Tag: geeky

  • cool, “Vinyl Data”

    Vinyl Data [via BoingBoing]

    “One strategy that major record companies have been employing lately to deter downloading is adding bonus computer content to new CD releases. I recently discovered that this technique is not unique to CD’s, but had in fact been practiced in the vinyl era as well. That’s right: there were a handful of records released in the late 70’s and early 80’s that contained computer programs as part of the audio. This is totally insane, and totally great.”

    alas, no mention of the TI-99/4A…

  • Desert Island

    [moved from my LiveJournal]

    Current Mood: amused
    Current Music: Space Channel 5 Remix Soundtrack

    i read this one long, long ago and tought it was perfect, and i was relating it to the folks a little while back, so, just had to get the full text for any and all to see…

    stop me if you’ve heard this one…

    Ed finally decides to take a vacation. He books himself on a Caribbean cruise and proceeds to have the time of his life –until the boat sank. He found himself swept up on the shore of an island with no other people, no supplies…nothing… only bananas and coconuts.

    After about four months, he is lying on the beach one day when the most gorgeous woman he has ever seen rows up to him. In disbelief, he asks her, “Where did you come from? How did you get here?”

    “I rowed from the other side of the island,” she says. “I landed here when my cruise ship sank.”

    “Amazing,’ he says. “You were really lucky to have a rowboat wash up with you.”

    “Oh, this?’ replies the woman. “I made the rowboat out of raw material I found on the island. The oars were whittled from gum tree branches. I wove the bottom from palm branches. And the sides and stern came from a Eucalyptus tree.”

    “But, but, that’s impossible,’ stutters Ed. “You had no tools or hardware. How did you manage?”

    “Oh, that was no problem,” replies the woman. “On the south side of the island, there is a very unusual strata of alluvial rock exposed. I found if I fired it to a certain temperature in my kiln, it melted into forgeable ductile iron. I used that for tools and used the tools to make the hardware.” Ed is stunned. “Let’s row over to my place,” she says.

    After a few minutes of rowing, she docks the boat at a small wharf. As Ed looks onto shore, he nearly falls out of the boat. Before him is a stone walk leading to an exquisite bungalow painted in blue and white. While the woman ties up the rowboat with an expertly woven hemp rope, he could only stare ahead, dumb struck. As they walk into the house, she says casually, “It’s not much, but I call it home. Sit down please. Would you like to have a drink?”

    “No, no, thank you.’ he says, still dazed. “Can’t take any more coconut juice.” “It’s not coconut juice,” the woman replies. “How about a Pina Colada?”

    Trying to hide his continued amazement, he accepts, and they sit down on her couch to talk. After they have exchanged their stories, the woman announces,
    “I’m going to slip into something more comfortable. Would you like to take a shower and shave? There is a razor upstairs in the cabinet in the bathroom.”

    No longer questioning anything, Ed goes into the bathroom. There, in the cabinet, is a razor made from a bone handle. Two shells honed to a hollow ground edge are fastened on to its end inside of a swivel mechanism. “Wow! This woman is amazing!” he muses, “What next?”

    When he returns, she greets him wearing nothing but vines, strategically positioned, and smelling faintly of gardenias. She beckons for him to sit down next to her.
    “Tell me,” she begins suggestively, slithering closer to him, “We’ve been out here for a really long time. You’ve been lonely. There’s something I’m sure you really feel like doing right now, something you’ve been longing for all these months. You know…” She stares into his eyes.

    He can’t believe what he’s hearing:
    “You mean—“, he swallows excitedly, “I can check my email?!”

  • Psion 5mx vs Palm Pilot and Pocket PC

    [moved from my LiveJournal, where there are also comments on this post that i did not move here…]

    Psion 5mx vs Palm Pilot and Pocket PC

    a couple years old, but, still great info…

    my psion 5 is in the mail right now 🙂

  • 101 Ways to Save the Internet

    [moved from my LiveJournal, where there are also comments on this post that i have not moved to here…]

    101 Ways to Save the Internet [wired.com]

    Where’s a superhero when you need one? The Net, which once seemed so invincible, is under attack by the forces of evil. Viruses knock servers to their knees.. Spammers hijack our inboxes. Hackers and identity thieves menace our collective security and personal privacy.
    Desperate solutions range from abandoning email to requiring a license to log on. Halt, fools! The Internet’s problems stem from the same virtues that make it great: open architecture, the free flow of information, peer-to-peer cooperation, and a bias for linking strangers, not disconnecting them. Take those away and the Net might cease to infuriate us – but it will also cease to amaze us.

    Here’s a smarter approach: 101 proposals that harness the Net’s own superpowers to defeat its foes. Up, up, and away!

    a few examples…

    Build a .sex red-light district – Icann, the committee that assigns top-level Internet domains, refuses to create an adult zone that can easily be kept from kids’ eyes. Porn won’t disappear, so deal with it.

    from the “Microsoft To-Do” section of the list…

    Hey Steve, fire someone – Somebody’s not living up to the company’s tough talk on fixing bugs. Developers, developers, developers should be accountable, accountable, accountable.

    Give away a good spam filter

    Ship antivirus wizard – Why can’t the paper clip guy tell us something important, like “This message is infected with Sobig”?

    Take the blame – Software license agreements that absolve you of, oh, deleting three years’ worth of email are irresponsible. Bugs are negligence, and negligence should cost you, not us.

    from the “Google To-Do List”

    Crawl the Internet Archive

    Let us link to a page we hate without boosting its ranking

    from the “Your To-Do List” section…

    Switch your ISP – Some offer anti-spam and anti-virus tools and support. If your current provider won’t help you defend yourself, find another that will.

    Death to fax machines – Send us an attachment instead.
    Stop with the jokes – If we get the one about French military victories one more time, we’re going to come over and unplug you personally.

    people who continuously forward junk to me get treated like any other spammer…
    people, please, just repeat the mantra from the Earthlink Internet Hour radio show:

    I will not forward forwarded email
    I will not forward forwarded email
    I will not forward forwarded email

    Turn off your HTML email – It makes you vulnerable to viruses – and bugs us.

    Tell Kelly on Geocities to take down her Macarena tribute page It’s over, Kel.

    damn straight! i have written much on this subject in the past and i am sure i will write more in the future…

    Celebrate diversity – With nearly every computer on the planet running Windows, Outlook, and Explorer, it’s too easy for a single virus to spread everywhere.

    and, finally…

    Add a “Skip All Flash Intros” option to Macromedia players

    in the words of Sam Steele, “Flash is evil.”…


    ok, final thought, say it with me now…

    I will not forward forwarded email
    I will not forward forwarded email
    I will not forward forwarded email

    go and do likewise…