They say necessity is the mother of invention, but I would argue that laziness is an important factor too.  Do we really need TV remotes that change channels by sending infrared signals through the air, or do we just not feel like getting up?  Do we really need those Roomba robotic vacuum cleaners to vacuum our floors, or do we just not feel like doing it ourselves?  (On a side note, I would argue that many of the inventions that involve robotics are essentially centered around laziness and some guy in a lab saying, "I don't feel like doing this.  Maybe I can design a robot to do it for me.") 

Another mother of invention turns out to be sports and leisure.  I noticed this as I was on a ski lift going up a mountain in Vermont this past weekend.  Huge machines that looked like scorpions were carving snow with their "tails" to make a giant half-pipe.  It was immediately evident that these machines were designed and created exclusively for this purpose, so that skiers and snowboarders could spend their winter weekends doing tricks and avoiding catastrophic head injuries. 

I guess it just amazes me that entire industries are formed and countless dollars are spent in the advancement of science and technology, often for questionable gain.  But I don't mind; the half-pipe keeps all the dirty teenagers busy so they take up less space on the rest of the mountain.  It's a win-win. #technology

I closed my Facebook account the other day, not that I ever used it anyway.  I got sick of receiving occasional emails about friend requests, especially from people I know in real life.  Why do we need to be digital friends if we're already real life friends?  The thing is, I never got into Facebook in the first place.  I signed up for an account a few years ago just to check it out, but I never got past the first few minutes of using it.  I still don't quite understand the point of it.  I'm supposed to connect with people I haven't heard from in a long time?  Why would I want to do that?  The appeal is lost on me.  Plus, I already have an online place where I write things and post pictures.  It's this here website.  Why should I get into something that apparently performs the same function?  I'll also be closing my MySpace account soon for the same reasons, and a few more.  MySpace is to Facebook what Paterson is to Hoboken.  Not only is it useless to me, it's painfully, eye-pokingly ugly and full of high school kids.  I generally try to avoid things where teenagers are the primary demographic. #technology

I got a spam email today from Cindy.  Here's what she said: 

"It has been long time since we did not meet. I hope everything is okay with you."

How can there be any time since an event that didn't happen?  Maybe life is like a CD on repeat, and as soon as it gets to the end of the last song, it plays again from the beginning.  And maybe Cindy is onto it, and she remembers the previous play-through, which included the time we met.  It's one of those things that makes your head hurt. 

She went on to tell me about a wonderful website where I can buy all kinds of medications online.  How thoughtful of her. #technology

Several times in the past few months, I've begun the painful yet sometimes enjoyable process of finding free software to replace some of my existing expensive proprietary software.  I downloaded and installed OpenOffice to replace Microsoft Office.  I considered giving Ubuntu another shot.  I tried a couple Matlab clones. 

And here's the conclusion I've reached:  Unless there's a specific negative reason why you want to switch to a different program that does the same thing (e.g. "I hate how it always does this" or "I can't get it to do what I want"), other than the fact that it's free and not made by a big faceless software company, it's not worth the trouble because you'll end up spending all your time trying to get the replacement software to perform the same functions as the replaced software.  As much as I'd like that to not be true, it just can't be avoided.  If you know how to use your software and it does what you want, there's no reason to switch. #technology

This is a Visual Basic Script that renames all the picture and video files in a directory to the format "MMDDhhmmss" where MM is the two-digit month, DD is the two-digit day, hh is the two-digit hour, mm is the two-digit minute, and ss is the two-digit second. 

From there, you can easily organize pictures in directories based on year, where the files are sorted by name and, in effect, date.  This is useful in the case of owning more than one camera, especially if each camera has its own file naming structure.  One structure might be DSC_1234, where the other might be P1234567.  When pictures from both cameras are placed in the same directory, it's hard to view the pictures in date order, because Windows isn't good at reading the proper date from picture files.  So instead of manually renaming pictures by date, the script does it automatically. 

The script creates a log file so that, in the case of some unforeseen mistake or accident, you can see what your pictures were originally named.  Regardless, I would suggest creating a copy of your original pictures to try things out, just in case something goes horribly wrong. 

One thing to remember is that the script hinges on the fact that you have your camera's date and time set properly.  If not, your pictures will be renamed the wrong thing, which doesn't help you much. 

Some links that helped me create this are here and here. 

Version History:
v. 0.9 - better date search; MP4 handling
v. 0.8 - regex date search instead of camera-specific offsets; duplicate file check

Download #technology

I hate how there's an overabundance of video streaming sites on the internet.  YouTube wasn't the first and isn't the best, but I wish everyone would just adopt it and move on.  It's really annoying to try to watch streaming video on some site that made a homebrew streaming application that doesn't have the timing right or the bandwidth to properly stream anything.  YouTube works.  Use it. #technology

US Airways Flight 1549, which crash landed in the Hudson River on January 15, 2009, was an Airbus A-320, and as such was equipped with a "ditching switch" that sealed the plane by closing valves and ventilation ports, thereby enabling it to float.  (via Reddit) #technology

I despise the company or person who thinks I appreciate it when I come home from work to find a brand new phone book sitting in my driveway.  I haven't used a phone book since I discovered the internet over a decade ago.  Unlike a catalog, which one might use to peruse objects sold by a company, a phone book (and any other listing of information, e.g. that huge, stupid catalog of physicians sent to me by my former health insurance provider) is meant to be searched, which is exactly why the internet was invented in the first place.  Catalogs are meant for browsing, and even in a wired society, they can still serve a purpose (i.e. if the company doesn't have any stores in your area and their website is stupid or ugly).  But for the act of searching for information, the internet is the answer, not some frequently-outdated, impossible-to-opt-out-of, archaic book of papers. #technology

I've found in recent months that search results from Google (and probably other search engines) contain a lot of links to user-contributed answer sites like Yahoo Answers, WikiAnswers, Answerbag, and Amazon's Askville.  To be fair, some of these user-contributed sites have good content.  The hard part is deciphering between the good content and the bad content.  Good content normally cites sources, uses relatively good spelling and grammar, and doesn't seek to insult or defame anyone in the process.  The bad content is obviously the opposite, but it's often confusingly mixed in with the good content.  As a general rule of thumb, I don't trust stuff from user-contributed sites like this until I find a reason to convince me otherwise. 

A few weeks ago at work, my co-worker was trying to convince everyone that the phrase "robbing the cradle" (dating/marrying someone younger) has an antonym in the phrase "robbing the grave".  We all tried to convince him that "robbing the grave" is not only not a commonly-used phrase to describe dating/marrying someone older, but it's actually a really bad thing (i.e. do not, under any circumstances, profess to be a grave robber).  He got on his computer, Googled it, and came up with some results that mentioned the phrase in the context of a relationship.  I accepted his explanation and moved on, because I'm a firm believer in the idea that if it's on the internet, it must be true.  On a whim, I Googled the phrase myself and noticed that his "sources" were Urban Dictionary and Yahoo Answers.  Urban Dictionary is a great site full of user-contributed definitions for slang and uncommon lingo, but it's certainly not a site you can reference as a reliable source.  Such is the case with most user-generated content.  Be forewarned.  Or be thoroughly mocked at work. #technology

Weather.com recently changed some portions of their website, making things worse and at times, unusable.  I'm a fan of the hourly forecast because it gives a good indication of when certain weather events will start or stop.  Up until recently, I could search for a zip code and click the "Hour-by-Hour" link to get weather predictions for the next several hours.  But apparently when I wasn't looking, this thing called TruPoint stepped into the picture, creating not only an "Overview" section that shows a graph of hourly weather conditions (cool but not what I want) but also a "Details" section that reports weather in 15 minute intervals.  I don't want weather updates in 15 minute intervals.  It's stupid.  Weather conditions generally don't change that fast, and weather predictions are usually wrong anyway.  Of course there's no easy way to disable this "feature" except by clicking some poorly-placed links that merely collapse the 15-minute intervals for the selected hour.  Weather.com, if you're listening, please know that TruPoint sucks.  Thank you. #technology