The oft-romanticized Christmas truce of 1914 has lost its final witness.  Alfred Anderson was thought to be the last living veteran of the famed yule truce when German and British soldiers sang carols, exchanged gifts and, according to some reports, played a game of soccer.

Alfred Anderson was 109 years old.

British and German soldiers fraternize - Christmas 1914

I had no idea who this man was before today, but his association with the legendary truce makes me a bit sad at his passing.

From BBC News:

Prince Charles has paid tribute to Scotland's oldest man and the country's longest serving veteran of World War I, who has died at the age of 109.

Alfred Anderson, who served with the 5th Battalion the Black Watch, died in a nursing home in Angus.

Read the full BBC article

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For those of you wanting to read a little more of the history of Christmas truces here is an very complete examination with excellent source documentation.  It is an excellent article, if slightly less romantic than the stories which come out at Christmas time.

 

Mercedes-Benz Mixed Tape 9 is out along with some other interesting news: MB is branching out from the music business into the spoken word.  Early December Mercedes will publish its first volume of text tracks for download.  Billed as "Challenging literature for mobile people, young authors read by well known voices" it should provide a bit of variety to your morning commute.  We can only hope the right type of people download these audio tracks... plenty of people in California have enough trouble driving as it is... throwing challenging literature into the mix could create a tremendous road hazard.

Mercedes-Benz text tracks, think of it as Mercedes-Benz Mixed Audio Books.

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Addendum: Small print on the back of the cover for MBMT9 indicates that volume 10 will be available on 12/13/2005 at http://www.mercedes-benz.com/mixedtape/ ... mark your calendars.

 

When Dick and Trina got married they hired a really cool photographer, Craig Merrill, who 
   a) takes great photos 
   b) isn’t satisfied with producing "more of the same"

One of the Craig's complaints is there are always a bunch of frilly, girly pictures of the bride, bride's maids and the event.  There are no "guy" pictures of the event.  So, to balance out the pretty bride's maid photos, Craig takes the groom and groom's men to downtown San Francisco and takes pictures of the guys being "cool" (yeah, getting "cool" out of a bunch of computer geeks ain't easy... he's that good).   

Check out Craig's website for more information.

Dick decided that he didn't want to limit his guy photo shoot to just him and his best man and ushers but instead invited a bunch of his friends from in town.  I was flattered to have been invited to come be part of Dick’s extra-large Rat Pack.  I think the Chairman would have understood the entourage explosion, what with inflation and all.

Seeing as Dick shared the limelight with all of us I thought it only fitting to give him a more personalized picture of the event:

Now that's a good-looking bunch of guys!

 

This is why House is the best medical show on TV... period:

click picture to watch clip or: small (4Mb) | large (11Mb)
note: if you don't see a full 55 second clip you are missing the end, try right-click->save target

There are few shows I must watch, four total, in fact.  House (aka House, M.D.) is at the top of the short list. 

Here’s the quickie background: Greg House is a cross between Dr. Hawkeye Pierce, Sherlock Holmes and that grumpy old man next door who’s always yelling at the neighborhood kids.  He loves to solve the tough, mystery illnesses but hates dealing with patients (or just about anyone else it seems).  A bitter, semi-reclusive character, House doesn’t care who he pisses off and, as a result, speaks his mind without hesitation or societal filter.  House's unedited sarcasm makes watching the show wonderfully cathartic. 

A typical episode revolves around a single patient’s mystery illness, broken up with other sub-plots and, one of my favorite parts: House doing his requisite clinic duty (see clip).  So, what’s the big deal?  Fantastic writing, a stellar cast and characters with real depth.  Plus, the hospital where they work is not on the brink of some world-destroying calamity each week like E.R. (someone please cancel that show).

The first season is out on DVD, start there... it has no commercials.

 

Does anyone else find it amusing that I have been reading "Faster" for several months now?

 

I was always at odds with myself when I was working in the Mac group at Microsoft.  The team is a great, smart bunch of people who really love the Mac platform and really want to do right by the Mac and turn out cool software.  I knew we were doing good work but there is so much zealotry in the Mac community that it took me a long time to refer to Microsoft as “we”.  If you check out comments on Omar’s blog you can see first-hand some of the quasi-religious fervor that can follow any post which is construed as anti-Apple.

Well, it’s taken me a long time but I can finally say I’m proud to be a Microsoft employee.  Having worked at Microsoft for almost nine years now I’ve come to realize the public’s view of Microsoft as a big, evil company who’s sole purpose is to crush all opposition is both not the view of the majority of the public and also just not true.  The people with whom I’ve worked are, with few exceptions, driven to excel and truly passionate about producing great software for their customers.  We are a competitive lot, but while having another company (e.g. Google or Yahoo!) producing cool e-mail software may drive me to want to out-do them I no more want to destroy Yahoo! than I would want to injure an opponent when playing soccer (besides, if Yahoo was destroyed, I’d feel really bad for Hans, Rob and Randy… they’re great people).

Seeing as it’s past 2AM and I’m on the road, having trouble sleeping without my lovely wife around... I was thinking... Being a white, American male growing up in the ‘burbs (raised Christian to boot), working on Macintosh software at MS provided me with what is probably the closest experience I’ll ever have to true racism.  And I’m know it’s nothing compared to what blacks, gays, Muslims, handicapped etc. people may face. 

So, I suppose it’s no great triumph of human will against insurmountable odds... baby steps.

 

Last night Kraft food announced they were raising prices on some of their products including Oreo cookies, Oscar Mayer lunch meats and even prices at California Pizza Kitchen.  They said the price hike is to help offset the rising cost of petroleum.

For Pete’s sake... just put less petroleum in Oreos, I’ve never been fond of the crude oil favor to begin with.

On a related note, Kraft continues to be tight-lipped about the color of Oreos:

Q: What color are Oreo's, black or brown?

A: We do not have a color assigned to the cookie portion of an OREO. Some people think the OREO is a shade of brown, while others view the color closer to black.

 

Success! 

I have finally reached the end of my CD collection... they are now all ripped.  870 (give or take) CDs are now stored on my PC.  17,501 files in 1,411 folders for a total of 270Gb.  There are 458 unique album artists covering just about every, imaginable genre.

Crap?  How do I find something now?

Windows Desktop Search to the rescue!  I use this free desktop search engine at work to quickly dig through megabytes of saved e-mails… and now I’ve also found a great use for it at home as well.

You can either type in your search (searching through e-mail, files and more) then narrow the results to just the music files by clicking the “Music” icon in the toolbar or you can use the keyword “music” when you perform the search (e.g. “Robert Plant Kind:music”).  You can even create some quick play lists by doing a search like “kind:music genre:classical”.  From the results you can select multiple files and either play them directly from search or create a play list.

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Ripping all the music was done over the period of four months and took me hours to complete, I definitely don’t want to do it twice.  All the music is ripped to a RAID array, each hard disk has an exact duplicate.  For backup advice, see my earlier post: Are you crash-safe?

 

I’ve started noticing some interlopers into the carpool lane on the way to work… Toyota Priuses with only one passenger.  What the hell?

The rules for the carpool lane as I understood them used to be:
   - The specified number of passengers (2 or 3, depending on the segment of road)
Or
   - Fewer than four wheels (2 or 3-wheeled vehicles allowed)
Or
   - Zero emissions (electric, natural gas, hydrogen, etc.)

Now, with a new bill signed into law last year, ultra-low emissions vehicles (ULEVs) are allowed into the carpool lane.  To be an ULEV the cars need to meet emissions requirements and get more than 45 miles to the gallon.  The means that now, in addition to Electric and Clean fuel vehicles, some hybrid vehicles are now allowed to use the carpool lane if they display the correct stickers. 

If you want to be able to use your green vehicle in the carpool lane in California first check to see if your car is on the approved vehicle list then complete the REG 1000 form to apply for your clean air vehicle stickers.

I have just one request... drive faster or get out of my way, it is after all my lane.

 

Pick a trip you took from, say, two years ago.  Take a look at the pictures.  Do you remember where each picture was taken?  Exactly where?  Great, do you think you'll remember that 10 years from now?  Don't worry, there's a soution (provided you don't loose all your digital pictures in both hard drive failures you're statistically likely to have between now and then).

My picture location on a satellite map?  How cool is that?

One of the nifty bits of data that can be embedded in a pcture's EXIF data is the longitude and latitude of where the picture was taken.  Adding this data to your pictures is called "geotagging" or "geocoding". While it's not hard to manually add this data to your pictures, you can also automatically add it if you have a GPS or an expensive camera.

EXIF: Exchangeable Image Format - descriptive data embedded in an image. This data is typically inserted into a JPEG image by a digital camera and contains information about the type of camera which took the picture, the shutter speed and date the picture was taken. A variety of free and commercial tools are available to allow you to view and edit EXIF data.

Okay, that sounds cool and all that... but so what?  Why can’t you just write down the information?  Imagine a slide show that walks along the path of your vacation, showing the pictures overlaid on a satellite picture of the area.   When we went hiking in Switzerland I took a GPS along and here’s an example of what Geotagging can get you: http://maps.smugmug.com/?feedType=geoAlbum&Data=859458 (look for a link to "play" in the right-hand column).  It is a large gallery (around 370 pictures) so it takes time to both load and play, be patient.  Tip: you can zoom in and out while the slideshow plays.

Manually adding a location stamp

When you add location stamps automatically (which I’ll discuss later) you’ll likely still need to adjust some of them manually, so let’s start with the process of manually adding or adjusting the geotag of a picture.  First, got get some software (don’t worry, it’s free and easy to use).  Microsoft Research, as part of their cool World Wide Media Exchange project, created a set of free tools for adding and reading tags.
First thing you need: Location Stamper.  Location Stamper requires you have the Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 installed, so I suppose that is really the first thing you need… but I digress.  Go to the WWMX download page and follow the instructions to install the .NET Framework (step 1) and WWMX Location Stamper (from step 3).  Don’t worry about any of the other software on that page at this time.
Now, let’s stamp a picture.  Launch WWMX Location Stamper and select a picture from your collection by choosing "Add Photos..." from the "Photos" menu.  You can select one or more pictures at a time, but let’s start with just one.  The picture will show in the right-hand column of the Location Stamper interface.  At the bottom of the interface is a box to perform a "Location Search"; type in the address where the picture was taken.  Since Location Stamper will search the whole world, try to be as specific as possible, separating the information with commas (for example: Street, City, State, zip or City, country).  To get the location more exact, use the plus/minus icons to zoom in and out and use the white arrows at the edge of the map to pan the map.

To add the geotag, simply drag the picture from the photo area onto the correct location in the map and drop.  A small dot will appear on the map showing you the location stamped into the picture.

 
Location stamper, with images ready to be stamped.

Automatically adding stamps

I mentioned before that you could buy a camera with a built-in GPS, but I don’t recommend them unless you have a distinct business need (e.g. you’re an insurance adjuster).  The cameras with built-in GPS are expensive and likely to become out of date very quickly.  The best route to go is to buy a GPS with a computer interface.  If you have a GPS it will work with any camera you have.  In our case we take two cameras on every trip, a large digital SLR for nice artistic shots and a little, pocket camera for convenience.  Having an external GPS allows us to stamp pictures from both cameras.

Step one: get a compatible GPS.  There are likely a number of GPS units which will work, but I can tell you for sure that the Garmin Geko 201, 301 and Foretrex 201 all work for this purpose.  The keys are: a) a GPS that can connect to your computer and b) a GPS that allows track data to be downloaded in GPX format.  If you’re going out on your own to pick a GSP unit, look for a unit that advertises the things above as well as good battery life and quick satellite acquisition (my two-year old Geko 301 eats batteries and can take forever to get a fix on its location).  The Garmin Geko 201 will run you about $120 new, the Forerunner 201 about $115.  You’ll also need a cable to connect your GPS to your computer (it’s not a standard item with most GPS units).

Step two: turn on your GPS and allow it to get its bearings.  If you’re sitting inside, next to your computer, you may have trouble getting a good signal.  Stop reading this and go outside. ;)

Step three: set your camera’s clock to be as close to the time displayed on the GPS as possible.  This is important because the location of the picture will be based on correlating the picture time to the GPS time.  Another thing to keep in mind: if you travel out of your home time zone you will need to perform some added time zone magic to get the pictures to line up correctly with the GPS data (I’ll discuss that later).

Step four: take some pictures.  With the Garmin GPS units (and with many other types as well, I suspect) you don’t really need to do anything other than turn them on.  The GPS will automatically start keeping a "breadcrumb" trail of your path over time.  This trail will stay in memory even if you turn off the GPS and take out the batteries.  You don’t need to save a track log unless you are running out of memory (in fact, it’s best if you can avoid saving track logs as the breadcrumb trail tends to be more detailed).

After you get your new (or break out your old) GPS and spend some time running around and taking pictures you’ll need to get the GPS data off the receiver and onto your computer.  The easiest way to do this with the Garmin units is to use the free GPS Track Download software from Microsoft Research (there are commercial applications, but once again, I’m cheap).  Follow the instructions on the WWMX download page to install the GPS Track Download software.

The Track Download interface is very minimal.  From the window select the type of data you want to download (I download track log and routes each time).  Next choose "download from device" from the action menu and select a location on your hard disk to save the GPX data.  You’re done with your GPS and Track Download for this session.

 
Ready to download tracks from your GPS device.

If you haven’t already, download all your new pictures from your first location-tracked photo shoot (put them in a new folder for simplicity).  Launch Location Stamper and add all the new pictures (do this by browsing to the new folder, clicking a single picture, typing ctrl-a on the keyboard to select all and then hit the "Open" button).  Next, add tracks to Location Stamper by selecting "add tracks" from the "Tracks" menu.  You’ll see lines appear on the map pane as the GPX data is read in.  Finally, click the "Apply tracks..." button at the bottom of the picture pane.

About the apply tracks options: I find the best options to use are the options to set the location but put in a tricky cases bin, always prefer existing location information and save a backup copy.
Those are the basics.  Now that you have locations coded into your pictures here are a couple of cool things to do:

• Upload your pictures to Smugmug, you'll get a "Map this" button automatically for any gallery with geotagged pictures (Flickr also supports Geotags).
• If you have a web site you can use the WWMX Travelogue Builder program to make a cool travel diary with maps attached.
• Add your pictures to the WWMX web application (the client app appears to have been hidden for some reason, but if you dig into the source of the WWMX download page you'll find it).

Some final notes

There are a couple places where things will get out of sorts when geotagging pictures:

• Starting picture taking before starting the GPS – The location stamper software will attempt to place the pictures along the route based on time and location stamps.  On one of my trips the software placed some of my pictures in the middle of the ocean because the only GPS data it had was my home in California and a location after the picture was taken... the software just guessed the picture was somewhere in between.
• Taking pictures in multiple time zones – EXIF data doesn’t contain a time zone stamp, but the GPS data does.  The Location Stamper will assume the time zone of the computer is the timezone for the pictures.  If you do what I do and set the time on the camera to local time for your trip you’ll need to adjust the time back to your local time before stamping the pictures (you can do this in Location Stamper by right-clicking a picture or group of pictures and choosing "adjust timestamp").  After you geotag the picture you can set the time back again using the same method. 
  

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Update: WWMX Location Stamper is now downloadable directly from MSR, a lot easier than digging into the source of the WWMX page for the hidden link.

 

So, I was thinking... If I were cheap enough to steal the swanky hotel hangers, I would probably consider it a reasonable investment to buy a thinner closet rod so I could use them.

 

On the way back in from taking the dog out I was bending over Nala trying to get her to sit and Paula looked up at our dove family and found them looking back at us.  The trio was looking down at the dog and me trying hard to figure what the heck was going on. 

Their curious expressions made my night.

 

Put simply: Mercedes Benz Mixed Tape 8 is out.  Get your fix of free Euro-pop and Jazz.

Too tired to blog.  Me: TV.  You: Download.

 

From high school biology I remember that blue eyes is recessive and brown eyes is dominant.  I have blue eyes… so I have two recessive blue eye genes… should I have children, that’s all I can pass on.  If my wife had brown eyes then I’d know that our children would likely have brown eyes but possibly blue.  My education was useful up to the point I married a green-eyed lady (who here is old enough to remember Sugarloaf? Raise your hand… but don’t pull anything, please).

The other day while discussing genetics and eugenics with Imran my curiosity got the better of my and I did a search for an eye color calculator.  My search turned up a very nice page which happens to be hosted by our local Tech Museum.  My question has finally been answered: 66% chance for green eyes, 33% chance for blue.  Want to know your chances?  Make sure you know your parents’ eye color, your mate’s parents’ eye color, your mate’s eye color and your eye color then go to the Tech’s eye color calculator.  Note, if you can’t remember your own eye color you’re in trouble… if you can’t remember your mate’s eye color you’re in really big trouble.

Now I now the odds for eye color... if I could just find out if they’ll inherit her good looks or my idiocy.

 

When I was a kid... aw heck, I'm still a kid.

Let me start again, when I was 9 my G.I. Joes used to "hang out" with my sister's Barbie dolls (hey, I was 9, give me a break).  I can't imagine, however, a Jesus Action Figure doing the same thing. 

Perhaps I just need to wait for the Mary Magdalene doll.

 

My DirecTV TiVo died a month or two ago so I went out and bought a new one (well… it was a shelf model but works great).  The old unit I just kept on a shelf, suspecting the problem was one of the hard drives… and since I had broken the seal and added a new hard drive warranty was out of the question.

This weekend I finally got around to taking an extra hard drive, imaging it and sticking it in the dead TiVo.  The process was not simple due to an intersection of no UNIX knowledge and aversion to reading instructions but it worked.  The DirecTiVo is back up again! 

But wait... I had the unit disconnected for over a month and DirecTV no longer recognized it.  I could tune to the help channels but couldn’t get any real channels.  Every channel has the same message, call DirecTV, extension 722.  Crap!  It was Sunday night... there was no way DirecTV employees were going to be around to help me.  <sigh> Okay, time to break down and call DirecTV, wade through thousands of voice prompts and button presses only to get a “call us Monday” message.

Thank you for calling DirecTV.  For English press 1, para Espanol ...
  <beep> 
For faster service, please use our automated phone system for paying your bills or adding services.  If you have a 3 digit code or extension displayed on your TV, please press it now, if...
  <beep><beep<beep> 
One moment while we check your configuration.  Please check your TV...

What?  I turn and look at the TV... the TiVo is reacquiring satellite data and then the picture shows up.  Freaking magical.  I dialed their automatic phone support, it recognized my caller ID, I input the code and it corrected the problem... no human required.  You see, this is the type of thing people like me in the software industry want to do, but it never quite comes out right and then you end up with things like the Comcast PVR (so Omar, can you record a new show yet without a reboot?).

 

Vegas in July, sounds like a great idea, right?  109 degrees in the shade... tourists in wife-beaters... wondering if the misters use "reclaimed" water.

Scary as it sounds we had a fab-tastic time.  We ate some great food at Delmonico Steakhouse (the waiter screwed up my order... but brought me something delicious... no harm no foul), we watched a great show, Zoomanity (the reviews were mixed on this cabaret-style twist on Cirque du Soleil but Paula and I loved it) and, above all, we had some great company.  It was a great way to spend Mike's 40th birthday.

One fun part of the trip: Dick had never been to Vegas.  Claimed he was never going to go... would have anything to do with it.  Can you guess?  He loved it.  He's going back.  In about a month.  My prediction: he'll go every weekend for a year then we'll need to perform an intervention.

Here's a picture of some of the gang walking through the Venetian... looking very much like a still from a Vegas heist movie.

What's Omar looking at you ask?  I'd wager it's his Treo™ 650 smartphone.  He's the next one who will need an intervention after Dick.

Oh, and yes, the cheese sticks were very good.

 

In the 70’s I used to listen to my dad’s Bill Cosby albums, in the 80’s I used to watch the Cosby show and in the 90’s I cringed when Bill Cosby would go on one of his inevitable moral tirades against [insert vice here].  Now, the Internet has provided me with a cathartic poke at America's favorite overbearing parent… House of Cosbys.

If you want to enjoy some well produced, animated hilarity, hop on over to channel 101 and check out the first four episodes.  You may want to hurry, however… the Cosby lawyers already have gotten wind of the show and the animators have been served with a cease and desist (and none-too-soon, the show is obviously destroying America's morality... House of Cosbys is without-a-doubt the inspiration for MTV's Jackass, NBC's Fear Factor and the perpetually disgusting Oprah Winfrey).

And now, for something completely different (yet totally related)... my short list of people who take themselves waaaaaay too seriously:
   Bill Cosby
   Bono
   Tom Cruise

 

It's been about a month since Nala's second episode of vestibulitis and she is as happy as ever.  She isn't, honestly, back to 100% though... she's not even back to 100% of where she was before the second attack (which wasn't 100% of where she was before the first attack).  Her balance is fine as long as she keeps her head up and is looking around.  She's unable, for example, to look over her shoulder at us when walking so she has to turn around to see if we're there (which usually results in us either gracefully tripping over her or hopping around her like epileptic pigmy dancers).

Every time she stumbles, slips or falls we feel terrible for her.  “Poor thing, she just doesn’t understand what’s happening.”  We feel bad... but when I think about it rationally, I honestly think Nala couldn’t be happier.  Her only complaint at this time appears to be that we’re feeding her dog food (the nerve we have to feed her anything but steak!).  Sometimes it helps me to put it all in context: she has survived being taken away from her parents without visitation rights, she had one of her legs chopped off, she was given to the humane society by her owners of eight years, she had Idiopathic Peripheral Vestibular Disease not once… but twice and yet still has managed to make it to 14 years of age.  I don't think I could manage to be as happy and pleasant as she is if all that stuff happened to me.

Yep… of all the role models out there I just hope I can live up to the example set by my dog.

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What follows can be considered reference material.  If you're looking for information on old dog vestibulitis, read on.

Here is some more information pulled off the i-dog.com forum.  This post by one of the forum’s contributing vets in 2000 gives an excellent description of the disease and diagnosis:

In reference to Cindy Ascher's friend's Labrador:  What you have described does not sound like a seizure at all, but a sudden onset of a vestibular (balance) problem, which is very common in old dogs. The classic symptoms are that side-to-side eye movement that you described (called Nystagmus) and a head tilt or tendency to walk or fall to one side. In the absence of any signs of an external ear infection which could have caused an infection in the inner ear also (this would cause similar signs), the usual diagnosis is "Old Dog Vestibulitis" of unknown cause. Occasionally a brain tumor can do this, but is much less likely. Part of the problem in communicating about and in diagnosing seizures is that what one owner has called a "seizure" may not be what the examining vet thinks of as a seizure. To us vets, a "seizure" is a convulsion, like epilepsy, where the dog is on its side, its neck and head arched backward, and virtually all the muscles spasming uncontrollably, particularly the mouth and the legs; A dog that simply can't coordinate his legs to stand up and panics because he can't, is not actually having a seizure. With vestibular signs, the dog thinks that "down" is in another direction than what gravity should be telling him. He is basically very dizzy and confused. The good news is that most cases of Old Dog Vestibulitis or Vestibular Syndrome get better very quickly with no treatment at all. The most important element is good nursing care, because they may not be able to get up to eliminate, and may not be able to get their mouth oriented properly to drink or eat, so they need assistance. I am curious to know if this is what the vet was diagnosing in Cindy's friend's dog.

Sincerely,
Lucy L. Pinkston DVM
http://www.dog.com/vet

You can also find a recent discussion on the topic in the forums here:
http://www.i-dog.com/board/messages/46/56465.html

 

Paula has been doing a fantastic job of getting healthy.  She's been exercising regularly, she's been cooking healthy and, thankfully, she's been encouraging me to eat well and exercise with her.  Yesterday was a pretty good day for me for exercise and quantity of food.  Typically I’ll have a snack or two during the day and/or have one really bad meal (e.g. hamburger, fries, soda and a milkshake) but yesterday I just had Wheaties (The Breakfast of Champions^TM), an Italian sandwich (which isn’t especially healthy but I didn’t pile chips and a soda), a small handful of GORP and finally, for dinner, Paula made whole-wheat pasta with vegetables on top (she makes it with a touch of butter, olive oil and some parmesan on top… healthy and tasty).  After dinner Paula made us go running.  To top it off, I wound up staying up late (I blame Dick, Trina and Mike) which would typically dictate a late-night-snack before going to bed, but I resisted the temptation and just went to bed with a glass of water.

All this clean living must have a payoff, right?

So here’s the thing, I was out to breakfast eating my fruit cup when I realized the chef had screwed up and there was no fruit in my fruit cups (because if one fruit cup is good, two fruit cups are better).  All I had was just the pastry containers.  I wasn’t sure if I was right in expecting fruit so I asked Ron Howard, who was having breakfast with me, if he had fruit in his pastry cup.  He confirmed it, I was missing my fruit.  Ron was extraordinarily polite about it considering I really was making a fool of myself by teasing him mercilessly in front of Kiki Dee.  I was feeling pretty silly for making fun of Ron Howard but things only got worse when the Roman centurions were unable to control the crowd after throwing gold and treasure into the audience.  As the crowd spilled over into the center of the stadium the other gladiators and I were forced to grab the ropes of the Ligers to prevent them from attacking the crowd.  I figured if I could pull hard enough on the rope while planting my feet on the animal's neck I’d be able to keep it from biting me but it was still able to squirm around and get a hold of my leg.  I compensated by sticking my foot in front of its face length-wise because I have size twelve and-a-half feet and it wouldn’t be able to open its mouth that wide.  Turns out it was very cute when it gnawed on my shoe.

I have the weirdest feakin’ dreams.  I think I’ll go make myself some breakfast… and I’m staying away from fruit cups for the foreseeable future.

 

Just about a year after her first attack of vestibulitis Nala has had another attack.  Paula was at home this time when it happened and it was nowhere near as bad as the first attack.  This time she didn't have the obvious eye twitching (horizontal nystagmus) and didn't get sick.  I took her out first thing in the morning yesterday before going to work and she showed no signs of any distress.  A few hours later, however, I received a call from Paula letting me know Nala had another episode.

Paula took Nala to the vet as a precaution and all the blood tests came back negative (as expected) but we wanted to be sure.  One test the vet performed on Nala was to roll her onto her back and check her eyes.  As soon as Nala was inverted the horizontal nystagmus presented immediately (a sign that this episode was indeed a recurrence of the "old dog vestibulitis", also called "old dog vertigo", "Idiopathic Peripheral Vestibular Disease" or simply "vestibular disease").  The vet said it's extremely rare for a dog to have multiple attacks, so I suppose we can be proud our dog is so "special".

Nala's first attack was 5/30/2004.  I'd say it took Nala a week before she was walking on her own last time, but she fell down often.  After a couple weeks she seemed pretty steady but it was a few months before she could shake her head without falling down.  Her second attack happened yesterday, 6/7/2005.

Some tips:
Get a comfortable harness for your dog that wraps around your dogs chest  Having something that can help you to lift and support your dog "luggage-style" gives the animal the ability to move around.  Physical therapy is great for dogs as well as humans.  The more the dog is able to get the sensation of walking upright the more it will be able to learn where its body should be.

To help your dog eat straddle them with your thighs holding their mid-section in place.  Nala is able to stand on her own but has trouble eating because anytime she puts her head down she looses her balance.  By standing over her I can prevent her from swaying side-to-side, allowing her to eat comfortably.  Some dogs may be defensive about their food, so be aware that being close to your pet may make them uncomfortable, you may be able to help them relax by facing the opposite direction, supporting them but have your back to their head.

The slick floors that are funny when your normal dog is chasing you are an absolute ice rink for a dog with vestibulitis.  Your dog can slip an go down very hard because they don't know which way to twist.  It's important you help the dog balance, especially in the first few days of re-learning to walk.  Putting down old towels or blankets can help your dog to keep its footing.

With the loss of the inner ear for balance your pet will be relying on muscle memory and eyesight for balance.  This means when it's dark your dog will be more off balance.  Leaving a night light on will help to stave off confusion and be sure the area you take your dog out to go to the bathroom is also well lit.  Your pet has gone from using muscles, eyesight and inner ear for balance down to just muscles and eyesight.

Make it a point to walk your dog over to the water.  You may not notice your dog periodically wander over to take a drink during the day, they get thirsty and do want to get a drink.  If they can't walk over on their own, they'll really be parched.

Finally: don't panic.  As doting "parents" Paula and I are both very protective of Nala and it pains us to see her out of sorts.  Remember that your pet is uncomfortable, but probably not in tremendous distress (esp. if they are still eating and drinking).  As our good friend Tom pointed out last night: "it looks like the tail's not broken."  Nala responded with an enthusiastic tail thumping on her bed.

 

Well, it's been a long time (10 years) with Network Solutions but I've finally gotten off my lazy butt and moved my domains over to GoDaddy.  The primary reason was to get away from paying $35 a year per domain and bring it down to closer to ten bucks a year.  A little effort to save a little money.

There will be only one casualty in the transfer: the history.  There isn't much documented in the Network Solutions registration but I always enjoyed being able to go look at the whois record for doe.com and find the registration date.  I guess I'll have to turn to this blog entry to reminisce from now on.

Doe.com - Record created on 27-Jul-1995

Along with this date I might as well record the story behind the registration.

Before working at Microsoft I had a job at a small "start up" (it wasn't starting, so the term "start up" is used loosely) named ResNova Software, Inc.  ResNova’s primary product was a BBS which, among other things, had functionality to aggregate Usenet newsgroups.  Back then there was far less garbage in the newsgroups but there was, strangely enough, a large number of posting from some “John Doe” fellow with the address john@doe.com.  Being the curious sort I decided to investigate who owned doe.com… turns out no one did.  Being the mischievous sort I decided to register it (domain names were free back then… I’m also the cheap sort).  I used to periodically check the account and respond to the occasional “are you real?” or “test” e-mail messages (and they were occasional).  The account was also useful when I was a test lead on Outlook Express and Entourage for the Macintosh, lots of spam to throw at the product.  Sadly, I can no longer play celebrity as john@doe.com is overrun with e-mail.  Surprisingly the bulk of the mail is no longer spam, it’s bounce messages from all the test mail, junk mail and virus mail purporting to be from john@doe.com.  John@doe.com can receive around 250 bounce messages per minute (my previous ISP threatened to kick me off his servers because just the mail connection attempts to john@doe.com were melting his servers, there weren’t even any accounts set up).

Today doe.com is mainly a traffic generator for my blog.  People show up randomly looking for either the U.S. Department of Energy (which used to be doe.gov but is now energy.gov but still didn't register energy.com, genius!) the Doe Fund (doe.org) and, at one time, the Canadian Department of Environment (which used to be www.doe.ca but appears to be no longer, it's moved on, it's an ex-site...*).  Just for grins I let my online life flow into the real world, my Volvo station wagon has the custom plate “doe com” (if you came here because I cut you off, I honestly apologize… it had nothing to do with you, I’m just impatient and meant no offense).

The info above covers just about everything, but it doesn’t answer the most frequently asked question: “Is Doe.com for sale?”  The answer is, “yes”, of course, everything has its price.  Each time I’m asked I sit down and seriously consider selling the domain name.  I don’t, after all, have a mail server set up, I don’t use the domain name as the identity of my web site and even the traffic it generates is nothing but a cost to me.  Why not sell?  Turns out I’m very sentimental and really don’t want to sell it, but because everything has to have a price I’ve set the price at an $3 Million to cover legal fees, taxes and, of course, pain and suffering for the loss.  I figure that amount is suitably ridiculous to drive off most all buyers and if someone does come along willing to pony up the ridiculous fee (heck, it’s a three-letter, easy to spell .com domain) I’ll take the money, give half to Uncle Sam, buy my wife something really nice and put the rest in the bank for retirement.

Oh, I'll spend a little on my car too, I need new tires for my Volvo... they don't seem to last for some reason.  Must be something wrong with the car.

* Much love and many appologies to John Cleese

Note from Reeves to Reeves: Before moving the WhoIs showed "Little.org - Record created on 10-May-2002".  I know the domain is much older than that but I'll have to do some research to find out when I first registered it.

 

The various competing digital RAW formats have been a boon to professional and pro-sumer photographers but to date the support for them has been limited to the manufacturer's software and expensive photo editing software.  Yesterday's news that MS is going to support RAW in the OS is great news, I hope it will drive some serious improvements for the format (compatibility, closed standards and more abound).  Just having the big camera manufacturers talking about the same topic is fabulous.

More info:
Press release: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/jun05/06-01RAWWindowsPR.asp
Omar's comments: http://www.shahine.com/omar/MicrosoftRAW.aspx
Sean Alexander's comments: http://blog.seanalexander.com/LonghornGetsRAW.aspx
MS How-to article on dealing with RAW in XP: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/expert/rawfiles.mspx

 

I was organizing my music last night (after ripping another 110 albums this weekend) and was reminded of the free music from Mercedes.  On a whim I went back to the Mercedes Benz Mixed Tape site... they're up to number 7!  They were supposed to e-mail me when the next edition came out but didn't.  I missed out on mixed tapes 4, 5 and 6.  Oh well, I won't pass up on some gratis Euro-pop.  Free music is free music, get yours while it's there.

 

I say Ketchup, you say Catsup, let's call the whole thing off.

But wait... something new on the horizon?  Here's just the thing for people looking for that special condiment to set off their latest culinary creation:

Click for big

Yummy, banana ketchup.  Now public schools can ensure our under-fed youth get their requisite serving of both fruits and vegetables simply by dousing cafeteria french fries with this compound condiment.

 

If I am sick or tired... or sick and tired... tired or just plain sick... I need comforting. Being a mama's boy my first instinct is to run home, but seeing as my mommy is in Colorado and I'm in California I need to have a substitute.

Enter psychology... specifically: behaviorism.

Just like Pavlov's dog, we have been trained to react. We can't help it. From conception to death our conditioning never stops. We'll flinch, cry and yawn on cue (don't bother stifling the yawn, it's not like I can see you). Yanking someone's strings can be easy if you know their triggers. One very useful trick is to learn to yank your own strings (trust me, you won't go blind).

If you're feeling down and want a quick pick me up, try this out: think back to when you were a little kid... say 4 or 5 years old. Getting the vision? Good, not stop touching me or I'm telling Mom. Perfect, you got it. Now, on Saturday, what did you eat? If you have a bad memory try calling your mom, she may be able to help out. The key is to nail down exactly what you used to eat, getting the ingredients as close as possible to the authentic stuff. Go shopping, come home, put on some comfy clothes and eat. If you can find some reruns to go with your snack you'll be golden. Trust me, it works great. If you put me in front of an episode of the Waltons, feed me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (made with Wonder bread, Welch's Concord grape jelly and creamy Jiff) cut in to quarters... diagonally, Fritos, a bowl of Campbell's chicken noodle soup and a glass of milk I'll be right as rain.

Now if I could just find myself a good pair of footy pajamas...

 

Thomas:  They say the walls of asylums are painted green to make the patients feel calm.  Is that really true?

God:  Do you feel calm?

 

Okay, now this is just sad... it's 1:26am and I'm checking Google.

 

Bear with me, this started as an idle curiosity and then spiraled out of control...

I’m already convinced that, as a race, we’re doomed.  You’d think I’d just stick my head in a hole and start ignoring the idiocy of my fellow man, blissfully unaware, secure in my happiness knowing I can’t do a thing to change it.

I am, however, still fascinated by the things people do to each other.  Browsing Old New Thing I came across something quite new to me: people in India are declaring their relatives dead in order to claim property or insurance.  This may seem like a humane alternative to hiring a hit man but being dead makes life a little difficult, esp. when dealing with the government.

Is there an answer?  I'm not sure, but it gets me thinking.  Let's start with the bad stuff, people killing each other.  Why?  Can it be narrowed down to a simple matter of having what you need?  Animals will instinctively fight when backed into a corner: fight or flee.  If threatened with death, the stakes are high.  Kill or be killed.

Okay, so fight or flight makes sense when the situation is immediate (a person is being attacked) but it’s not so immediate in the case of the article above.  Or is it?  In a country where some people are attempting to farm a plot of land as small as many houses in America, not having enough land could literally kill you.  It could be rationalized as instinctual to kill for land.

So, what about the rest of the killing going on?  Can that be boiled down to the same need?  I don’t think so, but it makes me wonder if it has roots in the same place. 

Religion is, for many people, a very real need.  The church, synagogue, mosque, temple, etc provides people with hope, guidance and community.  For a religion to survive there has to be a strong belief in what is being taught.  There seem to be two main things which will threaten a religion: oppression and reason.  Oppression needs little explanation, someone stronger than you (your government, another religion, etc.) comes in and tells you to stop believing what you believe.  The other, reason, needs a little more explanation: reason shouldn’t be construed as correct reasoning, just being enough arguments to make a believer start to doubt.  Reason is what breeds religious zealots, they have so little faith in their beliefs they fear their followers will abandon in droves when presented with any rational alternative.  Why destroy ancient Buddhist relics?  Because people might find Buddhism more rational.  If your beliefs are forcefully taken away this removes your emotional support structure.  Aggression results.  If people are leaving your ministry this takes money out of your pocket as well as calls to question your emotional support structure.  Aggression results.

Some people kill their spouse, this isn’t religion, right?  No, it’s one of two things jealousy or imprisonment.  Jealousy results from having something that you are positive cannot be replaced.  Being jealous of attention paid to your spouse is a self-confidence issue, you are convinced if your spouse leaves you that you cannot replace the emotional attachment.  A significant emotional attachment will cause significant pain if broken.  Pain drives the same fight or flight response.  Aggression results.  Being trapped in a relationship with no way out similarly causes pain.  Aggression results.

What about killing for money?  Muggers, mafia, etc.  One of the things that makes the free market system work is competition, people want to have more than their neighbor.  The Soviet Union seemed to illustrate that aiming for absolute equality will do more to beat people down than solve man’s built-in aggressive streak (this isn’t universally true, of course, otherwise there wouldn’t be communes).  Being wealthier and more powerful than the next person is a matter of self image.  The greater the stakes, the higher the risk, the more aggressive the response.

Sure, rational people don’t resort to killing.  I’m sure you would never kill anyone.  You’re rational, right? 

How do you know?

 

... except Chinese food (well, the containers at any rate).

 

... my dog doesn't understand sarcasm.

 

Is it just me or is everyone else tired of fake news stories on 4/1?  Common now people.  It's been done.

 

Hey, cool, I could time share a Learjet from FlexJet for $4,600 a month!  That's pretty spendy, but much lower than I'd expect, so I decided to take a closer look at the ad in USA Today (America's “I wouldn't read it if it wasn't for the Hotel giving it to me” newspaper).

INTRODUCING A REVOLUTION IN FRACTIONAL JET OWNERSHIP.  For as little as $4,600 per month,*...

Okay, there's the “*”, I knew there'd be a catch.  What's the extra damage?  There's a monthly management fee of $6,485 and an hourly rate of $1,760.  I love it that their monthly fee has additional monthly fees.

You know guys, you could get many more customers if you just said:

INTRODUCING FREE FRACTIONAL JET OWNERSHIP.  For nothing a month*...

 

I knew for sure I was in Redmond this morning when the local TV station's weather forecast was "mild damp".  I suppose if you're a weather forecaster up here you need to be able to say more than "hey, it's going to rain."

On a related note, there really might not be all that many Eskimo words for snow.

 

How exciting is my life?  I'm sitting at home on a Friday night eating a PB&J reading a book.

You know something?  It beats the snot out of most stuff on TV... with a big stick.

My current reading endeavor is a science fiction, er historical fiction, er, historical science fiction book by Neal Stephenson: Quicksilver.  What started out as a slow labor is evolving into a growing fascination (and a pleasant one at that).

Placed in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, Quicksilver is the first novel of a new trilogy, The Baroque Cycle.  Stephenson's new novel follows some familiar characters as they intermingle with historical figures.  The beginning of the novel finds Daniel Waterhouse traveling back to England to mediate a dispute between Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.  At stake: bragging rights over the invention of calculus (I know, it gives me tingles too).

Does “Daniel Waterhouse” sound familiar?  If so, how about “Enoch Root” and “Jack Shaftoe”?  For some reason currently beyond my grasp Stephenson decided to recycle characters from his novel Cryptonomicon. I may figure out why, but give me a break, I've only started the first volume, and it's just shy of a thousand pages.

What about this book has really grabbed my attention?  There's no computers, no lasers, no one's died (no one of consequence, that is) and there's been no chase scenes.  Interestingly, it really hasn't jumped at me the way that Snow Crash did.  This thing that has grabbed me is Stephenson's well written descriptions of early scientific minds working their way through the first stab at real physics.  I'm always fascinated by the unique creativity that comes about when people decide to look at the world in a brand new manner.

So, what do I think?  So far I'm intrigued.  Not a lot of action, but a lot of inspiration.  If you're a Stephenson fan I can't imagine you'll be disappointed.  If you're not, you may want to wait for a) a full review or b) the paperback.

May I recommend:  While I haven't finished Quicksilver, I do give the following two other books from Neal Stephenson high marks:

Cryptonomicon:  Another book mixing science fiction with historical fiction, Cryptonomicon, is split between World War II and present day tracing the lives of two generations of characters as they design, build and disassemble cryptographic science.  Solid writing with a good balance of theory and action, this book didn't drag me down, even at close to a thousand pages.

Snow Crash:  My introduction to Neal Stephenson was this very engaging cyberpunk book.  Snow Crash is a very smooth reading, hard to put down book that never takes itself too seriously (the Hero's name is Hiro Protagonist, that's calling a spade a spade).  The action is quick, the science is solid and the characters felt real.  Pick this up if you like VR, computers or if you trust me.