David Fisher : What is Noise Blog

The Google referral program seems to be cool. Basically, if there’s a product that you really like on your site (for example, I really like Logic 7 and I’m getting a ton of hits on Logic Studio 8 and wouldn’t mind having a referral banner to Apple on here) then you can put a banner/small ad up and make money when someone clicks on it and actually purchases the product.

That’s great and all, except all the products suck! The Google internal products are about the best ones that I could find. I was only considering this as my ramen-noodle collection is drawing near zero and I’m hungry. Actually it’s not that bad, but just saying… every little bit helps.

It seems that spam has infiltrated Google’s referals. Check out some of the ads that were up there that you could sell on your site. They are either really just bad options (for internet telephony I wish there was Gizmo, GrandCentral or Skype… but nope!), or they are things about selling animals or ringtones in the wrong categories. WTF? The social networks doesn’t have Facebook as an option, but rather bulldogs for sale?

If I can find some decent referral programs for products I actually support then I’d put them up there, as I think that some products kick ass.

Tags: adsense, advertising, gizmo, grandcentral, logic, referrals, ringtones, spam

I need a laptop case and camera bag in the form of a backpack.

It needs to fit a Nikon D200, 15.4″ Macbook Pro, two SB-600 speedlights, and a few lenses (biggest right now being a 18-200m Nikkor lens). Also room obviously for extra things in the bag would be great.

So far, I’ve found the Crumpler Sinking Barge and the Tamrac Model 5549 Adventure 9 backpack.

The Crumpler looks nice. It’s about $60 more, and smaller. The main advantage of it that I see is that you can remove the contents of the bag (like the camera!) without taking it off. If I need to change lenses in a crowd, I don’t want to remove my backpack.

The Adventure 9 looks to hold a lot more, and looks a little more rugged (and a little less ‘trying to be tech trendy’) but it seems that to get almost anything out of the bag, you have to remove it, and then lay it on it’s back on the ground. That’s a pain in the ass.

Any thoughts on these two bags, or a third (or 4th) one that I should be looking at? If It’s a good bag I don’t mind spending upwards of $200 to get it. It should also be ‘weather-proof’ to a reasonable degree.

I’m going to Naples, Italy in the next month and I want to have something that I can keep all my tech gear with me easily with.

Tags: bagdad, camera, crumpler, D200, Macbook Pro, Nikon

This is a small hint to anyone that was looking at buying me something for my birthday…

I’d really do well to have a Hakko 936 soldering iron. If you were thinking of getting me a soldering iron (you know who you are!) then this message is for you. The medium one the right size, and it can be shipped to my apartment.

This is also a test to see if the intended person for this message really reads my blog

hint, hint.

Tags: 936, 936-11, birthday, electronics, hakko, hint, soldering iron

Why in the world is video game console emulation so hard?

For whatever reason to me, it seems that it would be easier to emulate an XBox than an NES because an Xbox is an Intel x86 processor with a nearly stock Nvidia video card. It’s basically a little PC.

A Playstation 2 is a 300mhz processor. How is it that hard to get a 2.2ghz C2D SR computer to emulate something that’s running at that speed?

Maybe I need to go take a, “Why it’s hard to make emulators-101″ class, but the fact that the PS2 is HOW old? and there’s no OS X emulator for it?

Tags: emulator, games, gaming, nvidia, playstation2, why

CNN.com has a video article about the additional costs of flying airplanes due to the increased weight of passengers.

Basically the Airlines had to factor in years ago that people are getting fatter in their weight calculations for the amount of fuel on a flight. This has directly affected the cost of airline tickets. You can watch it for yourself.

What my proposition is however, is that you and your baggage are weighed, and you either get a ticket discount/coupon for weighing less, or have to pay more if you weigh more.

The main point is that if you weigh 300lbs, you should be paying more for the ticket than Mary Kate Olsen.

Similarly, if you bring 50lbs of baggage to check, and a 40lb bag to carryon, then you would be charged for that as well as opposed to a person (like me) that carries a single medium sized backpack for several days of travel.

This would not be discriminatory. The neutral weight would be based on some average of what a healthy person should weigh. Yes, men would have to pay more than women on average, but not all would. It is not discriminatory because it is equally looking at everyone and charging on a fair and equal basis. It is simple physics that it costs more energy to get something in the air that weighs more.

This would encourage Americans (finally) to slim down. The CNN video said that in the past decade that Americans average weight has increased by 10lbs!

Tags: airline, fat, mary kate olsen, overweight, pay more, tickets