Farsong Blog-o-Matic - Dead Reckoning

In a move of remarkably shocking brilliance [or ineptitude] I ordered a thing online. Several things, actually--a book that's not here yet as well as two random tee-shirts from shirt.woot. There were other things, too.

One is a TI-82 Graphing Calculator. Why, you ask, should I get one of these fine pieces of 15-year-old engineering? Because my TI-89 is [apparently] not allowed on tests. I'm not about to spend another $100 on a calculator that's inferior to the one I have. Plus, if I'm going to go oldschool with my calculator, I'd rather go oldschool all the way. (Also for the sake of geeky trivia, the TI-82 has the same processor as the 81, 83, 83+, 85, and 86; the 89 has a Motorola 68k processor @10 or 12 MHz, so it could, in theory, run the ancient versions of Mac classic through System 7.5). I'd still gladly pay a quarter of the price of a new calculator for an ancient one that works fine. This is also funny because I, in my infinite wisdom, had a sever dislike for the 82 back in the day. Then again, my 83+ was actually rather sketchy, and eventually died, to be replaced with the 89.

I did have one of the old graphlink conduits for everything, too--but it was a serial-port-based device, and Macs haven't had serial ports in aeons.


The other is a cheap USB VGA CCD webcam. "But you already have a DV camcorder that works with most everything on your Mac and has excellent video to boot!" you cry.

Never fear: I got the webcam because it's a pretty excellent one … for $20 shipped. It's actually kinda crappy, but it's smallish and uses USB (everything has USB now) and works with Mac and Linux with the right drivers, and might come in handy for some kind of wearable computing device. Plus it's smaller and more convenient than setting up the DV camcorder for something as mundane as Skype. Plus, it was $20 and has a little white light that lights up on its top. Full-frame VGA images, and not to crappy-looking in my dark-ish room. The angle does look better from the desk beneath the displays than perched on top. I have still yet to find a program that auto-uploads images from the camera to an FTP, as EyeSight does not work with it.
I should add that it also works over USB 1.1 I use a USB 1.1 hub for my keyboard, scanner, and other things that don't actually need to be speedy, a USB 2.0 hub for the things that do (these both take up the two USB ports on the back of the G5, leaving the third free on the front for whatever else I need it for. All three ports are actually their own 480 MBPS bus, unlike most computers that use the same bus for all the USB ports. At the moment, I count ten USB devices connected--and I use them all. One is even a USB mouse plugged into a PS/2-to-USB converter, plugged into a PS/2 port on the back of the hub because it saves me a USB port for something else (note: this is my wireless optical trackball).

So, there's that. There's also the added bonus that my wonderful keyboard is starting to give me static, after three years of constant use: the right shift key is failing intermittently. It's annoying, because that's the one I use solely. I'll look at cleaning it, but if it gets worse, I'm probably going to see about getting a Das Keyboard.


In other news, Spokane's DOT fails catastrophically at snow removal. It's almost as if they think we live in Florida or some such place that doesn't get snow. Ever. There is no other reason that it takes 3-5 days to clear the snowfall from our street (which then becomes icy and compacted). Also, there's no excuse for the sorry state of the roads, now, which have the texture of a washboard (lots of fun on a bus, travelling at close to 15mph. Also, said bus was a sweltering 85° or 90°, enabling me to walk outside, sans jacket, in the 20° weather for at least ten minutes). There's no excuse, because we live in an area that gets snow each and every winter, and it's always terrible every time it snows. I'm hesitant to drive anything that's not a 4x4 on my street, and since it's a hill, to park, I would need to come down from above. There is seriously only one carwidth of clearance between the snowy burms.

They are completely incompetent, which is the reason that my former public school district has been closed for three days in a row the entire week, after having no snow days for at least 12 years. And we're expecting more snow, perhaps through the end of the week (and into the next). Let's watch as Spokane fails again.

Edited: 1/31/08-8:35--added a statement to reflect the fact that SD81 has been closed the entire week.