March 2005 Archives
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March 28, 2005
Shocking Pen
This product is just asking for trouble... It shocks you so hard that you'll jump? That's pretty hard. Of course, you should only use it if you're between the ages of 6 and 50 and in good health. No pacemaker warning? What about the 13 year olds doing it just for fun?
Cool Collection of Beetle Pictures
The collection has tons of macro photographs of beetles. Under the lens, they're actually very cool looking, with lots of colors and strange shapes. The site name, "living jewels", is a good description of what they're like.
Thanks for the link to:
ritilan.com: Bug Photos For All.
March 24, 2005
Motorola E725: Some things my Audiovox 8940 doesn't have...
Well, this little phone has a few features I wish my Audiovox 8940 had:
It's got a normal sized plug for a normal pair of headphones. It's got a built-in FM transmitter to send that same music to my car stereo. And it's got forward and back buttons on the front (plus a few others that I don't know the function of). The 8940 can just play and pause (not even stop) from the front.
Motorola E725 Music Phone : Gizmodo
MobileTracker - Motorola E725 announced, music phone
Motorola Mediacenter - Press Releases
March 23, 2005
Now Available from Amazon: 10GHz Tablet with 30 TB of storage!
In a nice database fubar (or worm in a black hole), Amazon now has a Viewsonic Tablet PC with a wimpy 2GB of RAM, but a nice 10GHz processor with 30 TB of storage for a mere $2300. And, the best part? All of that only weighs 14 hundredths of a pound! Sadly, it doesn't have Windows... just DOS. (Link while it's still available.) (via Gizmodo)
The reviews are equally fun:
Well i got one delivered through FedEx (UK Import tax was the usual "through the roof") and the first thing i do is open it up to check out how it's put together. I didnt read the manual. I later found out there's a warning on page 2 about the problems with exposures to black holes, apparently this is how it fits all the neat stuff into such a small space. I lost my glasses... and my daughter. My therapist and lawyer told me not to discuss this with anyone until the lawsuit is over but i feel i should warn others about the dangers, even though it hurts to type from the cancers because of the intense gamma radiation exposure.
So often these problems happen with Amazon. Given the title says 40GB, it's not even a problem with the units being off by a thousand, either... it's just completely goofed.
March 22, 2005
Automated Mobile Video
Note to self: Must do something like this with mobile video (ie in 3GPP or 3GPP2 formats). I've got a VCAST phone now, but I'm not in an EVDO area so I don't have a way of viewing video over-the-air with it (just yet -- if I get some free time, I might hack together my own app to do such a thing). I can, however, copy video files onto it via a data cable. Unlike my Motorola V710, though, this Audiovox 8940 doesn't like to read pictures or video off of it's miniSD card unless they are encrypted/encoded in some way. It will read MP3s, though, so I may have to set up something for podcasting. (Doesn't that sound like it requires an iPod?)
I'll still want a PSP, though. Actually, I still want a DS, but that has more to do with existing content than new content. There haven't been any RPGs for it, yet...
March 21, 2005
Have a magnifying glass ready...
for this crazy website. It's got tons of teeny flash games, and a surprising amount of stuff. It's rather fun to look through, but it can make one cross-eyed.
Everything hits at once...
... and leaves everything in shambles ... especially the blog.
I'll probably be catching up with a mix of back posts and quick posts... there are some things in the last couple of weeks that I don't really want to miss on here, even if they are of a more personal nature than normal.
Of course, work is calling as loud as ever, so this may take some time. ;)
March 7, 2005
Our plumbers...
... are wearing cloth bags over their shoes.
It's kinda cool, actually, that they do that. Other plumbers we've had haven't done that.
March 5, 2005
Yes! We actually did get the Miata back!
Rick at PR Motorsports even called again to confirm that it was done and ready to go.
I got a ride up from a coworker in his 2001 Miata that he just got recently. It's very similar, in all, just some refinements after a couple of years. The cup holders are still in the way of shifting, though. But even the CD player is basically the same (Bose model).
Anyway, the car was sitting out front all ready for me. He showed me the engine block that used to be in the car. It had 5 or 6 holes in it (see crappy camera phone picture).
After about 1/2 hour talking with him I was on my way.
OMG! It's so different than driving the Jeep! It sounds a little different than it did, I think. It's been a while, though, so I can't really tell.
I have to change the oil after 25-50 miles to a non-synthetic type. Then again I need to change at 1,000 miles but at that point, I can use synthetic again. It's at just over 70 miles, so I have to get it changed today. ;)
Murphy Did Ring Today
I've been picking up a coworker to take him to work while his car is being worked on. Just after I picked him up yesterday, a light went off (and the car beeped) on the Jeep console saying, "Check Guages." Well, from what I could tell, it was the only guage saying anything. But then it beeped again, so I checked closer.
Sure enough, the temperature was at about 250 degrees and the voltmeter wasn't reading anything. It was raining quite hard, so I thought maybe some water got into the sensors. I pulled over, let the car cool down (it was clearly over heating) and then went on. This time, the voltmeter was reading normal and the temperature was a little high.
But then the tempurature jumped again and the "Check Guages" light and bell went off. We pulled over at the next pull out. This time, it was really over heating. We opened up the hood again and heard it hissing out the bottom of the radiotor and losing a lot of coolant. *sigh*
I called AAA. Luckily, another coworker who has to go over the hill hadn't gone in yet and he was able to stop by and pick up my passenger. His new ride and the tow truck came at about the same time.
In to the shop the Jeep went. At this point, I had zero cars that ran.
In conclusion, the Jeep came back with a new water pump, hoses, radiator cap, and a new serpentine belt (not sure how this was related, actually). This was all done before the end of the day, but not before I got the Miata back!
March 4, 2005
THE Call Came In!
Yes, PR Motorsports actually did call yesterday. And yes, I'm supposed to be able to pick up our Miata TODAY!
It's about time. They said it'd be done by 10am, which is a good sign. I'll probably swing up there around lunch time.
Naturally, though, it's raining today here. Although the hard top is still on the car, anyway, so it's not too big of a deal. Besides that, the Jeep is technically a convertible, too.
*silly grin*
March 2, 2005
The Power of Cell Phones
This is from AnandTech's write-up on this years Intel Developer Forum conference:
Maloney's keynote started by talking about Intel's involvement in mobile phones, PDAs and flash memory. The first demo of the day was actually quite impressive, even though it wasn't of any new technology.Sean Maloney had two systems setup, a 3 - 4 year old Thinkpad notebook and what appeared to be a similarly old desktop computer. He was playing Meet the Fockers on both platforms, with the Thinkpad clearly dropping frames in the video, while the desktop computer was playing it smoothly. Not too surprising right? Then he lifted the case off of the desktop PC and revealed that the video was playing back on a cell phone - faster than a laptop from 3 - 4 years ago.
This also shows just how much has been put into multimedia accelerating instructions. The processors can't do the same sort of raw computation as a 4 year old machine (assuming it was reasonable close to fast then, as in an 800 Mhz P3 or something) but with all of the coprocessing and specific purpose instructions, in most practical matters a modern cell phone actually is faster. And they certainly have fsater internet connections. ;)
Another Miata Update
So, I got a call late Monday from PR Motorsports. They received the engine from Flyin' Miata Friday afternoon and they expect it to be done by Friday.
He says he'll call Wednesday (that's today!) to let me know if they're on track or if Murphy will be getting in the way.
Given that I'm also expecting a package to get to my on Friday, I have my doubts about getting both things then. In theory, though, all they have to do is put the engine into the car. It's made a little more complex by the fact that it has a turbo, but 5 days should be enough, no?
*crossing my fingers*
