Geek Factor : This One Goes To 11

Although I try and curtail an overabundance of 'pure geek fodder' on this website, this interview between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates is not only a wonderful look back at the evolution of the industry, but it's frickin' hilarious. Seriously, these guys are having a great time talking about their history, competition, marketing and more. If you're even the slightest bit of a geek, this will be worth watching. And if you're heavily tapped into the industry and, like myself and many of my friends, you've actually lived through much of this, it's priceless.



A great quote from Gates about Job's return to power at Apple:

I was calling Gil Amelio on weekends and trying to get things moving. And then one day, Steve called me and said, ‘Don’t worry about those Amelio negotiations anymore.

VIDEO: Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Together

Bidders Remorse

I really have only myself to blame, at least initially, for getting into this situation. But I do have the seller to blame, heavily, for a pretty galling lack of integrity and honor. Now, due to the combination of my own folly and, sadly, my trust in my fellow man combined with somebody who's ethics are not quite fully developed, I'm stuck with the unsavory experience of being put into a losing situation.



And I'm extremely bothered by it.



This started because I simply want to write more often, and I want writing to be more 'fluidly'. The way things typically go, my writing is done in moderate bursts throughout a day, jotting down a paragraph or two here and there, and at some point, getting it formatted and posted. Yet when I set about wanting to dedicate time to writing, I'm all too easily distracted by an incoming email, a chat, or a link that leads me to a link that leads me to a link, and so on.

My eMate was a trusty writing tool for many years, serving me well on many an occasion, but its battery life has dramatically shortened, and getting data off still remains a recurring issue. It's just not an easy enough process to justify its use. So I decided to seek out a replacement and I found the Dana Wireless by Alphasmart. It's a great eMate replacement, runs the Palm OS, can run for 25hrs on a single charge, is easily used in direct sunlight, takes AA batteries as well as NiCad, and with the built in wireless, getting content off and onto my website just requires emailing it without connecting a single cable. Plus the focus of writing is far easier to maintain.

I sought one out on eBay and found a seller, listed locally, with a "New In Box" Dana wireless on auction. I confirmed that they'd do an in-person handoff of the item and, even though used ones were going for far less, I figured it'd be worth paying a higher price for something new, unused and by association, not prone to have any issues that might accompany one banged about by a 3rd grader for a semester or two. So I bid high, and I won.

Although he wanted PayPal, I had the cash on hand and didn't want to have to mess with getting cash to the bank to cover the PayPal withdrawal.

I arranged to meet the seller at a local Jamba Juice near DeAnza College, and when I arrived I met what seemed to be a decent young man, likely it is very early 20's or latest teens. And although the outer box looked a bit worn, the unit was indeed in pristine condition and all packaging, CDs, cables, and materials were present. I was in a time crunch to pick up my daughter from preschool, and even as such, for the same reason of just trusting people, I assumed the unit was fully functional.

How wrong I turned out to be.

While waiting a min or two for my daughter to get out of her class, I attempted to turn it on and had no success. I assumed that the batteries were dead. When I got home and plugged it in, it still failed to turn on. I started kicking myself for not checking it out before handing over a significant amount of cash. My 'debugging' efforts lead to the removal of the rechargeable battery back, and the subsequent discovery that AA's worked and AC without the rechargeable battery pack in place worked, but the pack itself was toast. Inconvenient but definitely not a deal breaker, given that I found online that I could get a replacement pack for $25.

I immediately wrote to the seller to advise them that the unit was not working w/the batteries and they were dead. He conceded to cover the costs of the batteries so I started to feel better and went about exploring the new device.

But when I tried to use its wireless function, something was not right. It was not working as the manual said and I could not get a connection. I spent over an hour reconfiguring my home network, trying every possible combination of settings in both the network and the device, and could not get it to work. Then I checked the company's website and found that the issue was a known defect for products that were in the serial number series of my unit. It had a manufacturing flaw that prevented the wireless from working.

At this point I just said screw it, and wrote the seller, saying that I didn't have time to have to mess with getting this dealt with and fixed and that I simply wanted to return it, get my money back and start over elsewhere.

I heard nothing. I wrote repeatedly, over a 48 hour period, and called repeatedly as well, leaving messages to no avail. Once I threw 'refund' into the conversation, this kid went dark. He was nowhere to be found.

In parallel, I'd started calling and writing the manufacturer. The unit was build in the 2003-2004 time frame, and it was not a surprise to them that the battery was not functional. But unfortunately, even though they recognized the issue with the wireless as being a known defect, they were not budging on the fact that it was outside of warranty, and that without an original receipt/sales record for the 'legitimate' purchase of the unit, an eBay sale was not one that would be honored as a warranty claim.

That really pissed me off. I was polite but I made it very clear that I felt it was terribly unethical business practice and sent the email to as many folks at the company as I could.

The seller did eventually surface, momentarily it seems for the time being, but only when I wrote indicating that a fix was available, would cost me, but would not necessitate a full refund... and at that point he did indicate he'd pay for the repairs but that's still yet to be received and he's gone dark again for the time being.

So the lessons learned are many:

1. Always inspect whatever you get before handing over the $ and check all functions of the item.


2. Don't assume something is not working because the batteries are likely dead.


3. Always use Paypal, 'cause had I done so I could have immediately retracted the payment and not been at the seller's mercy.


4. Very, very sadly, trusting people to do the right and ethical thing will let you down. Not all the time, but sometimes. And for me, even the rare and occasional experience of being taken advantage of by another person, without the ethical or 'fellow man' considerations on their part, hurts. It hurts because it's a strike against humanity, IMHO. It hurts because it means that I have to walk around with my guard up and not be as trusting as I'd like. It means I'll have to make things complicated for myself and others when it likely need not be so. It means that everybody pays for it in the greater scheme of things.

There’s No Honor In Killing For Gods Sake

I don’t typically follow headline news stories. I know, on many levels, it’s worth doing so to stay on top of current affairs. But I also know from experience that, all too frequently, I end up disgusted and appalled at what I find going on in the world. In addition, when horrible things are done in the name of a religion, I just can’t stop shaking my head in disgust. But today, when I stumbled across the story of a the stoning to death of a 17 year old girl, I had to push back the tears.

If you’ve not seen or followed the story, there was what is called an ‘honor killing’ last month of a teenage girl in Bashiqa, Iraq. It seems that she was Kurdish, her religion is ‘Yazidi’, and she’d fallen in love with a Sunni Muslim man. Marriage outside of the faith is strictly forbidden. The girl decided to convert to Islam, told her family, and when their community learned of her plans, she hid with a local cleric for protection. Her parents allegedly begged the cleric to not surrender her to anybody. But when her uncle came to get her, telling him that the family had forgiven her, he brought her out, where she was shortly surrounded by a large crowd.

Here’s where it really turns horrific. There’s a video of this, captured on a cell phone and available online, but having read the description I’ve no interested in witnessing such an atrocity. She was kicked, punched, forced to the ground and beaten. Her father attempted to get to her but was prevented by the crowd. She was brutally beaten with increasingly larger stones and bricks, bleeding heavily and shouting for help, until her skull and spine were crushed and she lay lifeless. While the crowds cheered. And later, her killers removed her body, burned it and buried it with the remains of a dog as a sign of her worthlessness.

13 of the attackers were her cousins. Her uncle brought her to them. And they killed her for loving somebody of another faith and choosing her own beliefs.

I can’t begin to comprehend such an act. I can’t fathom that it’s even within one’s nature to take such extreme and inhumane steps. Your own family? And in the name of a religion? How, exactly, does that rationalization work? Yet how does it work that strapping on explosives and boarding a bus filled full of innocent people as an act of religious devotion make any sense either? Killing for the sake of God? For “Honor”? I just don’t get it, and I don’t understand how anybody can rationalize such behavior on any level.

This is one of those things that make me a strong believer the the world would be a much better place without such blind adherence to writings from thousands and thousands of years ago as the word of a supreme being, let alone a ‘Loving God’. You’d think that we’d have evolved along with all of the findings of science, astrology, chemistry, biology and meteorology. We know so much more today then we did when such antiquated writings and theologies were practiced, if not mandated. We’re no longer treating ailments with leeches and blood-letting, are we? We’re no longer believing that the sun revolves around the earth, even though Galileo was shunned by the church at the time for such heretical statements. We understand biological and medical conditions today that would have been deemed possession in darker times. We’ve traveled into outer-space and back, discovering incredible details of our own solar system as well as others. We’ve cured diseases that would and had wiped out millions. And we’ve unlocked the mysteries of genetic DNA. Yet somehow, there are cultures still embracing myths such as those from these faiths that somehow have earned a ‘get out of logic free’ pass.

I’m sorry but it’s just beyond understanding for me. Could you honestly, knowing what you know today, subscribe to stoning somebody for not believing in another’s faith? Could you honestly defend, as the word of God, something like this once you read it…

“If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.”

Stoning. And people call that the word of God. That’s from the Bible, by the way, not the Koran. Deuteronomy, Chapter 13. Vers 6-10. But there’s plenty of those statements in the other worlds religions, as well as those in the Bible.

Like I said.. It’s beyond my understanding as to why this things like this are still a part of a modern society.

The End Is Far

 I've come to the distinct conclusion that the end of the world, the end of days, the end of times.... "The End", will be foretold not by plague, famine, pestilence, flood and swarms of locust. No, no, it'll be something far more distinct and dramatically indisputable. The sign of the end will be the day I make a trip to the hardware store without finding, upon arrival home, that one or more of the things I bought is the wrong size, thread, caliber, fit or function. Yes, my brothers and sisters, the sign will be clear and indisputable. I'll not have to make a return trip to Home Depot or ACE to exchange a purchase

And based on my experiences of late, humanity is safe and will be for the foreseeable future.

A Greener Apple

I was pleasantly surprised last week when I stopped at the on campus café for a soda, and found new plastic cups in place of the old ones. New cups that are made from corn, and are 100% compost-able! according to the blurb on www.biodegradablestore.com…

These clear corn plastic cups are 100% Compostable. With the same look and feel as clear plastic cups, our PLA cups will completely compost under commercial composting conditions in just 45-60 days.

In addition, the plastic & styrofoam food containers have also been supplemented with eco-friendly “bagasse” a “Tree-Free alternative for making paper” that comes from sugarcane stalks and is also biodegradable.

A week or two back, Steve Jobs issued a press release detailing the environmental practices and goals of the company, and it’s refreshing to find that along with ‘the big things’ being done at the manufacturing level, we’re also looking at the little things as well. It all adds up to making me feel a hell of good deal better about working here when it comes to environmental practices.

A Shout Out To Cell Phone Users

I don’t recall exactly where I clipped this little tidbit, but I found it interesting to reflect on and wanted to pass it along here.

“People tend to talk more loudly into mobile phones than they do in person. There are several reasons for this. One reason is people subconsciously rely on hearing their own voice back to modulate their own speech volume. Mobile phones don’t send “backtalk” (a reduced volume “copy” of the person’s speech) back into the earphone. Land-based phones have done this for a long time (this is also the cause of the “echo” effect you can hear on many cordless phones). Another reason is the conversation in the phone may demand more mental processing power. This is because mobile phones sound different from normal speech due to audio data compression or analog background noise. Whatever the reason, the net effect is the person is less aware of the people around him/her.”

Global Warming? What Global Warming?

Last weekend… it was a beautiful weekend! It was toasty warm, 92 degrees, the kids were playing in the water in the back yard while mom and dad cooled down with blended margaritas on the patio. Ah….. one’s gotta love a hot summer night! But…. but wait a minute… wasn’t it May 5th? Since when did we have record breaking high temperatures of 92 in Spring? Well, one thing is for certain…. it sure can’t that fat-boy Al Gore’s “Global Warming” stuff… no sir, he’s one of them thar Demon-crats, and that whole movie and all of it’s scientifically validated and confirmed data, well that ‘taint nothing but a political stunt. The fact that we’re actually experiencing record highs and proven increases in temperatures around the globe, well that’s just a coincidence.

… For people that still scoff at the realities of Global Warming, well that sand’s gonna get too hot for you to leave your head in for much longer.

Frontline Walks a Fineline

Last week, Frontline aired a 2 night, 4 hours documentary titled “The Mormons”, a first time collaboration between themselves and “The American Experience”. I TiVo’d it, watched it and saved it to DVD. Having spent several years involved with an LDS member and investigating the background of the church beliefs and practices, I though this was a very balanced presentation that showed both “sides” of the story. And yet it left me frustrated for just that reason. Yes, they did grant equal time to the utter implausibility of the claims and historical inaccuracies, detailed the evolution and rewriting of the books over a period of many years including the altered claims and statements made along the way by the founder, Joseph Smith, and the lack of any possible genetic validity of Israeli based people being in South or North America and being the foundation for the population of the Americas. Yet even with all of this laid out, nobody walked up to any of the faithful, smacked them on the forehead with an open palm and said “Hello! WTF?”

Don’t get me wrong. I found the time I spent amongst “the brethren” to be very enlightening, and much of my own views on family values and society were greatly shaped by the people I spent time with. I went from being overly liberal and self-absorbed to having a greater consciousness and appreciation for the ideas and concepts of “Choose the Right”. And that’s not a reference to a wing. In many many ways, I owe a great deal of thanks to the friends and families I got to know at the time, and I sincerely treasure the experiences and all I gained through them. And by way of disclaimer, did I mention I’m a direct descendent of Mormon Pioneers? It’s true… my lineage goes back to Springville Utah, where great, great, great grandparents lived after their ancestors trekked from Sweden to the US and then across the Pioneer Trail. I’m of “Pioneer Stock”.

That being said, after spending so much time looking not only at the LDS church, but at religion on the whole, I walked away with such a serious degree of distain for the concept behind their refusing to consider them might be wrong when presented with substantial evidence that blows gapping holes in their belief systems. After all, it was expected of me that’d I’d read the book of Mormon, pray and consider their church to be true. Yet they were certainly not open to considering the same in return, even when I pointed out all the numerous reasons it was clearly based on myth, and nothing factual or divine.

I’ll save that and some other observations for another day… and if you want to see a less balanced take on Mormonism, check out this South Park episode. If nothing else, it’s worth it for the musical soundtrack. It’s not available online for viewing as far as I can tell, but is available through iTunes.

I want to point out that this documentary, and numerous others, are all available online at frontline for your viewing pleasure. There are many stunning and memorable shows on such topics as the Holocaust, WalMart, Obesity, and many many other amazing topics. There’s so many to choose from you’ll have a hard time picking where to start.

Dead Man Tossing

I vividly recall a day in the late 80’s when I visited my older Brother in the hospital. He’d had blood related issues, his spleen had been removed, and things were not looking good. In fact, with some restraint, he was pretty much told he was going to die. I remember being optimistic and positive at his bedside, yet feeling violently blind-sided by the realities of the situation later that night. It was devastating. We really had nothing in common at all, except for the shared experience of bloodline and roughly 17 years of shared housing… yet it was inconceivable to imagine that he’d be gone.

He beat the odds. He’s related it to having just mentally said “hell no, I won’t go“, but after watching the platelet counts drop for a day or two, they suddenly started to rise again, and he recovered fully. You can call it mind over matter, or a mind-body connection. You can call it the power of positive thought or you can postulate on it having been a misdiagnosis. Hell, if you’re one of those that actually believe that a man named Noah once built an ark large enough to hold, and was then actually able to gather, two of every animal that ever existed, from the north to south pole and in-between, so they could be spared from a global flood used to wipe humanity off the face of the earth for an eventual re-population… call it divine intervention. But whatever the case, he survived. No, more than that, he thrived.

As I mentioned, we have nothing in common when it comes to general interests, attitudes or behaviors (although he’s unwittingly revealed his geek side, a component passed down from our tech-head father, on more than one occasion). In many ways we’d probably have nothing to say to each other at a party or social gathering, and I’d likely cross the street to avoid him when walking alone at night. But he’s been there for me, supporting me in so many ways, when I’ve needed the help that tends to define the word family. I might not agree with his politics, principles or actions, but I’d stick by him the entire way down a road I’d otherwise never travel myself. As I’ve said to my wife, I’d not give him one of my kids, but I’d give him one of my kidneys.

He’s had his share of challenges, including cutbacks in the defense industry that put him out of work, and in serious jeopardy of losing everything. He’s been on the edge of financial ruin, but like a freight train, has plowed steadily ahead, always pushing on and staying aggressively focused on his goals. If you saw him, you’d not only understand the freight train reference but you’d quickly move out of his way, which circumstances eventually did, landing him solidly on his feet again, and then some.

A few years back, they found there were some further issues and they had to open him up again. Literally… and widely, open him up. By this point he’d started competing in the Highland Games, giving him an opportunity to not only put his energy into something physical and competitive, but to publicly wear a skirt as well. Fortunately, it only took one appearance for the judges to mandate that he wear something under the kilt. And thankfully it was not an event I’d attended. In any event, they fixed him up again, stapled him back into place, and sent him home to recuperate.

And he started back into the games again. Even after being gutted like a fish, the train’s not only stayed on the track, it’s gained momentum. This week he’d been confirmed as the “Weight over the Bar” Champion in California! I’m stunned. And motivated. I want to be more like him… well, that is, in this fashion. In determination and resolution. Hell, I stub a toe and end up in traction for 2 week… this guy gets cut open and stapled from chest to belly-button and he goes on to throw the heaviest weight over the highest bar in these competitions. If you know him, hell, even if you don’t and want to say congrats, drop him an note.

I’m starting to wonder what our milkman looked like. I wonder if he was stocky, burley and boisterously obnoxious. It’d explain a great deal.

Spilled Coffee and Muscle Cars

I’ve so much to say, so many posts started but incomplete, and no time to finish them of late. I’ve been quite busy and just don’t have the time, so far, to put the final touches on some more personal and detailed posts that are stuck in limbo. For the time being, though, I’ve setup a “Passing Thoughts” category as a catch all for tidbits such as the following…

• I did it again. Spilled coffee down my shirt. ARRRGH. WTF? I guess having the sink spray over the crotch of my pants is just around the corner.

• Did that guy peeling out at the light really think he’s a man because of it? Does anybody really think a car makes them special? And do men that parade muscle cars in such a fashion actually imagine that a beautiful woman might consider him virile, as if the gas pedal was being depressed by something other than his foot? I think not.

Snakes In A Drain!

The master bathroom shower has not been draining too well, and over the last week it’s gotten progressively worse, so when the topic, as well as the waterline, came up in conversation with my wife while I was trying to get into the shower and off to work, it’d reach a point of mandatory attention. For me, at least, there’s always a rotating, shifting, wane and waxing list of things to tackle at home. I’m sure it’s the same for all of us. But some of those things just get pushed to the top, typically when they reach a point of not being able to be delayed any further. Such was the case for the drain. So having recently purchased a 14-foot plumber’s snake in a failed attempt to address the backup of the utility sink in the garage, I figured I’d give it a shot on the shower.



If a cat could grow as large as a cow, and if that cat-cow were to yack up up the biggest hair ball you could possibly imagine, It would not rival the size and density of what I snaked out of that drain this morning. This sucker was seriously larger in mass then a VHS tape. A huge, thick, wet, black, matted, extremely greasy hairball. I would expect carbon dating to place it’s origin at or around the Nixon administration. Hell, come to think of it, from one angle it kinda looked a bit like tricky Dick.



It took the entire length of the snake to reach it, snag and extract it. And once I was done, although the water appears to be draining for the time being, the water I observed still lingering in the drain after it’s removal gives me a pretty strong feeling that I only got part of it.



I’m gonna need a bigger snake.