Weathering the Broken Links

Do they really think that enumerating all sorts of stupid things you can do with gasoline is a deterrent to its misuse? Can any statisticians speak up as to whether these sorts of lists actually reduce frivolous civil lawsuits?

I rather think that the following list would have been perfectly acceptable and just as complete.

• For use as a motor fuel only…DUH!
• Yep, it’s a known carcinogen.  What, are you going to stop driving!?

I’ve got a few friends and family members who are broken links.  They’re not dumb.  They just think I have some magical powers of computer use that they are incapable of harnessing.   I guess I’ve had a few too many IT tech support requests from them lately.  So I have set up a canned response in my email app to send a copy of this xkcd goodie.

At Walmart today, I remembered I was out of 65W flood light bulbs needed to for the burned out bulb in my kitchen. In the bulbs I spotted two types of candidates: a two pack of CFL bulbs made by Philips for some $9+ or a different brand of 2-pack for upward of $14. I went cheap.

I’ve been a skeptic of CFLs.  I tried some early on and was disappointed with their performance, poor lighting capability and short life.  I hear the newer ones are better, but still am not fond of the potential toxicity of the mercury contained within.

I’m not an expert on environmental pollutants and such, but I felt this was a ripe opportunity to see how long these bulbs last.  The one I was planning to replace had lasted about 2.5 years.  Could this new one last longer?

I proudly broke out the Sharpie and wrote today’s date and the advertised life (7 years with 4 hours per day of use) on the plastic ballast housing.  I climbed up on a stool, removed the old bulb, and immediately realized something was wrong:

Yep, for whatever engineering reason, the bulb was too tall for it to fit flush in the recess lighting housing.  Nor are the lighting cans in the ceiling adjustable to allow the socket to be moved up accordingly.

Sure, I’ve heard about this problem.  But it didn’t occur to me when I bought these newfangled bulbs.  I guess, construction/lighting standards don’t matter.  I guess we don’t have enough to worry about when shopping for new bulbs.  I guess I’ll try to return these (sharpie markings and all), shop somewhere else where good old fashion incandescent are still sold, and hope the CFL manufacturers figure out how to make bulbs that fit my house so I don’t have to dip into the supposed $39-saved-per-lifetime-of-each-bulb to buy new lighting fixtures that fit the new, non-standard sized bulbs.

Back in November I wrote about a relative who was going to lose TV coverage because of the conversion to DTV.  Sure, the government has postponed the mandatory date for conversion to digital transmission to June.  But some stations are making the switch today.

It’ll be interesting to see if the aunt can get better reception as some of her local stations power up their DTV signals.  It’ll be even more interesting to hear the complaints of those who lose TV reception because they don’t live close enough to the transmitters…and whether this translates to even more government delays in the mandated conversion date.  Actually,  I really hope I’m wrong and that the claims of indep2 in these comments are right.

I wonder whether this was brilliant police work or just dumb-lucky police work?  At seeing the story title, I thought the police managed to positively match a specific remote to a specific TV via serial numbers and manufacturer records.  But no, it wasn’t that fancy:

Police recovered‡ a remote control from the victim. Acting on a tip, police went to Gust’s home and used the remote to turn on a 27-inch TV there.

Gust spent 20 days in jail after pleading guilty …

Brilliant? Imagine police talk their way into suspect’s home, demonstrate that the remote actually controls TV in order to scare suspect into admitting guilt and apprehend on that basis.  Backup plan, use functioning remote as probable cause for arrest, get warrant to test TV for rightful owner’s prints and/or expect the suspect fesses up when in custody.  After all he’s just a dumb punk…he wouldn’t know better than to keep his mouth shut and and can’t afford to hire an expensive lawyer to question the probable cause of the remote being used to establish probable cause (BTW, that many/most criminals aren’t this resourceful is actually a good thing, IMO).

OR

Dumb lucky? Police believe that when the remote control turns on the TV this proves the suspect has the exact TV that belongs to the victim and the guy, being dumb, admits it (ya know that you can control, if you want to call it that, a lot of TVs with anything that produces IR light, for example with a hacked mini maglite).

I really hope it’s the former.

‡ I know the word “recover” is standard law enforcement jargon for “to take from” a victim, witness, or suspect.   But, damn it, recover means to take back.  It was the victim’s.  The police didn’t recover it.  They borrowed it.  Or at least I hope the victim was able to recover it from the police.