I just got an update from Dell.
The Dell laptop I ordered back on the 8th of June with priority shipping has been delayed yet again. The new and improved delivery date will be around July 6th.
Almost a month for a damn laptop? When a Mac that was ordered on the 10th arrived on the 16th direct from China?
From now on I’ll be sure to tell anyone that asks my professional opinion about Dell to expect about a 30 day delay in their order and to plan accordingly.
About to get hit by a hurricane? NOAA has some great hurricane preparedness tips, but I think they’re missing just a few things…
Get a generator! I highly recommend getting one if you have an enclosed patio space or backyard. Having power for a two hour downtime is convenient, but having power for a 24 hour downtime is a lifesaver. You do need to keep the generator completely outside for ventilation, though. I got a basic Champion generator from Sam’s for around $300 that does most everything I need for temporary power outages.
Calculate the gasoline requirements for the generator. If your generator will run for 10 hours on 3 gallons of gasoline, then a 5 gallon gas container won’t get you past 24 hours of continuous runtime. Invest in a 10 or 20 gallon gasoline container if your area is prone to long delays in power restoration. When the crisis is over, just pour the extra gasoline into your vehicle’s gas tank.
Get 10 or 12 gauge extension cord for your generator. Use these to run from your generator into your home. You can get them from Sam’s or Lowes. Anything less (like a plain household extension cord) and you run the risk of melting the extension cords if you put too much load on them.
Pre-layout your generator extension cords. This is a real timesaver so you don’t have to do everything in the dark. I usually open the sliding glass door from the patio and run the extension cord from the generator through the crevice. Then I put some wide masking tape from the top of the crevice down to the extension cord on the floor to keep the bugs out. Then all I have to do is go out the side garage door and start the generator if the power goes out.
Have a “core” area for all the power. Have a centralized area in your home where the main extension cord from the generator will run and have the essentials are ready to go. A fan and a lamp are good starters, but a small TV and maybe a DVD player and small microwave are great additions if your generator can handle it.
Check your generator load level. Every generator has a load indicator that says how it is doing. Make sure you don’t overload your generator with too many things plugged in at once.
Refrigerator planning. Before the hurricane hits, take out anything that doesn’t have to be in the refrigerator and put it aside. (Sodas, alcohol and condiments come to mind.) The less that’s in the refrigerator, the easier it is to cool what remains. If the power goes out, the items in the refrigerator will usually stay for a long time if you just keep the doors closed. If the power is out for a prolonged period, you may want to occasionally plug in the refrigerator into the generator to let it cool back down a little.
Keep some water in an ice chest. Keeping an ice chest full of ice and bottled water on the side of the refrigerator will let the refrigerator stay cool by not having to open the doors all the time to get a drink.
Gorilla Tape > Duck/Duct Tape. Seriously. Keep a roll handy for quick fixes. Plan on a little paint coming off of whatever you put the Gorilla tape on though!
Gorilla Tape your trash bin and recycling lids down. There’s nothing worse than finding out your trash and aluminum cans are all over the neighborhood after a hurricane passes.
Gorilla Tape the base of doors you’re going to sandbag. Sandbags are good to barricade the bottom of doors to keep water from coming in, but the gorilla tape will add an extra layer of flood protection.
Get a tarp. A tarp and some Gorilla Tape can quick-patch a hole in your home before it gets any worse. Tarps are about $10 at Sam’s and they’re remarkably useful.
Camping stove + propane = hot food. You don’t have to go to a speciality store like Academy or Cabela’s to find a good propane camping stove. WalMart, Sams and Target carry a good variety, ranging from a simple single-burner setup to a oven-style-four-burner family cookout model. Grab one of those camping stoves, some matches and a few cans of propane to power them, and you can have hot food in the middle of the outage! Cans of Sterno work well too.
Charcoal + outdoor grill = hot food. A lot of times, people forget to buy a bag of charcoal before a hurricane. Depending on how long the power is out, you can make a cookout to take care of any leftover food in the refrigerator.
Gather the emergency service numbers now. Looking for the gas company’s emergency number when the area reeks of natural gas/mercaptan is too dangerous. Get all the utility company numbers ready to go before the storm arrives.
Get training pads for any pets that will be indoors. Pets that are indoors during a big storm will probably have to “go” at some point. Putting training pads on the floor will help them keep their business in one area.
UPDATE 06/30 : If it’s expensive, completely unplug it. Yes, surge suppressors will stop a moderate power surge. But a hurricane dishes out lightning on a very large scale. If you paid a lot of money for it, unplug it completely from the wall to keep it safe.
Hopefully Alex will only get to a Category 1 hurricane and this will just be a lot of water and not much of anything else.
Alex storm status as of 062910
Alex storm status as of 062910 B
In an earlier post, I mentioned that back on the 8th of June I ordered a laptop from Dell and that I also ordered a Mac laptop on the 10th of June. Both had similar configs and identical shipping preferences, but the Mac got to me first on June 16th.
It’s been one week with the new Mac, and I’ve been happily running Windows 7 and Vista under Parallels and running the latest Ubuntu and assorted miscellaneous server images under VMware Fusion. All this in addition to the usual Mac software I’ve had installed on my previous laptop.
The Dell was supposed to ship on June 24th. Today the status changed to say the new and improved estimated shipping date is June 30th.
Over three weeks to get a laptop? Dude! Not funny!
My new MacBook Pro decided it needed a few updates while I was on the road recently.
New Mac, Mo' updates
That’s about 1 gig out of my monthly 5 gig limit lost to system updates.
Who in their right mind thinks 5 gigabytes is “more than enough” again?
I ordered a laptop from Dell back on the 8th of June. It’s a standard 14″ Dell Studio 1458 with 6 gigs of memory and a 500 gig hard drive. I upgraded the ram, the hard drive, added Office and upgraded to Windows 7 Ultimate, but left everything else “stock” from the factory. It cost around $2k when I was done with it.
On June 10th, I ordered a Mac Book Pro with a 13.3″ screen, 8 gigs of memory, and a 500 gig hard drive. I upgraded the ram and the hard drive, but left everything else “stock” from the factory. It also cost around $2k when I was done with it.
Both laptops were set to ship two-day express once they were built and ready.
The Mac arrived today, June 16th, direct from SHANGHAI, CN (according to FedEx).
The Dell is still “in production” with a delivery estimate of “June 24th”.
That’s still about a week and a day from now.
Dude. Where’s my Dell?
I thought I would post one of my wireless bills from Sprint to show how nuts things are here in the US internet-connection wise.
I’m on their only wireless plan that offers 5 gigabytes of bandwidth a month. Anything past that… well, they will just charge you a “small .05 cent overage fee” per megabyte.
So every month I keep a log for that device, and I see during that particular month I updated two mac laptops through the OS’ built-in system update, downloaded 20 YouTube videos, grabbed 28 free iTunes music downloads, 30 free iTunes apps, and 30 Amazon music downloads. That’s all I did on that one device. No other surfing, video, uploading, downloading… nada.
My overage fee? $82.76. For a grand total of $151.93 for one month of highly restrained internet use.
Check it out.
$82.76 for 1.7 gigs?
Wanna make money? Get into the ISP/bandwidth business.
I was catching up on my magazine subscriptions this weekend and saw an letter written to American Cop in the May/June 2010 issue that really got me thinking.
A letter from Robert Phair in Ketchikan, Alaska had a really straightforward premise that I’m surprised no one has picked up on yet.
I’m going to post his letter in its’ entirety between the dash-lines and hope nobody minds too much…
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“WORK FOR FOOD
I’d like to add my input to the current debate on the right to own an exercise machine, etc, (Return Fire Mar/Apr 2010). Anything a free man desires to buy or have as a result of his wealth or labor is okay as long as he, by doing so, doesn’t take away the similar rights of his fellow citizens.
Those who are rightfully incarcerated have, by definition, forfeited the right to freedom and the pursuit of happiness. Our jail inmates are even provided meals, at no cost, by the state. In Mexico, as I’m sure you know, one has to earn the money to buy his own food. I like that idea personally, as it teaches a citizen it’s his responsibility to earn his own living – a lesson apparently missed by most of those who wake up and find themselves in jail.
-Robert Phair, Ketchikan, Alaska”
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Wow.
This is brilliant.
I completely agree with Robert’s sentiments. Having prisoners work for their own food is no more “cruel and unusual” as any of us having to go to work every day so we can have something to eat when we get hungry.
Aside from the brilliant object lesson for each inmate, this idea would save each state thousands of dollars for each prisoner. If each meal costs $4, each prisoner every year costs $4,380 just to feed ($4 * 3 meals a day = $12. $12 * 365 = $4,380).
With 2,424,279 inmates in 2008, $4,380 * 2,424,279 comes out to $10,618,342,020!! $10.6 billion!!
I can think of a lot of things to spend $10.6 billion on.
Time to write the local state reps.
You can read back issues of American Cop by visiting their website and looking in the digital archive. The issue with Robert Phair’s letter is the May/June 2010 edition, page 11.
BTW, I think it’s very impressive that American Cop has their back issues online for everyone to read for free. You can also email, print, or PDF them all! I’ll be renewing my subscription just for that feature!
Why am I such a big advocate of science? Why is it important to keep things like the space shuttle, deep sea exploration, the LHC and every other complex scientific project funded, operational and moving forward?
Right here.
This little 8 month old baby just heard his first sounds.
Awesome.
It’s the end of an era. The space shuttle Atlantis made it back home safely today and is now officially retired after 25 years of service. Unfortunately there are only two missions left for the space shuttle program before it is completely discontinued.
So how is this fairly important event covered in the mainstream media?
The space shuttle was so incredible, it became commonplace. Launches were no more spectacular or captivating in the last few years than it was to start a car or make a pot of coffee. But every single time those rockets lit, it took several human beings and the best tools we have right now to the edge of space and then brought them all back. Over and over and over. It went, it came back. It went, it came back.
And now one of the greatest tools and greatest accomplishments science has ever made is now archived. Retired. And the news of this epic denouement is almost muted in the background because of all the constant problems still running rampant in the world.
Ugh.
So now what? Unmanned rockets? Relying on Russia to deliver our cargo into space? Privatization of space travel where only the über-wealthy can go for the novelty of it? Letting the military have the only shuttle program? Chopping up the shuttle and selling it for parts?
Where’s the impetus to further science? Where’s the drive to see what’s what’s out there? What’s the plan for the next step forward here?
Nuts. Nuts to all of this.
Here’s the official press release from NASA…
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RELEASE: 10-124
SPACE SHUTTLE ATLANTIS RETURNS HOME AFTER ITS FINAL PLANNED MISSION
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Space shuttle Atlantis and six astronauts ended a 12-day journey of more than 4.8 million miles with an 8:48 a.m. EDT landing Wednesday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The third of five shuttle missions planned for 2010, this was the last scheduled flight for Atlantis. The mission, designated STS-132, delivered the Russian-built Mini Research Module-1 to the International Space Station. Also known as Rassvet (“dawn” in Russian), the module provides additional storage space and a new docking port for Russian Soyuz and Progress spacecraft.
Ken Ham commanded the flight and was joined by Pilot Tony Antonelli and Mission Specialists Garrett Reisman, Michael Good, Steve Bowen and Piers Sellers.
The mission’s three spacewalks focused on replacing and installing components outside the station, including replacing six batteries, installing a communications antenna and adding parts to the Canadian Dextre robotic arm.
A welcome ceremony for the astronauts will be held Thursday, May 27, in Houston. The public is invited to attend the 4 p.m. CDT event at Ellington Field’s NASA Hangar 990.
Highlights from the ceremony will be broadcast on NASA Television’s Video File. For NASA TV downlink information, schedules and links to streaming video, visit:
STS-132 was the 132nd shuttle flight, the 32nd flight for Atlantis and the 34th shuttle mission dedicated to station assembly and maintenance.
With Atlantis and its crew safely home, the stage is set for the launch of shuttle Discovery on its STS-133 mission, targeted to lift off in September 2010. Discovery’s flight will deliver the Leonardo Permanent Multipurpose Module to house experiments. STS-133 also will bring critical spare components and a cargo carrier to the station. Robonaut 2, or R2, will be the first human-like robot in space when it flies on Discovery to become a permanent resident of the station.
For more information about the STS-132 mission and the upcoming STS-133 flight, visit:
For information about the space station, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/station
Way back in December, I ranted about how a 5 gigabyte limit on internet connection plans are completely unrealistic.
Late last night I was updating one of my laptops and found this in the update que.
1.31 out of 5 gone
1.31 gigabytes of core system updates. That’s 26.2% of my monthly allocated bandwidth gone in one night.
On a related note, I think it’s nucking futs that 1.31 gb of data still takes 5 hours to download on one of the major (and better) wireless companies in the United States. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is laughing at us coming in at 28th place in the internet connection speed race! You know things are bad when France is royally beating us senseless, too.
Anybody who says 5 gigabytes is more than enough for one month of internet use needs to leave the 1990’s behind and get some new tech.