The coldest winter I ever spent
Archive for 2008
Last year there was a new Babylon 5 movie/show, “Babylon 5: The Lost Tales”. Charlotte and I saw it last month on Netflix and we quite liked it. It got poor reviews on IMDB and Netflix but we both agreed it was probably because people’s reminiscence of the original series. Everything is better in retrospect…
Update 5-28-10: It’s now easier to avoid Paypal Fees. Look here to find out.
If you receive money at a “Personal” Paypal account, and the other person sends money from their Paypal balance (and not from a credit card or echeck) then Paypal doesn’t hit you for a 3% fee.
In a personal paypal account, you are restricted to withdrawing up to $500/month from the account.
If you have a “Premiere” account, you’ll get dinged with the 2.9% + $0.30 on every transaction, no matter what.
So you might tell people, “If you are paying from your Paypal balance, please send a Paypal to mefree@me.com. Else, just send it to me@me.com. If you don’t know what this means, just send the money to me@me.com”
Personal Paypal accounts can accept up to 5 credit or debit card payments annually. Credit cards are charged a transaction fee of 4.9% plus $0.30 on your Personal account. So you can accept payments from your friends (paying restaurant tabs and the like) with your personal account without incurring any of those annoying fees as long as your friend is paying you from their Paypal balance or an echeck. It can be a bother to maintain 2 Paypal accounts but you can end up saving over $150/year in Paypal fees!
My name is going to the moon. Well, it’ll go around the moon a whole lot, never to actually land, but that’s beside the point. NASA’s LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) is being launched later this year and I registered to have my name written on a (hopefully radiation-proof, non-volatile) memory chip.
Sure, it’s silly. Sure, some unnamed readers of my blog with autonomous anarchic zones landlocked inside Arlington, MA, USA think that NASA shouldn’t be sending anything anywhere. But hey, my name is going to the moon!
My cousin Christian and his baby sister!
It took a minute for Christian to warm up to being on a video chat. This was his first time. His mom told him to turn back around in the chair because all I could see was his butt… so I stood up and turned around. After we started talking about Webkinz and turning the camera sideways and such, we started having a fun time :-)
I bought my family webcams. We now chat on Skype with video chat often. It’s really terrific. Setting it up was easy. I’d just VNC into their computer and set it up for them… I’d tell my cousin, “Put in the CD that came with the webcam” [click click click]. “Ok, now plug the webcam in”. [wait a moment] “Can you see yourself on the screen?
“Yes!”
“Ok, now I’ll sign you up for Skype and put you in my address book. [click click click] And I’ll call you. [ring ring] Can you see me and hear me on the computer?”
“Yes! Oh this is terrific!”
1968: “2001: A Space Odyssey” video phone
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2008: My aunt in Florida chatting with my cousins in Nashville
Here’s more images from SWARM at Coachella.
This first set is from JDV
Lisa and Mills and a totally awesome robotic sphere
An orb cheering at the Kraftwerk show
The orb whisperer
A very pretty orb indeed!
I shot these next pix
The orbs were quite popular with the ladies
We’re like famous!
Most of the crew (taken by Dean Gray of the Desert Local News)
It was a really nice bus ride. Jimmy from Green Tortoise drove us down and back again. Highly recommended :-)
“Fly! Fly and be freesued!”
I’m going to have to verify the claims made in this article about the allegedly superlatively litigious Wright Brothers before I fully believe it and mope for a week.
I got back from Coachella Monday morning. The weekend was tremendous fun.
High-points:
Kraftwerk – I’ve heard bits of their music for years but their super-low-key on-stage performance was enthralling.
Prince – He’s an incredibly talented guitarist, an incredible singer, terrific on the piano, an incredible showman and choreographer, a fantastic songwriter, and incredibly expressive and sexy on the largest stage. He even transposes cover songs to be his own phenomenally. (and I’ve had a crush on Sheila E since like 1988)
Brett Dennen – If she is on my top 3, I obviously don’t belong at Coachella but a folk festival. She should headline one.
Walking around with an orb following me – Marcus drove the orb while I interacted with people interacting with the orb. This one lady kept asking how they worked and I strung her along until she demanded “I am an Electrical Engineer. Tell me how it knows where it’s going!” She was crushed when I told her it was remote controlled though I tried to console her with our plans of full autonomy. I also thoroughly enjoyed driving the orb while Marcus played with people.
Serge Tankian’s performance was fun if inaudibly loud, standing about 5 rows back with Marcus.
Fatboy Slim is such a presenter, I loved the first several minutes of the show. Then he turned the bass to 11 and I couldn’t bear staying in my spot 250 yards from the stage :-(
Low-points:
Roger Waters – The music sounded too similar to how it did 20 years ago, I’m not a fan of stagnancy or living on your laurels. And I have to admit Floyd reminds me of some difficult times in my life. His new song “Leaving Beirut” was…. it wasn’t a song but a 4 page high-school essay on what he did on his summer vacation. And he read it as such. Apparently, Pink Floyd’s members make better music together than apart.
Roger Waters at amateur night
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Here’s SWARM running around during Kraftwerk :-)
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Steven Nelson built some power tool drag racers for the upcoming competitions at Maker Faire May 3-4 and Ace International Speedway May 17-18.
:-)
This HOWTO was written by Paul Kuliniewicz. Reproduced here under CC license.
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WTF?
According to homeopathy, a substance that causes the symptoms of a disease in healthy people will cure that disease in sick people, and diluting a substance makes it more potent. While traditional homeopathy creates medicine by diluting harmful subtances, we can apply the same principles to weaponize healthy substances. Since orange juice has lots of vitamin C, a homeopathic dilution of orange juice would induce a crippling vitamin C deficiency in anyone who drank it.
How does diluting something make it more powerful?
Because some guy in the eighteenth century decided it does.
How does diluting something make it have the opposite effect it normally does?
Because that same guy decided it does.
Neither of those makes any sense.
I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were in the pocket of Big Pharma, you soulless corporate shill.
I mean, at that level of dilution, it’s unlikely there’s even a single molecule of orange juice in the water.
So? There doesn’t have to be. The water remembers what was in it.
How does that work, exactly?
Dissolved silica from the container. Or aerosols that get mixed in during shaking. Or quantum entanglement. Or friction with a fancy-sounding name. Which one sounds the most sciency? Because it’s that one. I was just joking about those other ones. Though they’re also true. Even though they’re mutually contradictory.
Is there any scientific evidence any of those are actually the mechanism?
Sure! I totally know a guy who knows a guy who tried it, and it totally worked.
No, I mean is there any scientific evidence? You know, double-blind tests and controls and null hypotheses and everything.
Well, no, not with those kinds of tests. It’s well-known that double-blind tests don’t work for homeopathy.
Why is that?
Why, since well-controlled double-blind tests of homeopathy always fail to show any difference between homeopathic treatments and placebo! Since we know homeopathy is true (as you’ll recall, some guy in the eighteenth century decided it’s true), that proves double-blind tests don’t work. Besides, so-called “scientists” are also all in the pocket of Big Pharma, just because if homeopathy were true it would invalidate everything they “know” about chemistry and medicine.
Wait, aren’t there trace amounts of just about any water-soluble compound you can think of in tap water? Shouldn’t the water that comes out of my faucet cure every ailment known to man?
No, that’s stupid.
Why is that?
The water didn’t get shaken the right way.
So there’s a special way you’re supposed to shake the water now?
Apparently.
Are you just making all this up to defend the ridiculous idea that homeopathy actually works?
No.
How do I know you’re right?
You think selling bottled municipal tap water for $1 a bottle is a ripoff? Think of the margins on selling small amounts of water as medicine!