joeyh3

Diet Coke. I drink way too much of that.

I work at a government agency as an IT technician. I primarily deal with server virtualization, storage and backups, but also work on switches, network security, and a few other misc things as well. I also occasionally write software at work when I'm bored and have nothing else to do.

Don't forget Deepwater Horizon and the Bay of Pigs. That's my birthday as well

I generally don't like to go to the movies period. They're overpriced, and too many people spend the movie chatting.

(Based on Google) An average bulldozer weighs about 35 - 50 tons. An freight train car weighs between 30 tons (empty) and over 130 tons (full). Considering a freight locomotive can pull dozens of train cars empty, I don't think the bulldozer's traction would prove much of an advantage. Especially when you consider where the rope (which would have to have a breaking point in the hundreds of thousands of pounds) is tied - more likely it'd cause the bulldozer to tip backwards or lift up.

In terms of personal phones I've used, in order: - Kyocera K9 Rave (Virgin Mobile) - Audiovox Flasher V7 (Virgin Mobile) - Samsung SGH-D807 (AT&T) - Sharp Sidekick iD (T-Mobile) - Blackberry 8320 Curve (T-Mobile) - Samsung Galaxy S (US Cellular) - HTC Hero S (US Cellular) - Samsung Galaxy S3 (Verizon, Current) I've changed phones pretty rappidly, though it's because I've either had to switch cariers (coverage has always been an issue where I live), or the phone was junk and I had to replace it. Both my current job and my previous job were positions that required me to keep a phone on me, and those were, in order: - Blackberry Curve 8350i (Sprint) - Blackberry Bold 9650 (Verizon) - iPhone 4 (Verizon) - Samsung Galaxy S3 (Verizon) - iPhone 5 (Verizon, Current)

The Powershot isn't a DSLR, it's a point & shoot. DSLRs have an optical viewfinder and a reflex mirror that allows both the viewfinder and the sensor to see the same image (not at the same time though).* I do love using my phone (Samsung Galaxy S3) as a digital camera as well, especially since it does take good pictures, and I have it with me a lot more frequently than I have my DSLR. But DSLRs are way more flexible. I hate how cell phones lack a manual focus, aperture and shutter priorities, have small sensors and (usually) no optical zoom. I find phones to be way more convenient than actual cameras, but in a lot of applications (especially low-light situations), A DLSR would normally perform a lot better. *A lot of people will also include interchangeable lenses in the definition of a DSLR, but in reality, the name DSLR only implies three things: digital sensor, single lens, and a reflex mechanism. There have been a few DSLRs, such as the Olympus E-10, that did not have interchangeable lenses.

Diet Coke is my favorite drink. I probably drink more than a healthy amount of it. I'm not a huge fan of Pepsi (never liked the taste), while regular Coke (or any drink with a lot of sugar in it) gives me massive headaches.

In terms of chain restaurants, I love Penn Station. Their subs are absolutely delicious. I can't say I care much for their french fries, but the sandwiches are great. Overall though, my favorite restaurant is a pizzeria in a nearby town that sells wood-fired pizza. They have some strange pizzas, but they're always extremely delicious. I mostly prefer their buffalo chicken pizza - it's so yummy!

I've recently gotten back into my old photography hobby, and was wondering - are there any other photographers here? if so, what kinda gear to you prefer using? Me? I use a Nikon D7100 with both 24-85mm and 70-300mm lenses. When I first was getting into photography, I originally was planning on getting a Canon Rebel XSi, but that model ended up being discontinued before I could afford it. So instead, I kinda semi-impulsively got a Nikon D3000, and ended up loving that camera.

I generally use a different password for almost everything. Most of the time I use randomly generated, long passwords (30+ characters) that I randomly generate and keep track of using a password manager (KeePass 2). The only exceptions are sites where I don't intend on returning to them, such as sites that require registration to read an article or download a file or something. Generally I just use a short password and a temp email address (mailinator) to create accounts on those sites, and keep track of nothing, as they're not worth the effort to even open KeePass, and I don't want my email accounts being spammed. As for usernames, I have a few that I go by, depending on the context of the site (personal, professional, work, etc). I really don't see the purpose of having different usernames though - those are usually public information, and a lot of sites use your email address instead of username for authentication anymore, so even if someone doesn't know what username you use on a particular site, if they know your email address, they can probably use that instead. You may think that, but unfortunately, you are horribly, horribly wrong. Having a long password is great, as that makes it significantly more difficult (if not impossible) to brute force an attack, but even with a long, strong password, reusing it on multiple sites is still a very dangerous idea. Why? Because the password is only half of the security. The other half is how the site stores the password. Ideally, a site will be salting the password (adding random characters to it) and encrypting it with something like Blowfish/Bcrypt, which is very CPU intense compared to other encryption methods, making decryption of the password realistically impossible. However, not all sites follow good security practice. A lot of sites encrypt passwords using a very weak hashing method (such as MD5), and some sites don't even encrypt your password at all, instead just storing them in plain text in the database. And if a programmer stores a password in plain text, that likely means that they aren't too good with security, so I'd imagine that such a site would be easily susceptible to stuff like SQL inection attacks. So imagine you use the same email and password to sign up for ten sites. The first nine sites use BCRYPT and a password salt, and all database queries are "prepared statements" (prevents injection attacks) - ain't no one ever getting your password from those sites, it's safe. Now imagine the tenth site was made by an idiot. The passwords are stored in the database in plain text, and the database queries are not sterilized/protected from injection. Some attacker comes along, executes an injection attack, and guess what - they have your password, and can get into your account on the first nine sites. Oh, and that's just the start of it! If they get both your email address and a password from a website, you wanna know what the first thing they're going to do is? They're going to go to whatever email host you use, and see if the password they got lets them into your email account. If it does, they can see all the other sites you signed up for. Even if you used different passwords on those sites, they can simply use the "forget password" link on those sites, and have a reset sent to the email account they just compromised. Your bank accounts, online shopping accounts, Skype account, forums, online games, everything now belong to someone else, because you kept using the same password over and over, and entrusted an idiot webmaster with your password. Did I scare you? Good. Now quit using the same on multiple sites.

I already own three guns, and I'd say that's enough for me. Lemme tell you about the ones I own though. The first one I got about two years ago. It's a fully automatic machine gun, with a clip that holds eighteen shots. It's a bit slow though, taking maybe 45-60 seconds to empty the entire clip. Never really timed it. My second one is a bolt-action rifle that I got a few weeks after that. Its stock clip holds six shots, but I can load my larger clips into it if I need too. It is a bit easier to aim because of its lighter weight, but it's somewhat under-powered in my opinion. Finally, my newest one is a small pistol. It only holds one shot at a time, but despite its tiny size and $5.99 price tag, it packs a surprisingly powerful punch. Hehehehe, sorry. Couldn't resists I don't own any guns beyond a small collection of Nerf guns, no am I interested in obtaining any. For sport shooting, I'm more interested in archery, particularly longbows. I've fired a few longbows before, and they're quite fun.

I've owned several Wacom tablets, and they've all worked very well. Wacom tablets generally are the best you can get in my opinion. I've always found them to be reliable, they work well, and have great accuracy.

I'm on the computer way too often to ever not be on the computer. I do enjoy bicycling a lot, but the summers are way too hot where I live to make frequent bike tours practical - I've had a few situations where I would get a few miles and then have to stop and call someone to pick me up because the heat was too intense. The past few weeks I've been learning to solder as well. I'm starting a project that involves building a life sized, remote-controlled replica of R2D2, and I'm currently working on the dome displays, which involve a ton of soldering tiny LEDs onto circuit boards.

Not really. I'm sure there are a few launchers that may negatively impact performance/battery life, but most of the ones I've tried have had no negative performance impacts at all. In fact, my phone seemed to run faster with a few of them. Keep in mind, all Android phones run a launcher, as that's what provides the homescreen. It's just a matter of using the default one that comes with your phone (Samsung phones come with the "TouchWiz Launcher", HTC phones come with "Sense", etc), or a third party one from the Play Store.

Both. I own a Galaxy S3 for personal use, and I have an iPhone 4 issued to me from my job. I much prefer the GS3 though, as Android is a very flexible OS, that's fully customizable, and much less restive on what you can use for it. First off, Android allows more user freedom. For example, I use Hotmail/Live/Outlook/Whatever it's called this week as my main email, and with Android, I can see the Outlook application to be the default program for handling email links in my web browser. Much like if I get an email with a link in it, I can set Chrome to be the default browser, or something else. With iOS, the stock programs are the default, so even if I have Chrome installed, any time an app needs to open a webpage, it'll open in Safari instead. Next, there's the matter of customization. With iOS, you have a homescreen, with icons, and that's about it. With Android, you can add widgets, replace icons, only show your favorite apps on the homescreen (While putting the rest in the app drawer), etc. In fact, if you don't like the UI at all, you can replace it. You're not stuck with the default launcher/home screen, but can change it however you want. For example, here's a few screenshots of how my phone looks/used to look: (Left one is my current setup) Finally, there is multitasking. iOS cannot multitask really well, if what it does do can even be considered multitasking. On iOS, you basically can have on app running at a time, and most apps are not able to run in the background, or have only limited background capabilities. Android easily allows apps to run in the background if they need to, and some builds (such as the one on the GS3) even allow you to run two apps side-by-side. For example, if you want to check the latest MLP news, but don't want to interrupt the episode of "Witchcraft" that you're watching, you can do that: Granted, iOS does have the benefit of being very easy to use and user-friendly. Despite how much it tries, I do not believe that Android is an overly user-friendly operating system for beginners/first time smartphone users, and can even be somewhat intimidating with how many options there are and all the features available. However, once accustomed to it, Android is an extremely powerful opperating system that runs circles around iOS in terms of functionality and usability. Also, just to be clear - these screenshots were taken from a non-rooted phone. Not every Android phone has the multi-window functionality, and some Android devices may not support the launchers I've shown (Lightning Launcher, SF Launcher, and Launcher Pro), but you don't need to root an Android phone to make it flexible or do cool stuff.

After the "Mare-Do-Well" episode aired, I noticed that the costumes looked a lot like what Carmen Sandiego wore (if you don't know who that is, you do not understand how fun geography actually is). And back then, I was still a "tracer" in terms of vector art, so I drew Twilight in the Mare-Do-Well outfit, and then colored it red to match Carmen Sandiego's costume colors. As a last minute joke, I decided to draw Rainbow standing next to her, dressed up as Waldo. She ended up getting such a positive reaction dressed like that though that I eventually decided to just start using that image as an avatar.