CarlSeibert

Yesterday, actually. Had an adventure with a possum in the garage. I was dressed for work, on the way to my car. At first, I thought it was the world's largest rat. Once that was sorted out, I figured: open the door give it a little encouragement and send it in its way. I grabbed the nearest tool that looked suitable - a kayak paddle - and encouraged the critter. Nothing doing. It just crawled under the hurricane shutters. Hefted away a few panels and I had access to its ass. At least it wasn't going anywhere. It acted sick, in fact. But it may have been faking. Now it's a standoff. The deadliest, if not necessarily smartest, species vs the ass end of a lethargic rodent. It was weird. I stood there, reasoning in slow motion. I'd seen people pick up possums by the trail. But how do you do it in actual practice? What if it simply turns around and bites the crap out of me? I had found some gloves by this time. I figured that if it resorted to violence, I'd just punch it into the middle of next week with my free hand and it would be its fault. I actually thought that. Unbelievable. I picked up the poor animal and fortunately, it went along peaceably. I plopped it in a flower bed and that was that. I can only imagine how totally he could have ruined my day if he had dug under that worst pile of junk in the back of the garage. Or if nobody found him for a few days and he died in there. Uuuck!

I have a Tumi trifold that's in perfect condition after at least fifteen years of use. It's great, but it's an inch and a half thick after I unloaded a bunch of old receipts and crap. I saw an ad for these people in the New York Times: http://bellroy.com/wallets/note-sleeve-wallet The thin/minimal thing intrigued sufficiently that I bought a $7 knock-off to experiment with. The knock-off really doesn't cut it, but hopefully it will hold together long enough to see if I can manage some minimalism. I've gotta say the lack of bulk is nice.

Belatedly, here are the skids on the back of the cover to address the too-wide-too-thin-too-slippery issue with the S4. And here's the Mark II version (there's always a Mark II version ) The thwart-wise skid is to help find by feel which end of the phone is which without putting my finger on the camera lens. That seemed a tad less than the ideal way to do it. I find myself putting a finger against it when I hold the phone vertically, too. This version is on the official Samsung cover. It's pretty nice once the slippery gloss on the edges is sanded off. Stupidly overpriced. Unless you have the half-off coupon from Samsung, go with the $7 dollar one from Amazon. The skid thing has made a huge difference in how the phone handles. I can now confidently hold it in one hand and swype with my thumb to my heart's content.

How on earth does the supposed analog attenuation work? I don't understand that is be a little worried about safety if nothing else. That said, if the thing will operate on both of my android devices (and it sounds good) it sounds too good to pass up.

http://highrestech.com/microstreamer I just saw an ad for this thing. They claim it will work with an Android tablet or phone. If so, it might be a dandy gadget, assuming of course that it sounds good. I just spent some time scanning threads elsewhere. That made me older, but not wiser.

Arrrrgh!

Loyalty is important. Vincent. )

The dune at Kitty Hawk is one mighty big pile of very loose sand. I'm going to assume that at that time, it was basically all dune and beach outside of whatever little settlement there was. Stands of beach vegetation wouldn't have made any easier, either. North Carolina sugar sand is fierce stuff. A few years ago, our then international correspondent and I rather spectacularly buried a rental car in it after a hurricane.

This is kind of sad. She did a lot of good with that site. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57599288-38/surveillance-concerns-bring-an-end-to-crusading-site-groklaw/ The story sort of implies, indirectly, that she must think that corporations can break GPGP. That would be news to me. I thought it wasn't really established that the government could do that on any meaningful scale.

I suspect that dune was a lot bigger then. It's really effin' soft sand.

Happy cat.

It seems to have cured itself on my phone. Very strange. Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk 4

Dunno. But it won't connect to our server. For some perverse reason, it works fine with HF. At least for me.

Umm. Toaster. Food pops out. Tell me again how the humans do this.......

Happy belated Birthday Tyll! Or maybe I'm just getting in on the ground floor for next year )

Used heat shrink to fix a shoelace. Spent four hours this afternoon clay barring an outrageous amount of high-rise overspray off my Smart. Getting ready to go to dinner with Brent.

Enigma was kind of freaked out when she moved indoors. (Very different symptoms, but freaked all the same) It took her a good couple of months to be comfortable in her new territory. That said,a good physical with blood work and whatnot seems a worthwhile investment. But if the critter isn't in any sort of distress, I think I'd wait until she feels more comfortable before dragging her to the vet.

Paid off my mortgage.

I haven't checked this thread in a while... Wow! Rude Wolf - a journalism job where holding your liquor is a BFOQ! You have no idea how nostalgic that makes me. That one's a keeper. Ride that pony as far as it goes. Double congrats! Mike - Gumby is clearly full of win. Our cats are jealous of that cardboard box. Although they might not want to be mailed in it )

Kind of what Chris said. I keep saying I'll get around to rooting the nexus 7, but I never do. I've had it almost a year. I guess I haven't felt a pressing need. I have no desire to root the phone. And moar pixels is moar better as far as I'm concerned. There's gotta be a reason why imagesetters work at 1200 ppi. I don't know what the real headroom you need on top of that old 300 ppi rule of thumb might be, but I'm guessing a couple hundred percent. Type at 300 ppi looks pretty bad if you look closely. The screen on this S4 is 2k pixels over less than 4 inches and it's noticeably better than screens that are "good enough". There Will be a point where the trade-off no longer makes sense, but I'll don't know what it will be.

Congrats to Rudewolf. Getting a job in journalism nowadays is an accomplishment.

Happy belated birthday!!

In Indonesia they can carry ANYTHING on scooter. This weekend, here in beautiful SoFla, I saw a lawn man driving up Federal Highway towing his lawn service trailer behind what looked like about a 125cc scooter. Mind you he didn't have one of those super duper mowers that you drive with two levers like a bulldozer, but he had a pretty full kit.

Happy Birthday!!!

Excellent mineral news, Nate! Adrian, six day weekend = good! Sorry about that Jeff.