House of the rising Moonglum

People often ask me computer questions. One question that I regularly get is “do I need to upgrade my computer?” I personally like to keep computers around for a while, and due to upgrades and whatnot probably hold on to them longer than others in my field. (Though perhaps about as long as non computer types.) Thus my general advice is that a computer should last for about 5 years. Do I eat my own dog food?

Classic II 1991, upgraded once with (10 MB RAM) and once (80 MB HD). (It still runs and has all the original packaging. Anyone want it?) That lasted for 4 years until I got my Power Mac 7500 in 1995. That was one of the most expandable (Mac) machines ever (ram twice, a graphics card, a processor upgrade, and probably something else that I am forgetting) and got me all the way to my first “real” programming job lasting 5 years. Although I did keep using it as a gaming, desktop, and server(!) machine for another three years. It was eventually replace by the Pismo in 2000. That was another awesome and expandable machine, but by this point my care and feeding of macs skills had improved, so it might not actually be all that expandable. In any case it holds a special place because it transitioned me from OS 9 to OS X, which was a beautiful thing. Also it let me surf in the living room which was a nice ability to have when working from home. In any case, it eventually got a little long in the tooth for doing some of the work I was doing (what do you mean you can’t do interactive SVG rendering development on a laptop??) and I got a Dual G5 tower in 2005. This machine (that I am writing on now) absolutely screams. And it still does. The graphics card is a bit out of date at this point, but less than you would think, and any apps that are vector unit aware will blow the pants off of anything else out there still. The main problem is that somewhere between there and now Apple decided to switch over to the crufty (but regularly upgraded) Intel chipset.

So what does all this introspection have to do with anything? Well two items really. First is makes me realize that I’ve only been using this desktop machine for well on three years, and I really have no right to get one of those laptops that I have been drooling over. The one problem is, I don’t have the ability to upgrade this machine like I should since the chipset changed over. No swapping out processors for me. (Ram and disk I could do though…)

The other item is that I am not as cool as I think I am about using older machines. Holy crap! He is using a 13 year old computer and asking advice on how to hook a network computer up to it! That is making me want to break out with the old 7500 and boot it up as a server again. I wonder if YDL is still around?

Let me start by saying that I love our new car. We were on this waiting list that was supposed to go until November, but apparently since we wanted the less expensive version, and were more open to all the different choices (color etc) we got pushed way up front in the line and ended up getting our car in July. Pretty awesome.

(… picture here forthcoming …)

Having gotten that out of the way, allow me to expound on the problem with car dealers[1]. The problem is that they spend so much time screwing with you, that when they actually do make a real mistake (as opposed to just messing with your head) you immediately look for the way in which they are trying to squeeze more money out of you. Like a lemon. A money lemon.

The thing about it is, it has to make their job more miserable as well. I mean I am a pretty even keeled person who is pretty easy to roll (personally, not professionally) but when I get a call from them claiming that I didn’t pay enough money FOR THE CAR I ALREADY BOUGHT, I immediately am yelling at the guy “DUDE NOT COOL!”. Idiots.

Turns out the slip they gave the service department had a different number than the actual receipt we had. I suppose this is better than them not installing the correct feature. I really do think it was a clerical error on their part. But still. Maybe look into it a little before calling the customer.

[1] This is a long, but extremely well written account of life as a car salesman. I really enjoyed reading it, and it actually made me feel a bit better towards car salesmen. (And yes it is men. If there was ever a more testosterone induced job, I don’t know what it is. Arms dealers maybe?) The article also armed me to deal a bit better with this most recent purchase experience. (Heh, hunting down the dealer while he was killing time to make us sweat was pretty fun. In retrospect.)

You can go back, but you can’t go back home. I don’t know how many Infolabbers still read this blog, but it looks like they are tearing down the old 1890 Maple, and putting up a Trader Joe’s. Not quite swapping paradise for a parking lot, but it still does kind of make me sad.

The government takes money from us (taxes) to deliver services (mail). My mail sucks. They never deliver to the correct address, sometimes sticking it in the wrong box in the building, sometimes the wrong building on the street. It also appears, however, that the government also misplaces my taxes. I pay my quarterly taxes every quarter, since I am self-employed. However about half way through the next year I often (this is three times now) get a letter from the Dept. of Revenue fining me for not paying every quarter. I suppose there is some symmetry there. If they can’t keep track of the money I give them, why should they be able to keep track of the letters that others send me?

(FWIW, the checks always clear, they just aren’t credited to my account. Solution? More work for me. Come up with the front and back of the canceled check(s), and write them a letter pleading my case. UGH. First time wasn’t bad, second time was less fun, at this point it is becoming downright tiresome. If they aren’t even going to get it right, why do they make me do the quarterlies?!?! Grrr.)

Another in a long list. My wife got me an iPhone for my birthday. It was very well done, she got me a case, stuck a picture of the phone in the case, and said that we could go get it when the new model comes out. True love. Well, we all know that the new model is coming out on July 11th so I was getting excited and started looking into what I need to do to have my cell phone number follow me. (Being self employed and being that business cards are the only way that I advertise, keeping my cell number is critical.) It looks like it won’t be too hard, but just to be sure I called Sprint (my current carrier).

I knew that my contract was up, because I have had my old phone for almost 4 years, and they keep asking me to extend by getting a new phone. We tried to use that to get my wife a new phone last year, but they wouldn’t let me switch the phone over to her number. (Again with the phone number.) In any case, her contract was up in March, but it turns out mine isn’t up until November!! After much cussing and moaning, it appears that when my contract was up last time, they sweet talked me into another two years by giving me $10 off my monthly bill (along with smaller charges if I went over on minutes.) I totally didn’t remember that, I mean it was a year and a half ago! ($10 x 24 = $240, how they talked me into that I don’t know or remember, but I definitely have the contract that spells it out rather clearly. I guess I didn’t think that I would ever want to get rid of my Treo.)

Grr.

So I asked how much it would be to break the contract given that there are (will be) only 4 months left on the contract. They said $200. I asked how much it would be if there was only 1 month? $200. 1 day? $200. Given my last few interactions with Sprint (see getting wife new phone from above) I was actually planning on leaving them anyway. This is the final nail in the coffin.

Now I just have to figure out the least expensive way to leave them without lying or losing my current phone number. I suppose I could just shell out the $200, but that makes the (admittedly much cheaper) iPhone that much more expensive. I could just wait the four months but I don’t really want to give Sprint another 4 months of business. (And aiiiieee! Waiting 4 months for the shiny!) I could try to find a taker for my cell plan, but I have a hard time believing that someone looking for a short term plan would want mine. Also I don’t know if that interferes with keeping my old phone number.

I could try dropping everything I don’t need, I can get it down to $70/mo. (tax & fees incl.) but that is still more than $200. Then of course there is just waiting until November.

Grr. I hate phone companies.

When I used to go to NYC all the time on a $100 per diem, I had to lower my standards for hotels. I did end up with a few rules however. No garbage on the floor when I enter the room. Nothing else living in the bed but me. Bathroom in the room. That sort of thing. All of those were made from experience. I recently attended an “emergency” wedding in Seattle. This means I didn’t have a lot of time to pick hotels, however it was suggested that La Hacienda might be near the event. It was, but it turns out that was about all it had going for it. I should have read the reviews before reserving a room. One guy claims they had bedbugs (I didn’t even put my bags down) and another said he thought he saw it on Cops. The walls were so thin that it shook with the wind, and didn’t keep the outside weather outside. Suffice it to say, there is a fairly long story involved in what happened next, but I will cut to the chase. New hotel rule:

Hotels must actually provide shelter.

Best wife ever! Makes me breakfast in bed!

Also: Presents! I can has (running) watch! I don’t wear a watch, but have been running some lately and needed one to know how much I am running when not on treadmill. Running watch lets me do that. The radio link to the atomic clock in Ft. Collins, CO was a bit unexpected though. I haven’t gotten a new watch since high school, is that common now-a-days?

I don’t know why, but I just went to the energy star web site to try out their “save money with a new fridge” feature. I’m always interested in eeking the most dollar value for using less energy over time (e.g. CFLs and that sort of thing, high up front cost, but lower lifetime cost) and was wondering how my fridge did. Apparently by switching to an energy star fridge I will save up to $25 over five years.

Hmm. Looking back through the energy star records, my fridge missed the rating by a smidge and then was slightly upgraded in 07 to meet the new standard. That had to have been a good deal when they bought it. Much cheaper because it wasn’t energy star, but actually has the same efficiency as an actual energy star fridge. That is pretty awesome. Sort of maximizes two of my interests: long term and short term price management.

Some people say that Apple is a bad company because it doesn’t provide enough backwards compatibility. Let’s think about that for a minute. 68000 -> PPC chipset transition. Invisible emulation mode provided. OS 6-9 -> OS X transition. Visible OS mode provided. Me running a program I built for an operating system that hasn’t been sold for 10 years by double clicking the app Icon? Priceless.

Too awesome. Unfortunately I do not believe that OS X 10.5 will run OS 9 and even if it did, I have to believe that it doesn’t emulate the 68000 chipset. Of course the main reason they dropped that was the PPC -> Intel transition. *sigh* Maybe I won’t upgrade quite yet. I still love my G5.

I’ve been a big fan of Obama for president for a while now. There are some pretty specific reasons for me. First he is local and I have seen him work across the aisle in Springfield, which is certainly a better example than anyone else in Washington right now. Of course given that poisonous atmosphere he might not be able to continue in that vein. Then there are the policies. Sure he has done his share of pandering (highway bill anyone?) but generally his votes are fairly well defended based on the effect on the country. More importantly he seems to actually think about the implications of his votes, beyond just who stands to make money off of it. His vocal stance against the gas tax holiday is a good example. Guess what people, supply and demand has set a price. That price will stay there even if we cut the taxes. Those funds will just go to the oil companies rather than the federal government.

Which brings me to another of his issues, energy policy. While he isn’t a peak oil doomer like me, he does have a cohesive energy policy that fits squarely with my belief structure. And the best thing about it is that he doesn’t lay claim to knowing the answer. That allows funding to go to alternative promising programs that we can’t even think of yet, instead of pumping all the development cash into turning corn into gas.

And while we are on the subject of gas, lets talk about being elitist. Clinton claims that he is being elitist by not backing the gas tax holiday. Is it elitist to assume that the average american can understand that basic economics says they aren’t going to get anything from a tax holiday, or is is being elitist to assume that the average American’s vote can be bought with a promise that will never come true, because they won’t realize it won’t help until it is too late? I know which one insults me.

And finally, lets talk personal connections and experience. Obama - Wright, worst case scenario? Embarrassment. Clinton - McDougals, McCain - Keating, worst cast scenario? Jail. Maybe a lack of experience is a good thing. I have a conservative neighbor with a lot of pro gun bumper-stickers, and possibly my favorite bumper sticker ever: “All politicians should serve two terms: one in office and one in jail.” I’m starting to believe that. Blago. Stroger.

Update: Apparently the ads in Indy are making me pissy.

Believe it or not, my dad sent this to me. Being a mercenary programmer for hire, I feel like this sometimes. On the other hand, every day I bill out is an honest day’s work.

YouTube - The Job

Turns out it is US 52/41. Round about Fowler’s Ridge. I travel to Indianapolis on a fairly regular basis, and I actually love the drive down I 65. In particular I love watching the seasons change in the farmland. Now that spring is here you can see the green starting to pop up everywhere. Unfortunately, the last time I went down there they had removed the bridge over I 80 near Merrillville. This involved some pain of surface roads in New Chicago and Merrillville. Not a good time. (And I thought Chicago roads were bad. These weren’t pot holes, these were craters.) So I decided to take an alternate route back.

I have to say that was a really enjoyable drive. The US highways were really well maintained, and the barely had any traffic at all. The speed limit was a little slower, but looking at my gas gauge, I think dropping from 75/80 to 65/70 seems to have really jacked up my mileage. (Normally I do 33 or so highway, but my first guesstimate for the return trip is somewhere in the upper 30s!) The nicer items though were the fact that the road is less separated from the towns you are driving through. You get to see a bit more of the scenery, even if you do have to slow down some. Also I got to see the (apparently still in construction) Fowler’s Ridge Wind Farm. (Looked for a good link, only found news articles, and it is so new I can’t even give you a satellite shot from google maps[1].)

The major disadvantage it the long distance between potential bathroom stops. You get used to a McDonald’s at every interchange on I 65.

1 - My favorite not in Google Maps yet is I 355. Turn the overlay on and off and you can see that wile the highway is there on the map, there are only minimal signs that there will be a massive new superhighway there.

Normally I teach a very calm, meditative style martial art. The normal class wasn’t there tonight, so a student from the previous class asked me if I wanted to get hit for a while.

Two hours later…

The interesting thing about being beaten repeatedly is that you realize just how tough the human body is. As long as you keep breathing, and not tensing (and they don’t hit you in the head or other select locations) it is shocking how much of a beating you can take. It takes away some of the fear, and lets you think about what it is you need to do to stop them from hitting you. Either talking them down, connecting to their center via their arm or simply closing behind them to give you more options. All in all a very educational evening. It is good to know that I can get hit hard and still be fluid enough to execute technique.

Also you get a free massage. One of those deep tissue ones. Where the masseuse is a sadist.

Of all the things to greet you first thing in the morning when looking out your bedroom window, the circle of life isn’t what you normally expect. At first I thought there was a very large pigeon out the window, but when I did a double take I noticed that it was a VERY large pigeon. In fact, there was a pigeon, but it was leaving bits of itself on the ground at the HAWK that was holding it down tried to eat it. It was of course trying to get away, but the hawk would have none of that.

There was some effort to get a picture of it, but it was pretty far away, and was quite nervous about any noise or movement. At one point the coopers hawk flew to a neighbor’s porch taking the pigeon with it. Man I wouldn’t want to mess with one of those, a pigeon is like more than half it’s size. Unfortunately I was unable to get a picture of it, but watching it with some binoculars was pretty spectacular. What an amazing animal. Thanks to 24/7 and RPB for letting me know to keep on the lookout for it. Follow the RPB link to see what it looks like when this thing eats. Those feathers do make a mess.

Now this interactive ebb and flow of movie chart from the NYT is totally not something that I needed to see today. I totally should have been hired to write that. Oh the awesome.

I don’t normally talk about work on this blog. But there are some things that require announcement to the world.

1) Product is three weeks behind schedule.
2) Code freeze (no, really, this time.) is tomorrow.
3) It is 5:30 PM at the work site.
4) Email from the designers requesting a major code change.

Ugh. How late is Starbuck’s open again? At least the manager in charge was apologetic.

ob Irony: I have been dealing with a flaw in the design process that caused me to create a part of code on this project in a manner that lacked what I felt was the necessary abstraction for this piece of code. Upon further examination of the code requiring change, had it been built with the proper abstraction in the first place, it would be minimal work to implement the design change. As it is… *sigh* Fortunately I don’t need to change any of the unit tests. (The change removes negative cases, but doesn’t get rid of any positive ones.)

… or, How I Didn’t Go Jogging Today.

So, I went to go jogging in the nearly balmy 45 degrees that it is outside today. This may have been a little premature as there was a pile of ice still in front of the house that didn’t shovel, but not to worry, just jog on the street for a bit. Except that at the end of the street there was a massive pit bull staring at me. I didn’t really know what to do in that situation, since I didn’t have my cell phone, or really anything useful with me, and was going to keep going, except for the fact that the dog seemed really nervous. That is when I noticed that he had some weight hanging off of his neck (the base of a blender!?!). Well, that wasn’t a good sign.

Suffice it to say this was not a dog that I particularly wanted to mess with. (Having grown up with dogs myself, one would think that I am comfortable around dogs. One would be wrong. I knew a pit bull rescue worker once, and that didn’t help in this case.) Fortunately there was a concerned citizen who pulled over and called 911. After making sure that she had in fact called, we noticed that the dog was wandering into the street with oblivious drivers whipping by. After a small moment of panic where some girls from the local school darted after the dog, it came back to the side walk.

It seemed to like the girls more than me. After that it was just a matter of keeping the dog calm, and the girls out of the street. (I never really noticed that kids have a tendency to wander, oblivious to danger, when gathered in a group.) One of the smaller girls held on to the dog for a while (clearly she had a big dog at home!), but whenever I tried to hold on to it, it would become upset and try to get away. The woman who stopped offered to keep it out of the street while I ran back to my place to get some food, water, and a leash from a neighbor who I knew had a dog. Once the dog had some food, he was much calmer, and basically sat around until the police showed up.

Even on a leash (leash for a 2 pound dog hooked up to this 100 pound dog! Wish I had a picture.) the dog still didn’t like men, so the police had as much trouble coaxing it into the car as I did. I offered to run back home and get some more food to tempt it into the car with, and with that they were able to get it into the back seat of their car. (Gotta say, those back seats don’t look comfortable!) And they took it back to the kennels. And brought me back my neighbor’s leash. Now that is service!

Pretty exciting story, but seeing what clearly would have been an extremely friendly dog, so nervous and so excitable really brought me down. It never once growled or snapped, or even made a menacing gesture. It sat down for the girls, and after about 20 minutes was willing to sit for me. It was just scared and confused. When the police brought the leash back they said that it was even playful. They claimed that they are treating it as “lost property”, but I’m not entirely sure that I believe that given what it was being trained for. (Weights on dog’s necks trains them for fighting I learned today.) I just hope that if they really don’t just put it down, that it can find a home where it will receive the care that it needs.

Final comments: awesome job by the police (I don’t remember the badge number, but they were from 24th district). Reasonably quick response, and very patient with both humans and animal. Funniest moment: concerned citizen’s 1/2 the weight of the dog daughter, “mom, we might have to take it home with us!” Mom thought their two kittens might disagree. Saddest moment: I’m afraid the daughter and dog bonded, and the daughter simply wasn’t believing mom’s platitudes about how they don’t kill dogs at the pound any more.

All in all, my affection for humanity dropped a little seeing the dog, but now that I think about all the people who stopped to help, it makes me feel a little better.

So, these guys came to my door about two months ago. They kinda freaked me out since, well, I don’t like people coming to my door. It was just before I went on vacation so I was nervous about them casing the joint, as it were. In any case, they announced themselves as representatives from ComEd. They had uniforms and badges and clipboards (Fletch anyone?). But I locked myself out just in case.

Suffice it to say, they gave the real hard sell. Interestingly they gave enough information to realize that as a company they couldn’t possibly make money in the long run. If you took the time to sit down and run the numbers that they were pitching that is. Those numbers were quite different from the numbers that their literature actually gives. The funny thing is, since I believe in the long term increase of the price of oil, even with their inflated rates, I think they would still have lost money in the long term. Still not worth it to buy in though because they will go out of business long before you actually get your money out of them.

So to cut this boring story short, RPB reports that they actually are scam artists. Lisa Madigan is taking them to court. And here when I was starting to lose my faith in her. The press release is pretty good, and clearly points out the flaws in their offer. The thing it doesn’t point out is that if the energy prices really did spike, US Energy Savings Corp would most likely have gone out of business paying off the more expensive gas prices having blown all the extra cash from when their prices were higher. That is if they just didn’t all run off to Aruba long before then.

Looks like Toshiba calls it quits. I guess I can go out and buy a new (digital) TV and a PS 3 to watch movies off of.

Interesting item in the PCWorld article, the “$24 million DVD market”?? If DVDs tend to cost about $20, they only sell a million a year? That would be 1/3rd of the US buys one DVD a year and no one else in the entire world does. That must be a typo, it has to be $24 billion market.

I am not looking at this until I have finished my big push that I am doing for one of my clients right now.

You, however, may feel free to enjoy the mapstavaganza.