Dry Ice Factory

So I have finally leaped into the new millennium by buying a smartphone. It's an Android -- a Samsung Galaxy S II. I got it through Credo, which is a company that donates some of its profits to progressive causes. (Denys and I have had a long distance service from them for many years, going back to when they were called Working Assets.) They don't have their own network and are a reseller of Sprint's service.

I've long wanted a mobile internet connection, and we'll see if it's worth the cost. I only activated it yesterday, so I've still got a lot to learn. I'm interested in app suggestions from folks who use Androids. I'm also interested in hints and advice for a newbie. How do you use your smartphone? How do I get the best bang for the buck? (For example, how often do you use wifi rather than the phone network?)

Honestly, I'm so new at this that I don't even know what questions to ask yet.

Thanks to everyone who weighed in on this topic yesterday. Some great points made -- very clarifying to my muddled mind. Looks like I'll get another desktop and think about the merits of a netbook or tablet for the times I'm on the road, probably after I've gotten a smartphone and taken some time to see if it meets my mobile computer needs/desires.

I finally pulled the trigger today and signed up with PowWeb for web hosting and thereby acquired a domain. I was amused that PowWeb notified me of other related domains that I could secure to "protect" my brand, and one of them is randybyers.org.uk, which is almost tempting, just in case the Brits really do end up importing me. (A plan is afoot.) I went with randybyers.net, although there's nothing there yet so don't bother to look.

Anyway, now comes the hard part: Creating a web page. Guess I need to download Word Press next. Might help if I had a better idea what I'm intending to do with this blog.

So for over two decades I've been using a bedside phone+radio for my alarm clock, but it's finally getting to the point where the radio reception is off unless I'm physically touching the casing. Since I use the radio for my alarm, it's irritating as hell. In the meantime we've gotten ourselves a trio of cordless phones for the house, one of which is in my room, so I don't really need a bedside phone anymore. What I need is a radio that I can use as an alarm. Or am I stuck in a conceptual rut with this idea? I ask my Friends for advice. Any cool alarm devices I could use to replace my ailing system?

I'm looking for recommendations of cheap, easy-to-use digital cameras. Part of me thinks I should just get an Android smartphone, but I'm dithering on that, so maybe a stand-alone camera is finally in order. I think I'm looking for the equivalent of the old point-and-shoot film cameras. I don't want to deal with lenses or f-stops or any of that.

One of my concerns about growing my hair out is whether I can keep it trimmed myself without getting hair all over the place. It just occurred to me today that I've heard of electric razors that can be used in the shower, and sure enough some googling got me to this example on offer at Amazon.com. I'm wondering if anybody has experience with such a device (whether for shaving or for trimming) and how that worked out and whether any models can be recommended. It seems as though doing the hair trimming in the shower would solve the problem of hair getting all over the place, but maybe it clogs the drain frequently or causes other problems.

So I got a question today about an old MS Access database I had created when I was in a different job. Hadn't looked at in years. Couldn't figure out why the hell the query in question wasn't working the way it was supposed to. Futzed around with it for a while. Could not make sense of what I was seeing. Went away for a while feeling defeated. Had an idea about another approach. Opened it up again and starting futzing around some more. Finally got really frustrated with the Access graphical interface and went directly to the SQL and beat the damned thing into submission. I've been having to learn more SQL lately as we switch to a new reporting tool in the current job. Frequently I feel that SQL is smarter than I am, but it appears I actually have learned something. I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself. Guess I'm not an old dog quite yet.

It's time-consuming, this business of printing a fanzine at home. It's not something I can just set up and leave to run on its own. It requires almost constant interaction in the process. Part of that is because of how I decided to do it this time. When I printed the guts of the last Chunga, I used the duplex mechanism, but I printed all 275 copies of one two-sided sheet at a time, then we collated by hand later. The thought was that this would save computer processing time. For AmaZed and CorfluZed #4 I'm letting the printer do the collation too, which means I'm printing the guts of each copy all at once, then stapling that copy while I print the guts of the next one.

Since the covers are on different paper, I printed all of the front covers at once. I tried to do the same for the back cover, but the paper tray stopped working for that weight of paper for some reason, so now I print the guts and then print a back cover hand-fed, then add the front cover and staple it. Just to make things more complicated, I'm printing the guts in color and the back cover in grayscale. That's because when I printed Chunga I discovered that a little bit of color toner was being used on pages that were nothing but black text. There's no color on the final page or back cover of the regress report, so it can be printed in grayscale, saving some color toner.

What this all means is that I have to send a print command twice for each copy of the zine I print, and I have to make changes to the settings for each print command. This introduces more opportunity for errors, and I've made a few. (If you get an all grayscale copy, you'll know why.)

It's time-consuming. It's hard to focus on other things (like writing an LJ post, or working in the garden) while doing this. I'm only willing to do it this way because I'm only printing around a hundred copies.

I have no urge to play around with mimeo or other older printing technologies, but working at this level does make me think more about how each copy of the zine is an individual artifact that for instance is stapled slightly differently than all its twins. This does get me thinking about other ways individual copies can be made distinct. Rubber-stamping? Hand-coloring? Changes in paper color? Who knows, maybe I will end up getting into something like letter press printing once I no longer have the money to blow on toner. (Although actually the convention is paying for the toner for the regress report.)

Meanwhile I'm nursing the printer. And being reminded how much I love the taste of fresh raspberries and granola. Heaven! I love this time of year. Ah well, guess it's time to stuff a few envelopes.

Update: I did take a break, by the way, and went down to the Fremont Street Fair to hang out for a couple of hours with R. Twidner, holyoutlaw, and juliebata at the Seattle Art Car Blow-Out. Gave Art a wee bit o' the creature. He told good stories about the first days of fandom and fanzines. Loved the art car with the slogan, "Who profits from your self-loathing?" Now I've got my nose back to the grindstone. Ambient music on the speakers, cool evening air mixing with the stench of toner. Raspberries for dinner!

Well, I'm certainly off to a rocky relationship with my cellphone. Perhaps this is a sign that I'm not intended to keep it!

So what's happening now is that, well, it's dead. Which is to say that when I flip it open, the screen stays dead, there is no happy little sound, none of the buttons work, and it otherwise appears to be pining for the fjords. I thought it was a dead battery, but I recharged overnight and it's still dead. (The battery recharging light did go from red to green, indicating that the battery is still functioning.) Any thoughts from the masses before I go back to the store and make an idiot of myself? It's a cheapo model that I got with my GO account from AT&T.

University of Washington researchers are attempting to develop underwater robots that use schooling behavior (via direct communication with each other) for various purposes: "In the future, ocean-going robots could cooperatively track moving targets underwater, such as groups of whales or spreading plumes of pollution, or explore caves, underneath ice-covered waters, or in dangerous environments where surfacing might not be possible. Schools of robots would be able to work together to do things that one could not do alone, such as tracking large herds of animals or mapping expanses of pollution that can grow and change shape."