Kevin Jarnot
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Yearly Archives: 2006
Scott Adams Gets His Voice Back
The Dilbert Blog: Good News Day
As regular readers of my blog know, I lost my voice about 18 months ago. Permanently. It’s something exotic called Spasmodic Dysphonia. Essentially a part of the brain that controls speech just shuts down in some people, usually after you strain your voice during a bout with allergies (in my case) or some other sort of normal laryngitis. It happens to people in my age bracket.
I asked my doctor – a specialist for this condition – how many people have ever gotten better. Answer: zero. While there’s no cure, painful Botox injections through the front of the neck and into the vocal cords can stop the spasms for a few months. That weakens the muscles that otherwise spasm, but your voice is breathy and weak.
The day before yesterday, while helping on a homework assignment, I noticed I could speak perfectly in rhyme. Rhyme was a context I hadn’t considered. A poem isn’t singing and it isn’t regular talking. But for some reason the context is just different enough from normal speech that my brain handled it fine.
Jack be nimble, Jack be quick.
Jack jumped over the candlestick.I repeated it dozens of times, partly because I could. It was effortless, even though it was similar to regular speech. I enjoyed repeating it, hearing the sound of my own voice working almost flawlessly. I longed for that sound, and the memory of normal speech. Perhaps the rhyme took me back to my own childhood too. Or maybe it’s just plain catchy. I enjoyed repeating it more than I should have. Then something happened.
My brain remapped.
My speech returned.
Posted in Interesting
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Weird Al – White and Nerdy
My God – this video is about me!
Posted in Amusements
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No, I don't miss this
Let the Buffalo jokes begin…
Record snowstorm barrels into Buffalo – CNN.com
BUFFALO, New York (AP) — A rare early October snowstorm left parts of the Great Lakes and Midwest blanketed with 2 feet of snow Friday morning, prompting widespread blackouts, closing schools and halting traffic.
By early Friday, 14 inches of snow had been recorded at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport, with reports of 2 feet elsewhere, said Tom Paone, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. The snowfall was expected to continue throughout the morning, he said.
The snow downed scores of tree limbs and toppled power lines, leaving more than 220,000 customers without electricity in western New York.
On Thursday, 8.3 inches of heavy snow set the record for the “snowiest” October day in Buffalo in the 137-year history of the weather service, said meteorologist Tom Niziol. The previous record of 6 inches was set October 31, 1917.
“This is an extremely rare event for this early in the season,” Niziol said.
Posted in Personal
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No, I Can't Fix Your Computer
Amen, brutha…
Beyond The Summit: No, I can’t fix your computer!
“Dude, my computer’s busted, can you fix it?”
“Hey, do you know why my computer won’t boot up?”
“I keep getting this error message, what’s the deal?”
Have you heard any or all of these before? Well I have, and if you have a job in computers or are a student in computer science/engineering, chances are you have too. I spent a good part of my college years trying to help people with their computer problems, but then I realized something…I am not a computer repairman. I am a software engineer (with a degree in computer engineering), so I spent my college years learning algorithms, design principles, programming, web development, architecture, etc. I did not spend my time studying computer diagnosis, network troubleshooting, virus prevention/recovery, Windows specifics, nor anything associated with computer repair. So get it through your head, I can’t fix your computer!
Posted in Geek
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10 Highly Pretentious Musical Instruments
Inventory: 10 Highly Pretentious Musical Instruments
Nice – I own numbers 2 and 6. 
2. The Chapman Stick
Art rock—especially ’80s-00s King Crimson—wouldn’t be complete without the Chapman Stick, a combination guitar and bass that looks like a 2×4 and is played by tapping the strings with both hands. (Or with little drumsticks tied to your fingers, if you’re Tony Levin.) Though its clean lines look best next to the stylishly bald and mustached Levin, it’s forever connected to serious, ponytailed men like Trey Gunn, who look like they treat “picking” and “strumming” with a sniff of contempt. The Chapman Stick is also worn across the chest with the top resting on the player’s shoulder, giving the impression that it’s so precious, it needs to be cradled.
6. Keytar
The portable keyboard you strap on like a guitar has graced an embarrassing list of people who should have known better, like Donald Fagen, Herbie Hancock, and “Weird Al” Yankovic. But it still looks like a plastic toy that should have bubbles coming out of the handle. When Steve Masakowski invented it and Moog Music rolled out the first models, keyboardists everywhere who’d been stuck in the back at concerts got the chance to strut across the front, just like the real stars. It didn’t take long to figure out that they’d been put back there for a reason.
Posted in Amusements
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Bruce Schneier Facts
When Bruce Schneier does modulo arithmetic, there are no remainders. Ever.
Posted in Amusements
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Real Horrorshow
Viddy these well, oh me brothers. I wish they were real.
Posted in Amusements
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Doom 1 ported to Doom 3
Via Boing Boing:
Doom 1 has been ported to Doom 3 — you can play the original game on a terminal in its sequel.
The Terminal DOOM demo is a DOOM3 port – of sorts – of the Classic DOOM source as originally released in 1997. The playable demo is available for Windows and Linux, and supports all shareware and retail versions of DOOM. You will have to have the retail version of DOOM3 installed, and you will have to apply the version 1.3 patch to be able to run the Terminal DOOM demo. Once you applied the new patch, download the demo here from the mirror kindly provided by Ryan Gordon.
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