Ted's Blog

Well, they’ve been here now for two weeks. They’re all about 20 and are majoring in technical fields. Arnie did work last year in Idaho and is showing Madis and Martti the ropes. For instance Arni introduced them to peanut butter which they now both like.

I was telling a guy at work about the original story of them moving in and he said $600 a month seemed steep for one room. I was looking at it as being three roommates but he was looking at it as just the room and it shouldn’t matter so much how many people lived in it. So I figured I would lower the rent to $500. They pay by the week so I told them after the third week (figuring they were rotating the payment) I would start charging less. I still think they’re getting a good deal because they’re not setting up utilities and they get free phone and internet (their training says they are not supposed to watch TV or use the internet, but they do send e-mails).

Continue reading “The Estonians”

The New York Times had an article about the demise of Comdex which at one time was the biggest computer show and maybe the biggest of any trade show. Atlanta hosted one session of it for a number of years (the other yearly session was in Las Vegas) and it was easy enough getting free registration so I would go and spend part of a day there. Our office only had a handful of PC’s at the time and there was always a desire to see what wonderful things computers were going to bring us next (it was rarely that impressive though). It left Atlanta after it had the misfortune of occurring on the same weekend as Freaknik (thus Comdex became Geeknik) and I stopped going. After I stopped going Comdex went downhill.

Here’s the amazing part. The guy who started Comdex (short for Computer Dealers Exposition) sold the rights to having the show for $860 million to a Japanese company in 1995. They then merged it in with a publishing company they owned, Ziff Davis, spun it off with an IPO and it went bankrupt. Business failures can be every bit as spectacular as bridge failures. In less than 10 years just the idea for the convention went from being worth $860 million to nothing.

I’m attaching the article . . .

Continue reading “Comdex”

For Father’s Day I bought Dad a universal remote control. But it isn’t just any universal remote control, it is the All For One URC-8810w. While most universal remote controls can control some number of devices by entering codes from a book, this one takes it one step further by not just providing control over up to 8 devices, but also allowing the remote to “learn” functions from the original remote (by pointing the original remote at this one and recording its infrared signal). There are four learning keys so you can learn up to 4 functions that otherwise are not available by default from each remote. It also allows the use of macros which can perform different functions even on different devices with the touch of a single button. Lastly, you can re-map a button, so you could assign power and volume for the TV to unused keys for Satellite mode. Then you could leave the remote in Satellite mode all the time and not have to switch to TV mode when you want to change volume or turn the TV off. Likewise, for the DVD you might want the volume keys to control the surround sound stereo instead of the TV volume.

Continue reading “Universal Remote”

A long time ago they had a commercial that showed the typical washing machine agitator and some industrial agitator that pumped up and down. It was pathetic how the rotary one would turn and how effective the turbo pumper (or whatever it was called) was. This was before I actually knew how to do laundry so it is surprising to me that probably 25 years later I had a washing machine that still had that silly agitator. And any time I opend the lid to see what was going on, there was the agitator spinning a half turn at a time and making no apparent impact on the clothes around it.

So I was looking forward to a better approach. Front-loaders at least tumble the clothes around so you know they are moving. I’ve washed things like pillows or comforters and had parts come through still dry with the old washer. No way that would happen with this one. I got the Whirlpool Duet from Lowe’s. Consumer Reports gave it very good marks for capacity (so I could wash Clio and Katie’s comforters they use for beds) as well as washing ability and noise.

I figured I would go ahead and get a new dryer, but not an expensive one to match the front-loader. The front-loader is supposed to wring out more water so the dryer doesn’t need to work as hard, but the dryer I had would run for nearly an hour and get the clothes down to damp. After running another 30 minutes they would be dry.

I bought a Kenmore dryer from the Sears outlet. It was both scratched and dented, but supposedly new and marked down $120 off the list price of $400.

I have now run the first loads through both. The washer is kind of neat. It also doesn’t use much water. I was expecting the front window to become like a goldfish bowl with clothes floating around in a tank, but you never even see the water line. It tumbles the clothes a couple of turns, sprinkles on some water, tumbles the clothes the other way, adds some more water, etc. It just keeps turning, pausing, turning the other way. Eventually the clothes all get wet but it takes a little while. It rinses the same way. It has sensor that figure out when it is rinsed enough so you are supposed to use low-suds special detergent for front loaders. It seems to work fine either way. When it starts to spin it spins slowly one direction, then stops and spins the other direction. I don’t know if it is trying to figure out if the load is balanced or what, but eventually it starts really going like a jet. After a total of 40 minutes it is done.

The dryer? It’s just a dryer. It does actually dry the clothes the first go around and it has a light inside the drum which is nice. Seems to leave a few more wrinkles than the old one, but the first load I ran through was pretty big.