Archives for: March 2008

On Pedestals

03/31/08 | by Adam | Categories: Silly
It's always sad when one's heroes turn out to be not merely human but, to put it nicely, utter shits. I've been an SF fan for a long time and enjoyed authors like Orson Scott Card, Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven. Jerry Pournelle was the first I soured… more »
 

Adventure With Cellulitis

03/30/08 | by Nimble | Categories: Journal
On Sunday, one of the scratches on my leg was getting somewhat infected-looking. I had been feeling like I was coming down with something, but it felt like the flu or a cold. I had a sore throat. There was the stress of moving, and a lack of sleep from… more »
 

IOGear's PCPortal

03/30/08 | by Adam | Categories: Technology
Every now and again you see a piece of kit and think "Oh, cool"; and then when you read the real specifications you find that it's just not going to work for what you had in mind. more »
 

Those darn blinking LEDs

03/29/08 | by Adam | Categories: Technology, Whining
One thing that's becoming more and more prevalent are blinking LEDs on pretty much all computer equipment. As one wag put it, there's not a lot of sense in having "everything's great" lights, and that's what these are. more »
 

MAME TARDIS

03/28/08 | by Adam | Categories: Technology, Silly
This gadget serves no purpose whatsoever, but a freaking TARDIS-shaped MAME arcade box? Woo! (Via Wired) more »
 

GoogleStreets on Holiday

03/27/08 | by Adam | Categories: Technology
While fiddling around with GoogleStreets, I noticed that they had a section of the Alaska panhandle digitized -- specifically the area around Juneau. It's not exactly the most easy place to get to so I was wondering why they would have gone there… more »
 

Wikihistory

03/26/08 | by Adam | Categories: Potpourri
Creative short story about time travel written in the style of a Wikipedia discussion page. After reading it, take a gander at this earlier post on the inherent paradox. Bonus link: alternate history as viewed through a commercial search engine. (Via… more »
 

Mini Movie Reviews

03/25/08 | by Adam | Categories: Reviews
Too much time on aircraft (and the road generally) recently has resulted in the following brief movie synopses(*): more »
 

Standards and why there are so many to choose from

03/24/08 | by Adam | Categories: Technology
Another great article from Joel Spolsky on the problem of enforced versus suggested standards. He's primarily discussing web browsers but covers a lot more. more »
 

Windows Vista, you suck

03/23/08 | by Adam | Categories: Technology
Recently I had a need to reformat a 60GB USB drive to FAT32 on my Vista box. Back in Windows 2000, Microsoft pulled their FAT32 formatting option out of the GUI as they preferred that people use the proprietary (and admittedly more stable) NTFS.… more »
 

Literature as "fanfic"

03/22/08 | by Adam | Categories: Potpourri
Fanfic (or "Fan Fiction" to use its unabbreviated name) is typically considered a contemporary phenomenon. For those unfamiliar with the term, it's where readers of a particular story decide to continue it themselves. It's particularly common in the… more »
 

The View From The Trenches

03/21/08 | by Adam | Categories: Potpourri
As always, Joel Spolsky has an excellent article on how there's a significant perception gap between the more senior people in an organization and those a bit further down. more »
 

Resizing a Parallels partition

03/20/08 | by Adam | Categories: Macintosh
When I first started using Parallels, the idea was that I would use it on the MacBook for work and keep the OSX side completely clear for my personal use. Under the requirements at that time, I could happily get away with an 8 GB XP virtual hard drive… more »
 

Nerdfotainment

03/19/08 | by Adam | Categories: Technology
Rands has an interesting thesis: unduly complex films, books and TV shows are not a case of a creator misunderstanding the audience, but rather understanding it all too well. (Via Daring Fireball) more »
 

David Arkenstone's "Atlantis"

03/18/08 | by Adam | Categories: Music, Reviews
There's not a lot to say here: it's, well, more David Arkenstone although this time he seems to be channeling a fair amount of Adiemus. Otherwise you more or less know what this sounds like without having heard it first. It's not as aggressive as… more »
 

The Playmobil Security Checkpoint

03/17/08 | by Adam | Categories: Silly
Gizmodo has more... (Original reference is here) more »
 

The problem with time travel

03/16/08 | by Adam | Categories: Technology, Silly
Yup: causality. Here's a brief primer from the physicists over at Irregular Webcomic. more »
 

"Can We Get A Napkin, Please"

03/15/08 | by Adam | Categories: Silly, YouTube
Unlike most of the Improv Anywhere performances which seem to be annoying -- funny, to be sure, but still at someone's expense -- their food court musical number is a classic. (Via BoingBoing) more »
 

McNally Robinson closes Calgary store

03/14/08 | by Adam | Categories: Calgary
A bit sad; it was a good bookstore that I liked to visit and (gasp) even buy from. more »
 

The D&D Gateway Diagram

03/13/08 | by Adam | Categories: Silly
Nifty flowchart on the NYT's site about how D&D is the gateway to nerd-dom! (Via BoingBoing) more »
 

My girlfriend, assassin

03/12/08 | by Adam | Categories: Silly
There comes a point in every new relationship when your girlfriend wants to share a secret. So begin the retelling of an account where a photojournalist's girlfriend turned out to have a slightly chequered past. (Via Kottke) more »
 

Simon's Cat Wants In

03/11/08 | by Adam | Categories: YouTube
Cool little animation about a cat wanting in. An earlier one about trying to wake up the owner is also pretty darn amazing. more »
 

Screen cleaner

03/10/08 | by Adam | Categories: Technology, Silly
Words fail me. more »
 

Extraterritoriality, the internet and the US

03/09/08 | by Adam | Categories: Technology, American
Interesting article from the NYT: if a US government department takes a scunner to you, and you have your domain registered with a US-based registrar, they can and will shut it down. The purpose of the site, the readership, the server location all make… more »
 

The most complex webcomic annotation ever?

03/08/08 | by Adam | Categories: Copyright
As regular readers know, I love my "Irregular Webcomic" which is probably the smartest use of Lego out there, including building large Millennium Falcons. In the linked-to episode above, he explains Godel's incompleteness theorem. You need to read this… more »
 

The most whacked-out chocolate advert yet?

03/07/08 | by Adam | Categories: Calgary
I can't really see Cadbury airing these adverts so I assume it's some marketing company flexing its creative muscles. Summary: suicidal creme eggs. (Via Nodwick) more »
 

Laptop catches fire at airport

03/06/08 | by Adam | Categories: YouTube
It's another in the sequence of the Sony-battery-goes-critical videos. No idea as to when it was taken so it may be quite old. (Via Gizmodo) more »
 

RIP Gary Gygax

03/05/08 | by Adam | Categories: Potpourri
Gary Gygax, the co-creator of "Dungeons And Dragons", has died. An estimated 20 million people worldwide have played D&D, with more than $1bn spent on game equipment and books. "I thought we would sell about 50,000 copies," Gary Gygax told me back… more »
 

Ross Rubin on the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray wars

03/04/08 | by Adam | Categories: Technology
Interesting article on why although Blu-Ray may have outlasted HD-DVD, it hasn't necessarily succeeded. more »
 

Self-destructing wind turbine

03/03/08 | by Adam | Categories: YouTube
Impressive video of what happens when the wind over powers a wind turbine tower. (Via BoingBoing) more »
 

Top "greenest" cars in North America

03/02/08 | by Adam | Categories: Technology
Wired has a small article on what are the twelve cleanest-running production cars in North America, as well as the twelve worst. What's nice is that there are a number of the cleaner cars I'd be happy to drive when my current (not-so-envirofriendly)… more »
 

NewsFire RSS Reader is free

03/01/08 | by Adam | Categories: Macintosh
David Watanabe, author of my favourite OSX-based news/RSS reader, "NewsFire", has made it freeware today. I highly recommend it so give it a whirl. more »
 

Palm emulator for the iPhone

03/01/08 | by Adam | Categories: iPhone, PalmT3
Wired asks: The question is, Why? The answer is: there are a lot of good PalmOS applications that simply don't exist on the iPhone. more »