Digital Thermometer Battery

Every time our Digital Thermometer stops working, we make a note and going to the pharmacy to buy a new one. This is done partially because we are too lazy to replace the battery, partially because we need to open the Thermometer up to pull the battery and partially, because we simply need to write down the type of the battery ( and make sure we don't lose the paper or email prior to visiting the pharmacy). In the mean time we always fall back to the mercury thermometer that always work and always is more accurate than the digital ones we have.

Today, as one of my cleanup projects, I pulled all of the Digiters (Digital Thermometer) and documented the batteries I need for them... Will try to get them in the city tomorrow. We have following:

2 x Identical Vicks Digiters (have a form of a water drop, with circle digital display that changes colors from green to red in addition to display the temperature). These 2 are ditributed by Kaz, Inc and identified as Model # V966F-24. Just looked them up on Amazon and apparently Vicks called them Comfort Flex Digital Thermometer and priced them at ~ $14).

1 x Vicks Speed Read (no flex digeter, again ditributed by Kaz, model # V911R)

1 x BD Digital Thermometer (Model # 524928, made in China..... ahh... that's why the model looks like the serial, still would be interesting to see their previous 524927 types of this device)

Now I am taking all of these apart to see the batteries and document the type for tomorrow:

- 2 x Vicks V966F-24 use CR1225 battery (lithium cell 3v)

- Vicks V911R uses GP392 (Silver Oxide Cell)

- BD 524928 also uses GP392 (Silver Oxide Cell)

So for tomorrow I will need:

2 x CR1225 and 2 x GP392

Don't Bother Me - Stop Bothering Me

If you just starting in the United States, there are couple of things that you need to get familiar with. The things you will be introduced very soon are telemarketing calls and Unsolicited Mail (or Junk mail as we all call it).

Telemarketing calls are simply calls from people and companies that you don't know, but they want to offer you something (most of the time they simply want your money). The best thing to do to prevent telemarketing calls is to register your number in National Do Not Call Registry - https://www.donotcall.gov/.

Junk mail can very fast overload your mailbox (especially if you are on vacation). You can always stop a lot of this junk by opting out. Use Opt Out Prescreen https://www.optoutprescreen.com/ to remove your name from the marketing list that credit agencies like Equifax, Experian, Innovis, and TransUnion provide to their customers.

You can also pickup a lot of information FTP websites, they even offer free books for consumers.

View or order Consumer Action Handbook:

http://www.consumeraction.gov/pdfs/2010_Consumer_Action_Handbook.pdf

Harry Potter x 3D

Why movie studios want to get more money for inferior movies?

I HATE this late trend of 3Ds that don't deliver anything extra. I only see price for my movie tickets climbing 3 times to $17-$18 and no way to use discount tickets from movie theater chains or AAA.

I really feel that 3d does not bring anything extra to the movies. It is not fair to start charging so much money for the feature. It is also not right to compare the money that the 3d movie earned. Math is very simple... if regular movie for me costs 6.50, I have to pay 3x (~$18) for the 3d.

Office Live

Few new things I uncovered myself from Microsoft:

http://office.live.com - new free online tools like Word, Excel, etc (for some reason we still using Google versions... probably again, failed Microsoft's Marketing machine...)

http://explore.live.com/windows-live-skydrive - New SkyDrive (25GB of free space and 5Gb Synced Storage via Windows Live Mesh). I think all of this is a very interesting offering, but again, I doubt many people even know about it.

I think Windows Mesh can perfectly replace Google Docs and systems like Knowledge Tree.

Russians vs NASA

First Russians pressed the "wrong button" and failed to manage the Progress to dock. Now they "broke some gears" inside the Soyuz and were not able to "undock".

Do they even train those people who go on the orbit?

My Favorite Quotes

I will be updating this one as I find new material:

"If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself"

-Albert Einstein

Let My Dataset Change Your Mindset

-Hans Rosling

TU - 154

Some companies are still flying TU-154. I would never think that any normal person would fly it after reading a history of the accidents from wiki:

There have been 67 serious flight incidents with Tu-154s, including 37 hull-losses involving fatalities. Incidents have resulted from mechanical problems (two cases prior to 2001), running out of fuel on unscheduled extended route, pilot error, and cargo fires.

There are less then 200 planes left flying in the world and we already see 3 major TU-154 accidents in 2010. I would never fly the plane if travel agency only gave me 98-99% of success on landing :)

http://lenta.ru/news/2010/09/08/takeoff/

Cuba is firing 500K people

I wonder if Castro is considering it safe shaving 500K people from the government job list. I mean even if we consider they do it evenly through the time, it will be almost 120K of fired people per month. In the end Cuba will easily jump over 10% unemployment rate (Cuba's official work force is 5.1 million — meaning nearly 10 percent of all employees could soon be out of a government job.).

I think we've seen already what happened in Greece when union was cut and many people were left without job. Is Cuba a new economic bomb waiting to go off in coming weeks?

BP vs OBAMA

Top Obama administration officials said Thursday that BP is failing to keep the government and public informed about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and ordered the company to quickly publish environmental monitoring data and other information.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, in a letter Thursday to BP CEO Tony Hayward, say BP transparency efforts have “fallen short in both their scope and effectiveness.”

“In order to meet BP’s responsibilities and to fulfill this obligation, BP must make publicly available any data and other information related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that you have collected, or that will be collected in the future,” the letter adds.

Ipad Sucks

1. No multitasking
2. No camera - not even a simple 0.3 megapixel webcam for video messaging
3. No USB
4. No card reader for popular memory cards
5. No support for Flash
6. No widescreen
7. No permission screen high-definition (HD)

Here, in principle, the main disadvantages iPad. Someone surely will find more cons to the heap (such as, no FM-radio, can not make calls, etc.). And someone, and seven of these defects is negligible, and even in the plus wrap:) And each of their rights will be - all need different things.

Monday - Eric Schmidt vs Steve Jobs or Google vs Apple

First I read about Apple pulling Google Voice from IPhone, couple of hours later I found that FCC is already on top of this case (FCC sent letters to Apple requesting details and explanations) and now I found that Google's Eric Schmidt resigns from Apple.

I am not sure if this these are all simply co-incedents, but knowing how much money Google spent on lobbying I am not surprised that FCC is reacting right away.

I tried Google Voice before on Verizon blackberry, and liked the way you can use free SMS messaging, call screening, voicemail to email and good international rates. I completely understand why ATT would not want that on their network, but I guess they will have to open up and COMPETE.

Federal Government vs Private Companies

Primary reason people are working (or, if retired, used to work) for the Federal Government:

27% are working because of job security
19% work for the benefits package (other than pay)
18% say they have too much invested in the retirement system to leave
15% work to "make a difference" in America
8% work because the money is good
5% like the challenging work environment
8% work for the federal government for "other" reasons

People often mention government's more generous policies with regard to holidays and taking annual leave, the ability to transfer to different regions while staying with the same employer, and the ability to obtain health insurance with better benefits that they could then take into retirement with them.

John Jay or not John Jay

John Jay pro.....
1. Criminal Justice program tops in country!
2. Very affordable
3. Grad program is among top 50

John Jay con.....
1. CUNY rep
2. May not be for you if you want more than a commuter school
3. Are there job opportunities outside of law enforcement?

Columbia vs NYU

NYU is (behind Stanford) one of the top "dream schools," and is getting more selective year after year. Again, if you want to study the arts or business as an undergraduate, NYU may be a better choice than Columbia. However, Columbia is no slouch, and their graduates are more likely than NYU's to make it into graduate business schools (including the Columbia Business School, which consistently ranks higher than NYU Stern) regardless of their major. The difference is that Columbia students use their undergraduate years to explore other, less specialized fields of study that range from philosophy to engineering.

Why Mysql

Description:
Linux: RedHat9; mysql 4.0; mysqlhotcopy 1.18; latest DBI and DBD; mysql installed from
binaries (not RPM); PERL,DBI and DBD compiled from cpan.

get_list_of_tables is returning quoted table names and looks like it is right according to
CPAN

>If $dbh->get_info(29) returns true (29 is >SQL_IDENTIFIER_QUOTE_CHAR) then the table
names are >constructed and quoted by /quote_identifier to ensure they >are usable even if
they contain whitespace or reserved >words etc.

after call to quote_names, table name looks like "`dbname`.``tblname``" and mysqlhotcopy
terminates with
DBD::mysql::db do failed: You have an error in your SQL syntax.

I had to change last line in quote_names from

return "`$db`.'$table'";
#to
return "`$db`.$table";

after this mysqlhotcopy was able to run

How to repeat:
Dual P3 933; RedHat 9 with minimal config; MYSQL 4.0 from mysql.com (binary install)
[mysqlhotcopy 1.18]

Compiled PERL from CPAN (LANG=C [not UTF])
Compiled DBI and DBD from CPAN

Suggested fix:
The described fix is good for my particular case, however on Solaris, you will need to
have
return "`$db`.'$table'";
for proper tablename quotation, I guess I will leave fix up to you.

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About Me

Computer Geek with 10yr experience and very long bio. I have nothing to do with another Alex Syrov on the net.

Where I grew up

Moscow

Places I've lived

Russia

Companies I've worked for

BNY Computers; City of New York

Schools I've attended

Columbia University; Pace University

Other names

Aleksandr