Scrabble this: the warehouse guy at the site rescued another Model M for me. I was in third grade when this was one was manufactured, and now I’m de-gunkifying it and preparing to see if I can put all the keys back on without looking at another keyboard.
This story required a new category.
It is a plea for your help in solving a mystery.
Today I got two voicemails, ostensibly for Larry. The first message is clearly Phil, letting me know that “the girl is here.” I am not aware of any Phils or girls that may be waiting with said Phils. The second message, 18 minutes later, seems to be from the waiting girl in question, reminding Larry that she is still waiting.
Obviously a wrong number, right? Wrong. At the end of the second message, a man in the background clearly says my name, which the caller attempts to repeat before being cut off.
I have absolutely no explanation for this whatsoever.
There is some room for investigation, however, and that’s where you come in. The first caller didn’t hang up for the better part of a minute, and I can make out parts of a low conversation between two men during that time. See if you can decode it. Prizes TBD for the one who solves the mystery, or at least comes up with the most creative solution.
Also of note, gotvoice.com offers a pretty cool free service that pulls voicemail messages from your cell account and converts them to mp3.
Reuters reports that switching to Daylight Saving Time early had no “measurable impact” on power usage. This could be because switching to DST at all has no measurable impact on power usage. Fortunately, I haven’t seen any reports of darkness-induced traffic deaths, so my desire for a statistic measuring gallons of oil per child will go unsatisfied.
We have proved, at least, that it would save more power for our lawmakers to sell their SUVs than it does when they pass boneheaded bills to make it look like they’re doing something about the environment.
Despite being a happy Ubuntu user, I installed Vista last week (for free, courtesy of the UA) on a spare hard drive. I have no desire whatsoever to use it, but it seemed that having a general awareness couldn’t hurt any more than using Lotus Notes on a daily basis does.
I still haven’t used it much, but I have to admit: Vista is pretty. It’s very pretty. And as I said to Cody when he asked for my initial impression, Vista may just out-pretty OS X, but it’s like getting smacked in the face by a really, really beautiful fish.
In fact, it’s so in-your-face pretty that it’s incredibly distracting and unnecessarily CPU/GPU-intensive. The flashy UI adornments don’t give you extra information to help you get your work done; they jump out at you like a 14-year-old attention-whore, screaming “Look at me! I’m so pretty!*”
I stick with my long-standing assertion that OS X tends to get out of your way and let you do what you need to do, where Windows trips you up and expects you to figure it out. And Linux – well, if you don’t like it, hack up obscure config files ’till you do.
Aero Glass/Cataracts interface
* Please enjoy the short version, too. I love these commercials, and they make about as much sense as some of Vista’s prettiness.