Pull My eFinger

The Best App On My Cell Phone

2010-02-24 00:07:12 GMT

The best app on my cell phone is definitely Pandora. As compared to satellite radio or - shudder - traditional broadcast radio, it's like the difference between email and the postal service. Fundamentally, they serve the same purpose, but there's a huge chasm between the two. At some point some years from now everybody will use Pandora or a similar service and broadcast radio will die.

Pretty much every song Pandora feeds to my phone belongs to a handful of bands.

dredg
Deftones
Muse
Tool
A Perfect Circle

Pandora gives me a random sample of all the songs from all the albums from each of those bands. All five of those bands are great. What's cool is before I began using Pandora, I hadn't ever heard a single song from Deftones or Muse. Which is (was) a shame because I really like them.

Every few songs, Pandora sends a song from a similar but slightly different band. If I like it, I hit the "thumbs up" button. Over a period of time, Pandora has determined my tastes to a decent degree. Certainly far, far better than even my most favorite broadcast radio station.

The coolest part about all this is most new car stereos have stereo input jacks. And most new cell phones have stereo output jacks. Thus Pandora can input music to your car's stereo. Remember how you used to have all those CDs in your car? You can forget about them now.

New Phone Number Courtesy Of Google Voice

2010-01-26 23:27:38 GMT

I registered a new phone number today. My new phone number is a Google Voice number. What's my new phone number?

234-2xx-xxxx

Where xx-xxxx is my last name, which, if you don't know me, you can easily figure out from the URL of this web site. (To avoid phone number harvesters, please do not type the complete phone number in a reply on this blog.)

If you've called my cell phone in the last year you know that cell phone service is nearly non-existent at my house. You might try my cell phone, and then end up calling my home phone when my cell drops. But now if you call my Google Voice phone number, it will ring on both my cell phone and my home phone simultaneously. Obviously, if I'm at home I'll answer the home phone. Easy for you. Easy for me.

Also what's cool is if you leave voicemail on either my Google Voice phone number or my cell phone number, it'll be automatically transcribed and then both emailed to me and texted to my cell phone.

Please note that the 234 area code is some place in Ohio. If you receive a call from Ohio, there's a chance it's me. I might also be LeBron James, but more likely it's me.

Both my cell phone number and home phone number have not changed. You may continue to use them. However, if you prefer to use my Google Voice phone number, please have at it!

The Definition Of Earth-Like For Extrasolar Planets

2009-12-16 23:14:01 GMT

It seems like each week now a science team somewhere announces the discovery of a new extrasolar planet. The most recent announcement is GJ 1214b. I think the discovery is great. But what bothers me slightly is the description of GJ 1214b. It's described as Earth-like. Even though it weighs in at a hefty 6.6 times that of Earth, and even though its radius is 2.7 times that of Earth.

As I've been reading the news of extrasolar planets over the years I've noticed various authors using the term Earth-like and sometimes also the term Earth-twin in a -- if I may be non-technical here -- in a willy-nilly fashion.

I have yet to find a formal definition for either Earth-like or Earth-twin. Yet, It seems like with all the recent discoveries and with the Kepler Mission's potential next year to announce the discovery of thousands (literally!) of extrasolar planets, it seems like we really ought to have formal, mathematical definitions.

I earnestly searched for a scientific guide on what qualifies as Earth-like or Earth-twin. The closest I've found is a PDF copy of a book written in 1964 by the RAND Corporation, Habitable Planets For Man. After taking information from that book and performing some research and analysis, I've put together my formal definitions.

First, I've expanded on the two Earth categories. I've defined four categories which I'll formally define shortly:

1. Earth-like
2. Earth-similar
3. Earth-twin
4. Earth-habitable

Second, I've defined five criteria:

A. Mass - a candidate planet must be within 50% of Earth's mass (M_E = 5.97 x 10²⁴ kg).
B. Radius - a candidate planet must be within 50% of Earth's radius (R_E = 6371 km).
C. Mean surface temperature - a candidate planet must be within 25% of Earth's mean surface temperature (T_Emst = 287 K).
D. Breathable atmosphere - a candidate planet must have a breathable atmosphere.
E. Liquid water - a candidate planet must have accessible liquid water.

The formal definitions for the four categories listed above:

1. Earth-like - meets any two of the five criteria.
2. Earth-similar - meets any three or four of the five criteria.
3. Earth-twin - meets all five of the five criteria.
4. Earth-habitable - meets at least criteria C, D, and E but not necessarily A or B.

How does my guide work for the planets we know well? Mars meets criteria B and C. Venus meets criteria A and B. Thus, both Mars and Venus are Earth-like. If at some point liquid water (criterion E) is discovered on Mars, it would then be upgraded to Earth-similar.

GJ 1214b does not meet A or B, and we don't yet know if it meets C, D, or E. Thus it is wildly premature to call it Earth-like, although we cannot yet rule out the possibility.

HSC In Santa Clara

2009-11-03 00:24:31 GMT

If you asked me to pick my favorite place of business in the Bay Area, it would have to be the ephemeral Kwik-e-Mart nay 7-11 on Shoreline Boulevard in Mountain View.

If you asked me to pick my second favorite place, before today it would have been Fry's Electronics. However, as of today I have a new second favorite. HSC in Santa Clara. I can't believe I've lived in the Bay Area for almost a decade and hadn't heard of HSC until today. Every electronics component I've ever needed, but couldn't find anywhere, I could have bought at HSC for a bargain price.

I needed a dozen BNC-RCA adapters. They've got them.

A dozen RG-59/U twist connectors? They've got those, too.

Mono 6' RCA cables? A mere $0.99 each.

And while I would categorize those electronics components as fringe (and probably unavailable) at any other electronics store, I would categorize them as mainstream (and highly available) at HSC. HSC has everything an imaginative electronics hobbyist's mind can possible imagine.

It seems the only thing they don't have is advertisement.

I could spend hours at this place.

Security System Is Up And Running!

2009-10-25 22:58:49 GMT

The last couple weekends I've been working on my home security system. As of today I've got it working pretty well. Check out this picture below. You'll notice an "intruder" walking on the sidewalk. (I won't say who the intruder might be, but I think you might know him quite well.)

What's going on behind the scenes to process that picture is fairly complex. I've got a couple of night-vision cameras mounted along the perimeter of my house. The signal, along with 12V power, is fed through Siamese RG59 cable in to the attic. Inside the attic the Siamese cable splits. The 12V line goes in to my coat closet where it meets a power distribution box. The video line tracks through the wall in to my study room where it cleanly and professionally feeds out to a six-port BNC output.

From the BNC output, I've got RCA plugs feeding the signal from the wall to a computer. The computer is running free open-source ZoneMinder software. The software can do pretty much anything, including detecting motion events and recording them for archival and later viewing. I can't say enough about ZoneMinder -- it's awesome. (And free!)

I'm not quite done with my security system yet. I've run in to a few problems that I'll have to debug. And also I want to add a few features. I want ZoneMinder to text message me if/when it detects some major event such as an intruder in the house. I also need to put a software-exposed "off" switch on it somehow so I can temporarily disable the motion sensing. (Perhaps use one of the two unused buttons on my garage door opener, I'm not sure yet.)

Ultimately I want to document everything I've done and put in online so other people can use the information. I would hate paying Brinks or any home security company a monthly fee, and I'm sure a lot of people are like me in that regard. In the meantime I'll pimp a few web sites that helped me bring it all together:

ZoneMinder -- the brains of the system
CCTV Imports -- cameras, related equipment, cheap prices
Cable Organizer -- hard-to-find AV-related equipment, not so cheap
Ubuntu Linux -- my new favorite Linux distribution

Washer And Dryer

2009-09-30 15:22:28 GMT

New as of a few minutes ago: a washer and dryer.

I'm looking forward to washing and drying the first load. Loads #2 through #10000000, probably not so much.

Note these units are not as deep as most units. The hope is we can put sliding doors on the utility room to match the other closets in the house.

Th folding door you see on the right side of the picture -- see it? -- is the most nasty-looking part of the entire house. Which should tell you how far the house has come in just one year, because if you had seen the house one year ago that folding door would have been about item 800 on the list of things needing fixing/replacing.

Another Update On The House (Trim Pieces)

2009-08-30 23:10:53 GMT

Months after the hardwood floor was completed, I've finally gotten around to installing some of the trim pieces to fill in the gaps.

In the picture sequence below I've got the wood-tile junction in the entryway. The tile is about 1/4" higher than the wood, which makes it a bit tricky. The wood floor is also a bit wavy (not level), which makes it even trickier.

I should also mention that I'm fabricating these trim pieces from scrap wood floor pieces.

Here's the before picture. No wood floor. No trim piece.

Here's the during picture. I've got 195 pounds of weights pressing down the trim pieces, trying to let the glue dry in place which will then hopefully be strong enough to keep the trim pieces in place without the weights.

And the after pictures.

Update On The House (Kitchen Pics)

2009-07-02 01:50:17 GMT

I'm way past due for an update on the house. The kitchen was finished several months ago. Here are two sets of before-and-after pictures.

Here we've removed a few feet of wall separating the kitchen from the breakfast nook. It really opens up the kitchen and makes it feel more spacious.

Would You Renounce Your US Citizenship?

2009-06-17 22:46:22 GMT

Imagine if taxes became so oppressive that you would consider permanently changing your citizenship. So oppressive that you would consider packing up and moving to a different country.

How much would it take? Just think of a percentage.

My thought is, it's not quite that simple. It's not so much the number as it is the difference in the numbers. My effective tax rate last year (before the house purchase) was somewhere north of 40%, after factoring in federal taxes, state taxes, and sales taxes. And I'm certainly not in the top tax bracket.

What if some country offered me an effective tax rate of 5%? Would that tempt me? What about yourself? Is a 35% difference in your effective tax rate enough to tempt you to renounce your United States citizenship?

Again, it's not that simple. I'd have to figure in quality of life, how often I'd be able to see my family and friends, those sorts of things. If the country offering me 5% was somewhere in the Caribbean (great weather, beaches, not too far from Texas or California), I'd seriously consider it. Somewhere near Antarctica, definitely not.

There's something else to consider. Why would a country offer a low effective tax rate for me? Well, no country would for just me. But I could imagine it happening for large groups of people. The reason is simple. For certain types of people, if they're in your country they create far more than the one job they consume. One highly educated person may, in addition to the one job they consume, create one more high-paying job, a few medium-paying jobs, and several more low-paying jobs.

In short, if a country has a high unemployment rate, it may be desirable for that country to recruit certain types of people.

Those people would tend to be highly educated engineers. The types of people who are inventive, full of ideas, and can create new industries. (I'm not necessarily describing myself, just engineers in general.)

Where could a country find groups of engineers? Technology companies would be one place. Companies like Google, Apple, and Microsoft.

I can imagine countries asking companies to offer special packages to groups of employees allowing them to relocate to their country. The idea being they'd work for the company for a while, but ultimately they'd work after hours in their garages and would invent new companies with new jobs, employing the native population with improving jobs.

U-verse And Making The Switch From Comcast

2009-06-08 01:31:36 GMT

I strongly dislike Comcast. Comcast's quality is poor. Their technicians are largely useless, and usually late. Their prices are outrageous. But for the longest time, they were the only option in my neighborhood.

However, AT&T U-verse recently moved in to my neighborhood. I jumped at the opportunity. We'll get to U-verse in a bit. Let me go on about Comcast some more.

I've written about Comcast's suckiness before. In case you would like to refresh, 1 2 3 4 5.

What's terrible is my Comcast promotional rate of $99 per month was set to expire this week. My bill would have reset to $190 per month.

So to the right is a picture of the line at the local Comcast "payment center." Comcast calls it a payment center but "cancel center" would be more appropriate. Half the people in line were canceling their Comcast service, set top box in hand.

True to Comcast form, their customer service at the payment center was lacking. As you can see, the line was literally out the door. I took the picture as I was leaving; the line was longer when I arrived.

I encourage everyone to cancel Comcast. Switch to U-verse if you can. AT&T is rolling out U-verse service as fast as they can. I became aware of their service when I received an advertisement in the mail. You can also check online.

What sort of deal did I receive from U-verse? $125 per month, plus taxes. Hundreds of channels (100 more than Comcast), 50 HD channels (25 more than Comcast), DVR programmable from the web (not available from Comcast), 6Gb down 1.5Gb up internet (same as Comcast), 4 static IP addresses (not available from Comcast), and phone (same as Comcast). Oh, and U-verse came with $250 in rebates. And friendly customer service that gave me his direct line and said "if you need help, don't schedule an appointment, just call me."