08:00 – The Roku box lost its mind again yesterday evening. It decided that it couldn’t connect to our WiFi AP. At that point, the only solution is to repeatedly attempt to connect. That may require anything from several attempts to scores of attempts, which means an hour or more of sitting there clicking the button on the remote and watching the same configuration screens over and over again. It’s absolutely hateful. Roku’s firmware is the absolute pits, and their so-called “support” is entirely useless. The product is defective by design. When it works, it works well, but when it doesn’t work it’s an exercise in frustration to get it working again.
And it lies. When it was claiming not to be able to find a wireless AP, I went in and checked the configuration screen on our wireless AP. It indicated that the Roku box was connected via 11.g at 54 Mbps and 100% signal strength. Although it’ll be a pain in the ass, I finally decided to bite the bullet and do a UTP run between my office and the back of the TV in the den. Presumably, even the Roku box will connect if it has a hardwired network connection.
I’m still designing labels for the chemicals and specimens in the forensics kit. There are a lot of them. I still haven’t costed out the kit, but I suspect the full kit may have to sell for $240 or more. Many of the items are needed for only one lab session, and several lab sessions require multiple unique items, so we may end up offering two kits; a full version and a less expensive subset.
I had the same problem. I changed the HDMI cable and it worked with wifi.
JT
I suspect the problem is caused by the WiFi more than anything else. OK, I’ll concede it could be the firmware in the Roku box that deals with WiFi. After my own experiences using WiFi, I’ve concluded its sole purpose is Internet access for devices that don’t have an Ethernet Jack.
Since I’m not handy enough to run cable through the walls of our house, I got some older model Netgear powerline networking gear and have seen most of my networking problems vanish.
Somewhat similar here. We replaced our cheapie wifi router with a $180
Netgear and essentially all of our network problems went away. The
router sits in the cellar below ground level, but our laptops still show
four or five bars fifty feet outside the house in most directions.
The “essentially all” above refers to RoadRunner sucking syphilitic
donkey schlong, at least when they’re a monopoly provider, as they are
for us.
By the way, I never would have spent that much on a stinkin home wifi
router, but my wife was annoyed with terrible connectivity from
upstairs, her mother was annoyed that she couldn’t watch her Chinese
stations through her magic IP-TV box, etc etc. My wife told me she was
orderinga replacement and somehow neglected to mention the price. I
yelled when I saw the price, but I have to admit it was probably worth
it just for the lack of aggravation.
Your wife is happy because of a mere $180? An honest to goodness bargain, and well worth it.
The powerline ethernet is totally cool and runs full speed of my Clear WMax modem (about 10 Mb/s) when I am downloading for my DirecTV DVR. I think that this is what I have been using:
http://www.amazon.com/Netgear-85Mbps-Powerline-Network-Adapter/dp/B001AZUTCS/
Sure was nice not to have to run an ethernet cable in the downstairs across two rooms. It was going to be bad, very bad.
The problem is not the AP/router. The problem is that Roku wireless networking sucks dead rodents through a straw. I went through the detection/configuration procedure again this morning, probably 15 or 20 times. Each time, the Roku acts differently. Sometimes, it sees no WAPs at all. Other times, it sees only our next-door neighbors’ WAP. Other times, it sees only our WAP. Other times, it sees our WAP but not our neighbors’.
Meanwhile, every other WiFi device we’ve tried works just fine with our WAP. And the WAP itself says the Roku box is connected with 100% signal strength at a high data rate. The Roku and the WAP are only something like 25 feet apart.
I just ordered a long Ethernet cable from NewEgg. When it arrives, I’ll plug the Roku directly into my router. Bizarrely, according to many reports I’ve read by others who have the same problem, that may also fix the wireless networking issue. Having a hard-wired connection available apparently “encourages” the Roku to find the wireless connection.
I really, really wish that Amazon would offer a box. I’d replace the Roku immediately.
As a replacement for the Roku, how about a PS3? That’s what I have. It streams Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon. It also plays DVDs and Blu-Rays.
There are also quite a few Blu Ray players that include streaming. I have an LG ($120) and my only complaint is the WiFi adapter sticks out too far from the usb port. Quick fix with a cable but I’ve not got a round tuit. It can also use a standard wired connection.
New Zombie Max ammo from Hornady:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bQWb-5nblx4#!
http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/06/07/zombie-bullets-in-high-demand-following-flesh-eating-attacks/
So where do I buy a LEGAL light machine gun from here in the USA ?
A legal light machine gun? You will need a special license from the Feds. In order to be legal, that is. And last I knew, each buying and selling transaction had a $200 tax on it. Also saw a price on my old M-60 w/tripod yesterday; they want $30k for it. And to think I left a dozen of them back with Uncle.
Check out copies of Shotgun News and Gun Digest for the ads on all of the above.
Why on earth would you want a “legal” machine gun in the US? All that does is give the outlaw government (by which I mean the federal government, most state governments, and probably a majority of local governments) legitimacy by adhering to their unConstitutional dictats.
Here’s an action plan for if you have a few firearms but not enough: get together with your similarly underarmed friends and make a call to the cops to get the SWAT twats to roll out. (Liberal darling Brett “Terrorist Asshole” Kimberlin provides the template for this.) Ambush them and take their weapons. You’ll have automatic weapons, sniper rifles, body armor, and lots of cool electronics.
Why on earth would you want an automatic weapon? As my late friend Mel Tappan used to say, firepower is hitting what you aim at, not peppering the landscape with near misses.
You’re much better off with something like an 870 12-gauge pump shotgun with a slug barrel and a magazine extension. Or an SKS. Or even an M1 Garand, which I’ve always had a soft spot for.
What both SteveF and Robert said.
Yep, there’s the SWAT confiscation route. If you choose this option, please, please, have someone film it and upload it all over the net.
But I like my own 870 and will soon be working with Mrs. OFD in the CMP and picking up, hopefully, a couple of M1’s. I also have an ancient Winchester 1200 in pieces on the living room floor right now (Mrs. OFD is in Kalifornia) and am cleaning it up, re-bluing, and customizing it quite a bit.
On actual so-called battle rifles, I am not arrived at a final decision. Other than it won’t be a .223/5.56.
What a week! Fortunately, it is over for me, as tomorrow’s job was postponed to another day. I should line up a couple personal ducks to shoot tomorrow, but will probably sleep in until mid-morning. Early starts and late arrivals at home, have made my days almost as long as those commuting from Strausberg into Berlin every day. Need some recovery time.
Occasionally, before heading home, I stop into the food court at Castleton Square, Indy, and get a rice dish from Maki of Japan. There was one of those franchises in the Prudential food court in Back Bay Boston, and I am kind of addicted to their stuff. But their price on meat, veggies, rice, and drink (why does oriental food always require cola?) is now approaching $10, and for the same amount, I can get several different dishes from the young Chinese couple in Tiny Town, and eat from that for days. So I did that tonight.
Meanwhile, the couple with marital problems across the alley from me, are engaging in reefer madness tonight, and it smells like the pot party is in Tiny House. Turned on the central air fan, which has an electronic filter, and the smell is almost gone–replaced by the ozone odor of the cigarette smoke hitting the electrodes and arcing over. As I say, never a dull moment in Tiny Town.
This is our last day of nice, low-humidity weather; Gulf air hits us starting tomorrow, and the wonderful central air here will be keeping me comfortable once again. The last 2 weeks have felt very northern European. But nothing lasts forever, baby; even pain and misery.–words Peter David Udell, music Gary Geld, orchestration Arnold Goland, vocal by Margaret Whiting, released as London records very first single in the US in 1966
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FyCw8GQW1g
Whiting was my all-time favorite female singer from my parents’ generation. Saw her in person several times during my life, and she could belt it out as crystal clear when I saw her at 76 as she could in her late 30’s when I was in high school. She lived in southern Connecticut and died last year, while I was not paying attention. Are you old enough to remember that she and her sister were the summer replacement for “I Love Lucy” in 1955/56/57, produced by Desi and Lucy?
Okay, I give up.
I’ve been looking for the title of a book Barbara bought for Robert about physics, but which he’s put in the too hard basket for the time being. It was mentioned in the last few months but I haven’t been able to find it.
Anyone remember the title?
@Miles_Teg: Is it this one?
http://www.amazon.com/The-Road-Reality-Complete-Universe/dp/0679776311/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339145990&sr=1-1
It looks familiar, thanks. I’ll just get our host to confirm it.
Yep, that’s the one. It’s sitting on the bookshelf in the den right now. Every time I walk past it to get a Coke or something, I hear this tiny little “nyah-nyah” sound.
The Amazon review of that book includes this line: “That said, let us be perfectly clear: this is not an easy book to read. The number of people in the world who can understand everything in it could probably take a taxi together to Penrose’s next lecture.” That’s the intimidating part. The first part of the book is high-school math, but I understand it then quickly gets into math that I’m not equipped to understand.
There was a time when I knew that if anyone on earth could understand a particular topic, I’d also be able to understand it if I put in enough work. But I’m not as smart as I used to be. And I no longer have the time or energy to master complex topics that are not important to me other than intellectually.
That’s where I am, too. I’m pretty sure I’m not as intelligent as I used
to be. It’s hard to tell because I’m constantly too busy, mostly with
routine or unproductive matters, and constantly
fatiguedexhausted. And constantly distracted, mostlyby my family. And my memory is shot; I don’t know how much is from the
factors above and how much from simple aging.
It would be interesting to take time off from the need to earn a living,
an simply focus on learning more math or studying physics or inventing
something or writing full-time. (I’m an engineer and writer by
inclination, not a scientist or a professional student. Studying physics
for a year would gall quickly, I think.)
Not that that will ever happen, of course. I can, and do, earn enough in
a year to live simply for two or three years. My wife, however, spends
the full amount of our combined income. The good news is, she’s not a US
citizen. Getting her arrested and deported shouldn’t be at all
difficult. She’s just lucky I’m such a nice guy…
I want the light machine that was in the Zombie Max ammo video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bQWb-5nblx4#
Or is the guy just pulling the trigger real fast? As I mentioned before, the problem with Zombies is not 2 or 3 of them but 200 to 300 of them. When one has a herd of Zombies heading your way, max firepower and a solid escape route are highly needed.
BTW, my son did the SWAT thing for the Marine Corps in Iraq. He lost count of houses after 60 times that they went to visit at 1 am in the morning with a pipe knockdown on the front door. My son was the second guy in line behind the pipe guy so he was usually the first in the house. After he described to me what they did and their setup, you really do not want to mess with a SWAT team. Basically they are all scared and hopped up on Red Bull and will shoot or grenade anything that moves.
“I don’t know how much is from the factors above and how much from simple aging”
I wonder this too. Much more often tired. I used to be able to concentrate for 8-12 hours at a stretch, now I’m doing well to really concentrate for an hour at a time. Part of it probably comes from the fact that – for the past x years – my typical day has me juggling a lot of tasks instead of working intensely only on one. Still, I miss being able to really lose myself in a technical task, or for that matter in a good book.
One thinks that there are fewer distractions at home, but that only works if no one else is at home. It worked for me during the years our kids were in school and wife was at work, but family at home feels free to barge in and interrupt concentration and productive time. I have a good friend who faces the same thing. Kids are now on summer vacation, but the dad works at home, and even though there is a fulltime nanny, the kids know where dad is, and feel free to interrupt him. Thus, he frequently leaves the house for a hideout where he can get things done.
I think losing a grip on memory from aging has more to do with productivity than intelligence, but at this point, I don’t much worry about it. My biggest memory problem is remembering where I put something; that was never a problem in younger years, but is a big one now. Even laying something down for a moment to go handle something more important, often finds me at a loss for where I temporarily put the object I needed to get out of my hands. Which leads me to ignore interruptions to what I am doing—like the telephone. Everyone always jumps to immediately answer the telephone. I don’t anymore.
However, I find that a change in methods enables me to get tasks done that have become problematic. For instance, I used to be able to remember what I needed to pick up at the grocery with no lists at all. Cannot do that anymore. But I found that if I make a list of all the things I stock at home, and take that list with me to the grocery, I have no trouble remembering how much of everything is left and whether I need to buy more. Same end result, just a different way of accomplishing it. And I don’t feel badly about not being able to remember the “need” list without this new crutch. My life is not as hectic as it was with kids, and that faster pace to life, I am sure, stimulates memory cells more than what I get from the now slower pace to life.
For me, the fatigue factor comes largely from no longer drinking tea, coffee, or cola with caffeine. The doctors in the family maintain that any amount of caffeine is too much, and the downside risks increase with age. Those docs also stress the importance of body movement during the workday. Sitting sedentarily during the workday, decreases one’s ability to concentrate. Take smoke breaks—only don’t smoke.
Just about every company I worked for, sent me to management seminars and courses. All of those maintained that the most successful businesspeople in the world, have kept lists. I started doing that in college, when I was taking a full load, working 25 hours at one job, working a minimum of 15 hours at a work-scholarship job, and studying for what little remainder was left over. I always kept notes on what I had to get done for each area, where I left off in studying, tasks to be done related to the scholarship job, etc. From those seminars, I tried to formalize my methods, and have basically used the same techniques for over 30 years.
I divide the hour into 20 minute segments. I work on a task for 20 minutes, then change tasks. Changing tasks increases productivity. I allow myself a second 20 minutes on the same task, if I am really productive. Now 20 minutes may not seem like a long time, but for me, it makes me work faster, so I can complete things in 20 minutes or less. Three times a day, I get away from the desk and take a 20 minute walk.
For most of the last 30 years, I had a little Krups timer that beeped once and stopped; then would repeat the same interval by just hitting “start”. That got lost in Berlin—I think appropriated as a toy by one of the grandkids. Having never found another timer that beeps only once instead of obnoxiously, I discovered some European airport/train announcement chimes on the Internet, and set a Scheduled Task to play it at 10, 30, and 50 past the hour. Not quite as flexible as the timer, but it works for what I am doing in life nowadays.
I keep a to-do list for every project, including what I want accomplished to Tiny House. When I change projects, it is an easy matter to turn to the appropriate list, and pick up right where I left off last time.
There is no question I am far more productive with lists than without. I create my own calendar for a 7-ring binder that I always carry with me in my backpack. Besides the calendar which tracks both appointments and info for my time sheet, there are dividers that separate all my current projects. Any paperwork that comes in, related to an ongoing project, gets holes punched and put into the appropriate section. Thus I always have everything I need to get work done, no matter where I find some work time. When I travelled by airplane more often, I never brought books to read, but just took out the binder and started work on something useful. My expense reports are in there and easily filled out contemporaneously as the day goes on.
My methods were taken from different sources: I would see a good idea in some seminar and incorporate it; I created my own calendar when I went to work at a job where they refused to pay for the Daytimers I had been using since college (my creation is actually much better and tailored exactly to my needs). But when people ask me what has been the most useful, it is the Stephen Covey books (leave it to the Mormons to tell you how to live your life). Covey did a lot of research to back up his ideas. However, I just cannot get into his methods as deeply as he wants everyone to. I just do not care to examine uber-carefully what all the roles in my life are. I am intuitively aware of all the things I have to do in life to stay alive, well, and with income, so all I have to do is remember them (list it), prioritize them, and get it done. If you have more time than me, then maybe all that analysis could pay off. But it has never been worth it for me to devote that first second’s worth of thought to it.
The best Covey book is “First Things First” by Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill and Rebecca R. Merrill (Jan 17, 1996). That book is not bogged with lengthy explanations, and summarizes the much longer “7 Habits” book in one short chapter. Unrelated to time management, Covey’s second-best advice, IMO, comes from showing how to be more effective at influencing life around you with your own beliefs. For instance, his books convinced me to spend time involving myself with my kids’ schools when they were attending. However, now that they are finished with school, that influencing is somebody else’s job, not mine.
RBT wrote:
“Yep, that’s the one. It’s sitting on the bookshelf in the den right now. Every time I walk past it to get a Coke or something, I hear this tiny little “nyah-nyah” sound.”
It’s telling you you should have studied more maths and physics in college.
RBT wrote:
“The first part of the book is high-school math, but I understand it then quickly gets into math that I’m not equipped to understand.”
I’m just about to send off an order to Amazon and was wondering if I should order Penrose’s book. I don’t think I will now.
Once I had the book title I googled your site and got this from Monday 26 December 2005:
http://www.ttgnet.com/images/road-to-reality.jpg
A lot of stuff on that page made sense, sorta, but I recognised stuff that was 3rd year or honours mathematical physics, which is just a bit beyond me. And I’m too old to start learning that stuff now, so I doubt if I’ll get it.
Steve F wrote:
“And my memory is shot; I don’t know how much is from the
factors above and how much from simple aging.”
My memory’s about as solid as it was 30 years ago, I think. I constantly amaze family and friends by recalling conversations and events back to when I was a toddler. I have a great memory for trivia. The unfortunate thing is that I have to put just as much effort into memorising formulae, foreign vocab, etc, as anyone else.
“It would be interesting to take time off from the need to earn a living,
an simply focus on learning more math or studying physics or inventing
something or writing full-time. (I’m an engineer and writer by
inclination, not a scientist or a professional student. Studying physics
for a year would gall quickly, I think.)”
I’d love to do that, and I’m a frustrated electrical engineer. (I didn’t get into my first choice in 1976, so I had to settle for a science degree.) If I had the money I think an engineering or another science degree is what I’d spend it on.
Two weeks ago I started a regular day job as an employee of a company. I’d been self employed for years, working from home most of the time. I’m shutting down my business because the regulations and fees have become too much of a burden — five or ten hours a week of government paperwork, about 2% of my gross for unemployment insurance premiums (when, as a business owner, I’m not even eligible to collect unemployment benefits), endless other fees and taxes, and about a thousand dollars a year for legal and accounting expenses. (The Department of Labor has been riding my ass, and I don’t even have any employees.) This is in New York, near the bottom of the list for great places to start a small business.
More germane to the conversation, I’ve stopped working from home because my wife and her mother can’t comprehend that working from home is not the same as being unemployed and idle. The final straw was about three weeks ago when I lost a lucrative contract because my mother-in-law let the preschooler interrupt me on a call in my office three times in half an hour. The client was not convinced that I would be able to focus on their work from my office. Can’t say that I blame them.
As for Stephen Covey, he has quite a few good points in 7 Habits, but the main thrust of the book is inapplicable to me. I have no long-term goals and can’t force myself to act as if I did. Bam, there go about four of the seven habits.
Seems to me that all the ease of deporting the wife would work equally well for the MIL. Just saying.
I worked from home for three years. Never again. I like my own company, but too much of just me is just too much!
Mine is shot. 30 years ago, I could walk down a street full of parked cars glancing at each license plate without breaking stride, and then tell you the license-plate numbers of every one. Nowadays, I’m lucky if I can remember how many cars there were.
There were cars?
There was a street?
My memory is really swell for stuff that happened half a century ago, in minute detail. For half a second ago not so good. One typical scenario: I have some fairly important object that I deliberately put in a place that I most certainly know and will remember. I have totally forgotten it within ten seconds.
Working from home ain’t all it’s cracked up to be sometimes; Mrs. OFD is home much of the time and has to travel maybe one or two weeks a month, some months not at all. At my last gig I could work at home, but Mrs. OFD could not fathom that I wasn’t just goofing off and was plainly irritated by having me around all day. In my current job I gotta be on-site most of the time as it is often hardware-specific and also a security-clearance/DOD situation.
I find that the rides in and out let me think about all kinds of stuff, plan for the day, and decompress at the end of said day. And I can listen to music or, and I haven’t tried this yet, audio books.
We had us a wave to t-storms and torrential downpour last night but it seems clear today and 63, perfect. Gotta go pick Mrs. OFD at MIL’s later, where she will be exhausted and still sick from whatever cruddy virus we both have had kicking our asses this past week or two.
SteveF says:
As for Stephen Covey, he has quite a few good points in 7 Habits, but the main thrust of the book is inapplicable to me. I have no long-term goals and can’t force myself to act as if I did. Bam, there go about four of the seven habits.
I agree wholeheartedly. It starts with the very first exercise of the book: imagine that you are going to a funeral. Your own. What do you want people to say about you?
Hell, I don’t care what people say about me while I’m alive, why would I ever care what they say about me when I’m dead? I can’t play that game. As a black career military guy who lived across the hall from my parents for a couple decades after I was out on my own said to me once, “Funerals are barbaric rituals.” I couldn’t agree more. Fewer people are having them these days, and that has included my brother, mom, dad, Jeri, and ultimately, me. All of those gave specific instructions of ‘no funeral’, as have I.
The “First Things First” book is FAR better than “7 Habits”. Lots less of the intricacies of Covey’s theories, and more of the details of how one implements his ‘findings’. With the added bonus of proving that “7 Habits” did not need to be the compendium it is—it only needed to be 1 chapter.
RBT wrote:
“30 years ago, I could walk down a street full of parked cars glancing at each license plate without breaking stride, and then tell you the license-plate numbers of every one. Nowadays, I’m lucky if I can remember how many cars there were.”
I still remember the number plates of friends cars from 40+ years ago. Not all of them, just a lot of them. The car my father bought in 1967 had a number plate of RRW-416, the car my sister got in 1971 was 195-214. When dad got a new car in 1978 the plate was SJB-914. The minister at my church had a station wagon with plate REG-357.
I won’t go on but you get the point. All this useless stuff is stuck in my head but I find it as hard as anyone to remember stuff I want to. I can be introduced to someone and have forgotten their name five seconds later. If someone gives me a phone number to memorise I have to write it down But I remember the phone number of my parents home in the Sixties (53-7428).
I care about what people say and think about me, and not to do so is a sign that you’re a bit bent. I don’t really care about my funeral, I’d hate it if a lot of money was spent on it.
Thus speaks a herd animal. Independent thought threatens the herd, so it must be derided.
I don’t care what people think of or say about me. Period.
I care about what people I love think about me, but the rest of you…
If you say you don’t care what people say or think of you then your bent, kidding yourself or telling fibs.
Well, then, by your definition, I’m bent.
I’d say people who do care even slightly what others–particularly others who are not family or friends–say or think about them are insecure. I’m not a pack animal, let alone a herd animal. I don’t care what anyone else thinks about what I think, say, or do. The world would be a lot better place if everyone else looked at things this way.
When I was about four years old, my dad sat me down and told me to read this:
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
‘ Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!
Wonderful!
Kipling was a great writer but also talked a lot of rubbish, some of which got him into the position of leaving no stone unturned in getting his son into military service for the wonderful and patriotic Great War. Son John didn’t last long, and died miserably at Loos.
The old man sang a slightly different tune after that.