Countrywide holds my mortgage.  I’ve been thinking about going to the local credit union and asking if they want to take it over.  The reason would be so that if things get worse before they get better, and something catastrophic happens to Countrywide, whose name I have heard bandied about in this context, I wouldn’t have any problems.

Does that sound like a good plan?  Is that the sort of thing they might consider, given that I have the credit rating and payment history of a god?

Why do I keep asking you things, internet?

Like everyone else in America, I’m taking a good look at my options with regard to the slow yet inexorable coming changeover of the television broadcasting system from standard to high definition.  I’m doing my research, considering various options, and contemplating the way I watch TV and what technology will be needed to continue supporting me in the future.  In other words, I’m shopping online and reading buyer’s guides.

In all this, there is one question, the answer to which is vital to my TV viewing satisfaction, which I have been completely unable to find any information about.  This is the dealbreaker, the issue which will determine the direction of all other decisions.  That question is this:

Will this system/service allow me to watch one program while recording an arbitrary number of other programs being broadcast simultaneously?

I refuse to choose between My Name is Earl and Survivor, or The Office and CSI: Original Recipe.  Last year, the networks put all their buzziest shows up against one another, requiring me to record up to two things at once while watching a third.  I expect this year to be no different.  I like the freedom.  I enjoy having the options.  I wallow in pop culture as transmitted through the cathode ray tube, and I make no apologies for that.  If I am forced to watch fewer things in return for the things I watch being prettier, I will resent that beauty and the companies that put me in that situation, perhaps to the point of giving up non-DVD TV altogether.

Right now, I don’t have any pay channels, such as HBO or Cinemax, because my cable company requires a set-top box to be the first thing the cable plugs into, and that box will only allow one channel through at a time.  Let me clarify:  I gave up nudity for this principle.

The various cable, TV, and satellite companies are all oddly mute on this subject.  Maybe they don’t think it’s as important as I do.  Maybe they know they have nothing to offer, so they just ignore it and hope no one will notice.

So, someone, please, direct me to the companies and technologies I should be looking at.

So, if I stop making my mortgage payments, the government will do something to make sure I don’t lose my house?  Is that how it works now?

I’ve officially signed up for the Step Out to Fight Diabetes walkathon.  I formed a NASA/MSFC team, with the intention of challenging the other NASA centers to try to beat our fundraising total.  I think you have to be in the Huntsville, Alabama, area to join the team, but sponsorships/donations should be possible from anywhere, with the magic of internets.

Here’s the link to my personal Step Out page, where you can sponsor me, join the team, and/or see how well I’m doing in my fundraising efforts.

The team is called NASA/MSFC, and that page lets you see who all the team members are and how much we’ve raised so far.  Pick anyone on the list of members and give them money, if such is your intent.

This means a lot to me.  I hope you’ll consider helping me out.

Tags: Actually important, diabetes

Here’s an interesting thing.  The American Diabetes Association is doing a national fundraiser from September to November called Step Out: Walk to Fight Diabetes.  It’s a walkathon kind of deal, as you may have guessed from the title.  I’m posting this before I sign up, so I’m sketchy on details, but there’s one here in Huntsville and another in Birmingham, about seven different towns in Florida, and two hundred cities in all.  It’s about three miles, I hit people up for donations, and the money goes to a cause close to my heart.  A little down and to the right, to be precise.

Apparently, you can donate through the ADA website, so there’s no downside to my shilling this here.  I don’t think you need to be diabetic to participate, which is good considering that non-diabetics have more feet on average than we do.

Diabetes is ridiculously prevalent in modern society and becoming moreso every day.  Odds are, someone you know has it.  Besides me, that is.  It’s no fun, it’s expensive, and it leads to or exacerbates a whole host of other health issues, one of which will probably eventually be fatal.  Research to date has led to some breakthroughs, but there’s no cure or preventative on the shelf just yet.

Yes, there are awards if I raise $X.  I don’t care.  If I can refuse them and have that value go toward research instead, that’s what I plan to do.

So, yeah.  Check it out.  If you were planning on begging your friends for money and walking three miles anyway, why not do it for a good cause?  It’s 600 calories you weren’t using anyway.  Or, offer me money for my sweat.  Metaphorically; I’m not mailing anything out.

UPDATE:  I’m trying to get my workplace organized to create a national team for this event.  The registration process is a little opaque, so I can’t tell if signing up as an individual would prevent me from joining a team.  Hopefully, it’ll only be a couple of days until I can tell you where to sponsor on my behalf.  If you want to go ahead and set up something now, just pick somebody.  The money all goes to the same place in the end.

Tags: Actually important

In a world where everyone is a witch, would the few people who can touch water and not melt be feared and despised?

Tags: My Weird Brain

I just bought a pair of Galaxy 20″ box fans explicitly for the purpose of taking them apart and reclaiming their motors to my evil intent.  Funny story:  I can’t find any markings anywhere on the packaging or the motor itself giving me any useful technical information.  Rotational speed and torque, specifically.

So I did what any modern American with internet access does:  I Googled it.

It turns out there’s a whole box fan subculture, of which I was previously unaware, whose members, among other things, post videos on YouTube of box fans, assembled or dis-, running or not, singly and in groups.  I can only hope it’s not a sex thing.  It also turns out these particular fans I bought fans have been recalled as a fire hazard, according to the Lasko site, which might explain why they were only twelve bucks.

However, no set of search parameters I can conceive have brought to me the simple tech stats of the motor, without which I can’t do the calculations to size the model flying saucer of my own design I came up with in bed before falling asleep last night.  It’s a big motor; I expect to get a lot of bang out of it.  On the other hand, it’s 1 and 5/8 pounds, so if I make the model too small, it won’t work even if the operating principle is sound.

So, any ideas?  Other than running it, measuring the current used, using that to estimate power consumption, and then applying a few assumed efficiencies and other factors to get a rough idea, that is.  I mean, duh.

Idea:  hot-air dirigible whose upper surface is a solar concentrator focusing at the center of the long axis.  Axis is a tube penetrating and separate from the lifting chamber, with openings front and back, as well as inlet tubes along the sides.  Sun heats the air in the balloon, causing lift.  Simultaneously, it superheats the air in the inner tube, which expels out either the front or back, depending on the positions of various flaps, gates, or valves.  A turbine placed in the flow path provides electricity for onboard systems.

 It would be huge, and has an obvious limitation of daytime only, unless a supplemental heat source is included.  Hot air instead of helium/hydrogen so no special tanking or materials required.  Side inlets also provide steering.  It would look boss.  I’m guessing it would be pretty slow.  Upside, unlimited operation as long as the sun shines and the fabric holds out.  Maybe a retractable insulated topside blanket to extend night utility.

Is there enough energy in sunlight to make this work?  What balloon shape would maximize solar exposure and minimize drag?  Would it be better just to have the turbine generate power for standard propellers?  Less cool, but better?  Probably need internal lens/mirror to regulate lift/propulsion sunlight distribution.

UPDATE:  I don’t know if this picture i’m about to post will show up, or if it will make any sense.  But Bryce requested it, so what the hey.

Okay, I don’t know how to point to a pic on Flickr to make it show up here.  Watch this space.

Tags: My Weird Brain

Monday nights, 9 PM, ABC Family.  The Middleman.  Replays at midnight or full episodes on the web.  It’s funny, fast-paced, silly, clean, sci-fi monster hunting goodness.  Fun for the whole family.  Cheesy in the good way.  Ironically non-self-aware.

Whenever I try to talk something up, I accidentally talk it down instead.  Just go watch it.

Tags: TV

It used to be that if I clicked on a video link in Internet Explorer that didn’t go to an embedded player, then Windows Media Player would start up and the video would start playing while it downloaded ahead of the “now” cursor.  I believe this mystical process is called “streaming.”  Then I imstalled Nero 8 video manipulation software.

(Side note:  I absolutely cannot stand it when freshly installed software assumes it is supposed to be the new default.  This computer existed before you and did just fine, fuck you very much.)

Now, when I click on such a link,  for instance Noobtoob’s latest episode, it insists on downloading it completely before it starts.  I’ve looked on every Setting and Option menu I can find, but nothing helps.  Does anyone know what I’m missing?

Please hold the “Install Firefox” comments.  I’m sure it’s better.  My point is, this used to work and now it doesn’t.  Therefore it’s broken and I want to fix it.

Tags: computers