September 2007
84 posts
Pratchett's Discworld: a reading-order guide
In yesterday’s review of Terry Pratchett’s latest Discworld book, Making Money, I mentioned how daunting it must be to be confronted with Pratchett’s 33 Discworld novels and try to figure out where to start. Part of the charm of these books is that they’re not written in any main sequence, but rather in several interrelated series that follow the lives of many different...
How to: Install Ubuntu Linux on a flash drive and...
This is an interesting idea. You can get instant access to your Linux desktop at anytime from within Microsoft Windows. This article will tell you everything you need to know in order to make a USB flash drive with Ubuntu Linux installed. You need: - Obviously you need a USB flash drive (at least 2GB). - You’ll need a working computer running Microsoft Windows with a USB port available. - A copy...
Birdcage Inside a Fish Tank →
New York Jedis meet to practice lightsabering
A group of Star Wars trufans in New York meets regularly at a dance-studio to practice their lightsaber “fighting” — doing yoga, meditation and then lightsaber choreography.
“The thing is, when you hold a lightsaber, you want to use it!” says General Sun as he flips the switch on his lightsaber. It powers up with the signature hum of voltage, like an electric razor...
Abusing chroot | KernelTrap
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by tatlow
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Deluge Web Interface
A user by the name of mvoncken has created a web interface for Deluge. I’ve been playing with it today, and it works very well and also has a very nice look and feel to it. While there are a few bugs that need to be ironed out, I’m hoping that they can be resolved and possibly have the plugin included in the 0.5.6 release. If you want to try the plugin out for yourself, download it from here:...
Funny License (Number) Plates
I presume most of these are real. (via NOGG3R5’s shared items in Google Reader)
Serious Excel Multiplication Bug Exposed
Think Microsoft’s Excel can do math? Think again. AppScout pointed out that Excel 2007 can’t multiply certain numbers and you can try it for yourself! For those who rely on Excel for their jobs to calculate large numbers, this is a rather serious problem. It was initially exposed on the Microsoft Public Excel Group where one of their members reported this major bug to Microsoft, although...
Pac-Man grenade
Oakland artist Peter Gronquist created limited edition Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man hand grenades. Previously, he constructed a dummy grenade featuring the head of Darth Vader. Link (via STRANGEco)
(via NOGG3R5’s shared items in Google Reader)
Why Doesn't Tab Work for Drop-down Controls in...
If you are a recent Mac adopter and are frustrated by the weird tab behavior in OS X, you aren’t alone. By default the Tab key only works for text boxes and lists, but excludes select controls (drop-down menus) on a form when using Firefox.
This is very annoying when you are expecting Firefox to behave the same on OS X as it does on Windows. Thankfully Apple made this into a very easy...
Accordion Hero - Should Be A T
Although Cowbell Hero is my fav guitar hero inspired t-shirt, Accordion Hero would come a close second if it actually existed.
Advertisement: Busted Tees: Funniest T-Shirts Anywhere More Cowbell, Jesus Hates the Yankees, Great Gifts!
No TagsCopyright © 2007 Tcritic - The Daily T-Shirt Blog About T-Shirts. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this...
Pub customers happily line up for drug testing
Police in Bicester set up a drug testing station in a pub, and swabbed the palms of every customer before they were allowed to enter. The swab was checked for drug residue. Anyone who tested positive was searched on the spot for possession of drugs. 150 people submitted to the test.
The police explained that it was part of a crackdown on violent street crime. But for some reason, they did...
Sign about value of mistakes contains mistakes
The typos in this Bertrand Russell quote could be fodder for a lengthy Douglas Hofstadter essay.
Mistakes are an essential part of education. ertrand Russell, Bdritish philosopher
Link
(via NOGG3R5’s shared items in Google Reader)
Pirates Had Photo-Sharing? →
Pirates Had Photo-Sharing? →
Google Introduces "Shared Stuff"
Google wants you to share the web sites that you come across or enjoy on the web with your friends which is why they’ve introduced “Shared Stuff.” Using a bookmarklet that you drag up into your browser’s bookmark bar, you’ll be able to easily share any web page with one click. Users can also create a mini Profile (optional) where you’d have the option of adding a picture and filling...
Western Digital Brings Sexy Back
Western Digital today gave a nice facelift to their “MyBook” line of external hard drives. The thinner and sleeker MyBooks will still pack a USB 2.0 port but will add the much faster eSATA plug on select models. Expect the usual complement of backup software bundled with the drives, which are available now. Pricing goes from $129.99 to $379.99 with capacities reaching 1TB.
Read...
LOLCTHULHU: Elder Gods meet LOLCats
LOLCTHULHU: like LOLCats, but with the covers from HP LOLcraft Lovecraft.
Link
(via Oblink)
(via NOGG3R5’s shared items in Google Reader)
Pop culture: Firefox Car and Bus Pictures
Mozilla Firefox web browser getting lot of popularity.
Firefox bus
While coming from Mysore, we suddenly saw a big Firefox logo pasted on a bus. We stopped the car and and stopped the bus which was about to leave and took these photographs. I wonder if the artist knew where the logo came from:
(click to enlarge)
Firefox car
The Firefox car (logo posted on a car) was debuted ar Mozilla 24...
Airport guard falsely accuses NetStumbler.com...
Wayne Slavin, the creator of NetStumbler, wrote a lengthy rant on his site entitled “My Wonderful Trip To South Africa That Didn’t Happen Thanks To The TSA And Delta Airlines.”
[The police officer] then gives me back my passport, waves his hand, and says “Go through.”
I then hand my tickets and passport to another first class “document checker”, and then Jackie [a security guard...
Carbon Copy Cloner 3
Filed under: Software If you aren’t using Carbon Copy Cloner, then you’re missing out. This gem of an app is the easiest way to clone one Mac drive to another (you can even clone bootable volumes, so you can backup your main Mac drive to a stand by drive and boot right off of it). In addition to the clone ability, Carbon Copy Cloner makes backing up a breeze, and it is easier with...
Official Star Wars Lightsaber Simulation Coming to...
It took about a year longer than it should, but LucasArts today announced the version of the upcoming game Star Wars: The Force Unleashed in coming to the Nintendo Wii—with an exclusive lightsaber-simulating “Duel Mode.”LucasArts today revealed that Star Wars™: The Force Unleashed™ will come to the Wii™ home videogame system from Nintendo next spring, offering owners the unique chance...
Brain surgery changes boy's accent
Last year, nine-year-old William Moore of York, England underwent emergency brain surgery after doctors discovered a brain abscess caused by meningitis. When he finally spoke again, William’s Yorkshire accent had completely disappeared and he was now speaking the Queen’s English (aka Received Pronunciation). After a long recovery, William is now fine but his Yorkshire dialect never...
Candid Camera: The Cult of Leica
Anthony Lane in The New Yorker:
The Leica is lumpless, with a flat top built from a single piece of brass. It has no prism, because it focusses with a range finder—situated above the lens. And it has no mirror inside, and therefore no clunk as the mirror swings. When you take a picture with an S.L.R., there is a distinctive sound, somewhere between a clatter and a thump; I worship my beat-up...
Windows users 20% more interested in God than Mac...
… because Mac users *know* they’re God, no doubt. Ian Clarke says,
Thoof has done some analysis of the data collected by their recommendation algorithm, and discovered some interesting differences between Mac users and Windows users. For example, it seems Windows users are 20% more interested in religion, but 6% less interested in intellectual property law.
Link
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Apple Chooses O2 as Exclusive Carrier for iPhone...
Apple and O2 have announced that O2, the leading wireless carrier in the UK, will be the exclusive UK carrier for Apples iPhone when it makes its debut in the UK on November 9th. iPhone combines three devices into one a mobile phone, a widescreen iPod and the best mobile Internet device ever all based on Apples revolutionary multi-touch interface and pioneering software that allows users to...
Make the XP Taskbar Transparent
Transbar is a nifty little app for those of you who want to see a little bit more of your desktop background. It weighs in at just 88KB, and after a quick setup process you’ll be able to adjust the transparency of your Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista Taskbar. This is, however, a little redundant if your Vista installation already supports the Aero Glass which not only makes your Taskbar...
Alaska Grizzly Bear Notice
I hope this hilarious sign is real. [via] (via NOGG3R5’s shared items in Google Reader)
SUPERGUIDE: The Open Source Challenge. How to... →
Nike+ How I Love You So
When spending hours in front of the computer, it’s important to incorporate some physical activity into your daily routine. Unfortunately, physical activity usually brings up ideas of slaving over a treadmill and doing something you’re repulsive about. At least those were pretty much my sentiments before I got on the Nike+ bandwagon, about year late I might add. It has been about two weeks since...
IT Crowd Season 2, Episode 4 -- and DVD!
The new episode of The IT Crowd — the ass-kicking nerd comedy from Graham Linehan, creator of Father Ted — aired this week. Season two, episode four (“The Dinner Party”) is another in this season’s even-funnier, even-weirder installments — this time, Jen and her new boyfriend are having a dinner party with her three single female friends, and his male friends...
MyFive: Making Use of Opera’s Speed Dial
One of the new features that Opera 9.2 introduced is called Speed Dial. It’s essentially like a customizable homepage except that this takes screenshots of websites, and then places a thumbnail of them aligned to a grid for easy access.
You can currently add up to nine sites, and each Speed Dial entry is mapped to the corresponding Ctrl+[1-9] hotkeys. The Speed Dial page is also displayed each...
Indian doc develops enzyme that can destroy HIV
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MediaDefender's internal emails leaked to...
the last six months of emails expose every project to track P2P activity and snare pirates (via NOGG3R5’s shared items in Google Reader)
New iPods reengineered to block synching with...
The latest iPods have a cryptographic “checksum” in their song databases that prevents third-party applications from synching with the portable music players. This means that iPods can no longer be used with operating systems where iTunes doesn’t exist — like Linux, where gtkpod and Amarok are common free tools used by iPod owners to load their players.
Notice that this...
First Optimus Maximus Arrives at Moscow
(via NOGG3R5’s shared items in Google Reader)
Microsoft Pushes Out a Silent Windows Update
Microsoft apparently pushed out a Windows Update a few weeks ago of which no one had been notified. There were 9 files, on both XP and Vista, pertaining to the Windows Update process which were modified. The files are listed below, and all of them reside in the Windows\System32 folder on your machine. So why is this such a big deal? As it turns out this update was sent to all Windows computers,...
Google Pays NASA 1.3 Million to Land Jet
Apparently Google and NASA are best buds these days. Despite the fact that NASA’s Moffett Federal Airfield is off limits to private aircraft, they decided to allow Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s Boeing 767 plane land at their field. The reason Google’s co-founders want to land there is all a matter of convenience. You see, Moffett field is located in Google Land (a.k.a. Mountain View, California)...
Useful Items You Never Knew You Could Print Out
Useful Items You Never Knew You Could Print Out - The Ultimate Guide is a fun list. Links to a printable iPod cover, pinhole camera to more utilitarian things like Monthly and Annual Calendars.
A worth bookmark for printables. (via NOGG3R5’s shared items in Google Reader)
Brian Dettmer: Book Autopsies
Brian Dettmer carves into books revealing the artwork inside, creating complex layered three-dimensional sculptures. LINK/IMAGES [@ Haydeé Rovirosa Gallery] (via Future Feeder < Josh Spear) LINK/IMAGES [@ Toomey Tourell Gallery] (via Josh Spear) LINK/IMAGES [@ Aron Packer Gallery] (via Josh Spear)
(via NOGG3R5’s shared items in Google Reader)
Halo costume on eBay - insanely detailed
This eBay seller is getting rid of an insanely detailed articulated full-size Halo Master Chief costume. It sounds like the seller didn’t make the suit, which is a bit of a disappointment, but this is some kinda costume.
You are bidding on the best and most accurate Master Chief Costume on Ebay. This suit is my own personal suit that I am now giving up. The suit is so awesome, it has...
Google Reader Stats - Update Frequency Revealed
One eagle-eyed member of the Google Blogoscoped forum noticed that there was a confidential video posted on Google Video today. The intended purpose of the video was for new Google employees (a.k.a. Nooglers), but it has since been removed. Luckily Google Operating System was on top of things and took down some of the Google Reader stats.
Here are a few of the ones I found to be interesting:
...
Why I Don’t Use Facebook (Too) Much Anymore
Ever since Facebook applications came along… Where can I set auto-ignore? That is all.
(via NOGG3R5’s shared items in Google Reader)
Threadless Store Open Today In Chicago
Well threadless opened the doors to their brick and morter store today in Chicago and it looks like they did an amazing job. It looks like the equivalent of the Apple store for t-shirts, great design and layout, and some really innovative technology features. When you check out you can take a picture of yourself and become a virtual model on their “guest cam”. You can read more about the store...
Self Explanatory Viagra Advert
[via] (via NOGG3R5’s shared items in Google Reader)
Strange island: Pacific tribesmen come to study... →