Hey everyone. Sorry for my, shall we say “leave of absence” from the blog. I’ve been around and such, but I’ve been busy, lazy, and unmotivated (a bad combination for writing ). So anyway, I am back, and have some posts up my sleeve. To my dedicated readers (hah, if those exist!) sorry for not having posted in a while, it won’t happen again (especially for over a month >_>).

Along with my return (an occasion for great revelry and celebration itself!), I have also preformed a few minor updates to the blog.

• Spam was becoming a serious issue, so I added some plugins to help eliminate this problem.
• MattUnzipped.com is now a dofollow blog. This means that whenever you post a link here (in a comment, or otherwise), it will be followed by search engines. This is the opposite of “nofollow” obviously. So now posting a comment with a link to your site is good for your search engine ranking, etc.
• I’ve tweaked some backend security settings. I really doubt that there is anyone that cares enough to hack my blog, but better safe than sorry!
• The “Hello Dolly” plugin is now activated. This means literally nothing to you, but now in the upper right hand corner of the admin panel, a line from the play “Hello Dolly” shows up. Like I said, this means nothing to you, but realistically I need some filler in this post to make it look longer. I know just the thing, a funny demotivational poster will fill up some space.

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Listed in Site Related

Sorry it’s been a while since I’ve posted, but I’ve been rather busy as of late, not to mention I’ve switched hosts for this, and another, larger site twice within a few days. ANYWAY, I thought I would make a fun and quick post about something rather random (as that is in my nature!). After racking my brain for a few seconds, I thought “Hmm, Phi is pretty cool, why not post about it?”. So here it is, the product of on the spot randomness

The Golden Ratio is also called the Divine Proportion, the Golden Mean or is expressed as φ “Phi” (a Greek letter). Mathematically, it can be expressed as (1 + √5) ÷ 2 or approximately 1.6180339887. Basically two numbers are in the golden ratio if the ratio between the sum of the numbers and the larger number is the same as the ratio between the larger number and the smaller number.

At this point, you may be wondering, what exactly is the big deal about this number? So you get 1.618 when you divide some numbers, why do I care? Well, the interesting thing about the golden ratio is that MANY things in nature fall into this ratio and for some reason it is very aesthetically pleasing to people and probably animals as well.

Even your very own body contains elements relating to the golden ratio. For instance you can measure the length of your lower arm (elbow to fingertip) and divide this by the length of your forearm (wrist to elbow) and you should get a result very near 1.618. Want to test more tricks on yourself? - Since I know you just tried that one out Check out this page.

The Divine Proportion relates directly to something called the Fibonacci Sequence and is often taught in various math classes as strictly “golden rectangles” which are very interesting in and of themselves (basically rectangles that fall into the golden ratio and are found in thousands of places throughout art and such)

Millions of instances of φ occur in the universe and overall it is a very interesting concept. I’ve just briefly touched on it here, and I have spent a good deal of time researching it in the past. If you are interested in this topic, you can continue your research very easily. A good place to start is the Golden Ratio Wikipedia Page.

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Listed in Random

Hey everyone. I had to switch hosts again, as the last one ended up being less than what I expected. Sorry about this, but I know for sure that I found a good one this time. Thanks for bearing with me guys, no more foreseeable host switches in the future

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Listed in Site Related

I’ve moved this site over to a new host. My new host is very reliable, and much quicker. Most of you won’t even notice the switch at all, as I uploaded the site to my new host before I change the DNS so that you wouldn’t even notice the difference. You’ll notice faster load times around the site, but that is about the only difference. Well, that’s all for now.

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Listed in Site Related

You are now playing the game. You cannot stop playing the game. You cannot win the game, only lose the game (which you will do a lot). That being said, I lose.

What exactly am I talking about? The game is an interesting passer of time so to speak. I’ve been playing the game for nearly a year now and have probably told 20+ people about it. The game is a fun way to entertain yourself and much more.

The history of the game. As best as I can tell, the game was invented by someone, but I am not entirely sure whom. It is becoming extremely popular, and I know that it is international. The game has been around for at least 3 years, possibly more.

The rules. The basic, unadulterated rules of the game are as follows. Anytime that you think about the game, you lose the game and must say out loud something like “I lose” or “I lose the game” or “I just lost the game”. If you are in a situation where you simply cannot talk (perhaps you are taking the SAT or are in an important meeting) you may choose not to say “I lose” but if at all possible, you should. You say I lose every individual time you think of the game. This means that if you think of the game for 5 minutes straight, you do not have to continuously say “I lose”. You do have to say it if you stop thinking about it and start again. If anyone every asks you “Why are you saying ‘I lose’” or “What are you talking about” etc. you are obligated to tell them and explain the rules of the game to them. The more people around you playing, the more fun it is when you lose. For instance I have a math class where I sit with 5 friends that all play and when one of use thinks of the game, we all end up saying it in order, one by one. Many versions of the rules out there say other things about the game, but these are the most basic rules and in reality hold precedent over any other rules you may hear or read.

The goal of the game. The ultimate goal of the game is for everyone in the world to be playing the game and for their to be a massive global loss. The corollary goal would be for everyone to forget the game, in which case it would be gone from existence. The later is much less likely to happen due to modern preservation of information through the internet and other various mediums.

Playing the game is an fun way to measure your random brain activity and to annoy friends So now it’s your turn to spread word of the game and start playing. Now obviously you don’t have to play, but what fun is that? If you want to spread word of the game via the internet, I have constructed two graphics to display on your MySpace page or forum signature or whatever else. They are displayed below with their forum markup and direct link. Also, if you want to tell friends about this post, a quick link to it is mattunzipped.com/thegame

Userbar:

Forum Markup:
[URL="http://mattunzipped.com/random/i-lose-the-game/"]
[IMG]http://mattunzipped.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/thegame_userbar.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
Direct Link
http://mattunzipped.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/thegame_userbar.jpg

Signature:

Forum Markup
[URL="http://mattunzipped.com/random/i-lose-the-game/"]
[IMG]http://mattunzipped.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/thegame_sig.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
Direct Link
http://mattunzipped.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/thegame_sig.jpg

Have fun! I lose >_<

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Listed in Internet, Random

Admittedly, this isn’t the best episode of South Park. However it is still rather funny, and worth watching at the very least.

In this episode, Mr. Garrison takes the kids to an Old Pioneer Village. At the village, the kids are taken hostage and the workers at the Old Pioneer Village refuse to break character, even to save their own life. Meanwhile, Cartman has convinced Butters to take part in some mischief and when they are done playing, they think that the police have been called on them and they sneak back into the Old Pioneer Village. After some crafty tactics, the boys and villagers are able to overtake their captors.

There is little underlying/non obvious satire or parody in this episode to my knowledge, but it is still somewhat funny.

My Rating for this episode is 3.0/5 Haven’t seen this episode yet? Watch it here.

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Listed in TV Shows and Movies

I incurred this picture the other day, and it inspired me to make this post. Well, that, and my friend who talked about Schrodinger a lot for some time. I figured some people would find this post interesting and humorous and that is a good enough reason for me to write it.

Erwin Schordinger was an Austrian physicist. His most famous work/contribution was probably his cat in a box thought experiment. His thought experiment existed to criticize the idea of superposition. He came up with something to poke fun at superposition which is now called “Shrodinger’s Cat”.

Firstly, I will give a somewhat watered down version of what superposition is in quantum mechanics. Basically it is this idea that two truths can be held true at once (even if they conflict with each other). If there are two possibilities for an outcome of something, then both can be true and a mixture of them can be as well. Many people, such as Erwin Scrodinger, did not buy this. I kept things simple so that this didn’t seem too boring, but if you want to learn a more about quantum superposition, check out the Wikipedia page here.

Now for what Schrodinger’s paper said:

“One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Geiger counter there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small, that perhaps in the course of the hour one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges and through a relay releases a hammer which shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts.

It is typical of these cases that an indeterminacy originally restricted to the atomic domain becomes transformed into macroscopic indeterminacy, which can then be resolved by direct observation. That prevents us from so naively accepting as valid a “blurred model” for representing reality. In itself it would not embody anything unclear or contradictory. There is a difference between a shaky or out-of-focus photograph and a snapshot of clouds and fog banks.”

Basically since the cat has a chance of both living and dieing, it must be both dead and alive. Now the picture in this post is potentially humorous to you

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Listed in Humor, Random

Many times there are very simple things you can do to make your computing experience a little bit better. People often don’t realize all of the easy things they can do to optimize their computer. These tips are mostly aimed at Windows XP, but some will work on other OS’s. Here are my tips:

1. Don’t use Internet Explorer. Simply stated, it isn’t the best browser out there. My personal favorite is FireFox. You can customize basically everything about FireFox, and get tons of really useful plugins.
   
2. Try not to run a lot of programs at once. If you don’t have the best computer out there and loads of RAM, it isn’t always smart to be using a slew of programs simultaneously. Try to only keep up programs that you are actively using. Also make sure you have very few background programs running. You can close these by exiting from them in the task bar and by going to the Windows Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Delete) and going to processes and ending programs that you are not using.
3. Make sure you defragment your main drive(s) regularly. Too often people go months and months without ever defragmenting. It doesn’t take much time at all if you do it regularly. I think once a month is plenty for most people. To get to it, go to Start>All Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Disk Defragmenter. You can even have your computer do this, and other tasks automatically every so often. Under system tools, just go to “Scheduled Tasks” and you will be able to set this up.
4. Use msconfig to stop all of those annoying startup programs from ever starting. To use this, go to Start>Run and type in “msconfig” Click the “startup” tab and uncheck everything that you don’t need running on startup.
5. Get rid of the looks! If how everything looks on your computer isn’t that important to you, this will drastically speed up your PC. Hold the windows key and hit Pause/Break* (usually in the upper right of a keyboard). Click on the advanced tab and under “Performance”, click “Settings”. Click on “Adjust for best performance” and then click Ok. Also consider setting your desktop background (wallpaper) to none as this will also speed things up.
6. Run Spyware and Virus scans on a regular basis. Spyware and viruses can slow down your computer substantially. If you do not have anti-virus/spyware software installed, you can either buy some, or consider many free programs. For Antispyware: AdAware or SpyBot S&D. For Antivirus: AVG Anti-Virus. Also, make note that you should not leave these programs running if you are not using them.
7. Use Windows XP and reboot. Windows XP kind of keeps track of what programs you use, and how you use your computer in a file called “Layout.ini”. About every three days or so, Windows moves around files accordingly in order to optimize things for you. Also, you need to reboot every once in a while. If you are like a lot of people, you just leave your computer on all the time. While this isn’t really “bad” for your computer, you do need to restart at least once a week. Restarting basically gives your computer a chance to tidy up a little bit.
8. Fix disk errors. Every time you unplug your computer while it is on or hard restart it, the power goes out, or a program just crashes, disk errors are potentially created. After a while these errors build up and may slow your computer down. Luckily fixing them is rather simple. Go to My Computer. Now right click on your main drive (probably the C drive). Select “Properties”. Now go to the “tools” tab and under “Error Checking” click “Check Now…”. Click the boxes next to “Automatically fix file system errors” and “Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors” and click “Start”. You may be told that you need to restart. If so, simply opt for it to run when you reboot your computer and it will go at the next startup.
9. Disable error reporting. If you are like most people, you probably have seen your fair share of what I like to call “Don’t send messages”. This is error reporting which is basically just a way of you letting Microsoft know when a program crashes on your computer. If you are like me, and think these messages are somewhat annoying, there is good news - They are easy to disable! Hold down the Windows key and press the Pause/Break key* (once again, this is located in the upper right hand of most keyboards). Go over to the “Advanced” tab and at the bottom there will be a button that says “Error Reporting”, click on it. Click “Disable error reporting”, but make sure to leave “But notify me when critical errors occur” checked.
10. Keep your OS up to date. It is important to keep your Operating System up to date and install all updates when they come out. In most versions of Windows you can simply enable automatic updates and everything is pain free. To make sure you have automatic updates enabled in XP, simply hold down the Windows (start) key and press the Pause/Break key* (Probably located in the upper right hand of your keyboard if you haven’t realized by now). Click on the “Automatic Updates” tab and make sure “Automatic” is selected. Also make sure it is set to run at some time you will most likely not be on your computer (3 or 4 AM is probably good for most people).

I hope that some of my readers find these tips useful. They really can make a difference in computer speed. If you are running an older system, these will really help, and they will even if you are running a newer one. I myself am not running a computer that is on the bleeding edge, but it works and is a fairly decent machine. I’ve implemented each and every one of these tips on my own machine and I am happy with the results. I’ve also added RAM to my computer which I recommend you do as well if you are running on less than 1GB or 512MB, it makes an incredible difference.

*Any time that I instruct to hold the Windows key and hit the Pause/Break key, you can get to the same menu by right clicking on “My Computer” and selecting “Properties”. This should help anyone who cannot find the key, or is using a keyboard without it.

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Listed in Gadgets and Tech

As many of you may well know, CheatForums.net (AKA CF) ended rather abruptly. Nathan and I are sorry for this, but it was for good reason. The site was simply not going anywhere, and in all honesty neither of us had that much time for it. We are both rather busy people, especially when we needed to be working with it the most. Also, like all forums, it was a money pit. The topic area that the forum was based around (its niche) was a very competitive one also. Ultimately we simply thought it best to close the site. We are very sorry that there was no notification before this, but things have been rather hectic etc and I have just recently gotten around to dealing with a truckload of unresolved issues of various sorts.

In conclusion, I would like to thank everyone that posted on CF for their time etc. A lot of the friends you knew at CF probably are registered at Zypur.com, so you could try heading over there if you are looking for somewhere to hang out.

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Listed in Random

The long awaited and anticipated Legendary Map Pack is here. I downloaded it this morning, and test drove all of the maps. If you are still debating on whether to buy them or not, I suggest that you do! These three maps are awesome.

Avalanche

This is a remake map to a degree. It is very big, and has sweet vehicles. I foresee some very cool forged variants for this map! My personal favorite of the three.

Ghost Town

This map is rather cool. It has both indoor and outdoor parts and some very cool scenery. Very fun for loads of gametypes.

Blackout

A remake of a great Halo 2 map. The best “Small” map in Halo 3 in my opinion.

These are 3 very good maps, and this map pack is by far better than the Heroic map pack. The new forge items are kick ass too! For only 800 Microsoft points, I feel as if I got my money’s worth.

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Listed in Video Gaming