Vitriolic Humor

Virtual Reality Treadmill

2008-05-07T06:35:46Z

Suggestions for Netflix (2008)

2008-05-05T06:32:08Z

Netflix:

Please give me a tool to manage moving movies from queue to queue (even if it is only from the "main" account queue to the subordinate account queues. It's ridiculous that I'm basically reduced to jotting down notes and re-searching and re-adding to move a couple dozen movies from one queue to another.
I may never watch all 500 of the movies in my queue, but why limit me to 500? The longer my queue, the longer I'm a customer of your service...
When I add a movie to my queue, let me pick a queue position for the movie to be inserted into. Now my only options are bottom (default) or top, why nothing in between?

Baby Doe's Matchless Mine (Birmingham, Alabama)?

2008-04-25T06:13:02Z

While traveling through Denver recently, I noticed that the Baby Doe's Matchless Mine restaurant overlooking Lo-Do had been demolished (I know this is old news, but I live 1,500 miles away, so I don't get all the breaking new s out of Denver...) I was doing some quick searching on the web and found indications that there used to be Baby Doe's in Kansas City (I'd heard that before) as well as Birmingham, Alabama and Atlanta, Georgia.

I'm particularly interested in the locations in Kansas City, Birmingham, Alabama ("near the Vulcan status on Red Mountain") and Atlanta, Georgia. Does anyone have more specific information about the location of these restaurants? Also interested in knowing when they closed. If anyone has information, stories, photos of these locations of the restaurant, I'd be interested to see/hear about them.

My first PC

2008-04-15T08:50:35Z

My first real IBM PC-compatible computer was an IBM PS/2 Model 50. It was purchased sometime around the summer of 1987. I was about 12 years old and about to enter middle school. I'd previously had a Coleco Adam (which was sort of an Apple IIe mixed with a gaming console.)

It had a 10Mhz Intel 80286 processor, 1 MB of RAM, a 20MB hard drive, a 1.44MB floppy drive, 4 MCA slots (they all went unused), a IBM 8514 VGA Monitor, an IBM 5842 2400bps modem and a IBM 5201 dot matrix printer.

The fact that it had 1 MB of RAM was a bit of an early confusion to me as DOS could only use 640Kb until memory manager and extended memory utilities became available.

I remember distinctly saying that I'd never be able to fill up the 20MB hard drive. A little research lists a replacement 20MB drive for the system at $795 (~$40/MB) at today's market rates (cost/MB) that drive would cost approximately three tenths of one cent (.003 dollars) These days my digital camera takes 10MP RAW photos that are almost 20MB each. A 1TB drive (which are available for approximately $200) holds 50,000 times as much data as that 20MB drive. I've long since stopped saying that I'd never fill up a give hard drive...

I remember running IBM DisplayWrite 4, Harvard Graphics, Deluxe Paint (DPaint), F-19 Stealth Fighter. I briefly ran a couple of starup BBSs using Renegade and Wildcat! that never amounted to much. It was mostly an outgoing BBS terminal with occasional application distractions here and there.

I had a 2400bps modem, but all the BBS were 1200bps in town. I used to call long-distance (remember that?) to take full advantage of my modem's speed for the first couple months. The phone bills hurt.

I made the mistake of using DoubleSpace disk compression for the first and only time on this system.

This computer ran MS-DOS (3.0 - 6.22), PC-DOS, DR-DOS, GEOS, Windows 3.0, OS/2 (1.something.) I cut my teeth on BASIC, Turbo Pascal, REXX

Now my computers(!) run at multiple gigahertz with multiple processor cores, have gigabytes of system RAM, and terabytes of storage. I can't wait to see what happens in the next 20 years...

Tags: computing ps2 progress ibm technology experience computer memories

"Give Me Some Money" - Spinal Tap goes mainstream

2008-03-22T22:54:00Z

Does that song in the American Express sound strangely familiar? It's "Give Me Some Money" by Spinal Tap. Who would have thought that we'd ever see mainstream advertising using a mostly fictitious spoof band's mostly fictitious spoof music in an advertisement? Anyone want to bet whether or not anyone will use "Sex Farm" or "Bitch School" in an advertisement?

Tags: mainstream advertisement television video advertising money spinal spoof spinal tap tap

10 chances to visit Lanark during Spring 2008!

2008-03-20T06:59:55Z

The Alabama Nature Center at Lanark is open to the public the following weekends this Spring:
April 12-13 May 3-4 June 14-15
April 19-20 May 17-18 June 21-22
April 26-27 May 24-25 June 28-29
May 31-June 1
Special events are planned for each weekend. Mark your calendars now.

The Alabama Nature Center at Lanark is a 350-acre wildlife preserve that serves as the headquarters of the Alabama Wildlife Federation. It is located between Millbrook, AL and Prattville, AL, just north and east of exit 179 (Cobbs Ford Road) on I-65. The facility is currently only open to the public one weekend a month (the third weekend.)

If you are a nature buff, a photographer, or just like to catch some fresh air, you should take some time out of your weekend to visit and explore the facility. They've got over 5 miles of beautifully-built walking trails organized in 3 loops around the property. They are all marked with interpretive signs about the flora and fauna you'll see around you.

Price is currently $3/adult/day or $5/adult/weekend and $2/child (3-9)/day $3/child/weekend. Kids under 3 are free.

(Every third weekend of the month)
Saturday 8:00 am to 6:00 pm
Sunday 1:00 pm to 6:00 pm

Directions and more information can be found at the following link.

Alabama Nature Center @ Lanark

Photo Gallery >> Lanark

sm med lg

Tags: photography awf millbrook alabama trails nature prattville lanark alabama wildlife federation wildlife

How to determine the stop adjustment necessary for a photographic filter

2008-03-17T06:40:26Z

I was contemplating how much filter factor (light cutoff) I get with a cheapo Quantaray Circular Polarizing filter that I inherited when I bought my Canon 50mm f1.8 second-hand. It finally occurred to me that I could switch over to M (Manual) mode on my camera, aim it at something, dial in an exposure (I happened to set it to '0'), then drop the filter over the lens and watch the exposure level indicator ( -2..1..0..1..+2 ) adjust (usually downward) and note how many stops the exposure dropped. The camera focuses and meters through-the-lens (TTL) (and thus through-the-filter), so it takes this into consideration anyway when metering a scene.

For my 52mm Quantaray Circular Polarizing filter, the exposure drops 1 1/3 stops. I'd been working with the filter on most of the time, not realizing that I was losing 1 1/3 stops unintentionally, turning the "nifty fifty" f/1.8 effectively into a f/2.8. Oops, lesson learned, check your filters out.

Tags: photography test filter dslr canon camera slr nikon technology howto

Variations on a DSLR (Canon Rebel XTi)

2008-03-14T06:50:58Z

I got a Canon Rebel XTi (400D) several months back and I'm immensely enjoying expanding my knowledge and horizons. I moved to the XTi from my 3.3MP Sony Mavica MVC-CD300 workhorse point and shoot camera. Despite being quite comfortable with the Sony (and its limitations) I have frequently said that I felt like a complete beginner again when staring through the viewfinder of my Canon.

I was contemplating all the different settings on the XTi that can be chosen for each shot the other day and I decided to toss them in a table:

Setting		Options
Modes		12 (P, A, S, M, Auto, Creative)
Shutter Speed		55 (54 increments (1/4000 - 30sec in 0.3EV increments) + Bulb)
Aperture		40 stops (f1 to f91 in 0.3EV increments (depends on lens))
Image Size		8 (S/Normal, M/N, L/N, S/Fine, M/F, L/F, JPEG+RAW, RAW)
Picture Style		9 (6 preset + 3 custom)
Custom Picture Style		4,096 options
Mono Picture Style		26 options
Auto Focus		2 (Auto/Manual)
Auto Focus Mode		3 (One Shot, AI Focus, AI Server)
Focal Point		10 (9 points + full auto)
Metering		3 (Evaluative, Partial, Center-weighted)
ISO		6 (Auto, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600)
White Balance		9 (8 presets + Auto)
White Balance Correction		361 options
Color Space		2 (sRGB or Adobe RGB)
Flash		2 (on + off)
Flash Exposure Adjust		17 (-2EV to +2EV in 0.5EV or 0.3EV increments)
Flash Exposure Lock		2 (on + off)
Auto Exposure Lock		2 (on + off)
Auto Exposure Bracketing		17 (-2EV to +2EV in 0.5EV or 0.3EV increments)
Exposure Compensation		17 (-2EV to +2EV in 0.5EV or 0.3EV increments)
Red Eye Reduction		2 (on + off)
Drive Modes		3 (Single, Continuous, Remote/Timer)
Remote Trigger Modes		2 (no delay/2 second delay)
Auto Rotation		2 (on + off)
Custom Functions		46,080 combinations

A little math reveals: 61,749,528,383,550,522,560,348,160,000 combinations! That's 61.8 octillion (a thousand quadrillion or a billion billion billion (those outside the US refer to this to a quadrilliard))! Another way to look at this is 6x10^27, estimates of the number of atoms in the observable universe range in the 10^77 to 10^79 range. Those are some big, big numbers! No wonder I feel like a beginner again. Not all the settings will make a viable or desirable image, but there is the big picture math on the issue.

A typical photographer (me) usually only changes a couple of these at a time and usually through a limited range of the settings for each option, so it's not as impossibly complex as it looks. As with all technology, I look forward to seeing where this technology goes in my lifetime. The Canon Rebel XSi is out next month with even more options...

Tags: photography options dslr canon aperture camera settings shutter exposure configuration

Wanted: Consumer weather station with an open API

2008-02-26T10:48:40Z

A while back I contacted the top five or so vendors of home weather stations to see if they offered any product that would simply measure various atmospheric variables and allow the home user to poll the station for data via some sort of open API. My search came up empty. Most of the time I felt like I had just asked them if they made pants with four legs.

I know there is a segment of consumers want a weather appliance that sits on their counter and tells them the weather. There is another segment that wants to be able to work with and track the data (for which some vendors provide their own software, usually Windows only.) Still another segments literally wants to just have the information available through an API that I can interact with. That last segment is me; that's what I'm looking for.

If you have a weather station that will:

provide basic weather information
- temperature
- humidity
- dew point
- wind speed
- wind direction
- barometric pressure
- precipitation
allow me to poll the weather station
- when I want
- for what values I want
- from on open API from whatever computer OS I want

then I would like to talk to you about purchasing one of your weather stations.

You can reach me at speed-weat@transmit.net.

Tags: station pressure lacrosse precipitation api open wireless wind weather temperature

Yes you can wash (and dry) an SD Card

2008-02-20T12:48:11Z

I recently washed (and dried) an off-brand SD Card full of photos through the washer and drier. To my surprise, all the data was still there, undisturbed and uncorrupted. I'm quite amazed that the technology stood up to that kind of abuse with no glitches. I'm not planning on trying this with my CF cards any time soon, but I wonder how they would fare...

Tags: durability photo secure digital solid-state memory media storage sdcard flash

Charter: Upgrade your DVR technology; it's not enough for practical HDTV recording

2008-01-16T22:30:30Z

I recently contacted Charter's support chat to see if they offered a reasonable solution to recording HDTV on PVR. The Moxi Box I have now (great, Linux-based solution) only has 80GB of storage, which represents about 6 hours (give or take) of HD programming that can be stored. This past weekend I recorded both Divisional Playoffs on Sunday, then accidentally hit the record button while watching TV later and the Moxi wiped out one game completely to make room to record the current show. I'm ping on the edge of the storage space with nothing but 2 3-hour shows recorded. I've added an external 250GB drive to the Moxi and it worked fine until the drive overheated and died. I don't want to maintain my DVR infrastructure, that's why I effectively rent this solution from Charter with a monthly fee.

Here's the online discussion I had with Charter.

A representative will be with you shortly. You have been connected to Janet . Janet : My name is Janet. Thank you for contacting Charter Communications. How may I assist you? Me: My Moxi box is woefully inadequate for my DVR (esp. HDTV programming) recording needs. Do you offer something with more storage? Janet : May I please know if your DVR is hd capable? Me: Yes, it is. I recorded 2 3-hour football games this weekend (in HD) and it wiped out all other programes on the box.. I could've kept some of the programs, but then I couldn't record the games. Me: I really need to be able to record more than 6 hours of HD programming Janet : HD Janet : HD DVR only records short hours. Janet : If you want longer hours of recording, you may add external drive to your moxi. Me: I'd prefer not to be in the business of upgrading my infrastructure, that's why I'm paying Charter a monthly fee. Do you offer anything more than the Moxi with 80GB of storage? Me: I understand that HD requires (drastically) more storage. Is Charter offering any practical solution to this issue? Janet : Yes, you may add an external hard drive to your moxi. Janet : That is to have longer hours of recording. Me: Please take a note for Charter: I'm going to switch to satellite because they will not provide me a more adequate solution for my PVR/DVR needs. I don't want to buy and maintain extra hard drives because Charter isn't keeping up with technological demands. That is why I pay a DVR fee to Charter.

If you are looking at using Charter's cable television services (especially HDTV) beware their DVR solutions are drastically limited on space (while otherwise being a great technological solution.) Expect Charter to not upgrade their infrastructure, but to pass on storage upgrade costs onto you, the consumer, despite you renting the DVR from them in the first place.

That felt good, now I'm off to go shop for a satellite provider...

Tags: tivo moxi recording hd htdb dvr capacity pvr charter technology

Interesting Times: Things my kids will never know

2008-01-15T20:34:30Z

My kids won't know what life was like without the Internet, before computers were in every home. They'll never know what a modem is or the wonderful (yet grating) sounds it would make when you dialed a BBS. They won't know the joy of getting online 1200bps (and all the free time you had when you waited for downloads to happen.) Even their perspective on the Internet will be different. They won't know about Mosaic browser or text-based (only) browsing with lynx. They'll never know Prodigy or Compuserve. AOL is just a website. They won't know that Yahoo was a directory of links, or that Altavista, Excite, HotBot, and WebCrawler were once prosperous search engines with a large market share. They won't know that there were many years of Internet without Google at all...

They won't know of life before the convenience of microwave ovens.

They will think (rightfully so) that everyone has a phone and they are almost exclusively cordless or completely wireless. They won't know that at one time all phones were wired into the wall, that long distance calls were expensive and infrequently used. They will never know what a party line or a rotary dial phone was. They won't realize that phones didn't used to have cameras, games, music, and full QWERTY keyboards on them.

They won't know that people used to shave with just one blade.

Lightweight 27-speed mountain bikes with disc brakes and super travel full-suspension will be mainstream and affordable. They won't know the relatively low tech, heavy, inefficient bikes we had to ride. They won't realize that mountain biking was started in the mid-1970s.

My kids will never know what a caboose is for. They will only see them in train museums (and so we take them.)

Film photography will be some long-forgotten technique that people used to use before digital photography. They won't know what camera film looks like. They'll never know the growing pains of digital photography from low resolution to slow, delay-prone cameras. Everything will be high resolution, automatic, and instantaneous. It seems normal to them that you can store thousands of photographs on a memory card smaller than your thumbnail. Digital photo frames will seem normal to them. Static real photo frames will seem pointless.

They'll never know what a reel-to-reel, an eight-track, a vinyl record, a Mini-disc, or a cassette tape is. Even CDs are going to the wayside as things gradually swing towards completely digital music delivery, played on the all-pervasive MP3 player. Walkman and Discman will be largely historical and unfamiliar to them. They won't ever know about VCRs and laserdisc players. They'll have always known DVD, Blu-Ray, HD-DVD and DVR. They'll think televisions were always flat and thin. HDTV will be the norm for what they are used to viewing. Their music will be all-digital and all multi-channel.

My kids won't know what a floppy disc was (8", 5.25", or 3.5") Wow! They won't know DOS (and I'm doing all I can to make it so they won't have to use Windows.) They won't know about daisy wheel printers, slow and noisy dot-matrix printers or fan-fold paper.

My kids will probably never know much measured in terms of 'megabytes' and will likely be more familiar with the concept of 'terabytes' rather than with 'gigabytes'.

I'm excited about the rapidly changing world they've been born into, but I'm sad they won't know the world as I do. I'll try to teach them what I can and maybe if I'm lucky they'll help me see their world through their eyes someday.

Tags: thoughts progress existence reality generation perception technology new memories family

Idiot-proof user interface on Shutterfly, Snapfish, Kodak/Ofoto is Idiotic!

2007-12-22T15:44:22Z

I was preparing the annual family photo calendar when I bumped into a wall of stupidity that astonished me: The major photo and gift printing sites (Shutterfly, Snapfish, Kodak/Ofoto) have dumbed down their sites to such a low standard that you can't do simple things like put a square-cropped image on a photo calendar page without having their system mangle your image.

To the photo/gift printing sites: Not every photograph is 4:3 or 3:2 aspect ratio rectangle.

I gathered together my 13 images (12 months + cover), adjusted and cropped them in Bibble Pro (an awesome photo workflow and RAW conversion software that runs on Linux, Mac and Windows,) went to upload them to Shutterfly (who I used last year to make the calendar and with whom I successfully used square-cropped images last year) and quickly found that a couple of my square-cropped images (aspect ratio 1:1) were having the top and bottoms automatically chopped off by their system in an effort to force my square image into the rectangle it wanted. I had some wide shots cropped at 16:10 aspect ratio and it did the same thing, chopping off significant portions of the left and right part of my image. Frustrated, I went to Snapfish (despite previous problems with getting photos delivered in a timely fashion during the holiday season.) and found a slightly different interface with the same behavior mangling my photographs. OK, they can't all be the same,right? I went to Ofoto (now Kodak) and had the exact same problem. At this point I had a couple hours into what I thought was going to be a half hour project and was thoroughly frustrated.

I searched google and came up with a photo and gift printing site I hadn't heard of before. Quite frustrated at this point, I visited Vista Print and was pleasently surprised. They have standard cropping behavior, but they also provide a simple "Scale to Fit" option that lets you keep the aspect ratio and expand the image to either fit the height or width without cropping your picture. How hard is that? A simple option in the user interface that let's more advanced users creatively build their calendars the ways they want to.

Shutterfly, Snapfish, Kodak/Ofoto, please add some sensible options to your cropping step. Something simple like a hidden "advanced options" dialog, a "no cropping" option, or a "scale to fit" option. This would meet all your users needs without confusing the brain-feeble amongst us.

Next year I probably won't bother with the "big guys". Vista Print meets my needs and the calendars I received from them (very timely delivery) looked great. All the above mentioned sites work fine with Firefox on Ubuntu (Gutsy Gibbon) for the record. Some of the drag-to-web upload functionality (Shutterfly) appears to be Windows-only, but everything else functions fine.

Tags: creativity photo printing linux bibble pro calendar digital on-line bibble labs gift bibble user interface frustration

Colin Pictures on Animoto

2007-11-17T16:09:20Z

This is a simple trial of Animoto using a handful of pictures of Colin. Great result. Check out their service.

Welcome Rian Scott Morrison

2007-11-11T02:08:00Z

Melanie, Colin and I welcomed our 2nd son and 1st brother, Rian Scott Morrison into the world this Saturday evening November 10, 2007, at 8:08pm CST. Melanie labored for 11 hours, then pushed for 7 minutes and gave birth naturally (without an epidural!) Again she's my hero! Both baby and mother are doing fine! Rian weighed 8 lbs. 3oz and measured 20 inches long.

You can send Rian an e-mail: rian at transmit.net.
The proud new parents can be reached at proudparents at transmit.net

We'd also like to thank everyone at OB/GYN Associates of Montgomery, especially Doctors Dupre, and Desautels. Every single member of the staff at Baptist Medical Center East made our stay enjoyable and healthy.

Pictures in 3... 2... 1... Pictures.

Tags: birth alabama baby rian scott morrison morrison rian montgomery scott announce announcement

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