Explosive Donut

I’m managing the Comcast bill this year, so I thought I would really figure out what I’m singing up for. Every package has it’s own introductory price, but they never tell you how much it will cost you over an entire year (i.e. the lease). So I figured it out:

 
Note that these Comcast prices reflect the Boston area, all include 6mpbs Internet, and only apply if you’re going to be around for a year. The per-person rates asume four people are sharing the bill. Prices were obtained from the Comcast website and a phone representative. I’m assuming homeowners do not move in and out of houses every year. Also, these prices are before taxes – only God may (or may not) know what the prices are after those shady “taxes.”

There’s a few surprising things in here.

• The student deal is more expensive if you consider it over the year without HBO. Sure, you could cancel it after the deal ends at 9 months, assuming you’ve got an internship elsewhere, but good luck finding a subletter in Cambridge or Boston without Internet. Well, good luck even if you’re subsidizing that. I would also watch what plan they put you on after the 9mo deal is up.
• If you want HBO, the student plan is cheaper. Because the normal package with HBO doesn’t have an intro rate, you should get the student plan, even though the per month cost for extra HBO is almost double.
• The difference in price between digital and analog (“standard”) cable is very small, when considering the first year. This is due to the 3mo intro offer for digital cable, so if you’re sticking around for a few years, analog might be cheaper.

After designing the common room on my computer, I finally visited my local Ikea pusher. I made a point of going before labor day, to avoid the freshman horde that I encountered last year. Fifty-one weeks ago, enormous lines formed approaching the register, getting in the store, and even getting off of the highway. I’m not sure why, as they ran out of all merchandise, except the 100pk of tea lights, of course.

Melody, Tim (one of my three roommates), and I arrived right on time for opening. Although we didn’t find the red love seats we were looking for, we obtained similar dark blue ones. They’re very comfy, and like a true bachelor, I’m digging the heightened stain-hiding power of dark colors. They even unfold to somehow form a bed, though I pity anyone that tries to sleep on it. If you end up sleeping on one of these couches and there’s room elsewhere to sleep in my apartment, well, you’ll know I don’t like you.

We still need to get a rug , as well as some lights and curtains. Oh, and we need to sell (or incinerate) all of the old furniture. It would take carbon dating to ascertain the number of beers stains that have been soaked up in that old stuff. Cavemen may have slept on it. Still, the place is really taking shape.

I’m impressed how well SketchUp worked for modeling the room. I only spent a day altogether, measuring the room, laying the place out, and trying half of the Ikea catalog. Check it out:

Lately, I’ve been listening to electronic music while programming, and Yahoo music seems to have noticed. It must analyze what music you listen to . Lately, it’s been pushing me towards music that all shares one specific genre: “Gay Club Mix”.

Okay, the title’s a little dramatic.

There’s a bunch of motes scattered around Maxwell Dworkin, the building I work in. They’re really just tiny computers. You wouldn’t want to be surfing YouTube on a mote: there’s no screen and it’s relatively stupid. It does some simple wireless networking though, and can talk to other nearby motes. They can even relay messages over several “hops” so that motes in a large area can talk. It’s like a game of telephone. Here’s what the two on my desk look like:

They can be powered with two AA batteries, so in theory you could just buy a hundred motes and a lot of batteries, and sprinkle them over your backyard. They also have a few sensors for monitoring light, temperature, and humidity, so I guess you could find out how how the weather is all over your backyard.

My building has over 100 of these motes spread out all over the building, in everyone’s offices. The system, called MoteLab, lets you write a program and install it on all of the motes in the building. Using various means, you can get readings from the motes and do what you will with them. Today, I rewrote part of a demo program to monitor temperature levels. Here’s the light sensor reading from my office. In the middle, I turned the lights off for about 10 seconds:

Using this simple program, I can use this to see if the lights are on in any of the offices in my building. Most people here are good about shutting off the lights when the leave for the day, so really I’m checking if anyone’s around. This is quite handy, my advisor’s office is two floors below mine. Now if I want to go ask him a question, I can just check if he’s in before I start wandering around. Then again, I suppose he could use the program to see if any of his students are working in the office too.

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My foaming technique is getting pretty good, as you can see here:

My espresso shot pull is getting consistent as well…

Time to move on to latte art!