DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

We bought a new car in 1995. Shortly afterwards, a rock flew up off the road and knocked a tiny chip out of our windshield. “Man, that sucks,” I said. “I’ll have to fix that before the windshield cracks.”

Sometime in 1999, another rock flew up off the road, as rocks tend to do especially when they get driven over by all those inconsiderate meatballs who drive 3-ton, 10 m.p.g. SUVs to the grocery store, and knocked another tiny chip out of our windshield. “Man, that sucks,” I said. “Now I’ll really have to fix that before the windshield cracks.”

At four points along this timeline, my father came out to visit, pointed out the chips, and said “you should get those chips fixed before the windshield cracks.” What could I do but agree?

Last week our windshield cracked. A warm afternoon in the sunshine was enough to finally do it. In contrast, having the phone number of the windshield repair shop sit by the phone for two and a half years was not enough to get the thing fixed beforehand.

So, I called around, and learned a few surprising things. First, many windshield repairs are covered by auto insurance. This was a real treat — sure, the nature of insurance is that everyone resents it until they need it, and then they resent not having more. But to find out that I’d get a few hundred dollars’ benefit from all these years of paying premiums without having to get rear-ended by some inattentive slob (driving an SUV, say) was an unexpected benefit.

Next, I discovered the existence of on-site windshield replacement companies. I called one at 9am; by noon, a technician with a replacement windshield was in my driveway prying the old glass out of its frame, no doubt eyeing the long crack connecting the two miniature divots, thinking, if these idiots had called me two years ago, I wouldn’t have to replace whole windshield!

Total cost to me: $50 and two phone calls. Good service is always a bargain, but this felt especially cheap.

9pm PDT at www.thematrix.com tonight: see the first teaser trailer for Matrix: Reloaded.

I’ve been looking for an excuse to buy a pair of Bose noise-cancelling (NC) headphones for years. I think the idea of it really appeals to me: analyse ambient sound, issue an identical waveform that is 100% out-of-phase, and “viola” as I like to say when no one’s listening, the ambient sound disappears. What could be cooler than that?

But I tend to be suspicious of hype, and Bose is known for hype. (How many thousands of times have you seen an ad for the Wave radio? I predict that only these NC headphones will surpass the ad density unleashed on the world by Bose’s Wave campaign.)

And then I stumbled across a concise, contrarian opinion: Noise cancelling headphones are mostly a waste of money. According to HeadRoom, NC headphones offer ~10db of isolation, which is not significantly better than what is provided by a good pair of sealed headphones. Further, they opine (without naming brands or models) that NC headphones are inferior for audio reproduction.

They suggest Etymotic’s in-ear-canal headphones, which offer 20+ db of isolation (!) and are described as the “world’s best sealed headphone.”

Now that I think about it, it’s shocking how badly I need a new pair of cans. My ancient V-6s deposit little vinyl turds on my face because the pads are disintegrating, and one of the earcups has snapped off my old Sennheisers… I’m overdue, man! Quick, where’s my VISA card?!

The worst thing about buying a new house — so far, anyway — is feeling like I don’t own this one any more. I’ve been thrown back into my apartment-living mentality, where every picture hung means one more hole to patch, every moment spent setting up new drums or computer gear or recording equipment means another moment packing it away in a few weeks. When I know I’ll be leaving soon, I have a hard time settling in; the temporary nature of the arrangement wrecks my ability to get comfortable.

Ironically, we’re continuing to remodel, on the advice of our realtor, who insists that a dollar spent on the kitchen now is worth two more in the listing price. Yes, that’s right: had you put all those tech-market investments into kitchen remodels instead, your portfolio would have doubled rather than halved last year. So long as the kitchens in question were located in northern California.

Following this “logic,” we just had the kitchen cabinets refinished, and new counters and a new sink put in. The place looks so good, I’m tempted to say I don’t want to move… but that was true before these changes.

Yeah, I admit it; I’m whining. I can hear your protestations now: “So don’t move if you don’t want to!” It’s not that simple — I want my damn 5 acres, recording studio, datacenter, home theater, and 1700 electronic and/or ethernet devices. It’s just hard to be excited about the property when it exists only conceptually. Whereas it’s easy to be depressed about packing boxes, weekend trips to the self-storage place, and the prospect of putting our home on the market before we find a “suitable replacement.”

Internet users who knowingly submit incorrect contact information when registering Web addresses could face up to five years in jail under legislation introduced in the House of Representatives this week.

Source:
New Bill Would Criminalize False Domain Name Registrations (local mirror)

I have not used a real address or phone number on any domain registration in 5 years. And I’d hate to have to start, although a felony conviction is a pretty dramatic incentive, assuming they can find me to serve the papers.

This is a great quote: “Cybersquatters and other electronic ne’er-do-wells often submit false names and contact numbers when registering Internet addresses.” I think cybersquatters are vermin, just one rung on the evolutionary ladder above spammers (but 2 down from slime molds), so by the process of elimination that makes me an “electronic ne’er-do-well.”

I hide my contact information for exactly 1 reason: the WHOIS databases are among the first databases imported by every new spam outfit. Worse, shady domain registrars like Network Solutions/VeriSign routinely sell access to their customer lists, resulting in snail-mail-borne crap like the UTP-Online.com pro-forma invoice scam.

The bill’s authors, Howards Berman and Coble, are at least aware of the need for privacy; see Berman’s statement from last July in what appears to have been one of the initial hearings on the issue.

And yet, ten months later, the bill they’ve come up with ignores these privacy concerns and simply implements a (stiff) penalty. Here is the full text of HR 4640:

Whoever knowingly and with intent to defraud provides material and misleading false contact information to a domain name registrar, domain name registry, or other domain name registration authority in registering a domain name shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.

How about a little federally mandated protection for all this personal WHOIS data? Please don’t tell me that would interfere with commerce — the excuse bureaucrats usually foist off on their victim/constituents when they pass anti-privacy legislation.

Here is contact info for Howard Berman. Here is contact info for Howard Coble. My letter to both, urging them to reconsider the issue, goes out tonight.