bunch of others out there). The software used to be free, but now it has been aquired and costs and arm and a leg to used. But anyway-the purpose was to easily place out what you know into organized maps or concept maps and link to other detail content. The concept map is just a tree with linking phrases that explain the relationships between nodes, as you can see from their webpage. I, personally, think that a tree structure is one of the easiest and fastest things to understand. Now-it is not the end all be all of knowledge management tools, but it makes the high level overview extremely simple to understand. A wiki backend to link to more detailed descriptions of the major topics can be a very complementary pair. Yeah all very boring but….

…what do you get when you add technology with concept maps? Just watch this :

Yeah, pretty freaking awesome, huh?

Shameless plug: Still think trees are boring and worthless, take a look at the one we developed for eBay categories on getitnext. Aside from some ui improvements I couldn’t have been happier about the way it came out. I would love to hear comments about how awesome it is, otherwise, cram it with walnuts . Just compare it against eBay, which would you really find more useful:

VS.

No contest.

Benjamin Willis – out.

tubular hotels…?

Ok, just heard about these interesting means of shelter that are popular in spacious Japan called Capsule hotels. Everyone knows for a fact that Asians are clearly more efficient that Americans/Canadians: their multi core brain processors have surpassed our overclocked single cores which allows them to develop some amazing technological advances like these Capsules or as we refer to them in the office, tubes.

I see many different advantages to these tubes and they are clearly the wave of the future. They are extremely cheap, 40$ for the high-end model and compact perfect for city life-get home from work, slink into your private tube, maybe catch some news before you sleep. The tubes are extremely clean and with a few upgrades can be the last home you will ever want to live in, yeah screw white picket fences.

So here are some upgrades, that we have been discussing for the tubes:

• Teh Internet

The next logical step is to increase the technology in these things-I mean who doesn’t use the internet, unless you have been living in a cave or a tube your whole life.

• Facebook…or TubeBook

Now that you have internet, check out who is in your Tube Neighborhood, see who your tube is touching and give them a poke (yes, i’m using facebook terminology when i don’t even have an account).

• Tube Mobility

So, you can go online and meet ppl, and maybe you don’t like your neighbors because they wrote something nasty on your wall so why not move? With this tube mobility you can move to a nicer part of town with the push of a button. Or, find someone you fancy, travel over and see if you can stand living tube-by-tube with them.

• Tube Connection

Maybe things did work out with the lady from Tube 743A and you want to get a bit more intimate. Tube connection can give you that real human touch by connecting your tubes together, heck why not connect 2 or 3 together and have yourself a real party.

• Tube Cleanser

An important part about connecting with your friends tube is how messy it will become afterwards, but it’s a small confined space-maybe smells a bit funky. Pull a lever and flush your tube with fresh chlorinated water, like from high school pools-that’ll kill anything, but remember not to open your eyes. Heck, why not equip the tubes with sensors to auto determine your funkocity level and it will schedule a cleansing for you.

• Tube Food

Up till now we have gotten you entertainment, sex and clean-what’s left to do in life but eat. Each tube should be equipped with a single tube that you suck your meals through. We are all eventually going to get there when we are 80yrs old drinking down all of our solids, so we might as well get an early start.

• Tube Optimizations

We have gone as far as to experiment with optimizations to the tubes by shrinking them in size. The logic being that without the need to move around, your arms and legs become useless, so they would be amputated upon signature of your lifetime tube contract. Reduction is tube size and of the amount of tube food that is required for consumption. The details of this requirement are still up in the air.

• Green Tubes

Green is this years hot button so we might as well press it a couple times and answer the question of how do we pay for such a wonderful service as I’ve described? Body heat-the more your produce the more you get fed, or can go online or some other means of entertainment (hmm maybe we shouldn’t cut off their limbs…).

Yes it sounds like the matrix, so this is both realistic and awesome. Of great ideas this is probably up there with the pet rock.

Thanks for wasting your time with me,

Benjamin Willis

Generic Forgotten Blog Post

I’ve seen it many times before the blogger who promises a daily blog posting, which turns into weekly, then bi-weekly then monthly. Then they come back one day telling people they are sorry for not posting, blah blah blah-like they had fans or something holding their breath. So here is my version:

OMG??! I haven’t posted in like a 5 months! I’m SOSOSO SORRY MY P33PS. I know you have been dying for my dry humor and uninteresting blog content and I promise it won’t change. Please check back as I will totally def be writing in this more often. I LOVE YOU ALL.

Your RockStar,

Benjamin Willis

No promises here on how often I post. Honestly, I care more about how often GoogleBot checks my blog then anyone else.

i <3 computers

Benny-wenny boo boo

Movie of the Century

The moment you have all been waiting for, the movie expected to make a billion dollars opening weekend is here, Balls of Fury. You haven’t heard of it?!? It’s only about one of the coolest sports in history, ping-pong and by one of the creators of Reno 911! Ben Garant. Okay, so it may not be for everybody, something like Dodge Ball but prolly funnier. Watch the trailer and await the count down 8-29!

Boink-

Benjamin Willis

Bourne Ultimatum – Willis Approved

I got a break today from work to catch the latest in the Bourne movies. The movie was very well done and was well worth the theater experience, def 4/5 stars, or thumbs or whatever else you want to call it. It keeps in pace with the Identity and Sumpremacy by offering good action plot line and contains a lot of on-site filming (New York City, India, Morocco, Spain, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom). Matt Damon did quite well with the few lines that he actually has, but it’s funny to note the amount of actual stunt men that were used-makes you wonder how much time he actually spent on camera.

One final note that made the film a little funnier was the use of Motorola phones, VW cars and Google Maps-they are kinda hard to miss. Amazing things you must be able to do with the latest Razor phone like putting out and confirming your kills.

Benjamin Willis