Archive for June 2010

Google Voice – Open to All!

Google announced that Google Voice is no longer an invitation-only service.  Anyone (in the USA) can get an account, or use an existing Google account to activate Google Voice for yourself. I like it a lot, even though I’m not a heavy phone user.  If I were, I would absolutely love it.  Take a look […]

Audiobook Complete: Ultima Thule

Title: Ultima Thule Author: Mack Reynolds Source: Librivox URL: http://librivox.org/ultima-thule-by-mack-reynolds/ Told from the perspective of a new agent in United Planets Bureau of Investigation on his first assignment, this is really a political discussion.  As the new agent visits planet after planet in search of a purported political agitator, the problems of multiple political systems […]

Audiobook Complete: The Story of My Misfortunes

Title: The Story of My Misfortunes Author: Peter Abelard (1079-1142) Source: Librivox URL: http://librivox.org/the-story-of-my-misfortunes-by-peter-abelard/ One sentence summary: What a whiner. I can’t say this was a particularly enjoyable book, but it was fascinating, something like a train wreck is fascinating.  It does provide some additional background to the love story of Abelard and Heloise, but […]

Standalone JNDI

I have a need at work to implement a standalone command line Java program that needs to be able to use local JNDI.  I’ve got it working, but it was way harder to figure out than it should have been, and I couldn’t find any blog postings that used the version of code that I […]

A Tempering Experience

At the Whitewater Early Music Festival the first weekend in June, I bought some second hand instruments, a bass cornamuse and an alto recorder at A=415.  I took my good tuner (Korg OT-120 ) with me to check the instruments before buying. The cornamuse was first up.  I turned the tuner on, noted it was […]

Travel Notes – Hang up the cell phone!

Yes, I know the airline rules allow cell phone use until the cabin door is closed. I don’t care, hang up while you’re boarding. You can’t pay attention to getting to the right seat while chatting to your stock broker.  The cell phone makes you too stupid to get A-B-C-D-E-F in the right order.   And […]