I have finally joined the 21st century. My new (and first) iPod arrived yesterday. My beautiful wife picked it up at the post office for me.
The iPod is pretty cool, and I used it in my transit commute this morning. I am still trying to get the controls down pat. I keep trying to press down when I want the cursor to go down, but that pauses my music. I think I’m starting to get a hold of it though.
I guess Freepay really does work. Now if I could just get that digital camera.
Most people take their current name for granted. These same people have probably never had their name changed. Many probably have assumed the same about my name: Kim Jason Joseph Benoit Siever. After all, if I, the holder of my name, can assume it, why shouldn’t others?
In reality, it’s not the case. While I may go by that name, legally it’s not my name. In fact, the earliest documentation I have of this name being recorded was when I was ordained an elder a month before my mission.
I first realised something was odd when I received my birth certificate in 1987 and saw that not only was “Benoit” not on it, but the other two middle names were in the other’s place.
Recently, I’ve been reviewing old documents and discovered that my name has gone through quite the roller coaster ride. Come share the ride.
That’s the inside front page of my baby book and it reads “Kim, Joe, Jason, Ben”. I am not sure of the date it was written, but it possible predates my baptism certificate (dated five days after my birth). If so, it is the earliest documentation I have for my name. The roller coaster starts there.
That’s from my Catholic baptism certificate. The baptism took place five days after I was born. Here my name is “Kim Joseph Jason Ben Siever”.
Here’s my birth certificate. It’s based on my baptismal certificate, and now every other legal identification is based off it. It reads “Kim Joseph Jason Siever”. For whatever reason, “Ben” was not included. My birth was registered the day after the baptism.
When I was five, my parents joined the Mormon church. I was blessed in the church nine months later. This is my blessing certificate and here my name is “Kim Jason Joseph Ben Siever”. This may be the first occurrence when “Jason” is put at the front, a precursor to my current name.
Within seven years, I took the last name of my step-father (who for all intents and purposes I consider my dad). I don’t recall when I started going by “Haysom”, but I believe I was around eight. Anyhow, that’s my deacon ordination certificate. I’m not sure where the “Benjamin” came from, but it’s the only occurrence I’ve seen of it.
Here’s my priest ordination certificate, where I am listed as “Kim Jason Joseph Ben Siever”. By the time I was sixteen, I needed to get a job. I couldn’t get a social insurance number under Haysom, since it was never legally changed. I started going by Siever again.
This is my certificate for when I was ordained an elder. I received it in October 1992, a month before my misison. It was the earliest official occurrence I have found where my name is as I use it now.
There you go. The roller coaster that is now my name. Legally, my name is Kim Joseph Jason Siever. That’s what’s on my birth certificate, my SIN, my driver’s license and so forth. Sometimes I bug Mary that we’re not even legally married since the name on our marriage certificate is different from that on my birth certificate.
Let’s say you run a company. Sales are down and profits are going down with them. It’s come to the point where you have to let go of an employee. You’ve narrowed it down to two. The first has been with the company longer than anyone else and has a larger salary. The second has been with the company for only a year and has a smaller salary. Everything else is equal.
Who would you fire?
I keep receiving visitiors coming to my sites looking for information on hot peppers. They look to see what makes hot pepper hot, which of the peppers are the hottest, and so forth. I thought I should make at least one post on the information. If I ever get around to it, maybe I’ll dedicate a site to hot peppers.
The information below is adapted from Wikipedia.
The Scoville scale is a measure of the hotness of a chile pepper. These fruits of the Capsicum genus contain capsaicin, a chemical compound which stimulates heat-receptor nerve endings in the tongue, and the number of Scoville heat units (SHU) indicates the amount of capsaicin present. Many hot sauces use their Scoville rating in advertising as a selling point.
It is named after Wilbur Scoville, who developed the Scoville Organoleptic Test in 1912. As originally devised, a solution of the pepper extract is diluted in sugar water until the ‘heat’ is no longer detectable to a panel of (usually five) tasters; the degree of dilution gives its measure on the Scoville scale. Thus a sweet pepper, containing no capsaicin at all, has a Scoville rating of zero, meaning no heat detectable even undiluted. Conversely, the hottest chiles, such as habaneros, have a rating of 300,000 or more, indicating that their extract has to be diluted 300,000-fold before the capsaicin present is undetectable. 15 Scoville units is equivalent to one part capsaicin per million. The greatest weakness of the Scoville Organoleptic Test is its imprecision, because it relies on human subjectivity.
Later analytical developments such as high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) (also known as the “Gillett Method”) have now enabled the Scoville rating to be determined by direct measurement of capsaicin rather than sensory methods.
| 855,000 | Naga Jolokia pepper (reported & disputed) |
| 350,000–580,000 | Red Savina habanero (Guinness Book of Records) |
| 100,000–350,000 | Habanero chile |
| 100,000–325,000 | Scotch bonnet |
| 100,000–225,000 | Birds eye pepper |
| 100,000–200,000 | Jamaican hot pepper |
| 100,000–125,000 | Carolina cayenne pepper |
| 95,000–110,000 | Bahamian pepper |
| 85,000–115,000 | Tabiche pepper |
| 50,000–100,000 | Thai pepper |
| 50,000–100,000 | Chiltepin pepper |
| 40,000–58,000 | Piquin pepper |
| 40,000–50,000 | Super chile pepper |
| 40,000–50,000 | Santaka pepper |
| 30,000–50,000 | Cayenne pepper |
| 30,000–50,000 | Tabasco pepper |
| 15,000–30,000 | de Arbol pepper |
| 12,000–30,000 | Manzano pepper, Ajà |
| 5,000–23,000 | Serrano pepper |
| 5,000–10,000 | Hot wax pepper |
| 5,000–10,000 | Chipotle |
| 2,500–8,000 | Jalapeño |
| 2,500–8,000 | Santaka pepper |
| 2,500–5,000 | Guajilla pepper |
| 1,500–2500 | Rocotilla pepper |
| 1,000–2,000 | Pasilla pepper |
| 1,000–2,000 | Ancho pepper |
| 1,000–2,000 | Poblano pepper |
| 700–1,000 | Coronado pepper |
| 500–2500 | Anaheim pepper |
| 500–1,000 | New Mexico pepper |
| 500–700 | Santa Fe Grande pepper |
| 100–500 | Pepperoncini pepper |
| 100–500 | Pimento |
| 0 | Sweet bell pepper |
I came across this RealAudio file of an episode of the The Mighty Hercules cartoon.
That sure brings back memories.
I was contemplating the phone numbers I’ve had since I was five, and wondered how they would look conceptually. I found a photo of a phone pad, imported it into a bottom layer in Illustrator, and drew a line on a separate layer from one number to the next for each of the seven digits in each phone number. The images that follow are the results.
This has to be the hardest maze I have ever tried to complete. I am doubtful anyone could make it right to the end.
Many of you may have seen the free iPod contest that has been circulating around the Internet. This is probably old news to many. The new thing though is that the contest is finally available to Canadians.
The deal is you sign up, choose one of seven offers (I choose a week supply of vitamins and paid 15$ CDN for shipping—cheaper than over 200$ for the iPod), then invite five other people.
If you want an iPod (for guys, read “need an iPod”), just visit www.freeipods.com.
We’ve all seen them, or at least heard of them. Nigerian scams. The ones where they promise you a share of a multimillion dollar reward, but reality only want to kidnap you, hold you for ransom and maybe kill you.
Anyhow, I created a new webpage to document my interaction with such scam artists. At this point, I have only interacted with one, Mumba Tama from Ghana.
Read it and enjoy. (It’s long).
While I was reading the paper this morning, I came across these two cartoons.
Either there is some conspiracy going on here or someone leaked trade secrets.