Weathering the Broken Links

Warnings, Redundant Warnings

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.

Tech Support Cheat Sheet for Friends and Family

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...

Eco Bulb Too FrECOn Tall For The Recess

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...

Can you DTV?

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 [...]

Clever sleuthing or not?

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 record. But no, it wasn't that fancy:

Cardtronics ATM Follow Up

Wow! I got a call from none other than Jerry Garcia. No, not from beyond the grave. Rather this Jerry Garcia, the CIO of Cardtronics. I never told anyone at Cardtronics about my blog post. I merely had described the problem to someone in a voice mail and asked for a callback. [...]

Errant ATM Keystroke, Extra Charge

I got bit by a usability issue at a Cardtronics ATM a few days ago. I usually use a particular ATM near my house because, despite requiring a $2 fee, it allows me to take out more than other ATMs a little farther away. To minimize the fees, I always take out the [...]

Took a lickin’ and still tickin’…on the floor

I’m hard on watches. Invariably, I end up scratching or cracking the face or breaking the strap or attachment pins on them just months acquiring new ones. I either have a poor sense of my dimensions or just like walking too close to walls and catching my appendages on all sorts of things. In [...]

A Fair Portrayal of a Defensive Gun Use

Rarely do you see a story about someone who is not in law enforcement who uses a gun for self defense told in a way that doesn't spin against gun ownership and use. This one is a refreshing change.

Stolen Guns Might End Up In Criminal Hands – Ya think?

I recorded a show called "Guns in America" on the National Geographic channel last night. I was really hoping to see some sort of positive representation of guns, gun ownership, and gun use. What I saw when I watched this morning was a bad attempt at pretending to perhaps provide a fair story in the topic. They certainly did showed positive aspects of gun ownership, but always managed to inject some disparaging comment from the anti-gun camp.

I could go on and on about all the idiotic things they said pretending to be neutral. But this one really got me ROFLing: ...