For some reason I’ve always been interested in the world of prosthetics, and drawn to advances there. Good news today on the artificial arm front.
September 14, 2006
September 13, 2006
Hands Off
Get this straight content providers: Our computers belong to us. If we’re in the mood, we might let you sell us some stuff to run on them. But they don’t belong to you, and we’re not likely to surrender control over our own bought-and-paid-for hardware, which we often rely on to do our jobs and run our lives, simply in exchange for letting you sell us something. (Honestly, most of what you’re selling isn’t all that good anyway, and you’re lucky that people buy it at all. So don’t get greedy. And while click-through license agreements may make it legal, they won’t make you any more popular.)
…As much as people in the entertainment business go on about their intellectual property, they’re pretty cavalier with other people’s personal property.
So here’s my advice: Keep your grubby software off of my computer, or do without my business
Amen. More here.
We Are Wealthy
My good friend Barry is fond of saying that we live in an age of Wonders. He also likes to point out how rich we all really are. Donald Boudreaux agrees.
Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday to Patrick! He also shares his birthday with his brother John (and is too much of a gentleman to point out his own birthday on his blog, unlike some people).
Spell it C-OLD
A few weeks ago the freezer up and died on us. It wouldn’t actually freeze, which is a problem when your whole purpose in life is to get the air down to Siberian temperatures. The thing could just barely manage to dip below 32 in the coldest section of freezer, but that left all our ice cream mushy and all of our ice turned into the most interesting liquid substance.
Anyway, we called GE thinking that it was something that could be covered under the five year warranty. The very nice guy came out and explained that the five year warranty just covered the sealed system (which hardly fails, natch), and didn’t cover anything else. Turns out it was the main freezer fan that pulls air over the frozen coils. The coils were freezing (and defrosting) just like normal, but there wasn’t any air moving over them. If we left the door closed, the cold coils could get the air down to around 32, but since there wasn’t any circulation, it never got much colder. The fridge side has its own fan, so it’s been fine.
So he replaced the fan motor ($71), then he noticed that the main motherboard had blown out, so he replaced that ($190). I didn’t mention that it might have blown because he’d been plugging and unplugging the main motherboard, ungrounded, like Lily Tomlin at her operator board, and that this might possibly have something to do with the amazing coincidence of the motherboard blowing at JUST THE EXACT SAME TIME as his visit. He put in a new, updated motherboard and didn’t charge me the $190, so I didn’t argue. He left feeling like he’d covered himself, and I felt like my fridge could suddenly run at a much higher megahertz rating since I had the new QXV-1000+DS motherboard. Or something. (Sidenote: why in the world would you need to update a motherboard on a fridge? I mean, I’ve gotten used to the fact that appliances are computerized and everything, but why the UPDATE? It’s been running without complaint for five years, and now suddenly it’s feeling left behind? Out of date? Outmoded? Was it only going to be able to freeze and refrigerate older, less modern food? “Sure, you could get these eggs for your fridge, but since they’re, you know, NEW eggs, I don’t know if your fridge will run them… er, keep them cold… have you updated your motherboard recently?“).
The first visit (note ominous word choice here) came to $198.41 after tax and labor. Oy. Well, I told myself, if it lasts another 5 years, that’s only $40/year. Not too bad for a modern fridge. Cost of home ownership and everything. The repair guy knew his fridges inside and out. He took a very patient 30 minutes to explain exactly what was wrong and why, and to point out every little nook and cranny on the fridge. It was like getting an education in refrigeratorology. For $200, I would hope so. He left and I thought that was the end of it.
But.
Last week we noticed the same exact problem. The freezer couldn’t keep the temp down where it should be (around 0 degrees). It was up just shy of freezing. Now that we’re old hands at this we immediately pulled out our groceries and took them to a neighbor’s house. By the way, why do these things always happen right after a big shopping trip?
I gave GE another call and felt smugly lucky that the thing had busted within the 30 day parts AND labor warranty period. Oh no, you’re not going to get me with your failure rate that’s just outside of the warranty period. I’ll get you fixed right and for free this time. I’ll show G.E. that they can’t pass off shoddy parts on me.
The G.E. repair guy just returned (same friendly guy as before). He looked in the freezer and could tell immediately that it wasn’t the fan (or the motherboard either), but was instead the defrost element that hides under the main cooling coils in the back wall of the freezer. Over time, moisture from the air condenses on the freezer coils and forms ice. After the compressor runs 60 hours, the fridge turns everything off and activates the heater element just beneath the coils. It looks a lot like the heater element at the front of a hairdryer or inside a toaster. This heater element warms up the ice that’s accumulated on the coils and melts it so that the fan can pull air unobstructed through the coil compartment. Since our heater element had failed the ice wasn’t melting and was instead growing on the freezer coils until it completely blocked the passageway. The fan was still pulling air, but the coils were frozen in blocks of ice like some paleolithic caveman. No airflow, no cold. Squishy ice cream.
He’s downstairs right now with an industrial hairdryer trying to melt the block of ice to see if it’s just the heater element that needs replacing ($1,000,000, no doubt, and made from rare unobtanium arsenide), or if it’s something REALLY expensive, like a new updated motherboard.
I got to thinking about old fridges. My parents had the same one growing up and never had a problem with it until they replaced it with a newer one. It must have been 20 years old. I lived in four or five different places in college and never had a single issue with the fridge or freezer. To my knowledge, none of my friends have ever needed a repair. So what are the chances that I’d need THREE independent components replaced less than three weeks apart? Is G.E.’s quality assurance that bad? Are the parts that flimsy now? We’ll see what the damage is when he gets done.
*UPDATE* Well, slap me silly and call me Polyanna. The repairman was able to trace the problem back to his previous repair. He had simply forgotten to plug the defrost heater back in when he was back inside there three weeks ago. Ice had slowly built up on the coils and the heater didn’t engage, so more ice built up. After a week or so the pathway got more obstructed by ice and eventually no air could get through. He dismantled everything, plugged the heater back in, and then tested it with his nifty computer (which he also explained to me). Eureka! It worked! No charge. Sorry for the inconvenience. My fault. Have a nice day.
Big sigh of relief.
September 12, 2006
Level Headed
What would the past five years have been like, I couldn’t help wondering, if debate and criticism had proceeded atop the civil platform of agreement that the President was really trying to do his best in a terrible crisis that almost no one had anticipated? Imagine that everyone had been sober and serious all along, as if the responsibility were theirs and not someone else’s. Imagine that the opposition to the administration’s policies had been more substantive than personal, focused on alternative proposals rather than autopsies of irrevocable decisions past. Imagine that all of us were dealing with today’s reality instead of pet grievances from months or years ago. Isn’t it possible that the critics might have had more impact on events, that the defenders of American policy might have listened and responded more thoughtfully?
…I know I would have been more open to opposing views if their proponents had not insisted that doing the right thing required a first step of denouncing the president as a fool, a liar, an opportunist, and a closet tyrant.
I firmly believe that you affect more change by listening and responding calmly (even disagreeing passionately, but respectfully), than by hurling invective and hate. It’s a pity that there hasn’t been more of that this last five years. I wonder if a generation has grown up that doesn’t have the interpersonal tools to do this.
more here.
Bottle Music
This is really amazing. I can’t imagine how long it would take to set this up. (Thanks, Scott)
September 10, 2006
Halftime
Welcome.
Happy birthday.
Today I am 37.
Today my blog is 3.
According to the actuarial tables published the year I was born (1969! Child of the 60′s!), the average expected lifespan of a white male born that year is 74 years old. This means that I have now officially reached middle age. Pardon me a moment….
…..
…..
…..
Okay, I’m better now. Midlife crisis over.
Actually, I’m not at official middle age yet because, according to the actuarial tables that were taken last year, a healthy white male my age should easily pass 80 (82, if you want to be exact), so I’m still four years from my maturity. So there.
I’ve been thinking quite a bit about this all lately, which after all shouldn’t come as a surprise to me. I’m currently in the middle of a very good book, and one of the interviewees is of the opinion that young people look ahead and subconsciously pick an age where they will pass some indefinable mark. For him, it was 36, for some, it’s the Big Four-Oh. For some reason, 37 was always my watershed moment (whew, almost slipped up there and typed “Waterloo”). 37 always seemed remotely far off (it’s PAST the year 2000 for pete’s sake! It’s WAAAAAY off!). In the back of my mind, whenever I hear of “a local MAN, age 32″ on the news, it still never sinks in that he would call ME sir. Weird, I know. I talk to people all the time who are my age and they all seem… older somehow. More burdened. More responsible. More aware of What You Have To Do When You’re Grown Up. Me, I still feel like I’m making it up most of the time. I suspect that there are more of us around than is evident from a cursory viewing of the Adult World on the evening news, but this is Austin, and there are artists here after all. Well, that, and lots of cross-dressers.
One of the great things about being married to my wonderful wife is that she takes birthdays seriously. September 10th is Jason Day, and she’s more serious about this than I am. If I ask her what we should do today, her answer is always “you get to do whatever you want, and we can go wherever you want”. It’s taken me 10 years to figure it out, and it’s a freeing thing. Not that we do much different- our lives are too great by half to save the good stuff for just one day a year- but it’s great to know that on this day it’s wide open.
I told Erin today that I always get a small frisson on my birthday every year. I get the same feeling on January 1st. It’s not fear or trepidation, but simply that those two milestones divide my year like bookmarks. Whenever I reach them I find myself wondering what I will look back on in a year and know that I don’t know now. It can be simultaneously thrilling (wow! I got to experience THAT?!?) and a little scary (Wow! I got food poisoning?!). Getting older doesn’t scare me (never did and never will), but the next 365 seem a little dark and unsure every year when you blow out the candles.
So what did I do this year of note? Lots. Traveled a bit. Made concrete plans to start some serious traveling. Shot several short films and discovered that I really enjoy being on a movie set (despite the long hours), as long as the creative team is fun (the ones who grok it are). Had a really successful year doing what I loved. Stayed healthy, for the most part. Well, except for the bad grapes. Being really sick makes you appreciate being 100% in a way that little else will. Everyone who complains about traffic or inflation or any other of the thousand tiny pricks that harry us daily should be knocked on their keester by the Thunderbolt of Sickness. Not so much to go to the hospital, but enough to get our attention.
Reminds me of this:
You ever wonder why you get a cold
Look at the word – spell it – C-old.
C-OLD
You’re pulled over by the reaper for a warning
He says,”I clocked you thinking 80″
You know you’re not that old
You’ve been worried about the darkness in the morningWell, I’ll give you something to worry about, he says
And he flips open his ticket pad
Appreciate your breathingI’m gonna write you up a headache for those thoughts
Now why you been so worried
What have you been reading
And why do you have to tally all you’ve lostI’m gonna write you up a head cold
It comes on like bad weather
So maybe you’ll appreciate the warming
See it gives a new perspective
Soon you’ll be feeling betterI’ll let you off this time
With a warningHe says, But take it easy, alright
People live around hereYou won’t see ‘em in time
What I’m trying to say is
You’ll miss ‘em
[appreciative beatnik snaps]
Ah David. Always one to give perspective.
I have a feeling that the next 12 months will bring some interesting changes in our lives. Don’t know exactly what yet, but I just have a feeling. Check back in 12 months and we’ll see. Don’t worry, I’m not about to buy a red sports car and get a toupee (I might just shave the head and beard, though).
But enough of that. We finished the day in grand style, finally watching a movie that Barry has been bugging me to see for years: Babette’s Feast. Thanks for the tip, my friend, and sorry it took us so long to get around to it. Yes, you were right, and no, I never doubted it.
Somehow, it felt like the perfect way to start off my new year.
September 9, 2006
Gasification
No, it’s not the result of too many trips to Taco Bell. Instead, plasma arc gasification represents a breakthrough that I’ve been hoping for for years. What if you could dump all of your trash (or, in this case, harvest the trash of a 30 year old landfill) and burn it at very high temperatures to produce electricity, then take the (very little) waste and make, say, roads out of it?
And it’s worth noting that the 30 year old landfill, which currently contains 4.3 million tons of waste doing nothing but decomposing underground, will be completely emptied in 18 years. Hurray technology!
September 8, 2006
Quoth
Just so you know: 9/11 reset the clock for me. All hands went to midnight. I’m interested in what people did after that date, and if the movie shows that before the attack one side lacked feck and the other was feck-deficient, I don’t worry about it. It’s like revisiting Congressional debates about Hawaiian harbor security in November 1941. Y’all get a pass. The Etch-A-Sketch’s turned over. Now: what have you said lately?
Researcher
I feel like I’m back in school. I’ll be making a major equipment purchase in the next few weeks and I’m starting the inevitable research phase that accompanies any big outlay of money. For the past three days I’ve done almost nothing but sit and read, read, read about audio equipment. Lots of it is review from when I got my audio engineering degree ten years ago (much of it forgotten), and some of the info brings me up to date on some issues. A lot of it, however, is new stuff that is particular to the location audio area (i.e. “on-set” audio). I’ve gotten some great experience booming and mixing on film/commercial sets the last few years, but I still feel like I’m drinking from the proverbial fire hose when it comes to the nuances.
I started a folder with good bookmarks/reference material, and after three days I have probably a week of reading in there. I’ve been up for three hours already and I’ve done nothing but read. Sheesh. But it’s all good because I’ll feel confident when I drop the big green on the pile-o’-gear.
New category to the right: Audio.
Time to get some actual work done!
Codebreakers
Scientists have cracked the genetic code for breast and colon cancers. It seems like the pace of these stories is speeding up. That’s great news for all current (and future) cancer patients.
September 6, 2006
Current Reading
Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything
Stellar book about the history of, well, nearly everything. Bryson starts at the very beginning of time and traces the wandering pathways of science down to the present day. There are tons of interesting anecdotes about the quirky personalities involved in the study of the physical world. Lots of stuff that I’ve never read before about Feinman, Bohrs, Einstein, Shoemaker, Leaky, Darwin, etc, etc, etc. I preferred the first half to the second a little bit. The first half talked more about the development of physics (which I love), while the second half went more into biology and anthropology. He’s a good enough writer, though, to make even this part fascinating.
Definitely a must read. I told Erin that it was the book I wish I had written. A perfect Scanner’s guide to science.
September 5, 2006
Light Blogging
Sorry about the light blogging lately. I’ve been massively busy with work, which is really nice. I’m having a great time writing music and doing audio and unfortunately not much else. I’ve a few essay posts brewing but usually don’t sit down to write them out because there are other urgent things that need doing. I’ll try better, but it’ll be light for a while.