"We want ... information¹."

Information from all our friends in fire service, primarily.

I refer you to this page listing portable fire escape ladders.  We want to get an escape ladder for Pirate's room, since she's on the third floor and there's only one way down from her room to the second floor; in the event of a fire at that end of the living room, she could be trapped upstairs.

If anyone has first-hand knowledge of both the Kidde and the First Alert ladder, and knows of any reason other than price for choosing one over the other, we'd like to hear from you.

Thanks!

[1]  Reference!

Flash drives for notebooks

CNet reports that Sandisk has announced a line of flash disks for laptops, to be available at present only to manufacturers, and apparently available only in 32GB capacity at this time.  They're pushing it as faster, more robust, and energy-saving -- Sandisk claims notebooks with the solid-state drive will have up to 10% longer battery life and boot Windows Vista almost twice as fast (35 seconds instead of 55).

The issue they don't mention is media life.  Flash memory has a finite lifetime in terms of write cycles.  I can only assume they're hoping that by the time you start hitting the write-cycle limit on the flash disk, you're ready for a new and bigger drive or a new laptop anyway.

Bush does it again

WASHINGTON - President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant, the Daily News has learned.

The President asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20.  Bush then issued a "signing statement" that declared his right to open people's mail under emergency conditions.

That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it.

[...]

"Despite the President's statement that he may be able to circumvent a basic privacy protection, the new postal law continues to prohibit the government from snooping into people's mail without a warrant," said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the incoming House Government Reform Committee chairman, who co-sponsored the bill.

"A word means what I want it to mean; nothing more, and nothing less."  So said Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass.  George W. Bush continues to demonstrate that he holds much the same opinion about laws and the Constitution.

(Crossposted by request to neph_politics)

Telecommunication part 2

So, let's see ....

1. Sprint/Nextel contract expires.  Ditch Sprint/Nextel like a used Kleenex.
2. Order a new Motorola Razr V3 phone through Wirefly, with GSM service from Cingular.
3. Receive new phone.
4. Install Motorola Mobile Phone Tools software.
5. Determine that new phone has a hardware problem that makes it go catatonic any time you try to download anything onto it, including more than a handful of contacts at a time.
6. Call Wirefly.  Get RMA number.
7. Wait about a week.
8. Receive replacement phone... which cannot connect to network.
9. Call Wirefly.  Learn that I need to call Cingular to have them switch service over to the new SIM and IMEI number.
10. Call Cingular.  Get service switched.  Determine that new phone appears to have the same problem.
11. Call Wirefly.  Verify that they can't even do anything to troubleshoot the problem.
12. Call Motorola.  Spend about half an hour on the line with a Motorola tech doing diagnostics.  Verify hardware fault in phone's memory.
13. Call Wirefly.  Obtain another RMA number....

Having gotten two defective Razr V3 phones in a row, both with the same defect, I'm getting a different phone this time.  But not too different, because I do very much like that slim-clamshell form factor (it's the first mobile phone I've used that fits comfortably in a pocket, even a shirt pocket or inside jacket pocket).  This time, I've requested they replace it with a Razr V3i, which is an updated version with a slightly redesigned keyboard, higher-resolution camera, higher color depth external display, about 60% longer (claimed) battery life, and a lot more memory.¹

The V3i isn't available in black.  (Sigh.)  But I can deal with the basic silver finish as long as I can transfer data to it without it going catatonic.

[1]  12MB plus up to 1GB of flash RAM in a MicroSD slot (and a 512MB MicroSD card included in the box), vs. the original V3's non-expandable 5.8MB.

[2]  There is actually a gunmetal-grey model available, but it's not available through Wirefly.