Sudoku Time
Posted by Stephen Waits Tue, 31 Jan 2006 18:30:00 GMT
1/31 in 4:50.
Encrypted Dying Clue?
Posted by Stephen Waits Tue, 31 Jan 2006 17:22:57 GMT
Bruce Schneier received an email from a reader containing a hand-written cryptogram. The interesting thing is, the cryptogram came from a murdering step-dad.
Make money Geocaching?
Posted by Stephen Waits Tue, 31 Jan 2006 17:11:29 GMT
This looks like fun.. but maybe not worth the effort. Basically these WiFi/EVDO balloon things come down to earth, and the company knows exactly where they rest. But they don’t give out those exact coordinates. Instead, they just get you in the general area and then you get to search for and recover the device. Then you turn it in and make money.
Via Engadget.
Everything on the Internet is true
Posted by Stephen Waits Mon, 30 Jan 2006 03:39:57 GMT
Especially any U.S. Congressional Leaders’ bios. Yes, some snappy staffers figured out they could actually edit anything on WikiPedia. Yikes.
Hope for Checa yet! And Jason Perez?
Posted by Stephen Waits Mon, 30 Jan 2006 03:35:20 GMT
Looks like Carlos may have a ride in the works. And it looks like we have a fifth American joining the fray. Check out the entry list over at the Soup!
A safer circular saw
Posted by Stephen Waits Mon, 30 Jan 2006 03:32:09 GMT
Check out the Sawstop over at Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools. It supposedly won’t cut your ding dong (or your finger) off. Wanna test it out?
Via Cool Tools.
TV Updates
Posted by Stephen Waits Mon, 30 Jan 2006 03:28:05 GMT
Yes, I watch The O.C. Not for much longer. I can wait until the kids graduate, but then I’m done. No really, I swear. Ahh, Summer. When I stop watching it can I be cool again? Oh wait.. hmm.
Desperate Housewives got deleted - I’m done with it.
Ok, my friend Ralfie was right, Roush Racing Driver X is brokeback. I got overly excited at the thought of a reality racing show. But it’s totally brokeback.
Surface remains teetering on the edge for me. They keep dishing out just enough to keep me slightly interested.
Invasion is still good. It’s X-Files’ish enough, but with some answers along the way.
I think I’m tired of A&E’s Intervention. You’ve seen one or two, you’ve seen ‘em all.
Both Prison Break and Alias have yet to make their spring returns. Prison Break is over for me. It’s stupid.
I’m excited for Alias to end (it’s the last season). It’s quite overdue.
WoW done Google Map style
Posted by Stephen Waits Mon, 30 Jan 2006 03:09:22 GMT
Wow! These AJAX maps of the World Of Warcarft are incredibly impressive. Nicely done.
Via reddit.
Rossi in full F1 Test
Posted by Stephen Waits Mon, 30 Jan 2006 02:58:44 GMT
Rossi, if nothing else, will continue to fuel the rumors of his future involvement in F1. He’s in a full test next week, mixed in with other drivers, from other teams; though, he’ll be driving last year’s Ferrari.
Via Autoblog.
Swallowing Pills
Posted by Stephen Waits Sat, 28 Jan 2006 06:43:34 GMT
I never learned how to swallow pills. It’s a wimpy kind of thing, I know; but, somehow, I just never learned.
In middle school (Atascocita Middle School), that’s 6th-9th grade, the day before I was was going to get braces put on, I had to swallow this tiny ass little pink pill. It was going to dry my mouth out so that the overpaid epoxy man they call an orthodontist could have a better chance of making little pieces of metal stick to my teeth. It was all prearranged that I go down to the nurse’s office at a certain time to do the deed.
I was completely apprehensive about this. Worrying for days. Pathetic. I didn’t know how I would manage to actually swallow that pill, even right up to the moment where it had to happen. I went into the office and got the pill and a Dixie cup of water. I tried once and failed. Then, in that moment, I figured it all out…
Fill my mouth with water (but no air), tilt my head way back, poke the little pill inside my lips, and swallow. I did it! I now knew how to swallow pills!
So this is how I’ve swallowed pills my whole life. I look like a complete idiot when I do it. It’s a mental handicap, and I eventually came to realize it.
You see, my wife could swallow pills awesome. So, logically, I should be able to as well. Right?
Right! Let me tell you, I’m a pill swallowing fiend now. Since getting on a health kick, and training for endurance cycling events, I’ve been consuming vitamins and other supplements like they’re going out of style. I take all my stuff twice a day. Each time includes 1 multi-vitamin, 3 fiber thingies, 2 fish oil, 1 electrolytes, 1 magic thing with antioxidants, 1 vegetable extract concentrate thing, and 4 other of something not mentionable. Yah.. you can take your guesses.
So now I can do it like a regular human. When I first started the regular way, it would bug me when I’d get a “slow-swallower” – you know, the ones that take their sweet time going down your throat? Even that doesn’t bother me now.
And, while I haven’t managed my entire regimen in one gulp, I am up to 9! Right before I go for it, if Cathy’s around, I like to proclaim, “here goes a world record”, as if I’m the best pill swallower ever.
Does this mean that there’s hope for me after all?
Update: New record… 12! I’m just a few bad decisions away from being a junkie.
Microsoft's answer to Google Maps
Posted by Stephen Waits Sat, 28 Jan 2006 00:19:00 GMT
I just discovered Windows Live Local (Beta). Seems very well done, yet uninnovative.
Garmin Edge 305 First Impressions
Posted by Stephen Waits Tue, 24 Jan 2006 21:51:00 GMT
First Impressions
I took my new Garmin Edge 305 for its first spin today. I had preordered this awhile ago from GPSCity. However, thanks to bollar on the SportTracks forum, I learned that TVNav got them in earlier and even offered free next-day shipping. So, I cancelled my first order, reordered it Friday afternoon, and received it yesterday (Monday) morning.
Positives
It’s small and light.
Receiver sensitivity is incredible. Yes it will work indoors. Better than any other GPS unit I’ve ever used.
Speed seems accurate. Reads out MPH to 1/100. For example, “19.52 MPH”.
Smart recording works great.
Auto Pause works really well. In an urban area, it never fails that you come upon a long traffic light mid-interval. Then it seems I’d usually forget to restart my HRM. Here it’s all taken care of for me.
Interval programming in Advanced Workouts (via TC) is really cool. I’ve never been able to plan my workouts anywhere near this level of precision.
The Altimeter screen is very cool. It’s both pretty and satisfying.
The calorie calculation seems accurate.
The UI is simple.
TC found my previously installed MapSource map data (came with my Quest). That’s very cool!
In general, it works almost exactly as advertised. This counts for a lot, because it’s advertised to do just about everything!
Negatives
The zip-ties for the stem/handlebar mounts were all already zipped! What’s the point of that? None. Has to be a mistake.
The reset button on my Cadence Sensor didn’t seem to do anything. Once I took the battery out and put it back in, it seemed to come alive. Update: bollar on the SportTracks forum had the same thing happen to him. Turns out the battery was installed backwards. I must have gotten it right when I put it back in!
The little rubber mini-USB cover sucks. I am afraid it won’t last very long.
Training Center, as well as the 305 itself, won’t let you setup intervals with more than one target. For example, I’d like an interval (“Steady State”) to include a cadence target of 90-100 RPM and a HR target of 85%. Still, it’s an improvement.
“Heart Rate Too Low” and “Heart Rate Too High” warnings sound exactly the same. My Polar did a better job, if it was too low it beeped slowly. Too high, beeped quickly. I should not need to look down and read a tiny part of the display just to see if I’m too high or too low!
My cadence sensor was intermittent. The readout would go something like 0, then 22, then 95, then 22, then 0.. repeat. I’ll work on sensor positioning and see if I can improve it.
Displayed Heart Rate is rather lagged. This is probably so that they can smooth it out; however, I believe that they’ve over smoothed in this case. The result is that when you have a narrow target, such at HR 83%-87%, you get warned that you’re too low, yet the display is still reading high. You end up bouncing around. I’ll deal with it by practicing controlling my HR a little more precisely and widening my HR targets a bit.
Other fields are lagged too, like Grade. It could be less smoothed.
The HR strap worked like my Polar strap. Freaked out on me no less than three times. I’d stop, wet it, reposition it, and move on. I’ll try some HRM gel next time.
They could have done so much more with the HR target display, or any target display (cadence, speed). A little bar graph, something like
===<*=T======would show you where you are now (*), which direction you’re trending (<), and your target (T).The buttons are a little hard to push. And the way they’re oriented, on the sides and opposite each other, means that you might need to push against another button, or you might get a little too forceful and spin it around on the mount. That happened to me once today.
It would be very nice to have a “Previous Page” button. “Mode” is like “Next Page”. I found myself really only wanting to see Bike Computer 1 and Workout pages.
The elevation is decent, but not perfect. My inaugural ride ended up about 40’ different from start to finish. I can live with it.
It doesn’t seem to remember my “Auto Pause” setting. Perhaps when I synced with my PC it got reset. I hope I don’t have to keep setting this at the beginning of every ride.
Even though I never ride after sunset, I was surprised to have to manually turn on the backlight. The device knows local time, it knows sunset/sunrise times, so it should also know to just turn it on when I press any button, not just the power button. Could make a nice option anyway.
Oh, and just one random, very minor idea. The device should be able to determine (and record) your rollout. In other words, your gear ratio. It knows cadence, speed, and wheel RPM – it’s only one tiny little math step away from recording rollout. Geeky indeed, but I’d be interested in plotting my gear ratio against elevation, heart rate, speed, etc.
Summary
Well, even though I listed more negatives than positives, I have to say this little thing is sweet. I hope, but doubt, Garmin fixes most of the niggles I mention in future firmware updates.
Overall, Garmin’s done an excellent job. I highly recommend this product to any cyclist!
Best time to buy "stuff"
Posted by Stephen Waits Tue, 24 Jan 2006 16:51:00 GMT
CNN is running an interesting article called From TVs to toys, the best time to buy everything.
In summary:
Airline Tickets: On Wednesday. Avoid the 7-14 day window as that’s the worst.
TVs: April.
Houses: Winter.
Cars: Late summer, early fall.
Games: Holiday season, or after the hysteria fades.
Toys: Before and after holidays and August, the end of summer.
I’ll add one of my own…
- Macs: Watch the rumors, and if there seems like there’s something major in the works, and one of the big Apple events is on the horizon, then be patient and wait. For example, this upcoming April 1st is Apple’s 30 year anniversary. Seems like a good time to wait before ordering that sweet new MacBook.
Google vs. DOJ, demystified
Posted by Stephen Waits Tue, 24 Jan 2006 16:46:29 GMT
I’ve seen a lot of junk written about this developing story. It’s hard to know who to trust. I firmly trust Declan McCullagh, who runs the great politechbot mailing list (and web site summary). So, when I see a post from him summarizing Alberto Gonzales v. Google, I trust it. He’s even got a FAQ posted up at news.com.
Interestingly, it seems like everyone, Yahoo, MS, and AOL, has caved; except Google. If nothing else, it’s a wise marketing move from a company that’s been questioned about privacy practices in the past. It says, “we fight for our users”. I hope they hang in there.
Lost fading...
Posted by Stephen Waits Tue, 24 Jan 2006 16:36:49 GMT
“Lost” and the pacing of mystery over at TVSquad expresses my sentiments on the show exactly. It was, and still is, incredibly interesting for most watchers, as the mystery built up; however, at some point people will want answers. We all got burned by X-Files and I hope the Lost crew realizes this. They better start giving us viewers a little more to chew on, or we’re going to go away.
Other shows that are fading for me include Surface. I was just about done and then this week they actually started revealing some good stuff. It’s kind of cheesy, and close to my death list, but still alive.
I’m almost finished with Desperate Housewives. Actually I haven’t started it (since its Winter return) back up. Just can’t find the energy. And 24 is in the same boat.. just sitting on the DVR. And when Prison Break comes back, I don’t think I can stand to watch that either.
Alias is finally ending on its own, at least a season too late. But I have to watch now.
Invasion is still holding strong. I like the production, the acting is decent, and the story line good enough. Though, like the early days of Lost, maybe we’re still in the “dishing out the mystery” phase. Then again, they are giving us some decent answers.
I fired off Torrents on Battlestar Galactica. We missed getting in early on that one and I think we should try to catch up. I’ve only heard great things about this show.
Web Dev Tools
Posted by Stephen Waits Tue, 24 Jan 2006 16:25:59 GMT
Discovered a few new web development tools: