http://bondclothes.blogspot.com/

This guy analyzes the suits (and other clothing options) James Bond wears in all the (22 “official” movies, produced by EON productions, 5 others) James Bond movies, with detours into the sartorial selections Sean Connery wears in other movies such as the tweed suit in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”.

This may seem like ultimate nerdism filtered by Tim Gunn, but you end up learning about men’s fashions, the functional needs met by ensembles such as riding outfits, the origins of tweeds, and what the props in various Bond movies sold for at auction. In other words, the Internet was invented to make sure we know the difference between traditional British forward pleated suit pants and plain flat front, or that a semi-formal day wedding in the UK would feature a style called “Black Lounge”, with a jacket Americans call a “stroller” in place of the more traditional (to us) cutaway.

Nerds do what now?

Last night, we attended a NoSQL meetup here in San Diego. It has been explained to me that “NoSQL” is not really an anti-SQL movement; more a burgeoning understanding that not all large data sets need SQL—and some of them don’t even need a “database” in the strictest sense of the word.

The speakers were Matt Ingenthron of Membase (http://membase.org) and Jason Sirota of The Knot (http://theknot.com), a Membase/Memcached user. Excellent presentations, and Membase looks like an interesting and useful product.

Perhaps Jon will be inspired to say a few words on the subject. And perhaps not

On a recent trip to a health foods grocery store, I spied a bin of large plastic onions. Wondering how healthy a plastic onion could possibly be, I picked one up, and realized it was an onion container–shaped like an onion!

For some reason, this ridiculous object tickled my fancy, and I bought one. Besides, it promised that my onion would Stay Fresh Longer and that the container would Reduce Odors. How could I resist?

At home, I gleefully showed off my new purchase to Jon. He raised an eyebrow, but very nicely made us a dinner that night that included onion, so I could try out my toy. I’m not sure that odors were reduced or that the onion stayed fresh longer, but I certainly knew how to locate my onion in the refrigerator.

I grew curious, and looked at the container’s tag. My onion-shaped onion container was made by the Hutzler Manufacturing Company of Canaan, Connecticut. And wonder of wonders, they sell other food-shaped food containers! You can get a pepper keeper in the shape of a pepper, a tomato keeper in the shape of a tomato, and more. (See http://www.hutzlerco.com/products/c/2/ )

The obvious next question is why aren’t all objects kept in containers that are their same shape? We could keep coffee mugs in mug-shaped containers, cars in car-shaped garages, and perhaps people should live in person-shaped dwellings!

What do you think? This may all be getting a bit too meta for me…

The nerds are at the Cloud Computing Expo (http://cloudcomputingexpo.com/general/attend1110.htm) this week, and we flew up today, Halloween. We nerds fly Southwest Airlines (www.iflyswa.com) despite our hero, Kevin Smith’s, misadventures (https://twitter.com/ThatKevinSmith/status/9079110598).

So anyway as we board we are greeted by a smiling vampire flight attendant, who once we were all seated, gave us a rocking safety lecture (“…unlikely water landing, don your life vest then it’s kick-paddle, kick-paddle, kick-paddle-breath, all the way to shore. Don’t worry, once you make it onshore we’ll bring the nachos and beer”), then wished us all a Happy Halloween.

“Happy Halloween!”, echoed a tiny squeak from behind and across the aisle from us. We looked and a little girl in a pink top, flouncy pink cow girl skirt and black biker boots was bouncing excitedly in her seat, not overly concerned with the fact that her boots were just missing her daddy’s head as he was scooping spilled goldfish crackers off the cabin floor. She was on the aisle, he was in the center seat, and her sister by the window was watching them mutely, probably waiting for daddy to clean whatever she smeared onto the window off. “Happy Halloween!”. Oh lord this was going to be a fun flight.

We took off, and got the okay to start our electronics again. I went analog with a crossword puzzle that was baffling until I realized they were embedding ‘bat’ as single character in the puzzle (e.g. combat becomes com{bat symbol}).

When the attendant came around for drink orders I heard that aisle order three apple juices. I smiled at daddy ordering his own juice, then realized that he might have to share in case someone spilled. Smart man.

When the drinks arrived, I looked over and saw the flight attendant was smart too. The drinks came with soft drink-like covers and straws. The cowgirl on the aisle was curled up against her daddy, his arm softly on her side.

We finished the puzzle together with a stellar clue, and I looked over at the cowgirl and father. She and her sister were both out cold, curled against their father. He was breathing slowly, asleep himself. His arms rested lightly on the girls at his side, no bend at the elbow. It looked like the slightest move, and anything approaching the girls, would not only be felt but intercepted by those arms. He slept lightly, a wiry man who looks like he runs a lot, but has spent the time to know how to make his girls comfortable enough to sleep on planes.

I desperately wanted to take their picture, so I could give it to him. So he could remember when these two were angels on the plane, not the silent or screaming demons of adolescence. But I realized this Father probably did not need that. I hope his arms always remember what it felt like to comfort then guard these two, of the complete and total trust these girls had, and would always have, in him.

I provide part-time bookkeeping and administrative services to a small company here in San Diego. Let’s call them ABC Corp.

One day in early February, I got an email from Joe, ABC Corp’s CEO. It’s a forward from some fellow named Bakhram in Uzbekistan who wants to be paid (I’m picturing some combination goatherder/iPhone developer, but I’m sure that’s not right). He was hoping we could use his friend’s bank in Bulgaria, but his friend is not available now, so can we pay him directly? Scenes from the various Bourne Identity movies flash through my head as I type a response to Joe, asking him to have Bakhram send us a proper invoice, including desired payment method.

Two weeks later, I get an email with an attached invoice from Bakhram. He would like to be paid through MoneyGram. I misunderstood and thought he meant any ol’ money gram, so started setting up an online account with Western Union. No, no; he really wants MoneyGram. So I start setting that up. With MoneyGram, you can either send via the “economy” method (approximately $20 fee) or the “right now” method (approximately $48 fee). I decide to use the economy method, which means they need to do a bank verification. I wait a couple of days while they make their two deposits into ABC Corp’s bank account of 19 cents and 9 cents, and then I log back in.

Now MoneyGram wants me to answer some security questions. I’m in a hurry, so don’t read the fine print where they tell me some questions will be deliberately misspelled. They ask me questions about “Laura Hood” (a misspelling of my mom’s name) and “Michelle Gallagher” (I assume a misspelling of my name) and a question about my ex-husband. The only question I get right (because I didn’t read the aforementioned fine print) is the one about my ex-husband. I am immediately thrown out of the web site and told to call customer service. After a nearly 10 minute wait, an agent comes on and asks me some other questions, like about the condo I owned with the ex-husband in the mid-80s, and whether I know someone named “Jon Gallagher.” (“You mean my husband?” I ask. “So you’re saying you know him?” the guy responds.)

Anyway, that gets cleared up, and now I can log back in and start the economy method. I fill out the form (after confirming with Bakhram about his names: which is his first, which is his last, and which is his second last—his last and second last names are both about 14 characters long), but then I realize the only country it will let me choose is United States. Turns out there’s more fine print; this time it’s telling me that California residents can send money via the economy method only to US residents. So I decide to try the “right now” method. Every time I fill out the form and click Submit, it kicks me off the web site. I think about being put on hold with customer service again, and decide to try to find a physical location nearby where I can send the money.

Good news: the CVS that’s not too far from here has a MoneyGram station. I had a dentist’s appointment in that general neighborhood, so when that was finished, I stopped by. I looked around for the MoneyGram station. Turns out it’s a red phone, not unlike Batman’s hotline to Commissioner Gordon. I pick up the receiver and it automatically dials MoneyGram. After spelling Bakhram’s various names several times for the guy, we get it all figured out. Now I need to go to the CVS cashier and pay her.

I stand in line, while she tries to count the change of the guy in front of me. (“That’s not right, sir.” “Yes it is—that’s a quarter.” “Oh, that’s a quarter? I thought it was a nickel!”) Now it’s my turn. She punches in the amount I want to send ($564) as $5.64. I tell her that’s not right. She tries again, and this time she’s successful. I hand her the corporate debit card. She tries to run it through, but you can’t pay for a MoneyGram (at least not at CVS) with anything other than cash. I have only 15 minutes to finish the transaction before it times out, so I hoof it over to the neighboring Vons grocery store where there’s a Wells Fargo branch (more of a pod, really), and I’m able to withdraw $577 (includes the transfer fee). Back to CVS. The cashier runs me through again, and hands me the receipt to sign.

“This says Pakistan,” I tell her.

“Yeah, that’s right,” she says.

“It needs to go to Uzbekistan.”

“Isn’t that the same place?”

“No, it’s a separate country.”

“Maybe it’s inside of Pakistan?”

“No, it’s a separate country.”

She runs to get the assistant manager. He says I’m going to have to call the MoneyGram people back and get the money re-routed. I call them back. They say they can’t do that; they have to issue a refund. So they issue a refund and set up a new transfer to Bakhram at the same time. (For future reference, it’s cheaper to send money to Pakistan than to Uzbekistan.) I take my refund code back to the assistant manager and he starts to process it. Only problem is, CVS will issue refunds only in money orders, but will not accept money orders as payment for MoneyGrams. We get back on the phone with the MoneyGram people. I can either take the money order and cash it at a bank (for a fee), or I can go to another MoneyGram agent and get my refund in cash. I can do that at an Albertsons grocery store.

I drive across the 15 to the nearest Albertsons. There’s a man using the MoneyGram phone, so I go to the Starbucks that’s inside the grocery store and get a coffee, heavy on the whipped cream. I finally get my turn on the red phone, where I have to re-activate the refund and set up yet another transfer to Bakhram. I spell his various names once again, and then I tell the guy it’s going to Uzbekistan.

“Pakistan?”

“No, Uzbekistan.”

“Isn’t that the same place?”

“No, it’s a separate country.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. It’s spelled U-z-b-e-k-i-s-t-a-n.”

“Wow, I’m sure glad you told me! Otherwise it would have gone to Pakistan!”

“Yes, I know.”

I had to finish the transaction with the Albertsons customer service people, and they were very helpful. There was a slight moment of panic when they realized their maximum refund allowed is $500, and needed a manager’s approval. She cast a somewhat jaded eye over the paperwork and over me, but was mollified by my assurances that I was going to turn around and give the money right back to them to pay for the outgoing transfer. When they printed the receipt, I made sure it said—and yes indeed, it did—Uzbekistan.

All I can say is: “I sure picked a bad day to stop sniffing glue.”

“0x1FFF” has pulled together a great (and expanding) list of open source projects developed, sponsored or just hosted by Google. Some great tools here, poke around and you’ll probably find something to make serious computing easier. I’ve used Google Web Toolkit extensively, and i’m about to try out CRUSH and MobWrite.

http://blog.0x1fff.com/2009/12/35-google-open-source-projects-that-you.html

One of the ways we can tell we’re nerdy is that one of our favorite things to do is stroll through Fry’s Home Electronics. That’s what we did this morning: fondling gigabit switches, cursing DRM restrictions, wondering when netbooks loaded with Google Chrome OS will be available.

Next, we stopped off at our favorite boba tea shop. I got my usual caramel milk tea with boba, and Jon got his usual barley milk tea with boba.

Then we meandered home, back to football and programming, bill paying and data scraping.

What do you like to do on Nerdy Sunday?

World War I ended on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918. It was called the “War to End All Wars”, but that did not last even a generation. Let’s remember the sacrifice of those who suffered and died for our freedom, and celebrate the soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines that returned to us.

Courtesy of Mental Floss Blog, dogs welcoming veterans home:

Hello Boss!.