dennis yang dot com

TED was a few weeks ago, and I think the coolest thing to come out of it this time is the wwtelescope.. It’s a Microsoft project, and looks like Google Earth for the nighttime sky.. Nerdy, sure.. Launches in the Spring..

So yah, I was a huge astronomy nerd when I was growing up.. Many a night was spent sitting in the freezing Ohio nights, splitting binaries, which really wasn’t nearly as exciting as I thought it was going to be. So, yah, being able to explore the universe from the comfort of your computer seems pretty awesome in comparison.

I love personality tests… My MBTI type is ENFP or ENTP depending on how feely I’m doing that day (I’m right on the cusp of F and T).. So, when Shooey pointed me to a new personality test, I leapt at the chance and took it..

It’s the Enneagram Personality Type Indicator, and it sorts your personality based on 9 types..

Here’s my sorting:
10: Enthusiast
4: Peacemaker
2: Helper
1: Motivator
-1: Thinker
-2: Skeptic, Leader
-3: Artist
-9: Reformer

I’m not really sure what insight this gives into myself.. I mean, as an “Enthusiast” I’m apparently ruled by happiness, so I should spend time looking for things that make me happy. I suppose this is why, in college, my friends all called me “F&GD” which stood for “Fun & Games Dennis.”

Yah, that sounds good to me. More happy please.

More song charts..

[found at kottke]

graph showing likelihood of me watching a tv program versus the overall quality of the tv program

Yes, I realize that this is a nerdy endeavor, but I looked today, and I’ve fallen to 7th the google rankings for a search for “dennis.” I’m now nestled in between Dennis, MA and Dennis, NJ. Ack!

Grrrrr. Dennis Kucinich has TWO of the top 10 entries. Wtf?!

Yes, I’m like a super nerd. I directly attribute my falling in the rankings to the fact that I’ve not been posting as much lately. Grr. Anyway, I’m gonna give myself a dennis link just for some good measure, maybe that’ll help.

Eeeep! I just noticed that my friend Matt has fallen to 2nd (to the whereismatt dude) — could that be a result of his recent domain switch? (He switched from photomatt.net to ma.tt last year)

Anyway.. ok, that’s enough nerd talk for today.

My computer is really pissing me off this week. Maybe it’s because I’ve been burning the midnight oil on a super awesome new project for work, but I feel like all things computer-y are annoying me. My brand new laptop is being bitch, even after “upgrading” from Vista to XP (which, by the way, is NOT a trivial operation). And, to top it off, my wifi card is dying and ThinkPad support is NOT being my friend on that. Dammit, I should have just gotten the MacBook when I had the chance, I’m being punished for being PC guy. Not that I want to be Justin Long… I mean seriously? Those are the choices we have? PC Guy or Justin Long? Hmm. I digress.

Firefox is on my poo-list for today. Why? Well, first, for some reason, today it was being an poohole and crashing all the time, and had to be fixed with the Flashblock extension. The web kind of is the suck without flash, imho. I like all of the little distracting little things that decorate the web all over the place. Although, it’s scary to see how many people use Flash for simple things like, um, a header.

But no, that’s not why I’m pissed off. It’s because of this:

Yes, it’s the Firefox password rememberer. It’s a fantastic feature, and I really like to not have to remember my passwords, but I think that the UI flow is all wrong. (And, thanks to my Windows XP upgrade, I’ve had to re-train Firefox to re-remember all of my passwords)..

Anyway, here’s what usually happens when I go to a site now:

1. I enter my username/password.
2. Firefox asks if I want to remember that
3. I say.. Yes! (Thanks Firefox! You’re so nice.)
4. It’s the wrong password. Crap.

I mean… shouldn’t it ask if I want to remember the password AFTER I am successfully logged in? C’mon.. that would make a lot more sense. Sheeza.

Yes, I could just turn it off, but that’s the easy way out.

With all of the hubbub about the so-called “mortgage crisis,” I guess someone wanted to write a story about people who weren’t screwed by their mortgages.. So, my friend, former boss, and now real estate broker Jessica forwarded my info to a reporter who was doing an article about people that did ok with their ARMs…

Dennis Yang, vice president for a corporate intelligence firm, has a similar story. “I didn’t need to pay for the security of a 30-year mortgage,” he says. “Why pay for knowing what your payment will be in 30 years when you know you’re not going to be there?” Yet, when he bought his Hayes Valley condo in 2004, this wasn’t the first advice he received. “I approached my boss for advice, and he told me I should always get a 30-year fixed no matter what.” Instead, Yang chose an ARM that would allow him to invest more money in stocks. “I didn’t want all of my savings to be in my home,” he explains. “This allowed me to be more balanced in my investments.”

Amassing the knowledge about house buying and mortgages is a whole lot of information to accumulate, and then once you’re done, you pretty much never need to know about that stuff anymore (until you buy another, I guess).. But yah, I feel like they make mortgages over-confusing, and they should just present them in clear terms, without ALL of the numbers.. Like, the way that I felt about the ARM, was that I pretty much didn’t see myself keeping my house for longer than 7 years, so I could deal with 2 years of variability.. That said, back when I bought, I had no idea that rents would come up so much in SF, so now, had I gotten the 30 year, renting my house out would be an interesting option — that said, I think renting a place with an ARM seems like a risky proposition.

[Thanks Ashley for forwarding me the article... Google news hadn't found it yet.]

Wow… it really is like the week of super nerd-dom or something… Google announced the launch of their Google Charts API today, which is really kind of cool. You can make simple charts by simply passing a bunch of variables in the query string.

This reminds me of my favorite Venn diagram ever:

Hehe..

Anyway.. although the API is very straightforward, its not *that* easy to whip up a Venn diagram of your own… So, because I heart Venn diagrams, I’ve created a handy Venn diagram creator for your convenience.

C’mon.. make me some witty Venn diagrams please.

Like, wow, this is super geeky. Like super geeky. Like, wow.

[Thanks Mike.]

Woohoo!

So, my buddy Brian has created this awesome podcasting solution (that anyone who is audio or video podcasting should definitely check out…)

Anyway, I’m giving it a try for my holiday mix…. This way, you don’t have to download all of the tracks, and you can listen right through your browser! Castfire rocks.. I’m gonna start making more shows, methinks.

Thanks Brian!!

Enjoy!!