Indestructible

There is an article in the Washington Post about new toy packaging - specifically about the fact that it may as well be made from laminated titanium for how easy it is to get the new toy out.

My new prize possession took me about 20 minutes to get out of the packaging. My tools included:

• Small set of wire cutters (1)
• Small utility knife (1)
• Needle nose pliers (1)
• Hands (2)
• Adult brain (1)
• Years of experience working with hand tools (10)

I can only pity the poor 8 year old who gets this toy for Christmas and is not allowed to play with scissors.

"Here you go billy! I bet you can't wait until you get an engineering degree at MIT so that you can reverse-engineer the packaging!"

I've seen Egyptian Pharaohs with less elaborate packaging.

-iRob

“More and more products are coming out in fiercely protective packaging designed to prevent consumers from consuming them. These days you have to open almost every consumer item by gnawing on the packaging.”

-Dave Barry

Keyboards without Keys... just 'boards'?

I love science-fictiony stuff.

One advance that I am particularly fond of is keyboards that aren't.

Modern 'qwerty' keyboards are highly reminiscent of the original alphanumeric keyboard - the typewriter. That is because the technology is directly descended from those machines which slapped lumps of metal into ribbons soaked with ink onto a piece of paper.

It is entirely possible that the keyboard I'm typing this on right now, with it's quaint 'clickey-clackey' noises and bouncy keys will soon be obsolete. I've seen several new technologies that could easily replace this in the next few years.

One involves using lasers to project a keyboard onto any flat surface. Then the unit (which is wireless, using Bluetooth) senses the motion of the user's fingers and translates this into one or several key presses. For nostalgic and feedback purposes, it also makes 'clickey-clackey' noises when a 'keypress' is sensed. This technology is now available for the low low price of 179.99 (US)

Another involves using acoustic sensors to triangulate where a surface is striked, or rubbed. It can tell the exact position any object contacts the other by the vibrations measured from several different points. Therefore a keyboard template could be laid on top of the surface, (or painted on, for that matter) and can take any possible configuration. This one is currently in development.

But it doesn't go 'Clickey-Clack', and I would miss that.

-iRob

"Where the hell is the 'Any' key?"
-Anonymous

The Web in 60 Seconds

I had a discussion with my friend recently about the pros and cons of RSS Feeds.
I only discovered these recently, and with careful guidance from others managed to get set up with my own reader account. I chose google, but there are others.

I was impressed. For anyone who doesn't know, the idea is that any page with regular updates can generate a 'feed', which is readable by a third party web page. The end result of this is that you can go to one page (your reader) and anything that is new on any of your feeds gets displayed all at once.

The plus side of this is that instead of having twenty regular pages to check, I have one. Anything new is right at my fingertips.

The downside is that I have the entire internet in 60 seconds a day. The internet hit 100 million sites this week (estimated 1.1% porn, btw) and it has never seemed smaller. Now that it is brought to me, I don't search, I don't follow links, and I don't explore. It's almost too convenient.

However as with all convenient devils, this one is by far too useful to discard. I can also view my account on my phone, which means that when I get home there is nothing new waiting that I haven't seen.

Oh well. Here's what is on my subscription list:

• Good Ol' Rae
• Laughing Magpie
• Slashboing
• Shaav
• Wearing a face that she keeps in a jar by the door
• The Dilbert Blog
  
• Alien Loves Predator
• Ctrl+Alt+Del
• Diesel Sweeties
• Least I Could Do
• Penny Arcade
• PvP Online
• Scary Go Round
• VG Cats
  
• CNN.com
• The Onion
• ThinkGeek - What's New
• SlashDot
  

So what's in yours?

-iRob

P.S. - Everyone can relax - I got one. (Squee!)

The Big Guy

Oh by the way:

The namesake of my company was in town today. All 1300 employees were gathered into a (semi) heated tent at the back of the building where he gave a presentation and told us a bit about himself.

One interesting thing is that he plays WOW. Then I think he talked for a while about a summer house he is building using bundles of money instead of bricks, but to be fair I wasn't really listening.

-iRob

"Megatron must be stopped..."

"...no matter the cost."

Holy $#!%.

I have a need. I say need, because I know it's not a want. 'Wants' are optional. This may not be.

It's the new 20th Anniversary DVD Edition Optimus Prime Figure, and it is in the 7 tera-awesome range. I cannot not own this.

It is about 14 glorious inches tall made largely of die-cast steel. It is authentically detailed with details from the cartoon both in vehicle and robot mode, and it has his original gun. He also has a freaking MEGATRON GUN TO SCALE. It has an AUTOBOT MATRIX OF LEADERSHIP that fits into a GLOWING CAVITY IN IT'S CHEST.

And IT TALKS. (I can't breathe.)

The bad - It is currently on sale for 80 dollars, until the end of the month. (!!!) That's the most I've ever spent on a toy in recent memory. It's a 'limited edition' meaning it will soon be impossible to find. The Toys 'R Us near me has 2 in stock. Everywhere else is sold out. In 3 days there won't be any in this city.

However - I passed up a chance to buy the G1 re-release a few years ago, and now they are impossible to find. (I've been kicking myself ever since.) It is the ONE transformer character I ever wanted as a child that I could not afford, and my parents wouldn't buy for me. But I can't really justify paying this much for any toy.

Or can I? My car is finally paid for and I have some money saved - but not very much. It is less than I've paid for Battlestar Galactica DVD's, and in my mind much cooler. But it's eighty freaking dollars.

FOR PETE'S SAKE - SOMEONE TELL ME TO BUY THIS ALREADY! ARGH!

-iRob

"Now all we need is a little energon, and a lot of luck"
-Optimus Prime

BlogWorthy(tm)

A very good friend, who is the daughter of another very good friend, knit me something.

It keeps my iPod safe and cozy. And since it didn't quite fit perfectly, she made me another one.

I feel very spoiled.

iRob

“We cannot do great things on this Earth, only small things with great love.”
-Mother Teresa

00100101

C:\DOS

C:\DOS\RUN

RUN\DOS\RUN

(Hahahaha!)

-iRob

"Foolproof systems don't take into account the ingenuity of fools."
-Gene Brown

"I can't see a thing in this helmet!"

Ever wonder why that squadron of Stormtroopers couldn't hit Luke as he stood dumbfounded 10 feet in front of them, in front of the Millennium Falcon on the death star?

Now you know.

"TK-421 - Why aren't you at your post?"

Technical difficulties

I love being a geek.

My email has been flaky lately. It's not enough to really bug me, but I emailed Shaw for the heck of it. They determined that the problem was probably to complex to handle over email, so they gave me a ring. Here is how it went:

"Hi, it's Shawn from Shaw Technical Support. I'd like to try a few things to narrow down the problem, if you don't mind."

"Sure Shawn, no problem. Although to save time, I've tried a few things already if you'd like to hear about them."

"OK Great - You mind telling me what you've done?"

"Sure thing. Well, first, I have 4 POP3 accounts on my client, three from you and one from Telus. I'm only having a problem with the Shaw ones, the Telus is fine. I tried both the default and the Edmonton specific SMTP server settings, and I've left the port at the default 110. I've tried two clients (Mozilla Thunderbird and Outlook Express) and the results are the same, however with Outlook it alternates between an '0x800CCC90 timeout error and a non-responsive server error, leading me to believe that it is a problem with your server, or the proxy you've assigned me. I've also tried on two different machines, and I've tried bypassing the router and connecting directly to the modem, ruling out NIC card issues or software. I'm pretty sure it's your server at this point. But we can try anything you like if I missed anything."

"Uh.. yeah.. Can you hang on? (hold music) Yeah, um.. O.K. then - you've certainly covered everything I was going to try at this point.. um. I'll put in a server request and let the guys in maintenance take a look at it, O.K.?"

"Thanks Shawn, that'd be great."

It's not that I didn't think he was competent, or technical, but I've been a tech support phone worker, and I know where the conversation was going. I also know where their training runs out.

Generally the job involves trying to figure out if it's something simple we can fix over the phone, or not. If not, they send out the service people who try to figure out where the big problem is. I was able to logically deduce everything they were going to ask me to do, and I didn't really feel like paying for the time it would take to do it with them on hold. (I only have a cell phone. Minutes = $)

When I troubleshot computers over the phone, my favorite calls were from techs. By this I mean true techs, not people who think they are techs.

True techs are knowledgeable, patient, and pleasant. They probably know what the problem is already, but they know that it has to be proven to my satisfaction before I am going to send them a part. They also don't want to have to fix it again, so it's worth it to actually go through the motions to ensure that it is in fact a bad hard drive, as opposed to a motherboard.

Conversations with people who think they are techs go like this:

"Hi - My hard drive is broken, send me a new one"

"Ok - No problem. However sir, to be sure, do you mind telling me what you've done so far?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, we just need to be certain before we go ahead and order that part - What have you done to ensure that the problem is with the hard drive?"

"I already told you - it's BROKEN."

"Yes sir, you said.. However-"

"Look sonny, I've been troubleshooting computers since 1925. I've got seven degrees in electro-magneto-computerism! I don't have to tell you what I've done? If I say the hard drive is broken, it's broken! Now send me a damn hard drive!"

"Sir, I do understand, however I'm afraid your warranty specifies that you must-"

"To hell with my warranty! I want to talk to your manager!!"

"Fine. (sigh) Please hold.."

I Like being a geek - I sure don't miss Tech Support.

"Modern technology Owes ecology An apology."
-Alan M. Eddison

"Clam" What-now?

A few years ago I bought something I saw just because:

1) It was the single most bizarre thing I had ever seen for sale
2) I could afford it
3) It was Duty Free

I think I was in the Chicago O'Hare international airport, but memory fails. Anyway, the item is Clam Jerky.

Turns out I was right - Still have it, it's been buried in a box for several years. By a strange coincidence, "several years" is also how long ago it past it's expiration date.

Clam jerky shouldn't expire, indeed.

-iRob

Jimmy - "Hey Blah, do you know anything about cars?" Count Blah - "I know yours is older than me, and it's leaking more fluids, blah!" - Greg the Bunny