Geez it is may and I haven’t done crap for Halloween planning. The time to buy parts and build is rapidly approaching. Monster Guts sent me nice reminder spam, I might try some pressure mats this year.

Another Vista problem – Vista RAW image support getting better – despite the headline, you are screwed on 64bit Vista, the Canon and Nikon drivers won’t work. Sucks.

* “Spindrift”:amazon by Allen Steele. First contact novel. Fine effort. Not particularly innovative but entertaining. The guy has won a bunch of SF awards so perhaps I should try some of his other work * “Beyond Black”:amazon by Hilary Mantel. I’m not sure why I sti\uck with this. Tale of a medium in touch with the spirits of people from her troubled early life, and her own sorting out of that history. The characters are not particularly attractive. Something about the process of digging through troubling events of your childhood with eyewitnesses was appealing tho. * “Red Cat”:amazon by Peter Spiegelman. One in a series of mysteries featuring PI John March. A great character and a great story of deeply flawed relatives and families. Worthy of the accolades it has received. * “The Futurist”:amazon by Othmar. An entertaining farce. Witty. Probably won’t age well so read it now (I don’t think Catch-22 has aged well for instance). * “The Traveller”:amazon by John Twelve Hawks. A novel in the illuminati genre, opens with great scenes and good characters. But sadly doesn’t develop much after that. The characters gain no emotional or moral depth and the plot is pedestrian. The author sets up a lot of storylines for subsequent books at the cost of this individual tale. If I’m at an airport and novel 2 is on the shelf I’ll buy it, but I’m not driven to find out what happens to these characters. * “The Bowl Is Already Broken”:amazon by Mary Kay Zuravleff. I gave this 70 pages and then folded. The writing was just ok, but the characters were boring – lots of quirky elements but not emotionally engaging. The story seemed to be diving deeper and deeper into the petty politics of the museum world but seeming less and less relevant to any other walk of life.

And one non-fiction:

* “How Doctors Think”:amazon by Jerome Groopman. Ok I didn’t really like this book. Some insight into doctor’s minds. But a lot of very articulate whining about how tough their lives are and how patients have to be more empathetic. Boo hoo hoo. The lives of sick patients are tough too. And most of the discussion is about really smart committed docs and how they struggle. In my experience docs exhibit a range of IQ and commitment and many of them exhibit less thoughtful behaviour. He does talk about some of the economic influences affecting doctors but he largely gives the profession a pass on this. I think there is a more painfully truthful story to tell.

* Toolmonger ? Blog Archive ? Mark On Wet And Oily Surfaces With Stanley’s New Marker – ok this might actually be useful at halloween time when I am working outdoors a lot. I wonder how it works on slimy mossy surfaces. * Laser-guided scissors. Lasers AND sharp blades, awesome. * Noise cancelling windows. So like, if you try to have a conversation in a room with these, does the sound just disappear? * Programmable hose timer. Another thing I could actually use at Halloween to control flow of water to my fog system. * leatherman for the garden. Because I am such a horticulturist. * Quick prototyping material – seems like another useful Halloween product. Not cheap though. * Ruggedized flash drive. Flash drives are moving from the utility to the fashion accessory category. * Mobile basketball hoop. I am sure there is a whole post to write about “what to do with your trailer hitch that you never use” * Brushed aluminum keyboard. Awesome * Umbrellas for windy weather. * Programmable hair. Strange.

I’m really wanting one of these such as the JVC GZ-HD7 Everio 60GB Hard Disk Drive HD Camcorder – tho the NYTimes review today pee’d all over its image stabilization which seems like a real problem. The other mentioned in the article, the Sony, saves the video in some goofy format apparently which will create a pain of its own sort. I’ve been using my old camera a lot recently and transferring the video from tape to pc or dvd is such a pain, i am really motivated to move ahead, but not sure either of these cameras is the right jump.

* Amazon S3 storage costs drop – “Finally, this illustrates a subtle but important point of using S3. When I buy physical disks at SmugMug, those are sunk costs. They’ll never get cheaper because I’ve already paid for them. At Amazon, though, market forces and changes will cause their pricing model to continue to re-adjust downwards. As disks get cheaper, that $0.15/GB/month fee will drop. And instantly all of your storage magically gets cheaper, no sunk costs to worry about.” – seems like the modern version of the MSFT/Intel bet on Moore’s Law. * Everybody seems to love this silverlight thing. Will be interesting to take temperature of it again in 3 and 6 months * Beta of Comic Life – cute but I think I would tire of it. * Phil keeps on improving Beyond411 – a stud. * Drag a map around and see where the deals are - this is seriously awesome. Nice work guys! (Ignition is an investor). * Foxtorrent firefox addon. Haven’t tried yet but seems like a nice idea. * How to open Vista and Office packages – amazing that the world needs this. I spent 15 minutes trying to figure out how to open the office box. * Google spreadsheet now with charts – which pretty much flips me over completely to google docs.

The Columbus Dispatch : Buckeyes slated for prime time in Big Ten and more and more

This stuff fascinates me – Scientists watch on the atomic level how individual molecules recognize each other – here is one guy’s list on amazon – maybe this Voet text is the place to start

* Cymat: Home – metallic foams. Because they just look cool. The resin coated version would be a cool desktop. * Intensity vacuum. The folding-up-ness is nice. * Kraft paper sofas. Because no one else will have one. Oh and their felt rocks look cool. * Floating Jellyfish pool lights * Highgear adventureplus – all the cool campers will snicker at you * A finger skateboard game. just strange. * Wallet optimized for cards. Why more of these don’t exist puzzles me. * Non contact infrared thermometer. Seems like a totally useless gadget to me. Will go in the drawer with my stud finders. * Rich on HD camcorders. OK I really need one of these. Really. * Clamp multimeter. nothing unique here, I just like these.

* College Football Forum: Florida Jab at OSU #684-#686 – Florida abuses OSU. OK this is still pretty painful, but funny. The beginnings of true hatred. * The ongoing Mustain saga – this is why SEC football is awesome. Using the FOIA to get coach’s cellphone records. Stalkers with video cameras. Overbearing parents. Hiring high school coaches just to get recruits. Just awesome.

Mitsubishi Electric Develops Camera that Refocuses Photos - Emerging Technology – man this is freaking huge. I don’t completely understand the physics of what these folks are doing but capturing enough info about the incident light to be able to change the focus at post-processing is freaking huge.

* Clear airport pass – OK actually I would be stupid not to get this. * A $209 hammer. I drive like 3 nails a year so clearly I need this * USB chess game. I have no patience for chess but clearly this would improve my game dramatically * The Cabestan watch. Gorgeous. * 1/9 scale V-8. * Obelisk chairs. I think the rest of the family would barf but these are awesome * Skycaddie GPS golf accessory. It is very important to my game that I know the exact position of my ball and the pin to the meter. I am pretty sure that my lack of this knowledge is why I have a 36+ handicap. * Marble machine. Anything like pachinko is cool. * A watch with built in slot machine. Where does it store all the coins? * Pipe lamp. Steam engine chic.

* Toolmonger ? Blog Archive ? Dremel’s Workstation: A Micro Drill Press For $40 – this actually seems like a pretty cool way to get more out of a dremel * Active Crystals – you can never have enough Swarovski. * Load-thing – cool looking but is this really a problem? * Another USB turntable and high torque so you can really drag the needle thru the vinyl * Belkin grommet shaped usb hubs – this actually seems somewhat brilliant. * Diamond-tipped screwdriver bits * Bosch miter saw – this thing seems to have infinite degrees of freedom * and a howto for making your own plastic vacuum former

A Sack of Seattle: Seattle Open Coffee Club Trial – Andy is organizing this at Louisa’s next week. Good work Andy!

Hate the feel of softened water. Didn’t really understand the chemistry of water softening until I poked around a little tonight – how does a water softener work, wikipedia topic – apparently water softeners replace the Ca and Mg ions with Na which is less damaging to pipes, etc. But it still makes the water feel slippery. I’d like something that removes the Ca and Mg and leaves nothing behind. A lot of systems claim to do this, some below:

* Water Softener - Water Filter - Water Softners * Advanced Water Filters * GMX -- this looks way too low capacity * The Aquafer * The ScaleBlaster. Also probably too low capacity but I love the name.

I wonder if any of these work. And are cost effective.