Project Insomnia: 12/01/2004

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, December 24, 2004

Sure it's a killer, but look at that suction!

El Reg reports on an attack by a Dyson vacuum cleaner.

Norman Grant told Aberdeen Sheriff Court how on 3 March 2002, as he was trying to tackle "high cobwebs" at his home, the hose extension "suddenly knocked him down his stairs". Grant suffered wrist and head injuries in the incident, exact details of which are not forthcoming.

Grant came face-to-face with the homicidal machine for a second time when he went to court to plead for damages. In the event, he settled for a unnamed sum understood to be in excess of £10,000.

I know two people with one of these. To both of you: watch your backs!

|| Andrew, 11:23 PM || || link

Thursday, December 23, 2004

Make-a-Flake

Even if you're only dreaming of a white Christmas, you can make your own snowflakes in this clever Flash game.

|| Andrew, 11:57 AM || || link

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Finally, a bat after Barry

The Chronicle's Henry Schulman and John Shea report that Moises Alou is coming to the Giants: The Giants are planning to give their manager a Christmas present: his son, wrapped in a San Francisco uniform.

The club has reached an agreement with free-agent outfielder Moises Alou on a two-year contract that will not be finalized until he passes a physical on Monday, two sources told The Chronicle on Wednesday. Alou would shift from left field to right and join Barry Bonds and Marquis Grissom in one of oldest outfields in major-league history. This should be just what the Giants need, specifically in the fifth slot after Bonds. The younger Alou last played for his father in Montreal from 1992-96.

|| Andrew, 11:43 PM || || link

Santa must have stopped by early last night

Because my free iPod was waiting at the door when I got home very late. It's charging now.

It's kind of funny; I'd never actually held one or even seen one very close up. Seen 'em on TV, sure. Seen the humongous signs at the Apple store in Palo Alto, yep. I didn't realize how tiny it really is--and this is the full-size model! Ah, 20GB of pocket-size goodness.

|| Andrew, 1:21 PM || || link

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

EPIC 2014: A future history of the media

Watch this Flash movie (select a mirror from the list) and then sit back and think about it. I don't know that I agree with some of the predictions, but the ideas are intriguing.

|| Andrew, 2:38 PM || || link

Monday, December 20, 2004

R3m0\/3!

For the last week, I've been running an experiment wherein I am clicking every "remove me" or "unsubscribe" link in the copious spam I receive. My thinking is that I already get a ton (around 100/day) and this could only help. Anecdotal evidence from others who have tried the same thing seems to point to at least a temporary reduction in spam after unsubscribe attempts. It is interesting (where "interesting" here means "not very surprising") to note that at least half of the unsubscribe links go to the same set of pages, a good percentage of those left are dead links, and the rest don't have links at all.

I'll follow up when I have any results, whether more or less spam.

|| Andrew, 11:11 AM || || link

Sunday, December 19, 2004

Easy as 3-2-1

I could understand, though was disappointed by, the A's trading Tim Hudson. After all, he had one year left before free-agency, and the A's have been burned three times running in that situation (Damon, Giambi, Tejada). So they were able to get something useful for him, and it's sad to see him go, but that's life. Now, however, comes the news that Oakland has sent Mark Mulder to the Cardinals.

Citing the need to continue to improve in creative ways, given the team's limited budget, Beane traded Mulder, a two-time All-Star, for right-handed pitchers Dan Haren and Kiko Calero and minor-league catcher Daric Barton.

"We're not looking at just right now, but on the horizon,'' Beane said. "We wanted to get progressively better, rather than stay with the status quo. I felt that (status quo) would be the riskier road to take.''

Mercury News sportswriter Mark Purdy weighs in:

It isn't just that the Bigger Two of the Big Three have been traded for the Far Lesser Six (the players obtained by the A's in return). Those are the headline numbers. But it is the other numbers that matter most, the ones in the box scores.

The trade Saturday of Mark Mulder, in the wake of Tim Hudson's departure on Thursday, means that far too many quality innings have left the roster. Starting with the 2000 season, Hudson and Mulder have combined to win 162 games. Over those five years, the team has won 483 games.

In other words, in this decade, one out of every three victories by your Oakland Athletics has come courtesy of Hudson or Mulder.

And now they're gone. Vamoosed. Shipped out the door like so many holiday packages, in exchange for some questionable fruitcake recipes.

Like a tinfoil-hat wearing nomad outside the gates of Area 51, I want to believe. Billy Beane, don't let us down again.

|| Andrew, 12:11 PM || || link

Everything you ever wanted to know about BitTorrent

The Register is hosting an academic paper analysing the BitTorrent P2P file-sharing system. While somewhat dry and statistically-oriented, the paper provides useful information for those interested in using or finding out more about BitTorrent.

Edit: This morning brings news that Suprnova.org along with other BitTorrent host sites have gone dark.

|| Andrew, 11:28 AM || || link

Friday, December 17, 2004

Secrets of Firefox 1.0

You've all switched away from evil IE now, right? Using Mozilla Firefox, perhaps? Here is a useful article on Secrets of Firefox 1.0, where you can find tips on getting the best performance out of your new browser.

|| Andrew, 10:11 PM || || link

Gifts for those impossible people who have everything

The Arts & Sciences department of the University at Buffalo, New York, has put up this page of holiday gift ideas for academics, students, and generally the person who has everything.

|| Andrew, 10:40 AM || || link

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Free flatscreen... maybe

Since I seem to have finished the free iPod requirements (though the iPod looks to be in shipping limbo at the moment) I thought I'd give another one a try: free flatscreens. It works the same way; I need eight people to follow that link and complete a free or almost-free offer. Each person who does can then get eight referals of their own, and so on. The offers I had to chose from were things like a free trial of Blockbuster's online DVD rental service and Audible.com's $2.99 trial offer.

My only warning is that you should use a disposable email address to sign up. To help out with this, I'll be happy to provide a Gmail invite to anyone who follows my referal link.

|| Andrew, 5:24 PM || || link

Microsoft reinvents its own wheel

With the news about Microsoft's new MSN Desktop Search comes this article from The Inquirer describing how you can use Windows' existing Indexing Service to acheive the same ends. In fact, it's already on your computer, and most likely active. They just don't tell you how to use it.

|| Andrew, 12:22 PM || || link

Monday, December 13, 2004

Digital Photography Review

A link from a Slashdot story comment led me to DPreview's Digital Camera Buying Guide. This neat Web application lets you narrow down your digital camera choices by selecting which features matter to you. It seems the one for me is the Nikon Coolpix 8800. As Jennifer says, "that's quite a camera".
It would indeed be a definite upgrade from the good old Sony Mavica FD7.

|| Andrew, 4:02 PM || || link

Friday, December 10, 2004

iPod

If the freeiPods thing isn't a total scam, I should be receiving mine within a week; I managed to get five people to sign up with my referer number. Thanks to those who did, I really appreciate it. Unfortunately, I won't be able to choose one of these models.

However, there is the new possibility of changing the embedded graphics and icons used by the iPod: engadget and cnowak have the details.

|| Andrew, 8:36 PM || || link

Thursday, December 09, 2004

Use it or don't, but you don't lose it

Did you know that the common corporate "use it or lose it" vacation policy is illegal in California?

Q. My employer’s vacation policy provides that if I do not use all of my annual vacation entitlement by the end of the year, that I lose the unused balance. Is this legal?

A. No, such a provision is not legal. In California, vacation pay is another form of wages which vests as it is earned (in this context, "vests" means you are invested or endowed with rights in the wages). Accordingly, a policy that provides for the forfeiture of vacation pay that is not used by a specified date ("use it or lose it") is an illegal policy under California law and will not be recognized by the Labor Commissioner.

I'll be (very politely) bringing this to the attention of my employer as the year draws to a close. I'm actually in the red as far as vacation time goes, but others with whom I work are in the position of forfeiting earned vacation due to deadlines.

|| Andrew, 9:17 PM || || link

Why does all the cool stuff come out in Asia first?

What I get for reading news late in the day is that this surefire Slashdot fodder already has over 300 comments by the time I go to submit it. Interesting read, though:

Let's call him Johnny Sokko. A deputy assistant office manager and aspiring rock guitarist, Johnny lives in Tokyo in a cramped three-bedroom apartment shared with his parents and his teenage sister. Upon waking up in the morning, Johnny stumbles to the bathroom to answer the call of nature using the household's amazing Matsushita-brand Smart Toilet, which automatically measures his weight, body fat, blood pressure and urine sugar and sends the results to the Sokko family physician via the Internet. Over breakfast, he checks his daily schedule on his Sharp Zaurus SL-C3000 -- the first PDA to feature a 4-gigabyte internal hard drive -- and confirms he's free until noon. Great; he can spend the morning trying to beat the Puzzle Bobble Pocket high score his sister rang up on his brand-new Sony PlayStation Portable.

Oh, and we're back from vacation. Sorry I haven't posted since we've been back; it's just been crazy catching up.

|| Andrew, 2:22 PM || || link

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Project Insomnia