Category: Misc

Just installed Opera 10.6. First impressions: I like it. Subsequent usage hasn’t dulled the edge there either. I don’t know if it’s their default appearance, but what comes up is a nice, simple, clean UI. The menu bar can be hidden, at which point it’s replaced with a menu button from which everything is accessible. It makes the viewable area a little larger and, somewhat counter-intuitively, makes menu items easier to find, since the start point is always the same. Did I mention its fast? Noticeably faster on both my EEE and my desktop. Nicely done.

Why didn’t someone tell me how great a thing the power washer is?

I cleaned the front porch yesterday. It was amazing. I can’t even begin to imagine the amount of scrubbing and chemicals that would have been required in the absence of the power washer. And, in all likelihood, all that effort would not have achieved anywhere near the same result.

Hot. Humid. Sticky. Uncomfortable.

Anyone else ready for the fall and cooler temps?

Incredible match going on at Wimbledon between two guys who likely won’t be heard of again once it’s over. This is their 15 minutes of fame and their making the most of it.

There is no tie-breaker in the 5th set at Wimbledon. The winner has to win by 2 games. Play in the match between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut was suspended after 10 hours. They are in the 5th set and the score stands at 59 games apiece. That’s like playing a complete 5-set match, and then completing 2 more and starting a 4th. Watching the highlights, it appears to be a case of 2 guys simply refusing to give in, as opposed to 2 guys playing so terribly that neither can win. Both have saved multiple match points and break points to force the match to continue.

According to reports, other players like Federer and Roddick are watching the match in disbelief from the locker rooms. A small initial crowd steadily grew to the point of overflowing as word of what was transpiring got out.

Stuff like this is what makes sport so great. Every now and again a treat like this arises and fans get to see something they’ve never seen before and will likely never see again. We’re not even talking about the best players in the world here. It’s just two guys locked in a struggle, no quarter given or taken. It just doesn’t get much better than that.

UPDATE: Isner wins after another hour this morning- 70-68. Amazing.

FINAL UPDATE: Not surprisingly, Isner lost his second round match today, in rather pathetic fashion. The match lasted a whole 75 minutes. Still, he was part of something that will last much longer than this year’s final.

Via a linked Instapundit article comes this piece of ridiculousness. Best friends are bad for our kids. No really- that’s what the “experts” are saying now. It seems there is no stone to be left unturned when it comes to social engineering.

Look, this isn’t hard. Neither path is inherently preferable to the other. Some kids will grow up with best friends, some won’t. Each will develop different views of and attitudes to society and the world. Each is fully capable of growing up to be a useful member of society. The differing views and approaches each of those kids ultimately bring to the table are valuable. Society needs them both.

This is the sort of busy-body-let’s-find-what-else-we-can-mess-with stupidity that pisses people off about authority and experts. Most of these same people can barely manage the schools they administer. Maybe they should become more “expert” in administration instead of micro-managing kid’s social lives. Sheesh.

I wonder if the people behind this foolishness would benefit from an adult explaining to them that it’s OK that they didn’t have a best friend growing up.

The boy started his Martial Arts classes last night.

At least he’ll know who’s ass to kick… and how to do it.

(I really, really tried to let it pass. Honest I did.)

Being a fan of sports generally, it seems appropriate to mark the passing of the gold standard in college coaching. I think it’s worthy of note that I’ve never heard or read anything negative about the man. No one’s complained about his coaching style, or his recruiting methods or anything. His players generally gush about him- it’s almost disgusting (in a good kinda way). I’ve only ever heard that he was the best at what he did. The college sports world is definitely a smaller place without him.

This is actually about 2 weeks old now. We’ve since mulched the lower portion of the garden. But for posterity’s sake, here’s what the rock wall ended up looking like:

Overheard on the radio this morning regarding Al and Tipper Gore:

“Does this mean Tipper gets half the Internet?”

This is just stupid. I first heard it discussed on the radio, then I went to look for something more concrete.

While I’m sympathetic to not blowing teams out for the sake of blowing teams out; I’ll also state that, being a competitor, I’d rather get blown out by an opponent than lose by a small score while they mock me by playing half-assed. If a team doesn’t have 2nd and 3rd stringers to throw in when it becomes obvious there is a mismatch, what else can be done?

Just for giggles, here’s some ways that rule can be gamed:

• If down by 5 goals, the losing team kicks one in on themselves, thus ensuring victory.
• For that matter, if a coach thinks his team is over matched, just have players score goals on their own team. Being undefeated was never so easy.
• Once the 5 goal lead is reached, the better team scores on themselves to maintain the margin so they can continue to score goals.
• Once the 5 goal lead is reached, stand aside and let the other team score. Then go back on the offensive.

If the idea is to have the rule retracted, I’d say the last one has the best chance. Any other ideas?

Flyers lose. Lakers win.

The topper- soon we’ll have nothing but baseball.

Ugh.

I’d just like to note that Shaun the Sheep (part of playhouse Disney in the morning) is 5 minutes of simple genius. Hilarious.

Here’s an interesting account regarding the lengths cyclists went to avoid getting caught using PED’s. The article has more detail, but a nickel version is that cycling has a system where they track blood chemistry over time. The PED’s are detected through various signatures regarding the blood chemistry- such as spikes in certain chemical levels.

Landis details how cyclists are also amateur blood-chemists by monitoring their own blood chemistry and flushing their system with saline to mute the spikes created by PED usage. Apparently, according to one of the testers, they were a little too good at it. The testers new something was up because their chemistry was too stable. They just didn’t realize how far they were going. Prior knowledge of testers showing up didn’t hurt either.

Having read this, as much as I dislike it because I admire the guy for what he battled through, it seems pretty clear that Armstrong was cheating. He just got out before they could catch him. Makes me wonder if that’s the reason he “retired” a couple of years ago only to come back last year.

A comment to an earlier post of mine got me thinking about some of the differences between the kid’s formative years versus mine and the Wife’s. Stuff like this is hardly original, but it is interesting to think about:

• A phone will always be wireless- be it a home phone or a cell phone. They will likely never operate a rotary phone or call collect. Further, voice recognition software means that by the time they’re teenagers they won’t have much experience dialing a phone.

• They will never have to program a VCR to record. It’s likely they’ll never know about the beta vs vhs wars. For that matter, they’ll likely never know that recording used to be done to a tape.

• While they’re familiar with DVD’s, I expect that such things will be obsolete by the time they become teenagers.

• A computer will be an every day part of life. Not a luxury item or a novelty. Anyone remember the TRS-80’s? the Commodore 64? TI-64?

• They will never have lived without the Internet.

• Multiple remote controls for TV’s and DVR’s and the like are normal. They will never have been the remote for their parents. For that matter, they’ll likely never have to monkey with an antenna to tune into a TV station.

• We had Sesame Street and The Electric Company. They have Dora, Diego, Mickey’s Clubhouse, Special Agent Ozo, and Shon the Sheep as well as Sesame Street, Arthur, Dragon Tale’s and Martha.

• They won’t be able to comprehend the notion that large computer hard drives used to be measured in the 10’s of megabytes. It’ll would be equally shocking that there used to be external hard drives the size of washing machines.

• Car windows will always have been button activated, as opposed to the rotary handles. Car locks are all automatic, and unlocking the car is as simple as pushing a button on a key-fob.

• They will never appreciate the gut-wrenching line “Luke, I AM your father.” Also, “I’ll be back” and “ADRIAN!” will mean nothing to them. The question “Kirk or Picard?” might as well be about choosing between brands of pickles.

• Cameras are toys. They won’t know about waiting a week for pictures to be developed, of driving up to a little Kodak booth and dropping off canisters of film. What’s film?

• Cellphones will always have been capable of taking pictures and shooting video. They’ll never have seen a cell phone larger than a wallet.

• The Red Sox will only be about 10 or so years into a championship drought.

Alright, the last one is a smidge gratuitous. I’m sure there’s more, but the lass wants to run through a sprinkler.

If I was a super hero, heat would be my kryptonite.

So the Orlando Magic finally beat the Celtics last night; thus, preventing an embarrassing sweep in the conference finals. As for Boston fans, I’m sure they’re all holding up just fine, knowing that no NBA team has ever recovered from a 3-0 deficit.

Not so for other sports. In baseball, for instance, the Red Sox started their comeback with an extra-inning win over the Yank’s in game 4. In hockey, 3 teams have managed to come back from a 3-0 series deficit. Still fresh on Bostonian minds, is the Bruins’ collapse this year; where Philly started their comeback with an overtime win in game 4.

So I’m sure the fact that last night’s Celtic loss came in overtime hasn’t affected anyone’s confidence.

Remember Floyd Landis? The US cyclist that won the Tour de France the year after Armstrong retired? Who was the stripped of the title when his drug tests came back positive? Then he launched an all out campaign stating that he was innocent?

Four years later, by his own admission, he’s guilty. It also sounds like he’s been singing like a canary. This one’s going to get interesting.

Here are my current pair of work gloves:

They are CarHartt gloves. I spent $23 on them.

No big deal, right?

I’ve had them for about a month.

The same thing happened to a pair of IronClad gloves and a pair of Mechanix gloves that I had. I’ve used them all for general yard work as well, and the cutting and splitting of firewood.

What’s nice about this breed of glove is the fit- snug and comfortable. Almost like an extra layer of skin. They look sturdy when purchased. But every one of them fails in the same way- at those fancy looking seams at the finger tips.

So if you see these fancy gloves, admire them all you want. Imagine how sturdy and well constructed they are.

Just be warned that it’s an illusion.

I’m trying to build a stone all for retaining purposes along a garden I had created last year. The idea was mine. I thought a wall that followed the arc of the garden, tapering back into the hill would be a nice visual feature in the yard. At it’s highest, the wall might approach 2 feet or so- certainly nothing set in stone…

I had assumed that it would be like fitting a puzzle together. I’m pretty good with spacial relations so I thought I’d wouldn’t have to bad a go at it. The reality is that it’s a much different discipline, approaching art actually.

Putting all those pieces together, some weighing 150 pounds, and distributing them throughout the wall in that ordered-randomness that’s so appealing about a nice stone wall is exteremely difficult. I worked at it yesterday for about 7 hours and then another 3 today. I’ve got something to show for it, but I’m trying to figure out how exactly I’m going to be able to cap the wall off so that the top is a uniform surface.

I went and got some masonry tools today, but they aren’t much use on this sort of stone. The only tool I’ve got that’s been usable is a 4 pound hand sledge. The masonry tools aren’t hard enough to be effective on stone it turns out. The chisel I got already has it’s edge all marred up. So to with the claw side of the hammer I got.

Definitely a learning experience.

Via Instapundit, a British sniper set a new distance record for a kill- over a mile-and-a-half away. Twice.

He had to adjust for bullet drift by aiming 6 feet high and 20 inches left.

Amazing.