Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Telsa Man Out of Time
This is kind of a random one, but I read Tesla Man Out of Time. He was an engineer at the end of the 1800s and start of 1900s (around the same time as Edison). Tesla invented the original AC motor/generator which enabled AC power (the stuff you get out of the wall socket). While Marconi is usual given credit for RF (wireless), Tesla actually figured it out first. He did a whole bunch of other stuff including creating Tesla coils (a way to get huge voltages - if you ever see a big metal thing with lightening bolts coming out of it, it is probably a Tesla coil). The book was interesting although much heavier on his life and light on the details on his stuff worked. If you've never heard about the whole fight between AC and DC it is kind of interesting. Edison wanted to distribute DC and Westinghouse wanted to distribute AC. AC was obviously better (after Tesla made his addition), but Edison wouldn't give up so he tried to make AC look dangerous by electrocuting animals with AC in public and arranging to have the electric chair use AC.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Apartment Search 2
Almost forget to mention:
Whoa. Apartment search using GPS device and web enabled cell phone. Whoa!
Whoa. Apartment search using GPS device and web enabled cell phone. Whoa!
Apartment Search
Over the weekend I headed up to San Jose to search for apartments. I decided that it must be nice to sell a product that is in such high demand you can tell people that not only can they not see the product, they can't even see a model of the product before buying, oh and they're going fast so if you don't purchase now it may be gone before you come back! Oh, and it is crazy expensive.
I did end up finding a place, it's not the nicest or biggest, but the price is "reasonable" (and they had a vacant unit to show me). It is within walking distance from downtown Mountain View. Mountain View isn't a big town (about 65,000 people), but it has a bit of a downtown and it is not a long drive to Sunnyvale or Palo Alto. It also gives me a bit of a head start toward San Francisco compared to where I'll be working.
I didn't really think through the timing of the trip so Sunday everything was closed, but it gave me a chance to drive around and get to know the area. I went to downtown San Jose for the first time. I thought it was nice until a coworker pointed out that San Jose has 1 million people, more than San Francisco, so you'd expect a bit more than a couple blocks of restaurants as a downtown. I went to the Tech Museum in San Jose. It's basically a science museum, but more focused on man made stuff than natural phenomenon. Like most science museums it is more kid focused - and I think parts of it exist just so the engineers in the area can explain to their kids what they do.
The big excitement of the trip was on the drive back to the airport. The car seemed to be handling a bit odd, although it was a PT cruiser so I just figured it was the car's usual crappy performance. I got on the freeway and after a bit it started making a clear ca-chunck ca-chunck sound. So I took the next exit and pulled in to a gas station (yes I know the correct thing is just to get over to the side and stop driving, but it was a rental so I cared more about my comfort than the wheel of the car). When I got out I saw that a back tire was still on, but deflated and coming apart. I called up the rental car place and they sent someone to change the tire (yes, I probably could have done it, but wasn't really looking to find out). Anyway, nothing too big - although I was surprised, I thought that a tire popping would have more obvious symptoms - like a loud popping sound.
Today was the last day at work. Mostly just went around and said good bye to people (oh and got a little irritated because I found out that management made a decision I had warned about 7 months ago, but then reminded myself I don't have to care anymore). For those that worry what I might say - I was very positive with everyone before I left. I'm not trying to be negative, but it is interesting that when I joined the company it was 6 months to first implant and today I was informed that the new schedule has first implant 6 months from now, but I don't care because tonight begins my two weeks of unemployment!
I did end up finding a place, it's not the nicest or biggest, but the price is "reasonable" (and they had a vacant unit to show me). It is within walking distance from downtown Mountain View. Mountain View isn't a big town (about 65,000 people), but it has a bit of a downtown and it is not a long drive to Sunnyvale or Palo Alto. It also gives me a bit of a head start toward San Francisco compared to where I'll be working.
I didn't really think through the timing of the trip so Sunday everything was closed, but it gave me a chance to drive around and get to know the area. I went to downtown San Jose for the first time. I thought it was nice until a coworker pointed out that San Jose has 1 million people, more than San Francisco, so you'd expect a bit more than a couple blocks of restaurants as a downtown. I went to the Tech Museum in San Jose. It's basically a science museum, but more focused on man made stuff than natural phenomenon. Like most science museums it is more kid focused - and I think parts of it exist just so the engineers in the area can explain to their kids what they do.
The big excitement of the trip was on the drive back to the airport. The car seemed to be handling a bit odd, although it was a PT cruiser so I just figured it was the car's usual crappy performance. I got on the freeway and after a bit it started making a clear ca-chunck ca-chunck sound. So I took the next exit and pulled in to a gas station (yes I know the correct thing is just to get over to the side and stop driving, but it was a rental so I cared more about my comfort than the wheel of the car). When I got out I saw that a back tire was still on, but deflated and coming apart. I called up the rental car place and they sent someone to change the tire (yes, I probably could have done it, but wasn't really looking to find out). Anyway, nothing too big - although I was surprised, I thought that a tire popping would have more obvious symptoms - like a loud popping sound.
Today was the last day at work. Mostly just went around and said good bye to people (oh and got a little irritated because I found out that management made a decision I had warned about 7 months ago, but then reminded myself I don't have to care anymore). For those that worry what I might say - I was very positive with everyone before I left. I'm not trying to be negative, but it is interesting that when I joined the company it was 6 months to first implant and today I was informed that the new schedule has first implant 6 months from now, but I don't care because tonight begins my two weeks of unemployment!
Friday, March 21, 2008
Sunday, March 16, 2008
How to Rig an Election
With it being a frosty 58 degrees with a bit of wind outside, I ended up staying inside and learning that the government is evil this weekend (actually Friday night I headed up to the Getty to meet up with several family members - which was very nice). This consisted of reading Fair Game, catching up on daily show episodes and reading How to Rig an Election.
How to rig an election is the story of Allen Raymond who worked on multiple Republican campaigns and was eventually sent to jail for blocking the phones of democrat call centers in New Hampshire on election day. He talks about some of the tricks he pulled, a lot of which were based around direct mailings and calling. He also discussed how he would take minor facts about the opponent and blow it out of proportion. For one candidate who got campaign financing from a questionable source he got that source to give a small amount to the other candidate so that when his guy was accused of taking the money he was able to throw it in the other guy's face. In the direct mailings he would take quotations from the opponent that occurred at vastly different times and string them together to make the person look horrible. In one of his early campaigns he claimed that the opponent who had run a summer camp fired all of the employees and took a giant bonus for himself. In reality the employees were councilors and were "fired" because it was the end of the summer and at the end of the summer he figured out how much money was left and gave himself a portion as his salary. Allen also did a lot of this against the wishes of the candidate he was working for. One example of the phone stuff Allen did was to target particular groups of voters that were likely to have a racial bias against other groups and have a recording of someone in that group supporting the opponent. I was going to list some examples, but they are sufficiently racist I'll leave it to your imagination.
He never wanted to do anything illegal, but beyond that didn't worry about ethics. There were two items that were responsible for getting him arrested. One was a set of phone calls he created that went out to select people during the super bowl claiming to be from a made up organization, but sounding like it came from two of the three candidates in a republican primary (I think for senator of New Jersey). The whole idea was to get people mad at those candidates for calling during the super bowl. The other one that got him in jail was arranging for so many people to call the Democrat's get out the vote centers in New Hampshire that it would shut down their phone lines. One of the call centers was at a volunteer firefighter station. He had actually asked a lawyer if it was illegal and was told no, but did not get it in writing.
One interesting item is that as crooked as this guy seemed, he thought that Rove and the Bush team really crossed the line. Also he chose to work for the Republican party because it looked like they would be on the upswing so that's where the money was. So he wasn't in it because he believed in the cause. But it also wasn't pure greed because he came from a wealthy family and for the first several years he had a small salary and was living off money from his family (of course later on he did quite well for himself).
It is a bit of an odd read, because no matter how reformed he claims he is, it is hard to be too trusting of anything he says. And even if he thinks he is telling the truth, he clearly has a bit of an odd perspective on the world.
So the conclusion of this weekend is don't trust the government, don't trust the media, don't trust anyone. The entire political process is evil and lies. And all this especially applies to Bush/Cheney/Libby/Rove. Hm, I'm actually not sure to what degree that conclusion is serious or a joke. Well, the don't trust anyone might be going to far, but I think I'm actually serious about the rest.
How to rig an election is the story of Allen Raymond who worked on multiple Republican campaigns and was eventually sent to jail for blocking the phones of democrat call centers in New Hampshire on election day. He talks about some of the tricks he pulled, a lot of which were based around direct mailings and calling. He also discussed how he would take minor facts about the opponent and blow it out of proportion. For one candidate who got campaign financing from a questionable source he got that source to give a small amount to the other candidate so that when his guy was accused of taking the money he was able to throw it in the other guy's face. In the direct mailings he would take quotations from the opponent that occurred at vastly different times and string them together to make the person look horrible. In one of his early campaigns he claimed that the opponent who had run a summer camp fired all of the employees and took a giant bonus for himself. In reality the employees were councilors and were "fired" because it was the end of the summer and at the end of the summer he figured out how much money was left and gave himself a portion as his salary. Allen also did a lot of this against the wishes of the candidate he was working for. One example of the phone stuff Allen did was to target particular groups of voters that were likely to have a racial bias against other groups and have a recording of someone in that group supporting the opponent. I was going to list some examples, but they are sufficiently racist I'll leave it to your imagination.
He never wanted to do anything illegal, but beyond that didn't worry about ethics. There were two items that were responsible for getting him arrested. One was a set of phone calls he created that went out to select people during the super bowl claiming to be from a made up organization, but sounding like it came from two of the three candidates in a republican primary (I think for senator of New Jersey). The whole idea was to get people mad at those candidates for calling during the super bowl. The other one that got him in jail was arranging for so many people to call the Democrat's get out the vote centers in New Hampshire that it would shut down their phone lines. One of the call centers was at a volunteer firefighter station. He had actually asked a lawyer if it was illegal and was told no, but did not get it in writing.
One interesting item is that as crooked as this guy seemed, he thought that Rove and the Bush team really crossed the line. Also he chose to work for the Republican party because it looked like they would be on the upswing so that's where the money was. So he wasn't in it because he believed in the cause. But it also wasn't pure greed because he came from a wealthy family and for the first several years he had a small salary and was living off money from his family (of course later on he did quite well for himself).
It is a bit of an odd read, because no matter how reformed he claims he is, it is hard to be too trusting of anything he says. And even if he thinks he is telling the truth, he clearly has a bit of an odd perspective on the world.
So the conclusion of this weekend is don't trust the government, don't trust the media, don't trust anyone. The entire political process is evil and lies. And all this especially applies to Bush/Cheney/Libby/Rove. Hm, I'm actually not sure to what degree that conclusion is serious or a joke. Well, the don't trust anyone might be going to far, but I think I'm actually serious about the rest.
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