Musings

Hail, hail…. Excitement surrounded us today…. (Since there’s no scale, those are roughly marble-sized, or musket-ball sized.)

Today’s the day for early deciders to plunk down their credit cards and order a TD—stands for “that device,” my now-lame attempt at avoiding a problematic Apple product name (shhhh—iPad). Apparently, Apple had so many orders that briefly it became our country’s third largest company, on the basis of market capitalization (after Exxon & The Empire of Bill Gates).

Okay, yes, we plunked!

Posted at 5:14 PM | Comments Off on True Friday excitement

Sometime between yesterday and the day before, the Lumix took ill. No damage-inducing activity. No excess cold. It was just sitting on a shelf.

I’m sure the manufacturer would never believe us, though.

The Guru checked the internet, and other people report similar event-free damage.

Perhaps still amped up from replacing the hard drive in my Mac last year, I think he’s pondering fixing this, based on info he found, yes, on the internet.

Yes, the camera takes pictures just fine. The playback’s what’s compromised (the screen).

Pretty isn’t it?

Posted at 7:05 PM | 2 Comments »

These boxes contain pieces of very light melamine foam*. (I assume this is the same melamine that the Chinese were using to fool the protein tests for baby formula. This form is way different, however.)

The brand name stuff always seems pretty darned pricey to me, so I gladly nab a box of the house-brand.

Anyway, with a few drops of water these foam blocks will remove finger sludge from your keyboard (yes, your laptop will look “like new”), soap film from your shower glass, marks from painted baseboards, and the like. Without marring the surface. Like magic!

So, if you didn’t know about what a marvelous cleaning helper melamine foam is, now you do!

* Apparently, it’s a formaldehyde-melamine-sodium bisulfite copolymer. Say that three times, fast!

Posted at 4:05 PM | Comments Off on Quotidian mundanity

This round window is high on the center section of the back side of the Ashantilly plantation house. The back side looks inland. The main entrance faces the marsh to the east.

Although I sat in a meeting all day, our hosts treated us like royalty and our setting was stunning—both of which took some of the pain away (plus, we had a productive meeting). We met in the library at Ashantilly, a plantation house north of Darien. It’s now operated by a enthusiastic team of volunteers, who have their work cut out for them—take their next big project: fixing the roof. Follow this link to get some of idea of how much roof there is, and of how many sections it has….

BTW, below the framing here is what is called tabby, which is made from a mixture of oyster shell, lime (made from roasting oyster shell), sand, and water, which is poured into forms and cured, much like concrete.

I cannot let this day pass into history without mentioning that the fine people who operate Ashantilly fed us three meals this day—all super-yummy!—including an evening oyster roast and shrimp boil. Convivial. Tasty. The best!

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Ashantilly adventure

With our own eyeballs, we could check the aftermath of the snowstorm that came through Kentucky and Tennessee the other day/night. I guess the deepest snow was along this stretch. Thankfully (and as we’d hoped), the Interstate was clean, clear, and dry, although sometimes the side streets were white with compacted snow.

We left Richmond (Kentucky) at 8am, eyeing the snow-crystals glinting on the trees and shrubs. Of course, as the sun brightened and the temps rose, that decoration melted/evaporated.

This was the pretty kind of winter, which we especially enjoyed through our somewhat smeared windows at seventy-ish miles per, without cold penetrating hands, feet, or noses.

Two things we did en route: 1) listened to July Flame, Laura Veirs’s new album, and 2) JCB tutored me in why the TD (JCB says the initials I propose stand for “tablet device” not “that device”) is a breakthrough—it is more multipurpose than prior machines that kept the machine from being between you the user and accomplishing what you wanted (you don’t need to know crap about printer drivers any more, I’m lead to believe).* We both decided, however, that we really want to hold/use it, before making final judgment.

* Kirk says it better than I…. Even Nobelist Paul Krugman is thinking about how the TD fits into his personal techological pantheon….

Posted at 4:48 PM | Comments Off on Sparkling snow

Technology blipped in and out of our consciousness today.

This was the earliest appearance, what The Botanist calls the Optimistic Thermometer, because The Guru installed it in a south window, and it would return figures far exceeding the actual air temps because it was basking in a wee bit of solar gain. Now, however, the instrument is installed in a shady east window, so its optimism is entirely muted.

As to the title, RDC is explained here…. I’m sure there are plenty of other remote data concentrators out there, but I am referring to the one that was in Ann Arbor (or nearby) some time back, in a location commonly referred to as the snake pit. (Which should be enough to get you to click on the link if you haven’t already!)

And, GNDN, you may ask? Click here if you don’t know…then muck around in your basement or somewhere and find an appropriate place to label thusly….

Posted at 8:45 PM | Comments Off on Five-point-four and RDC and GNDN

I have to say, the name is an appalling choice. They could chosen several much better names. I’m not even going to say/type it.

Me, I’m calling it TD, for “That Device” and pronounced Teddy.

I was so put off by the name, I haven’t paid attention to the details, but what it sounds like is an oversized iTouch.

On another note, kudos to the Pres for such a right-on speech. I especially like this point: y’all up in Washington on our dime, we put you there to make things better. If you’re not changing things you’re not making them better. ’Nuff said.

Posted at 8:02 PM | 1 Comment »

A neighborhood roofline with its nurse-tree….

Every once in a while we act like suburbanites, for an hour or so.

Today we did. That is, we went to the mall.

Actually, we drove around the mall to go to Fry’s, one of a chain of the largest electronics stores I’ve ever seen (and which also sells snacks and fridges).

Oh, what did we buy? Storage and management technology—that is three terabytes on two drives, one with a case and a naked one, plus a rechargeable battery charger and a little digital memory card reader (twenty-three kinds of cards!).

Yes, I believe we created a little bit of Christmas in January!

Posted at 5:36 PM | 2 Comments »

We brought the one on the left into the household (Apple replaced our old computer with this one when the CD drive in the older one failed years ago, a free upgrade we still appreciate). The one on the middle was inherited from Seattle, after being replaced by a better-functioning model (battery problems, I think). The one on the right lives a couple streets down, and is undergoing computer surgery (new operating system, and I don’t know what else), which apparently can be most easily done using the Seattle computer. Since the Seattle computer’s original owner is a real-world surgeon, this seems somehow appropriate.

What I see here are three Apples, and one pumpkin…pie.*

Also featuring the Uncle Bob Table….

Posted at 10:02 AM | 1 Comment »

Yes, today is the big two-oh. As RMJ noted this morning (thank you kindly!)….

We celebrated by, among other things, sleeping in, wandering in the ATL Botanical Garden (still with annoying noisy home page, so I provide no gratis link), checking out the sleeping plants and the Henry Moore sculptures.

Oh, and swinging by Showcase and handling the Canon EOS 7D, and, yup, deciding to bring one home! We’re still figuring out how to use it (not surprisingly). Good thing we didn’t have it on our trip, or we would have needed an array of hard drives to store all the huge, luscious images….

Posted at 5:54 PM | 2 Comments »