Rantings of a Nerd

Space Ring Could Shade Earth and Stop Global Warming

I have seen this before... Wasn't it in Highlander 2. The one where the immortalsss were all just aliens. This plan makes about as much sense as that script. But whatever it takes to get people interested in flinging things into space. I say this is a great chance to develop some new technology that we never use.

I know you own G4, but it would be nice to actually see the shows between the ads. If you want to run local ads over each and every national commercial then you should at least adjust you timings. You are either 10 seconds early or 2 seconds late every time.

I guess you think that Nerds and Geeks are the king of people who will never notice this. Are you insane? MTV could do that a decade and no one would notice. You do it 5 times and hour and it is driving this nerd insane.

You actually started a commercial over the judgment on judgment Day. It does not affect my buying decision, but that is retarded.

Don't know why but is just amuses me that these stilts were left by the door for over an hour by some construction contractors.

It is really safe to leave stilts laying around in an IT department. I mean there are .NET developers working here. For heaven's sake there are even Sybase DBAs here.

This could have been bad.

Tomorrow is the first highway trip for the Prius. Yes, I drive on the interstate everyday to and from work, but this will be 6 hours of interstate each way. Should be fun.

I will of course have an update when I get back.

Open Letter: "He finds that approximately 75% of the Carbon-14 has decayed by electron emission to Nitrogen-14, and infers that this artifact is approximately 10,000 years old, as the half-life of Carbon-14 appears to be 5,730 years. But what our scientist does not realize is that every time he makes a measurement, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is there changing the results with His Noodly Appendage."

With the tire flap fresh on the mind of this nerd, I have to admit I did not know the US Grand Prix was Sunday until I saw it in the news. I used to be a big Formula One fan but the rule changes to reign in costs and essentially hurt Ferrari caused me to stop paying attention.

The talk now that Indy may not welcome Formula One back next year is very interesting. I think it would be a good wake up call for the sport. They were talking about adding at least one additional race in the US maybe 2, but right now they have some work to do at home before they come back here.

For starters, give the money back to the fans who paid $100 a piece to come see a race with 10 teams and only 3 showed up on the grid. You will not make everyone happy with a cash refund, but it will let casual fans like myself look at your sport in a nicer light.

I am interested to see how all this plays out. We have seen the NHL shoot itself in the foot and lose their television contract because they could not negotiate a deal with the players.

Now Formula One says they don't care if a driver wrecks on the fastest turn of the Indy Grand Prix track which is also the closest to the fans, they are giving all of us the finger.

There was a plan to rearrange the track slightly and slow down the corner, but Ferrari did not agree to the plan. They didn't have to. The governing body of Formula One should have taken action to allow for tire changes or alter the track so the race could be run.

This will be interesting. I have to admit I have now set my Tivo to record the rest of the season's races. Perhaps there really is no bad publicity.

Yahoo! Sports - NASCAR - Brickyard bosses fuming after Formula One flop

They should be. Formula One is doing nothing help itself with incidents like this.

I purchased a nice treadmill over a year ago at sears and contrary for my normal operating procedure I purchased the extended warranty. Since it is something that would start out having to support my 300 pound self this seemed like a good idea.

It was.

Tuesday night the tread started slipping and I almost fell off. I remembered the warranty and called. It took only a few minutes to get to a human being. The surprising thing was that the woman on the phone first instructed me on how to adjust the tread tension. It did not sound like she was looking up the instructions, rather she knew how it worked and was able to instruct me with no effort.

I went ahead and scheduled service anyway. I am glad. After adjusting the belt it still slipped and stopped. It looks like the motor or transmission has gone out. Given the use I have gotten out of this thing I am not surprised.

Hopefully it can be repaired under warranty, but I must confess I am worried about how long it will last. I don't want something that I will have to replace in 3 years. Maybe I should be thinking about a bike when it wears out and the warranty is over in 2006.

The Sears home service was nice, Lets see how the actual repair goes. Now I am going to have to do step aerobics until it is fixed.

This is very interesting to me, so indulge me if you don't mind. Rush has placed a specialized download tool on his web site to allow subscribers to download his daily shows.

The downloader just downloads the shows 3 daily mp3 files. It does not sync them to your ipod or load them into iTunes. Basically it is an automatic downloader.

I have traded eMails with the Rush Super Secret email address and I am not sure that the responder understood my questions about syncing with the ipod. I am fairly certain that the Limbaugh crew has heard the term podcasting, but they aren't groking it.

To that end, I decided to write my own java scripts to sync shows and sync with my ipod. With 10 minutes of poking around I think I understand how to do it. When I get my scripts finished I will drop them in the mail and see if they want to use it. If they don't I will find a place to put it so others can use it if they wish.

Local10.com - News - Child Dies On Epcot Ride

I just rode this ride 3 days ago with my 10 year old. I have to admit to being a little freaked out. It was an intense experience but nothing all that physically demanding. It creates some g-forces on the body by spinning around but I have been on roller coasters that are worse.

I suspect that the child had an undiagnosed medical condition. In any even this is a horrible event. I am interested to see the outcome of the investigation.

I don't think they should open the attraction again until they know what happened and why? Maybe height requirements are not enough? Perhaps you need an age requirement as well?

As an aside, you may be thinking why not have a panic button to hit to shutdown the ride? You have 10 or more cabins operating in the centrifuge, you can't bring that to a stop without causing injury. I know there is video monitoring the passengers. Perhaps they should have noticed the child passing out and stopped the ride, but who knows if that would have helped.

My thoughts and prayers are with the family.

I don't know what it is but when I get a new car I don't fell relaxed until I have the tax stamp, sorry, license plate attached to the car.

Guess that is just one of my quirks. Now to find the perfect quirky bumper sticker for the hybrid synergy drive vehicle.

Rush 24/7 Media Center

Well sort of... if you are a subscriber of his website you can use his "podcating" receiver. While this is not what I would call podcasting, it is a way for him to expand his listening base. I am impressed that someone who is without argument the most popular single 3 hours of radio in America has found a way to join the next generation of audio.

That being said, he was already allowing for downloads of his daily shows in mp3 format.

Is any of this surprising? Not really, a decade ago Rush was singing the praises of the Mac, so the fact that he is interested in podcasting is not out of the realm of things one would expect.

Love him or hate him, he knows radio. If he would open his show with or without commercials to a RSS with enclosures download that would make me happier. I guess I will just have to be happy with the fact that he gets it. I don't think I will be subscribing anytime soon. I have too many podcasts to listen to as it is.

I can't find it in stores. I drink a lot of this product. Perhaps I am the only one, but it was selling out. The newsstand in my building can't get it. It is no longer at the grocery stores. I have a bad feeling this is the beginning of the end.

Pepsi Co, don't make me declare Jihad on you. I no longer drive a Chevrolet. My devotion the #24 team is getting tenuous at best. If you drop my favorite Pepsi product I may have to just start routing for the Coke Family of drivers.

Mirrors - Linux From Scratch

I have to admit that thoughts about making my own Linux distro have crossed my mind. I have too many hobbies already. I don't need another one, but if I happen to give up a hobby this might be interesting.

I know, you are surprised that I would dare talk about a movie that did not involve, time travel or space ships. But there was plenty of violence. I mean real violent boxing. Ron Howard did not hold anything back with this one. If nothing else of you ever consider boxing you should watch this just for how nasty boxing can be.

This is a piece of real history and a story that is worth knowing. This is an early Oscar Contender and may cement Ron Howard as one of the great directors of our time.

I highly recommend that anyone with a family should see this. The look of life during the depression was amazing.

The moment when he is fighting and thinks of his children's empty beds as they were sent off because they could not afford to pay for heat is completely understandable. You have seen it in the trailer. Any man can understand the need to defend his family and this man was in the rare position that he could literally fight for his family.

I was unemployed for 8 months after the bubble burst. The moment of him holding his hat in his hand asking for money from the boxing promoters hit me like a ton of bricks. I remember making calls to people that I would never have called. There comes a point when you hit rock bottom.

Luckily my situation has a happy ending, and I will tell you that movie is worth seeing as well. If you don't know the story, wait until after you see the movie to read about this history. This isn't Apollo 13, you probably don't know how it ends and I don't want to ruin this for you.

I will tell you one thing I know you didn't know. The champion boxer depicted in this film, Max Baer, is the father of Max Baer Jr. You are saying well I could have guessed that. Think back to your childhood. Who is Max Baer Jr? He played Jethro Bodine of the Beverly Hillbillies. That is an interesting piece of information.

I heard a lecture by the author the other night on NPR. Okay, start breathing again and pay attention. I sometimes listen to NPR, just like I sometimes watch Fox.

I will have to give a full review after I have read this, but I love the premise. While we were sleeping the rest of the world got it. They may not have all the wealth we have, but they have the knowledge that has been created and they have learned from our mistake. And if I might add my own aside, there are a hell of a lot more of them than there are of us.

Peter Lynds - Home

I love physics. I am awful at it, but I love reading about people that are really good at it.

In this case a real "maverick" physicist. But my real question is, "Does this theory preclude the possibility of time travel?"

This one is too easy. If it is raining in Atlanta, by day 2 of rain people forget that the roads can be slick. I assume it is like this anywhere.

To the guy in the circa 1985 Toyota pickup that tried to pull the corssover move on me while changing lanes on the connector this morning, hope you make it through the day.