What is the set of logic that leads to a fridge/freezer combo where the fridge has a light but the freezer doesn't?
And really what is the point of the fridge light at all? Is a universal feature of fridges there just to help people while midnight snacking? Do you think people would snack less at night if fridges didn't come with lights any more? Is the solution to obesity that simple? Or would people just figure out that they can turn on the kitchen lights?
And you know those pig dolls people in movies have in their fridge that they ignore as they pull out arm fulls of food - wouldn't a better deterrent be to get rid of the fridge light?
PS Both this and the last post were written on my iPhone. Which might explain the slightly shorter than usual ramblings.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Let's do some swift boating
Did you hear that Sarah Palin is a guy? Yup, a cross dresser. I hear that the big male to female ratio up there in Alaska causes a lot of crazy stuff like that. And he's married to another guy so you know what that means...
You don't believe me? Well, ok, I'm not sure about the gay part, maybe the marriage is just a scam. But Sarah is definitely a guy.
Ok, obviously everything above is a terrible lie. But I say it is time for democrats to do a little swift boating/he's a Musliming of their own. And since Palin's gender is basically all people know about her it is the only obviously true fact to attack. So let's all go out and spread this "truth the media doesn't want you to know". Now all we need is some meaningless but catchy phrase people can chant in unison.
You don't believe me? Well, ok, I'm not sure about the gay part, maybe the marriage is just a scam. But Sarah is definitely a guy.
Ok, obviously everything above is a terrible lie. But I say it is time for democrats to do a little swift boating/he's a Musliming of their own. And since Palin's gender is basically all people know about her it is the only obviously true fact to attack. So let's all go out and spread this "truth the media doesn't want you to know". Now all we need is some meaningless but catchy phrase people can chant in unison.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Targeted Advertising and Ringing in My Ears
There have been a number of articles recently about how much information web companies are collecting about people, especially with the increasing trend of deep packet inspection. Stuff that I generally think is rather bad and is part of the reason why I support groups like the EFF and ACLU. But all of the articles seem to say that the big bad thing that companies are going to do with all that info is use it for targeted advertising. To which I say - so freaking what? If I'm missing something, someone please fill me in, but if someone can figure out products that I'm likely to want and show them to me in a way that appeals to me - good for them. Heck I spend all that time on amazon and netflixs rating books and movies I like so they can find more books and movies I should buy...
What the articles seem to leave out is stuff like changing the price given to different people based on their information, collecting medical info or other risk indicators and giving it to insurance companies or potential employers, what happens when the NSA asks for the information... Anyway, those articles made me feel the need to rant and now I have so we can move on.
Tonight I went up to San Francisco to see my cowoker's band play again. It was another small bar, but a bit more comfortable and was a good time. Although the band after them was playing way too loud - is there ever a time when a band asks how's the volume and it is ok to say - too loud, turn it down? They actually seemed to know they were playing too loud, but didn't seem to realize what a volume control is, in spite of having all sorts of fancy electronic equipment. So right now my ears are ringing. Actually it is more than just ringing since it is not just a high frequency tone, but a high frequency tone with a low frequency (about 2 Hz) amplitude modulation (aka the ringing is fading in and out).
What the articles seem to leave out is stuff like changing the price given to different people based on their information, collecting medical info or other risk indicators and giving it to insurance companies or potential employers, what happens when the NSA asks for the information... Anyway, those articles made me feel the need to rant and now I have so we can move on.
Tonight I went up to San Francisco to see my cowoker's band play again. It was another small bar, but a bit more comfortable and was a good time. Although the band after them was playing way too loud - is there ever a time when a band asks how's the volume and it is ok to say - too loud, turn it down? They actually seemed to know they were playing too loud, but didn't seem to realize what a volume control is, in spite of having all sorts of fancy electronic equipment. So right now my ears are ringing. Actually it is more than just ringing since it is not just a high frequency tone, but a high frequency tone with a low frequency (about 2 Hz) amplitude modulation (aka the ringing is fading in and out).
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
x^n+y^n=z^n
First for those that don't know the basics on Fermat's last theorem:
Back in 1637 Fermat wrote down a conjecture (or theory depending on if you believe what he wrote next or not) in the margin of a book and then wrote: "I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, which, however, the margin is not large enough to contain". For the next several hundred years many mathematicians worked on proving the conjecture. In 1993 Professor Andrew Wiles presented the proof he came up with after working in near isolation for 7 years. Soon after people realized the proof had an error. Then he spent a year trying to figure out how to fix it and eventually did.
Fermat's last theorem says that the equation x^n+y^n=z^n does not have whole number solutions for n > 2. An example of a solution for n=2 is x=3,y=4,z=5 since 3^2+4^2=5^2.
The book Fermat's Last Theorem starts in 2000 BC and tells the stories of the key mathematicians that led up to the conjecture and then those that led to the proof. It is actually an interesting way of taking brief (4000 years is a long time to cover in 150 pages) snapshots of the development of math across time. For the very early stuff, when the math is more understandable, the book goes into it a bit, but it does a good job of shifting its focus to the people as the math gets harder. It also does a good job of dispelling the idea that it was one guy in a 7 year stint that created the proof when really it was the build up of hundreds of years of effort. Also he wasn't unabomber isolated - he had a family and near the end even worked with two other professors, but he did spend a lot of those 7 years in his attic and kept his work secret the whole time. One of the interesting aspects of the proof is that it is actually done by proving a correspondence between two ideas in completely different areas of math. So rather than being a pure number theory proof it actually involves ideas about curves and other modern areas of math.
One thing the book reminded me of is that my math education cuts out somewhere in the early 1800s (except a small amount of very specific applied stuff). I'm not saying I know a lot up to then, but that is the point where I'm lucky if I recognize the name of a field, much less an actual concept. Which I guess is a combination of math being really old and thinking that I know something about math even though I've never taken an actual pure math class.
Anyway, the book was surprisingly interesting, although considering the topic is 4000 years of math building up to a single proof it didn't have to do much to exceed expectations.
Back in 1637 Fermat wrote down a conjecture (or theory depending on if you believe what he wrote next or not) in the margin of a book and then wrote: "I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, which, however, the margin is not large enough to contain". For the next several hundred years many mathematicians worked on proving the conjecture. In 1993 Professor Andrew Wiles presented the proof he came up with after working in near isolation for 7 years. Soon after people realized the proof had an error. Then he spent a year trying to figure out how to fix it and eventually did.
Fermat's last theorem says that the equation x^n+y^n=z^n does not have whole number solutions for n > 2. An example of a solution for n=2 is x=3,y=4,z=5 since 3^2+4^2=5^2.
The book Fermat's Last Theorem starts in 2000 BC and tells the stories of the key mathematicians that led up to the conjecture and then those that led to the proof. It is actually an interesting way of taking brief (4000 years is a long time to cover in 150 pages) snapshots of the development of math across time. For the very early stuff, when the math is more understandable, the book goes into it a bit, but it does a good job of shifting its focus to the people as the math gets harder. It also does a good job of dispelling the idea that it was one guy in a 7 year stint that created the proof when really it was the build up of hundreds of years of effort. Also he wasn't unabomber isolated - he had a family and near the end even worked with two other professors, but he did spend a lot of those 7 years in his attic and kept his work secret the whole time. One of the interesting aspects of the proof is that it is actually done by proving a correspondence between two ideas in completely different areas of math. So rather than being a pure number theory proof it actually involves ideas about curves and other modern areas of math.
One thing the book reminded me of is that my math education cuts out somewhere in the early 1800s (except a small amount of very specific applied stuff). I'm not saying I know a lot up to then, but that is the point where I'm lucky if I recognize the name of a field, much less an actual concept. Which I guess is a combination of math being really old and thinking that I know something about math even though I've never taken an actual pure math class.
Anyway, the book was surprisingly interesting, although considering the topic is 4000 years of math building up to a single proof it didn't have to do much to exceed expectations.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
In The Beginning... Was The Command Line
In my continuing quest to read everything Neal Stephenson has ever written I read In The Beginning... Was The Command Line. It is his take on operating systems when it was written in 1999. Given when it was written there are few people I would recommend it to (if you read this blog and you were in AEPi then it might be worth checking out). Although, if you are in that group then you know most everything the book says (although Neal does come up with some colorful analogies, which is actually a bit odd since a major portion of the book is talking about the issues with using a GUI as an analogy for what is really happening in a computer).
In the end he recommends BeOS which has since died. Although most of the reasons for recommending BeOS (fresh start and combination of GUI with access to command line interface) could be applied to Mac OS X (as he mentions here in response to question 8). I was a bit disappointed to find out that Neal is an emacs guy, although I probably would have been too if not for a certain roommate steering me in the right direction. For the last few pages he goes off into craziness as required of any Stephenson book (actually it is impressive that he touches on the ideas Seth Lloyd talks about in Programming the Universe which came out 7 years later).
In the end he recommends BeOS which has since died. Although most of the reasons for recommending BeOS (fresh start and combination of GUI with access to command line interface) could be applied to Mac OS X (as he mentions here in response to question 8). I was a bit disappointed to find out that Neal is an emacs guy, although I probably would have been too if not for a certain roommate steering me in the right direction. For the last few pages he goes off into craziness as required of any Stephenson book (actually it is impressive that he touches on the ideas Seth Lloyd talks about in Programming the Universe which came out 7 years later).
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Ghostwalk
Finished my signed copy of Ghostwalk (thanks for the book Mom and Dad) recently. It did start slow, but once it got going it was cool.
So the real history is that Newton in addition to being super science guy was also into alchemy and around the time he was going for a fellowship there were a few mysterious deaths that helped open up the position to him. Apparently he had not yet made a real impression by time he was going for the fellowship.
The author took the facts and came up with a story to explain it. Then to frame the story (I really want to use the term frame since it is one of two terms I remember from the literature class I took, although I don't think it is quite right since what I'm calling the framing is really the more significant portion of the story) she tells a story about present day Cambridge. The present day story revolves around a book with the Newton story the author is putting forward, and there are murders that are linked to the ones in the past.
I think this may be the first novel I've read that is set in the 2000s. Reading a story that involves people text messaging each other is a bit odd, not good or bad, just odd. The modern day story is told from the perspective of a woman who is dating a married man so I did have a little trouble relating to the main character. But the story was still interesting and the inner story about Newton was good. I also really liked that at the end she had a section specifying what is really known and what isn't so you aren't left half knowing a bunch of stuff.
So the real history is that Newton in addition to being super science guy was also into alchemy and around the time he was going for a fellowship there were a few mysterious deaths that helped open up the position to him. Apparently he had not yet made a real impression by time he was going for the fellowship.
The author took the facts and came up with a story to explain it. Then to frame the story (I really want to use the term frame since it is one of two terms I remember from the literature class I took, although I don't think it is quite right since what I'm calling the framing is really the more significant portion of the story) she tells a story about present day Cambridge. The present day story revolves around a book with the Newton story the author is putting forward, and there are murders that are linked to the ones in the past.
I think this may be the first novel I've read that is set in the 2000s. Reading a story that involves people text messaging each other is a bit odd, not good or bad, just odd. The modern day story is told from the perspective of a woman who is dating a married man so I did have a little trouble relating to the main character. But the story was still interesting and the inner story about Newton was good. I also really liked that at the end she had a section specifying what is really known and what isn't so you aren't left half knowing a bunch of stuff.
A Southern State
Upfront I should say I know nothing about the country Georgia or its conflict with Russia so I am not making any judgments about who was right or wrong or what the response should be (other than if you want to help you should check your tire pressure - odd how McCain and I have the same message, just I'm not being sarcastic).
But, if I was Putin and I got a call from Bush criticizing me for invading a sovereign nation I think my response would go something like this:
First there would be a few minutes of laughter.
Then: oh George, people underestimate you, or should I say misunderestimate - you really are a funny guy. Oh, wait, you're serious? Nah - you're still pulling my leg. Yeah, Bush telling me not to invade a country for a few days - ha! Are you mad that I went in or that I'm not planning to stay?
Then some more laughing.
Then: Oh wait, I'm not sure you have that strong of a grasp of irony. Did Cheney put you up to this? That guy has one twisted sense of humor. You know you should really run these things past Condi first to make sure he's not punking you. Actually things have been really tense around here, could you call a few other Russian leaders, they could really use the laugh right now. Well, this has been fun, but you should get back to watching the Olympics and I should get back to running a country. Say hi to your dad for me and I can't wait to hear what other jokes you've come up with when we sit next to each other at the closing ceremonies.
But, if I was Putin and I got a call from Bush criticizing me for invading a sovereign nation I think my response would go something like this:
First there would be a few minutes of laughter.
Then: oh George, people underestimate you, or should I say misunderestimate - you really are a funny guy. Oh, wait, you're serious? Nah - you're still pulling my leg. Yeah, Bush telling me not to invade a country for a few days - ha! Are you mad that I went in or that I'm not planning to stay?
Then some more laughing.
Then: Oh wait, I'm not sure you have that strong of a grasp of irony. Did Cheney put you up to this? That guy has one twisted sense of humor. You know you should really run these things past Condi first to make sure he's not punking you. Actually things have been really tense around here, could you call a few other Russian leaders, they could really use the laugh right now. Well, this has been fun, but you should get back to watching the Olympics and I should get back to running a country. Say hi to your dad for me and I can't wait to hear what other jokes you've come up with when we sit next to each other at the closing ceremonies.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Anthrax
Here's my theory on the whole anthrax investigation: the Wachowski brothers paid the FBI to come up with the current theory as a way of promoting DVD sales of V for Vendetta.
Why do I think this - well let's run through the FBI theory. A government scientist studying biological weapons releases a disease on the public in hopes of making money off of his vaccine and at the same time helps the right wing government increase its control over the country. Just make the scientist and the head of the government the same person and you've got the movie (no - I'm not a total conspiracy nut - I don't think anyone in the Bush administration was involved, but close enough to promote a movie).
Actually I wonder if the FBI even released that report. Hugo Weaving is so awesome he could have just dressing up as an FBI agent (he already has the costume) and given the report to the media.
If at any point in the news reporting you notice a bald jewish girl in the background you'll know I'm right.
Why do I think this - well let's run through the FBI theory. A government scientist studying biological weapons releases a disease on the public in hopes of making money off of his vaccine and at the same time helps the right wing government increase its control over the country. Just make the scientist and the head of the government the same person and you've got the movie (no - I'm not a total conspiracy nut - I don't think anyone in the Bush administration was involved, but close enough to promote a movie).
Actually I wonder if the FBI even released that report. Hugo Weaving is so awesome he could have just dressing up as an FBI agent (he already has the costume) and given the report to the media.
If at any point in the news reporting you notice a bald jewish girl in the background you'll know I'm right.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
TV
A little over two years ago when I moved to San Clemente I gave up my TV based on Eric's advice (ok, I actually just did not hook it up - it sat in my living room for two years till I moved to Mountain View). At first what I really liked about giving up the TV is I only had a few shows I bought from iTunes and some DVDs and stuff from college so I usually did not stay up late watching TV. This was very useful since I was starting a new job and was not ready to ignore the work day starts at 8 am rule. Over time I started finding websites where I could watch low and mid quality copies of shows which I have written about before. And the amount of available shows on iTunes increased.
Since then NBC and all the channels it owns (turns out they own everything) pulled out of iTunes. This caused a drop in my TV options for a bit. Then hulu was created (Julie gets credit for pointing this out to me). As more and more shows have been added to that (including the daily show and colbert report) there has been almost too many TV options. However, hulu is a bit tricky since it will sometimes only have a few seasons of a show or parts of a show.
To deal with getting hooked on a few shows I recently joined netflix. So far netflix has been awesome (well except for at first when they put a hold on my account and didn't tell me till I called to ask why they were not sending anything). However this has led to two issues. The first is that I almost have too much TV to watch now and sometimes actually feel bad that I'm falling behind on the daily show (I had to drop the colbert report subscription on hulu because it was too much TV). The second I don't have a real concrete issue. But it bothers me that I now get TV by mail. How backwards is that? Instead of using the cable that comes into my house or the DSL line, I use the internet to tell a company what shows to mail to me each day. Now I do know that if you are sending enough data eventually IP over USPS does actually win for speed and cost, but that's way more data than 3 or 4 episodes of a show each day. It also seems like the least environmentally friendly way too (especially when you account for all the paper packaging). Yes they have some DVDs you can stream, but 10,000 DVDs is actually not as many as you'd think (their mailing option has over 100,000 DVDs). Netflix plus hulu feeds into my preferred (semi-obsessive) favorite way of watching TV - pick one show and watch it from beginning to end then if it is good enough watch it all again (maybe not immediately). To help with the watching it a second time a person less honest than the person I pretend to be online might use the program handbrake especially since it will encode to ipod and iphone formats.
I think I could stretch and make some comments about getting rid of cable allowing a faster transition to TV over the series of tubes and even tie it in with developing nations that leapfrog the US in certain technologies because they are not tied to legacy infrastructure, but it is 1 am and I'm too tired to get it to make sense and definitely too tired to make sure I don't come off as totally arrogant when saying it (I'll save any tolerance you have for arrogance for when I get around to discussing why offshore drilling is a bad idea and is contradicted by what is often the news story just before or after it about how prices are stabilizing as demand goes down due to increasing prices and many of these changes will pay off in the long run, not just short term fixes. And the candidates claiming to support alternative energy given the main way to support it is to increase oil prices (ideally giving the extra money to efforts to help the environment, but even without that part it still works). Also I recognize people are struggling right now, but their problem is not high gas prices it is too little money given the total cost of goods they buy, if gas prices are high but they are given more money or other prices go down then there are still incentives to avoid oil, but people won't be struggling and since they still have incentives to avoid oil it both brings down short and long term demand and provides room in the market for alternative energy sources (how do you do this? well reducing taxes for the poor and creating more social programs is a good start) - hm that was almost like a blog in a blog, but with really bad grammar - sorry - oh and I guess I just ruined any chance I might have of running for president in the future. Actually that's another interesting topic - in 20 to 40 years we'll be able to look at what candidates put in their facebook profile and blogs in high school and college! There's going to be a whole generation that cannot run for president.).
Ok, now it is time to admit why I really joined netflix - hulu got me hooked on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but only has the first two seasons. I was feeling very awkward about admitting I like the show since I always thought it was a silly high school show. But reading through the hulu comments apparently everyone else had the same issue that they thought it was a silly show for high school kids and then watched a bit and realized it is actually good. The interesting thing is the story is about the girl who would normally be killed or need saving, but in this case is the strong hero so to be good it almost has to look like a silly high school show from a distance. I would warn though that the first season is a bit too goofy (later seasons are still plenty goofy) and low budget so don't judge till season 2, and the movie doesn't count as part of the series at all. I also started watching Angel, but my opinion is it is not goofy enough. Watching Buffy leads to the same conclusion Julie had recently - Joss Whedon is a genius (same guy who created Firefly and Serenity, which is a large part of why I gave Buffy a chance). Oh and along those same lines if you have not seen Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog it's time to go check it out (also a Joss creation and stars Neil Patrick Harris). It's only three 15 minute clips and is free.
Circling back to hulu. A few tips that may not be totally obvious. First - subscribing to a show is great since you just have to watch your queue rather than checking each show to see if there is something new. Second - some shows expire so double check if you are going to wait more than a week or so to watch something (this is mostly true for new stuff like the Colbert report). Third - when you mouse over the video, on the right side there are some buttons that appear. Full screen is self explanatory. Some shows have a 480p button that switches to high res - definitely worth selecting - video is clearly better and I've sort of convinced myself that the audio is also better. And if you are going through your queue it won't stay in hi-res so you have to set it each time (and yes for some reason to have to leave full screen to set hi-res).
Well, every once in a while I have to justify naming the blog David's Random Ramblings.
Since then NBC and all the channels it owns (turns out they own everything) pulled out of iTunes. This caused a drop in my TV options for a bit. Then hulu was created (Julie gets credit for pointing this out to me). As more and more shows have been added to that (including the daily show and colbert report) there has been almost too many TV options. However, hulu is a bit tricky since it will sometimes only have a few seasons of a show or parts of a show.
To deal with getting hooked on a few shows I recently joined netflix. So far netflix has been awesome (well except for at first when they put a hold on my account and didn't tell me till I called to ask why they were not sending anything). However this has led to two issues. The first is that I almost have too much TV to watch now and sometimes actually feel bad that I'm falling behind on the daily show (I had to drop the colbert report subscription on hulu because it was too much TV). The second I don't have a real concrete issue. But it bothers me that I now get TV by mail. How backwards is that? Instead of using the cable that comes into my house or the DSL line, I use the internet to tell a company what shows to mail to me each day. Now I do know that if you are sending enough data eventually IP over USPS does actually win for speed and cost, but that's way more data than 3 or 4 episodes of a show each day. It also seems like the least environmentally friendly way too (especially when you account for all the paper packaging). Yes they have some DVDs you can stream, but 10,000 DVDs is actually not as many as you'd think (their mailing option has over 100,000 DVDs). Netflix plus hulu feeds into my preferred (semi-obsessive) favorite way of watching TV - pick one show and watch it from beginning to end then if it is good enough watch it all again (maybe not immediately). To help with the watching it a second time a person less honest than the person I pretend to be online might use the program handbrake especially since it will encode to ipod and iphone formats.
I think I could stretch and make some comments about getting rid of cable allowing a faster transition to TV over the series of tubes and even tie it in with developing nations that leapfrog the US in certain technologies because they are not tied to legacy infrastructure, but it is 1 am and I'm too tired to get it to make sense and definitely too tired to make sure I don't come off as totally arrogant when saying it (I'll save any tolerance you have for arrogance for when I get around to discussing why offshore drilling is a bad idea and is contradicted by what is often the news story just before or after it about how prices are stabilizing as demand goes down due to increasing prices and many of these changes will pay off in the long run, not just short term fixes. And the candidates claiming to support alternative energy given the main way to support it is to increase oil prices (ideally giving the extra money to efforts to help the environment, but even without that part it still works). Also I recognize people are struggling right now, but their problem is not high gas prices it is too little money given the total cost of goods they buy, if gas prices are high but they are given more money or other prices go down then there are still incentives to avoid oil, but people won't be struggling and since they still have incentives to avoid oil it both brings down short and long term demand and provides room in the market for alternative energy sources (how do you do this? well reducing taxes for the poor and creating more social programs is a good start) - hm that was almost like a blog in a blog, but with really bad grammar - sorry - oh and I guess I just ruined any chance I might have of running for president in the future. Actually that's another interesting topic - in 20 to 40 years we'll be able to look at what candidates put in their facebook profile and blogs in high school and college! There's going to be a whole generation that cannot run for president.).
Ok, now it is time to admit why I really joined netflix - hulu got me hooked on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but only has the first two seasons. I was feeling very awkward about admitting I like the show since I always thought it was a silly high school show. But reading through the hulu comments apparently everyone else had the same issue that they thought it was a silly show for high school kids and then watched a bit and realized it is actually good. The interesting thing is the story is about the girl who would normally be killed or need saving, but in this case is the strong hero so to be good it almost has to look like a silly high school show from a distance. I would warn though that the first season is a bit too goofy (later seasons are still plenty goofy) and low budget so don't judge till season 2, and the movie doesn't count as part of the series at all. I also started watching Angel, but my opinion is it is not goofy enough. Watching Buffy leads to the same conclusion Julie had recently - Joss Whedon is a genius (same guy who created Firefly and Serenity, which is a large part of why I gave Buffy a chance). Oh and along those same lines if you have not seen Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog it's time to go check it out (also a Joss creation and stars Neil Patrick Harris). It's only three 15 minute clips and is free.
Circling back to hulu. A few tips that may not be totally obvious. First - subscribing to a show is great since you just have to watch your queue rather than checking each show to see if there is something new. Second - some shows expire so double check if you are going to wait more than a week or so to watch something (this is mostly true for new stuff like the Colbert report). Third - when you mouse over the video, on the right side there are some buttons that appear. Full screen is self explanatory. Some shows have a 480p button that switches to high res - definitely worth selecting - video is clearly better and I've sort of convinced myself that the audio is also better. And if you are going through your queue it won't stay in hi-res so you have to set it each time (and yes for some reason to have to leave full screen to set hi-res).
Well, every once in a while I have to justify naming the blog David's Random Ramblings.
Hands Free Cellphone Law
Recently a California state law went into effect that makes it illegal to use a cell phone unless using a hands free device. The overwhelming response has been that everyone has to buy a bluetooth headset. As someone who now works for a company in the general field of wireless communications I say go buy lots and lots of bluetooth headsets. You're not cool unless you have a bluetooth headset, but it is not cool to wear one so you should have multiple so you can keep them anywhere you might want them. (I actually honestly have no idea who provides the chips for those headsets, could be a competitor so maybe don't go on the shopping spree quite yet).
But I thought I could be cheap and clever and just put one of the old wired mic plus headphone in the car for the rare occasion when I talk in the car.
But just recently I realized that I speed almost all the time. I don't go too far over the speed limit, but typically I'm a bit over - in fact not being a bit over would typically disrupt traffic. So what's with the sudden freak out about breaking traffic laws? Especially since you could get multiple fines for being on the phone before equaling the cost of a decent bluetooth headset.
I haven't started following my own advice, but when it occurred to me I was surprised that no one else had brought this up yet.
But I thought I could be cheap and clever and just put one of the old wired mic plus headphone in the car for the rare occasion when I talk in the car.
But just recently I realized that I speed almost all the time. I don't go too far over the speed limit, but typically I'm a bit over - in fact not being a bit over would typically disrupt traffic. So what's with the sudden freak out about breaking traffic laws? Especially since you could get multiple fines for being on the phone before equaling the cost of a decent bluetooth headset.
I haven't started following my own advice, but when it occurred to me I was surprised that no one else had brought this up yet.
Monday, August 04, 2008
The Dark Knight
I went to see The Dark Knight: The IMAX Experience. I'm sure this is the first time you've heard anyone mention this movie, not sure why it doesn't get any press. I'm not going to say if you should see it or not, but if you are going to see it I'd recommend going for IMAX even if it means buying tickets a week ahead of time. And whenever there is a non-action shot, make sure to check out the background rather than just looking at the people in the foreground.
Even though he did not realize it, one of the friends I went with made me very happy. He noticed during the credits that Anthony Michael Hall was in the movie and wondered who he played. This gave me a chance to pull out the iPhone I had just bought a couple hours earlier (after waiting a mere 2 hours in line - thank goodness I had some Arrested Development episodes on my iPod) and answer the question using IMDB.
Which brings us to the real reason for this whole post - I'm trying to test the RSS reader on the iPhone so I need a feed to update.
Even though he did not realize it, one of the friends I went with made me very happy. He noticed during the credits that Anthony Michael Hall was in the movie and wondered who he played. This gave me a chance to pull out the iPhone I had just bought a couple hours earlier (after waiting a mere 2 hours in line - thank goodness I had some Arrested Development episodes on my iPod) and answer the question using IMDB.
Which brings us to the real reason for this whole post - I'm trying to test the RSS reader on the iPhone so I need a feed to update.
Friday, August 01, 2008
Shenanigans
I call shenanigans on this article. Ok, I completely believe that China is blocking lots of websites. I also think that government censorship is a very bad thing. However, I do not believe this is causing an issue for journalists.
There are a few reasons for my disbelief. The first is that (as I understand) in general the great firewall blocks people who do not otherwise have contacts outside China from certain material. Once you have a contact in another country there are all sorts of ways to get around it. More on this later. Second the article is talking about journalists in general so many of them are part of major news organizations that have journalists all over the world with varying degrees of web restrictions. And many of them have had reporters in China for a long time. So even if the average American or even average American company could not figure out how to get around it I would expect these companies to have invested in finding a way around it.
So how do you get around the great firewall? Well, lets start with the lowest tech. Perhaps you want to get to a certain Amnesty International site, you could write a NYT article about how you can't - or you could call an intern in the US (or perhaps India to avoid time zone issues) and ask them to print and fax or next day the information. Not great, but not hard to figure out. A bit more complicated, but instead of faxing send in an encrypted email (maybe average joe doesn't know how to do it, so hire a CS major from the local college to show you how). You could setup a proxy, takes a bit of knowledge, but a friend offered to setup one for me when I was there. You could probably use TOR which is a free program from the EFF and redirects web traffic through many computers so it is not easy to see where it is coming from or going to. Or finally the most likely - use VPN possibly combined with VNC. My understanding is basically all major companies have VPN setup (a way to securely join the company's network when out of the office), even the 100 person company I worked for used VPN (which was setup and maintained by one person). Plus I would think journalists need a way to securely submit their articles without government oversight or having them stolen. If just VPN is not enough then run a program like VNC or windows remote desktop (which comes with windows) that allows you to control another computer so instead of sending a website it is sending screen images and over an encrypted connection thanks to VPN.
Sorry, didn't mean to dig into the technical quite so much, but wanted to make it clear that any international journalist, especially if connected to a major news organization, should have no problem getting to anything on the web. So I say stop your fake whinnying and write about a real problem - perhaps all the Chinese people who really are not able to get to these websites.
There are a few reasons for my disbelief. The first is that (as I understand) in general the great firewall blocks people who do not otherwise have contacts outside China from certain material. Once you have a contact in another country there are all sorts of ways to get around it. More on this later. Second the article is talking about journalists in general so many of them are part of major news organizations that have journalists all over the world with varying degrees of web restrictions. And many of them have had reporters in China for a long time. So even if the average American or even average American company could not figure out how to get around it I would expect these companies to have invested in finding a way around it.
So how do you get around the great firewall? Well, lets start with the lowest tech. Perhaps you want to get to a certain Amnesty International site, you could write a NYT article about how you can't - or you could call an intern in the US (or perhaps India to avoid time zone issues) and ask them to print and fax or next day the information. Not great, but not hard to figure out. A bit more complicated, but instead of faxing send in an encrypted email (maybe average joe doesn't know how to do it, so hire a CS major from the local college to show you how). You could setup a proxy, takes a bit of knowledge, but a friend offered to setup one for me when I was there. You could probably use TOR which is a free program from the EFF and redirects web traffic through many computers so it is not easy to see where it is coming from or going to. Or finally the most likely - use VPN possibly combined with VNC. My understanding is basically all major companies have VPN setup (a way to securely join the company's network when out of the office), even the 100 person company I worked for used VPN (which was setup and maintained by one person). Plus I would think journalists need a way to securely submit their articles without government oversight or having them stolen. If just VPN is not enough then run a program like VNC or windows remote desktop (which comes with windows) that allows you to control another computer so instead of sending a website it is sending screen images and over an encrypted connection thanks to VPN.
Sorry, didn't mean to dig into the technical quite so much, but wanted to make it clear that any international journalist, especially if connected to a major news organization, should have no problem getting to anything on the web. So I say stop your fake whinnying and write about a real problem - perhaps all the Chinese people who really are not able to get to these websites.
Paul Reubens
Back when I was about 10 (for once that's actually the correct age) Pee-wee Herman got arrested for "dropping his pants" in a movie theater. Or so everyone put it. Being 10 I figured that was literally what happened (I took it so literally I thought he still had his underwear on). At some point kids realized that it was at an adult theater which made it seem a bit more justifiable. I haven't thought about Pee-wee Herman many times since then, but as I got older I figured that Pee-wee dropping his pants was clearly wrong, but didn't seem to match the amount of talk about it and backlash against him. The part that is embarrassing for me, is it is not until tonight, after seeing him in a small role, that it occurred to me that "dropping his pants" was a euphemism. The doubly embarrassing part is that even after having the epiphany the dropping his pants story was so ingrained that I had to look it up to be sure (thanks wikipedia for covering every question a person could possibly have).
Here's a crazy fact: the father of the guy who plays Pee-wee Herman flew for the British in WWII and was one of the founding pilots of the Israeli Air Force.
Here's a crazy fact: the father of the guy who plays Pee-wee Herman flew for the British in WWII and was one of the founding pilots of the Israeli Air Force.
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