Archive for January, 2017

RIP Boy Scouts

Monday, January 30th, 2017

They’re going to allow girls who identify as boys to join. That’s going to go over really well when they have to share a tent on a camp-out. Then again, do the Boy Scouts still do that? Or is it too retro and manly?

Will the Girl Scouts allow boys who identify as girls to join? If not, why not?

Marble Madness

Tuesday, January 24th, 2017

I heard on the radio news that a truck driver lost 38000 pounds of marbles on the highway near Indianapolis the other day.

I called in and requested this song. The DJ said he’d try to find it, but I wasn’t able to listen long enough to see if he actually did. It’s not quite identical with the news story, but … enjoy.

Is there a reason for this?

Wednesday, January 18th, 2017

I’ve been looking for productivity apps for my phone and tablet lately, because I’ve been wanting to improve my productivity. However, I’m also somewhat concerned about my privacy, so I’d prefer to use applications that don’t require me to obtain an account in order to use them. Most of the Kanban apps require accounts on their service, but I’ve found two that don’t, and I’m checking them out.

I understand that certain applications really do need access to a server in order to implement the full set of capabilities. But riddle me this, Batman … why the hell does an editor require me to sign up for an account? What capabilities does the server provide in this case? I mean, I was able to do search and replace, automatic word wrap and hyphenation, and other such functions back when I was using an Apple II. Is my smartphone less capable? If they’re going to keep my files on their server, no thanks. That’s why I make backups, and that’s why Apple provides iCloud. What’s their value-added here?

I’ve deleted the application, because it doesn’t just have limited capabilities without having an account – it won’t let you use it at all until you sign up for an account. You can’t even find out whether the available help information tells you why the account is needed. I really wish the app store required developers to state whether their app was usable without an account; it would make my selection process easier.

Serendipity, or, The Troubles That Come With Age

Tuesday, January 10th, 2017

Marion and I went cross-country skiing in Frisco last Sunday. It was a beautiful day, but the skiing was a hell of a workout. The temperature was in the upper 30s, and it had been snowing all day. Because of the snow and overcast, it was hard to see the tracks in the groomed trails. I had trouble seeing them at times, depending on the light, and Marion found them by following behind me. Because of the snowing and the relatively warm temperature, the snow was “slow.”

Even going down the steepest parts of the Frisco Bay loop, I had very little glide and no carry. On the steepest downslope near the end of the trail, I couldn’t even coast to the bottom, and Marion was able to shuffle down slowly with her skis pointing straight downhill.

It took us roughly two hours to go around the trail once, which is about twice what it normally takes. As I said, a hell of a workout.

The serendipity comes in because I decided Sunday morning that I was going to need a backpack, so that I would have somewhere to put any layers I removed while skiing. It wasn’t a problem Sunday, but I’ve ended up wearing just a t-shirt above the waist more than once while skiing. The backpack I grabbed is one I’ve used for exercising while walking, and had 20 pounds of weights in it. When I removed the weights, I noticed something else in it as well. It was the 18-55mm lens for my Canon camera, which I’ve been looking for for almost a year. That just goes to show how diligent I am about getting my exercise, I suppose.

In any case, I’ve been looking for it for a long time, because I backed a Kickstarter project over a year ago for the Pulse camera controller from Alpine Labs, and I received it last May or so. Since the only lens I could find was the 70-200mm zoom lens that was on the camera, I really didn’t do anything much with the Pulse until this week.

Today, I tried taking a time-lapse sequence of photos. It worked, but stopped early, and I need to determine why (I have a few ideas). However, I did get over 150 RAW photos of the foothills in Golden that I need to figure out how to stitch into a movie. It wasn’t the best weather for anything that looked impressive, but it was good enough for a first try. I’ll be trying more soon.