« In Memory... | Main | How Not to Feed Spiders »
September 19, 2004
Reluctance to Post
I've been reluctant to post anything for about two weeks, due primarily to the fact that my laptop has been missing in action and use of a work computer for personal matters is something I try not to do. Where is my laptop?
At an Apple authorized store trying to fix it. I bought an iSight a while back, and it works well enough when used in standalone mode. The bigger problem arises when attempting to use the iSight in a conversation with another user, the video connection just dies. I now understand why Apple has begun to open their own stores though, thanks to this experience. Here is a transcript of the actual conversation on the phone that I've had with this group:
Them: Yeah hi, we're calling about your laptop.
Me: Great what have you discovered?
Them: The iSight works fine, we tested it with another machine and it's not faulty.
Me: Great, but that wasn't the issue at all ever in this case
Them: No? Oh, well what was the issue?
Two days later...
Them: Yeah hi, about your PowerBook. We are able to confirm that the iSight cannot send video to a receiving iChat user.
Me: Okay, so you've confirmed my initial complaint?
Them: Yes.
Me: Why are you telling me? I knew that this problem existed, hence my asking you to fix it.
Them: Well we don't think it's hardware related, we'd like permission to reformat the harddrive.
Me: Well if reformatting it for the 8th time this year will make you happy, go right ahead.
That conversation was 5 days ago, and I haven't heard back from them. My guess is they realized that reformating the drive really didn't do anything at all.
Since I'm already on a bit of a rant here, let's just finish this off with a few others.
If you, for whatever reason, decide to ever own a car within a city, you should be legally required to take a 3 day intensive parallel parking class. I find it amazing the number of people who cannot parallel park their car! I watched a lady try to pull into a spot with her RAV 4 that a Hummer just pulled out of. It took her five tries! Five times to back in, pull out, and repeat. Each time she still hit the curb, and it's not like there wasn't enough space to nose in with the car. She's not alone in the category, but it just happens to be the most recent incident I can recall.
AVIs are probably one of the worst inventions in the world. I've been having to dork around with the RIFF format a lot over the past few days, and it's awful. It's not that the ODML spec is bad actually, it's that there are so many stupid players out there that it doesn't make sense. Some players use signed and some used unsigned markers for total size. Others won't play if the optional idxl chunk is missing (read: Windows Media Player), or for some other completely wacked out reason that is explained only by VIDEO_NO_COMPRESSOR errors.
Spiders, like all sane humans, don't like the taste of plain tofu. After careful experimentation and the purchase of $3.00 of tofu, I've discovered the really big spider outside my window, really doesn't like tofu. The spider doesn't like it in it's web and it doesn't like to eat it. The experiment ended when the spider went away.
Posted by Dan at September 19, 2004 10:28 PM
Comments
In the interest of scientific integrity, I must ask: did the spider try the tofu? It's possible it could tell it wasn't alive and didn't think it was food (which may just mean it's smarter than we think). If the spider did not try the tofu, if it returns, do me a favor and put the tofu in the microwave or something before putting it out there, so that it gives off some heat. Granted, it will cool, but I can't think of a long-term solution to get it to stay warm. Hide a Christmas tree light (plugged in) in the middle or something, maybe.
Posted by: Chris Riley at September 22, 2004 12:00 AM