i remember when gmail was good

Google made themselves famous by being great at search and creating fast spartan interfaces that get the job done quickly.  How much that last statement sounds true to you probably depends on how old you are, but those are some of the reasons I've been a loyal Gmail user since way way waaaaaaay back when the service first launched.

If you can't tell from the heading, my opinion has changed.  I'm now constantly having "WTF moments."  Generally it's been the fact that Gmail is now ridiculously slow.  Back when I was accessing e-mail with a dial up 14.4kbps modem (I don't think there was Internet e-mail till then), I'd recall having to wait for e-mails to load and send, but that seems fast to Gmail today.  I often find myself counting 1... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6... 7... as I wait for messages to load, returning to my inbox, and sending messages.  I'm pretty sure dial up was faster.  Plus with dialup I could see progress as each 8-bit character was received and displayed on my screen.  Now I only get to see Gmail claim to send my message "in the background" as I attempt to do something else in the foreground (it never works).

Anyway...  I'm rambling.  I'm really here to walk through my most recent shitty Gmail experience.  I wanted to check when my parents are coming to visit and what times their flights were.  Here goes:

1. Search Gmail for "betsy seattle"
   Makes sense.  A full page of results, but mostly chatter about other topics.  The most recent travel itineraries are a series of trips I took to Cleveland in the summer of 2011.  FAIL.
2. Look in my "Mom" folder
   I know Gmail search sucks, so I abandon it hoping I can find it through my labels/folders.  I go look.  There is too much stuff in here for me to find. FAIL.
3. Search "seattle" in my "Mom" folder
   I see many itineraries for trips I have taken in the past to visit my parents.  I do not see the one I am looking for.
4. Search "july" in my "Mom" folder
   I get two conversations.  Neither is what I am looking for. FAIL.
5. Go to Outlook and hope that I left myself some clues in my calendar
   This should be a sign of failure since if I had this info I wouldn't be doing the search in the first place.  Somehow I see that I marked the arriving flight as flight 5451.  I didn't note down their departing flight, however, so I still needed to find the itinerary.  I didn't note the airline, which doesn't help.
6. Search "5451"
   If I search the exact flight number, I should get the itinerary, right?  WRONG.  Zero results. FAIL.
7. Search "5451" in all mail items including deleted mail
   In case I deleted it.  Nothing.  FAIL.
8. Guess they are flying United.  Search "united cleveland"
   This should got get me anything special.  However, I see a bunch of new items.  I open one and see a flight to Seattle.  I think I have a winner!  Wait...  that's one for me flying back to Seattle, not my parents.  I keep looking down the list and see an e-mail from my dad about a schedule change. I open it.  I WIN! Here's a few things the e-mail contained:
• Forwarded by my dad to my mom, Betsy, using her Gmail address.  She is in my address book under her name.
• Contains the string "Seattle/Tacoma" twice.  Basically, my first search should have worked, although you could argue that you shouldn't expect a very shitty search engine to find "Seattle" in "Seattle/Tacoma" or "betsy" in her e-mail address that contains that string.  If you think this is what to expect from Google, then you're saying that Google is a very shitty search engine.  It really makes me wonder.
• Has dates in the ddMMM YYYY format (e.g., 09JUN 1969).  I wouldn't expect a mediocre search engine to find july.  I expect a good search engine to.  I think we've already found that Gmail's search is shit.
• Contains the string "5451".  I expect even a shitty search engine to find "5451" when my query is "5451".  WTF is wrong with you, Google?  At this point you don't even make it to the "shitty search engine" standard.
• Contains "Cleveland" three times
• Contains "United" 13 times

Next time, I'll remember that if I want to find something in Gmail, instead of searching for unique terms, I should search for really common terms that I expect to find multiple times and then manually go through many many emails to find what I am looking for.

Note that all this is happening with an inbox that is 9% full with 9,797 messages.  It's not as if I'm challenging Gmail to search through an insane number of messages.

compared to the average american

Sorry my chart doesn't follow the same format. I made mine first.

(source: NPR)

Given that the typical American saves next to nothing, that isn't really a fair comparison. All my figures "should" be doubled - "should" being in quotes because they really shouldn't be doubled except for comparison purposes.

Proportionally, I spend about the same as the typical American on housing and food - the two biggest items.

The biggest differences:

• Education (+29pt): I spend about 10x on education (32%, although averaged out throughout my life, it's probably not so bad.
• Travel (+10pt): I spent 10% on travel. It looks like typical people don't travel at all?
• Entertainment (+2pt): The big difference is that my main entertainment cost is skiing, whereas most people enjoy movies, TV, etc.
• Transportation (-8pt): The typical American spent 14% on transport. I spent 6%. Breaking that down further, my car expenses were 4%, compared to 12.6% for the typical American. That's a pretty huge difference.
• Healthcare (-6pt): I had a "Cadillac" health insurance plan so I basically spent zero instead of 6%.
• Housing (-2pt): Surprisingly, despite living in a city that's believed to have a higher cost of living, my housing costs aren't too crazy.
• Utilities (-1pt): Yay for low electricity rates in Seattle!~
• Other (-16pt): For some reason this data only sums up to 84%. Where the other 16% goes? I have no idea.

spending habits

bike wish list

I'm kind of sort of looking to replace my Giant OCR1. Why? Because it has a carbon fork.

Here are my favored frames: Soma Smoothie, Bianchi Volpe, and maybe something by Gunnar or Serotta if something pops up. I do love my Surly Cross-Check, but I'm also looking to save a pound if I can do it for free.

The rest would be my now standard setup:

Standard Crank (53/39)

Shimano XTR RD-M750 SGS rear derailleur

11-34 rear cassette

700x25/28/32 tires depending if it's my wet or dry bike

letter to the senator

Maria,

Thanks for the canned response. Let me reiterate my point. I agree that freight is important and we do need to continue to make investments necessary so we can properly maintain our deteriorating network of roads, bridges, etc. No one wants a repeat of what happened in Minnesota nor do we like interruptions like the South Park Bridge.

But, as I stated in my original correspondence, I am most concerned about the elimination/restructuring of funding for transit. By transit, I mean BUSES, SUBWAYS, etc. It seems like with the current bill we fund roads but forget about how transit makes our road investments more efficient.

Let me illustrate my point with an example that's near and dear to those who make the ~250k trips (WSDOT annual traffic report numbers via sightline.org) across Lake Washington each day. I'm sure you're familiar with the SR-520 floating bridge. It has four lanes and is an essential artery for commuters. During peak times, it serves ~7000 vehicles per hour (2010 data from WSDOT). That's essentially full capacity for the lanes in both directions with each lane carrying 1750 vehicles per hour. Of these 7000 vehicles, there are six 545 buses in each direction carrying about 80-100 people each (yes, I've been counting). That's about 1100 cars/voters off the road because of the 545. Add in the other buses (167, 242, 243, 250, 252, 255, 260, 265, 268, 271, 277, 280, 311, 424, 540, 542, 555, 556, 982, 986) and you have at least another 40 buses (assuming a needlessly conservative one bus an hour at peak) carrying another 600 riders (using another needlessly conservative 15 riders per bus).

All this leads to the conclusion that if we cut back bus funding, as proposed in the transportation bill, we'll need to build another lane of bridge in both directions. It'll likely cost a couple billion dollars (ignoring the fact that we would need the state to purchase addition ROW in uber-wealthy areas by Medina and Montlake). This isn't likely to happen. Rather, it's more likely that both SR-520 and I-90 will be backed up causing both voters and truck drivers alike to become really angry.

Alternatively, YOU, Maria Cantwell, as our elected Senator, could help make sure we continue to get our $324 million in federal transit funding.

By the way, I see you are up for re-election this November. Taking a strong stand on this would mean something to us. Last I checked, there are more regular voters in Washington than people who worked in the freight/shipping industry. I think we all want the same thing, but you could really tailor your message and your proposed solution differently. Less cars on the road mean more space for trucks. We all win.

And for reference, a image that I think makes it seem more real:

A picture says a thousand words. Some of those words might say that for each peak hour 545 taken off the road because of budget cuts, there's an additional 800' of cars parked bumper to bumper on 520 during rush hour (or since the toll started, 800' of cars parked on I-90 surrounding a trapped truck driver wondering if this backup would jeopardize his shipment, his job, and the jobs of thousands of others in the industry trying to compete with the Panama Canal).

Paul Ip

On Wed, Feb 15, 2012 at 11:38 AM, <Maria_Cantwell@cantwell.senate.gov> wrote:

Dear Mr. Ip, Thank you for contacting me regarding reauthorization of federal surface transportation programs. I appreciate hearing from you on this important issue. Efficient transportation systems are critically important to Washingtonians. In our state, we need to preserve and renew our existing surface transportation infrastructure, improve freight mobility, increase transit opportunities for commuters statewide, update the nation's largest commuter ferry system, replace bridges that have surpassed their usable lifespan, and make numerous upgrades to enhance safety for motorists. In addition to adding capacity to our road systems, we must enhance the transportation choices for commuters where that is feasible. We must also improve traffic systems using new technologies that help achieve greater efficiency and allow us to yield more capacity from the systems that we already have. As you may know, Congress reauthorizes federal surface transportation programs every few years. This reauthorization sets funding levels for a variety of surface transportation programs including new highway construction, infrastructure repairs, public transit projects, high-speed passenger rail programs, and many others. The most recent reauthorization, the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: a Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) was passed in 2005 and expired in September of 2009. However, Congress passed a series of short-term extensions of the reauthorization, with the most recent extension lasting through March 31, 2012. Four Senate committees have been working on new legislation to reauthorize surface transportation programs. The bill is now being considered, with amendments, on the Senate floor. I am hopeful a permanent reauthorization will pass the Senate and will keep your views in mind as the Senate considers the details of the surface transportation reauthorization legislation. You may also be interested to learn I introduced the FREIGHT Act (S. 371) on February 16, 2011. If enacted, this legislation would establish the nation's first strategic plan for freight and would identify bottlenecks to reduce delays and increase reliability. More than one million jobs in our state are in freight-dependent industries. In 2010, over 533 million tons of freight moved in Washington and by 2040, that number is expected to grow by up to 86 percent. The FREIGHT Act would help Washington state grow its robust trade economy by making investments to modernize and improve the efficiency of Washington's intermodal freight network, which includes ports, freight railways, air cargo infrastructure, highways, and pipelines. It would reduce national freight transportation-related carbon dioxide levels by 40 percent by 2030 and reduce the impact of transportation-related air, water, and noise pollution on the ecosystem and local communities. In addition, the FREIGHT Act would create a new competitive grant program for freight-specific infrastructure projects, such as port infrastructure improvements, freight rail capacity expansion projects, and highway projects that improve access to freight facilities. A new Office of Freight Planning and Development would be created within the Department of Transportation that would coordinate efforts to improve the efficiency and operation of all modes of the national freight transportation system. On December 14, 2011, the Senate Commerce Committee approved, by a voice vote, an amendment I introduced to include provisions of the FREIGHT Act in surface transportation reauthorization legislation. Thank you again for contacting me to share your thoughts. You may also be interested in signing up for periodic updates for Washington State residents. If you are interested in subscribing to this update, please visit my website at http://cantwell.senate.gov. Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future if I can be of further assistance. Sincerely, Maria Cantwell United States Senator

bike death

Here's a list of various (often popular) bike set ups that I think would cause death. IMHO, there's quite a common tradeoff between weight/efficiency and catastrophic equipment failure that would lead to death.

Carbon fork

Fancy boy cyclist would think: It costs a lot more and saves a WHOLE POUND! Awesome!

I think: Say theoretically I hit a pothole while going down a hill (theoretically Pine St.)... does the carbon fork fail? If it does, the front of the bike crumples and I fly face first into the pavement ahead of me at full speed. If I'm (un)lucky the pointy shards of the carbon fork may impale me on the way down, either taking me out of my misery or adding to it. No thanks, but I do not need nor want your fancy carbon fork. I'll take the cheapo steel fork that would just bend if something terrible like this were to happen.


700c x 23 tyres

Fancy boy cyclist would think: Wow, these skinny tires weight 10g less and have less rolling resistance! I must have these!

I think: Failure scenario 1: 25mm tires can easily be gobbled up by the seams between concrete slabs, like those on the downhill on Pine St or along Airport Way. 700 x 25 tires are already bad enough, but 23mm is even worse. The best case scenario is what happened to my "wide" 25mm on Airport Way and it just damaged my tire. Cost: $24. The more likely scenario is that you get thrown off your bike at full speed, smash into the pavement, and then get run over by the car that was next to you. Ouch! Cost: Way more than $24.



Fixed Gear Bikes

Fancy boy cyclist would think: I am a cool hipster! Look at me and my minimal bike!

I think: You live in Seattle. There are hills. You can't go down hills because you can't pedal fast enough. You can't go up hills because you aren't strong enough. You are an idiot.


Fixed Gear Bikes with No Brakes

Fancy boy cyclist would think: I am a cool hipster! Look at me and my minimal bike!

I think: You live in Seattle. There are hills. You can't go down hills because you can't pedal fast enough. You can't go up hills because you aren't strong enough. Some of these bikes don't have brakes so the only way to stop is to slow down the pedaling and rely on the rear wheel to bring you to a stop. This is like engine braking on trucks or downshifting to slow down in your car. There are two problems here. First, I wonder how easy it is to control the amount of braking this way. Second, under the best of circumstances, braking with only the rear wheel is very ineffective. Just like a car, most of the braking power is applied to the front. The harder you brake, the less weight on the rear wheel. For a hard stop, almost all of the braking is done by the front wheel and the rear wheel may be lifted off the ground. In this setup there is no front. The best bet is to lock up the rear wheel and keep sliding for a very long time. At least you will look like a cool hipster when you are doing it.

gfail

This is a work e-mail turned blog post. Why? Because I'm irked.

--------------------------------------

I just went diving into my Gmail spam folder looking for an email I’ve been expecting. I didn’t find it, but I did find that many of the 60 messages were false positives. Honestly, I’m a little irked.

Definitely not Spam (10 of 60)

2 were from a chatty political org where I do read and respond to maybe 10% of the emails sent

3 from another chatty political org where I open and read about 80+% of the emails sent

1 from a non-profit whose e-mails I often read (they don’t send that many)

1 from a web tracking company whose e-mails I read ~20% of the time (they don’t send that many)

1 from another web tracking company whose e-mails I read ~20% of the time (they don’t send that many)

1 from an chatty org I’m a member of that I already tell Gmail to automatically archive. It’s correctly labeled, but in spam nonetheless.

1 mileage statement from an airline that I already have a filter to automatically label (but not skip my inbox)

Greymail (8 of 60)

6 were from Canon – emails that I don’t read and can’ unsubscribe to. Classic greymail.

2 from Adobe

asian grocery (s)hopping

I just went to four Asian groceries to do some comparison shopping. I had purged my apartment of food prior to the winter holidays and now it was time to restock. No better time to do a grand run of a few of the groceries in the International District! Granted, after hitting four stored, I was getting bored and I had to pee so I left. The four that I went to were:

Note, I'm basing my judgement on a few things: staples (egg noodles, instant noodles, oyster sauce, produce (freshness, packaging, price), and a dash of meat. I also needed to buy a few random things like chopsticks, spoons, and tea cups. Amazingly, I only found spoons and am still searching for good tea cups and chopsticks (more on this below).

Lam's Seafood (King St east of 12th)
This place is like a wannabe Uwajimaya. It's pretty well organized and has a lot of variety. The people who work there speak mainly (as in almost exclusively) Mandarin and the product selection reflects that a bit. What I mean is that they don't have as many egg noodles to choose from. )-: But, they do have super fresh looking produce (I suspect it may be trick lighting) and great prices. They're among the cheapest for produce, which combined with freshness is a win.

Surprisingly, despite the abundance of checkout counters, the checkout process is a bit of a cluster. The whole store is also a bit crowded, especially in by the refrigerated sections. Still, the place has a good combination of great produce at great prices. They also had the cheapest sauces around, with the fancy oyster sauce being about $4 (compared to $4.80 at the other ID places and probably $7? at Uwajimaya?). Given my goal of finding a place to "drop by" on my way home from work, I think this may be the place. I just wish they spoke Cantonese.

• Why go there? Great produce section at great prices. They also have a decent seafood section with crab, lobster, oysters, etc at pretty good prices. Cheaper than going out and catching them yourself, although less fun I'm sure.
  
• What not to get there? They basically just speak Mandarin and they don't have the noodles I like.
  

Hop Than Super Market - 12th and Jackson (SW)
Less people at this one than the other markets, but despite that, they had fairly fresh looking produce, and at reasonable prices. Oranges for about 80c a pound here (less than half of Uwajimaya's price).

• Why go there? Cheap! Not Hau Hau (好好) cheap, but comparable and they had pretty decent produce. Not the cheapest or freshest, but decent all around. They also pack their veggies in slightly smaller bundles than Hau Hau (好好). The store is also organized and not crowded, which is a definite plus. And they speak Cantonese!
  
• What not to get there? IIt's on the wrong side of the street. I guess that isn't really a problem.
  

Hau Hau (好好) - 12th and King (NE)
This is the massive one that's hard to miss up on top of the hill that had more stuff outside than inside. My parents went here and had positive comments, and I've been meaning to go.

Pricewise, this place was the best. They also had a large assortment of egg noodles for about $1 each (less than half of what Uwajimaya charges, and 15% less than most other places in the ID). They also had by far the cheapest veggies. Baby bok choy for 50c a pound compared to Uwajimaya WTF $2 a pound. The downside is that the veggies looked like crap and were packaged to feed a family of four for several days. In other words, not for me.

The other downside of this place is that the store isn't organized at all. The same products show up in multiple places and none of it makes sense.

• Why go there? Cheap! Great for noodles and other non-perishable staples that are common. Oddly, not the cheapest for sauce (oyster, soy, etc.). And they speak Cantonese!
  
• What not to get there? Anything perishable. Anything that's not high volume, they may not have (like thousand year old egg).
  

Uwajimaya - Bellevue
Ah.... finally... the flagship Asian grocer. I went here first, typed this first, but putting it at the end since it's a rant.

A few words to describe Uwajimaya... fancy, clean, touristy, Japanese, not Chinese.

Touristy is the new word from this visit. I was looking for the kitchen wares listed above and was able to find the steamer and spoons here as expected, but I was miraculously unsuccessful finding "good" chopsticks or tea cups. All the chopsticks they carried were Japanese style (as in pointy and mostly metal). I wanted some Chinese bamboo/wood ones. They only had one set that wasn't metal and it was some toxic yellow that I didn't want to buy. As for the tea cups, note that I am looking for some "old man" tea cups that no one uses nowadays. I expected them to not have them at all, but instead they had some that looked like them but were functionally all fucked up. This is how they earned the tourist tag - by selling products that don't/shouldn't appeal to real Asians.

To close, Uwajimaya, as expected, continued being overpriced (but being Bellevue, it was priced like a mainstream American grocery... 79c for green onions, over $2 for overpackaged egg noodles, $1.79 for apples and around that for oranges) and lacking in selection for certain staples like egg noodles and tea. Or maybe I'm an old man in wanting loose leaf tea that isn't generic "green tea." Oh... the new location is a total pain in the ass to get in and out of... even worse than when it was at Crossroads.... and somehow the store is less spacious with aisles that aren't quite wide enough for passing carts (or a single cart in the produce section).

• Why go there? They have a great selection of fancy snacks (like soup rice balls with black sesame) and great meat. And their ID location sucks much less than the Bellevue location in terms of convenience and price (on produce.... I think). They also have a good selection of kitchen stuff. They speak English.
  
• What not to buy there? Tea, noodles, and basically anything that isn't perishable that you can buy somewhere else. Other places have better selection and better prices.

most used airports

Why? Because I know no one cares. To be clear, these numbers are for the end of 2011 and include travel that hasn't happened yet. Why do I tell you this? Because I know you don't care.

1. Seattle - 87 trips
2. Cleveland - 58 trips
3. NYC JFK - 33 trips
4. Chicago ORD - 22 trips
5. Hong Kong (Lantau Island) - 16 trips
6. Los Angeles LAX - 9

Another detail for those who cared to notice (meaning, none of you). There's an odd number of trips to/from Seattle. That's from the one time that I had a connection here on my way home from Japan.

this sandwich tastes like death

Feedback to Microsoft Dining Services:

--------------------------------------

I ordered the special ex-Yugoslavian sandwich (in café 86) figuring it would be good to try something new. I like it when there are new things at the cafeteria, but this time it was a big mistake. The sandwich is dripping in grease – both from the cheese as well as the seemingly deep fried super salty sausage. The sausage would be fine in moderation, but there is a generous portion of it. Sorry about rambling. Here’s a more orderly list of feedback.

The good:

• Variety! I like the introduction of new items
• Generous portion of meat/sausage
• Onions were nice and fresh and tasty
• It’s super filling. I walked in hungry since I skipped lunch this morning. I ate half of this sandwich and I’m full.

The bad

• Sausage was too salty and greasy… and I love salt. It’s right below the threshold of what I can tolerate. But given the generous portion of sausage, it’s too much. I decided I needed a break from the sandwich so I can process the salt and grease. I’m using that break to write this email. This email is getting long because I am still recovering and my taste buds aren’t quite ready for more.
• Overall grease level is super high – the cheese melts into more grease. See attached photos. The grease has soaked through the pita, soaked through the paper tray, and soaked through a bunch of napkins. I can feel it soaking through my fingers and back out through my pores while clogging my arteries and stopping my heart along the way. After writing this, maybe I shouldn’t finish this. I don’t want to die sitting here.
• Visual appeal – lacks color. Brown sausage, pita, and white cheese and onions isn’t very visually stimulating. Some tomatoes or greens would make it seem more appetizing, although I don’t know if that’s straying too far from the ex-Yugoslavian recipe. For better or worse, the grease makes it glisten.

fantasy football

I was going to write about how awesome my Fantasy Football draft was halfway through the season, but after taking a look again, it wasn't all that great. After all, the only players still on the team are my picks from rounds 1, 2, 4, 6, and 9. That's 5 players our of 14 picked and only three of them (Vick, Johnson, and Pittsburgh) regularly start.

Thankfully, picking up Calvin Johnson in the 2nd round helps to cover up a lot of mistakes. Calvin Johnson has +23 points over the next highest scoring WR/TE and about double (or more) the production of all but the top 10 receivers. Calvin Johnson is like having an two or three WRs filling a single roster slot. Thank you.

I also did a good job with pickups throughout the season.

• Antonio Brown is ranked 14th in points scored among WR/TE
• Rob Gronkowski is ranked 10th in points scored among WR/TE
• Darren Sproles is ranked 6th in points scored among RB
• Dan Bailey is ranked 4th in points scored by K

Right now I'm 5-3 with hopefully some better luck the rest of the season. Wish me luck.

land owner

I just realised that I own 0.002% of the town of Port Gamble. You should visit. It's nice.

I guess I also indirectly own 2.25 acres of land here in the PNW.

surly sight unseen

I just committed to buying a bike without seeing it. I think I'll be OK. I'm writing this post to justify all this nonsense.

• Frame - $450 new, $200-$450 used
  It's the frame I want in the size I want. If it doesn't fit, I'm pretty sure Lee would be able to use it. No risk! Yay!
  
• Ultegra Shifters - $350 new, $150 used
  I want a double on the front with 9 speeds in the back. If it's a 10 speed then I'll have to downgrade, but it would also mean that they're worth $50-$150 more. Plus, I may be able to sell them to Angela who's looking to turn her double into a triple... maybe. Slight risk, but not too terrible.
• XT derailleurs - $200 new, $60 used?
  I'm pretty sure I can use these. There's a small chance I can't. I'll try my odds.
• Wheels
  I'll probably be swapping out my wheels anyway. Given the high end components elsewhere, I might get lucky and get some nice wheels. I already have the replacement wheels on my other bike. (-:
• Hutchinson Tour de France Tires - $90 new, who buys 6 year old tires?
  These tires are getting replaced. I am finicky about my tires after various flats around town. I'll be replacing them with some fancy Vittoria Randonneur Hypers! Stupid name, but they are nice slick fat tires.
• Avid Canti Brakes - $80 new
  These are the brakes I want. Actually, they are nicer than the brakes that I want!
• Extra brake levers - $80 new
  I may not need these. They're a nice bonus.

All in all, it may not be perfect, but at $525 (no tax!) it's a great deal. I was planning on having to pop about $200 in parts and I think it'll land somewhere in that neighborhood. I just hope I like the color.

I know no one cares about anything that I just wrote. Here are some pictures while they last:

earthquake!

For those who fear that I'll get destroyed in some cycling accident, here's an alternative scenario to consider.

cost cutting hulu plus

I get most of my TV through hulu. Usually I don't get hulu plus, but I do enjoy some of the benefits, such as the archive of old shows and the ability to stream to my XBox and iPad. So how do I get hulu plus without paying for it?

• IE9 - If you run IE9 and pin hulu to your taskbar in Windows 7, you get a free month
• Facebook - If you "like" hulu on Facebook, you get a free month
• Bing - I'm about to get three months of hulu plus by redeeming rewards from using Bing
• Cheating - Sometimes I'll put my hulu plus subscription on hold. This way my free month could become 3 free months. I can put it on hold for 12 weeks at a time and take it off hold whenever I want.

So how much would I save? Next to nothing... or $8 a month, depending on how you look at it.

saving electricity

My parents do this thing where they always unplug things and/or switch them off to save electricity. I know that some electronics are really bad about this, but I never knew whether my electronics were "good" or "bad."

I decided to find out for sure. I just got a "Kill A Watt" power meter. It costed me $19.77 after shipping and handling. Compared to my parents (and most of my friends) electricity is cheap. 4.61 cents per kWh including delivery. That ridiculously cheap - probably the cheapest 95% in the country and the cheapest 1% in the world. Still, I like data. (-:

Since getting home I've been testing all sorts of things. Mostly I've been testing various AC adapters and chargers for things like phones and such. I was happy to find that the chargers for the iPad/iPhone, Samsung Focus Windows Phone, and my Lenovo Thinkpad all drew zero current when they were idle. The older Energizer battery charger that I've been using drew 0.3W, and I've replaced it with the newer model that I had laying around which draws zero.

On to computers....

• My desktop computer (and peripherals) drew 18W when idle, and anywhere from 200-250W while in use. That computer will be shut down at the source - just like my parents. 432Wh saved per day, or about 10% of my power consumption.
• My laptop computer draws 55-95W when charging and running. About 20W less when at full charge. The screen brightness has an impact of 9W. This is all a lot more than I had expected.

On to the entertainment system.

• My HTPC draws 60-100W when running, but 0W when it's off. It used to draw 70W, but I changed some BIOS settings and now it idles at 10W less than before.
• The PS2 was drawing about 3W. It's now unplugged since I haven't used it in a very very long time.
• The XBox 360 draws about 3W when off, a steady 150W when running. 115W when it's "off" but downloading content. Lame. )-:
• The iHome cheapo clock radio draws 6W when idling and 8W when powered on. WTF?
• None of this is much compared to the 300W that the TV draws. Ouch. Thankfully it draws nothing when it's turned off. This is motivation for me to turn the TV off and use the other monitor in the kitchen.That'll save me a penny an hour. Ooooooh....

On appliances - the only appliance I really have is my fridge. It draws 93-120W when running. As for the microwave (which I never use), does it matter?

New camera lens

I just blew $607 on a replacement lens for my camera. Granted, the last one was bought in March 2005 for $257. It lasted 6 years @ $43/year. I suppose I am saving $30 off list price and another $60 on sales tax. It also will use the 62mm filters that I already have from the lens that broke, saving me another $80 or so. Still pricey, though.

I am keeping the camera body - a Digital Rebel XT. Apparently it's still comparable to the camera that I would buy today. $900 well spent back in 2005? How does this compare to constant replacement of point and shoot cameras?

Cameras: 900+224 = $1124

Memory cards: 176+236+7 = $419

Lenses: $257-$70+???

Total: $1730

$288 a year... I guess that's comparable to what I did prior which was blow about that much a year on a new point and shoot... and the only thing that is broken is the $257 item...

2005 - $270 on a PowerShot SD200

2004 - $246 on a PowerShot A75

2003 - $270 on a Powershot S230 (I think this was a gift)

apple survey

Question: What one thing would you most like to see Apple improve upon, and why?

Answer:

iTunes. It's slow, the update process is terrible, it's huge, it erases content from my iPhones a ton, works terribly with multiple iOS devices, works terribly with multiple computers, installs crapware like Safari and Bonjour, causes problems when syncing libraries across devices. I mean, it's just an awful awful piece of shit... er.... software.

ridiculous "security"

Some of this I find personally annoying. Some of this is just plain stupid. I am speaking of the password security requirements for WSDOT's GoodToGo! electronic toll pass.

Password - 10 characters/numbers, at least one upper case character, one lower case character and one number. Password cannot contain spaces or special character.

• OK. This isn't terrible. It's just personally annoying because my passwords are generally, but not always!) 8 characters long. Enabling special characters makes the passwords stronger, but also theoretically puts a greater burden to the developer to make sure the characters aren't special in a bad way.
  

Security Questions - must not contain special characters and must be at least 6 characters long and maximum of 16 characters long.

• What is your sister's middle name (no sister)
• What is the name of your first pet? (4 characters)
• In what city were you born (7 characters... phew)
• What street did you grow up on (has a space, I hope that's OK)
• What was the make of your first car? (5 characters - about half of cars have makes less than 6 characters long)
• What was the name of your (first) elementary school? (6 characters, woo!)
• What is your brother's middle name? (has a special character)

This would be fine if they had security questions that worked well with these requirements. Unfortunately my options are limited. I get to use the city I was born in (which generally brings up confusion as to whether to include the state), the street I grew up on (where there's two options, and my the name of my first elementary school (which I barely remember). Great. Thanks, jerks.

Car makes under 6 characters (FAIL):

• Acura
• Audi
• BMW
• Buick
• Chevy
• Dodge
• Fiat
• Ford
• GMC
• Honda
• Jeep
• Kia
• Lexus
• Lotus
• Mazda
• Mini
• Saab
• Scion
• smart
• Tesla
• Volvo

Cars with makes 6 characters or longer:

• Aston Martin
• Bentley
• Bugatti
• Cadillac
• Chevrolet
• Chrysler
• Ferrari
• Hyundai
• Infinity
• Jaguar
• Lamborghini
• Land Rover
• Lincoln
• Maserati
• Mayback
• McLaren
• Mercedes
• Mercury
• Mitsubishi
• Nissan
• Porsche
• Rolls-Royce
• Spyker
• Subaru
• Toyota
• Volkswagen

random projects

Upgrading the HTPC:

The HTPC has served me faithfully for two years, but I felt like it was time for an upgrade. No, not rational at all. I suppose I got annoyed by waiting for Firefox to load. Sure, it's not the computer's fault, but I'm upgrading anyway. The Intel Core Duo E7300 (which is still really competent by today's standards), motherboard, and RAM have been transferred to the HTPC Midwest Edition. In other words, it's now in a nearly identical setup at my parents' house - only this time with a 2TB HD so my dad can download lots of pr0n (although honestly, why bother downloading pr0n when you can stream it?).

New parts:

- Intel i3 540

- ASSrock H55M mobo

- Last minute call to keep the old 1TB WD Caviar Green HD and add on a...

- Intel 40GB SSD (which actually will solve the Firefox issue... hopefully)

I suppose at some point in the future I may want to upgrade my desktop PC, although it's totally not worth the money. I might as well get an iPad 2 first.

Car work:

The car recently hit 200,000 miles (figuratively). Aside from a well deserved car wash, it also needs:

- A change of antifreeze

- A change of oil (by the time I get around to changing it)

- A new windshield (gonna splurge with an OEM part seeing how easily these replacement windshields break)

- New trim for the windshield, since Low Price Auto Glass of Austin, TX didn't mount it right and it flew off somewhere. )-: The parts have been ordered.