fyi - can't multiply cause of work, so I've become a twitter man... that's where I do my updating... if you twitter, my id is my last name...

Yeah, really.

Only took that organization like five years to see what the rest of the football world sees... 'bout time!

New job (back to consulting) and current client blocks 'social networks', so I may have to make my return here until the situation changes.

What really sucks is hurricane ike destroyed Cincinnati, and I've been without power at home since Sunday, so even if I wanted to blog on multiply, I can't...

Stay tuned, I suppose...

What happens when a Google camera vehicle needs a fill-up?
Google Gets Gas

There's an old comic that appeared in Dragon Magazine, of the DM to the players:
"... and that passage leads to the unfinished part of the dungeon you feel strangely compelled to avoid."

Sometimes you find that on web sites too. And what's more fun than finding such a site on Google?

I backed into a way to find some street level data that evidently is NOT yet linked into the main data base. Here's how to see some of it:

Follow this link - it will set up a route from one of the repeaters I maintain, just outside of Hutchinson, KS, to KCK. The important bit here is that one endpoint of the journey ends where there is a street view available.

Next, make sure you have the "street view" enabled.

Then, re-calculate the route. You should now have a camera icon at the first turn of the route. If you click it, you will be right outside the gate of the site. That's a 1400' tower, by the by, and my antennas are up at 1200'. Also, that road is a muthaphucker of a washboard - I feel sorry for the poor Googlites going down it.

You cannot zoom into the Hutchinson area and keep the street view yet - I'm guessing they are in the process of loading the data and linking it in, and haven't finished yet.

I've found quite a few areas that are in this "Schroedinger's Cat" state - it looks like there is going to be a drop soon.

Looking at the area around my house (no, I'm not giving a link) I've been able to data this sometime last fall (i.e. September to October, 2008).

(Google folks: If you read this, take US160 from Medicine Lodge to Coldwater, and take US166 from Arkansas City to Riverton. We actually DO have scenic roads in Kansas, they just aren't the major ones.)

Yes, yes yes! It has finally happened. According to slashfilm, Uwe Boll has mentioned that if an online petition gets to 1,000,000 votes he'll stop making movies. For all of humanity, please go sign this petition! Last I saw, it was only to 96,543... we need more signatures!

This is a repost of a story I've put up on Technocrat:

As a variant of the old "tree falling in a forest" question, if a radio DJ blabs for an hour and nobody hears him because he forgot to hit the "Live" button, is he still annoying? Well, an intrepid DJ in the UK has tried to provide an answer.

This is a pet peeve of mine, and I'll address this to the (probably very small) set of DJs that might read Technocrat:

I don't listen to FM radio to hear you yap. I don't care what you think of the previous song, the next song, the weather, politics, the latest Hollyweird scandal, sports, the latest sports scandal, local events, or anything else. I don't care to hear you braying like a jackass over your not-funny "jokes" - no matter how much you horselaugh, you aren't going to make me think the joke's funny.

To put it bluntly: You suck. Every second you talk sucks. If you talk for more than a couple of seconds I will change the channel. If I wanted to listen to talk radio I'd be down on the AM dial. All I want to hear out of your gob is

• The artist and title of the previous "N" songs (where "N" should be larger than 3)
• The artist and title of the upcoming "N" songs
• Any news of critical importance: severe weather alerts, traffic alerts, and matters of world altering importance (hint: if kids won't be studying the event in history class fifty years from now, it isn't important.)
• Station ID *when required by the FCC* (as in, I don't need to hear that I am listening to "Bob FM" every five seconds - I am a man, not a goldfish.)

The only reason I am listening to radio rather than my MP3 player is that I've listened to my music collection until the edges are worn off the 1's. So have a nice frosty glass of shut up and play the next song.

This comes from shadow wrought, stoolpigeon, JC, Smitty, and originally, I think, RM6f9

Post a comment to this thread, and I will:

1. Tell you why I befriended you.
2. Associate you with something - fandom, a song, a color, a photo, etc..
3. Tell you something I like about you.
4. Tell you a memory I have of you.
5. Ask something I've always wanted to know about you.
7. In return, you must post this in your Journal/Blag/whatever.


Update: Ahh, the 2 minute rule... killing my productivity from answering all these... I'll get to you eventually, but it'll be off and on over the next day or two. Sorry!

Slashdot did it years ago with zoo.pl, but now the Foes List is finally coming to Facebook. It's about damn time!

This feels like a mega-spam entry, and I'm very self conscious about posting it, but I'm excited about this and I wanted to share . . .

I just published my third book, The Happiest Days of Our Lives. I mention it here because it's all about growing up in the 70s, and coming of age in the 80s as part of the D&D/BBS/video game/Star Wars figures generation, and I think a lot of Slashdot readers will relate to the stories in it.

I published a few of the stories on my blog, including Blue Light Special. It's about the greatest challenge a ten year-old could face in 1982: save his allowance, or buy Star Wars figures?

After our corduroy pants and collared shirts and Trapper Keepers and economy packs of pencils and wide-ruled paper were piled up in our cart, our mom took our three year-old sister with her to the make-up department to get shampoo and whatever moms buy in the make-up department, and my brother and I were allowed to go to the toy department.

"Can I spend my allowance?" I said.

"If that's what you want to do," my mom said, another entry in a long string of unsuccessful passive/aggressive attempts to encourage me to save my money for . . . things you save money for, I guess. It was a concept that was entirely alien to me at nine years old.

"Keep an eye on Jeremy," she said.

"Okay," I said. As long as Jeremy stood right at my side and didn't bother me while I shopped, and as long as he didn't want to look at anything of his own, it wouldn't be a problem.

I held my brother's hand as we tried to walk, but ended up running, across the store, past a flashing blue light special, to the toy department. Once there, we wove our way past the bicycles and board games until we got to the best aisle in the world: the one with the Star Wars figures.

I'm really proud of this book, and the initial feedback on it has been overwhelmingly positive. I've been reluctant to mention it here, because of the spam issue, but I honestly do think my stories will appeal to Slashdotters.

After the disaster with O'Reilly on Just A Geek, I've decided to try this one entirely on my own, so I'm responsible for the publicity, the marketing, the shipping, and . . . well, everything. If this one fails, it will be because of me, not because a marketing department insisted on marketing it as something it's not.

Of course, I hope I can claim the same responsibility if (when?) it finds its audience . . . which would be awesome.

(The following is a copy of a posting I made to Technocrat, just in case there are any fans of mine who don't read Technocrat, and who are hams)

Well, we are T-5 days and counting to Route 66 On the Air 2007, 8th Sept. 2007 to 16th Sept. 2007. I will be out in Riverton, Kansas, representing the fine state of Kansas and reminding everybody that, yes, Route 66 does go through Kansas.

I'll be operating as W6M, an official Route 66 On the Air station. Any Technocrat readers who want to make the trip to The Eilser Brothers General Store, please do!

Also, if anybody cares to head over to Wikipedia and state that you feel that this is at least as notable as every minor character in Yu-Gi-Oh, be my guest.

The frequencies this year are:

. 80 meters | 40 meters | 30 meters | 20 meters | 17 meters | 15 meters | 12 meters | 10 meters | 6 meters
CW 3533 kHz | 7033 kHz | 10110 kHz | 14033 kHz | 18080 kHz | 21033 kHz | 24900 kHz | 28033 kHz | 50033 kHz
SSB 3866 kHz } 7266 kHz } N/A | 14266 kHz | 18164 kHz | 21366 kHz | 24966 kHz | 28466 kHz | 50166 kHz

I'll be operating SSB mostly, probably in 20 meters, but it will depend upon the band conditions. Hopefully, this year I should have a G5RV up about 50 feet for the whole event, rather than operating most of the event on the screwdriver on my car like last year. I may have a few other operators show up as well (I sure HOPE so!), but I'll try to operate as much as I can.

Here's the sponsor's web page, as well as The Wichita Amateur Radio Club's page (my club's page).

I am a professional software engineer. I make my living THINKING - long, hard and deeply. Interruptions are very expensive, and I don't suffer them lightly. Magazines, email, and things like this journal entry aren't interrupts: they are tasks I run when I am blocked on my main tasks (e.g. during compiles and downloads to the target.)

Phone calls, on the other hand, are interrupts. And since I don't know who is calling me until I take the call, I cannot leave that particular interrupt masked most of the time.

As a professional, I can get a very large number of professional magazines free of charge - EDN, EE Times, and the like. They get their money by selling ads, and their revenues are based upon their circulation.

And I have no problem with that - I will look at the ads that relate to my current situation, and ignore those that don't. They don't cost me time.

Now, when a magazine wants me to renew, and sends the renewal form on the front of the magazine, and they pay for postage, then I will renew the magazine if I find it valuable. If I don't find it valuable, and they pay for postage, then I will do them the courtesy of sending them the renewal with a "No thanks".

If they think I am going to chase up a stamp to send the response back to them, they are stupid. I am not going to spend 39 cents to tell them I am not interested - they can infer that from my lack of response.

I *also* do NOT give out my fax number, telephone number, or email to magazines - if they wish to communicate with me, they can do so by the US postal service. Again, I don't want to be interrupted.

Long ago, I decided upon a very simple rule with respect to magazine that call me on the phone about renewals: I cancel them. Immediately. I waste no time on the phone - I say "I'm sorry, I don't take magazines that call me on the phone at work. Goodbye. <click>".

That's a pretty clear "NO", isn't it?

Evidently, not for EDN. They have been calling me about once a week for the past month. They called me yesterday. They got the standard response.

I also decided that the next time they called me I was going to be "smart lazy" rather than "dumb lazy": I would spend more time on the line to insure that I wasted no more time in future.

Guess what happened a few tens of minutes ago? If you guessed "they called me again" then you are paying attention, which is more than I can say for the phone monkeys employed by the company that EDN employs for "circulation retention".

So, I made it very plain that:

1. I had no interest in any magazine that called me on the phone.
2. EDN was such a magazine.
3. I was NOT going to renew.
4. I had so informed them on multiple previous calls.
5. I wanted my name removed from their calling list.
6. I wanted my name and number ADDED to their DO NOT CALL list.

Now, I know how these telemarketers (and that is who I am dealing with, telemarketers) operate. Anything less than a clear "FUCK OFF AND DIE NO I DON'T WANT YOUR CRAP STOP CALLING ME" is ignored - these guys are judged on their "retention rates", and paying heed to a NO that doesn't fit their narrowly defined parameters will hurt those rates.

I don't give a shit about their rates. I said NO. Honor it.

Of course, this being a business line, it is NOT eligible for the Do Not Call list.

So, instead, I will pass this on:

DO NOT SUBSCRIBE TO EDN (Electronic Design News).
DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, GIVE ANY "FREE" MAGAZINE ANY CONTACT INFORMATION BEYOND YOUR ADDRESS.
SHOULD THEY GET YOUR EMAIL, FAX NUMBER, OR PHONE NUMBER, TELL THEM IN NO UNCERTAIN TERMS TO REMOVE YOUR INFORMATION FROM THEIR DATABASE AND NOT CONTACT YOU AGAIN.

Well, where I work we just bought a new DSP development station, to evaluate a potential chip for our RF signal processing. Any chip that can spit out a 16 million point complex FFT in 43 milliseconds is well worth investigating.

And it was a steal at the price: most such platforms cost several thousand dollars, this one cost less than US$700.

It was really fun, calling our IT department and saying "I need a monitor and network drop for my PS3" and it really being work related.

Now, we just have to get a screen on it and install Linux.

Bush & Putin, sitting in a tree. Love the Condi pic, #6 in the series.

Daimler Pays to Have Chrysler Towed Away