Month: February 2007

Do I really care about the zoning board?

Opposition to mayor’s zoning commission nominee growing

You know, I’m really kind of excited to move to a place where things like “Who’s on the zoning board?” actually interest me. I realize that the decisions of the zoning board, especially in an area like Columbia Heights where tons of new construction is happening, really make a difference.

However, it worries me that people who run for office in the District seem to have legal problems at well above the national average. Maybe it’s just Marion Barry throwing off the curve.

If we ban it, it will go away

WIStv.com Columbia, SC: AMA asks for movies showing smokers to get “R” rating

The [American Medical Association alliance] says their research shows that smoking in movies recruits close to 400,000 adolescent smokers each year, eventually killing over a third of them.

Okay, I’m totally on board with trying to keep kids from smoking.  And frankly, I think we’re well on our way – with more and more places banning smoking in bars, I think we’ll soon reach the tipping point where we really start to make progress towards getting rid of cigarettes completely.

But R ratings for showing people smoking?  Why don’t we just take children from their parents at birth and raise them in sanitized cocoons where they’re only exposed to purified air and educational material until they turn 18.  Obviously human beings are inherently incapable of raising children, so we should just outlaw that.  While we’re at it, people eat too much fatty foods.  Let’s ban eating.  You can get your nutrients from an IV in the hospital.  It’s safer there anyway.  Otherwise you might go out and drive somewhere in your SUV and talk on your cell phone or adjust your iPod and crash into a farmer’s market.

I’m sure most of you have seen the movie Demolition Man, where Stallone goes to “cryoprison” where they freeze him for 70 years and he wakes up in a place where kissing and salt are illegal, because exchanging body fluids and eating salt can be bad for you.  This is funny because it’s so ridiculous.

It’s not looking so ridiculous any more.  They start with fois gras and trans fats.  Eventually they’ll get to something you care about.

I didnt sign up for ice

Okay, snow I can deal with. That doesn’t scare me. You have to drive more slowly, and leave more distance between you and the guy in front of you. It can be nerve-wracking, but it’s not that big a deal.

But now they’re calling for half an inch of ice by tomorrow, and that’s where I have to draw the line. Ice is NOT COOL. Half an inch of ice on the ground means you should be curled up on the couch with a nice blanket and your significant other, and not out on the road. After all, it will be Valentine’s Day.

I have to talk to my team lead and see if there’s anything constructive I can do from home tomorrow.

OMG Turn off the internet!

WiFi Turns Internet Into Hideout for Criminals – washingtonpost.com

. . . an increasing number of criminals are taking advantage of the anonymity offered by the wireless signals to commit a raft of serious crimes — from identity theft to the sexual solicitation of children.

Never mind that this is an irresponsible, fear-mongering article that misses the point.  The problem with home wifi networks is not that they allow criminals to use them.  There will always be criminals online, and they will always use the anonymity of the internet to escape detection.  This is an unfortunate side effect, but we’re just going to have to figure out how to catch them some other way.

The problem with home wifi networks is that no one has created an interface that makes sense.  Microsoft and Apple haven’t done it.  Dell hasn’t done it.  Linksys and DLink haven’t done it.  I’m beginning to think that no one will.  I should be able to plug in a wireless router and set it up in five minutes.  After that setup, I should have a network that is as secure (or insecure) as I want.  I shouldn’t have to know what a MAC address is, or what ports I want open.  I shouldn’t have to know what type of encryption I want to use.  I’m a software engineer, and I spend all day on a computer, but setting up my wireless router is not a trivial task.  This is ridiculous.

And the problem is on the computer end, too.  I want to see a list of all the wireless networks in range.  I want to tell my computer not to ever connect to one with a low signal strength.  I should be able to customize all that.  And I should get error messages when I can’t connect.  It is absolutely infuriating to press the connect button, not be connected, and not have any feedback as to why.

I’ve had an open network for almost a year.  Do you know why?  Because every time I put a password on, either my PC can’t connect, or my wife’s iBook can’t connect.  If I mess with it for a week, I can usually get them both on.

Anyway, it’s ridiculous how hard it is to use and maintain a wireless network.

Things every guy should know

Actually, women should know, too, but that wouldn’t segue into my post so well.

Anyway, every guy should know basic garbage disposal maintenance.  You never know when your wife will spill half a can of Quaker Oats in her purse on the way home from work, then dump a penny down the disposal as she’s cleaning it out.   The first thing you should do is turn off the power to the disposal, although I didn’t bother.  The second thing to do is unhook the thing, turn it upside down over a big bowl and dump out the penny.  If your disposal is like the ones I’ve worked with, there are two hoses coming in – one to drain the water, and one that hooks up to the dishwasher.  The dishwasher one is very important – make sure you remove the plug so there is actually a hole for water from the dishwasher to pass through.  If you’ve never run your dishwasher before, and it won’t drain, check the connection to the disposal.  If yours is like mine when I moved in, someone has forgotten to remove the plug.  Removing the plug is not trivial, either.  You probably have to bang on a screwdriver with a hammer or something like that.  Then you have to dump the piece of plastic out, because it won’t go down the drain, and it will take approximately six years of running the disposal to chop it up into little bits.

Another important thing to know about disposals is that they have a little screw at the bottom that takes an allen wrench.  You should always know where this wrench is.  If your disposal stops working due to large amounts of whatever you’ve put in there, get the wrench and turn that screw back and forth for a bit, then try the disposal again.  The only thing I’ve put down a disposal that made it stop working that wasn’t fixed by turning that screw was a shot glass.

It is also important to use your disposal.  If you have one, you must run it occasionally, or else you need a screen to keep things from falling down there.  I can’t tell you how awesome it is to have congealed chicken fat and six month old onion peel sitting at the bottom of the disposal.  Actually, I can.  Because I know.  It is not awesome at all.

Its a done deal

Columbia Heights rezoning approved

“I drive down my block and others in neighborhood and I just smile because I know these houses and the families that live in them are going to be protected for a lot more years,” said Anne Theisen, an ANC commissioner who led the effort.

So, it’s a done deal. This doesn’t affect the street I’m about to live on, though. It’s up closer to the DC USA project. Frankly, it’s a pretty small area that’s been rezoned. Only from Monroe to Spring between 14th and 16th. I don’t know the area well enough yet to know what makes that little rectangle significant.

Calling all car nuts who dont really like to drive

Automotive Killer App? The Zeroshift Automanual – Jalopnik

If your idea of nirvana is clutchless gear changes with zero lag up and down the cogway, today may be your birthday.

However, if you really like to DRIVE, this is another nail in the coffin. I know I’m in a small minority here, but I think the skill and enjoyment of driving comes from the driver, not the car. Certainly it is more fun to drive a brand new BMW M5 than a ’74 Pinto. But if I shave .4 seconds off my quarter mile time because I got some new transmission that does all the work for me, that’s a step down in my book.  If I have aFerrari, and you have a Hyundai, and I beat you in a race, that doesn’t mean I’m a better driver.

I LIKE doing the work. I like working the clutch and shifting gears. I’m comfortable doing that, and I want to continue doing that. It’s not the most efficient way to drive, perhaps, but I’ll trade some efficiency for my enjoyment.

I hope that, when the day comes that this kind of thing is standard, where the car controls everything, that we also have auto-drive cars. If the car is going to insist on shifting for me, I’m not interested in doing any of the rest of the work.

What planet is this guy on?

The Fantasy Of Happily Ever After – washingtonpost.com

I won’t pull a quote from the article, because you should really read the whole thing.  Any article with references to Tolstoy and Newt Gingrich while calling Anna Nicole Smith a modern courtesan is just something that everyone should read.

I’m not sure what the author, Philip Kennicott, was trying to do with the article.  Perhaps it was subtle satire of of our star-obsessed culture.  Perhaps he hoped to educate us on the ridiculousness of putting people like Anna Nicole on a pedestal.  Perhaps he was really, really high.  I don’t know.  All I know is that the article made me laugh.

They want to make my condo illegal

Rezoning targets rowhouses in Columbia Heights

Looks like the Advisory Neighborhood Commission for where I’m going to be living is trying to block the condo-fication of row houses, which of course is exactly what we just bought. The claim is that taking one single-family row house and turning it into multiple condos will increase traffic, limit parking, and diminish “the architectural integrity of the rowhouse blocks”.

They probably have a point, but trying to revitalize the neighborhood, and then insisting that everything stay the same, is kind of counterproductive. I’d like the neighborhood to keep some of its history, its personality, etc. If we wanted cookie-cutter suburbs, there are plenty of places in Fairfax County.

There’s going to be more traffic. It’s just a fact. As the area becomes a bigger draw, more people will come there. Parking will get worse. Traffic will get worse. Re-zoning will perhaps slow the tide, but it won’t turn it back.

And if your goal really is to keep the architechture, then make sure the outside of the houses stays more or less the same. Personally, I love the look of the old row houses. I wish our developer hadn’t made our building look like an office building. But these are separate issues.

I don’t really know what the solution here is. I agree with the intent of the ANC, but I’m not sure I agree with the execution. I guess I’m going to have to start going to these meetings when I move down there.

Really old and really dead people found hugging

Prehistoric lovers found locked in eternal embrace – CNN.com

“It’s rare for two young people to die at the same time, and that makes us want to know why and who they were, but it will be very difficult to find out.”

Really?  It will be hard to figure out who they were?  Maybe because they were buried 5000 years ago.  I mean, it’s not like there’s some old guy you can just go ask.

Seriously, this sounds like an elaborate pre-Valentine’s Day hoax.  Right near the place where “Romeo and Juliet” was set, a week before Valentine’s Day, we find the remains of two young lovers?  Someone better check and make sure the skeleton doesn’t say “Hallmark” on it.