And tonight brings us the new season of “Heroes”. By all that is practical, I am begging the universe to make Nikki as un-annoying as possible.
Geek
Persona.
I have been a computer user for quite a few years. Well, more than quite a few years. Actually you can count my computer use time in decades. I’ve been playing with computers since 1983 and I had my first online account in 1985. I’ve been online ever since.
During these years I’ve had a wide selection of internet names. “DJ JP”. That’s too short, I can’t use it to register for anything new these days. “BlueMarvel37”. Wanting to be just BlueMarvel, there’s already a bunch of BlueMarvels out there and quite frankly, I see myself as the only BlueMarvel so I’m not going to append a number to the end of my name. I even tinkered with “J.P. 2.0”, but the dots and the dashes must come too close to resembling morse code or something because half the websites I register with won’t take that for a screenname/username/handle.
Many of my friends have one internet name that they use across the board. My friend Eric has the same name whether he’s on Yahoo, MSN or AOL, as well as various other message boards. I’ve decided that I need to have just one name across the board. So I’ve changed my username on Flickr, AOL/AIM, YouTube, Yahoo, all over the place.
Introducing… iMachias.
I’m a Mac fanboy through and through and since I tend to use formal names when referring to people (I call my friend in Connecticut Gregory instead of the more common Greg, for example), I figure Machias is like a formal name for a Mac fanboy. At least in my hyperdrive curious little mind. So I’ve settled on iMachias. It’s not common, there’s no number appended to the end, I’m the only iMachias that I’ve run across.
So if you have me as BlueMarvel37 or itsjp2.0@gmail.com or anything like that on any message board or instant messenger, I won’t see you anymore. It’s full speed ahead with iMachias.
iDid It.
Back in June during the big Apple iPhone hype I said that I wasn’t going to get an iPhone. I found them to be a little too expensive and quite frankly I wasn’t in the mood to stand in line for days for a cell phone. Well then Steve Jobs announced a couple of weeks ago that effective immediately, they were dropping the price by $200. While still a tad on the expensive side, the 8GB model was something that I could handle.
Guess what we bought tonight.
Aside from the fact that my Motorola Razr has not held up well over the past year, I wanted something that I could manage my school deadlines and assignments and whatnot easily with. I’ll admit it, I also wanted to be one of the cool kids on campus. I haven’t seen an iPhone in use yet at school, I’m hoping to be one of the popular trendsetters.
Gmail.
I have a tendency of using multiple computers in my life. Between having a PowerBook, an HP laptop, multiple servers, a Mac in the music studio and my work computer, I never know where I’m going to check my e-mail from. To solve this problem I have abandoned the use of mail programs that reside on a computer and have opted to use the web-based mail clients instead. There are several to choose from including Hotmail, Yahoo!, AIM/AOL and Gmail. I decided to run with Gmail from Google.
I dislike it.
Now I know that anything Google does is the bees knees of the geek set. I love their search engine, I love their calendar and I love their photo editing software, Picasa. I get Google. But I just can’t wrap my head around Gmail. I find the interface maddening.
First of all, I have this tin-foil hat thing going on with messages being archived forever. This isn’t necessarily a fault of Google, as all of the web-based mail clients do this, but for some reason when I see messages such as “You don’t have to delete your messages, ever!” as an advertising point, I get nervous. Somewhere, someone is reading some seedy message that has been sent to my account (obviously in error) and I don’t like that. As I work for an internet provider, I can confidently say that there are no secrets on the internet, but for some reason that whole “store it in the cloud” thing makes me nervous. That’s not Google/Gmail’s fault however.
What I really don’t like about Gmail is the interface. With efforts in simplicity and trying to look like the Google default homepage, Google has made the interface somewhat non-standard. I haven’t found a way to drag and drop files where I want them. I have a hard time finding the print button and I don’t like the way the messages are grouped into discussions.
Surprisingly, I like Hotmail. Even though Hotmail is part of Microsoft, for some reason I don’t get as nervous about them storing my old e-mail. I figure they’ll lose them sooner or later like most Windows users lose their files from time to time. I’ve been a Hotmail user since the days before it was owned by Microsoft, so using their software is like wearing a comfortable shirt. In addition, Microsoft has tweaked the interface enough that it’s now much like Outlook, which we use at work. Again, it’s the comfortable shirt thing.
I’m thinking of moving off of Gmail and onto Hotmail. I know it isn’t the trendy thing to do but for me I think it’ll work better, and after all, I like doing my own thing.
Old Habits.
It’s been said that in her later years, Erma Bombeck obtained a state of the art word processor to write her newspaper column, “At Wit’s End” and her last few books. After several attempts at being witty while following the cursor on the screen, she subsequently ignored said electronic wizardry and opted to use her trusty typewriter instead.
I totally understand where she’s coming from.
I have a Mac PowerBook G4 that’s approaching three years old. It’s still quite functional, it’s beautiful to look at and it purrs along like a content kitten. However, during our time together updates from Apple and the more and more software I’ve added have taken it’s toll on it a little bit and have subsequently slowed it down. It still trudges along doing it’s thing but it doesn’t have the zip or pizazz it had when it was a young chip.
When I started school last year we bought an HP laptop that had Windows on it but was converted to Linux (after a number of false starts) a couple of months ago. The computer is a delight to use and I’ve tried on numerous occasions to make it my main computer but I just can’t into it. Like a favorite pair of underwear or the t-shirt that makes me feel sexiest, I just like the feeling of using my PowerBook. So it takes a little longer to download porn or watch the BearForce1 video on everyone’s blog. While the cool kids at the internet café are doing their thing on their zippy MacBook Pros, there I am sitting in the corner with the MacBook’s big brother.
I guess as I get older I’m less concerned with keeping up with the Joneses and have ended up set in my ways.
Infrastructure.
As a budding Civil Engineer with dreams of working for the Department of Transportation, it’s only natural that I am very interested in yesterday’s tragedy in Minnesota, where a bridge that carries Interstate 35W over the Mississippi River collapsed, plunging several vehicles and their occupants into the river below. While I understand the scope of this tragedy, I have to admit that I am a little dismayed at the media “hype machine” that’s kicked into gear. It seems like reporters are nearly grabbing family members of the victims from the site and trying to get an interview. I think that’s kind of rude.
While there will undoubtedly be an investigation into the cause of the collapse, I think we are seeing a symptom of a growing concern in the United States, and that’s our aging transportation infrastructure.
The bulk of the interstate highway system was built around 50 years ago. Naturally, there have been improvements, modifications, inspections and whatnot along the way, however, many of the bridges and roadways in the U.S. are nearing the end of their shelf life. Unfortunately, with a seemingly unending war that is costing hundreds of billions of dollars and an American need for an increase in vehicle size and such, our roads are getting abused without the monetary support necessary to keep them in shape.
When I was a child there was talk about removing the tolls from the New York State Thruway. This was slated to happen some time between 1992 and 1996, though it never did. I think this is a good thing. As a young driver, I couldn’t wait for the Thruway to be “free”; as a more experienced adult, I find tolls to be a good thing because the road is being paid for by the people that use them. I don’t have a problem with tolls as long as they are used for what they’re intended for and that’s the upkeep and improvement of the roadway that’s being tolled. I’m NOT in favor of hiring toll booth operators at a huge salary simply to hand out tickets or push a “GO” button to let an E-ZPass car through, to me that’s a huge waste of money. However, I am in favor of tolls if it’s going to keep our roads in better shape and allow various transporation agencies to do their job and work to make driving safer for all involved.
I’m also in favor of increasing the tax on fuel. As Americans, while we bitch about gas being nearly $3.00 a gallon in actuality we have some of the cheapest gas prices in the world. Perhaps if we all paid a few more cents at the pump and/or drove smaller vehicles that didn’t beat up the road as much, we could avoid tragedies like the bridge collapse in Minnesota yesterday.
New Camera.
Earl surprised me this evening by buying me a new digital camera for my birthday (which is tomorrow). Technology is amazing in that it does twice as much stuff as my old camera for half the price. It’s a Sony Cybershot DSC-W55. I highly recommend it to anyone looking to buy an inexpensive digital camera, as it’s small and thin yet packs a lot of punch.
Frankly I think I look like hell in this video, but then again I’m winding down from several beers this evening, as well as hanging out with friends at the local brewery.
[MEDIA=14]Can I just say I must give credit to everyone that uses Microsoft Windows Vista. I’ve had it installed on my HP laptop for the past week and already Internet Explorer 7 has crapped out to the point that I can’t upload anything to my blog nor reliably open websites without it freezing. Mozilla Firefox, on the other hand, purrs along like a happy cat. I’ve been having problems with IE 7 since I got a blue screen of death on Vista yesterday and I wasn’t even near the computer when it happened. I must give kudos to Windows users, you must know what you’re doing to keep your computers usable. I’m sticking to my PowerBook G4. Oh, the reason for Vista is because I have flash converting software (my videos are done in Flash, like YouTube videos) for Windows that is 10 times faster than the same software on my old PowerBook. That’s the only reason I’m using it these days.
Fried.
What does one do when it’s 80 degrees at 11:00 at night and there’s no hope of sleeping due to the heat and humidity? You do a science experiment, of course!
Earl and I live near where many of the main power lines for the entire state come together. From here, large towers carrying lots and lots of volts can be seen headed off in all directions. In fact,some of the only UHF (Ultra High Voltage) lines in the United States, clocking in at 765kV, are a couple of miles down the road from our home as they march off to Massena, which borders the province of Quebec, connecting the Empire State (and the eastern seaboard) to HydroQuebec.
Tonight I decided to park the car under one of the towers and jump out to see if I could get a fluorescent tube to light up like the urban legend says. I didn’t expect the tube to light up to it’s full potential, and it didn’t, since I stood to the left of the lines when I filmed this. I had a creepy feeling about standing directly under the lines, as I could hear them sizzling a little bit from the humidity and dampness in the air.
This video is very dark because the use of any light would have negated the effect of the tube. I hope you can make out what I saw, which was a fluorescent tube lighting up in my hands. When held vertically and pointed at one of the lines, it glowed blue. When held horizontally, it glowed red. I don’t know the cause of the color change. Adjacent to the 765kV towers is a set of two lower voltage lines, I believe they’re 345kV each. The 765kV lines are three lines, one for each phase of electricity, and each “strand” is a bundle of four wires. The 345kV lines, two sets of a group of three are single strands. There’s another set of 765kV lines on nearly identical towers nearby that head off to Oswego and they’re accompanied by one set of 345kV lines that are one group of three strands made up of two wires. Anyways, perhaps the color change is due to the fact that I was standing between the 765kV and the 345kV lines. In addition, I was standing about 1/3 of the way between the 765kV towers. I didn’t want to stand directly beneath the lowest point where the wires sagged as they’re only 30 feet about the ground and since I’m 5′ 10″ and holding an 8′ bulb, I would have been running around waving a metal object 14 feet in the air, nearly halfway to the sagging lines.
I have to give lots of credit to Ben Franklin and his kite and key setup.
Again, the video is very dark. I might do this again to see if I can improve the lighting somehow, and the next time drag Earl along with me to run the camera.
[MEDIA=13]Oops I Did It Again.
I had a blog software upgrade go bad, so all my data is here but my pictures, videos and display themes are a little wonky at the moment. Please bear with me, but I’ll continue blogging with this temporary setup.
You’d think after 25 years of doing this computer thing I’d get it right by now.
Update 2007-07-03 23:50 – I’ve restored 3/4 of the videos and pictures from the past week. I’ve also restored the look of the page. Hopefully, my webhost will be able to restore it all tomorrow but I’m not banking on it. I’ll just keep working on restoring pictures but a couple of videos might be lost.
No Shame.
I wanted to try out new video software for my laptop. I’m happy with the video quality of this clip and the software I’m using.
Sweet Jesus, I need to get some sleep.
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