Outsourcing Fails Again

Sprint sued IBM last week over millions of dollars worth of unrealized savings:

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2006/052506-sprint-ibm-outsourcing.html

Outsourcing (and offshoring) works great, eh?

Schneier on Security: The Value of Privacy

Schneier on Security: The Value of Privacy: "Tyranny, whether it arises under threat of foreign physical attack or under constant domestic authoritative scrutiny, is still tyranny."

How to unstick the DiMAGE software

When you get the "Unknown Error" try this:

Digital Darkroom Forum: Help : Problem with Konica Minolta Dimage 5400 ii: "I have the Dimage Scan 5400,and had similar problems.
In my case the culprits were two files - 'MFSLibinit' and 'MFSButtonCheck'
- which stayed on the system after an abnormal shutdown."

New Scanner - Minolta DiImage IV

With the divorce, I have to split all the family photos from the past, oh, 12 years or so. My compromise: I'll take digital copies of all of them, and she can have the physical photos. Only problem: scanning photos is a PITA. I started out scanning the negatives at Costco, where they had a Fuji Explorer photolab, which does an amazing job of creating scans from negatives. But, they replaced the Fuji with something else that is faster at dumping prints out, but makes horrid scans from negatives. Macro-blocks 4x the size of the old Explorer lab. Sux0r.

So, about 5 months ago I went on a quest for a negative scanner. Nikon makes a great one, but because of their heavy marketing, it holds its' value in the used market quite well. $450 well, even. Turns out that Minolta used to make a negative scanner, and it was quite highly regarded, too. But they couldn't compete with the Nikon juggernaut, so they got out of the business in the fall or 2005 - right before I started looking.

Fortunately, there's things like eBay out there. Last weekend I found a New in the Box Minolta DiImage IV scanner for sale on eBay, bid on it and got it. Turns out it may have been a store demo or something - the bags and software had been opened. But, none the less, everything was there, including the original box.

Set it up in about 15 minutes on the Mac (I love macs), and scanned in some stuff. After a couple of passes with the settings, I realized that nothing I did was going to matter for my purposes - 4x6 prints and web-page images. So I set it batch scan a while ago, and this is what came out:

The full image (reduced in size for the blog):





And the detail of just the bike:


That's pretty flipping good, in my unlearned opinion. And, that is set to about 1/3 maximum resolution / quality on the scanner. (5 of 15 megapixels).

Now to start feeding it negative strips, and hope my hard drive holds out!

Yr. Hmbl Crrspdnt., etc etc

Tech-Recipes.com - Use GMail Plus-Addressing to Generate Throw-Away E-Mail Addresses

Tech-Recipes.com - Use GMail Plus-Addressing to Generate Throw-Away E-Mail Addresses: "How many services use email and email validation to use?
Forums, free i-tunes, free magazines, free this, and free that...

You know many of these services make money off selling your email address; therefore, you certainly do not want to give them your main email address. Thus the need for throw-away or disposable email addresses. Although many services out there offer this service, gmail is an especially useful tool. "

HOW TO: Get Through Having Your Identity Stolen - Consumerist

HOW TO: Get Through Having Your Identity Stolen - Consumerist: "HOW TO: Get Through Having Your Identity Stolen"

A Picture Share!

Ready to camp!

A Picture Share!

Alec at his pizza party

A Picture Share!

A Picture Share!

Man they grow up fast!

WWW SQL Designer

OK - this doesn't sound like much. But it gives you amazing functionality in building relational database tables from a webpage.

WWW SQL Designer

Poke around the "live demo". Note that you can drag and drop the tables, you can export SQL to create the DB on MySql, and more. And the source is freely available.

Excellent new computer interface

OK - the blurb below sounds boring as hell. But check out the demos - I can immediately see how amazingly useful this would be. Wonder how long before Apple puts this interface on the iMac, or releases a 30" display and software for the Powermac?

Multi-Touch Interaction Research: "While touch sensing is commonplace for single points of contact, multi-touch sensing enables a user to interact with a system with more than one finger at a time, as in chording and bi-manual operations. Such sensing devices are inherently also able to accommodate multiple users simultaneously, which is especially useful for larger interaction scenarios such as interactive walls and tabletops."

A Picture Share!

Grass fire at Sprint campus

A Picture Share!

Grass fire at Sprint campus

Car alarm for your Mac

The Cult of Mac Blog: "Laptop Alarm Prevents Mac Jackings"

Tigertail HT Counterpoise Project by Chad Rudolph W1CAR

Tigertail HT Counterpoise Project by Chad Rudolph W1CAR: "A great way to increase signal strength when using a portable (Ham Radio)
rig."

Camping Stove FAQ

FAQ - Stoves: "Here we concentrate solely on gas stoves. We cover the fuels and containers used, the different sorts of stoves available, and various technical details. As to why you should use a gas stove in preference to all others: that will emerge pretty quickly."

minnedosa united church: Being a Pilgrim People ... living the journey:

minnedosa united church: Being a Pilgrim People ... living the journey:: "I have no time nor energy for anger or hate -- Instead I seek and I work for that moment on the mountain top when we (all of us together) are transfigured -- transformed -- resurrected -- and feel only love -- love NOT like"

Powerful stuff. Sounds really similar to what Herman Rednick taught back in Taos in the 60s and 70s.

Take a few minutes. Or a day. And check out some of what that prairie preacher is teaching on his blog. I'm right impressed.

minnedosa united church: Bible Study Materials for February 5th 2006

minnedosa united church: Bible Study Materials for February 5th 2006: "If Isaiah felt like a grasshopper in the eyes of God, I feel even smaller because I know, thanks to modern science, that we live on a planet that orbits one star ... our sun. Tht star is one of the one hundred thousand million stars that make up our galaxy .... the Milky Way. The Milky Way is only one of the many galaxies in the local group, and the Local Group in turn is just one of the thousands of groups and clusters of galaxies that form the largest known structures of the universe. And scientific evidence points to the possibility that the universe is still expanding. .... Yet in the midst of all this grandeur, we are not hidden from God .... God who has the power to create all of this, still notices us and shall renew our strength"

Nothing to see here, move along

Appears that by 6:30 PM, the Lake Cities Sun had deleted the article advocating assualt and murder of motorcyclists. I guess they didn't like all the publicity they were getting. Gosh, I only told about 15,000 of my closest friends around the world . . .

It is interesting - the article was originally posted on the 16th of March. I was out of pocket and didn't see any pointers to it until mid morning today. I took a bit of offense and let others know how I felt about the issue by a couple of free 'blogs and posts to newsgroups and e-mail lists of people holding a common interest.

Those small steps made a difference, and hopefully the Managing Editor, Doug Simpson, will think before typing up incitement to injure and kill people.

I've taken the liberty of posting the original article below:

3/16/2006 10:40:00 AM
Airing of grievances
Douglas Simpson, Managing Editor

To quote Seinfeld's Frank Costanza at Festivus dinner, now is the time for the airing of grievances. Usually there's one hot topic to prompt me to write a column, as my fingers angrily dance across the keyboard. But there are a few things that are, well, bugging me that I need to address.
Here they are, in no particular order:

1. Motorcycles. Why are these things street legal? I challenge anyone out there to remember a time they saw a motorcycle that was driving the speed limit and adhering to all traffic laws. When I see them, they are usually going about 120 mph down I-35E, weaving in and out of lanes like those white lines are just there for show. Nothing irks me more than sitting in dense 5 p.m. or Friday traffic, only to see a motorcycle driving between the rows of cars, going about 40 mph. I want so badly to open my car door just before they reach me. I'll never forget the time I was driving down the George Bush around 10 p.m., when all of a sudden scorching down the road were not only about five motorcycles driving erratically, but they were all riding on their back tires. Popping a wheelie while doing 80 mph down a public roadway: stupid. I remember a few years back, I think after Gary Busey had his bad motorcycle wreck, there was a public service announcement asking motorists to "keep an eye open for motorcyclists," like they are being abused by us car and truck drivers. I remember telling the TV, "I'll look out for them as soon as they start obeying traffic laws." I'm still waiting, so in my eyes, they are fair game. Our police officers do a good job, I just hope they pay a little extra attention to the wheelie-popping idiots that are making the roadways dangerous for all of us.

2. Carole Keeton Rylander Strayhorn. I think that's her name. Anyway, she's the state comptroller who is also one of the candidates for governor. She's been comptroller under Rick Perry for a while. Up until last year, there was nary a word spoken about Perry from Strayhorn, much less the daily Perry bashing that's going on currently. Why? She was a Republican. Someone convinced her to run for governor, but she knew she would not stand a chance at getting the Republican nomination as long as Perry wanted to stay in office. So what does she do? She runs as an Independent and daily tells anyone who wants to listen what a bad job Perry is doing, and that we Texans are all doomed because our governor is running the state into the ground. Well, CKRS, why didn't we hear about how bad a job Perry was doing before you decided to run? Strayhorn wants more power, more money, more prestige, so she's willing to not only abandon the Republicans, but rip the governor on an hourly basis - a governor she seemed to work well with until election time came around. I'm not the biggest Perry supporter in the state, and I wouldn't waste a vote on Kinky Friedman. But I'd vote for a jar of mayonnaise before I'd vote for Rylander Keeton Carole Strayhorn. She is the epitome of doing whatever it takes to get into office. The mud has been slung for months now, and it will continue until Election Day. That's what's wrong with politicians. They make big promises, bash their opposition, and if they are lucky enough to win they seldom live up to their self-generated hype. If she loses? I guess she gets to keep her day job and go back to calling Governor Perry "sir."

3. American Idol. Let me get this straight. This show, that airs open auditions to determine the best singer in the country, is the most watched show in the nation? Ratings statistics alone dictate this will not be a popular opinion, but I honestly do not know what the draw of this show is. I have happened upon it several times while flipping (hard not to see it, since it seems to be on practically every night), and I could not believe how bad these "singers" were. I think there's more singing talent in church choirs around the country than what's on stage during the show. I don't have much to say about the judges. The British guy is rude, Paula Abdul thinks she's still relevant, and Mr. Jackson, a former studio musician, should have stayed one. I find it ironic that it is these three that determine what's good and what isn't, when their own resumes before the show were mediocre at best. And then there's all the stories about how 911 calls can't get through because there were so many American Idol calls the phone system blew up, or something like that. There's no accounting for taste. It just seems a shame that quality shows like Arrested Development get axed while reality shows and their rip-offs rule the television scene. In my eyes, it is another example of how this country is getting dumber. TV used to be great in any form, but now we don't want to have to "think" or "follow a story," we just want to say if a singer, bachelor, survivor, or cow intestine eater is "good" or "bad." Soon the TV will just be flashing different colors, and the American public will eat it up. "Red is good." "Orange is bad." "Green is good." "I like purple. Do you like purple?"