DevNull

First - Black Friday.
Did you go out? Did you get any deals? I certainly didn't go out, though I hear things are getting massively out of hand. My mother was checking the sales on Thanksgiving and found that JCPenney was opening at 4 AM on Friday. For the love of kami-sama, that is too frakking early!!! Also, according to the news, people were lined up as early as 11pm on Thursday. What could be so amazing of a deal that necessitates you spending 5+ hours outside of a store? Of course, every year the stores open earlier (along with closing later), soon stores will be opening up at Midnight. I wonder if people will start lining up at noon then? Sigh... Continue reading "Cyber Monday / Black Friday" »

We decided that it being a holiday and all, we should take the day off. Wednesday we shall resume with our regularly scheduled blathering.

Happy Labor Day!

I often find myself thinking about the most random things. Sometimes, afterward, I worry about how much time I've actually spent thinking about these mostly random topics. Though who cares, right? Today, you get to join me in my random wanderings around the mind of me, because I feel like sharing and by some deity or other you can't stop me. Ok, so you could close the window, but where's the fun in that? The topic I was recently thinking about should be fairly obvious if you can read the title. What is the difference between BRB and AFK?

BRB or "Be Right Back" would be fairly obvious in its meaning, you are leaving, but you'll be "right back". The real problem is, what does "right back" entail for a given amount of time. The most basic use is "BRB Biobreak" or "BRB BRB" (meaning: bathroom break), and that is a minute or two tops. Other times, I've seen people say something like "BRB McDonalds", and unless the Micky D's is across the street - that is probably going to take some time. Is there a limit on what "right back" should be? For me BRB maxes out at 5-10 minutes, anything more than that must be an AFK. It's all subjective, which is really not helpful.

AFK or "Away From Keyboard" is also fairly obvious, you are going away from the computer. This is more indeterminate than BRB, since AFK simply means that you are gone - that's it. Sometimes I'll include an expected ETA such as "AFK 20", so others will approximately when I'm to return. Even though the return is unknown, by saying "Away From Keyboard" one generally expects that you will return, at some point in time.

So in the end BRB and AFK serve the same function. The real problem is where you draw the differentiating line. You could "AFK" and be back in less than 5 minutes. On the other hand you could "BRB" and be gone for 8 hours. How do you, the reader, separate BRB and AFK? Do you have specific requirements for the use of each of these wonderful TLAs? Or do you use them interchangeably? Or maybe just one over the other? Or maybe you think this is a stupid waste of time and you want the 5 minutes you spent reading this, back. Discuss.

Today is Memorial Day which is a day off work, and a day for food! That being said, do try and remember why we get the day off:

"It commemorates U.S. men and women who died while in the military service."

You commemorating?
...
...
...
Ok. Back to BBQs!

This is a serious question I'm grappling with today. I went to the local camera store and saw a lens for my Nikon that I really wanted. They told me it was $400, ok, no big deal. I checked Amazon while still in the store and it was $336. How can I in good conscience spend more just to get it in a store? If I spend $4 extra, I can have it overnighted from Amazon (oh how I love Prime). On top of the fact of the cost - Amazon has fantastic customer support, and a great return policy. I can return the lens for just about any reason and Amazon will eat the shipping cost (in most cases). With the exception of perishable groceries (because non-perishables you can get on Amazon) - why would I shop locally? Yea, playing with an item in my hand is cool... but it's not worth $60 to me.

Does anyone out there still buy things locally when you can get them on Amazon for cheaper? If so, Why? (Note: I realize some things aren't necessarily economical to get shipped - like LCD TV. But for smaller stuff)


Update: For some reason this got set to one day previous - its now been fixed.

I was recently mucking about with my profile on Facebook and accidentally set my Birthday to 1910 (first year in the list). It threw me back an error message saying "Please enter your real birthday.". I found this extremely odd, just I fiddled about a bit with the birthdates. As it turns out - Facebook gives you the option of being born in 1910 - but you can't use it. It doesn't matter if you were born Jan 1, 1910 or Dec 31, 1910 - it kicks back with the same error. Of course it is extremely unlikely anyone using Facebook was born in 1910 (as they would be 108 years old) - but what is the point of giving you an option you can't be used?? Thats just shitty user design, right there.

Facebook, you fail User Design 101. Never give the users an option they can't use.

Well in case you can't tell, I've given up on advertising around here (for those of you that don't have adblock turned on). I looked at the amazon and google stats. I've made zip from google and as for amazon, there were only 2 click through purchases - and I have a feeling they were mine (against TOS of course - but I didn't mean to do it). As for the blogrush thing, though I don't have much faith in it, I'll leave it for a bit longer to see.

Of course, I changed layouts too, gotta change things up once in a while.