Secret projects and new toys
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Because of a semi-secret secret project I’m working on with a friend of mine right now, I’ve been playing a lot more Counter-Strike than I have for years. In the past month, I’ve moved from the “I remember when the Colt had a scope but I sure as hell can’t aim with it now” category to the “Damnit my stupid mouse sucks!” category of player.
As a result, I thought that it was probably time to do some investigating and maybe replace the four year old Microsoft optical mouse I’ve been using.
For a while, I wasn’t really sure if it was the computer or the mouse - after all, I’ve been playing on a computer that is four years old (even if it is a pretty good machine). But after getting to play on my brother’s computer (basically brand new) with both my trusty old MS mouse and his slick little Logitech mouse, I decided it really does make a difference.
After shopping around a bit I decided to settle on the Logitech G5 mouse, which is a pretty sweet piece of technology. It has a little higher sensitivity by default than my old mouse, but that’s something I can easily get used to.
It also, and this is super important, has a scroll wheel that clicks. I kept looking at some really cool mice that had a free-scrolling wheel, which is cool when you just want to run down a web page, but if you’re trying to use the mouse wheel to select things (such as different weapons), it’s no good.
There are a couple other neat features, like an adjustable weight cartridge and a button on the mouse that lets you select between three sensitivities “on the fly.” The bill this as an in-game feature, but I’m not sure I see myself doing that just yet.
Anyways, I’m excited to play with it.
CES 2007 is the blogger’s CES
In the process of commenting out invites to the uber-cool blogger party that the Blog Business Summit team is hosting, I came across this Bloghaus thing posted up at PodTech.
I’m not currently slated to fly down to CES with Teresa and Steve, but if I was, I’d almost be more excited about this place than the event itself.
PodTech is having our first Bloghaus, sponsored and presented by Seagate.
Open 24/7 to all bloggers attending CES, this is the place to be to plug in, power up, hang with the blogging community, podcast and videoblog conversations, converse on the top stories, what’s hot, what’s not…and just get away from it all, pre-party, after hours, all hours. Bloghaus is at the Bellagio Hotel - we have our very own cool suite. Please be sure to RSVP, so you are on the invite list.
Features of our Bloghaus:
# Gaming room all set up to play Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 (PS3), Nintendo Wii, and other PC games
# Dedicated T1 line
# WiFi online access
# Lots of hardwired internet access, too
# Podcasting station
# Lots of food and bevs
# Open 24/7
Also, as a side note, I’m amazed at how many “blogs” make it so difficult to leave a comment. I understand with some of the really big ones that making user registration is a great way to keep spam out, and I respect that choice, but several bloggers have no commenting feature of any kind and one blog actually redirects the “comment on this” link to one of those domain squatting search page type things. wtf?
Shiny Objects
I’m writing this post from my brother’s PSP, mostly because it was sitting nearby and the screen is shiny.
The web browsing on this thing is pretty solid, but I don’t think I’ll make a habit of posting from this thing because of the abysmal cell phone style keypad.
This post has already taken almost ten minutes to write. I’m done.
My Invoice Receipt
Dear Apple Customer,
Thank you for shopping at the Apple Store!
If you have already paid for your purchase, please retain this invoice receipt for your records.
If you need to send payment to Apple, please reference Apple’s Invoice Number on your remittance. After remitting payment, please retain this invoice receipt for your records.
Invoice Date: 12/26/06
________________________________________________________________________________
Item Product Product Description Total Total Unit Extended
Number Ordered Shipped Price Price
001 Z0DP4LL/A MBPRO 15/2.16/1G/120/128V 1 1 1,799.00 1,799.00
SerialNo.: ( ************ )
Subtotal 1,799.00
Tax 0.00
Shipping Charges
TOTAL USD 1,799.00
Geek or Nerd? How about Gerd?
Until about a week ago I had no idea that there was such a widespread misunderstanding about the terms “Geek” and “Nerd.”
My sister, along with several other misguided people, seem to think that it’s better to be called a nerd than it is to be called a geek. It’s not even that they think nerdy things are cool; they’ve just reversed the definitions.
Basically, a nerd is Milton from office space. You know–pocket protector, stutter, and general inability to have social interactions. A geek is idiosyncratic, and as everyone knows, idiosyncrasies can be charming.
If “geek” carried a negative connotation, do you think Best Buy would call it the “geek squad”? I doubt it. Who would want a bunch of weak, incompetent, workers coming into your house and drawing cosines on your wall in order to compute the proper angular momentum necessary to cut the tape that opens the box on your new TV? Not I. I’ll take geeks, thank you.
Allow me to point to the Urban Dictionary (oh, so scholarly!) where the definition of Geek conveniently supports my case:
The term “geek” originally referred to the carnival performers whose act consisted of biting the heads off chickens and eating glass. Over time it came to be applied to anyone who got paid to do work considered odd or bizarre by mainstream society.
The term now enjoys a special status within the technical community, particularly among particularly knowledgable computer programmers. To identify oneself as a “geek” indicates a recognition that most people still consider programming computers to be a bizarre act, along with a certain fierce satisfaction in being very good at their inglorious profession.
That most software geeks now easily earn twice as much as the average laborer just sweetens their defiant embrace of the term.
Note: Unlike the word “nerd,” which is always pejorative, “geek” often carries a positive connotation when used by one of the group. The use of the term by outsiders is considered insulting.
But I know perfectly well that providing evidence to support my case is not going to convince anyone. So I propose that we solve this issue once and for all, by creating a new category of loser: the Gerd. I will, of course, also accept “neek” as an option.
Rope Swings and Travel Days
I don’t think that rope swings will ever go out of fashion, because they’re just too much fun. My grandmother has an old one out in her back yard, and since today was a pretty nice day in Texas, my brother and I…swung around on it.
Here’s Me:
And Here’s Conrad:
Tomorrow (today) is a travel day, but this time we all have our seat assignments in advance, so we shouldn’t end up flying standby on our own flights. If all goes well (yeah right) I’ll be back home in Seattle tomorrow evening. Hooray!
Vader Sessions
This is probably the most hilarious video I’ve seen on YouTube. My friend Deb showed Ethan and I this thing a week or so ago, and since then I’ve watched it a bunch of times, and it is still absolutely amazing.
Merry Xmas
This post is late in coming (11:30 where I am), but I’ve had a full and busy day.
I wonder when “Christmas” became “Xmas.” I think it was around the time that Futurama declared it so, because they’re really the ones who define language.
Regardless of what it’s called, I hope everyone had a merry xmas.
Raise the driving age!
I realized suddenly today that I’ve reached the point where I think the driving age should be raised to 18.
I came to this realization as I was being tossed around in the back seat of a suburban my brother Conrad was driving. He’s at that point where he’s just started to get behind the wheel of a car because in the past century we have somehow failed to come up with a way to learn how to operate a deadly multi-ton piece of machinery other than simply “trying it.”
I remember being so ready to drive at 16 it hurt, but if I drove anything like my brother does now, it’s a miracle I never killed anyone. I’m sure he’ll get better with practice, but here’s a slightly blurry picture of my brother behind a wheel:
Hunting deer with a bow
This morning I got up around 5:45 and went out to sit with my uncle in a blind waiting for some white tail deer.
This is the first time I can remember getting into a blind and waiting for deer to get close enough to shoot with a bow. I’m pretty sure that means its the first time I’ve ever done it, since you need to be ridiculously still and quiet; I would not have been able to do that when I was too young to remember.
It was really interesting and kind of fun, but in a once-in-a-while sort of way. I don’t think I could make a regular habit of it, and for some reason I get the feeling it’s a lot nicer with two people than one.
When we first got into the blind, it looked something like this:
Later it got lighter out, but I didn’t bring my camera on account of the noise would have spooked the deer before we could get a chance to take a shot.
It’s really pretty early in the morning while the sun is coming up, and it’s really kind of cool to see the deer wake up and get moving, and the doves fluttering around. My uncle managed to hit a deer, and we’re going to go track it down later.
Online check-in is (still) bullshit
Ah, the holidays. That time of year when everyone flies everywhere else. I’m actually secretly convinced that everyone plays a giant game of musical chairs, and if you could see a big map of the world and all the people moving around, it would be pretty funny.
But I digress: Online check-in is bullshit.
As I’ve said before, the purpose of checking in at the airport is to say “OK, I’m here.” The reason you do that is because airlines overbook their flights, and they need to know who makes it to the airport, so that they can make sure that the people who actually SHOW UP are the people who get on the flight.
So why would you let people check in without showing up?
In any case, the argument I usually hear is that “Oh they release the seats about 30 minutes before the flight leaves, so it’s OK it doesn’t hurt anything really.” Well, let me present a counter-example:
My family arrived at the airport for their flight TWO AND A HALF HOURS EARLY, like you’re supposed to. However, they could not get boarding passes because the flight was ENTIRELY CEHCKED IN via Online Check-In.
So my family sat around for two and a half hours to fly standby on a flight they booked months ago and and got to the airport for in more than plenty of time. They sat at the gate and watched people show up more than an hour later than them and get seats, no problem.
Then my Mom watches some woman walk onto the plane without getting her ticket scanned. Seriously, this woman just walked down the ramp when the attendant wasn’t looking. (Not entirely the airline’s fault, but, this plays later…)
The airline was supposed to release the seats 30 minutes prior to departure, but they didn’t actually release the seats until 10 minutes prior to departure. My family was granted the last seats on the plane.
However, that woman that got on to the plane earlier? In my Mom’s seat. And she refused to get up.
Long story short, several mechanical malfunctoins, annoying travelers, and hours later, my family missed their connecting flight by 15 minutes and had to drive the second leg of the trip (+4 hours to an already long day).
Now I might not be able to blame the delays on Online check-in, but you can damn sure bet it doesn’t make sense for someone to show up to an airport 2 1/2 hours early and have to fly standby on a flight they booked months ago.
That’s called screwing the customer over because you can, and I’ll be damnded if that shouldn’t be the motto of airlines and the TSA.
T-mobile SDA review
This review has been a long time in coming mostly because I don’t think it’s a good idea to review a phone before you’ve had a good chance to put it through the ropes.
I’ve had this phone now since last april, and despite the fact that i’ve dropped it, scratched it, and let it fall in a cup of water, it’s still working just fine (I’m writing this post on it right now). So the SDA passes my test for being sturdily built; it’s been in my pocket for 7 months.
By now the phone is a bit older than some of the hot new phones, but it does e-mail and browses the internet just fine. Plus it has a built-in wi-fi card, which is nice for tapping into free wireless networks if you’d rather not pay for the additional internet service from T-mobile, which is $30 per month. In fact, this price is my only real complaint. The blackberry internet connection is $10 cheaper per month.
Like I said, I’m writing this review from the phone itself, so it probably feels a lot longer to me than it will look when I post it, but the bottom line is that it is a solid phone that I recommend to anyone who wants their PDA to feel more like a traditional cell phone. I never liked the new, extra wide models myself, so this is the right phone for me.
Also, I’ve been worried about the control stick breaking since I bought it, because if anything goes, it will be that. But so far there haven’t been any problems with it.
Where do you do your writing?
I all my blog posting in-browser. I do this despite the fact that I routinely lose half-completed posts to the nether of the internet, and I’m not really sure I understand why.
The biggest reason I keep writing online is that I really believe that the web is the next platform for basically everything. I remember when I actually had a use for a computer sans-internet, but nowadays, if the internet goes out, my computer is useless. I sit around like a chimp with a plastic banana.
I think there are two other reasons I do all my blog-writing on the web. One of them is that I can’t really find a client that I like enough. I like writing in a little box with all my options available to me, and that’s not going to happen unless a client is fully integrated with the blog software, and I’m not going to find one that works like that with WP, Movable Type, and other, less-bloggy site software all on the same level.
I also just really like the WP back-end. I don’t use the “visual rich” editor because I like the basic setup. It suits my writing style.
The third reason is that I use drafts ALL THE TIME. I routinely fish three-month old brainstorms from the bin and polish them off (OK, quick side note, in the past ten minutes the view outside my windows has gone from an evening blue to an evening apocalyptic red. Am I about to blow up?). Unless I can find a client that fully integrates with my drafts and lets me edit and save drafts to the online system that I can get at from multiple machines, it does me no good.
But I think I’m in the minority. I don’t know what Teresa uses, but I know she uses some sort of client. I know a bunch of people like Performancing. And I know a bunch of people have this cool “integration” with their feed readers, but I like Google Reader and besides, (OK now the skyline is blue again. This is like some colossally bizarre world-rave party). And besides, I’ve already established linking, posting, and tabbed-browsing habits that work fine for me.
Video via broadband
Does anyone know if there’s a way for two clients (thousands of miles apart) to watch a video feed simultaneously, with one or both clients able to control the play/pause function for both screens?
Guitar Hero II (and more about my grandmother)
My grandmother has this old TV in her kitchen that she’s shoved into a cabinet that is the perfect size for it. The problem is that she wanted to be able to play DVDs on it, and there wasn’t any room in the cabinet to put a DVD player underneath or on top of the thing.
So she went out to the store and, after a little browsing, discovered that the new, slimmer PS2 would fit upright in the cabinet if she were to Velcro it to the side of the TV. So she bought one of those and did just that.
But my grandmother is a sales team’s dream. There’s a fair change she’ll buy anything so long as you make it sound like fun.
So she also walked out of the store with a copy of Guitar Hero II and a wireless guitar. And you know what? The wireless guitar works really well, and Guitar Hero II is pretty amazing.
Totally a worthwhile purchase. Go grandmother!
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