There's been a number of negative articles about the Chevy Volt for some reason. Let me tell you, it's the best car I've ever owned. Here are some of the cool things about it (and please feel free to ask anything you'd like to know because a lot of what I'm writing here hasn't been talked about): So I've had it 6 months. And in 6 months of normal driving, I have never had to fill the gas tank. It's still using the gas that came with it from the dealership. Something like 2500 miles so f...
I’ve been an Outlook user for years. But in the past several months, I’ve been migrating more and more to Gmail. The email still goes through our company server to and from ultimately but Gmail is just a better mail reader. Here’s what’s changed: Gmail now has a way of identifying “important” emails. I don’t know how its algorithm works but it works quite well. Gmail has insanely good spam filtering. Gmail has mouse gesture support (I hold down the right mouse butt...
I just got email from Google that they are discontinuing their Google PowerMeter product. Google PowerMeter allows people who have a supported device to track the energy use of their house in real time as well as look at graphs and such to determine what is consuming their energy. It’s like Google web analytics except for electricity. After September 16, it’s gone. Total bummer as it was a very useful service. One I would have been willing to pay for.
My puppy can be pretty disgusting. The things it tries to eat. The things it rolls in. It’s all bad news. And if it’s an indoor dog, it becomes your problem. And I have to say, I’m glad I waited until after having 3 children because when it’s your own child, you grin and bear it as you learn to deal with icky gross stuff. By the time you get the dog, you’re numb.
So this weekend I had to take my boat out of the water. In the process I had to wade into water that was up to my waste. Unfortunately, my iPhone was in my pocket. Like an idiot, I immediately try to turn it on and got just the Apple logo which came on and then would go off. After a few tries of turning it on and off, I didn’t even get the Apple logo. Ruined. Dammit. $500. @#$@#$@#! So then I started searching online. Surely, I wasn’t the first person who had done this. I found lo...
I've been online since I was 15. That was 25 years ago. Back then, it was BBSes using C-net 10.0. You could say that I've grown up entirely living online. Before people used twitter for facebook to express their every inappropriate thought, I was mouthing off on things that I really shouldn't be mouthing off on (or at least, things that shouldn't be held up to scrutiny). This year I started to live life in "the real world". And to give you just an idea of how out of touch with...
Once upon a time… A city level in War of Magic had two key game mechanics attached to it. First, it determined what improvements you could build. The higher the level, the more powerful improvements you could construct. But secondly, it limited the number of improvements you could build as well. Unfortunately, this had the effect of being very frustrating to users who quickly discovered that they couldn’t get their settlement to the next level without wrecking somethin...
Most of the excitement in the Elemental universe has been about Fallen Enchantress. But War of Magic continues to move forward too, albeit in a different direction. There’s a lot of changes in v1.3 to gameplay that I’ll talk about later but one change that I’m working on is the scaling of costs of things in terms of population. As many people know, in “the real world” it’s one thing to find one specialist nearby for your company but it gets progressively more difficult t...
After years of waiting, I’ve gotten the Chevy Volt. I’ll be doing a more thorough review shortly after I’ve had more time to evaluate it.
Bailey and her mother Hara and 8 siblings.
Our newest family edition. Bailey. Our Entlebucher.
Every time I announce to family and friends what noon kooky thing I’m going to try, people assume that I’ll grow tired of it and quit doing it. My poor wife, however, knows differently and has gone from being supportive to dread when I start brain storming some hair brained thing I’d like to try. I think the bees were the tipping point where she realized that once I pick up a hobby, I’ll stick to it. Obviously there’s finite time in the day so hobbies to displace other activitie...
I do a lot of interviews. But I’m doing fewer and fewer of them as time goes on because it seems like the odds it’ll create negative PR increases as our company becomes more successful. If you do an hour long interview, you provide a lot of potential fodder. How it is used often depends on the “narrative” that the journalist is trying to get your interview to fit. That is, often there is a headline that the journalist is looking for and will scour your words to find something that can be fi...
Has anyone ever noticed that people, with pride, will often say that they would choose X over Y even if it were easier to get rich (or richer) if they chose Y but when they read about someone else doing the same they’re shocked?