Monthly Archives: February 2005

Help Stamp Out Boredom

Today I’m home sick. I’m going to prepare some notes for a meeting I should have tomorrow if I’m not still coughing up phlegm, but the rest of the day will be spent with hot tea and my trusty new Dell PDA. The combination of wireless and bloglines mobile edition makes checking the 144 blogs I monitor easy, fun, and now I can do it from anywhere.

But I’m bored. Can anyone recommend some good freeware (or even payware) applications for the PocketPC that could amuse? Instant messaging clients? RSS readers? Sound recording applications? What gadgets do you consider essential for your PocketPC?

Send me email and let me know.

Heck, send me email for any purpose. In the next 24 hours, I promise to respond, even thoughtfully, to all messages received.

Now, off to find some kleenex and take some more Dayquil…

Podcasting gives Weblogs a voice

Well, thanks to Ruth Meers at podcast.net, yours truly was interviewed briefly by Matthew Fordahl, an AP Tech reporter. The article is a fairly typical one giving a reasonable but not very exciting view of the history and scope of existing podcasting effort. But from my vantage point, it includes one major advantage: it has quotes from me!

Some podcasters still see podcasting as just a fun hobby. Mark VandeWettering, a Pixar Animation Studios technical director, podcasts from his El Sobrante, Calif., home on a range of subjects, including fatherhood, baseball and telescope building.

“It would be great if I made a fortune doing it, but I don’t see how that could possibly happen,” he said. “I’m not really trying for it, either. I’m hoping to meet some interesting people and establish some good communications with people on weird topics.”

It’s only a pity that he failed to list the url for my blog. Oh well. I made a few mistakes in my interview. He asked me when I had done my first podcast, and I said I didn’t know exactly, but I thought I had started in October. In reality, the first podcast that I have on my system is dated September 10th, so I was at it pretty damned early, riding the wave up, but eventually being left behind as the wave breaks considerably higher than I anticipated. That’s okay. My goal was never to be first, or best, or lord knows, famous. I just wanted to do something cool.

Surprisingly, I think I’ve done that.

I really would like to thank Ruth Meers for sending him my way, and more importantly, for asking me a very simple question at Bloggercon:

So, what’s your podcast all about?

I really didn’t have a prepared answer for this seemingly obvious and basic question, and in trying to formulate one (both on the spot, and more carefully in the weeks that followed) I realized that brainwagon is really about answering the question “what is Mark VandeWettering about?” You won’t get a complete answer, because obviously there are things that I am not going to share with the millions of people on earth, but you can learn a great deal about just how much of a nut I am by reading these posts, listening to my podcasts, and trying to understand what kind of bizarre nutcase wrote them.

I hope you all enjoy it. Thanks Ruth, and thank you Matthew.

Four Minutes About Podcasting

Lisa Williams has done it again. She’s created a nice little four (closer to five, actually) minute video that will tell you all you need to know to begin to listen to podcasts. Try checking out:

Learning The Lessons of Nixon > 4 Minutes About Podcasting

Oh, and she kindly lists me in the credits! Woohoo!

Love your stuff, Lisa. Best line from the podcast:

It [podcasting] is a space suit for the toxic media atmosphere of our planet.

Awesome phrase, Lisa.

Super Bowl or Sleeper Bowl?

One thing I didn’t mention on today’s podcast was the Super Bowl. I understand it’s supposed to happen sometime today. While listening to some of the ramp up to it on the radio over the past few days, I’m beginning to realize just how pathetic a sporting event it has become. You might as well call it “Advertising Whore Day”, where the excesses of the consumerism piggy back onto an over commercialized sport in the hopes of selling beer to a nation of people who couldn’t think of anything better to do.

Think that’s harsh? Go walk around an ask your average Joe on the street who played in the last Superbowl. I honestly didn’t remember, and I watched the game. Of course, most people couldn’t tell you who played in last years World Series either (Sox and Cardinals, for those of you keeping score), so maybe that isn’t the most telling statistic. But oh, my, god. Everyone seems to remember Janet Jackson’s half-time wardrobe “malfunction”. The most important football game of the year, upstaged by Janet Jackson flashing her boob for three seconds during the halftime show.

How pathetic is that?

Let’s face it, you hear it all the time. “The game will probably be boring, but the ads should be fun.” Advertisements more fun than sports. How pathetic is that?

Don’t get me wrong: I’ll tune in to watch the game, and the ads. The game will almost certainly be boring, the ads promise to be “tamer” than last year in the mad attempt to appease those states where bills against gay marriage passed in the last election, and nevertheless people will get drunk and in one or more cities tonight, someone will torch cars and people will die so that we can watch advertisements.

At least it is an excuse to make some spicy wings.

Lest anyone think I’m being unfair to football in deference to my preferred sport of baseball, the only reason I think baseball suffers from this less is that the entire season boils down to not just one game, but the best of seven. That keeps them from piling all their advertising tackiness into one basket.

And, of course, most people seem to think baseball is less exciting. But most people think digital watches are a really good idea, so there you are. 🙂

Oh, by the way, Happy Birthday Yasmine!

Brainwagon Radio: Dell Axim x50v, iPod shuffle, and the Soweto Gospel Choir

Where your host wakes up early and knocks out another podcast, even while suffering through an at-times painful head cold. Hope the sound of nasal drip didn’t offend.

Links from the show:

  • My new PDA is a Dell Axim x50v. 802.11, Bluetooth, VGA resolution screen, both SD and CompactFlash slots, lots to love!
  • Got a good scoop on sale prices for the PDA from techbargains.com.
  • I picked up Microsoft Streets and Trips, which includes PC, PocketPC and Smartphone versions of their mapping software. Seems to work really well!
  • I’m having difficulty with the iPod shuffle I bought for my wife yesterday. Back to the Apple Store later today to get it worked out.
  • Music today was from NPR : Soweto Gospel Choir: ‘Voices from Heaven’ I really love this kind of music, even though admittedly I know nothing about it. 🙂

Addendum: I believe by my at times unreliable count that this was podcast number fifty! Thanks to all who have patiently listened to my drivel.

IPOD-Photo Stereoscope

Oh good lord! IPOD-Photo Stereoscope

Addendum: Kind of timely, after looking at all these old stereograms on the Library of Congress Website. Paul Bourke has a really cool website in general, with many good things to stare at, and has a nice page explaining the math behind stereoscopic imaging (which is in itself, rather interesting).

Pyramids, In Stereo

Historic Photo of Giza PyramidsI must admit to a certain fascination with ancient Egypt, so it was kind of cool to note that the Library of Congress has a number of nice photographs in their collection for download, including stereo pictures like this one. A dab of the Gimp, and you can repair some of the minor tears and clean up the background so it looks nice on your webpage. Fun stuff. The Gimp is worth learning.

Greetings World Travelers!

Where do you all come from?As I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve begun to use statcounter.com to help figure out various statistics about people who visit my blog. It’s somewhat fascinating to realize that less than half of my visitors come from the United States. Look at the pie chart on the right which shows the nationality of the last 100 visitors to brainwagon. The Internet (and apparently my own appeal) is somewhat more broadbased than I might have imagined.

And of course, the search terms that people use to find brainwagon are equally as varied, the last 36 queries are somewhat representative:

  • hacking linksys router rt31p2
  • daily show dr. baugh
  • hand shadows pictures
  • man powered helicopter
  • build a smoker from a trash can
  • the painting from the dodgeball movie
  • pvc flamethrower
  • simple telnetd
  • boots of escaping file quality
  • treo podcast
  • autochrome world war 2
  • gadget silly
  • through-wall surveillance
  • ark of the covenent
  • drivers aiptek dv 4500
  • scheme compiler
  • mythtv freebsd
  • squarpent
  • harold yahoo.com harold
  • cg podcast
  • configure thttpd
  • mindstorms balance
  • hipster pda
  • recording podcasts on windows
  • earthquake 9-12-2003
  • aiptek dv4500 poor
  • pongmechanik
  • doom3 hints
  • autochrome color war
  • origami crane eps
  • tablespoon individual lists of usa 2005 @yahoo.com
  • sillyusb devices
  • weight watcher points joes crab shack
  • os-tan john
  • 3d tour chernobyl
  • audio 101

I’m obviously a nut.

InformationWeek on The Weblog Question > January 31, 2005

Information Week is running an article on weblogging and the workplace. It seems mostly common sense to me. For instance:

Forrester Research advises companies to provide guidelines not only for company-sanctioned Weblogs, but also for employees who do them on their own time. The IT research firm even recommends that managers occasionally view the personal Weblogs of subordinates to see what they’re saying. “Respecting existing confidentiality agreements and companies’ secrets is a no-brainer–and not doing so should clearly be grounds for firing,” Li wrote.

Well, duh. I’m sure that many people would like to hear about the inner workings of the place where I work, but since I’m not certain exactly what the boundaries would be, it’s simpler (and frankly, more fun for me) just to not blog about work related issues.

The article goes on to discuss the copyright issues and the problems that RSS syndication create, unfortunately without shedding any real light. Still, interesting to read for anyone working on blogs…

Sushi Prepared on a Printer

I’m about as much of a technology geek as you can imagine, but when I read the Slashdot headline Sushi Prepared on a Printer I must admit, my inner geek packed it’s bags and ran away, leaving the inner gourmand to merely shake his head.

You see, I have a philosophy about food. Take good fresh ingredients, do as little as humanly possible to them, and serve them in a basic, straightforward way. Sushi is close to the apex of this basic philosophy. Rice. Vinegar. Fish. Soy. Wasabi. What could be wrong with that?

Sushi is all about the important stuff. The size. The cut. The texture. The aroma. The freshness. The combinations. Whenever I get an assortment of Nigiri, it’s always about “which fish is the freshest”. Here in California, we often get good salmon (sake). Not the stuff that’s been lightly smoked, but real fresh salmon. Most of the time it beats the maguro, but maguro is nice too, and if you are in a high class place, can be better. I also am a fan of hamachi. There is a place I frequent that makes good negihama rolls, which are maki with hamachi and green onion. The combination is one of my favorites. I also rather like Ebisu’s saba and ginger maki.

Sushi can, of course, be obsessive and extravagant, but I tend not to go to those places. To me, it’s all about the basics. Fish. Rice. Soy. Wasabi. Tea.

Mr. Cantu believes that restaurant-goers, particularly diners who are willing to spend $240 per person for a meal (the cost of a 20-course tasting menu with wine at Moto) are often disappointed by conventional dining experiences. “They’re sick and tired of steak and eggs,” he said. “They’re tired of just going to a restaurant, having food placed on the table, having it cleared, and there’s no more mental input into it other than the basic needs of a caveman, just eat and nourish.”

At Moto, he said, “there’s so much more we can do.”

Frankly, I just want my caveman needs met.

InformationWeek Weblog

“If you’re getting into open source because you see it as a career path, you’re doing something wrong.” It’s not that Linux creator Linus Torvalds thinks open-source programmers should work for peanuts (he doesn’t), but rather that they should be properly motivated. Call it software with a soul, if you like. Only the truly passionate need apply.

InformationWeek Weblog

As I type this there are 41 comments, and it seems like I disagree with all of them.

Perhaps the subject of a future podcast.

Copyright the Eiffel Tower?

Contraband Image!Over at BoingBoing, David Pescowitz noted that taking pictures of the Eiffel Tower at night is now illegal, as the gents who installed the new stylish lighting system copyrighted the design, and will charge a license fee for any image of it taken after dark.

I think to myself, “that can’t be true”, but sure enough, if you go to The Eiffel Tower FAQ, you are treated to this explanation:

Q : Is the publishing of a photo of the Eiffel Tower permitted?

A : There are no restrictions on publishing a picture of the Tower by day. Photos taken at night when the lights are aglow are subjected to copyright laws, and fees for the right to publish must be paid to the SNTE.

Wow. Amazing. And contrary to what I know of copyright law. Consulting my usual tome that guides me in such situations (Fishman’s The Public Domain), it asserts that copyrights do not protect any building constructed before Dec. 1, 1990. This means that unless a building is trademarked (a separate issue entirely), anyone is allowed to draw or photograph the building, and indeed, construct a replica from such photographs.

But the plot thickens: this applies only to buildings, which is loosely described as “structures that are habitable by humans and intended to be both permanent or stationary”. In particular, things not destined for human occupation aren’t covered. These are covered as “works of sculpture”, and different rules apply to them. Different, and more difficult to parse rules.

Screw ’em, I say. Come sue me.