furiousBlog

Some Random Family Videos

nospam@example.com (ben) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 10:51:20 -0500

For my birthday this year, Cyndi gave me a Flip Video Camera. It's a little larger than the size of a cell phone, a couple gigs of internal storage (an hour's worth), and a flip-out usb connector so you can plug it straight into a computer. It's brain-dead simple to use. Its simplicity & small size make it ideal for actually using, as opposed to a 'real', more expensive camera that would have a good chance of sitting on the shelf most of the time.

I've had it since July, but only got around to doing anything with the videos the other day. I setup a YouTube account and uploaded a bunch of vids there. The vids are mainly just family stuff around the house, and feature a lot of the kids (both in front and behind the camera--be prepared for some motion sicknes when they're running the camera). They also feature a fair amount of me being impatient with the kids.

Annoyingly, someone had already taken the username furiousben, so on YouTube, I'm just furiousblog. You can see all the vids or subscribe via RSS on my channel:

furiousblog's youtube channel

Here are a couple of the vids:

Kids at Washington Monument:

Lori, After Crying

The last Obama rally before the election was held in Manassas, which is just about 20 minutes from our house. We went with the two older kids and my Dad:

The kids jumping in one of the five or six piles of leaves we raked on Tuesday:

Pumpkins & Netflix

nospam@example.com (ben) — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 08:16:18 -0500

Most of you have probably already seen these since Cyndi posted them up on Facebook, but I figured I'd post here, too. Here are the two pumpkins I carved for Halloween:

I didn't cut all the way through, scraping out the design instead. They took forever, but I was pretty pleased with the results. I started with McCain, because I knew there would be a learning curve . I thought McCain was a little too dark, so I removed the skin from the shadowy part. It didn't actually lighten him up at all, and just made him look messed up in the light:

On a different note, I checked my Netflix suggestions today and had this:

My guess is that 'A Walk to Beautiful' is a eco-documentary about a historical bio pic that finds comedy in the mundane.

Ignore the exit polls

nospam@example.com (ben) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 15:45:21 -0500

The excellent poll analysis site FiveThirtyEight gives 10 reasons to ignore the exit polls tonight.

Ten Reasons Why You Should Ignore Exit Polls

These include the fact that exit polls have a larger margin of error than regular polls, they tend to overstate the Democrats' share of the vote, and they miss early and late voters. But my favorite reason is #10:

10. You'll know the actual results soon enough anyway. Have patience, my friends, and consider yourselves lucky: in France, it is illegal to conduct a poll of any kind within 48 hours of the election. But exit polls are really more trouble than they're worth, at least as a predictive tool. An independent panel created by CNN in the wake of the Florida disaster in 2000 recommended that the network completely ignore exit polls when calling particular states. I suggest that you do the same.

Presidential Pumpkins

nospam@example.com (ben) — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 11:10:16 -0400

I love carving pumpkins. In the past, I've used templates that I found online to create Edward Scissorhands, aliens, etc. This year, I'm definitely going weirder:

President-o-lanterns

I'm thinking one pumpkin for each party, featuring both Pres. & VP candidates.

Die, lawn, die! Oh, wait. You're already dead.

nospam@example.com (ben) — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 19:32:00 -0400

Over the past several months, I've become somewhat of a treehugging hippie (I know some of you think I already was, but I've taken it to a new level). I've started composting in massive quantities and started gardening. I also have a lot of plans for rain barrels, a gray water reclamation system and a homemade solar hot water heater amongst other things.

One of the things that I've been giving a lot of thought to is my lawn. Lawns are a pain in the butt to maintain, require unholy amounts of water, collectively generate more pollution from fertilizer runoff than farms and are completely unnatural.

For a month or two now, I've had a tab open in Firefox to this great article in the New Yorker:

Turf Wars

It talks about how we ended up with the absurd and unsustainable idea that everyone needed to have a patch of land covered with the exact same type of grass. It also discusses what we had before and a lot of the problems with lawns. I highly recommend reading it.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with my lawn. I have a hill in my back yard that I planted grass on to keep it from eroding, but now it's mostly dead. For the bigger part of it, which is a little ways off from the house, I'm going to plant a 'meadow mix' of seed that will grow a mix of wildflowers and other plants. This will control the erosion, but will also require less water and maintenance, and will look good.

I've got big plans for the other half of the back yard, too, but they're a lot more involved and so will take a lot more time and effort (and money...) to pull off.

It's the front yard that's the real problem. Currently, it's just grass with some mulched areas next to the house. I've basically decided that I won't water the lawn, so it's not very nice right now. I'm not sure what I'm going to do there, but whatever it is, it will involve the elimination of most of the grass and replacing it with some sort of drought-tolerant, low-maintenance landscaping.

Olympic Crash

nospam@example.com (ben) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 13:27:18 -0400

This is amusing:

Full article:
CTRL+ALT+DEL: software malfunction at the opening ceremony (via Slashdot)

The first line of the article is priceless:

Turns out that Bill Gates was not the only famous Microsoft identity to be spotted at the Olympic opening ceremony.

Too fat to die?

nospam@example.com (ben) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 08:50:40 -0400

I've been reading a lot about the death penalty recently. I came across this (morbidly) humorous little article:

Ohio: Too Fat for the Death Penalty?

A death row inmate scheduled for execution says he is too fat to be put to death, arguing that executioners would have trouble finding his veins and that his weight could diminish the effectiveness of one of the lethal injection drugs. Lawyers for the inmate, Richard Wade Cooey II, claim in a federal lawsuit that Mr. Cooey, who weighs 267 pounds, had poor veins when he faced execution five years ago and that the problem has been worsened by weight gain. The lawsuit, filed Friday in federal court, also says that prison officials have had difficulty drawing blood from Mr. Cooey for medical procedures. Mr. Cooey, 41, was sentenced to die for raping and killing two young women in 1986. His execution is scheduled for Oct. 14.

If this works, expect to see the death row currency switch from smokes to sloppy joes.

Good BoingBoing day

nospam@example.com (ben) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 13:11:21 -0400

I noticed three interesting items on BoingBoing that I thought I'd point out.

Orwell's Diaries in Blog Form
Quote from the actual blog:

From 9th August 2008, you will be able to gather your own impression of Orwells face from reading his most strongly individual piece of writing: his diaries. The Orwell Prize is delighted to announce that, to mark the 70th anniversary of the diaries, each diary entry will be published on this blog exactly seventy years after it was written, allowing you to follow Orwells recuperation in Morocco, his return to the UK, and his opinions on the descent of Europe into war in real time. The diaries end in 1942, three years into the conflict.
Mom, Dad, I'm into Steampunk: an imaginary monologue
Now, I'm not into steampunk (BoingBoing obviously is), but I read this anyway. The imaginary monologue is here at McSweeney's. My favorite part is quoted here:

This looks like a late-18th-century organette, correct? Look again. It hides the Dell laptop you got me when I went to college. This bronze hand crank turns it on, and I've hidden a miniature photo printer where the tune sheet is supposed to go. I even installed Linux.
Gawker reports on "monster" washed ashore
What the?

Ok, it's probably a fake...but if not, yikes!

Update to the War on Photography

nospam@example.com (ben) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 08:47:47 -0400

I noted the ongoing crackdown on photography at DC's union station, in LightBoxDC was there and posted about it:

Norton Schools Union Station Management on Photo Rights, Other Issues

Norton also reinforced the fact that Union Station, while hosting a mix of retail and other uses, remains public property. "The overriding public interest has never been in doubt: to provide the public access to a federally owned facility," Norton stated.

...

Station managers said they're working to fix the problem, but Norton branded management's approach "pathetic" and demanded immediate removal of their signs claiming Union Station is private property and that photography can be banned at their discretion.

The LightBoxDC post has links to more coverage. You can view the whole hearing here.

Argh!

nospam@example.com (ben) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 09:32:46 -0400

The other day, the plugin that shows my flickr photos here on furiousBlog started generating an error. I tried to fix it, but haven't been able to. Obnoxious.

furiousBlog is 3

nospam@example.com (ben) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 10:48:51 -0400

I can't seem to remember to post when my blog ages. Anyway, I've been blogging furiously for 3 years as of June 7th.

Horrible Reminder

nospam@example.com (ben) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 09:14:36 -0400

Just wanted to remind everyone that Act 1 of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is up today. Acts 2 & 3 will be up Thursday and Saturday. I just watched it; it's great.

Is nothing sacred?

nospam@example.com (ben) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 09:58:01 -0400

Seriously, this time they've gone too far! I'm fine with robots that play chess, vacuum my floor, build my cars, milk my cows or raise my kids, but an air hockey playing robot is over the line!

Robots aim to top humans at air hockey (via Slashdot)

First, a supercomputer beats a chess master. Then, an artificial intelligence program deals defeat to a poker champion. Next: A robot takes on humans in air hockey.

In a comment on slashdot, Idontgno says it best:

First they're beating us at chess, then at air hockey... pretty soon they're rolling around yelling "EX..TER..MI..NATE", disintegrating us, and avoiding staircases.

Who Killed the Electric Car?

nospam@example.com (ben) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 09:22:35 -0400

Has anyone seen the documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car?"? We watched it last night, and I'm still all fired up.

It deals mainly with the GM EV-1, and all-electric car that came about because of the zero-emissions mandate enacted by California in the early 90's. It shows how they were fast (really fast!) and quiet, but doesn't shy away from their downsides, mainly their limited range (60 miles per charge at first, but 120 in the later models--newer lithium-ion batteries in an EV-1 could easily do 300).

They were much loved by the people leasing them, but then when the leases were up, GM wouldn't re-up the leases, collected all the cars and destroyed them. No official explanation was given, but several auto industry representatives said that no one wanted a car that could only go 120 miles per charge and required charging overnight (but could get an 85% charge in an hour). This was in spite of a huge waiting list due to the fact that they insisted on hand assembling the cars, which artificially drove up the price and increased production time.

Personally, I would LOVE a car that I could plug in overnight that would take me to work & back each day with some charge left over for some errands. To think that such a thing existed, was actually on the roads and was killed really turns my stomach, especially in light of the mess we're in right now with gas prices. Since they were taken off the roads, we could've had 6 more years of development and improvement on these cars, but instead we're wasting money and time on pie-in-the-sky ideas like hydrogen cars and half measures like hybrids, with a bright light being plug-in hybrids that should be here 'soon.'

I can only imagine how well these would sell these days. If only GM had stuck with it, they'd be raking in the money instead of losing billions on big gas-guzzling SUVs.

I highly recommend this movie. I can't recommend it enough.

This guy, however, disagrees. While there is some truth to some of the points he makes (specifically the list in #1), mostly he's having fun calling conjecture 'fact.' You can have your own fun by comparing his argument tactics to Wikipedia's list of logical fallacies. While you're at it, you may as well figure out which one I'm using in this paragraph

On a side note, the movie also touches on how, in the mid 20th century, GM bought out a bunch of streetcar companies, dismantled the electric streetcars and replaced them with GM buses. More info here.

Long live the Yaris!

nospam@example.com (ben) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:33:00 -0400

To replace the newly-dead Camry, we bought a used 2007 Toyota Yaris. I had been looking into them a few months ago, but couldn't justify buying anything until the Camry kicked the bucket. It's too bad, though, because with the price of gas going up, everyone is buying Yarises (Yarii?) and the prices reflect the increased demand. When I was first looking, I found several used ones for around $10,000. Now, though, they're really hard to find and the prices have gone up. The dealership I bought from had two and was the only dealership within a hundred miles to have two. All the others had one or none. When looking, I would see a new listing and it would be gone

I wanted something small, looked ok and was more fuel-efficient. Oh yeah, it had to be affordable. The Yaris is definitely all of these things. It's small enough on the outside to park basically anywhere. Yet, it's surprisingly roomy on the inside and is quite comfortable even in the backseat. I was nervous about picking up slugs in it, so I got in the back even before the test drive. I did have two huge guys as slugs the other day, and it was a little snug.

I found a list of the top 8 or 10 most fuel-efficient cars of 2007 & the Yaris was #7. The rest were hybrids and costed on average twice the price of my Yaris. The 2007's mileage was listed as 34 or 35 city and 39 highway. The EPA changed how they calculate mileage, though and the new ones (same exact car) are listed as 29/35. Using some moderate hypermiling techniques, I'm hoping to get over 40, though. I plan on posting more on this later.

So, I love my Yaris. I've never really had a car that I actually liked. They've always been just cars. But, I actually enjoy driving the Yaris. It's like driving a go-kart (in a good way). Here are a bunch of pictures of it that I snagged from the dealership's site.