This Is Good

Not much to say other than that the FCC may have actually done something right for once. On a related note, Chris's building is getting the inside, per-unit, work done for FiOS today. Mine, by my almost entirely made up estimates, will be done in a week or so. Apparently, the TV access will not be available immediately, but is coming. Internet will be available immediately, although I will probably wait until I get just get both at once to switch, since Time Warner's internet is acceptable, if not particularly impressive.

Amen, Brother

Great quote from Joel:

Software development takes immense intellectual effort. Even the best programmers can rarely sustain that level of effort for more than a few hours a day. Beyond that, they need to rest their brains a bit, which is why they always seem to be surfing the Internet or playing games when you barge in on them.

I'm with him on that one. Not that we don't use that as a bad excuse a little more than we should...

Here's the article that is from.

FiOS Update

Just found a notice posted in the foyer stating that Verizon crews will begin individual unit installations beginning October 22nd(!) and will give each building two days notice before installation. Apparently each apartment will get a box of some sort in "the closet with the breaker box," or, if you are like us and have the breaker box in the hallway, they pick the closet. I'm sure they have very specific closet criteria. At any rate, this could mean a rather accelerated timetable for the service actually being available. I don't know what else has to happen first so who knows, but this can't be a bad sign, that's for sure, especially when it comes to my hopes for having a good quality cable drop for the TV.

FiOS is coming! FiOS is coming!

When we moved into Ridgefield, we were told that there was no plan to bring FiOS in to the complex, and while that wasn't a deal breaker it was definitely a bummer, because Time Warner really sucks around here. Channels go black or completely scrambled for no reason whatsoever, sometimes they come back in a few minutes, some take a day or two, and some (like Universal HD) have never shown a single frame. And that's not the same as what happens when a channel isn't in my cable package; that message comes through just fine. These are channels I'm supposed to get (or as some might say, channels I am paying for) and I can't watch them. But I digress.

A couple days ago, some weird lumpy green box showed up on the front lawn. Then, yesterday when Nina showed up to Sci-Fi Night, she told me some truck that said "something communications" on the side showed up and they buried it next to our apartment. I of course ran over to it the minute we got home and looked for any markings. And it had a Verizon logo. So this morning I called the management office and asked if they knew what Verizon was burying (they do regular phone lines and stuff here too), and she said it was the start of "a full upgrade to FiOS for the complex." Yaht-freakin-zee.

Sean has pointed out that it could still be six months before they actually flip the switch and let people sign up, which of course is an unfortunate truth, but waiting for FiOS is a million times better than just wishing for it. Looking at the pricing quick, it looks like the monthly cost will be just about the same as with Time Warner, only the internet will be way faster and I think my channel lineup will be a little better. They do charge a monthly fee for the HD box, but the base package is pretty cheap so it should be fine.

Super Cool Invention Link Show

Just doing the standard back-from-lunch perusal of my RSS feeds, and hit upon a particularly cool Engadget one. Turns out somebody is making AA batteries that have usb connectors for recharging. The negative (flat) end is a cap that covers the plug, which is a pretty clever way of doing it. Engadget says about four hours to charge, which isn't too bad compared to a standard rechargeable AA battery. If they get any kind of decent life I would definitely consider picking up a few.

Oh No The Smoke

That awesome helicopter? Turns out it has two weaknesses, one of which is cheap (blades), the other one, not so much. You see, if you crash and the rotors are against the ground (read: can't spin), but you forget to throttle down fast enough (or totally space on it), the motors will draw a very high current (I'm not sure why this happens with DC motors but it does), and for some reason there is no fuse. Well, there is sort of a fuse. There is something that acts like a fuse. Unfortunately, it's the Electronic Speed Control, and it is not user-replacable. So because they didn't install a $2 part, I burned out another $2 part, which rendered a $50 4-in-1 unit completely unusable (see here). Bummer.

This was brought up at work in the presence of Jim (does almost everything that I would pay a guy to do by himself), and Thor (loves building things himself), so of course they refused to drop this until we had devised a plan for fusing the setup. I did some looking online, and it turns out a simple 4A car fuse works great for fusing one motor, and a 7.5A car fuse works great if you put it in between the battery and the 4-in-1 unit. So today I bought a soldering iron, which was surprisingly cheap, and some electronics solder, also pretty cheap, and now I just need to figure out where I can buy the right connectors and a fuse holder and I'll have a nice fuse setup that's an easy drop-in with no modification of the helicopter required. And, as Jim pointed out, I can probably sell 3 dollars worth of hardware for at least 10 bucks on the forums. I'll have to see how good I am at making the gizmo before I try that, but it could be a nice little side thing, since I think it should really be about 10 minutes of work once I get a few under my bet.

I'll be sure to post a couple pictures if it comes out good.

Edit: Phase One of Operation Make A Non-Warranty-Voiding fuse assembly complete. I spent a while trying to look through electronics parts catalogs for the battery-receiver connection, which proved futile. So I looked at the connector, which said only "JST" on it, and googled "JST Battery Connector," which yielded many good hits, the best deal I found was $3 per pair, plus $5 2-3 day shipping, which is a pretty good shipping deal. Might be able to find a better deal for the connectors later but the five pairs I ordered should get me started.

A Beautiful Night Of Baseball

I couldn't have scripted it any better. Joba the wonder-toad Chamberlain blows a 1-0 lead on a wild pitch, and the Indians win it in the bottom of the 11th to go up 2-0 in a five-game series. Then three hours later, Manny Ramirez hits a 3-run homer in the bottom of the ninth to put the Sox up 2-0 over the Angels.

Good stuff.

[Edit]
Just got to see the highlights. A-Rod went 0-4 with 3 strikeouts (the Yankees only got three hits in 11 innings), so you can guarantee the media and fans blame him for all the troubles again, never mind the fact that he single-handedly got them into this postseason in the first place.

Also, I have to agree with Josh's late-night text message; Manny did in fact fucking crush that thing.