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I’m not dead….

I’ve just been crushed under a combination of work committments and personal activities.  I’ve been working between 9-12 hours per day,attending the Citizen’s Police Academy and participating in CERT training and activities.

I’ve been contemplating putting in a dog door so I don’t have to serve as doggie-doorman all the time.  Not to mention being able to leave home for extended periods without having to worry about her having an accident.

I’ve found an automatic door that uses an infrared transmitter on the dog’s collar to unlock the door.  It’s not cheap, but it alleviates a couple of concerns I had about security.  At the same time, it should prevent entry by undesirable animals such as the big possum that frequents my back yard. 

The only thing holding me back is that I can see my dog running in and out while it’s raining, getting wet and muddy, and tracking dirt and mud all over the house.  That, and I keep having this vision that one day I’ll wake up to crunching noises next to me in bed and she’ll be happily chewing on a dead bird (or something equally disgusting) right next to me…

I’ve got an old Homelite gas-powered string trimmer that I decided to try to bring back to life.  It was running when I put it away, but it was very hard to start, since the pull rope wouldn’t retract correctly.  I recently found the Homelite parts supplier and ordered the rope, spring, and spool components for the starter.

What’s interesting is that the pull rope came in a plastic bag that was marked “Made in United States, Packaged in Mexico.”  That one caused me to do a double-take for a second.  It’s just a bit of rope. Wouldn’t it be cost prohibitive to ship rope from the US to Mexico to have it put in packages?

I guess they can ship it down there in spools and then cut and package it, but it just seems weird.  You’d think the shipping costs in both directions would eat up any savings in labor.

In reference to my earlier posting on alcohol and children, I recalled that Kim du Toit had once done a rant on the subject.  I seem to recall him mentioning how the issue is approached in Europe, with some places serving special “kid’s drinks.”  Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anything using his site search capability, so I went to Google. 

I still haven’t found the article, but this sponsored link had me laughing, as my brain interpreted it the wrong way at first.  Something in my mixed up wiring saw this as recipes to be used when preparing children, not recipes for children to use.

The human mind is a wonderous and dangerous thing…

I’ve had a Series 2 Tivo for nearly three years now.  I’ve been fairly happy with it, at least until recently.

Tivo recently released version 7 of the Tivo software.  Unfortunately, the user has no control over whether the update is installed or not, except for ripping the network connection out.  The problem is that this has the undesirable side-effect of preventing the download of the program guide, which is necessary to do Season Passes and searches.  The new update made my older model Series 2 almost unusable.  It would easily take five seconds between screen updates.  That is when it properly recognized the button I pressed on the remote.  The update also introduced a bug where the Tivo sees a double-press of the button.  Some people reported accidentally deleting shows due to this bug.  I haven’t had the problem, but it’s been damn annoying.

So, what do I discover last night?  A damn ad that pops up on the screen for some damn movie (“The Interpreter”) that I’m not going to see because they annoyed me with the damn ad.  It seems I must be one of their guinea pigs for this new “feature.”

TiVo began testing interactive advertising tools during the weekend as it looks to appease companies wary of users’ ability to skip over ads.

The company confirmed late Monday that it released the first in a series of advertising features to a random and limited number of subscribers to the digital-video recorder service. The first test feature—a tag—pops up on the screen when a viewer is fast-forwarding through an advertisement.

If viewers press the thumbs-up or select button during the half second the tag is displayed, they will be redirected to a menu that leads to more information about the advertised product. The tag takes up about 25 percent of the screen, according to the company. TiVo said it is working with only one advertiser, a movie studio, on the trial balloon
…
The tools will be tested only on Series2 TiVo owners, but once completed could be applied to Series 1 and DirecTiVo customers. Subscribers can’t opt out of the feature, but they can ignore the tags.

“Our goal is in no way to interfere with the TiVo experience,” TiVo spokesman David Shane said.

I call bullshit on two things above.  First, the damn pop-up was way bigger than “25%” of the screen.  I sits right smack in the middle of the screen and you can only see the background image around the edges.  Second, it interferes badly with the “TiVo experience.” 

The whole damn Tivo experience was supposed to be about taking control of TV viewing.  This “feature” is all about removing control from the user.  Yes, you can still fast forward, but it’s disruptive and you have no control over how or where it appears.

I guess I find this irritating because it came right after the piss-poor experience of having my Tivo made nearly useless by their damn update.  It’s unexecusable that they would release an update without doing proper testing to determine that it was OK.  It’s painfully obvious that they didn’t test the new software on the Series 2 machine, or it wouldn’t have been released.  And what did this update include?  The media sharing stuff, which I don’t give a rat’s ass about (I can share pictures and music with my PC’s more easily than I can with the Tivo), and this damn pop-up crap.  They didn’t even have the decency to fix their damn performance bugs before springing this on us.

Anyhow, here’s a fact I bet they didn’t really consider before they sold out to the advertisers:  I watch the ads as I fast forward them.  If I see something that looks interesting I’ll stop and watch a little more of it.  This damn pop-up makes it nearly impossible for me to see what’s going on behind it. 

What really burns my ass about this is that I paid a lot of money for the “Tivo experience.”  I bought the Series 2 back when it was still new, so it was about $400 and then I paid for the lifetime subscription (another $250).  If Tivo wants me to see ads, they can refund my subscription fees and make the service free.  But for paid members, this is simply unacceptable.

I used to be one of those annoying people who advocated Tivo whenever possible.  Not anymore.  When this unit dies I’ll either get a DVR from my cable company (even though their interface sucks) or roll my own using my “entertainment” PC.

Update.  I just remembered something that should be noted here.  The pop-up appears regardless of what you’re fast forwarding through.  In my case I was fast forwarding through part of the show.  I was watching a show “live” and had to leave the room for a bit.  When I came back I used the triple rewind feature to go back, but I went too far.  As I was fast forwarding back to the point where I left, the pop-up appeared over the show, not just the ads.

Here’s yet another instance where a bad case makes for bad law.

Amy Werry won’t turn 21 until Oct. 15, 2006, but the 19-year-old already knows that is a Sunday.

Should she choose to do so, Werry could hit the bars at midnight that day to celebrate with her first legal sip of alcohol and any other drinks that friends buy her before last call.

“That’s the way most people do it,” she said.

The coming-of-age tradition of young Texans toasting their 21st birthdays from midnight until 2 a.m. could be ending. State lawmakers are considering a bill that would make it illegal to serve people drinks on their 21st birthday until 7 a.m., or until noon on Sundays.

Supporters say the law would deter celebrators from drinking multiple shots of alcohol in a short time, a practice that can be fatal.

“When you start at midnight, you have only until 2 a.m.,” said Rep. Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands. “The clock is ticking. At least the next day, they won’t be trying to cram” so many drinks into two hours.

I think the real problem here is that the generally-prevailing Puritan attitude towards alcohol in this country (and especially Texas) doesn’t allow for a healthy environment for teaching children how to deal with alcohol when they are old enough to drink.  We don’t put people behind the wheel of a car at a certain age and say, “Here you go, you’re fully legal.”  So why do we expect people to know how to magically handle alcohol at the instant they reach some arbitrarily determined age?

Of course, parents (even in Texas) have the right to allow their children to drink.  Unfortunately, the zero-tolerance ninnies have made it so taboo that many parents are reluctant to allow even moderate consumption.  So what you end up with are a bunch of people who have no good experience with alcohol suddenly having full access to it.  A lot of them are going to do stupid things at first.

Anyhow, this is yet another stupid law that won’t do anything but drive the “problem” underground.  As the young woman in the article states, people will just get drunk at home if they can’t go to bars. 

There isn’t anything quite as uniquely dangerous to liberty as a politician who wants to “raise awareness” or “send a message” to save us from ourselves.

I’m always getting mixed up about which area codes around here are truly local and which are long distance.  It doesn’t really matter from a cost perspective for me, since I’ve got the Verizon Freedom plan and don’t pay per-minute charges any more.  The problem is that I’ll dial a number with the ‘1’ and the phone system will tell me I don’t need it, or I’ll dial it without the ‘1’ and it’ll tell me I need it.

But that got me to thinking.  If the system knows enough to tell me that the number needs a ‘1’ or not, why not just complete the damn call?

Sorry for the lame lack-o-posting of late.  It seems offline activities and workload all came together at about the same time.  The big project that I just finished the design for was given the go ahead, and I just concluded the kickoff meeting with the development team.  So it looks like work will be pretty busy for the next three or four months.

I started attending the Keller Citizens’ Police Academy at the beginning of this month.  It’s on Tuesday nights from 6:30pm to 9:30pm.  I also just wrapped up an amateur radio class last week, which had been on Thursday nights from 7:00pm to 10:00pm for the past 10 weeks.  I am now the holder of a Technician class amateur radio license (or at least I have my call sign, which is in the FCC’s ULS, but the actual license certificate has not yet been sent).  I don’t have a suitable radio yet, although I’m investigating the available dualband (2m/440) handheld units.  The amateur radio class was done as a continuing education activity for the Keller CERT team.  During an emergency HAM radios are often used as a communications link when all the conventional systems are down.  Tarrant county has a RACES net, which I may join.  I’ve got the required training out of the way now (you have to have a HAM license, incident command training, and the SkyWarn class), although I think I want to revisit the SkyWarn stuff before I do so (they covered a lot of stuff in the seminar, and it didn’t all sink in the first time).

The Citizen’s Police Academy has been good so far.  I went in with a bit of trepidation, as I’m a bit suspicious of police in general.  So far, though, it seems like at least our local Keller police are pretty down to earth.

The first night we learned about DWI field testing.  It cleared up some of my concerns about what they’re looking for (e.g. I couldn’t stand on one foot very well stone sober, but it’s not so much balance, but attention to directions and doing two things at once, which drunks don’t do well).  This department puts a lot of effort into catching drunk drivers.  Last year they had 403 arrests for DWI/DUI in Keller.  That averages out to 1.1 per day, every day of the year, in a city of approximately 30,000.  From the police reports I see in the local paper, it’s about an even mix of local residents and people from surrounding cities.

Last night they covered searches, seizures, and arrests.  Of particular interest is that Keller officers generally don’t try to talk people into consent for searches.  If they think they have cause, they go ahead and arrest the person, tow the car, and get a warrant to search (or do the search incident to the arrest).  I’m not sure whether I like this better or not, given that the arrest is generally for something simple (e.g. broken tail light) that is technically an arrestable offense.  But then, they usually only do this when they have a strong suspicion that there’s something wrong.  I suppose my trepidation about the whole situation is that it mostly involves drug offenses. 

Is posting signs advocating a particular candiate or position in an election electioneering?  Texas has specific laws against this activity within 100 feet of a polling place on election day.  The election judges are required to post signs at the 100-ft mark to denote the exclusion zone.

I’m curious about this, since the polling place I went to on Saturday for the bond election was at the Bear Creek Intermediate School(*).  There was a Suburban in the parking lot, within the exclusion zone, that had three very large “Yes” posters on the windshield.  It was obvious that the vehicle was parked there with the intent to display the “Yes” posters to all voters entering the polling place (it was not driveable with the signs).

Given what I’ve been read in the Texas Election Code, I think this is illegal.  I suppose it wouldn’t make a difference to the outcome, but it bugs me because even if I’m not correctly reading the code, it seems improper to bring political signs into the exclusion area.  On further thought, I think the owner of the Suburban was hanging around the area (or at least I got the distinct impression that it was his vehicle), which would seem to violate the loitering provision of the above statute.

(*) It also occurs to me that it seems vaguely improper to hold a school bond election in a school cafeteria.

The latest huge bond package request from KISD passed, after a full-court press by the KISD administration and other interested parties (including at least three mailings from the school district itself).  I was less than pleased with the rhetoric and techniques of the “Yes” crowd, specifically their threat that failing to vote to raise our taxes to fund the extravagant school building programs would cause our taxes to be raised to fund portable buildings. 

It leads me to question the whole concept of funding for public schools.  A whole segment of the population has managed to foist the external costs of their behavior onto the rest of us.  On top of that they have managed to paint us as evil if we question paying for the costs of their children. 

If we were to really make school funding fair, the people who use the service would pay for it.  Instead, every time another family moves into far North Ft. Worth, my taxes go up. 

What?  That’s cold and heartless?  Sorry, but it’s about time somebody spoke up and told the cold, hard truth.  If people can’t afford the costs of educating their children, then maybe they ought to be thinking about whether they should have them or not and stop expecting the rest of us to subsidize their choices.