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About

"Serial Bus is a place for me to dump interesting links that I find."

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"Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo."

Archives

At first I was like "meh" Saturday, February 28, 2009 | comments

Check out this photoshop disaster post. You'll see the advertisement and you'll say "Ok, I can see that they stretched out the right side of the ad. Funny I guess but I wouldn't call it a disaster"

Now read the text of the ad
http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/2009/02/at-whoops.html

Flickr multi color selector Friday, February 27, 2009 | comments

You've seen tools that let you pick one color and view photos that use that color. Well now, this handy tool lets you pick up to ten colors and see photos that use all of those colors.

Crayons as pixels Thursday, February 26, 2009 | comments

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/02/25/crayons-as-pixels.html

Can you hear this? | comments

This is a sound in a range that supposedly only people under the age of 25 can hear. Karen must have some younger-than-average ears though because she hears it. I do too.
Train Horn

Updated Album Covers | comments

Karen also made her album cover from the fun design exercise.

I added this and a bunch of other people's cool album covers over at the entry from the other day. (If you're reading this on Serial Bus, you can probably just scroll down like 5 entries.)

Transparent Fish | comments


http://www.neatorama.com/2009/02/23/a-fish-with-a-transparent-head/

If you think that's something, I also have a lolcat with an invisible bike.

Guy racks up seven parking tickets while in car Wednesday, February 25, 2009 | comments

and while dead.

http://www.gainesville.com/article/20090225/ARTICLES/902250971

Questions at work | comments

In showing people apartments, I get new questions every day and just when I think I've heard them all, I get a new one. Usually it's people trying to find ways for me to not check their credit: "I have a class action lawsuit pending and my credit is closed and can't be viewed" they say or "If I paid the year's rent up front, would you still have to do a credit check?"

Today I had someone call and ask me questions for a half hour over the phone about very specific elements of our apartments. The answers would be readily apparent when she came in for her appointment at five o clock, but she kept asking regardless. Her questions were very thorough and very subjective: "Is there a lot of counter space?" is something that I would answer yes to, but other people have a different idea of what constitutes ample counter space. And she wasn't asking if we had ample counter space, but rather excessive counter space. You walk a tricky line in telling people what they will think when they visit. I was also asked what type of faucets we have, if there is a snack bar, and if a woman would say that we have enough counter space in the bathroom.

My favorite question, however, was "compared to a 3 bedroom ranch house bathroom, how big are your bathrooms?"

She also asked me to explain what the floor plan looked like when entering the door as if we were playing some incredibly mundane version of modern-day Dungeons and Dragons.

It's currently well past her appointment time of 5:00 and after all that she isn't even coming to visit.

Sounds like a bad deal to me, actually | comments

From Renter's Insurance: Do I Need It? on collegerentals.com.

"It’s all about perspective. Let’s say you go to college for five years—the new national average—and acquire usual college purchases: a TV, clothes, a computer, an iPod, CDs, DVDs, kitchen appliances, etc., for a total replacement value of $10,000. A policy will cost you about $200 a year; for five years, that’s a total of $1,000. If you lose everything, you’ve essentially spent $1,000 to replace $10,000 worth of stuff. Not a bad deal."


Yeah, it's not a bad deal if you use it, but if you don't use it, you've spent $1000 on nothing.

I wish I was in the renter's insurance business. If all our 165 units bought renter's insurance, they would pay $165,000 over the course of five years to me. That's enough money to pay if two buildings of apartments had all their stuff stolen/burnt, but I bet that no one would have that happen and Mike's Lucrative Insurance Company would just keep the $165,000.

Typo Observation Tuesday, February 24, 2009 | comments

There is a big difference between an Employee of the Month Plaque and an Employee of the Month Plague.

1 GB of storage: 20 yrs ago vs now | comments

Photo from cnet's crave blog.

An exercise in design Monday, February 23, 2009 | comments

I'm really not a big fan of things on facebook that involve "tag your friends and tell them that they have to do this and share it with all their friends," but Bridget shared this thing that's pretty neat and that I enjoyed doing, so I thought I'd pass it along.

Facebook Album Meme Design Challenge Exercise fun CD Song cover Sociocybernetics

How it works:

1. Select the name of your band. To do this, go to Wikipedia and hit “random article.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random) The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band. I got Sociocybernetics

2. Select your album title. To do this, go to Random Quotations. (http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3) The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album. My result: "Frequency of a tragedy does not diminish the wound when it is your own." -Linda Berdoll, Mr. Darcy Takes A Wife, 2004"

3. Select your cover art. To do this, go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days.” (http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days) The third picture — no matter what it is — will be your cover photo. My source image

4. Use Photoshop (or whatever) to pull it all together.

5. And then, of course, post it into your Facebook photo gallery, cut-and-paste these directions into the caption field and then tag the friends with whom you want to play.

Here are ones that my friends have made. Click any of them to view larger

Also, here's Bridget's for fun too:

And Eston's:
Allie:

Ciara:

Joy:

Karen:

My Dad:

What time is it? Sunday, February 22, 2009 | comments

Let me check my GIANT WATCH
Karen found this on this real estate listing

Zooey must have a gmail address I don't know about Saturday, February 21, 2009 | comments

because this was up on my computer when I got home.

Her full username is
hgbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb
nnnnnnnnnnn@gmail.com

Oh yeah | comments

But you must hate your employees Thursday, February 19, 2009 | comments

From Welcome Home America, a catalog full of apartment community stuff, I'm so glad I don't work anywhere where they run promotions that involve this monstrosity. I would not want to be a torso-less rabbit.

World Scrabble Record Set | comments

725 points
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2009/02/19/20090219ar-scrabble0220.html

boop boop world wide web computer network chat boop boop | comments

The National Apartment Association sends us this magazines called "Units". It's about apt stuff. This month, there's this article called Chat to Lease. Well, it's actually called "://chat tolease" but that's beside the point. Anyhow, as a pull quote they have the following heavy-handed example conversation that to me sounds like it's right out of some bad training video.
Prospect: I can't visit during office hours. Can you tell me about your place?

Manager: Sure. Through online chat I can describe it right now.

/pats self on back | comments

Joel and I are always on the lookout for our million dollar idea and today we were talking about how great it would be to own something easy that automatically makes you money. I thought a parking garage would be great, Joel liked the idea of owning a major shipping lane in and ocean or lake.

I told him he should buy some locks and call them "Joel's Luscious Locks"

Extreme Recycling Wednesday, February 18, 2009 | comments


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1148758/Pictured-The-Buddhist-temple-built-using-1-5million-recycled-beer-bottles.html

Wake up your cat, take a picture of it | comments

A simple premise, funny photos.
http://www.somethingawful.com/d/comedy-goldmine/wake-your-cat.php

Dear TurboTax, Monday, February 16, 2009 | comments

Thanks for making our taxes so awesomely quick this year.

Love,
Mike

Anyone want 1313 Dead End Drive for free? Sunday, February 15, 2009 | comments

I got it from a thrift store because I thought it would be decently enjoyable. I tried to sell it on ebay, but no one wanted it: even for .99 cents + shipping. My version is slightly different than the one in the commercial, but still has all the traps and stuff. I'll just donate it somewhere otherwise.

Internet saves Dusty the cat | comments

Some kid uploaded a video of him and a friend abusing a cat to youtube. Hours later, the people from a thread on Digg and other sites got a hold of it, cross-referenced all his online profiles (facebook, etc), figured out who he was and where he lived, and now the police in Lawton, OK on are the scene. Quote from Digg user ChinezePanda:
UPDATE:

POLICE DEPARTMENT IN LAWTON HAVE BEEN RECEIVING CALLS ALL DAY.

THEY ARE AWARE AND ARE AT THE SCENE.

Score another point for the legion that is the internet!

Goodjob guys! Digg.com Reddit.com 4chan.com and YouTube community members!

GREAT JOB!!! We just saved this cats life.

Why are there school? | comments

Click for big:

Bonus: Answerer should have written "make" instead of "makes"

It's the brand new "how is babby form"

Geeky Marriage Proposals Saturday, February 14, 2009 | comments

Wired brings us this article on the 5 best marriage proposals that worked
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2009/02/propose-to-your.html

Includes proposals via Google Maps and Chrono Trigger

Husbands, love your wives | comments

Today at Meijer while picking up a copy of Risk, the people in front of me at the U-Scan were a mom, dad, and two kids around age twelve. The mom was trying to show the husband the cover of People magazine w/ some baby that that pilot saved and she was pretty excited about it. Here she is trying to share a thought with him and his response? A dismissive hand wave and and annoyed "I see it, I see it." While his kids are right next to him taking it all in.

On Valentine's Day.

Valentine's Day Sugar Rush Friday, February 13, 2009 | comments

I just bought the cupcakes for a resident appreciation event tomorrow. It's impossible to buy cupcakes from the store that have a moderate amount of frosting.

Deja Vu at work | comments

Twice this has happened to me.

Last week I had someone call having seen us in the Apartment Shopper's Guide. I answered all sorts of different questions for him and invited him to come in and have a look. He said he was right at the grocery store next to us, so he came by 10 minutes later.

When I show someone an apartment, I have them fill out a guest card and while doing this, I check their driver's license. The second I saw the name on the card, I was pretty sure I had already shown him an apartment. After he left, I looked him up and found his old guest card. Sure enough, he had not only been here two months ago, but I showed him the exact same apartment. Yet when I was showing him the apartment, he did everything as if he was seeing us for the first time. And he even had to ask for directions in order to find the leasing office.

Yesterday someone called checking out prices. Even though we include heat and water and charge less than her current apartment, she didn't want to even consider living here because we charge a $200 pet fee on move in in addition to $20/mo. I'm right there with her that it's pretty weird to charge like that, but I talked to other people in the area, and they're charged the same thing. And I mean getting free heat and water more than covers what you'd pay for that cat fee. Anyhow, in entering her information into our database to track the call, my computer popped up a notice: "[Name] has already been entered on 11/28/2008. Do you want to continue?"

I looked up her info to see that she had also already visited and seen an apartment. Under the comments I had written "pet fee too high"

Creative Guitar Store Exterior | comments

Guitar Store
[via digg]

Super Stacker 2 | comments

 

Linked in the Daily, Super Stacker 2 is a puzzle game worth a try. In it, you use the allotted shapes in order to make a tower of blocks that has to stay up for a certain amount of time.

oh my stars. Thursday, February 12, 2009 | comments

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1142566/The-mother-baby-bumps-Octuplets-mum-bares-ENORMOUS-stomach-just-days-giving-birth.html
That is what you look like right before you have eight babies.

Wrong Number of the Day | comments

"Thank you for calling **** ******* Apartments; this is Mike."

"Hi can I speak to whoever makes appointments?"

"That would be me, when did you want to come by?"

"I need to schedule a mammogram for sometime this week."

Email Security Thursday, February 5, 2009 | comments

Sometimes when you register for new websites, it will send you an email with your password written right in the email. If you left your email open, it's entirely possible that someone could do a quick search and find your password.

Go into your email service of choice and do a search for common passwords that you use. If any emails show up, delete those emails. Repeat with a search of any other important information like your social security number with and without dashes. If you log chats, make sure nothing is there as well (like credit card numbers IM'd to you by family members).

Interrupting Tuesday, February 3, 2009 | comments

When showing people apartments, I'm always surprised how often people interrupt me while I'm asking a question they asked in the first place. They, for example, might ask "Can you guarantee this floor plan will be available in August?"

So I'll start out, "Well to answer that, let me explain how the reservation list works: When you get on the reservation list, you specify what you are looking for, being as specific or as general as you want. Then, when--" and then someone else in their group jumps in and asks, "So will we for sure be able to get this floor plan?"

Do other people that work with the public have this same experience?

Father makes Two Story Sledding Run | comments

http://www.wmur.com/video/18618508/

kittens riding vacuum Sunday, February 1, 2009 | comments