I just finished watching the TV series Heroes, since we have a trial Netflix subscription. It wasn’t as good as I expected, and it left me with a lot of unanswered questions. Maybe you can help:

• How was Nathan Petrelli able to fly away with the Haitian there?
• Why did Suresh and Peter allow Syler to survive?
• When he has the opportunity: Why doesn’t Hiro kill Sylar? Why does he only save Ando instead?
• Peter Petrelli didn’t die.
• Why does Hiro think he needs to save Kensei? If he’s only looking at the past, he doesn’t need to interfere. Maybe those people wouldn’t have been shooting arrows if he wasn’t there?
• How could Sylar survive being stabbed with Hiro’s sword?
• Didn’t Claire tell West that HRG is her dad earlier? Around episode 2-3, Season 2.
• Too much bringing Claire back over and over.
• People never really die in Heroes, they’re only dead until they get the magical blood.
• Why didn’t the explosion in 1600s Japan blow up Adam Monroe (Takedo Kensei)’s head?
• Why didn’t Peter Petrelli’s explosion take off his head?
• Why does Micah need to sneak out when she is the one doing the thievery? To help her.
• Why wouldn’t the other founders want strain 138 destroyed?
• Why does the company want Claire to think her father is dead?
• Too many rehashings of the issue of trust.
• Why does Peter trust Adam? Sometimes it seems like he doesn’t. Then suddenly he does again.
• Why doesn’t Suresh kill Sylar?
• Doesn’t Parkman know Hiro? Powerless, Season 2
• How did Nathan lose his position as Congressman?
• Why would Suresh save one person to allow Sylar to live? He knows Sylar has killed many more innocent people (a lot more than 1).
• Does turning the vial to ashes really destroy the virus?
• Sylar again… nobody ever dies in Heroes, too much regeneration.
• The only things they save the world from– would not have been problems had they not existed.

Posted in Travel on July 5th, 2008 Read More Be the first to comment

There’s a new product released today by someone named Norman Freeman. It’s called ViralInviter, and it looks very clever. I’ve had this idea for a long time, but I haven’t yet seen any decent implementations of it. The idea is that your visitors can invite their friends to join your site with their email address books. Most people have nearly all of their contacts’ email addresses stored in a webmail service such as Gmail or Hotmail. By providing their login, you can automatically get their contact list and allow them to invite select people– or everyone– with a single click.

Sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn have been doing this for a long time. I never invite people who were not already users of the service. The real value, in my opinion, comes when you can automatically send friend requests to everyone in your address book who already uses the service– whether it’s Facebook or something else. That’s really useful, because people you haven’t talked with in years might be on the service, and it might be the perfect way to reconnect. I hope ViralInviter has this feature. It does have a 100% money-back guarantee (so there’s no risk, if for any reason you don’t like it), and the price is going up tomorrow: so take a look today!

P.S. Another thing I’d like is the ability to export my contacts and then give my contact list to the website in question. This gives them only what I want to give them– the contact list’s email addresses– without giving them my password nor access to my email account. I know some services (like Facebook, I believe) didn’t allow this; yet others did. I think Plaxo is also a pioneer in this area. This is definitely something to keep an eye on.

Posted in Travel on July 5th, 2008 Read More Be the first to comment

It is possible to copy Wii Fit save data from one Wii and use it on another. When I Googled for answers about this, I found several different answers. Some people said save files are tied to the Wii console itself, so although you could backup to SD Card, you couldn’t bring that data with you to another console. Others said you probably could, but they had never tried.

So I had to try for myself. And it worked just fine. I was able to take Wii Fit save data and bring it over to my cousin’s house to do a Body Test for the day, and get a stamp. Then I saved it back to my SD Card.

First, to backup your Wii Fit save data, insert an SD Card and copy the Wii Fit game file to the card. You also need to Transfer all of your personal MIis to a Wii Remote. If you don’t, the characters will turn into guests on your friend’s console.

On the friend’s console, go to the Mii Plaza first, and Transfer all of your Miis to their Wii (from your Wiimote).

Then, insert a blank SD Card. Copy their Wii Fit save data to it (if it exists). Then, erase their data from their Wii (make sure it’s backed up on their SD Card first!).

Remove their SD Card and insert yours. Copy your Wii Fit data to their Wii. Then go ahead and start and play Wii Fit with your save data.

You can simply reverse the process to transfer back.

Hope this helps!

Posted in Travel on July 4th, 2008 Read More One

Today I’m going to start learning how to create a toolbar for Firefox, hopefully as a browser extension or add-on. I tried looking for some open source XPIs to work from, but it was more difficult than I thought. So I posted the question on the mozillaZine Forums, and got a helpful response. Looks like a great place to start

More later…

Posted in Travel on July 4th, 2008 Read More Be the first to comment

I had a weird issue today where the Amazon code was properly added in the editor, but when we went to look at it on the post, it wasn’t there. Switching between Visual and HTML editing options would strip the code, too. The problem was the Trustworthy XHTML plugin 1.1. “Gives you control over how WordPress auto-formats XHTML in posts and pages. The administrator sets the defaults, and based on a user’s Role, that user may override the default setting for his or her own profile. By Leo Jackson.”

As of WP 2.5.1, this plugin is no longer needed. Check for it and remove it.

Posted in Travel on July 2nd, 2008 Read More Be the first to comment

Bob Barr is the Libertarian Party’s nominee for President of the United States. He believes the proper role of government is to ensure liberty, freedom, and free commerce; and not much else. GQ interviewed Barr and asked:

Isn’t the government there to do whatever the people want? Isn’t that the whole idea of a democracy?

Barr replies, “In a pure democracy, yes. But we don’t have a pure democracy.” Later, GQ’s Wil S. Hylton states:

And this is a democracy, and the government should do what they want.

Again Barr has to clarify, “It’s not a democracy,” and briefly explains why. Later, Hylton states:

The government exists to do whatever people want it to do.

This is a very bad misconception.

Three (3) separate times Barr has to tell Hylton that our government is not a democracy. And it’s true. It is not.

It’s a Republic founded on certain principles, as defined in the Constitution which created our Federal Government. And, for our own good, these principles should not be violated. Watch this video:

We live in a Republic, not a Democracy. And thank God for that, because the tyranny of the majority is not easily controlled. Yet without Law there can be no freedom.

A user under the name of crystal041282 wrote as a comment on the GQ website:

Constitutional amendments are made by politicians. Congress. Not “the people”. Good luck finding a Congressman who votes based on what his constituents want instead on claiming he will to get elected then backing off once he’s in office. Barr addresses this directly. We’ve seen it in countless presidents. Do you *really* believe “the people” run this country?

…if we lived in a Democracy, then as the majority of people oppose our occupation in Iraq, we would have pulled out. We haven’t. We’re not living in a Democracy if we’re acting as puppets for legislators. They pander to us to get our votes - as Barr stated…

reclaimyourrepublic wrote:

How did you vote on the Farm Bill? In a democracy, you would have cast a vote about the nearly $300 billion taxpayer dollars spent. Instead, there were representatives and senators that voted to pass the bill, a president that vetoed it, and representatives and senators that overrode that veto. The bill is still in limbo due to the mistake of the missing 34 page section, but that is beside my point. I know that I didn’t cast a vote on the bill, and I am sure that you did not either.

I would also be interested in a citation in the U.S. Constitution that classifies America as a democracy. I would also like to see where it grants the “right” to vote. I think that both of these issues would signify a democracy. While we are on the subject of a democracy, the 2000 Presidential election would have been decided differently.

Think about it. A Republic, not a Democracy.

Posted in Travel on July 2nd, 2008 Read More 2

It was extremely challenging, but a lot of fun. Photos by Tony Feng.

Posted in Travel on July 2nd, 2008 Read More Be the first to comment

I’m going on a backpacking trip for the next week. I’m going from Onion Valley to Mt. Whitney via Kearsarge Pass, part of the John Muir Trail. In case I want to share anything with you, I set up a blog at kearsargepass.blogspot.com. Sign up for emails and stay informed!

Posted in Travel on June 22nd, 2008 Read More One

It’s a tough choice. Right now I’m really leaning toward McCain, as I used to be a strong supporter of him; but recently the more I’ve learned about the war, the more I disapprove of how our foreign policy is changing.

Heck, maybe I’ll just write-in Ron Paul.

Video is Ron Paul on MSNBC Morning Joe, June 18, 2008.

read more | digg story

Posted in Travel on June 20th, 2008 Read More Be the first to comment

In my spare time over the past several days, I’ve been working on an idea I have for a web app that would keep track of thoughts from my brain. Sure, blogs already do that, but they generally have some structure.

I require complete sentences, and posts aren’t easily kept public and private. I can’t see on one simple page all of my private and public posts, and I can’t see other people’s posts, either. Plus it’s slow, I have to do a few clicks to login and get to the post page, and then I have to make up a title. And the post content itself is formatted, not plain text, like the way I have info in all of the random text (.txt) files scattered across my HDD.

So today I unveil to you Brain Apps. Login, give your brain a URL, and let me know what you think.

Posted in Travel on June 20th, 2008 Read More Be the first to comment