f(x) = ?

Per my post yesterday on the DVR capacity: I have discovered an oddity. It goes like this:
- only "Project Runway" on DVR (1 hr): 9% full
- "Project Runway" and two "Fox News with Brit Hume" (each 1 hr): 12% full

So we can clearly see that the DVR storage is strongly nonlinear. If the first hour is 9% and the next two are only 3% combined, well, the next hundred hours should only be some percentage where x < 1%. Thus, I should be able to get, generally estimated, about 1 million hours on this thing.

This is a prime example of how mathematicians would think and why pure math is boring, misleading, and boring. Engineers rule, others drool.

Churning along

When you have a baby on the way there is always this little countdown clock in the back of your mind. It is gently telling you that you don't get to put off things anymore. If you want to get them done, now is the time. This is mainly driving me to complete a number of the house tasks that I had been putting off, like getting someone to fix our siding or some painting.

People have attempted to tell me that life is not ending, but I think they are lying. That's also my feeling on the "kids are the greatest thing ever" line I keep getting told. There are two possibilities:
1. Kids really are the greatest thing ever.
2. The parents are lying and trying to trap you in the same place they are. That way they (1) commiserate and (2) ensure more taxpayers to fund their retirement.

Although I'm pretty sure kids are great and all I've heard plenty of curses both from my parents and others to believe there is enough of the latter item as well. Misery loves company, right?

I am also not sure how to take the "we hope your child is just like you" comment. Is this a curse in disguise? Should I be talking to these people anymore?

Other items:
- although the new 3G iPhone is faster and less slippery to drop, it still is buggy. I don't know why the address book is so ridiculously s-l-o-w. I've heard of people using the Google app to search their contact list but this feels like using the computer to turn off the light right next to you. It's unnecessary and unwanted. Version 2.1 had best be the greatest thing ever.

- Switching from DirecTV to cable: going ok now that we have a DVR that actually records. I'm a little curious as to how much content the thing will store though. We have one "Project Runway" on there and it says 9% full. This is not HD content, implying about 10-12 hours of video. That seems wrong. I'll have to watch that or figure out how to hack the unit.

- The user interface on the DVR is the pits. This appears to be another Motorola invention from the same torture group that designed the RAZR menu system and style. I am really missing my TiVo and I am considering putting a Series 3 HD TiVo on my "big ticket" wishlist.

- Caller ID is the bomb. If you are "out of area" you are getting ignored.

Feeling like fall

As it is 57 F and quite windy I'm not on the bike quite yet. This leaves me time to do this blog. I'm surprised the login still works.

As my sister and to-be brother in law have done name posts, here's my little diddy. Not so much on my name but the implied meaning of how it is signed in emails and other documentation.

• First name only, abbreviated to "Chris": friendly, I likely know you. Family gets this. Ironically, I am told my mother did not want people to call me this; my aunt assured her that this was going to be the way it was. And it was.
  
• Full first name: reserved for letters to people I don't know, generally for billing or account purposes.
• Full first name + last name: again, billing purposes, similar to full first name. Correspondence with companies is often done like this.
  
• Full first name + middle initial + last name: This is my academic way to put my name to differentiate it from the others with the same first + last name. All of my published papers should be this way. I'll use this on some company presentations as my boss sometimes does not want the extra initials (below).
  
• Full first + full middle + last name: Only place this is used is Social Security, wedding certificate, important financial records, and on the spine of my thesis.
• Fill first + middle initial + last name + Ph.D.: OK, this is the "listen to me you idiot" way. Used extensively in conversations with suppliers and people inside the company who I need to impress things upon. I generally get a good response time with this one. Prospective application will be for people in the school system who think they are (insert adjective here) than me and can tell me what to do with my kid.
• Dr. + First name + middle initial + last name: I feel really wierd about this one. Generally the "Dr." makes people assume you can deliver their baby. M.D.'s don't like non-M.D.'s using "Dr." Oh well. I do sometimes as it is fun to get called "doctor."
  

So there's my name post. I really hope it is not as pompous as it sounded.

The only one (small) gripe I have about my name is that "Christopher" generally gets cut to "Christophe" or (Heaven forgive me) "Christ" in web forms. I always flinch at those.

Video game philosophy

My general feeling on video games is: if there is no gun, I don't go. However, after buying a Wii (thanks, Craigslist), I am changing my position. This thing changes the way games will be thought of. My wife would never consider playing Halo 3. She likely wonders why I sit and fume about getting run over by a virtual Jeep with a machine gun attached to it.

But she LOVES bowling on the Wii. 

And after playing it some, I now see how this works. It is the ultimate party game. You get everyone involved, bouncing around and laughing. It is a natural ice breaker with no "what card can I play now?" questions. It is just pure fun.

So my XBox 360 lives in peace with the Wii, and I am now happy throwing a virtual ball rather than bullets every time.

Waiting...waiting...

Mac OS 10.5.2 installing...taking forever...why show status bars when they don't show progress?

On the plus side, Hillary is screwed.

Hllary self-funding her campaign?

If this is true, she is in some serious doo-doo.

iPhone wants

After seven months of iPhone-and the fact my brother just got a blackberry-I am wondering what additional things I want for the iPhone to fill some gaps in my view. This also will assuage my brother that I am not blind to the shortcomings of any given device.

In no particular order:

• MMS (please!): I can't tell you how many times my family asks "did you get the picture I texted?" to which I respond "my ($600--first night buyer here, amazing interface, multimedia phone) can't do that."
• Ability to not downscale pictures sent by email: iPhone has a 2MP camera. Why is there no button that lets me pick how large the picture is that it sends? It automatically sends it at about 1/2 resolution. For sending to flickr this is dumb.
• A real scientific calculator application. And it needs to be reverse Polish notation as well. With real functions like powers, nth-roots, and (gasp) trig functions. And a web-based calculator does NOT qualify here as they are too s-l-o-w. There are a lot of us that want more than the four basics.
• Calendar syncing to Google calendar on the fly to the Calendar application. Hard-syncing to get a remotely one-way synced calendar is dumb. Let's get some activity in the calendar application. Heck, I'll even pay for .Mac if it only works with that. Just give me live appointment editing!
• To-do application.  Nuff' said.
• A replacement font for comic sans in the notepad. Like Helvetica--without the nasty hacks necessary to make it so.
• Enhanced Exchange server support. I want the hooks to get into work remotely for all that it entails.
• Voice dialing.
• Shortcuts to the bluetooth on/off and wifi on/off settings. Too many clicks required.

I am hoping the new developer's kit brings some of these to life. If so, the iPhone will be everything I hoped when I stood in line on 29 June.

Admission

I actually read some of the New York Times now.

This is mainly because it is written well.

It is definitely not written right though.

Compare to the StarTribune, which is not either of those things.

New strategy

I am going to try to attack my blogging lethargy by only using small posts. We'll see how that works.

And tonight's post: the Twins got HOSED on the Santana trade.

Congrations Bill

...you pompous ass.