Archive for the “Distractions” Category

It’s my birthday and I was trying to come up with a good birthday themed post. I’ve got several good posts coming up, like my review of the VPL-HW10 – the BRAVIA® SXRD™ 1080p Home Theater Front Projector – which will be arriving on Wednesday, or the coverage I’ll be giving to the plight to get my previous projector fixed. But neither of those are really birthday themed, unless you consider the new projector as a bday present.

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Click through to youtube to see it in high res.  Oh, and it’s not a conspiracy, he says December 16th but it’s really December 17th.

It’s a winter wonderland here in Vegas. Just had a nice lunch and watched it snow.  Hit the link for lots of photos, more video, and other distractions…

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Ok.. I’m fairly certain that in 25 days this thing is just going to say “The Recorder has not made a daily call in 1000 days.” But what if it doesn’t? Gotta keep counting down the days just in case.

As a coder I would say that it’s more likely for it to choke at a more ‘binary-based’ number, like 1024. OR to really think it through, maybe at the maximum value of a integer. We know that it didn’t stop at 127 or 255, so it’s more than an 8-bit value. A 16-bit SHORT INT would max out at 32767. But it’s rare for a coder to use a short, I always use ints. Obviously, I didn’t write the code, but first of all we know this is Unix based. It could be C, C++, or maybe Java. Either way, most likely the value for the number of days is calculated fresh every day from the date of the last phone call sync to today.  This is how I would do it… Read… »

Ok… *sigh* My site is not a food or candy blog. I mostly just discuss the technology that is my life. But the other day after being appalled by the mediocre-ness of the so-called “Premium M&M”, I had to somehow fit it in. And writing that post led me to a page that claimed that Hershey’s Kissables had been reformulated… which made me hungry for some… which led me to a Walgreens where I found a regular old “milk chocolate” package of candy.  Since this was the original formula, I assumed the accusatory post from earlier this year was just some kind of troll.

Well, tonight ”the hunger” returned and at my local Albertson’s I made a shocking discovery: a “chocolate candy” version of the Kissables. Strangely enough in the very next check-out aisle was the “milk chocolate” version. Of course I had to buy a bunch of both bags and bring them home for a taste test.  (UPDATED 12/4/08)

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Let’s face it, part of getting through a night of any heavy tech work (coding, editing, or DVD authoring) is good snack options. When I see something new it’s in my nature to want to try it out. And from time to time a snack shows up that has a little bit of technology inside of it. So when I noticed an over-priced premium version of M&M’s in the snack aisle I was curious.  What could possibly make a 6 oz package of M&M’s worth $4? Once they went on sale 2 for 1, I was overtaken by temptation and bought a couple of boxes.  oooohhhh.. look a the pretty package.  (UPDATED) Read… »

Shannon and I have seen a trend on the (hopefully) popular TV show where each week they discuss some obscure nerdy thing that I had just been telling Shannon about a few days earlier. From home automation being controlled by people over the internet, to the LHC, to Second Life, to Koothrappali answering the phone with the phrase “Go for Koothrappali.” So I’m starting a new segment called “The Big Bang Theory’s Guide to Life” in which I will explain each of these geeky similarities and the sometimes obscure or weird technologies that were covered, and how these concepts and technologies can should fit into your life.

In the mean time, I’m disappointed that Big Bang is not available on hulu, and it appears that only the current episode is available on CBS.com.  Get with it CBS and make this stuff available!  Or I’ll have to dig it up on youtube or some other “illegal source” and the advertising revenue will go to someone else.

Over my cable modem It took about 20 minutes to update to NXE, the New XBox Experience, then another 20 minutes to explore all of the avatar options and create mine. I expect that there’s more to it than what I was able to ‘experience’, but so far it just looks like a new (3D) way to presenting basically the same information.

Avatars

I’m conflicted on the the new Xbox avatars. They are a blatant rip off of the Wii’s Mii’s with the obvious improvement that these guys have arms and legs. Side note: Every time we break out the Wii to do some bowling, someone asks why their character has “boobs” – but those round things are HANDS!  Xbox avatars do look much better than a Mii, however, they are not nearly as cool as, say, a Second Life avatar – which can look like anything. In some ways the Xbox customization options feel more limited than even the Wii. In the Wii your Mii might look a bit like a Lego mini-fig, but at least there you can do more with each feature, like raising or lowering eyebrows or making eyes bigger or smaller. In the Xbox you simply pick through a list of features (like hair styles) and a then choose a color. I think this will lead to seeing a lot of avatars that look almost the same – but time will tell.  I was impressed that they actually had my receding hairline style and my yellow “vacation” hair color. From the picture you might say that it looks sort of like me, but I didn’t feel like the nose and mouth options did much to get that convincing look.

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My wife chatted me a few minutes ago and asked if I was going to “lose my chip”.  It’s a joke regarding my recent commitment to posting something new every day on my site. The reference is of course AA and how you get a chip each week or month that you stay dry.  I admit that in the past I’ve struggled keeping up with things like this. But I’m on my 5th week and this past month has been good for me. I use the calendar (scroll down on the sidebar to the right) as a way of seeing my progress.  The text is green for each day that I’ve posted. Read… »

My HD TiVo now hasn’t made a daily call in 950 days.  Only 50 days remain until it either rolls over to 1000 or dies in a fiery blaze of unhandled exceptions.

Oh and yes that’s me taking a picture of me casting a shadow from my projector onto my wall.

Funny I was chatting with a buddy yesterday who said that his HD TiVo was at around 900 days when he finally hooked it up to a phone line.  Apparently there’s a huge software revision number jump to be made and it will speed it up.  But at this point we have to wait it out and see what happens.

Wasn’t sure what I was going to post about today – and then look what someone gave me this morning…

I’ve got so many other things planned for my spare time over the next few months. This was the last thing I needed (even though I did ask for it).  I’ve been joking about this blog being like AA – today I get my 3 week chip – posted every weekday for 3 weeks.  But a new game could suck up my time like an uber-sponge and kill my posting streak.  What are my options here?

• Keep it shrink wrapped, like a procrastination time bomb waiting to explode. I’ll be turning on my Xbox around November 19th anyway.
• Loan it to someone and try to get it back at a later date.  Yeah that’ll work.
• Start playing, allowing it to consume my being, staying up until 3am every night trying to kill all my old friends.  That one sounds kind of good.  And if I don’t start now I’ll be way behind everyone else.
• or I could play just a little here and there, keep working on all my projects, and try to have some balance. ooohhhh, that’s how it starts…