Weekly Round-up: No Added MSGs.
So the phone thing. I did my nice and neat rewiring, which didn't do anything because the problem was outside the house. On Wednesday I finally contacted the phone company to get the line fixed. I didn't feel like dealing with people--a surprise, I know, because I'm such a people person--so I logged onto the website which had a page for creating a repair ticket. I go through all the steps and off it goes. I see that it has a way to check the status online, so I click it just to see what happens, even though I'd just signed up. The status says they are trying to contact me about my repair, and if I don't hear from them soon I should call them. I look at my work phone, expecting it to ring, b

My New Printer Adventure . . . Geek Tales Ahead
Let me start by saying the Canon Pixma MX860, my new wireless multifunction printer/scanner/copier/pressure cooker prints beautiful borderless photos, can make copies directly without the computer on, and seems to be generally fab, a welcome replacement to my old Epson, which a bit of a steaming pile from day one.However, getting the Pixma installed was a tad on the nightmarish side. The first steps were prolonged but all right: three test sheets had to be printed to align the print head and other various things. But when it came time to establish the wireless connection to my network, things went south.My network could not connect to the printer. I went to the troub

Outlying planets are not defense posts for inner planets. Discuss.
Outlying planets are not viable defense posts for inner planets. Pick an outer planet. Imagine a sphere defined by that planet's orbital diameter surrounding the inner system. Pick a spot along the outer planet's orbit for its current position. Picture that three dimensional arrangement: a star at the center of a sphere, its inner planets spread along the orbital plane, the outer planet at one point on the surface of the sphere. It's like a medieval defender with no castle but just one brick, carrying it in a circle around his house, hoping that all arrows shot will hit that brick.Except for an enemy stupid enough to fly right by the outer planet within the range of its weapons,

Weekly Round-up: special telephone edition.
So our land line has been working intermittently the last week or two, but we've avoided reporting it for fear that the problem would be inside our house. It's a little known fact that if they come out to the house and it turns out to be an internal wiring issue the phone company can legally take your car.Between our cell phone and the intertubes we haven't really missed it, and the absence of telemarketers and fundraisers has been a relief. Still, I decided I should try to determine if it really is an inside problem or not.After some superficial research, I quickly determined that our phone wiring hasn't been updated since the 1970s at best. Not a surprise there. Ou

Weekly Round-up, with a free toy surprise!
The basement renovation project continues to progress. Lots of books have made it onto shelves, we've got three rugs down on the floor. The A/V corner of the room is pretty much done. A 1940s desk has a 1990s TV on it. I made a little shelving unit to fit under the desk where a chair would go, housing a 1970s receiver (which my dad handed down to me when I went to college in the 1980s) plus twenty-first century CD, DVD, and VCR. VCR sound runs through TV, but CD and DVD go through receiver, which, being ancient, has only one auxiliary input, so had to add an A/B switcher. The DVD player is tiny, with no display, so it's nice to have a separate CD player with display that can be controlled e