mh-z web-log

I feel sorry for Ms. R. Kim, who apparently lived in my apartment unit. Or maybe not; depends on what she did. Could be she’s guilty of horrible misdeeds. Anyway, here’s one thing that happens when you’re arrested, that being a matter of public record: You (or your former address) receive(s) a ton of legal advertisements in the mail. Here’s a list of mail piece senders I’ve received so far, addressed to Ms. Kim:

1. Gurovitch, Berk & Associates, APC.
2. Law offices of Barry O. Bernstein, Major Felony Trial Attorney
3. Law offices of Ledger & Associates, a professional corporation
4. Experienced and aggressive criminal defense for all Southern California courts: Law offices of Tony M. Seyfi, a professional law corporation: “We Have The Key To Your Freedom!”
5. Earl Carter & Associates
6. Law offices of Ronald A. Ziff, A Professional Law Corporation
7. Robinson Law Offices, A Professional Law Corporation – Reasonable Fee, Free Consultation, The Blue Collar Law Firm
8. Law offices of Matt Koohanim: Criminal Defense Attorneys
9. Law offices of Seymour I. Amster: Criminal Law Specialist, Certified by the State Bar of California
10. The Felony Group
11. Pensanti and Associates
12. Bien & Robinson, A Professional Law Corporation: Former Deputy District Attorneys; Experts in Criminal Law; “Your Neighborhood Law Office”
13. Law Offices of Michael E. Grodsky
14. Eichler & Associates, Criminal Defense Attorneys Newsletter

My choices are limitless; I feel compelled to schedule consultations with them all to find out what my options are. At least for now, I’m writing “Forward, Moved” on the front of every letter and dropping it back into the mail, but knowing the post office, a bunch of these are going to come back to me. So I could keep playing Post Office Roulette to see how many rounds of dropping these back into the mailbox I can go before either I (or the post office) gives up, or presumably the post office would, as this seems the most logical course of action, eventually return the item in question to its sender as undeliverable. The sender would then, presumably, update (or cause to be updated) the database from which the address was drawn in the first place, thereby reducing the likelihood of further occurrence of misdirected mail. But then, I’d miss out on all the fun of speculating on what sort of crime Ms. Kim committed. And I don’t really mind postal spam (in fact, I won’t even call it spam, since the sender had to spend money to send it). I do mind incorrect databases, that’s all.

Looking back over some old papers and documents: This is from a processor (CPU) design lab I had in my last year of college. Among the authors of the lab report is a fellow named Cary Wun. Isn’t that a great name for a computer scientist? Or a mathematician? We implemented an “Am2901 Four-Bit Bipolar Microprocessor Slice” while drinking Orange Slice, and you just need a guy named Cary Wun on your team if you’re going to do that. Chips with mood disorders are tough to deal with, after all.

What does the METS readout on an aerobic exercise machine mean? I can’t find this in Wikipedia, and strangely it seems there’s not much information out there. The problem is the New York Mets grab all the search engine results. Anyway, [http://www.mbsfitness.com/community/Mantra/47.aspx this page] explains what METS are. When you’re sitting still, your body uses one MET (“metabolic equivalent”) of energy. So if the treadmill tells me I’m running at a steady 10.5 MET pace, that means I’m burning 10.5 times the Calories (or rather using 10.5 times the oxygen) as if I were sitting still.

They way the above article describes it, there’s a high correlation between maximum MET level and marathon time. So if I can maintain a steady 10 MET level, I’ll finish a marathon in about 5 hours and 15 minutes. So then, my goal is just to improve my sustainable MET level to be able to run a marathon in some impressive amount of time, like under 3 hours. And not ”actually” have to run the marathon, but at least then I can tell everyone that I ”could” run a marathon in that short of an amount of time. Then I could just stay home and watch TV and eat junk food instead.

I can’t find a MET vs Marathon Time table on the Web, though (same problem where METS is being eclipsed by Mets). That would be good information to have.

Here’s the Wikipedia page, by the way (indexed under [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_equivalent metabolic equivalent]).

I confuse all these movies: ”The Sixth Day”, ”The Seventh Gate”, ”The Sixth Sense”, ”The Twelfth Gate”, etc.

Strangely, I am not confused about ”The Fifth Element”, ”Seven”, or ”Twelve Monkeys”.

”Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” confuses me, but for different reasons.

Ever wonder where the computer terms “[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endianness big-endian]” and “little-endian” came from?
: In the novel, Gulliver washes up on the shore of Lilliput and is ‘captured’ by the inhabitants while asleep. He discovers that Lilliput and Blefuscu are permanently at war because of differences over the correct way to eat a boiled egg – from the rounded end according to the Blefuscudians, or from the sharp end according to the Lilliputians. The supporters of the differing views were called “Big-endians” and “Little-endians.”
From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilliput_and_Blefuscu this entry on Lilliput and Blefescu].

As a freelance computer professional (a role that I have in addition to a 9-5), it’s been suggested that I form a corporation to provide a significant tax advantage. This would work because the rules for what may be deducted by corporations are less stringent than the rules for deductions by individuals. Thus, my company could “choose” to provide me with a car for work (covering all automotive expenses), a place of business (covering all of my monthly rent), compensation for meals taken while on the job, etc. On the other hand, as an individual, to take these deductions I need to keep track of how many miles I drive for business, how many relative square feet of my apartment are dedicated to business pursuits, etc., thus deduction potential is far more limited.

Counter to this, a friend who is a CPA informs me that the rules for corporations are identical to the rules for individuals. That in truth, I technically do need to track business mileage versus personal mileage and so on, and it is merely the fact that the IRS is far more lax when it comes to enforcing the letter of the tax code on corporations that led to the suggestion above. According to this, the only true benefit of incorporating is a shield for personal liability. If I spill hot coffee into someone’s lap, they’ll have to sue the corporation whose auspices I’m doing business under, rather than myself personally, and my own assets are shielded.

But really, considering that I add enough milk to my coffee that it’s generally not scaldingly hot, it’s just a numbers game. How much tax money could I save by incorporating? What are the chances of an audit? What are the penalties for when the IRS doesn’t agree that a jet-ski is a business expense?

Moved to [http://www.dreamhost.com DreamHost].

I recently had Cable Internet installed, which clocks in between 3 and 4 mbps on the download side. Much better than DSL, which would randomly stop working for 1-minute intervals at least a few times a night. This is Comcast’s RoadRunner service, which I’m pretty happy with so far. Six month introductory period at $20 per month, after which it gets expensive, but I’ll deal with that later. It’s been my experience, then, that Cable technology (ignoring the price) is very much superior to DSL.

The installation itself was a highly participatory experience, since the technician couldn’t even type on my computer (good old Dvorak layout), let alone figure out how to decrease Internet Explorer’s security settings so that the “account activation software” could run. Really, all that did was figure out my computer’s MAC address and enter that into the server’s database to allow the cable modem to pull an IP address. This could have been done through a simple Web form, or even over the phone.

In my experience, which is, I’ll admit, limited, these are poor substitutes for their wired counterparts. I had used a Logitech wireless mouse for a short while while at an old job, and the main thing I noticed was the severe latency between mouse movement and corresponding cursor movement on the screen. Based on my subjective experience with LCD panels of differing response times, I’d guess this wireless mouse had a latency of about 30ms.

Apparently, many (or most) people don’t notice this sort of thing, but it was a deal-breaker for me and I went back to a good old wired optical mouse. The other problem was with the wireless mouse was that its batteries died after about a month of use. Speaking of batteries, too, it used AA batteries, which meant that the mouse itself was larger and heavier than its corded cousin which draws power through the cord.

In further experience, my recent purchase of a wireless keyboard wasn’t that much better. I got a nice sleek Logitech keyboard, just because I needed one in a hurry (had spilled Coke into my old keyboard, thereby ruining it), and Best Buy didn’t have much selection in the way of corded keyboards (let alone keyboards in general, but the bulk of them were wireless). So based on the feel of the keys, I picked one out. I figured my experience would be better than my mouse experience, since a couple years had passed (technology’s getting better, you would assume) and the box advertised the quickness of the wireless transmission/encryption protocol.

What I noticed, though, was that there was in fact a definite lag when typing. On the order of 15ms as a guess, but this was per immediate keypress. When typing fast, keystrokes would actually queue up and I could type for a while, stop typing, and watch the letters appear on screen to catch up to what I had entered. This effect was most pronounceable when navigating around a document using the arrow keys, home/end, etc.

Furthermore (this was the main deal-breaker), many keyboards seem to be, for no apparent reason, rearranging the block of keys above the arrows. For example, the standard “101 key” keyboard has a 3×2 block that looks like this:

INS HOME PGUP
DEL END PGDN

So that’s what I’m used to. The Logitech, instead, had a 2×3 block which completely rearranged these keys, and the locations of several surrounding keys. The F1-F12 keys were very small and hard to press.

So today I returned that keyboard and got a cheapie Dynex board, which is quite a relief. The keys are all where they’re supposed to be, and cursor response time is instantaneous.

Conclusion of all this is: Call me old fashioned, but wireless keyboards/mice have a long way to go. It’s all about the response time. My monitor is a 5ms LCD panel, and I can tell when I’m using anything less than that. (That’s my #1 complaint about Macs, by the way: the OS itself is laggy when redrawing the cursor/windows on screen. Not to mention that the iMac LCD itself has a rather high latency. Feels like the cursor is being pulled along by rubber bands connected to the actual position of the mouse, rather than being controlled directly.)