Snacking with Adel

Have you ever tried to count how many remote controls rule your life?

Mine crowd the table like so much driftwood, jostling each other for position. Sometimes I think I’m going to drown in them. The pic above, while slightly intimidating, is even missing a couple. Must be under the bed or under the rack. Or maybe the dogs ate them. (When he was a puppy, Bobby once chewed the AV Receiver’s remote close to death; only 40% of the buttons work now. I still haven’t forgiven him for that—all the settings are on the remote. My bass is permanently overcranked, to the chagrin of my wife.)

Hey, come to think about it, I’m missing four more, actually, if you add all the damned wireless game controllers. Ack. That’s an even dozen. And each of our Macs at home have their own remotes too. That brings it to what, 15? That’s downright ridiculous.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve grabbed one of them and pressed a button only to have something else turn on rather than the one I was meaning to. They all look alike. Four of them have the red-green-yellow-blue AV row which makes them all look like each other. By far, the worst offender is the PS3 remote. Since it runs on Bluetooth, just inadvertently brushing against any of the gazillion buttons on it, whichever way it’s pointing, turns on the PS3 as long as it’s within range. Even Bobby can turn on the PS3.

I have a big, clunky old Pioneer Universal Learning Remote, but I can’t find the manual and can’t remember how to add devices to it. Nothing on the net about it either. Which effectively turns it into a big, clunky old paperweight. Oh, my kingdom for a Logitech Harmony 1100!

…and here’s the evidence! Filmmaker Francis Coppola (center, in brown gabardine blazer) in a picture from 1972, hanging out with Mafia lowlifes at some wedding.

Screencap of one of my Dashboard widgets today. It’s going to be a long summer.

Been trying out the Networked Media Tank called the Popcorn Hour the past few days, and I’m enamored (I’m saving the full review for another day), but one of the few niggles for me is the cheesy name and logo. The fact that this is one of the major irritants is an indication of how wonderful the gadget actually is.

In brief, the PCH is basically an Apple TV equivalent for half the cost and three times the functionality. It’s a capable media storage device, HD video player and streamer, and best of all, a great standalone, unattended torrenter that runs at just 20W. [Insert cricket sounds here.]

Anyway, let’s get back to the cheesy logo. It’s emblazoned on the top of the device, large and loud, and I felt removing the brand would make the gadget more pro-looking and more serious. I’ve been wondering how to remove it without damaging the surface of the case the past couple of days, and I thought of carefully scraping it off, or maybe use duct tape to lift it from the metal, but felt the finish might come off with it. I thought of finding some solvent or fluid to dissolve it, but there was the same concern.

Then it just occurred to me to just… flip the lid!

The top is attached by four simple thumbscrews, and when I installed the server-grade hard drive in it a couple of days ago, I remembered seeing that the bottom of the lid had the same finish as the top side – with no logo. It was the same shape and had the holes in the same places. Just reverse it, and voila!

Occam’s Razor—the principle that the simplest, most obvious solution is the often the right one—worked, and I kicked myself that I hadn’t thought of it first. Then it occured to me how Occam’s Razor might also be best applied to our problems in life, and solve them in short order, without fuss or French horns. Simple, direct, obvious solutions to complicated, difficult problems. Problems with work, with the government, with society.

With relationships.

Hmm. A Valentine’s Day reflection, if there ever was one. (Borne of geekery, yet. Who’da thunk it?)

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!