Programming, Poker, and Politics. Just Another voice in the electronic wilderness
November 3, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Republican George Hutchins is challenging Democrat David Price for his NC 4th District seat in Congress in 2010 and has published the most eye-searing, horrid, ugly campaign website I’ve ever seen. I think he’s trying to single-handedly revive Geocities or something and have a hard time seeing him as a serious contender against Rep. Price.
Categories: Politics
October 17, 2009 at 8:41 am
Is playing ‘Flight Control’ on my iPhone while waiting to board my flight to MN.
Categories: Personal
October 14, 2009 at 11:56 am
When MMS for iPhone landed last month, I tried it out and it failed repeatedly. The send progress bar would reach 90% or so,stall, and then pop an error message instead of sending the picture.
Today, I tried again after learning the AT&T Carrier File 5.6 update was supposed to fix this very problem, but still no go. Boo hiss. Google searches revealed lots of people having this problem and several possible solutions ranging from rebooting the phone, resetting the Network settings in the phone, swapping out the SIM card for a new one, or even doing a complete backup, reset, and restore of all data on the phone. I tried the easy ones, rebooting, and resetting network settings, but still no luck.
I also found several people who had issues with their settings in various backend AT&T databases that prevented MMS on iPhone from working. One person, who already had an AT&T account, got an iPhone and the AT&T rep put him on the ‘Messaging 200′ plan instead of the ‘iPhone Messagin 200′ plan. His MMS service didn’t work until he got switched to the ‘iPhone Messaging 200′ plan. AHA! I logged into my AT&T wireless account, and sure enough, I had the ‘Messaging 200′ plan. I switched over to the iPhone messaging 200 plan, waited a couple minutes, and then tried sending an MMS text message. It went through just fine.
My question is: Why did the AT&T rep selling an existing cusomter, me, a new iPhone 3GS set me up with the ‘Messaging 200′ plan instead of the ‘iPhone Messaging 200′ plan? Seems like a FAIL way to do things.
Categories: Personal
September 30, 2009 at 5:46 pm
I really hate days where one thing after another goes wrong. It’s hard to maintain a decent attitude under an onslaught of annoying tiny problems when you really want to work on the big projects on your plate.
Today was one of those days and it really got to me. I don’t like not liking my job and career but that’s where I ended up today. Blargh.
Some days are just bad days. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.
Categories: Personal
September 25, 2009 at 12:22 pm
I just updated the carrier file in my iPhone and now have MMS turned on. Now I need to find someone I know who has MMS as well to try it out. 
Categories: Personal
September 21, 2009 at 10:13 am
Don’t point two different versions of Drupal at the same database. Bad, confusing things happen that take hours to track down.
Categories: Computing
September 19, 2009 at 2:53 pm
I’ve been using dual-monitor setups for something 6 or 7 years now. I got my first set at NIEHS when I worked there. I thought it would suck since I was moving from a single 21″ CRT to dual 19″ LCDs, but I quickly got used to it and really liked the additional real estate. One of the first things I did when I moved to Duke was get permission to buy a dual monitor setup for my office. I even bought a cheap used 12080×1024 17″ LCD to attach to my laptop at home.
I never expected to find myself feeling monitor envy at my dad, of all people. I’m the computer geek in the family, dangit! He’s training to do stock trading and decided he needed more screen to get all the information he wants at his fingertips. About a month ago, he went out and bought the equipment he needed and this is the result:
He’s using a Matrox TripleHead2Go device to drive the three extra monitors and built the stand holding the monitors himself. I think he used 1″ square steel tubing.
I now officially have monitor envy for my dad!
September 16, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Every time I see one of these videos I end up staring slackjawed at the screen. I can’t imagine myself ever holding an equivalently outrageous sign up in protest to a Republican president. These images stun me every time I see them.
Even worse, I’m becoming cynical about whether any kind of real conversation can happen between people like me and people like the folks in this video. The conversations I’ve had with folks like this I know personally have not gone well. I think I need to spend more time studying Sen. Al Franken’s techniques for communicating.
EDIT: Removed portion of text regarding the title that I can remove. (5:02pm)
Categories: Politics
September 13, 2009 at 2:07 am
I’ve had an iPhone for a few weeks now and am really enjoying it. Tonite I discovered an app for letting me post to my blog from my phone and couldn’t resist trying it out.
Categories: Computing
August 23, 2009 at 6:22 pm
You know you’re behind the times when Mexico does something in the “Drug War” before you do.
Mexico enacted a controversial law Thursday decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs while encouraging free government treatment for drug dependency.
The law sets out maximum “personal use” amounts for drugs, also including LSD and methamphetamine. People detained with those quantities will no longer face criminal prosecution when the law goes into effect Friday.
The U.S. needs to follow Mexco’s lead on this. The “Drug War” is a failure that has helped corrupt our police forces, filled our prisons with non-violent offenders, and created a self-sustaining prison industrial complex that now lobbies to maintain and increase their “industry” at any cost.
Categories: Politics
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