Paintball

Last night my neighbor let his dog bark til 2:35 a.m.

He probably would have let it bark longer but I shot at it with a paintball gun. He was out there in about 45 seconds to bring the dog in.

That man is lucky I don't keep ammo for my Papaw's old 12 gauge I inherited, I might have reached for a different gun.

:-)

To Infinity, and Beyond!

Infinitely Small

I was in a staff meeting, which sometimes feels like purgatory, when a thought occurred about the infinite nature of infinity.

When you're in a situation where your mind is under-stimulated and you feel no emotional attachment, your perception is that a given (finite) amount of time takes longer to pass, such as my meeting earlier.

The flip side of that is when something stimulates your mind, when you are enjoying yourself, time appears to move much more quickly; again addressing something finite.

The weird thing about the infinite is that it can exist within the finite. Not in the sense that a fish is contained within the water and the water is contained within the fish... but in a more literal sense.

To understand me, if I am even making sense, you have to look at an analogy. We tend to only look at the larger part of infinity, in a universal sense. The earth is small compared to the sun, which is small compared to the milky way, which is small compared to the known universe. Continuing on that scale, you can get larger and larger until the universe becomes an unknown, unable to be perceived by man beyond his own means.

Now, let's look at the reverse. Look at a cell, the atoms within a cell, the the particles that make up the atoms, if you subscribe to string theory then look at the strings that make up those particles. If you divide a number in half, you can always find a smaller number approaching zero (nothing) without ever reaching zero.

This was my thought. In the few passing moments which comprised my meeting, there were contained a series of multiple infinities. Were my perception to become so narrowed that I would experience just a given moment infinitely, I might never progress forward. Sort of a temporal black hole where time stops but perception continues on it's own time.

I started thinking about people in comas, or the state of mind of the dead. Perhaps in a coma time fast forwards, or maybe that individual could be trapped in a moment somewhere in their subconscious mind for an immeasurable perceived amount of time, forever. The only escape is the limitation of the mind to only be able to process a thought so quickly. Perhaps at the moment of one's death, like finding the derivative of a number which approaches zero but never touches, our perception shifts with a sudden curve towards an end which is never reached on a given timeline.

Of course this isn't biblical thinking, but it does not contradict the bible either. If I were tasked to come up with an alternative idea of hell besides a lake of fire, this would be it. Forever trapped in your thoughts, forever trapped in whatever feelings your body might be experiencing in a given moment (pain, hunger, being cold), forever denied social interaction and only your guilt and regret to entertain the one sense, the sense of self, that you have left.

They say in a black hole when you reach it's event horizon, you get to a point where if you could perceive light without being sucked in, even light itself appears to stop. You'd physically be sucked into the black hole, but it would look like you just stopped moving at the threshold of the event horizon. This is a mathematical and perhaps visual model for this small infinity.

Kinda crazy to think about.

Blowing Smoke

I found this more entertaining than I probably should have....

Tobacco Smoke Enema (1750s-1810s)

The tobacco enema was used to infuse tobacco smoke into a patient's rectum for various medical purposes, primarily the resuscitation of drowning victims. A rectal tube inserted into the anus was connected to a fumigator and bellows that forced the smoke towards the rectum. The warmth of the smoke was thought to promote respiration, but doubts about the credibility of tobacco enemas led to the popular phrase "blow smoke up one's ***."

(Source: http://www.surgicaltechnologists.net/blog/20-scary-old-school-surgical-tools)

How to Fix an iPod

It Started With a Red X

Oh what a bad feeling it was. You might remember, I had a week before my car crash where everything was breaking, not going right. I saw this on my iPod:

It really sucked!

I called Apple, and wouldn't you know... my iPod was out of warranty by 3 months.

3 MONTHS!

Apple told me I could repair my iPod, but the cost would be $160. I declined, because a brand new iPod with warranty would be just $90 more. Why fork out that kind of money on an old (old by electronics standards) MP3 player? Especially when the new iPods are expected some time this summer or fall?

So, like any good geek, I decided to do something about it.

I did a little research and concluded that my troubles stemmed from a faulty hard drive. That is what I suspected anyway, because when the iPod died on me, it had trouble accessing information on the disc before the dreaded red x showed up.

I purchased a brand new hard drive on eBay with the same model number on it for $89.

With some advice from my friend Patrick, I bought the right tool to open my iPod. My total cost after shipping was about $6.

Total savings? $70 over their repair cost (before shipping), $190 over the cost of a new iPod (before tax).

If I haven't stressed this enough, then I'll try again now. It is imperative that you always use the right tools to do the job the right way!

Notice in the picture there that I actually have 4 tools there. The website I bought my tools from sold them in 2 packs. I intended to give the other set to Patrick, but I ended up breaking the tips on 3 of the 4 tools opening my iPod... so I'd recommend picking up several to avoid the frustration of having to wait for another set by mail when you go to fix your iPod.

Tools in hand, I opened my iPod.

Opening was a bit scary. I've opened plenty of electronics, including fixing a MacBook Pro for a co-worker. But when something is so tightly encased, it feels like every time you force something, it's going to break.

If you want to fix an iPod, get over that feeling. It takes a bit of force to pry this puppy loose.

Eventually, it came. Here is what it looks like open.

After I got it open, I unplugged the ribbon cable to the old HDD, and snapped the new one into place.

Close her back up, and presto! I am trendy and detached from the world again! It's been working fine since April. Aww yea!

I would caution anyone trying this to read a schematic of where the ribbon cables are on their model iPod. You don't want to use too much force, or apply leverage at the wrong spot and damage a cable.

You might also have a little trouble finding the exact same HDD for your iPod. There are websites out there that will tell you what type you need, and will give you reasonable substitutes if yours is no longer available.

I'd avoid buying a broken iPod for a HDD, but getting a broken iPod for other parts may be okay. Sometimes you can get parts from a dropped iPod and Frankenstein them together with parts from a water damaged iPod to get a working unit again. I used to do that a lot with the first generation Motorola RAZR phones.

(P.S. No, I won't fix your iPod for you, I just showed you how)