Random Thought Of The Day From Wikipedia; Sprezzatura (Italian pronunciation: [sprettsaˈtura]) is an Italian word originating from Baldassare Castiglione’s The Book of the Courtier, where it is defined by the author as “a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost […]
I’m looking for a new bank, and apparently what I want doesn’t exist. I love Chase Bank’s online account management capabilities, account activity alerting capabilities, and the ability to deposit checks with my mobile phone by simply taking a picture of them (up to a certain dollar value). What I don’t love is the new […]
So I’m up late, coding away… and my default browser (Chrome) comes to the top and loads a new tab for voicefive.com asking me to take a survey. Immediately I hit my malware scanner, but it turns up nothing. I close the tab, review other tabs I have open that might have initiated the pop-up, […]
A word on immigration I love immigrants so much I married one! My wife is Canadian, and her immigration ordeal has been a 5+ year process. Many people think if/when a foreign person gets married to a US citizen, then citizenship is just a simple test and ceremony away. That is really not the case […]
Random Thought Of The Day So the US Post Office is dang-near bankrupt, and apparently has been on a steady financial decline for over a decade. Now they are talking about reducing expenses to the tune of $3 billion by cutting jobs and services. Are you kidding me? Here’s my idea to save the USPS… […]
UPDATE About a month ago, I got my hands on a Samsung Galaxy Nexus. Right out of the box, battery life REALLY sucked. I couldn’t go more than a couple hours before my 100% battery would be warning me it needed juice. In the last 30 days however, my phone has had two forced updates […]
Even though TEDx events are generally attended by locals, for some reason I received an invite. It may have been because of all the media coverage a few years ago surrounding the RFID implants. For a time I was visiting Vancouver a whole heck of a lot and the Canadian media (TV and radio mostly) […]
I’ve been using an OutBack Power Systems FW500 inverter system in my funky datacenter for a couple years now. So far I’ve been impressed, but one of the issues I’ve run into has to do with simply pulling power system data from the MATE via RS232 serial connection. I’ve connected the MATE to a USB […]
When I get the gumption to build my own “dream house”, I’m going to make sure it has plenty of secret passageways and the like. I started this trend a couple years ago in my current home by simply placing a conspicuous piece of paper in a slot between two bricks in my kitchen. Observant […]
