Complementary Insults

It’s been quite some time since I last posted…

Here’s a quick summary of what’s gone on in my life:

• The bastard Probe is still in the garage, status really unchanged since August.
• I got bored after doing an install in Columbus and wandered in to a used car dealer.  Somehow I drove home in a 2002 BMW 325i…
• Charlie and Mary both quit at MV (this was over the course of a few months, not at the same time), which threw me in to a situation I really did not want to be in.  I kinda paniced and nearly quit to do contract work.  Fortunately, when I went to discuss my 2 weeks the boss offered me a significant raise, and after sleeping on it I decided sticking with what I knew and continuing to ride out the bad towards the good (which seems to be getting closer) was the better plan.
• My parents moved to Virginia, making me the primary “support” for my brother when he’s in Toledo at school.

I might go in to detail on some of those later.  Anyways, what I came to post follows:

I’ve been getting in to a few blogs recently, and this one I just discovered today.  All I’ve read so far is interesting and well written, here’s a few favorites in no particular order…

http://www.violentacres.com/archives/319/just-say-no-to-bastard-children

http://www.violentacres.com/archives/59/two-phrases-that-destroyed-american-culture

http://www.violentacres.com/archives/48/four-rookie-mistakes-people-make-that-keep-them-poor

http://www.violentacres.com/archives/250/the-pentecostal-church-and-the-holy-ghost-want-you-to-wear-pig-panties

http://www.violentacres.com/archives/279/a-pedophile-lurking-behind-every-dark-corner

edited for linkification…stupid wordpress, what else does it think i might want when I post a URL?

Since my parents are moving away some time in the next few months, I went with them down to my aunt’s house for Thanksgiving.  It has been a fun trip overall, but since we drove the RV down that means in both directions I have a ~9 hour span of counting the mile markers.

For the last few years I’ve had laptops so I can watch movies and play games on the go, but this time around I also have an internet-enabled cell phone, which has led to amazing time killing.  Flash games, discussion forums, and news sites are all readily available.  If I’m near a major city the service is even fast enough that I can watch Youtube videos and the like.  As I type this message, we’re on I-70 heading East and closing in on Indianapolis (I think).  The sign we just passed said 169 miles to Columbus.

If you travel often as a passenger and have a laptop, a mobile internet connection is possibly one of the best things you can have in my opinion.  Depending on the provider they can be had for as little as $10/mo for unlimited access, I pay a little over $50/mo for high-speed unlimited access from AT&T.  That’s probably a bit too steep for the casual user, but for me it’s worth it since I also use that connection to work from on a regular basis.

This morning, the EMI Group announced that they would begin offering their music library for sale online without DRM. Not only that, but the DRM-free files would be encoded at a higher bitrate than their “protected” counterparts. Of course, this comes with a cost. Rather than the now-standard $0.99 per song, these files (which certainly do offer more to the consumer) would be priced at $1.29 per song.

As I was reading this, I began to think about what the real value of a digital music purchase is and whether the current pricing model makes sense, so I looked up the numbers. What follows are my results.

Read the rest of this entry »

In his recent Home Media Server Guide, Brian Won of Ars Technica briefly discusses the heat and space issues involved with packing lots of hard drives in to a personal server. Since these problems are handled nicely by cases such as the Cooler Master “Stacker” line and the Antec Nine Hundred, I started thinking about power consumption.

My question then became whether it would make sense from a financial perspective to pay extra for larger hard drives which you could then use less of, thus burning less power.

Read the rest of this entry »

Around 1 PM today I got a call from the body shop over at Brondes Ford.  The current estimate is $2600, without even knowing how the suspension looks.  The car’s only worth $3500, so it’s not worth fixing.  This means I have pulled my Crown Vic from eBay and I guess I’ll be back to driving it around.

As if to add insult to injury, I couldn’t find my phone about an hour ago.  Fast forward to just a few minutes ago when I went to check on my laundry.  As you’ve probably guessed, I heard a nice thumping inside the dryer which was my T610 flopping around.  At this point it appears to be dead, bit I’m going to let it dry overnight before condemning it.

The worst thing is I can’t even fathom how it ended up in there.  I was making calls all morning, I’ve been wearing the same shorts all day with the exception of a food run where I left the phone behind, and I could have sworn I called someone while the washing machine was running.

Oh well, the T610 was nearing the end of its useful life anyways, the SIM card retention issues I had before are back and not as easily fixable as last time.  It just hurts to have to buy a new phone when I’ve already got the upcoming bills of re-registering and repairing the Crown Vic to make it legal again.

Yesterday I got in a pretty bad crash with the T-Bird. I’ll let the pictures do the talking:

http://cars.seanharlow.info/v/1995tbird/crash/

Also, I put the Crown Vic up for sale on eBay. Unfortunately with the T-Bird possibly totaled, I might have to pull the auction and fix it up to be my daily driver once more.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=110049606222&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT&ih=001

We’ll see.

I just updated this site with new pages telling about the things I love and a bit about myself as well. Links are at the top of the page.

I’m also trying out a new template which I really like.  I think I’ll keep it.

A week ago, I finally filled the gap I’ve had since giving up my Powerbook G4 back in May and I bought a base model MacBook.

• 1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo
• 512MB (2×256MB) DDR2-667
• 60GB 5400 RPM SATA Hard Disk
• Slot Load DVD/CD-RW
• Airport Extreme
• Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
• Mac OS X 10.4

All that and a 2GB iPod for $1049 using the student purchase program. I financed it through Apple Credit, which was a bit of a hassle (more on that some other time), but it allowed me to get this nice notebook for $25 a month rather than forking over $1000 in one shot.

As a two time previous Mac owner, I’m not going to go in to detail about the “switching” process, since I alreay had it planned out and most of my applications were available for Mac anyways.

The hardware that makes up the MacBook is leaps and bounds above the previous iBook models. Coworkers of mine have both second-generation G3 and G4 iBooks, and neither hold a candle to this. It feels like a quality piece of hardware, on par with an IBM Thinkpad or upper-level Dell. The Core Duo is also an amazing chip. When comparing pure CPU performance, this notebook can hold its own against my 2GHz AMD Athlon X2 desktop, though the faster hard drives and quadrupled RAM give the desktop the advantage in all real-world situations.

The unusual keyboard and glossy screen were concerns of mine before purchase, but at this point I can say that neither have turned out to be real problems in day to day use. I’m sure I’ll find some situation where the glossy screen gets annoying, but honestly none of my past notebooks have been very usable outdoors either.

Right now, the only upgrade I an certain to do to this machine is maxing out the RAM to 2GB. Like all modern OSes, OS X loves memory, and 512MB just isn’t enough. It is my opinion that even the lowest of low end computers should have at least 1GB nowadays, and 2GB is a starting point for enthusiast machines (gamers, multimedia, etc.). I am considering a hard drive upgrade, but it seems more likely that I will just upgrade the drive in my desktop and place the old one in a Firewire enclosure to use as an overgrown floppy disk and backup medium for all my computers.

Holy crap does a subwoofer ever make a difference. This one can be blamed on a nice chain of events.

1. Roommate gets me listening to Sirius 20 “Octane”
2. DMX - “Party Up” comes on, I realize how pitiful the bass in my car sounds
3. Roommate’s ex-GF comes to town, somehow gets him to buy new front speakers
4. While we’re installing said speakers, I decide to figure out why my rear speakers don’t work
5. I rewire the speakers to run from the head unit instead of through the amp the previous owner left in the car, and now I have a spare amp to mess with.
6. I drive to Car Stereo One, who just happen to be having a sale on subwoofers, so I end up buying a 12″ sub instead of the 8 or 10 inch models I was looking at.
7. By 3 AM, we have the thing ghetto-wired and powering on. We burn bass test discs and lap the block.
8. I have very limited hearing now.

Unfortunately, I just have to sell my Crown Vic. It’s been a great car for the past 14 months, and as my first car I’ll always remember it.

Here’s the info:

• 1993 Ford Crown Victoria P71 “Police Interceptor”
• VIN 2FACP71W7PX188764
• 4.6L (281ci) SOHC V8 (200 HP)
• AODE electronic 4 speed automatic transmission
• Factory true dual exhaust with “H” pipe
• 8.8″ rear axle w/ 2.73:1 gears

The car has year-old tires, has been maintained at the recommended intervals, and runs fairly well. It has leather seats from a Grand Marquis and a CD playing head unit (not installed). This car will do triple digit speeds comfortably if one is so inclined.

With the good, there’s always the bad. It’s dripping coolant from some unknown place, it burns oil, and there’s a hole in the exhaust. The paint isn’t great and there’s rust in the fenders. There are also some stains on the carpet and a major crack in the dash cover.

Regardless of this, if the coolant and oil levels are checked and topped off every week or two, it runs fine. I used it as my daily driver right up until I got my Thunderbird and it never left me stranded or gave me any real trouble.

Pics can be found at http://cars.seanharlow.info