VHS

Although I'm fairly savvy when it comes to computers, I've ignored other parts of the technology revolution. I don't own an iPod and I still watch movies on VHS tapes. I bought a DVD recorder and have transferred many of those movies. But the quality of the DVD copies leaves a lot to be desired. I do use a small video processing unit to help improve the picture quality. Still, the video transfer is not as good as I had hoped. So I hang onto my VHS tapes. A number of old movies that I like were never made available on DVD, at least not in the US. Many of Kenji Mizoguchi's films, for example, are not available on DVD. I'm just glad I held onto my VHS player.

More than a year later...

I've been folding for the World Community Grid for more than a year now, and I must say it's become very addictive. Running computers at full load, around the clock for months, may seem boring and even wasteful to some. But hopefully researchers can make good use of the work units being processed and completed by thousands of home users worldwide. I think more people would take part in folding projects if they knew they existed. Even my sister, who is a retired nurse, wasn't aware that this kind of work was going on.

Storm

A series of winter storms hit my area this week. The worst one was on Friday. Wind gusts reached 65-70mph. Lots of trees and power lines were knocked down. More than a million homes and businesses lost power. Fortunately my home did not lose electricity. But there were a lot of broken tree branches around the house. Just spent the morning picking most of them up. The storm also closed Interstate 80 in the mountains because of blizzard conditions. Don't you love winter!