Thu Tu’s Blog

I’m having trouble winning trophies in the 150cc engine class of Mario Kart Wii. I went to check to the Mario Kart Channel Rankings to see how the #1 ranked racer did in the Time Trial. In two of the tracks, the #1 racer didn’t even drive off from the starting line. I had read about cheaters taking advantage of bugs in the game, but that was so wrong. I wished there was a way to report cheaters with a click of the button. Since they only offer ghost data for the #1 ranked racer, I couldn’t see how a course was completed without cheating.

One could argue that my trying to review ghost data is cheating also. I don’t think it’s the same since I would still have to complete the course myself. Also, it’s not cheating to watch better people play, otherwise we’d have to avert our eyes every time someone is playing a game.

After almost two years of not going to the gym, I’m finally back in the habit (I hope) of going to the gym. What motivated this slacker to return to working out?

I was discussing with a friend different ways of working out that would be more fun. One idea was belly-dancing, which I heard was great for abs. Instead of paying for a class when I already had a gym membership, I checked out the Group X schedule of the nearest 24 Hour Fitness. They didn’t have a belly dance class, but they had something called 24Tease. Here’s the description of the class:

Jeff Costa, creator of Cardio Striptease introduces 24Tease, an electrifying 30-minute striptease aerobics workout exclusively at 24 Hour Fitness! 24Tease provides a safe environment for members to get in touch with their inner stripper, while taking off pounds, extra clothing and even some inhibitions to reveal a healthier body and stronger self-esteem. 24Tease is low-impact contemporary movement that makes you sweat and feel good.

I think the class lives up to the description, except for the part about taking off extra clothing. I mean, I wear minimal clothes anyway when I work out because I get so hot.

I had wished I could drink some alcohol before taking the class to loosen up but since I had to drive home afterward, it wasn’t an option. The second time I went, I did a few minutes of cardio on the treadmill, with a cool down period. I think it helped me to be more relaxed mentally and have the blood pumping through my body so I was not so stiff.

I’ve taken step and aerobics classes before but would quit after one class due to frustration of being unable to follow. I figured I would get the hang of things if I went on a regular basis but I wasn’t motivated enough. At least a stiptease class teaches a useful skill. You know, for sexy dancing in a club.

It’s a pretty low impact way to exercise, but I was sweating a lot. It made me wonder how professional strippers do it. Not that I’ve seen a live stripper. Despite it being low-impact, it’s a fun class that at least gets me into the gym at a specific time.

One drawback is that the room in which the class is held is right in front of the cardio machines, where people can see inside the room through glass windows. Fortunately, since the class has so many people, I don’t worry so much about it. If I were one of a handful of dancers, then I’d be a bit self-conscious.

My Logitech Harmony 720 Harmony basically stopped working a few months ago. Thanks to Costco’s awesome return policy and my compulsive box-keeping, I was able to return it for a refund. It was annoying living without a universal remote to control all my home entertainment devices, so there was no doubt that I would get a replacement. I was pretty content with the 720 aside from the issues that occurred after almost one year of ownership. However, I decided not to go with it again because the idea of using RF technology was very appealing.

Although the Logitech Harmony 890 cost about twice as much as the 720, the ability to use RF to control devices sold me on it. After using it for a few months, I have no regrets. Being able to use RF means that I no longer need to point directly at the devices. Since some activities like watching TV involves turning on multiple devices, some devices might fail to get the infrared signal if the remote control is not pointed correctly toward all of the devices. Now, I don’t have to worry about where I point my remote as long as the extenders that the system uses are in place.

Additionally, some appliances and electrical adapters can work with Z-Wave technology. What I did was replace the regular light switch with a wireless-compatible wall switch that my remote could control remotely and wirelessly. With the wireless controlling of lights, the Harmony 890 has a concept that its non-RF brethren like the 720 didn’t have, scenes. For example, I like to watch DVDs with the lights out. When I click on Watch DVD, not only does it turn on the TV and dvd player, but it turns off the lights. That is because I created a scene with no lighting and assigned it to the DVD-watching activity. I have created “activities” that just control the light so that I can turn on or off the lights using my remote, independent of what I’m doing with my home entertainment system.

As awesome as this system is, it took some time and effort to get it set up. There was minimal documentation on how to get my remote to communicate to the Z-wave device(s). I’m pretty techy so I’m not sure if I would recommend this to someone who doesn’t have a lot of technological know-how and patience. Once it is set up, there is minimal effort extended. I might tweak a setting here and there, but they are usually so low priority that I don’t bother to sync the remote until there is something that I really need to add to the remote.

Another useful thing about this remote is that it makes it possible for someone besides myself to be able to use my home entertainment system. They just need to go to the Activities screen and select the desired activity.

Here’s a photo of the remotes for my home entertainment system, with the Harmony posed horizontally above the five remotes. The idea to have a photo of the remote controls that were being replaced was what inspired me to write this post.

For the second year in a row, Google accepted Coppermine to be a mentor organization in Google Summer of Code. Yay!

I am again going to be an organization administrator to coordinate Coppermine’s participation in the program. The student that I mentored last year not only continued to work with Coppermine, but signed up to be a mentor and organization administrator this year.

I decided to make use of Google Sites to have one place where interested students can learn about working with Coppermine in GSoC. There is a thread in Coppermine forums to post public questions about Coppermine in GSoC. For non-public GSoC correspondence, there is an email address: gsoc2008@coppermine-gallery.net. The email address is specifically for Google Summer of Code communications and isn’t necessarily going to forward only to me (that means no love letters! :D). For anything else, please use the other means of communication.

After years of resistance toward joining yet-another-networking-site, I broke down and signed up for LinkedIn today.

I was checking out my site’s analytics and saw that my first name continued to be the top keyword that was getting people to my site. I did a Google search for my full name to see how the results were. The first one was for my blog so that’s cool. I scrolled down and saw a LinkedIn profile for Thu Tu, and it wasn’t me!

That’s when I decided to sign up for LinkedIn and establish a profile for myself. I even got a custom url with my name, which surprisingly hadn’t been taken yet: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ThuTu

Update: One week later, my LinkedIn profile is showing up in a search for my name. Go me!

V-day is coming this week and whether it is looked forward to or dreaded, those of us with beloved pets have to take some precaution to avoid having the day of love turn tragic. This information is also important to those who love pet lovers.

Valentine staples like chocolates can be delicious to us humans but toxic to pets. Certain flowers can be poisonous to cats. My favorite flower is the oriental stargazer but as a lily it’s a no-no for my cats. Oh well, the flower does not live as long nor provide the same cuddling benefits my cats do.

This month’s ASPCA newsletter contains an article with some tips and additional links, including alternatives, on ensuring a safe and enjoyable Valentine’s Day for humans and animals: ASPCA Guide to a Pet-Friendly Valentine’s Day.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Earlier this week, DreamHost made a billing mistake that inadvertently billed some customers for a year or two’s worth of hosting. They acknowledged their mistake and apologized profusely for it as they cleaned up after the mess. Some people took issue with the joking tone of the blog post. I’m used to their silly humor so I was okay with it but can totally understand people being upset especially if their finances took a hit as a result of the mistake. The following day, they wrote a more serious post which also detailed how they would reimburse people who suffered bank fees as a result of the overcharge.

What was the response of Lunarpages, my former webhost, to this? They wrote a blog post accusing Dreamhost of robbing their customers. (They’ve since changed the title, content, and tone of the post to be less accusatory and libelous since I first saw it. The permalink url remains to prove the original title and intent.) Hmm… call me crazy but I think stealing is when someone intentionally takes something belonging to another person with no intention of returning it. Dreamhost made a technical error with an unintended consequence, and refunded customers for the overcharge, as well as any fees incurred by the customers. They’re even letting people cancel web hosting accounts and refunding them.

It seems Lunarpages lacks its own moral compass to recognize right and wrong and so couldn’t figure out that what happened at DreamHost was not theft. What Lunarpages did with the spammy 404 pages it imposed on paying customers was an actual unethical act. Lunarpages has not officially acknowledged this error in judgment nor apologized for it. They just quietly reversed what they did. It would be hard to do otherwise since they did not tell their customers what they were doing behind their backs. They also banned helpful/long-time forum members who spoke up against what they did and deleted/censored attempts at exposing the truth. That alienated other long-time forum members, like myself. Now there’s one LP moderator who impresses people at how prolific he is at responding to forum posts. If they hadn’t banned nor alienated so many people, that one person wouldn’t have to be responsible for answering so many forum threads.

Anyway, I just wanted to point out/recall Lunarpages misdeeds to people who want to take up LP’s $40 offer to move from DreamHost. Both web hosts made mistakes but the manner in which they handled mistakes are completely different and tells me how trustworthy or not they are. If you still want to leave DreamHost, be careful about choosing to go with Lunarpages. Also note that the Lunarpages blog is very one-sided in the comments. Dreamhost’s blog and forum have both sides of the situation, regardless of how bad the negative comments made Dreamhost to appear.

Update:

Here’s a well written detailed post about this story:
Lunarpages Lies About DreamHost’s Billing Fiasco

Update 2008-01-20:

A former Lunarpages employee wrote about the current situation and provided a behind-the-scenes look at LP’s tactics:
Dreamhost and Lunarpages

A former customer of Lunarpages shared his thoughts on the differences between Dreamhost and Lunarpages:
Dreamhost, Lunarpages, $$$, and integrity
It seems the reason my account wasn’t affected was because I have a two-year contract so that it wouldn’t have been up for renewal in 12-2008.