Lee.org

I was a substitute teacher in Hackettstown High School today. It went fine. I was a little worried about being able to wake up early enough for school but it ended not being a problem.

In the last period of the day, my class of sophomores were to watch two TV shows… an episode of Discovery Channel’s Extreme Machines and Mega Machines. The shows were fine enough but I would have rather been teaching them than babysitting them. Well enough…

Then there was this discussion:

TV: The sugar from one truckload of cane from this truck will feed a person for 428 years.
Kid: Wow, we eat too much sugar.
Lee: Well, it’s not that much sugar when you think about it.. 1 person for 428 years or 428 people for 1 year is the same thing. Thinking about the population of the United States, that’s not much at all. [half talking to myself] Let’s see, what’s the population of the U.S.
Kid: Like 10 million people.
Lee: [Stopped dead in my tracks. Wide eyed stare, mouth agape]
Another kid: [Seeing that I thought the first kid was way off] No, it’s like a billion people.
Lee: [Mouth closed. Mouth opened. Mouth closed]
Lee: [Walks up to the TV and shuts it off] [Speaking to class] That was really interesting. What did he say about how much sugar one truckload contained? ……..

A discussion ensues in which most of the kids shout out guesses as to the U.S. population, all of which are wildly wrong. I have them take a stab at the world population and they fare no better. New York City population? Zero for three. :-(

We talked about populations for a few minutes, I gave them some facts, and then we got back to the program.

I would have liked to turn it into a full discussion about scale…. “How many people are in the room? School? Town? State?…” Especially after hearing one student in the class claim, “A friend told me that Hackettstown is in the Guiness Book of World Records as having the most number of fast food restaurants in a 1/8 mile stretch.” A discussion ensued in which some kids believed that, though I doubted the claim. He asked to go look it up on the internet and I gladly consented. (for those of you not in the know, Hackettstown is a small far-suburb town about an hour away from New York City. The strip he was referring to has about 8 fast food joints on one side of the street, all on lazy, large plots of land) After a few minutes of googling, it was the end of the period and he hadn’t come up with anything. He said that he had, “a hard time logging on” but I had been glancing over his shoulder every couple minutes…. he likely needed a lesson in how to do an internet search.

My main music tools are Winamp, CDex and FLAC. I would use Vorbis Ogg since it has significantly better sound quality per megabyte used (192kbps is indistinguishable from the real thing. In MP3, 256kbps is almost as good)

Support tools I use for music:

flac112a.exe – The FLAC tools so that CDex can convert files to FLAC. Note settings in CDex:

• Encoder: External Encoder
• Encoder path: C:\Program Files\FLAC\flac.exe
• Parameter String: -8 -o %2 -T “artist=%a” -T “title=%t” -T “album=%b” -T “date=%y” -T “tracknumber=%tn/%tt” -T “genre=%g” -“
• bitrate: doesn’t matter
• file extention: flac
• Make sure that in the generic tab, “ID3 tag version” is set to “none”

FLAC plugin for Winamp – FLAC_plugin_with_library_support for Winamp.exe by Michael Facquet. It lets Winamp read FLAC files. Library support means that tags are read correctly :-) Winamp Reference.

out_lame – A Winamp output plug-in to create MP3 files directly from Winamp. IE: if it can play through Winamp, it can be converted into an MP3, which is great for building CDs for my car’s new mp3 player. Reference.

SqrSoft ACF Disk Writer – It will write ANYTHING that can be played through Winamp to the disk, including streams that usually can’t be. Winamp Reference. Homepage.

The Random Image script that I had gotten from Photomatt was ok but it isn’t able to show images when it’s run from alternate folders.

I’ve replaced Matt’s script with a slightly modified version of Matthew Dingley’s Random Image Generator. The code is a bit more elegant, runs quicker and it runs from arbitrary locations.

I’m very happy with the new script. You can view the results in the upper right corner of each blog page.

Here is the source code for it.

I’m not The Computer Guy anymore. I just sold the business to a guy in the neighborhood who is doing the same kind of thing that I was. He didn’t have nearly as many clients as I did, but now he does.

It was really a bit of shocking news when I was standing there at his place; I had just signed a contract and was looking at the check he gave me. It suddenly dawned on me that if one of my clients called me tomorrow, I would have to refer to them to Charlie. I didn’t have any clients. I’m not The Computer Guy.

This is an official demarcation point in my life.

Got’cher nose!

Many years ago, there was this fantastic bit that they did on the Carol Burnett show.

The scene: two men wearing suits sitting in an office. Blueprints sit on the desk in front of them

Owner: I have to thank you again for doing such a great job on this building. 64 stories tall, and you built it faster than expected and well under budget. And you got more office space inside this building that we originally thought you could! You are a genius!

Architect: [looking visibly nervous and disturbed] Yes well, I’m glad that you like it. I’m just… Yes well, we did a very good job. I’m very… happy… Well you know, this building isn’t without its flaws.

Owner: Yes but, everything is looking really good. We can clean up any small flaws that were made with the money that we saved in the construction and the increased rents that I’ll be be getting.

Architect: [starting to look despondent] Yes I’m sure you’re right. We can work this out.

Owner: We can discuss these problems after lunch. But first I have to go to the bathroom. Where is it? I think I saw it on the way in. Is it down the hall and on the left?

Architect: No.

Owner: Where is it then? Is it on the other side of the building?

Architect: [putting his hand into his hands] No.

Owner: [looking quizzical, and then with the look of happy realization] Ah, I see, you only put bathrooms on every other floor to save money. That’s how you did it! So is the men’s bathroom one floor up?

Architect: [starting to pull his hair, and speaking with a whimper] No.

Owner: [starting to realize that something is up] Then is it one floor down?

Architect: [he looks up at the owner and silently nods “no”]

Owner: Two floors up?

Architect: [he stares into the owner’s eyes and doesn’t flinch]

Owner: Two floors down? Seven floors up? Ten floors down?!!

Architect: Just a few… small flaws. I only forgot that one thing. [He sets his head down on the desk and puts his hands over it]

That brings us to today’s fatal flaw.

Since the tape deck in my car broke several months ago, I’ve been looking for a replacement, a way to play recorded media. I tried using my Pocket PC and a radio transmitter as a poor man’s iPod but the user interface isn’t all that good for automobile use. I came across a really groovy 20 gigabyte MP3 player the the car. The Omnifimedia DMP1 Mobile Digital Media Player. It sells in some places for $600, but I came across it for $149. (I later found that it sells in many places for under $200) So I looked into it. It looks like a fantastic device. Rugged, reliable, attractive, and an all around great marriage of technologies. You can even download your music from your home network using WiFi, pretty cool.

I came across a review on Amazon.com that mentioned that the device has no fast-forward button. That sounded ridiculous. I considered how I would probably be listening to very long MP3s, things like four hour long concerts, hourlong radio programs, 30 minute long pod casts and the like. I found the manual online and gosh darn it, it’s true. Tape decks and CD players have fast-forward. You can skip forward with vinyl on a turntable. But not this device. The last device I’ve heard of it didn’t have a fast-forward button was an 8-track tape player.

What’s old is new again.

a friend recently asked me about the detrius that I’m unloading. My response:

Oh my God, you wouldn’t believe how much junk I have. And I have been trying for the last several years to reduce my junk-load. But everyone has a CD collection right? And a book shelf or three of books. And furniture in storage. And old decorations that were only supposed to be used once. And old unused computer equipment. And clothing that they will never wear again. And insignificant knickknacks that really turn out to be completely insignificant. And the collection of valuable junk that we just never get around to getting rid of. Now all I need is an EMP pulse to wipe the slate completely clean. Because there is no way I am going to get rid of my wonderful collection of old computer programs, files, and archives.

The phrase “Jumped the Shark” supposedly comes from the Happy Days episode when Fonzie jumped a shark on waterskis, a sign that “it was all downhill from there”.

The people running the website JumpTheShark.com claim to be the originators of the phrase. But when I look at where they review Happy Days, Fonzie jumping the shark doesn’t even get a single vote for “Jumped The Shark when…”

So…. the phrase “Jump the Shark” was built on a concept that its creator doesn’t even stand behind despite building a sizable website and mystique around it.

There is some weird heavy-duty truism floating around in this somewhere.

Trav was recently talking about how he tried to fix a problem where he was undercharged at the pet store. No one at the pet store wanted to take his money when he called them up on the phone to correct the problem.

I’ve run into a dilemma that is similar in some respects. I bought a DVD on Amazon.com and found that the DVD was a Chinese bootleg. It’s a perfectly usable DVD. it’s just that Sony Classics never made a region one DVD with Chinese subtitles and Chinese characters on the front cover.

I emailed Amazon and they said that that’s not their issue, that I should speak with the party that sold me the goods. I contacted the seller and he was quite amenable to be returning the DVD for refund.

Now the dilemma: who am I supposed to talk to (if anyone) about these illegal goods? if this was counterfeit money, I would know to contact the Secret Service. Of course then, I would have to turn over the counterfeit money and I’d be out of luck. I ran into an issue like that a few months ago when I returned bootleg Norton antivirus CDs to Symantec. I got a congratulatory letter and was out 20 bucks.

Is this situation the same here with DVDs? It’s just not worth it for me to pester Sony Classics about this breach. What a terrific haven for bootlegging Amazon.com can be!

Here’s what I’m going to do: I’ll return the DVD (spending two more dollars on postage), get my money back and then give them a poor (and descriptive) feedback. I’ll let “the market” take care of the rest.

update 8-16-05 When I wrote to the owner of the DVD, he said that he was sorry and it hadn’t registered with him that it was a bootleg disc. He refunded my money and didn’t want the DVD back. So I got my money back AND kept the DVD. From the tone of the conversation we had, I’m guessing that it was just some guy trying to dump his DVD collection while moving.

From Masterreplicas.com describing their high end light saber replica

Durable yet light chrome plated aluminum body looks and feels like a real lightsaber.

Just like a real one, eh?