Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Time Warner Cable DVR fail

I watched "The Making of Sound of Music Live" on NBC tonight. The "live" part is the broadcast is going to be at 8 Eastern/7 Central on Thursday, Dec. 5; the "making of" part was prerecorded. So I'm thinking, "I should set that to record on the Time Warner Cable DVR." Wrong. This DVR will only allow scheduling recordings six days in advance, or Tuesday, Dec. 3 as of today. Time Warner Cable DVR fail!

How many people are going to miss the broadcast of "The Sound of Music Live" because they forget to schedule the DVR recording after the show finally shows up on the schedule?

Saturday, November 9, 2013

Composting 2013

The good news: Composting kitchen waste is going well. The bad news: Composting yard waste just takes too long, especially for the gum balls. We have a sweet gum tree which produces a lot of gum balls every year and they take several years to break down.


What you're seeing in this picture, from left to right: A pile of leaves from this year which I will probably use to cover the gum balls with. Next is a composting bin we bought from Lowe's (but I don't think they sell them any more). The composting bin contains yard waste but it's mostly gum balls and soil at this point as the leaves and branches have broken down. There is a pile of gum balls between the composting bins. These aren't even this year's crop yet but from previous years. Like I said, it takes at least four years for them to decompose. The compost bin to the right is an Earth Machine that we bought from the Hamilton County Recycling and Solid Waste District several years ago. Finally, there are two bags mostly containing branches ready to go to the community compost pile.

I live in the City of Norwood, Ohio and homeowners receive 10 composting bags "free" from the city. The two bags you see here are the final two of this year's allotment, meaning that eight bags have gone out for composting already. So, in my small yard, I can only handle a limited amount of yard waste.

I have thought about getting a chipper/shredder but I'm wary of using energy for this process. It would have to be electric (not easy to find) as my wife and I have given up on gasoline-powered yard equipment.

Note: This is update from a post from October 2012, "Clearing the peony bed."

Monday, November 4, 2013

If you're rich and famous, you should read Brian Krebs' blog post

Brian Krebs has found that a hacker break-in at a company that provides software for the limousine and ground transportation industry has exposed (in plain text!) the names, addresses and credit card numbers of 850,000 people that use limousines and town cars. If you're possibly one of the 850,000 rich and famous people (examples: LeBron James, Tom Hanks and Donald Trump) you should read this blog post.

Saturday, November 2, 2013

Drone strikes in the United States?


This posting is prompted by the news story about the Pakistani Taliban leader killed by a drone strike

I'm waiting for drone strikes to come to the United States. You're sitting in a restaurant and notice three guys walking across the parking lot. Then, out of the blue, there's a flash and a boom and ... they're just gone! (Along with two cars — collateral damage.) You find out later that one was a serial killer and the other two were his brother and a friend. How convenient for the authorities! No trial, no appeals, no death row; just flash, boom and "Can you identify these body parts, ma'am?" You say it can't happen here and mumble something about the Constitution. Are you sure?