No Fly List cleaning

Apparently they're cleaning up the list, and providing a way for people to complain about being listed. The timing on this is sorta funny - I guess that's what they get for listing Denny Crane. Who knew that legal judgments on TV shows actually held any weight, especially that quickly. :)

AT&T, Cingular, and Colbert

Boyum pointed me to this video, which gives a mostly-complete overview of what happened.

A new toy

I came home from work to find a package with the item pictured at left and an "Enclosed please find your gift" letter. Although I guess it's barely a gift as it'll probably be on a 1099 - I'm not going to complain though.

So far I'm mostly happy with it. Other than a ridiculous level of background hiss noticeable in any quieter portions of music (or between songs, or when paused), the sound quality is quite good. I think this may be attributable to the ridiculously overpowered headphone amp (even with the included headphones I hope nobody listens at over about a third), and the fact that it's much less noticeable with the included headphones (of course most of the detail in music is gone too). I may have to try an attenuator. I'm still not a real fan of the scroll wheel - now that I actually own one though it'll be interesting to see how much I use it compared to my other player. The better song selection because of the ID3 database may push me towards it, but the having to use an installed program and only Windows/OS X to sync music (and having to re-rip to MP3) may push me away. At least this thing is supposed to have a halfway decent battery life.

Godwin's Law is expanded

...to include other events. xkcd on Reno Rhymes.

Digg

This post pretty much sums up why I stopped bothering with Digg. S/N is too low, and there's too many people just complaining rather than contributing.

Happy New Year

Hope everyone enjoys the end of the year, and hopefully tomorrow too. Just be thankful you likely get to enjoy it in peace, and remember that some people aren't so fortunate.

The demise of local electronics stores

A few weeks ago when I was in Philadelphia, I needed a DB-9 F-F null modem cable to connect two servers together for console purposes. Figured no big deal, they should have some at Radio Shack. Turns out they didn't have any. Stopped by Circuit City, again with no luck. Graybar was able to track down a warehouse about 45 minutes away which was willing to sell us one direct (on their second attempt, the first apparently didn't have any in stock anymore), so we didn't have to order and ship it out afterwards. But I thought it was rather odd and unfortunate that nobody carried them anymore. Jump forward a couple weeks (and back in the Twin Cities), and I want to grab a 24v SPDT relay for a little furnace hacking. Again, Radio Shack doesn't have it, as their relay selection has been slimmed to around 8. I guess any electronics hacking will have to involve more planning and ordering online in the future. :(

Merry Christmas!

Again, no crazy page like previously (although that runs a lot smoother on today's computers than 2 years ago). Still hope everyone has a great Christmas though!

Friends don't let friends drink Starbucks

Christmas Tree Lights

I noticed this as I was walking out of work today. The rain must have not gotten along with the wiring somewhere, and probably tripped a few breakers. On the plus side, it probably means the tree is only pulling around 20 amps instead of over 40.