stay in the shallow end

While people generally think of Alabama as being pretty backwards, I can personally attest that the Birmingham Airport has the most advanced toilet technology that I’ve witnessed in the country. (I believe Japanese toilets that have built in seat warmers and spray you down when you’re done still hold the global crown). Let me introduce you to the Bella Bagno:

Note the lovely diagram explaining how this quantum leap in toilet technology works. The authoritative lettering stating For Your Convenience and Protection. Here’s a pictures of the actual unit:

It’s essentially a gigantic condom for the toilet seat! Now you too can practice safe pooping. It made me feel SO safe, despite the fact that you are far more likely to catch an infectious disease from a doorknob or even your own keyboard. And of course, like every dime spent in the airport, I’m sure it somehow gets connected back to post 9/11 security. I can see the Bella Bagno marketing person saying, “Listen, what you, as an airport, needs to do to encourage more people to fly is to make them feel safe. The public needs to think that you’re covering every angle of their safety, and what could show your commitment better than a toilet condom.”

I will say, though, that the toilet condom has an elegant simplicity to it’s interface: A Big Red Button.

It’s pretty mesmerizing watching the plastic shuffle around when you press the button. I do admit, I did press it more than once… probably four times. As is often the case in the bathroom, I couldn’t contain myself.

Went to the beach a couple of weeks ago to hang out with the usual suspects. As an added bonus, Jeremy and I were commissioned to install equipment to provide wireless internet to the entire condo. The building has ten units, two across and five high. One of the units on the fourth floor would have the internet connection, and we needed to relay it to the rest. We were told that the building was made of concrete and aluminum studs.

With our initial plan, we would put an Airport Extreme in the 4th floor unit, and then stagger Airport Expresses on each floor as relay base stations with the intent of blanketing the building. We figured this would be overkill.

Boy were we wrong.

Turns out that the floors and the wall between the units were actually made of steel reinforced concrete. Practically no signal would make it through. Within a unit, though, no problems at all.

So we solved the problem the way you solve any technology problem: Throw more equipment at it!

We ended up putting one in each unit in a bedroom so they were no more than the width of the concrete wall apart and the height of a floor apart. No problems after that!

So now the beach has wireless internet. Because it has wireless internet, Papa Joe saw it fit to get a TiVo, and it has truly become paradise.

…in yet another article about Rails on Slashdot, I saw this comment, which kicks ass.

RUBY! AJAX! ORGASM! Hit it with a RAIL!
R!
O!
R!
ROOOOOAAAAR!
RUBY ON RAILS! So fucking awsome I gotta, … I, OMFG!!!!!!!! I’m coming, I’m gonna, OMG … say “I like your monkey!!!” SAY IT! – …. OOOOooooohhhh, Rubyajaxrails, yeaaaah!!
I’ve got it! Yeah! I’ve got a vision, people, a vision!
We’re gonna have Ajax and we’re gonna put it on Rails and it’s all gonna be like Lucy in the Sky with Rubys.
Oh my gosh am I seeing some shit….
This is so awesome… …and any Beta mindfart about it is like ten times ten Ajax orgasms!

so awesome.

So I go downtown to pay my property taxes, which are two days late. End up paying $140 in penalties. Then I go back to my car, and I had been given a parking ticket cause my meter expired 3 minutes before I got there. Ugh. That’s another $35.

I hope they spend my $175 on something I could use. Maybe encasing the city in a bubble and air conditioning it.

It’s only recently that I’ve appreciated just how potent fresh ground pepper is relative to the pre-ground stuff. Apparently it has to do with the oils in the peppercorns housing most of the flavor, and these particular oils dry up really quickly in the ground stuff. I had a tiny pepper mill the size of a regular shaker that I’d been using, but I figured it was time to invest in something a little more heavy duty. When I had a lot of pepper to grind, that small mill would make my hands cramp up after a few minutes of grinding.

I headed out to Bed, Bath, and Beyond and purchased this Pepper Ball:

It was functional, and I was happy for awhile, but it still couldn’t bulk grind the pepper like I wanted to. And the repeated squeezing motion felt like I was using a grip exerciser.

That got me thinking about design, and in particular, my iPod. One of the biggest advantages of the iPod’s interface vs. every other MP3 player out there is that you can scroll through long lists without lifting your thumb off the controls. I decided I needed a pepper mill with a crank, if I wanted to be able to grind pepper in the quantities I desired. I hopped on Amazon.com and bought this:

Much much better. I can pepper my steak in a few seconds with this when with previous methods it was taking a minute or two. Yet another example of how using the right tool for the job can cut a previously time consuming job down to nothing.