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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

This gadget serves no purpose whatsoever, but a freaking TARDIS-shaped MAME arcade box? Woo! (Via Wired) more »

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 »

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 »

Too much time on aircraft (and the road generally) recently has resulted in the following brief movie synopses(*): more »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

Gizmodo has more... (Original reference is here) more »

Yup: causality. Here's a brief primer from the physicists over at Irregular Webcomic. more »

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 »

A bit sad; it was a good bookstore that I liked to visit and (gasp) even buy from. more »

Nifty flowchart on the NYT's site about how D&D is the gateway to nerd-dom! (Via BoingBoing) more »

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 »

Cool little animation about a cat wanting in. An earlier one about trying to wake up the owner is also pretty darn amazing. more »

Words fail me. more »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

Interesting article on why although Blu-Ray may have outlasted HD-DVD, it hasn't necessarily succeeded. more »

Impressive video of what happens when the wind over powers a wind turbine tower. (Via BoingBoing) more »

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 »

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 »

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 »