Archive for February, 2008

Flooring Samples

Wednesday, February 13th, 2008

I’m thinking about one of these engineered floating floors for the mediation room. Engineered floors are plywood with real wood veneer. With a thin plastic sheet for a barrier they can be placed on ground level slab floors and maintain carpet level height. Real wood floors on slab would raise the floor by at least an inch. I ordered several samples. The bamboo and pecan look nice.

I guesstimate the whole thing should take <$1200 in materials including shipping. They have a video on installing the Quick Connect flooring. It looks really easy.

The carpet comes out and the trim has to be ripped out, because it’s too low. New trim and quarter round go in to cover the expansion gap for the wood. Even plywood expands and contracts. Then I can repair the nicks in the walls and doors and repaint. It would be great to have “completely” redone room.

A raised work area for the saws needs to be constructed in the garage. I was drawing out plans today. Cutting on the ground is too hard on my back.

On some of this, I’m going too far. The house might not carry the value. Like putting a new crate motor in a beat up pickup. It is useful for learning how to do this. So, when I have my real house I can repair it as good as new.

SAI: Getting Fired At Yahoo: A Twitter Log

Wednesday, February 13th, 2008

Yahoo’s Ryan Kuder was canned today. A drag for him, but a gift for the rest of us–because he Twittered it. A new form of literature is in the making…

Y! layoffs today, I’m “impacted”. I’m heading into work to pack my desk, get my severance paperwork and hand in my badge…more to come. about 10 hours ago

On the plus side, my commute just got a lot shorter. about 10 hours ago.

Ironic that I just got my PC repaired yesterday. Won’t be needing that anymore. about 9 hours ago.

Walking around saying good bye to some great people and good friends. about 9 hours ago

Waiting for the call from HR so I can go pick up my paperwork….C’mon, c’mon! I’m busy here! Let’s get this over with. about 8 hours ago

This is a serious downer. Trying to drown it in free lattes. Which I will miss. about 8 hours ago

Thanks to everyone sending the positive tweets. I’ve got plenty of free time now so just let me know if you want to meet up for lunch. about 8 hours ago

Ugh. I have a 1GB flash drive and 2GB files to back up. That is teh suck. about 7 hours ago

Heading into my HR meeting. The room is called Lucy. Cute, eh? about 7 hours ago

Finishing meeting with HR. Need to go clear out desk now. about 6 hours ago

Dammit. I was hoping to hook up the free Flickr Pro account before I got canned. Major fail. about 6 hours ago

Taking my last walk through URLs. Remember that time we sat in that booth to review ad yields? That was great… about 6 hours ago

Lots of whispered conversations. Like people are afraid to ask who’s gone. about 4 hours ago

Dear Blackberry, What great times we had. I’ll miss you. At least until tonight when I stop on my way home and buy an iPhone. Love, Me about 4 hours ago

Oh…and my badge. He’s going to take that too. Will I be able to get a latte for the road still? about 4 hours ago

I’m going dark in a few minutes. The HR guy is on his way over to confiscate my laptop. about 4 hours ago

Last free triple non-fat latte from Beantrees. Sniff. about 3 hours ago

Signing off from Yahoo!. Fade to black… about 3 hours ago

Celebrating unemployment with a giant margarita at Chevy’s. 5 minutes ago

Getting Fired At Yahoo: A Twitter Log

Wood Floor in the Meditation Rm

Tuesday, February 12th, 2008

I researched wood flooring on concrete slab. This is generally not a good idea, unless the concrete is away from the cold/hot, wet ground. To do it effectively a couple of layers of plastic, asphalt, and 1″ plywood have to be layed. The end result is a floor that is 1.75″ to 2.25″ higher. A good height to trip on. I measured the height of the current carpet at .75″. So, even 1″ is quite a bit.

Baseboard holds the Shoe molding which covers the expansion gap of the wood. The trim has to be removed and reapplied and there’s some significant pushing and pulling to get everything to fit. And nailing into the concrete, which I don’t really like.

Engineering flooring can be layed on concrete slab with only one layer of plastic underneath. A floating floor glues each piece together and optionally to the floor. This seems like the best option unless I was going to do the whole house in wood floors and raise the bathrooms. Expensive! Not this particular house.

An engineered floor should be .75″ taller. So, carpet tall and it should look just as nice. The durability isn’t there, because it can only be refinished once or twice. I would expect at least 20 yr from it and while I’m in the house it won’t get much use. A wood floor would last an extremely long time with proper care.

I’m concerned about chemicals leaching out over time since this is an artificial construction material and I’m not sure where to look about this topic. Something will turn up.

Shoe Molding Trim in Hallway

Tuesday, February 12th, 2008

Last night I got out the chop saw, I think that’s what it’s called, and cut most of the trim for the hallway. Then I painted it again. And this morning I painted the ends again. They need more sanding and painting on the ends.

The angles are all 45 degrees, though the wood slipped on several pieces. Since, they don’t have to meet I’m not worried. There’s one 10.5′ section of wall that I have to splice 2 pieces together. The cut wasn’t too good, but I think I can fill it in, sand off, and repaint to be less noticeable.

There’s one corner to go around where the ends would be 45 each, except that old houses are never square. I haven’t figured out how to cut the appropriate angle. It’s something like 46.5 on each piece or something very slight. Just enough to show a gap and seem.

The area around the front door has many more and larger gaps than the rest of the hallway. At least 1/4″ on several and maybe a few bigger. It will take more time to fix it, but it will be worth it.

Tonight, I’ll mount several pieces and put down more wood filler. Predrill the holes, lay a bead of hot glue, and nail into place. It will be an improvement.

WTF

Tuesday, February 12th, 2008

What’s up with the site double printing all the posts!!! This used to happen rarely and now it’s all the time. Arggh! and not the pirate “Arggh”.

F: The Simple Tax Return

Tuesday, February 12th, 2008

Economist Austan Goolsbee has a $44 billion idea called the “Simple Return”:

Around two-thirds of taxpayers take only the standard deduction and do not itemize. Frequently, all of their income is solely from wages from one employer and interest income from one bank. For almost all of these people, the IRS already receives information about each of their sources of income directly from their employers and banks. The IRS then asks these same people to spend time gathering documents and filling out tax forms, or to spend money paying tax preparers to do it. In essence, these taxpayers are just copying into a tax return information that the IRS already receives independently. The Simple Return would have the IRS take the information about income directly from the employers and banks and, if the person’s tax status were simple enough, send that taxpayer a return prefilled with the information. The program would be voluntary. Anyone who preferred to fill out his own tax form, or to pay a tax preparer to do it, would just throw the Simple Return away and file his taxes the way he does now. For the millions of taxpayers who could use the Simple Return, however, filing a tax return would entail nothing more than checking the numbers, signing the return, and then either sending a check or getting a refund.


By Goolsbee’s estimates, as many as 40 percent of all Americans could be covered by the Simple Return. He reckons this could save 225 million hours of tax preparation time per year and $2 billion in spending on tax preparers.

The Simple Tax Return

What do you think?

Free SciFi Books

Tuesday, February 12th, 2008

Longstanding Science Fiction publishers Tor and Baen offer some books for free. Enjoy.

Tor Books is launching a new site and running a campaign in which they are giving away e-books (free as in beer) until the site goes live. To get in on the deal, fill out the form at their site, and each week you will receive a newsletter containing links to download a new book. from Slashdot


Baen Books is now making available — for free — a number of its titles in electronic format. We’re calling it the Baen Free Library. Anyone who wishes can read these titles online — no conditions, no strings attached. (Later we may ask for an extremely simple, name & email only, registration. ) Or, if you prefer, you can download the books in one of several formats. Again, with no conditions or strings attached. (URLs to sites which offer the readers for these format are also listed. )

The Baen Free Library

Looking for a job..

Tuesday, February 12th, 2008

It happened again last night. I’m looking for a job on Monster.com and I pick the Arizona agent. It lists every job, which is quite a list. So, I filter on Software Developer. There are some interesting items there. The longer I’m on the list the more discouraged I get. None of these are the next job. Not programming. When I was manifesting my new job I felt a physical contraction and a not-ness around the programming parameters.

Then I come to work and wish for the creativeness I was able to enjoyed with Dragnet. That has been really rare in this job and it used to be a daily occurrence.

Answering questions by replying No to certain questions and ceasing to replying to other questions is a sucky way to find something.

Global Conflicts: Palestine

Friday, February 8th, 2008

Global Conflicts: Palestine is a serious game. It was developed by Serious Games Interactive for Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows.

The player assumes the role of a freelance journalist who has just arrived in Jerusalem facing challenges. The goal is to create and get an article published for a newspaper by collecting quotes from the dialog in the game. The player can either get information by building up trust with each side or take a more confrontational approach to dig out information. In the end, the story with the most news-value will get the best exposure. The player must be careful what they submit for print, because it will affect their standings with both sides.

The game attempts to challenge the player’s beliefs and ideas about the conflict. The game has support for educational use with features like an encyclopedia, primary sources, assessment and a teacher’s manual.
from Wikipedia

BBC: Knee dynamo taps ‘people power’

Friday, February 8th, 2008

Knee dynamo taps ‘people power’

Last Updated: Thursday, 7 February 2008, 19:01 GMT
E-mail this to a friend Printable version
Knee dynamo taps ‘people power’
By Jonathan Fildes
Science and technology reporter, BBC News

Dynamo generators attached to legs while being tested on a treadmill

Bionic dynamo put through its paces in the lab

A stroll around the park may soon be enough to charge the raft of batteries needed in today’s power-hungry gadgets.

US and Canadian scientists have built a novel device that effortlessly harvests energy from human movements.

The adapted knee brace, outlined in the journal Science, can generate enough energy to power a mobile phone for 30 minutes from one minute of walking.

The first people to benefit could be amputees who are being fitted with increasingly sophisticated prosthetics.

“All of the new developments in prosthetics require large power budgets,” Dr Douglas Weber of the University of Pittsburgh, and one of the authors of the paper, told BBC News.
..

Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days

Friday, February 8th, 2008

This is a really good book. It consists of interview from many, many tech company founders like Hotmail, Apple, VisiCalc, Blogger, Firefox, Gmail,..

I was reading the story of Blogger last night. It’s inspiring. When the tech crash of 2001 hit they had to fire everyone. One of the founders was left alone, but the free service was still running. There wasn’t money to keep up with demand. They asked for donations that would go exclusively to hardware to make it faster. And they received more than they had ever spent on hardware themselves.

Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days
Jessica Livingston

NYT: Wikipedia Islam Entry Is Criticized

Friday, February 8th, 2008

If you ever wanted to see a picture of the Muslim prophet Muhammad head on over to Wikipedia. If you’re a muslim who has never gotten the chance to protest a picture of the prophet Muhammad, I know there are like 3 of you, head on over to Wikipedia.

I think that if God didn’t want something to happen he would not allow it. He is, like, GOD after all.

Way to go Wikipedia! For standing up for yourselves. Knowledge should not be constrained by religious belief systems.


..
Paul M. Cobb, who teaches Islamic history at Notre Dame, said, “Islamic teaching has traditionally discouraged representation of humans, particularly Muhammad, but that doesn’t mean it’s nonexistent.” He added, “Some of the most beautiful images in Islamic art are manuscript images of Muhammad.”

The idea of imposing a ban on all depictions of people, particularly Muhammad, dates to the 20th century, he said. With the Wikipedia entry, he added, “what you are dealing with is not medieval illustrations, you are dealing with modern media and getting a modern response.”

NYT: Wikipedia Islam Entry Is Criticized

CH: The Years of Experience Myth

Friday, February 8th, 2008

This comes from trying to treat people like computers.

If (Resume A matches Job Requirements B) Accept(); Else Reject();


This toxic, counterproductive years of experience myth has permeated the software industry for as long as I can remember. Imagine how many brilliant software engineers companies are missing out on because they are completely obsessed with finding people who match– exactly and to the letter– some highly specific laundry list of skills.

Somehow, they’ve forgetten that what software developers do best is learn. Employers should be loooking for passionate, driven, flexible self-educators who have a proven ability to code in whatever language — and serving them up interesting projects they can engage with.

It’s been shown time and time again that there is no correlation between years of experience and skill in programming. After about six to twelve months working in any particular technology stack, you either get it or you don’t. No matter how many years of “experience” another programmer has under their belt, there’s about even odds that they have no idea what they’re doing. This is why working programmers quickly learn to view their peers with a degree of world-weary skepticism. Perhaps it’s the only rational response when the disconnect between experience and skill is so pervasive in the field of software engineering.

The Years of Experience Myth

WP: Clarity Sought on Electronics Searches

Friday, February 8th, 2008

If you’re traveling out of the country backup your data, clean it up, or leave it at home. US customs officials are making copies of cell phone, laptop, and MP3 data or simply confiscating them. Because the actual line on the map that seperates countries has a real width custom’s officials working “between countries” are not subject to any laws. You just thought that line was imaginary.

I think that looking is one thing. Copy data is entirely different and requires some additional consideration. It is not theft like the MPAA/RIAA claim. It is something new.

Deleting data like a record of calls is heinous. It is destroying something and it is not the right of anyone to delete data from a device that they do not own.

Sharing a password is should also be verbotten. That is like copying a key to a lock that is not recoverable. We would not expect customs officials to be handed all the keys to all the locks permanently. Having the individual enter the logon is no different than having him/her use a key.

How a user’s website history should affect a someone’s ability to cross the border boggles my mind.


Nabila Mango, a therapist and a U.S. citizen who has lived in the country since 1965, had just flown in from Jordan last December when, she said, she was detained at customs and her cellphone was taken from her purse. Her daughter, waiting outside San Francisco International Airport, tried repeatedly to call her during the hour and a half she was questioned. But after her phone was returned, Mango saw that records of her daughter’s calls had been erased.

A few months earlier in the same airport, a tech engineer returning from a business trip to London objected when a federal agent asked him to type his password into his laptop computer. “This laptop doesn’t belong to me,” he remembers protesting. “It belongs to my company.” Eventually, he agreed to log on and stood by as the officer copied the Web sites he had visited, said the engineer, a U.S. citizen who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of calling attention to himself.

WP: Clarity Sought on Electronics Searches

LASER 128

Thursday, February 7th, 2008

Do you have a VTech cordless phone? I used to. Did you know they started in computers?

The Apple II was one of the most frequently cloned personal computer platforms of the 1980s, boasting over two dozen imitators. The VTech Laser 128 was the most popular of them all.
..
VTech followed up the Laser 128 by releasing an IBM-PC clone in the same form factor, followed by several more traditional IBM-PC 8088 and 80286-based clones. I worked at an independent computer shop during the 1988 Christmas season and vividly remember my dismay at the number of customers who chose a VTech Laser XT IBM-PC clone over a far more capable Amiga. The company eventually withdrew from the PC market in the early 1990s as fierce competition eroded their margins.
RetroThing

On old computers.com
LASER 128 / 128EX / 128EX2