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A music video with no edits whatsoever. Slow to start, but do stick with it. This is really well done. [Via]

I suggested to Lisa that rather than spend all of Sunday working I’d like to do something more about family time. I was thinking a farmer’s market, movie, something like that. She’s decided it’s weeding the garden. Not quite what I had in mind.

Also, bunch of photos uploaded to flickr from yesterday’s birthday party.

Thanks to many generous donations from my extended family when I turned 40 I’ve been able to buy a beautiful camera. After a few months of looking and thinking and waiting for price drops and new releases I’ve actually smacked down some money on a Nikon D80.

I was talking to Michaels last night about Nikon D80 kit prices, and the guy I spoke to said they had a second hand D80 kit in absolute mint condition for $1699. Whoever bought it pretty much took it straight back.

Lisa and I talked about it for a while last night and decided it was an offer too good to refuse, so I went to Melbourne first thing this morning ready to buy if it was as good as described.

It hadn’t even been taken out of the plastic wrapping. Everything was still in the original sealed bags. It was in perfect condition. So I bought it.

We went to a friend’s 7-year-old daughter’s birthday party this afternoon and I naturally took the new camera along to get some shots. I’m a little disappointed with the sharpness of some of the photos, but it was very overcast and I’ve got no idea how to configure the 11 point autofocus mechanism in the camera, so until I really understand what I’m doing I’m not going to worry. All the indoor shots with the flash were great, along with some of the outdoor shots. I adore this photo.

I’ve put an album up on SmugMug. You’ll find it here; usual password.

Lisa, reading from the web: A six year old and seven year old in the US had a fight over a Barbie doll. The six year old stabbed the seven year old in the back with a steak knife.

The Kid: What? Let me see, Mummy! What did you say?

Lisa, paraphrasing: A six year old and a seven year old had a fight over a Barbie doll, and the six year old was naughty and stabbed the seven year old with a knife!

The Kid: Was the Barbie doll ok?

This article is over 10 years old now, and it still makes me laugh.

Short but funny.

My Motorola SLVR (L7) hasn’t been charging from a USB cable since a few weeks after I got it*. I’ve never really worried about it as I don’t actually sync the phone with the PC, so I never use the USB cable.

This morning, however, I had a battery crisis. I couldn’t find the charger when I left home, so I figured I’d left it at work. Nope. One bar of battery left and no charger in sight. Time to solve this USB charging issue.

I did some digging and found a USB Settings entry in the settings menu (under ‘Connectivity‘). There are two options for the USB settings: Memory Card and Data/Fax Connection. Mine was set to the latter.

It turns out that:

• With USB settings on Data/Fax Connection the phone will only charge from the USB cable if the PC you’ve connected it to has the correct driver installed. No driver, no charging.
• With USB settings on Memory Card it will charge regardless of the driver that’s installed on the PC.

As soon as I changed the setting to Memory Card it started charging perfectly.

I’m sure there’s some logic behind this driver -vs- setting issue, but I can’t understand it. If I plug in the USB cable, charge the phone. Who cares about drivers on the PC? Motorola engineers obviously do, but I’m pretty sure consumers don’t (and neither should we). Drivers should be about real functionality and not about whether the power that’s flowing down the cable is permitted to charge the battery. That’s dumb.

I had to follow up (of course) by hunting down the SLVR L7 driver and installing that, and it now charges on Data/Fax Connection as well. That took some sniffing though; lots of google hits for Motorola L7 driver are forum posts from people asking where they can find the Motorola L7 driver!

* I must have changed the USB Settings at some point, not realising the implications of what I was doing. I know it used to charge correctly, and I guess I didn’t associate the lack of USB charging with the obscure setting I’d fiddled with optimised.

Another win for Lewis Hamilton in the US Grand Prix last night. At 22 years of age, and in only his 7th F1 race, he’s a full race clear of his double world champion teammate.

No wonder Alonso was looking so glum after today’s race. He can’t beat Hamilton today at tracks that Lewis has never seen; how hard will it be when Hamilton has had a season or two of racing at this level?

There are two other things that came out of last night’s race.

1. Kimi, give up on this year’s championship. 26 points behind a 7-race-old rookie as we approach half season? Forget it; you’re done, buddy. You’re crap this year, and it’s all over. Spend the rest of the year finding a way to justify that US$40M annual salary, because your driving doesn’t.
2. Bye, Ralf. Today’s amateur first lap accident pretty much guaranteed you’re unemployed next year. You’ve been a waste of a seat for a good few years now, and today sealed the deal. Leave before you disgrace the Schumacher name any further, and don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.

You know you’re in a totally wired world when you haven’t posted to your blog in a few days and your Mum phones to see what’s wrong!

Everything is fine; just been a little busy at work (including a day in The Big Smoke) and haven’t had much to blog about.

Some quick snippets:

1. Saw Brad & Nadine’s baby today – Taj Riley. A week old. Sleeps all day, awake all night.
2. Our new little girl is sleeping really well. Like The Kid; a few weeks old and she’s settled into a nice easy pattern of sleeping most of the night with one wake for a feed. Last night we got over 5 hours continuous sleep. Sweet!
3. I’ve been driving a BF XR6 for a week or two now. (Long story). It’s a great car; the new 6 speed auto is a fabulous gearbox, and very, very economical. The trip I did to Bayswater and back yesterday had an overall average of 8.8L/100, but that was hurt by the gridlock I had on the Western ring road coming home. The trip down in the early morning gave me an average of 8.3L/100 from home to Bayswater, a 220km trip. For a big Falcon there’s nothing wrong with that at all.

There’s an article on BBC Sport at the moment about how Lewis Hamilton’s team-mate (some spanish guy) thinks Lewis is getting better treatment at McLaren.

The real gem in this article is a link to a video from the BBC archives. It’s a 12 year old Lewis Hamilton appearing on Blue Peter talking about karting and his F1 aspirations.