September 2004 Archives
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September 29, 2004
September 28, 2004
September 27, 2004
Learn all about energizer batteries...
Technical Marketing Datasheets
This web site, by energizer, has a lot of interesting information on their batteries, including capacities of most of their batteries. That is, you can lookup the milliamp hours of everything from a button battery to the latest AA alkaline.
September 25, 2004
Mobile Final Fantasy Game
BEFORE CRISIS -FINAL FANTASY VII-
Looks like Square is doing a mobile final fantasy game. It looks like it could be pretty cool. It even apparently uses the camera for some input pieces with certain types of magic. Interesting.
Of all of the odd ring tones out there...
This one takes the prize home as being the oddest:
September 22, 2004
FireWire memory keys
As if USB 1.1 and USB 2.0 weren't pervasive enough, we now have a firewire one. Unfortunately, it's rather large and it also needs to use the larger 6-pin connector to get power. And the speed, at 400 megabit, is slower than USB 2.0 but still much faster than pretty much any flash media can do.
What OS are you?
So, over at slashdot they had a little poll on "if you were an OS what OS would you be?" and I quickly answered DOS because I'm kinda single minded when it comes to things (you know, one track sort of thing... say, if I want something, I won't think about anything else until either I get it or I get border with thinking about it) but I can be interrupted easily.
So, then I go off to the little quiz posted there, answering somewhat realistically (yes, I showered this morning) and somewhat for fun (yes, I'll pull out the stick and beat the person senseless for saying something false) and I got this:
Now really, I had no idea what was what and it's probably partially random. But slackware? I used it for years... odd.
September 21, 2004
Comprehensive memory card speed chart
It's a large (and on my machine, slow) PDF chart, but it contains read, write, and seek times for a ton of cards from a ton of different readers. It includes CF, MS, SM, SD, and MMC -- and maybe a few I missed.
Memory Card Readers and Memory Cards - Sequential Read Rates and Random Access Times
Not a pocketbike
nor is it a powered scooter. It's not really even a powered skate board, but that's getting close...
Interesting photography site
This is an interesting site. It seems some people take photographs of the various vehicles they see on a stretch of road very popular among sport drivers, called The Gap (somewhere in NC, I gather). They then sell the pictures to anyone interested in buying them. I've never seen this service along a public road, but I have seen it on rivers for white water rafters and such. It's similar to the cameras amusment parks install on rides.
Around my area there are a lot of roads that enthusiasts enjoy. I've never seen this done though. I wonder if there is some sort of opportunity there? I wonder if any [real] money can be made or if it's just weekend hobby money?
Blast from the past
A friend recently posted some pictures on the web from somewhere around '92 (some before that, too). I was in one of them. How very odd.
I had almost completely forgotten about it. And when I look at the picture the first thing I think is, "Everything is gonna get wet!" Well, I probably didn't have a cell phone or PDA in my pocket back then -- and my watches were always waterproof.
September 20, 2004
Speaking of Great Whites
Laurie just put up an article and some video that discusses her trip to South Africa as well as our recent excursion to Monterey Bay Aquarium to see the little white shark.
I'm sure we'd be going almost everyday if we lived closer to the aquarium. ;)
Now for a little comic relief...
This guy apparently didn't see the lake... or something. Although it looks like a road was cleared, so maybe it was the snow plows fault?
Fun weekend at the Monterey Bay Aquarium
After hearing about the arrival of a young (great) white shark at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, we looked up information on the web and ultimately took a drive down there to have a look.
Currently, she is the only white shark in an aquarium and the only white shark to eat at an aquarium (last year, they had one in an ocean pen eat). Previously, great white sharks have only survived for up to 16 days in captivity. Everyone is very hopeful about this one.
She was really quite spectactular to see in the million gallon tank. By no means was she the biggest (or smallest) fish in the tank, but she was quite different from the rest of the sharks and tunas in the tank.
This was very special for Laurie because she loves sharks (and studied marine biology before focusing on software) and went great white diving in South Africa last year (where we'll both be going next year).
Hopefully we'll be able to get out to the aquarium in a weekend or two with a good camera -- and hopefully she'll still be in good health!
September 18, 2004
September 13, 2004
Back from Vacation
And what a vacation it was. Firstly, it went really well and we did a lot. However, almost nothing was done according to play other than when we left and when we got back.
Originally, we were going to drive up through Oregon and then go straight to Rainier National Park. After that, we'd go up to Sequim, then over to Seattle, then north to Vancouver, take the ferry from there to Victoria, drive around the island some, and then take the ferry back over to Port Angeles. From there, we would go up to Hurricane Ridge and then drive west arount the Olympic Peninsula, spending some time at the Hoh Rain Forest and the coast. After that we would head south along the Oregon coast, and then go inland to Eugene and visit my aunt and uncle. Finally, we'd come straight back down 5 to home.
Well, what actually happened was:
We went north as planned, nearly making Oregon the first night. However, when we got near Washington we turned east and drove up the Columbia River gorge seeing lots of waterfalls. We then turned north towards Rainier, but some bad maps (from AAA even) and some late night, tiring driving we ended up in Olympia well after dark (actually, it was closer to morning -- 3:30am). From there, we just went straight to Sequim and hung out at the Game Park for a while before going to my mom's place.
We staying in Sequim a couple of nights, and then as planned we headed over to Seattle where we met up with a friend of mine. A relaxing BBQ lunch and dinner and a night there and we headed off. We had already decided to go to Vancouver the long way (heading easy to circle through the Cascades) but by the time we left we had decided to head east even further and go to Glacier National Park (in Canada) and Banff. After going there we headed south east into Glacier National Park in Montana and then south from there into Yellowstone and the Tetons where we camped and got to see lots of animals. In all of the parks we went to, we saw Grizzly and Black bears, elk, bison, deer, moose, bison herds on the road, elk herds, many different birds, and mountain goats.
From the Tetons, we sped south towards 80 via Idaho and booked it across Nevada and CA to make it home. Our last day of driving was over 740 miles with a trip total of just under 5,000 miles.
Laurie will be putting many pictures up on her phlog from this trip. I only put a couple up, and only from camera phones, on mine. It's also clear that not all of mine got there -- luckily I CC'd my gmail account the whole time.
