mobile version
January 17, 2010 – 7:48 amI installed a wp plugin which gives me a mobile version of the site, including the admin interface. I’m typing this from a smart phone.
Troy University Clarinet Day March 26-27, 2010 in Troy, AL
January 11, 2010 – 11:44 amTroy University Clarinet Day March 26-27, 2010 in Troy, AL
Please take a look at the attached and forward to anyone you know who has high school age clarinet students. They have lined up some extremely high level clinicians, and it would be a great benefit at a very reasonable cost. For more information, click on the link below (takes you to a page where you can retrieve the PDF)
Historical Description of Fax Machines
December 19, 2009 – 11:29 pmfrom the archives of the American Paper Equipment museum:
Telecopier 200, Xerox Corporation (facsimile machine, 1970s)
This early example of the facsimile (“fax”) machine was capable of sending up to one A4 sized page of information every 2 minutes, albeit with some sacrifice of quality. The greatest image quality (equivalent to 96 dpi) was achieved at a transmission rate of one page every 6 minutes. Later models were integrated with laser imaging systems and their print engines were technically capable of up to 600 dots per inch, although transmission noise always rendered the graphic quality less impressive than the dpi number would suggest.
The fax transmission protocol was never technically capable of color, and typical line conditions made fine gradients in grey scale problematic.
The transmission method involved an “analog” signal sent over “telephone lines,” and was used for transmitting documents, unwanted ethnic restaurant menus, jokes, and hoax warnings prior to, and for a surprising number of years after, the advent of “e-mail,” which served much the same purpose for late boomers and members of “Generation X,” until President Al Gore declared Google Wave the mandatory method of data transmission in 2021.
AT&T marketing fail
October 19, 2009 – 8:38 amI will admit my bias here. AT&T Cellular, in one of their previous incarnations, jacked me up on a contract and I haven’t quite felt the same about them since. It may not have even been the same company; AT&T has been so many companies, you know?
I’m at the Auburn/Kentucky game minding my own business when Read the rest of this entry »
cupcakes at soccer party
October 18, 2009 – 10:18 pm
so when’s the next bicycle ride?
September 11, 2009 – 10:23 pm- took that ride on the 7th, and now I have a cold. or the flu.
- I may have to get the handlebars and shoes fixed before I go out again. It was brutal.
Samsung BD-P1600, we barely knew ye
September 11, 2009 – 10:12 pmYes, by posting this I will undoubtedly get a lot of search engine traffic concerning this hose-beast of a blu-ray player, which bricked itself after telling me to load a firmware update. Go ahead, tell me your tale of woe…
This player was the successor to the infamous BD-P1500, which bricked itself exactly 90 days after I bought it. It no longer played discs. The 1500 didn’t have Netflix capability or any other online functions, so the 1600 was a welcome replacement, even though it took 4 WEEKS for Samsung to come to the conclusion they couldn’t find parts for the 1500.
This time around, Samsung has twittered at me, e-mailed me, we’ve chatted on the internet, and finally I got them on the phone. They can do everything except go ahead and offer to replace the thing. I’ll have to call Monday to do that.
I still hope to get it replaced as a spare, but I went ahead and bought an LG BD-370. And a Best Buy 2 year warranty. I know Dave Ramsey says not to buy warranties, but somehow in this case $29.99 seemed like a good bet.
Buying the player and the warranty gave me another opportunity to learn once again that retail clerks don’t have highly developed senses of humor:
“So if I buy this warranty, I can drop it on the sidewalk in front of the store and get another one if it breaks.”
“No sir, accidental damage is not included.”
(facepalm)
First bicycle ride since sometime in 2007
September 7, 2009 – 4:30 pm… not counting a brief check-out ride in front of Bruce Herbitter’s house.
This afternoon I put on cycling shorts and a poly t-shirt (not sure I want to try on any of my cycling jerseys right now), along with gloves, a helmet that probably needs to be ditched due to sheer old age, and some cycling glasses I didn’t know I still had. I plan to either sell my bike or fix the handlebar situation (read on) and exchange the pedals for something that allows me to put a rubber-soled foot down, but I wanted to take inventory of how bad it is.
I lowered the seatpost until some practice runs assured me I could get some semblance of a left foot down. My left foot is the one that’s connected to my brain by an artificial hip now, but it’s more stable than my right. It’s hard to describe what goes on with my right leg. I walk without a limp, per se, but if I’m going to stumble, it’s invariably going to be on my right. Not what I want to use for landing gear. As it was, I made some decent stops and got my foot back in the clipless pedals several times – the only really awkward stop and restart was, naturally, when I was crossing a 5 lane boulevard in Prattville (I mainly rode in my neighborhood).
The handlebars are definitely too low. My right elbow (the one that got injured) doesn’t want to take more than 30-40% of the weight, and both arms are hurting before long. If I get down on the hoods enough to brake, I feel like I’m in a position usually associated with jumping off a diving board.
My legs are stronger, and I’ve been taking walks for a while, but this is different. The arms (and, candidly, the nerves) probably ended this ride at about 2.9 miles, but the legs (and heart and lungs) were still only good for about 12 mph average speed.
This was the hardest <3 mile ride I’ve ever taken in my life.
Setting up a blog site for a friend
June 25, 2009 – 10:29 pmIn keeping with my policy of spending every evening goofing around with web sites, I have spent this evening setting up www.robertashurstconsulting.com. Bob is a great friend of mine who has helped my business tremendously, and while he is currently much more about the e-mail than the web site, I wanted to set up something which could help him update friends and put info up on the web without a lot of fuss and muss. Read the rest of this entry »
Jury Duty
June 23, 2009 – 10:49 pmMonday I spent three hours at the Autauga County courthouse waiting to go onto a jury duty panel. Judge Sibley Reynolds told us that the jury selection process used to be “ten old men” who were selected to pick jury panels, and they placed names of potential jurors in a washing machine box.
Unfortunately, the slips of paper “were never fluffed up” or purged of old names, so they frequently had the same people in the panels.
Some surprises
- the number of people who were called who either had excuses, were not qualified, or who were no-shows. If I recall correctly, 200 jurors were summoned and 89 were there and qualified.
- the number of lawyers milling around the courtroom that I knew.
- the number of people in the jury pool I knew.
I guess I’ve lived in Prattville a long time. I was selected for a panel on Thursday, so on that morning I find out if I will be placed on a jury.
