Monthly Archives: September 2006

How To: A Suspicious Looking Device

This entry was posted in this and that on September 30, 2006 by Sam Abuelsamid (updated 6421 days ago)

I spotted this linked on DIGG the other day. sld According to read more | junkfunnel.com :

The only function of the Suspicious Looking device is to appear as suspicious as possible, whether carried in hand or placed indiscrimately in public places. The SLD contains LEDs, a LED array, a character display, an optical distance sensor, capacitive touch sensor, buzzer, and motors.

It would be great to see the reaction if you let a couple of these out in an airport. I can see martial law following close behind.

Improving bad Star Wars Dialog 1

This entry was posted in movies on September 30, 2006 by Sam Abuelsamid

Star Wars creator George Lucas has long been accused (rightfully so) of being incapable of writing decent dialog. Some of his dialog has in fact been truly awful especially in the Episode 1,2 & 3 movies. However, that doesn’t mean it can’t be improved. Checking Digg this morning, I found the following site. Top 176 Star Wars Lines Improved By Replacing A Word With “Pants”. Just a sample of the improvements avaiable:

Chewie and me got into a lot of pants more heavily guarded than this.

The Force is strong in my pants.

In his pants you will find a new definition of pain and suffering.

We need to try this with Star Trek lines.

My first interview

This entry was posted in cars technology this and that on September 29, 2006 by Sam Abuelsamid (updated 6424 days ago)

I had a chance to interview former Rocketboom host Amanda Congdon a couple of days ago. Amanda has a new project going now. She and three of her friends are driving across America in a Ford Escape hybrid and talking to people involved in citizen journalism and environmental causes along the way. They are doing a daily video blog that you can find at AmandaAcrossAmerica.com. I spoke to Amanda as they driving from Greensboro NC to Knoxville TN and the interview will be up on AutoBlogGreen in the morning. You can find the interview here. In the process of preparing I had to figure out a way to record a phone call. If you have a Palm Treo phone and need to record calls, I definitely recommend a program called CallRec. It’s really easy to use and the quality was quite good.

Sept 25 Ypsi School Board Mtg

This entry was posted in schools Ypsilanti on September 26, 2006 by Sam Abuelsamid

The audio of last nights Ypsilanti School board meeting is live at the site. You can subscribe to the feed from the Ypsi Government podcast page on this site. The most interesting thing to me was the opening discussion of a bond issue that will likely come to a vote next August. There is building work that needs to be done and also technology upgrades. This is a perfect opportunity for the district to go open-source and I will do what I can to make it happen. There was other interesting stuff to. The agenda is available here.

New MewzikCast and CafePress Store

This entry was posted in podcasting Ypsilanti on September 24, 2006 by Sam Abuelsamid (updated 6419 days ago)

Max recorded a new MewzikCast last night featuring Uncle Seth, the MudMen and the Supersuckers. The MewzikCast has a new logo and a CafePress store is now open with stuff featuring the logo. Go check out the show.

BookMooch

This entry was posted in culture technology this and that on September 23, 2006 by Sam Abuelsamid

Do you have too many books laying around that you have already read? Then go check out BookMooch. It is a site created by John Buckman, the founder of MaganTune. It is an online book swap site. You log on create an account and enter a list of books that you want to get rid of. Once you provide your list, you can search for books you want. When you find something, you mooch it. Your name and address is sent to the person who has the book and they send it to you. When someone mooches one of your books you get their name and address and you send the book to them. For each book you send out you get 1 point for domestic shipment or 3 points for overseas. Each point entitles you to mooch a book. There are a few more details and you get points for adding to your inventory. All the details about the points are here. The service is completely free, you just pay the postage to send out your books. There is no charge to receive books. I heard about this on the Inside the Net podcast a couple of weeks ago when they interviewed Buckman. Jules and Sofia immediately signed up and have already mooched and sent several books. This is definitely a very cool service, and a great demonstration of the kind of community that can be created on the net.

Too many kitchen gadgets!! 4

This entry was posted in stuff TV on September 23, 2006 by Sam Abuelsamid (updated 6430 days ago)

Jules was just flipping through channels and stumbled across some show on the Home and Garden channel where the hosts were going around some kitchen gadget trade show. I was sitting here in the dining room and overheard one of the hosts say, “You can never have too many grille gadgets, can you?” Well clearly based on this report the answer is YES YOU CAN HAVE TOO MANY GRILLE GADGETS!! Among the items shown was this device were you put some hot dogs on it and move it back and forth and it rolls the hot dogs. Excuse me, just use a pair of tongs and turn them. I have a fish basket which is very handy, because fish always sticks to the grille. With the basket I just put the fish in, do one side and flip it over to do the other side. I never have little pieces of fish falling into the grille anymore. On this show, the host said “your corn will never stick to the grill again” as they showed a corn basket.
I don’t know about you, but I have never, ever, ever had an ear of corn stick to a grille. Another problem with this thing is you actually have to do more work. You have to cut the ears of corn to fit in the basket. I just pull off some of the outer layers of husk and slap the corn on the grille. I flip the ears over a couple of times and I’m done. A lot of people in this country definitely have too much time on their hands. They are going to have a rude awakening when everything goes to shit.

I’ve started my new gig

This entry was posted in cars on September 21, 2006 by Sam Abuelsamid

The other day I started my new writing gig. I’m now a regular blogger on AutoblogGreen.com. The site is a car blog that focuses on news and issues relating to the environment, alternative fuels, mass transit and other related stuff. If you have any interest in any of these issues stop by and check it out. I’ll keep writing here though on all the other stuff I like to vent about.

Want to buy an online music store?

This entry was posted in drm technology on September 20, 2006 by Sam Abuelsamid

It looks like Napster is up for sale. The original Napster was the first big peer to peer music file sharing system and was hugely popular at the time. Of course in spite of the big record companies relentlessly suing music fans as well as kids, grandmothers, and people who don’t even have computers, more files are being shared than ever. Over time the original Napster went belly up, the name was bought and applied to an actual licensed online music store. Unfortunately for the new owners of the name, between the time Napster became a household name and the time they launched Napster 2.0, the iPod had begun its rise to digital music dominance and nothing that Napster offered for sale could be played on any iPod. This is because they chose to sell music equipped with Microsoft DRM which was compatible with most of the portable digial music players on the market but not with any of the ones that most people actually wanted to buy. The other problem they have is that the wholesale prices that the big four labels charge for digital downloads is so high ($0.70 /song) that after marketing, bandwidth, and credit card transaction costs, most music stores that sell major label music have no realistic hope of ever breaking even, much less being profitable. The one exception is Apple. They have manageed to break even on the iTunes store. They however make very healthy profits on the iPod. By having the most desirable product at a relatively competitive price, they sell huge quantities of high margin hardware and at the same time dominate the barely break-even digital download business because their’s is the only store with major label songs that is DRM compatible with their hardware.

The only way to compete effectively with iTunes is to sell music compatible with the iPod. Given that Apple so fair has declined to license their DRM scheme to any other store, the way to do this is to skip the DRM. This of course also means skipping the major label music. To me this is no great loss. The number 2 online music store now is EMusic. Emusic sells music from independent bands and labels with higher bit-rate files than iTunes and no DRM. Because there is no DRM, the mp3 files from emusic can be played on any device from any manufacturer. By all appearances emusic is actually a viable business in spite of shunning the big labels and selling at a fraction of the price of their competitors ($.25/song or less).

Napster on the other hand has been a money loser every quarter since they started and see’s no realistic hope of profit int the foreseeable future. In light of all this, the management of Napster has decided to put the company up for sale. Anybody want to make an offer?

I feel so appreciated!

This entry was posted in work on September 20, 2006 by Sam Abuelsamid (updated 6433 days ago)

Yesterday when I got home from work I found an large envelope in the mail from my employer. I open it up and found a really nice black cardboard frame containing a certificate. The certificate has a large color representation of my employer’s logo in the center and reads “Company Name Here” Congratulates you on 15 years of service. The only words I left out are the company name. Did you notice anything that wasn’t there? My name. After 15 years they couldn’t even print a piece of paper that actually acknowledged who it was that put in those 15 years. The company name was prominently featured but my was nowhere to be found. Typical. I love working for a huge corporation.

Sam's Thoughts

Random thoughts from a random mind