Thursday, November 22, 2007

T+Day 2007 Delicious Roundup

This song is brought to you by a beautiful girl from Saudi Arabia. Besides American Indian music, she loves Lauren Graham of the Gilmore Girls and also freedom.

My own contribution, this artist is very near to my heart and her song is a perfect expression of what I feel in my soul today. We have done so much, there is so much to do.
Here we have a reflection of just how much. How much is that? A whole bunch. Art and information want to be free! Why won't we let them be?
If only man could sit and talk with Ishmael, he would realize that in fact he can. Add this to your reading list, I want to know just what he is thinking.
And finally, a message from the reincarnation of George Clinton. In a word, Calculus.
Thanks to all of my paying subscribers, the rest of y'all should know where to go. Happy Holidays, and I'm very grateful to have your following, now go with peace in your heart and love in your soul.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Word of the Day

enraged - angered, infuriated, with regard to horses this word describes an upright leaping posture, as in saliant for a lion or a tiger

I'm having some trouble with the Pandora application. I can't say why exactly, but for some reason my Windows 2003 server is lagging the hell out, and it can't get through an entire song without the audio cutting out completely. This is especially infuriating because I have been using this server as my work radio while I work in the kitchen in the next room. My Linux workstation is chugging along, playing music from Pandora without skipping a beat, so I think it must not be a problem with the wireless network. The two machines are on different wired subnets, so more investigation is necessary to prove that conclusively; it's still a mystery to me.

Unfortunately the Bluetooth dongle doesn't work so easily in Linux. In Windows Server 2003, I installed the Belkin drivers and paired my Bluetooth headset, and the audio gateway service registered a new sound device. Heading into the audio preferences, it was a simple matter to select a new Default Audio Device, and immediately I noticed that all of my sound events were routed to the Bluetooth headset. In Linux, it has not been such a simple matter. Pairing the device did not require a separate driver installation; I was immediately impressed by this! Unfortunately, neither Skype nor the Sound Preferences panel applet make any reference to a Bluetooth device in the interface elements.

What does this mean? We need a new arrangement. The Linux machine should become the #1 internet radio in our home, and Blackruby, the Windows Server, is in charge of vidi-telefax services. The Linux machine still works as a standard audio-only Skype phone, and the built in speaker in the monitor is sufficient for that purpose, so long as an external microphone is connected. Moving the Klipsch 5.1 speaker set from my apartment will upgrade that box to a pretty sweet entertainment machine, and the Windows 2003 Server will continue to serve as the chief Video Telephone and Fax Machine. All of this will move upstairs to Joe's old room and we can call this the guest office for as long as it takes to find a new tenant here at 149.

As for the Macintosh, I guess it is still a pretty good word processing machine.

Monday, November 19, 2007

Word of the Day

Another word from me this day, this one comes to you all the way from Texas:

spur - to give heart or courage, to spur, to prod or goad with a pointed stick or especially with spurs, as found on some cowboy boots

and since I've got some catching up to do, I don't believe this came from India:

spurn - a narrow sand spit on the tip of the coast of Yorkshire, England that reaches into the North Sea and forms the north bank of the mouth of the Humber estuary

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Word of the Day

The word of the day, this is a very good one... and don't go thinking you're going to have another word tomorrow on my account! Just because it's called the word of the day and it came from me, doesn't make it my responsibility to provide a new word every day henceforth! That's fair warning, and now for the word:

Sapiosexual - deriving sexual excitement from developed thinking patterns. A person who is said to be sapiosexual will get hotter and hornier as their partner is thinking out loud and making cogent points. The more points that are considered, and the more lucid and clearly expressed are those points, the greater the intensity and the passion of the ensuing sex.

Think about it! I'm not making this up.

Paul Simon == George Carlin?

I'm watching Paul Simon perform Outrageous on David Letterman, and the resemblance is uncanny! Anyway, even if the two are not really bred from the same stock, I'm telling you Paul Simon could spend eight days a week beating the living hell out of Johnny Cash and still have plenty of time to make blueberry pancakes in the morning.

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Tackling Tickets

These are all of the things that I mean to do in the next short span of time. The plan is to run down the list and generate a file for each issue, then either prepare a note on my schedule to remind me of the time for action, or write another note expanding on the task at hand, or mark it as thoroughly completed. First priority is to fulfill my government-mandated obligations, I have two tickets on the books.

  • Judge in Avon
Court date early in November, some time before the court date in the town of Henrietta. This was a simple speeding ticket, 75 in a 65. The officer told me that I was actually going 88 according to his laser, but the ticket was actually written for 75.

My own observation of the speedometer indicated my speed was between 80 or 82 MPH, though admittedly my first reaction upon seeing the reaction of the cloaked state trooper to my passing was not to check the speedometer, but to reduce my speed and prepare to pull over.
  • Pay Bills (Check Bank Balance)
Do it now. Nothing to say about this.
  • Set up Home Office at 204-1
No Go. Moving out of 204-1, as I'm still not sure how to pay the November rent. I'm about comfortable and moved into 149, but the arrangement with the computers and the furniture is not really finalized to this point.
  • Clean out Trunk of Car
Still got a bunch of crap in it. The last thing I want when traveling over a border is to have to endure a lengthy, protracted search. If they are going to search me for guns or drugs, I'd rather make it easy for everybody involved!
  • Take out the Trash
We generate more trash than anything in the world. I didn't generate half this much trash before I started cooking. Make an extra effort to minimize waste food and save on trash output. Also remember, if you're going to empty the trash, replace the bag so the next person who tries to use the trash doesn't have a conniption!
  • Do the Dishes
Finally got everybody to participate in doing the dishes, thanks to delicious food. The trick is a repeat performance, and the better trick still is to make it sustainable. I do have high hopes for 149 Waterloo.
  • Video Software
Provide a synopsis of tools I've learned that save you from buying expensive packages (both MRR and NRR), enabling content consumption and production for Audio Video geeks.
  • HP Warranty Status
Fuck HP! I spent at least 3 hours on the phone troubleshooting and the result was they told me there was nothing wrong with the hard drive. I can't afford to drive out and see my dad again next weekend, if the machine is not fixed, I will be spending more of my own time on this issue that has no benefit to me!

End result: I bought a new hard drive and put it into my Dad's computer. A little white lie, I said it was covered under warranty, but really I couldn't stand to spend another 3 hours on the phone with HP to prove that the drive was faulty and get a replacement shipped.

We've got til February to orchestrate a catastrophic provable failure on this drive and get a new one under warranty. Maybe I can get Dad to load it up with porn and keep writing to it over and over again?` It probably will not crash on its own, hooked up in configuration as a secondary drive like it is now.

Would you ever know if videos, instead of system data and configuration files, were losing bytes due to corruption? There's no reason the system should crash because of incoherent data files. Is there any great symbolism to the idea of corrupting pornography? Kind of funny I guess, ha ha ha.

The unhappy conclusion to this story is that my new cheaper HP Slimline does not seem to have user-serviceable parts. I have no idea how to remove the hard drive, and if I had to replace it with another from Western Digital working on my own, I think I would become a slave to the HP warranty timetable. That sounds awful.
  • NYS DMV License Plate Replacement for CVP1942 - Stolen?
Paid an $18 fee and spent 2 hours at the Brighton DMV to get the stolen plate replaced with a new set. I lost my cool plate number, and now I don't have the number memorized anymore. Bummer. Would have only been $3 if I had filled out a police report and brought it to the DMV.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Bluetooth Transactions

From what I'm reading so far, the anticipated limitation of the protocol is that audio data is not to be encoded in BluetoothTransaction packets without support for A2DP. I don't know how this compares to the encrypted Quicktime support that is embedded in the Apple Airport Express (that's WiFi, not BlueTooth) except that both protocols seem to make it prohibitively difficult for devices to support VoIP routing or transfer of audio packets without manufacturer support for A2DP. The jury is still out, whether this makes an effective copyright control device or not.

TODO: Expand this article to include code examples and a working implementation of two-way Bluetooth Transactions. Check on the filesystems available to the Sidekick developer, targeting the question of whether I can write a program that backs up my contacts, notes, schedule, and replicate other application files to a desktop interface, database, or other hiptop computer. Find out if there is any way to play my mp3s over a bluetooth A2DP headset without A2DP support in the hiptop from Danger and T-Mobile.