To celebrate my grandpa's 86th birthday we did what any self respecting family would do: go gambling.
We hit the Niagra Falls casino. Mom, Dad and myself took a side trip to the actual falls - which is still a pretty impressive site to see.
Everyone did well, with Shira being the big winner.
I really hope that when I'm 86 I can pull stunts like this.
--Ben
We just dropped Elana off at the bus station. Ahh, the Rochester bus station. One of the most colorful locations in Rochester.
I have a special affinity to Grayhound as it was the key mode of transportation for visiting Shira in college.
I knew the route from Buffalo to Phillidelphia like the back of my hand. It took 12 hours and went through NY city at like 3am. Now that was an experience.
It definitely fell in the "if it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger category."
I'm sure by the time I tell my granchildren this story, the trip will be 48hrs, and I will have had to walk uphill both ways to the bus station.
--Ben
They called for rain all weekend. Boy were they right!
For the last 4hrs of driving we've had nothing but heavy rain. Yuck.
--Ben
We had a heck of a morning, as we got a chance to go to the shooting range. Needless to say, fun was had all around.
--Ben
Next time you have a few minutes, you can play around with a new ad campaign by the friends at Ban. Apparently, I don't have the creativity to come up with any thing special, so I'll just point you to someone else's work:
This is a pretty cool advertising campaign because it lets the customer involved in creating the message of their choice. Not to mention it's fun.
The only depressing part was that of the age blocks listed, I'm currently in the last one (28+). I guess I'm a little too old for this game.
Thanks to Church of the Customer for the find.
Quotes. Lots and lots of them. Read and enjoy. Post your favorites in the comments.
So, I hate buying new sneakers. It's always a painful experience. Shira has to more or less push and prod me to give up a pair of dead sneakers in exchange for a shiny new pair.
Somewhere in my growing up I picked up the following rules for buying sneakers:
(1) Don't . That's right, if your shoes only have a few holes and no tread that's simply not a good reason to trash them. Shoes are like a comfy set of jeans - if you give up this pair you may never find a set as comfy.
(2) Anything over $39.99 for shoes is just a rip off. Sure, you could buy a $100 set of nikes, but why bother? It's just wasted money. To this day the first pair of shoes I always ask Shira if I can buy is the generic gray Reeboks that I used to wear as a 12 year old.
(3) Don't buy into all this marketing crap about gel and air and such. They're all the same.
(4) Who cares if they are stylish? They are sneakers for heavens sakes. Who cares if they are day-glow yellow, if they are cheap how can you lose?
Shira has none of these rules. In fact, she buys shoes first on style, then price and then maybe comfort. Maybe.
So, shopping together is always an adventure.
But I did, I took the plunge. Spent $75.00 (!!) on a pair of somewhat presentable sneakers, which promised to make me run faster and farther.
I wonder how long this pair will last? How long until I'm back at the shoe store negotiating about what I will and won't try on.
Guess we'll find out soon enough.
--Ben
Looking into Harriet Miers a bit, and for the most part she looks fine. The only thing I learned that scared me was:
"According to an article in Salon magazine on October 3, 2005, Miers has called Bush 'the most brilliant man I have ever met.'"
Yikes.
I just stumbled upon this speech by Al Gore. He talks about what he sees as the real threat to America today. And it isn't a lack of family values. It's a good read.
An interesting site. It's kind of a 1 page wiki you can make and allow the world to view and edit.
The site is very clean and provides a high degree of functionality. For example, you can cleanly get a set of diffs between any versions of the page and even subscribe to an RSS feed for any given page.
I'm not sure when I'd use this, rather than just a a Wiki, but I'm sure I'll think of something.
Why don't you add your comments to My First Writeboard.
In a few hours these will be two tasty loaves of Challah. And in a few hours it will be Rosh Hoshana, the Jewish new year.
I wish all my readers a happy and healthy new year!
--Ben
I spent some time today seeding and fertalizing my back lawn. If this causes something greenish to grow back there it will be nothing short of a miracle.
But still, I've got to try.
--Ben
I think this is a really cool project, and hope they can pull it off.
Though, the hard part probably isn't the hardware, but what you actually do with it. We all know a computer is a terrific tool - but it's just that, a tool. You can do incredible things with it, but if you don't put it to work, it just sits there, the same as any other tool.
So, I would love to read about the lesson plans or other aspects of education that the $100 laptop enables.
This looks like a really fun project and an excellent way to learn about computers. This kit allows you to build a Z80 computer -- you get to go from hardware to writing programs. And the cost negligable -- seems like you can buy the kit for $70 from here.
In college, as a CS student, we took a bunch of computer architecture courses. We learned about logic gates and flip flops. But none of it seemed particularly relevant because it was all on paper. We were drawing circuits. I had the thought then, and I still have it now, that if we had just gone into a lab and made some stuff blink, or built a kit like the above, the course would have been a 1000 times for valuable.
So, mark my words. If I ever have to teach a computer hardware course, we're building a kit like the above.
Check out the two shoes in the above picture. Both are black, leather, ladies shoes.
Though I was informed, today as we bought one pair, that they are *totally* different. Miles apart. Apparently, one has a "back" while the other does not. One pair is for summer, the other, winter.
Wow. I wouldn't even begin to engage in a discussion over this, much less an argument. I'd lose every single time.
--Ben
Prediction/crazy business idea time... This time, the idea relates to Tivo and I have two thoughts.
First, my thoughts are predicated on two fundamental princaples.
(1) All air time is not equal. If you want to buy 30 minutes on Fox at 7:00pm on Thursday night it'll be a heck of a lot more expensive than 30 minutes on G4 at 3:30am on Monday morning.
(2) Tivo users record a show, not a timeslot. I don't care when House or According to Jim come on, or what channel they are on. I just know that I asked Tivo to record them and it did.
Second, here are some definitions.
Viewer Friendly Timeslot (vft) - a timeslot at a time that is convenient for a viewer. Meaning the time is ideal and the channel is one they frequent.
Tivo Friendly Timespot (tft) - a timeslot that does not conflict with any other shows the viewer is interested in.
So here are my ideas.
Collision Protection - Lets say House and Bones are on at the same time on Tuesday night (sorry if that's a bad example, but you get the idea). The average Tivo user doesn't have many options as you can only record one show at a time. Unless of course the networks buy collison protection. They simply run the show in both a VFT and TFT timeslot. This means that even if they lose the primetime viewer to say House, Bones still can recorded and watched at some point.
I guess a lot reality TV shows do this already, but you would think this would be more common, as it should be pretty cheap to buy a TFT.
Tivo Only Shows - I could imagine that a show be presented in only a TFT. Yes, this does not make sense for all shows. However, I could imagine that Tech TV, or Sci-Fi programs could go this route. This also makes lots of sense if the TV showing is just thought of as a distribution mechanism. If you have a website that promotes the show and provides bit-torrents, then the TV just becomes one more way for folks to hear your message, versus being *the* way they hear your message.
With the price of TFT perhaps shows that would never have made it to the little screen would have a chance. Maybe a bunch of video-bloggers should get together, buy some cheap air time, and prove my point?
Too bad I have a face for radio, or maybe I'd do it myself...
--Ben
As a husband, the only item I live in fear of being sent out to buy *more* than maxipads is stockings. There are like 300 different types, and all of them look liked crumpled up brown mush.
I buy white crew socks, for shoe size 6-12.
Shira buys Day Sheer stockings, whatever the heck that means.
Luckily, she's never sent me on a stocking buying mission and live in fear for the day she does.
--Ben
What could be more fun on a Saturday night? (Shopping with the wife that is, not loitering outside the ladies dressing room at Macy's. If I enjoyed that I'd be sick and pathetic. But I'm with my wife...so I'm only pathetic.)
--Ben
So this is an example of my wife's problem solving skills. She doesn't mess around - she follows the cram it in philosophy.
--Ben
http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/2005/09/010091.htm
This is a simple but clever idea. And if you can people hooked on getting services from their cell phones as students, you'll have a nice market of adults one day.
And, natrually I believe in using cell phones as a computing/information platform - after all I'm blogging from my phone as I type.
--Ben
I guess, when you compare my day to this fellow's, mine wasn't so bad.
Taken on Rt. 66 @ washington blvd.
--Ben
Last night at 1:48am a large number of our servers either shut down or rebooted. The obvious cause? Power outage, right?
Except I knew better than that. Our servers are housed in a facility that doesn't have power problems - ever. They have multiple back up systems, heck they have a tanker truck of gas ready to be used for generators near by.
Most of the reason we pay the company to house the servers is for power (that and cooling and physical security).
So I started coming up with theories of what could bring down a whole bunch of machines (but not all...) at once. I was thinking we had some very clever hacker on our hands.
Finally, on a whim I asked someone at the data center - "I know this sounds crazy, but did you guys loose power at 1:45am this morning?" "Oh yeah" he responded, "we did."
And just like that, something I thought impossible (or very unlikely) just happend.
And how did they notify us of the problem? Via e-mail of course. Which was never delivered because the server didn't come back up after losing power. ARGH.
I guess the real take away is that you should have a catchall protocol for when the unthinkable happens. Simply saying the unthinkable won't happen, is well, a bad idea.
--Ben
Today we had a false alarm at the house. All looked pretty kosher except for some suspicious hand prints.
Enter my wife, the CSI.
Using advanced crime scene techniques (pen and tape) she concluded that the hand prints were on the *inside* of the window, not the outside.
When I told her how surprised I was that there was a hand print on the window she explained to me that she usually puts her hands there to push up the window. Oh.
Oh well, now the tricky part is to get ADT to pay the false alarm charge.
--Ben
So I'm only 3 tapes into the Zell Miller book but I already feel compelled to add my 2 cents in
Lets see, far he's covered:
(1) the Democratic party is going to share the same fate as the Wigs (the who? Exactly!). He doesn't provide proof yet, as he's trying to get attention at this point.
(2) He has an interesting childhood and background. He comes across as a swell guy.
(3) He advocates common-sense government. This I totally agree - a lot of what people want isn't right or left, it's just sensible. We should be focusing on the sensible stuff.
(4) Special interest groups are evil and run both parties. No complaint there, I don't think.
(5) Taxes. Basically, he's trying to convince us that Democrats have a history of cutting taxes and we should be proud to do so.
So far, only (5) has raised my blood pressure. I think he misses the point. Our problem in this country with taxes isn't that we have too many or two few. The problem is that we have too much waste.
The Republicans say: any dollar that goes to the government is wasted, so save your money. The Democrats say: we all want services and so we need taxes to pay for them.
Seems to me, if we could reduce the waste of money in this country two key things would happen: (a) the money we do have would go further and (b) people wouldn't mind paying taxes (as much) because they would know that their money was being put to good use - perhaps even by themselves.
So, if I were running for office today my message would be: cut waste, everthing else can wait.
Of course, 30 years from now I'll probably look back at that statement and think it's naive drivel, but oh well.
--Ben
After years of taking our stuff to one dry cleaner, they closed down. As a result, I'm shopping for a new dry cleaner.
I think I may have found one.
They need to (1) take some sort of coupon and (2) allow me to bring in a large laundry basket full of clothes at one time (without giving me a dirty look). So, Adams Square dry cleaner passed those tests.
One point of clarification: the purpose of the coupon is not to save money. The goal of the coupon is to have one more husband task I can fail (or succeed?) at. Fun, eh?
--Ben
Shhh, don't tell my Mom that we ate dinner in front of the TV yesterday. Such behavior was pretty much off limits growing up.
For the record, I did it but still felt guilty. What Jewish mother wouldn't be proud of that?
--Ben
That's me. And it's a fairly odd and valuable delivery - a Torah. I need to drop it off so that it can be repaired by a pro.
Torahs are tricky - even a small flaw, such as a single broken letter, can leave it unkosher and therefore not usable. It does make you appreciate how exacting Jews have been for the last 2000ish years.
If all goes well, in a few months this Torah will be kosher again and be put to good use.
--Ben
I had to setup linux software raid today on a box. My first time doing such a task. I found the above set of steps to be really helpful in figuring it all out.
Software raid is tricky on linux, not because there's no info around on it, but becaues there's so much out of date information. For example, I would have no problem finding a ATA raid howto from April 26th, 2002.
In the end, the setup was easy and Fedora did all the really tricky work.
This is a useful thread to address the all too common question of: "Don't abstractions make it harder to debug code?" In other words, with lots of layers, doesn't it make it more confusing to follow code. Or, "isn't it annoying to have to look in 15 different classes for a problem instead of 2 or 3 bigger ones?"
Naturally, I tend to be in the camp that says no to the above questions. The link above gives some good explinations why.
I think one quote that summarizes it well is below:
In fact, if you're debugging, you want to be able to abstract away all of the trustworthy code. You know there aren't bugs there. You want to be able to tell your debugging tools that you trust that code to obey certain contracts or types, and be done with it. Now you can focus on the untrustworthy, buggy code.
Lets say you release an unauthorized copy of your work on the Internet. Do you think Sony would be happy? Do you think Sony would "give me money to make songs that are already out there?"
The answer, in the above article, certainly surprised me.
Rather than performing 3 installs on our new servers, I thought I would try the trick of making a single install image and then deploying it multiple times. G4U, as mentioned above, did a great job of this (and is free!).
The only drawback? It was so slooooooooooow. But still, I could kick off the process and come in the next day to find a fully completed (and configured) install.
Another option for this sort of thing, besides G4U is PartImage. I may give that tool a try next time, though I can't imagine it'll be as easy to use as G4U was.
We had a fun road trip picnic on our way back from Rochester. Of course we had it in a wegmans parking lot, where else would one stop?
Had a fun time in Rochester and the trip back so far seems smooth.
--Ben
http://www.braintank.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/midi/morse2mid.php
Yet another reason to learn morse code. I'm sure my wife could make me some very meaningful/suggestive ringtones.
--Ben
I just took this politics test. Here's my score:
| You are a Social Liberal (81% permissive) and an... Economic Conservative (60% permissive) You are best described as a:
Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid |
I can't wait to look back on this in 20 years and laugh.
We are coming up on the Jewish New year. As such, we start a period of repentence. To get things kicked off, we do the first service at midnight - as if to say that we don't even want to wait till the morning to say the prayers.
It's kinda like opening your birthdat presents at midnight instead of waiting till the next day. Except the presents are prayers pleading with G-d.
I went with my dad and we had a good time.
--Ben
http://www.allbusiness.com/blog/JustForSmallBusiness/3357/003425.html?RSS=3357
Now why didn't I think about doing this to pay for my college tuition?
--Ben
This is a Niagra Falls information booth. Fine - that's not a crazy idea. There's a lot to do in Niagra Falls so an info booth makes sense.
The odd part? We are literally 3 1/2 hours away from the Falls and currently in a small town in Pennsylvania.
That's just strange. But they must be doing something right, the booth has been here for decades.
--Ben
For the record, we paid $3.189 per gallon for gas today. I wonder what it will be 24-48hrs from now?
--Ben
I just love how the GPS always gives you such clear and intelligable instructions.
--Ben
Nothing like watching a group of men walking down the street in lader-hosen carrying...beer of course.
--Ben
Yet another project I would love to have time to play with. Argh. Need to work on both time travel and cloning. Or maybe time traveling clones.
Next time you have a presentation to give -- why not present it as a top 10 list, or maybe using just very, very, very large type?
At least your presentation won't be ignored...
You've got to spend a few minutes and watch the clip marked TDS on the Roberts Hearing found here...it's just too hilarious.
My favorite quote:
Tom Coburn also takes advantage of his few minutes with John Roberts but saying that his "heart aches for less divisiveness... less polarization... less finger-pointing... less bitterness... less partisanship" (you're supposed to throw in dramatic sniffles where the ellipses are). Bravo, Coburn. The same Coburn that said the gay community "is the greatest threat to our freedom that we face today." The same Coburn that said, "I favor the death penalty for abortionists." Less bitter indeed. Oh, and if you tuned in to C-SPAN before Coburn got to speak, there was one shot that showed him doing a crossword puzzle under his desk. Nice one.
Thanks to Beamer for mentioning this clip and to these blogs for covering the story.
What a deal!
I gave platelets and plasma this morning. All told it took about two and a half hours. But this time was much less painful than last.
And the perks were great! Watched most of spiderman 2, got covered in warmed-up blankets, had hot water bags around me and got all the snacks I could eat. Elizabeth Arden (sp?) has nothing on this place.
As for spiderman 2, I wasn't super impressed. The special effects were very cool. And I did find the representation of Dr. Ocotopus to be really well done. But in the end, I just didn't enjoy the schmaltzy storyline. I give it a 6/10 for trying.
--Ben
An interesting business success story. Nothing earth shattering here, just lots of hard work. But still, inspirational stuff.
This is an interesting design tool. However, what caught my eye was the use of the instructional video. In just a few minutes of video you can totally get what the point of this software is and how you would use it. Simply describing it in text or as screen shots just isn't the same.
Typically you hear about how Wal-Mart runs small businesses out of town. Here's another view -- where small business actually benefit from Wal-Mart.
Yet another example of Google project which I don't get yet. It's probably a great idea...but I just don't see how the strategy fits. Oh well, nobody asked me.
Today we got our shipment of 3 servers we just ordered. We bought them from direct from cybertron, though we learned about them from tiger direct.
Let me take a moment and just say how impressed I am with the folks at cybertron. Why?
1) They know their stuff. I asked them about picky details and they had instant answers. How many sticks of RAM come with the machine? 2. Very impressive considering I would have usually expected to be bounced from a sales guy to a technical guy (or gal) and back again.
2) They know their competitors stuff. I was able to provide my sales guy with tiger direct product IDs and he instantly pulled up what I was talking about. None of this - it's not my derpartment crap.
3) They offered to test my servers with the OS I want to use, not they want to test with. This is just amazing. The guy asked me what OS I wanted to use (Fedora Linux). He then checked in their product database to see if the raid card I was ordering worked with this version of Linux. He then told me he didn't know, but that he would have his engineers test it for me and let me know. In other words, they did the work of testing the box and making sure it will work for me. That's a huge savings for me. I'm just amazed that they didn't tell me that they only test 3 or 4 OS's and that if mine wasn't in the list, too bad.
And keep in mind we aren't talking mega-expensive servers here. Two of them were $600.00 a piece.
So I'm a happy camper and can recommend Cybertron with pride. If you need servers check out: http://www.cybertronpc.com.
Tomorrow I get to actually play with them.
--Ben
So how's this for a life lesson...
I'm trying to water my lawn in the hopes of turning it from light brown to geen'ish. But, my sprinkler setup wasn't quite working - the sprinkler would get "stuck" and innevitably, I'd water my driveway for 20 minutes.
I talked it over with Mike at work - his suggestion, more water pressure.
So, the life lesson? When in doubt add pressure.
Now I need the life lesson for when adding too much pressure bursts a pipe...
--Ben
