But Jay Walker, the founder of Priceline.com and entrepreneur extraordinaire, has taken it to the ultimate.

Wired.com has an article and pictorial about his private library, containing centuries old books, originals of the milestones in technical and intellectual history (one of the spare Sputnik satellites, Enigma machines, an Edison kinetiscope, a 1960-era vacuum tube processor from IBM), all housed in a custom built 35,000 sq foot room.

Magnificent.

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(ceo on Oct 10, 2008 4:43 PM) And he put Post-Its in a 1493 book. Jess S. contacted him about what a bad idea that was and he took them out.

(Chris Devers on Oct 10, 2008 5:34 PM) Yes, but how did he agree on a price for all this stuff?

First, Rock Band 2. ZOMG. I absolutely understand that the PS2 version of Rock Band vastly outsells the Xbox version, but going from our PS2 setup at home (which, admittedly, is pretty good), to a full Rock Band 2 setup on an XBox 360 with about 100 downloaded tracks added to the mix? No comparison, whatsoever. Thanks Doug, I think. :)

This may break my self-imposed ban on buying an Xbox. I understand the money situation, but I still don't like having to buy a Microsoft product just to use one of the best console titles I've ever seen. Grump.

Second, thank you blk for a great weekend of hiking, socializing, and hanging out. And for anyone else who ever has the opportunity to visit Pittsburgh, don't miss the pancakes.

On geeky personal news, I made a bunch of progress on CONGO, as well as thinking about project planning and deliverables. I managed to get Browse working properly while on the plane (why do I do my best coding while jammed into a plane seat? It's weird), just before my battery died :( I'm on track for my self-imposed schedule of having an FC release by December 1st. I just have to give up sleep. *nod*

Continuing the mental rambling, I was disappointed to note that an idea I had while watching the hustle and bustle of a large airport has already been patented. At least it's a fairly recent patent, so it's not like I came up with something and discovered it was considered and discarded a few decades ago.

Last but not least, I continue to love my iPhone. This was my first real trip with it, and having full time access to my email, as well as some intarweb and a few games was awesome. I'm disappointed in the battery life (it requires a complete, full topping up charge -every- night, no cheating), and a couple hours of serious use can deplete it, but it's a solvable problem. I just have to train myself to charge it regularly.

I have, however, managed to lose my headphones. (The iPhone has a modified set if iPod headphones, adding a microphone dongle). Since I haven't been a big fan of the iPod style ear buds, I'll be hunting around for a set of mic-enabled travel headphones now. Any recommendations would be appreciated. They have to fold up nicely. I think I'd like to try a set of on-the-ear headphones again (I've been using a variety of in-ear phones for a while), but I'm not interested in the "hang the headphone on the earlobe" style. I don't mind the bracket-style, as long as it folds up.

Enough rambling for this morning, off to code...

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(Lisa on Oct 6, 2008 9:15 AM) That sounds like a lovely weekend!

(Nelson of borg on Oct 6, 2008 11:14 AM) "Ha ha!"

(Matt on Oct 6, 2008 4:01 PM) I'm enjoying my iPhone as well. There are lot of accessories available from dealextreme.com

<c:forEach var="rows" items="${registrantList}">
	<c:set var="cellColor">
		<c:choose>
			<c:when test="${cellColor == '#f0f0f0'}">#ffffcc</c:when>
		<c:otherwise>#f0f0f0</c:otherwise>
		</c:choose>
	</c:set>

	<s:url id="url" action="coconut/gotoUser" >
		<s:param name="rid">${rows.rid}</s:param>
	</s:url>

	<tr bgcolor="${cellColor}">
		<td>
			<s:a href="%{url}">${rows.rid}</s:a>
		</td>
		<td>${rows.lastName}</td>
		<td>${rows.firstName}</td>
		<td>${rows.company}</td>
		<td>${rows.badgeName}</td>
	</tr>
</c:forEach>

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(metahacker on Oct 4, 2008 11:23 AM) Probably, but I can't remember the name. Tiny place, big pictures of classic rock stars on the walls, named for the wom(a|e)n who started it? We ate at the one in Squirrel Hill shortly after Pennsic, with our local friends (who live on the same street as your local friend, just much closer to the aforementioned restaurant).

(orion on Oct 4, 2008 11:45 AM) you said "famous", "breakfast", and "Pittsburgh" in the same sentence -- you must be eating at Pamela's. :)

(dbs on Oct 4, 2008 12:12 PM) Both of you are right! Pamelas is was. Mmmmm. :)

Now all I had to do was figure out how to film it so it didn't look fake, and to convince Zach to keep doing it for people (he was getting bored). Once I had it filmed and the like, that million dollars would be ours, and it would solve a lot of our short term problems.

Then I woke up...

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(Tim on Oct 2, 2008 10:11 AM) Well, you know, just a few weeks ago he could walk through the walls of the common house! Of course, so could I. So the real trick is how do we fail to lose that skill?

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What follows is my own personal opinion. Disclaimers are put forth - I am not an economist, a financial investor, or particularly savvy in us world markets. I have, however, spent a lot of time reading, listening to level-headed reporting and commentary.

I think we're in deep doodoo.

My opinion is that the US lawmakers just took the side of localized petty politics, instead of doing what is right for the nation. And we're not talking about this whole "main street vs wall street" BS that's been bandied about. To me that's a distraction away from the real issues.

Most people don't understand how the larger financial markets work. They think 'credit' is a bank loan to buy a car. It isn't. The global credit market is about the hundreds of billions of dollars that are exchanged every night in short term credit between banks and businesses. This is about a production plant in Wisconsin that normally needs $1,000,000 a day to operate. The night before, the bookmakers say "We're short $100k. We need a loan". They call up their broker, say "Gimme $1,000,000, I'll pay you back on Thursday". They get the loan, the plant functions another day, they bring in $1.1million on Thursday, and pay off the loan. Done.

That is how industrial and business credit works. It is the lifeblood of our economy.

If that loan can't happen, that plant either operates at a loss, or they shut down for the day. That daily shutdown means instead of making $900,000 that day, they make zero.

Which is worse?

This credit cycle is what this bill is... er... was... designed to protect. It was to keep the markets alive and ease the credit tensions so the banks wouldn't continue jacking up the interest rates on those short-term loans, thereby making it very difficult for a business to make money on a day to day basis. There's already stress on this market, already 'credit freezes' going on. Businesses unable to get the short term loans necessary to function. Now it'll just get worse.

Unfortunately, the politicians and the general US population doesn't understand this. They just see fat cat Wall street folks getting zillion dollar paychecks, and other people getting foreclosed on houses. They vote down what might have been the only thing that could have kept the banks in business, and the credit flowing.

IMHO, we are now in serious danger of a depression. And frankly, I'm scared.

Thank you Washington. You may have killed us all.

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(Nabil on Sep 29, 2008 3:14 PM) The bill that was before the house was for an arbitrary number that they later admitted had been pulled out of thin air. It also had no oversight, nor any reward for the taxpayers in footing the bill. They voted down THIS BILL, because it was a BAD BILL, not because we don't need to take serious action (and soon).

(dbs on Sep 29, 2008 3:20 PM) Without getting into specifics, it did in fact have oversight. That was the amendment that was put on after it was presented. (well, one of the amendments - there were many). Do you have a cite for the comment 'later admitted they pulled out of thin air'? The serious action, I fear, is not going to happen. This is not a populist move, this is not something that everyone has to go "Yay!" about, because that will never happen. IMHO, anything the HoR will be able to pass will be ineffective, and too late. As far as I know, there is no other bill on the table, therefore nothing will happen before recess. The members will go home and start campaigning. Stock up on your guns and ammo, folks.

(Tim on Sep 29, 2008 3:39 PM) I assume that he's talking about the comment from an anonymous Treasury source who said of the $700 billion figure, "It's not based on any particular data point.... We just wanted to choose a really large number." And yes, I know that this bill only would have covered $250 billion in immediate relief, but it addressed up to $700 billion over the next year or so, so I think it's fair to say that they were working with the same "really large number" here as before.

(sah on Sep 29, 2008 3:41 PM) I've pretty much spent my adult life preparing for this sort of thing, starting with the cold war, through Y2K and 9/11. We have pretty much no debt, our own water supply and lots of firewood, ammo and food source. And we're a long ways from the closest city. My neighbors agree. Our lifestyle is our protection. We are all in food production, and that won't stop being a source of income, whether it be cash or barter. I am not worried at all, which is why we live this way. Let it all go to shit. I'm with George Carlin (again)on this one.

(Marty on Sep 29, 2008 4:20 PM) There is an interesting mix of people who voted no-more conservative Repubs, more left-leaning Dems, and Repubs up for reelection. There are some people who will vote nay no matter what-Kucinich, Paul and Flake, for instance.

(Harimad on Sep 29, 2008 10:32 PM) Before you blame the government, consider that CongressCritters widely reported that constituent feedback ran about 100:1 against bailing out those overpaid bankers that got us into this mess in the first place. The Rep whose constituency includes Wall Street was agonizing on All Things Considering about how to vote for a bill that's good for his constituents but bad for the country as a whole.

(Cos on Sep 30, 2008 1:50 PM) On Calming Down, Not Celebrating And Getting It Right, David Sirota - paragraphs 4-6.

A reliable, comfortable build system has measurable benefits for software development. Being able to build a testable, deployable system at any point during development lets the team test more frequently. Frequent testing isolates bugs and integration problems earlier, reducing their impact. Simple, working builds allow new team members to ramp up more quickly on a project: once they understand how one piece of the system is constructed, they can apply that knowledge to the entire system and move on to doing useful work. If releases, the points where code is made available outside the development team, are done using the same build system that developers use in daily life, there will be fewer surprises during releases as the “release” build process will be well-understood from development.

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/dev/sdd             240365240 206665208  21490104  91% /media/usb3
dbs@yawl:~$ sudo umount /media/usb3
dbs@yawl:~$ sudo fsck /dev/sdd
fsck 1.40.8 (13-Mar-2008)
e2fsck 1.40.8 (13-Mar-2008)
The filesystem size (according to the superblock) is 61049646 blocks
The physical size of the device is 33554431 blocks
Either the superblock or the partition table is likely to be corrupt!
Abort?

This is the 500gig external USB drive I've been carting around. In reality, there's nothing particularly critical on it, some, er, backed up music files which I'm loathe to part with, but at least it's not irreplaceable data.

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(Token1980 on Sep 27, 2008 1:12 PM) You'll probably know these tools but just in case you don't: PhotoRec and TestDisk can be real life-savers in these kind of situations. Both open-source and work quite nice. TestDisk for reconstruction your partitioning data and PhotoRec for reconstructing files which it recognizes - MP3's and Ogg's included. The catch with PhotoRec is that the file must not be fragmented to be fully/correctly recovered. Whichever will be your approach, good luck!

It's also added in groups I hadn't ever heard of, such as Dream Theater, Marillion, and Flower Kings. Today I was bopping along listening, and a track came on that I really liked - turns out it was "Suite Charlotte Pike" by the band "Transatlantic".

Huh, sez I. I like these guys. They remind me of Spocks beard and Dream Theater. Off I go to Wikipedia, and, right there at the top of the page about Transatlantic, I see:

Transatlantic was a progressive rock supergroup formed in 1999 by vocalist/keyboardist Neal Morse of Spock's Beard and drummer Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater.

Guess I was on the right track.

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(geecee on Sep 17, 2008 6:50 PM) Wait. You'd never heard of Marillion? Or Dream Theater? Clearly I've been remiss. =)

(dbs on Sep 17, 2008 6:54 PM) @geecee: One of the biggest things that attracts me to Pandora is it helps me to expand what i -know- are very limited views on music. I'd actually heard of Marillion before, but not Dream Theater. I still think your music tastes are more eclectic than mine though. :)

(tamidon on Sep 17, 2008 6:55 PM) I had a run in college of guys trying to get me to listen to Marillion and Yes. The 2 seemed to go together for many folks, at least in the UK

(dbs on Sep 17, 2008 6:59 PM) @tamidon - yah, i'm surprised I never got sucked into marillion. Yes, ZOMG definately. I listened to pretty much everything by them, and they defined 'Progressive' for me.

Regardless, I'm able to do all this insightful commentary due to the 'internet? We got yer internet right here, buddy' utility of my iPhone.

I love technology.

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(Perley Mears on Sep 13, 2008 8:18 PM) So, what did you use for a blog client? :-)

(dbs on Sep 13, 2008 8:21 PM) @Perley - I just used Safari right on the phone itself. Worked remarkably well, even over the 3g network.

Here's how it works.

You create a 'radio station' (basically a 'channel'). In that, you hand it a few songs, or bands that you like - best if you choose a specific genre. For instance, I created a 'progressive rock' channel, and seeded it with Spocks Beard. Pandora will start playing songs it thinks are similar. From what it plays, you can say "Yep, that's great!" or "No, I don't like that at all." If you find the station is drifting, or is not including other similar styles, you can seed in new band names or tracks.

• Progressive
  Spocks Beard, ELO, Alan Parsons Project, Yes
• Modern Folk?
  The Duhks, Nickle Creek
• 80's Mix
  Tears for Fears
• Live Blues / Jazz
  Les McCann, BB King

If you'd like to listen to any of these tracks, they should be available on my profile page, just click on the feeds (they're named after the first band or song you add to them).

These channels have netted new bands I'd never heard of, and songs that were new, but, 8 times out of 10, they were songs and artists I liked. So I tell Pandora "Yes, please, more like that!" When I find a band I'd like to really find out more about, I 'bookmark' them. I have a list of new bands I hadn't heard of before, but now I'll look for more of their music:

• The Flower Kings
• Tim O'Brien
• The Green Cards
• The David Grisman Quartet
• Pete Murray

It would be unlikely that I'd run across these folks listening to broadcast radio, though RP might play them. Both sources (RP and Pandora) are opening me up to wonderful new music. I love technology.

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(blk on Sep 9, 2008 8:54 PM) (they're named after the first band or song you add to them) They're named that by default, but I find that after it's got a half dozen different artists in it, it's less confusing to rename it to something more generic. :) Just click the little down arrow at the right on the station, for your own stations.

(dbs on Sep 9, 2008 9:16 PM) Oh HO! That I missed! Either that or it's something they added later. Eggzellent, thanks!

(Ellen on Sep 10, 2008 12:25 PM) I loved Pandora when I first tried it, but stopped listening because I had to pay too close attention. I want to be able to have the music on in the background and then go back several songs later to find out what it was I just heard, and Pandora won't let me go back more than two or three songs to see. Drives me nuts. :)

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(Lisa on Sep 9, 2008 9:16 AM) Ahh! I wondered what was up when I saw that on your flickr feed!

(cat on Sep 9, 2008 9:23 AM) I saved that bag of parts JUST so you could blog about it ;) you'll be please to know that first we disassembled the computer, and then i worked with him to identify which was the hard drive and what each cable going to it was.

(dbs on Sep 9, 2008 9:27 AM) Yay! Thanks Cat! :) Now that's enablement.

(Dks on Sep 10, 2008 12:10 PM) Last couple of hard drives I wanted to destroy, I put them in the (outdoor) fireplace. The plastic etc burned off (yes, I know, bad environmentally) and all that was left was the aluminium from the platters, which went molten, formed a long Rorschach-esque puddle, and then solidified. It was awesome.

Now, because we're in the burbs, getting rid of garbage that's not normal kitchen waste and not recycling can be a pain in the butt. Fortunately, my brother in law pointed out a commercial garbage facility in Westborough called EL Harvey (warning, it has music on the home page) that, wonder of wonders, takes garbage. Any garbage.

So with Zach's help I finished loading up the trailer, bungied down the tarp (EL Harvey requires all loads to be tarp covered), and headed over. The trailer held a mix of debris including old boxes that had gotten wet, old yard equipment, broken computers, etcetc. Judging by how the van was behaving, I guessed it was about a ton all told.

Once we got to the station, we lined up with all the big heavy duty trucks, weighed the van and the trailer together, and got directed to one of the buildings. We backed up the trailer, handed over our receipt, and started unloading. It was simply a matter of tossing everything over a low wall into the building, where a pair of big front loaders were shifting the junk around into various piles about 10' below us. Unloading only took 10 minutes, after which we re-weighed the van and trailer, and paid for the dropoff. Because we were below a ton (about 1600lbs total), we still paid the 'minimum' amount ($55 for a ton), and headed off.

Zach and I stopped off on the way up to Burlington to visit Cat's mom, and checked over the trailer to see how it held up to the garbage run. My sides and gate worked as advertised, and the trailer was happily rattling around empty for the drive up.

I still need to have a ratchet strap around the back to keep the sides together, unfortunately. The 1/4" plywood siding isn't rigid enough to keep straight up and still keep the rear gate closed. I may add some bracing on the sides, but really, for the first time out, everything worked just as I wanted.

We'll be doing another garbage haul next weekend, and I'm sure the trailer will get tons of use once we start hauling things over to Mosaic in... amazingly enough... about 7 weeks.

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(Perley on Sep 6, 2008 6:50 PM) Hmmm, EL Harvey are the guys who sold us the story about throwing everything into the dumpster and they would sort out the recyclables at their plant. Got SH all excited, then said, nope they were just kidding. Glad you had a good experience. Do they take hazardous waste?

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(DocOrion on Sep 5, 2008 2:37 PM) Odd; you seem to be resisting the clarion call to send your resume without any difficulty. Perhaps I should spice up my offer letter with some corporate buzzwords?