Google street view

Google Street View is so cool. I saw my childhood home, the old Marc Plaza Hotel in Milwaukee where we used to stay when we went to GenCon, and here:

Digital TV

So you all know about this digital TV thing coming in Feb, right? My ancient 1st gen TiVo will stop working soon after (the story is that Comcast will keep sending the analog signal 'for awhile' after the switch). I don't want to get another DVR/tuner for the bedroom. A friend has Verizon Fios, and since I already have Verizon DSL and landline, I may just switch to a package of all 3 (switching my DSL up to Fios also) and dump crappy Comcast (I am paying them almost $100 a month for service--no premium movie channels--and a DVR). Unfortunately, as regular readers know, I hate Verizon almost as much as them (remember when they cut my phone/DSL cable last year and denied, denied, denied?). But you can get a DVR that will play shows on any TV in the house, and people say the Fios picture is better than Comcast, no pixellation. Comcast will only get worse as more and more people share bandwidth. The trick will be to get everything done in one day, because I certainly don't want to take two days off just to sit around and wait for technicians...

Goggle "Decide"

Dr said I had a virus on top of allergies, gave me a cortizone spray which he said would really help the allergies long term, and a narcotic cough syrup to help me sleep. Last night I took my temperature. 102°F Sounds like I have the flu.

I had some real fun hydrocodone-fueled dreams (I slept quite a bit better than the last couple of nights, but still woke up a few times). one dream was that there was something called Google Decide. This morning I had to go to this page just to be sure that I hadn't actually seen something like that there.

Anyway, Google Decide was this program that would answer certain subjective questions for you. It was limited in some ways, and could be a bit too literal, but it came up with interesting results. For instance you could ask it "Who was a worse president, George W. Bush or Millard Fillmore?" First it would give you a disclaimer that there wasn't much historical perspective for the Bush Presidency, and it wasn't even over yet. Then Decide would search the internet, using a wide variety of sources to make a determination. You could also upload two images of human face and ask it which one was more attractive. It would search for norms for attractiveness, examine the images, and give an answer (Actually I remember a TIME Magazine cover several years back with a series of computer-morphed faces of a young woman, with various racial influences subtly shifting from one to the next; I think it was about 'what is beauty?') So, you could ask it any number of fairly specific questions, and it would use whatever web resources (Wikipedia, images files) it thought appropriate to give you an answer. It would rate sources on their credibility and take at into account.

While Google announced this thing as an amusement, they were really just getting the public to help them test out a new artificial intelligence program they had been working on....

Anything but Neutral (It's time for a rant)

So apparently the whole Net Neutrality thing is rearing its ugly head. What with Comcast trying out charging people based on their usage and all. What upsets me even more is the idea that your ISP (e.g., Verizon) could slow down or even block your access to places they don't like such as competitors. They could (for instance) make an alliace with Yahoo! and slow down my Google searches. They could block me from going to certain sites... That is just wrong. And of course these telecoms make up these dot-org sites trying to make it look like there is grass-roots support for 'innovation.' They just want profits. Here's a new 3-part article in Macworld that talks about it. I went to Save the internet and sent messages to my representatives

In a somewhat-related front, Bush is stooping to childish threats about vetoes and delaying trips (What's next? He's going to hold his breath? We can only hope!) to try to bully the House into going along with the wiretapping law that grants immunity to these same telecoms who handed over information in violation of their privacy agreements. Without immunity, they would be open to lawsuits. Not automatically liable, just open to suits for breaking agreements. Seems fair to me. I wrote my representative about that too.

I really wish the Congress would stand up to Bush's veto threats, even if it means things will grind to a halt. Force the stupid bastard to negotiate!

How much longer will we have to suffer with this ass? 339 days (I have a widget that tells me).

Being the IT guy...

... can suck some days. I come in Monday morning and the mail server has crashed. Not all that surprising since it's been under attack for over a week (note the blue line on the graph above, that's our bandwidth being filled to the max). When I rebooted, all our accounts had been deleted. Fortunately we had a backup mirror, which came up ok. We're going to migrate to an offsite provider so I don't have to mess with. the Mac OS mail server anymore.

Right now I've got the headphones on, listening to a cool remix of Britney Spears' Stronger that I got from a video Joseph the Mischievious Boy did recently. I'm feeling better.

Memory

Gandalf the White says something in the Two Towers that I have found particularly resonant with me, to the point that it's my signature on the ICE discussion boards:

"I have forgotten much that I thought I knew, and learned again much that I had forgotten. I can see many things far off, but many things that are close at hand I cannot see."

Yeah, sucks to get older. But in my new job they are tossing new challenges at me, which I eagerly accept. I was an old PageMaker--then Quark--hand, and my InDesign skills have been limited to mostly print setup. But now I'm getting into some complex design and layout. Good to learn... for my own projects.

Good Old Tivo

Not sure why it does some of the things it does... like until this morning, it was showing all the season pass shows after 11/3 as airing an hour later than they really did, as some sort of pre-DST compensation; but then after the download last night it restarted with the correct new time and all the recording times were right again. And I have an ancient SONY Series 1 recorder (as some of you will recall from my various travails) with lifetime subscription. They'll take it when they pry it from my cold, dead hands...

I was up early today doing various things, and now getting ready for class. I'll tell you, I am really sick of doing dishes. It is time-consuming drudgery, and I never feel like they are quite as clean as when the dishwasher does them.

I may call R. later. We have been chatting again, and might do a little shopping. All very platonic.

D'oh

So last night as I gnashed my teeth and hand washed my dishes (the repair guy came on Monday and announced that the computer was dead--2 weeks to get a replacement, and of course another half day at home), I was thinking how annoying it was to have these drying dishes strewn about the counter on towels; and should I spring for a rack. Then I had one of those forehead-slapping moments. Under the counter here, I have a big, two-tier drying rack... which is about all the dishwasher is good for right now.

Meanwhile, super-busy at work, but everyone is so appreciateive that it's really not so bad. I am quite ready for the week to be over though. And we get a free hour! Woo!

I was bad last night and had a steak and mashed potatoes. The steak was quite yummy if I do say so myself.

I'm sure you guys all enjoy the boring minutae of my life. ;-)

iPod touch

I stopped by the Apple Store last night after I subbed a spin class, and checked out the iPod touch. I have to say I was not impressed. The bevel around the face is kind of rough, it didn't behave all that intuitively (I thought), and I've heard the screen is not as bright as the iPhone (you'd think they would just use the same one).

One thing that is holding me back from getting either one is that they are not compatible with the radio remote. I listen to NPR most of my walk to work, before I go underground on the Metro. I don't want to deal with a whole separate radio. Bah.

New iPods

In just a few minutes, Steve Jobs will take the stage in the Moscone Center in San Francisco and announce the new iPods.

I'm more excited about this than the iPhone, mainly because I'm just not that interested in a phone (and the iPhone doesn't have enough capacity to suit me). The rumor is that the new iPods will be 'an iPhone without the phone' which would suit me fine. It may even have wi-fi...

I'm all excited... I'm still a hopeless Mac fan-boy.

Update:
New iPod Nano: fugly!
New iPod 'Classic': eh
New iPod Touch: I WANT!!!

A Bio in Business Cards

I freely admit to being a packrat. My attic (thank god I have an attic) is packed with crap, from old electronics to clothes, to old bills and cancelled checks, to models I will probably never get around to building.

One little thing I have saved is my business cards from just about every job I've had. I didn't get a card when I was a Library Asst. at U.Va. (come to think of it, I don't think anyone had cards) but I sure had some interesting jobs. For several months I was the acting bibliographer at the Science & Technology library, because they couldn't fill the position, and someone had to order new books. Frankly I thought I did a better job than the real bibliographer they got, who kept ordering cookbooks because his wife (who wore the pants in that relationship) liked to look at them. Cookbooks in a Sci-Tech library? I ordered a lot of astronomy, physics, and technology books. I was also assistant to the bibliographer at the Art and Architecture library... ah good times. Anyway, here's a list of the cards I do have:

• Art Director/Production Manager (ICE, where I was also an editor/designer/network guy [anyone remember LocalTalk? I set up the one at ICE with those phone wires], though no cards for those)
  
• Senior Designer (my first job in DC)
  
• Technical Manager (Service Bureau)
  
• IT Manager (Printer)
  
• Digital Manager (Repro firm who bought the printer)
  
• Rocket Scientist (The Mac consulting place; the owner had a sense of humor on paper at least)
  
• Technical Manager (another repro firm)
  
• ??? (the new place)
  

Anyway, back to my clutter. I was thinking it was time to finally get rid of the cancelled checks and credit card statements from, oh, 11+ years ago, and thinking that it would take forever to shred them all (and probably burn out my shredder), then I though.... Hmmm... I have a fireplace...

First cold day of the fall and it's a purging party!

Tired

Stayed up too late again, this time watching the rather silly and uninvolving Alien vs Predator on TiVo.

I'm going on a weekend trip. I will be glad to get away from here for a couple of days, but I am really dreading the driving, especially in my not-too-great mental state right now. Wish me luck. What did people do before Mapquest? I wish I had one of those Garmin thingies (love that ad by the way).

Hm, it seems that you can't burn a podcast onto a CD through iTunes, which sucks. Guess I'll have to listen to it on the iPod directly. Oh, I just remembered that I have one of those gadgets that gos in your tape deck put lets you plug into a different mini-jack device! (yes my car has a tape player--which I have never used--and a CD player).

Something Completely Different

Okay, let's try not to think about Viriginia Tech for awhile.

I needed some more pants for work, as we are not supposed to wear jeans, and I am sick of the boring Dockers I bought cheap for the consulting job. The other day I bought two new pairs of cute pants at the GAP (am I too old for 'cute' pants? Am I too old to even use the term 'cute' in association with my appearance? Am I too old to shop at the GAP? Burning questions!). Anyway, if I do say so myself, my ass looks great in them. One pair is 'relaxed fit' and the other is 'straight fit.' What I did discover yesterday though is that the 'straight fit' pair are kind of tight around the thighs. Who knew I would ever have thighs with enough muscle so that I had to worry more about my pants fitting there rather than around the waist!? Guess I should have paid more attention to My Pen Is Blue and looked at A&F pants... instead of just looking at the pretty pictures on his site.

On another work-related note, they seem to be being bigger jerks than ever about the internet use crackdown. My boss agrees that we don't think they are monitoring the Macs, but can't be too careful at least for now. I need to figure out a way to ask the IT guys without seeming obvious, or raising a flag. I am a 'semi' IT guy, but since I don't hang out in that little basement room with them all day I don't really feel like a member of the nerd club. Plus, I'm known as 'The Mac Guy' which also sets me apart. On the other hand, as the 'Mac Guy' you'd think maybe they would actually talk to me about installing things on the Macs. Meanwhile I've locked out my account on my Mac, so I don't think they could put anything on it without my permission.

Success!

Well, so far. The phone and DSL were actually working when I got home, so I connected everything and gave the new external modem a shot. Well, several shots. The modem was a little over-eager and kept trying to dial on its own... Anyway, the TiVo just hung up after downloading for almost 20 minutes, and it seems like the call was successful. But what a pain. I'll have to probably make manual calls every few days or something. But this will get me through till I can watch what's stored on here and to plan for a new unit. Urgh.

Bad Timing

I was planning to leave for work at 1:00pm, get there a little early. At 12:40 I saw the mailman outside. Could my modem be arriving? YES! So in a rush I hooked it up, reset the options on the TiVo, and it dialed (man that thing is loud as shit, got to figure out how to turn off the speaker), started to connect (and got past the 'no dial tone' of before, proving the old TiVo modem had indeed died) then it went dead. Noooooo! I tried again. Nothing. Then I picked up the phone. Dead. I rushed out of my condo and ran into a neighbor. "Having a problem with your phone line?" I asked innocently. "It just went dead. Again." She intoned. Sure enough, there in the courtyard were 2 Verizon guys standing in a hole in the ground with a big cable splayed open between them. The FIOS guys had indeed damaged the cable, despite all the denials. They assured us that everything would be back up in an hour. We'll see.

Sigh

Apple Newton Nominated for Biggest Technology Flop.

I used to have a Newton, way back when.

Resignation

What are the stages of grief? The modem on my TiVo definitely seems to be dead. I don't know if it had somethng to do with the whole Verizon mess or not (I was having some connection problems for the last few weeks, but thought it was the TiVo service). I've tried resetting it several times, tried diferent jacks, made sure there was dial tone. Nothing. The TiVo still records, but its usefulness is limited without a schedule. I don't know why this has me so depressed, but it does. (Maybe because there is some other crap going on in my life that I really don't feel like talking about right now.)

Anyway, I don't know what to do. Should I get one of those external modem kits and see if I can get a little more life out of the old Sony? Or should I break down and buy a new one. The main reason I want to try to salvage the Sony is of course the lifetime subscription. If I buy a new unit, I'll have to pay the $15 a month subscription fee again. And of course I have a bunch of programs on the Sony I don't want to lose. I need to do something soon though...

There is also this nagging worry that something is still up with my phone service. My DSL connection seems to drop out once in awhile, which it never used to do that I noticed.

Sigh. I want to crawl into bed.

Update: I can get a pre-configured modem that will supposedly work with my unit for under fifty bucks, so I'm gonna order it today. I hope that fixes it. Sigh (again).

Waiting

I finally got confirmation about my bonus yesterday: about a week's pay, not too shabby. That's especially considering that I've never gotten a random bonus ever in my working career. Sure I have gotten a few year-end bonuses, but I actually don't even remember them being as big as this one. And when I thanked my manager, he said "No, thank you, you've been a real asset." Whew, quite a change from the last production job where I was treated like I was overpaid and not showing initiative, and the last job where the owner never really told me anything about my performance till I told him I was quitting.

Of course, this bonus will just about cover my tax bill this year. But best not to think about it that way.

Meanwhile, my phone and internet are still not fixed. Last night I made a request online for a return visit this morning, just for kicks. I called to prod them this morning, and to make sure that the technician had actually made a report about the situation (which he did). She said someone was supposed to be out there today, and I said I made that request, and would someone have been out there if I hadn't. She said someone was scheduled to be there (not answering my question; I love how their voices go cold when they start to get annoyed with you). Then I asked if I would be contacted when it was fixed and she said yes. We'll see.

When this is all said and done (hopefully soon), I am writing a real letter to them and asking for a credit for my lost service.

Waiting for Verizon

Still on some neighbor's borrowed Comcast network... I just hope the repair guy shows up relatively early and it's not going to be something enormously complicated to fix (like digging up the trench again to find where the wiring is cut, for instance?) If he tells me it is going to take days, I swear I'm going to Comcast a pick up a cable modem. I still need a phone line for the TiVo though... damn.

Meanwhile I had another bizarre dream last night: I was going up in the Space Shuttle with two astronauts and... Neil Patrick Harris! Why not John Cho (Harold of Harold and Kumar go to White Castle) I don't know. Silly dream. Anyway part of the dream was me worrying about having leave time to go on a week-long shuttle trip. This cause I suppose I'm annoyed at maybe having to take time off from work to wait for the Verizon guy. Gr.

Grrrrr

Yesterday when I left for work, there was a crew digging a trench across the back of the building. I'd gotten a flyer that Verizon was going to have people installing fiber-optic cable so I guess that was it. I'm happy with my Verizon DSL so I'm not really interested....

Then I got home from work and the DSL modem was blinking ominously. Then I picked up the phone. Dead. And that means the TiVo can't get updates either.

Idiots! Can't these people do anything right? I called Verizon service and after getting past the annoying voice non-recognition system, the woman claimed that the problem was with my equipment. I said, after 10 years of no problems, all my lines are dead the day they dig up the yard to install new Verizon services? That's a strange coincidence. She got snotty with me and I asked to speak to her supervisor. Se said no one was availaible and took my cell number. No call back yet; surprise. This morning I called the construction division at Verizon and told her flat out that my line was down because of the construction. She didn't argue with me, once I got her to understand that I wasn't interested in an installation, I just wanted my service restored. Well SHE just called me back and said I had to talk to the contruction people (of course). So I just called THEM and actually talked to a nice woman who said they were 'probably aware of it' (interestingly, she didn't seem at all surprised) but would call them anyway.

We'll see. Meanwhile I am stewing and getting nothing done.

Oh, and how am I online? I'm pirating a neighbor's Comcast cable via my Airport card.