Alan Parsons Project Reissues
This isn't a review per se as it's just a look at the new reissues of three Alan Parsons Project albums: "I Robot", "Eye In The Sky" and "Vulture Culture". Besides, if you've reached this second sentence, the chances are you already know the original versions and I see no need to cover them again. So, on with what's different.
Calgary Herald Feedback
Link: http://calgarygrit.blogspot.com/2007/06/your-daily-herald.html
I've not been much of a reader of the Calgary Herald since they started putting columnists on the front page and the editorial page has been annoying me for a lot longer than that, but the linked selection of comments culled from the online Calgary Herald feedback page is a doozy.
And, Calgary Herald, if you want to try to sell me a subscription over the phone, at least hire someone with a 403 area code to make the call.
(From CalgaryGrit)
Boss panic buttons: not just for Tetris any more
Link: http://www.workopolis.com
For fun (and after much badgering,) I took a look at workopolis.com, a Canadian job site. In the top right corner of the screen I noticed a link labelled "Boss Panic Button". So I pressed it.
This is what you get: a browser window with a Windows backdrop, a generic MS Word document, and a thumping great big label on the title bar saying "http://www.workopolis.com - Boss Panic Button". I think they need to fix that one.
More importantly, it opens up to fill the entire default primary screen which is exactly where I don't have my browser...
Happy Canada Day!
I spent the day away from the computer so forgot to post this on the correct date.
Hope you had a good one!
(Oh, and a good Canada Day quiz from CalgaryGrit; check out the sly comment about Canadian prime ministers not buried in Canada.)
Delphi Pseudo-Generics and Namespaces
I have been using Rossen Assenov's pseudo-generics in Delphi for quite a while now to great effect. (See here for downloads)
In an effort to more properly ".NET-ify" things, I have been converting Delphi unit names into namespace-scoped unit names. For example, instead of Guards, I could have Ritchie.Sync.Guards. This is the equivalent of a C# namespace of Ritchie.Sync with a file name of Guards.cs. Essentially, you strip off the last name to get the name of the namespace. So, I could have a Ritchie.Sync.Events and Ritchie.Sync.Waiters and they would all end up in the Ritchie.Sync namespace. I could make a Ritchie.Sync.dll assembly out of that and use it in C# that way.
There was an unintended side effect, though. All of my pseudo-generics blew up... at link time. I cannot remember for the life of me the last time I had a link-time error in Object Pascal. With precious few exceptions, everything gets caught at compile time.
CatCam
Link: http://www.mr-lee-catcam.de/index.htm
An enterprising German figured out how to attach a small camera to his pet cat that would take photos automatically throughout the cat's daily wanderings. It's really quite clever.
(Via BoingBoing)
"Truth in Science" Anything But
When I heard recently that the Scottish Qualifications Authority was considering Intelligent Design in any way, shape or form for science curriculum, I got hopping mad. America, I can see. Scotland, my homeland, even with its Calvinist past should know better.
From the article:
Scientists have already expressed fears that ID theory is entering science classrooms. An organisation called Truth in Science (TiS) sent teaching resource packs to every head of science in Scottish schools in September 2006. The material critiques the Darwinian theory of natural selection and promotes the idea that biological mechanisms are best explained by the idea of an intelligent designer.
"Truth in Science", hmmm? What do you think we will find if we look more closely?
Maternity Benefits
We attended a surprisingly informative and interesting session about maternity benefits, presented by Dick Hehr (no, really). Dick is a pretty good champion for teacher's rights, a good listener by all accounts, and I really liked his no-nonsense, unapologetic yet friendly style.
Wii Title Roundup
Well, with Adam getting in so many Wii comments, I thought I might as well share a bit of a survey of the titles that we have picked up, and re-review a couple that we had already:
Voice channels in online gaming
Link: http://www.wired.com/gaming/virtualworlds/commentary/games/2007/06/games_frontiers_0617
There's a good article from Wired about the effect of voice chat within online gaming. Personally, while I'm more than happy to use it while gaming -- it's pretty much a requirement when participating in a WoW raid -- I never speak unless participating only with people I know from a face-to-face milieu. I'm not really sure why, but that seems to work best for me.
Rejected Wii Games
Link: http://www.loadingreadyrun.com/videos/view/208/Rejected+WiiPlay+Games
I may have to create a Wii section on the blog at this rate... Anyway, link is to a video of a few "rejected" Wii games!
(Via Kottke)
The Wiimote bravely goes where theremin has gone before
More YouTube silliness: the original Star Trek theme as played on a Wiimote.
(Via Gizmodo)
YouTube Oddity of the day: Bikini Computer Smashing
Link: http://uk.gizmodo.com/2007/06/15/german_chicks_in_bikinis_smash.html
I'm at a total loss to explain the audience for this one, other than people looking for bizarre videos.
Still, at least she's following basic safety procedure by donning protective eye-wear prior to destroying the PowerBook.
(Via Gizmodo)
Fun with GoogleStreets
Google recently added full photographic views of some parts of some cities to GoogleMaps. Much like with GoogleEarth, people have been spotting a few interesting events on camera. Here's Wired's take on it.
BoingBoing also has an interesting discussion on some of the pros and cons of the concept.
Over at CNet's NewsBlog, there's more.
The feature is very cool indeed but I just haven't the imagination to figure out how it's useful rather than fun. That said, Calgary's not covered yet. Dang!
New Boot Camp feature
Link: http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/features/bootcamp.html
While Parallels is the way I prefer to run XP on my MacBook these days, DF notes that Apple's Boot Camp windows environment now has a new feature that suspends OSX and BootCamp launch. Thus when you return, you can pick up where you left off rather than restarting from scratch. Cool!
