The FCC is Overrated.

I don't make much money, being right out of school and such. My wife doesn't work (she's a student) and there isn't much more I can hack at, so we're in a financial straight jacket at the time.

There is much to be said about being broke. We just turned on the air conditioning today because our daughter couldn't take it anymore. She decided she wouldn't sleep through the night until we started living like modern humans. And just the other day I was given a choice between Q-tips and paper towels; we couldn't afford both. Apparently I was the decision maker, and I decided that there were more alternatives to paper towels than there were Q-tips.

There are other ways we save money, like reading books instead of going shopping (or anywhere, for that matter. Gas is friggin' expensive!) I drive from home to work and back daily, with no detours except for the occasional "pick up some cheese" request from my wife. We don't have cable TV, we don't go out to eat, and I use existing computer hardware for my projects at home to keep me busy.

This situation, as you may imagine, nearly brought me to tears as I read about the FCC's "Broadcast Flag" mandate effective July 1 this year. Apparently after that date, it will no longer be possible to purchase an HDTV tuner that allows digital recording in HD format. This means one cannot record HD shows and burn them to DVD for high-quality playback. But if one can get an HDTV tuner before the mandate, he's in luck.

It will obviously be a while before I can afford something like that (the card is about $175), and the mandate will certainly be in place before the device is in my hands. But by that time, it would be useless anyway. Why have an HD recorder if you can't record in HD? It's not like there's anything memorable on HD - the nature scenes?

Although I did see part of one game in the NCAA Final Four this year in HD. But that's me and basketball. Not worth recording.

So if anyone wants to send the dinero so I can have the HD decoder, feel free. If you want one yourself, try any popular electronics store before July 1.

Netscape's New Thing

Netscape Thursday released its latest browser, version 8.0. Within 24 hours of its release, 44 security holes were filled. Sounds pretty bad, huh?

It's actually not that bad. You see, the browser uses one of two rendering engines to display web pages - MS Internet Explorer's engine, and Mozilla Firefox's engine. Netscape leaves it up to you to choose - if a page doesn't display correctly, just try the other engine, not another browser.

Anyway, Mozilla recently updated their rendering engine, or some other parts of their browser, and Netscape forgot to include that update in the initial release. So don't go thinking Netscape hired a bunch of fools who wrote swiss cheese code. It was only a very minor oversight, albeit potentially costly. If you have downloaded the Netscape browser since yesterday morning, you're probably okay. Make sure that you have the latest by going to the help menu and selecting "About Netscape Browser." In the resulting dialog box, you will see some version information. The current version is 8.0.1.

...nobody comes to Albuquerque.

I am left wondering this morning why someone would go through that much trouble to escape a wedding. I guess since it was such a huge wedding, it called for a huge, elaborate escape.

I know of a pair of sisters I went to school with down here in Georgia, who both now live in Albuquerque, and chose so randomly. I myself lived in Albuquerque before adolescence. I enjoyed it there, as I'm sure my schoolmates do. Why would a resident talk down such a great city?

With the exception of the southern direction, Albuquerque is surrounded by mountains, and always has a beautiful sky. It's hot in the summer, and snows in the winter. It's a complete metropolis with flash floods and gang members. It hosts the most-photographed event in the world, the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. There's also a historic district where local jewelers lay out their goods on the sidewalks, peddling mainly turquoise necklaces and pendants.

That's just from my memory. I think there's a pretty good university there, too.

Just don't put one of my towns in the dirt. Even Bugs Bunny passed through Albuquerque.

I got a job!

I started this new job at a city-owned ISP, and I'm loving it. We've moved to Tifton, Georgia, and it's a pretty nice place. The city calls itself "The Friendly City." How charming.

I install cable modems for our customers and troubleshoot connectivity problems. I work right alongside a young but talented network administrator, and my boss is the primary programmer for all the systems, including the television programs. We have a great team and I am very excited. But...

Apparently I'm too good. On day five I was sent out on my own (having been in town a week) to install modems and make service calls. Next week (week three) I'll be on call. I haven't even been to orientation.

This could be a good thing, or I could fail miserably. I don't see the latter happening, but I could really screw up in these early days and paint myself as the pseudo-know-it-all. But overall I feel good about the position and I am enjoying myself. There are always things to complain about, but I don't want to get off on the wrong foot in a new place. Don't get me wrong - the people are absolutely great. But I work for a government entity. The things I want for my job aren't always the top priority of those who be.

Take for instance the car I am provided for service calls. It's a mid-90's Taurus and it came from another department. It resembles an unmarked police car in a way, and since it doesn't have a logo on it, I could very well be shot for pulling up to someone's house too fast. That's not the only thing, but it's the biggest. I have trouble approaching someone with these issues simply because I'm new. And it seems so far that I can't get anyone to lobby for me, either.

In other news, I plan to host my website, benrehberg.com at my house beginning later this year. I don't feel as though I should pay someone to host it for me in Texas when I could have it in my own house. It's not like it's a critical site like ebay. It's just mine. I'll try to keep you updated.

Relieved

I've moved to Tifton, GA, where I (beginning Monday) work at the local cable TV and Internet provider. I'm really tired from moving all day and surfing the web at an astonishingly high speed, so I'll say I'm here and good day. More later.

I Only Appear Lazy.

It's 11:30 in the morning, and I'm still drinking coffee. I was thinking of going to the driving range today, but it rained for a number of hours last night and it's still gloomy outside.

I think I have a job, but I haven't received a formal offer. I found out yesterday that I can barely afford to take the job, so I might still be unemployed. See, the job is in a city that takes me almost two hours to get to, and relocation is a necessity anyway because I have to take call once or twice a month. Problem is, I don't know how to relocate and be my family's sole provider for $15K less than my last job.

This gets me thinking about what I should have done and didn't do. I should have finished an engineering degree and stayed in Colorado. I think of reasons every day why we should have stayed. Today's reason: "There are no mosquitoes on the golf courses in Colorado." This probably isn't very accurate, but there are certainly fewer mosquitoes and other creatures on the courses there than there are here. I can't think of why Augusta is so popular other than its scenery in the fall.

So I'm making no plans for my every day, other than playing Halo (trying to finish under normal difficulty) and hitting practice balls in the yard. I'm lazy, and I really don't want to go to work, but I don't want to sit around all day, either. I've really got to get out and do something, but I must wait on people to get around to looking at my resume and qualifications. I think that's about all I can do right now.

This is still more fun than working for FLDoE.

Some things just go hand in hand.

I was driving home one day months ago and saw a great opportunity to take a picture of something amusing. I finally got around to it yesterday. Look - I know I said I'd write more, but I'm on dial-up for Christ's sake! Leave me alone!

Anyway, that picture I was talking about is of two signs placed near each other in a curious way; very amusing. I wonder if anyone else has seen it as I do.

Don't be a stranger.

Update

I have updated the booklist and the picture of Anika. Also my location, since I now have beef with the State of Florida. They don't know what they're missing.

I figured it was time.

I lost my job in February, two days before Anika was born. I haven't really taken the time to write here since.
Things are going well, though I'm still unemployed, but it's looking up. I got an interview last week and feel it was positive, but I can't be sure.
I went running today for the first time in about a month. I didn't like running today. Between running and walking, I walked more. Running tends to fatigue one's body sometimes, and today was one of those days. I'll be sore tomorrow. Remind me to make a playlist for running.
You know, I was really inspired to write when I came back from my runwalk, but now it's past midnight and I can't think of all those clever things to say. Maybe after tomorrow's session I can sit down and write something worth sending to a magazine. Then I won't need a regular job; I'll just run and write. Whatever pays the bills, right?
I need to apologize to my audience for quitting this blog. I'll make an attempt to write a whole lot more in the coming months as I become employed somewhere and return to some state of normalcy. Oh, and I'll update my "What I'm Reading" list, too. [It is hoped that there will be] more tomorrow.

Birthday

Anika Jade Rehberg was born at 2:53 AM today. She weighed 8 pounds, 2 ounces, and was 20 inches long. Beth was a superstar during the whole ordeal, which led to a cesarian section operation. Anika and Beth are doing just fine. I forgot to bring the pictures home, but I'll make another post later linking to some at my site. Busy now, more later.

What? This is still an issue?

Kerry blames defeat on Bin Laden

I realize this comes from overseas, but it's a little late to talk about this. I think we've accepted that Kerry wasn't inaugurated two Thursdays ago. What is the usefulness of this information?

Don't go thinking I'm a right-wing fascist, either. I would have liked to see Kerry win; I'm just confused as to why this even came up today.

The Daily Retort

Scott wanted some links, so here's one more. I've given him two already. Will anyone help me?

Anyway, The Daily Retort is a left-leaning blog (from what I can tell, he's pretty long-winded), and I say that because he got flamed by some dickhead who got completely retarded and off-topic as my conservative friends do whilst arguing politics, genetics, or the quality of 3M adhesives. I thought Scott would like someone to talk to since the election is over and I'm pretty much out of politics.

Actually, lately I've been blogging elsewhere. I started a new series on technology issues, and as of yet I've had to make up the issue or pull it right out of my ass just to have something to write (actually, I've been depending on the Washington Post) except for that first topic. If there's something about using a computer, or anything related to computing that really bothers you, drop by and ask, or just e-mail me.

Not to fear; I'll keep posting here when I have my Random Thoughts.

"Just Another Search Engine" (not) (from tech_pickle)

I read an article about amazon.com's new search site, A9, at the Washington Post. Just thought you should check it out. It's pretty good (enhanced by Google) because it employs various methods of searching the Internet for whatever you want - even searching inside the text of almost every book they have at amazon.

Once a search term is entered, your hits are returned for a web search, but you have more options to choose from. Here's the rundown:

• Web - as expected, web page listings as with any search engine provided by A9.com and Alexa, and enhanced by Google.
• Books - searches for your term in the texts at amazon.com.
• Images - returns a collage of images related (or not) to your search term. It seems about as accurate as AltaVista or Google image search.
• Movies - queries data from the Internet Movie Database, imdb.com. This includes movie titles and descriptions, names of directors/producers/actors, and many other things related to cinema.
• Reference - GuruNet provides quite the bottomless pit of encyclopedic information, and spits it out in every form under this reference section. Very clever, I'd say.
• Yellow Pages - this feature is what got them in the papers. They have sent some poor guys 'round the country to take pictures of businesses to list in the online phone book, and they got trigger-happy. They have taken over 20 million pictures. The listings are tailored to the address you provided when you created your account at amazon.com (assuming you've signed in). I searched for the term 'bonds' and got "Brinson Bonding Agency" in Camilla, GA, and "Bond's Septic Tank Service" in Pelham, to name a couple.
• History - I haven't figured this out yet (maybe it will take longer), but I can search my search history. Little help?
• Bookmarks - since an account is needed to use all of the features of A9, you should get one. They're free, and I trust them with my privacy. You can create bookmarks of pages you've searched and want to save if you are signed in. That way you don't have to try to remember that exact search phrase, or tell a friend on the phone "...it should be the fifteenth listing on the fourth page..." You can just show them.
• Diary - Yep, a diary. Write anything in it that you want. It's there for your notes while surfing the web. All you need is the A9 toolbar.

This is a pretty good reference tool, especially for winning bets. Where else could you find a link to Andrew Johnson's obituary right next to five different listings describing him? I highly encourage the use of this site. Thank you for your time, and please feel free to post a comment or a question. Somebody?

Update: I forgot to mention that one can initiate a search just by typing the search term after "http://a9.com/". For instance, if I wanted to search for the term "salt," I would simply type "http://a9.com/salt" and the results would load instantly, instead of waiting for the page to load to enter a search. Go now, people, and tell your friends about this wonderful information portal. Become smarter.

I Expected This. (from tech_pickle)

Microsoft to Launch Anti-Piracy Initiative (washingtonpost.com)

As soon as I figured out that they didn't employ this method with the release of XP, I wondered why. If there is such a complicated authentication process with the installation, why wouldn't there be with updates?

When I was first told about the hacked version of XP, they told me that "all you have to do is not install Service Pack 1; then it doesn't 'phone home.'" The guys said one would have trouble sharing devices over a network, too. What good is a hacked version of a powerful operating system if you can't use the cool features or "phone home" for security updates?

Anyway, I imagine someone figured out how to hack XP and make it look like a legitimate machine to run Windows Update. Apparently that won't happen anymore. It's Microsoft's product, after all. If I wrote a program for money and sold it to a person for five bucks, I wouldn't want the whole town using my program and being productive and successful, leaving me with five bucks. I'd like my part of their success. You can hate Microsoft all you want, but they actually have a great line of products and services, and chances are you're using at least one of them to read this post.

I'm not saying this post wouldn't be possible without Microsoft, but there's no denying that the pair (Bill Gates and Paul Allen) wasn't a catalyst of the PC explosion. Where was I?

Oh, yeah -> the authentication of XP (and succeeding operating systems) in order to run Windows Update successfully should be implemented this year. To find out if you have a genuine installation of Windows, click here.

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Apple Didn't Cheat on You (from tech_pickle)

I got a question yesterday from Scott about why his 20GB iPod only holds just over 18GB. Without research, I am going to try to answer this. When a hard drive is made, it is theoretically capable of holding (in close proximity to) the amount of data it is designed to capacitate. With every microprocess, however, there are bound to be errors (due to dust, material quality, processes used, etc.) in the product. When the iPod is turned on (or that hard drive is powered up and formatted), those bad spots, or bad sectors, appear and are marked as such in the drive's file allocation table (FAT). This is one reason the drive is below stated capacity.

Another reason is the file allocation table itself. The FAT (someone please let me know if I'm wrong) is the part of the hard drive that indexes every sector and keeps track of what files and directories are where on the drive. If a file is fragmented on the drive, every part of the file is kept track of in this table. This is how the computer knows how to access the file, even if it is broken up and spread about the disk. Am I getting away from the subject?

Anyway, the bigger the hard drive, the bigger this FAT has to be. That takes up a bit of space, too. My 40GB iPod actually says I have 37.1GB available. I imagine part of the space on the iPod is taken by the databases that keep track of all the song titles, photo properties, album artwork, and your notes/calendar/other stuff. This isn't accessible to the user, so it shouldn't be counted as useable space. Also, don't forget there's an operating system on the iPod itself. Mine probably takes up even more space since it's the iPod photo, which must provide tools to display the photos, and display color throughout the interface.

One more reason the capacity could be misstated: a difference in the measurement of the actual capacity. You see, a bit is the lowest unit of measurement for computer storage. A byte is made of eight bits. A kilobyte (KB), however, is not conventionally 1000 bytes; a kilobyte is actually 1024 bytes. Okay:

• byte: 8 bits


• kilobyte (KB): 1024 bytes


• megabyte (MB): 1024 KB


• gigabyte (GB): 1024 MB


• terabyte (TB): 1024 GB

I'd go over what 1024TB is, but the average consumer doesn't need to worry anyway for another ten years or so (I could be wrong about that), and this column isn't research-based.

Some manufacturers, for marketing purposes (so I've heard), measure the capacity with one kilobyte = 1000 bytes. Let's do the math: suppose you take a hard disk with a capacity of 40,000,000,000 bytes. Divide by 1,000 to get kilobytes, and you'll have 40,000,000 of them. Divide again by 1,000 and you'll have 40,000 megabytes. Now again for 40 gigabytes. There.

Now let's take the same drive and use the conventional measurement: 40,000,000,000 divided by 1024 to attain kilobytes: 39,062,500 kilobytes. Again, ~38,146 megabytes, and finally ~37.253 gigabytes. Sound familiar? Some unknown legal loophole lets them say 40 GB because that's the marketing department's hard drive measurement system, and it's easy to use. Every operating system I know of (including Windows) measures hard drive capacity in 1024-byte kilos.

Take a look here and see the small disclaimer in the footnotes: "1GB = 1 billion bytes; actual formatted capacity less."

So that's why your drive is almost never what it says. Want a way around it?

Buy two.

I'm Not Cool, But

...I'll live past most of you! My life expectancy has dramatically increased since I quit smoking:




     Is this line indented five spaces?

I've Figured it Out.

I'm not cool. That's the answer to all the shit thrown at me. All these years I was wrong about my social status; I thought I was on par with the crowds. Today, from a link at Scott's blog, I discovered that I was wrong.




Maybe I can get things done now that I know my place in life.

How am I not cool? I'm one of the coolest fuckers on the planet! I'm not racist or sexist or homophobic, I don't get in to science fiction, I'd rather play pro golf than any of those other jobs, how am I not cool?

Oh, God. This is the beginning of my demise. It's all over now...

Brain Food and Drink

Daily Drink Helps Keep Brain Sharp, Data Suggest (washingtonpost.com)

While I'm not very productive today, I thought I'd catch up on my blogging. I found this article very interesting, since I like to drink moderately. This only supports my theory that daily doses of alcohol are actually good for a person. I'm not saying that it's okay to drink constantly, but one or two a day should not be harmful.

Beer is probably not the best choice for daily use, due to its abdominal-expanding effects. I would choose something like vodka or brandy. Now we know why the wealthy in the movies always have that carafe of favorite drink on the credenza and pour a glass when they get home.

Also, I've heard for many years that tuna is "brain food." If this is so, I encourage the consumption of tuna and related fish for further brain development (the world could use a few more smart people.) The mercury content in the tuna has adverse effects, though, so maybe you should limit your tuna to twice a week.

I'm rambling. Sorry.

Today I feel...

Drowsy. Tired. Frustrated. I work for a person who has a lot of education, but has a severe lack of management skills. My "manager" wanted something three weeks ago, and I got it to her. It wasn't exactly on time, due to other problems in the office and the organization, but it got done in the shortest amount of time possible.

This project was stemmed off of another I was working on and was closely related. I was asked to replicate the process using only one different variable, which I promptly did. This took some time getting data, but I got it done, had it verified by a coworker, and sent it to my "manager". Two weeks later (last week), my "manager" sent the document back to me (via someone else) and noted a problem with it. I took it straight to her and told her that there was no problem; I just shouldn't have included that one piece of information; it wasn't relevant.

So she made up some case where it would be relevant and wanted the right answer by the end of the day. I was a big pushover and told her I'd try. I'm a good sport. For this one small change, I'd have to get more data with which I'm not familiar and use it blindly.

It took two people to decide which data was best (they've been here longer, so they should know). After thirty minutes, one of them found a nearly-two-year-old file on a CD somewhere, and said "...that should be it." Two hours later, it was time to go, and there were problems with the whole thing. This wasn't going to get done that day (Friday). My "manager" notified me and the guy helping that she couldn't wait around for us to finish, but she'd be in through the weekend and to leave it in her inbox. Two hours after that, we sent a "give up for now" letter along with the evidence of the (lack of) progress. We would have to start again the next week with other data.

Keep in mind that I wasn't given a date that she needed this stuff, or who else to talk to about it, or exactly the purpose of the analysis. I was not empowered to even make assumptions, because I didn't have the context of the project. I call myself "Internal Third-Party."

So we started late yesterday on getting new data from a more reliable source, and started over. Apparently, my "manager" needed this data on that day, and wasn't in the office. We looked very closely at this new data today and deemed it fit. I completed the analysis, took it to my "manager" and got a "...and you were aware that I needed this last week?"

"Yes," I replied, but I didn't tell her that she held the "wrong" shit for two weeks, when I could have got the whole thing sorted for her well before she "needed" it.

This is horrible. I hate that "manager." She's probably a good person, but she's a (what's the opposite of fantastic?) communicator. I know she expects a lot from me, but I don't see that as a burden until she makes me look like an asshole. Then it's a lot. I would love to do my work and have immediate responses to it so I can be a better analyst. I'd love a job where I can be creative and feel free to ask questions without getting shot down.

I see that this has become my outlet. I didn't want it that way, but you're reading, aren't you? I recently thought about writing on technology here, but I haven't had the time to read anything interesting. I promise I'll get 'round to it. After I read all those books, buy a house, get a baby, and settle down a bit. Then I'll keep you more informed.