11.21.03
Posted in General
at 10 pm
Tonight I picked up a Kill A Watt meter that tracks the energy usage of an appliance. Right now I’ve got it between my iBook and the wall outlet, and I’m seeing how much energy my ‘book is using. Then I can compare it to some of the other computers around here as well as the appliances that we have. I’m particularly interested in checking out how much my G3 is taking up, since I have it running as a server which I’ve been leaving on for most of the time.
<rant>Not that I can schedule when my B&WG3 running OS X turns off and on of course, since startup and shut down scheduling are features that it has taken Apple *3* frickin’ years to put *back* into their operating system. And even then, I’ve got to wait till I pick up Panther in order to get it.</rant>
Since winter is coming on and Amy and I are trying to keep our bills down, I’m also interested in checking out what the most efficient way to keep warm is: the little electric heater, the electric blanket, the wall heaters are all basically unknowns to me in terms of the energy they use. Well no more!
I had been trying to justify picking one of these up for going on two years since I first read about them in Home Power magazine. They were running $40 to $60 online and such, but about 8 months ago I saw them at Radio Shack, still for about the same price.
Well, I went looking around for them again a couple months ago and it turns out that Radio Shack is selling off their remaining inventory, so I hunted high and low to find them and the Jantzen Beach Radio Shack had them for just $19.95. So after hemming and hawing and a little encouragement from Amy, I finally picked one up.
I’m a big fan of what I call Progressive Energy. Progressive Energy is about being aware of what I as an electricity-consuming person can do to minimize my waste energy. I consider Progressive Energy to be more approachable than Alternative Energy. I’d like to expound on that a bit.
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
Posted in General
at 3 pm
It took me a little bit but this image really made me giggle… It’s titled “How to catch script kiddies” which is key to understanding the last panel.
Thanks to NTK for the link.
I included the image in the Read More section.
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
11.19.03
Posted in General
at 1 pm
Hmmm… looks interesting. I’m not sure what Proscensia’s purpose is, but it looks like they’ve got a pretty good newsletter going.
http://www.proscenia.net/news/
If it turns out to be pretty good over the next month, I’ll post it to the DevGroup NW blog.
Looks like it’s got some good industry-wide news as well as some Oregon-specific info for the interactive/digital media sector.
Permalink
11.11.03
Posted in General
at 6 pm
In ancient Greece, the great philosopher Socrates (469-399BC), was known for his wisdom. One day he spoke with a pupil who exclaimed: “Socrates, guess what I just heard about one of your students!”
“Pause a moment,” Socrates replied. “Before you tell me anything, let me ask you three questions.”
“Three questions?”
“That’s right,” Socrates continued. “Before you tell me what you heard, I must ask you… Is it Truth?”
“Well,” the man replied, “I don’t know if it’s true, I just heard it from Xenophon, I don’t know it for a fact.”
“My second question,” said Socrates. “Is it Good?”
“No,” the man said. “I mean… To the contrary…”
“So, it’s neither Truth or Good,” noted Socrates. “Now, my third question. Is it Useful?”
“No, it’s not,” the man admitted. “I cannot see how you would benefit.”
“Well,” concluded Socrates, with a smile: “If what you want to tell me is neither Truth, Good or Useful, then why tell me at all?”
After this exchange Socrates’ pupil continued on his way, with new understanding and increased regard for the wisdom of Socrates. This also explains why Socrates never found out that Plato was sexing up his wife.
Permalink
11.08.03
Posted in General
at 10 am
Every Packet’s Sacred
With apologies to Mr.’s Palin & Jones, Cerf & Metcalf
There are POTS in the world.
There are Tokens.
There are Arcnets and fibre channels, and then
There are those that send in Morse, but
I’ve never been one of them.
I’m an Ethernet Router,
And have been since before I was spec’d,
And the one thing they say about Routers is:
The data they pass on is perf’ct.
You don’t have to be hundred meg’ T.
You don’t have to have a VPN.
You don’t have to have DHCP on. You’re
A Router the moment you’re plugedin!,
Because…
Every packet’s sacred.
Every packet’s great.
If a packet is wasted,
Vint gets quite irate.
Let the Belkins ‘jack theirs –
and have a pop-up spawn.
Metcalf’ll make them pay for
Each packet that’s not passed on.
Every packet’s wanted.
Every packet’s good.
Every packet’s needed
In your neighbourhood.
RIAA, Studios, Lawyers,
Want to block yours any time,
But Vint loves those who treat their
Packets as sublime.
Every packet’s sacred.
Every packet’s great.
If a packet is wasted,…
…Vint gets quite irate.
Every packet’s useful.
Every packet’s fine.
the Net sends ev’rybody’s.
Mine!
And mine!
And mine!
Let the Censors spill theirs
O’er “beaver”, “breast”, and “cocaine”.
Metcalf’ll strike them down for
Each packet that’s dropped in vain.
Every packet’s sacred.
Every packet’s good.
Every packet’s needed
In your neighbourhood.
Every packet’s sacred.
Every packet’s great.
If a packet is wasted,
Vint gets quite iraaaaaate!
Permalink
11.02.03
Posted in General
at 9 am
From the NewtonTalk list. DJ Vollkasko wrote:
——-
Please allow me to most respectfully recommend this link to your esteemed attention:
http://www.copyright.gov/1201/docs/librarian_statement_01.html . I would be very interested in learning your conclusions on this topic and what impact you see to the Newton platform.
Statement of the Librarian of Congress Relating to Section 1201 Rulemaking
[…]
I am today issuing a final rule that sets out four classes of works that will be subject to exemptions for the next three years from the statute’s prohibition against circumvention of technology that effectively controls access to a copyrighted work. […] The four classes of works are: […]
- Computer programs protected by dongles that prevent access due to malfunction or damage and which are obsolete.
- Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and which require the original media or hardware as a condition of access.
- Literary works distributed in ebook format when all existing ebook editions of the work (including digital text editions made available by authorized entities) contain access controls that prevent the enabling of the ebook’s read-aloud function and that prevent the enabling of screen readers to render the text into a specialized format.
Faithfully yours,
DJ Vollkasko
——-
From what I can tell, this basically frees up nearly any abandoned platform’s software for the next three years. I’m assuming that the 3 year term is a test run. Let’s hope it sticks!
Most of the people on the NewtonTalk list have been *very* sensitive to copyright issues, and the primary archive, UNNA.org, will not host anything that is not specifically noted by the author as free to distribute.
The only real question is the definition of the term “Obsolete”. My Netwon is no where near obsolete, but it certainly is abandonded.
Permalink
10.31.03
Posted in General
at 5 pm
I went ahead and registered badseed.org, and it is now shadowing all of my stuff on bad-seed.org.
I had wanted it when I was first looking to start a new web site out of the dry tinder of the Cave Inn site. It was taken and I think this is the trend. I bet a lot of the older underused domain names are getting released.
It’s kind of interesting. I think that the domain name hoarders are nearly the perfect expression of free market dynamics to a certain extent.
Anyway, you can stop using the hyphen now if you find yourself using it. This applies to both e-mail and to web site access.
Permalink
10.23.03
Posted in General
at 7 pm
This is kinda long, but it’s very interesting to watch in that film as art kind of way.
It’s about 10 minutes long.
Permalink
10.08.03
Posted in General
at 11 pm
Hot on the heals of working on an HTML mail for nearly 2 days straight, I’ve posted a number tips in an article in my webdev section on OrderSomewhereChaos. Check it out… Tips for HTML Mail
Comments on the article are very welcome.
Permalink
