Rik's Ramblings

Using Android is like peeing in your pants for warmth

2010-09-21T11:16:00.000-07:00

Hey they're not my words, but I totally dig the metaphor.

CE-Oh no he didn't!: Anssi Vanjoki says using Android is like peeing in your pants for warmth -- Engadget

Do people really fall for this shit?

2010-09-21T11:11:00.001-07:00

In an email I recently received from the 'us postal service':

This is to notify you that we have intercepted your parcel from DHL COURIER SERVICE is making the delivery and we have stopped the delivery process for some security reasons stated below:

Our scanning system has detected that your parcel contains a confirmable CARD to the tune of US$1,500,000.00 USD.

The email went on to state I needed a sworn affidavit from the spanish government before the parcel could be released. No surprise, an affidavit is easily obtained, by simply sending $98 to some guy in spain ... Here's his email address if you want it:

Name: Mr Edward Wright
Email address: wright@dhlhome.net
Tel: 011 34672809778

http://www.howtoforge.com/how-to-set-up-a-usb-over-ip-server-and-client-with-ubuntu-10.04

2010-09-20T09:54:00.000-07:00

http://www.howtoforge.com/how-to-set-up-a-usb-over-ip-server-and-client-with-ubuntu-10.04

Take a tablet people!

2010-09-15T23:23:00.001-07:00

I have to admit, I'm crap when it comes to boats! I get sick at the slightest bit of choppiness.

So it was a guity pleasure on that recent boat dive when I managed to not hurl during the dive. I didn't even feel slightly queasy! I was even able to pig out on the food provided on the boat!

What was really satisfying was seeing so many of the other divers having such a rough time and chumming the water ;)

At one point there were so many divers hanging lifelessly off the back of the boat, I felt like I was in a scene from some 'lost at sea' movie. I wondered how many weeks we'd been out there and who I would need to eat first.

All props to the Dramamine. One 'Less Drowsey Formula' tablet an hour before getting on the boat. I have to assume this is what saved me.

Take a Tablet People!

Automated Frog Feeder!

2010-09-14T00:15:00.000-07:00

Simple Arduino project to automatically feed Ben's frogs when we're out of town!

http://sagar.org/workbench/frogfeeder/

Weekend Bike Ride

2010-09-13T00:42:00.000-07:00

The plan was to go to Monterey today and have a nice leisurely ride along the trail there, stopping periodically for beach time and snacks!

Unfortunately, Debbie and I had a bit too much to drink last night ... though Debbie says it was mainly me that drank the champagne, but that's another story. Anyway, didn't feel like getting up at 7am to drive down to Monterey (you have to go early to miss the traffic). So instead, we went for a short ride along the San Francisco Bay Trail.

Can't believe I've never made it to this bay-side trail in all the years I've lived in the bay area. Really nice ride. Lots of wetlands, "sloughs" I believe they call some of it on the West Coast! Salt flats, where, surprisingly, Cargill are still making "sea salt", right there alongside our sofisticated silicon valley businesses.

Lots of wildlife: ducks, egrets, pelicans, butterflys, dragonflys. Sadly the trail doesn't let you get all the way to Shoreline (which was our intent), but supposedly it will come September 20 this year!

View Bikeride - SF Bay Trail Sept 2010 in a larger map

San Diego for Labor Day Weekend

2010-09-09T09:10:00.001-07:00

Had a nice trip to San Diego at the weekend. Went down with the dive club for six dives on the wrecks they have down there (more dive details at http://www.ukdiveboy.com).

Didn't get much time for general sightseeing, as the diving was Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. Driving to SD from San Jose takes a large chunk of the weekend, so not much time for anything else.

Did have a little time Saturday night to look around "Old Town San Diego". Old Town is a state park - think Columbia State Park, but more Mexican looking. Definitely worth a follow-up trip with the family.

Maybe fly down next time, or if I drive we need to stay three or four days and make the drive down a little more leisurely. Drove down on Friday night and had about 6hrs sleep in Castaic. Coming back on Sunday, I stopped over in Bakersfield and I was exhausted. I got to the motel at 7pm and was asleep at 8pm - slept for 12hours!

Sundown Lounge Podcast episode 227

2010-09-08T22:39:00.001-07:00

Great opening track, by Johnny angel/Johnny and the Wasted Knights
- Shut-up already, the ditto head song

Tips and Tricks

2010-08-31T00:55:00.000-07:00

Some of my favorite Tips and Tricks from Pre Central.

No particular reason ... oh, OK then, yes there is a reason, I'm too modest to say it.

Todo List for Thursday

2010-08-26T13:44:00.000-07:00

[ x ] Feed pets
[ x ] Water plants
[ x ] Destroy hopes and aspirations of interviewee
[ x ] Doctors visit

I found number three particularly satisfying.

Cycling in Napa Valley

2010-08-02T19:31:00.000-07:00

Another fun bike ride this weekend. Debbie and I went up to Napa (Ben is still in England) and did a quick 15 mile 'out and back' to visit a couple of wineries.

We started off at Dean & DeLuca, where we loaded up the back-pack with a nice picnic (Salad and Sandwich).

We cut across from D&D (HWY29) to Silverado Trail, where we went North to Rombauer Vineyards.

Rombauer is on Silverado trail, but it's a bit of a climb from the road to the winery, so some pushing of bikes was required!

I bought a bottle of their 2008 Chardonnay, which was *very* nice. We sat in their garden, under some nice trees, and drank the wine while enjoying the view and our picnic. we hung out their for about 90 minutes, before returning along Silverado trail to a second winery.

Joseph Phelps Vineyards, also a little off the road and up a hill and a wonderful view. Unfortunately their tasting room closes as 4pm (most close at 5). So I wasn't able to do a full tasting, though a sampled their signature wine. It retails at $200 and my small tasting was $15. Debbie had the Pinot Noir, which she found a little heavy. they did give us a comp for a free tasting next time we're in town (a $50 value!). as I say, great view from the terrace, so we'll definitely go back.

Only Debbie's second outing on her new bike, she learned a couple of things about cycling.

When out for a fun bike ride, you don't need to do 20mph. slow down and enjoy the views!
When travelling down hill, at speed, use the rear brake to avoid flying over the handle bars. Applying only the front brake is a great practical demonstration of Newtonian Mechanics at play. No serious damage done!

Saw a couple of nice B&B's on Zinfandel Lane as we cycled through. Must make a note of those for next time we want a weekend away in the Napa Valley.

Shady Oaks Country Inn
Zinfandel Inn

Stopped back at D&D at the end of the ride. Browsed round their nice (but expensive) kitchen accessories, wine and food. Had a parfait, then headed home.

More Photos

Route, on Google Maps

View Bikeride - Napa August 2010 in a larger map

Don't you mean ...

2010-07-29T22:59:00.001-07:00

"the virgin Connie Swail"

Worth watching the whole film just for that one line. Which is just as well, as it's the only funny line :-/

DRAGNET

I'd forgot that Tom Hanks is also in it.

Gray Coding

2010-07-28T22:28:00.000-07:00

I can never remember how it goes, and neither can you. So here, I've worked it out again and I'll write it down here for all our benefits:

The great thing about a Gray Code is that, for each transition, only one of the bits changes. This makes it ideal for those situation where you could be sampling the data right when the transition occurs. In such a situation you could (due to alignment errors, propagation delay, aliasing, or other reasons) get a false reading if you were using normal binary representation.

iFly "sky diving"

2010-07-27T10:39:00.000-07:00

Went to iFly at the weekend. iFly is one of those wind-turbine things that lets you simulate jumping out of an aeroplane without too much risk of bodily harm.

iFly, Bay Area

A big fan blowing you at 120(ish) miles per hour suspending you in a column of air and allowing you to do aeronautical tricks (in theory).

Naturally, on your first go you don't really do much other than try stay level and not hit the walls. second attempt was a little better, I was able to steer myself a little and increase/decrease my drag by changing body shape a little.

After two rides I was aching in my shoulders and back, and the next day I was stiff too! When I say two 'rides' I should add that a ride only lasts ONE MINUTE! Quite a work-out!

RiksReads: Silas Marner

2010-07-23T17:22:00.000-07:00

Silas Marner

Bike Trip at the Weekend

2010-07-20T16:36:00.000-07:00

Mr's Sagar got a new bike, so we took it for a test drive at the weekend. Did surprisingly well for the first trip in a year!

Total distance was a little over 21 miles, from slightly north of Monterey down to 17mile drive.

We made a couple of stops on route (as indicated by the blue markers!). One was for a bacon butty for breakfast (at Lovers') and one for a coffee on the way back (near McAbee).

Shared Route (via KML) On Google Maps

View Bikeride in a larger map

Wow, new patents!

2010-07-16T10:07:00.000-07:00

Three more patents have been granted, with my name on, this year.

Updated list of filings, and PDFs added for your reading convenience.

http://sagar.org/workbench/patents/

OK, I'm back

2010-07-15T13:09:00.000-07:00

Dispite all the big talking about setting up my own blogging software, it turned out I'm too lazy. So I've moved to the 'blogger' servers and the new blog URL is http://ramblings.sagar.org.

Last Post!

2010-04-30T18:18:00.000-07:00

Not sure what happens tomorrow, when blogger turns off FTP. Rather than blogging in the coming months I can focus on installing a CMS on my server @he.net

See you on the other side.

It is symbolic of our struggle against oppression ...

2010-04-22T09:29:00.000-07:00

I don't understand. It's San Francisco! How difficult could it be to find 12 gay men that like softball!

If it was Arkansas I could understand it, they wouldn't have enough eligible participants, they'd have to bring in a couple of hetros to pad your team.

Gay Softball League Sued for Discrimination

Stupid makefiles

2010-04-10T21:36:00.001-07:00

Why do make files have their own language? Why is it that the crucial last step to build your app, as a C/C++ developer, is write a script in an obscure '70s language?

Why can't I write my makefiles in C? I know how to write C, I do it every day! But makefile, I have no idea how or why it works (or doesnt).

Once ever three months I'm forced to crack open a makefile and dick with some obscure jumble on non-alpha characters that dictate the relationships between some .cpp files and some .o files. No wonder I get it wrong and resort to copy/paste of an old 400line makefile from the 802.3 driver I tampered with 5 years ago.

Grrr, taxes

2010-04-04T01:12:00.001-07:00

Tax season again. Spent the whole day trying to figure out "cost basis" for ESPP shares that I bought in 2007 and sold in 2009. Naturally, it being 2010 now, I can't remember what I paid for the shares, what they were really worth, how much commission I paid, how much they sold for, what the price was at the start of the ESPP period, whether I already paid tax on the discount ... fuck it's a nightmare.

Also sold some BT shares that I bought at the height of the dotcom boom. since I bought them they split into two different companies and my broker got taken over twice. What records I have of the purchase are irrelevant, and the records eTrade has don't seem to match. Trying to calculate the cost basis on those took the rest of the afternoon! There's the price I paid for the BT ADR, then the price on the "BT PLC ADR" that they became after the O2 split, which doesn't seem to match the price eTrade has listed as the per unit share. Does that include the Dreyfus (or was it BrownCo?) commission? I can't tell.

It's not worth the hassle! But it was a tax write-off. Sometimes I think it might just be easier to keep all you assets as $20 bills in the mattress.

Another Tahoe Trip

2010-04-01T14:39:00.000-07:00

Took Ben up to Tahoe again last weekend. Drove up Friday afternoon and had Saturday and Sunday playing in the snow.

As with the last trip we stayed in Kings Beach (Ferarri's Crown) and skiied/boarded at Northstar.

Ben wanted to try snowboarding (finally, yay!), so I booked him in for a lesson Saturday morning. This of course meant that I was doing runs on my own.

He said he enjoyed the boarding, but Sunday he wanted to get back on the skis, as he wanted to do the black runs with me. Not surprising really, bunny slopes or back side black ... The boy's not stupid.

Like me, Ben loves going through the trees at the side of the slopes and taking on all the little jumps. There's a chance he could master the half-pipe! Which I've never dared to do.

We didn't get any fresh snow this time and the temp was in the high 50s/low 60s so it was a nice spring skiing weekend, no snow jackets required, shades not goggles.

The icerink in the village (at Northstar) is melted. I was please to see they were using it for a roller rink and they still have a band playing.

Skiing solo was definatly more strenuous than going with Ben. Less time stopped on the hill waiting for him to catch-up, I was more worn-out on Saturday night than I have been on the other recent snow trips. But it was good to do some long, uninterrupted runs by myself for a change.

Worst Google Voice translation yet!

2010-03-26T09:24:00.001-07:00

Hi Lee stiffy. Sharon from. Not the the motive you got me on my face. All I you want to coming fall you all a looking it does. So NickTuesday. Dusty both okay. He's open for you. P Let me know which day you pizza phone number that is 4xxxxxxxx7. Thank you. Byebye.

Got me a Roku box

2010-03-25T01:24:00.000-07:00

Someone at work got this for free with the last TV they bought. As they're not a Netflix customer they were happy to offload it on me for $50, and I was happy to get it for half price.

I've been a big fan of the Netflix streaming since they first started - though I'm less pleased with the quality since they switched over to Silverlight. Up until now, I've had to plug the laptop into the TV if I wanted to watch streaming videos in comfort. Now I have a dedicated box under the TV so I can tune into Netflix more easily whenever I want.

It's also nice that the Roku box supports MediaFly, so I can get to any of my podcasts and play them through the TV too. I've had some issues with video streaming for some podcasts (not all) but audio streaming works great (BBC Newspod, KQED, etc.). I suspect the issue is really to do with my low bandwidth DSL internet connection. I don't think the Roku has much in the way of buffering.

My only disappointment is the lack of Youtube streaming. I've found rather a lot of good content on YouTube these past 12 months, while testing my Palm Pre's streaming capability, so I'd like to have access to all the channels I've subscribed to through YouTube (ITN news, Diggnation, Makezine, infoMedia, ...).

Roku on Amazon.com