Return

Yesterday we traveled for over twelve hours and returned home after a week of vacation in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
I had hoped to write a little about it last night but faced over 1,200 comment spams waiting for me to clean up. As a result, once I finished that, I was ready only for sleep.
I hope you all have been well and have a good week.

Day 1

I picked up the Prius today and drove it around a little bit.
The car is so full of features, it’s hard to believe.


The three coolest features are Smart Entry, Bluetooth, and the GPS navigation.
With the Smart Entry, you just walk up the car with the key thing in your pocket and you can the open the door without pushing a button. You just pull the door handle. The car senses the key and you can leave it in your pocket when you start the car.
The car has Bluetooth and works great with my Nokia 3650. As soon as I get in range of the car, the hands free kit inside takes over the phone. I can even push contacts into the car’s memory.
The GPS navigation is kickass. Even if you don’t follow it’s suggested route, it will constantly readjust and come up with new directions, based on where you got off track.
Michele drove it tonight and said, “I want this to be my car.”

Sane Air Conditioning

OK folks, with the summer heat arriving, it’s time to discuss air conditioning. There is a major misconception I’d like to clear up.
Let’s review how air conditioning works. Basically, an air conditioner is a heat pump.


Using a few important thermodynamic principles, air conditioners are machines that move heat from one area to another. Typically, they move the heat from inside to outside.
The part of the air conditioner that gets cold in this process is know as the evaporator coil. Warm air from inside blows over the evaporator coil. The heat goes in and gets pumped outside and the cold air returns inside.
Fairly straightforward, no? Air conditioners really only work at one speed. When they are on, the pump heat out. When they are off, they don’t do anything.
Here’s where people get into trouble.
Modern electronics in thermostats and car air conditioners now allow people to dial in the temperature they want. The air conditioner (or heater) is turned on or off to adjust for the desired temperature.
It seems people think that if they turn the knob way down that the air conditioner will work much better. Typically, you see people turning the thermostat as low as it will go to get it cold. This does nothing to help the cooling.

Turn the dial or knob to the temperature you want and leave it alone.
There are a few cases where there you can have variable air speeds blowing over the evaporator coils. This is what ‘Max AC’ is if you see it in your car. Maximum airflow.
Guess what, your thermostat understands if it has variable airflow and uses it when it makes best sense. Believe it or not, the people that design air conditioners know more about how to make air conditioners work than you do.
So, please people, don’t turn that dial down to sixty degrees unless you work in a meat locker.

Anonymous Pain

A while ago I made a weblog for anonymous posting-> Anonyblog.
Anyone can go there, log in and post whatever they want. The username/password are right on the front page.
I expected that people would rant about other people, work, and things that piss them off. There has been some of that, but by far the most posting thing is about how sad people are.
Post after post about how things suck in their life. Take a look at the searches people are doing to stumble onto the site.


Where do you have to be in life to search for ‘am i insane’ on Google?
Such pain and sadness out there. And why are they afraid to share it with others? Why are they anonymous in their pain?
As an extroverted type, it’s hard for me to understand people dealing with their issues in this introverted way.

Firefly Lives and courts the blogosphere

I saw on Slashdot that the site for the Firefly movie is up and running.
In case you missed Firefly when it was on the air, it was a sci-fi TV show that blended wild west style plots into a future space universe. Good stuff. I bought the DVDs of the first season and really enjoy them.
The site has a lot of stuff for fans to participate in the promotion of the movie. It’s good to see a movie production actively working with their fans rather than ordering them to take content down. Fans are rewarded for their internet involvement with real prizes and items. The proverbial win-win situation.
For example, the Firefly folks are actively encouraging the fans to make banner ads and display them. Here’s a fan made banner I like, that the movie company is happy to be displayed.


How kick ass is that?
Talk about ‘getting it’, these guys are totally using the net and weblogs in particular to promote their movie. How do they do it? Release control and allow fans to use the movie content. The producers are obviously looking to connect with the blogosphere and are willing to give up some control in doing so. Them Creative Commons people should drop them a line and get something like a Recombo license up there…

The Beastie Boys and the lack of copy protection

I’m a bit confused here people.
Last Tuesday I bought a copy of the new Beastie Boys album, To the Five Boroughs. I had heard there was talk of it being protected with DRM software. Posts on Boing Boing and Slashdot fed the meme into the blogosphere.
When I got back to the office, I tried ripping it to my desktop. The album riped fine using Windows Media Player on a stock Compaq desktop machine. No problems at all.
When I got home I ripped it to our media server. Again, no problems. I used Musicmatch Jukebox to do the ripping. I’m hardly using r33t haxx0r tools to get around any copy protection.
So I don’t see anything that even remotely looks like copy protection on the CD.
I took a look at the disc and it does have the Macromedia director based ‘Enhanced CD’ software on it that autoplays when load the disc. All that does is allow you to watch a Quicktime video. I don’t see any DRM software being installed.
I scoured the net to find any details of the ‘silent install’ and what the ‘secret DRM’ does. Besides many a slashdot-style screed against DRM and the Beasties, I didn’t find one technical explanation of exactly what the ‘secret DRM’ is or where it is located on a hard drive.
I did find many, many people saying that they were able to successfully rip it. I didn’t see anyone saying they had trouble ripping the CD.
Now, I’m probably wrong, but it seems to me that there is no ‘secret DRM’ on the new Beasties’ album and the that techno-blogosphere has whipped itself into a lather over the non-issue.
Someone please prove me wrong and point the details on the secret ‘silent install’, but until then, I consider the ‘Beasties DRM = evil’ meme a false and unproven one.
Did anyone out there that bought the album have any problems ripping the CD?

Lazy Father’s Day weekend

It was a good weekend.
On Saturday we went to a kid’s birthday party and had a great time. As usual in Los Angeles, there was a pinata and the girls made out like bandits. Here’s their loot:


This morning I woke up and was greeted by the girls and their gifts. Very sweet. I even got a chance to talk to my father today. He’s been in Sri Lanka doing charity work for several weeks and I assumed I wouldn’t be able to get in contact with him. He’s doing well and I’m anxious to see him.
We played around outside and I took the training wheels off Mira’s bike. She had no problem riding a two wheeler. We rode around the neighborhood, played with some friends and generally goofed around.
Later in the afternoon, we went up to Bailey Canyon for a picnic and a hike. We ate at the base of the park and girls started to get excited about the hike.

We headed on into the wilderness looking and talking about everything. We saw plenty of lizards and other wild creatures. The girls were digging the tromp through the underbrush and could have gone farther before we turned back. We will definitely be doing more hiking soon.
On the way out, we saw a few deer munching grass nearby.

A good day to be a father.

Hero

Tonight I watched Hero, a Chinese martial arts movie that is getting released by Miramax in US theaters this August. The trailer runs if you go to see Kill Bill 2.
I picked up a DVD at Amoeba Records in Hollywood. It’s the Chinese version that happens to have English subtitles. I can’t read the menus on the DVD, but I was able to get the movie to play.
And what a movie it is. Hero is simply fantastic.


The director, Zhang Yimou, previously made the noted films Raise the Red Lantern and Shanghai Triad. His skill is evident in the masterful art direction and filming of the movie. He makes amazing use of color and scenery to evoke a feeling of China’s past that is rare to see. In one scene, he uses leaves and wind in an amazing way that has never been seen before on film.
Technically, the film is impressive with top notch Chinese martial arts battles and superb Yuen Wo Ping style wire work and fight choreography. If you like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’s fight scenes, these are even better.

The cast is the absolute top people in Chinese action cinema. Jet Li, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Maggie Cheung, Ziyi Zhang, Daoming Chen, and Donnie Yen. You won’t be disappointed by their acting or physical performances.
For the plot, I’ll simply quote the promo info:

At the height of China’s Warring States period, the country was divided into seven kingdoms: Qin, Zhao, Han Wei, Yan, Chu and Qi. For years, the separate kingdoms fought ruthlessly for supremacy. As a result, the populace endured decades of death and suffering.
The Kingdom of Qin was the most determined of all. The Qin King was obsessed with conquering all of China and becoming her first Emperor. He had long been the target of assassins throughout the other six states. Of all the would-be killers, none inspired as much fear as the three legendary assassins, Broken Sword, Flying Snow and Sky.
To anyone who defeated the three assassins, the King of Qin promised great power, mountains of gold and a private audience with the King himself. But defeating the killers is a near impossible task. For ten years no one came close to claiming the prize. So when the enigmatic county sheriff, Nameless, came to the palace bearing the legendary weapons of the slain assassins, the King was impatient to hear his story. Sitting in the palace, only ten paces from the King, Nameless told his extraordinary tale.


And so the movie begins. Even though I have the DVD, I must see this movie in the theater. I suggest you do as well.