Why do I love the Model M keyboard?

What is the Model M you ask? You are obviously new to computing.

You can keep your fancy pants whisper quiet keyboards of today. Take your DVORAK, your ergonomic, your cheap throwaway free keyboards that come with your new Dell and throw them all away.

For those of you that have only used these, you do not know any better. You can still be forgiven. But for those that started on the Model M, and have moved on to something else, all I can ask is, what were you thinking?

When you type on a Model M, you know you are typing. Those around you know you are typing. There is no question that typing is being done. (As I am typing this, my co worker that lives on the other side of the wall in this veal fattening pen known as the cube farm starts to get annoyed.)

When I relocated to another state to take a new job, one of the things that was placed into my trunk so that it would be with me on the first day, was my trusty Model M.

There is a tactile feel to the keyboard that has not been duplicated by any other keyboard I have tried. These keyboards are indestructible, I have been using the same one for years and years, and expect it to last until I can no longer type.

They have ps/2 connectors, but with the advent of ps/2 to usb connectors, I do not see any reason that these keyboards will not keep on working in the future.

I guess if you never had one and do not know any better, you can be forgiven, but after reading this, you should go out and find one.

From the wikipedia article:

"The many different variations of the keyboard have their own distinct characteristics, with the vast majority having a buckling spring key design and many having fully swappable keycaps. Model Ms have been prized by computer enthusiasts and heavy typists because of the tactile and auditory feedback resulting from a keystroke.

The Model M is also regarded as an extremely durable piece of hardware. Many units manufactured since the mid 1980s are still in use today, while the computers and monitors of the day have long since been thrown out, recycled, or retired to museums."


from another site that I enjoy:

"For two decades, the IBM Model M Keyboard has been the defacto standard human interface for force-feedback computing. Constructed with "buckling spring" action and a chassis that doubles as a weapon, Model M's appeal to stone-code scallywags and hackers alike. This site honors that which is built on Selectric technology, and those who click them into kernels all over the world."

A new set of tires

I love new tires. The fact that I can go in and pony up for a set of 4 nice new tires is such a change for the better. Yes, I know Mr. Salesman, you are ripping me off with your tire disposal fees, your valve stem replacement fees, your balance the tire fees, your roadside assistance fees. Blah. Just take my old tires off, and put the new ones on.

Do I want the super deluxe whisper quiet tires? How about the super duper traction tires? Are they H rated? T rated? Do I care?

Just give me some good tires, I do not want their life's story. If those tires will last 80,000 miles, great, put them on. That is probably longer than I will have the car. If they actually manage to provide traction in the snow, all the better.

It did not used to be this way. I can remember delivering pizzas for a living. Gas was much cheaper then, frankly I do not know how drivers make much money doing that these days.

I was in a VW Bug and I had no money. I found a tire shop that would sell pre owned tires for $5. It was great. Except pre owned meant that all the life had already been sucked out of them. They were someone else's trash.

These tires did not last very long, so pretty soon I had spent $5 here, and $5 there, and before you know it, I could have easily paid for a brand new tire. Thus began the lesson, don't pay less for junk that will wear out, pay more for stuff that will last a while. It can be painful up front, but it pays for itself in the long run.

Eventually I did graduate to being able to afford a set of 4 brand new tires at the same time. It was a grand feeling.

But then the curse of the new tires began. I had a minivan. I put new tires on it. The transmission went out and it turned out that it was more economical to just sell the thing and buy another car. My new tires went with it. (This was another lesson, I bought an old used junker, and I got what I paid for..)

I had another car where the tires were brand new and I needed to sell it as the children and car seats would not fit in the stupid thing. Bye bye new tires. (It was a case of having a sporty car when I was single and newly married not being a good fit for an old married couple with children.)

Same with my 79 Chevy Blazer, the tires on it had very low miles, but the gas prices kept going up and the miles per gallon stayed the same. It had to go as well. But not before the neighborhood hooligans came by and sliced the sidewalls of many cars that were parked in the street, mine included.

That was how I quit using an insurance company. They tried to tell me that these tires had a bunch of wear on them, and they would be prorating them to a much lower value than they should have had. Whatever they saved on that claim, they have lost on a ton of vehicle and home insurance premiums that have since gone to another insurance company.

Now that I have new tires on both of my cars, I guess it is time to go buy two new ones. But at least I can enjoy the new tires for a while...

You gotta put more into the system than you take out

When you are part of a volunteer organization, please do not take advantage of others.

We go to church. One of the things that we will get asked to do, when people are moving out of or moving in to our congregation, is to go over to their place and help them move. Whether they are coming or going, it is usually a good thing to go over and help lighten the load. Moving is no fun, and the idea of loading and unloading a moving van all alone is even less fun.

I do not mind getting the call, going over, and helping to unload the van. You meet the new folks, hopefully make their stress levels go down, and let them meet some friendly faces so that when they start going to church with you next week, they will know some names. When it is friends that are leaving, it is a nice time to get together for the last time and say goodbye.

Hopefully they understand that they get what they pay for, we are not professional movers and we might break something. (I do remember one guy getting upset when we scratched his furniture. We all stopped and told him he was welcome to do the work on his own. That calmed him down a little bit.)

Some people feel entitled, like this *IS* some professional service that they can call up. Instead of remembering that we are volunteering time out of our day out of the goodness of our hearts, and trying to make things easy for us, they will instead do the opposite.

They schedule their moves at some oddball time of the day, and wonder why nobody shows up to help. If you want help, try asking for people to come by as they can after work or on Saturday. Do not tell people that you need them there at noon on a Wednesday, odds are really good that people have to work and are unwilling or unable to take off from work to accommodate you. It also helps when they have actually shown up once or twice during their tenure in the area to help when someone else has moved. Who would you rather go help, the guy that never showed up to help anyone else move, or the guy that was at all of the moves for the last several years??

Providing pizza or donuts or at the very least water for your volunteer moving crew is a nice touch.

Doing as much as you can on your own is also good. Some moves have gone great, the family moved as much of the lighter stuff as they could on their own, then asked for help with the heavy stuff. Showing up and finding out that all that needs to be moved are the couches and a few heavy boxes makes for a great memory of that family.

Do not lie and tell me you do not have much stuff, or that there is nothing heavy to move. When I show up and find a treadmill and a piano and other heavy goodies, we both know that you knew you had this stuff when you were asking for help. It is not as if you will somehow be able to hide this from us.

Try to tidy up a little bit, there is nothing like going through someone's bedroom and finding the goodies that they should have packed up before we got there. That is just, Ewwww.

Do not ask me to go over to your storage shed and clean that out when we get done at your house. Why don't you take care of that before the big day of the move.

Do not ask me to go to different locations to pick up your stuff. Try to be organized and ready to go on moving day.

Do not ask me to come over and help you load your truck, and then let me show up and find that you have not packed your belongings.

Do not ask us to show up at 7am, and then arrive at 9am with the U-Haul. Yes, I know, sometimes the reservations get screwed up, but try to be ready for that contingency. Have a cell phone, and use it to let people know what is going on, and that there will be a delay, and how long that delay will last. I have stuff I can be doing at my house too, ask me to come back when you get your act together.

I understand there will be exceptions to these rules. There will be elderly people, disabled people, or others that genuinely need this help, and we will gladly give it.

When you are able bodied, and just lazy, then please, do not call me. I do not want to pack your stuff. I will help you MOVE your stuff, but there is a difference.

Remember, we are volunteering our time. If you cannot abide by these simple rules, I will simply get busy, and that will be one less person coming by to help you out.

It is not just the moving however, these thoughts apply to any aspect of the volunteer organization. If you are constantly sucking up the time and resources of the group, you will end up killing the group. There is only so much time and resources to go around, we cannot continually give it to only you. Do not be the whiner that has the pastor's phone number on speed dial. Do not live your life in such a way that you are always in crisis mode, you always need help with your bills and you always need meals brought over.

Do not get me wrong, these systems are in place for a reason, and we are all glad to give them to those in need, but when you are taking advantage of them, there is less to go around to everyone else. Yes, I know, there are times that people are in need and we do not have access to all the information. We are asked to help and we do. However, there is not always enough for everyone. Sure, over time, everyone can probably take advantage of the different benefits, but in practice, hopefully there are those that are completely self reliant and do not need to take. But. They will still need to give in order for this system to work.

In the 80/20 rule, 20% of the people do 80% of the work. 80% of the people are willing to let the 20% do that work. If you are one of the 20%, great. If you are one of the 80%, why not see about switching over.

Sometimes we call it STP. The same ten people. They are the same 10 people that sign up to bring the food to the potluck, to clean the building, to do whatever needs to be done. If the rest of you just sit back, and do not do your share, soon enough those 10 become 5 who then become 0.

It is pretty easy. Do unto others. As you would have them. Do unto you.

Excuse me, some dude needs help moving again.

More links for fun reading.

http://www.oreillynet.com/onlamp/blog/2006/05/theory_x_doesnt_work_with_tele.html

http://www.cio.com/article/30100/Management_Remote_Worker_Control_

http://www.cio.com/article/108501/

Buy it.

Poor little Cub Scouts. I have your answer. Homemade cars will not cut it in 2007.

In our last installment, the question was, do you buy your cars?

The answer is, yes. Yes you do. (Assuming you want to win..)

The Cub Scouts spent their den meetings building cars. For weeks on end, they were sawing, sanding, painting, and enjoying themselves. Tools were shared, designs were admired, the kids were having a good time.

It was fun standing around with the other dads, occasionally we would offer a word of encouragement, or maybe help out with a tricky cut with the coping saw. One dad did not join us in our little group. One dad joined the dark side.

He spent time the same way I did, looking online at kits and designs and whatnot.

However, instead of coming to my conclusion, which was to let the kids build their cars on their own, he decided to buy one. It looked great. All it needed was some paint.

Instead of letting his Cub Scout paint the car, the Dad would let his Cub Scout watch the car get painted. Maybe it is our own fault, none of the Dads that witnessed this spoke up. We let him push his son out of the way so his son could not ruin Dad's pinewood derby car.

In the end it was a fantastic racer. It beat all of the other cars with no problem.

It had the best paint job and won best in show.

They went on to race in the district pinewood derby races.

It reminded me of the story of the able bodied athlete that went and raced the contestants at the Special Olympics. He won. Nobody was surprised that he won. But at the end of the day, all he had done was beaten a bunch of handicapped people.

Sure, this guy bought his racer, painted it up, and won the races. I am glad that a 30 year old was able to beat out a group of 8 year olds.

It is funny, when they took that racer to district, they did not even place. I guess district is where all the 30 year olds race each other, and some other 30 year old did a better job with his application of knowledge gained from the pinewood derby websites.

I prefer to let the kids be kids and build and race their own cars. Lets have an adults only race on another day, and leave the Cub Scouts to race each other.