Hybrid Mini-Cooper – I’ve finally found my dream car!

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When I saw this posted in boingboing I knew that my future would hold something like this.

I have no idea if the production hybrids of the next 5 or so years will be anywhere near as slick as this mini-cooper but everything about it appeals to me, no mechanical brakes (just torque up those wheel integrated electric motors to maximum), phenomenal gas mileage and a stylish bent.

Here is a link to the actual treehugger article if you have problems with the boingboing link above.

Apple iTunes 7 will break your ability to share libraries (for now)

If you share your iTunes libraries across your network (there are some good reasons to do this, being able to play your songs on another computer without having to copy everything over there for one) you’ll find that the recent update to iTunes that brings it up to release 7 will break this sharing.

If you share between computers the solution is to simply bring all the computers up to R7 and you’re fine.

However, I use an appliance called a Roku Soundbridge that allows me to stream my music to our living room stereo. They have to come up with a patch to allow the soundbridge to interact with the new iTunes version. From the company’s support page:

Attention iTunes Users!
With the release of iTunes 7.0 today (9/12/2006), Apple has changed some of the underlying technology that allows the SoundBridge to communicate  directly with iTunes.  We hope to have an iTunes 7.0- compatible release of the SoundBridge software soon; however, at this time  all SoundBridges are incompatible with the music sharing feature of  iTunes 7.0.  We recommend that SoundBridge owners wait for a SoundBridge update before upgrade to iTunes 7.0. Users wishing to upgrade to iTunes 7.0 (or who have already upgraded)  can install the free Firefly media server to share their libraries  with the SoundBridge. Firefly is available here.

Hallowe’en Costume for Mich’s office party

Mich’s office is having a hallowe’en party next month. We’re having some problems trying to decide on what to wear.

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Some of the costumes from last year were pretty cool (and some quite elaborate). To the left is a link to the gallery for that party. We went as “The Matrix”‘s Neo and Trinity.

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Mich is tending towards something slapstick/humorous while I’m tending towards something maybe more statement oriented (or sexy for Mich with me acting the foil).

BTW, based on last years pictures, I think Mich looks quite fetching with black hair. Opinions?

The Baby Names Wizard’s Name Voyager

Yeah, yeah it does seem odd for me of all people to be posting something about baby names, but this Java-based wizard is a slick visualizer showing you how popular various names were at various times. The bigger the name, the more popular it was.

Click here to see what I mean, it really is interesting to see how popular *your* name was when your folks named you. And was your aunt *really* given an old person’s name or was her name hip at the time?

Summoned for Jury Duty

It had to happen sooner or later, I received my first summons for jury duty. Apparently I’ll be a candidate for a “Petit Jury” – which I have never heard of – as opposed to a “Grand jury” that we all know and love from t.v.

I’m actually looking forward to it, thankfully I’ve got a job that can tolerate such an interruption.  The terms are hysterical mind you. I will be compensated the kingly sum of twenty-five dollars per day and I also get free parking (a good thing too as that would have pretty much eaten away the entire per diem amount…).  I’m not allowed to read local newspapers, but I can do something with computers – apparently modem connections will be available to me. I guess I can’t get any local news on the internet.

I can expect to spend up to a week on this enterprise. I’m *really* hoping that I actually get to listen to a case rather than sit in the waiting area for the whole time just wasting away my days with the other folks who have been seconded into this task.

Don’t get me wrong, my attitude probably seems a little jaded, but I really don’t believe that the judicial system has kept pace with folks and their modern predelections. I suppose it was fine to drag some farmers in from their fields (hopefully not at some critical harvest/planting time) and expect that they would be completely unaware of any current events, and would hold no opinions about most things judicial, but that reality is long gone..

My understanding is that the average person in early 20th century America had about the same amount of information squirreled away in their brains as one could find in a current edition of a New York Times Sunday edition newspaper.  We know a lot more now than the proles of any era this world have ever known and the idea that we would not have opinions about all that information is not a realistic one.

I’ll post what the experience was like when the deed has been done.