Lee.org

Ok, this is pretty fun…

I got this in an email from Smartflix.com today

The Top Ten Wackiest DVDs at Smartflix.com

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Hey will ya look at that. Regseeker actually made my computer a little faster. I had it remove a few thousand unused registry entries and my Windows XP computer got a little faster. I was a bit worried that it would do Very Bad Things to my registry. I made backups and stuff. It’s been a week and so far, no earth-shattering “kaboom” like that accident with the space modulator.

It’s freeware available in many places, including locally.

I saw this really funny set of photos at this site two weeks ago. I made a note to go back and check it out again. This is what I found today:

Grrr. I -used- to run my own server. No, the only way to be totally sure this kind of thing doesn’t happen is if I run my own server ISP internet.

I got a ticket, a “citation” for having an expired car registration in Oakland. That’s handled in the “Superior Court of California, County of Alameda”. Actually my registration wasn’t expired but I didn’t have the new registration in the car at the time. But that’s not the point. The point is, I wasted 1 1/2 hours of my day this morning going to Oakland Superior Court and I’m here to tell you how to make your experience easier.

At the bottom of my citation, it said that I was supposed to go to court on 1-22-08 at 9am. This is wrong. Here’s how it really works: It takes 4-8 forever(?) weeks from the time the citation is issued until it’s in the computer. Then I’ll be sent a “courtesy notice” by snail mail telling me what I’m supposed to do. Note that my violation was on 11-22-07. Today is 1-24-08… 8 weeks later and my citation still isn’t in the system. I should also note that the phone number the officer wrote isn’t the correct number… but when you call, it tells you what the new number is.

The nice gentleman at the information booth told me to check the status of my citation every 2 weeks at http://www.acgov.org/courts. (note: the site actually forwards to this site). Or I can call the Wiley W Manuel Courthouse - Traffic Division at 510-627-4701. But I’ve called that number and sat on the line waiting for someone to answer the phone for 20 minutes in vain. Use the website instead.

The citation said that I was supposed to show up at 9am. This is wrong. The nice gentleman at the info desk told me that registration for the morning court session opens at 8am. Shortly it will open at 7:30am. But at 7:30am, there is already a long line outside so you’ll do best to show up at the courthouse at 7am or even 6:30am. That way, you’ll be able to register for one of the 120 spots in the 10am morning court session. If you don’t get into the first session, you’ll be registering for the second session which starts at 2pm (IE your entire day wasted). And if there were too many people in front of you, you’ll be told to come back tomorrow, rinse and repeat. Also note that there is no afternoon court session on Thursdays. The nice gentleman at the info desk told me that many people were turned away today (Thursday) because of that.

The address of the Wiley W. Manual Courthouse is 661 Washington, Oakland, CA between 6th and 7th st. When I approached the building, I initially almost walked into the detention center (IE: Jail) in the same structure on 7th St because it looked all governmenty. Don’t make that mistake.

All manner of solar books including (and all from the San Francisco Public Library)

• Got Sun? Go Solar! by Rex A Ewing and Doug Pratt. Excellent book. Practical. Covers the generalities very well.
• The Easy Guide to Solar Electric by Adi Pieper. It’s quite entertaining. More entertaining than educational but that can be a good thing; it makes it an easy read.
• The Passive Solar House by James Kachadorian. I’ve only just gotten started on this.
• Solar Revolution: The Economic Transformation of the Global Energy Industry by Travis Bradford - I dunno. My first impression is that it’s a little too… hand-wavy
• The Solar House: Passive Heating and Cooling by Daniel Chiras, PhD - good stuff. Now if I can only finish it.
• The Passive Solar House: Using Solar Design to Heat & Cool Your Home by James Kachadorian. I’ve barely cracked the cover yet. Looks good though.
• The Idiot’s Guide to Solar Power for Your Home by Dan Ramsey. Very good. Now if I can only finish it. (on page 132)
• The Easy Guide to Solar Electric by Adi Pieper - Very good. Now if I can only finish it. (on p 95)
• The Easy Guide to Solar Electric: Part II - Installation Manual by Adi Pieper. Very good. Now if I can only finish it. (on p 35)

Freakonomics - Very Good. Audiobook. It’s just as “useful” as Blink and The Tipping Point but I don’t like hearing this author read quite as much as I like Malcolm reading.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma - Excellent. Audiobook.

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell - Excellent. Audiobook.

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell - Excellent. Audiobook.

Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology by Valentino Braitenberg- A really good “autonomous robot” book. I haven’t had time to get into it too much lately. But I will eventually!

Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman - (Audiobook) A very fun to read/listen to story!

I borrowed Barry’s Kill a Watt. It’s a gizmo that tells you how many watts and kilowatt*hours your appliances are using. I found out a couple interesting tidbits.

Electricity costs me $0.11 per kilowatt. In my small apartment, I never get out of the first tier of electric rates, which peak out at $0.36 per kilowatt.

• Baking 1 loaf of bread in my Breadman Ultimate automatic bread maker = 0.29 kilowatt*hrs = $0.03. When the electric bread maker oven is heating (maybe 1/2 the time the bread is in the bake cycle) running it uses 387 watts.
• Running the gas oven uses a constant 340 watts to keep the igniter hot. That’s to say using my GAS oven uses more ELECTRICITY than my ELECTRIC oven!

• My computer running at idle = 122 watts.
• My computer running at “full tilt” working on SETI@Home = 192 watts. So running SETI@Home is like leaving a 70 watt lightbulb on all the time in addition to running my computer. If I left it on 24×7, that’d be a $67 donation to SETI@Home each year.

• Charlotte’s laptop= variable between 18 and 50 watts
• When Charlotte’s laptop is turned off, the power supply uses <1 watt.

• My main LCD monitor running with mostly black on the screen = 33 watts.
• My main LCD monitor running with mostly white on the screen = 33 watts.
• Charlotte’s laptop uses 6 watts less when the screen is dark than when it’s bright.

• All of my gizmos turned “off” use 29 watts. Scanner=12, router=10, modem=2, answering machine=5, monitor1<1, monitor2<1, computer<1, clock radio<1. That’s $28 per year.

• Refrigerator=87 watts when running
• Catching it? Priceless.

I’m on the Emo mailing list (not to be confused with the EMO mailing list) and he writes that he’s playing in NYC January 18th and 19th. He’ll be in Boston in May. No date announced yet. You should go. He’s really funny.

Here’s the whole email

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This guy has put together a nice way of finding and then telling copyright violators of his website to cut-it-out. He finds plagiarism with Copyscape.com and then sends them a DCMA take-down form-letter.

This works even if your site is Creative Commons Attribution… If they don’t give you attribution, it’s still an enforcable copyright violation.

I came across this because I recently found a bunch of  spam sites using my content. Apparently webkinz are very popular among the spamming set these days. After posting about them, I’ve gotten several spam pingbacks. It’s not really worth it to me to follow up with DCMA notices to spammers because they’ll never get any Google Juice from me and I know fighting stupid Nigerian and Indian spammers just takes me down an endless hole. But there’s some info for you.

What’s going on in my life? Let’s see…

I went back to New Jersey for a week for Christmas and got to see the most beautiful girl in the world. She’s got long strawberry blonde hair and is 4′ tall. That’s my 7 year old niece Julia. :-)

I’m still working on the SWARM art project with friends. See a SWARM video I produced and some blog updates. about it.

I’m starting a new job as a residential solar power sales consultant at Premier Power. My good friend Barry introduced me to the position and I’m terribly excited at the prospect making a good income at saving the world. I had worked at Valley Yellow Pages over the summer specifically so I could get my sales chops. We’ll see how it goes!

Charlotte and I are doing well together. We’re still in our tiny 24th st apartment… with the new job looming, I’ve thought and said aloud many times, “I can’t wait until I have some money”. I haven’t often thought of how money could improve my life but now I am. Again, we’ll see how it goes.

I helped produce and sell $4,000 of Flaming Lotus Girls calendars for the Christmas season. That makes me pretty happy and proud.

I took a forklift certification class in December (anyone need a forklift driver?)

Went to a couple baby-shower like events recently… Pouneh from FLG and Michelle H. It looks like everybody is getting bulbous bellies these days.

I’ve been helping Tad create the ultimate workbench. I’ve gone over to his house a couple times to cut wood and move things etc… he’s got a LOT of electronics gear in his house and he uses it! Maybe it’ll give you some glimpse to know that he has a $400 electric bill each month, and he lives on his own! Helping him has been fun. I’ll try to post pictures when it’s done. It looks like it’ll be 3 shelves, each capable of holding 600 lbs of gear (and yes, he’ll use it), the main table level is about 4′ x 8′, with the back being occupied by 2′ deep gear like oscilloscopes and the like.

For Christmas, my folks got me a Tom Tom (which will be good for my new job!) and are getting me tickets to Burning Man. I like very much that they have enough acceptance of “those crazy hippies in the desert” that they’d do that for me.

I suppose that’s the most of it. You can find out more about what I’m thinking by reading the rest of my blog. I see that this blog thing is getting quite extensive. I’ve made over 1,200 posts to it since I started it 5 years ago in 2002. I make a point of only posting things that are important to me.

I welcome you to see the New Year card I sent to many people this year. It’s really quite pleasant.

If the card isn’t available anymore, here’s a local version. Originally, the interactive card ended with “Happy New Year” and “May this be a year of peace, love, growth and good news”.

I’m on the marketing mailing list for Atlanta Hobby, a model airplane store I like. I just got this Christmas greeting that I rather appreciate. Here it is: (more…)