Found at Home Depot today.
Turkey Attack!
The turkeys in this town are relentless.
Yes. That is in fact a turkey on top of a car.
National Novel Generation Month, 2017 Edition
November is traditionally “National Novel Writing Month.” The goal is to write a short novel that is 50,000 words in length. I always have grand plans to attempt it and have started a number of times over the years but have never actually finished. (One day, I swear!)
Recently, I stumbled across a geekier take on it, called National Novel Generation Month. The goal of this particular project is to write code that can generate a 50,000 word novel instead. Hey, why not?
I published my code at the beginning of November for my project: The Complete Encyclopedia on 1,449.5 Random Ways to Make a Sandwich.
This book of 1,449.5 random sandwich recipes was created for NaNoGenMo (National Novel Generation Month) 2017. You can view the source code for this project on GitHub.
It uses data parsed from a 1909 book, entitled “The Up-To-Date Sandwich Book: 400 Ways to Make a Sandwich”, written by Eva Greene Fuller and now available for free in the public domain.
For this particular book, new sandwich recipes were generated using Markov chains created from the above text.
Please don’t try to actually make any of the sandwich recipes created with this process. However, if you do, please contact me and show me pictures.
Disclaimer: I cannot be held responsible for any health issues that may arise from eating any of these sandwiches.
There are definitely some interesting ones…
BUTTERED CHEESE AND OLIVE SANDWICH NO. 3
Use three slices of Swiss cheese, spread fresh butter and two tablespoonfuls of olive oil, the juice of two oranges and knead the mixture.
Emoji Say What?
Here’s a random little side project that I’ve been working on: Emoji Say What?
It’s like a game of telephone, but using the latest in human communication technologies, hieroglyphics, emoji!
Basically, you visit the site and get a completely out of context sentence or set of emoji and it’s your job to decipher it. And so on and so on. It evolves over time and eventually you get something like this.
Nutcases
Recently, I was tracking some inbound clicks to my blog through Google Analytics and found a bunch of traffic to my site from some random discussion forum. Apparently, a user there linked to my earthquakes article, which spawned a debate on my integrity and associations with black-hat hackers and government security services (haha, what?). Mind you, none of these people know me. I’ve attached an image from one particular nutcase below.
It’s amazing. The paranoia some people display is astounding!
Hilarious! Also, it’s news to me that gdgt is apparently closely affiliated with government and security services. My cover has been blown!
Stay tuned, I’m awaiting orders from my commanders.
Crazy emails from strangers [updated]
Alright, so someone keeps emailing me, thinking they have someone else named Dave Schumaker. This actually happens a lot. After receiving a number of recent forwarded joke emails, I decided to respond. Check out conversation.
It reminds me of this earlier thread I wrote, about receiving strange email.
Update: I just realized that it’s the same Donna in that post!
From: Donna M.
Date: September 17, 2010 3:10:41 PM PDT
To: Dave Schumaker
Subject: FW: Poor mushroomForwarded message:
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2010 12:26:44 -0400
From: [some random person I don’t know]
To: [some other random person I don’t know]
CC: [a bunch of random people I don’t know] Subject: Fwd: Poor mushroom
This is the second or third random forward I’ve gotten from her. I considered adding a filter to my account, but I thought that maybe, I should inform this person they have the wrong email address.
Subject: Re: Poor mushroom
From: Dave Schumaker
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2010 15:12:34 -0700
To: Donna M.I think you have the wrong Dave Schumaker’s email address.
Best,
-Dave
There, I think that does the trick! Wait — I just got a reply from her,
From: Donna M.
Subject: RE: Poor mushroom
Date: September 17, 2010 3:42:22 PM PDT
To: Dave SchumakerI don’t think so 😛
Mom
What?!
You are not my Mom! I have NO IDEA who you are!
Update! I just received a follow up email. It looks like things have been cleared up, folks! It looks like I only have one mother again.
From: Donna M.
Subject: RE: Poor mushroom
Date: September 17, 2010 4:54:53 PM PDT
To: Dave SchumakerSo, so sorry I just talked to my son and I did have the wrong e-mail. Again, I’m sorry
A sign of World Cup fever?
It’s no secret that I have vivid and strange dreams. Apparently, the build up to this summer’s World Cup tournament must be getting to me.
Last night, I dreamt about playing in a volleyball tournament against English soccer player Wayne Rooney. And after our game, we went to a pub and had a few beers. Bizarre.
To be fair, that’s probably a lot better than dreaming of hanging out with Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo.
I get the strangest email.
There is a group of people who have me mixed up for someone else and keep sending me email. I’ve replied and emailed them on numerous occasions that I am the incorrect person, yet I still receive weird and even awkward emails.
—
Err… what? Here’s another gem. Names blocked out.
—
Yikes! I feel bad for the poor little dude, whoever he is. That said: Reply to all -> “Hi, I think you have the wrong person.”
A few weeks later, another email.
—
Ahhh!