Reading (For Dummies)

Say your Goodbyes to Fry's

I just got back from my last visit to Fry's. I must be turning into a really great crusty curmudgeon.

I wandered around for a while and grabbed a few computery bits. Then I decided I'd grab a Mini SD card for my phone while I was there. I went to the camera section, figuring that they'd be there. Looked around for a few minutes, and found Micro SD cards, regular SD cards, but the only Mini SD cards on the shelf were 512MB (I need more room than that).

I asked a helpful salesperson, who said that I should try the parts desk, as they handle most of the portable digital media type stuff.

I sauntered over, waited in line for ~20 minutes while the one poor salesperson that was working handled the woman in front of me (she pretty much didn't have a clue about computer parts but was trying to build a new PC herself, so I can understand the delay).

When I rolled up, I asked about Mini SD cards. "Yep, we have them, 1GB for $24.99, 2GB for $49.99." I asked for the 2GB card. Then Privacy reared her head.

"Sure thing, sir. What's your phone number?"

I hate junk mail. Most of all, I hate cold calls. I used to work at Radio Shack, when I was in high school. I was an idealist. A fictitious man by the name of Yeoman Smith, who lived on Grist Mill Court, conveniently next door to one of my Radio Shack coworkers, was my best customers. Yeoman Smith purchased thousands of dollars of merchandise from our store. One month, he bought ten of the same model 4-head VCR.

"Sorry, I don't have one of those."

"Well then I need your address."

"Sorry, I don't have one of those either."

"I'm sorry, sir, we can't sell anything to you without that information."

I turned around and pointed to the 512MB mini SD card on the shelf behind me.

"I'm sorry, sir, but it's store policy. I have to have this information."

At this point, I thought I should probably just make up a name and make up an address. Still, I hate backing down on privacy issues. If I don't want to give a company my personal info, I shouldn't have to.

"Is there a manager I can talk to about your store policy?"

"Yes, sir, but you're going to have to wait until I finish with the rest of the customers."

At this point, there were 15 or so people in line behind me. I opted not to keep them waiting, thanked the salesperson for his time, and put the hard drive, drive controller, and card reader that I was purchasing back on the shelf in their respective locations. Then I walked out, never to shop at a Fry's again.

Wireless Wonderland

I belatedly decided to enter the world of mobile craziness. My Motorola v600 cell phone has been becoming worse and worse lately -- the charger is extraordinarily finicky about connecting to the charging jack, the screen backlight goes out and requires intentionally dropping or throwing the phone to come back on, the keys don't work most of the time, and the battery only holds a charge for a few hours...in all, the 3 years of water-logging, (unintentionally) dropping, freezing, melting, and otherwise abusing my phone have caught up with it.

The good folks at Amazon are now selling Cingular's 8125 phone for $75, with a free (probably crappy, but still free) bluetooth headset. It only has EDGE networking, not 3G like its $300 more expensive cousin, and it only has 802.11b networking (also unlike the more expensive phone), and it only has a 200mhz processor (instead of the 400mhz cpu in the 8525, I guess you get the point), but it's cheap, the data plan is cheap, and I could really use a PDA again -- life has been getting disorganized without my old Handspring, whose screen I cracked quite a few years ago.

What's fun now is figuring out how to hack the phone, before I even have it. Apparently I can use some overclocking software to bump the CPU speed up to 240mhz comfortably. The extra CPU speed seems silly, but it's apparently necessary for running Skype on the phone, which means that, while I'm at home (or near any open access point), I can have pretty cheap VoIP calling without burning my limited talk minutes.

I also got a rather fun offer in the email today from the folks at FON. They're giving me a free Fonero wireless access point, that I just have to leave accessible to the world in return. For the promise of making them some money, I also get free wifi wherever there's another FON router plugged in. For anybody thinking to get a wifi router for their home, FON makes a ton of sense. Their routers are really cheap (or free, in my case, I guess since I signed up for an account early enough), and they're now backed by Skype and Google -- you can even get little 802.11b/g "wifi phones" from them, for use with any FON router. FON is like the communist marketing genius of wireless internet providers. And now my internet lust/addiction can be fed constantly, from laptop or palmtop. When next we get in a barroom argument over some trivial fact, I'll be right with a web browser and Google to see who's right.

Community Planning Getting Attention

One of the most awesome things about living in San Diego where I do, and working where I do, is that I can ride to work every in less than 20 minutes. On my bicycle. I drive maybe one day a week, just to make sure that my car is working. Other than that, it saves my parking spot for me.

I noted a few times previously about my experience with the city-planning bliss that was Dresden, Germany -- other faults aside the city really did diversify itself in a manner conducive to talking around and exploring. Restaurants and bars, grocery stores, and even parks, were scattered all over to give residents somewhere to go closeby, without the use of a car.

It sounds like we may finally have some formal recognition of the pattern here. And even some planning. It's about darned time. Weening ourselves off of using so much gasoline should be a multi-pronged effort. Hybrids and diesels are great. Walking and biking everywhere is even better. I'll see you on the sidewalk.

Hell just Froze Over

I'm speechless.

Microsoft. Linux.