100 Years of Stories

In a comment over on Slashdot, I saw this story about DaVinci's parachute design being tested (and working!) over 500 years after it was drawn. This is pretty cool, but I don't think I'd want to land with a 187 pound parachute over my head. I picked up my copy of Blizzard's Diablo II that I'd reserved at Software, Etc. I've been waiting for this game for a couple years, I'm glad it's finally shipping. I was mildly alarmed when the clerk took my copy of the game and sliced it open and pulled out the contents. He told me that a lot of them had only come with two of the three Compact Discs needed for the game. Thankfully, my copy had all three, but I was deprived of the feeling of removing that shrinkwrap, it just doesn't seem as new now...

I left a three-cent tip for the waitress at lunch today. We ate at Diamond Dave's, a Mexican restaurant. The restaurant was not remotely busy, her offenses were:

Took 15 minutes to ask us what we'd like to drink, and if we were ready to order.

Mixed up our drinks when she brought them, giving the wrong drink to the wrong person.

Mixed up our food when she brought it, just as above.

Took 15 minutes after we were finished eating to return with the checks, during which time one of the people had to leave to get back to work.

The checks were wrong. I had a taco salad and water. My bill included a lemondade that my co-worker had. We had to work it out amongst ourselves.

My co-worker paid with a credit card, I paid with cash, she brought me his receipt to sign and handed him my change.

Now, my question is, did I overtip?

We're starting to implement some wireless networking in our building. We've got an Apple Airport set up, and have gotten some PowerBooks connected to it via their Airport cards. I've gotten a Sony VAIO working with a Dell Aironet card and Windows 2000 to access the same network too. I wish our building wasn't made of concrete and steel, we'd get a lot more range out of the cards! Now I just need for Xircom to hurry up with their 802.11 Springboard Module for my Handspring Visor, so I can walk throughout the building and still be connected to the net. Macintouch has some more info about Palm computers and wireless technology as well.

This morning, on my way to work, I was listening to KUNI radio (broadcast from two floors above my office). NPR is running a series during their Morning Edition program called 100 Years of Stories. The series features the stories of people over the age of 100, and this morning featured Roy Larkin Stamper of Oklahoma. While his story isn't available yet in RealAudio, it should be by the end of the day. The story of Ruth Ellis is already up, I caught that one a few weeks ago while sitting in the drive-through lane at McDonald's. All of these are fascinating stories, it's amazing what you can learn from NPR.