random bits
Dec. 8th, 2007 11:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cellio
Remember when disk space cost a dollar a meg? And later it was a
dollar a gig? Dani just bought a 500GB drive for under $100. Um,
yeah.
When I bought my current computer (a couple years ago), I was sure that 6 USB ports would be enough for anyone. Yeah, right. Ok, I'll buy a hub. :-) Ok, I don't need all of them all of the time, but it's just easier to leave things like the iPod cable plugged in all the time.
(In a similar vein, I was looking at the mass of plugs in my office -- four-outlet wall socket and 6-outlet UPS, all full. One of the nine plugs (the UPS is plugged into the wall) turned out to be spurious. Eek. (CPU, monitor, printer, scanner, two hard drives, router, lamp. Clearly the lamp's days are numbered.))
Conversation while driving through a construction zone:
"Is this our on-ramp?"
"I think so. At least the signs are facing the right way."
"And no oncoming headlights. Let's go for it."
"Man, if their attitude is 'if you're not from around here why are
you on our roads?', they should make it easier to flee."
My father-in-law and his wife were in town Thursday (on their way south
for the winter), so dinner with them trumped this week's Hebrew class.
They were staying at a hotel along I-79 (Stubenville Pike) and said they wanted to eat at
"that Italian restaurant". We don't have much occasion to be on 79
between 279 and 279; can they be more specific? The one where they
put the french fries on the sandwiches. Ok, "Primanti's" is an
Italian name, I suppose, but I've never thought of it as an Italian
restaurant. :-) (Food was ok, smoke was pretty bad, vegetarian options
were limited. Next time I push for something different.)
A picture in today's paper made me laugh. It was of two people in a
Christmas-tree lot with their dogs. I laughed because I had two
conflicting thoughts: we're identifying the tree the dogs like
(in that way that only dogs do) and keeping it far far away from
the living room, versus we're letting the dogs pick the tree since
it's going to be theirs anyway. :-)
This morning's torah reader wanted to give hagbahah (one of the honors)
to a woman because we tend to give it to men. This involves lifting
the open torah scroll overhead and turning so everyone can see it.
The first few people he asked turned him down, so I said I would do it.
I commented that early in the year is great for lefties because of
where the weight is. Only after I said it did I realize that I'm not
actually a lefty; I just feel like one. (Born lefty, raised
righty.) Eventually I'm probably going to confuse someone with this.
:-)
Browser-tab cleanup time!
What if Gmail had been designed by Microsoft? (source lost, sorry)
The
clock at the center of the world, reported by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
siderea.
ZIP Skinny looks up census data by ZIP code and lets you compare areas side by side.
The care and feeding of volunteers, written in the context of the synagogue but applicable more broadly. There's not a lot here that's new to me, but it's a good starting point when thinking about why people do what they do.
Rohrschach passwords? This is an interesting idea (though not ready for prime time yet) IFF any individual is consistent enough to see the same images in a given inkblot over time. Is that the case? Or might I see a butterfly today and, six months from now, not only be convinced that it's a flower but be unable to remember that I once saw a butterfly?
The
secret to raising smart kids (from ralphmelton). I haven't
read it all yet, but I don't want to lose it and some of you might be
interested too.
Zamzar claims to be able to capture "non-downloadable" content (like YouTube) and convert to various formats. I haven't given it a spin yet. Speaking of tools I haven't tried out yet, Foxit looks to be an alternative to Adobe for reading PDF.
Where to start?
Date: 2007-12-10 06:11 pm (UTC)I'm surprised you didn't go for NAS. My 1T box was about $100, IIRC. I've backed up my entire DVD collection. I figured the kids would stream their videos instead of using the physical DVDs, and thus increase the life of the discs (which is a significant consideration when you have three kids of single-digit ages). They continue to use the DVDs. Sigh.
>Primanti's... vegetarian options were limited
Do you accept fish in that situation?
>hagbahah [is] more about balance than strength
I dunno. I find that task to be challenging, and I do not consider myself to be a physically weak man. I suspect that there is some secret that I have not yet figured out, and I'm trying to brute-force it. I keep worrying that the two halves will drift apart, and I will be responsible for tearing a torah.
Re: Where to start?
Date: 2007-12-11 12:01 am (UTC)He got that one for work. I'm not sure what constraints he was operating under. I just bought myself a small (only 250 GB :-) ) external drive for about $60; its job is to simplify off-site backups. Sure, I could have improved $/GB by going bigger, but every time I've paid extra to buy more {disk, CPU, memory}, I've regretted it because the prices fall more quickly than my needs rise. :-)
Do you accept fish in that situation?
Yes [1], and that was pretty much the only thing on the menu I could eat. Primanti's doesn't really do vegetarian. (I think you could get the pasta without the meat sauce if you asked.)
[1] There have been places where the cooking conditions were such that I wouldn't -- shared griddle or deep-frying oil that's also used for meat, including pork, for instance. This didn't appear to be one of those.
I dunno. I find that task to be challenging, and I do not consider myself to be a physically weak man.
Right -- I don't think you need to be strong, and I don't think strength is sufficient (beyond a minimum that varies with the size of the scroll). Two tricks I was taught: (1) open the scroll first; don't try to open it while you're holding it; and (2) move the eitzim toward you, such that the edge of the table is about a quarter to third of the way up, and use the table to help. (It's sort of half pushing off, half dropping the ends you're holding while moving vertical. This is easy to demonstrate but hard to explain, so ask me next time you see me.) If you just lift from the table, you're asking for trouble.
Re: Where to start?
Date: 2007-12-11 02:53 am (UTC)I figure if there's one dish on the menu I can eat, that's a victory. (But you're right -- it's not worth going back.)
I get it -- you're levering off the edge of the table, then raising the scrolls once they're vertical (give or take rotational momentum). You've still got to get it from table-height to overhead; that's what trips me up.
Re: Where to start?
Date: 2007-12-11 04:41 am (UTC)That sound convenient, yes. (Dani does QA for a company that does disk-encryption software, so they probably had different needs. But for home... yeah, that could be handy. Right now we're using the Pentium (note -- not Pentium #, just Pentium) in the basement as a file server. It's only got about 10G on it, but we use it mainly for moving files between desktop machines, and we're not moving videos and music around much, so that's ok. Mind, I suspect that now that either of us can trivially walk across the hall carrying a USB drive, its days are numbered. :-)
I figure if there's one dish on the menu I can eat, that's a victory.
Yeah, pretty much. It's sad when restaurant discussions include the phrase "yeah, they have a dish I can eat", but it's not unusual. If I didn't eat dairy/fish out, I'd pretty much never be able to go to restaurants with friends.
I get it -- you're levering off the edge of the table, then raising the scrolls once they're vertical (give or take rotational momentum). You've still got to get it from table-height to overhead; that's what trips me up.
Bend your knees as you lever them toward you and then stand up; it's easier to continue the motion of your arms upward than to start it that way. And hold them like swords, not with your wrists straight out.