Technology & MSG

The Panasonic KX-T3968 is a very old 900 MHz cordless phone, but still functional. Manuals are not available on Panasonic’s operating manual site, but it’s easy to program auto-dial or speed-dial numbers using either the base station or the cordless handset.
Note: Buttons to press are indicated in bold type.
To store a number on either the [...]

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When the Verizon Wireless folks sold me a car charger for a phone that had a mini-USB plug, I expected it to work with any phone from Verizon that had a mini-USB jack. Not so, apparently; maybe the mini-USB standard doesn’t specify how much current is to be provided from each pin. I get the [...]

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Inspired by two Flickr groups, I decided to document my everyday carry. That is, the items that I carry with me on a daily basis.

Nothing really fancy here.
I’ve got the usual ring of keys to various houses, offices, and vehicles, most of which are infrequently used. There’s a ten-year-old wallet, filled with a modest amount [...]

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When it comes to interpreting lots of data, I prefer visuals. The following two graphs represent almost ten years of data from my monthly cell phone bills, dating back to the summer of 2001.

I’m sure that there are all sorts of correlations that could be made from this data, but the first thing I saw [...]

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The collection calls have stopped. As I suspected, it was a simple case of my phone number being on the wrong paperwork.
On Wednesday I decided to try calling Terry from the surgeon’s office during business hours. She hadn’t returned my call from a few week’s earlier, so on Monday I had left a more brief [...]

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I just received a call on my cell from 269-768-2213. An automated call, wherein the recorded voice — belonging to someone named Rachel, supposedly — informed me that there are no problems with my credit card but that I’m eligible for a lower rate of 6 point something percent. My eligibility will expire soon, so [...]

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From the courts of Ohio, a settlement has been reached in a recent class action lawsuit against Motorola. If you bought a cell phone and have had battery troubles, it might be due to “an allegedly defective charging port.” I had a Motorola V325 that had all sorts of battery problems that I thought were [...]

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I was driving and saw two kids riding in the opposite direction on bicycles. One of them was talking. The other had no hands on the wheel, busy texting and not looking at the road at all. In the 20 seconds or so that he was in my immediate view, he didn’t look at the [...]

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My new phone battery arrived from Amazon the other day, intact from DLN Enterprises. It wasn’t in OEM packaging, but it was indeed an authentic Motorola battery. According to the coding on the battery, it was manufactured a year after my old one.
Old: 20060802 2BQ1603
New: 20070801 KAK3791
There were a few scratches on the contacts, but [...]

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I’m a glutton for punishment or lazy, because I lived for months with sub-par talk time that could usually be counted on my fingers. After six months of bitching about my cell phone’s battery life, I decided today to buy a new battery. My Motorola V325 takes one 3.7V Lithium Ion cell, model number SNN5762A.
For [...]

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Cleared personnel — those individuals with a security clearance — give up quite a bit of privacy in exchange for their security clearances. Recent events have sparked concern among some contractors concerning their security investigations.
Every individual applying for a security clearance has to complete the Electronic Personnel Security Questionnaire (EPSQ), an antiquated piece of software [...]

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