Al's Blog-o-Sphere

I’ve been using Windows 7 for a while now on several computers and have to admit, I’m pretty happy with it, despite the fact that, even with all the hype, it’s really what Vista should have been, maybe after a service pack.

You must have seen the annoying commercials like the one above, where people seem to think that Microsoft actually listened to them and took their advice on some little nitpicky thing. Well, Microsoft, here’s My Idea (TM). Continue Reading…

Yep, I’m calling it. Shenanigans! You all know I love to be the skeptic and question the answers. Here’s one that come along out of CES, the Consumer Electronics Show, last month that just refuses to die.

Here’s why I call shenanigans and call this snakeoil: Continue Reading…

No, this isn’t about a medical breakthrough. We’ve all seen and eaten those candy hearts that seem to be everywhere around Valentine’s Day. They are about 100% sugar and have some clever saying on them. Well, as clever as you can get in about 10 letters and two lines.

I found some interesting ones in this year’s batch:

They’ve updated the little slogans for the modern day. They’re catering to the smart cell-phone crowd, apparently. The first heart in the photo says “CALL ME.” Okay, that’s probably not so new.

The second and third say “TEXT ME.” Now, that’s definitely very 2000’s.

The third one, though, just proves the end of civilization is near and we’ve just gone too far. It says “TWEET ME.” Go figure. Candy that Twitters…

Yeah. It’s been that long. It’s that time of year when I get busy with another project and don’t have much time for blogging. It’s FIRST Robotics time.

I’ve been an advisor to a local High School team for six years, since my son was on the team. He graduated and is off in college, but I’m still on the team.

Every year, the students are given a new game to play and have six weeks to build a new robot to play it. We’re in the middle of that six weeks now and are well into the design and building of a robot that plays a game to be known as Breakaway. I’d try to explain the game, but here’s a video that does it better:

So, we’re building bumps and tunnels. Towers and kickers and trying to figure out how to build the perfect robot to master this game. Last year, we did pretty well, going all the way to the final field in the National – International, really – Championships in Atlanta. We won our local regional and did very well in another in Philadelphia. The challenge is to live up to our hard-earned reputation as a team and do it again. Continue Reading…