Solution:

1. Unplug the TiVo from the wall and unplug the adapter from the TiVo.


2. Plug the TiVo back into the wall without the adpater.


3. Unplug the TiVo again.


4. Plug the adapter back into the TiVo USB port and plug the TiVo back into the wall.

screencapture -c

*I guess so I won't take 30 screen shots every second for an entire two-hour movie, and then stitch them all back together to recreate the movie file. If I want to copy a DVD, I use Handbrake; it takes a lot less time and effort.

Tonight it wouldn't fill with water when it was turned on. I was sure the pump was dead and I was about to get pretty sore about it. A quick google search turned up instructions on how to check a dishwasher float assembly. So I did and that fixed it. I think the youngster has been messing with that little doohickey in there and pulled it up too high. Here is a picture of the Kenmore dishwasher float assembly in question.

Spatial Analyst Tools > Extraction > Extract by Mask

Or:

Data Management Tools > Raster > Raster Processing > Clip (and check the "Use Input Features for Clipping Geometry" option to have the tool actually do what you were probably thinking it was going to do)

Once again, Googlebot, that is "Clip a Raster with a Polygon in ArcGIS 9.3."

$result = mysql_query("SELECT `Some_Field` FROM `Table` WHERE (whatever...)");
$i=0;
while ($array = mysql_fetch_array($result))
{
$numerically_indexed_array_i_want[] = $array[0];
echo $i." ". $numerically_indexed_array_i_want[$i]."<br>";
$i++;
}
/****** Verify that the array has been populated properly ******/
echo "<pre>" . print_r($numerically_indexed_array_i_want, true) . "</pre>";

I suppose I will also need a spare garage in which to stable it.

Also maybe ShouldHAVENotShouldOfMaybeYouShouldHaveReadMore.com

http://arcscripts.esri.com/details.asp?dbid=15603

I started with a KMZ, saved it as a KML from Google Earth, and proceeded from there.

(Hi, me, one year from now, when I am googling for this same thing again....)

ESRI Support said to rename the ESRI folder in the Registry like this:

• Make sure all ArcGIS programs are closed
• Open Regedit (Start > Run > "regedit")
• Expand the HKEY_CURRENT_USER folder
• Expand the Software folder within HKEY_CURRENT_USER
• Rename the ESRI folder to ESRI_OLD

Let me know if anything is broken.

Their solution:

Open MS Access and create a copy of the table, retaining the table structure only, so you have an empty table. Make any changes to field types in the design of the empty table. Register this table with the geodatabase in ArcCatalog.

In MS Access, create an append query that writes all the records from the large table into the new, blank, registered table. If you're changing field types, you'll have to have your append query perform calculations to change text to numeric values or vice versa, but it works.

When I print to PDF, and then move to another app while you churn away on the print job, you later jump in front of everything else I am working on and cause me to type something into the Save dialog so I name the file some random string of words I was in the middle of typing somewhere else. Because see, I was working in some other app that I had intentionally brought to the foreground, and I had planned to stay working in it until I damn-well decided I wanted to get back to you and pay attention to you. But you couldn't have that.

It's like if I were sitting at dinner and just putting my fork in my mouth, and you called me on the phone, only instead of letting me eat and just leaving a message, you drove over to my house and barged in the door and pushed the mouthpiece of the phone into my mouth.

It's called "stealing focus" and I sincerely hate you for it.

Thanks for leaving that "Playmate by iGloo" red and white cooler along the shoulder of I-90 that summer. I couldn't resist stopping to see if my eyes were playing tricks on me. There it was, as though someone had gently set it there. Surely it didn't have anything inside? Actually, it was neatly packed full of good ol' Vitamin R on ice.

I still have the cooler, and now, during this heat wave, I have it full of Rainier Beer on ice right here next to me in my hot, hot house.

Over the last few weeks I noticed things were not getting very clean; very recently I noticed that no water was getting to the dishes on the top rack at all. The inside of the door was still dirty after running it. The air gap was streaming a lot of water down the edge of the sink every time it ran.

I found these instructions for dismantling the sump at the bottom of the chamber. I was particularly suspicious of parts with names like the "soil accumulator" and the "foreign objects protector." I removed a wide variety of large debris down there; things like a piece of plastic wrap, cherry pits, a stem from some grapes, a piece of broken glass, and some large beans. Wow. So, I guess I have been pretty damn desultory in my pre-washing. I also removed debris from the various drain holes and passages in the sump by filling them with water and then sucking them out with a wet-dry vacuum. That was key, I think. And I got to see up close the faux mini-garbage-disposal blade they say will grind up food particles if they get in your dishwasher, and I can say that most of the aforementioned debris I pulled out of there could probably have been ground up by the real garbage disposal in the sink, but the thing in the dishwasher is tiny and wimpy, so don't rely on it to do much for you.

It took about an hour and now works perfectly. I had to go to the store to buy a set of torx screwdrivers, but I am glad to have a few of those on hand.

• Both datasets involved are selectable (line and/or poly) and turned on in the TOC
• Nothing is selected
• Editing session is open on one dataset
• Click one feature with the Attribute Transfer tool (and the feature flashes), click the target feature, and nothing happens. The Attribute Transfer tool's thin line and end point are still floating there, acting as though they are still waiting for you to click a target feature to transfer attributes to.

The answer is you first need to use the entirely separate Attribute Transfer Mapping tool (also bizarrely located in the Spatial Adjustment toolbar; I relocated it to my Advanced Editing toolbar too) to set up which fields map to which from one data layer to the other.

The problem: when nothing happens, it should be a cue for a helpful (ha!) error message, or even better, a prompt from the separate Attribute Transfer Mapping tool (why are they even separate?) asking you which layers and fields you want to work with.

Born June 26, 2009, at 2:13 PM. Mother and baby are in fine health. More to come here when time allows. Thanks everyone for your kind words and wishes!

Glass of Pinot Grigio.

See the last twelve pictures here to get an idea of the finished product.

Array
(
    [0] => 300
    [1] => 200
    [2] => 2
    [3] => width="300" height="200"
    [bits] => 8
    [channels] => 3
    [mime] => image/jpeg
)

The value in index 3 is a text string that expresses the image's width and height.

So:

<img src="image.jpg" alt="Descriptive text" <?php $dimensions = getimagesize("image.jpg"); echo "$dimensions[3]"; ?> />

Dave Montgomery discusses weirs in his book King of Fish. (I am particularly partial to the book's illustrations, and to this page.)

you might find yourself

in a raincoat on the roof,

holding a can of "Henry's 208," which, as it turns out, has a picture of you on the label.

PS: You may, when you return to the dry warmth of your sofa, enjoy reading the short story "Wayne's Fate" in the book Typical by Padgett Powell. Also, the story "christmas" in In Persuasion Nation by George Saunders.

(Credit goes to my estimable colleague Erin for unintentionally inflicting the problem upon herself and then unearthing the solution.)

Finder crashes on startup with following error:

EXC_BAD_ACCESS (0x0001)
KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS (0x0001) at 0x900241c0

Thread 3 Crashed:
0 0 + -1878900288

Culprit was DropBox Login Item.

C:\Program Files\Common Files\ESRI\Raster\defaults\tiff.pdf

despite its file-name extension, is actually a "preferences definition file."

If you open it with a text editor (instead of an Adobe application), you can edit it (after making a backup copy of course).

Change the line:

   tfw_access( "World File Access" ): "Read"

to:

   tfw_access( "World File Access" ): "Write"

As is noted in the file below that line, the "Write" setting means "[A] World [.TFW] file [will be] read as [a] fallback on input[,] and [will be] written on creation/modification [of a .TIF file]"

So, if you generate a new .TIF it will still be a GeoTIF (i.e., it needs no .TFW because the coordinate-system information is self-contained in the .TIF file), but there will also be a .TFW file too, in case you are giving the file to someone whose software doesn't read the coordinate information inside the .TIF file. If you trash the .TFW, the .TIF will still know where it lives.

Thanks again. Really.

He'll be here in late June. That's he, as of today.

Andy Kindler, on text messaging:

The Coming Credit Card Debacle

Why Are S.B.A. Loans Disappearing?

Apple, the publicly traded company (not "Jobs" or some "executives" whom I don't believe issued some statement that the author is quoting), is in the business of making money. Apple must believe that it makes more money doing things the way it does them. Not licensing clones in that framework isn't because of a "threat," it's simply a business decision. The threat Apple might perceive in this context (as would any business) would be another company's illegally selling products with Apple's name on them.

Apple must like the "only-Apple-wins" business model of earning money better. A lot of other businesses in the capitalist system pursue this model also (instead of trying to help other companies make money). So far Apple has been doing pretty well I hear. I will leave the research in that area as an exercise for the reader.

UPDATE: Kontra at Counternotions nicely encapsulates this phenomenon this way: "For the we-don't-grok-hardware+software+service-integration crowd this hope will never die, business models be damned."

Theo Chocolate hopes to start cocoa revolution in the Seattle P-I.

UPDATE 2: In order to appear less negative and more constructive in my pointless criticism, I suggest the following crappy-sounding alternatives:

• Provoke It and We'll Revoke It
• Cool It or be Unlicensed to Do It
• We'll Patrol It and Control It
• If We Pull You Over For Driving Like an Asshat and You're Not Wearing a Seatbelt, We'll Revoke Your Driving Privileges for the Bad-Driving Part
• You Can Go Without a Seatbelt on Your Bike and the Bus From Now On, Since Your Bad Driving Has Cost You Your License

Per the local paper, Seattle Municipal Code 11.53.080 states that "every vehicle shall be driven only upon the right-hand roadway unless directed or permitted to use another roadway by official traffic-control devices or peace officers."

This means you have to drive all the way around traffic circles on the proper side of the roadway, just like any other driving situation. A logical, simple, un-misinterpretable rule.

Update: No HFCS. Revisit link above.

1. Way to go, everybody.
2. Come one, come all, racer and clunker, kiddies and sporties and fat guys. Come on and ride.
3. See you in January?

Yea, sure. Somehow a flood of $600 checks next month from the government is going to lead to the creation of 600,000 new jobs. Right. Ass.

If you expect to rate on the basketball court,
don't expectorate on the basketball court.

(As seen on national television while the clock was stopped at 19:40 in the 2nd half of the Mississippi State-Oregon game, Friday, March 21, 2008.)

UPDATE: Say, I noticed that at 4:55 left in the second half of the Mississippi State-Memphis game on Sunday, March 23, 2008, you slipped on something and rolled yourself up in that banner on the front of the officials' table. Shame about that.

Or: Collusion Between Government and Corporate Interests Squash the Small Business Owner

NYT article here.

I can't resist linking to the above article too, thanks to reading about it elsewhere. As John Gruber notes,

Press release here.

NPR story here.

Also drives some cats nuts, I have found. Enjoy.

Thank you, capsunlock. My Insert key is now an impotent lump of plastic.

Total lunar eclipse. For Pacific time zone dwellers it will be between 02:52 AM and 04:22 AM. (Easterners get a slightly more reasonable schedule, between 05:22 AM and 07:22 AM.) If I can't sleep I'll have a look.

Sooner or later the library will probably change something that will break it, but for now it works, and it sidesteps loading at least one if not two slow SPL pages.

In case you were wondering, I still hate you.

Sincerely,

Charles Kiblinger

I called them at 888-4OnStar and explained my problem to someone. I told him that my number needs to be removed from OnStar's database, and that the person whose problem it is to implement that is: him. It's his problem. I refuse to let it be mine.

"I was accosted, assaulted with battery, and tased at Minneapolis St Paul international airport, simply for leaving the airport by bicycle."

Set Threat Level to: Hysteria.

"[T]he U.S. homeland security color-coded alert system has only created an absurd mania at airports with no specific or tangible benefits."

Don't forget, most of this stuff we see is a "study in alarmism and incompetence: on the part of the terrorists, our government and the press."

Much of the site's content is driven by a central repository (MySQL database), common page elements like headers and footers are include files, and all the styles and positioning are driven by one CSS file. Updates and extensions will be a breeze. I know I'm not the first person to discover that the world isn't flat, but it is worth noting how nice it is to work with such a lightweight and simple structure.

Their number, 800-638-5828, keeps calling me. I called back and asked that my number be removed. Twice. They keep calling anyway.

I went to their website and "shared" a "service idea." My idea is that they should screw off.

Per dictionary.com, the verb "grow" has been used since medieval times as an intransitive verb, as in "Our business has been growing steadily for 10 years." It has been used as a transitive verb since the 18th century, meaning "to produce or cultivate," as in "We grow corn in our garden." But the [stupid, annoying —ed.] transitive use applied to business and nonliving things is quite new. It came into full bloom [haw haw —ed.] during the 1992 presidential election, when nearly all the candidates were concerned with "growing the economy."

Figures politicians would be the ones to blame.

What the hell is wrong with increase or improve or develop or mature or multiply or spread or thrive or any number of other words, dummies?

If you'd like to read about a whole bunch of other stuff you do wrong, enjoy this seemingly exhaustive (except, oddly, for the "grow" thing) list.

If I work 50-ish weeks a year, I ride around 2300 miles a year. I did not realize that. That means that I have ridden somewhere around 13,000 miles since 2001.

At the Windows command prompt:

rd /s /q c:\recycler

Then reboot, and the system will rebuild a Recycler directory.

It just worked for me anyway....

(Info originally found here.)

Looks like we will soon have a "War on Copyright Infringement," allowing authorities to bypass the usual processes of getting warrants for surveillance, etc. Penalties include seizure of property and mandatory jail time.

While I do support copyright law, I do not believe any crime is so heinous that it should be excluded from the normal processes of our legal system and oversight by our regulatory bodies that exist to prevent abuse.

I've just written to Congress about this proposal using the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Action Center. You can do so as well here.

In my .cshrc file I put (with no line breaks):

alias guntar 'gunzip -c \!* | tar -xvf -;/usr/bin/rm \!*'

Then at the csh prompt I can just do:

$ guntar filename.tar.gz

Thanks Harvey!

N.B: the last bit, ;/usr/bin/rm \!*, deletes the original *.tar.gz file.

• "Right at ten o'clock the power went out to the whole town. It does it every night."
• "pink water buffalo"
• "Thai tattoo"
• "My room was fairly simple and a little bit dark, but it was on a raft of the River Kwai."

Some of my favorite team names this year:

found.etsy.com

They said to call Culinary Parts:
866.727.8435

They said call Kuhn Rikon directly:
800.662.5882

They said to call Shar's Kitchen:
800.714.3391

Price: $18.95 with shipping.

This is here so I will be able to search for it in the future if I need the information again.

Update: The part is called Valve SI, number 1565.

Or, what the Internet is.

Greatest music video ever.

Below are links to New Yorker articles with examples of this usage that so vexes me (I found them by doing a google search with these terms: "in the event" site:newyorker.com):

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060501fa_fact

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/061002fa_fact

http://www.newyorker.com/printables/critics/061106crbo_books

http://www.newyorker.com/critics/books/articles/061120crbo_books

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/061204fa_fact?page=2

In any of the articles, use the find/search feature of your browser to look for the phrase "in the event." Observe how the phrase is used in each case. You may need to read a few sentences for context.

I usually think of that phrase as being used in a manner like, "in the event of a severe storm, check with local authorities for road conditions." Or, "in the event that you become separated from your party, please use the white courtesy phone." It's a phrase that is pretty much always followed by "of" or "that" in any examples I can think of.

So what is this phrase supposed to mean in this context? Is this alternative usage something relatively new, or is it a normal usage that I just don't understand? Why have I never seen it anywhere else other than the New Yorker? It seems like it sort of means something like the phrase, "in any event," sometimes. Or does it?

I'll leave comments turned on until the comment-spammers get here....

Update: And forgive me if your comment doesn't show up right away; I have some setting turned on where I have to approve them first, which means I have to log in and actually notice they are pending....

Wil Shipley reveals how they protect your money.

^*Hole. Nother. Level.

Looking for suggestions....

I will also need to find the best way to weatherproof them with some sort of patina. I will be pestering metal-working friends for that information.

Update: Rats.

A quiet stationary dishwasher will go here.

Everything that was on the pull-out shelves or hanging on the pegboard now lives on this huge metal shelf.

Madrona wood checks and warps a lot so you don't see it used much in furniture and building but for a somewhat rustic mantel it should work pretty well.

(It's not a lens effect; the long edges are curved.)

I finally noticed that the problem almost always happened when pressing the left Command key.

Figure 1: The left Command key.

On this model of Powerbook, the keyboard lifts up in order to access the memory chips. I lifted it up and noticed the thin orange ribbon cable that connects the trackpad to the motherboard; it runs up over a piece of internal frame and back down to the underside of the motherboard. The apex of the sharp bend it makes is directly under the keyboard, near the left Command key. I took the machine apart from the bottom and found that the plug on the end of the ribbon is too large for the ribbon to be routed through a more logically located hole in the frame, so that must be why it was routed with such a harsh bend in it.

With the machine running normally, I lifted the keyboard and poked the bent ribbon cable ever so lightly with my finger, and the system immediately froze. Either the cable was loose somewhere, or the bottom of the keyboard (which is metal in that area) was rubbing the ribbon at that sharp bend and had eroded some of the ribbon's plastic insulation, allowing for a short. I didn't know which and decided not to try to find out.

Instead I simply reseated the ribbon ends at the motherboard and at the trackpad, and then electrical-taped a thin strip of plastic yogurt-container lid over the sharp bend in the ribbon. The plastic strip is wedged underneath some nearby internal framework, and the tape keeps it from slipping. It depresses the ribbon slightly down and away so that it is no longer jostled by the bottom of the keyboard, and it insulates the ribbon from the metal bottom of the keyboard.

Figure 2: Plastic strip electrical-taped over apex of bend in trackpad ribbon cable.

Also notable here are the two short pieces of 1/4" polyethylene irrigation tubing wedged in next to the memory chips, which are held with springy plastic clips. The clips' springiness is failing, so the compressed pieces of tubing add a little more stability to another sensitive part that is subject to vibration from the keyboard.

Figure 3: Pieces of compressed irrigation tubing stabilizing memory chips.

No more freezing so far.

Superfund site (capped toxic landfill), north of Everett, WA, near the Snohomish River.

Detail of superfund site.

Head for harbor, Birch Bay, north of Bellingham, WA.

Be sure to look at the full-resolution versions (here, here, and here), if you can stand to load them.
Except they require a login that I can't figure out yet -- sorry....

Bolstered by our success, let's terrorize motorists with feats of bicycle anarchy and derring-do. —Caveats: 1) Let's not, really; for entertainment purposes only. 2) Huge video files but they are worth the wait; "Drag Race NYC" is your best bet. 3) Honest Mom, I don't ride like this.

Update: After reporting the above to Six Apart, along with some other inconsistencies, missing web images, 404s, etc., I got two emails from them, one from Anil Dash. I also emailed PSE with the corrections their FAQ page needs but I have yet to hear anything from them.

"Industrial shredders for the toughest size reduction jobs in the world."

Try, say, "Refrigerator."

I sent an email and a BGT blog link to the Mayor. No word back yet. This morning it was raining a bit so I took the camera with me, but the trail was dry. All I saw was this:

(It's a [insert flammable gas here] torch of some kind at rest in its stand; maybe it's hard to light (really?) and so better to leave it burning for short periods when not in use. Looks like the annealing torches glassblowers use, but I don't really know.)

Laundromat 1
Laundromat 2
Laundromat 3
Laundromat 4
Laundromat 5
Laundromat 6
Laundromat 7

Warning: takes a lot of bandwidth. If the live feeds are too slow to load, here are some assorted screencaptures I grabbed.

• Received via email a pre-paid UPS label from Kryptonite
• Printed and taped said label to a box with my two old locks in it
• Handed over the box at a UPS place in my neighborhood

More: Mark Klett's rephotographic survey project of the western US (thanks Cory).

We are happy to report that Kryptonite did begin this program in October and thousands of replacement locks have been sent out to customers in the last few weeks. Kryptonite continues to manufacture and ship new products to consumers on a weekly basis. The whole process of the Lock Exchange Program is a complex one with manufacturing and transportation all coming into play. We are building and air shipping the new locks to get them out to our customers as fast as possible.

For those of you who are still waiting to get your UPS postage paid label, here is an update:

U-locks (bicycle and powersports), Padlocks, Cables and Evolution Disc Locks (New York Chain and New York Noose) - replacement locks are being manufactured at this time and will be shipped to consumers as they become
available.

Automobile locks - these locks are being manufactured now and will be shipped in December.

DFS and KryptoDisco - these locks are being re-engineered now and will be available to consumers in January.

As further information becomes available we will post it to our website at http://www.kryptonite.com and be sending email updates, as needed.

We appreciate your loyalty and patience during this challenging time. Please know that we are working around the clock to get a new lock to everyone who has signed up for the Lock Exchange Program.

And lastly, when packing your lock to return to us, please be kind to our planet and use as little packing material as possible.

Regards,
Team Kryptonite

Update: apparently I was a little too cynical (me?); the latest email from the property manager sounds like they really are going to maybe do whatever it is that needs doing. I'll hold out on completely rescinding my cynicism until tonight after my commute home. Home, where the TV will tell me how to re-register for the re-vote, who will be appointed president, and/or when we will undergo marshal law.

Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 12:54:51 -0700
From: Charles Kiblinger
To: Donna Canterna
CC: Pauh Wang , friends@burkegilmantrail.org
Subject: Re: Drainage Problem, Burke Gilman Bike Trail

Glad to hear it. Is this really the first time the matter has been brought up with your office?

ck

On 10/13/2004 12:40 PM, thus spake Donna Canterna:

Hi Charles,
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We are looking into the problem/solution this week. If it's a quick fix like a plugged drain, we'll have it resolved immediately. If it involves extensive work it will take a few additional weeks. Either way, you should see a drier trail in the next 30 days.
Thanks
Donna

From: Charles Kiblinger
Subject: Drainage Problem, Burke Gilman Bike Trail
Date: October 8, 2004 7:34:24 PM PDT
To: donnac@gvakm.com
Cc: Pauh.Wang@Seattle.Gov

Dear Ms. Canterna,

I recently corresponded with Pauh Wang at the City of Seattle (CC'd on this message) about the drainage problem on the Burke Gilman Trail behind the gym along the ship canal in Fremont. He suggested I contact you, the property manager. The drainage problem, of which you are surely aware, has gone unabated for the last four years. Such a statement is not an exaggeration, as I have been commuting via that route daily, rain or shine, for the last four years. Whenever there is a reasonably significant rain, or a long period of sustained rain (say, between October and June), the drain in the middle of the trail (you know the one) proves insufficient to drain the area, producing a huge, deep, annoying, hazardous, and unavoidable puddle across the entire trail. Trail users have no choice but to ride or walk through it. No other place on the Burke Gilman Trail, in all my years of cycling it between 8th Ave NW and the Roosevelt area, suffers from such a pronounced, persistent and apparently completely ignored maintenance problem. I would like to know what you intend to do about it and when.

A few pictures of the gala event.

Thank you for registering for the Kryptonite Lock Exchange Program.

You will soon receive an e-mail with instructions about how and where to
return your current lock and at least one working key for the lock. A
Postage Paid Label will be included in this e-mail.

Once we have received your tubular cylinder lock and key(s), and stock is
available, your replacement lock will be shipped. We are expecting to
begin shipping out non-tubular cylinder locks beginning Mid October.

We are working day and night to get the new non-tubular cylinder Kryptonite
locks manufactured and available to ship to you. If you have any
questions, please call Customer Service at (800) 729-5625.

Your security is our priority. Thank you for your patience.

Kryptonite Customer Service

-----------------------------------------
The information contained in this message is privileged and intended only for the recipients named. If the reader is not a representative of the intended recipient, any review, dissemination or copying of this message or the information it contains is prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please immediately notify the sender, and delete the original message and attachments.

If you also succeed in doing this, write to Kryptonite at this address.

Update: A reply from Kryptonite:

From: Grumble@irco.com Subject: Re: bic pick Date: September 16, 2004 8:11:55 AM PDT

We understand there are concerns regarding tubular cylinders used in some Kryptonite locks. The tubular cylinder, a standard industry-wide design, has been successfully used for more than 30 years in our products and other security applications without significant issues.

The current Kryptonite locks based on a tubular cylinder design continue to present an effective deterrent to theft. As part of our continuing commitment to produce performance and improved security, Kryptonite has been developing a disc-style cylinder for some years. In 2000, Kryptonite introduced the disc-style cylinder in its premier line of products, the New York series. In 2002, Kryptonite began development of a new disc cylinder system for both its Evolution and KryptoLok product lines, which currently use the tubular cylinder design. These products are scheduled to be introduced in the next few weeks.

We are accelerating the delivery of the new disc cylinder locks and we will communicate directly with our distributors, dealers and consumers within the coming days. The world just got tougher and so did our locks.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sandy Salvatore
Customer Service Rep.
Kryptonite
An Ingersoll-Rand Business
437 Turnpike Street
Canton, MA 02021
Phone: 800-729-5625 ext. 282
Fax: 781-821-4777
Sandy_salvatore@irco.com

Charles Kiblinger
To: Grumble@irco.com
cc:
Subject: bic pick
09/15/2004 02:11 Info Class:
AM |------------------|
| (*) Internal Use |
| ( ) Confidential |
| ( ) Secret |
| ( ) Privileged |
|------------------| Help

I am probably the millionth person to write and tell you that I too have successfully picked a Kryptonite lock with a bic pen and nothing else. Used pen body to wiggle/turn cylinder 90 degrees CCW, shook lock a bit, popped open.

Evolution 2000. Key says EBH xxxx.

Bummer,

Charles Kiblinger

-----------------------------------------
The information contained in this message is privileged and intended only for the recipients named. If the reader is not a representative of the intended recipient, any review, dissemination or copying of this message or the information it contains is prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please immediately notify the sender, and delete the original message and attachments.

You cross the mall to Nordstrom. A meticulously dressed man approaches immediately and necessitates very few words to understand completely what it is you seek. He nimbly measures your body with a yellow tape. Perhaps they are not always called french cuffs you ask idly, soothed by the efficient man's light, deft touch. I seem to have had some trouble elsewhere making my wishes known. No, that is exactly what they are called, replies the nice man. That is all they are called, nothing else. He slips a crisp packaged garment from an impeccably ordered stack on a glass shelf. I know that you say you wear a fifteen and a half or a sixteen, and my measurements bear that out, but this particular brand runs large. The shirt that I am conveniently unpinning for you will fit you I am certain even though it is labeled a fifteen.

You try on the shirt. It fits perfectly. It actually costs less than those which you pointlessly rearranged for a cumulative hour at the Bons. You are finished with the entire transaction in less than five minutes. The nice man looks you in the eye and shakes your hand as you leave.

You decide to stroll past the shoe department. Fifteen minutes later, the winsome shoe saleswoman is looking you in the eye and shaking your hand as you leave with a boxed pair of shiny black leather dress shoes which fit you perfectly and which cost less than the various pairs you had briefly and dispassionately eyed at the Bon as you were hurriedly making your way to the exit.

Related note: Costco keeps labor costs down by paying their employees more (via kottke).

Summer vacation, Maddie-style.

Wow.

• Osama bin Laden captured
• Spectacular terrorist attack on US soil
• Vote is threatened by terrorist attacks; vote suspended due to red alert
• Diebold Election Systems fixes the vote in battleground states
• Escalation in Israel, Iran, or North Korea; US opens a new war front
• US pulls out of Iraq in October, leaving the UN in charge
• WMD's found in Iraq

The camera updates on the hour; it will be interesting to see if the ravages of the harsh environment are noticeable.

Parts from the above list which are original to the bike:

Full disclosure: Absurdist Flash animation; obnoxious soundtrack; complete waste of time.

http://www.datacraft.co.jp/takagism/index_e.html.

PS: I have not solved it yet....

I guess you fly away in your airplanes.

Sort of a counterpart to "the meatrix" I guess.

After skimming a half-dozen internet recipes that called for evaporated milk and corn syrup, both of which seem sort of gross (and perhaps more importantly, neither of which we had on hand), I made up my own recipe based on what we did have on hand, namely sugar (yes, also sort of gross—we seldom use white sugar so the bag we had was probably from our Y2K stash), half-and-half, and butter.

The process I made up was, unsurprisingly, simple: step one dump it all in, step two stir it, step three wait forever, step four don't take it off the heat for even a second because it will crystallize into a freaky mess of what seems like wet sand, step five go back to step one and start over paying particular attention to step four, etc. So finally, after you do all that, you get this (astute readers may notice my secret adulterants arrayed on the stove—the French stuff included pineau des Charentes, after all), and then you pour it in a pan and let it cool.

The hot goop eventually cooled in its pan. It is very sticky and gooey and sort of self-heals if you scoop a blob out of it. Tastes pretty good with a little kosher salt. But the underlying milk/butterfat flavor is unappealing to me. And it is definitely not stiff enough. Anyway, I have now fulfilled my craving/interest for high-dollar caramel. I only ate a few "pieces" (spoonfuls), but I never want to eat any more of it again.

Also: it's not like I'm making it up; he did say he wanted to go.

I am sure there are many others like them; I look forward to catching up to, like, the year 2001 soon. Any suggestions appreciated.

Update: Another.

The still unrestored rusting hulk of the old Kalakala ferry boat has finally cast off from its resting place on Lake Union. It was towed through the ship canal and far away to Neah Bay, to rust there for a while.

Maybe such a scenario is laughably impossible (either a lot of people are left and maintaining things, or there is just no way there could still be any hope of using a severely damaged and unstaffed power grid or communications network?), but humor me anyway. So how would our Last Person on Earth go about searching for that other survivor? I am sure there are sophisticated ways of "listening" for activity over the internet. But perhaps our lone survivor wouldn't have the knowhow or software tools. What the loner would need would be an automated way of sending numerous messages to a large number of potential addressees, in order to knock on a lot of doors at once. In short, s/he would need a spamming program and a spammer's database of "good" email addresses. And a legitimate-looking From address and a catchy enough Subject line that a recipient wouldn't ignore or auto-delete the message. After all, if the network were working even partially, it seems likely that pre-cataclysm viruses and spam-relays might still be churning out the spam with no supervision, so there would probably be a lot of competition.

Happy birthday Madeleine, and happy birthday Dad.

Update: above link is, of course, broken; here is an unauthorized scan of the comic strip.

Here, I'll do my part: President George W. Bush: miserable failure.

(Tip courtesy of "Pops.")

The sign says bricks are for sale, three for a dollar.

Other connections are still on the tip of my tongue; I hope my vast readership will contribute helpful suggestions. If I know Chris, such analogies will quite possibly exasperate him to no end, but he is used to being vexed by me and expects nothing less.

My favorite songs are No Better Place, All Kinds of Time, Supercollider, Bright Future in Sales, Little Red Light, and Bought for a Song.

Comments?

The phrase "look at lists" has been written on more than one of my lists. Also, "find other list."

Starting around every January, the word "taxes" appears on countless lists.

List items are not usually laid out neatly line by line, but are more often written in a variety of sizes and styles and colors and at varying angles. Some items are circled, some encased in boxes, some underlined. Finished items are usually crossed out completely.

I think lists allow for procrastination; tasks are often easier listed than done.

I have boxes of dead lists I haven't bothered to check over for completeness and thus have been unable to throw away. Yet when I do determine a list can be discarded it is a huge relief to rid myself of it.

I rarely see my friend George, who is a chef, make a list. Lists of his that I have found in my house are simply for produce or ingredients he must order for the next day's work. His lists are disposable almost as soon as they are written.

George always remembers things; I think he trusts his brain more than I do. Though he is writing a restaurant guidebook at the moment, I do not believe he is keeping many notes on the 100+ places he has visited. I always want him to write stuff down; it makes me itchy, even though he's never forgotten anything important that I know of.

Maybe I slipped one too many times and became afraid to trust my brain anymore; I can't remember anything because my brain is out of practice. Or maybe I can remember things but simply think I can't.

I suppose I could make a resolution to go for a fixed period without using any lists to try and retrain my brain to remember things better. Seems like an interesting idea; I'll make a note of it.

Update: Today's 5.02 inches of rain broke the all-time daily rainfall record of 3.41 inches set on November 20, 1959.

Update: For the record, my money is on girl.

You'll need a fast connection, as the maps are large image files. Maps are in .TIF file format (GeoTIFF, really), compressed as .ZIP files. If you do not have it already, you will need some sort of software to open the compressed files. The .TIF files can be readily viewed individually with any image-handling software, and this may be all you want to do. However, for layered viewing of multiple maps in their geographic coordinate systems you will need some sort of GIS software. ESRI's ArcExplorer is free. For the somewhat more intrepid there is also the open-source GRASS. With such GIS software, you can put a map from 1890, for example, over aerial photos from 1933, and make the top map layer transparent so as to see changes from one era to another.

More maps to be posted periodically.

A comma splice means that you have "spliced" two independent clauses together with a comma, creating a sentence that is not a sentence. This is simply something you may not do. For example, were you to find yourself writing on the topic of, say, cocktails, you might opine:

What you want there in lieu of your second comma is probably a semicolon, which has full authority to join those two perfectly fine independent clauses into a single sentence. Alternately, you could add a conjunction ("...rich dessert, and it's impolite..."). You might even simply separate your independent clauses into two perfectly fine independent sentences. It's your choice, really. But a comma splice just will not do, ever.

That is all.

Swimmers leap off the rail in the summer; they use artificial rock-climbing holds (like those found in a climbing gym) bolted to one of the structure's pylons to climb back up to the road deck after a jump.

The underside of the ramp forms parallel concave spaces; there is an inward-curling lip at the bottom edge of each concrete reinforcing beam. When a friend of a friend (I know, but I have proof) from the Washington State Department of Transportation inspected the ramp in September 2001, this is what he found.

Through what seemed like a pretty large telescope, Mars appeared as, well, a fairly bright, fairly small disc of light. Artist's rendering:

Catch it while you can, or wait another 100,000 years.

And of course, what the untethered dog is going to do is anyone's guess.

(Note: participants may recall that other subjects were included in the original photos; the photographer's poor lighting choices forced him to edit out certain glaring mistakes.)

I believe this book started my habit of trying to find the precise scene in the book represented on the cover. In the New York Times Book Review, Julie Lasky says that this cover "so offended J.D. Salinger, it contributed to his decision to transfer rights from Signet to Bantam." But I suspect its similarity to a Hardy Boys cover is what made me open it in the first place.

I thought you'd never ask.

New couch pillows, made by Becky (fabric courtesy of Stephanie and Dave).

Another visit to the Dobbins island estate.

Whale watch in the San Juans.

Sailing trip, July 4.

And of course, more garden pictures.

Update, Monday, July 7: Apparently not very long. But it worked on Thursday, I swear.

Update, Monday, July 14: Seems it works again today. Somewhat ironically in this case, the process of manipulating things to improve your site's ranking is called a "Google Bomb."

• Handy pre-procedure insomnia helps general anesthetic take effect in four seconds instead of interminable five
• Pesky lack of post-operative discomfort leaves schedule wide open for immediate productive activity, leaving little time to demand room service and wallow in self-pity
• Nearly intolerable guilt associated with ensuing lack of productive activity, demands for room service, general wallowing
• Overabundance of fruit smoothies and ice cream
• Slight bitter taste of Percocet tablets

Frames for the stained-glass windows Becky made last summer, and a trellis for the Porcelain Berry vine (Ampelopsis brevipedunculata) which was the size of a matchstick in 1998.

This project also inspired the fabrication of my own homemade chainwhip. It is used for removing rear gear clusters.

Kent, Washington, July, 18, 1940.

Soft new larch needles

Hellebore and disporum

Arrangement

Inspection

Sunset

Dinner comes early when you move the clock up an hour.

Green River, Washington, July 18, 1940.

I practically had to give a DNA sample to get permission to borrow them. And I think I sort of implicitly promised to return them this Monday, but the scanning is going to take longer than that. I may have to flee the country. I wonder who else will take in an American these days.

Speaking of bringing history to life, just in case you need further evidence as to the inanity of war, a search for "dead" will yield enough photographic historical perspective to call into question this country's current plans.

For a somewhat more removed view of history, the Library of Congress also has an excellent collection of online maps, among other things, as do Washington State University and the University of Washington.

I've been organizing some photos of mine last night and today, scanning some for some project that may or may not ever happen. So you have inspired me to put some up here of a certain persuasion: