Horicӑ

It's odd how google works

Monday, 9. November 2009, 20:13:54

In a blog post of mine, on blog.hdragomir.com, I mentioned 'get laid'

On every page of said blog, there's a brief description of me, in which Timișoara, my home town, is mentioned.

Naturally, Google saw it fit to rank my blog post as the #2 result for the query "get laid timisoara"

Oh, well. As least I can actually help people get laid in Timisoara.

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The Dying Art of Proofreading

Friday, 25. September 2009, 09:19:52

I got this email from a co-worker, and I laughed my ass off.
Below is a list of unwise wordings found in newspaper titles.
Remember, these are all real article titles that have been printed.

***************************************************

Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Expert Says

***************************************************

Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers

***************************************************

Panda Mating Fails; Veterinarian Takes Over

***************************************************

Miners Refuse to Work after Death

***************************************************

Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant

***************************************************

War Dims Hope for Peace

***************************************************

If Strike Isn't Settled Quickly, It May Last Awhile

***************************************************

Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures

***************************************************

Enfield ( London ) Couple Slain; Police Suspect Homicide

***************************************************

Red Tape Holds Up New Bridges

***************************************************

Man Struck By Lightning: Faces Battery Charge

***************************************************

New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group

***************************************************

Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Spacecraft

***************************************************

Kids Make Nutritious Snacks

***************************************************

Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half

***************************************************

Hospitals are Sued by 7 Foot Doctors

***************************************************

And the winner is....

Typhoon Rips Through Cemetery; Hundreds Dead

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Why x**0 is always 1

Saturday, 22. August 2009, 22:15:00

Well, OK. Not true for inf and 0, but this holds for any other number. We all know this from math, but I'll show you why this holds through coding. While we're at it, I will point out that this is probably how they decided this in the first place.


function pow( number, exponent ){
var result = 1; // the neutral number for multiplication
if( exponent > 0 ){
while( exponent > 0 ){ // so result is never altered
result *= number; // we don't care about the rest of this; do we?
exponent--;
}
} else {
while( exponent < 0 ){
result /= number;
exponent++;
}

}
return result;
}

I really hope that speaks for itself.

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FIrst Impressions of Ubuntu Karmic Koala

Saturday, 1. August 2009, 21:57:25

microsoft, ubuntu, os

Boy, is it ever fast!

What I've always loved about linux distro upgrades is that all your apps remain intact. Seriously, that is one feature Microsoft should look into.

When I was trying out Vista, I really liked the way I was able to control the volume on a per-application basis. Now, ubuntu with their latest 9.10 alpha have gone and implemented that.

I haven't really looked under the hood yet, but I see a lot has really been polished.
What I've also noted was the native support for python 3.0. This means that a lot of code has been re-factored to fit the new standard. Possibly yielding in some of the speed.

The notifier we got in 9.04 ( or earlier if you're a bazaar user ) has been touched up. And there's a general feeling of sleekness surrounding this alpha release.

Also, there's great QT support which means that Opera not only runs a lot faster, but looks smashing. I guess we have to also thank Mr. Hicks for that.

If you're using ubuntu, you can easily update to the latest alpha by typing

$ sudo update-manager -d

in the command line. Done

I'm really looking forward to a Beta or to the RTM, whichever comes first.

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You got the American System, and still screwed it up

Friday, 19. June 2009, 18:16:53

The way I deal with people that wrong me has always been simple:

You get one free mistake. Sometimes, you just don't know that what you've just done could upset me. So I usually let the first one pass, but I make it clear that you did something wrong.

Then, if you make another mistake, you're usually out. After that point, you mean very little to me. Not even enough for me to curse you.

This case was special. For some reason, after the second mistake, I decided to give YOU another chance. Making things even clearer about how bad it's been for me.

But tonight, you decided to do that thing you do yet again. That's three strikes, honey. You're out.

And, for the record, it's quite alright to get me pissed or upset. I bounce back easily. Just do not hurt my friends. Ever.

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My Belly Button is Famous!

Wednesday, 10. June 2009, 22:29:39

Back in April, 2009, a friend of mine, Richie, put a nice male belly button gallery together. Anyone could submit, so I figured I'd send him a picture of mine, to go in the post.

I also posted about that happening and just had fun with the reactions to his post.

Two months later, that single image accounts for most of the google driven traffic on my other blog.

I'm on the sixth page of images if you search images for belly button

I don't know about you, but that cracks me up.

Here's the image of my belly button, enjoy:

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The wonders of google

Saturday, 6. June 2009, 12:55:44

On my other blog, I ran an article about how I almost got my phone stolen in Barcelona.
The post is called Thievery Tips.

Funny thing about said post is that it's the second result google returns if you search for tips on thievery. Now that's what I call funny.

I imagine some poor, washed-up thirty-something-year-old, trying to learn how to make an honest a buck, hitting rock bottom, resorting to google, and ending up with my rant. You could say things really are not looking up for that guy.

I always thought stuff like how to rob people and how to pick locks and so on were passed down by word of mouth, by periods of initiation. At least through some sort of books. I guess times are changing.

Maybe we can set up a forum, tips on thievery dot biz

And just as I was writing this, I decided to google thievery tips...

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Moved, seriously, to hdragomir.com

Tuesday, 6. January 2009, 20:09:11

new website, blog, hdragomir, hd ...

Hey

since the traffic on this page has been slim and considering that I do most of my writing, showcasing, branding, etc. on hdragomir.com I've decided to stop writing here, and continue on my new blog.

The url for the new blog of Horia Dragomir is http://blog.hdragomir.com.

I've changed the nature of the blog, I plan on covering more about PHP, Javascript, Flash and the on-going browser war. This doesn't mean that I won't ever blog about... the human side of my brain.

See you soon.

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...copyright...

Wednesday, 25. April 2007, 19:13:22

stealing, hd, copyright

Recently this blog post here belonging to cartoonist Scott Adams stirred up some movement in the blogosphere.
In short, he made an analogy between copyright violation and stealing a person's underwear and then returning it in mint condition without the "victim" noticing.

I find that to be pretty accurate, some other people(see here) didn't. The creator of Dilbert emphasised on the emotional(and financial) damage of copyright violation. While that IS true and holds up for most cases, there are some people that might still suggest that ~~stealing~~ downloading copyrighted material (illegally) helps by promoting the artist and/or boosting their morale.
Let me point out that to promote the artist(or rights owner) you can simply add a link on your blog or tell a friend via email. To boost the artist's morale, you can ... tell him you really enjoy his/her work.

Now that that's out of the way, let's focus on something both Scott Adams and his naysayers overlooked. Copyright violation is the same as stealing because it is punishable by law. To make matters explicitly clear, copyright violation is just as illegal as stealing because the law treats it like a crime, just as it would stealing.

One might argue that not all laws are good... I agree. We fight, bend, break, vote, change, pass and rebel against laws, but that doesn't make them any less what they are: laws.

If you download an album illegally, you break the copyright laws. If you seed a torrent of an album, you break the copyright laws, even if you acquired the album legally. That's just the way things work in society.

Now, to be fair, I break the law. ~~Most~~ all of my non-freeware windows applications are pirated. Most of my music collection is not rightfully mine to listen to. ~~Most~~ all of the movies I've seen on my PC have been downloaded via µTorrent. That makes me a very bad person. And I mean that. It's sad to see people make up all sorts of excuses to justify their actions.

Now that we've established that some people(including me) illegally download copyrighted material... and that it's the same as stealing... what else is there?

hd

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