King Corn was written, photographed, produced, and directed by Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, who drew huge inspiration from Michael Pollan.  Pollan is featured in the film, along with other notable food writers and reseachers.  I don’t think Cheney and Ellis are film students, and cinematically it shows at times, but they tell a very informative and enjoyable, if even a little upsetting, story of the most abundant grain in our country.

King Corn is available on DVD and slated to air on PBS stations across the country.

Recycle your unwanted desktop and notebook computers, printers, copiers, fax machines, VCRs, stereos and microwave ovens at no charge.
Because of their lead and mercury content, monitors of all sizes still have a $15 fee. The drop-off center is open Mon - Sat.  More info at Recycle Ann Arbor.

…an in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind the unlabeled, patented, genetically engineered foods that have quietly filled U.S. grocery store shelves for the past decade…The health implications, government policies and push towards globalization are all part of the reason why many people are alarmed by the introduction of genetically altered crops into our food supply…THE FUTURE OF FOOD examines the complex web of market and political forces that are changing what we eat as huge multinational corporations seek to control the world’s food system.

I was completely fascinated by the film, and particularly disturbed by how many genes and organisms have now been patented - a thought that has lingered since watching. If you’re at all concerned about what you put on your table and in your body, I consider The Future of Food mandatory viewing.

The Future of Food was written, directed, and produced by Deborah Koons Garcia, and is available on DVD. Watch the trailer

Outlook users have many options when it comes to managing email archives and even ExMerge can run fairly selective archive routines, but this person was an Entourage user. Those other programs all have one thing in common, they output in PST, of which Entourage cannot handle natively. Yes there were other options, I could export to PST and then import to Thunderbird and then export to mbox format and then import to Entourage. What I would have been left with is a heap of ugly plain text email that wasn’t easily searchable nor sortable. I could also try and just move everything manually using click/drag but the folder structure was too complex and there was just too much mail.

What I really needed for this user was a way to have their somewhat complex email structure replicated in their local Entourage folders. Then we could move messages that were older than say, 6 months, into those corresponding locations. After a short and frustrating effort to do this manually, I spent some more time looking for a script that could possibly automate the action. I didn’t find a script but what I did end up finding was a program called the Entourage Exchange Accounts Optimizer. I know, the name could use some work but the program is brilliant.

For just $15 It does exactly what I needed it to do. Replicates the Exchange folder structure onto the local machine, moves the email that is older than the date specified, and is able to be scheduled to run daily. Why MS decided to leave this out, I can only guess but this program is certainly the bee’s knees.

Basically, a tank of snails with RFID tags in their shells slide past one of two RFID transmitters. One delivers the email to the snail and then eventually when the snail makes it to the other side of the tank the email gets picked up and sent to the ‘net.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7458531.stm

Note: IF you are plan on upgrading, I HIGHLY recommend researching the process before you start, and if you don’t feel comfortable with the terms, process, and cold reality of turning your phone into a brick, then do not even attempt the upgrade. I take no responsibility for what you do to your device.

Side note: If you tried to ring or text me on Thursday/Friday, this is most likely the reason I didn’t answer.

The stock ROM for the Verizon (VZW) XV6800 is good…it works…it has some of the usual “quirks” of a Microsoft operating system (OS). Unfortunately, the stock ROM also makes limited use of the phone’s hardware - namely the GPS - and it seems to me that Verizon has no interest in ever taking advantage of it. Earlier this year Sprint and HTC issued updates for the device enabling GPS, EV-DO Rev A, and the much needed Windows Mobile 6.1. Thanks to some fine members of the interwebs, the updated ROMs have been modified to work on other phones and networks. A major OS update, faster data, and GPS were the reasons I was willing to venture to the void.

My early research led me the decision to load dcd’s Titan ROM v3.1.2 on my phone. dcd is a senior member at XDA and head chef in the custom ROM kitchen, IMO. His popular Titan ROM seems preferred by VZW users over no2chem’s ROM.

Point of clarification: The radio and operating system are each distinct ROMs.

The first step in the upgrade: replacing the bootloader. The instructions for this were on the XDA wiki and very clear. I established an ActiveSync connection, ran Hard-SPL-2.40 by olipro, then followed the on-screen instructions. It was easy. Afterward the phone showed only the bootloader – a practically non-functional state, whose three color bars are terrifying! - and went no further. This was expected.

Next came upgrading to a compatible radio; from the stock Verizon version 1.30 to the leaked Sprint version 3.39. Again I followed the instructions on the XDA wiki and it was easy enough, though it took two tries to successfully complete the upgrade. Next step was to load the OS. I expected installation to be the same as the radio: connect via USB, use the ROM update utility (RUU), follow the instructions, reboot, blam! Right? Wrong.

After upgrading the radio I couldn’t establish a USB connection between my PC and the phone, and I was not expecting that. The phone wouldn’t do anything but show those awful colors of the bootloader. I was freaking out like my phone was one bad move away from being a $400 paperweight. Shit.

Do I try and undo what was done so far and get back to the stock VZW bootloader, radio, and ROM? Or, do I press forward and try to finish the upgrade?

Keep calm and carry on.

I re-read the XDA wiki looking for instructions I had earlier ignored: using a micro SD card to load a ROM. The instructions were very clear and shed some light on the USB issue. Since the phone could boot, placing the ROM on an SD card simply created a disk to load. I put dcd’s ROM on my SD card, inserted it in the phone, and blam! In less than a minute the ROM was installed, booting, and running smoothly. The hard part was over.

With OS loaded and running smoothly, carrier CAB installed, and a noticeable improvement in Windows, I called Verizon, programed the phone, downloaded their sync client, and spent some time configuring the device to my liking (pretty straight forward stuff in this line of work). Confident in my success, I reviewed some threads at XDA, installed Google Maps, and checked out the GPS.

It’s my understanding that while GPS can be utilized on VZW network, there is no formal service running to support it. Connecting is hit or miss. It may take 10-15 minutes and even then your lock may only be based on one satellite. It may take only 20 seconds and your lock will be dead on, based on six satellites. I don’t know, don’t really care. GPS works, which it didn’t before, so it works well enough.

Pleased as punch, I decided I needed a break. I had been hunched over my phone for waaay too long and resolved to let it be for a while. There will no doubt be more work to do after upgrading, but I won’t be posting about it. I would like to post a concise, technical, Verizon-specific tutorial for upgrading the HTC Titan, something to help the kids in the PPC community. Stay tuned. Until then, keep calm and carry on.

This is why IT huddles rock.

EDIT (06/04/08): Curious folks have asked. Yup, it’s homemade. It’s a rum-brown sugar cream base with candied bacon bits. And yes, it’s delicious!

Zappos wants to learn if there’s a bad fit between what makes the organization tick and what makes individual employees tick—and it’s willing to pay to learn sooner rather than later.

Innovative thinking! How much does disengaged employee hurt our bottom lines?

I swear to you, it’s not a joke. It is a festering reality.

Scientists are still unclear of the motive, but there is speculation and real fear about the dangers of these buggers, especially as they spread through Houston, moving ever closer to NASA’s Johnson Space Center. The Crazy Rasberry Ants have already ruined sewage pumps, gas meters, and fire alarm systems in Texas. The only upside is that they eat fire ants, which sting humans. But for a nerd like me, a species of ants rampantly F-ing up the electronic elements of modern civilization that we take for granted is a far worse sting.