Entries by Kyle Welsh

This is the coolest damn thing I've come across in quite a while - I had to have one and I'm not disappointed. Get one yourself - you will love it!

Damn - what a game!

• Jake Locker is a stud.
• Alex Brink is pretty good
• The Husky secondary leaks like a sive.

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1st Quarter  TD Louis Rankin 89 yard kick return for TD (Ryan Perkins Extra Point), 14:45 Drive:   Washington 7-0  FG Ryan Perkins 35 yard field goal, 8:37 Drive:   Washington 10-0  TD Devin Frischknecht 41 yard TD pass from Alex Brink (Romeen Abdollmohammadi Extra Point), 1:04 Drive:   Washington 10-7 2nd Quarter  TD Jake Locker 23 yard TD run (Ryan Perkins Extra Point), 12:35 Drive:   Washington 17-7  TD Christopher Ivory 25 yard TD run (Romeen Abdollmohammadi Extra Point), 5:58 Drive:   Washington 17-14  FG Ryan Perkins 43 yard field goal, 3:22 Drive:   Washington 20-14  TD Devin Frischknecht 19 yard TD pass from Alex Brink (Romeen Abdollmohammadi Extra Point), 0:34 Drive:   Washington St 21-20 3rd Quarter  TD Jeshua Anderson 28 yard TD pass from Alex Brink (Romeen Abdollmohammadi Extra Point), 9:11 Drive:   Washington St 28-20  TD Marcel Reece 63 yard TD pass from Jake Locker (2pt conversion attempt GOOD), 5:14 Drive:   Tied 28-28 4th Quarter  TD Jake Locker 1 yard TD run (Ryan Perkins Extra Point), 12:18 Drive:   Washington 35-28  TD Brandon Gibson 40 yard TD pass from Alex Brink (Romeen Abdollmohammadi Extra Point), 7:40 Drive:   Tied 35-35  TD Brandon Gibson 35 yard TD pass from Alex Brink (Romeen Abdollmohammadi Extra Point), 0:37 Drive:   Washington St 42-35

Continue reading "2007 Apple Cup"

IntegrateIT.kylewelsh.com is almost 2 years old and it's content is too wide - I'm going to focus on primarily technology-related posts on this new blog (http://bitbucket.kylewelsh.com). There is a ton of stuff going on today on the internet and things I find interesting or useful will make their way to this new site. I'm going to try and generate some revenue as well from this blog without have 73.45% of the space filled up with ads. I've used Blogger and Serendipity before for my blogs - this one is using WordPress. It doesn't look like the learning curve is too steep for WP - if you have any tips/tricks or suggestions please let me know bitbucket (at) kylewelsh.com

Why 'bitbucket'?

The term "bit bucket" is slang for where lost computerized data goes (Wikipedia). Since this blog is going to focus on technology - primarily internet related technology and the majority of that technology is viewed in someone's browser and then 'poof' off to the bit bucket when they delete their browser files.

Auto-blogging

The majority of the content on this blog is going to come from other technology-related blogs vie their RSS feeds which will be turned into posts on this blog using a WordPress plugin written by Guillermo Rauch - WP-O-Matic (link)

Game recap at NFL.com (link) The running game was pretty sad (again) - the complete inability to gain short yardage when they needed it most cost them the game.

Louis Rankin ran all over Stanford today as the Washington Huskies beat the Cardinal 27-9. (Game Recap)

I joined Prosper.com back in July and over the course of about a month transferred x dollars from my credit union account - I said credit union not bank and proceeded to fund nothing but loans requested by AA-rated and A-rated borrowers. Initially, I was underwhelmed by how long the process took from bidding to getting the loan funded and was getting frustrated when it seemed like I was outbid on every loan I bid on on the the time would run out on that loan and bidding was closed.

Suggestion 1 -> Use Prosper's Standing Order feature. Standing Orders are exactly what they sound like - you create a rule (or rules) to find loans and included in the rule is how low you are willing to go and Prosper takes care of the rest. Loans meeting your criteria are bid on and as the lenders compete (bid lower), your standing order automatically puts your lower bids in for you until you limit is reached. I still miss out on loans, but I don't spend nearly as much time searching, bidding and rebidding as I used to.

In September I transferred another x dollars from my credit union account to Prosper and my 3 Standing Orders are working for me as I type. Which brings me to

Suggestion 2 -> Use multiple Standing Orders and tier your amounts/rates. Another criteria of a Standing Order is how much to bid on each loan along with the criteria of the loans that you're bidding on. The final criteria is how much total dollars you want to be committed to each Standing Order. I have my largest dollar amount and lowest interest rate tied to my 'Prime Loans' (AA-rated and A-rated borrowers). My second Standing Order has a lesser total amount and a slightly higher minimum interest rate - this 'near prime' Standing Order bids on loans by B-rated borrowers. My third Standing Order has an even lower total dollar amount setting, but a higher minimum interest rate and looks for loans by C-rated borrowers.

I don't plan on funding any loans at this time by less than C-rated borrowers. All three of my Standing Orders only look for loans from borrowers who are verified homeowners and have verified bank accounts - seemed like a good criteria to me.

How is all of this working out for me? My active loans are for an average interest rate of 14.5% and all but one are current on their payments. My active loans are for an average rate of 17.08%. The minimum dollar amount you can bid for is $50.

If you're interested, join Prosper by using this link (Join Prosper) and you'll get a $25 bonus when you fund a loan. I suggest joining, transferring $75 dollars and funding your initial loan and funding a second loan with your remaining $25 plus the $25 bonus. That's a decent return right there. If you have any questions or need additional info let me know "prosper @ kylewelsh . com".  My prosper 'stats' can be seen here: lendingstats

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A trojan aimed directly at the little (but growing) target on your Mac has been discovered. (link)

Is your Mac infected? (link) You better check your iPhone too if you've been checking out p0rn...

As of early Thursday, it was unclear how many porn sites hosted the bogus codec-cum-Trojan, although Intego claimed a "great deal" of bait spam had been seeded to Mac-specific forums to attract users to the sites. Eckelberry, meanwhile, said his company's researchers were able to find a sample of the Trojan in under three minutes using only a Google. Of the larger security vendors, only McAfee Inc., had posted an analysis of the Trojan by 2:00 a.m. Thursday, Eastern time.

Ivan at Creativebits brings up some great counter-points (link) I believe it will be only a matter of time before some real legitimate bad things are out and aimed specifically at Macs.

ING is apparently close to acquiring Bellevue, WA based ShareBuilder. (link)

I'm a long-time customer of both and wonder what changes will be made to ShareBuilder? It's good news for the team in Bellevue - congrats!

• A-Rod, congrats (link), but you're an ass. (link)
• Scott Boras - you're an ass (link)
• Kobe - you're an ass (link)
• Brett Favre, you da man! (link)

I'm pretty sure this is the same Michael B. Portland that was a junior officer on the USS Ohio in the early 90's when I was onboard. We definitely didn't see eye-to-eye on everything, but he was a good guy with a HUGE ego. (link)  I thought about this some more and realized that Portland was a huge egomaniac (that kind of goes with the territory with Naval officers and isn't always a bad thing), but my biggest crticism of him was that he didn't listen to anyone - he was always right - I wonder if he ever changed or if he just got worse and this played a part in what happened on the USS  Hampton... I found a former submariner blog: The Stupid Shall Be Punished - good stuff.  He has a post (with losts of comments) regarding this incident - reading through them brought all sorts of memories back.  I was in RL division on the USS Ohio in the early 90's and Portland was one of my first division officers - he was Ltjg Portland at the time.

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A follow up to my original post about a criminal being caught by his Facebook profile (link). It appears that MySpace has got into the action as well. (link)

"A suspected gang member jailed in the slaying of a popular San Leandro High School football player in Oakland was identified with the help of his picture on the gang's MySpace page, authorities said Wednesday."

If you have a blog, manage your own domain or have any sort of web presence - I urge you to take a look at Project Honey Pot. (link) I don't have many readers of my little blog, but I get inundated with comment spammers - do your part to help out!

From http://www.projecthoneypot.org/about_us.php

Project Honey Pot is the first and only distributed system for identifying spammers and the spambots they use to scrape addresses from your website. Using the Project Honey Pot system you can install addresses that are custom-tagged to the time and IP address of a visitor to your site. If one of these addresses begins receiving email we not only can tell that the messages are spam, but also the exact moment when the address was harvested and the IP address that gathered it.

To participate in Project Honey Pot, webmasters need only install the Project Honey Pot software somewhere on their website. We handle the rest — automatically distributing addresses and receiving the mail they generate. As a result, we anticipate installing Project Honey Pot should not increase the traffic or load to your website.

We collate, process, and share the data generated by your site with you. We also work with law enforcement authorities to track down and prosecute spammers. Harvesting email addresses from websites is illegal under several anti-spam laws, and the data resulting from Project Honey Pot is critical for finding those breaking the law.

Additionally, we will periodically collate the email messages we receive and share the resulting corpus with anti-spam developers and researchers. The data participants in Project Honey Pot will help to build the next generation of anti-spam software.

Project Honey Pot was created by Unspam Technologies, Inc — an anti-spam company with the singular mission of helping design and enforce effective anti-spam laws. We are always looking to partner with top software developers and enforcement authorities. If there is some way we can help you fight spam, please don't hesitate to contact us.

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I had a great sushi dinner/experience in NYC last night. The restaurant is called Ono it is located at the Gansevoort hotel in the meatpacking district - 9th avenue and Gansevoort st. Very fresh fish, interesting dishes and a great atmosphere. It was a little spendy, but worth a visit.

It started on Saturday now that I think about it - with a tingling sensation in my mouth.  I thought it was my sister-in-law's cooking...  Sunday was a little worse and by Monday morning it was back full bore - Monday mornig I flew from Seattle to Boston and then drove to Hartford, CT.  Its on the right side of my face - last time it was on the left.  Wierd.. and very annoying.  Its hard to speak, read and eat/drink without making a mess or slurping sounds.

I've been a fan (and user) of OpenDNS since July of 2006. They continuously add features and if you're not using their FREE service - I urge you to give it a try - you will not be disappointed. The 'Network Shortcut' feature is a slick new feature - I can stop using my custom HOSTS file (at home at least) to get me to my favorite site quickly. Implementing this at work would be slick - all of those long, ugly SharePoint URLs to remember/bookmark are getting burdensome. OpenDNS

OpenDNS

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Tomorrow I leave on my first trip away from home since Caitlyn was born - I'm not looking forward to it. She's 32 days old and changes every day - I wonder what changes will take place between tomorrow morning and Thursday night?

I fly from Seattle to Boston Monday morning and then drive to Hartford, CT. I have a day and a half of meetings in Connecticut on Tuesday and Wednesday and then take the train from New Haven to Grand Central Terminal smack in the middle of Manhatten. Dinner on Wednesday will probably be at the Oyster Bar in GCT. Thursday will be a meeting in the morning and then I may try and see something that I haven't seen before when in NYC. My flight home leaves from Newark about 6pm Thursday.

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The Seattle Seahawks beat the listless Rams today 33-6 to take a lead in the NFC West - Seattle Times Game Recap -> (link) The Seahawks did look better today - Nate Burleson returned the second half kickoff for a touchdown that really got the Seahawks going.  Shawn Alexander ran better, but Matt still looked fairly out of synch and took a pretty good shot in the ribs.  They have a bye next week and their next game is at Cleveland on November 4th.

Stephen Colbert, from the Comedy Channel's Colbert Report wrote an entertaining Op-Ed in the New York Times on Sunday (Thanks, Brad) for sharing this. (Link to Original article)

Look at the moral guidance I offer. On faith: “After Jesus was born, the Old Testament basically became a way for Bible publishers to keep their word count up.” On gender: “The sooner we accept the basic differences between men and women, the sooner we can stop arguing about it and start having sex.” On race: “While skin and race are often synonymous, skin cleansing is good, race cleansing is bad.” On the elderly: “They look like lizards.”

Stephen Colbert stuff at Amazon | My Stephen Colbert YouTube/eBay/Amazon mashup

Apple Inc. said Tuesday that its new Mac OS X "Leopard" operating system will go on sale Oct. 26. The new operating system is the sixth major upgrade to Cupertino-based Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) Mac OS X operating system, which was first introduced in 2001. It had been expected in June, but was delayed when the company needed to concentrate instead on the debut of the iPhone. Apple said pre-orders of the $129 operating system can be made through its online store. (Original Article)

Chris Pirillo likes what he sees with the new version (link)

Technorati Tags: Leopard, Apple, OSX

Two weeks in a row that Seattle plays like dookie! <sarcasm>At least tonight it was on national TV.</sarcasm> Seattle fans wonder why our team never gets any respect - we don't deserve it!

Final score: Saints 28 Seahawks 17

ESPN Recap

The tickets for Hannah Montana's first tour are going for upwards of $2500 a piece (link). The CNN article states that two-thirds of America's kids between the ages of six and fourteen watched Hannah Montana during Q3 this year -> that's a ton of demand and the tour is only fifty-four cities which isn't much supply - BAM -> capitalism at it's finest!

Throw in the fact that lots of people can't help themselves and this is what you get. (link)

You can read up about the Laws of Supply and Demand here (link)

An article in today's Wall Street Journal makes it clear why a flat-tax should be looked at. (link)  A Lie A Day has an example of what the data looks like in today's world. (link)

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I'm going to have to agree with Seattle's Pro-bowl Linebacker Lofa Tatupu: "How is it that the Saints are 0-4 entering Sunday night's nationally televised game at Qwest Field?" (Link to original article)

The Saints are better than their record reflects and for that matter, so are the Seahawks. Seattle should be mad after last week's debacle in Pittsburgh and needs to keep the Saints away from any big plays and hopefully Seattle's offense can get into some sort of rhythm with or without Alexander playing very well (although he likes playing at Sunday night) and no Deion Branch.

Has anyone used any of these pay-by-phone solutions?

• Obopay | obopay
• GelPay | gelpay
• TextPayMe | textpayme

I've used TextPayMe before and it seems to work just fine. What about the others? Are there additional solutions as well?

Let's see if a moblog or microblogging area will be useful here.

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The Cleveland Indians knocked the Yankees out of the playoffs last night wining the ALDS 3 games to 1. (link) The Yankees' offense couldn't get going (again) - so, will Torre be gone and what about A-Rod?

Article from Wizbang sums it up pretty well (link)

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15 year Seattle Seahawk , Mack Strong announced his retirement Monday afternoon. He played all 15 of his NFL years at Seattle and my hat is off to him. Thanks, Mack and good luck!

Not sure there is anything to say about this game - I was hoping the Seahawks could fair pretty well today considering how many starters for the Steelers were out of the game today.

Read all about it at ESPN | SI.com | Seattle Times | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

This was less than 10 miles from our house and sounded like thunder!

Seattle PI Story | Tacoma Info

Burning chili sparks terror fear in London and give a whole new meaning to "The Red Hot Chili Peppers". A pot of burning chili peppers sparked fears of a biological terror attack in central London. (link)