So the picture to the right is not a tremendously good one, but it is a photo of a singularly spectacular sunset that took place here a few days ago. The catch is that I took the picture on my cell phone, a Motorola KRZR. A year ago, that picture would have been trapped on my cell phone, never to see the light of day anywhere else... however, now that my new desktop has integral Bluetooth capabilities, and, coincidentally, so does my phone... Well, magic happens. After a little difficulty with getting the two to actually talk to each other, I finally got the phone to send the picture over to the computer, and there we have it. The only oddity was that the phone said it took the picture at 1280x1024 resolution, but after seeing it on my computer at 640x512, I checked and saw that it was the same, smaller resolution on the phone. Not sure where it screwed up with that, or if making the picture my background on the phone messed it up, but it should (theoretically) be fixed now.

Ain't technology grand? Cell phone cameras may, by and large, still be crappy, but now it is so much easier to share that crappiness with the rest of the 'verse!

This is just cool.

That is all.

Pelican cases come with an extraordinarily good warrantee, especially these days. As quoted straight from their own webpage,

You break it, we replace it... forever. ... Pelican™ Products will continue to guarantee the product directly, against breakage or defects in workmanship. This guarantee does not cover the lamp or batteries in lights. The o-rings must be kept greased (and replaced if damaged) per product instructions. (Replace o-rings annually or when damaged.)

However, there is a second section of their guarantee that I did not really notice until my cases actually arrived in the mail. Below is a scan of their instruction manual, and, specifically, the page relating to the warantee. Click to enlarge:

It might be a little difficult to read at that size, but if you enlarge it, and look for the section I conveniently highlighted for you, the cause for this post will be come clear. Namely:

The guarantee does not cover shark bite, bear attack and children under five.

Not being a father yet, I guess I cannot quite fully comprehend, but it certainly is amusing that humans under five years of age are ranked with the most dangerous predator of the waters, and one of the more fearsome, powerful creatures on land. Of course, even more amusing is the probable fact that all three of those clauses are a byproduct of someone trying to get warantee work done after each of those incidents...

For any of you who are as addicted to Lego bricks as I (still) am, this comprehensive Lego-brick-related post over at Gizmodo should answer just about all the questions you could probably ever think of, and then some. For instance, my two favorites are:

Approximately 19 billion Lego elements are produced per year. 2.16 million are molded every hour, 36,000 every minute. More than 400 billion Lego bricks have been produced since 1958. There are about 62 Lego bricks per person of the Earth’s population.

... and ...

...We use rubber to produce Lego tires—did you know we’re the world’s largest producer of vehicle tires?

Hm... Legoland is right up the road...

Like I mentioned previously, Better Half and I hit up a store called Big 5 Sporting Goods a few days ago. Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful in our quest for new shoes for her, but we did walk out with a new knife for me. Would have been nice to manage both, but since we eventually later found her shoes, I can manage.

So, as for this new knife for me, oddly enough, it is made by Jeep... or at least has Jeep badging on the handle and one side of the blade, with a Chrysler copyright on the other, so I can probably believe it. Anywise, it comes with a blade that is just shy of 3.5 inches in length, though, unfortunately, it only comes with a plain edge - no serration here. The interesting aspects of it, however, are not on the blade, but rather on the handle.

A while back, the SOG Trident TF-1 caught my attention, if only for its somewhat unique handle design, allowing the blade to cut things like seatbelts, paracord, fishing line, and similar things while it is closed. Sadly, though, the $72 price tag is kind of intimidating. Well, this little Jeep knife I snagged has the same concept, only there is a secondary blade integrated into the handle to do the seatbelt-cutting, rather than the knife's blade. Add to that a glassbreaking point at the bottom of the handle, as well as a $13 price tag, and I can definitely deal with this alternate model.

The real reason I chose this particular knife, however, is another element it and the SOG share... If you look at its clip (and, I admit, my photography skills suck), you will see that the knife will ride all the way down in your pocket, with none of its bulk exposed. Me, I like that style - it occasionally makes it a little harder to grab the knife, but it also stands a better chance of not alerting or offending the sheeple.

Subjectively, the knife rides well in my pocket, though you will have to be careful - if your pockets are too shallow, or if you keep anything valuable in the same pocket as the knife, the glassbreaker point might pose a problem. It is relatively easy to manipulate (the handle, though it is finished in a very-slightly-textured black something-or-another, can be occasionally slick), and the knife is easy to deploy with one hand (and a slight flick, if you are so inclined). The internal liner lock catches well, shows no immediate signs of giving, and is easy to collapse one-handed.

Now, to be fair, the SOG and the Jeep are not at all comparable knives... the former is comprised of AUS 8 steel while the latter is 440A Stainless (comparison here); the former has SOG Assisted Technology (which does not make the knife a "switchblade" or automatic), the latter has your thumb; the former has a longer (3.75 inches) blade and weighs less (3.6 ounces) thanks to a Zytel handle, while the latter has a shorter edge and weighs more (according to my kitchen scale, 4.13 ounces) due to an all-metal handle. Simply put, the Jeep is a much cheaper knife, despite its $50 "normal" price.

All that said, something tells me I can come up with a good application for the $60 I saved... I may be turning into a sharp-and-pointy junkie, but I certainly am not a corporate-label-snob.

As I mentioned previously, my Surefire 6P Defender had something of an issue a little while back. A rather catastrophic, disappointing issue. Well, the same day I wrote that post, I emailed Surefire with my contact information, and just yesterday, the new endcap showed up in the mail - at no cost to me, whatsoever. A quick unscrew and rescrew, and the flashlight was happily lighting up the world again without any problems at all. Also, of more interesting note, the endcap now has a metal collar around the plastic bits that failed on the first version... that addition, along with the Surefire Support people being so quick with a "we'll fix it, just tell us where to mail it" response, indicates to me that this failure was something of a common one in the past... However, like I said, the metal collar got added, and hopefully that will keep it from happening again in the future.

Yeah, I think I can live with this flashlight and company... not only is it a good flashlight, but the company immediately fixes defective problems, not only by providing me a new part, but redesigning obivious or repeated shortcomings. Works for me.

(Click on all pictures to enlarge.) So a short while ago, I availed myself of some of the limited revenues this weblog generates, and purchased a Surefire 6P Defender. For the better part of the last four years, an Inova X5 flashlight has been hanging on my belt, and while it meets most of my requirements for a carry flashlight, it did have a few annoying aspects. First, it does not have a constant-on push-button endcap - rather, to leave the flashlight on constantly, you have to screw the endcap down all the way, or just push the momentary-on push-button continuously. Either way, it can be a little inconvenient/uncomfortable at times. Second, while the five LEDs are more than bright enough, they also lack a lens or reflector to focus their lights, and thus tend to diffuse rapidly, reaching more-or-less uselessness within about 20-25 feet. With all of this in mind, I did a little shopping around, and a name that came to mind immediately was, of course, Surefire - as I have noted many times in the past, I tend to be a little destructively rough on things (not intentionally, it kind of just happens), and that company has made a point of making durable, reliable products. Sounds like my kind of people.

The 6PD showed up in the mail, and I have to admit that it lived up to its reputation right off the bat - the flashlight feels durable and well-designed in you hands, with all of the various parts and pieces fitting together perfectly. Furthermore, it has a fully-functional push-button endcap (capable of both momentary and constant illuminations with just a push of your thumb), as well as a prefocused reflector good out to easily 40 feet or more while still providing more than sufficient lighting. Oh, yeah, and it just happens to have a nicely-crenellated bezel, making it even more useful in terms of carry purposes... After all, you cannot carry a firearm or knife everywhere... but not many places will give you grief over a flashlight. And holy flying carp this thing is bright... (yes, I tested it on myself... no, I will not be doing that again). It fits snugly in the nylon holster I ordered with it, which, in turn, fits on any belt I own (primarily because the belt loop on the holster is adjustable). The flashlight is a bit thicker than the old Inova, which took some getting used to when carrying it around, but after a while, I hardly even notice it any more. And as a random, further use, it turns out that 6P-series flashlights can be relatively easily mounted to my M1A, or any other Picatinny-compatible system, by a variety of methods. So far, so good.

Unfortunately, now we come to the not-so-good portion. A few days back, while I had the flashlight out on one of its many convenient uses, I happened to notice a funny rattling noise coming from its internals. I unscrewed the endcap, and along with it and the two batteries falling out, a spring and two little plasic pieces took off for the hills. After a hurried few minutes trying to track down the spring and figure out what the little plastic bits were, I have to confess that I was a litle disappointed. If you look at the inside of the endcap on the 6P, the spring is held in place by three plastic catches, arranged in an equilateral triangle - two of those three failed to the point of breaking off entirely, and the remaining one was insufficient to hold the spring in place while I was disassembling things. (The picture is really inadequate to illustrate it properly, but if I tried taking it at an angle, things went out of focus... suffice to say, the spring should not be laying like it is.) After a little fiddling and finagling, I was able to snug up the spring underneath the one remaining catch long enough to reassemble the entire package, but this was only a temporary fix - eventually, I am going to have to replace the batteries, and the spring would almost inevitably try and escape once again. And, for the record, the flashlight has simply been living on my belt, being used for normal flashlight-y things for its entire, short life... nothing terribly destructive or whatnot.

When I got the chance, I hopped on Surefire's website, and shot them a quick email explaining what happened, what I thought was the problem, and that I hadpictures of the broken pieces if they wanted one. I offered to mail the defective part back as well, if they wanted it, but due to traveling a lot at the time, I was not relishing the thought of trying to work out the timing. Their response? And I quote...

Please provide us with your name, current address and contact phone number and we will have a replacement tailcap sent out for your 6PD.

...Well. Now that is rather impressive. No demand that I mail the defective part back, no request for the entire flashlight, no RMA headaches, just, "Ok, tell us where you are, and we will send you a new part." Alrighty then. Some other companies I have had to deal with in the past should definitely take some notes as to the meaning of "customer service", and Surefire deserves some pretty substantial credit for their interpretation of that phrase.

The final verdict? Well, when it comes to the flashlight, like I said, I have to admit to a little disappointment. Externally, this thing is built like a tank, and seems like it and cockroaches would be about the only things left over from a nuclear holocaust. Internally, though, I find it a bit odd that Surefire would have chosen parts or materials that would fail so easily under such a short period of what I would consider to be light use, especially considering the environments and applications most flashlights of this brand find themselves in. However, when it comes to the company as a whole, if they keep sending me replacement bits and pieces to correct what breaks, I will keep using their darksucker, and not really have a whole lot of complaints... aside from having to wait for those replacement parts. Hopefully, my situation was just something of a fluke, and a random failure (they do happen to the best of products, after all) - if it happens again, though, I will definitely let you all know, and if anyone has any similar experiences, feel free to share.

Those of us who are unfortunate enough to live within the confines of the People's Republik of Kalifornistan are probably familiar with the concept of rolling blackouts, or at least massive amounts of energy conservation. Probably has something to do with the idiotic restrictions Kalifornistan puts on constructing powerplants within the state, and the fact that a lot of the state's energy comes from... well... other states.

Well, in case you want to keep an eye on how things are going in the state, California ISO has a webpage. I cannot say as though the demand curve gives me a particularly warm fuzzy, especially considering how close it gets to the supply line, but I guess that is what happens when you have overregulation and depend on other people for something you should provide to your own citizens, yourself.

I guess it is just as well that I try my damnest not to use my A/C (thankfully, my apartment has ceiling fans in the living room and bedroom), and I like dark/dim rooms. God knows what would happen if I decided to turn everything on...

No, not "shiny", "sparkly" - there is a reason. As with all of the gun shows I have attended in the past, I, unfortunately, walked out without purchasing a single firearm. Though, I have to admit, the "gun" shows here in Kalifornistan are remarkably different from the gun shows I attended in Florida - here, they are much more gun accessory shows, as opposed to actual firearm shows. This is understandable, considering the idiotic laws Kalifornistan imposes upon firearms (10-round limits for handgun magazines, no removable magazines for "assault" rifles, etc.), but it is still a little odd to go to a "gun" show, and encounter no fewer than three jewelry displays. Granted, the knife displays (always good things in my books, especially after stumbling upon this gem - being an engineer, I cannot help to find that as anything except cool), and custom leather displays, and ammo displays, and self-defense-item displays, and all that good stuff are perfectly acceptable and expected at a gun show... but when the jewelry displays outnumber the honest-to-God firearm displays, there is a problem. Though, I guess I should rephrase that - there were quite a few collector's-style firearm displays, showing off weaponry that might be more at home in the hands of John Wayne... or Custer... or even Captain Jack in some cases. Basically, not my idea of "useful" firearms. There was a single table that included M1As, in any flavor, and just a single other table that featured the Kel-Tec SU-16CAs. Beyond that, there were a few handgun displays... and that was about it. The ammo stands were almost bigger, and I know the airsoft stands were significantly larger.

However, as with firearms shows I have attended in the past, I was unable to walk out without at least getting something. In this case, it catered towards one of my other, smaller addictions... fire. No, I am not a pyromaniac... I just definitely like a good explosion now and then, and being able to start a fire on short notice can sometimes be quite useful. Sure, matches are a good way to accomplish that, and work perfectly well at home, but when wet (a frequent occurrence any time outside of an air-conditioned area), they are all but completely useless. With that in mind, I got myself an old-fashioned fire-starter. Well, not entirely old-fashioned... after all, I am a toy freak.

Standard fire-starters are nothing more than a little flint and something steel with which to strike them. End result - lots of sparks. But sometimes sparks alone are not enough... Enter a "Texas Firestarter". Basically, this thing takes a basic, simple, tried-and-proven rod of flint, and then super-glues it to the back of a very large rod of soft magnesium. For those of you who do not remember your high school chemistry class, magnesium + hot-enough-sparks = lots and lots and lots of heat. And the flint on the back of the magnesium rod, when stroked with steel, can definitely make sparks hot enough, and since the same steel you use for the flint can be used to scrape off magnesium filings... well, you are all set. Scrape off the magnesium onto a hard surface, strike some sparks into it, and then start adding kindling, then mid-size stuff, then logs, and you should be all manner of set. For some reason, it recommends against setting up the magnesium on wood itself - not entirely sure why, since that would certainly accelerate the whole fire-starting thing, but I have not had a chance to experiment yet, so I cannot say for sure. Of course, I have not had a chance to play with it, period... I have no scraps of metal I could bear with destroying with magnesium fires.

At any rate, the link above includes an order sheet, if you are interested in grabbing one for yourself. The prices on the order form are a little steeper than what I paid at the show, but that is pretty normal. From the display, though, they are definitely impressively-sparkly enough to be more than cost-effective for anyone interested in starting a fire on short notice (campers, hikers, hunters, etc.), especially once you factor in the insane heat put off by magnesium burning. Add to that the all-weather functionality, as well as the caribiner that mine came with, and you should be set. And, hell, who can turn down easy fire?

Oh, and just to put in the no-doubt-required disclaimer, magnesium-fueled combustions are dangerous. Magnesium itself is capable of reaching temperatures of 4000 degrees Fahrenheit when burning, which can pretty much sizzle its way through whatever it bloody well pleases. Granted, we are not talking about copious amounts of magnesium with this firestarter, but this is still not something to fool around with. Please keep all fingers, toes, appendages, and other items away from all fires or burning metals. Unless you go for that kind of thing, in which case you are completely on your own.

---This post is not sponsored, I just like the product.---

You all know the feeling... you are either moving with a cell phone, looking to get a cell phone, or trying to change providers, and while each and every cell phone provider out there has surprisingly comprehensive maps of their coverage areas and what is roaming and where their data areas are and all that good stuff... you are never quite really sure. I mean, yeah, they show that area as being solid green... but what about if it is down a valley? Or what if you live on just the outside of that solid green... what does that mean for you? You can never, quite, be 100% sure of the coverage of whatever areas you live in, until you actually get the contract, get the phone, and then you have already signed on the dotted line.

What to do... what to do?

Enter some enterprising individuals with a good working knowledge of how Google Maps works, and you get SignalMap. The premise is simple - using a Google Maps back end, users like you and me go into the system, find our current location, input in our signal strength and provider (and cell phone make/model if you want to), and the system stores it away. Then, when people looking to research coverage in a certain area, they go to the other side of the webpage, and get to see either all of the providers on the map (currently they only include the big names: AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile), or you can pick a single one out of the flock.

The only drawback to the system? Well, besides the fact that it is listed as "Beta is an understatement...", it is also only as good as the information put into it. And, of course, heavily urban areas are currently the best populated with data points, and considering that heavily urbanized areas generally have the best coverage of anywhere, no one really cares about them. However, the more the name of this webpage gets out, the more people will look into it, and hopefully the more they will add information to its database.

So get out there, and start paying attention to your cell phones. When it cannot call home any more, notate where you are, and be sure to upload it to this webpage - who knows, it might actually be useful for someone else. And for those of you (like me) who are exceedingly paranoid about their privacy, it does not even ask for your name, so no worries on that count.

Oh, and, to continue to make it quite clear on how I am operating, this service did not provide me any manner of reimbursement for this plug, nor did any advertising service. I like their system, and getting its name out there will only serve to make it more accurate. And, as you can tell, this is not in the "for hire" category, so there you have it.

Mapping software online is occasionally rather interesting. For a while now, I have been relying almost exclusively on Google Maps, simply because I have encountered fewer errors with it, than with Mapquest. The latter once got me remarkably lost on the way to Deep Creek, so I still harbor a few resentments about that. Regardless, Better Half came across an instance of Mapquest not doing itself any favors: behold. Yeah, ok, you cannot see anything. I know. So keep zooming out until you do. Make note of the map. And then make note of the address that Mapquest is supposedly showing you.

Who knew?

On the good side of things, Google Maps has recently implemented functionality that allows you to plot a map between two locations, and then "grab" the route, and drag it to another path or waypoint, if you so desire. Before, you had to enter those waypoints in manually, one at a time, starting at the closest to the origin, and working your way out. Now, you can just plot from beginning to end, and then drag the route to whatever midway points you want to visit along the way, or a different road if you have an irrational dislike of one, or whatever. Feel free to fiddle, though, be aware - the more waypoints you add to Google Maps, the more resource-intensive it gets. The full plot of our cross-country jaunt involved at least 20, and my computer got slow.

Well this is certainly not something you see every day. Ok, sure, it is a clock. But it also keeps track of world populations, births, population growth, prison growth, US illegal immigration, US divorces, abortions, mothers die/abortions, HIV infections, cancer incidence, earth temperature, species extinct, forest lost, oil produced, cars produced, bicycles produced, computers produced, and deaths from 33 other, different sources. And it keeps track of this on a yearly, monthly, weekly, daily, or from-now-on vantage point. If you ever need a good, healthy dose of "Holy crap?!", this little clock will definitely provide it for you.

That said, I do have a few qualms with the data, or how it adds, or something. He claims his information comes from the World Health Organization, CIA Factbook, US Census Bureau, and "other sources". Furthermore, he does admit that "global warming" is highly debateable - I consider that to be a false statement, but I will leave it be for the time being. However, one really has to doubt the veracity of the information, or the veracity of the sources, or both. How can we honestly count the number of species that have gone extinct in the past year, for example? However, any way you look at it, the information is quite interesting - so long as it is taken as an approximation, and not hard-and-fast numbers. These kinds of things always give someone like me (who has far more background in probability and statistics than I would like) the wild willies.

Hat tip to Gizmodo.

Oy, I am just finding new toys all of the time. Unfortunately, I am not finding them all myself, but, hey, that is what friends are for, right? Regardless, by way of Electric Venom, I happened to be introduced to Stuffr. Now, I am the first to admit that I am not particularly fond of this internet trend of dropping letters out of the names of things (like Flickr, etc.) to make a "unique-ish" name (it kind of goes in the same category as the i[insertwordhere] trend that took over the world due to Apple), but I am certainly not going to hold the name of the program against it.

So, what does this gem of a program do? Well, have you ever wanted to post to your weblog without going to the hassle of dealing with its occasionally cumbersome interface, internet hiccups, network lag, and the random presses of the "Backspace" button that causes you to completely lose your post? Stuffr allows you to write, save, edit, and upload posts... all from the comfort of your own personal computer. It is a standalone program that interfaces with your MovableType, Tumblr, or WordPress weblog, and seems to get along quite nicely - or, at least, this post should indicate it works just fine - we will see when I try to upload it.

However, a word of caution for you MovableTypers out there - this program relies on your mt-xmlrpc.cgi file to interface with your weblog. As such, it makes use of something you probably set up when you first installed the weblog, and then promptly forgot about - your "web services" password. For those who have forgotten, this password can be found by opening your MovableType weblog, clicking on the Authors button (on the right toolbar, second from the top), and then clicking on the appropriate username. The web services password is all the way at the bottom. Change this to something you can remember this time around (not necessarily your weblog login password), and provide the information to Stuffr. Away you go.

And it just keeps getting better - in addition to being able to simply post, it also provides a rather complete set of text editing/formatting tools, tool bar buttons to access popular HTML formatting or features, and even easy ways of embedding web video and uploading files. You can even customize up to four HTML tags if the ones he provides are not sufficient for your needs. And even better, you can save partial posts to both your computer, and as drafts to your weblog.

Anywise, if this thing works as advertised, it may very well be the primary means I use to post to my weblog. A simple solution to an occasionally cumbersome problem.

Oh, and thanks to Slobokan for helping me out with the "web services" issue.

-- Powered By Stuffr! --

I somehow managed to entirely miss the production announcement for StarCraft II. 

Damn. 

For the interested, I basically was introduced to "modern" computer games in general, and real-time strategy in specific, with StarCraft and Age of Empires - before then, it was pretty much whatever games my dad had for the Atari 800XL / Atari ST / Apple IIe clone (to say he is a computer addict would be putting it mildly... I think he still has his old Commodore somewhere).  Regardless, due to those two games being my first real foray into gaming, RTS-ing, and really multiplaying (who knew you could use your phone lines to blow up your friends who lived a county away?), they both still hold something of a soft spot in my heart. 

Well, thankfully, Microsoft has actually bothered to update the Age of Empires series every once in a while...  we are up to the third iteration of the main series, and the Age of Mythologies spin-off (definitely worth playing) already has its own expansion. 

Blizzard, on the other hand...  has been lacking.  First, Diablo 2 distracted them... then Warcraft 3... and then, God forbid, World of Warcraft...  After World of Warcraft, I pretty much figured any hope of a sequel to StarCraft was pretty much lost - the WoW enterprise was just too lucrative, too mainstream, and too trendy, as with basically all MMORPGs out there.  Yes, granted, there was an expansion for StarCraft, but that more felt like they were filling in any left-over ideas they had from the original run, and wanted to be sure they wrote them down somewhere before they were lost.  Do not get me wrong - I got that expansion very shortly after it came out, and have never gone back to the original StarCraft... ever.  But it was hardly enough to satiate us poor addicts. 

To put it simply, we have been waiting for StarCraft II about as long as we have been waiting for the fabled, mystical, and now-effectively-cancelled Ghost.  Of course, the latter was also "announced" about five years ago, so to say that I view this announcement of StarCraft II with a jaded eye would be putting it very mildly. 

However, what that jaded eye sees, it likes.  Granted, only information/screenshots concerning the Protoss are available at the moment, but if the Colossus (pictured at right) is any indication, all three races are going to be having a fun time of it.  Granted, he is no Colossus of Sardia, but just the words "thermal lance" send shivers up and down my spine, ironically enough. 

I guess we will just have to wait and see what the future brings...  I really, really, really hope this game comes to fruition...  After being strung along about Ghost for so long, my hopes are not all that high, but considering the massive following that StarCraft has, Blizzard would be doing themselves a world of hurt if they do not follow through on this promise.  Of course, the bad news is that if there were ever a game made that convinced me I needed to upgrade my five-year-old clunker computer, this would definitely be it... of course, system requirements would be useful for those purposes... 

Regardless, I think it is high time to go dig up my old StarCraft/Brood War discs...  do not expect me back before a few days or so. 

Well, Chevrolet has taken an interesting tactic on releasing some of their concept cars... or, at least, tantalizing the American public with the examples of their concept cars, as is always the case with car companies.  I have never really understood that aspect of car construction - if car companies actually found a way to make their concept cars road-worthy in America and actually built them the way they show them at the auto shows...  I would be more than willing to wager that they would make a substantially greater amount of money off their vehicles than they do now.  Regardless, Chevy is considering releasing one of three midget-cars, to break into the Mini and Fit markets, I suppose. 

However, there is a catch...  They presented three models of potential vehicles at the recent New York Auto Show... but allegedly are only going to produce one, as I mentioned - and they are leaving it up to the public to decide which ones should hit the factory and showroom floors.  You can take a look at them at Vote 4 Chevrolet, and then make your vote based off what you see - over 800,000 other people already have, impressively enough.  Now, git, go make your vote, and then come back and read the rest of this post.  I can wait. 

(Oh, and just because it is polite to have the links on the main page of your weblog, this post was Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, Perri Nelson's Website, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, A Blog For All, 123beta, Big Dog's Weblog, Adam's Blog, Maggie's Notebook, basil's blog, The Pet Haven Blog, Shadowscope, Stuck On Stupid, Leaning Straight Up, Cao's Blog, The Bullwinkle Blog, The Amboy Times, Conservative Cat, Conservative Thoughts, Pursuing Holiness, Rightlinx, Faultline USA, Woman Honor Thyself, stikNstein... has no mercy, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, , The World According to Carl, Pirate's Cove, The Right Nation, Blue Star Chronicles, The Pink Flamingo, and Dumb Ox Daily News, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe, simply because I want to get as many comments on this as possible... greedy me.) 

A while ago, I wrote down the random idea of using nanotechnology to generate a "master key" to prevent you from having a massive pocket of jangling and annoying keys when you have as many as I do.  It would be able to take three-dimensional impressions of your keys and regenerate them on command, utilizing little tiny robots... or carefully controlled magnetic fields and metal filings... or something like that.  Yeah, completely a pipe-dream, and way outside of the realm of our own current technological level, but I get remarkably tired of the sheer quantity of keys I sometimes have to carry around... and I know there are people who are much, much worse off than I am. 

Well, someone beat me to it with the Key-Port.  I admit, it is not quite nanotechnology...  More like those nifty little credit-card-holders on which you push the appropriate button and the appropriate card pops out - only for keys.  Apparently each little widget can hold six keys which slide out at the push of a thumb, in addition to the ability to support an RFID chip, an alarm remote, and an LED flashlight, all based off modular add-ons.  Not too sure about the RFID capability, since I confess I am not the strongest of fans of that kind of technology, but the ability to program in your car's wireless alarm/key-opener does have a certain attraction to it (especially since more and more keys can only be opened by those little fobs).  Unfortunately, you have to make copies of your keys to blanks that come with the Key-Port, such that there is a guaranteed fit and function, but that seems like a small price to pay to cut down on the jangle and confusion of a pocket full of keys. 

Even more unfortunately - the Key-Port is not yet available.  You can, however, sign up for a mailing list that will provide you with information concerning its eventual release, and all that good stuff.  Their forum/blog has some interesting comments from people who are interested in getting one of these, in a massively wide variety of languages - obviously being posted to such places as Gizmodo certainly helped their hit ratings.  So long as this thing actually is constructed and does not cost an arm, leg, and firstborn (unlike the now-ludicrous Optimus Keyboard), this could definitely be a nifty piece of lowtek technology. 

So, no, not quite nanotechnology, but it does avoid that annoying grey goo problem... 

This might actually be a nice little gadget well worth having yet another gadget (as if that was a cost).  I have to admit, even with a Tivo, my reaction time is sufficiently slow that I still get hammered with about half a second of the 200% decibel increase commercials throw in your face.  A 0.002 second reaction time would certainly beat that all to hell...  One has to wonder how it differentiates between a randomly increased loudness due to commercials, an explosion in an action show, or the user increasing the volume his or her self, though...  Regardless, it is somewhat of a shame that it costs so much, at least at the moment.  Definitely something to keep your eyes on, should that kind of thing frustrate you to no end, like it does me. 

'nuff said. 

Or at least last year was.  Due to the intricacies of my family's placement around the country, Better Half and I had what amounted to be three separate Christmas celebrations.  First, we went to her parents' home for the celebration on the actual day of Christmas.  Second, we had our own little celebration at my apartment a few days after the calendar date of the 25th.  And, third, we went out and visited my parents over New Year's and had the third and final instance of Christmas there.  I am certainly not going to complain... it gave me three separate present-opening events, and any toy-minded, red-blooded, American male is not going to quibble over that. 

Well, one interesting chain of events was a series of consistent presents between all three locations.  Better Half's father both received and gave one, Better Half received one, and I received two... and purchased two more for myself.  What is this mystery item, you are asking yourself? 

A flashlight. 

I honestly have no idea why these useful little items were such a big hit on everyone's to-give lists, but I am certainly not going to complain.  Oddly (if somewhat amusingly) enough, flashlights were on no one's "wanted" list, but, even with that in mind, no one had any issues with it.  On first (other than Who) was a TekTorch penlight made by Coast Cutlery and Products.  Actually, I received two flashlights from this previously unheard-of corporation, but they seem to create some relatively durable and useful products, so I honestly have no idea...  At any rate, the first one bears a striking resemblance to this LED flashlight.  That said, the one I have in my possession has a blue LED light as opposed to the white one found on the link, and it also uses three LR1 batteries.  I confess I have never heard of or seen these types of batteries before, nor have the faintest clue where to find them (besides that site), but I guess if you really need 4.5 volts, these things are tiny, and can easily fit in the same space as two AAAs or AAs (at least from me eyeballing them, which may very well be in error).  Regardless, the flashlight has the same lanyard off its back end, the same one-LED construction, the same pocket clip, a woven nylon belt holster, and a rubber pusbutton instead of a silver one.  Its metal body is made out of... some kind of metal (I am wagering some manner of aluminium), and appears to be relatively durable (good thing for me).  The pushbutton allows for flashing use of the light, as well as constant-on, and provides accecptable tactile feedback.  And the light... well, it is bright.  Not humongo-Mag-Light-bright, but for being a single-LED flashight, pretty decently bright... and has an interesting light pattern.  At about ten feet away, the central light cone is about 2-3 feet in diameter, with varying density.  However, outside of that is a halo-like ring of light, providing a little peripheral illumination.  Like I said, this thing is not tremendously bright, but for close work or confined spaces, it would work just fine.  As with most LED lights, it has no focusing capabilities, so attenuation and range will make your light get dim at range, quickly.  That, and the blue light is illuminating, but, due to its non-white wavelength, less damaging to your night-vision. 

Moving on to the second flashlight.  Better Half received a dynamo flashlight from her mother at their Christmas celebration, and, seeing the application myself, I ran off and grabbed one myself after we got back to my apartment (gotta love those 20% coupons to Bed, Bath, and Beyond that just flood my snailmail box).  Yeah, so I cheated and got myself a present...  You have to admit, the utility of these things is relatively high.  These have existed forever, from a stupid little red thing I had as a child that you had to constantly squeeze to get a barely-useful light out of its incandescent bulb.  Loud as hell, and would only illuminate about three feet in front of you.  Suffice it to say, the technology and materials going into these widgets has changed and improved over the years.  Now, they almost all use LED bulbs in the place of old-tek incandescent ones, as well as an internal capacitor or battery array to allow you to not have to crank the system continuously.  So how does it work now?  You pop out a small rotary crank on the back of the flashlight, twirl it for a (few) minute(s) (depending on the brand, model, output, etc.), and get anywhere between 10 minutes and an hour's worth of light.  How bright, you ask?  Well, Better Half and I successfully beachcombed about half a mile of beach with this light, cranking it only three times for about a minute each time (the second and third times were more for our personal comfort/safety than due to the dimness of the light), and had absolutely no problems finding our way (and more than a few shells...  and jellyfish - poor guys) in what amounted to otherwise almost-pitch-blackness.  I actually purchased mine to go in my glove compartment, for use if I were to ever have a flat tire - an application it should serve for quite nicely.  Now, these are not small flashlights...  there exist many, many smaller ones that have much higher light outputs.  But this is one of few that requires absolutely no batteries, of any variety, besides whatever internal, non-replaceable ones it may have.  I am willing to trade a few minutes' worth of cranking for an order of magnitude greater number of minutes of light.  As you can probably imagine from the style, this model also lacks a focusing ability, so be prepared for a wide, short- to mid-range splash of light. 

I Don't Know's on third, though I do know the kind of flashlight Better Half and I gave her father.  I am not entirely sure how long ago it was that these shake-y flashlights caught on, but they certainly have come a little way in that time.  Waterproof (and floats, to boot), shockproof, relatively crushproof, and the only thing you have to do to make it work is shake it.  Well, shake it in a specific manner - up and down in a way that will cause onlookers to make all manner of interesting comments about you and your after-dark habits.  Its light is generated by a single LED bulb (white this time), and its reflector is integral to the bulb itself.  This leads to a relatively simplistic construction, but also a very, very tight beam.  In fact, it has almost no "splash" to speak of, whatsoever.  If you want to see something, and know where to point the flashlight, this thing is great, but if you are counting on the light to illuminate the room around you... best aim for the ceiling and hope for the best.  Of course, the lack of a focusing ability strickens this one as well.  Like the previous one, I went out and got one of these for myself as well...  It currently lives in my bedside drawer for loss-of-power situations - a little bit of shaking will work better than exploded batteries in a flashlight I never use.  Not exactly a good home-defense light (like I said, no splash, and the shaking is not exactly quiet), but it should cover loss-of-power nicely.  And, as all of the warnings say, this thing is powered by a relatively powerful magnet (moving magnet + stationary coil of wire = electrical power being provided to internal battery/capacitor unit used to light LED), so keep it away from sensitive stuff. 

And now for the last one - the other Coast light.  This particular flashlight is singularly useful due to its use of five white LEDs and a single red one.  The white ones can be turned on separately or in addition to the red one, and vice versa, which lets you go for full light-up, or non-night-vision-damaging illumination, depending on the situation.  Same aluminium-ish construction as the previous penlight, although this one uses slightly more conventional batteries - three AAAs in series.  It also comes with a convenient lanyard and clip-on woven nylon belt holster, which should keep it handily nearby whenever you need it.  It is relatively short, though a little stocky, and is covered with a wonderful grip-holding diamond pattern.  I cannot come up with a downside to this little thing, besides the fact that the red output is one-fifth the lumens of the white output, and the continuing theme of no light focusing capacities.  Also, I am not too sure on its waterproofness...  the LEDs are exposed (no lens over them, unlike the first Coast flashlight), so I have no idea.  And, like I said, these are no SureFire flashlights, but they do seem more than a little durable, and probably a budget flashlight you can rely on in a non-life-threatening pinch. 

So those are all the light-generating items we received and gave for Christmas...  quite the little collection, no?  Now I need to get out and expand my battery collection as well, in case one of these new little toys decides to go a-chomping on its power supply.  I really wish self-generated power had progressed farther than it has, but I guess I will have to wait a while for something more useful and powerful than the designs there are out there. 

That said, these are not all the flashlights I use.  In fact, I have one particular favorite (still my favorite, even after purchasing, giving, and receiving all of these new widgets) that never leaves my belt at work.  That particular darksucker is the Inova X5, in a black-anodized aluminium body, and white LED bulbs.  A metric ton of information can be found on the Inova site (I would link you directly to the site about the X5, but they rely on frames, so... blah.), but I will give you my viewpoint.  First, the bad stuff.  Its power source is two CR123A lithium batteries, generally used for cameras and other digital products.  High capacity, funny size, and a little expensive.  Also, the flashlight does not have any focusing capabilities.  The light beam and spread it generates is what you get, no matter the range.  And, the last bad thing - there is no bulb-covering cap to change its white from white to red, or any other color.  Now, the good stuff.  This baby is bright, and I do mean painfully so.  The Inova site claimes a 120 foot effective range (never had the chance to test that, myself) and a two mile signal range (likewise), but I would not doubt it.  It is created from aircraft-grade aluminium, and "military-grade" anodizing, and I can personally profess how durable it is.  The body shows nary a dent or mark after two years of use, though the anodizing can be scratched off if you try hard enough.  It is definitely water-resistant, having already tested that particular aspect more than once, and the gaskets that allow it that property do not even show an ounce of aging.  That said, the rubber endcap button does show a little scratching, but, as I said, this thing is two years old, give or take a little.  After growing up on "standard" flashlights with their on-off switches on the body of the light, the endcap button took a little getting-used-to, but I definitely prefer it due to the natural and strong grip over the item.  And did I mention it was bright?  Oh, and that I have not changed out its batteries once during its two years of use?  And that I have not been able to kill it, even though I have managed to destroy two separate MagLights over the years?  Its holster bit the big one relatively quickly - the elastic on the sides gave out - but the light itself is still in beautiful working order.  And bright.  This is not a self-defense flashlight... it lacks the endcap crenelations found on many SureFire units, but if you were to thwack someone with this thing, it would certainly win...  and blind them to boot.  Damn good flashlight, and I do not think I can recommend it enough - especially since it is considerably cheaper than its SureFire bretheren, but almost in the same category/classification, so far as I can tell.  Focusing and color-changing would be nice, but something to quibble over, and not a sufficient detractor from a fine piece of engineering. 

And now for the last, and least, flashlight - also an Inova product - the Microlight.  This little thing is perfect for a keychain, and more than powerful enough to find your door lock, something you dropped on the ground in the dark, and anything else within about six feet.  Again, no color-change from its standard blue (though they are sold in other colors), and no focusing, but on something this small, what do you expect?  It has three settings - full on, low-power-on, and flashing, so you can tailor it to meet your situation, though I do have one major gripe with it - the button is sensitive enough that it just randomly comes on in my pocket.  God alone knows how long its little button-cell batteries (two of them, CR2016 style), but it certainly is useful to have a light on one's keychain - you would never know until you have one. 

So there you have it - all of the portable light-generating items I use, besides my car.  If you have any questions, feel free to leave me a comment, and I will try my best to answer it.  After spending two hours on this post, I desperately need to get something to eat, and probably missed something important/interesting to boot...  That would be me, after all. 

As you have probably figured out by now, over the course of the past two weeks, I have completely fallen in love with my new grey box sitting underneath my television. Granted, the logo still throws me for a complete loop, especially when it starts randomly dancing around the screen (well, it does not randomly do it, but close enough), but I have had no complaints with the hardware whatsoever. Simply being able to pause television while cooking, or when taking a head-break, or just for the shits and giggles of it is just plain nifty, and being able to record and re-watch just about anything I want to is completely awesome. But you knew all of that from my previous review. 

Now, to expand on that... As I mentioned in that previous post, I was not entirely sure why someone would want to transfer music and images from one's computer, to the TiVo itself. Suffice it to say that I have figured it out. I love my apartment, but the placement of my computer leaves something to be desired when it comes to playing music for anywhere except the little nook it occupies, and due to said nook having its desk literally built into the walls, I do not have a whole lot of choice when it comes to placement. It works great when you are on the computer, but what about when you are working around the rest of the apartment, and still want some music? My CDs live out in my car, and I am far too lazy to carry them back and forth on a daily basis, and I used to rely on ripping CDs to my XBox, and then just playing whatever was on it when I felt the need - but that collection pales in comparison to the one on my desktop computer. Well, thankfully, Better Half is spending the Christmas and New Year's holidays with me, and while we were wrapping gifts (well, while she was wrapping gifts, and I was doing something with wrapping paper and boxes... God alone knows how the former got around the latter...), we wanted a little Christmas music to work by. Since fitting both of us, the boxes, the wrapping paper, and the Christmas tree into the computer nook seemed somewhat... uncomfortable, I figured I would go ahead and give the music-on-my-TiVo concept a shot.

I installed TiVo Desktop on my computer when I first received the machine, and proved that it worked by downloading a Family Guy episode from the box to the... box, and it seemed to work just fine (though I still cannot get it to play properly, due lacking the appropriate codec... and, apparently, free *.mpeg codecs do not exist?). However, I have not done a whole lot else with it since. Well, I brought the interface back up again, and poked around some more. While the music- and picture-sharing side of its functionality is not the most user-understandable interface in the world, it gets the job done, and in a few minutes, I had shared the appropriate Christmas-related directories on my computer (namely Trans-Siberian Orchestra and Mannheim Steamroller, to be specific). Returning once more to the TiVo, I prayed that the wireless network adapter I purchased for it would be worth it, and popped open its "Music, Pictures, and More" folder. After some seemingly endless scrolling through all the nonsense TiVo downloads (for your edification, I suppose), I finally found "Music on CHRISTINE" and "Pictures on CHRISTINE" ("Christine" being the computer's name, of course - bonus points for understanding the reference, and no, it is not Better Half's name). Selecting the music option, it showed me the file structure I made available to the TiVo, and selecting the appropriate folder, I found all of the music in it.

Now for the shiny part. As I mentioned, I purchased the wireless network adapter for the TiVo, and have enjoyed its capabilities in that I do not have a landline phone, and the TiVo box itself is sufficiently displaced from my network router that running a cable would be cumbersome and annoying. However, in addition to being convenient, it also provides a fair amount of speed to its connectivity - not something you would necessarily notice when downloading channel guides (something that occurs seamlessly in the background in the middle of the night, so you would never notice it to begin with), but definitely something noticeable when playing 2-5 MB *.mp3 files. I fully expected the TiVo to have to sit there and download all of the music, and while the process time did not necessarily concern me, due to the adapater, the space used on the drive did. I was pleasantly surprised when, upon selecting a song and pressing played, the TiVo... well... played the song. No downloading process whatsoever - it simply streamed the data straight off my computer, over my wireless network. I suppose if I had bothered to read the instruction manual that came with the box, or the help files that came with the software, this would have been more apparent to me, but as it was, it was certainly a convenient and welcome surprise.

In short, yet another feather to stick in TiVo's hat. Due to the limitations on the TiVo's hard drive, as well as the speed at which people can fill it up, transferring songs to it would not make any sense whatsoever - so the company definitely made the right choice in making it stream-capable. And played through my ZVOX synthetic-surround-sound speakers, the *.mp3's sounded just as good as they did on the computer. Finally, a company that actually thinks through their designs before they release them to the public. Or at least looks like they do.

At any rate, as I mentioned, Better Half will be here for a while, so expect my posting to be scattered and sporadic. Have a very merry Christmas, and a safe and happy New Year, in case I do not write before then.  And I may not even write much after then, depending on the toys I get...