Scanner!

I ponied up for a good one, a Fujitsu S1500M. Despite free delivery from the UK version of buy.com, it arrived less than 20 hours after ordering(!), and I've set it up and started scanning. I still expect devices such as this to be rickety and error-prone. So far, it is vastly exceeding my expectations. It is slick, quick, and does pretty much exactly what I want it to do. And I've used the included software to set my default profile to one that automatically shunts scans directly into evernote. So I put a doc in the feed try, press one button, and a few seconds later I have a new pdf in evernote. I've scanned some old school reports from the boys, one of which was A4 on thick stock, color printing, comb bound. After pulling out of the binding, I dropped it in and pushed the futuristic blue scan button. It automagically performed dual-sided scanning. Another was on thin A5, stapled, with some bent corners. No problem. So far, it just works.

Virtual document archival is a problem I've been pondering for years. Seems like a good time to be able to sort it finally.

Zero History

Gibson's latest: highly recommended. Good to read Pattern Recognition and Spook Country beforehand, but not mandatory. In fact, I read Spook Country first, then PR, now ZH. Was a bit sad getting near the end, as I suspect the characters won't be appearing in any further books. But well worth it. Does not edge Spook Country off its pedestal for sheer brilliance (reading that was pure revelatory bliss) but not far off. Charming and a pleasure to read.

Scanner?

Evernote makes me want to buy a scanner. Bizarrely, some institutions still insist on transferring information on paper. This does me no good as I am terrible at hardcopy file & retrieval paradigms. Now I can scan everything and dump it to my cloud brain for searching from anywhere. I have no idea what to look for in a scanner, though.

Shirts

I've picked up a possibly bad habit of buying shirts from tm lewin. They are always on sale, 5 for a dollar or something like that. They are a bit hit or miss. Some of them end up great, many so-so. Probably all made in china. I have occasionally bought nicer-quality shirts elsewhere, and liked them. I'm mulling getting some very high-quality shirts actually made for me. Not sure if it's worth it. Although my doctor did instruct me to buy better-fitting shirts.

speaking of festivals

Woodstock happens, then turns into a rather pathetic legend for decaying boomers.
Glastonbury happens, everyone decides it's pretty fun, and they're still at it, every year for the past 40.
There's a bit more wisdom in the latter.

Another Festival in Victoria Park

There's another music festival this weekend in Victoria Park. I love these. Nice crowds, lively music. The festival walls weren't photogenic, but I took some random photos in a big walk around the music grounds.

some wildflowers in Well Street Common

new olympic stadium looming over Tower Hamlets... looks wonderfully alien

Trending Aesthetics

I've noticed that the iPad versions of apps for which there are also desktop versions tend to have much nicer interfaces (e.g. Evernote, SplashID, OmniFocus, BBCNews). Has Apple made it ok for both hardware and software to actually look good? Has the aesthetics of the device and the free availability of competition in the marketplace raised the bar? Maybe it's just the iPad versions are newer, but I think there's more to it.

Evernote

Started using Evernote a few weeks ago. Its utility increases exponentially with use, so I've made a good-faith effort to seed it with info. Once it gets to critical mass I can see it will be phenomenally useful. Even a couple weeks in, it's already proving to be handy. Example use case: anything that might be tax-relevant info I now just send to evernote with a #tax tag. Or anything I find related to, say, cycling, that I'm interested in, I have Evernote remember, whether it be a website, a product I'm interested in, route info, PDFs of install & maintenance guides for components I have, etc. This could partially be covered by saving bookmarks, and keeping them in sync. Not entirely though. And I've got clients on my desktop, iPad, and iPhone. (The iPad client is the best for browsing, actually, much nicer than the desktop client. Desktop client is the best for adding new content. Also there are plug-ins for firefox and safari on the desktop to add pages to evernote with a single-click, but the iPad safari has no plug-in capability yet, which is a shame.) Will re-evaluate in a year, but so far it looks like it will be good.

Some Movie Viewing Recommendations

Inception: recommended for viewing in a theatre

Let The Right One In: recommended for viewing subtitled version, especially before the american remake comes out (virtually assured to be inferior in all aspects)

Burrata!

Occasionally the chalk sign for the neighborhood deli will announce "Burrata back in stock!" I never paid much attention. I didn't even know what burrata was. Finally I decided to see what all the fuss was about. Turns out it's a southern italian cheese thing, in which they make a pouch out of mozzarella and stuff it with a mixture of shredded fresh mozzarella + cream.

Yes.

HDTV

Finally got HDTV a few weeks ago. Wasn't sure I'd notice a difference.


I notice a difference.

Some things look fantastic. Sports tend to look ludicriously good. Nature shows, Top Gear, and GT5: excellent. Movies are a mixed bag. Some look wonderful, but sometimes the HD makes them look like they were shot on video. Edges too sharp and flat backgrounds or something. There are lots of settings for the TV, though, I think there are plenty of tweaks to optimize for film. Overall, definitely enjoying it.

My MiFi vs. My Use Cases

So I've been using a MiFi thingy (take a 3G phone, remove the voice functionality, and turn it into a wifi router) and it generally works fine but I am still baffled by it's modes of operation. It has 3 buttons. One to toggle power, one to toggle the wifi routerness, one to toggle the 3G connection to the internet. So it can be in these modes:

1. off
2. power on, but not connected to the 3G network and wifi OFF
3. power on, connected to the 3G network, but wifi OFF
4. power on, wifi ON, but NOT connected to the 3G network
5. power on, connected to the 3G network and wifi ON

When you power it up, it goes to state #2! Sometimes it then automatically goes to either #3 or #4. It seems nondeterministic. Additional button pushing gets it to state #5. Sometimes the wifi bit turns itself off, for no apparent reason. But what I'm really wondering is what are the use cases for states 2-4?? I only ever want it to be in state 1 or 5. I can't for the life of me figure how any of the other states could be used.