Internationalization
I have spent more time in the past six weeks looking a LocaleIDs and Culturalization in writing a program than I ever thought I would. It’s easy to see why some people get upset when it’s not done right. There’s not much to it, but it does take planning. To start with never assume 12/12/06 is December 12, 2006. If so, your an America-centered asshole (I’m channeling all three non-American countries, Europe, Africa and Asia).
Take a look at these locales.
Portuguese (Portugal) 123.456.789,00 31-05-2006
Russian 123 456 789,00 31.05.2006
Zulu 123,456,789.00 2006/05/31
French (Canadian)* 123 456 789,00 2006-05-31
French (France)* 123 456 789,00 31/05/2006
* Knowing the language isn’t enough. You have to know the country.
My hats off to Microsoft for making this so easy to write in .Net using the CultureInfo class.
Robotic Lawn Mower
I got an idea for a robotic lawner today. It seems the only ones available are based on self propelled electric personal mowers that detect obstacles in your lawn. My idea is for a commercial riding mower guided by a local positioning system. A laptop triangulates a stationary radio source and the moving mower remotely controls where the lawn mower goes. Someone must program the route, by mowing the lawn first and the computer records the position of the mower and the “plays” that back to mow the lawn. Of course bump, range sensors, and a variety of other bells and whistles are needed to keep from running over the flower bed.
There is nothing like this in production. The goal would be to reduce the personnel necessary from two to one person. Someone who runs the weed eater while the mower does the large part of the lawn. Preferrably, large lawns like golf courses, apartments, etc.
It should be an add-on or slight modification to most riding lawn mowers. After all, someone has to ride the course once at least. A laptop computer could be the controller for the prototype, but would probably be too expensive ~$600 for production. There is lots of room in the software for improvements, like changing the route in the computer due to changes in the landscape. Barriers to the radio waves may be a problem. Multiple radio sources could improve accuracy. The GPS system is a good example, but it’s not accurate to within inches that you would want for a lawn.
Fat Caused by Bacteria in Your Colon
The bug works by removing waste products released by other microbes. By clearing the waste products, it helps other gut bacteria to digest some of the more fibrous components of food and turn them into calories and other materials which can lead to weight gain.
Without the M smithii bug, waste accumulates and blocks the activity of other gut bacteria, inhibiting the absorption of calories. — Scotsman
And
The Boston Globe
Christopher’s Photos Uploaded
I was at Christopher’s this weekend and I copied his photos, all of them, and they’ve just been uploaded. The categories are below. there were several things I didn’t take pictures of. Like Heather’s visit to Mom and my birthday party.
Mom’s Christmas
Chris Photos 12/29
Chris Photos 12/31
Chris Photos 02/26
Chris Photos 05/07
Heather Visits Mom
Stephen’s Birthday
Debbie and Don Visit Amarillo
What I do when I miss a TV Show
Last night I got caught up in something else and didn’t notice the the TiVo had prioritized Desperate Housewives over Survivor, the season finale (Who’s gona win?). A similar situation happened about a month ago when ER was mismarked as a rerun when it was a new episode. These things are extremely annoying, but what do ya do? Wait for the rerun, oh that’s right Survivor doesn’t rerun and ER may take months. Here’s another one. There was a National Geographic channel show about the Gospel of Judas I wanted so see. It’s not worth the trouble ordering a channel for one episode of one show. Oh wait, you can’t order one channel you have to order 20, in a pack.
Increasingly, I’ve taken to the internet for TV shows. The ones I miss or the ones I can’t get. The quality isn’t as good as TV or DVD and you might have to wait a couple of days and it’s pretty spotty about whether you can it watch on TV(through TiVo). On the plus side, it’s free and it’s the only way.
The way it works is a little involved. Using TiVo, the method is find the show, download the show, wait, wait, convert to TiVo, upload to TiVo, and watch the show. You need a couple of programs Azureus and Videora. The website I use the most is the Pirate Bay. They are in a country that refuses to prosecute them for copyright violation. Find a show you want. TV shows are usually number according to season and episode. For example E1205 or 12E05 is season 12 episode 5.
The file that downloads is tiny, set Azureus as the default to open this kind of file. Azureus will come up and ask where to save the download. Then it starts. Many people have the file and each one will send a piece to your computer and you will send pieces to them. Out of politeness, you should keep Azureus running even after you get your file. I share the file at least once, before deleting it.
Open Videora and Convert the file with One-Click Transcode. TiVo uses a wierd video format and several people came together to write this program for free to load internet files into TiVo. After the transcoding, this may take several minutes or a few hours. One note here is that multi-core processors like the X2 or Core Duo make this go much faster than old ones. Then go to TiVo and watch the file from your computer on TiVo. It will be copied to TiVo, but as usual you can watch it while it transfers. Not every show is convertable. If a 20 minute show takes 1 second, somethings wrong. Also, the video/audio can be out of sync when it plays or the video may be squashed flat or thin.
Give it a try. If you want more instructions I can make some.
Drug Sniffing Dogs Trained to Find DVDs
I couldn’t believe this story about the Motion Picture association training dogs to find DVDs at FedEx. All the the name of stopping piracy. Could these dogs have been trained for something more important like drugs, search and rescue, cancer, etc. Really, how paranoid can the MPAA be?
It’s a good thing for the dogs that NetFlix uses the Post Office and not FedEx.
Meditation Increases Brain Size
PhysOrg.com
http://www.physorg.com/news10312.html
Harvard University Gazette
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/daily/2006/01/23-meditation.html