News and Views

I’ve been getting a lot of “Image Spam” lately — usually stock tips telling me about a great new opportunity. The spam filter in Thunderbird can’t detect them, because there is no incriminating text to key on — just the image which could be anything, as far as the spam filter is concerned.

I’ve found a way in Thunderbird to catch these images and relegate them to the Junk folder. Here are the instructions.

It’s possible that it will catch valid messages, so you should check the junk folder before you empty it.

My kitchen has 7 recessed light bulbs in the ceiling. Since early 2000, I have been keeping track of how long the bulbs last. Here’s a graph of the results to date, showing bulb life in days. Click on the graph for a larger image.

You can see that Phillips incandescent bulbs are the least reliable; on average they only last 177 days. Of the incandescent type, GE, Sylvania and Feit are pretty comparable. Sylvania lasted 393 days on average, but since there were only two of them it’s not statistically significant. GE lasted 315 days on average, and Feit 360 days. There’s probably not really enough data to distinguish between these three bulb types.

Somewhere around 2002 I started using more and more compact flourescent bulbs. By now I have filled most of the sockets with this type, and many of them are still working. The flourescent bulbs that failed early show up on the graph, but shouldn’t be taken as representative of flourescent bulb life. Some of them are still in the sockets after 3, 4 and more years.

There’s the data; do with it what you like!

Gisele flew to California today, to spend a few days with her brother’s family.

On Sunday Devon and I are driving over with a Saturn full of his stuff. Then Gisele and I will fly home Sunday evening.

Derek will probably be home for the weekend too, but he’s going to be on his own Sunday.

We took Derek down to Tucson today with a van full of his stuff to get him moved into his dorm. He came back home with us this evening. We will make another trip Friday or Saturday with the rest of his stuff and he will stay.

Devon is still here for another week, then he’s off to California and we start learning about living in an empty nest.

A very challenging but intriguing set of puzzles based on the Greek myth of Theseus stuck in the maze with the Minotaur.

There are other interesting puzzles here, but I seem to spend the most time on T and the M.

I solved the full Minotaur set over a year ago, but keep coming back to play them again.

Note: I like to turn the sound effects off (“S”). They are a little irritating after a while.

Which face is angry and which calm? Move several feet away from the computer and look again.

I’ve been playing this long enough, it’s time somebody else got addicted!

http://weboggle.shackworks.com

I usually play the 4×4 version.

Don’t be disappointed if you don’t score very highly. I’m sure some of the people cheat, and many of the others have been playing for a long time. I’m usually happy to be in the top 10%, and that’s not easy.

Be sure you have updated to the latest version of Firefox (1.5.0.5). If you are set to automatically receive updates, it probably already happened.

There are some potentially dangerous loopholes in the previous version that this one fixes.

If you use it (and I recommend that you do) Thunderbird email client also needs to be updated to the same version: 1.5.0.5

I’m flying to Ontario Airport in Southern California tomorrow (Saturday) to bring Devon back home. He has the Saturn, but we have to do a little work on it before it is ready for the drive across the desert (fix the air conditioner, for example). I hope we get back to Tempe by late Saturday night (or early Sunday morning).

His summer job is over, and he has about a month before classes start.

I think one more escorted trip and he should be ready to make it on his own.

Daryl

Tonight at 1:00am we catch an 8-hour flight to LAX, then an hour to Phoenix and we are home. Should arrive around noon Monday.

The last four days in Lima (“Leema”) have been relaxing. We shopped, saw Superman Returns (subtitled, not dubbed), ate and relaxed in our rooms.

I just hope the flight home tonight isn’t delayed 6 hours like Devon’s was a couple of weeks ago.

It’s interesting how coming to a foreign country makes it real. Before now, Peru and in fact all of South America were kind of mythical lands that you read about in geography class or hear about on the news, but visiting a place you see that it really exists, with people going about their normal lives.

Travel also helps me realize that the US and our culture isn’t the center of the world (though McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Pizza Hut, Dunkin’ Donuts, etc are trying their best to muddy that perspective).

Anyway, looking forward to coming home. I’m tired of living out of a suitcase, waking up in a different hotel every morning.