Reunited

Kelly and the kids returned yesterday afternoon. Boy, did I miss them! It was lonely around home for the past few days.

I took Rocket out to Lake Gaston Saturday afternoon and attempted to sail with him. He was a great sport and really seemed to enjoy checking out the lake and wildlife there. Unfortunately for us I had to be back in Raleigh in the afternoon, so our trip was cut short. At least he’s got his “sea legs” now.

This is my “busy week” this month, though my meeting don’t all line up the way they usually do. Ordinarily I’d have had my CAC meeting last night, followed by the Raleigh CAC tomorrow night, followed by my Parks meeting Thursday night. As this month’s third Monday happens next week rather than this week, my CAC meeting will actually come after my other meetings, rather than before like it usually does.

Sounds like a lot, I know, but I’m having fun!

Happy birthday, CR-V!

Friday morning on the way to work my 2001 Honda CR-V finally crossed the 100,000 mile mark. Up until only recently I’ve left it in the driveway as I’ve either worked from home or I’ve biked to work. Since I began working in RTP I’ve put about 40 miles a day on it.

It’s a good car and hopefully will be around for years to come.

The Unemployment Channel

unemploymentchannelI was checking what programming is available on the satellites and I came across one that caught my eye: The Unemployment Channel.

Think about that for a minute. There is actually a television channel for the unemployed. If there’s a market segment that’s underserved, it’s the people with no money and no job. I imagine only the Prison Channel sells fewer commercial spots!

So who does pay the bills at The Unemployment Channel? Working stiffs (well, non-working stiffs) who pony up $25 for 30 seconds of fame played six times a day for one week. The channel does have a satellite transponder, so theoretically it could reach millions of viewers. But who watches? I can’t imagine a cable provider adding this to their lineup. And why wouldn’t a job seeker just post his or her “video resume” to YouTube, where it can be posted for free and is keyword-searchable?

It seems like a waste of good satellite transponder bandwidth to me. The video resumes they have are fairly amusing, anyway.

Cheviot Hills

I saw today that the old Cheviot Hills golf course has now been plowed under. All the trees on the middle of the property have been cleared out, leaving little trace of the fairways that were once there.

I haven’t heard much about how the property will be used. Last word I can find in the media is that car lots are going there. Since its owned by car dealers I am curious about the timing of the construction, as folks have all but stopped buying cars due to the economy. I suppose we’ll see in the next few weeks. Even so, I’m sad to see the old golf course go.

AP chases its own Internet tail

associated_press_logoKnow how I mentioned the Associated Press’s cluelessness when it comes to the Internet? Word comes that the AP threatened a Tennessee radio station when the station posted on its website videos from the AP’s very own YouTube channel. Not only that, the radio station is an AP affiliate!

Going after its own members: there’s a bright business decision. When I said the AP was going to “police itself out of existence,” I didn’t think it would actually police itself!

Something’s afoot in the City of Raleigh

mystery-invitation-smallI got a mysterious email invitation this afternoon from the City of Raleigh. It reads:

The City of Raleigh invites you to enjoy your coffee break Tuesday, April 14, celebrating a local partnership that is producing a significant “FIRST IN THE U.S.A.”

10 A.M., Tuesday, April 14
Raleigh Convention Center
Salisbury Street and Lenoir Street

I understand a different invite went to the city councilors that read:

The City of Raleigh and the Transit Authority invite you to enjoy your coffee break Tuesday, April 14 celebrating a local partnership that is producing a technological “FIRST IN THE USA!”

Please join us at 10 a.m., Tuesday, April 14 at the Raleigh Convention Center’s Salisbury Street and Lenoir Street plaza.

As you can see, the second one mentions the “Transit Authority” and “technological first.” I wonder what this means.

  • A GPS bus locator? No, that’s old hat. Been done already.
  • WiFi on city buses? Certainly possible, but what’s the local partnership angle?.
  • Mobile digital TV on city buses? This one makes more sense.

Capitol Broadcasting (home of WRAL) has been tinkering with mobile digital TV and has some devices built.

Capitol’s new mobile technology spinoff company is called News Over Wireless and is certainly local. But would transit passengers be forced to watch all-WRAL, all the time, or would other stations also be available?

On the other hand, it could have nothing to do with TV and could be some sort of other transit innovation. A Prius-branded bus? Electric vehicle recharging stations? Again, what would be the local partnership angle, and what about this would be worthy of such subterfuge?

This is all speculation at this point, as I haven’t gleaned any more insights. I do hope to be around for Tuesday’s unveiling of Whatever It Is.

Robtex

When I noticed a store’s webserver was unreachable, I decided to find out why. With a little sleuthing I found that its nameservers were not resolving.

Normally when this happens there’s no trace of the company left on the Internet, but The Google took me to the robtex DNS tool. Thanks to this site, I was able to find the missing nameservers’ IP addresses and verify that these servers were indeed offline.

I consider it poor system administration to host your domain nameservers entirely in your own namespace for just this reason. If you make a mistake in a zone with your own nameserver, your whole foo.com site becomes invisible to the Internet.

I hope this major store gets itself back on the web soon!

Patrick Chan, I presume?

Isn’t this exciting? I’m going to get $12.5M !

Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 07:06:17 -0400 (EDT)
From: PATRICK CHAN innocent.emailaddress@someuniversity.fake
Subject: Contact email: pat.ch01@8u8.com
To: undisclosed-recipients:;

I’m Mr Patrick Chan, i have a proposal of $12.5M,please contact me by email: pat.ch01@8u8.com

Come Back Home

What an amazing, rocking, pop song! Pete Yorn is a great vocalist.

Come Back Home (YouTube)
Pete Yorn

Come back home for another year
And find yourself in the thick of it
Come back home for another year
I always thought that you could handle this

And you know you’re hard enough
And you find you’re strong enough
And you feel you’re strong enough
Continue reading →