Andy Oakley

There’s a book titled ‘How Would You Move Mount Fuji?’ which, while several years old now, looks into some of the types of interview questions used at Microsoft to find the creative thinkers and problem solvers as part of the interview process.

That class of questions are generally hypothetical and rarely reflect things that have precedent in the real world. Imagine then, my delight, at finding actual evidence of ‘pausing’ a river flowing at 4 million cubic feet of water/minute.

Cool pictures too.

From Mammoth:

For six months in the winter and fall of 1969, Niagara’s American Falls were “de-watered”, as the Army Corps of Engineers conducted a geological survey of the falls’ rock face, concerned that it was becoming destabilized by erosion.  During the interim study period, the dried riverbed and shale was drip-irrigated, like some mineral garden in a tender establishment period, by long pipes stretched across the gap, to maintain a sufficient and stabilizing level of moisture.  For a portion of that period, while workers cleaned the former river-bottom of unwanted mosses and drilled test-cores in search of instabilities, a temporary walkway was installed a mere twenty feet from the edge of the dry falls, and tourists were able to explore this otherwise inaccessible and hostile landscape.

I didn’t find a wealth of information about how to put the monthly bills into long-term hibernation so assembled a strategy somewhat piecemeal. Writing down some findings in case I need them later or they’re of use to others.

Paperless billing. This makes remote management much, much easier. And reduces the number of paper bills on return too.

Vacation modes for cell phones. Having accounts with both AT&T and Verizon, it turns out that you can call them up and ask them to put your account on vacation suspend. There’s a nominal charge, I think AT&T is $10/mo while Verizon is $15 flat, and that’s all you pay. Your contract end date is pushed out accordingly but you can keep the account on suspend for 180 days (or 90+90 in the case of Verizon). It did, however, make me realize quite how much we spend on ‘bandwidth’ every month.

Canceling cable. Having a no-contract arrangement with Comcast made this part really easy. I might even get special introductory six-month pricing on return.

Credit card travel info. This was a mixed bag. Some cards were set up well and you just give them a start and end date and that’s it. Others tell you to call back each month to ‘remind’ them. Sigh. Still, I’m certain that’s better than a stop in cash flow.

Car insurance. It seems you can get reduced rates for vehicles if you’re not actively driving them.

Just in time for Christmas (well, not really) my ThinkPad W700 arrived this morning. First impression: this thing is a monster. While it’s big, it’s not as heavy as I was expecting, but was really snappy right out of the box and has a fabulous, vivid screen. The built-in tablet, calibrator and webcam all seem nice too. I’m now loading up Photoshop, Lightroom, Office and VS ready for our trip which is just a few weeks away now.

Aside: this little box has come a long way to get here.

Some great photos in the urban decay theme:

Ghosts of Shopping Past

Although the Macy’s day-after-Thanksgiving parade was a little early for my tastes this particular Friday morning, the weather was so fine that I had to make to trip into Seattle for some photos, to catch the tree lighting and star illumination and for dinner and a movie.

I didn’t really have a particular theme in mind when I got off the bus so I just starting taking some shots with my 30mm prime. The black and white was an afterthought in post-processing.

The evening sun over Elliot Bay really made this one stand out.

Full set on Flickr

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I enjoyed this for some reason, mostly for the entirely deadpan acting and the eerie background music.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqD171d0VBc]

Where are you going?

America.

Whereabouts?

All over.

Why do you want to go there?

I know it’s had some bad press recently but it’s the place that’s taken my fancy.

Among many other things, Amazon.com sells jewelry. Given the amount of business I’ve sent their way over the years, it seemed fitting that we’d get my wedding band from Amazon also.

For this particular purchase I was  delighted by the recommendations for other products I might be interested in. For a mens gold wedding band, size 9, the top suggested item is none other than the venerable Linksys WRT54G router.

I am in good company.

Might take a bit longer than a week to build this one. Next year!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XC08Lx-zkhI]