aubreyturner.org

I keep wanting to see today’s election as the end of a long and trying election cycle.  I’d like to breathe a sigh of relief that it’s finally over.  Unfortunately, I don’t think we’re going to be able to say it’s over at the end of the day today.  I’m afraid that if the election results are close that the Democrats will deploy a plague of lawyers into the battleground states in order to gum up the works and put stink on the whole operation in the hopes of maybe pulling things their way. 

I’m very wary that this thing could be dragged out for months.  I hope it won’t, but I’m still afraid that it will happen.

Continuing with the Christmas theme from the last post, I’ve noticed Christmas displays going up in several stores over the past few weeks (in addition to the big pile of catalogs I’ve received).  I find this annoying, given that we haven’t even had Thanksgiving yet (for that matter, some of these displays went up two weeks before Halloween).

It’s too damn early for this crap.  I’m not ready to think about Christmas until after Thanksgiving.  At the rate the stores are going, they might as well keep their displays up year round…

I’ve been slowly making my way through my accumulated mail from last week.  I just now looked at the Sam’s Club Holiday Gift Guide and discovered their special Orange County Choppers Fantasy Package.

There’s only one available.  The first Sam’s Club member to wire $137,000 to the holding account gets the package.

Since purses for guys never really caught on (not that I’m complaining, given that they always seemed a bit froofy for my tastes), I tend to carry a lot of crap in my pockets.  So I was quite interested when I learned about this company and their products today.  You can get vests from them with up to 42 hidden pockets for all your electronic gadgets.  They even have a model with solar panels that allows you to recharge USB devices.

I really like the idea of the hidden pockets.  They’re contained inside the garment so you’re not flashing your electronics for the world to see.

While waiting for the wee (and not so wee) beasties to come begging for candy I kept an ear on the scanner to see what else was going on in the area.  It sounded to me like a fair number of teenagers decided to skip the treat business and proceed directly to trick.  There were calls for teenagers driving wrecklessly, teens harassing trick-or-treaters, teens throwing eggs at houses and cars, and even one about teens throwing water balloons from their cars at other cars (almost causing the caller to have a wreck).

The calls stopped about the same time as the trick-or-treaters petered out, which was the same time a thunderstorm rolled in.  Unfortunately, this left me with a pile of candy.  Since I don’t go into the office any more, I can’t pawn this stuff off on my coworkers.  I think most of it will land in the trash, especially the smarties and those nasty little Marvel candy sticks (the boxes were cool, but the candy sucked). 

I’m taking a class in Boulder, CO next week.  Since I’m going to be in the Denver area, I’m taking advantage of the opportunity by leaving tomorrow to visit my sister over the weekend.  Given those activities, I don’t know if I’ll have the opportunity to post any updates during that time. 

I’m supposed to fly back next Friday (the 29th), but I don’t expect to be ready to mess with this weblog until after the weekend.  Unless there’s a change of plans, I will return on 11/1.

I thought I’d slip into the Keller Town Hall during lunch and vote early.  I was surprised to see that there was a fairly considerable line when I got there.

(Sorry about the poor image quality, but I only had my picture phone with me at the time.)

It took about 45 minutes from the time I entered the line until the time I was finished.  I was also surprised to see that they were using electronic voting machines after having downloaded the sample ballot, which was of the “fill in the line” style that I’ve grown used to.  After checking my voter registration card, the election worker gave me a printout with an access code that is used to activate the machine (which I assume also tells the machine what ballot to give you).  The machine itself was fairly easy to use, at least for someone like me who uses computers, PDAs, and cell phones all the time.  I would expect that some of the elderly voters will have problems with it, though, unless the font size can be increased.

I didn’t look at the specs of the voting machine too closely yet to see if it generates a paper trail.  There definitely wasn’t any kind of printer on the machine itself, although there could have been some kind of audit trail generated at the controller system.  I certainly hope so, anyway.  I don’t trust the fate of our elections to flash memory, no matter how rugged it may be. 

Update:  I checked back on eSlate’s site and found the following in their “FAQ” with regards to audit trails:

eSlate’s Cast Vote Verification System provides election officials with a complete trail to support recounts or audits. eSlate can provide a Cast Vote Record, either in paper or electronic form, for each voting device, or on a precinct basis.

That doesn’t tell me everything I wanted to know, but at least it says that it is possible to create a paper audit trail.  Let’s hope that this feature is being used.  Can you imagine the lawsuits that would result if one of the voting machines had a memory card go bad without an audit trail?  How about in a really close race?  Unlike those idiots in Florida who couldn’t be arsed to read the directions and select the right candidate and then claimed disenfranchisement, this would would be the real deal—votes tossed in a black hole.

I’ve been intending to set my old Protest Warrior email to bounce, since all I get there now are viruses and spam thanks to some idiot script-kiddie and Indymedia.  However, it has been informative.  I’ve learned today that the 419 scammers have branched out.  Instead of being from some unfortunate soul in Nigeria, the latest one was from “MR JIMMY BAZHAYEV” of “CHECHNYA,RUSSIA.”  Mr. Bazhayev is seeking my “ABLE ASSISTANCE TO RECEIVE THE SUM OF US $15,500,000.00(FIFTEEN MILLION,FIVE HUNDRED US DOLLARS ONLY).” 

It amazes me that they keep sending this crap to people, since it can only mean that someone, somewhere is responding.   

I recently acquired a Surefire G2 Nitrolon which comes with a 65 lumen lamp assembly.  This thing is blinding and if you should point it at yourself, you’ll be seeing spots for a few minutes.  Not being content to leave well enough alone, I ordered the P61 lamp assembly, which is rated at 120 lumens. 

I wasn’t going to try the “shine it in the eyes test”, though, given my experience with the stock lamp.  However, I still managed to blind myself.  I had it pointed down when I turned it on, but didn’t think about the reflective qualities of white paper.  The paper reflected enough of the light to leave me blinking at the red spot in my vision for a few minutes.  I think the reflected light from the paper was at least as powerful as the original 65 lumen lamp.

I think I’m going to keep this one around for handling things that go bump in the night.  If the light doesn’t vaporize them, I’ll at least be able to completely identify the target. 

After experiencing the 120 lumen lamp, I can’t even imagine what the M6 Guardian would be like, with its 500 lumen lamp.  I suppose you could use it for interplanetary signalling if you don’t go up in a ball of flame from the heat it puts out.  Surefires get very hot very quickly.

I know that some of the stuff on TV is pretty bad, but I’m not sure that it’s cause for a distress signal.

CORVALLIS — When Chris van Rossman moved into his downtown apartment about a year ago, his parents bought him a new 20-inch color TV with all the bells and whistles.

The flat-screen Toshiba came with its own set of stereo speakers, a 181-channel tuner, built-in VCR, DVD and CD players, a V-chip for parental control over content and, of course, a remote control.

Van Rossman, unfortunately, does not have cable and can only get four channels in his apartment. He mostly watches Oregon Public Broadcasting, which comes in clearest, and he’s acquired a taste for OPB children’s programming.

Maybe the television suffered an identity crisis. Maybe it aspired to higher things.

Whatever the reason, van Rossman’s TV set sent out a cry for help. It began emitting the international distress signal on the night of Oct. 2.

The 121.5 MHz frequency signal was picked up by an orbiting search and rescue satellite, which informed the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia.

Then again, maybe it was the programming.  Public Television would drive me over the edge pretty quickly.  He’s got a good incentive to keep it off now, though, given the potential for a $10,000/day fine.  And wouldn’t you know, the warranty had just run out?

An inspection of the television confirmed it was the source of the signal. “Their equipment was just bouncing everywhere as they turned it on and off,” van Rossman said.

Van Rossman was instructed to keep his TV turned off or face fines of up to $10,000 per day for emitting a false distress signal.

He’s not taking any chances. He’s keeping the television unplugged just in case he forgets one morning, groggy with sleep.

Unfortunately, the warranty on the TV had run out 16 days before it started freaking out.

Even though it’s out of warranty, Toshiba has promised to provide him a new TV for free.  I suspect that they’re anxious to get their hands on the old one to try to figure out what’s wrong with it.  If there’s a problem with the design there could be a lot more TVs out there that potentially have the same problem.