I wandered across this manufacturer of hot-looking home theater PC (HTPC) cases: A-Tech Fabrication.
One of the features I admire (i.e., lust after) the most is the in-case touchscreen LCD. Dunno how much it adds to the price tag, but that'd be great to have, IMO.
the essence of my dad is as pictured (according to my sister): pork, bread, and a root beer
One month old today. And yes, that's my arm.
The meteorologists over at Weather Underground have put up an interesting review/refutation of Michael Crichton's latest book, State of Fear. Crichton, who has made his mark as an author who grounds his stories in actual science, lets his personal opinons about global warming (his take: it ain't happening) get in the way of telling a compelling story.
Apparently, his "hero" in the story spends so much time sermonizing and spreading misguided information in the guise of "educating" the other characters that the overall tempo and storyline leave a lot to be desired.
After the rather unappetizing book that Timeline was, and the laughable depiction of nanotechnology in Prey, it makes you wonder if Crichton has lost his touch.
I do not think it means what you think it means
Firefox, the excellent and free browser from Mozilla.org, was the subject of a 2-page ad in today's New York Times. The ad was paid for entirely by donations from happy Firefox users. Read more or download the PDF of the ad (names are legible).
My name's on there...somewhere.
Yep, that's right. PalmOne has told us that "they're working on Wi-Fi drivers for the Treo 650" yet one guy with some spare time managed to do it first. What's up with that, PalmOne? Hmm?
Get the files and installation instructions and then quietly thank Shadowmite for doing this for us.
Nothing like tossing in creationism disguised as science to prepare our high school students for the future. I mean, it's not like our children trail much of the industrialized world in science education or anything.
This demonstration movie (streaming Quicktime) displays some impressive behavior on the part of Honda's child-sized humanoid bot.
It's not 'I, Robot' yet, and, well, perhaps we should be thankful for that.
Le Petit Journal asked if they could use a photo I took, most likely because I didn't ask for royalties.
Interestingly, they used the picture to accompany a story about a new windfarm in St. John's, Newfoundland, yet the photo is actually of an abandoned wind farm on the South tip of the Big Island of Hawaii. Yes, that's Mauna Loa in the background.
Check out the original image in my collection of Hawaii photos.
Are we bound to eventually find just two cellular carriers here in the US? Seems like it might be possible. One one side, you'd have the Verizon+Sprint/Nextel (Verisprintel?) CDMA carrier. On the other side, of course, you'd have the GSM carrier, which would be obviously be called AT&T-Mobular.
This kind of makes sense. With this setup, each carrier gets to take advantage of all the infrastructure (towers, hubs, etc.) for that particular technology, yet there's still some competition to keep the gubmint from flagging the play and denying the merger or, more entertainingly, possibly forcing one or both to split up (since we now know how successful that approach is).
Of course, this is all good (for the carriers...not us consumers) until Wi-Max comes along and then it's anyone's guess.
And replaces them with a policy that is both more complex and more expensive for the customer. Way to go!
somebody explain to me again how this makes sense
I just picked up a Philips Pronto NG TSU3000 universal remote control to help us get a handle on the growing population of remotes that occupy our family room coffee table (6 at last count).
After spending a few hours getting it programmed, it works really well. The range is excellent and the interface is whatever I want it to be (which is nice). If you're considering venturing into the programmable/universal remote waters, definitely check out the king-daddy resource for do-it-yourselfers: RemoteCentral.com.
So I'm out walking our dog this morning. Bailey, our dog, in case you don't know, is the most non-aggressive, peace-loving canine you can imagine -- never would she ever even consider violence towards another dog or a person. Despite that, she's been attacked by other dogs on four separate occasions. Now, make that five.
So, I'm out walking our dog past this retired couple's house when out of the door comes the woman and their dog. The dog is wearing a leash, but the end that is supposed to be in the hand of the owner is trailing on the ground (I guess the small purse and tiny plastic bag she was carrying were too much for her feeble hands to also hold onto a leash).
So her dog, which looks like a mix between a giant poodle and Cujo, comes racing down her driveway (we were on the sidewalk), takes one sniff at my dog, growls and lunges for her head. At this, I start trying to play interceptor -- holding onto Bailey's leash while pushing the other dog away or getting between the two dogs -- while also trying to grab Cujo Jr.'s leash (a nice, pretty, red leash flopping uselessly around on the ground).
So I'm there, doing the Little Sambo with Two Dogs Meets the Whirling Dervishes act, and the woman is standing there just staring at the scene. Her dog is getting closer and closer to clamping down on Bailey's head with every lunge, so I say, rather exasperatedly, "Get your damned dog!" which seems to spur her into at least a mimicry of motion.
Somehow, I manage to step on her dog's leash and hold him away from Bailey, who, at this point, is wide-eyed, shaking and seems to be limping, for a few seconds so that she can grab the leash.
Then, as I turned to look at her for an apology (yes, I fully expected one), she says, completely calmly, "I'm sorry, but you don't have to use that kind of language."
What?!? My choice of words while under duress, fearing for the safety and well-being of a member of my family, is her primary concern in this situation??? Her devil-beast of a dog nearly ripped my pet's head off because she broke the law and was negligent in not holding the leash when she went outside -- none of that bothered her as much as my use of the word "damned?" I was incredulous; I didn't even say anything as she turned and led her still-lunging dog away up the sidewalk.
One question I get asked a lot by friends and family is "how big can I print this digital photo?" My answer is always "it depends," which then requires a lengthy discussion of pixels per inch and viewing distance and other mundane topics.
So, I put together a little Excel spreadsheet that should help you determine what size prints you can make with reasonable quality based on the size of the digital photos you have. You can get it here or click on the screen capture below (you have to have Microsoft Excel to use the file).
I've based the calculations employed by the spreadsheet largely on my own experience and preferences, so if you have a more or less critical eye than is typical, you might differ with some of the recommendations the guide offers. In that case, leave me a comment and I'll tell you how to change the PPI (pixels per inch) guidelines used in calculating the ratings.
United Airlines doesn't have much extra money floating around these days, but is that an excuse for letting its website fall into a woeful state of disrepair?
For example, here's what United says if you click on the "Compatible browsers" link on their site:
The United Airlines web site is best accessed with one of the following (or other compatible) web browsers:* Netscape Navigator/Communicator 4.0 to 4.7x
* Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or newerThe United Airlines web site does not currently function well with Netscape Navigator/Communicator version 6.X.
Netscape 4.x? Really?
Not only does this show that United's united.com folks don't really care about keeping up with the times, it shows a healthy disrespect for the significant and growing number of people using Firefox and other Mozilla-based browsers.
When attempting to register for a flight status page, the webpage that supposedly allows me to do that comes up entirely blank in Firefox, yet it works in Internet Explorer. This is evidence that the united.com programmers employed IE-specific code rather than relying on universal HTML/W3C standards. Not a good approach, if you ask me (but then, nobody did).
So to all you corporate websites that still have "recommended browser" statements: get over yourself. Rework your site to rely on universal web standards and you'll no longer have to worry about the browsing tools your customers choose to rely on.
Sorry, mates -- looks like I messed up a setting on the comments config. There were about 20 pending comments waiting for me to approve (I thought I had it configged to email me when a message needed tending to, but I guess I actually didn't).
Of course, of those 20-some pending comments, over a dozen were comment spam touting the greatness of online poker. *sigh* Nice to know that MovableType 3.x finally has at least some protection against that stuff (and it's a heck of a lot easier to delete now).
In the future, I promise to be more attentive to pending comments. Now I'll go flog myself with a USB cable as penance.
graffiti on a truck
best thin-crust pie on the planet
Last night, I learned that one friend just got a Treo 650 and another friend won an ebay auction of 6 full-sized arcade games for a ridiculously low price. I don't know which to be more envious of! :-)
Yeah, I know, this is a fairly lame post to break such a long silence, but I'll post more soon...I promise. And if anyone actually reads this, post a comment -- I swear, it won't hurt.
