The faucet I covet

This faucet turns on and off by touch. Most of the time I use the same water temp and pressure, so I expect I wouldn't need to use the handle much. Why would I spend 10x more on a faucet than nearly anything else in my kitchen? It delights me. And if it delights me daily, I'm in.

(via centennial plumbing)

If I get one, it will live in a less glamorous context, more like this:

(via daily home reno tips)

An entertaining artifact of ownership: universal reports of absent-mindedly touching other faucets and expecting them to respond. That phenomenon reminds me of the effect of tv-time shifting (e.g. pressing pause and rewind while watching recorded or live tv mediated by a DVR): I want to apply that technology to other parts of my life as well and unconsciously expect to be able to.

Assessing prices on eBay

I recently listed my old iPhone for sale on eBay. I wanted to know how much phones were going for. But I didn't just want to peruse the prices; I wanted to plot them and analyze them. Here are the steps I took. They are ugly, but they worked on my system, which is Mac OS X Leopard, Firefox 3, and the Table2Clipboard extension (which you don't really need). I'm interested to hear about better ways to do this.

Do an eBay search.

• search text: iphone 3gs 32
• Preferences: Completed listings
• Preferences: Used
• show 200 results

Copy results to a local file

• create dedicated directory like /Users/exampleUser/ebaySoldPrice
• copy results tables only:

• select a word in the first listing
• from the right click menu, choose table2clipboard/select table
• scroll to end of page,
• shift click in last item to extend selection to include all items,
• right click and choose View selection source
• it takes a while for this window to populate
• Copy, paste and save text as "ebay_search_results.txt"

Clean up the results

• Open a terminal window and type the following commands (you may have to fix line breaks if you copy this text)



• cd /Users/exampleUser/ebaySoldPrice/





• cat ebay_search_results.txt  | sed 's/~//g' | 
  sed 's/<table class="li" r="/~/g' |
   tr  "~" "n" | sed 's/ shipping.*$//' |
    sed 's/([0-9]*).*class="vip">/1~/' |
    grep Sold   | sed 's/<[^$]*$/~/'  | 
  sed 's/Free shipping/$0/' |  sed 's/<[^$]*$/~/' |
   sed 's/<.*$/~na/' | tr "~" "t" 
  >ebay_search_results_cleaned.txt

here's how that breaks down:

• sed s'/\~//g'

                  ### remove any tildes in ad title
  

• tr  "~" "\n"

                  ### replace tildes with newline
  

• sed 's/<table class="li" r="/~/g'

                  ### replace table starts with tildes
  

• sed 's/ shipping.*$//'

                  ### get rid of text after shipping
  

• sed 's/\([0-9]*\).*class\=\"vip\"\>/\1\~/' |

                  ### keep the initial row number, deletes everything else until the title
  

• grep Sold

                  ### limit to items that sold
  

• sed 's/\<[^$]*\$/~/'  |

                  ### delete text between title and price
  

• sed 's/Free shipping/\$0/'

                  ### give free a numerical value
  

• sed 's/\<[^$]*\$/~/'  |

                  ### delete text between price and shipping price
  

• sed 's/<.*$/~na/'

                  ### if price doesn't have a dollar amount, delete text and give it an NA value
  

• tr "~" "\t"

                  ### replace tildes with tabs
  

• >ebay_search_results_cleaned.txt

                  ### direct the output into a file
  

Skip the TV sports filler with DVR macros

WSJ

In my recent visit to see my family, my dad mentioned a WSJ analysis of US televised football showing that only 6% of the telecast is actual football plays. The details are here.

I'm waiting for macros for DVRs that you can use to see a subset of a recording. For a football game, a fan might note down the times during which the game is played, and write a macro that directs a dvr to show only those portions of the game. Another fan might have something similar, plus selected replays. And someone with an attachment to the sideline reporter of the day might post their macro to the sidelinehotties (not even kidding) website.

Once the broadcasters figure out a way to make it profitable, hopefully they would tag the different content, in which case you could use a general "show plays only" macro. As my sister noted, you'd also want to be able to pause the macro and, for example, listen to the commentators' analysis of a referee call.

CBS: watch us, ad block no one

Sometimes when I watch Hawaii Five-O by streaming it from the CBS website, I lose the show in the middle of the program. It usually happens between two commercials. I get this message:

The video you have requested is either unavailable or is being blocked by an ad blocker installed in your browser.

I went through my ad-blocker on two separate occasions to prevent it from blocking ads from the CBS domain. Apparently, it's not enough to allow ads from CBS; I have to accept ads from everyone. If I have to choose, I'll hold on to a tool that blocks the annoying, flashing, talking ads. Hawaii Five-O isn't that good. I'm not sure what would be.

I'm not the only hater.

Bing map wins (in Grand Rapids)

Maps from Google (left) and Bing.

I'm in the habit of using everything google, but that will pass with maps like this.

The difference in proportion, indicated by the less elongated blocks in the Google map, is also surprising.

Contest to create visualization of firefox usage

Mozilla labs is sponsoring a contest to visualize browser usage data. They're releasing the source data November 17. Here's a lovely example (click to see full-size):

Ready to share

Johanna Blakley gave a great Ted talk fashion and copyright protection. She would argue that the freedom to copy in fashion creates an environment in which this spork dress (above; screengrab from her presentation) is created (and that's a good thing). I didn't realize how limited intellectual property law is in fashion. Here is her "good enough" picture of the logic of copyright in the US.

Read to share conference info.

Genius iPad stand

3D <-> 2D sewing pattern conversion software

This software can take a pattern in two dimensions and virtually sew the pieces together and show you the result. I'd like to use it with bags, but right now it's clothing oriented, and the three dimensional finished piece is displayed on a custom model. Regions of strain are highlighted. You can also generate a two dimensional pattern from a three dimensional item. Here's an older article about this kind of software, and here's an even older one. Oh, and the price tag? Upwards of $10K. Anyone want to bet when it will come below $200?

The database of useful biological numbers

The B10NUMB3R5 website: In its infancy, but a genius idea and a great start in spite of the excessive transliteration of numbers for letters. Wouldn't b10numbers or B1oNumbers have been sufficient?

Ode to \vref

I'm using LaTeX to write my thesis, and there is this great command: vref. I have a figure called Variability_transcript_abundance. When I'm talking about it in the text, I can create a reference to it. This:

...this approach is illustrated in Figure \ref{Variability_transcript_abundance}...

becomes

...this approach is illustrated in Figure 2.2...

sometimes i want to have a page number too. i use this

...this approach is illustrated in Figure \vref{Variability_transcript_abundance} on page \pageref{Variability_transcript_abundance}...

to get

...this approach is illustrated in Figure 2.2 on page 32...

The genius of vref is this: the same code gets you different types of references, depending on the distance between where your text is and where your figure is. so

...this approach is illustrated in Figure \vref{Variability_transcript_abundance}...

gets you whichever of these:

...this approach is illustrated in Figure 2.2 on the following page...

...this approach is illustrated in Figure 2.2 on page 32...

...this approach is illustrated in Figure 2.2...

applies. when the figure is on the same page, no need to mention the page! of particular joy is that this package was last updated in 1999. such stability. ahhh, LaTeX.

Grammar check

Grammar and word usage are two things that web references can't really resolve. Looking up a definition in the dictionary isn't adequate to explain correct usage. I've started using site-specific searches of sites with high-quality, copy-edited writing to check usage. For example, the spelling of the phrase "doling out" looked strange enough to make me uncertain. Spell-check liked it, but it could have been the correct spelling of a different word. I ran this google search:

site:nytimes.com doling out

And got these results:

Bureau of the Public Debt, Doling Out America's I.O.U.'s
N.E.A. Faces Tough Task of Doling Out Limited Stimulus Funds
U.S. starts doling out funds to banks

Resolved.

QuickLook CSV Plugin

I never thought I could be a fan of a QuickLook plugin, but I am. Here's the link.

Good-bye, Clarifi

I wanted to see if I still needed the Griffin Clarifi, the iPhone case that allowed me to take good pictures of receipts with my iPhone 3G. The 3G S is said to have a shorter focal length. I included pictures with my Nikon D-70 as a reference standard.

Unique file IDs

I write code to generate graphics. When I have a graphic I like, I save the image I've generated. In order to know exactly what code created that image, I like to save the code with the same name. As I gradually improve the code, the names evolve, with an addition of a descriptive word or with a version number. This all requires a kind of foresight (to know what description will be useful to my future self) and systematicness that I don't want to spend the time on. For now I've contented myself with a script that generates a unique time-based ID that I paste onto the end of the file names for the graphic and the code. The script copies the ID to my clipboard (requires OSX). Now all I need is a quicksilver trigger, and I can be more brainless than usual.

the code:

echo `date "+%Y%m%d_%H%M%S"` | pbcopy ; echo `pbpaste`

scheduled ringer un-silencing: the killer mobile phone feature

How many people have forgotten that they muted their mobile phone ringer? I can go for days before I figure it out.

The solution has been around for years in the land of windows mobile. It's a feature in the third party program called "SPB Phone Suite" which I last used several years ago. It configures different groups of ringer-related settings. You might have one with a quiet, respectable ringer that you use when you're at work and a bunch of goofy loud personalized ones you use on your own time. But my favorite feature uses the one of the default profiles, the one called "Silent." You can set a category of appointments to trigger that profile automatically. Then every time you have an appointment scheduled, your phone will automatically not ring during that time. More importantly, it will switch back to your usual profile again after your appointment.

The hot cash market for 3G iphone...

I posted my 3G iphone on EBay yesterday. I've gotten two messages asking whether I would be willing to sell it for cash in person. I wonder what that's about.

The two messages were very similar, but from different EBay ids. They have some indistinct similarity to brief replies I've gotten when selling things and offering apartments for rent on craigslist, replies that are vague and suggest the person is replying to a great number of ads.

Are these phones going overseas? Being superficially altered and resold as 3G S? Simply being sold to people who don't want contracts?

Worst phone I've ever had: iPhone

Sure, it's also the best piece of electronics I've ever had, and that's why I keep it. But for making calls, it continues to be the worst phone I've ever had, including my first cell phone, that creaky Kyocera.

Best: interface, content, features. Maps, web, games. There are lots of improvements I'd like to see, but it's the best thing going for a mobile device. One of the reasons I like it is because it reduces the amount of stuff I need to carry. But what I really need to add to my purse is a phone that works.

The downside of ease of use

The ease of use of the mac really opens you up to have a truly disabling drinking problem.

-paraphrased from merlin mann's "most days" daily video project 2009/01/04

Get flight status notification, unless late or delayed

Apparently, on the Southwest Airlines website, you can't get flight information notifications unless you sign up well before the flight is scheduled to leave. If you find out the flight is delayed, and then decide you want to be notified, you get this piece of broken logic:

The flight information that you entered is for a flight that has either already arrived or departed, or the notification time that you selected is too close to the arrival or departure time.

Any programmer would advise against the ambiguity introduced by those "OR" statements.

Does it mean you can't request notification of arrival time after the plane has departed?