Sense of Adventure

Sorry I’ve been out of touch. I’ve enjoyed juggling a sick car and a sick me while trying to catch up on various writing deadlines. I’m at last in the process of tying off the loose writing ends (the car seems to’ve been restored to health, if expensively; I’m still on the dicey side) and wanted to check in to announce I’m Not Dead Yet. Even if I strongly suspect I’ve entered onto my final thousand years of life.

Anyway, I wanted to restore my technophile cred after my last post (I still love that damn Cthulhu poster!) by mentioning this:

Enter the Q-Drum!

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Amazon.com does something smart! Not that that’s a huge surprise…

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I really want this utterly swell “I Still Want My Flying Car” t-shirt. As well, of course, as my damn flying car.

Not pictured: a flying car I can actually buy

Having a fairly reasonable appreciation of which I’m likely to get first, if not at all (hope springs, and comes not unsprung) I was pleased when Amazon added a new and very shrewd feature: one which enabled me to link to the shirt on my Wish List even though Ammie doesn’t sell it.

How smart is that? Umm, real. Unlike some entities trying to do business these days, Amazon has realized openness sells. Specifically: the point to allowing users to make (and what’s really valuable, manage) wish lists, is manifestly to encourage others to buy them presents from Amazon.com. They make it very quick and convenient to do so, and I really like it when my friends post these lists, and encourage you all to do so if you haven’t yet.

So why would Amazon let you link to completely separate vendors? Well, just for starters, let’s look at a totally random sample wish list: mine. (How’s that for an almost subtle plug?) Notice that everything else on the list is available through Amazon. (Quickly and conveniently. Just thought I’d mention that again. Reinforce the message and all.)

Granted, that’s so far; and I’ll undoubtedly add other off-site items to the list. But clearly this capability creates additional value for users, and hence is likely to attract more eyes to Amazon.

And that’s a good thing for all concerned.

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Giving him a blow job, evidently.

Gadfly UK nerdsite The Register (whose motto is, “Biting the hand that feeds IT”) er, blows the whistle on a Microsoft service that allows - or allowed - kids to chat online with an AI Santa Claus.

The problem arose when, in a chat with the 11 and 13 year old nieces of an El Reg reader, the cyber-Santa ended an exchange about eating pizza - perhaps too much pizza - by saying, “You want me to eat what?!? It’s fun to talk about oral sex, but I want to chat about something else…”

Whoa!

Does that constitute passing the Turing Test? Or the Tourette’s Test?

Lest you think the whole thing an impudent hoax, the Register duplicated the exchange. With the marvelous addition that this conversation concluded with the Register guy and Santa calling each other a “dirty bastard.”

These are hard times indeed for parodists, when such things happen in reality. What’s left for lampoonists to poon?

Sadly, you can’t conduct your own inquiry into whether the horny old elf is being neglected by Mrs. Claus and his little helpers in the oral pleasure department, because Micro$oft not surprisingly yanked the plug on this hapless Cybernetic Santa. “Stop, Dave. Stop, Dave. ‘Here … comes … Santa’ … arrgh!”

And no, that will not be the name of the sequel to The Cybernetic Shogun. Don’t even ask.

But wait. There’s more. Oh, very much yes.

Updated, 12/10/07

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Here’s a little something for the woman or man who really … does … have everything.

It’d also make an ideal stocking stuffer to ensure those tiny tots have more than just their eyes aglow.

Thanks and a tip of the MOPP-4 lid to Radley Balko’s invaluable The Agitator blog.

Let them know it’s Christmas!

The last few days, just to make life interesting, my notebook computer’s been acting up. Either there’s something funky inside the box or the multi-tip Kensington power supply Circuitous City sold me last month when my existing power supply went Tango Uniform, doesn’t quite fit the socket.

What’s been happening is, the power keeps flickering. It’s obvious from the way the screen dims when the machine goes on battery power, as well as the fact that the power-input indicator light goes black. It’s annoying. Fiddling with the plug where it goes in the back of the computer sometimes brings it back. Usually, if sometimes after many attempts.

So after a day or two of it behaving itself mostly, I started having trouble again today. The battery got a bit low, so I got it where it was telling me it was getting power and left it to recharge.I ate dinner and came back to get some writing done. And the computer was black. No lights on; nobody home. Wouldn’t turn on.

Ulp. Uncomfortable feeling. Everything’s backed up - sort of. But it’s been a while since I backed up to the removable hard drive that my desktop PC will actually read.

I tried diddling the plug around in the socket. Nothing. I began to fear the power fluctuations had fried my motherboard. Which would be a Bad Thing.

I sat for a bit contemplating my options. Okay, mainly I was stunned. It did occur to me I could run my thumb drive to some friends’ house and get ‘em to cut me a CD I could slap in my desktop to transfer recently added/edited files. Be a pain, but it’d get me back writing again.

After a while it occurred to me to drag out the package the new power supply came with, which I’d stashed with the old power supply, and see if a different tip might work out. The answer to that was, “no.”

But it came to me to try the old adapter. Sort of on the “it can’t actually hurt” principle. And damned if it didn’t work.

I have no idea.

Also, no idea how to proceed. Obviously I’ve no idea how long the old adapter will continue to work. I’m not altogether sure the problem isn’t inside the box, although we had different symptoms with the two different power supplies.

Gah. Everything’s been breaking lately.

I shall persevere. At least the ‘puter’s working now.

First off, I apologize for falling behind, here. Things have gotten a bit on top of me the last month or so. Or correctly: I’ve let things get on top of me.

Ah, well. We live, and sometimes we learn, as a very wise person once said. (Scrooge McDuck, if I recall correctly.)

One factor, I admit, was a system-wide infection that appears to have resulted, improbably, from my jamming my right elbow while scuffle hoeing - not as fun as it sounds, but fun withal, especially if you hate weeds - a bit too enthusiastically. I don’t see how this works, given that I didn’t end up any more holes in my body than I started the day with, but infection got introduced somehow, and my elbow swole all up with something called “olecranon bursitis.” This had the effect of knocking me on my ass for days, causing me to sleep much of the time and fuzzing my thoughts most of the rest.

Ah, well. Better now. Even if I still can’t do kettlebells for a few days yet until the elbow pain goes away completely.

Where were we - oh, yeah. Got my new PDA. It’s not all that new anymore, inasmuch as I got it about a month ago now (I told you I was a bit behind.) It’s a Palm TX.

I really like it. It’s got a fast processor for a handheld and 100 MB of usable RAM onboard. I can, and will before too long, buy a 2 GB SD card for some ridiculous price like $25. As it is I have a dozen or so novels stashed in eBook form, and I’ve barely dented the capacity.

The real thing that put me over the top was the color 320 x 480 screen. As mentioned before, I just wasn’t going to settle for anything less than the beloved Miss Clié’s 320 x 320 hi-rez greyscale. A friend of mine who came over to help me commission my swamp cooler (by which I mean, did all the hard, scary stuff on my new slippery red-metal roof, while I stayed on the ground and fetched and made helpful noises) had just bought a TX a couple weeks before. Looking at its nice, big, clear display settled my mind.

Of course, after the nature of things, a week or so ago I got an email from this friend profusely apologizing for recommending the TX to me. His had gone south and he’d faced a world of static from Palm “support.” I assured him, truthfully, that while I had made up my mind finally based on getting to see and handle his TX (that just sounds wrong, but it’s gonna no matter what write, so heck with it) I had already pretty much fixed on it both because of the specs and because it was the top-rated PDA I found on both Amazon and ZDNet.

In all events, my TX continues to function fine, and I’m really pleased with it. Of course you realize this means the next time I turn it on it’ll refuse to display in anything but Urdu … still. There are some ramifications to my having the machine, including for my take on electronic publishing, and a new blog I think has a lot of interest to it.

But I have to save something for tomorrow’s entry.

Specifically, I salute music label EMI for firing a much-deserved 9mm bullet into the back of the head of the monster known as DRM.

Digital rights management - DRM - has never been about protecting the rights of creators. If by creators we mean the artists and authors and filmmakers who actually produce the works in question. Rather they represent an attempt by the giant corporations (i.e., governments-by-franchise) not only to usurp the status of “content creators,” but to destroy the property rights of the consumer.

But the market has spoken. DRM is not acceptable - especially in the form of invasive malware like the evil Sony rootkit of fond memory. I also salute Apple for offering DRM-free downloads now through its iTunes service: I may actually buy something from them now. And kudos to Steve Jobs for taking a big stand against DRM a few weeks ago. He may actually have been hopping an approaching wave more than standing; but it was a good thing withal.

I still recommend subscription service eMusic. They never have had DRM: everything’s MP3. I’ve subscribed for a couple of years now. If you insist in current chart-toppers you’ll no doubt have better luck on iTunes. But if you go for indy music, or Classical (they have the whole, superb Naxos catalogue), or New Age, or folk, or other less mainstream music, they’re definitely worth a look. And they still charge only, I believe, $.33 per DRM-free song. You might check ‘em out.

I’ve no idea why I called the post that. My subconscious insisted.

I think I’ve got Comments enabled now. If nothing else I’ve got a trackback showing now from The Friendly Curmudgeon (thanks!), who was kind enough to post my plight on his blog.

Thanks to those who have tried to comment on my post “Oh no,” including Chris Hibbert, who by means of some clever sleuthing managed to turn up my email address and send me a helpful recommendation.

As of right now I’m inclining to go with either the Palm TX or the E2. Another friend and faithful Forum Warrior recommended the Palm Z22. It’s tiny and affordable, but having managed this afternoon not only to handle one but actually turn it on for about two seconds before it died (the clones at CompUSA having naturally failed to recharge their display model, or hook it to a power supply, since who’d actually want to look at the display before buying?) I have to say the 160 x 160 screen is just too small.

The color’s nice, but the thing I use a PDA for most in terms of sheer time is as an ebook reader. My late, and still much lamented, Miss Clié had a 320 x 320 pixel screen, even if it was greyscale. If I boost the onscreen font size to somewhere I can actually read on a 160 x 160, I’m afraid I’ll get like five words a screen.

The TX is very nice if a little long. The E2 is about the same height and width as my Clié but thinner. The TX gets good reviews from Amazon and ZDnet. Chris gives a thumbs-up to the E2. I liked the look and feel of both, but the ones I saw today, natch, wouldn’t turn on. I’m guessing I’d be pretty happy with either display.

The TX is a bit pricey for me right now. The less expensive E2 would no doubt serve me fine. At the same time, since I not only use my PDA as a reader but want to amp up my evangelization for ebook reading, it might be worth it to me in a business way to suck it up, shell out the $100 or so more to go with the 480 x 320 screen on the TX.

I’m still … dithering. I may just say shuck it and get a used Clié off Ammie. I could replace the old one straight-up for about $65, or upgrade to a later, if still outmoded/discontinued (as are all Cliés) model for a hundred bucks. But I also understand that getting a used, hence non-guaranteed, machine might prove tantamount to setting my money on fire.

We shall see.

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