Mr. Lightswitch
Mr. Lightswitch is angry because he couldn't get a parking spot today:
I was hoping that the switch part would look like a mouth, but I don't think it really works.
Destroyed Cup
One of my plastic cups fell down to the bottom of the dishwasher and was melted by the heat. It looks kind of weird:
iPhone camera test
Today at a wedding reception in Queen Anne I finally got the chance to test out the iPhone's camera in a well-lit outside environment. The results were OK, but not all that great. Mt. Rainier was clearly visible in the background to the eye, but it barely registers on the iPhone pic. The thumbnail below is linked to the full-res version:
Pirates
My cousin is getting married tomorrow and today at the pre-dinner the most absurd thing I have ever seen at a wedding occurred.
After dessert we heard a loud siren coming down the street and there were several loud bangs that sounded like gunfire. I was afraid it was some sort of gang fight in the middle of this quiet little Everett suburb. Fortunately that fear was quashed when a gigantic pirate ship drove up to the back yard, firing its 'cannons':
The Seattle SeaFair Pirates all jumped out of the ship/truck contraption and 'captured' the bride (upper left, below) and all the bridesmaids and drove off. The groom and his friends hopped in a car with their plastic swords and chased after the pirates.
At this point everyone in the wedding party and all of the neighbors were in total shock and disbelief about what had just happened, until somebody explained what was going on. In the end the pirates came back, returned the captives, and we all had a jolly good time with their pirate rum.
All in all, definitely the most bizarre experience of the weekend.
MacBook
Last weekend I got a new black 13" MacBook:
I didn't get a MacBook Pro because 15" or 17" is just too big. I like smaller laptops that you can actually fit on your lap. If they had smaller MacBook Pros like the old 12" PowerBook I used to have, I would have gotten one of those.
The MacBooks are also a lot cheaper than the Pros, so it was much easier to justify financially since I my old laptop (now dead) was only about 2 years old. The $100 UW student discount didn't hurt either (the Microsoft employee discount was also $100 so I could have used that too, but it just seems weird to use a Microsoft discount to buy an Apple laptop).
Fortunately it has 2 GB of RAM so I can run XP on it OK. I am using the 30-day trial of VMware Fusion and so far I am not impressed. I might try Parallels Workstation to see if that's better, but I doubt it will be.
Fusion's "Unity" mode runs Windows apps as native Mac OS windows, like so:
This all works fine and dandy until you try to do anything fancy, such as activate Exposé:
Doh! Look at the Notepad window overlapping the Calculator window. This is obviously due to limitations of the GDI rendering model (namely, windows cannot paint themselves when they are obscured by other windows), but I think VMware might be able to work around it in a future patch. In the meantime, however, it looks really bad. There are a lot of other weird bugs like this that make the overall experience very poor.
The other main adoption-blocker for VMware Fusion is that when you boot up your Boot Camp partition, Windows detects that your hardware has changed, and prompts you to re-activate. You can eventually get it activated, but every time you switch between Boot Camp or VMware, it forces you to re-activate. VMware has instructions in their support forums for supposedly fixing this problem, but they do not work. This essentially makes it unusable, which is really too bad.
Oh WGA, how we hate you
Willows Lodge
This week I'm on another corporate brainwashing training retreat at Willows Lodge. So far the accommodations are a lot better than last year since we get catered food at a 5-star resort hotel instead of having to fight over cots and cook our own food.
Pics:
Jacuzzi, bed, fireplace (this pic looks it's out of a brochure for some reason..)
Fold-out concave shaving mirror
Fancy sink
Shower with on/off buttons and temperature controls. What temperature water do I usually use? I had no idea until now
Some bizarre statues outside the window
Zero stars
Whenever I see this apartment ad on the way to work I think, "wow, zero out of five stars, why would they advertise that?"
Obviously they're trying to say that it's a "five-star" apartment, but in the age of Amazon starred reviews and iTunes ratings, the "outlined star" symbol has come to mean "empty star" or "missing star". Interesting to think about..
Accepted
Today I finally got a "Thank you for enrolling at the University of Washington" letter, which was a bit of a surprise since I was expecting a "Thank you for applying" letter first, at which point I would decide whether or not to enroll. I guess they made that decision for me :). I'm sure the next thing I'll be getting will be a big bill.
Now I have to send in "proof of measles immunity". I'm sure I got the vaccine when I was 5 years old, so I have no record of it, and of course neither does my current health care provider (no doubt due to general incompetence, or laws prohibiting automatic transferring of my medical records without my consent or something like that). This will be fun to track down. I'll be mad if I have to get another shot, but sadly that might be the easiest thing to do..
Eyeball Security Camera
As many people noted, the Eyeball Security System is very vulnerable to attack since it can easily be turned off or unplugged, rendering it useless. Little did they know, that was all part of the plan!
You see, the actual tripwire alarm is just a decoy, and is just one part of the whole system. Most people see only the alarm and completely miss the webcam conveniently positioned to catch them in the act of stealing the eyeballs or trying to disable the alarm:
The webcam caught many people red-handed, though eventually its presence was discovered and disclosed to other would-be thieves.
Here's a YouTube video of the interesting bits of the security camera footage:
Eyeball security system
After a recent rash of Wallmonster eyeball thefts, it became clear that I needed to install an Eyeball Security System:
It's wired up to set off an alarm if anybody steals the eyeballs.
With such a disorganized circuit design, it might look like it was wired up by a mental patient, but it's all part of the protection scheme. If it's confusing looking, nobody can crack it (don't listen to Schneier and his claims that security-through-obscurity will never work, bah).
Each eyeball is coated with tin foil, which completes an electric circuit when it's in place touching the two wires.
Here's the obligatory YouTube video of the system in action:
Wallmonster is all stressed out today
How do you pictorially represent a headache? I guess a lightning bolt to the brain works.
New Bulb #2
So fortunately it ends up that the brake lights on the 2006 GTI are actually user-serviceable, but it requires a few more steps than on a 1984 Buick. First, the molding behind the the light must be peeled back and the light enclosure unscrewed:
Then the entire enclosure can be removed:
And the bulb holder can be extracted:
Finally we can replace the actual bulb and notice a tiny break in the filament of the broken one:
Dead Bulb #2
Fortunately this one is in my car instead of in my projector.
I like how the car knows exactly which bulb is dead and can even tell me about it. On my old car I had no way to tell that something was dead other than manually checking out all the lights.
Of course, on the old Buick, I could go out there with a normal screwdriver and replace the stupid $1 bulb myself. On the new car the lights are all hermetically sealed into the back of the car and I'll probably have to pay Volkswagen $75 to fix it.. grr.
I wonder if this is related to this story from February which I seemed to have missed: VW recalls 790,000 vehicles because of brake lights
iPhone
So if you're at all familiar with my cellphone purchasing habits, you know that the question posed in my previous post was more rhetorical than anything: of course I had to get an iPhone. Yesterday my boss convinced me to ditch work early and go stand in line for an iPhone with him, so we did (and I obviously didn't have to worry about what the boss would think about leaving in the middle of the day). We were about #25 in line at the AT&T store (the Apple store already had 100+ people), and we had no problem getting 8GB models. Fortunately I had my DS and was able to play through a couple dungeons in Final Fantasy V while we waited, so it wasn't that bad. On the unfortunate side of things, once it was all done the stores did not sell out and had plenty of stock left over, so it was a waste of time to wait in line. Oh well.
Now that I have been playing with it for a while, I am glad that it appears to have been worth it (money-wise, if not time-wise). I expect to make heavy use of a lot of the features, so it might not be worth it for somebody who wouldn't. Since there are plenty of iPhones to go around, you might want to try out a friend's before getting your own if you're on the fence.
Here's my Good vs Bad list so far:
Good:
- It really is as smooth and as fast as in the ads - they were using the real thing.
- The EDGE data rate is not as bad as I expected. Google Maps is pretty usable, and I was even able to stream a YouTube video of David Hasselhof singing and dancing with almost no lag time for buffering. Safari can load yahoo.com from scratch in about 30 seconds, though repeat visits should improve a lot due to image caching.
- The Google maps application absolutely rules. The turn-by-turn driving directions are particularly sweet. I will never have to print out directions to anything ever again.
- Calendar & Contact syncing to Outlook works without problems - now I can check where & when my next meeting is at work without needing to go back to my computer.
- Safari works as advertised - it really is a full-fledged web browser on the phone (minus Flash). This will get lots of use whenever I have to take the bus somewhere or am waiting in a restaurant.
Bad:
- It took 45 minutes to activate the phone using iTunes, which bluescreened my computer once (it was probably an interaction with my sound card driver).
- Transferring my phone number from T-Mobile pre-paid was a huge pain because I did not have a billing address for the old number (since there's no bill). Fortunately after calling AT&T a few times it eventually got worked out. (Though I never provided any identifying information other than my old phone number and the zip code where I bought the phone - apparently that's all it takes to steal a T-Mobile number from somebody..)
- Exchange email syncing only works if the Exchange administrator has enabled IMAP over SSL, which no security-conscious IT administrator will do. No reading work email on the phone 🙁 (this may be a blessing in disguise though)
- The IMAP mail client does not recognize any of my IMAP folders other than Inbox (such as Sent, Spam, Drafts, etc.). I think I can fix this though.
- I cannot use my good headphones in the iPod jack because it is too small. David Pogue noted this in his column but it was unclear what he meant. Here's a picture:
Finally, here's a YouTube video of me using a few of the features (Google Maps, YouTube, Mail, Safari, iPod) if you want to get a feel for how they work (note that the phone was using WiFi in this video):
Denver Street Views
Google Street Views has patchy imagery of Denver, with pictures at lower resolutions than their San Francisco imagery. Even so, I was surprised to be able to find lots of pictures of familiar places:
My parents' house (obstructed by a tree):
High school (shudder):
Old job (Sun Microsystems):
Across the street, my old apartment (not really visible):
1 Year
One year ago I created this web site with the goals of creating something that might be interesting enough to read and to take over the #1 Google search result for my name. I'm not unbiased enough to comment on the first goal, but I can gauge the success of the second:
- #1 in Google search results - Check
- #1 in Yahoo search results - Check
- #1 in Live.com search results - Check
In fact, as an added bonus due to some blog posts and a magazine article I wrote for work, now 9 out of the top 10 and 43 out of the top 50 Google search results for my name are related to me. Sweet. I don't think I have to worry that somebody searching for me will find the wrong person any more.
It's also interesting to check out the Analytics stats for the past year (which, somewhat significantly, do not include RSS readers):
Daily pageviews:
Thoughts:
- 200 pageviews per day? Not enough for AdSense 🙁 (not that I would anyway)
Hits by Browser/OS combination:
Thoughts:
- Since 90% of the hits to my site are referred by random Google Image Search (images.google.com) queries, this mix of hits might actually partially represent a statistically random sample, combined with the people who know me.
- One wonders, who are those 53% of people who still use IE?
- Mac OS X at 11.5% is a pretty strong showing.
- So much for Linux on the desktop. (0.85%?)
Search engine keyword hits:
Thoughts:
- It's nice to see that Jehovah's Witness propaganda is still 2x more popular than me (and, alas, the end of false religion still has not come).
Eyeball Thief
Ever since finding his new home in the Crypt hallway, my Wallmonster has been repeatedly defaced, requiring numerous repairs. Now, I am sad to announce, one of his eyeballs has been completely stolen.
It's time for a Wanted poster to help catch the thief.
Watch problem solved
Needlenose pliers: is there anything they can't do?
Unscrewing a watch
Turning on a light
Eating a cookie
Playing XBox 360
Washing the car
Dead watch battery
My watch battery just died after only a year and a half. The watch itself was not very expensive, but now I see why - they want to charge $30 to replace the 75 cent battery. It's like the printer companies and their $50 ink cartridge refill scam.
Supposedly the battery can only be replaced by mailing it to an "authorized technician" or else the waterproof seal will break and the warranty will be voided. I already tried getting it open but I don't have the right tool to unscrew the back. If anybody has a watch-unscrewing clamp tool, I'm in the market..
Venus
By the moon
Point-and-shoot cameras don't seem to work very well for astronomy photographs
New bank
I've been using a credit union for banking, but I never really analyzed it to see if it was the best deal. This weekend I took a look at it and noticed that I've been getting a pathetic 0.0-0.5% interest rate on my checking account, and 2-3% on savings.
I checked around and it looks like it's possible to get 5% on savings accounts with various banks like HSBC, EmigrantDirect, ING Direct, and E*TRADE.
Ultimately I decided to switch to E*TRADE because they also have checking accounts at 3.25%, and it'll be handy to be able to do stock trades from the same account. At these rates, I calculated that I "lost" several hundred dollars in interest on checking & savings last year, so switching definitely looks like the smart thing to do.
Of course, the higher rates are only possible because these are mostly online discount banks, meaning that they don't have physical branch offices anywhere - all customer service is done over the internet (the way of the future), or over the phone (probably in India or China). Credit unions and traditional banks earn their fees since they have to pay for lots of branch offices and people to staff them, as well as maintaining whole ATM networks (which has got to be expensive).
E*TRADE works around this by allowing you to use any ATM and refunding the fees the owner bank will charge you. If it works it sounds great, but it seems a bit unsustainable since if everybody switched to online banking, there would be no brick-and-mortar banks to maintain all of the ATMs. So the high interest rates might not last forever (or maybe electronic commerce will eventually evolve to the point where cash is not required for most transactions, and ATMs will be obsolete).
Next step on the way to smarter finances: get a cash-back credit card and stop using my debit card. I've been using the debit card almost exclusively for several years, and getting 0% back. Even with 1% cash-back, that's another couple hundred dollars "lost" per year. I'm looking at several cards but haven't found one that's clearly better than the others. Currently I'm thinking about going with the Amazon Visa Card (3% on Amazon purchases, 1% on everything else) since I buy a lot of stuff on Amazon, but it's administered by JPMorgan Chase (infamous for evil customer service), so that might not be the best idea..
Jeopardy Typo
In yet another sign of the impending apocalypse, today there is a typo in my Jeopardy calendar.
Discovery
I just discovered that after the gas pedal on my car is depressed all the way, it can still be pushed one "click" further, to accelerate even faster. Sweet.
Buy vs. Rent
The New York Times has a fascinating Flash-based Buy vs Rent calculator that is much more interactive and detailed than any other calculators I have seen on the web.
If I plug in the numbers I'm currently considering and leave all the interest rates at their defaults, I get the surprising result that buying is better than renting only after 26 years, with a net difference at the end of $72,000:
But, switching the "Annual home price appreciation" from 2% to 4%, it's better to buy after only 8 years, and the net difference is $400,000:
In other words, which is better is so completely dependent on what the market does over the 30 years that it's hard to make any good predictions. So despite playing around with the calculator a whole bunch, I'm still at square one in terms of my decision.
One interesting thing I did note is that changing the down payment percentage has almost no effect on the final result, because this calculator accounts for all the opportunity costs (that is, it assumes that you will invest the money you save by renting in the stock market). So in terms of the final net result, there's no reason to make a bigger down payment if you have the money, because you'd be just as well off investing that money in the stock market instead. Similarly, it seems to follow that there's no reason to wait a few years and save up for a bigger down payment, since at that point you would have the same choice (though I have not thought this one through completely). Obviously this doesn't account for other non-strictly financial benefits of having a large down payment, such as the lower risk in case something goes wrong.
By default the calculator assumes a 5% rate of return on investments, which is a pretty low estimate - that's what I get on my regular savings account, in the long-term the stock market will average much better. If we change it to 10% (not unreasonable), we get this fascinating graph which says that buying is always worse than renting, and after 30 years a renter would have $570,000 more in the bank:
Twiddling with the home appreciation price slider at this point leads to wildly different graphs, so it's obviously impossible to make any good conclusions from it.
If anything, what I'm taking away is that renting is not necessarily that bad of an option compared to buying (despite what the real estate & mortgage industries would tell you), and that renting for one more year will not make a huge difference in the long run - who knows where I will be in a year, it's entirely possible (though improbable) that I could be married and thus be looking for a completely different type of house. Hrm..
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