aubreyturner.org

I seem to have the ability to pick up accents fairly quickly and without any conscious effort.  During my week in Minnesota I found myself starting to pick up the accent and I had to make a conscious effort to stop.

I’d noticed this in the past when working with people from Scotland and England.  I usually have to make an effort to stop using their accents because I don’t want people to think I’m mocking them.

Winter did indeed deploy the scorpion tail while I was up there in Minnesota last week, making my drive back to the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport very “interesting” to say the least.  Most of the way had been plowed and traffic was moving along quite well.  However, in some of the smaller towns only one lane had been cleared and some of the intersections were troublesome.  It didn’t help that my rental car was a Ford Focus, though (unfortunately, I was stuck with it given that I’m required to take the lowest cost rental…).  I almost didn’t get out of the hotel parking lot, which hadn’t been plowed.

Otherwise the trip was quite good.  The people were pretty friendly (and the accent kind of grows on you).

My flight got delayed due to the weather here at DFW, so I decided to try out the wireless access in the terminal.  It’s $6.95/day for a one-time use pass.  That seems a bit steep, and I likely won’t do it again. 

Anyhow, the security checkpoint wasn’t too bad, although it was annoying.  They were giving us the choice of taking off our shoes and running them through the X-Ray machine or getting ‘additional screening.’  They were specifically targeting people who were wearing sneakers/running shoes.  That annoyed me because I specifically chose to wear mine because they don’t have any metal in them. 

Surprisingly, they didn’t make me boot up the laptop, although they did run it through the X-Ray scanner.

When you check your bag you now have to take it from the ticket counter over to the screening area.  The TSA guy asked me if I had anything that would go ‘boom or bang’ in the bag.  I thought he was asking about aerosol cans or something, but he was really asking about firearms.  I guess he though it was a clever way of phrasing the question, but I suspect it would be best to keep to clear and unambigous language as it would prevent confusion.

On Sunday I will fly up to Minneapolis for a week-long business meeting (I won’t reveal the exact location, lest I give too many clues to the company I dare not name, but I won’t be in Minneapolis for the meeting itself).  As a Texan, I’m more comfortable when the temperature is above 80 degrees, so I was a bit worried about this trip.  It looks like the temperatures up there have moderated from their normal arctic levels, but still, this bit from today’s Bleat doesn’t alleviate my trepidation.

The streets are lined with filthy snowbanks. Winter is in retreat, but we know it deploys the scorpion tail in early March. This is the time of year that grinds your spirit down to pulp and dust.

Let’s hope the scorpion keeps his tail to himself until after my return flight next Friday is at 30,000 ft. and I’ve put on my headphones…

Allow me to call your attention to MELISSA S. CONNELLY and LAURENCE B. STANTON, who intitiated a lawsuit against Palm and a number of computer manufacturers, alleging that a number of Palm organizers could collect Electro Static Discharge (ESD) which damaged the serial ports of computers without sufficient protection.  As the owner of a Palm Vx I just received notice of a settlement in the class action case. 

I can understand someone being frustrated when static electricity kills one of their electronic devices.  However, it should be common knowledge that electronic devices are sensitive to static discharge.  Further, that sensitive devices are subject to destruction by a large enough static discharge.  I’ve been zapped a number of times when taking my Palm out of its cradle.  So far, it hasn’t hurt the computer or the Palm itself.  But if it had, I wouldn’t sue over it.  I just accept that this is one of the prices we pay for the convenience of these electronic devices.  I’ve even taken personal responsibility (what a concept!) for the health of my electronic devices by purchasing and using a humidifier.  Maintaining sufficient humidity levels will prevent static discharge.  (Not to mention dry skin…)

Now, there are computer systems that wouldn’t be fried by the same discharge as the ones alleged to be problematic in the complaint.  But just because some computer makers provide greater static protection doesn’t seem to me to justify suing the manufacturer.  A lot of these PCs are the lower-end ones, where it can be expected that you won’t get all the features of a top-of-the-line system.  There are tradeoffs in every product design decision.  It’s probably possible to design a system that could withstand any static discharge that would be expected in a home environment.  But what would the price be for such a system?  Would it be possible to include such features on that $299 PC that people clamor for?

While the plantiffs may get some kind of payment out of this, the only winners I see are the lawyers, who usually end up with substantial payments for their troubles.  Ultimately, all of the rest of us will pay for this in higher prices for PCs and Palm PDAs.

Eugene Volokh points us to an case where a 12-year-old boy received a three-day suspension for bringing a copy of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition to school and sharing it with his friends.  Supposedly it violated the school’s ‘non-verbal’ harassment policy. 

What a load of bollocks!  Have we really become such a bunch of ninnies that we can’t understand that 12-year-old boys will tend to want to look at this sort of thing?  If it’s a distraction to education, then maybe the school would be justified in confiscating it and returning it after school.  I recall that we used to cut the pictures out of the swimsuit issue and put them inside our lockers.  I guess that would make us criminals today, but we somehow managed to turn out OK.

This sort of thing bothers me because the punishment is way too harsh for the so-called infraction.  Further, it reinforces the idea among the kinds that the ‘authorities’ are a bunch of idiots.

As I was being tailgated by some high-school kid in his mom’s Landrover this afternoon, I was struck by an idea for an invention.  There are ultrasonic sensors that can be mounted on the back bumper of a car to help when backing up to prevent hitting objects.  Some of the more advanced models even give the distance to the offending object.  Take one of these and marry it to a small computer which is hooked up to one of those large LED message signs.  Whenever someone gets too close the computer reads the distance and flashes the message “TAILGATERS SUCK” on the sign, which is mounted in the rear window.

It might not stop tailgaters, but it would at least give me the satisfaction of letting them know when they’re being assholes.

Of course, my next idea was for an “upgrade” model that includes rear-firing missiles…

I went into the local branch of Friedman’s Jewelers this afternoon in search of a new earring.  I found one and went to checkout when the clerk asked me for my name.  This immediately set off alarm bells because I could see no reason for them to have that info.  I asked him why it was needed and he said that he had to enter one to proceed through the sale.  I asked him what they were going to do with the info and told him that I didn’t want to be put on any lists or get any crap from them.  But I didn’t take the argument further, since he would be able to get my name from the credit card anyway.  At least he understood that I didn’t want my personal info in their system and skipped the phone number.

But after he’d rung everything up he pulled out this fingerprint pad and started into this spiel about how they were doing it to prevent fraud and identity theft.  I told him no way and that I’d void the sale if he insisted on a fingerprint.  I was furious.  When he saw my reaction he put the pad away and completed the sale anyway.  I was still tempted to cancel the sale, but by this time he’d already run the credit card and he wasn’t insisting on the fingerprint.

But after all that nonsense, I will never set foot in that store again.  Or any other branch of Friedman’s if that’s the way they run their business.  I refuse to be treated like a criminal just to make a simple purchase.

Stephen Green (who found it via another weblog) suggests a little game.  Take all of your music in your favorite software and randomize it and then list the first ten tracks that show up.

Out of 5432 tracks:

1. Moody Blues – Days of Future Passed – The Afternoon: Forever Afternoon (Tuesday?)
2. Barenaked Ladies – Maroon – The Humour of the Situation
3. Jewel – 0304 – Haunted
4. Alison Krauss and Union Station – So Long So Wrong – Happiness
5. Vanessa Carlton – Be Not Nobody – Ordinary Day
6. Enya – The Memory of Trees – On My Way Home
7. McKennitt, Loreena – The Book of Secrets – Night Ride Across the Caucasus
8. Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys – Take Me Back To Tulsa 2 – Carolina In The Morning
9. 10,000 Maniacs – Our Time In Eden – If You Intend
10. Jewel – Spirit – Fat Boy

There always seems to be something to do around here, especially with spring just around the corner.  On Thursday we got our first real dose of wind, with 40-50 MPH gusts.  On the side of the house there was a large Bradford Pear tree, which unfortunately was planted directly under the electric lines that feed my house from the transformer.  On several of those gusts I would lose power for a second.  Just long enough to completely hose the one PC that I haven’t yet connected to a UPS. 

I called a tree service and waited around for them to come out and give me an estimate.  Around 7:00pm they called and said it’d be the next morning.  Well, they finally showed up around 2:00pm on Friday.  Despite my misgivings about their punctuality, I went ahead and told them to take down the tree.  They came on Saturday and cut down the tree and ground the stump down.  They did a good job, despite being late to every appointment.  The owner of the service also offered to take the old swing set when I told him I was going to tear it down.  In return he trimmed up a couple of other trees in the back yard.  Unfortunately, when it came time to tear it apart, they discovered that the posts were buried a couple of feet deep and encased in concrete.  So now I guess I’m going to have to attack it with a chainsaw and a shovel.

I spent most of Sunday raking and bagging the junk that had accumulated in the back yard.  The previous owners quit bothering to do anything back there sometime last summer, and I hadn’t had time to mess with it until now.  I finished the last bag (number 17) just as it was getting too dark to see what I was doing.  I just hope that the trash collectors don’t balk at the number of bags.  I checked their collection policies on the city’s website, but I always expect trouble. 

I’ve still got a lot of work ahead.  The area where that tree used to be got so much shade that there is no grass there.  There’s also a lot of other junk that I want to get rid of (some planters, an old dog house, etc).  And then, there’s the fence.  Not only do I need to replace the gate, but the entire fence on the left side of the house needs to be replaced (although on the plus side my neighbor offered to pay for half the cost of the materials—I’ll be doing the work myself).  So it looks like I’ve got plenty of work to keep me busy during the next month. 

Anyhow, all this domestic activity kind of cut into my blogging activity.