If you get this.....

Why do elephants have Big Ears?
Because Noddy won't pay the ransom.

You'll get this too:

"Here are the football results: Real Madrid one, Surreal Madrid fish"

Random Airport Madness

There’s something about airports that brings out the lunacy in many (all?) of us. Two example from today:

My flight from SJC was delayed by over an hour. No communication from Alaska via the notification phone number or e-mail address I had provided them during the process of purchasing my ticket on-line. To kill a few minutes, and a few brain cells, I wandered into the travel themed bar (Flights and Bytes?) and sat down to await a waitperson. The gal behind the bar stared at me occasionally while she busied herself with the very occasional patron. After about five minutes it became very clear that there was to be no table service. I debated continually staring at the bar tender to see how long it would be before she confirmed said “no table service” status. Hunger and thirst overtook me. I grudgingly levered myself out of my seat and stepped up to the bar. It was like the bar tender was seeing me for the first time. “What can I get you” she said. I paused a fraction of a second debating internally if I should pass comment on the lack of recognition and her inability (lack of desire?) to communicate with anyone past the border of her bar. As I began to respond “Corona and Tuna Sandwich” she wandered off. Clearly a fraction of a second being too long a period beyond which she should waste her valuable time on me. She eventually drifted back and took my order. She seemed confused that I wanted to pay for my food and beverage at that time (rather than wait a second eternity to get the check….). That troubling chasm crossed, she asked me where I would like my food. “At my table” I replied as I gestured to the table where she had watched me sit, un-tended, for five minutes. As I moved back to my table I overheard her placing my order with the fellow who tended the kitchen. Very impressively, he was back not two minutes later with my order – which he then preceded to place on the table next to mine, that table being empty and me seated at the table next to it being the only other patron within spitting distance. Obviously the bar tender had given him a table number and gosh-darn-it he was going to deliver the meal to the table to which he had been directed. No matter that there was no one sitting there – a trifling element of data that was not to sway him one whit.

I retrieved my meal and ate. The sandwich was more suited for scouring a floor clean than for human consumption. However I was hungry.

Later, as I exited the security check point I overheard a conversation between a TSA employee and a family traveling to the Pacific Northwest. As the TSA employee waved around two jars of what appeared to be home-made jam, she explained to mom, dad and assorted children that such items are not permitted on the plan. Mon, dad and assorted children looked pretty put out upon hearing this news. “But that’s grandpa’s jam!” exclaimed mom. The fact that it was a gift from grandpa, or perhaps was intended as a gift for grandpa, made it no less lethal in the eyes of the TSA. Interestingly mom, dad and assorted children had walked past three signs explaining the dangers of moist items, had responded in the negative to two TSA agents when asked if they had liquids with them, and had failed to hear a repeatedly broadcast announcements about the terrors that could be unleashed in the skies if they took liquids, jells or similar with them aboard a plane. Clearly they have no TV at home nor do they read newspapers or listen to the radio. They were completely unaware that grandpa’s slightly watery-looking jam could be such a potentially dangerous munition. Perhaps the worst it could do in their eyes was to give grandpa a touch of gas. In the eyes of the TSA it was potentially a potent acid or explosive accelerant. Offers from the assorted children to sample the jam (with or without toast) were derided by the TSA as the cunning ruses of skillful terrorists (or so it looked like they were thinking of saying). As I wandered away they were all arguing if grandpa’s jam could be safely dropped into a white plastic bag, wrapped with a coat and checked as luggage. I suspected not – but would have loved to have been at the arriving end to see what sort of mess came out onto the luggage carrousel (unless TSA or baggage staff had not swiped it for a touch of cream tea and scones in the afternoon….).

To cap off my day, there were no ground crew waiting for the arrival of my flight. We sat for about five minutes just yards away from the gate while staff scurried around looking for their high-tech orange glowing sticks with which to wave us forward the last few feet of our trip. Perhaps the arrival of a Boeing 737 was a big frackin' surprise to them. Little too large to miss I would venture to guess, but what do I know about the wonders of airport management? Perhaps they were busy enjoying scones and grandpa’s jam with TSA staff?

.

The Last 34 Miles

Much like the telecom industry, many eCommerce travails concern the last mile (or last 34 miles in my case) - the act of getting data (or packages) the last few feet to the residential location.

I ordered an item from Amazon last week, on the 19th December to be precise. It was packaged and handed to UPS within about an hour of my order being placed. I'm a Prime member so shipping is 2 days - in fact Amazon confirmed that delivery would occur on December 21. Click on the graphic above to see a snapshot of the UPS tracking page. Bottom line here is that my package made it from Louisville, KY to Oakland CA by midnight December 20. And there it has sat. I live about 34 miles from Oakland. I could have walked to Oakland and back in the last three days. It's now late night December 24 and UPS still has my package (and still claim on their website that they will deliver it by December 21 (perhaps they have a time machine with which I have not been previously familar)). And I'm not just picking on UPS here - I also have another package, ordered the same day, that is being delivered by DHL (Prime, 2 day delivery for which the only information DHL will disclose is that it was picked up on December 19 and is "in transit" - to where I have no idea. But it sure as heck is not to my house....).

Bring on commercial grade, inexpensive 3d-printers I say. In fact, create 3d-printers and have them as their first job print other 3d printers. I can see it coming. Soon as the markets open after Christmas I'm shorting UPS, DHL, Eagle, FedEx and the rest of the bunch.

www.endless.com

Going live on Monday 11 December, www.endless.com a new website from Amazon.com. Below is the "friends and family" invitation. Please try it out and tell us what you think.



As you may be aware, we've been working hard on a new initiative in our shoes and handbag categories. We'd like to extend to you a personal invitation to to be the first to shop At Amazon.com's new web site, Endless.com.

We've built Endless.com to provide you with an innovative new shopping experience for shoes and handbags. Endless.com allows you to shop your way— using our easy category, brand, size, color, or price selections. Best of all, we will deliver your purchase to you overnight— FREE. (Really!)

We hope you'll take a few minutes to shop around the store, and please let us know what you think by sending an e-mail to Tell us what you like, what you don't like, and what you'd like to see done differently. We appreciate your feedback!

JL421 Badonkadonk

We've all had those days, dreary, overcast with the high likelihood of drizzle. What you really need to banish the blues of the grey is a JL421 badonkadonk ($19,999 MSRP) available from Amazon.com. Load up four of your closest pals, paintball guns and tube socks for all, and hit the playa in armored comfort. Clocking in at a swift (if not bumpy) 40mph, the 'donk' ensures that your and your chums can enter the fray, account well of yourself and still make it home in time for tea and crumpets with nary a stain on your "Live free or die" tie-dye t-shirts. Order now to avoid disappointment.

Iggy and the rider

Finally a concert rider that makes sense and has a sense of humor. And from no other that Iggy and the Stooges. Thought the Fark Miss GA thread was funny? This is as good. Skip through the backline requirements if you like (and if you don't know much about musical instruments and PA systems it won't make much sense. But funny, whoo!) to the dressing room requirements. I especially like the request for a Bob Hope impersonator. And the BMW. Do take the time to read what the road manager thinks about stage lighting and lighting designers. And Broccoli.

Flight Patterns

Here are a set of wonderful visualizations of air traffic as seen by the FAA. This short video time reduces air traffic to virtual con-trails. It's amazing to see a new day announced via the light of the dawn of the volume of air traffic, east to west.

Swamp Donkey?

Yes this is cruel, but good grief, what were the organizers of the Miss Georgia pageant thinking when they posted this bevy of, ahem, beauties? I thank the readers and posters at Fark for providing the only reasonable response possible. I nearly barfed up a lung laughing at the Fark thread. Thanks John!

A short story

"This story concerns the publisher of a stock newsletter who sends out 64,000 letters extolling his state-of-the-art database, his inside contacts, and his sophisticated econometric models. In 32,000 of these letters he predicts a rise in some stock index for the following week, say, and in 32,000 of them he predicts a decline. Whatever happens, he sends a follow-up letter but only to those 32,000 to whom he's made a correct "prediction." To 16,000 of them he predicts a rise for the next week, and to 16,000 a decline. Again, whatever happens, he will have sent 2 consecutive correct predictions to 16,000 people. Iterating this procedure of focusing exclusively on the winnowed list of people who have received only correct predictions, he can create the illusion in them that he knows what he's talking about. After all, the 1,000 or so remaining people who have received 6 straight correct predictions (by coincidence) have a good reason to cough up the $1,000 the newsletter publisher requests: They want to continue to receive these "oracular" pronouncements."

Steampunk Laptop

A most wonderful working Steampunk laptop (additional pictures). How I would love one of these. I do have a number of Corona portable typewriters from the early 20th century that could be pressed into such service. However I'm afraid I don't have the time nor the patience to build one. Default: Curta.

Slingzilla!

The newly deployed 1.84Tb server I've built over the past few weeks has been augmented by:

• •Tivo Series 2 running the Galleon open source app (adds many media-server capabilities to the default Tivo app)
• Slingbox Av. Used to route Server and Tivo contents to wherever I want said contents. Even streaming over a reasonably poorly performing wireless network the audio and video resolution from the Slingbox is amazing. The fact that I can now access all my music, videos and images stored on the server from wherever I can get internet access is most pleasing.

Baby's for Sale on Amazon - 16% off!

I see that Amazon.co.jp has a special offer on babies this week. 16% off - no limit on the number you purchase. And they come in such cute containers. Shop early. Shop often.

Speaking of Laser ...er....Rayguns.....

From the site "Rayguns":

FMOM Industries - Wave Disrupter Gun

Are you genetically pre-disposed to not wanting to blow your face to bits? Then, by crikey, this may not be the device for you - Try a kite!

But, if you're a man, then send large money orders forthwith and procure yourself FMOM's latest and greatest. Built from the exacting plans of the famed Dr. Grordbort, and reinforced with purest Tremontium, this little tiger will turn your foes to a slurry!

Why, just in time for Christmas! Super molecular-disrupting fun for the little one's. Methinks I will take two of these and a nickle-finished Neurodistruptor with extra powerpack and sights.

CakeQuest

Evan's 12th Birthday party is today. No suprise that he's selected LaserQuest for the event (again....). After the major effort last year creating the "LaserQuest Maze Cake" - something a little less ambitious was deemed appropriate for this year. Hence, the LaserGun Cake. Trust me, it looks better in real life. Much more like a gun than a hideous pile of brown frosting...

Damocles Still Hanging Around

Spent the weekend on the construction of a new server. Objective was to build a system with large RAID 1 space for archiving, that would also double as a fast render engine for Truespace. System was speced out to inlcude:

• Thermaktake Tsunami VA3000BWA
• ASUS A8N5X w/ nForce4 Mobo
• AMD Athlon 64 processor 3200
• Thermaltake CL-P0200 Silent 939 K8 CPU Cooler
  
• Radion X1600 Pr PCIe 512M Graphics Card
• Corsair XMS 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200)
  
• SilverStone Strider ST60F 600watt PSU w/ modular cables
  
• Seagate ST3200822A-RK 200 GB ATA Internal Hard Drive (IDE Master)
  
• 2 x Seagate 500 GB Barracuda 7200.9 SATA Internal Hard Drive (500Gb Raid 1)
  
• Pioneer DVD R/W (Reclaimed from another system)

The 200Gb IDE drive is the boot drive. The two 500Gb Barracuda's are built into a single RAID 1 array. I went overkill on the Strider PSU. 600w is way more than I need right now. I do, however, expect to add two more 500Gb SATA drives to take total capacity to 1Tb RAID 1. I will also take the PATA drive space up to 500Gb. The lights on the the Corsair RAM are cool + I really like the ASUS mobo - it's temperature monitoring and fan management is nifty. Oh yeah - I also went overboard on the CPU cooler -- it's just that there is no way I can trust the crap cooler that AMD ships with the processor + I plan to do a little overclocking....

Oh the name of the new system is Damocles - hence the title of this post. Move along now.

29 October 2006 Update: Added 2 x 320Gb SATA drives last week. Configured as RAID 1. System is now 720Gb RAID 1 (give or take a Gb). Total disk space in the cabinet is 1.84Tb. And to think, the first PC I had with a hard disk was an IBM PC XT with a whopping 10Mb drive.

Must be seen to be believed....

An aircraft carrier made out of Lego to minifig scale i.e. rather big.
File under the categories of (1) Wow! and (2) Too much time on one's hands.

Lovelab Farewell

Found in the Seattle Stranger newspaper and online:

Laugh? I nearly bought a round!

From the pages of Amazon.com, this review:

Twenty-Nine! TWENTY-NINE!!!!!, June 11, 2006
A Kid's Review
I told my mother, Mrs. Fran Stalinofskavichdavitovichsky, to go to the store and get me 30 Tagger Micro Darts for my Nerf the Smurf Rocket Launcher. She came home, and I opened the bag, and it only had 29! It was supposed to come with 30! Upon seeing this my mother tried to flee for cover, but I easily caught up with her fat pig legs. I bit her! Bit her deep!

(and yes - the url does reference Obidos - which be gone...., don't worry - redirects save all)

Gin and Vimto

There are some things that pair well: fish n' chips, assault n' battery, stuff like that. But Gin and Vimto fills me me with such wonderus dread that I have to try it. One of my cousins (who will not be identified to protect the guilty....) IM'd me about this amazing concoction. Couple of problems prevent me from trying it: (1) you can't buy Vimto in Seattle and (2) you can't buy Vimto in Seattle. Now, that's strictly only one problem, but it's such a massive one I thought I'd mention it twice.

Mom, Dad - next trip to the US, please bring a large bottle of Vimto (and Iron Bru while you're at it). And a stomach pump. Thanks.

FON up and Running

Router configuration was completed last night. I now have a "Bill" access point serving those around the junction of 4th Ave and University in downtown Seattle. Buy me a beer and I'll give you free access.