Wednesday, May 30, 2012

In which my unhealthy squirrel obsession pays off

...well, a little at least.
As does my propensity for eavesdropping on tech-related questions that do not currently apply to me, with the generally-accurate assumption that at some point I will manage to break something in a similar way and have no idea how to fix it on my own.

So, backstory: On Tuesdays I have to loiter a while on campus near the lake. The lake is home to two swans, some ducks, many geese, and various squirrels, raccoons (which is apparently a typographical error, since there is no such thing as more than one raccoon? Ah, spellcheck), chipmunks, and such small deer.
Large and small alike, they are all fed on bread by idle hikers and eager children, and so have become quite (at times unnervingly) tame. I walked up on this group yesterday and only three of them even noticed me -- the female mallard second from the right isn't turning her head to look at me, she is tucking her head under her wing and falling asleep.


Anyhow, all I have to do is sit down and it's as if I'm not there at all. So the squirrels promptly started being adorable because they obviously knew I couldn't find my camera. One was drinking from the lake, one was playing with bark chips. Finally I managed to get my camera out, on, and focused in time to take a brief video of Adorable Teenage Squirrel #3 fighting with a scary stick. It was one of the cutest things I've personally witnessed and recorded a squirrel doing, and I was eager to get back home and share it. I still had time to kill before that, though, so I went through and started deleting subpar images from my camera in case something else interesting happened that required even more video space.
One of them was so blurry, I didn't know why I hadn't deleted it immediately. I clicked the trash can icon, and the "Yes" button, and then ... I clicked back a couple pictures to where my video should have been, and it was GONE.
Noooooooo.
My camera is not very good at making it clear which preview images are images and which are video stills, and I apparently misjudged which images came before and after the video I wanted, because I had deleted it. Just like that. IT WAS BLURRY BECAUSE IT WAS A SQUIRREL MID-CUTE-ATTACK. After fretting about this (and the lack of an "undo" button) for a good thirty seconds I realized that (unlike similar disasters I'd had in the past with less-sophisticated media-recording devices) the image had been stored on a memory card, and the thing about memory cards was that deleted things weren't necessarily Gone Forever. 
I rushed home (being ridiculously careful to remind myself not to take anymore pictures with the camera in the interim, just in case), jumped to the first forum post I could find asking about recovering deleted images, and LO AND BEHOLD, there were options. 
I hooked up the Lumix, downloaded PhotoRec, and with a few keystrokes I had recovered my beloved squirrel (along with ten or fifteen less-beloved squirrels that had been deleted in the same run).



As the sort of person who's had more than one "NOOOO, I TAPED OVER MY FAVORITE SONG/TV SHOW/RANDOM SOUND CLIP AND NOW IT'S GONE FOREVER AND THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS FINDING IT ON THE INTERNET" moment, I have to say I don't entirely mind the "nothing you delete is ever really gone" element of today's technology.



Tuesday, May 15, 2012

My brain needs an upgrade ....

You know those ads where Siri is like your helpful little slave, captive brain-in-a-box with no feelings or feeding to worry about, just a helpful imaginary friend, a handy auxiliary brain to behave as your own surely would were it connected to the entire Internet?

Those are kind of creepy, aren't they?

Anyhow, the point of this post.

Asking direct questions is a great way to get answers, but if you're asking a medium meant to imitate your brain, then the answers can get dicey pretty fast.

After yet another bout of fussing and fuming at search engines, Pandora (I keep "breaking up" with it and then feeling bad and giving it another chance ...), and the Internet in general, I realized that my own personal brain doesn't really do that much better 90% of the time. It's just learned to run through all the wrong answers more quickly, so I wind up with the right answer sooner.

Most days.

Some days it is just about exactly as quick on the uptake as Pandora or Google.

Now, I've complained about word-association in the past, but downtime and idle conversations are one thing (two things, pah, you know what I mean). What about when I'm actually requesting helpful information from my patented brain algorithm? 


An ideal situation would be,

Me: What is the name of that color?
Brain: What color?
Me: The nice one that sounds like super-blue but is actually beyond-the-sea.
Brain: Based on your search query, "ultramarine" is the closest match.
Me: That's it! Thank you, brain!
Brain: You're welcome.

A more realistic situation would be,

Me: What is the name of that color?
Brain: Red lorry, yellow lorry, red lorry, yellow lorry ...
Me: PAY ATTENTION. What color is it?
Brain: What color?
Me: The nice one that sounds like super-blue but is actually beyond-the-sea.
Brain: ♫ Somewhere ... beyond the sea ... ♫
Me: ...
Brain: Was that the song you were looking for? It appears that 80% of the above lyrics match your search query. Do you want to buy Finding Nemo on DVD with your Amazon gift card? Your VHS copy is looking a little worn.
Me: I WANTED A COLOR. Super-blue, but not.
Brain: UBERWEISS. It's new, it's German, it's super-tough. Don't you wonder how that laundromat scene would look set to the Freeze-Ray song from Dr. Horrible? You have Tuesday off, you could probably make--
Me: NO, GAWD, I'LL JUST LOOK IT UP. Um ... okay, it would be under ...
Brain: U.
Me: U?
Brain: For "ultramarine."
Me: Ah, right -- HEY. D:
Brain: :D
Me: THIS ISN'T FUNNY.
Brain: Did you mean: ♫I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cryyy with the saints--♫
Me: STOPPIT I DON'T WANT THAT IN MY HEAD WHILE I'M AT WORK.
Brain: No, the song you didn't want in your head at work is by Cee-Lo Green. The title is F--
Me: SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP.
Brain: ...:(
Me: Sorry brain, but ... you know how you get sometimes.
Brain: Yes, I am also sor-- wait, have we been letting Pandora run unattended this whole time?
Me: IT'S PLAYING THE IRISH FOLK MUSIC AGAIN.
Brain: AND THE PREVIOUS TRACK WAS FROM GLEE.
Me: WHY DOES IT EVEN HAVE THAT SONG?
Brain: WHO CARES?? THUMBS-DOWN, THUMBS-DOWN!!!
Me: I KNOW I KNOW, MY MOUSE WON'T MOVE THAT FAST.
Brain: I'M SO SORRY.
Me: I got it, I got it! It's okay, Brain. It's over now. It'll be okay.
Brain: :) Not to dig up the past, but why did you need to know what ultramarine was called?
Me: Um ... I don't remember. Isn't that your job?
Brain: I don't know, let me look that up--
Me: NO. Don't. Please. I'll ... I'll just use it in a blog post, I haven't blogged in a while.
Brain: Very well. Did you ever know he was singing "Kyrie, eleison" in that song?
Me: I didn't know it even had words, I just thought he was making 80's noises.
Brain: So did I. Thumbs-up?
Me: Let's not get carried away. But ... I guess you and Pandora aren't so bad after all.
Brain: :D



This is a baby bunny my brain thought you might find relevant.