July 5th, 2008
Well, it’s been a significantly long time since I’ve posted anything here. Although I do tend to have some additional posts soon, before anything else, I thought I would post a link to some of my favorite pics of our puppy Rupert, by month.
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I got married. Congratulations to me and my lovely wife.
We chose to have a simple thing at the JP here in San Francisco (just like Jessica Alba, our role model). The real story behind this date involves Karen’s Mom. About a month before, Karen tells me that her Mom says that this day (March 25) was the only “lucky” day to get married this year for the two of us. This is based on me being a pig ear and Karen being a Lion’s butt, or something like that — Chinese superstition stuff. Since this was only a month away, and on a Tuesday, we joked about just going ahead and doing a JP-wedding for about a week, and then decided “what-the-heck, let’s do it.” Neither of us were enjoying the process of trying to figure out a cool wedding plan anyway. We never quite figured out anything we completely loved, but knew we didn’t want anything traditional; from there, a night of planning ended up being a night on the Wii. We flew Mom and Dad out and they served as our witnesses at the courthouse, and Srijesh dropped in as well and took some great pictures too. It was actually a beautiful setting — San Francisco City Hall provides a great backdrop.
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DARPA (creators of the internet, a surprise to Al Gore), have come up with a robot that is simply scary. Carrying 340 lbs, imagine this thing armed with video cameras, an internet connection, and a few machine guns. Having something like this (or hundreds of things like this) coming into your town would likely immediately kill off a significant percentage in heart attacks alone. Watch the entire video before you decide this is NOT scary.
http://gizmodo.com/368651/new-video-of-bigdog-quadruped-robot-is-so-stunning-its-spooky
Update: After talking about this quite a bit, I’ve decided that this robot’s use in search and rescue alone more than outweighs my “fear” of the robot. Another fun option would be to saddle up this thing and ride it up the mountain yourself!
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This is probably an example of counting my chickens before they have hatched, but we believe we have a new puppy. I say that because the site indicates the puppy as “adoption pending,” but we have yet to receive the confirmation that we are the “pending” home they are referring to. Still, from the talk with her yesterday, and the home visit we had yesterday, I think we are in.
We had been looking at the SF SPCA and the Animal Care and Control, which have been helpful, but then our impatience threw us out to craigslist, and then to this Pet Finder, a great site with animals from all over the country, and the ability to search near your area. We found out about Spike (who will be renamed to… um…) and Furry Friends Rescue.
This is a “home fostered” puppy, which means that he has never been in a shelter. There is a sweet related side story: The mom was going to be put down, but a volunteer offerred to take her. A vet had said it was early enough to abort the pups, but they ended up arriving only a day before the abortion (nice job, vet). So she ended up taking the mom and the complete, adorable litter.
We should be able to take him home this Friday. We’re very excited.
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I went to Comcast to try to get another one of their crappy Motorola HD DVR boxes, and was very pleased to find out a new box has been released. The only problem? It has HDMI output instead of DVI, which is what my plasma uses to connect. Since they are really the same video signal, with just different plugs, I expected a cheap converter to be provided from Comcast, since - if nothing else - I have given them about $2,000 a year for the past several years. But no dice (even after being somewhat of a pest in the Comcast store). Next stop: Best Buy, where I find they stock this converter (from Monster) for over $30. My only other option is to buy this cable for $60.
Fortunately, I know to head over to newegg and find this converter for $3.99. Since shipping was higher than the product, I threw in the coolest and tiniest 2gig thumb drive for another $13. (I love this little thing.) My whole purchase and shipping was still less than the cost of the overpriced Monster option.
Cables are cables, and those that spend a ton on expensive ones are wasting their money. Since making my newegg order, this article came out which really sums it up best - you could do just as well with a coat hanger as these fancy overpriced cables.
I blame both consumers and retailers for this situation, but consider the retailers most at fault for providing such limited options. With no $4 converter at Best Buy - the largest consumer electronics retailer in the US - the consumer has no reference to even question the pricing of the Monster adapter. It is an abusive and manipulative use of their position, and obviously such a disservice to their own customers.
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When reading my December issue of Wired Magazine, I found out about a contest that Casio was putting on for the best “high-tech crib.” You needed to submit a 2-minute video of your crib. Considering how much of a geek I have been with all my gadgets, I thought I had a pretty reasonable chance of winning. Once I found out that you could win a $3,000 gift certificate to Best Buy, I got quite interested. After a frenzy of taking and retaking the video on New Year’s Eve (the last day of submission), I got the video into them at the last moment.
Watch the other videos that were submitted: http://www.youtube.com/casiousa (Click on the “Vote” tab 
to see the videos)I won due to a number of factors. Yes, I have a cool crib with a lot of gadgets… sure. In addition, the rules state that you can’t state any trademarks or brand names. Most people didn’t read that. So you could say I won on a technicality. If you watch the other videos that were submitted, you’ll see just how many people said “iPod” instead of “portable music player.” Also, there were four categories - fortunately for me, I submitted mine in the one with a little less competition. Finally, way less people than I am sure Casio expected even entered into the competition at all. You could page through the submitted videos on their site, and maybe only about 100 videos were even entered!
So anyway, I won “first prize,” which is truly “second place,” under the “grand prize.” This ends up being a $500 Best Buy gift certificate, Casio camera and a 2 gig card. I’m pretty excited. In all, I think the contest was meant to make a point: uploading to YouTube is a pain with regular point and shoot cameras. I got the point - it was a pain.
Quick Rant
On the other hand, I am disappointed in the advancement of video technology on these little devices. Over three years ago I bought a Canon SD300 which records at 640×480 and 30fps. During that time, we have seen the average resolution of still pictures increase from around 3Mp to 10Mp. Why then have we not seen a similar increase in video resolution, or even much of an increase at all? My theory: So companies can sell their new HD camcorders. Why would you put down $1000 on an HD camera if you can buy a compact camera that gives you most of what you would actually use in a much smaller package? You wouldn’t. That said, this Canon sounds cool.
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On the phone with Comcast yesterday I found out that I was at an 8mbps plan, but a 16mbps plan was available for the same price “in my area” (zip or city, don’t know). This is not information that’s shared on their website, nor have I seen it publicized in any flier or other mailing. I was already paying $10 more to get to 8 (from 6), but it turns out that this same $10 could give me a solid 16mbps connection. So I asked them to switch me for no cost and they did. Just tested, and sure enough, I downloaded a 700meg file at a consistent 2 MB /sec - all done in about 3 minutes. The “speed boost” jumps it to downloading around 4 MB sec for the first 60 megs or so. If you have Comcast (and especially if you’re already paying more for faster service), might want to check.
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Went to see Eldar last night. Simply amazing. Someone at work corrected me when I said he was a prodigy. He’s right - too old to be called that. He’s a genius. I can not recall the last time I have been this impressed with a performer. I have been playing piano more years than he has been alive, and yet I will never play half as good as him. And this is… ok. :) Honestly, it’s wonderful, and an inspiration.
The idea that this beautiful venue was maybe only a quarter full tonight shows this is a special time, before people are completely aware of who he is. No wonder he got nominated for a Grammy. And, although this has not been announced, he told me he is playing at this year’s awards show. I feel lucky to catch him before it becomes difficult. If you watch the Grammy’s, look for a 21-year-old to knock your socks off.
I’m already a fan.
Thanks Eldar for signing both CDs I purchased. I am enjoying re-imagination as I write this, and amazed that it’s still so largely new from what you played last night. Fantastic.
The new Yoshi’s was fantastic as well. I highly recommend it. Beautiful place and fantastic sound.
It’s been almost a year since I wrote my last post. Sorry - I’ll try to write more often…
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Google is currently doing something for free which is hard to refuse - hosting the email for your domain. I have had my personal email address for so long, and fought for years to try to maintain this single email address. This fight has been tough because free accounts such as Yahoo actually have better spam filtering than any of the small ISPs a little guy like myself can use. If you have bought your own domain to have email@{somethingyoulike}.com, you know how hard this always is. Usually you are stuck accessing your email through either a poor online interface or storing your email locally with Outlook. I could go on about all the attempts I have made to manage this problem, like using GMail but having my email address as the “reply to” but there are always problems which keep email from either looking professional or working the way I would expect.
Even if you don’t have a domain registered, this offer is too nice to ignore. Just register your domain at GoDaddy, then register for a free Google Apps account and follow the instructions to switch your MX records to point to Google’s servers. You’ll have a personal and professional email address for less than $10 a year (the yearly charge for GoDaddy registration), without being tied to any email provider. And besides, it’s just cool.
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