WAF

There is a concept that my, admittedly rather geeky, friends and I have that generally is the gating factor for any seriously geeky new technology we introduce into our homes. That concept is WAF or Wife Acceptance Factor. The WAF is calculated based on a number of variables including, but not limited to:

• How bleeding edge is this new piece of technology you are planning to introduce:
• High WAF - "Hey sweety, I'm going to upgrade the laptop in the living room to the newest version of Firefox. It came out 3 months ago, is on version X.2, all of your favorite extensions will work with it and its getting great reviews."
• Low WAF - "Hey sweety, I'm going to upgrade the OS on the laptop in the living room to this new FreeBSD version that is about to be released in a few months as soon as they iron out that USB problem, and that screen resolution thingy. The network stack is a little buggy but is WAAY faster than it used to be and if I add this patch I downloaded off this newsgroup it won't even hang when you close the top."
• How expensive is it:
• High WAF - "Hey sweety, this guy at work is upgrading his monitor and wants to know if we want his old 19" LCD for free. Its a year old but it works. and is better than the 13" green and black radiation toaster we have now. You won't have to wear sunblock when you use it or anything."
• Low WAF - "Hey sweety, I'm going to replace our 3 month old 21" LCD with the new 30" Apple Cinema display that just came out. We get a discount through work so it'll only cost as much as my junior year of college."
• What is your recent track record with previous "upgrades"
• High WAF - "Hey sweety, remember how much you like the new Mac? Well, the new version of OS X is even better and has all kinds of new features that just work all the time and its faster and taller and bigger."
• Low WAF - "Hey sweety, I know that last kernel upgrade was rough but this time will be way smoother. I've read that they ironed out all of the file system problems from before and the new scheduler is supposed to make the desktop noticeably less sluggish. Seriously, buggy file systems are a drag but we can always take more pictures of the baby when she's older and she won't even notice that we don't have them from the first 16 months. It wasn't like she was doing anything interest*SMACK*
• Overall complexity of every day use:
• High WAF - "Hey sweety, Your new cell phone does nothing more or less than the phone the Alexander Graham Bell invented. There are 10 number buttons and a send key. Just throw it against the wall if you want to end the call."
• Low WAF - "Hey sweety, check out this new universal remote. It replaces both of our other remotes and check this out. If you flip up the top and hold your finger on this part of the touch screen and then reach around to the back and push these three buttons and insert a paper clip into that third hole from the left it turns on the TV _and_ the DVD player at the same time!!! NO, NOT THE THIRD HOLE FROM THE RIGHT!!! THAT'S THE EJECTION SEAT BUTTON!!
• Wife's current mood:
• High WAF: "Hey sweety, do you mind if I ... oh, what? Your favorite vacuous slut is winning in the latest season of The Bachelor:Who wants to marry a Ukranian Thousandaire? Oh that's wonderful news. I'll just go do whatever I want.
• Low WAF: "Hey sweety, do you mind if I try this new*SMACK*... never mind.

There are, in fact, a near infinite number of additional variables but they change constantly so are impossible to actually document but sufficient WAF is absolutely critical before embarking on any project.

Some modern wifelogians have attempted to prove that

WAF = 1/WaF

where WAF is Wife Acceptance Factor and WaF is Wife aversion Factor, but since it has since been proven that the WaF is actually more difficult to accurately calculate than WAF the definition is little more than a mental exercise.

In one special, but exceptionally rare, case, WAF actually reaches infinity. There are only rumored stories about this particular case ever happening in real life. Legends abound on the internet but most are debunked shortly after as mere misunderstandings, confusion of dreams with reality or drunken hallucinations brought on by exceptionally high HDL.

This case is when the new technology introduction was her idea to begin with...

To Be Continued...

Pretty Cheezy

Wifey: We're having people over for breakfast on Easter.  I'm going to make a cheese estrada.
Me: Is that like Erik Estrada?
Wifey: Sort of.  More cheese.
Me: Wow, that's a lot of cheese.
Wifey: Yeah.

Drowning in RSS and learning to swim

I love RSS.  Its a great way to have the entirety of the internet come to me whenever I want it.  However, I've noticed that the number of sites on the internet that I think I would like to read faaaaaar exceeds my ability to actually read them.  I have tens of thousands of unread crap waiting for me in google reader and more are on the way every day. 

In an attempt to trim the fat a bit, I decided to start using Yahoo Pipes to get more of what I want. 

My first attempt is for a really nice site called LifeHacker.com.  Its a blog about interesting ways to tweak your life with maybe gadgets or different ways to do common tasks.  Interesting stuff, but lots and lots and lots of it. 

So here's my LifeHacker's Highlights yahoo pipe that just outputs the weekly Most Popular Posts entry.  So instead of hundreds I get one post a week with the ones that everyone else found the most interesting. 

Hope you enjoy my pipe.   errrrr... right.