Edward Tufte has a terrific new information visualization concept: sparklines, small word-like graphs that compress data into easily readable trends without using measurement units. This makes me want to write some code.
New developments in church
First there was Bedside Baptist, where my sainted Aunt Betty attends regularly. Now Mike reports that there’s iChurch, brought to you by those wacky folks at the Diocese of Oxford, Church of England. Their mission statement sounds good (“One of the key purposes of i-church is to provide a community for those who do not find participant membership of a local church easy, and it will therefore reflect an inclusive attitude to Christian faith and discipleship.”).
In another church-y development, at least one church now has WiFi in the chapel. James Tallent reports that his church has added WiFi, then he blogged this Sunday’s sermon while it was happening. An earlier post of his has this to say:
Beyond these use cases, SMS addiction is already a reality and IP-related addiction is not far behind. Some would say that churches should shun accommodation of such addictions and require everyone to be somber, disconnected, and reflective in church, but that will frankly be just as silly in the future as it would be now to say that free coffee and coke machines are encouraging caffeine addiction.
Put me squarely in that camp. The whole point behind going to church is to be reflective. If you’re sitting there checking your email, IMing your friends, or (heaven forbid) working, it seems to me that you’re missing out on an opportunity to put things of the world aside and focus– just for a little while– on spiritual things. Don’t get me wrong; I do think it’s incredibly progressive to provide this service– but is it progressive in a positive direction?
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Filed under Musings, Spiritual Nourishment
Today’s cheap shot deconstructed
So, Ed Brill has been reading the Exchange team blog, probably for much the same reason that Microsoft PMs read his blog– know your enemy, and all that. So, let me leave aside the fact that it’s disingenuous (and, IMO, slimy) of Ed to say “I’m not spinning, but $spin…” and point out one key difference between IBM and Microsoft’s support programs.
With Microsoft, any customer with a credit card can call Microsoft PSS and get support for any active product. If you want to buy a support contract, fine, but if you don’t, you can still get support. The PSS org thus has to be sized for variable call volume from an unpredictable mix of 5.5, 2000, and 2003 customers, calling at unpredictable intervals. As far as I can tell, the only way to get any support from IBM (apart from their relatively useless support forums) is to buy a Passport Advantage contract, pricing information for which isn’t publicly available. This gives IBM a pretty good way to predict required staffing levels, given that they know exactly how many customers they’re obligated to support.
It’s an interesting tension: limiting your support to contracted customers helps screen out a large percentage of customers, who are then hosed when they do need support, but that smaller support base means you need fewer support engineers, who will generally have lower utilization. Of course, MS would hire more PSS engineers if they could; in fact, they’re aggressively hiring for the Exchange support team, but the skill bar is pretty high, so it takes time to fill the open positions.
Ed and I are in agreement on one thing, though: it is refreshing to see the blog-driven openness that is slowly permeating Microsoft, IBM, and other large companies. (Well, we agree on two things: AT&T’s new upgrade program stinks.) That openness is all the more refreshing when it’s factual and technical, not just more marketing spin and hype.
Update: Ed was kind enough to link here from the comments to his post, in which he points out that edbrill.com isn’t an IBM web site. That’s true, and I should have made it more clear that Ed is of course speaking only for himself, so I retitled this post slightly.
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Filed under Smackdown!
Your tax dollars at work
Public service announcement: if you have any mercury thermometers in your house, dispose of them properly now. If you don’t, one of them might break, causing a spill and necessitating visits from the Wood County Health Department, the Ohio EPA, and a (really expensive) environmental cleanup posse from EQ. Mercury vapors are toxic, and the stuff vaporizes at 55°F, so one of the things they’ll bring is a sniffer that will tell you whether your house is fit for habitation or not. You’ll also get an Ohio EPA incident number, which is sort of like a scarlet letter except that it’s not scarlet.
Update: the posse is here, using their special mercury vacuum. They are very thorough and quite pleasant.
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Filed under Musings
Cool new infosec blog
Infosecdaily.net bills itself as a site that aggregates security news for technologies. There’s a lot of neat stuff there, including a great blogroll (sample: “A Day in the Life of an Information Security Investigator“). Check it out.
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Filed under General Stuff
Cue ominous music
So, last night Arlene got a phone call from the stake executive secretary, asking if the two of us could meet with the stake president next Sunday. This is enough to strike fear into the hearts of the most valiant. Why? First, a brief explanation: an LDS stake is more or less equivalent to a Catholic diocese: it’s a collection of wards (each equivalent to a parish or congregation). When you’re asked to meet with a member of the stake presidency, it’s usually because:
- Your temple recommend needs renewal. In this case, you call them, not the other way around, and mine’s good until September. So much for the easy reason.
- They want you to speak during a stake event. Since our stake conference is next Sunday, that’s not it. Besides, they wouldn’t need both of us for that.
- One of us is in trouble. David’s first reaction, in fact, was to ask “What did you do?” We couldn’t think of any reason either of us would be called on the carpet, so that’s probably not it.
- One of us is getting a new job. Remember, all of the leadership positions in the LDS church are filled from the membership: our stake president works at Owens Corning; one of his counselors is retired, and the other’s a farmer. To understand why the stake is involved, you’d have to understand all the ins and outs of how callings work, which I certainly don’t. Some callings at the ward level are actually the stake’s responsibility; others are handled by the ward bishopric, except for some (like some callings in the elders’ quorum) that aren’t. For example, the bishop and his two counselors are called by the stake to serve in a particular ward, but the EQ secretary is called by the elders’ quorum president. This is a strong possibility.
- There’s some sort of temporary assignment. For example, last year Arlene was asked to help organize and run the annual stake young women’s camp, so the stake called her (although I vaguely remember that it was someone from the stake young women’s presidency that called her.)
Further complicating the reading of these particular tea leaves omens is this: most stake callings are handled by members of the stake high council. These men serve more or less as ambassadors of the stake president; since there’s only one of him (three if you include his counselors), and there are twelve or more wards in a stake, without the high council there wouldn’t be enough stake-ness to go around for every occasion requiring the stake’s involvement (including calling or releasing most ward-level positions).
And one final complication: the only time I’ve ever heard of the stake presidency wanting to see both spouses when one is called is when the calling requires an unusual amount of time or effort and the prez wants to ensure that both spouses are willing to work together on whatever-it-is. That makes me think that one of us is about to be under new management, so to speak. Tune in next week for more details.
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Filed under Spiritual Nourishment
The Game
Wow. The Game:
It’s 4am. In the past twenty hours you’ve done everything you could ever have imagined – assassinated terrorists, climbed mountains, broken the land-speed record for a mini-van, been scared out of your wits, agonized over the inadequate size of your cranium, rescued hostages, jumped for joy, and told your best friend off. Everything but sleep. You won’t get to do that for at least another 8 hours.
How did you get here? To this abandoned house on the side of a road it seems no one has driven down in years. To the back of the house where you find a long dried-up well containing a pair of fuzzy dice and three packs of matches. To the point where you decide this is just a cruel trick with no solution. (You haven’t yet discovered that the dice are rigged to roll only sevens and the match tips are colored in a pattern suspiciously similar to the carpet at the Bellagio Resort.)
How did you get here? It’s all part of The Game.
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Filed under Musings
Vonage first impressions
I finally got my Vonage kit the other day, so I installed it and started using it. My first impression: wow! Setup was very easy, and the web-based interface works well, making it easy to see call details and change settings. I have a two-line desk phone, so I unplugged my business line (which forwards to my cell) to use the Vonage adapter instead. Call quality has been quite good, with an occasional pop or crackle. Because I have an integrated DSL modem/router, I can’t install the Vonage box as the first “upstream” device. Doing so allows the box to do quality-of-service metering to reserve enough bandwidth for phone calls. I’ll have to live with it. On the other hand, I love having a Redmond phone number, and the money we’ll save from having calls between me and people in Redmond will quickly outweigh the $15/month. So, call me (425/818-0484), and let me know if you’re interested in signing up for Vonage– if I refer you, we each get a free month of service.
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Filed under General Tech Stuff
Fossil repair experience: four stars
I sent my Fossil Abacus watch in to get the fix for its worrisome susceptibility to static. I mailed it via Priority Mail on 2/23, and I got it back a week later– not bad, considering that it had to be mailed out and UPS Ground-ed back. I apparently got a new watch, since I had to re-register it. The little nicks and scratches on the old watch were gone. An overnight charge and I was back in business! (Except for one minor nit: I got a bunch of stale news flashes from 2/17, 2/18, and 2/20). I’m impressed with how fast and easy the return & repair process was, especially for a $129 piece of consumer electronics. For most gadgets in that price range, it’d probably be easier to just get a new one from Best Buy than to jump through the manufacturer’s hoops.
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A real squeaker
According to the Wood County board of elections, Mark Wasylyshyn won the Republican primary for Wood County sheriff… by a whopping 55 votes, or about 0.5% of the total votes cast. Individual votes really do count. Congratulations, Mark!
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Filed under Musings
Xbox Live as a business tool
After seeing Scoble point it out, I found this very cool article at Jeff Sandquist’s blog. Imagine playing golf with a bunch of MS and vendor folks… on the Xbox. What a great idea! (Personally, I’m waiting for a similar group to play a game I actually can compete at, but that’s a minor quibble.)
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Filed under General Tech Stuff
Don’t forget to vote!
I voted this morning. You should too.
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Filed under Musings
Preventing meeting interruptions
This is an extremely cool feature of the Motorola MPx-200:
The Automatic profile switches between the Normal profile and the Meeting profile when the calendar indicates that the current time is busy.
In other words: your phone will automatically know not to ring during a meeting! How cool is that?
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Filed under General Tech Stuff
HDTV options in Toledo
At last night’s party, a few folks were asking about HDTV in this area. They were a mix of satellite and cable subscribers, some with TiVos and some without. I thought I’d write up a summary to cover the bases, since I didn’t want to bore them all with the details during the party.
So, if you want HDTV in Toledo, here are your choices.
- Get it with an antenna. The local ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox stations (along with WBGU-PBS) all broadcast HD programming at least part of the time. With a tuner like the Samsung SIR-T151 (or the newer SIR-T351, which adds DVI output) and an appropriate antenna, you can get this programming for free. Total cost: $200-400 for the tuner, $50-300 for the antenna. With this approach, as long as you get an adequate signal, picture and sound quality are excellent. You don’t get any premium channels like ESPN or HBO. This is what I currently do, and I’m putting up a better antenna this week– my little indoor unit doesn’t cut it.
- Get it on cable. Buckeye Cable has HD service. For $10/month, you can rent the box (I think they’re still using the Motorola DCT-5100); $4/month gets you the two local networks they carry– CBS and Fox. Another $11/month nets you Discovery HD, Mark Cuban’s two HDNet channels, and ESPN-HD. I had their service and liked it, but the lack of ABC was a deal-breaker. However, Buckeye does throw in HBO-HD and Showtime-HD if you subscribe to them already.
- Go orbital. Dish and DirecTV both offer satellite HD feeds. They have almost identical channel lineups: Discovery HD, ESPN-HD, HDNet and HDNet Movies, and InHD. Both services offer CBS-HD, but we can’t get it in this area because WTOL isn’t owned by the network. Prices vary; for existing Dish customers, you can get an 811 HD receiver for around $150, then you pay another $10/month for the HD content. However, the 811 has tons of bugs in it. Some of them are minor annoyances; others, like the notorious dark picture bug, are more serious. I’d avoid them until they get the bugs fixed. DirecTV has a $99 deal for existing subscribers, and their receivers work fine. Not all of them have DVI out, so if you want to use a projector or TV via DVI, make sure you pay attention to what you’re getting.
- VOOM. There’s a new HD provider: VOOM Stupid name, cool idea. They offer an integrated satellite and over-the-air tuner that picks up locals and their HD channels. Besides ESPN, Discovery, et al, they also have about 15 original channels (a cartoon channel, a couple of movie channels, and so on) that are all HD. Plus, they throw in some standard-definition channels like CNN. Two problems: they’re expensive (MSRP of $749, although there are various rebates that push the price closer to $400), and they don’t carry the same range of channels that Buckeye, Dish, or DirecTV do. Most particularly for us, they don’t carry BYU-TV, which guarantees that I won’t replace my existing satellite service. (Augment, maybe, but not replace).
For TiVo lovers, the picture is complicated by the fact that existing TiVos don’t record HD, and that the only TiVo that will is a) also a DirecTV receiver and b) not actually shipping yet. Dish has an HD PVR, the 921, and VOOM has promised one for later in the year, but I want the genuine article. I don’t watch that much HDTV because I’m no longer willing to set my schedule around when programs are on TV; it’s really hard to go back once you’ve used a TiVo for a while. So, Garrett, if you want HD and TiVo, you need a new unit. You can always add a second box with HMO and copy shows from box to box, though; that way Tiffany can have her “reality TiVo” and you can have your own.
As for me, I think I’m going to take DirecTV up on their $99 offer for one DirecTiVo and two regular receivers. I’ll put a receiver in my office, one TiVo in the bedroom, and one in the living room, and keep my OTA receiver. Iif I can wire it right, I might be able to put our existing TiVo in the basement and feed its signal to a couple of places; that way, we can distribute programs between boxes without a lot of hassle. When the HD-TiVo ships, I may or may not buy one, depending on how stable it is at first release. These guys can experiment, and I’ll wait to see what they find out; when I do get one, I’ll sell my OTA box since the HD-TiVo has a dual ATSC tuner in it too.
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Filed under HDTV and Home Theater
You oughta go see the Mardi Gras
Y’all might not be aware that Mormons, who don’t observe Lent, do observe Mardi Gras. Last night we had a big ol’ Mardi Gras party / surprise birthday bash. Arlene and I had been kicking around the idea of a large party for a few months, even though we’re not really big entertainers. We decided on Mardi Gras as an appropriate occasion and started laying in supplies. Zatarain’s and Tony‘s were prominently featured, along with a large bag of decorations and beads that Betty brought up when she came to babysit for our trip to Seattle earlier this year. Arlene spent all week in front of the stove, and Mom pitched in to help with the decorating, provisioning, and general preparation.
All I did was hang a few beads and boil 4 pounds of shrimp using an ancient family recipe (involving, of course, chemical weapons like this). Arlene made gumbo, red beans and rice, jambalaya, crawfish étouffée, and assorted fixings (salad, French bread). Everyone ate hugely, and we had a wonderful time– I have pictures to prove it. The highlight of the evening was Matt’s emergence from the basement (where he’d been lured by our bishop on the pretext of talking to him privately), at which point we all had our party hats on and the candles in the ice cream cake lit. Big fun! (Now, of course, Arlene’s out of town, so I have a whole house full of Mardi Gras decorations to take down and store.)
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Filed under Friends & Family
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