Wyszdom

I went for a bike ride on Sunday. This route usually takes me about two hours, but thanks to my computer, this time it took less than ten minutes:

The video was taken with my ContourHD using the handlebar mount. It’s an interesting angle, but the mount doesn’t hold the camera as tightly as I would hope so there is quite a bit of vibration between the camera and the mount, even though the mount itself doesn’t move at all relative to the bike. On an earlier weekend I tried recording with the goggle mount connected to my helmet strap, but that was a bit of a hack and I look around a lot. I have ordered the vented helmet mount though to see if I want to utilize that while biking (for reduced noise) or skiing. Here’s a picture of the camera and mount:

I didn’t use the rubber bands for this video, but I’ve found that they do help to reduce vibration a bit.

Here’s the route I recorded with My Tracks:

View 2-14-2010 in a larger map

It would be really convenient if there was a standard way to record GPS data over time in a video, like how location data is stored in EXIF for photos. There’s at least one video camera coming out that records location data, so we’ll see how they implement things and what video software starts to support doing interesting things with video and location.

Now that I think about it, it’s also disappointing that location awareness isn’t built in to all still cameras yet. Here’s one way we could approach the problem:

Installing a GPS receiver in every camera may not be practical, especially since GPS doesn’t always work, such as indoors. There are other ways to get location data, but adding WiFi and cellular radios is just going to increase costs even more and may even require subscription fees. What you can do is assume that anyone who has a camera also has a phone, and that the phone has some sort of idea about where it is. You can then pair the camera with the phone (via Bluetooth or WiFi; whichever is easier/cheaper), and then with every picture the camera will ask the phone for its location and store it right within the EXIF data for the image. It may not always have a GPS fix, but location data of some accuracy would be recorded with each photo, which would save the photographer from manual location tagging later.

Lately I’ve refrained from constantly making fun of California, even as Nelson has recently become quite the little jokester when it comes to talking about the East Coast. He has the great bit about how the East Coast would react to sunshine.

But today something happened that I felt like sharing. Note that the exchange below is paraphrased and did not actually include a hyperlink.

Nelson: You added a question to the Moderator page for today’s presentation, right?
Me: Well, I had, but I deleted it since it’s no longer relevant. I posted it a few weeks ago before the meeting was postponed. Remember they rescheduled it?
Erin: Oh, yeah, on the day of the storm.

“The Storm?” I wondered to myself as I tried to think back to that day and figure out what she meant. Was it a sporting event that I was unaware of? The name of a Google event I forgot to attend?

Then, I remembered something about that day.

Me: You mean the time that it rained?

We had a good laugh as she confirmed my assumption. I then had one more question:

Me: But we didn’t cancel the meeting because of the rain, right?

Wrong.

If you’ve watched Conan recently, you may have seen him make fun of how Californians react to the rain. It’s not far from the truth:

To those of you who are trying to watch the clips outside of the US or after they expire, I apologize for using Hulu.

P.S. I like California.

I’ve been pretty harsh on California in the past, and I’ve been criticized for it. Even though I opened one of my most controversial posts with “I like California,” I still get the feeling that I’m somehow sending the message that I dislike or even hate California. The truth is, I like it, and I’ll try to explain a few reasons why.

The climate

Having no significant weather is incredibly convenient. When an outdoor event is scheduled during the summer, the chance that it will be affected by rain is nearly 0%. Back east, I think my family is batting about .500* for graduations. As I’ve more recently discovered, the absence of winter means that I’m able to comfortably ride my bike all year. Which brings me to…

Bicycle access

As both a driver and an “avid cyclist,”** I’m a big believer that bikes and cars don’t mix well. But even though there seem to be more bikers here, the situation is better than most other places thanks to extensive coverage of bike lanes and some pretty good bike trails. I can ride from my apartment to work on a route that’s mostly a paved trail, with only a short portion on the roads which have 100% bike lane coverage.

The people

The people here are pretty chill. In fact, they’re chill enough to use “chill” as an adjective. If you use your turn signal, for example, there’s a pretty good chance that someone will allow you to move into their lane. (I’m of course talking about Northern California.) In general, there is a distinct lack of urgency in everyday activities, and I think it helps people to avoid stress. Of course like some other items in this list, this trait isn’t always a positive.

The work thing

Purely based on my work situation, I’m in the perfect location. My commute to work is less than 10 minutes. Even though we have offices all over the country and around the world, I’m pretty sure that Mountain View is the only place where I’d be able to get away with having such an easy commute and not having to live in a city. And once I get to work, I’m at the famed Googleplex. Even after over three years of going there nearly every weekday, I still often sit back and think to myself how cool it is to be where I am.

In-N-Out Burger

It’s usually the last meal I have before I leave the state and the first one I have when I return.

* I know very little about sports, but I’m pretty sure I used that correctly.
** I’ve joked at work that this is a requirement for being in a product demo video.

You’re not allowed to touch many things at the NASA Exploration Center, but you do get to touch this:

If you’ve ever dealt with Best Buy or Comcast before, you can stop reading.

I’m about to start working on a bandwidth-intensive personal project that will require decent upload speeds. Even though I have the fastest available AT&T DSL package, it would be painfully slow to use for this project, so I decided to temporarily switch to my other “favorite” provider, Comcast. Since I want Internet only, and Comcast hates to give reasonable prices to Internet-only customers (or even list the prices on their website), I decided to order through Best Buy since they’re always running some sort of promotion. Currently, I can get the “Blast” service (the fastest option that wouldn’t require me to buy a new modem), for about $30/month for three months, before it shoots up to like a zillion dollars. That’s actually a few dollars cheaper than what I’m paying for my super-slow DSL, and three months should be plenty of time for me to complete the bulk of my project.

After I went through the signup process in the store, I was handed a piece of paper and told that all I needed to do was call Comcast and give them my modem’s MAC address. Sounded easy enough, even though I knew I’d have to be routed around a bit since he circled the “professional installation” number. I asked if I had to pay anything or do anything else, and was told that no, I was all set, so I left and went about my day.

Well, tonight I called Comcast, and they didn’t have me anywhere in their system. I gave them my name and zip code, spelled my last name a bunch of times (always fun over the phone), and the “Comcast confirmation number” on the receipt. No entries were found for any of those, and the Comcast guy was pretty apologetic. He tried to send me off to billing, but they were already closed for the evening (It was 9 PM Pacific).

At the end of the call, I noticed on the printout that even though I already had the Comcast confirmation number, I probably should have been directed to the checkout counter to have them scan the paper and activate the account. Why I should have carried a piece of paper from one end of the store to the other and dealt with two different people is pretty stupid, but I guess that’s what should have happened. Of course the store is closed now, so I’ll have to continue this adventure tomorrow after work.

You’d think that in Silicon Valley everyone would be hooked up to some blazingly fast affordable fiber and commuting to work on Segways, but that’s disappointingly not the case at all. I can get FiOS in my small hometown of Doylestown, Pennsylvania, but in my apartment just down the street from Palm, I have to choose between AT&T and Comcast. I need to get out of here.

Update: I win, Best Buy definitely loses, and Comcast is kind of okay:

I went back to Best Buy today and had the cashier scan the paper. It printed out the same receipt I got last time, and she had no idea what it was for so I was sent to customer service. Customer service sent me back to the Geek desk. The told me the same thing they did last time. I certainly had my doubts about whether or not this particular store was able to accomplish anything, so I went to another Best Buy. They don’t sell Comcast stuff at all. I went back to my apartment, convinced that my call to Comcast would not go well.

When I called, of course they didn’t have my information. I was about to just beg them to give me the discounted price ($30/month for 3 months) and forget about the whole Best Buy referral, but the agent beat me to it. He said if I signed up through him, I’d get the “Blast” service for $30/month for a full year, and $25 installation. That sounded fine to me.

Then came the eye-rolling part. He asked when he could install (he talked about the installation in the first person, as if he would personally be coming out), and told me there’s no option for self-installation. I didn’t have my calendar in front of me, but I said that Thursday between 4 and 6 would be fine since Thursdays are generally free. It turns out I have a meeting until 4:30, but I’m hoping we’ll get out early.

Update 2 on 6/22/09: Never mind, getting cable still sucks.

First Comcast tech came on Thursday. After two hours, he was not able to connect me to anything, said he was sorry, and left. On Friday, a different tech called me at 3:00 and told me he was 10 minutes away. I explained to him that like most people, I was still at work at 3:00 on a weekday. So, we scheduled something for Saturday. He came by, and after about an hour found that the line to my apartment had been cut, probably during a renovation to my building. He said he was off to talk to the leasing office and I haven’t heard from Comcast (or the leasing office) since.

Update 3 on 6/23/09: Third time’s a charm? We’ll see.

Since I hadn’t heard from Comcast since Saturday, I tried contacting them to see what the issue was. The chat support was pretty useless, but they finally gave me a phone number for the installation. When I explained my situation, the agent on the phone said that all I needed to do was schedule them to come out and finish the job, so I did. My guess is that the technician will probably just let me know that nobody reconnected the lines and that I’m still out of luck. But you never know. I might be surprised. Things will be so much easier when I’m famous and complaining on my blog actually does something.

Update 4 on 6/27/09: Just as I suspected.

On Thursday, the leasing office called me about the situation and said that they have an agreement with some tech who handles the complex’s wiring, and that they would be getting back to me on Friday. They didn’t. Earlier today, the previously scheduled appointment time came and went. About 45 minutes after the scheduled 2-hour window, Comcast tech #3 did show up. I asked him if he knew about the situation with the wiring. Of course he didn’t. What was impressive this time was how quickly he was able to confirm that the line was indeed not connected. It took the first tech over two hours to give up, but this guy left after about 10 minutes. He said he’s going to report back to his office about it.

Update 5 on 6/30/09: Connected.

My leasing office called me yesterday and said they could send someone out this morning, and I didn’t even need to be there. Cool. While I was at work today, they called and let me know that I was reconnected, and that the tech wanted to make it clear to me that all of my splitters may hurt my signal quality. I guess he didn’t get the memo that I just want Internet service, but whatever, I’m actually not using any splitters. In fact, here’s how my modem is connected:

I think the cable is three feet long.

When I got back to my apartment, I connected the modem. More lights turned on than before, so that was a good sign. I opened Safari, and got redirected to a Comcast page. Another good sign. At this point, I was so happy to be almost online that I didn’t even bother trying to thwart their installation wizard, hoping that I could get online without having to talk to Comcast again. I downloaded the wizard and opened it. I got through a few steps, but then got stuck when it asked me for my account number, which I didn’t have. It told me that if I didn’t know my account number, I could enter my address and phone number if I followed the link at the bottom of the page. There was no link at the bottom of the page. I called Comcast. Here are my notes of how it went down:

Comcast: “If you have no Internet connection, press 1.”
Me: [1]
Comcast: “We’re experiencing high call volume. We recommend that you visit comcast.net.”

If I don’t have an Internet connection, they recommend I visit a website? I don’t have much time to ponder this though, as surprisingly, they answer almost immediately.

I provide my phone number. No account listed. I give my name, and they find me and put me on hold. I then find out that my original order was cancelled and converted to a maintenance order, which was completed this morning. They needed to redo my order. I told them fine, give me the “Blast” service for $30/month for 12 months. I got to hear the agent breathe for a few minutes before putting me on hold and transferring to sales.

Sales said sure, they can hook me up, and I just need to schedule an appointment. I told them that I was able to download the wizard, so I’m obviously connected and there’s no reason anyone needs to come out. I just want the account number. I’m put on hold.

He comes back on and in a mildly threatening tone said, “Okay, but if there’s an issue, we’ll need to send someone out.”

I tell him, “Okay. If there’s an issue, you can send someone out.”

I’m given the account number and the call ends. I try it immediately in the wizard and it doesn’t work. I don’t give up though. I restart the wizard. Upon restart, it tells me, “Uninstall complete.” I start the wizard again. This time I make some progress.

When I get to the profile creation screen, I’m told that my password must only contain letters, numbers, dashes, and underscores. Got it, next. Now I’m told that my password won’t work because it can only contain letters and digits. Fine, I adapt to the situation and move on. I’m told that on the next screen I’ll install some McAfee thing that probably doesn’t even exist for the Mac. At this point I’m taken to some screen telling me the benefits of the McAfee product with no buttons to push. I try quitting and it doesn’t like that, so I force quit the app, which with its last breath screams at me to restart my computer to finish the process. Seeing that I have no Internet connection, I comply.

After restarting, w00t, I have Internet access. Who knows what the installer did to my computer, but I’ll be wiping the system in a couple of months anyway when Snow Leopard is released.

I run a speed test and get over 15 Mbps up. The upload is looking good when my connection dies completely. I can’t get anywhere. A minute later, it’s back up. Should I get used to this?

After reconnecting the modem to my router and restarting it, all seems well. I decide to make another call to Comcast to make sure that I still got my $29.99/month for 12 months deal, but the billing office is closed at 8:01 PM. I try calling AT&T to cancel my DSL service, and they’re closed too.

Two more calls to make tomorrow and then I hope this will be over.

In case you missed it:

I’m watching right now. Filing this under “California” since he’s come to the west side. Weird.

I attended my first Maker Faire today. If you want to see some of the fun stuff I experienced, check out my photos and videos.

Some of my favorites:

Ever see two large Tesla coils in action? It’s pretty fun, and they’re my second favorite thing named after Nikola Tesla:

Monkey Lectric was letting people draw on bike wheels using LEDs. I drew this:

From Maker Faire 2009

After my design was scanned, it appeared on a spinning bike wheel:

From Maker Faire 2009

EepyBird was there too. They’re famous as the “Diet Coke and Mentos Guys.” They explained why they use that specific combination, since putting just about anything bumpy (like your finger) in a carbonated liquid will cause some amount of bubbles to appear in a process called nucleation. You can read more about it, but the basic takeaways are that mint-flavored Mentos are blasted with over 40 layers of sugar, and therefore especially bumpy. Diet soda is used for the performers’ sake, because it is sugarless and therefore healthier not sticky. Here’s a shot of them in action:

From Maker Faire 2009

And one of their more recent experiments, which has been seen by the inventor of Post-it notes:

I didn’t buy any crafts to bring home, but there was one that I wanted to:

From Maker Faire 2009

I’ll have to bring more cash next time.

Special thanks to Tiffany and Mohit for giving me a ride back to my (non-electric) car.

Where I live now does not have lightning, which I guess is nice since it’s safer, but I miss thunder. And you know what else I just learned we don’t have here? Lightning bugs. How am I supposed to see at night?

Ai, Nelson’s favorite pronoun, is mad at me. Why? Because she’s offended by weather. Yeah, it sounds crazy, but this is how girls think. So, Ai, allow me to say here on my blog, from the bottom of my heart, that I’m sorry.

Here’s what went down. Last night, at an event organized by Ai, we surprised Nelson with a birthday dinner at Vung Tau in San Jose. It was my first time at a Vietnamese restaurant, and while I was terrified of what I might eat, the food actually very good, including some spongy vegetable I had never seen before in an unidentified soup. That part of the evening went pretty well, and I even brought a sufficient amount of cash for when it was time to pay the bill, although I did have to ask for change. (I still I can’t believe that in 2009, cash is something I find myself using, but I could write an entire series of blog posts about how I hate carrying around paper and why restaurants should be better equipped to handle multi-card payments.)

After dinner, we headed to the Peacock Lounge in Sunnyvale. It’s a bar, the type of venue I could write countless more parenthetical complaints about, but I was happy to attend and support Nelson on his birthday. Things were going pretty well, I was doing okay with talking to Nelson’s friends in between segments of faux interest in whatever sports they were showing on the TVs, but then Ai confronted me about something.

“So I was reading your blog,” she said.

“Uh oh,” I replied, secretly thrilled that anyone had read it, regardless of whether or not it was about to lead to me getting yelled at.

She then told me that she had serious issues with what I had said about California in one post. She claimed that I said that I wouldn’t miss my friends, and called my description of weather and seasons (for the benefit of Californians) “condescending.”

She schooled me a bit on her history with, “I spent some time living in Illinois. I know what weather is.”

My post was meant to exclude Californians who had spent some time living in Illinois, but I forgot to explicitly state that so again, Ai, I’m sorry.

At the time, I was fatigued and not thinking straight, so I attempted to get out of trouble using logic and not just apologizing. After I pointed out out several flaws in her accusations with quotes from my post, like “I like California,” and “I will miss some people,” she said that it’s not her fault if she misunderstood what I wrote. At this point, I may have, if one interprets my words a certain way, subtly implied that she has poor reading comprehension skills when I told her, “You have poor reading comprehension skills,” and noted that I write at an advanced level. Eventually, when the conversation got to the point of “Oh, boy, she might not be taking this argument as a joke like I am,” (this happens to me a lot) I came to my senses and added this to my Gmail Tasks list on my iPhone: “Apologize to ai because girls are scary and I always agree with them as a life rule.”

So why did I decide to apologize? It’s a defense mechanism I’ve developed over time, and it’s part of a (previously) strategy that I think I’ve only shared with Ted until now. Two main rules of this strategy are:

1. In an argument where you are forced to take sides, always agree with the girl.
2. When in doubt, apologize.

Let’s go over #2, since it is the relevant rule here: When in doubt, apologize. Even if I think it’s a situation where there is no argument and nobody should feel guilty, I just play it safe and fill any awkward silences or otherwise confusing moments with an apology. Let’s see if it saves me this time around.

I thought of a fun experiment tonight but decided not to go through with it. It would most likely be a complete dud and a waste of 140 characters or fewer, but it also had the potential to have unintended bad consequences.

I thought it would be fun to tweet something like this:

Did you feel it? Tag your tweet with #bayareaquake030209 and include your coordinates. Some back/forth, no damage at 37.428746,-122.170672

I might have also asked a few friends to play along to get things going. Then I would sit back and see if, by the power of suggestion, others “feel” a quake. And since I would have location data, it would be interesting to see where the “epicenter” ended up.

I figured an earthquake would be good because its lack of noise. “Did you hear it?” or “Did you smell it” questions had a might higher potential for legitimate non-suggested “Yes” answers. I also thought it would be safe. An earthquake generally lasts for less than a minute and then is over, so if someone read my tweet and wasn’t injured, they would know that they did not need to worry about it.

But you just never know. I’m not a psychologist, and even officially sanctioned experiments can get out of control, as anyone who has taken Psych 101 has already learned. So, I decided to just share the idea in a blog entry.

Speaking of experiments going bad, a couple of weeks ago I turned on the TV and found that Howie Do It was on. I think it’s NBC’s way of punishing people for staying at home and watching TV on a Friday night. Anyway, in one segment of the hidden-camera show, they convince someone that he’s a contestant on a crazy Japanese game show. As part of the game’s rules, he needs to shock his teammate. The first few shocks appear temporarily painful, and the last one “kills” the teammate, who is really just acting. I really can’t believe that none of the producers, writers, or legal staff stopped this from happening, as it so closely mirrors an infamous experiment from the 1960s in which participants believed they were shocking (and possibly killing) another person. Read about the “Milgram experiment” if you want to learn more.

Also related is a show on ABC called What Would You Do? which is actually quite interesting once you get over the absence of Marc Summers. What I like about this show is that (I hope) people who watch it are more likely to take action in situations where they might have otherwise turned a blind eye, even if they are only doing something with the hope that they are being taped and will appear heroic on national television.

Ok, back to my personal study on sleep deprivation.