All about MAME, my Suzuki M109, and other trivia
It looks like my oldest daughter will be attending preschool in the Fall–just two days a week, but nevertheless… this means we’ll be needed a second car. Right now I ride my motorcycle to work most days, but take the PT when it’s raining. But when the three girls have to make a trip to school on a day it’s raining, that won’t be possible. (more…)
I can walk. Or at least, I can put weight on my foot.
Went to the doctor today and had wife and daughter come in to the exam room. EV was nervous at first, but eventually warmed up and wanted to sit with me.
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Ok — not to vent my frustration too wildly, but in the past four days I have seen three cars sporting California “Disabled Person” plates driving like the handicap was mental. 
I don’t mind giving special places to someone disabled (especially a fellow vet, for instance) who has mobility problems, but there ought to be some sort of screening process to prevent the oblivious and outright insane from driving. Instead, we’re apparently providing them with special plates as a warning to other drivers to keep out of their way…
Here’s another option for a bike: The BMW R850.
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With the 850 you get enough power for this to be an “only” bike, but it’s managable enough for a somewhat inexperienced biker like myself. Possibly a better choice than a 650 (which might wind up being underpowered for me, at 6′ 1″ and ~240 lbs) or an 1150 (which is a lot of bike for someone who has been scootering for the last three months and hadn’t ridden before that in about 20 years)
Yuck!
Ever notice how long it takes people to use the “self service” ATM and credit card devices that seem to be ubiquitous in check-out lines these days? There are several reasons for this, one of which is that they are all different–to use one, you swipe your card and press “yes” to approve the amount, to use another, you swipe your card and then sign, and a third type asks you to approve the amount as a final step. Can’t the companies that produce these things agree on a standard, so we don’t have to figure out ten different ways to use POS devices?
Here’s another usability “error”
Notice that the word “Yes” is on the left and the word “No” is on the right? Guess what… to say yes, you push the green button (on the right) and to say no, you push the red button, on the left? Confused yet?
I think POS devides are a nice-to-have convenience, but I really wish that at least a minimum amount of usability work could be done on them before they’re released to torment consumers.
My wife was too sick to travel this week, so instead of a trip to Europe, we took a trip to… downtown San Jose. The WMT was being tented for termites, which meant we had to be out for a few days.
We stayed at the Marriot by the convention center, and it turned out that RoboNexus, a “robotic convention” was happening while we were there. RoboNexus is mainly focused on consumer robotics, but there was also a smattering of commercial and research organizations. It was interesting to talk to one participant in a high school robotic’s program. He was well-spoken and seemed quite knowledgable. The show is small (only about 60% of one of the smaller halls was filled) but it is neat to see how robotics is becoming more accessible to the avergage person.
Now it’s got me thinking about Armatron and Lego Mindstorms!
Bought a Game Cube on eBay last week. It was an auction for the cube, some memory cards, four controllers, and about 10 games. Jennifer and I are enjoying playing “Super Monkey Ball” and Mario Party on the big screen.
If you haven’t played party games on a 6′ x 8′ projected image, you’re really missing something.
Ok, not only is the WordPress blog admin page broken in Blazer (you may be able to excuse a limitation that only occurs for someone who blogs from their PDA) but it’s really screwed up in Opera, too.
I’d really like to see the WordPress people do some cross-browser testing… This thing just doesn’t work well if it’s IE-only. I guess I’ll have to look at some OpenSource options.
Ok, not only is the WordPress blog admin page broken in Blazer (you may be able to excuse a limitation that only occurs for someone who blogs from their PDA) but it’s really screwed up in Opera, too.
I’d really like to see the WordPress people do some cross-browser testing… This thing just doesn’t work well if it’s IE-only. I guess I’ll have to look at some OpenSource options.
Here we are at the Apple Farm in San Louis Obispo. A great getaway, and on the way from LA home. WordPress on the Treo 650 stinks-either because the CSS is non-compliant, or because Blazer sucks. Your pick.