Sketchup is now available for OS X!
June 12, 2006
Vista X
Why put up with a pale imitation?
After playing around with my newly-installed copy of Windows Vista Beta 2 for a couple of hours, the thought that kept popping up in my head over and over again like a persistent mole was: “Wow, that’s a lot like the Mac.”
from lifehacker.
June 9, 2006
La La
La La looks pretty cool. A cheap and totally legal way to get new music and pay a royalty directly to the artist, bypassing the music companies altogether. It’s the best outcome a Win-Win-Lose situation.
Okay, music companies aren’t all bad, but it’s nice to see the artist get a direct payment for this kind of thing instead of what usually happens.
ReRoomba
The Roomba is back on Woot today if anyone is interested. It’s a one-day-only deal and the price is cheap compared to anywhere else. Check it out. Ours is working great.
June 8, 2006
Spending All Day in the Bathroom
No, not like that. I’m still working on the guest bathroom. I had originally scheduled one day to tile and one day to grout. Ha. Today is day 3 on the tiling. It’s Wall Day today. Hopefully I’ll be done with the tiling sometime tomorrow. It’s coming together nicely.
June 6, 2006
Roooomba
Update on the Roomba. Yes, it arrived yesterday, and yes, the Fedex guy didn’t even ring the doorbell. I wonder how much stuff Fedex has to replace because it gets stolen? Good thing I was looking out the door every three minutes. 
We unpacked the vac and set it on its charging station for the recommended 16 hours. Why, oh why, do the tech gods taunt us so? It’s hard enough waiting for the delivery truck to drop off our new gizmos, but to suffer the indignities and hardships of having to wait for the batteries to charge is just too cruel. A guy can only read the instruction manual so many times.
So this morning we got up and eagerly hit the “max” button. We spent the following 90 minutes following the little green monster around the house and dutifully “roboproofing” the spots where it had trouble. The tassles on the area rug in the living room seem to be the only place where it gets hung up. It also likes to catch the corner of the rug and dive under it. We laughed at it as it went scurrying beneath the rug and popped out the other side. Clearly we have to do something about that carpet.
The roomba eventually cleaned just about the entire downstairs, picking up an amazing amount of crud-and not just the obvious stuff. About 30 minutes into the job I stopped the bot and checked the debris container. It had a significant amount of grunge in there. Considering the fact that the bot had largely stayed on our carpet, we were really surprised at how much dust and dirt it managed to find. People online typically report the same thing: that the unit will pick up a ton of junk the first few times you use it, and from then on, as long as you use it regularly it will keep the dirt in check.
What amazed me was how single-minded it was about vacuuming one room at a time. It would occasionally find its way into another room, but it seemed like it realized that it hadn’t finished the job in the first room yet and would immediately scurry back there. Once it finished a room it went on to the next, and then the next. Uncanny. I checked online and iRobot says that they have programmed this behavior intentionally. I don’t see how it can be 100% certain that it’s in the same room, but the performance is impressive. There are even sensors around the front edge of the bump sensors that allow the bot to make a graceful turn around table legs without crashing into or scratching things.
We’re very impressed with our new little bot. Erin wants to take a short video of the roomba and the robomower both doing their jobs and post it online. I realized today that we’re living in the impossibly sci-fi future of the fifties. Robotic servants to do our housework as we wile away the days in leisure. I guess I have to go pour myself a Manhattan, put on my leisure suit and listen to bebop.
Ten
My friend Jan gave me a copy of Square-Enix’s seminal RPG Final Fantasy X a while back. After sixty hours of play over several months, I finally finished this massive game. I used to think that games like this were childish and time wasting, but that’s like saying a thick book isn’t worth reading because there are other things you could be doing. The designers and storytellers of these games put as much thought into their work as the best authors or moviemakers, and the fact that they have such a large canvass, and a longer time to tell their stories, gives them the kind of pallet to paint some remarkable experiences.
FF:X had an epic thousand-year storyline, dozens of characters, a huge world to explore, and moral and ethical dilemmas worthy of Proust. I was sad to see it go and it ended in typical Japanese RPG fashion: poignantly resolving the moral dilemma with selfless sacrifice (think Glory or The Mission).
I told Erin how it ended and she said: Ah, just the way you like it.
I’m glad I played it.
Quoth
Rejoice we are allied
To That which doth provide
And not partake, effect and not receive!
A spark disturbs our clod;
Nearer we hold of God
Who gives, than of his tribes that take, I must believe.
Then, welcome each rebuff
That turns earth’s smoothness rough,
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand, but go!
Be our joys three parts pain!
Strive, and hold cheap the strain;
Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!
For thence—a paradox
Which comforts while it mocks—
Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail:
What I aspired to be,
And was not, comforts me:
A brute I might have been, but would not sink i’ the
scale.
Robert Browning, expanded via Barryland (this was so good I had to repost it here. Thanks Barry!).
Welcome to The Big Think: where a post about video games is followed by nineteenth century English poetry.
June 5, 2006
Okay, so how lazy is this?
I was wondering if the Roomba has arrived yet. Sometimes the Fedex driver drops stuff off and doesn’t ring the bell. So instead of walking downstairs to open the front door (a journey that only takes ten seconds), I instead went to Gmail, copied the tracking number and went to Fedexes website to see if the package was listed as “delivered” or still “on truck awaiting delivery”. Sheesh. I need to get out more.
June 4, 2006
R/C
This is amazing. I flew R/C airplanes back in college, but nothing like this. It was all I could do to keep from crashing. See what a real master does. (thanks, Scott)
June 3, 2006
The FRESHmaker
what do you get when you combine 101 liters of diet coke and over 500 mentos? A poor man’s Bellagio fountain. Amazing.
June 2, 2006
And So It Begins
What was I thinking?
Last year we decided to redo the bathrooms upstairs. The upgrade was going to be just paint, but, as is usual with me, it has expanded to a rebuild of Monster House proportions. I decided to use the guest bathroom as my proof of concept/testbed/practice area before I tackle the master bathroom (which is a bit larger and funkier in shape). The guest bathroom is of the “as small as we can built it and still call it a full bath” variety, with just enough room for a full sized tub, commode, sink, and that’s about it.
So I thought heck, as long as we’re painting it, I might as well put up crown moulding. I mean, I have extra around and it looks nice and it’s not that hard, what with all the practice I’ve gotten on the rest of the house. Well, if you’re going to have crown moulding on your ceiling, vinyl flooring just won’t do, no sir. So we decided that we would tile the floor. I tiled the kitchen backsplash, so how hard could a floor be? You know what? Tile floor looks nice, but a tile floor that continues up the wall to chest height looks really nice. And you have to finish it off with some cool decorative tile accents (not exactly these, but close).
Well, if you’re going to all that work, you can’t- you just can not- pass up the chance to install a much needed medicine cabinet, and put a cabinet over the toilet (both of which I’m able to build in my shop, thankfully). And to finish things off, do you really think we’re going to put that old fish shower curtain back up? Don’t forget the new curtain rod, new towel racks (with new towels, natch), and new light fixture.
The only saving grace of this project is that we’ve been slowly accumulating bits and pieces here and there for the last six months. We’ve managed to score some really fantastic deals on stuff because we’ve been willing to wait. Until today.
I was thinking that we had the whole pile of stuff ready to go and the only thing we were waiting on was… was… well, nothing really. I have the time, the stuff is all here, paint’s picked, crown moulding ready to go, shower curtain bought, etc. So today I wrote out an order of demolition and construction, gathered a pile of tools, and started tearing into things. With any luck, nine days from today we’ll have a spiffy new bathroom. As is the case in most things I tackle, once I start going down the road of “wouldn’t it be nice”, I don’t stop until there’s nothing substandard in the whole project. It’s a curse, I tell you, and a very expensive one at that.
The bathroom is empty… and I mean empty. Toilet gone (removing a toilet is a nasty job), no trim on the walls, no mirror or light fixture. Door removed. Nothing but the tub and the main vanity cabinet- which I didn’t rebuild… how can I ever live with myself?
Wine Tasting
Back at Christmas Erin got me a stocking stuffer for the new wine place that just went in a mile north of here. It’s called Vino 100 and has a hundred or so (hench the name) boutique wines for very reasonable prices (the most expensive is around $25 and most of them are in the $10-$15 range).
We finally went in there tonight, six months later, and spent more than an hour with the two owners tasting four different wines and talking about the differences. Erin and I got quite an education on wines and were able to refine our tastes a bit more. I learned again that I don’t really like heavy tannin-rich wines like Merlot’s or Shriaz’s (and the tannins can sometimes set off a migraine headache). I do like the lighter and slightly fruity white wines. Erin likes a wider variety than I do.
We ended up purchasing two bottles of wine. One was a wonderful wine called the Henry Estate White Riesling Select Harvest Umpaqua Valley (there’s a mouthful). It’s fruity and sweet without being too cloying, and should go well as a dessert wine. The other was a red table wine called Rose D’Anjou Domaine Nouelles. We bought the second one based on the owner’s recommendation and it was fairly inexpensive (hey Denise, this fits in with the “Crappy but Free!” card you sent Erin!). We’re looking forward to trying these wines out and really hope the place stays in business. We were there for an hour on a friday night and were almost the only customers.
Fan Mail
I finished Alastair Reynolds’ book Century Rain a few weeks ago and blogged about it here. Just after I finished it I figured I’d dash off a thank you to the author. I didn’t really think I’d get a reply. I just wanted to say thanks for such a good story.
Well, my email just binged and I got a reply! He wrote a very kind and thorough email. In fact, his reply was longer than my medium-sized original email to him! He addressed all of my questions and gave me some insight into several aspects of his writing (didn’t know it took him nine months to write a book… and yes, I’ll read slower next time). In all, very kind of him to reply. Kinda neat, too. It’s not the first time I’ve written a note to an author I’ve enjoyed reading. I usually get replies. Those writers must be a lonely lot.
Vista vs Tiger
I feel comfortable predicting that Windows Vista will not outpace Mac OS X Tiger for overall quality and usability. It’s hard to beat Apple’s top-notch GUI design grafted onto an implementation of Unix variant BSD. Mac OS X has excellent reliability, security and usability…I’m placing Windows Vista as a distant second-best to OS X.
from 20 Things You Won’t Like About Windows Vista
Shame on you, Microsoft. Shame on you, but not just for not doing better. We expect you to copy Apple, just as Apple (and Linux) in its turn copies you. But we do not and should not expect to be promised the world, only to be given a warmed over copy of Mac OS X Tiger in return. Windows Vista is a disappointment. There is no way to sugarcoat that very real truth.
Paul Thurrott Where Vista Fails
Freeeeeee!
As of yesterday we’ve finally left Cox Communications and our clunky, horrible cable modem service, behind. The verdict on the new DSL connection so far has been very positive. After the inevitable installation and configuration issues (mostly my fault), the modem has been up and running without a single glitch for about ten days. That right there beats the pants off of Cox’s service. It clocks in around 1.5-2mbps, but generally feels the same as the old service. And it’s fifteen bucks as compared to Cox’s fifty. Cox is such a ripoff.
I happened to see that our old Motorola Surfboard modem is going for about fifty bucks on ebay. It’s been five years since I’ve sold anything on ebay and don’t have much of a history there, but I’d still like to sell it.
June 1, 2006
June First and Rain
It’s pouring outside. Last time I looked even the cats and dogs were in hiding. It’s also in the seventies. In Texas. In June. The perfect way to start the month. Excuse me- I must go outside and Enjoy.