The Question

If wiretaps and intercepting snail-mail both require a court order in the USA, then why doesn’t listening in on internet communications also require a court order?

If you trust Google maps, I think you’re crazy. Over the years, it has sent me to the wrong place numerous times.

Recently, deliveries to my home have been screwed. The only explanation that I have is because Google invented a new street name and points the correct address to the wrong houses.

A few months ago, I did an interview over at My Linux Rig. It was recently published.

Every year I receive a text message on my cell phone reminding me that my minutes are about to expire. For the last 5+ years, I’ve added $10 worth of minutes every October to keep the plan alive.

Just $10/year for cell phone use?

Life is too short to deal with filing (paper or electronic) very much. We all have better things to do with our time than waste it on excess organization. The goal is to locate a receipt or statement fast enough. Nobody is watching your filing – there is no test later. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I usually need to find a single document every year, no more. Minimal effort for maximum return is the goal.

A few times every week, we all get offers from the local cable company or telecom that has a low-low-low price in a 48pt font. The price is so low that we open the letter and read a little. I’m staring at an offer from AT&T right now, but it could be from the cable company just as easily.

$29/month for U-Verse TV +
HD-Ready DVR Included +
No Equipment to Buy!

Wow! That sounds like a great deal. How can I possibly pass it up? Then I read a little more, you know, the fine print.

For Six Months

So what’s the price after 6 months? Will they say?

This morning I saw an email from a business associate. It contained a link to an article on LinkedIn. That article was actually hosted on mashup. The article was about Social Media Overload; he called it The Sharepocalypse. After reading a fairly long article pointing out all the issues with the different human interactions with the main social media providers, I wanted to add a comment. Oddly, I couldn’t unless I used either a twitter or facebook account to login.

About a month ago, an editor at a large blog website followed one of my links in a comment there back here and offered to republish the story. I was already seeing increased traffic from that link on their site – like 10x more than my normal daily traffic – and it scared me. I don’t have the bandwidth to handle that sort of traffic and my Ruby on Rails blog software … er … pretty much sucks from a scalability perspective. What did I do?

I hope you will indulge me and allow a non-technology post.

Recently I found myself with a bottle of Coconut Rum and didn’t know what to do with it. I like rum and I love coconut, so this was a good problem to have. Google to the rescue, but as much as I enjoy rum AND coconut, nothing tasted as good as a Piña Colada using the standard mix in a bottle from my local grocery. That seemed sad to me, so after trying a few recipes like

• Coconut Cola (great if you like coconut and rum and cokes)
• Coconut Orange (a little too tangy for me)
• Goombay Smash
• Rummple
• Deep-7
• A Day At The Beach
• The Bianca Pop (good to get an evening started)
  You can find more coconut rum drinks.
  I decided to try to smooth some of the bite a few of those drinks had by mixing things I liked, while not getting too complex. I call it TheFu:

TheFu Recipe

Use a Highball Glass

1. 3 oz orange juice
2. 3 oz pineapple juice
3. 1 1/2 oz coconut rum
   Fill glass with 50% crushed ice, add rum, then add both juices and stir.

Nothing too complex, but the OJ and Pineapple really complement the coconut rum. Without both juices, there’s just a little too much bite for me. I tried drinks with just 1 or the other. It was a tough day of experimentation. ;) Sure, there are other drinks that can be made with a few other ingredients, but I was
a) thirsty
b) without those other ingredients.

The Piña Colada is still very tasty, but who wants a 350 calorie drink all the time when a 200 calorie drink that is pretty easy to make, without any mess, no blender to clean up, is just slightly less tasty? I still like the coconut rum and coke just as much, but as long as there’s OJ and pineapple juice in da house, this new drink will be it.

Perhaps I need to pick up some grenadine?

7/3/11 Update: Seems there’s a very similar recipe to TheFu called Jack-is-Back

• 2 oz Coconut Rum
• 2 oz Pineapple juice
• 2 oz Orange juice

similar, but not quite.

What should kids know to be reasonably safe? That’s a tough question.

Below is a draft Kid-Safety Checklist for parents to work through with their kids.

All kids do need to know these things.