They lost one. I wonder what got it?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at 02:56 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 Crow, turtle, dog, or snake come to mind.  Snake is least likely, since MomGoose would probably beat the crap out it.

When I was a child, we had a hen that only saved two of her chicks from some threat that took the other chicks one night.  We deduced that when the hen jumped up to run away from where they were sleeping, she had clamped her wings to her sides an managed to carry a couple of chicks with her.

You'd be surprised what a turtle can pull under.

Posted by: Mark A. Flacy at May 11, 2013 04:23 PM (66bg3)

2

I've seen raccoons around here, and that's my bet.

A couple of days ago one of the neighborhood cats was looking very interested, but one of the adult geese chased it away. I doubt the cat was responsible.

As far as snakes go, the only ones we have around here are garter snakes, so far as I know, and for them grasshoppers are more their speed.

There are no rattlesnakes on this side of the Cascades.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at May 11, 2013 05:52 PM (+rSRq)

3 I grew up in Tennessee and the chicken-eating snakes around there were the so-called chicken snakes.    (From a quick Google search and looking at the images, I'd say they were black rat snakes.  You guys in the west don't appear to have them.)

We pulled one out of our barn that was around 6 feet long.  That particular snake had attempted to eat a hen that had made a nest near where that snake was living between the stalls (which is why we were looking for it).  It hadn't been able to dis-articulate its jaws enough to swallow the hen, but it managed to open its mouth sufficiently to make it up to where the wing connects to the breast (going headfirst, of course).

I've seen a crow snatch a baby rabbit from the ground, so I'd think that a gosling would be small enough to nab.

Posted by: Mark A. Flacy at May 12, 2013 08:51 PM (66bg3)

4

I don't think we have any snake that big here in the Willamette valley.

There are crows around here, but they're thoroughly cowed by the ducks and geese. Sometimes when I toss bread out, the ducks and geese come in readily and start gobbling it. Crows sometimes fly down and land, but they stay outside the area where my bread is. They won't come in and compete directly; they hope to dance in and seize a piece and then fly away. Sometimes they do; mostly they don't. The crows act like they're afraid of the ducks, not to mention the geese.

I can't see any of them trying to do that with a gosling, given how afraid they seem to be of the geese.

My vote is for something furry. There are opossums all over the place around here, and I mentioned that I've seen a raccoon. I wouldn't be surprised if there were skunks around here, too.

And at least once I've seen a coyote here in the yard. (The poor thing was badly hurt, probably hit by a car.)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at May 13, 2013 08:01 AM (+rSRq)

5 I've seen eagles, skunks, and racoons in plenty just a couple miles south of you.  Just the other week I saw a pair of coyotes hanging out near the Fanno creek trail, which goes through your area.  A few years back we had multiple sightings of a mountain lion (or maybe it was a bobcat) in my neighborhood.  Any of those critters would happily make a meal of a gosling.  And of course I'm sure there are plenty of cats or stray dogs that would happily snatch a gosling if the parents let it stray far enough away.

Posted by: David at May 14, 2013 10:26 AM (qw+UI)

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We've had a lot of ducklings around here but this is the first time I've seen goslings.

UPDATE:

By the way, the beavers have been at work again. The water level in the creek is up at least three feet. I don't know where they've been working (though I have my suspicions) but I think the creek looks better this way, and the water fowl certainly like it more.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at 12:42 PM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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Should I use the sound of a 12 gauge shotgun for my phone ringtone? (Right now it's the song "Hakuoh Academy" from the Mouretsu Pirates OST.)

UPDATE: How about a cat mew?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at 03:27 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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I really like my Droid DNA from Verizon, except for one thing. If it lost signal it wouldn't reacquire it. The only reasonable way to get it back was to reboot the phone, and I had gotten into the habit of checking the phone many times per day to see if that was necessary. Sometimes I had to reboot as many as a dozen times in a single day.

That isn't supposed to be necessary. When the phone loses the cell it's supposed to try to reacquire it. There are a number of different strategies involved which balance power consumption against the obvious need to reacquire. (I know about this stuff; I used to work on that firmware.) But that stuff wasn't working.

Yesterday they rolled out a firmware update, and that bug appears to be fixed. Just now I turned the phone on, and it said it wasn't connected, and then it reconnected even as I was watching.

Since that was my only objection, I now heartily recommend the Verizon Droid DNA. It is genuinely awesome in every other way. When I was a kid, and telephones had rotary dials (touch tone was introduced when I was in 5th grade) I never thought I'd live to see something like this.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at 11:18 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 Cell phones have literally changed the concept of calling a person, instead of a place.

Posted by: Mauser at April 16, 2013 02:03 PM (cZPoz)

2 I would probably have gone for the Droid DNA (or the Butterfly, the international version) if they'd bothered to launch it in Australia.    Great hardware specs and great industrial design.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at April 17, 2013 06:01 PM (PiXy!)

3 Can you get it without a contract?

Posted by: muon at April 17, 2013 07:58 PM (jFJid)

4 It would cost a lot. The phone companies subsidize the handsets they sell; that's why you have to sign a contract for a fixed period of time, with a penalty if you stop early.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at April 17, 2013 08:35 PM (+rSRq)

5 Yep.  The one place I know that was selling the Droid DNA / Butterfly in Australia was asking A$829 (US$829... near enough), and now they're out of stock.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at April 19, 2013 01:16 AM (PiXy!)

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Ever hear of OnTrac?

Newegg is using them to deliver my most recent order. I have no idea who they are, or what they do, but they seem to be trying to set themselves up as an alternative to UPS and Fedex, and good luck to them. It ain't gonna be easy to compete in that market.

They have the same kind of online order tracking as the other two, which isn't cheap, but is appreciated. As they often do, Newegg split my order into three parts and shipped them from three different facilities. Two are coming up from California, via OnTrac, supposedly to deliver tomorrow some time.

The other one is coming from Louisville, via UPS, also delivering tomorrow. I wonder who will show up first? (That suggests to me that OnTrac doesn't have full national coverage yet.)

UPDATE:

OnTrac is the leader in regional overnight package delivery service within California, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Colorado and Idaho.

No mention of Kentucky there, which explains UPS doing the third one.

UPDATE: I tell you; it's gonna be hard for me to come up with stuff to blog about this season. Nothing fresh about anime until the first episode of Railgun shows up this weekend.

I suppose I could do another Fairy Tail cheesecake post.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at 12:50 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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I guess it really is the twenty-first century after all.

I just had a doctor appointment and got all my prescriptions renewed. She sent all of them to my pharmacy electronically, so we drove to the pharmacy. They had arrived but weren't filled yet, so we sat in the waiting area, until they sent a text message to my phone telling me the prescriptions were filled. Then I stood in line to pick them up.

They couldn't just wave to me, "Yoohoo! Steve! Your prescriptions are done!" They had to send me a text message. Welcome to the future, where even communications within hailing range are handled electronically.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at 02:59 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 Just be glad you don't have the implants yet.  Getting a text message directly into your brain that your migraine prescription is ready can be a real killer...

Posted by: Siergen at April 03, 2013 04:04 PM (Ao4Kw)

2

Getting a text message directly into your brain that your migraine prescription is ready can be a real killer...

I do not know if that deserves a rimshot or a sad trombone...

Posted by: cxt217 at April 03, 2013 06:53 PM (6/RCS)

3 Even better, a presidential text message.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at April 03, 2013 07:01 PM (RqRa5)

4 I had the same experience today, the doc said he'd upload it. I think it sucks enormously. Firstly, there's absolutely nothing you can do about any error. If they lose your prescription, it's over. Secondly, you have to decide which pharmacy it is. With a recular prescription you can choose the one that's convenient depending on where you are when you get around to filling it.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at April 03, 2013 07:44 PM (RqRa5)

5 My wife and I used to IM each other while we were in the same room.  Still do, on the odd occasion that we are both using AIM ( participating in an RPG together, largely ).  We were doing this before it was cool. 

Posted by: metaphysician at April 03, 2013 07:59 PM (3GCAl)

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Spring is sprung, de flowers riz,
I wonder where de boidies is?

UPDATE: Could be worse. Could be Wichita.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at 11:47 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Lots of construction sound around here this week. The owner has decided to replace the roof on several of the buildings in the complex, including mine. He hired a company to do it, and they've got a front loader with an extensible arm that they're using to lift the new roofing material up on top of the three-story building, and to bring down the old roofing material after the carpenters strip it off.

It's been getting dumped into a big steel dumpster and there's a sign on the side that says they're going to recycle it. I can't figure out how. What in heck do you use old roofing for? How do you recycle it? What does it become?

UPDATE: They're working directly over me now, and every once in a while a piece of debris falls past my window. It's kind of weird. Feels like a Monty Python sketch, except that no person has gone by yet (thank goodness).

I don't expect that; these guys are wearing safety lines, and anyway they're being careful.

One thing I'm not going to do is go out on my deck, stick my head out, and look up.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at 09:36 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Did somebody order some geese?

It's annoying having them around, partly because they're so loud. When a flock like this decides to visit, they're constantly honking and hooting. And they leave a lot of shit around.

But at least they don't tend to do that in just one place. It tends to be evenly distributed all over the place, and it acts like fertilizer resulting in nice green lawn in the summer. So I can't complain too much.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at 11:11 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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My Verizon Droid DNA keeps surprising me. One morning about a month ago I got wakened by sound announcing the arrival of an Amber Alert.

And just now my phone startled me with a different audio alert. I looked at its screen, and it turns out that Verizon just rolled out a firmware update. Took about ten minutes to download and install, but I admit I was nervous. If something had gone wrong, it would become a brick.

I keep it near me nearly all the time. It's in my pocket during the day and it sits on my bed next to my pillow at night. It's there just in case I have another stroke, or if I'm walking around and lose my balance and fall, so that I have a way of summoning help. And it does lend me a bit of comfort because of that, but if it got bricked it wouldn't be there for me any more.

I am mostly pretty happy with it, but I do have one significant complaint: if it loses service it never spontaneously reconnects. I have to reboot it. I hope that was fixed with this firmware update.

My experience, oddly, is that I have that problem on Friday afternoons nearly every week, and only rarely any other time. I live about a quarter of a mile from a major highway (Oregon 217) and I imagine it's the result of "cell breathing".

UPDATE: That Wikipedia article about cell breathing makes it sound like something that's done deliberately. That's not the case. It is, rather, an emergent result of the way that CDMA handles power control. Ideally if you lose connection because your cell shrunk, you're supposed to do an idle handoff to a neighboring cell, but I think that isn't working for me.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at 09:43 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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