OCR is awesome!

So, the copier/printer/scanner/dog washer/etc machine at my office lets you scan things and mail them to yourself as PDF documents. It's pretty handy. By default, the attachment you get has some meaningless name like scan_0001.pdf. The other day, I noticed there was an option to have the scanner use OCR to figure out the content in the document, and use that to generate a name for the pdf. I decided to give it a try.

The result - it "recognized" the giant barcode at the top of the document I scanned as "ilil ilililil il il il i".

The problem with trying to learn Chinese from a 3 year old.

To log in, or not log in, that is the question...

Here's the page I got when trying to access Facebook this morning.

Amazing! Even before I've logged in to tell them who I am, Facebook already knows who I am. And they know my account isn't available.

And, even though they know my account won't be available for a few more hours, Facebook is thoughtful enough to allow me to go through the login process anyway, if I want, just for fun. Awesome.

Objective reporting, at its finest

From the front page (below the fold) of today's San Francisco Chronicle Business section.

Image Text:  The economic squeeze:  Stagnant incomes, rising prices and tight credit are making it harder to make ends meet.  The Chronicle wants to hear from Bay Area residents willing to talk for publication about their personal experience with the economic squeeze.  Are you having trouble getting a mortgage, refinancing or taking out a home-equity loan?  Is your credit card debt rising?  Have you had to cut spending to stay above water?  Please e-mail us at squeeze@sfchronicle.com.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/04/BUE7VVSLE.DTL

I'm sure the resulting piece will be objective, right?

It's organic!

The Man In The Arena

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face in marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Theodore Roosevelt, http://www.theodoreroosevelt.org/research/speech%20arena.htm

There's a tree on my car!

Today, SF got hit by a pretty severe storm. I just missed the shuttle to work this morning, so I got to spend 40 minutes standing in the rain waiting for the next one. My pants were still wet hours later when I went to lunch.

When I got home this evening, I discovered the storm had left me another gift. A tree. On my car!



At least I'm not alone:

San Francisco was rocked Friday by the powerful punch of the biggest winter storm in two years with high winds and heavy rains disrupting transit service, causing widespread power outages and road and bridge closures....

...High winds brought down at least 400 trees or branches which contributed to loss of power for up to 62,000 Pacific Gas and Electric customers in the Noe Valley, Twin Peaks, Bayview-Hunters Point, Sunset, Richmond and Mission neighborhoods. As of Friday afternoon, 57,000 customers were left without power and told to prepare for having no power throughout today.

Source: http://www.examiner.com/a-1139685~Storm_handicaps_Bay_Area_commuters.html