Project Insomnia

Project Insomnia is many things, but in this context it is simply a "braindump" of whatever I happen to be thinking/reading/watching/doing at the moment. Parental guidance suggested.

Friday, June 12, 2009

Show me the FIOS

The next thing that should be piped into my home is without a doubt fiber optic connectivity via FIOS or someone else. ComcastBusiness cable internet is proving to be quite satisfactory--paying extra for the business-class account means no b.s., no port blocking and English-speaking support if I ever need it (which, so far, I haven't)--but its bandwidth doesn't measure up to the raw speed of fiber.


Fiber Optic Vortex

It won't be solar-powered electricity, that's for sure. We had an engineer from Regrid Power out to do an evaluation of our roof and determined that it's unsuitable in almost every way; wrong orientation, wrong angle, too much shade, barrel tiles difficult to work with.



Our next likely option for energy-efficiency is replacing the rather old standard water heater with a tankless model.

|| Andrew, 10:12 AM || || link ||

Thursday, June 11, 2009

The Obsolete Man (or, now what do I do with this?)

In less than 24 hours all full-power broadcast TV stations in the U.S. will flip a switch to stop broadcasting their analog TV signals and will only broadcast TV signals in digital.

This will make my cherished Casio TV-400 LCD minature color television obsolete. I bought it in early 1990 from a Radio Shack store in a shopping mall near Fort Gordon, GA, where I was stationed for the second half of my Army training. Getting the common room TV tuned to whatever station "Star Trek: The Next Generation" was on was generally not going to happen, so this was my solution.



Since then, the little TV-400 has been useful now and again for baseball games (bring it to the stadium to see the instant replays they won't show on DiamondVision), for breaking news (brought it to the office on 9/11) and, with the appropriate adapter, as a quick way to see if a given cable-TV outlet was active.


As of tomorrow, all but the final use will no longer be possible, and as cable TV companies gradually move their entire service to digital that one won't last much longer either. I could always get a government-subsidized digital-analog converter box, but for a tiny portable TV that seems kind of silly.

It still works perfectly and I am loathe to simply throw it away (e-waste recycle it, that is). What would you do with it and why?
|| Andrew, 1:09 PM || || link ||

Escape to somewhere luxurious and decadent, with no extradition treaty

If I needed to make a quick getaway and had the resources, I'd head to Macau.

Or maybe Singapore, or maybe I'd just buy an island.

|| Andrew, 9:06 AM || || link ||

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

My MacBook Pro will help pass the time on jury duty...

...assuming the jury waiting room has WiFi. Please.

I've had jury duty twice since moving to the Bay Area, once in Redwood City and once in South San Francisco (both San Mateo County). Redwood City in 2002 or so did not have WiFi in their jury waiting room, and it was in the basement of a Cold War-looking government building so no cell signal either. I brought a book. South SF in 2007-ish did have WiFi which was very much appreciated.

|| Andrew, 9:05 AM || || link ||

Friday, June 05, 2009

Procrastinations

A no-particular-order list of stuff I've been putting off and hope to work on (at least some of) this weekend.

|| Andrew, 3:22 PM || || link ||

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Marine Mammal Center ready for patients, people -- SFGate

(Lacy Atkins / The Chronicle)
A harbor seal pup studies his surroundings as volunteer Stephanie Behasa feeds the seals at the Marine Mammal Center. (Lacy Atkins / The Chronicle)

Click through to read the wonderful article on SFGate by Jane Kay, Chronicle environment writer.
|| Andrew, 8:16 PM || || link ||

Kings Canyon / Sequoia, May 29-31


Click any image in the slideshow to see a larger version.
|| Andrew, 5:28 PM || || link ||

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Testing two different filters on Nikon D60. Please comment!


Testing UV and Neutral Density filters, alone and stacked. The ND filter can stack on top of the UV but not the other way around. Trying to figure out which to use and when, stacked or not.
|| Andrew, 8:26 PM || || link ||

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

A few thoughts on Prop 8

Now that the California Supreme Court has ruled that a simple majority
may take away rights from a minority, where does it stop? Perhaps a
vocal group opposed to left-handed red-haired nearsighted software
engineers will decide I'm not allowed to drive, or own property, or
vote. Everyone is part of some minority; every small group is
vulnerable to victimization by the faceless majority.

For starters, I suggest an amendment to the state Constitution which
removes basic rights from Supreme Court justices.

|| Andrew, 10:05 AM || || link ||

Monday, May 25, 2009

This weekend...

... along with numerous "little" things like laundry, cleaning, etc,
we removed a broken point-of-use water heater; drained and flushed the
main water heater; took apart, cleaned and reassembled the Dyson
vacuum; moved the portable AC unit from the hall to the guest bedroom--
this involved re-doing the window baffle for a larger window--so it
now cools more of the upstairs area; and purchased and put together
some patio furniture for the SunPorch.

I think we got a lot done. Pleased.

|| Andrew, 8:52 PM || || link ||

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