This was in the Wall Street Journal:
Comcast to Test Digeo Set-Top Box Comcast plans to test an advanced TV set-top box designed by Digeo, the latest sign that the start-up has become a credible competitor to Microsoft in the cable field.
Funny thing is this. Paul Allen owns Digeo 
Took the family (actually they asked me to go :-)), to the 2004 Cherry Blossom Festival up in the city. The kids actually had a great time. I think the temporary immersion into a different culture put their senses on overload, and that is good. There were also a few totoro’s around for them, and they loved that. I have a picture of them in catbus. My wife enjoyed some of the artwork and the shops.
This was the first time I had been to that mall in “little Osaka”. Usually, I just went to the theatre that was there. It’s a neat place that I may visit when I really need to try out some different Japanese food. Unfortunately, I could not partake in the foods because of the gall-bladder problem!
Next weekend they will have a parade and more demonstrations and we may go to that as well.
Unlike the notorious cold fusion of the past by Pons and Fleischman, this looks like a valid form of low-energy fusion. I remember when the cold-fusion stuff took hold, there was this crazed excitement for a few weeks. (one other bit of trivia, I had two Amiga 500’s at the time. I was trying to get UUPC running on one so I could get usenet running on via UUCP. The Amiga was on the floor as I was reading the posting.)
Anyways, here are the links on the new/old discoveries: EV World and ScienceDaily (older). These experiments are not energy generating (they haven’t passed the break even point), but they are being independently verified by other academic institutions.
I said old/new above because the process is based on cavitation. I remember hearing about this back at FSU when I hung out with some of the physics students (early 90’s). So it is definitely not a new new discovery. Essentially, you use some wave energy source (RF or Audio) on a container of pure water to cause these tiny bubbles to form and implode on themselves. In fact, now I remember one of the guys doing this used a quartz container and microwaves to cause the effect. Quartz doesn’t interfere with the microwave rf, and microwave rf is tuned to interfere with water. I’m sure someone will figure out how to do this with the common microwave frequencies out there in their home kitchen. Fortunately, they will need deuterium to do anything dangerous.
This new work is significant process. A low energy neutron emitter would have many novel uses.
Just saw this on slashdot, Microsoft has released a free C++ compiler. You can read about it and get it here. This is the command line only version, but it is still significant. It doesn’t seem to have the other essential tools (a build tool and debugger), BUT, you could probably swap this tool in for a Visual Studio 6.0 system. This is neat, and I’ll have to check it out later.
I finished my taxes on the 14th. A record for me. This is one of the first years where I didn’t file an extension.
The weird thing is that I like to do the taxes. I like understanding the way the system works.
Anyways, here are some quick thoughts on the process:
The Good… 1. Adobe wins big with the PDF format. They did a good job when they created the format, and it has only gotten better. I really like the forms that let you fill them in and then print them out. Once I saw that I then wondered if they could actually just take that data instead of printing it and sending it. Sure enough, they did think of that, and now the PDF forms are capable of sending data that is typed into them.
Overall, California is fairly advanced for eGovernment programs. I’m constantly pleased by how much you can do online in this state. When I first started filing taxes, they were years ahead of the Fed in using the PDF forms.
The Bad…
The Federal government needs to make an e-File system that is free. I refuse to pay $60 for some system that should be free since they are paid to actually perform this service. Also, even though this is the big evil government, I think they are easier to watch. I don’t trust the 30 or so companies that are providing this service to taxpayers. Who is watching all of them? The IRS can barely keep itself together, what is going to incent it to keep an eye on these other corps.
One other thing that could be improved is the basic criteria for the forms. Why do I have to go through questions related to Farm Income, ‘Mining Depletion’ or Drilling Writedowns? Surely they could separate those into separate forms. You could imagine a 1040 just for farmers. Then you just use the forms you need and they all sum up on one line on the 1040 for their respective section. This is one category where California is so much worse. The special interest writedowns are enormous and complicated.
I think more and more people will agree with this since they are now getting hit with AMT. The AMT calculations are full of these little questions which are poorly worded.
The Weird…
The last thing to mention is that I miss the opportunity to turn my return in at night. Last year, at the San Mateo Post Office, one of the postal workers was dressed up as Uncle Sam and collecting the returns from the cars that drove up. Nice touch. They should pay the postal people more.
(and before you ask, no, I didn’t have a camera cell phone to get my picture with the guy so I could ‘moblog’ the experience
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps
Yeah, it came out a year ago, yeah I’m always late to the party. Well I was poking around in the windows media player the other night and I caught their video. Catchy NY art-rock. Nice.
Since the Molé Burrito Attack, I have implemented a no-fat diet in my life. I have not had an attack since I did that, which is nice. The reality of the diet, though, is that some of the foods did have a tiny amount of fat. I might have had maybe had 2 grams of fat on a particular day. Still, after those attacks, I don’t want to figure out how many grams of fat it will take to cause me to go over the edge.
Another thing to note is that the internet has helped quite a bit. I was able to do the research from my own home and quickly build a picture of the risks and treatment possibilities for my conditions. (I’ll post a separate message about that, there is a neat story there.)
Tomorrow I start seeing the doctors.
