Thursday, October 27, 2005

they found it

Yup, I didn't have the two-and-a-half week waiting period this time either! They found my car abandoned off 'some road somewhere' (actually, I've googled for the intersection and can't find it...). There was "minor damage" according to the police report, but it was not that bad at all. I was expecting much worse, like they did the first time. All in all, the only things missing are my stereo and speakers. They didn't take the pink slip from the glove box or anything, they were just after the stereo. They took the only thing in that car worth more than $200, including the car itself. Anyway, heres a view of the damage to the front of the car:



They ripped everything apart, but they left all the parts there. The center console cover is in the backseat, and even all the screws are piled together on the passenger seat. The speaker covers are even intact still.

One of the worst thing about getting a car stolen and recovered is the towing. You are already pissed because your car was gone, you had to deal with cops, stuff is missing, etc..., but then when you finally go to pick up your car, they hand you this:



In case you can't tell, they CHARGED ME A TOWING FEE. Yeah. Talk about adding insult to injury. "Oh, by the way, not only did you just get screwed by having your car stolen and stripped, but that'll be $210 convinience charge". I was expecting it, but it blows. They even charged me for storing it today. I picked it up at 9:30 AM, but I still paid $30 to keep it at some car lot with a "beware of dog" sign until then. Cut a brother some slack.

I feel I could rant about my life right now until iPods go out of style, but I have to go beg my teacher not to mark me absent for the 10 AM lab I just missed.

Monday, October 24, 2005

i give up with cars

I don't even know what to say.

My car got stolen.

There, that's it. I'm at a loss, I have no idea what to do now. It's like I was never meant to ever have a mode of transportation or something. I filed a police report, but I don't even have high hopes of them finding it anywhere near intact. At this point I don't really care even. You know, I could list off the troubles I have had with this car since the summer. A wreck. The alternator fiasco. Getting broken into. The ticket. And now this. At this point, I don't even care about it anymore. I am so very tempted to just say screw it all and disavow any knowledge of ever owning this god forsaken car. I take back what I said - I hope the police never find it, just so I can kiss it goodbye for good and never own another honda again. I haven't even called the insurance company yet, telling myself that I will first thing in the morning.

I guess there was humor in it all someplace. Reading off my liscence number to the police on the phone, I said "four, 'd' as in david, 'g' as in god, 't' as in tony, and 'eight-five-one' as in ten eight fifty one." The last 3 digits in my liscence are the same as the police code for a stolen vehicle.

All humor aside, though - can't a guy catch a break? Even a small one? Seriously, this is ridiculous.

Thursday, October 13, 2005

stargazing

I was driving around upper bidwell park with Dan and Jason (who was ... not feeling himself let's just say) when we came across the Chico Observatory. I didn't even know Chico had an observatory, but there it was. I was fascinated by the telescopes they had, and it was a beatifully clear night. We were out taking long exposure night shots, so I had my camera with me, and I asked the two young volunteers there if there was any way to hook up my camera to the scopes. They said yes, they make adapters for cameras, but that they didn't have any and to come back today when Jim was working because he had one. Well, I went back tonight and talked cameras with Jim. I was just fascinated with the stars and moon that I spent almost two and a half hours there without even knowing it. Well, here's a shot of the moon I got with his camera adapter:



As you can see, it's a bit blurry for various reasons, like the telescope was out of focus. There were people in line wanting to look through the eyepiece, so we only had a few minutes to mess with it. I am going to go back after I learn more about how they work and once I get an adapter that's made for my camera. The moon was so brilliant tonight! I am also excited to go back when there's no moon so I can get some shots of the milky way and various star clusters and the such. The night sky is so captivating; I can see why so many ancient cultures spent so much time studying it. I won't even get into the meaning of life aspect of things :)

Here's a picture of the building and the two telescopes they have. They are both long exposure which is why the moon looks like the sun. I also caught the telescope on the right when Jim was moving it to another galaxy (or whatever). I was using the other one (on the left) with the camera, you can see it's pointed at the moon.



Like I said, I can't wait to go back and play around some more. I hope I don't get hooked on astronomy...

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

new iPod

In case you hadn't figured it out yet, apple came out with the iPod video just seconds ago.



It has a bigger 2.5" screen at 320x240 pixels, is 31% thinner than the "old" 20 gig iPod, and decodes MPEG4 and h.264 video. From Apples site:

Time for the world’s best music player to take the stage for another encore. In 30GB and 60GB(1) models that hold up to 15,000(2) songs, full-color album art and up to 25,000 photos(3), the new iPod makes the most of your music and more. Yeah, you’ve heard that tune before. Only now, you can watch it, too. With support for up to 150 hours(4) of video and a 2.5-inch color display, the new iPod lets you take music videos and TV shows on the road.

Am I so into this that I ditched a lab because I was sitting in front of my computer hitting the refresh button at Apple's store? I would probably sell my soul to that damned company. Alright, time to go to my lecture...

Monday, October 10, 2005

ipod madness

I have a mild obsession with iPods for some reason. I am pretty sure about 98% of the US population does too, but I love them. I also like taking things apart. Since I was a wee lad I have always enjoyed taking stuff apart and (hopefully) putting it back in working order. iPods are no exception.

In the dorms, a girl gave me a dead 20 gig 4G iPod she had dropped (although she denies it to this day). I took it apart and looked at the inner workings. If you were around in the dorms, you also remember me going to Radio Shack a few times and creating my own ATA adapter for the Hard Drive and frying a power supply in the process. Well, that project may have been a dud, but a friend of mine handed me another broken iPod tonight in hopes that it might work again. Somehow, I didn't really ask, he dropped it in a bit of water and it stopped working. Seeing how the warranty is void if contact with water is suspected, he gave it to me to give a shot at fixing it.

When I opened it up, I was shocked:



There were literally small puddles of water! After some initial work with tissue and q-tips® I opened it up a bit more to find some corrosion on the main board:



I cleaned it off best I could with more q-tip® and some toothpicks in order to not damage the board or the etchings. Anyway, I cleaned off all the corrosion, tested the battery, dried the thing out, and plugged it in. And guess what, it turned on. The first time! Not that I did much, but it was nice to take it apart and fix it.

In taking it apart, I did notice several key differences in this one and the one I took apart a few months ago. The recent one was one of the Apple+HP models which have since been discontinued, but came windows formatted out of the box. Also, it was a 40 rather than a 20 gig, so it was a tiny bit bigger than the other one. The click wheel was covered differently, and the screen was mounted differently than I remember (then again, I might just be clueless) but I swear it wasn't the same...

Whatever, here are some more pics if you are interested:



My boss says I should start charging to replace the batteries in them now that they have been around a while and are starting to lose their charge. I could buy them in bulk and charge $50 to replace them or something... something to think about.

murphy's law

So I was supposed to get on a train last night at 8:39 PM in San Josè and wake up at two in the morning in Chico to go to class at nine. Well. Let me tell you about murphy's law.

I got there with my sister with about 10 minutes to spare; pretty good for a train. I haven't got a ticket yet because I'm a slacker, so I wait in line with just one person in front of me. Made in the sade, right? Turns out that the woman is complaining to the person behind the counter because she did not have enought time to get her handicapped, wheelchair-ridden daugher on board the train, yet the attendant sold her a ticket anyway. The woman wanted to get on the same train as me. The poor girl behind the counter was helpless, she just sat there and took it from this very angry woman. All the while I am trying to butt in and buy my ticket. Well, I'm pretty timid as we all know, and I definately did not want to get on the angry woman's bad side and watched the clock tick. Finally, I kid you not, at 8:38 - one minute to go - the woman storms out of the building in a yelling fury, and I walk up to the girl at the counter who is by this time almost in tears. Nope, can't sell me a ticket, I won't make it.

Lame. So I buy a ticket for the first train in the morning, at 6:30. Spend the night at my sisters and wake up at 5:30 to give us plenty of time. Again, show up with 20 minutes to spare when I realize that crap, I forgot my wallet in the murky haze known as waking up without a shower. My sister races back and returns with 2 minutes to go. With the wrong wallet. Her roommate left his wallet and keys on the same table, and my sister grabbed the wrong set. So no worries, I figure I can catch the next one at 9 and just say screw class and work today.

I get on the bus to Oakland, the train to Sacramento, and the bus again to Chico. Then, about 2 miles north of Marysville (less than an hour from Chico, my place of residence, this happens:



They called the mechanic to come in from Sacramento to fix the blown tire, and I called - who else - Stassia to pick me up and give me a ride the rest of the way. I can only imagine waiting for the mechanic. He probably would have gotten stuck in traffic or something. As it was, I arrived in Chico at 5:30 PM with an expected arrival at 3 PM, but having planned on arriving at 2 AM. Gotta love flexibility.

Friday, October 07, 2005

love my bandwidth

I'm sitting here at work because I had a break between classes and I'm just browsing the web. Why the post? I was looking into the h.264 codec and how cool it is over at wikipedia.org and at apple's website. I came across the HD samples they had to offer over here. I first downloaded the NASA video and noticed that it went pretty fast. I'm at school, didn't think anything of it, then I downloaded the Brothers Grimm trailer and watched. For twenty seconds.

The file is 168.2 MB in size of pure digital video. The file downloaded in exactly twenty seconds. You do the math. Or if you're lazy, google can do the math.
168 megabytes = 1,344 megabits; 1,344 Mb / 20 seconds = 67.2 Mb/s.

67.2 Mbps actual speed. That's a pretty fat connection to the internet. And that makes me happy :)

Just because I'm a happy geek, here is a screenshot:



That's it, just a dumb post.