I’ve heard a couple stories lately (this one being the most recent) about scientists building “real life” versions or variations of the Star Trek “tricorder” device (a miniature mass spectrometer).
The cool thing to know about this is that the companies that do achieve this can actually legally call their devices “tricorders”, because Roddenberry had a specific clause in his contract that allowed any company who could get the technology to work to use that name.
Sorry for the delay in posting lately, it’s been a bit hectic with moving. I feel like I’ve been going non-stop on that (aside from going to work) pretty much since last Friday (the 16th - and on and off that week leading up to it), until yesterday when we finally did something non-moving related.
One noteworthy aspect was some of the “gifts” the previous owners left for us. They did actually leave a few pieces of furniture that we had agreed on beforehand, but they also left an above average quantity of what can only be described as junk: boxes (and miscellaneous stuff not in boxes) throughout the house and the garage, old food in the refrigerator, etc. We got a dumpster at the old place, but I ended up filling it up (for the first round) primarily with stuff from here that we had to clear out.
To top it all off, we had to call the gas company out on two occasions to fix a total of THREE gas leaks (at the dryer valve, the heater, and the meter outside) which were periodically smelling up the garage and the rest of the house, depending on the direction of the breeze.
Sorry for the mini-rant / complaint, just wanted to vent that. I guess it’s a good sign that I feel like I finally have enough time to actually blog about it a bit, even if it is 1AM when I should be sleeping. That’s not to say that there isn’t still a lot left to do, but at least it seems to be coming together a bit, and we can breathe a little better now.
Well, our internet service is finally up and running at the new place (longer story for later), but unfortunately it looks like they configured it for the standard speed (1.5 / 384) rather than the highest speed that I had asked for. Man, do you get spoiled easily by faster access.
It’s especially bad timing tonight, since I had to download Fedora Core 6 (using bittorrent) and I’m probably going to have to let it run overnight rather than getting it in a couple hours like I normally would. And of course Fedora has to distribute such a freaking giant installation - one of the primary reasons I don’t really like them.
It’s now official: Randy and Kristi are moving into one of the same places that we just did, and Randy and Jacquie were already there. Anyone else want to join in?
Hopefully Riverview doesn’t discover our plot to gain control over the homeowners association until it’s too late.
I’ll post more on this once we get internet access back at home, but for now we don’t have any at the new place, thanks to Time Warner screwing up and missing our original installation appointment last Thursday.
Well, it looks like since the DVRs at the new cable company are on indefinite back order, we’ll be making the switch fully to Myth TV for all our DVR / media center needs.
It won’t be a big move, since we’ve really been using the Myth box for everything lately anyway, just because it can do so much more than a regular DVR. Now that I think about it, I don’t think I ever posted about how we’ve been using Myth TV for quite some time now, and how enjoyable it has been.
It’s difficult to explain how much is gained by making the switch from regular TV watching to using a DVR, and I’d say the same thing about switching from a “regular” DVR to Myth - there’s almost too much good stuff to cover it all. Here are some highlights, though:
There are lots of other features as well; too numerous to mention. It can hold and play all your music, if you’ve got a home theater type setup. You can run emulators for many popular console and arcade games, so you have a virtually unlimited gaming library as well. You can check their web site for more info and features.
I already ordered an HD capture card (since that’s the one thing my current setup lacks) and that reminds me of yet another bonus: this card (specifically made for Linux) has open driver software, and explicitly ignores the broadcast flag in HD content.
Even though this is old news, and I haven’t been posting any political stuff on here at all, I couldn’t pass this one by, since I just heard the audio from this for the first time, which is even more revealing than the transcript I had previously read. This is an audio clip I edited together from the Democracy Now broadcast last week, which aired a Q&A session with former CIA analyst Ray McGovern asking Donald Rumsfeld some tough questions that he just plain doesn’t have good answers for.
What struck me that I hadn’t realized before was not even the lie itself, nor the applause for the denial of the lie, nor the booing when he got called on it, but rather the goon squad that came to escort McGovern out (to cheers of the crowd) when he raised a valid point. Rumsfeld had to call off the dogs before they hauled him off, which I’m sure he later regretted after he got so totally embarrassed by the whole exchange. My thoughts are summed up by a question Mr. McGovern asked, shortly after nearly being publicly silenced for asking the wrong questions: “This is America, huh?”
Well, we got the keys last night and we officially own our new place now (actually we owned it as of Friday).
This whole process has been pretty crazy, but it all worked out without too much difficulty at all. Last Monday, I took the biggest check I’ve ever written (by a longshot) over to the escrow company for the down payment and my heart was racing. I didn’t really have any reason to be nervous, but I think it was just because it was so much money all at once.
Now we just have to start preparing for the big move on Saturday. I already took one load over last night, and Martha got a head start on stripping off the wallpaper, which we want to do before we move in.
For some reason, one of my chargers for my phone died last night, so it didn’t get charged up overnight, and ended up completely draining the battery, because I usually leave it playing music or podcasts while I fall asleep, and I was tired last night and forgot to set the timer to automatically stop playing and turn it off after 30-45 minutes like I usually do.
The scary part was then when I woke up and realized what had happened I tried plugging it in to a different USB cable charger that I had and it didn’t light up and start charging. I also tried the one in my car, and it didn’t seem to take the charge either. So, I was thinking I was stuck with a dead battery at best, and a dead phone at worst.
It ended up being OK, though, because once I got to work, I plugged it in to the regular cable charger I usually use, and it took a while, but it did get it back charging up again. After doing some searching, it turns out that when the battery gets completely drained, you sometimes have to charge with the official charger, since other models of chargers don’t give exactly the same voltage, etc. and aren’t enough to kick start it into full charging mode if you’re starting from a completely drained state.
Anyway, all that to say that during the period of time before I knew that it would be OK, I was mentally preparing myself for having to buy a new phone and took a few minutes to browse around and see what’s out there today. The way I look at it, if I have to get a new one, I might as well upgrade. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised that 7 months later, there are still no phones I’d rather have than the one I’ve got right now.
Then getting it charged back up again was icing on the cake; I don’t need a new phone and I don’t want one either.
