I woke up this morning to this news on the radio:
A beaver running loose on the freeway caused traffic delays in Lake Oswego this morning. The beaver ran up and down the 217 on-ramp from I-5 NB until ODOT workers managed to trap him in a barrel. He was then set free in the woods just off the freeway.
Link even has video:
http://www.1190kex.com/cc-common/news/sections/newsarticle.html?
feed=123543&article=2157358
I finally settled on a HP dv2000t for replacing my old laptop and ordered it with a $200 discount coupon. For just over $800, I got a Core2Duo, 14″ widescreen brightview display, dvd+rw, 1.5 gig ram, 120gig hd, nvidia 7200 graphics card, and Vista Home Premium. I got it a week earlier than planned (it was FedEx’ed from their China manufacturing site). They are super-sleek and nice looking laptops. I really liked the 14″ displays and their bright glossy finish. The wireless remote that hides in the PCIe slot is a nice touch and the fact you can watch DVD’s using the surface touch buttons without actually having to boot the machine is super cool.
Alas, after a week of use, it would randomly and instantly power off in the middle of watching videos or playing games. I figured out that anything that got the system hot would cause it to happen, not unlike what some MacBook users were experiencing (http://macbookrandomshutdown.com). I called support and they graciously offered to fix it. They paid for next-day shipping both ways – and I only lost my machine for a total of 5 days. When I got the machine back, it did some weird driver reloading at startup. I checked the device list and the nVidia 7200 was gone and the cheaper/slower Intel 945 was in its place. Sigh, they’d put the wrong motherboard in it.
Worse still, I couldn’t use the system re-install disks in it since ‘the hardware didn’t match’. Stupid locked OS install disks. I call support and back it goes again. Sigh. I certainly hope they fix it this time. The case got escalated (not by me even), and I was promised that if it wasn’t fixed this time, I’d get a new machine. I will hand it to HP’s customer service – they are good at not stonewalling you and do the right thing for the customer but I just want my working machine back. Can’t wait to get to really using it.
The Thoracic and Cardiovascular Institute at Michigan State University presented a paper at an annual meeting in Denver that says iPods can and do interfere with pacemaker operation – up to and including causing the pacemaker to stop functioning altogether when held anywhere from 2-18 inches from the device.
Now, iPods are all the rage, but I for one have just never been sold on them. They are slick and I like the wheel interface; but they are overpriced and don’t do what I need. I bought a 2gig iRiver that also has a FM RADIO, is about 1/3 the size of an iPod so I can run with it, RECORDS mp3’s off any source – including recording a radio program (which I do all the time), and runs on a single AA battery for weeks – all for $69. For this price, you could barely get a refurb shuffle with none of those features.
But what I marvel over is how amazing Apple is at its marketing and image control. They have a CEO that is in dutch for some stock backdating, MacBooks with exploding batteries (well, everyone had that for a while), have the industries most vicious reputation for suing and prosecuting bloggers that out info about upcoming products, people with bending and warping laptop cases because of heat and corroding connectors, is notorious for denying problems then later quietly offering replacements, were just labeled by Greenpeace as the most eco UN-friendly computer company (after IBM and Dell for heavens sake) when even Al Gore is on their board of directors(!). They’ve also been catching flack from the security community because they don’t announce known security holes and ETA’s for the fixes (you did know they have security holes and have been quietly patching them right?), and now iPods that might actually kill you. Yet they are still seen as the most forward-thinking, user-friendly company for the creative class out there.
The fun part is that I doubt this even makes the slightest dent in their image.
I got one of those Snapple drinks with the ‘Little Known Facts’ under the cap. Well, it claimed that:
The only English word that rhymes with spaghetti is confetti.
Well, I believe that ‘machete’ also rhymes with them both. Still, one might argue that spaghetti, confetti, and machete aren’t really English-rooted words. But it does make me a little more optimistic about my rarely-flexed syllabic balladry skills. Guess you can’t believe everything you read on a bottle-cap.
Conan O’Brien made a trip to Intel in Santa Clara – one of the oldest sites – and it’s pretty funny. The building he was in is by far the ugliest/worst I’ve ever seen (our buildings here in Oregon are much better/more colorful/newer/etc)
Still, it’s quite funny and a lot of the cube-land jokes are pretty good.
Had the flu for the last solid week. Ugh. It started with a night of aweful cold chills and sweating, then 2 days of body aches, then it moved to my head for conjestion, coughing, and ears plugged up by fluid. After 7 days, it’s finally broken. I’ve heard of two other people who have now gotten this same progression of misery – so be on your lookout and know it’ll knock you out for a whole week.
I’m not much of a zealot about most grass-roots stuff, but the Copyright Royalty Board has raised rates for internet radio stations by hundreds of percent to play songs online. I, for one, listen to lots of internet radio at work – and this stinks because it will put some good stations out of business.
These guys (http://capwiz.com/saveinternetradio/home/) have a great system that allows you to enter your name/address and it will find your reps – then allow you to automatically fax or email them. You can also print and snail mail them. Takes about 30 seconds total unless you want to customize the message. This is the way petitions should work.
I didn’t notice it last season; but the BBC revived Dr. Who. Not the old, shabby ones done on a $10 budget per episode, but now with (only) slightly more believable computer generated effects. It’s not the effects that makes me want to see more, however, its the fact they have comprehensible plots and fun action that are actually interesting. It’s still got a bit of a handy-cam feel, but the actors are much more interesting and fun to watch. Someone mentioned it’s on SciFi, but I don’t have cable. The one episode I saw with them traveling back to the time of Shakespeare was fun and entertaining – I hope they do well.
Here’s the link to the new series: http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/
Well, put the latest performance review’s positive outcome to some new hardware this weekend.
First off, bought a new case since my old one wasn’t cutting it with the RAID drives and keeping everything cool. These were on smoking sale at Fry’s so I bought a limited edition Antec P182 – which comes in a wicked-cool gun-metal color.
I can’t say enough about the great fan layout which is super-silent and keeps everything very cool inside (each fan is 3 speed 120mm with external speed control and external removable lint traps for easy cleaning). The style, silent operation, excellent airflow, and functionality (the front audio jacks actually work on this case – finally!) are complimented by the ability to mount any board and its ample drive bays (each drive mounting point has rubber shock mounts and the drive bays have a silky smooth slide operation) which accommodate my 1.2 terabyte RAID just nicely. I have a feeling I’ll be using this case for years to come.
Next up was to finally replace my old laptop. I finally sold my old Dell Inspiron 8000 (P3, 1gig ram, XP, etc). It was a great laptop – the first model to have a 3D accelrator in it (gforce 2) – but weighed a ton and was just too bulky with its old 15″ rectangular screen (they didn’t have widescreen back then). I actually got $450 for the whole setup – about $100 more than I thought. However, compare that to when I found the paperwork and discovered I paid $2700 for it when it came out in 2001 – ouch.
Swallowing that lesson on technologies’ steep capital depreciation curve and vowing not to spend over $1000 ever again, I used the cash towards a new HP dv2000t. It’s a 14″ widescreen Core 2 Duo, 1gig ram, 120gig hd, 128meg nvidia gforce 7200 graphics card, dvd-dl burner, built-in webcam, vista home premium, 802.11/b/g, works, and usual bundleware. I found a $200 off coupon (thanks NotebookForums) and got it all for $800. I really fell in love with the glossy finish and style of this laptop after looking at many 14″ notebooks. Outside of a Mac, I think it’s one of the nicest looking laptops around. I settled on the 14″ because 15″ simply got too big for me anymore. This one was super-nice sized – fits in carrying satchel’s pockets very easily, was very light (tiniest power supplies I’ve seen), was more than powerful enough to play simple 3d games, ran Photoshop CS2, Visual Studio, Office apps, Dreamweaver, etc. On top of that, you don’t even need to boot it to watch dvd’s, just use the touch buttons on the surface. Can’t wait till it arrives in 2 weeks.
An interesting side note is that I got much more for my old Dell laptop on craigslist than what it was selling for on ebay. Similar laptops sold for $275-$325 on ebay, but I had bidding wars all the way to $450 on craigslist. Probably because you meet face-to-face with craigslist (ebay is full of laptop scams), but also people seem to really *REALLY* want used laptops on craigslist. Got a number of starving arts/student types. Interesting.
GREAT little conceptual/visual 3D building blocks game. Find out it you’re right brained. Quite fun – beat it in about 30 minutes, and on puzzle 8 – even figured out how to do it in 12 blocks instead of the 16 they think it took. 😉