Perfect Phone For Your Enemies

Big props to Staples for taking back my POS Panasonic TG-9333 DECT phone. Speaking as an engineer, this phone is an embarrassment to the designer, quality control and management of Panasonic. I recommend the responsible party do the honorable thing and kill themselves. Or, I would also accept forcing them to use this as their only phone for 5 years.

No. That's too harsh.

2 years.

This apartment building was built using the same principles.

Belated 18th Birthday Present?

One of the interesting features of the new Google Voice is that it has automatic transcription of voice messages. I've been waiting for someone to call and leave a message so I could test it out.

Tonight my dad called while I was in the bathroom. Here's the transcript:

hi jason and say hi and let you know you maybe getting laid emails from cousin on drew hey bobby it's bobby to you soon he's gonna be running a marathon site all maybe send you an email maybe have some tax forms so if you get it i know you do on the we don't open up any stuff but because mantle bobby maybe you will open it talk to you later bye

How many of your dads call to let you know you may be getting laid? Yeah, I didn't think so.

Winter Benefit: Pants Aren't As Tight

My electric company offers features beloved by anal-retentives, control freaks and the Asperger inclined. One of them is a break down of your electricity usage (I assume they estimate these otherwise I'll need to get out my tinfoil hat). The heat is so high because I have an electric heat pump.

The bottom part of the picture is the best. If you look closely, my home is actually off the chart. It uses less than the home that uses the least energy.

The problem with a heat pump is that it gets less efficient as the temperature goes down. I was thinking about this the other day when it dawned on me that my refrigerator is also acting as a heat pump. It removes the heat from the refrigerator and pumps it into my home. Unfortunately, there's no net benefit since the heat just seeps back in. Then I thought, "What if freeze some ice and then throw it outside? How much net heating would that generate?"

But asking the question is as geeky as I allow myself to get.

Heaven Can Wait, Too

Had I seen this billboard when I was in high school, I would have never become an engineer.

When You Drive Your Car Over It, It Will Pop

Sometimes a product comes along and I think, "What a great idea!" Then I see the price and I think, "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"

Such is the case with the new CherryPal cloud computing PC. Here's the idea, take a PC and remove the expensive DVD drive, replace the hard drive with online storage, replace the processor with something cheap, use Linux and run everything via Firefox on the Web. Based on the name, I assume the case is semen proof, or at least semen resistant. And it only uses 2 watts! Great idea!

Now, charge $250 for it (not including monitor, keyboard or mouse) and serve up ads every time the user opens a program. Anagram that and it all spells Best Failing Product of the Year!

Computer Alzheimer's

As of a few weeks ago, my work laptop had 512MB of memory. After innumerable Microsoft security updates and a new virus scanner, just running Outlook and a browser used up all my memory. I looked online and found an upgrade to 1GB would cost about $50. What follows is a description of what it takes to get a $50 memory upgrade at my company.

Person 1 (me) asks Person 2 (my manager) if an upgrade can be procured. Person 2 okays it. Person 1 calls the help desk and speaks to Person 3 who takes the information (i.e. User needs more memory) and creates a ticket. The ticket is sent to Person 4 (PC support) and Person 4 does something that generates a "request for approval" from Person 2.

After Person 2 approves, Person 4 calls Person 1 to determine computer type (and hence memory type), current memory and new memory. After discussion, Person 4 determines that two 512MB modules will need to be ordered. Person 4 indicates to Person 1 that this generally takes two days. Person 4 places an order with some company for the memory. Person 4 closes the ticket, indicating a new ticket (for installation) will be opened when the memory arrives.

Patient Person 1, after 1 week, sends email to Person 4 asking what is going on. Apparently, this is a violation of the prime directive. No response is received but the following day another person in PC support (person 5) creates a ticket stating that Person 1's department has already been charged for memory and nothing else. As a side note, the correct procedure is for Person 1 to call the Help Desk (now Person 6 but had Person 1 done this Person 6 would be Person 5 and Person 5 would be Person 6) and have them open a ticket.

Almost another week passes and patience-wearing-thin Person 1 is kicking himself for not ordering the memory and installing it himself. Even paying for it out of his own pocket seems reasonable at this point. But out of the dungeon of PC support comes a phone call. It is Person 5. "Person 1," he says, "we have your memory."

Glory be and hallelujah! The Messiah, in the form of two 512MB SO-DIMMs, has come.

"Just bring your laptop down and we'll install it."

But person 1 is working. And person 5 is a minute walk away. Plus person 1 needs to close all his programs and shutdown his computer. Ideally, person 1 would do this just before lunch, dropping off the laptop at PC Support (which is right by the cafeteria) and picking it back up after lunch saving countless minutes.

But PC Support is closed during lunch, probably to play Dungeons and Dragons.

So Person 1 spends 5 minutes shutting things down and another 5 walking to the dungeon. Person 5 takes the laptop, installs the new memory and boots it back up to ensure all is well.

"Your laptop doesn't seem to like the memory," says non-anti-statically grounded Person 5.

Person 1 is wonders how he can write his letter of resignation without his laptop while Person 5 applies Computer Fix #1.

Remove and re-install.

As usual, Computer Fix #1 works and Person 5 returns laptop to Person 1 who walks 5 minutes back to his office, boots it up and contemplates how a company can survive when a $50 memory upgrade requires $1000 of labor.

No, It's A Fava Favicon

If you are reading this, and I'm pretty sure you are, you may notice something new.

Look. Up in the sky (or address bar).

It's a plane.

It's a bird.

No, it's a milk carton favicon! What wouldn't be more exciting than that!

Measure My Post

Thanks to this, you can now Rate My Posts! Now your "too lazy too comment" ass has no excuse. I realize most of you will be disappointed that you can only rate a post "5" but I'll know that you truly feel that my post is a 10".

There are over 550 in the archive, I expect you to go through all of them.

Normally, I like to proofread these but I'm sure there's no reason to today.

Update (1/23): Well, that experiment was fun but seeing how almost every post was rated 1 by one person and 5 by the only other, it wasn't very useful. Deleted!

When It Dings, Your Baby Is Fully Cooked

Watch how quickly this post runs off the tracks...

There was a little blurb about the Army using a Doppler radar to detect beating hearts through walls.

This reminds of an episode of Star Trek where, at some point, they play everyone's heartbeat sounds through the PA and find there is someone hidden on the ship. I don't know the name of the episode but I do know someone that does. You can give him just about any summary or even small snippet of an episode and he can tell you which one it was. For example:

Which is the episode with Quatloos?
Which is the episode with the blonde who wears the silver dress that makes an X over her breasts?
Which is the episode where Bones says "Damn it, I'm a doctor not an escalator."

My friend seems quite embarrassed by all this knowledge but he shouldn't be embarrassed.



He should be ashamed.

What was this post about? Oh, yeah. Doppler radar. And what is the best, non-military use they could think of for this technology?

"[...] this technology could be incorporated into cars as a sophisticated baby monitor, which would mean no more excuses for leaving your kid in the car."

The Book Of Jobs

Whether you think Steve Jobs is a megalomaniacal ass or not, and it is only a matter of time before his giant swelled head causes him and his company to get stuck in a well (again), you'll probably find this recent Woot! funny.

Full disclosure: I do own one Apple product. A 1981 Apple ][+ which my parents have been asking me to move out of their garage for about 20 years.

This Post Is Temporarily Out Of Order

Apparently I was constiposted for a week. That's when you don't post anything for a while and then all kinds of crap gets posted in s short amount of time. If you are wonder who coined that phrase, it was me, just now. Consider yourself lucky to be in the shadow of the original constipostion.

I just learned of new service, numbr.com, which was created by the craigslist people. It allows you to create a temporary phone number, in any of a bunch of cities around the US, and forward the calls to your regular phone. The original purpose was to allow people to put a phone number in their craigslist ads without having to reveal their real numbers.

As soon as I figure out something useful to do with this, I'll let you know and then you can call me and tell me what a stupid idea it is.

What Is The Airspeed Velocity Of An Unladen Swallow?

To increase the security of some account I have, I will now have to answer a security question from either Group A, B or C. The good news is, I get to pick the question. The bad news is, I can't or don't want to remember the answer to these questions. Let's take a look.

Group A:Who remembers the name of their first grade teacher?
Who wants to remember where their wedding reception was?
Thirty years ago, there were only four or five pet names. That's not secure.
Like I only have one hobby?
My favorite teacher was my first grade teacher and I don't even remember her name!
Highest mountain? That will (hopefully) change but even if it didn't I have no idea what was the highest.
Favorites change more often than highest mountain tops.

Group B:Favorite restaurant would be Hali'imaile General Store but I just spent ten minutes Googling to figure out how to spell it.
Most unusual job? I'd have to say ice and Altoids.
If you grew up in Florida, your favorite place was Disney.
What if I'm the youngest?
Anything that started with a silent G.
Who am I? Silent Gbob?
Who makes these stupid questions up?

Group C:Curse words are not accepted.
The guy who invented curse words.
Shouldn't that be "Who"?
Bleached general purpose.
Yeah, yeah. The one where my favorite teacher, what's-her-name, taught. Oooh, it's right on the tip of my tongue.
Do people older than 20 have favorite songs?
Any place that sells Altoids and ice.

Use It To Run Your ESPN Phone

World peace.

A cure for cancer.

An end to hunger.

Given a nearly unlimited amount of computing power, these might be some of the problems that might be addressed, or at least talked about?

Intel announced that they created a chip containing 80 processors and delivering a peak of 1 teraflops (that's 1,000,000,000,000 floating point operations per second). Don't get too excited as it is only a research development.

But what if it wasn't just a research project? What glorious applications could be run on such a chip?

"Intel suggested one possible consumer use: a program that intelligently monitors a televised sporting event and automatically identifies and compiles key highlights like a slam dunk or a home run by a favorite player based on the spectator's preferences."

Aim high, Intel. Aim high!

It's A Dude Ranch

I had a "conversation" with a friend a couple weeks ago that went something like this.

him: Dude, I finally got this subwoofer I've been wanting for years.
me: Uh huh.
him: Dude, this thing is big.
me: Ok.
him: No. Dude. This thing is big.
me: Yeah, Ok.
him: No. Dude. This. Thing. Is. BIG!
me: Yeah. I got it, dude. Big.

I went over to his place Friday to help him install a plasma TV (early Xmas gift for his wife). After we had it up, I asked to see the subwoofer.

him: That's it.
me: Dude. This thing is big.
him: I told you.
me: No. Dude. This thing is big.
him: I told you it was big.
me: No. Dude. This. Thing. Is. BIG!

He turned on his amps and played something while I stood right in front of it. I think my pants fluttered in the wind. Holy crap. You can not believe this thing and he barely had it on. Here's the website for it, in case your interest is piqued.

Strap On My Feed Bag

Already, I can see that if you subscribe via Bloglines there is a problem. If you're having an issue and you use Firefox 2.0 then go directly to this page and you should be able to subscribe to the correct feed that way.

I don't use IE much but it looks like IE7 has some kind of built in feed service so you can use that same link and click "Subscribe to this feed" near the top.

This Is Only A Theory...Just Like Evolution

Let's say, hypothetically, that you really liked a movie (like Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie) and that this movie is no longer sold on DVD. You may be able to, hypothetically, buy a used copy for about $100 but who would want to do that?

Now, let's say that you found out that this movie was available but only in a foreign country; how about Germany and for a reasonable price. And let's further suppose that you just happened to be traveling to that country. So you buy a copy.

Now the problem is that your hypothetical movie, that you bought and paid for and that has been released in your country will not play on your DVD player thanks to it being the wrong DVD region. However, you're a pretty smart cookie and probably knew this before you bought it. You probably figured on using DVD Decryptor and/or DVD Shrink to make a hypothetical playable copy of it. You probably knew that you can change the region on most computer DVD players 5 times. Why 5? I have no hypothesis for that.

If you were to hypothetically do all that, then you would have a copy of the movie you might be able to play on a computer but probably wouldn't be able to play on a regular DVD player. And I'll tell you the reason, pal. Sorry, that should have been: I'll tell you the reason, PAL. You see, your hypothetical movie copy would still be in PAL format which is the TV standard in Europe, while NTSC is the standard here in the US. Hypothetically, you might burn two copies of this useless movie without realizing that was the problem.

You might spend some time and do some research about PAL to NTSC conversion, or DVD players that can play PAL DVDs on NTSC TVs. But if you're lucky, you'd stumble across a nifty trick which is to basically tell your DVD player that the movie is NTSC even though it's not. It might work and it might not. It'll cost you the price of a blank DVD to find out. If it does work then you can watch and enjoy your movie. Hypothetically, of course.