Author: matthew

I, like Sammy G, owned a Commodore 64 as a kid. This, and its successor, the Amiga, represented the pinnacle of computing evolution at the time, boasting sounds and graphics that no console or PC could hold a candle to. Well, eventually Commodore faded into obscurity as “an eighties computer” which never really recovered from the steamrolling PC market despite the PCs obvious multimedia inferiority.

The PC didn’t catch up to the C64’s gaming abilities until the mid-1990s.

Well, Commodore is staging a comeback. The name has been bought and traded, so there is little doubt that few, if any, of the original innovators are invested to enjoy the success — or failure — of the new venture. And now, after looking at their new gaming systems, I want a Commodore again.

I have to admit it, even though the system specs are impressive, what I really like is the paint job. Like my Honda Insight, I want one because it is beautiful, and I’ll figure out how to justify my purchase later in fuel economy… or in this case, power 🙂

And hey, it includes 50 popular classic Commodore games. Woot!

What you get when you combine a D&D campaign of “Lord of the Rings” with the players who have watched “The Princess Bride” way too many times…

DM of the Rings LXXV:Incontheevable!

“Stop rhyming! I really mean it!”

Credit to the Rampant Coyote for the link.

“Dr. Holt’s office.”

“Yeah, this is Matthew Barnson, I’d to book an appointment with Dr. Darren this morning, please?”

“Sure. What will we be seeing you about?”

“Uh, I have a sore throat I haven’t been able to kick for about a week, and a bump on the back of my hand that’s gotten bigger since the last time he saw it.”

Booked. Ten-Fifteen AM. Killed some time yakking with my neighbor — also named Matt — about model airplanes and video games before heading in. Took my son, Josh, with me, since my wife Christy was out. Enjoyed the brief drive in my bright-red Honda Insight. I still get a thrill driving that tiny, fuel-economic little car.

Arrived. Signed in. Took a seat as directed. Picked up People magazine, and skimmed through the “sightings” section where they have pictures of celebrities caught in various weird positions, makeup, or clothing. Thought I couldn’t imagine anything more boring than following around a celebrity with a camera. Finally got called in.

Got weighed. Repeated to nurse what I’d said on the phone. Spun Josh around on the little round chair until he was so dizzy he couldn’t stand straight. In response to his demands, sat down with him and did the same thing until neither of us could stand. Regained balance. Took Josh to the restroom.

Darren showed up.

“It says here I’m seeing you about a persistent sore throat and a bump on your hand. Let’s take care of the throat first. The culture shows it’s not strep, so we have a choice: prescribe a general-use antibiotic to combat the mild bacterial infection you have, or wait it out a few more days to see if it gets better on its own.”

“You’ve been my doctor for eight years, Darren; you know me well enough to know that if there’s a choice…”

“…you prefer to avoid medication. I know. So let’s just wait on that one. If it were one of certain types of strep, I’d put you on an aggressive treatment, but I’m comfortable with you waiting it out. Now let’s see your hand.”

I held it out.

“What’s the history on this? I don’t see it in your files.”

“It’s not on my file because I had you glance at it in January when I brought in my son. At the time, you said it looked like scarring from an old injury.”

“OK, that explains it. Hmm, well, it looks like one of two things, but we’d have to take a biopsy to be sure. That’s where we slice off a small sample of the tissue and send it to a lab. Is that what you want to do?”

“Yeah. I think so. It’s gone from the size of a pinprick to the size of a nickel in three months.”

“Wait, you pricked yourself with a pin, and that’s how it started?”

“No, no, I woke up one morning and I had this tiny bright red spot that got bigger pretty quickly.”

“OK, I’m going to go get the biopsy kit. Lay down on the table here, and I’ll be right back.”

Darren returned, stuck me with a needle to numb the back of my hand, went back out for a few minutes, then returned to take a core sample. I watched while he cut out a quarter-sized chunk of skin from the back of my hand. I thought it was cool; Josh ignored it and was playing with the lid to the trash can. You know, it’s one of those step-on types where it raises and lowers by foot-pressure. It’ll keep a child entertained for minutes, particularly if it makes a loud, repeated “clang” with each closing like this did.

“All done.”

“Dang, that’s a lot of skin. I had no idea how thick it was.”

“Yeah.”

He stitched and bandaged the gaping hole in my hand.

“I need to see you in ten days to figure out what it is, and to remove the stitches.”

“Uhh, and what are the two choices for what it might be?”

“Granuloma Annularae is my first choice. That’s a skin condition which, although not really treatable, is harmless.”

“And the second?”

“Basal Cell Carcinoma. I think you know that’s a type of cancer, which would be unusual for someone your age. We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.”

“See you in ten days, then.”

Well, I couldn’t do ten days, due to vacation schedules, so it has to be twelve. This is gonna be a long twelve days.

Here’s today’s list of 5 Things I Wished I’d Known Years Ago:

1. Albert Einstein once said the most powerful force he had ever discovered was compound interest. I wish I’d put $50 a month into the stock market from the age of 15 onward. I’d have $2 million at retirement age. As it is, to reach the same goal with my meager savings at age 34, I need to contribute ten times that much, or else rustle up a $50,000 investment to get back on track.
2. Google would multiply the value of its stock 1500% in the first few years after its initial public offering.
3. Undergraduate college is a waste for most people. It gives them a piece of paper which basically says “this person isn’t a complete moron”. While that may be valuable in jobs where complete morons are in the habit of applying for them, if you really want to be successful, teach yourself how to do what you want to do or get a mentor in the field. A lot of careers require degrees — for that “complete moron” reason, above — so if you need a degree to do the job you want, don’t stress out about your undergraduate years. Have as much fun as is humanly possible in your last few years without obligations before reality gets a hold on you. (Specialized graduate programs are often another matter.)
4. People who make friends with you in order to sell you something aren’t your friends. In rare cases, they may become your friends, but in most cases, you are just a piece of meat with a credit card to them. Watch for this with calls from people you barely know, relatives you aren’t close with, and neighbors who could just walk over to talk rather than calling you.
5. Door-to-door salesmen and telemarketers are abusing your expectation of friendship and/or the arrival of good things with a door knock or phone call. They are exploiting you, and you do not owe them any courtesy. That said, they are people with one of the worst, creepiest, most soul-sucking jobs on the planet; be nice to them, but turn them down in the strongest manner you think is appropriate.
6. Limited-time offers… aren’t. There will always be another sale. There will always be another discount. If someone ever tells you that you must decide now or else the offer is rescinded, substitute whatever they are saying to you with “I am trying to cloud your judgment in order to make a sale and saddle you with something you probably don’t want at a price you cannot afford.”
7. I don’t predict stuff well, nor do I track well without an external means of tracking such as a notebook or computer program. Avoid predictions of expected time or how long a list is supposed to be, because I’ll probably be wrong.

Due to database corruption in a number of old blog entries and comments, I will be working on the web site this weekend. The chances are good there will be several hours of downtime.

Just giving you a heads-up in case you wonder where the site went this Saturday or Sunday!

–Matt

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/02/cyborg_flying_r.html

Yep. This brings a whole new meaning to ‘radio control’. How jealous would the boys be when I show up with one of THESE at the flying field!

So… anybody have connections in China which could hook me up?

Accused murderer asserts killing of prostitutes was “God’s Will”. This fellow killed 13 women and claims he’s not guilty because God told him to do it.

I’ll refrain from much direct comment on this story, other than to say that I’ve covered similar territory before, and that I think that mental innoculation is largely responsible for the lack of a sense of responsibility for one’s actions.

Obligatory quote:

Good people will do good things, and bad people will do bad things. But for good people to do bad things—that takes religion. –Stephen Weinberg

So here’s the question: If you are — or were — religious, where do you draw the line? If ongoing communication with God is part of your daily routine, when do you decide that still, small voice is off his rocker and should be disregarded? Or is that even an option?

When I was firmly entrenched in my religion five years ago, had I received an answer to a prayer, I did my earnest best to follow it. I doubt my conscience would ever have allowed me to go on a killing spree in the name of God, though! However, I certainly made my fair share of bad decisions based on bad information from the quiet whisperings in my head.

Of course, some faithful would tell me that those whisperings were from Satan. Some would say I wasn’t actually inspired and it was just me making deals in my head. Some would say I’m lying now to get attention. Some would say my sole charade is a lonely masquerade.

Regardless of what some would say, if you are living your life according to God’s will, how the heck do you tell the difference between the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit and the still, small voice of psychosis?

These days, I usually just tell that little voice to get stuffed. Contrary to the dire warnings I received as a child, I have not yet met an untimely end or horribly bad luck due to disregarding those “promptings”.

Unfortunately, 13 women came to a tragic end because someone listened uncritically.

Several years ago, my wife and I made the decision to replace all of the light bulbs in our house with Compact Fluorescent bulbs. We had two principal reasons for doing so:

1. Incandescent bulbs were burning out far too quickly due to “dirty power” at our house. I hated changing light bulbs constantly.
2. We wanted to save money on our electric bill.

At the time, this was a fairly expensive decision, with bulbs going for about $5.00 each. We expected significant cost savings in electricity, and that initial $200 investment (or so) has continued to pay off for us over the years. Our electric bill — despite multiple computers and a laser printer — is about 20%-30% lower than that of similar households. And our kids forget to turn the light off ALL THE TIME!

(Ack! I’m turning into my father, walking around after my children and shutting off lights!)

In the past two years, Wal-Mart began a push to aggressively discount and market CF bulbs, much to the dismay of manufacturers who make far more money on old-fashioned tungsten bulbs (due to higher margins and shorter life) than on CF. This has driven the price down to around $1.00 each, and with an expected $36.00 savings per bulb over its lifetime compared to incandescent bulbs, this represents a much lower cost to homeowners today than the start of our experiment years ago.

In an effort to conserve electricity for its large and growing population, California — the third-largest economy in the world if it were its own country — is considering a bill which would outlaw further sales of traditional tungsten-based bulbs and mandate CF. In response to this legislation, GE has announced a newer, more energy-efficient tungsten bulb, which promises 1/2 the efficiency of CF today, and equal efficiency within the next few years.

Now, there are downsides to Compact Fluorescent. Chief among them is the fact that even though the light is a more pleasing shade than old-fashioned fluorescent, it’s still running at a base of 3600 cycles per minute. Literally, it’s flashing on and off 60 times per second, matching the frequency of the Alternating Current thrumming a constant rhythm throughout your whole city. Despite reassurances by manufacturers that new electronic ballasts cycle 30,000 times per second and eliminate the “flicker headaches” suffered by many people due to fluorescent lighting, my tachometer (a device to measure RPM, generally for propellers and rotors on my model aircraft) still sees a strong 3600RPM flicker even from CF bulbs.

Additionally, quality control in CF — particularly in the newer, cheaper Wal-Mart brands — is quite spotty. I’ve observed a steady degradation in the quality of bulbs as the price has dropped. With a new price point of only $0.50-$1.00 over competing tungsten bulbs, I’m finding newer CF bulbs aren’t lasting as long as their $5.00 ancestors. Many of them end up slow starting or burning out quickly. Of course, those more expensive bulbs are still on the shelf, but who’s buying?

CF bulbs also take a moment longer than incandescents to “turn on”. This is a minor nitpick; it’s a fraction of a second, but noticeable.

Lastly, CF bulbs do not handle cold weather nearly as well as tungsten bulbs. The bulb in my garage is quite dim in the winter, and much brighter in the summer.

So here’s the question: Who’s buying? Do you use compact fluorescents in your home, or do you stick with incandescent bulbs? Why or why not?

“I watched a show on the Discovery Channel,” Paul intoned around a mouthful of fish & chips, “and it was actually really well done. It’s a series that focuses on our energy needs and what we need to do to manage them.”

Thus began an hour-long discussion at Squatters over lunch about renewable energy sources, and more specifically, how we are going to store energy from it. We disagreed a lot on how things should be done, touched on a few technologies like GM’s “Skateboard” concept for fuel-cell-powered vehicles, but in the end reached the conclusion that solar and nuclear are the two solutions to the energy crisis we are facing as fossil fuel diminishes.

Yeah, even those Russian scientists who say that oil is a renewable resource produced abiogenically in the earth admit it takes millions of years to do the job. Unless they’re these guys, who claim so-called “fossil fuels” are created in just a decade or so. Crazy thing, though… the chemical reactions involved in abiogenic oil seem to be valid, but I think would result in very small quantities of oil through a much more indirect chain than fossil-fuel theory.

Anyway, energy startup Citizenrē claims that for as little as $500, you can have solar power for your home. Their plan is basically a multi-level marketing scheme where you get the solar panels installed and buy power from them over time in order to finance the panels. Given that most solar panels last for 20-25 years, and that it takes about two-thirds of that time for a solar power system to pay for itself, do you think this has a chance of actually working?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,253602,00.html

I have nothing further to say except: OMGWTFBBQLOLROFLMAO! Now I want to buy a sword.