Walter Zapp obituary
Zapp invented the Minox subminiature spy camera, made famous by WWII spies and James Bond. He never made much money from it. Leica bought the rights to the Minox cameras and brought Zapp back in his 80s to develop an improved version.

I've tossed everything else into this blog, why not a little C++ code? Here's a routine for locking files in C++. I couldn't find a good example on the web, so perhaps this will be of use to someone. This code has been tested on Linux. For Windows, you'll have to do something different, using _sopen I think.

Update, September 2005: This code has proved so popular in my weblog stats, that I have moved it to a new page on my site for especially for C++ code. I hope to add more code later.

Our house, July 2003

With additions, 2004?

Moon Amtrak
Butt...butt...butt...

I tried but failed to receive the HDTV Mariners broadcast. Comcast, it seems, requires you to use their set-top box for this, for which you have to pay extra, rather than a standard HDTV set-top box. I wonder if this is just to make more money, or if it also imples that they are using a compressed signal (not true HDTV) to save bandwidth.

Seattle Mariners in HDTV
Selected games on Comcast cable channel 100 - here are the remaining dates in 2003:

July  9:   Orioles at Mariners  
July 10:   Orioles at Mariners  
July 11:   Devil Rays at Mariners  
July 13:   Devil Rays at Mariners  
July 24:   Athletics at Mariners  
July 27:   Rangers at Mariners 
Aug.  2:   White Sox at Mariners 
Aug.  3:   White Sox at Mariners 
Aug. 15:   Red Sox at Mariners 
Aug. 17:   Red Sox at Mariners 
Aug. 31:   Orioles at Mariners 
Sept. 14:  Angels at Mariners 
Sept. 26:  Athletics at Mariners 
Sept. 28:  Athletics at Mariners 

The CoffeeKid visits Seattle. Apparently he favors the Hines Public Market espresso place (2243 Eastlake Ave. E.).

The Social Security Administartion's list of baby name popularity is pretty interesting. My new nephew Jacob has a name that's been No. 1 for four years running. Richard is No. 77 and sinking.