Huffman Coding

I downloaded my first digital music track. Yeah, I know it is about time.

I’ve had a portable audio player for several months that can play MP3 and WMA files. Up until now, the music on it was always ripped from my own CD collection. I was never into the illegal napster/kazaa downloads that alot of people were into.

But I was looking for a particular song that I didn’t have: Happy Days Are Here Again. Political ramifications and all. After reading this article, I went to MusicMatch.com on the review’s recommendation. They have high bit-rate (quality) songs and they don’t have any monthly subscription fee. I also already had their software on my computer. Hey, this’ll be a no brainer.

I used their search engine and it listed a two and half minute rendition by George Shearing at the top. Bingo! I like that jazz pianist alot. Can never have too much of his solo piano work. Hey, I’ll splurge $.99 for track 3 off of this album. I click buy and it prompts me to create an account. During the account creation process, I gives me a little link to the list of WMA players they support. The hardware list, dated last year, did not contain my particular model, which is pretty new, but about half the entries in the list were older models from the same manufacturer as mine. Shouldn’t be a problem.

After I sign up and enter my VISA number, the song magically appears in my playlist after only a few seconds. Thank you broadband! My computer says the track is over 4 minutes long. That’s odd. It starts playing and you know, it doesn’t sound like Happy Days Are Here Again either. You know it sound alot like When I Fall in Love. A beautifully played song, but not what I ordered.

I search my hard drive and found the 5.6Mb file named “George Shearing – Happy Days Are Here Again”. I right click to display the properties of the file. The title, artist, album all match up, but the track number says 4, not 3. I go back to the All Music Guide web page. Sure enough, track 4 is When I Fall in Love.

Grrr. Might as well enjoy it, but when I copy the file to my portable player wouldn’t you know: they player was was running low on battery charge and the disk was full. I plug the player in for awhile for it to charge then delete another album off of it to make room. With the new track on my player, I press play and a little message shows in its display: “[i] Copy Protected”. It then skips to the next song.

Apparently only half of Creative’s portable music players play copy protected files. Apparently mine is not one of them. Apparently I won’t be buying anymore music online.

Well, this is my life. Every paragraph hits home. Chris does buy a lot of Chinese books and trinkets.

We do try very hard to expose them to their culture, but most of the Chinese people we expose them to are fellow adoptees. So much for authentic culture. Because of that, for the longest time they assumed being adopted implied you came from Asia (and vice versa).

We do have acquaintances who have adopted Caucasians (from Russia) but they don’t appear to have much interest in exposing their children to their heritage. I could see how some parents, whose children look like them, might have the desire to suppress their children’s original culture. And probably get away with it. The author of the article and I probably agree that this is not the best thing. I’m not even sure they know they are adopted. Not telling your child he or she is adopted is a big no-no. It betrays parental trust at a very emotional level. Only bad Disney movies (Snow Dogs and Country Bears to be specific) would suggest that lying to your adopted children about this is even an option.

My vacuum cleaner of twelve years bit the dust. The little plastic retainer spring that keeps the handle upright broke off and we had to start leaning it up against the wall if we needed to move chairs or toys while sweeping. It also got very hard to push with the broken spring.

Since it was so old, I suggested to Chris that she just get a new one of her choice. She came home last week with a shiny red one!

It is heavier than the old one and little harder to push around. Mostly it is heavier because it comes apart. The guts of the thing come off for a portable, albeit heavy, vertical canister. Because there are two main parts, there are two power switches. Chris reports that the canister, with very small legs tips over very easily on carpet. But it is one of very few sweepers out there with this detachable canister and that is a feature she originally liked.

I however, am hung up on the fact it is bagless. Evidently this is a highly desired feature as more and more vacuum cleaners out there are bagless. I am not fond of it.

I am “tree hugger” by nature, but I do put my daughter in disposable diapers. There is something to be said for a disposable container for stuff that isn’t supposed to be touched by human hands.

Instead of tossing a bag full of dust once a month in the garbage can, we (so far just me) have to empty a small clear plastic container every other time the sweeper is used. Flip a lever, pull out the container, carry it to the trash and dump it without getting dust in the air and all over vacuum cleaner, the floor and your clothes. What I end up doing is emptying the container, then wiping down the sweeper (and myself) then turning on the vacuum cleaner again to pick up the spilled dirt from the container. Then I go wash my hands.

Oh yeah, there are THREE filters on this thing and each accumulates dirt and needs to be cleaned. One appears to need cleaning every time. That is an even more dust-prone experience. It looks like I’ll need to soak the filters in water pretty often.

But that model is what Chris desired and, to be honest, she is the primary user of the device. So I will adjust. And I will be a better person for it.

On a tangentially related note, I am pining for a new car. My car is seven years old. It is in good shape so I realize it is a desire, not a need. I just want to be ready for when the car, which has been uneventfully reliable so far, breaks down overnight in my garage. Or when my sister begs to take it off my hands. In other words, sometime before the decade is out.

But a car-obsessed guy can’t be too prepared. I just happen to currently like the Acura TSX. A reliable, four door, front wheel drive, five passenger sedan that gets 30mpg on the highway. It is the Japanese version of the Honda Accord. It is cheaper than my wife’s minivan, but still a pretty nice car.

It just so happens that car is on Car and Driver magazine’s 10 Best list. They have good taste too. When it appeared on the Car and Driver TV program this weekend, I pointed out to my wife that it was car I was pondering. One look, and I got an emphatic: “No way.” It didn’t help that on TV it was zooming around on a curvy racetrack, looking pretty sporty. “Too small” she added.

Since we got her vehicle, we haven’t had more than three family members in mine. I essentially have a commuter vehicle. And the TSX is a five passenger sedan, about half-way between the size of a Civic and domestic Accord. It is a lost cause.

You know what I am hoping? It’s shiny just like her new metallic paint vacuum cleaner. Maybe she’ll adjust. And I’ll be the first to point out that she’ll be a better person for it.

Sorry for the infrequent posts. Unfortunately I’ve had to disable comments on this blog. Lately I’ve gotten almost daily comment entries that include a link to some body-part enlargement web site along with the comment “thanks!”

I now spend more time deleting those comments than writing blog entries. Yuk.