Eugene Mirman’s Application for “Cupid”
Height: 6000-inches (aproximately two earth years) Nicknames: Ace and Dr. Bathroom Name of Employer: United League of Underwater Nations Position Held: Surgeon General of a Place I Made-up Do you drink alcohol?: YES! If so, how often: Once a day, for 8 hours Where do you usually meet women: In hotels or the street Do you enjoy dating: NO! What is the most romantic thing you’ve done for a girlfriend? Shot a dog that was attacking her. What’s the most adventurous date you’ve ever arranged for a woman? An expedition to the center of the earth. What do you want out of your next relationship with a woman?: POWER! List the qualities you find most attractive in a woman: TELEVISION! Describe your ideal woman. From the mountains, is new to technology, and thinks I am MAGIC! Why would a woman have fun on a date with you?: I would let her punch me. How important is sex to you in a relationship? Not at all in the first few minutes. Then, CRUCIAL over the next 20. What do women find most attractive about you?: I AM FAST AT SEX! Do you have a strategy for standing out in a crowd?: KARATE! Describe situations where you have treated a girlfriend in a way you regret. I once killed my girlfriend’s dog.
Garmin Software Troubles
I decided to rescue a bunch of old data off my old Garmin Forerunner 201 tonight. The only problem is that this is now impossible. Even though 1.5 years worth of GPS data is on the watch, it’s quite inaccessible now. Google Earth can only read the last 11 routes from the watch. I tried deleting those routes from the 201 and then syncing the watch with Google Earth on my Macbook Pro via a USB to DB9 converter. Unfortunately, on both operating systems the software errors out with “Loaded %1 Waypoints”.
Next, I gave the newest Garmin Training Center a try. Garmin’s software managed to load all the data off the watch using a serial connection on my Windows XP desktop (the 201 doesn’t work with the Mac OS X-version of Training Center) Unfortunately, the map overlays didn’t load for the 201 routes like they do with the Garmin Forerunner 305 ones. Now, all of my historic Forerunner 201 data is half-usable and silo’d up in the training center software with no hope of exporting it out.
Adding insult to injury, Garmin has deprecated the “Export to XML” feature that existed in their old Training Center software. This effectively locks-out third-party developers because the export data is now only available in proprietary TCX format. It’s unbelievable that Garmin wouldn’t continue to support XML or, at the very least, Google Earth’s KML format. This is even more troubling because Garmin used to enable hackers to do cool stuff with their hardware. By allowing access to the unencrypted GPS data, Garmin enabled quite a bit of tinkering. Programs like USAPhotomaps and several community GPS running sites sprouted up as a result. Back in 2005, I even wrote my own GPS overlay program to map data onto a USGS orthoimage of Austin using the exported XML data from the 201.
Strangely enough, I met three of the developers from Garmin’s Motion Based community web site at SFBeta last week. We talked for a while, and I went all GPS-nerd on them. So, the next day, I tried out Motion Based and uploaded the data off my Forerunner 305. The result is that I was completely nonplussed with their site. The only thing extraordinary about the site is how extraordinary it is. What’s particularly troubling is that since you can only access the GPS route data from Garmin’s watches using proprietary software, this is the only community web site that is gong to work with their devices.
Pandora’s Box
Some feverish miscreant has managed to upload all six episodes of Adam Curtis’ Pandora’s Box documentary to the youtube. It has a similar theme to his later Century of the Self, but it’s still worth watching.
Episode 1 - The Engineer’s Plot
Episode 2 - To The Brink of Eternity
Episode 3 - The League of Gentlemen
Episode 4 - Goodbye Mrs Ant
Episode 5 - Black Power
Episode 6 - A Is For Atom
