Unbecoming Levity

Why Microsoft Outlook Continues to Suck

Abacquer — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 12:49:57 -0400

It's very simple Microsoft. If I go into my settings and specify that mail account X is the default account for outgoing mail messages, then that means that mail account X is the default account for outgoing mail messages.

I know that's a complex concept, but you've been getting it consistently wrong since 2003 at least and I'm getting a little tired of customers receiving business e-mails from my personal account because Outlook doesn't understand that "this is where I want my mail sent from" means "this is where I want my mail sent from"... forcing me to remember to check the outgoing mail address EVERY TIME I SEND A MESSAGE to make sure Outlook has done what it was supposed to do.

As an added bit of joy, if I change from an account that uses no signature to one that does use a signature, Outlook helpfully replaces the content of my e-mail message with the signature. Difficult concept number two: signatures go at the ends of messages, they don't replace them. (And BTW, this wouldn't happen as often if Outlook wasn't continually choosing to ignore my default account for sending.)

For years people have been getting around this problem by installing both Outlook and Outlook Express... two e-mail readers because ONE reader can't seem to manage the dizzyingly complex notion of sending mail from the default account. Instead they run two readers and split the accounts between the readers. This is a dismal state of affairs for an e-mail reader that is over 10 years old. Get it right, get it over with. And provide a PATCH for people who are using Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2003--because this should have worked right from day one.

Distributed Computing = Distributed Responsibility = Fingerpointing

Abacquer — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 15:27:16 -0400

So this morning I tried to process an order a customer had sent me last night. I went to log into my photolab service provider, exposuremanager.com, just like I always do. Bzzzt. Can't get in. "This link appears to be broken."

Huh, maybe it's my machine. So I try my daughter's machine, nope she can't see it either. Internet down? Nope I can get my email and see all the other sites I use regularly.

So I (reasonably) assume exposuremanager is down. That's not too cool--because while it is down my customers can't place orders. So I call customer support and leave them a message that their site is down.

A little while later I get an e-mail from them stating their site is up and running fine (and by the way, nice pictures on your site!) Thanks, but I still can't get in.

So I try the DOS utility "ping" to ping their server. Sometimes it can't resolve exposuremanager to an IP address (implying a problem with a domain name server at Comcast) and other times it can resolve the IP address but gets no response. I check with WHOIS on Tucows (their registrar) to see if their domain has expired, but it hasn't. WTF?

So then I run a traceroute in an attempt to see where the communication fails between me and exposuremanager:

Tracing route to exposuremanager.com [66.254.91.235]

over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms www.routerlogin.com [192.168.1.1]

2 7 ms 10 ms 7 ms [ my IP omitted ]

3 8 ms 8 ms 6 ms ge-1-2-ur01.gardner.ma.boston.comcast.net [68.85.187.109]

4 11 ms 10 ms 9 ms te-0-8-0-2-ar01.woburn.ma.boston.comcast.net [68.85.162.93]

5 14 ms 9 ms 9 ms pos-0-15-0-0-ar01.needham.ma.boston.comcast.net [68.85.162.145]

6 15 ms 14 ms 22 ms pos-0-0-0-0-ar01.chartford.ct.hartford.comcast.net [68.85.162.70]

7 16 ms 18 ms 17 ms pos-2-4-0-0-cr01.newyork.ny.ibone.comcast.net [68.86.90.61]

8 22 ms 18 ms 17 ms Vlan546.icore1.NJY-Newark.as6453.net [206.82.132.41]

9 17 ms 45 ms 18 ms if-6-0-0-25.mcore3.NJY-Newark.as6453.net [216.6.57.41]

10 19 ms 17 ms 18 ms if-2-0.core1.NTO-NewYork.as6453.net [216.6.57.66]

11 17 ms 18 ms 19 ms sl-gw31-nyc-14-0-0.sprintlink.net [160.81.249.29]

12 18 ms 19 ms 17 ms sl-crs2-nyc-0-2-0-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.13.35]

13 23 ms 27 ms 19 ms sl-bb20-msq-2-0-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.20.74]

14 22 ms 22 ms 24 ms sl-bb21-msq-15-0-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.9.110]

15 26 ms 26 ms 27 ms sl-crs1-rly-0-8-5-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.20.73]

16 25 ms 25 ms 26 ms sl-bb20-dc-5-0-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.8.162]

17 24 ms 28 ms 25 ms sl-crs1-dc-0-0-0-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.15.11]

18 74 ms 73 ms 74 ms sl-crs2-fw-0-11-3-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.19.200]

19 * * * Request timed out.

20 * * * Request timed out.

21 * * * Request timed out.

22 * * * Request timed out.

23 * * * Request timed out.

24 * * * Request timed out.

25 * * * Request timed out.

26 * * * Request timed out.

27 * * * Request timed out.

28 * * * Request timed out.

29 * * * Request timed out.

30 * * * Request timed out.

Trace complete.

As you can see, the communication makes it to "sl-crs2-fw-0-11-3-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.19.200]" and then fails. Sprintlink.net is inside of the Sprint network. To get as far as I did required the services of three companies, Comcast (comcast.net), Tata Communications (as6453.net), and Sprint (sprintlink.net). None of these companies is my company (sagewoodstudios.com) or my photolab service provider (exposuremanager.com). In fact after the last hop, I don't know what the next address would be--it might be a fourth company, or another server in the Sprint network. Exposure Manager can't help me--it's not their computer. Comcast can't help me--it's not their computer either. Sprint *might* be able to help me, but I'm not their customer.

What I do know is, if I didn't have to use this route, I would indeed be able to get there. I found an online provider of the standard 'net tools (ping, traceroute, etc.) called Network-Tools.com (that's a handy link btw, you might want to bookmark it). I can get to their server to see their website, and when I ask THEM to do a traceroute to exposuremanager, they can get there just fine:

TraceRoute to 66.254.91.235 [exposuremanager.com]

Hop

(ms)

(ms)

(ms)

IP Address

Host name

1

8

6

6

206.123.69.137

-

2

9

6

6

8.9.232.73

xe-5-3-0.edge3.dallas1.level3.net

3

12

7

7

4.69.145.140

ae-3-80.edge2.dallas3.level3.net

4

8

15

6

4.71.220.14

xo-communic.edge2.dallas3.level3.net

5

10

12

9

207.88.13.122

207.88.13.122.ptr.us.xo.net

6

41

40

40

207.88.12.46

207.88.12.46.ptr.us.xo.net

7

41

40

40

65.106.1.69

65.106.1.69.ptr.us.xo.net

8

41

49

52

65.106.5.10

p0-0-0.mar2.la-ca.us.xo.net

9

46

40

40

207.88.81.170

p15-0.chr1.la-ca.us.xo.net

10

50

44

45

66.238.50.106

66.238.50.106.ptr.us.xo.net

11

53

45

47

66.254.64.1

gw1.pixelgate.net

12

53

50

47

66.254.91.235

host235.exposuremanager.com

Trace complete

As you can see, because they are starting from a different provider (level3.net) their communication path takes a different route that never involves any of the companies I'm forced to use. If Network-Tools.com provided a "browser in a browser" basically an embedded frame that I could point anywhere I want to, I'd be able to get to my photolab and process my customer's orders.

In the meantime I'm pretty stuck. I can't help my customers, and my service provider can't help me. Welcome to the Internet... where you really "can't get thar from hyar".

Attention Executive and Legislative Branches -- I WANT SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE

Abacquer — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 09:08:30 -0400

In a single payer system, the cost of healthcare drops dramatically. Yes it's true taxes go up, but at this point? They're going up anyway. The economic stimulus our country needs is going to have to be paid for, and we are all going to pay for it. Combine this with the 30 years this country has frittered away when it should have been building a new energy grid, green technologies, maintaining infrastructure, and so on, and it's clear, the party is over.

And by "the party is over" I'm referring to those artificially low taxes that our conservative friends still think are too high.

I am sick and tired of listening to gloom-and-doom naysayers fiddling about long lines, delays, and taxes while Rome burns. I have friends who are suffering right now simply because they cannot get the help they need due to lack of coverage.

Single-payer health care works in many countries around the world, some better than others. I have enough faith in American ingenuity that we can make it work here. But it does mean (AFAIC) the end (or serious curtailing) of health insurance companies that have risen to wealth on their two core tenets--1. collect premiums, and 2. don't pay benefits.

For those who quake in fear at the notion? We tried it your way for decades and it sucks. I'm ready for something new.

Attention Wal*Mart Shoppers: You Make Me Sick

Abacquer — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 09:54:37 -0500

I'd like to take this opportunity to express my utter disgust at the crowd of shoppers who mobbed the doors of a Wal*Mart in Long Island yesterday morning, broke through the doors, and trampled a 34-year old employee to death. There is NOTHING that can be found in Wal*Mart that is worth crushing a human being for--none of you were in desperate need of food or medicines that could only be had in that store and nowhere else on the planet. Believe it or not, your kids will survive if they don't get Guitar Hero for Christmas.

Wal-Mart Employee Trampled to Death (The New York Times):
...Detective Lt. Michael Fleming, who is in charge of the investigation for the Nassau police, said the store lacked adequate security. He called the scene "utter chaos" and said the "crowd was out of control." As for those who had run over the victim, criminal charges were possible, the lieutenant said. "I’ve heard other people call this an accident, but it is not," he said. "Certainly it was a foreseeable act."...

I strongly urge the detective and the county DA to pursue criminal charges against these people. There is security video from the store, so there should be no problem identifying them and providing evidence of their guilt. Nobody "accidentally" breaks a door down and kills a man. The Damour family will have an empty seat at the dinner table for the rest of their lives because of a bunch of stupid assholes wanted to save a buck.

It's 2008 folks, you don't get to be cattle anymore. Whoever went to that Wal*Mart yesterday morning and forgot to bring their humanity? I hope you rot in prison.

Election: Palin in Favor of Federal Gay Marriage Ban

Abacquer — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 02:08:34 -0500

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised given what a wackaloon theist McCain's screwhead VP pick is, but just in case it wasn't obvious... Sarah Palin supports a federal Gay Marriage ban--because her religion frowns upon it, it should be illegal for people who don't share her religion. Basically, because she is arrogant.

...in my own, state, I have voted along with the vast majority of Alaskans who had the opportunity to vote to amend our Constitution defining marriage as between one man and one woman. I wish on a federal level that that's where we would go because I don't support gay marriage. I'm not going to be out there judging individuals, sitting in a seat of judgment telling what they can and can't do, should and should not do, but I certainly can express my own opinion here and take actions that I believe would be best for traditional marriage and that's casting my votes and speaking up for traditional marriage that, that instrument that it's the foundation of our society is that strong family and that's based on that traditional definition of marriage...

Knuckledraggers love this witch. If McCain doesn't win, I expect we will be hearing from her again in 2012. Crooks and liars has the video and transcript of Palin's statement to CBN's David Brody.

I Can Haz Internet?

Abacquer — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:43:22 -0400

So yesterday I was exhausted in the morning. I had fallen asleep about 10 PM the night before and then woke up around 2 AM. I was excited to be writing about Mara and Kennis again, and when I woke up I went back to work on it. By 7 AM the chapter was nearing completion but I was utterly wasted. So toward the end it got a little rushed but all in all I was satisfied.

It also looked to be the only day we weren't going to have rain. So needless to say the fam was up and about by 8 and looking to go out for a day hike. But I was so not up to it. So I slept on the couch while they went out and had fun. I woke up around 1:15 or so, and trekked to the information center in Thornton where there was a public access internet terminal. The wifi on this old laptop is fried... so I need more than an access point.

When I got there two people were coming out, a man and a woman, and the man was saying "well ya, I could have checked that if I could have gotten on the computer." That didn't sound good.

Once inside I noticed a teenage girl was on the computer, so I decided to kill some time and asked the person on staff for information about local architecture that I could shoot. He recommended a list of covered bridges starting with the Blair Bridge. I had already shot the Blair Bridge last year, but thought it would be nice to try again with the 5D. Plus I had an idea for something new to try, and even had the necessary lens in my bag--fisheye shots from inside a covered bridge. I thought that would look really cool.

We talked for about 20 minutes. When we were done the young lady was still using the computer, so I said, quite clearly from about 3 feet away. "Thank you sir, do you mind if I wait here for a bit? I need to use your internet access." The staff member said, "Sure no problem." The young lady glanced up at me and then went back to what she was doing.

I had brought my Kennis and Mara story with me, all preformatted and ready to post. All I would need to do is copy and paste it into a window and click a button. Then I wanted to check my mail, respond to any comments on my blog or flickr, check twitter and post a tweet about shooting bridges, and then I would be on my way. I figured it was about 10-15 minutes of time on the computer. So I sat in the chairs provided to wait. These chairs are situated immediately behind the computer, which is probably not a good idea because it means you can see whatever the person using the computer is doing.

And in this case the person using the computer was on MySpace. I realize it is a public access terminal, and nothing I was going to do was any more important than poking about on MySpace. That wasn't the problem. The problem was this young person was posting comments on MySpace pages and then waiting for responses to be posted. Or rather, hoping responses would be posted. She would check her incoming MySpace messages, and then scroll up and down, up and down, up and down, on her MySpace page, continually refreshing it, to see if she had gotten a response. After a few minutes of no response, she would click on one of her friend's pages, post a message there, and then return to her page and scroll around waiting for responses. This is clearly not the way such a resource should be used, you get on, you do what you need to, and you get off. If you are going to just wait around for messages to be posted, you let other people on and get back on when they are done.

After about 15 minutes she got bored scrolling around, so she went to YouTube to watch videos of kittens playing with toys. After 5 minutes or so of this she glanced back at me, at the time I wasn't looking exactly at her. I was looking a little to the right, sitting forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped, and clearly doing nothing other than waiting. I think it occurred to her at this point that it was obvious she was just fucking around with the PC, so she had three options: (1) get off and get back on later, (2) do something other than simply kill time, or (3) try to make it *look* like she was doing something other than kill time and hope that I would give up and go away... like the people before me had.

Guess what option she chose? She turned back to what she was doing and opened a new browser window. The home page was a New Hampshire tourist information page, so she clicked around and pretended to read information about local attractions that she probably would not be visiting. And then, about once every 30 seconds or so, she would switch back to the browser window containing her MySpace page, refresh it, look for new messages, and then minimize it and go back to pretending to read tourist information. Occasionally she had a message, but most of the time she didn't.

I was not going to be bested by this kid, so I remained where I was. I figured I would wait until she looked at me again and if she did I would ask her how long the wait was going to be. I figured I could offer as a consolation that it would take about 15 minutes for me to take care of what I needed to post.

It took another 10 minutes or so before she looked at me again. By now I had been in the information center for almost an hour. This time when she looked at me, I made eye contact with her and made clear from my expression that I was not going to leave.

"Are you waiting to use this computer?" she asked.

Gimme a break. She knew I was waiting. Still I just wanted to get on, so I gave her an out.

"Yes. I need access for about 15 minutes."

"Um, okay, I'm almost done I just need 2 more minutes."

Yeah. Two minutes so you can post a message to whoever you are yakking with on MySpace to let them know you need to get off the computer and you will be back in 15 minutes.

"That's fine thanks."

After about 5 minutes she shut down her MySpace page.

"Ok all set."

"Thanks. I'm just checking my e-mail and posting an article. I should be done in 10 to 15 minutes, and then you can get right back on."

"Okay, thanks." And then as she left "I'll be back in 15 minutes."

She was just letting me know not to take my time. Now if I had been an asshole I'd have sat there and waited for her to get back, then watched videos of kittens on YouTube. But I actually had things I wanted to do that day... and should have long since gotten started doing them.

It took 10 minutes for me to post my material, check my mail, and respond to my messages. And then I left. No kid in sight outside.

But I'll be returning today to post this article, upload 5 covered bridge fisheye-pix to flickr, and check and respond to mail/comments. And of course to minimize my time on the PC I have prepared everything in advance. Should take about 10 minutes again. I wonder if I will have the joy of waiting for her again? My plan this time is to show up at 9 AM. I got the sense this young person doesn't do 9 AM.

The fisheye pix came out nice BTW (1 2 3 4 5). When I get home I'll be able to do some proper post processing. All I have here is IrfanView, which doesn't do well with Canon RAW files. 100% chance of rain today, but it is 8:22 AM and nothing has started yet. So I am probably going to at least *try* to shoot some covered bridges today. Wish me luck!

Red States and Republicans Do Not Have a Monopoly on Knuckledraggers

Abacquer — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 12:51:05 -0400

"What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous ... it's dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists! This is the Land of Lincoln where people believe in God. Get out of that seat ... You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying! You believe in destroying what this state was built upon."

-- Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago), speaking to atheist Rob Sherman

If Rob Sherman was a Jew or a Muslim or a Methodist or anything but an atheist, Representative Monique Davis would be openly castigated from every direction (and deservedly so). But it's okay to hate atheists here. Welcome to my country.

Mr. Sherman was testifying to the Illinois House State Government Administration Committee about a one million dollar grant slated to go to a Baptist church that was trying to rebuild from a fire. As you know churches already don't pay taxes, so it seems rather curious that anyone would think it okay for tax money to go to a church--especially in a country where church and state are supposed to be separate. The grant money story is pretty smelly all on its own, but I am not at all surprised that any outspoken atheist would have an opinion on the matter, and might choose to testify to government bodies on the matter.

But Monique Davis feels otherwise. She feels atheists have no right to testify to the American government. And for that matter we are destroyers, and dangerous to children. And it's okay to censor or silence us. Oh and the country was founded on Christian principles.

How does someone like this even get elected in the first place? Shame on you Monique Davis. You madam, are no Democrat.

Hat tip to the excellent science blog Pharyngula for the story. You won't be hearing about it on Fox.

Why Debate the Existence of God?

Abacquer — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:55:20 -0500

So I watched an overly long atheist/theist debate on YouTube the other day. It was held by an American Muslim organization and featured two Muslim debaters and two atheist debaters. It was depressing and nightmarish to watch. I thought the atheists did a horrible job, frankly, and let the other side get away with dodgy logic and word games. In their defense the environment wasn't friendly to them in the least, but they weren't really doing anything that would have won the crowd over.

After the sorry affair was over, I found myself wondering what possesses atheists to want to debate the existence of God or Allah or what-have-you. I can understand giving a talk, taking questions and answers, writing an essay, but a debate? Would you debate the existence of the tooth fairy? What's the point?

We hold political debates to see how potential representatives think on their feet, but not to find the truth. As I have long noted, debates are not about truth, they are about winning, and this is precisely why I do not like them. You get people playing semantical games with each other and trying to win over the audience instead of working together to reach truth or at least understanding. And since the most outspoken debaters tend to insult each other, or each other's position, they do little to convince anyone of anything. Instead these events tend to drive wedges between people instead of bring them together.

So if it is about winning as opposed to truth, what good does debating the existence of supernatural entities serve? Even if you win you haven't proved anything beyond the fact that you are the better debater.

Personally I think irrational beliefs are not the sort of thing you want to try to debate--your theistic opponents will simply expand their belief beyond the boundaries you try to set for them--whether it makes sense or not. And why wouldn't they? The beliefs were irrational in the first place. As the old saw goes you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.

Lens Cults and The Isoceles Field

Abacquer — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 19:14:59 -0500

So early this morning I couldn't sleep and I ended up writing an article on flickr in one of the many "what lens should I buy" discussions that goes on there. I have noticed, in my days on flickr, that certain pieces of equipment and certain techniques have a following, and often get recommended simply because of the following rather than because the equipment/technique is actually suited to the purpose of the person asking. In an effort to supply a counterbalancing opinion, I found myself in need of trigonometry.

The Argument

One such "cult" item is the "nifty fifty" (the EF 50mm f/1.8) lens made for Canon EOS cameras. It is very sharp, very fast, and very cheap ($80). If you are on a tight budget (or even if you aren't) it makes sense to have one for your EOS camera unless you have a better 50mm prime, or don't need a 50mm prime.

While I will not argue that it is probably one of the best value-for-money lenses, it is not versatile at all, and yet it seems to get hailed as a magic-bullet lens. I regularly see people making claims like "it never comes off my camera". And after having used it myself, I can only conclude that these people shoot one type of thing and one type of thing only, or it never comes off because they don't own any other lenses.

There is a certain love affair with the 50mm focal length because it was the standard focal length for 35mm film for decades. But in the age of digital SLR cameras, things are different for the less expensive consumer DSLRs. These DSLR's tend to use an image sensor that is smaller than 35mm film. The APS-C style sensor, or crop sensor, does not render the entire image cast by a standard lens, but only a smaller piece in the center. This results in an apparent magnification factor of 1.6. Hence if you put a 50mm lens on a crop-sensor camera, it's like working with an 80mm lens (50 x 1.6 = 80). The end result is a smaller-than-expected "field of view" (FOV).

On an old Canon 35mm film camera, a 50mm lens has a FOV of 46°. But on a crop-sensor camera the FOV is a hair under 29°. This loss of over a third of the FOV means that on crop-sensor cameras the EF 50mm f/1.8 lens has distinct limitations as to how much you can fit in the frame.

Fortunately, on my EOS 5D the 50mm behaves as expected. Because the 5D is a full frame camera, its sensor is the same size as a 35mm film frame. So I get 46° out of my EF 50mm, just as nature intended.

The "nifty fifty" on crop-sensor cameras is often described as a "portrait lens". With the crop factor, the 50mm lens behaves like an 80mm lens, and 80mm is ideal for portraits. But if you want to shoot anything larger than a head-and-shoulders portrait with the EF 50 1.8 on your Rebel XT or 30D, you'd better have a lot of room behind you, because you are going to need to back up... a lot.

But how much?

The Trigonometry

Well that's where the trig comes in (you can skip this section if you don't want to see how I figured it out). In order for me to say how much, I needed to be able to reliably compute the distance necessary to view an object of a given width. But how? I started by drawing a diagram like this one:

V is my viewing angle. Okay it's not 29° (or 28.98333° which is the actual FOV of the nifty fifty on a crop sensor), but close enough. The legs of the triangle extending out from V represent the edges of my FOV as the distance to the subject (marked by the dashed line, d) grows. The base of the triangle (marked as w) is the width of the field of view at the distance d. Basically this is a representation of the wedge or cone of that falls within a particular FOV, in this case 30°.

I can pick any distance I want for d, but what I really need is a way to say what d should be to accomodate a subject of a certain width. In other words, to fit a subject 10 feet wide in my viewfinder, how far back do I need to stand with the nifty fifty on my EOS 30D camera? I supposed that given a formula for that, I could solve the formula for the width so that one could also compute the maximum width viewable given a distance.

The triangle depicted above is an isoceles triangle, as both the legs are the same length, and consequently the angles where the legs meet the base is also to the same. I spent some time looking online for computations for isoceles triangles, but what I was looking for didn't appear (namely, given the length of the base, and the angle of the peak, what is the height or altitude of an isoceles triangle?)

I studied trig over 20 years ago so I remember very little of it, but I did remember there were a lot of simple equivalences for right triangles (that is, triangles where one of the angles is 90°). And I realized while looking at my diagram that the line I had drawn to represent the distance, bisected V and split the triangle into 2 right triangles, each of which looked like this:

Bisecting V gives me a 15° angle (V'), and a base width exactly half of what it was before (w'). So if I could take a given distance d and come up with a formula for w', then I should be able to solve that formula for either d or w', keeping in mind that V' is V/2 and w' is w/2.

Doing a quick check online I found the two rudimentary trignometric equivalences for right triangles: for either of the angles other than the 90° one, the sin of that angle is equal to the length of the opposite side divided by the length of the hypoteneuse, and the cos of that angle is equal to the length of the adjacent side divided by the length of the hypoteneuse. Here are those equivalences for the right triangle above:

Sin V' and cos V' I can get with a pocket calculator, and I'm going to pick a value for either d or w' and solve for the other. I can solve the equation on the left for w' [w' = (sin V') * h] and I can solve the equation on the right for d [d = (cos V') * h], but both of these solutions require me to know what the hypoteneuse of this triangle is.

But in order to get w' from d or d from w' I need to do more work, mostly because I am not going to know what the hypoteneuse is. I'm only going to be starting with either V' and w' or V' and d. So what I need to do is solve one of the equations for h, and then plug that into the other equation. That should give me a formula I that I can use to solve for either d in terms of w' and V' or w' in terms of d and V'. So I picked the equation on the right. Solving that for h gives h = d / (cos V').

So I should be able to substitute d / (cos V') in the equation on the left, like so:

Now I'm good. I know what V' is, I can get sin V' or cos V' from my calculator, and I am going to pick either d or w'. So now I can solve for either one, like so:

Done, right? Well, yes, if I want to know what the appropriate distance is for half the width of my subject using a lens with half the field of view. Now I want to substitute in the equivalences that w' = w/2 and V' = V/2. In the equation on the right that will put w/2 on the left of the equal sign, so I will multiply both sides by 2 to solve the equation for w. That gives me:

Okay they probably aren't the cleanest formulas in the world, but they work and let you get the height of an isoceles triangle from its base width and peak angle, or vice versa. Using these formulas I could handily compute the needed distance for a given width in a given field of view, and this allowed me to present something more concrete than "gee whiz, that EF 50mm 1.8 is awfully confining on a crop sensor camera."

Back to the Argument

So how confining is that nifty fifty?

5 feet wide = 9.7 feet away
10 feet wide = 19.3 feet away
15 feet wide = 29 feet away
20 feet wide = 38.7 feet away
25 feet wide = 48.4 feet away

Pretty confining! If you are trying to capture 3 people sitting on a couch which is 8 feet long all in one shot, you need to stand 15 feet 6 inches away. Better have a big living room, or one where there isn't a TV 10 feet from the couch. Or maybe if you moved the couch outside... that would be cool for an album cover, but for Aunt Bea, Uncle Joe, and Granny, it is probably less so.

Working with the EF 50mm f/1.8 is a good exercise though for learning how to push a lens to do what you need, and it's plain old good exercise, because you're going to be backing up a lot. You can get that 8 foot couch in shot if you shoot from an angle, but then you will need to stop your aperture down to widen up the depth of field so that everyone will be in focus... which means you can't shoot low light anymore so you might need lamps or a flash. Or you could give up on that shot and shoot the people individually.

Or, you could simply not get the EF 50mm 1.8 in the first place, if you are not planning to shoot primarily portraits. If you want to consider the traditional FOV that the great 35mm film artists shot with, you need a lens that gives a FOV on a crop-sensor camera similar to a 50mm lens on a 35mm film camera (i.e. 46°). The closest bet would be a 28mm lens, like the EF 28mm f/1.8 or EF 28mm f/2.8. These have a crop-sensor FOV of 47.25°. With one of these lenses the width to distance figures look like this:

5 feet wide = 5.7 feet away
10 feet wide = 11.4 feet away
15 feet wide = 17.1 feet away
20 feet wide = 22.8 feet away
25 feet wide = 28.6 feet away

Much more reasonable. And quite interesting how the distance to subject is almost the same as the width of the subject. No surpise that the 50mm lens became the standard on the cameras of old.

Unclear on the Concept

Abacquer — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 17:20:49 -0500

So some new photographic toys showed up from B&H PhotoVideo today--having completed my wedding kit (no one is more amazed than I) I still had a little left over from my MTG collection sales, and decided to order myself some "fun" photo equipment which is not strictly for the business I am trying to get off the ground.

When I went outside to meet the UPS guy he was sort of stalking around angrily in front of my house because I didn't answer the doorbell quickly enough. UPS, unlike FedEx and other delivery companies, does not do defacto signature delivery, they would just rather drop it on your porch and go. So when they have to get a signature, the driver tends to get annoyed. Which, as far as I'm concerned, is tough noogies. I'm not about to let thousands of bucks worth of equipment just sit on my front porch because UPS dude can't be bothered to wait a few seconds.

But I digress. So anyway I went out on the porch and he UPS guy spotted me with a relieved look and said "Oh hi, sorry, they want me to get a signature on this for some reason," and proceeded to throw my box of lenses and harddrives onto the porch. I looked at him like he was astoundingly dense and said "Yeah, they want a signature because its fifteen hundred dollars of extremely fragile equipment, imagine that."

Believe it or not, this didn't register. "Oh," he said, glancing at the corrugated box, "well it looks like it's in good condition."

No thanks to you, chucklehead. I thought as I wordlessly signed for it and took it in the house.

I haven't opened it yet, but I'm going to raise hell if it is damaged. You would think that the requirement of a signature on the delivery of a big box implies that perhaps whatever is in it should be treated with care. If you were inclined to think, that is...

Picture above is of Patty shoveling the front walk (yes I helped, I didn't just shoot photos!) Lot of nice photos from these recent snows we've had. Here are a few of my faves:

Here We Go Again...

Abacquer — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 14:51:46 -0400

Definition of "undercutting":

Me:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120163294055
Starting time: Sep-27-07 19:45:00 PDT (scheduled, so as to begin after other auctions ended)
Starting bid: US $49.99
Duration: 7-day listing

The other guy:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170153862318
Starting time: Sep-27-07 20:27:48 PDT
Starting bid: US $0.89
Duration: 7-day listing

eBayers Drive Me Crazy!!

Abacquer — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 10:32:46 -0400

Looking down the notes/status on my selling/sold auctions, they read like something out of "How to be Obnoxious -- A Practitioner's Guide". Let's run through them, shall we?

Item 1 is a very rare set which did not sell because some rather clueless sellers all decided to run auctions for the same item at the same time as mine, and undercut me. As a result they all hurt each other and nobody made what the set was worth. One guy had an extremely low minimum bid and got no bids. After his auction ended, there was only one auction left to bid on, it shot way up over the first guy's minimum despite having poorer quality cards. Thinking about that makes my brain shrivel. Now I have to wait around for all of these shmoes to finish relisting and selling their sets so I can get a fair price for mine. And they appear to be waiting for me. Greaaaaaaat.

Item 2 is my most valuable set, wouldn't sell for 80% of the retail price. I received the most ridiculous offers, promises from people who then disappeared, and got strung along by people who eventually just backed out as if surprised when I repeated stuff to them which was clearly stated in the auction description. Meanwhile the auction has had hundreds of views and dozens of people watching it. I've now relisted (cha-ching! extra ebay fees!) lowered the price to 70% and it still isn't selling. Jesus. I'm going to have to split it up and sell it in pieces (cha-ching! more fees!)... and I'll end up making way more than the current asking price. Had one buyer offer the full price if I would ship to Spain (auction says shipping to USA only.) He assured me up and down that it was perfectly safe and he does it all the time. Then I told him that he would have to assume the shipping risk (i.e. item goes missing, he has to wait for the UPS refund, up to 6 months). And suddenly it's no longer something he feels comfortable doing. (Guess he doesn't have as much faith in the Spanish courier services after all.) Currently I have one offer from a guy who "is trying to get the money together". We'll see... past history is not a good indicator.

Item 3, a set so rare that only a handful exist in the world. I set a reserve and have people who expect me to sell it to them for one tenth of the reserve. One bidder offered to buy it for the reserve price, but insists I cancel the auction and relist it with a buy it now option first!! (For those wondering, it cost about $9 to list it the first time, and would cost another $9 to list it again.) Guy refuses to just bid the goddamned reserve amount. I refused to end the auction for him.

Item 4, fixed price/best offer auction. I accepted an offer of $150, only to discover that the buyer was from Japan (you don't get buyer's location until you accept their offer.) Auction description says shipping to USA only. Genius. I recalculating the shipping charges, and they tripled. Sent buyer an invoice and pointed out that he should have contacted me first before he bid because that's exactly what the auction description says. I hope he doesn't back out, but I suspect he will (and I lose $5 in listing fees... cha-ching!)

Item 5, sold Aug-31. No contact from buyer. Invoice sent 9/1. Reminder sent 9/4. Still no contact. Standard eBay grace period is 3 days from end of auction. Going to have to send buyer a warning tomorrow and if he doesn't pay within a day after that it will be negative feedback and relist the item (cha-ching! more listing fees...)

Item 6, shipping to USA only. Bidder from Germany pleaded with me to ship to him, and eventually I agreed and let him bid. Then after winning the item he argued with me about the shipping costs and insisted I ship USPS instead of UPS.

Item 7, buyer asked repeatedly about card condition despite pictures of the cards being in auction description, and then took his sweet time getting his payment together after he won (took 5 days to make an instant electronic payment.) At least he apologized for taking so long. He'd be the first.

What next???

An Angry Letter About a Stupid Altercation

Abacquer — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 23:51:46 -0400

To whom it may concern:

My family and I visited your center on July 27, 2007. We had a nice time and enjoyed every part of our visit except for the end in your gift shop. Apart from the annoyance of it being blisteringly hot in the shop, we were accosted by an individual whose name I don't recall, but I'm sure, once you read this letter, you will know exactly who I am referring to.

Your shop was selling polished stones and magnetic stones "by the bag". The listed prices were $4 for a small bag of polished stones, $7 for a large bag of polished stones, and $5 for a bag of "sticky stones". There were no other signs posted indicating how many stones should be in a bag or any other special requirements. We had purchased some bags of stones just like these at the Polar Caves the day before where we were encouraged by the staff to "stuff the bag".

While I was sweating in the heat (it was 90 degrees outside) and selecting stones that might look good in my still life photographs, I was approached by an elderly gift shop employee who said to me "Just to let you know, you aren't allowed to overfill the bag, it has to close." My bag was not overflowing, but it was bulging because I was trying to pack it tightly. I took a few stones out of my bag and closed it. I was then informed that the bag must close "comfortably" and that if I tried to buy the bag as it was "they will catch you at the register". Given the heat (and the miserliness of your staff) I was running out of patience and said "I'll just pay a couple of extra dollars at the register if it is an issue."

I'd like to point out that having already spent well over $50 just to get my family into your center for the afternoon, and another $15 in the café for snack food, and being about to spend about $60 for gift shop items, I was offended that I was being hassled over a few pennies worth of rocks.

When I arrived at the register, the cashier was completely unfazed by my bags of stones and began ringing them up. Within seconds the same woman swooped in and informed the cashier that I could not purchase my bag of "sticky stones" because it was overfilled. I immediately said to the cashier "it's hot, I'm not going to go fill a second bag, please charge me two extra dollars." I could have easily closed the bag by removing only a few stones, but I figured that offering far more than the extra stones were worth should be good enough.

The cashier seemed to think that would be fine and repeated my offer to the officious employee. I was being more than generous, and yet, it wasn't good enough. I was informed I would have to buy a second bag of stones. So I set the bag aside and informed the cashier that I wouldn't be purchasing it today and made clear with my tone that I felt the entire exchange was patently ridiculous. At this point, the officious employee launched into a speech about how your center is a nonprofit organization, as if I needed that explained to me. I didn't appreciate the implication that I was somehow being greedy. I am an Audubon Society member, and I always donate when I visit wildlife sanctuaries even though as a society member I am not required to do so. Someone was being greedy that day, but it wasn't me, having sunk a total of about $125 into your coffers for a 3 hour visit.

I waved the obdurate woman away and reminded her that I had just offered to pay extra. Nonprofits don't turn away money when it is offered without strings, so this had nothing to do with your center's nonprofit status, and everything to do with someone who doesn't have enough important things to worry about. Nonprofits are typically very flexible, because flexibility equals greater donations and thus allows the nonprofit to do more for the greater good. I'm sure I don't have to explain that to you, but clearly you need to explain it to a certain intransigent member of your gift shop staff, because it cost you $7 during my visit, and since I was so insulted and angered, I don't really see myself or my family returning to your facility again, which means it probably is going to cost you quite a bit, considering that only minutes before my wife and I were talking about purchasing a membership.

The irritating woman left and the cashier apologized to me and made clear with her expression that she too felt the other employee was being unreasonable. At the very least, if you are going to sell items "by the bag" and are going to impose stringent restrictions on what a bag can contain, there has got to be a more sensible way to do it than to have an employee hovering over customers and pestering them. Like perhaps a sign that says "No More Than 12 Stones Per Bag" or an example bag with a sign saying "Your Bag Should Look Like This". Or simply sell the stones individually.

Though in the future I will certainly encourage folks to visit your facility, I'll be cautioning them about the gift shop. When folks visit such shops we know we are paying too much given the value of the goods, but we do it anyway because it is for a good cause. The last thing one should do in such a situation is harass the visitors and needle them for more money. I would have thought that was obvious.

Of Dreams and Torpedos...

Abacquer — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 10:17:45 -0400

Many years ago (I was estimating '92 but actually it was around '97), I hatched a dream of becoming a photographer, perhaps a wildlife photographer because I was so into bird watching. I was doing software for a living, and though I was pretty good at it, I wasn't getting the satisfaction out of it that I once had. Friends I discussed the idea with encouraged me to pursue the dream, and so I started researching the equipment.

On line discussion fora were not as prevalent in those days, back then USENET was the place to go to ask questions. (When Google first appeared, once of the biggest deals about it was the ability to search USENET newsgroup postings... now that functionality doesn't even appear on the main page.) So it was on USENET that I began to do my research. I noticed a lot of messages from people getting started in photography and wanting advice on what equipment to buy. And I noticed anyone professing a desire to become a professional would receive at least some discouraging messages along the lines of this industry is very competitive, and it's very hard to make a living doing this, and various other messages that basically amounted to you will probably fail, so don't get your hopes up.

One of my initial forays received a few of these sorts of messages. At the risk of reliving a dream that died, here's a link to my original query on rec.photo.technique.nature. And among the positive responses, there were a couple less positive ones:

...there's some chance you can supplement your income someday, but if that's a primary motivator, better to take a course in
becoming an auto mechanic where you can get $60 an hour for labor...this field is ultra competitive and over saturated with very talented people who love what they're doing, work for nothing or close to it, and turn out fantastic images by the ton...anyone who NEEDS to supplement their income would not choose this as a way to get that done quickly. it just doesn't happen that way. i don't mean to insult your abilities or anything, but i do believe that you've really got this figured as being much easier than it really is...

...You need to learn the basics before you do anything else. And not to discourage you, by all means pursue your passions and dreams, but what the publishing world really doesn't need now is another 'great' photo of that bear or moose. You will find that taking great photos, and selling them are two entirely different things. Unless you are a prodigy of some sort, it will take you years of hard work and learning before you will even be capable of matching the quality of work that the industry is already inundated with, so start with learning and mastering the basics before moving on to the 'big game,' and in the meantime start saving your $$ for those big lenses. Once you do produce publishable quality work, your skills and talents at marketing will be more important than your photographic skills, even if you are only trying to 'supplement' your income...

Messages like these left me very discouraged when I started trying to become a photographer and I began the journey with a used Nikon 8008s 35mm SLR expecting to fail. After only a couple months of dealing with the exorbitant cost of film developing, I did indeed give it up. I just couldn't afford it. But the dream of becoming a photographer never went away, and resurfaced a few years later when I purchased a used Konica Q-M100V digital camera which took appallingly low resolution pictures.

Eventually I graduated from the Konica to a Canon Digital Elph S500 PowerShot, still a point-and-shoot, but it took better quality images. Now 10 years later, I've come full circle and have gotten an SLR again, but a digital one this time. And again I am nurturing the dream of becoming a photographer full time. So (almost on impulse) I ordered the MOO cards depicted above to use like business cards as I begin trying to turn that dream into a reality. Maybe nothing will come of it, but this time I feel a little more urgency, as I am now pushing 40, not getting any younger, and very conscious of my mortality. I've already come a lot further this time than last time, and I hope to go further yet.

I was kind of stoked when the MOO Cards arrived... like my Dad, I am excited by possibilities. So I posted the picture you see at the top of this article to my flickr photostream, and let slip that I was thinking of turning pro. I received two comments. One from my best friend, James, and one from an online acquaintance I met on flickr. James, being a friend,wished me luck in a manner I know was heartfelt. The other person?

You better find another way to earn a living. None makes money being a photographer these days, unless you intend to do weddings.

I give this other individual the benefit of the doubt, but, what is it with torpedoing people's dreams? Is this a common occurrence? Is it just that other people have pursued a dream and it hasn't worked out and they want to prevent others from experiencing disappointment? I thought about it for a long time. Then I heard my daughter come downstairs and called her into my study. We had the following conversation:

ME: Do me a favor. When you get a dream for what you would like to do with your life, don't ever let anyone try and talk you out of it.

HER: What did you read online?

ME: Huh?

HER: Usually when you talk to me about something serious like this, it's because you've read something online that offended you.

Smart kid, huh? So I told her about how right after she was born I began trying to become a photographer, and how some people had discouraged me, and how I had let those discouragements color my thinking. And yes I had found some of those original comments online and had just received another. I told her that it is a two way street, that people can try to talk you out of your dreams, but only you can let them do it. I think she got the message.

And as for me? I have nothing against shooting weddings. I think I would like that. When I went digital, I started shooting portraits and discovered that I love taking pictures of people and particularly faces, and went a little nuts doing so. So if I get to the point where I feel competent enough that I wouldn't produce crappy photos, weddings would definitely be something I would want to do.

And as for the guy who encouraged me to become an auto mechanic instead? Well his business website (started in 1997, btw, same year I posted on usenet about my interest in wildlife photography) hasn't been updated since 2000. So maybe he was experiencing difficulty in pursuing his dream, and that motivated the comment he made to me. I also note from his website that he seems to have rejected digital photography. Interesting.

Say Goodbye to Cellulite

Abacquer — Thu, 24 May 2007 16:00:06 -0400

Personally, I am sick of online cosmetics ads that show two side by side "before and after" photos of the miraculous effect of the product on wrinkles or age spots or whatever. Usually both pictures are photoshopped, or at least the "after" photo is. Today I saw one that at least had the decency to announce in (extremely small type) that these were "simulated images, not actual photos".

It strikes me that these annoying adverts do a better job of advertising Photoshop than they do of advertising the beauty cream or whatever. So to that end, I made this parody of a webvertisement I saw for "BodyShape" while I was reading a news article today:

So folks, go out and get some Photoshop by Adobe, and you can have a creamy smooth ass too ... at least in your digital photo album.

Evolution Proven: From a Newt to a Snake

Abacquer — Sun, 20 May 2007 15:42:51 -0400

"... A growing culture of radical secularism declares that the nation cannot profess the truths on which it was founded [...] We are told that our public schools can no longer invoke the creator, nor proclaim the natural law nor profess the God-given quality of human rights. [...] In hostility to American history, the radical secularists insist that religious belief is inherently divisive and that public debate can only proceed on secular terms [...] Too often, the courts have been biased against religious believers. This anti-religious bias must end ..."

-- Newt Gingrich, speaking at Liberty University
Gingrich: Challenge 'radical secularism' (AP via Pioneer Press)

How much of our history is merely perception colored by those seeking to attain power? This nation was not founded on Christianity, why does that simple fact continue to elude these twits? Shall we go back to Jefferson and check... AGAIN?

"Believing... that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their Legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church and State." --Thomas Jefferson to Danbury Baptists, 1802. ME 16:281

"[When] the [Virginia] bill for establishing religious freedom... was finally passed,... a singular proposition proved that its protection of opinion was meant to be universal. Where the preamble declares that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word "Jesus Christ," so that it should read "a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion." The insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend within the mantle of its protection the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo and infidel of every denomination." --Thomas Jefferson: Autobiography, 1821. ME 1:67

(Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government -- Freedom of Religion)

The great Virginian Thomas Jefferson understood that our country must espouse no religion, in order to protect them all. Theists who hold their religions near and dear (especially Christians) should be very wary of those who want to infuse their religion into politics. I discussed this last October in my article Looking Into the Abyss:

...If you are a religious person, and if you believe that politics is largely despicable, then it follows that you may believe that getting your religion into politics will improve the state of politics and make it less dirty. But, like the mixing paints, doing so will also infuse the dirt of politics into your religion. Priests will become politicians, and politicians will become priests, each less suited to their role than they were before. Keeping your religion away from politics is the best way to keep politics away from your religion... if you don't eventually you'll find that the power-hungry have invaded your churches and turned them into something they were not intended to be. Mixing the two leaves you with neither...

Southern Baptists, at least the ones who cheered Newt on at Liberty University, are pushing this nation toward theocracy. It desperately concerns me that they haven't thought this through. For his part, Newt is considering a run for president in 2008. And so once again, the power hungry tell the religious what they want to hear in order to win votes. Jefferson understood this too:

"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes." --Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, 1813. ME 14:21

(Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government -- Freedom of Religion)

Fellow citizens, we have our work cut out for us.

Kansas School Board to Elect Creationist President

Abacquer — Sat, 19 May 2007 23:01:32 -0400

The National Association of State Boards of Education will elect officers in July, and for one office, president-elect, there is only one candidate: a member of the Kansas school board who supported its efforts against the teaching of evolution...

-- Evolution opponent is in line for schools post, Austin-American Statesman

Come on Kansas, don't let this happen again.

I Can't Make This Stuff Up

Abacquer — Mon, 14 May 2007 06:00:00 -0400

Republican college students unite! Demand your right to a campus free of transgender bathrooms!

BSU takes heat for 'transgender bathroom' (The Oregonian):
..."We don't want the university to label this a transgender bathroom," said Jonathan Sawmiller, 22, a BSU student senator and president of the school's College Republicans. He raised the issue in an April radio broadcast on a Boise AM station. "Since the media got hold of it, the university was told to stop referring to it as a 'transgender bathroom,' and to start calling it 'unisex,' " he said.

Sawmiller, who in early 2007 confronted BSU President Bob Kustra with a complaint that the school invites mostly liberal speakers, has enlisted the assistance of the Idaho Values Alliance, a conservative Christian group.

"Our view is, gender is assigned at birth," said Bryan Fischer, the Idaho Values Alliance leader. "There's no third or fourth or fifth option."

Fischer wants to know whether student groups -- BSU's 200 campus organizations include Bisexuals, Gays, Lesbians and Allies for Diversity -- will be allowed to alert transgender individuals to the restroom in their literature...

These guys desperately need something important to worry about.

Hardesty, Oklahoma -- Home of the Ugly Christian

Abacquer — Sun, 13 May 2007 19:58:47 -0400

In another example of fundie Christian love and acceptance, a 13 year old girl in Hardesty, Oklahoma is now being homeschooled after having been basically run out of school by the local knuckledraggers. Please watch this video.

You're a brave girl Nicole. Sorry for what you went through. You should come live in Massachusetts. We have plenty of religious nuts here too, but the area is pretty liberal, and therefore most of the Christians I know actually behave like Christians.

A Vista Rant and a Ray of Hope

Abacquer — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 17:13:51 -0400

It bugs me that in the last few weeks of his life my father spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get his new "Vista" computer from Gateway to run his existing software, and to play nicely with the two other computers on his network (one XP and the other Windows-98). My mom described him as regularly infuriated by the new "improvements" to Vista, such as drastically and mystifyingly reworking the interfaces of the major office applications so that you no longer know where any of the functionality is anymore, and doing away with meaningful text menus so that everything is an icon. (Which of course requires you to hover over every freaking picture and wait for a tool tip to come up and let you know if you found what you were looking for.)

This is not something a 67 year old man with high-blood-pressure and heart problems should have to deal with from a computer which is supposed to make his life easier. It is still utterly mind-boggling to me that some genius over at Microsoft thought people were going to go so loopy with joy over the new interface that nobody would ever want the option of say, switching to a "classic mode" so that they could continue to be productive. Go eff yourself, Microsoft.

Now that Dad has passed away and my Mom's old Windows-98 machine is becoming (more) unreliable, we decided to help her move her business on to Dad's new computer. The very first thing we did was back off Dad's files, and then pack his computer into a box with all of its peripherals and Dad's old disks, and take it to a computer store near my house. Dad had Win-98 install disks, an XP home edition upgrade disk, and Office-2000 from the older computers which were going to be disconnected and shut down once the new box was functional. I told the guy at the store: "Wipe it, and install Win98, then upgrade to XP, install office 2000, download and install all the service packs for XP and Office, get AOL installed and functional, then locate, download, and install all the drivers so that these peripherals (monitor, scanner, printer) will work with the XP OS."

It took the store 2 days to get the computer back to me. Total cost, $90. When we brought the computer back to Mom's house it took all of a couple hours to have it up and running with all of her software and fully networked with the other machines so that she could transfer her records to it. Poor Dad had spent weeks wrestling with the stupid thing. He was upset when it arrived because he didn't realize that it would be coming with Vista and that practically everything he did on a daily basis had been turned upside down and obfuscated by the new interface. The new computer didn't even end up in his office--he had to unpack and put his old computer back together again because the new one wouldn't work the way he wanted it to--so he ended up putting the new one on a tiny desk adjacent to his bedroom.

Stories like my Dad's are sadly not uncommon (minus the tragic ending, of course). But home users everywhere, excited about buying new hardware and updating to the latest and greatest new OS, are discovering that latest is not necessarily greatest. In fact it might just suck royally. The end result, tens of thousands of angry customers phoning up computer retailers and saying "WTF? Why can't I buy a box with XP on it? I don't want this screw-head OS on my new box, I want something I can actually use!"

Well, computer retailers are finally getting the message. Dell has just announced that customers buying home systems can opt to have the system shipped with XP and not Vista. From a Computer World article:

Dell Inc. yesterday bowed to pressure from customers and dumped its Vista-only policy for consumer PCs by adding Windows XP as an operating option on half a dozen machines...

..."We heard you loud and clear on bringing the Windows XP option back to our Dell consumer PC offerings," Dell said on its Ideas in Action page, a companion to its IdeaStorm site...

...Earlier this month, Dell decided to add Windows XP on systems sold to its small business customers. At the time, Tom West, Dell's director of small business marketing, said the older operating systems wouldn't be offered to consumers. "Dell does not have plans to launch Windows XP for home users as the preference and demand is for the 'latest and greatest' technology, which includes Windows Vista," he said on the Direct2Dell blog.

Yesterday, Lionel Menchaca, Dell's manager of digital media, noted the reversal in another blog entry. "After Tom West's post that said Dell would offer Windows XP on systems for small business customers, many Direct2Dell readers have commented or sent e-mails asking us to bring back Windows XP for home users as well. Today, we're doing that."...

...Rival Hewlett-Packard Co. was not available for comment on whether it would answer Dell with a Windows XP option for its consumer customers. HP's small business systems can currently be ordered with either Windows XP Home or XP Professional, as well as Vista Business or Home Basic; the company's consumer PCs, however, are available only with Vista...

How long do you think HP is going to go on having home users refuse to buy computers from them unless they get XP knowing that Dell is making that option available? Interestingly the XP-equipped computers from Dell are cheaper. If Vista was so easy to set up and use, wouldn't the XP machines be more expensive? According to Microsoft they should be, but then Microsoft isn't in the same reality as its customers.

Rule #1 when upgrading a user interface: do not make using the application HARDER for your installed base. Rule #2: if you are making a fundamental change to the interface which will require a learning curve from users either make the new interface optional, or introduce it in slow steps.

There's already a company out there offering some sort of patch that attempts to put menus back on your office applications if you were unfortunate enough to step in Vista without realizing what you were getting into. And of course, they want you to pay for this. Yeahhhh, I'm tired of being part of Microsoft's world-wide division of beta testers known as "customers", and I don't think I should have to shell out more money to get back to productivity, so I think I'll stick with XP for now. When Microsoft finally pulls its head out of its butt and releases a service pack so that users can shut off the silly ribbon and get their hierarchical menus back, then I'll be looking at Vista--till then, no way, and Microsoft can lips my donkey.

Recently, MS slyly slipped Internet Explorer 7 into the "critical updates list" for XP. Which means if you have your XP set up to update itself automatically, you may soon sit down to your machine and find your browser has been quietly replaced by a different version which has a different interface... most notably, the browser tool bar is now at the top, but some of the icons have been moved down to a second line on either side of the tabs, and the menu bar is conspicuously missing (screen shot). Why? Because IE7 is basically the "Vista" version of IE... so if you were thinking of upgrading to IE7 that's something to keep in mind.

In IE7, you can at least turn the menu bar back on, but you can't put it at the top--no it must sit below the toolbar now because MS thinks that is more important. So instead it gets sandwiched between the two rows of icons, which is a bizarre place to put your menus.

Personally I barely use the toolbar at all in IE, the only buttons I use there are the forward and back buttons. I use the menu bar all the time on the other hand, mostly to access favorites, save copies of pages, print, and view the source of pages. Here's a thought, get rid of all these unnecessary icons, and put the next and back buttons ON THE MENU BAR. There's even enough room to fit the URL box there too!

It's becoming a recurring theme that MS comes up with some dippy interface idea and is flabbergasted when the community at large says "WTF were you thinking? How do I shut this shit off? Why is it turned on by default?"

Anyone remember "Clippy"? That dip shit paper-clip cartoon that suddenly started getting in the way of accessing application help in the manner that you were used to? People HATED Clippy with a passion. I don't know anyone who hasn't turned the stupid "office assistant" off, ANYONE. Except perhaps for people who couldn't figure out how to turn the annoying thing off. I already know how to work with application help files, I don't need to be forced to start entering "English questions" into the numbtastic assistant so that it can screw up and take me to the wrong page.

"The Ribbon" is the new office assistant, once again Microsoft runs off the god-damned end of the Earth with the fool notion that we want their help. Please, Microsoft, please stop trying to help me and just give me an application that I only have to learn ONCE.

My Apologies

Abacquer — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 11:56:47 -0400

Because of my daily influx of more than 100 or so spam e-mails, I have had to install a spam filter (PopFile). Because I have a spam filter installed, it occasionally misclassifies e-mail from friends and family as spam. Because of the sheer bulk of the e-mails, I occasionally don't notice when legitimate e-mails are lost in the sea of spam, and in the end they go unread.

And sometimes these e-mails ar every important to me. So I would like to offer my apologies to:

Bob Kitchen, who sent me a get well message when I was sick that I never got until today, and for one other e-mail.
Patti Macguire, who sent me three e-mails over the last year that I missed out on.
Kris Silvia, my sister in law, who sent me some e-mails during a time frame when I was mystified that I hadn't heard from her about some photo work she wanted done.
Jay McGaffigan, whose e-mails from his Verizon account got misclassified.
Mark Whitney, who sent me a lead to help me finish a collection I was working on early last year.
And most importantly, my good friend Tom King, whose message about a recent hospitalization went unread. Sorry Tom, I hope you are feeling better.
Anybody else whose e-mails I didn't recover from the spam folder and I am still unaware of.

Obviously I need to figure out a new way to deal with spam. PopFile is good, but it isn't that good. I can whitelist certain e-mail addresses in PopFile so that it always lets them through, and this is something I am going to need to do for all my friends and family.

Can you guys help me out? Some of you have multiple e-mail addresses, or the addresses change. Can you take a spare moment sometime over the next few days and drop me a message with the words "whitelist me" in the subject? It would really help, if you typically use more than one e-mail for correspondence with friends, if you could send the message from each account you use.

In this way I can make sure that my addressbook is completely up to date, and make sure that PopFile is trained to let any messages from those addresses through. Thanks for your cooperation in this matter, and once again, I'm sorry if I missed your e-mails and didn't reply to you.

It pains me to think, now that my father is gone, that I might have missed some correspondence from him over the years. But this is the way it is, thanks mostly to spammers.

Bush's Court

Abacquer — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 15:59:29 -0400

Today the Supreme Court upheld the federal ban on "intact dilation and extraction" abortion procedures, termed "partial birth abortions" by those given to inflammatory speech. Yet another backward step to thank our President for. From the New York Times article Supreme Court Upholds Ban on Abortion Procedure:

...Today's decision gave the anti-abortion forces what they had hoped for with the more conservative makeup of the high court since Justice Alito replaced Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Abortion opponents are sure to be pleased by some of the language in Justice Kennedy's opinion, including his observation that "the government may use its voice and its regulatory authority to show its profound respect for the life within the woman."...

..."I applaud the court for its ruling today," Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican minority leader in the House of Representatives, told The Associated Press. "My hope is that it sets the stage for further progress in the fight to ensure our nation's laws respect the sanctity of unborn human life."

But Eve Gartner of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America said the ruling "flies in the face of 30 years of Supreme Court precedent and the best interest of women's health and safety." The ruling sends the signal that "politicians, not doctors," will make health-care decisions for women...

...Roberta Combs, president of the Christian Coalition of America, said: "With today's Supreme Court decision, it is just a matter of time before the infamous Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 will also be struck down by the court."

Y'know I dismiss slippery slope arguments nearly all the time, but it's kind of hard to ignore the fact that these folks come flat out and say they want to end all abortion by taking away a woman's right to choose what happens inside her body.

It's also hard to ignore that the Supreme Court of the United States of America, after 34 years of upholding a woman's right to choose as more important than the right to life of an unborn fetus/embryo/zygote, has now done an about-face and approved a ban on certain types of abortion procedures, procedures that are considered necessary by many in the medical professions.

Late term abortions are pretty controversial in my book, and I have a lot of trouble accepting the practice, which is to say, I don't like it at all. But I still feel the ultimate decision lies with the pregnant person herself, not the government, and certainly not a religious fanatic who is trying to enforce his or her morals on the pregnant person via the government.

I view today's court decision as a profoundly disturbing mistake. I hope it does not become a wedge used to erode women's reproductive rights further in the future, as the anti-abortionists seem to hope it will.

I'm also fed up with the inflammatory anti-abortion/anti-stem cell research rhetoric. I'm sick of hearing abortion opponents decry that young pregnant women are "lining up to kill their children" and other such bullshit. If you sat down in a restaurant and ordered fried chicken, anti-abortionist or not, you'd complain if you received a plate of fried eggs because you know damn well that eggs aren't chickens. Scrambling an egg is not the equivalent of killing a chicken, anymore than cracking open a chestnut is the equivalent of felling a tree.

Zygotes and embryos are not human beings. They are a form of human life, yes, but they are not humans. Through the fetal stage they become human beings, but it isn't clear exactly when. This is why I have moral issues with late-term abortions. If at the conclusion of a normal pregnancy, what emerges from the mother's birth canal is a person, then surely it was a person sixty minutes earlier. The question of exactly when does a fetus become a person plagues me.

It would be great if ultimately there were no abortions (which is why birth control should be readily available in this country, and taught in school), but at some point a medical professional may decide that a woman's life is in serious danger unless she receives an abortion. I don't think that the law should be tying his hands or hers, no matter when during the pregnancy that conclusion is reached.

Ron of Ron's Blog notes that we are going to be paying for the Bush court for a generation. No lie, say I.

What's Goin' On, What's Goin On

Abacquer — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 09:26:11 -0400

Life has been a little hectic for me, and while I've had time to take part in interesting discussions on articles I posted over a year ago (weird) I haven't had much time to post any new articles. So here's what's goin' on, reduced to a bullet list, just so I can get the shite out there:

Went to see the oral surgeon on Tuesday, no real surprises there, it was just a consult, they wanted me to know what to expect and to talk to me. Had to read some scary consent forms where they tell you everything that could possibly go wrong during your procedure... we might break your jaw, we might puncture your sinuses, we might damage teeth you were planning on keeping, you might have a heart attack from the anaesthesia, you might die, the world might end. Great stuff to read if you are a person with an anxiety disorder triggered by medical situations. Thanks guys.
I go in for my impressions at the dentist this afternoon. Probably have to have the surgery in about 3 weeks.
Celebrated Easter with Patty's family on Saturday, and with my family on Sunday. Plus we had a little egg hunt for Lynnea at our house Sunday morning. Total of 3 egg hunts, and I hid somewhere between 85 and 145 eggs over the weekend (I had help on the last hunt.)
Atheist's don't believe in jinxes, but lately it's hard to shake the idea of misfortune following me around. During Saturday's get together, I noticed that the dog of one of my sisters-in-law, who had been brought to the gathering, was acting funny--labored breathing, strange movements. I told my sister-in-law about it, and she took the dog to a vet during the celebration and was informed that the animal needed to be put to sleep. Happy Easter kids, the dog is dying. They had the dog put down that same day and a lot of the kids were crying about it.
Continuing the jinx thread, I was on the phone with a friend yesterday afternoon and we were discussing all the things that had been going on in my life when suddenly I heard a loud bang on my cellphone. My friend had been rear ended by another driver and terminated the conversation with "my back is hurting, I can't talk now". Later in the evening I heard back that after a trip to the hospital my friend was okay, but he didn't yet know how bad the damage to his car is. We joked that I should try to capitalize on this Hurleyesque bad luck of mine, have people pay me to stay away from them, or pay me to hang around with folks they don't like until the meteorite hits them.
I've been seeing my Mom each weekend and helping her to get things taken care of now that Dad is gone. Mom runs a small business out of her house and depends entirely on an ancient Windows-98 box to do her work, and the box is acting pretty spotty lately. A few weeks before Dad passed away he had purchased a new computer, and so now I am trying to repurpose that box so that when my Mom is ready, she can switch to the new box and run her business on that. Unfortunately the new box comes with Vista which my Dad hated, and after spending a couple of hours trying to use the box I can see why. Microsoft completely changed the standard windows interface, all the control keys are different, and no functions are where they used to be. They also decided (apparently) that menus are overrated, so the standard office suite doesn't have menus anymore... yeah you heard that right. Everything is now reorganized on a new fat toolbar with tabs on it so that you can switch between toolbars. Microsoft calls it "the ribbon", I call it "thumbing your nose at everybody who already learned how to use your shitty applications". Vista does not come with a "classic mode" option like XP did... they really expect you to relearn where everything is. I refuse to subject my 68-year-old mother to this nonsense. So I backed up Dad's files, packed up his computer and all his peripherals and disks, brought it to a computer shop and told them to wipe it, and then install XP home edition and Office 2000, and get all the drivers to make sure the peripherals work. In the end, my Mom will be happier for it. And having a chance to check out Vista I am now quite certain that I won't be upgrading to it.
Had a little birthday party for Pat at home last week, a little cake and song, and a couple gifts (taking our economic situation into consideration of course). Pat got the movie "Eragon" which was -eh-. It's basically Star Wars... AGAIN, and progresses far too quickly. I kept saying "these guys forgot the montages" while watching it. But the dragon was pretty, and it was still fun to watch.
Oh, and I am saddened to report that Kurt Vonnegut passed away. Thanks for the stories Kurt, we'll miss you.

Guess that's about it. Gotta get to work! See ya later.

A Few Random Items

Abacquer — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 21:35:41 -0400

Continuing in the vein of yesterday's post, I have a few more random thoughts to share...

Survivorman
Perhaps you've never seen this show, it's on The Science Channel (not to be confused with Discovery Channel or The Learning Channel). I really enjoy it. The premise is simple. In each episode they take Les Stroud and dump him in the middle of nowhere with meagre supplies and about 50 pounds of camera equipment. His only mission is to survive for seven days before the crew returns to pick him up. He's not allowed to break down the camera equipment and use it for survival, and he does all the filming himself. I can only imagine what an incredible amount of effort is involved in shooting himself walking past the camera or trudging off into the distance, only to have to return and get the camera. This show strikes me as one James would enjoy. I've seen this poor guy dumped in the arctic tundra, the swamps of Georgia, some desert out west somewhere, even one episode where he had to survive in a life raft at sea for seven days. You can order season 1 of the show on DVD if you are interested. I discovered this show during my many days of bedrest over the last month or so.

North and West of the City...
I'm sick of this phrase. I hear it all the time during weather reports, as in "2 to 5 inches of snow are expected in the Boston area, while areas North and West of the city could receive as much as a foot." It's snowing today. Unlike those in and south of the city, there's no rain following the storm here... it's just piling up. Day before St. Patrick's day and the snow is just dumping down. *sigh*

Cosmos and Carl
I miss Carl Sagan, and I loved Cosmos when I was a kid. One of my best memories of childhood is sitting in the living room with my Dad watching Carl explain history, other dimensions, outer space, the doppler effect, and various other intriguing things. Pat and I both talked recently of trying to find the Cosmos series on DVD to watch with Lynnea (though it might be too slow paced for her.) Amazon has it, if you are interested. One of my favorite segments of that series was when Carl explained what it would be like for two dimensional creatures to encounter a three dimensional one, as a way of explaining what a fourth dimension might be like, as a mechanism for explaining the concept of a curved universe as it relates to the big bang. The two dimensional creatures were called "flatlanders" because they lived (appropriately enough) in Flatland. I finally found that segment on YouTube, but it is included in a larger 10 minute video. You can watch it here, the part about Flatland starts about 3 minutes in, after a discussion of Hubble's discovery that the universe was expanding. In the next segment, Carl ties in the curved universe and questions about the existence of God. It's slow paced but wonderfully done. I really should pick that series up and watch it again as an adult--I've no doubt I'd learn more this time.

Destroying a Career
As you probably know, Valerie Plame testified today before House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and finally had a chance to speak out on her cover being blown by an administration with hopelessly misplaced priorities. One of the saddest things about this, as far as I can see, is that her CIA career as a covert agent is basically over at this point. That's got to be infuriating for her. I can't imagine what that must be like. From her testimony today:

..."My name and identity were carelessly and recklessly abused by senior officials in the White House and State Department. [...] I could no longer perform the work for which I had been highly trained." [...] Under questioning, Plame recounted feeling "like I had been hit in the gut" on the July 2003 morning when she saw a newspaper story by syndicated columnist Robert Novak identifying her...

Pace and the Unbagged Cat
Smooth one General, really smooth. For those of you who haven't heard, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, stepped in it on Tuesday by saying he supported the Pentagon's ban on gays serving openly in the military because homosexual acts are "immoral". Way to go, dickhead. There are thousands upon thousands of gay people serving in our great nation's military right now, many of them putting themselves in harm's way. Thanks for telling them that they're a bunch of immoral perverts. General Pace, for his part, has refused to apologize for the remarks, and has only gone as far as to say that he regrets making them. I'll bet he does, but only because it is inconvenient for him now that the cat is out of the bag. As far as offending the gay troops who've been valiantly serving over the last four years of this misguided war? It's clear what Pace thinks of them. I never understood the ban on gays in the military, and I understood don't-ask-don't-tell even less, except that it allows good soldiers to serve a country that needs them, regardless of their sexual orientation. And the same people that screeched in 1993 that we couldn't let gays in are screeching today that we can't let gays serve openly, for the same stupid reasons--because it would cause a breakdown in unit cohesion on the battlefield. What a bunch of bullshit. I'm sorry but a guy brave enough to crawl across a battlefield under fire while trying to avoid landmines isn't going to be worrying if the guy behind him is checking out his ass. Give me a goddamned break, PLEASE. Here's a thought, I won't ask then next time something as stupid as that enters your mind, and you don't tell, okay? (As a sad but not unexpected sidenote, conservatives are leaping to the General's defense.)

Too Much To Talk About

Abacquer — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 19:36:39 -0400

I'm sorry I haven't been able to blog in awhile... there's just been so much going on my life. I've got a lot of things I'd like to talk about, but any one of them would be a full blog article I don't have time to write. So here's the "Cliff Notes"...

My Health
I visited the doctor about 2 weeks ago. My TB test came back negative, as expected. I woke up with the area around the injection on my arm completely flat and showing no reaction other than a slight redness. I could tell it was a negative result, but still I had to get to the doctor and have a nurse stare at my arm for two seconds and say "yep, negative." Did I mention it was snowing? A lot? The doc informed me that the plan at that point was to let the antibiotics run out, and then monitor myself very carefully, watching for fevers. I was to take it easy and not exert myself once off the antibiotics. I took my last pill the day my Dad had his aneurism. So I was getting almost no sleep, no regular intake of food, a high amount of exertion and stress, exactly at the time we were hoping my body would be able to cope with the remaining infection. By March 7th I was having fevers and my doctor extended the antibiotic. By March 8th the fevers had reached 102, and I was having painful chills in the night. On March 9th the fevers subsided and I haven't had any since. I had another visit with the doc today and she began to speak very frankly about having a surgeon go in and "break up" the scar tissue, or using a needle to drain out the infected area so it could heal. I spoke very frankly about how disturbing those prospects were to me, and if sixty days of antibiotics would solve the problem, I'd rather go that route. For now, we are on a middle ground. The doc has given me a script for 10 more days of the antibiotic, but I am to repeat the "wait and see" experiment when the current batch runs out (Sunday). If the fevers return I can start the next script. Next week I will have another CAT Scan, and then based on the results we will make a decision. The doctor said I could come in and speak with the pulmonologist at that time if I liked. At this point I'm beginning to feel resigned that a surgical solution is going to be necessary.

Mr. Deity
If you haven't seen the "Mr. Deity" videos yet, check them out, they are hilarious. A warning to my theist readers, these movies are created by humanists, and are therefore pretty irreverent. Don't check them out if that is going to bug you.

RSS & YouTube
Why doesn't YouTube support RSS in any obvious fashion that I can detect? Why do I have to go to my subscription page on YouTube to see what is new. If they are tracking what is new, then they have the information necessary to provide an RSS feed. Bloglines tries to "fake it" for you, building an RSS feed out of a YouTube search, but that doesn't work well. Partly because old videos keep popping up on it, and because jerks post movies on YouTube with the usernames of popular YouTubers in their keywords simply to bring in viewers. The only YouTubers I subscribe to are ImpyTheRap (i.e. Nobody's Watching) and SuttSteve. Yet my Bloglines is constantly telling me they have new videos when they don't, simply because the RSS feed is built from a keyword search, and some people are not capable of getting viewers on their own talent. Does anyone have a good way to get a YouTube subscription as an RSS feed? It's really bugging me. I had to discontinue my YouTube "feeds" in Bloglines because it was a waste of time.

Texas and the HPV Vaccine
The Republican Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, has mandated that all girls entering the sixth grade in Texas schools must receive the HPV vaccine Gardasil, produced by Merck. HPV, or Human papillomavirus, is a virus that can be carried by both men and women, but some strains of which are shown to cause cervical cancer in some women. It is primarily transmitted sexually, but can be contracted in other ways (skin on skin contact, or being born from an infected mother). Under Perry's plan, parents could choose to refuse the vaccine for their child, but it is not clear if the child would then be allowed to enter the public school system (any more than they would be allowed to refuse, say, Mumps and Rubella vaccines and still put their kids in school.) The Texas legislature voted 118-23 to basically overturn this order. The primary complaints were that (a) there are questionable connections between Perry and Merck, (b) parents should have the right to choose whether their daughters will be vaccinated, (c) the drug is new and needs to be further tested, and (d) Perry circumvented the legislative process. On (a) and (d) I can't really comment, on (c)... well the FDA has approved it, so it has to have undergone some testing at this point, and on (b) I'm just mystified. The mandate clearly has an opt-out clause... so what's the diff? The thing I can't shake is that the early complaints about the possibility of making this drug mandatory that came out of Fundie USA was that it would encourage young women to have sex. Which is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. But I can't help feeling that because those who said it are realizing how stupid that sounds, we are now getting other excuses like a through d above. I find myself wondering if HPV was transmitted in a nonsexual manner, would there be any outcry at all?

These are the Same People Who Said...
Tell me you haven't heard this one before: confronted with the latest news from climate scientists about global warming, a politically motivated skeptic will claim "These are the same people who said the world was headed for another ice age back in the 1970's... why should we believe them now?" Like so much politically motivated rhetoric, there's little merit in it. Between the 40's and the 70's a cooling trend was noted in the data available at that time. Scientific journals noted that although such a trend could be the precursor of the cyclic ice ages that our planet goes through, there was not enough data or understanding of the climate to accurately predict when the next ice age would come. The popular press on the other hand (i.e. those journals which are not peer reviewed) took the story and made a sensation out of it. The scientific community never said another ice age was imminent, period. Needless to say I hate hearing this stupid argument, especially when it is delivered by people who unfortunately are accorded undue credibility... like Michael Crichton for instance. But if you want details refuting this particular bit of rhetoric, check "The Global Cooling Myth" on Real Climate.

Guess that's all I have for now. Hope everyone else is well and happy...

Communication Levels -- Typical

Abacquer — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 15:05:28 -0500

So I'm lying in bed working on this little internal project, when at about 1:47 PM I receive a meeting invite for 2:00 PM. The invite is from someone I don't know (let's call him Chester) who works out of our Arizona office. The e-mail says "Hi, this will be the introduction to Thingamabob. We will set up the phone bridge to conference in the Burlington and Westford offices. Please have NetMeeting running on your machine so you can follow along."

I'm convalescing from home of course, working from bed, and I am not in either the Burlington or the Westford office. I quickly run back through my e-mails for the last few weeks. Nope I've not gotten anything from Chester before, or anything about "Thingamabob". I also don't know if I can get NetMeeting up and running properly while remotely connected to the office LAN (in the next 13 minutes). I've never really used it before. So I send Chester an e-mail which says: "Who are you and why am I being invited to this meeting? Are you aware I am at home convalescing from pneumonia? I am not sure I can get NetMeeting up and running, can you send me your slides so I can follow along on my own? Here is my cell phone number to conference me in..."

A few minutes later I get an apologetic phone call from Chester. Apparently someone thought I would be good as a consultant-type resource on his new project. He knows I am home sick which is why I am not assigned as a full time resource. Basically I'd be available as a "floater". I would review the GUI spec and make comments and suggestions, and also research stuff for the team, or be a sounding board for GUI ideas. It's part time but at least it is billable. Chester is shocked to learn that nobody bothered to notify me that I was going to be on a new project today, or bothered to send me any project materials so I could read up on it. He's shocked, but I'm not. This level of communication (that is to say none) is very typical at my company. But then Chester goes on to say that the phone bridge can only conference in two locations at once, so they can't conference me in. So I'm not going to be attending the Thingamabob project introduction meeting after all. Even less communication. Great. I told the PM that I would be happy to help out on his project in any way I could, and could he please see to it that I am sent some project documentation?

A few minutes later I get an e-mail from the tech lead on the project, a guy I've worked with before. He says "Frank said you might be a GUI consult resource for the Thingamabob project. Tony and I are the officially assigned developers. I am just checking in with you to see if anyone has talked to you about this. I have not been copying you on documents."

To which my basic response is Frank Who? And no, nobody has told me anything. I know a couple guys named Frank, and one of them is a guy I talk to every day and who jokingly says to me every now and then that I should consult out on MFC GUI's since I was now an 'MFC expert'. He says that to get my goat because he knows I hate MFC and would rather boil in oil than work on another MFC GUI. The other Frank is a manager that I have never worked for and haven't spoken to in almost a year because he's always out on travel. Turns out that it was the latter Frank, and I have no e-mails from him about Thingamabob. Typical.

I swear someday I'm going to arrive at work and find a half-naked clown holding forceps and a turkey baster in my cube and he's going to say "I'm sure you've been expecting me. Your boss said that we could get this done today. Let's get started shall we?" I will not be surprised.

In other news my CAT scan is tomorrow morning at 10:30 AM. I'm pretty nervous about it. I don't like those things.

Have Horn, Will Annoy

Abacquer — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 10:15:54 -0500

My patience with whoever the hell is picking up people across the street is rapidly approaching its end. They typically have someone come by between 6 AM and 6:30 AM, and upon arrival the driver will lay on the horn a few times... right on the street below my bedroom window. 6 AM, I kid you not. I can't even begin to describe how rude it is to honk an automobile horn repeatedly on the street in a residential area at 6 AM.

And of course, if the person being picked up isn't ready, (and, um, they NEVER are), the honking begins again. Without fail this awakens me. Every day. From a sound sleep. One time I looked out the window and saw the driver chatting on her cellphone while laying on the horn. Here's a thought, you obnoxious ass, hang up and call whoever the hell it is you are supposed to be picking up!!!

Today it happened twice. Once at 6:30 AM, and then again at 9:30 AM. Both times I was trying to sleep. The second time it was a different driver in a big 4x4-type vehicle. He laid on that horn for 8 solid long blasts when he was sitting a mere ten feet from my neighbor's door. I staggered down to my front door, wrenched it open and shot him a pissed-off look before slamming it shut again. Ten feet from the door on a beautiful sunny morning. Jesus! Drag your ass out of the car and ring the effing doorbell!

There's a whole group of people just drifting through life doing stuff and never even considering how their actions will impact other people. I just dont understand that at all.

Blogging Naked

Abacquer — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 23:26:44 -0500

Yes, I am blogging while completely naked. No, I'm not doing something naughty to myself, I am naked because my clothes are in the washing machine, with the dog towels, bleach, and a healthy measure of Skunk Off deodorizer. Get the picture?

One of my dogs got skunked tonight. No not Tina, who, although too stupid to quit after being sprayed in the face repeatedly, is at this stage of her life too blind to see a skunk and too deaf to hear one. But when I went outside to get the dogs out of their pen tonight Cassie bolted right out of my grasp and ran for the front yard. I walked out there in time to see her tangle with a skunk and then go *hurkpthhshhh* and run away. She wouldn't come when I called her, before or after being skunked. And afterward she was so upset and frightened she actually ran back to the pen, ran inside and refused to come out. If it were not 10 degrees out, I might have left her there all night and dealt with cleaning her outside in the morning.

But it is too cold for all that. So I went inside and put some plastic grocerybags over my hands and dragged her straight to the downstairs bathtub. She was covered in dirt (probably from trying to roll in it to remove the odor) and fought me every step of the way. Two hours and two bottles of skunk shampoo and a lot of fighting later, Cassie is in her crate for the night and quite subdued. I'm sure the evening took a lot out of her. It wasn't exactly a thrill for me either.

But she still stinks so I'm going to have to take her to a professional. I'll call the vet in the AM and see what they recommend. My downstairs bathroom also smells bad. I cleaned up as best I could, turned on the overhead vent and left an incense stick and a scented candle burning in the sink and shut the door. Shouldn't be a fire hazard because there is nowhere for the ash to go but into the sink bowl.

So this has been some fucking night. Hope yours was better.

No more dogs, I told my wife afterward. Cassie is the last dog we're going to own. Cats are far less trouble.

The Internet -- Take a Gander at it

Abacquer — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 17:44:07 -0500

So while convalescing here in my study, I went on MTGO to play a couple games of cards, when this stupid discussion happened.

2:54 Tobleron: hmm I was 16 when that came out anyone want to take a gander at my age? hehe
2:54 pdragon616: a "gander"? Gander does not equal "guess".
2:54 Dork: lol @ pdragon for not knowing what gander means
2:55 pdragon616: gander == "look" or "the mate of a goose", but not "a guess"
2:56 pdragon616: Look it up before you laugh at me, Dork, and learn the language. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/gander

At this point, I received a private message from the MTGO adept (basically, a room moderator, who's sad existence largely consists of telling people to stop talking.). He told me I was not allowed to post links to anything other than Wizard's website, it's a violation of MTGO policy. This policy was established to prevent people from posting links to competing sites, or inappropriate sites. I informed the moderator of that fact and went on to say that the policy was never intended to be enforced in a knee-jerk fashion... a link to the dictionary should be pretty safe. I'm just pissing off everyone today, I guess. Anyway I figured the conversation was over, but Tobleron and Dork were not through with me:

2:56 Tobleron: you can take a gander however
2:56 Dork: 2.Slang. a look: Take a gander at his new shoes.
2:56 Dork: You look it up, moron

Are you as mystified as I? Tobleron clearly used it to mean "take a guess" and here Dork calling me a moron because it can be used to mean "take a look" which is, unless I'm mistaken, what I just said. But you know me, I'll say it again:

2:56 pdragon616: No duh you can "take a gander", but that means "TAKE A LOOK", silly!
2:57 Boyardee: take a gander= take a look or have a look-see!
2:57 pdragon616: thank you
2:57 Tobleron: I was the one that used it lol. scroll up
2:57 pdragon616: yes, you are the one who used it WRONG
2:57 Dork: were in america, people use words in slang forms, we use words in other ways than they are meant

So a person chimes in to agree with me, Tobleron seems to think I'm confused about who said what, and Dork thinks the entire internet is in America, and that I don't know what "slang" is. I expected that at this point, other people might start jumping on Dork. I was right. It was also time for more chiming in of relevant and irrelevant commentary:

2:57 Tobleron: we're where?
2:58 Campton: Dork talk for yourself
2:58 OceanBreeze: a gander is a male goose
2:58 Boyardee: Dork you're an idiot, but when i say that i mean "idiot" as in "cool guy"
2:58 pdragon616: Dork, in american slang "take a gander" does not mean "take a guess" no matter how bad you want it to mean that, foo
2:58 Campton: take a gander means have a look
2:58 OceanBreeze: its means retrieve a male goose
2:59 pdragon616: 'take a gander at' - Look at, glance at, as in 'Will you take a gander at that woman's red hair!' This slangy idiom, dating from the early 1900s, presumably came from the verb gander, meaning "stretch one's neck to see," possibly alluding to the long neck of the male goose. For a synonym, see 'take a look at'.
2:59 Tobleron: k I am glad I made you all debate and look in the dictionary I am off to the lake!!
2:59 Boyardee: whats good for the goose is good for the guess?
2:59 Durante: All right now, who's stealing geese?

Durante wants to know who's taking all the ganders. Conversation over, right? Nope. First comes more PM's from the moderator. I'm having a discussion again, and that's not permitted, and apparently I'm harassing Dork. As you can tell, my patience for the MTGO moderators is pretty thin. Let me describe for you the MTGO casual room window. At the top of the screen is a list of all the active "tables" (games), you can sort this list in any manner you like, although the most sensible way to sort it is by "Status" as this puts games that are waiting to start at the top where you can easily see them and decide what game you'd like to play. Beneath this is a list of completed games, and beneath that is the chat window, where all the players can post chat messages. However from the moderator's perspective this is what that window should look like:

Joe: std
Barney: ext
Alice: std
Fred: classic
Dork: std
Peanuts: ext
Jank: prismatic
Bored: ext
Kablooie: singleton

This exciting conversation is players posting a note to say that they just opened up a new table (game) and the format of game they've started... std=standard, ext=extended, etc. This is, however, inherently stupid, since all open games can be sorted in the game list window, so there really is no need to advertise games in the chat window. And therefore players tend to ignore the moderator and have discussions until he threatens to ban someone, and it's a good thing too, because otherwise hanging out in the casual room would be pretty dull. According to the moderators, discussing MTG is acceptable, but any discussion that lasts for more than a minute, even one about MTG, will result in the moderator telling people to be quiet or take it to another room. Anyway while I'm getting harangued by the moderator, the conversation continues, Dork isn't going to give up, and he's got iron-clad proof:

2:59 Dork: 5. gander 4 up, 6 down a guess based on only assumptions, www.urbandictionary.com
2:59 Dork: look for your self Gander - a guess based on only assumptions
3:00 Durante: pdragon is right
3:00 OceanBreeze: best conversation ever
3:00 Dork: urbandictionary is a user submitted dictionary, word submitted on December 18th, proving that OTHER people use it as a form of "guess"
3:00 Dork: therefore, you're WRONG
3:00 Durante: other people are idiots...
3:01 Abrogate: nobody says gander anymore cause we are too urban to think about geese
3:01 LoinGirder: Newsflash: Just because you can find other idiots who use a phrase incorrectly does not make it correct
3:01 Durante: I would go with standard usage over one person
3:01 Dork: 2:58 pdragon616: Dork, in american slang "take a gander" does not mean "take a guess" no matter how bad you want it to mean that, foo ---- you wanna say that again? make your self look like more of an idiot, you got really quiet really fast

Apparently during this two minutes while I was dealing with the moderator, I didn't post anything, and Dork took this as some sort of triumph. In the meantime another couple people have chimed in to tell him he's wrong, and Abrogate's post still makes me laugh. We are too urban to think about geese. It's kind of hard to take 'urbandictionary' seriously since all the defnitions are user submitted, and there is even less oversight there than at wikipedia. It certainly isn't like a real dictionary of slang.

3:02 pdragon616: urbandictionary is created by popular submission you twit, it isn't an authoritative source!!! YOU could submit your ignorant definition there. Big deal, proves nothing.
3:02 Abrogate: lol take a look and take a guess are obviously different in meaning
3:02 OneRingToRuleThemAll: of course
3:02 Orbital: probably did submit his own definition while you were all chatting, lol
3:02 Dork: exactly, you said no one uses it as guess, I proved you wrong, people do use it as a form of "guess"
3:03 OneRingToRuleThemAll: Dork,no one uses the words guess and look interchangably
3:03 pdragon616: urbandictionary also says that "Gander = Dander", as in "gets my gander up", obviously submitted by a halfwit who doesn't know what he's talking about and misheard the phrase... urbandictionary is the toilet-bug of dictionaries... Don't waste my time.
3:04 Orbital: urbandictionary = joke
3:04 Orbital: this argument is really getting my gander up
3:04 PutzModerator: Please stop this discussion now

At this point Dork finally went away. Probably because he too was getting harangued by the moderator. And I pondered this conversation for a bit and decided to share it here. I hate trying to have discussions on the 'net anyway. Nobody ever understands anyone and it usually devolves into pointless quibbling. So anyone here think I was wrong to disparage UrbanDictionary.com?

Do Your Society Some Good: Dope-Slap a Creationist

Abacquer — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 23:19:10 -0500

Bad Astonomer Phil Plait recently posted this gem. I'd comment but I think this excerpt is all you will need to read:

According to this press release from PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility), Bush White House appointees are suppressing real science in order to promote creationism. Specifically, at the Grand Canyon National Park, a book is on sale that says the canyon was formed in Noah’s flood. Also, guides at the park are not allowed to answer questions about how old the canyon is, despite scientists’ incredibly detailed and intricate knowledge of the formation mechanism, scheme, and history of the canyon (hint: some of the oldest rocks in the canyon are two billion years old).

I can't even begin to express how angry this makes me. I hope it's not true. It's hard to believe that something so inane could happen in this day and age. While I don't doubt that there is creationist claptrap in the park's giftstore (that crap is everywhere), guides not being permitted to discuss the verified age of the canyon? Seems way too outlandish. Can anyone confirm this story? I hope not!