It doesn't matter whether you believe in what's in it, of course, it's just that most folks have seen one. I'd wager that most folks have a reasonable concept of its size, even if only in heft or "thud factor".

I used it as an example way back when as I tried to convey some concepts to my parents. This disk? It could hold X bibles! And this connection here, we can send the entire Bible in Y seconds! Wow!

A random copy of The Bible, text only, from project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org) "weighs in" at roughly 5 megabytes.

With that as a unit of measure:

The USB thumb drive on my keychain? Over 6,000 Bibles. (6 KiloBibles?)

And the new hard disk I just installed?

186,000+ Bibles. Almost two tenths of a MegaBible.

Now doesn't that just sound way more impressive?

What is this:

It'll should bring a fond smile to true natives.

I'll update this post with the answer in a few days.

Yes, yes, I know that the two heavyweights in the Seattle marker, KIRO 710 and KOMO 1000 both claim to be news stations. And yet...

KIRO changed branding some time ago from "News Radio" to "News Talk" to finally reflect more accurately what they really broadcast: News and Talk. More of the later than the former, I'm afraid. Fair enough, at least they're honest about it. (And I'm a fan of the talk part ... if that's what I happen to be looking for.)

The real offender, in my mind, is KOMO.

The only? Perhaps.

All news? Hardly.

One of the most frustrating things is to hop in your car, turn on the radio, switch over to the news station and find ... baseball. Hours and hours of baseball. (Doublely frustrating when the other "news" station is in one of it's talk segments.)

Almost all news programming on KOMO is out the window during a Mariners game. Perhaps you'll get periodic updates during the hours and hours of pre-game, in-game and post-game non news programming.

But you certainly won't get normal news programming.

I love it when baseball season is over. Real news radio comes back, once again.

Anyone remember KNWX? KIRO's sister station was truly 24 hour news. A great refuge for information when other stations were off doing other things. Sadly it turned into KTTH ...

and more talk.

Indeed.

It made me realize that I'm really, really from Seattle, because:

I regularly shopped at Costco's flagship store until they built another closer to my home.

Yes, of course, I worked at Microsoft, before they took over the world too. (1983-2001, employee count ~360 to over 54,000).

My dad consulted for Boeing on a regular basis and his equipment was used when building the 747 in its early years.

I know that UPS started in Seattle.

And I know how to pronounce both "Puyallup" and "Sequim".

There's a bunch of local trivia too, but those would interest only those that live here. I may have one specific one in the coming days ... a test, of sorts, for the locals.

Already you can see where this is going.

I use Microsoft Money (I mean, I'd have to - I was development lead for version 3, after all). In the past the credit card site supported downloading in Money's "OFX" format and that worked great. The site "upgrade" appeared to have removed that - perhaps something about market share?

No worries. Money also imports Quicken's QIF file format, and that of course was supported. Except for one thing ...

Downloading the QIF, all the debits became credits, and the credits debits.

I called customer support, but since this was a technical issue someone would call me back in 24-36 hours.

3 days later I decided to take matters into my own hands. (This is the "geek is good" part). QIF is a text format, and I wrote a little sed script to reverse the sense of all the transactions in a QIF File.

For those so inclined, here 'tis:

s/^T-/T/
t
s/^T\([0-9]\)/T-\1/

I have no idea what an "average" person would have done in a situation like this.

But wait, there's more.

After I successfully downloaded everything with the correct sense, the account still wouldn't reconcile.

It turns out that if a transaction of the same amount to the same payee occurred more than once on the same day, the "extra transactions" are excluded from the QIF download. They're still on the statement and on-line display - and of course my bill - they're just not present in the download. Apparently someone decided that "remove duplicates" was somehow desirable in this case. (Hint: it's not.)

So after fixing the download through geeky machinations, and hand-entering the missing duplicate entries everything balanced at last.

Who know what'll happen after the next "upgrade".

[This post was created using a new email-to-blogpost technique. Any formatting issues are probably the result of that. I'll fix 'em. Eventually.]

It's been quite the ride, so far.

An interesting thing to watch as you age are your beliefs and opinions. Some solidify (into concrete, if my father is any indication), and others meld and morph and turn into things you never would be predicted at an earlier age.

I think they call it growth. But I could be wrong. Or you may not agree. Whatever.

So, using this half-century mark as an excuse, I thought I'd jot down a few things...

I believe...

I've received much more than my share of good fortune.

I believe...

In God, but I don't claim to know what he/she/it looks like or thinks.
I have no proof, nor any evidence.
God has a sense of humor. I hope.

The bible is A good book but not THE Good Book.
There is no single good book.

God didn't have a specific religion in mind.
You don't need to be a member of the right religion to be "saved", whatever that might mean.
God is or would be ashamed of most of what's done in his/her/its name.

I believe...

Evolution, like any science, should be taught in school.
Creationism, like any religious myth, should be taught in church.
Comparative religions should be taught in school, but without prejudice towards or against any particular flavor.

I believe...

I have no idea when life starts.
I immediately distrust anyone who says they do.
Women should have a choice. 9 times out of 10 that choice should probably be life.

Sex is inevitable.
Contraception is necessary.
Contraception should just be available. To all. Regardless of age, status, location, etc.
Contraception is not evil or against some god's will.
Contraception is not a replacement for education.
Abortion is not a replacement for contraception.

Most of the world needs to lighten up when it comes to sex.
Particularly the United States
TV and movie violence we are allowed to see is more damaging than the sex we're not allowed to see.

We have more important things to worry about then how two people should go about loving each other.
Let's stop them from hating each other first.

I believe...

People are basically good.
But there are some bad individuals out there.

"If you grew up where they grew up, and you were taught what they were taught, you would believe what they believe".
If more people understood and accepted that, fewer people would die before their time.

I believe...

The left lane is for passing.
Regular driving tests should be mandatory for all ages.
Driving is a privilege, not a right.
Drunk driving repeat offenders should be removed from the road. Period.
Even if that means removing from society after they've proven they can't be trusted.
Even three strikes seems too lenient. Pragmatic, perhaps, but still too lenient.

Most people can't actually comprehend large numbers - there'd be fewer lottery players if they did.

People fear what they don't understand.
Apparently there's a lot people don't understand.

I believe...

I'm a skeptic.
Well, I should say that all the evidence would indicate I am.

I believe...

50 is not the "new 40". 50 is 50.
Any age is exactly and only what you make of it.
Yes, "you're as young as you feel"
Some days I feel 20, some days I feel 90. So it goes.

I believe...

Illegal aliens are illegal, by definition. Prettying up the words doesn't change that.
Entering this country illegally is a crime. Hence, by definition, illegal aliens are criminals.
Perhaps we should be pragmatic, and consider making it easier to enter this country legally.
Abiding by the law is one way to garner the respect of those around you.

I believe...

Everything that's good for me tastes like crap.
Corollary: everything that tastes good will kill me.
Conclusion: Life is unfair.

I believe...

Planet Earth will heal itself from anything we might do to it.
... even if she has to kill every man, woman and child to do so.

I believe...

Personal responsibility is declining.
Personal responsibility is "inherited", and parents aren't passing it on.
Pretending to be a victim is an insult to those with legitimate problems.

Parenting is a noble job.
Many who are parents should not be. Ever.
It's OK not to have children. Really.

I believe...

Questioning the presidents actions and/or motives IS patriotic.
In fact, the ability to do so is exactly what the U.S. stands for. (Or stood for.)
Those we disagree with still have the right to speak, argue and lobby for their beliefs.
No matter how repugnant we may believe them to be.

I do not have a responsibility to keep you from being offended.
You have the right to be offended.
I have the right not to care.
You do not have the right to prevent people from offending you.

I believe...

Given my wife, my colleagues and my friends,
my roots, my parents and my upbringing,
my career, my abilities and my freedom,
my assets, my history, and my opportunities...

Yes. I've received much more than my share of good fortune.

I believe I am grateful.

So she's been waiting to release the new website design until more (all?) of the old content has been revised and moved. And of course, that's just an overwhelming amount of work - all those pages. It's a big deal.

So naturally, since it's such a daunting task, it's not happening.

My response? Just do it.

No, not the old content migration. That is an overwhelming task.

If she does that, several things happen:

• Perhaps most importantly, that "daunting task" of updating and migrating all the old content becomes a much less ominous series of smaller tasks that can happen as needed. Rather than being a big obstacle to a major change, they become incremental improvements to the existing site.

• The new site design becomes motivating. Rather than making changes or adding things that won't be seen "for a while" waiting for the move, every bit of work after the move takes effect and has impact immediately.

• Progress on "other things" that might have been waiting for the new site design can begin.

Yes, some information that's currently on the site might "disappear" for a while, or might look different. Heck, that's even a good thing! When people ask for such-and-such information that they can't find on the site, that a great indicator of the priority of old content that needs to be updated next.

•

Another very good friend and client of mine is also in the middle of a similar transition. His very large site was serious need of a redesign. So he hired a designer and got one. Then we set about to implement it.

Rather than waiting for that One Big Thing to be done, we implemented enough to make a portion of the website work relatively well, and then took it live. Then we did the same to another portion of the site, and took that live. We're currently working on a third portion of the site.

At each step along the way we not only made massive changes to the major portion of the site that we were working on, but we also made incremental improvements to the portions that were already "done" as we learned and tweaked and discovered various issues to resolve.

The bottom line is that the site is still a work in progress, but the majority is much better than it was before we changed, and everything that we do is work on the new foundation.

Now, to be fair, for the third portion of his site, this client is also saying "I need to move more of the content before we take it live". Turns out he doesn't. He could go live now and incrementally move content.

I gotta work on that.

•

So all this is to ask a question:

What One Big Thing are you waiting for?

And is it in your way?

Could you "just do it", even if it's not 100% complete, and would that unblock other things?

Be honest: are you using that One Big Thing an excuse to avoid whatever might come next?

Sometimes "good enough" can unleash a flood of forward progress.

As always, every question is a real question I've received via Ask Leo! within the last year, presented exactly as I got it (except that any potentially identifying information will have been removed). Each "answer" is the answer that I'd be oh-so-tempted to give...

[Warning: there may be "bad words" in some of the questions. Y'all been warned.]

Enjoy.

heyy can u send me lots of dolly magazinz

No. But I know a place where you might buy some.

I am M____ M____. My date of birth is 6th march 19__. I have attended an interview on __th A___ 20__. I am very keen to get this job. I have performed well in the interview. can you predict if I will get this job? I really want to know the answer to that.

If you think I'm the one to ask, then I wouldn't give you very good odds.

give a one mail ask

No, I give a one mail answer, you give a one mail ask.

what can i do to make my pimples go away?

Wait. Years if you have to, but just wait.

how internet changed the world?

From what I can tell, it has totally destroyed the English language; particularly grammar.

How can I ask a girl that I like out on a date? ps i hope that you answere me, i need advice

Pal, if you need to ask a computer geek how to ask a girl out, you need a lot more than advice.

i am turning 16 on the 27th of september and i was wondering if by law i am aloud to quit? do you no?

Yes. You can quit smoking, you can quit doing drugs, you can quit using bad grammar, and you can quit asking the wrong people silly questions. Ya no?

Is there a list of the $4 generic drugs

Probably. But it's $5 drugs that get interesting.

who discovered the television?

Millions of people "discover" it every day.

location of ac filter in a 1990 chrysler lebaron

Sorry. Car Talk I ain't.

am i going to live in london (asked 6 times in succession)

I hope so. Preferably without internet connectivity.

what is your name

Look at the URL, it has a clue.

i dont know where my clitoris is. ive looked everywhere EVERYWHERE. i cant find it. i looked under the clitoral hood but its not there! im thinking maybe im too young to have a fully developed one though but i dont know please help me!

No way am I going to touchanswer that.

Leo.... you inspire me, i wish i could be as big of a left nutted pussy with a bald scrotum. go with christ

Thank You. Indeed, you represent Christianity well.

what is christianity?

See the previous question for an example, I guess.

how long are female dogs in heat?

Jerome says "never long enough".

how can agricultural productivity be enhance in nigeria?

By redirecting all the manpower and effort that's being put into email scams sent to the rest of the planet.

is there school tomorrow for the northshore? Lostd of people do not know if theres school tomorrow and i promise to tell my friends! Please! (November 27, 2006)

Yes. Hope this answer got to you in time. (August 10, 2007)

when did the world begin

Any scientist will tell you that the world began at T(0).

plz can u give me some guidelines when u have a date.what do i say?

What is it with people trying to ask a computer geek for dating advice? It's just so ... wrong!

Is there any restriction to use the green ink pen? Who can use and who cann't? I think that only the gazatted officers can use?

I'm not gazatted, at least not lately, and I use one all the time.

DO U FINK IT WILL SNOW AGAIN IN SOUTH EAST ENGLAND

No, I don't fink.

WHERE IS BEYONCE? I`M FURIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111

I'm sure she's not all that pleased either. If I were her, I'd be hiding.

How do we remove google?

The same way we removed Microsoft, I would assume. Oh, wait... darn.

windows is the psyware !

Yes! Windows has psychic powers!

wHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A 120VOLT AND A 230 VOLT?

The loudness of the "OUCH!", and the number of swear words that follow.

I am asking you a question about Louis Riel. Which side won the debate?

Mackenzie, eh?

what was the percentage of childhood obesity in 1982 and in 1994? There was a significant change. Why is that?

You're surfing it.

Do you like cheese???Is santa claus real?

You got that backwards. I like Santa Claus, and cheese is not real.

do young people know how to create their own entertainment?

Apparently not.

If instructions require an average of 2.5 clock cycles to execute, how many instructions are available for each pixel?

It depends on the size of the pixel. A small pixel will need only a few instructions, while a large or extra-large pixel will require many. Don't even ask about Venti-pixels.

how do I change my actual address

Move?

what are three internal stimuli's on penguins?

Sorry, no penguin porn here.

How many peasants are there in bolden

More than you can count.

Y iz it that my brother girlfriend iz a hoe

He's dating a garden implement? Kinky.

what do you call the powerful current caused by conflicting tides around the shetland and orkney islands

Dangerous.

Why did my last boyfriend tell me it waz over

I keep telling you, it's all about the grammar and spelling. Boys love it when you can speak and spell proper English.

i want text my girl on my computer

I'm sure you do. Just clean up after.

i am viewing too much porn sites.

What is this "too much porn" you speak of? I don't understand.

should you have a child or a dog first

Yes.

do you think ainura will came back to me

Nope.

there iz a boy in my class called william do u think he would go out wid me he dose seam 2 keep smilein at me???

More asking for dating advice from a computer geek. Just be sure you know why he's smiling, ok?

my question was your first car ?

No, your question was not my first car.

who is sitting next to me?

No, Who's on first.

is today going to be a good thing or bad thing?

Probably not.

should i get revenge on bf? he has been with anyone who has a pulse but i loaned him money so ime keeping up the pretence i dnt know ime very bitter i trusted him and loaned him my life saving because i though he loved me i hav since found him on several sex sites he is paying be back slowly

It's good to hear you have a pulse. I'd avoid revenge, just to keep it that way.

what do i do after the writen part of a song like how do i make it a song like singing and stuff

Find someone who does "singing and stuff" I guess.

are fat pictures illegal

Hardly. If they were, it'd be the death of home photography and personal photo albums as we know it.

How do I pipe a girl

Again with the dating questions.... I hope.

Can you name all the places in the world that are to hot,to cold,to dry,to wet, to highor to scary.

Uh ... Fresno?

HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN YOU HAVE THE RIGHT GUY

Probably only after it's too late.

Do you always have to STERILIZE canning jars before you use them again for canning?

Depends. How's your health insurance?

I have a Kohler riding lawn tractor. What does the letters OHV stand for, on the frount of the engine?

Sorry, the only Kohler I'm familiar with makes devices that you ride at home.

Have you ever smoked marijuana before?

Actually I have not. Unlike, it appears, many people who ask me questions.

plas dont send me any things

OK, I wan't.

What happens when your brain falls out?

See all the previous questions.

WHY DO SOME LEOS THINKS ABOUT SEX MOST OF THE TIMES?

Apparently my wife discovered how to ask a question, and then tried to disguise it with bad grammar. Nice try, dear.

•

Prior Years

• 2006: Another year of odd ones

• 2005: The Questions You Didn't See

• 2004: Ask me WHAT?

Between processor complexity and teaching mostly only higher level programming languages, I expect most current programmers to never know what a clock cycle even is.

Processor Architecture:

Addressing and Instructions:

From valued tool to keepsake and reminder of a "simpler" time.

My replacement HDTV is on order.

But as I mentioned to Kathy, this is a slippery slope. Programming. Audio. Recording. Etc.

And so I found myself on the phone to DirecTV to upgrade our programming to their HDTV package with their HDTV DVR. No problem, they said. They'd be happy to take more of my money. No surprise really.

We scheduled an appointment for the upgrade, which includes a new (bigger) dish and the DVR. I made note to the representative to make sure to mention that a 30 foot ladder was going to be required, as the existing dish was at the peak of one end of our house. No problem, they said.

And here the enumeration begins by visit and technician contact... (you know it's bad when a numbered list is the right approach)

1. May 23rd: DirecTV van rolls up on schedule. Unfortunately the technician didn't have a long enough ladder. On top of that he also apparently didn't have the DVR. Looking at the work order, the DVR wasn't called out, the ladder requirement had been partially cut off, and the 30' had turned into 30' (oh the joy of HTML). He left and told me that he'd check with his boss to reschedule, and that I should call DirecTV to clarify their work order.

   Later that day I talk to a DirecTV rep on the phone, and we get the work order figured out.

   Also later, a rep from the installation crew calls and we reschedule that for Friday. With a longer ladder.

2. May 25th: Beat up pickup rolls up, on schedule. It has a nice, long ladder on top. And three PVRs on the front seat, as well as all sorts of dishes and assorted hardware all ajumble in the back.

   After we discuss what's up and what's needed the technician indicates that the current position of the dish won't work. It's too exposed, and there's no place to put the additional support brackets that the slightly bigger dish needs.

   OK, so up the ladder he goes to find a new location. The first location, within reach of the ladder, won't work. Apparently the HD signals come from additional satellites, and that the signal from one of the others isn't strong enough. (I'll admit I'm a little concerned/skeptical as he didn't bring a compass and had difficulty establishing which way north was. Oh well.)

   Plan B involves putting the dish much higher on the roof. Fair enough, I can live with the proposed location. Except that my roof is a 45 degree pitch, and he doesn't have his climbing gear to make it safely up to where he needs to be.

   Oh. Time to reschedule. Again.

3. May 30th: I get a call from the DirecTV technician assigned to today's call to clarify the work. Seems he's still working from the original work order. The one that didn't clearly call out the need for a long ladder. A long ladder he doesn't have. At least he called first.

   This technician told me he'd check with his dispatching office and get back to me. A few minutes later he does, and we reschedule again for Sunday(!) the 3rd, this time with a long ladder. Again.

4. May 30th: about 10 minutes after I finish rescheduling for Sunday ... a DirecTV truck rolls up with another (my fourth!) technician. Without a long enough ladder. Again.

   Apparently the second work-order created to correct the first order ended up being an additional work order instead of a replacement. And both were handed out - to different drivers.

   He, too, surveyed the situation; even pulling out his too-short ladder to give it a try. His take was that the existing location was sufficient, but without the longer ladder it wasn't something he could do either.

   He, too, called back to the office, and was able to schedule the longer-ladder crew for Friday morning.

And there we sit as of this writing. Hopefully all will be accomplished on Friday. And if so, hopefully the briefly scheduled Sunday morning visit will be removed from the books, or we could be up for a rude awakening.

To be fair, this all seems to be a organizational issue. DirecTV apparently has several contractors to whom they send this work out and only one of them has ladders of sufficient length. Unfortunately work orders seem to get distributed without regard to that. Everyone I've dealt with, on the phone or in person, has been great - and like me, somewhat bemused at the situation.

It's a good thing I'm not really in a hurry. Had I been on a deadline (like some specially scheduled HD event), I could see being quite upset about all this.

Updates as they happen.

Update: DirecTV Take 5 (and a half)

So Friday morning came and went. No DirecTV. I guess at this point I wasn't terribly surprised. I figured that they'd be out Sunday morning instead.

At around 1 I got a call from the technician - they were running late, and that they should be there after 2.

2:30 technician #1 showed up, after his Magellan nav system tried to send him through a closed fire gate about 1/4 mile from our home (it's about a 5 mile drive to make that last quarter mile). Technician #2 (the one with the ladder) was stuck in traffic, but also eventually on his way.

Long story short, after much ladder climbing, attic walking, wire dropping, dish aligning and DVR configuring ... we now have HDTV. On my 27" ViewSonic "temporary" TV. Just in time to watch the final episode of The Sopranos in HD.

The fifth time's a charm. (Plus 1/2 for the delay into the afternoon.

The replacement Mitsubishi should arrive today (Saturday).

But you know I'm not counting on it.

2-Jun Update: Delivery Service Take 2

So I wait around all day for the TV to be delivered. Sometime between 2 and 6.

I call the delivery service's number at 6:20 and got their answering service. The person was surprised, since they don't make residential deliveries on the weekend.

Oh really? Then why did they schedule me for a weekend?

This is getting old.

3-Jun Update: Delivery Service Take 2.5

The TV was delivered.

At 11:00 PM last night. "We're running a little late." Ya think?

So apparently not only do they make weekend residential deliveries, but late into the evening.

So this morning as I'm letting the dogs out what do I see? A DirecTV truck driving past. Notable, since we live in a small community on a dead end road. Either that was my Sunday appointment that hadn't been canceled, or a neighbor coincidentally also had a DirecTV service call at 8:30 AM on a Sunday morning. Not sure I believe in coincidences, but for the record he never actually did come to my house.

Given the "luck" we've had with this purchase, installation and delivery, I decided this morning to go ahead and move the new TV into the family room and fire it up. If there was going to be a problem I wanted to find out sooner rather than later.

So, I unplugged the "temporary" TV and moved it back to the bedroom, wheeled in the new big screen (sitting on two dollys, where it'll stay until its table/stand arrives), and fired it up.

It's freakin' gorgeous!

I'd recorded an episode of Battlestar Galactica in HD last night. Awesome. Star Trek Enterprise was on while I was trying out the box. Beautiful. Even the golf that was on CBS HD was stunning.

There's a lot of tweaking to be done, but that'll wait until I've got it in its final position.

5-Jun Update: Delivery Service Take 3

What I neglected to mention is that I'd ordered a matching base for the new TV, thought a different merchant. It was actually shipped the day before the TV was shipped, though with the same carrier. As you might expect I was somewhat disappointed that it wasn't in the same 11PM shipment as the TV itself.

My plan remains to wait to "clean up the mess" until I can actually put the TV in it's final location, on that stand. As a result the family room is still a bit of a mess. The new TV sits on a dolly in front of the old TV, which itself was pulled away from the wall for the original "it's dead, Jim" diagnosis.

So, on Tuesday I'm about to call the carrier to ask about the stand when they call me first.

To schedule its delivery.

On Saturday, between 2 and 6 PM.

Again.

We'll see. In the mean time, even in the wrong position on the floor, it's still freakin' gorgeous!

Oh, and a new sound system is on order as well.

14-Jun Update: Delivery Service Take 4

The stand was delivered.

Saturday morning at around 10AM. Don't they have an interesting definition of "between 2 and 6"? To their credit, the driver called first and asked if it'd be ok. Seems he was 4 miles away on his way to a fairly distant delivery. He figured he'd ask since if he did things in the other order my delivery would be very, very late.

That sounds familiar.

So on Saturday I spent the day tearing down my old system and putting the new one in place. Lots of old components got moved to the basement (including those old had-'em-since-highschool speakers), the old broken brick-that-was-a-tv got moved to the entry way for now, and the new stand and TV got put into place.

Beautiful. But still running with the TV's internal speakers.

Then on Tuesday the new receiver and DVD player arrived. Lots more unpacking and setting up and wiring and the like.

Even with temporary speakers, Lord of the Rings in 5.1 surround sounds wonderful. So does Animusic II. (I just ordered a new copy of Animusic I, with the 5.1 surround audio that the original didn't have.) Can't wait for the "real" speakers (including sub-woofer) to show up. Should be any day.

And then the Logitech remote. That might just be a marriage saver - four remotes is a little over the top. We'll see.

15-Jun Update: And There Was Sound

The speakers arrived yesterday afternoon, so a quick hookup and ... oh yes, much better than the TV speakers or the temporaries. The subwoofer helps a ton. Still some tuning to do, but I'll do that after I put the four corner speakers on stands. Getting those is a road trip for tomorrow, I think.

In the mean time the Logitech arrived this morning. It's charging in prep for configuration. I'm hoping and praying that it'll do the trick.

The Equipment List

Figured it might be worth listing everything that's gone into this little endeavor.

• Mitsubishi 65" 1080p DLP HDTV - this is what started it all. My eleven year old 60" Mitsubishi died, and thus had to be replaced. The slippery slope started here.

• DirecTv's HD Package. The saga of getting that installed is what spawned this blog entry.

• Mitsubishi MB-65DS Matching Base

• Sony STR-DG1000 7.1-Channel Home Theater Receiver

• Oppo DV-981HD Universal DVD Player with HDMI, 1080p Up-Converting

• Polk Audio RM6750 5.1 Channel Home Theater Speaker System

• Logitech Harmony 880 Remote Control

(You can also see the whole list here in the "Ask Leo! Store".)

My thanks once again to Ara Derderian of The HDTV Podcast for his initial guidance, and the recommendations on their highly informative site.

This is what's tacked up on a wall in a room in my basement:

See, a couple of years ago I got really, really frustrated with the wiring of the cable in our house. In a word, it sucked, big time. Think splitter after splitter after splitter, so that at the end there was barely any signal left at all. The end, of course, would be in the master bedroom where we often watch TV.

So I decided it was time. Time to do the right thing. Time to hire an electrician specializing in such things, and pull cable. LOTS of cable. And while I was at it... networking cable. LOTS of networking cable.

They pulled the cable, and then I ran around and terminated everything - building out these little doodads all over the house:

That's two RG-6 cables, one Cat-6 for ethernet, a Cat-5e for ethernet, and then another Cat-5e for two phone lines sockets for up to 4 lines total. All in one spot, and in many locations throughout the house.

Many locations. 5 cables pop out of each. I think the installer mumbled something about "miles" of wire.

Which brings us back to that wall o' wire in the first picture.

On the far left, where primarily orange and grey cables drop down from the ceiling, is telephone. The grey blocks are traditional (and old) punch-down blocks that you'll find in wiring closets probably world-wide. Any phone line, any jack, any time.

In the center-ish (ok, a tad to the left) with primarily yellow and black cables coming in, are the coaxial cables for video. The grey box in the middle is the splitter provided by DirectTV to split the incoming satellite signal out to our receivers in a couple of different rooms.

On the right, it's all about networking. The bundle of primarily blue cables are the Cat-6 cables on which I primarily run any wired networking. The red and blue to the right are the Cat-5e's which I use in case I need to light up more than one of the network sockets in any single location.

The shelves?

Top shelf: tools. Having the right tools to terminate networking and coax makes ALL the difference. Yes, I make my own cables.

Middle shelf: the network. That's a Netopia router taking my T-1 on the left, and a Linksys broadband router, with a gigabit switch on top of it. (Only a couple of my machines have gigabit capability, so I make sure to connect 'em through that for talking to each other.)

Bottom shelf: my old, tired, DSL router and its broadband router. The DSL is still hot, but it's about to get turned off now that my T-1 is up and running solidly.

And yes, that's a UPS on the ground - the routers and the wireless access point are all hooked up to it. (So's the clock on the top shelf.) Should the power fail (as it does, about once a year), our laptops remain on-line.

I know what you're thinking.

You pity whomever buys this house from us.

I sorta do too. But there is documentation. On the top shelf - a binder with a map, wiring diagrams and "what the hell was I thinking" explanation.

But it's all so cool. In a very geeky sorta way.

I had to record the emptyness. Hopefully in a day or two things will be back to normal.

Though I can't help but recall what a co-worker with a cronically messy desk once told me:

If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what does an empty desk imply?

:-)

Fahrenheit 451 is one of those books I thought I'd read. I'm a Sci-Fi fan, and ate up a lot of the "masters" of Sci-Fi years ago. I started with Arthur C. Clarke (Childhood's End was my first Sci-Fi read, what a way to start!), and quickly ran through most of the works of Heinlein, Asimov, and others, including, I thought, Ray Bradbury.

Apparently not.

My only thought is that perhaps I got sidetracked by the weirdness that is Something Wicked This Way Comes, and set Mr. Bradbury aside.

Fast forward some [mumble] years, and I find a reference to Fahrenheit 451 in the always popular and thought provoking This Is True weekly email.

What's utterly amazing about this book is how true it has become.

No, people aren't burning books - well, at least not often - but so many of the concepts that Bradbury wrote about back in the 1940's are commonplace today.

Two that struck me the strongest include:

• a startlingly accurate description of what we now call "political correctness".

• a populace so vapid that they spend most of their time watching what we would only describe as "reality TV" today, (on wall-sized big screen TV's, no less) which in turn becomes the major topic of conversation on those occasions when people do actually get together.

As with any Sci-Fi of 50+ years ago, there are bound to be both hits and misses. The technological misses, though, are surprisingly few. The hits and the "could be" hits are a credit to his foresight.

Ultimately, the book ends with the apparent start (and possible conclusion?) of a nuclear war - which I found both distracting from the message of the book, and somewhat inaccurate, with what we now know. (I'd expect the impact of even a single bomb to be much greater over a larger area than was described, and I'm certain that the intelligencia would know not to walk back to the city in which it occurred to look for "survivors").

But with that minor fault, I'd throw Fahrenheit 451 out there as a book that everyone simply must read. I hope it's on high school reading lists everywhere.

Various thoughts in no particular order...

More thoughts later as they occur.

Update

We have power!

At 9AM Tuesday, nearly four and a half days after it went out, power's been restored. The RV's been packed away again, and life is returning to normal (whatever that is).

I'm still one of the lucky ones. My particular town, Woodinville, was hit very hard, and there are folks who won't get their power back until this weekend. And a friend from a town even further out may be coming to stay with us as her's isn't promised until Christmas, at best.

We're very fortunate, indeed.

For those so inclined, I was on The David Lawrence Show on the radio on 12/19 in the second hour, discussing a little of what it means to try and run an on-line business in the dark.

But then it would have to be.

But the most difficult was "the wall".

There's really no reason for me to have any particular attachment to the Vietnam War. It was over, really, before I had to worry about it. I didn't know anyone who had gone, and I didn't lose any friends or family to it.

And yet.

Maybe it was the news (NBC's "Huntley/Brinkley Report" at the time) that we watched regularly that stuck in my mind. Each night news of a handful of American soldiers killed was contrasted with thousands of enemy casualties. With footage. In black and white.

Apparently all those hand-full's added up.

And that's what struck me this morning.

There were a lot of names on that wall. The type face was smaller than I was expecting, and the wall itself larger. It had to be to hold all those names.

58,253 names.

58,253 people.

The Vietnam Veteran's Memorial, or simply "The Wall", is an emotional place for many. Gifts and remembrances are left regularly. The image here is of a birthday card - presumably left for one of the wall honoree's. Elsewhere was a program for an upcoming 40th high school reunion.

The Wall is still contemporary. Visitors arrive every day that knew the people that those names represent. Perhaps in 20 or 40 years the impact of The Wall will change - much like memorials for earlier wars are starting to represent abstract events more than specific people we knew and loved.

But for now, it's real, and it's tangible.

And perhaps because these names were close to being my contemporaries, I feel it.

Many of the memorials, in fact many of the most striking memorials, in Washington D.C., and elsewhere, are about war. That's a sad reflection on humanity.

And yet, I do believe we need these memorials, and that we each need to visit them and understand what they represent while the people those memorials honor are our contemporaries.

Maybe building them and seeing them and feeling them will move us a little closer to not needing them any more.

I can dream.