Bitter Truth by William Lashner

Bitter Truth by William Lashner.

What's it look like at the summit of Mount Everest?

I found this super-cool panoramic view from the summit of Mount Everest (Chomolungma or Qomolangma in Tibetan meaning "Mother Goddess of the Universe", Sagarmatha in Nepalese meaning "Goddess of the Sky"). Click and drag to rotate the view. You can see the route up to the top by looking for the climbers in red gear and following the ridge (the Cornice traverse) back to the South Summit. Here's a picture from another expedition courtesy of Project Himalaya showing the summit.



Climbers usually spend less than half an hour at the summit, enough to take a picture or two, because of the need to descend to a lower camp before nightfall or before inclement weather sets in. People can only survive at these altitudes for two or three days. Click here to see a virtual ascent of Everest with video clips.

I first started getting interested in Everest when I read Jon Krakauer's amazing book Into Thin Air. Here's a picture of Mount Everest courtesy of the Sydney Morning Herald. Check out the plume of snow coming off the summit, Everest actually extends into the jet stream most of the year with gusts over 100 miles per hour.

New TiVo pages

I updated the Electronics page, and created a couple of new pages. The TiVo page has the TiVo links that used to reside on the Electronics page, and includes a blog of my TiVo Season Passes. I put in the first twelve of about forty-five, I'll be adding the rest over the next couple of days and updating it as I change my season passes. I also created a page for my Diary of a TiVo Hack since the original post on the TiVo Community Forum has long since been dead.

It's been a while since I added new content, and I was surprised to find that more than half of the external links were dead. That probably means that I am behind in reviewing and updating the content.

You can find the latest changes to the site here.

New TiVo pages

I updated the Electronics page, and created a couple of new pages. The TiVo page has the TiVo links that used to reside on the Electronics page, and includes a blog of my TiVo Season Passes. I put in the first twelve of about forty-five, I'll be adding the rest over the next couple of days and updating it as I change my season passes. I also created a page for my Diary of a TiVo Hack since the original post on the TiVo Community Forum has long since been dead.

Online shopping

I buy a lot of stuff online. I don't like to shop, but I do like to buy things, and online you can find just about anything. Like desert camo low-rise Chuck Taylors. For some things there's no substitute for going to the mall or department store or whatever, and there are other things that aren't practical to ship because they are too heavy or bulky or inexpensive. The online groceries sites flamed out. I had a buddy who was part of a widely anticipated IPO called garden.com which didn't turn out like they'd hoped. Most everything else you can get online faster cheaper, and better. Online, everything's in stock, since they will just ship it from wherever it is in the world to you. Usually there's no state sales tax, unless the outfit has a retail outlet in that state. Often for significant orders (more than $25 at Amazon, for example) delivery is free. And even though you don't get it in your sweaty hands immediately, there is a form of instantaneous gratification when you click on the "Buy Now" button.

Things I've bought online
Car (1982 Toyota Land Cruiser on eBay Motors)
Stereo equipment
Clothes
Bedding
Toothbrushes
This computer (Dell)
Books
CD's
Musical instruments
DVD's
Watches
Electronics (my iPod, digital camera, and Bose headphones, for example)
Shoes

I bought my new shoes at zappos.com, it's a great site. I'm a perfect 13, I never have to return shoes because they don't fit, so I can buy them without trying them on. I thought of how much different it was for my parents at my age. And then I remembered when I was about 6 years old, getting shoes in the mail. My mom would have me stand on a piece of paper and trace my feet, and then she'd mail the outline to the shoe store. Years later I asked her how she picked out the styles, and she said "Oh, I just wrote them that you needed dress shoes or sneakers, and they sent them." The Sears catalog originated in 1887, ordering stuff online is no different from ordering from the Sears catalog. Except nowdays instead of taking whatever style they have, you can see every style ever made. The only difference is now you have more information. And that's kind of what the whole internet thing is about, anyway.

Ring of Swords by Eleanor Arnason

Ring of Swords by Eleanor Arnason.

Tipping

Here's an article in a trade magazine that suggests that many restaurants are forgoing the concept of voluntary gratuity for a service charge, and I have mixed feelings about that. A service charge is great when you have to split the bill with a bunch of other folks, it makes everything easier. A service charge benefits the wait staff by eliminating the people who don't tip at all. I've met a couple of people who didn't even understand the concept of tipping, which reminds me of the opening scene in Reservoir Dogs where the Steve Buscemi character refuses to tip on basic principles.


I can't remember stiffing anyone, at least in the last five years or so. I typically tip 20%, and I usually tip at least 15% even if I get bad (for example, indifferent, but not rude) service. If I'm just having drinks, I don't tip the whole 20%, but if I have dinner and drinks, I tip on the total amount (including tax). But it removes the implied incentive of a tip, unless the idea is to add additional tip over and above the service charge. Then it's just a ratcheting up of the cost of the meal. And does the restaurant take a cut of the service charge or does it all go to the staff? I feel like the service charge should completely benefit the staff, or it's just another way for the restaurant to make money, like a cover charge.

Here is a great blog by a waiter in New York, read a couple of his posts about how he gets treated by some of his customers and I think you will agree that they earn their money.

Personal Injuries by Scott Turow

Personal Injuries by Scott Turow.

December 6 by Martin Cruz Smith

December 6 by Martin Cruz Smith.

New Shoes

Top 10 Science-Fiction Films

This list was voted on by IMDB, it's fairly comprehensive, but very much weighted to contemporary films, and includes a lot of non-SF films ("Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit"? "The Incredibles"?) This list was developed by this group of scientists. And this is a great site listing the top 10 Science-Fiction films that never existed.

Here's my list. I didn't include some of the older, dated films, so this is really contemporary science fiction. I also didn't include films like "Back to the Future" and "Lord of the Rings" because they don't meet my definition of science-fiction, so I'll call it hard-science fiction.

Top 10 Contemporary Hard-Science Fiction Films


1) Blade Runner (1982) Dir: Ridley Scott


2) 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Dir: Stanley Kubrick


3) Star Wars (1977)/Empire Strikes Back (1980)


4) Alien (1979) Dir: Ridley Scott/Aliens (1986) Dir:James Cameron


5) The Matrix (1999) Dir: Andy & Larry Wachowski


6) John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) Dir: John Carpenter


7) Minority Report (2002) Dir: Steven Spielberg


8) Terminator (1984)/T2: Judgment day (1991) Dir: James Cameron


9) 12 Monkeys (1995) Dir: Terry Gilliam


10) The Last Starfighter (1984) Dir: Nick Castle

Runners-up (alphabetical)
The Abyss
Battlefield: Earth
Being John Malkavich (great movie)
Brazil (great movie, not really science-fiction)
A Clockwork Orange
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Contact (great book, didn't seem to translate)
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Dr Strangelove
Dune (great book, not as great a movie)
Enemy Mine
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (great movie)
Fifth Element (hardly true science-fiction)
Galaxy Quest
Gattaca
Ice Pirates
Jurassic Park
Men in Black
Metropolis
The Postman
Predator
The Road Warrior/Mad Max/Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
Serenity
Silent Running
Solaris
Solaris: Andrei Tarkovsky
Star Trek series (not great films)
THX-1138
Time Bandits
Total Recall (another Phillip Dick movie, more of an action movie)
Vanilla Sky
War of the Worlds

Devil to the Belt by C.J. Cherryh

Devil to the Belt by C.J. Cherryh.

Site Usage

If you're wondering if you're the only one looking at this web page, I often wonder the same thing. Here's a couple of screen shots from the web statistics that my web host reports.





It looks like I'm averaging about 100 visits a day, which is pretty tiny compared to some of the popular blogs, but someone's reading it, since I don't even hit it every day. The big spike in November was from a post to Fark.com, and the spike in February was another post to Fark. Usage is steadily going up from about 30 visits/day last year to over 100 last month. I won't make a living selling advertising, but I did make $2.20 in referral fees from Amazon last quarter.

How to Buy a Computer (Part 3)

I've been thinking about buying a new computer for the house, see Part 1 of this article. (Note: I actually bought a computer this weekend, and these are the results of my thought process in deciding what to buy.)

On to gas tank size, er, hard drive size. I am of two minds here, the conventional wisdom is to buy a hard drive that will be big enough to last for years, but they are pretty easy to add, and they keep getting cheaper and cheaper, so I think I'll get the standard size (the minimum I'll need in the short term), and then upgrade down the road. I think the same would apply to system memory, it's going to get a lot cheaper if I wait. I ultimately chose to upgrade from the 80 GB data-safe hard drive to the conventional 250 GB hard drive for $1, I thought that was a no-brainer. I already have a 120GB hard drive that I installed in my old computer, I'll just slap that into the new one to transfer all my files and add additional capacity. Since I back up the computer regularly, and I've never lost a hard drive, I think that's the best deal for me. I upgraded the RAM to 1 GB from 500 MB for another $50.

I decided that I didn't need a floppy drive, and a single combo CD-RW DVD-ROM drive was enough. I may need a DVD burner down the road, but they weren't cheap yet, the formats are still being argued about, and I can always add that. I did buy the 13 in 1 card reader, I have one in my HP Compaq laptop, and it is great for my digital camera, I just pull the memory card out of the camera and stick it right into the computer. Easiest solution yet for transferring digital photographs.

I added a TV tuner, it was a pretty expensive option (at $150 discount if you leave it out it is more than the 19" LCD monitor). But I've started to get interested in video, and I bought a super-nice 20" wide-screen LCD monitor a couple of months ago, I think it would be cool to be able to watch and capture TV on the computer. I didn't delete the monitor option either, when I was at El Paso I had a dual monitor setup and it is extremely productive, although now probably one will have the TV running full time. I also went ahead and included the standard modem, just in case I need to send or receive a fax. And I ordered the basic wired mouse and keyboard, the wireless just doesn't do anything for me unless you are working on a laptop.

On to software. More decisions next time.

Going once, going twice, NOT SOLD!

You may have read about me selling my Land Cruiser on eBay here. I started to write this post back in February when it happened, but I didn't publish it right away because it was ongoing, I was still trying to resell the vehicle, and I didn't want anyone to see the discussion and think it was a problem.

The guy who won the Land Cruiser on eBay emailed me four days after the auction was complete and said that he wanted to return it. He found a couple of problems that I wasn't aware of, and needed a reliable vehicle right away. The thing that bothered me the most is that I went overboard to be as honest as I could, he came out and drove the thing, and still wasn't satisfied. I offered to give him some money to fix the things he had found, and he said "no, this just isn't the right vehicle for me". He said he couldn't get it inspected, and I offered to take it to the guy who did the repairs and inspected it last year. He said no, and he wouldn't compromise. Most of the folks I talked to about it said that I should either tell him that a deal's a deal, or that I should keep the $1000 deposit. I ended up agreeing to take back the vehicle, and I offered to write him a check, not knowing that the guy had already stopped payment on his check. Seven days after depositing the check, I checked my balance and there was a debit on my account for the amount, and a couple days after that I got a letter in the mail from my bank saying he had stopped payment on the check and that the bank was taking the money out.

So, never accept a personal check from ANYONE for ANYTHING. They can always take the money back, and you won't know about it for a while. The good news is that he did return the vehicle as promised, and I was able to sell it easily to another bidder in the auction. The bad news is that he was able to violate the entire agreement on a whim, and there's little I can do about it. I can't recover the deposit or the $82 it cost me to list it on eBay in the first place. And I heard on the radio that cashier's checks and money orders are just as bad. They are impossible to validate, and are easily counterfeited. So what do you do? Even wire transfers are reversible nowadays. Requiring cash for a vehicle purchase sounds fishy. But if you want a guarantee, then there isn't anything else as secure.

Of course if you're dealing with people you know, you have some recourse, but for eBay and the other auction sites, it's difficult. These sites rely on their seller ratings for validation. I probably wouldn't have made the grade, since even though I've had a dozen or so successful auctions, this is the first time I was acting as the seller. Anyway, caveat venditor (let the seller beware) is as important a principle as caveat emptor.