Poojan (Wagh) Blog

Got this via email:

YOU ARE HEREBY NOTIFIED that a proposed class action settlement has been preliminarily approved by the court in Rhonda Dupler v. Costco Wholesale Corporation, No. 06-CV-03141 (JFB) (ETB) (United States District Court, Eastern District of New York). The lawsuit challenges Costco�s practice of deeming the 12-month term of memberships that are renewed after their expiration as having commenced on the expiration date, rather than on the date they are renewed. The lawsuit alleges that this practice is unlawful and deprives Costco members of a portion of the membership period for which they paid a renewal fee. Costco denies all claims and liability stated in the lawsuit.

Wow! They’ve got some nerve. Maybe I shouldn’t have bugged my friends over the last 4 years about how cool a CostCo membership is.

I really wish this song were on my iPod right now:

I especially like the “Lenny Bruce’s bug eyes” with the roaring drums/guitar in the background. (At least that’s how I remember it.)

This is a quick one. I thought I’d get to sleep early. I thought I’d wake up tomorrow at 5:00 and hit the day right.

Instead, I’m fiddle-futzing with my router. Finally, after going through a myriad of combinations wondering why the latest (which should be the best, right?) firmware won’t work, I find the following:

Confessions of a Would-Be Theologian: Warning on Linksys WRT110 Firmware.

Son of a bitch!

I learned a lesson over the last two months. It starts with off-site backup software for my computer, and ends in me spending money.

I’ve been trying to get the most out of my DreamHost account—or really, I’ve been trying to recoup the $10/month I pay for them by trying to save the $5-$7/month I pay for JungleDisk/S3. When I write it, it seems silly: the $10/month I pay to DreamHost is well worth it. They do web hosting very well.

Similarly, JungleDisk has a very good backup solution on Amazon S3’s service. Namely, the backups are:

• Off-Site
• Encrypted
• Past versions (modified/deleted files stay around for a specified time)
• Set and forget (their Windows client does the backups every night)

Nonetheless, when DreamHost announced 50GB of personal backup space with each account, I thought, “I’m getting screwed.” I promptly began a search for backup software which supported SFTP (DH’s only access at the time was FTP/SFTP) and had all the features listed above.

The end result is that I found that I discovered a universal constant called Time-Dollar Product (TDP). Every time I try to save or reduce money (dollars), I end up spending a great deal more in time. The two seem inversely proportional. Consequently, it seems like the product of time and money is constant; when one goes down, I spend more of the other.

Most people will want to stop here. The technically inclined will want to continue.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m using BLVD Status to track incoming (and outgoing traffic) to my circuit design blog. They allow me to track what web searches result in links to my blogs. One curious thing about this service is that these searches do not seem to be just the searches that end up my blog, but all searches that lead to all sites that are running BLVD Status.

So, when I noticed that someone did a google search for “svn cadence”, and then I realized it was me while I was at work, I got a bunch of queries that people had done from work. The term visitor below is really my employer’s web proxy that originated the search. Note that this includes many people and is non comprehensive (it is biased sub-set of searches done at my employer). Here they are:

Keywords used by this visitor	Date / Time used
1 619-269-0041	9.8.08 7:27:47 PM
2 breakdance kid	8.26.08 4:38:00 PM
3 crazy japanese news	8.25.08 6:39:54 PM
4 crazy japanese news	8.25.08 6:21:05 PM
5 gazebo arizona	8.22.08 8:55:08 AM
6 tracking downloads with google analytics	8.22.08 11:20:04 AM
7 automatic cat litter box	8.21.08 10:33:36 PM
8 hong kong stuck in park bench	8.20.08 3:06:45 PM
9 can I sue insurance third party insurance company for higher rates	8.20.08 10:15:15 AM
10 iPaq H3650	8.18.08 7:55:39 PM
11 steven covey	8.18.08 4:01:45 PM
12 steven covey	8.18.08 4:01:24 PM
13 antec notebook cooler portable	8.15.08 3:30:14 PM
14 how do gays recruit	11.7.08 4:38:28 PM
15 the story of FBI agent John Connely	11.6.08 4:06:41 PM
16 the story of FBI agent John Connely	11.6.08 4:05:29 PM
17 svn cadence	11.21.08 7:54:16 PM
18 iphone yelp vs yellow pages	11.19.08 3:22:53 PM
19 disneyland california	11.18.08 4:29:21 PM
20 download pics from orkut	10.9.08 7:32:41 PM
21 google browser adobe flash plug in	10.24.08 1:20:14 PM
22 the biggest loser sponsors	10.10.08 11:15:35 AM

No: there’s really not any useful information there, except that someone seems to be homophobic (although the resulting links do not). I guess the moral is to be careful what you do at work.

My kids can’t get enough of this:
Where The Hell Is Matt?

To be honest, neither can I. IMHO, It’s better to view them chronologically: Dancing 2005 (in the lower right), then Dancing 2006, then Dancing 2008. Props to Stride Gum.