albatross

2006-03-23T10:33:00.000-08:00

Let Computers Screen Air Baggage - from one of my favorite columnists, Bruce Schneier

2006-03-10T22:31:00.000-08:00

Strange weather today. Around noon, sleet started coming down in the courtyard at Adobe. Highway 17 got three inches of snow, according to SFGate.com, closing it for about an hour. This evening hail has been coming down interspersed with thunder and lightning.

The coolest storms around here happen in the winter.

2005-08-28T15:38:00.000-07:00

The bedroom floor has been complete laid now:

Bedroom Floor Final

There are still several things remaining to do, such as putting in the quarter-round trim, painting the closet, installing a closet organizer, etc., but this weekend's work definitely represents a major step in the house renovation.

2005-08-23T12:41:00.000-07:00

I put up some more photos to show the progression of the floor in my bedroom:

Laying the bedroom floor.

2005-08-19T21:32:00.000-07:00

I created a flickr page to illustrate some of the work I've been doing on my house:

House Remodel

2005-08-01T15:50:00.000-07:00

"As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." - H. L. Mencken, in the Baltimore Sun, July 26, 1920.

2004-12-21T20:54:00.000-08:00

For any of you old-time mac engineers out there, here is an excellent story about the creation of the Graphing Calculator for the PowerPC machines.

2004-12-21T15:50:00.000-08:00

My friend Luisa was questioning that someone can be a cynic and an optimist at the same time. I responded, "I'm a optimist. I'm optimistic that the entire religious right will get wiped out by a plague."

2004-11-03T16:59:00.000-08:00

My cat leads a charmed life. She has all the food she can eat, she is never cold, she sleeps on a down comforter. But evolution intended for her to live in the wild with constant dangers abounding - her temperament makes her ready to deal with the harshest Nature has to offer. Since these dangers don't exist for her, however, she seems to elevate the most common events to a great level of urgency. Simple noises are threatening specters, sleep is plagued by demons, and the vacuum cleaner is clearly Evil Incarnate. Her world has become filled with the same perceived dangers her feral counterpart faces.

Citizens of the United States live in an era of previously unfathomable prosperity and safety. Dangers of starvation, disease, abject poverty, and invasion feel all but unknown to us. But instead of embracing this peace, into the void we let creep new fears to replace the old. Robbery. Drugs. Carjacking. Blacks. Identity theft. Anthrax. Suitcase nukes. Smallpox. Al Queda. Nerve gas. Arabs.

The present administration has done an impressive job of promoting these fears by yanking the threat alert around to bolster flagging ratings and implying that the Iraqi populace had something to do with Bin Laden. We Americans complied by canceling vacations, buying fallout shelters, and covering our houses with plastic wrap and duct tape. We've been reduced to cowering under our sheets, closet doors sealed, afraid of our own shadow.

I hope we never go back to the time when we have truly frightening things to cope with, but with some luck we can put today's anxieties into perspective and live our lives in accordance to their true importance. My cat, on the other hand, will never understand how good she has it.

2004-09-23T12:20:00.000-07:00

There is still hope

2004-07-05T23:24:00.000-07:00

This is what you get if you answer all the questions incorrectly on tickle.com's IQ test page. "You have the unusual distinction of being equally good at math and verbal skills." "...uniquely good at teaching others through experiences..." - what experiences would *those* be? As an example to others?

2004-07-05T18:18:00.000-07:00

Everything I ever needed to know, I learned from the web.

2004-06-25T17:21:00.000-07:00

The HP/Compaq hydra does not have its shit together. If you have an HP laptop, you have to talk to one division. If it's a Compaq laptop, you have to talk to another. I have (er...had) a laptop titled "HP Compaq NC6000". Is that an HP, or is a Compaq?

There's a different phone number for whether it's a consumer or business laptop. If you're talking to someone in the wrong division, they won't even recognize the model number. In the course of an hour, I was given six different phone numbers, gave the laptop serial and model numbers five times, suffered through several "voice-activated" phone systems which don't recognize a thing you say (please, what's wrong with pressing a number?).

I finally figured out I needed to talk to the "HP Shopping Small Business Notebook" division and arranged to return the laptop. I'm glad that's behind me.

HP's customer support makes Dell's look stellar. I haven't had to contact IBM about the Thinkpad yet, but I hope they do a better job.

2004-06-25T17:20:00.000-07:00

"I want no more women in my life. I could have conquered Europe...all of it...but I had women in my life..."

King Henry II of England
Patrick Stewart, The Lion in Winter

2004-06-25T17:19:00.000-07:00

OK, look, if you're going to take a long, crowded flight, using deodorant is truly not optional!

2004-01-07T15:22:00.000-08:00

I hit upon the idea that I could revitalize my laptop by replacing its keyboard. The old one had gotten a little worn, and some of the keys don't feel right any more. Besides, the rest of the machine was working fine. So I called Dell and and spoke with a nice lady in India who happily took my order. I was told I would be receiving the keyboard in about three days.

A few days later, a machine at Dell called and informed me (in a typical monotonic voice) that my order was delayed and I would be receiving it in early January. OK, not that big a deal. It's just a keyboard.

Yesterday, the machine called me back again and told me the order was delayed (again) to the end of January. In addition, if I did not contact them, they would automatically cancel the order. The recording gave me a phone number to call to un-cancel the order, but it never repeated the number and I didn't have a pen handy, so I missed it. It also gave me an email address, so I sent a message asking that they NOT cancel my order.

An automated response to my email told me I could not cancel or change an order via email (uhh?), and gave me a phone number to call. I called the number but got a busy-wait signal.

The next day my order was cancelled. Leave it to Dell to make it so difficult to BUY something from them. Three things they should fix:

1. The automated message informing me there is a delay in my order should let me press some number to indicate I don't want to cancel.
2. If they give me an email address to let them know not to cancel, then they should accept such messages at that address!
3. Don't give me bad phone numbers.

Next time I get a laptop, it'll be from someone else. Does anyone still have good support?

2003-10-28T15:45:00.000-08:00

My title for this picture would be God Hates You.

2003-10-08T10:41:00.000-07:00

Amusing results:

First, the obvious:

Arnold Schwarzenegger Republican 3,552,787 48.1%
Cruz Bustamante Democrat 2,379,740 32.2%
Tom McClintock Republican 979,234 13.3%
Peter Camejo Green 207,270 2.8%

And the others:

Larry Flynt Democrat 15,010 0.2%
Gary Coleman Independent 12,443 0.2%
Mary Cook Independent 9,716 0.1%
Leo Gallagher Independent 4,742 0.1%

That means that 4,742 people in California felt that the man best suited for the job of governor was some guy who smashes watermelons for a living. I guess that's no more far-fetched than who we got.

George Schwartzman Independent 10 0.0%

How does it feel to only get 10 votes? What, he couldn't even convince his own family to vote for him?

2003-10-06T23:10:00.000-07:00

Forgive the technical post, but this is interesting. A while ago, Microsoft was sued by a company called Eolas over a patent infringement. Apparently ActiveX controls infringe their patent under most circumstances.

Microsoft is about to change Internet Explorer to get around this problem. ActiveX controls which load their data from a URL won't get loaded unless the user clicks OK on a dialog box that comes up. What a lame way for them to work out this patent issue!

Microsoft tells about the changes that are about to happen to IE here. IE will detect if you're loading external content by looking at the parameters to the plugin, and if it sees a URL, it'll pop up the dialog.

But then, Microsoft starts talking about another "new" feature to embedding that they're adding. It seems that you can now encode data to send into the plugin using Base64. Now, why would anyone need to encode a parameter in Base64? And why would Microsoft choose this announcement to document this feature? Could it be that you can use it to secretly send a URL into the plugin in a way that IE won't detect? Could it be that Microsoft is handing the world a convenient way around the patent? Nahh, has to be coincidence...

Incidentally, most pages incorporating Flash and Quicktime content will need to be changed as a result of this little spat between Microsoft and Eolas. But those of you using Viewpoint content won't have to change a thing! :-)

2003-08-15T10:55:00.000-07:00

From SFGate.com:

While New Yorkers poured out of immobile subway cars, emerged from stuck elevators, began long walks home or rested in local establishments, one unidentified man saw beauty.

"You can actually see the stars in New York City," he said.

2003-08-13T19:57:00.000-07:00

"An Amazon.com customer Just Like You enjoys:"

It's amazing how Amazon knows exactly who I am based on the things I buy.

2003-08-04T18:25:00.000-07:00

Another very cool technology.

2003-08-01T20:08:00.000-07:00

It seems we chose a prime place to pitch our tent in Homer. Not only did it turn out to be the most crowded campsite I've ever seen, but we were fifteen feet from a very busy road, surrounded by a motorcycle gang, and directly under the traffic pattern of the local airport. Not the quiet landing side of the pattern, mind you, but the full-bore engine takeoff side. It's amazing we got any sleep at all.

2003-08-01T20:01:00.000-07:00

It's one thing to have grammatical errors in a letter to a friend, in a weblog, on a sign in a store, or even on a movie theater marquee. But if you're planning on engraving a message in metal, maybe you should consult an english teacher.

2003-08-01T19:59:00.000-07:00

Alaska was a lot of fun. A lot of it was what I expected - sweeping grandeur of mountain ranges and rugged coastline, small fishing villages, and an incredible variety of wildlife. But there was one thing I was not expecting.

Alaska is crowded. It is overwhelmingly packed with thousands upon thousands of tourists. Flights to and from Alaska are completely full, the airport is a zoo (even Newark airport at rush hour is faster to get through), the roads are clogged with traffic, and RVs are everywhere. We visited Homer for a night, which is a town of just over 4000 permanent residents. The town has a spit of land that extends several miles into the bay, and all along the spit are parking lots filled with an ocean of RVs, stacked four levels deep. The occasional area along the spit not filled with these monsterous vehicles were packed with tents.

We chose to camp for the night along the beginning of the spit, where it wasn't as crowded. We set up the tent around 10pm and went for dinner. When we got back, several more tents had appeared, and more kept coming after we settled down to sleep. There must have been four times the population of the town in tourists that night.

Alaska was definitely an amazing place to visit, but I really dislike crowds, so my next visit will definitely be off-season. I don't care if I have to wade through eight feet of snow...