SteveCook.net

On a recent trip up to Seattle (for SJ’s Wedding Reception) I took along “Little Brother” by Cory Doctorow. It’s a YA near future novel about a young hacker out to change the world from an oppressive government agency that’s gone on a rampage.

Politically, I try not to classify myself as anything - I have my own opinions and beliefs so I don’t stick with just a single party. If anything I’d be an objectivist libertarian with republican tendencies (well old-republican fiscal leanings). I’m even liberal on a few select topics, but don’t tell anyone. Basically, I’m as from from being a hippie as you could imagine.

The book does delve into the hippie/yippie sub-culture a bit - and even makes it sound great and wonderful. There’s also some demonstrations, discussions, political dissidents, etc.

You’d most likely assume I didn’t like the book - but you’d be completely wrong. It was enjoyable and a quick read. It is classified as “young adult”, so it’s not overly complex, and I would probably recommend it to any 14-18 year-olds that are interested in hacking and/or freedom.  I’d also recommend it to anybody else too - it’s an enjoyable book that makes you think.

Seriously, I’m pretty sure they are morons.  Again they sent my package to “delivered” land, but it’s nowhere in sight.

It’s happened several times in the past few months, with a couple boxes turning up at a neighbors house (with an address NOTHING like mine - it was a couple streets over), but a few times the box is just gone.  I called their customer support and they said they’ll send the driver out to the house he delivered it too. I’m not holding my breath, since last time the driver said it WAS my house - and the next day the neighbor brought my package that had been left at his door… Niiiiice.

My house is not hidden or complicated to find - Fedex has never had an issue finding it - ever.

If you can avoid using UPS, use ANYTHING else… cuz they still suck.

For being such a geek, it took me a “very long” time to upgrade to HD.  A few years ago, all my friends had new DLP 720 TV’s, but they were limited in the channels as well as the additional equipment to make use of their then-new technology.

It was a conscious choice I made to wait until the TV could:

1. Easily (without additional hardware) get broadcast reception 
2. Connect to satellite (DirecTV)
3. Be bright enough for our living room (it has 2 floors of big windows so it’s bright during the day) 
4. Be “safe” to use with the XBox 360/Wii/PS3

Near the end of last year, it was getting close enough that I bit the bullet and bought a very nice and large LCD tv with plenty of HDMI, composite, RCA, and DVI inputs. I’m glad I waited, as the TV has everything I need.

And, after upgrade DirecTV to their HD DVR, I have to say that 1080 ROCKS!  Although not everything is transmitted in 1080, whenever it is, it looks amazing.  I watched the first Formula 1 race, and it is SOOOO much better.

The past couple days we’ve been watching the Olympics on the various NBC channels (Universal HD, etc.) and the picture is simply awesome. It makes a huge difference, not only in the clarity and crispness of the picture, but also the additional text “overlays” that have informaiton - due to the better resolution, more useful info can be displayed.

If you don’t have an HD set yet, I would have to say that now is the time - bite the bullet and do it (even you SJ!)

Janet and I had a great (albeit short) trip to Vegas last week. We went for different reasons that just seemed to match up - Janet wanted to see Craig Ferguson’s stand-up routine, and I wanted to be sure to go through Star Trek: The Experience at least one more time before they closed it on September 1st.

Craig Ferguson was very funny. He had a writer from his show (also a stand-up) as his opening act, and he was also really funny. It was nice to see Craig in a “non-censored” mode - he had a lot of funny stories about Scotland and wanting to come over to the U.S. as soon as possible.

Ka, the Cirque du Soliel show at MGM, was exceeding boring. Yeah, you read that right. B.O.R.I.N.G.  Seriously, for a Cirque show, it was long and drawn out and almost put me to sleep (not an exaggeration - literally asleep). The stage was neat - it tiled 90 degrees and rotated all the way around, but with some many things you can do with a stage like that, they just jumped around on it a bit. SteveJ said it was great, but he was totally wrong - it sucked. I figure he must’ve had his “love goggles” on when he saw it, because most of the people leaving the show thought the same thing - even the guy in the row in front of us that was snoring. The guys on the rotating circles were neat, but that’s about it.

Star Trek: The Experience was great (Janet wasn’t as impressed as I was, however).  We went for the full package, which also included the back-stage tour experience.  Gretchen was our tour guide, and she was HAWESOME. It was great to hear her talk about the history of the show and the ride/experience, but it was also sad to hear her talk about what was going to happen when they closed up shop in the next month and a half.  The backstage tour was really cool because we got to look around the bridge longer (instead of rushed through during the rides). I took a bunch of pictures that will be online shortly.  I also bought some souveniers (t-shirts, lapel pins, drinking glasses, etc.), a stuffed vulcan teddy bear for Sterling, and a water phaser for Jonah. Shockingly, Janet didn’t really want anything.  Both rides were cool (though Klingon Encounter is still a little better). You have about 3 weeks left, so if you’re going - get a move on!

I was reading through a good book on Social Web topics and found a great quote from Herbert Simon. It basically started the concept of “Attention Economics” which I thought was fairly interesting. The quote:

“…in an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.”

 My interpretation of what that statement says is that due to information overload a lot of people have the attention span of a steamed carrot. Based on some customers and their support questions, I think that’s pretty accurate. 

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to get simple ideas across, and it seems like it’s getting more difficult all the time.  With a previous manager, for every email I had to make sure I wrote the important message in the first sentence (not first paragraph - first sentence - and it usually helped if the first paragraph was the first sentence).  Through empirical testing, I discovered he actually DIDN’T read anything past there - no matter how important the email. 

Part of the reason for this was that nearly every one of his direct AND indirect reports cc’d him on every email (due to a horribly ineffective C.Y.A. theory they seemed to hold to be a fundamental truth).  The other reason was undoubtedly that he was totally on an email high… (see “Emails hurt IQ more than pot“).

MySpace and YouTube have the same effect on people - way too much information and data (most of it completely useless) ruins the ability to filter useful from useless.

So, I’m trying to save my “attention dollars” for useful and productive and limit spending them on crap. To start, I’ve turned my “send/receive” updates down to once an hour (from every 3 minutes!)

More information about the Attention Economy is on Wikipedia.

Janet was laughing at me…

I found out today that Star Trek: The Experience is closing! I really am sad to see it go - I’ve been on it at least 4 times that I specifically remember, and probably a couple other times just to go with somebody else. So, Janet thought it was funny that I was actually sad to see it closed. Mean Janet! *heehee*

Fond memories of CES and Comdex always included stopping at the ST:E ride, then down to Quark’s bar for a nice Warp Core Breach.  Hanging out with Kevin, Larry, and Kevin’s friend from work - me and Kevin splitting a WCB.

So, I’m dragging Janet to the ride before it closes - we’ll stop by later this month when we go to see Craig Ferguson live at the MGM Grand. I’ll be sure to take as many pictures as possible.

“This is the Ferrari 355. The best car in the world. Ever.”
- Jeremy Clarkson

The beautiful Argento Nurburgring (silver) 1999 Ferrari 355 F1 Berlinetta arrived the weekend before last - on a truck from Scottsdale, where FMS Motorsports did a top-to-bottom (or was it bottom to top?) Pre-Purchase Inspection. Other than a few minor things (motor mounts - which I had them replace), the car is in great condition.

I’m still working on getting the F1 shifting down to a smooth and fast operation, but I’m getting better. The manual throttle blips on the downshift are great for working left-foot braking.

We originally planned on keeping the 308, but since kicking Janet’s Porsche “to the curb”, she’s getting weary of getting into a hot Cayenne… So, if a good offer comes along, I may part with it. I’m not in a rush, since it’s a “famous” car - it was on the cover of the 308 book!

So, last week HJ asked about any software to help track a weight loss competition (you know, like the Biggest Loser on NBC). He looked and couldn’t find a free one, then I looked around and couldn’t find a free one. There’s a couple out there that “look” free, but once you try to do anything (like actually have competitors in a challenge), they want to charge you.

So, I had an old diet domain that I bought a couple years ago called TrackDiet.com and though hmmm… this might be fun, so late last week and this weekend I finished the beta version of TrackDiet.com Weight Loss Challenges.  It’s just the basics for now (with some ajaxy jquery goodness thrown in), but I’ll add more features as more people sign up.  Feel free to check it out and let me know what you think.

About a month ago I was looking for a new book to read and found “The Lost Fleet: Dauntless” (Jack Campbell) from a few reviews on Amazon and Audible. I started with the audio book, and enjoyed the story quite a bit. It’s basically a story of a soldier that has been in hibernation/suspended-animation sleep for 100 years.  He was the commander of a ship that was destroyed in a sneak attack from the “syndicate” worlds - that starts a war that’s still going on after he wakes up.

It examines what can happen to a society (and the military) after 100 years and multiple generations of war have decimated both sides. It does take things to the extremes a little bit beyond what I’d think would be likely - I don’t think military tactics would be completely gone…  But aside from that, it’s entertaining and an enjoyable read. I’ve read the first three books (of the series of 6), and the final three have yet to be written.  They’re all enjoyable and so far the story arc includes some interesting thoughts as to the reason for the war and what’s causing it to last so long.

The only thing I didn’t really enjoy was the amount of repetitious descriptions of time-delays. The first book constant reminds you of how long it takes to communicate at great distances. I think most readers “get it” after the second, if not the first, explanation - but the first book brings it up repeatedly. It’s less in the second book, and even less in the third, which is good, because it seriously would have put me off if it continued.

If you enjoy sci-fi, and space battles in particular, I’d recommend the series, either on Audible or paperback.

I also finally read Ender’s Shadow, and it was very, very good.  If you’ve read Ender’s Game and then were not impressed with Xenocide, I’d still recommend Ender’s Shadow. It’s great.

So, over the past few months I’ve been trying to increase my work efficiency while programming and working on the computer. I’ve started trying using more shortcuts and a few utilities to help me work better. You know, put the “work smarter not longer” saying to the test. Here are some of the things I’ve found the most useful.

• Launch Utilities
  I’ve tried several “Launcher” type applications. All the ones I tried worked well, and have their plusses and minuses.  To me, the thing that slows me down the most is moving my hand off the keyboard and to my trackball (it’s a trackball because I always know exactly where it is - my hand doesn’t subconsciously have to search for it). My favorite launcher is now The Enso Launcher. It’s available for free at http://humanized.com/enso/launcher/ 
• Keyboard Shortcuts for IE
  A full list is available at: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306832
  I’ve found that CTRL-E is one of the most useful - takes cursor to search box.
  CTRL-TAB is nice for switching between tabs. I actually keep a couple IE windows open with fewer tabs, depending on what I’m working on - making ctrl-tab even more useful.
  CTRL-L is basically the address bar.
• Keyboard Shortcuts for Firefox
  A nice list is available at: http://www.mouserunner.com/FF_Shortcuts1Printable.html
  I like CTRL-K for going to search box and ctrl-UP and ctrl-DOWN to switch sites to search.
• Upgrade Your Life
  The lifehacker.com book is FULL of helpful items to make you more efficient.
  Available at Amazon.

I’ve been to Japan a few times, and I return with interesting stories consisting of a silly mix of exploration and confusion. Jonah, after hearing these stories, really wanted to go to Japan someday (and I think his love of Ramen noodles and Samurai stuff helped too). Well, Janet suggested that I take Jonah to Tokyo for spring break, and so we went! Janet and Sterling stayed home (neither of us was masochistic or sadistic enough to take an 18 month old on a 13 hour flight).

We spent a week in Tokyo, with side trips to Yokohama and Kyoto.  We took the Shinkansen (Bullet Train) from Tokyo to Kyoto, and then back again. We also went to the Yokohama Science Center where Jonah played with nearly every exhibit there - until they closed the place down and kicked us out.

Part of Janet’s requirement for letting Jonah go to Japan was that he had to keep a travel journal and write at least one page a day. He kept to his word and wrote some interesting entries into his journal.  It’s interesting to read his perspective of the same events that I saw.  For example, we used to have Krispy Kreme’s here in Albuquerque, but they closed down a couple years ago. They were one of his favorite foods. Just our luck, the hotel we stayed at (Sunroute Plaza Shinjuku - I Highly recommmend BTW) had a Krispy Kreme less than a block away.  He wrote in his journal about the last day and trip home: “It was the best vacation of my life, and I got Krispy Kremes”.  Nothing like priorities!

We have a ton of pictures, but they’re in a protected location on another site. If you would like to access and see the pictures, send me an email, and I’ll send you the URL.

Some helpful hints about traveling to Tokyo:

• Take the train from the airport to the station nearest your hotel (Narita Express). It’s TONS better than the bus or Taxi.
• If you’re going to be going all around Tokyo and Japan via the railroad (I highly recommend), stay at a “hub” station - such as Shinagawa or Tokyo Stations. We spend a lot of time traveling from Shinjuku to those stations. Shinjuku is great, as was our hotel, but if you’re going all over, you’ll be going through those stations a lot.  It wasn’t bad - but it would save 20 minutes each direction if you’re travelling.
• The lines at Tokyo Disney are CRAZY long.  Fast Pass is the only way to go there.  Plus, they don’t have as many “snack” and ”eateries” as the California Disney.  AND, the strange thing is, most items don’t say “Tokyo Disneyland”, they just say “Disneyland” - which makes buying something a little trickier
• Be adventurous - but think ahead. We found a couple neat shrines and parks by just turning down alleys and parks. In Kyoto, we wandered around and found many shrines and temples. Near the end of the day we stopped at the Kyoto Tower to look around. If we had gone to the tower first, we could have mapped out what we wanted to see (you can see pretty much all of Kyoto from the tower).

A few weeks ago I got a call from a great journalist at the Albuquerque Journal, Todd Lovato. My old friend Dan Mayfield pointed him in my direction for an article he was writing about geeks and nerds, and how they were either Alpha Male or Beta Males. The interview went well, and they also took some photos of me and my car. The article was in this Sunday’s Journal, and here’s a mediocre scan of the front page of the “Living” section:

There was more on the inside, including a nice black and white photo of me driving. Did any of you see the article?

I made a quick parody of the Mercedes McLaren Formula One car with more appropriate advertisers. (click on image for full size):

New Sponsors include:

• Ferrari - for all technical data that turned them from a second rate team to Ferrari speed. Nice turn around -cheaters.
• CheatCodes.com - using all the cheating they can, they’ve enlisted the help of the best cheat site online!
• SCHUMI Developed - The technology was optimized by Schumacher - need we say more
• Cliff Notes - Why do all you own work, when you can read somebody else’s?

Well, it took years in the making, but it’s finally available! The Ferrari 308 Buyer’s and Owner’s Guide! It’s available on Amazon.com! Pick up a copy and let me know what you think!

Finally finished the major coding sections for GameRadar.com’s Blog section. You can check it out at: GameRadar.com News.  Here’s a short article: GameRadar Opens!