Marc's Musings

Links for 22 May 2007 [del.icio.us]

• 25 photojournalists: 1 camera - Interesting to see what the "real world uses" as far as cameras go
• Bush To Be Dictator In A Catastrophic Emergency - "It is insane that this directive claims that its purpose is to define procedures to protect a working constitutional government when the very language in the document destroys what a working constitutional government is supposed to be."
• A nation of DIY barbecue sauce makers - All this talk of food is making me hungry...
• BBC WAS HALF AN HOUR TOO EARLY REPORTING ON WTC7 COLLAPSE - I loves me a good conspiracy theory

I've got Gas

Natural gas, that is. Because of this fact, Nicor (my gas provider) needs to inspect the meter--some requirement from the federal government as part of the "Federal Natural Gas Pipeline Safety Act." They are nice enough to send me a letter that states they would like to set "up an appointment at a time convenient for [me]" (emphasis mine).

So I call them up. It takes her forever (ok, probably about 3 minutes) to bring up the appointments "screen"--mental noite, they need a new computer system if it takes that long. The conversation proceeds something like this:

CS: Are mornings or evenings better for you?
ME: What are the definitions of morning and evening?
CS: We have appointment windows from 8a-noon, 8a-5p, and noon-5p.

At this point I'm thinking, well a 4 hour window isn't all that convenient, and noon-5p doesn't really seem like evenings to me...

ME: It depends on the day.

The screen finally comes up...

CS: Our first available morning appointment is Thursday, May 31.
ME: How about a weekend?
CS: Oh, we don't do weekends, it's Monday through Friday only.
ME: I guess we have a problem then--I'm not really available during the week.

The conversation pretty much finishes up at this point. They need me to be around so that they can be in compliance, but they aren't willing to do a better job about getting here when it is truly convenient for me? I'm not planning on taking a half day off of work so that they can inspect my meter...

I guess when I get another reminder I'll have to try again to get a weekend appointment.

And Back

Did you miss me?

The drive was longer than the flight would have been, the weather was better than predicted, and the fun was just as great as expected. We made it back from Cedar Point late this afternoon/early evening. Right in the middle of the tiny storm that went through Chicago. Yeah, that big one they were predicting on Friday that caused me not to fly. I'm not bitter...

Anywho, for those that haven't been, Cedar Point is the best amusement park that I have been to. Ever. In our weekend there we rode 13/17 roller coasters, some of them twice. We had an interesting drive around Sandusky in search of non-chain food (and ended up at Outback--go figure). If you do go there, here are some thoughts about the area and the park itself...

We stayed at the Breakers Hotel right on the park. They have a package that includes park admission for 1.5 days, $30 of "munch money" and some other perks. This package can be yours for the low price of $30 more than a regular 2 night stay. When you add it all up, it makes the hotel about the same as any other hotel in the area, but you get the benefit of being able to walk to the gate (and an hour early, to boot).

Upon entering the park, run--do not walk--to the Top Thrill Dragster, assuming it's in operation. This ride seems to be one of the most finicky rides I have ever seen. The line is long, and the stature is a little unnerving. That being said, it's worth the wait at least once. The smile lasted on my face for more than 2 rides afterwards. Nothing like being accelerated from 0-120mph in less than 500ft. You do the math.

One of my favorite rides in the park is Raptor. For those that have been to a Six Flags park, it's very similar to the Batman rides. It's an inverted coaster manufactured by Bollinger & Mabillard (they have the square rails--Batman, Superman, Iron Wolf, and Raging Bull at Chicago's Six Flags). The big difference between Raptor and Batman? 37seconds vs 2 minutes and 37 seconds. Oh, it has more inversions, too. I could ride this ride all day long and never get tired of it. As with most of B&M's rides, it's worth the wait for the front, and the corners are my favorites.

The biggest surprise of last night was getting in the "1.5 hour" line for Millenium Force at 9:30p (park closed at 10). Even at 10p they were still letting people into the line. I was a little skeptical that they would close the line down or cut off the ride in the middle of the people that were waiting. This is something that I have grown accustomed to in the Six Flags parks. Thankfully, this was not the case. I think the line moved at a record pace. We were seated in the train in less than an hour, and they were still running trains by the time we were back at the hotel (near 11p).

If you have never ridden this ride, I suggest riding it during the day if you have any apprehension about going up 310 feet and being dropped 300. That being said, the ride takes on a whole new personality at night. It almost beats Top Thrill Dragster. Almost. The view on the way up the lift is INCREDIBLE! Once you get to the top, the rest of the ride is almost completely dark. I don't know if it's an illusion, but the coaster seems to ride faster at night.

In general Cedar Point does a great job at moving the lines through. I think part of the reason is that the longer coasters allow them to have multiple trains going (usually 3, but depends on the ride).

The four we didn't ride? Two are kiddie coasters, one was down for maintenance until last night--and I'm happy we skipped it for Millenium Force--and the last one isn't done being built, but it looks like it'll be really cool...

I could go on for hours, but I'll spare you any more of the details. All in all, it was a great weekend, and I look forward to doing it again soonly. Now that I'm back home, who wants to go to Great America? I still have a coaster itch that needs to be scratched.

Drat... foiled again.

It's been five years that I've been married to my wonderful wife, and each year gets better. In the past, we've planned a little mini vacation to celebrate the event. Usually a long weekend either before or after our anniversary--this year our anniversary is today, so this weekend is the weekend. Usually we plan for me to fly us to wherever we want to go. Usually the trip gets canceled due to illness or weather.

Perhaps I should change that usually to always, as today, in year number five, we are again not flying. Although I am excited that this time we are both healthy! I woke up this morning to a beautiful sunrise and a beautiful day for flying. All excited, I go and verify the forecast for today and for our return trip on Sunday. Uh-oh. Sunday doesn't look that great. Now that I've cancelled the flight, I'm sure Sunday will be beautiful.

At least this year's trip is close enough to drive, so we're still going.

T-80 minutes.

Links for 16 May 2007 [del.icio.us]

• Only in Naperville... - Too drunk to drive?
• The Beerbelly - The Freedom to BEvERage

Links for 09 May 2007 [del.icio.us]

• 10 Attributes of Really Lazy People - heh

Links for 07 May 2007 [del.icio.us]

• Math For Programmers - "Schools are teaching us the wrong math, and they're teaching it the wrong way."
• ext3cow - Ext3cow is an open-source, versioning file system based on ext3. It provides a time-shifting interface that allows a real-time and continuous view of the past.

My new favorite number

Just thought I'd share it with you....

09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0

I leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out why that's my new favorite number...

Web Search Tips: Synonyms

The web is a big place, full of natural resources--well, ok they're all man-made--and chances are very good that you can find something about most anything you are looking for. If you can't, it's either super obscure, and nothing has been written on the topic--unlikely, but possible--or you just aren't looking for it in the right way. This will be the first in a series of posts to help you better find what you are looking for. I make no guarantees on the frequency of these posts, but I will put stuff up as I think of it. All of these posts will be in the "Web Search" category so you can view them all there.

My first tip is to search on synonyms of a word. If you aren't getting the results you want, fire up the thesaurus and look for other words. Search engines are getting better at figuring out spelling errors, but they aren't always great about suggesting alternate words--especially when they can produce some results for your original search terms.

Let's try an example. In this "hypothetical" situation (the statue of limitations is past, and I'm not telling who this was...), I have a friend that has a Sony Vaio laptop. Somehow the monitor on it gets cracked, and I am asked to help fix it. I know that there are replacement parts available out there, so I do a quick search for "Sony Vaio replacement monitor" [Google] [Yahoo!]. For this example, we are going to ignore the ads; we'll talk about that another time...

Notice that on the first page of results, we get some links to Sony, but not their parts division (do they have one?), Amazon trying to sell us a new Vaio, reviews on shopping.com, but not a whole lot of answers for replacing the monitor. Let's think for a few moments about how we can make this better... We know that we have a Sony Vaio, and there aren't too many other things that a Vaio is called. We can try putting in the specific model number, but that may not help too much. What are we trying to do? We're trying to get a replacement part. We can search for "Sony Vaio replacement parts" but that may or may not be specific enough. What part are we looking for? The monitor. Hmm... What else can we call it? LCD? Display? Screen? Let's try searching for "Sony vaio replacement display" [Google] [Yahoo!]. The first few results on both Google and Yahoo! get us to some replacement parts vendors.

Phew. Crisis averted. Now we can order up a new LCD, fix the laptop, and make our friend happy. It was as simple as changing a word or two, and we get a completely different set of search results.

Unbreak Mouse Gestures?

Dear LazyWeb,

I am sick of sites that trap the right mouse click using javascript so that they can "protect" their source code. I have two problems with this

1. I have news for the proverbial you--if I want your web page, there are ways to get the source. If my browser can display it, I can get it. Don't be lame.
2. It breaks mouse gestures.

That being said, does anyone know of a greasemonkey script (or similar) that will allow me to undo the lameness that is capturing the right click? Don't make me write my own--it'll be ugly.

Love,
Ricky
(Marc)