August 2007
Lisp Cycles →
UNDERAGE ON FACEBOOK →
As you may know, I’m quite the avid gift giver on facebook (and no, I’m not talking the about the impostor free gifts ). Today while trying to give a virtual beer gift to my sisters boyfriend (who happens to be 20), I was denied! Facebook will not allow you to gift alcoholic beverages to those who are not 21 years of age. Who would have thought?
July 2007
Crappy Contest: Miller: You Won A Million Dollars.... →
A man from south suburban Chicagoland was hanging out in an Orland Park bar when a promotional team from Miller started handing out what appeared to be prize tickets. The tickets started out, “No one knows that I…” and then featured a scrambled message that needed to be decoded using blue cellophane. Some of the tickets promised free bottle openers, or said cryptic things like...
R/C car going for 200mph speed record →
Filed under: Etc. It’s hard enough to get a full-sized vehicle slurping gasoline and sitting on 10-inch wide rubber to reach 200 mph, so imaging trying to reach the lofty speed with a home made remote control car powered by a 29.6-volt electric motor and running on foam based tires. If anyone can do it, it’d have to be R/C enthusiast Nic Case, who set the current R/C land speed record...
Giant Andes-scaling truck will install Alma array →
Cory Doctorow:
This custom-built, 28-wheel truck was created by the German firm of Scheuerle Fahrzeugfabrik to scale the Andes bearing 115-tonne antennas that will form the Alma array in the high-altitude Atacama desert.
Look, it’s basically a metastasized Hot Wheels toy. I haven’t had my pulse so quickened by a truck since I was seven.
The vehicles will have to haul their heavy...
Two-in-One: EzKEY Keypad Mouse, for Number... →
This EzKEY combo mouse and keypad might be just what you’re looking for if you’re on the road, suddenly need to add a long list of numbers, and your laptop doesn’t have a keypad. Just flip up the top as you would open your car’s trunk, and there you have a keypad to do some quick number crunching. Flip it down, and it works and feels just like any other mouse. This is a...
Sync Your Facebook Contacts with Outlook →
With the new Facebook app Fonebook, you can sync up your Facebook contacts with your Outlook contacts. The application works with both Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007. As an added bonus, if you also use a Nokia or Windows Mobile smartphone, you can then copy your contact’s photos over to your phone, too! Currently Fonebook copies your contacts’ photos, web addresses, About Me details,...
Microsoft Offers Works For Free →
Microsoft has released the new version of Microsoft Works as a free, ad supported office package that will compete directly with Open Office and Google Docs & Spreadsheets. The Works package offers word processing, spreadsheet and slide (powerpoint) functionality partially based on code from older versions of Microsoft Office. The move by Microsoft to offer a free office suite comes as online...
Comic for 31 Jul 2007 →
Clips: More Human Tetris Rip-Offage! →
Too bad they didn’t copyright it. That hilarious Japanese of human Tetris was once again copied and once again made unfunny. Previously, Big Brother ripped off the concept, turning what was exactly a humorous mini-game into meh. Now, it’s Spanish-language show Nadie es Perfecto, which features contestants in silver body sheets and bicycle helmets. Odd! Contestants simple step through...
William Spaetzel: William is ended up launching anyways. Check out webstore.maplesoft.com. http://tinyurl.com/2sahfu (via Twitter / William Spaetzel)
Abandonned bebe ducks swimmin' in a teacup →
People, The Daily Mail is reporting that an alert canoeist (is there any other kind? - Ed.) found a pair of tiny abandoned ducklings battling against waves after
being washed out to sea. Now, those ducklings are being nursed back to health—IN A TEACUP OMG!
To Sender Inner David K., and photographer Richard Austin: I BOW BEFORE YE!
William Spaetzel: William is dissapointed that we aren’t launching today. http://tinyurl.com/ypxlnx (via Twitter / William Spaetzel)
Swap online-photo services with Migratr →
Migratr’s supported photo services(Credit: Migratr) There are already a lot of useful plug-ins for downloading or uploading from online sites such as Flickr, Picasa Web, Snapfish, Webshots (disclaimer: owned by CNET Networks), and the rest, but most apps only work with one specific service. If you want to move all of your images from one site to another (if you’re one of those unhappy...
LA hospital will give out your info "to protect... →
Cory Doctorow:
Check out the incredible “Notice of privacy practices” given to patients at the Cedars-Sinai hospital in LA: you “agree” that they’re allowed to share your private information for fundraising, national security, and for protective services for the President.
Link
Don’t forget about the Meetup This Wednesday →
If you want to learn about Blogging, Podcasting, or anything else New Media or just want to hang out and chat with people involved with New Media come on out. We can help set up a blog or podcast or show you tips on how to improve. Any level of know how or experience is welcome. Bring a laptop if you have one, Molly’s has FREE Wi-Fi! Molly Blooms 700 Richmond Street, London, ON
Wednesday Aug 1st...
Jacob's Ladder as USB hub →
Cory Doctorow:
Brando’s Chromatic Hub is a four-part USB 2 hub in the form of a fully articulated Jacob’s Ladder toy. It’s hella cute, and I’m thinking that having the ability to twist and torque my hub to conform to the physical limitations of my desk and its tchotchkes would be extremely useful.
Link
(via Gizmodo)
William Spaetzel: William is ready for launch day. http://tinyurl.com/2e9m9e (via Twitter / William Spaetzel)
More Facebook Features →
I just discovered this and I bet many of my readers haven’t found it yet either
Facebook Phone book!!
If one of my friends has a phone number in their profile it lists it here. All arranged alphabetically. With their profile picture alongside. Now if there was only a way to access this on my phone.Consider this a call to update your profile with a phone number, I’ll definitively appreciate it.
...
Wowzers: The Spectacular Initial D Arcade Game →
Big-in-Japan anime/manga Initial D gets another arcade game. With real cars! Earlier this month, the new Initial D game set up shop at the SEGA Joypolis in Odaiba. Instead of a standard cabinet, the game features the bodies of actual cars: Subaru Impreza WRX, Toyota GT-APEX and Mazada RX-7 (minus their engines). A ninety-inch monitor is set up in front of the car. For ¥600 (US $5), players can...
Viva Pinata announced for Nintendo DS →
Filed under: Nintendo DS
During a Viva Piñata panel at Comic-Con, Rare announced a Nintendo DS version of their well-received (but demographically incongruous) Xbox 360 title, Viva Piñata. A Rare developer answered some basic questions on the PinataIsland.info forum, quelling fears that the title would not be developed by Rare - “Very definately ‘yes’ on this one. We have a...
Fashion Faux Pas →
Sid Meier’s Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword was released last Monday. And to celebrate this event, the arrival of the single biggest Civilization expansion EVER, 2K Games and Firaxis have partnered with several gaming webcomics (8-Bit Theater, Ctrl-Alt-Del, ExtraLife, GU Comics, PvP and Dueling Analogs) as well as with members of the creative team behind the Over the Hedge to create...
William Spaetzel: @AllAxisAjay my Gamertag is Redune45. Add me! (via Twitter / William Spaetzel)
William Spaetzel: William is still working at 7 PM on a sunday. http://tinyurl.com/29bo3l (via Twitter / William Spaetzel)
California white hat hackers: 3, Diebold and... →
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
In a move which will bolster your undoubtedly high sensations of “faith” in the US voting process, a group of University of California researchers have just hacked their way through security on nearly every voting machine certified by the state of California. According to Secretary of State Debra Bowen, who initiated these tests, the team was able to...
William Spaetzel: William is working his 14th day in a row. The end is near. http://tinyurl.com/2dvtcf (via Twitter / William Spaetzel)
Confused Vigilantes: The Midlothian Police... →
The Midlothian, IL Chief of Police thinks it’s appropriate for his officers to help local businesses collect private debts. Midlothian’s local mechanic, Merlin’s Muffler and Brake, performed $500 of work for Angela Proctor, who paid back all but $108 before falling into financial trouble. From The Star:Last Monday though, Procter received a call from Lt. Harold Kaufman from the...
How to Photograph a Child’s Birthday Party →
Digital Photography School’s guide to photographing a child’s birthday party.
Bloglines stagnation? →
It looks like Bloglines is well and truly losing active users.
My blog has about 500 subscribers in Google Reader and about 460 in
Bloglines. So Bloglines is already behind the upstart. But how many of those 460
Bloglines subscribers are even reading anymore?
Four months ago I encouraged
everyone to switch from RSS to my atom feed. About 45% of
all my subscribers have switched. 40% of Google...
Video Review: Mini Moo Cards →
Moo is a site that allows you to purchase “mini cards” and other assorted cool items. The feature that has everyone buzzing is that it integrates with flickr. You can simply authorize the site to use your flickr photos, then select 100 photos, and each card you recieve will be different. You can also upload pictures and repeat them, which is what I did. The site has a great...
It's Jello: The Metroid Jello Thing →
We’ve seen plenty of game cakes here at Kotaku to the delight of some (me) and the chagrin of others (luke). Some have been great and some have just plain sucked. Now it seems the n ew medium is jello. A while back we had a jello DS and now it is my honor to bring you the Jello metroid. Cleverly created by Claire Barry, she of Kittybot fame, it looks to be made from lime jello, strawberries...
Comic Con 07: Best Game Related Cosplay →
I just got back from roaming the Comic Con floor, saying hello to Gabe and Tycho from Penny Arcade and the guys from Red vs. Blue when i noticed an odd phenomenon There seems to be a surprising lack of cos-play at this year’s event, not that there isn’t any, but certainly not as much as I was expecting, even with my buddy David and I adding to the fray as The Venture Bros. In our...
Nice VS 2008 Code Editing Improvements →
I’ve blogged in the past about some of the text editor improvements in VS 2008 that have been made for JavaScript intellisense and CSS style intellisense. Recently I was looking over the shoulder of someone writing some code, and saw them using some other new text editing features that I hadn’t seen before (“wait - how did you just do that?”). Below is a non-exhaustive list...
William Spaetzel: Back at work. Day 13 now. (via Twitter / William Spaetzel)
Japanese Rube Goldberg videos →
Cory Doctorow:
The Japanese TV show Pythagora Switch uses adorable little videos of complex Rube Goldberg machines as idents/interstitials. Someone’s collected a zillion of them and youtubed ‘em.
Link
(Thanks, 5000!)
See also: Ultimate rube goldberg machine Rube Goldberg style contraption video Rube Goldberg: 125-step flashlight battery changer Rube Goldberg machine built out of...
VS 2008 and .NET 3.5 Beta 2 Releases Made Easy →
Big
day as the Orcas wave begins to crest on the way to release. Seriously, can we
get a new clipart guy for the Visual
Studio homepage? I’ve made my suggestion at right. ;)
Do outlines generally look overly complex and scary? Yes, they do. Is this complex?
Not as much as you’d think. If you don’t want to read the whole outline, just do any
of...
Digital Combat Radio →
Digital Combat is an online gaming community built By Gamers for Gamers. DC provides a structured and respectful environment for gamers to compete in games such as Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six and Gears of War for the Xbox 360. We strive to bring gamers the best possible experience in competition gaming as well as a fun and fast growing community.
RSS Mixer could be Twitter without the Social... →
RSS Mixer is a new service that will combine all of your feeds into one. A feed aggregator, if you will. Take your favorite feeds and combine them into one. RSS Mixer will provide you a URL with your master feed, along with downloadable widget options and formats, including one for your iPhone, one for your personal website or blog, a regular RSS feed, and an Apple dashboard widget. There are...
Thomas Edison Hates Cats →
This video is exceedingly cute as it talks about the battle between AC and DC current and cats and elephants being electrocuted! - Link
[Read this article] [Comment on this article]
Breakdowns: Eyewitness report of the crisis at 365... →
The upside of that suspect tip I got about what caused Tuesday’s massive Internet outages? Tons of tipsters have written in to tell me what they saw on the scene at 365 Main, the troubled San Francisco datacenter whose generators failed during what ought to have been, for the expensively-built facility, a humdrum power outage in the city. The very best report has come from an employee of a...
Apple Trademarks Podcasting Symbol →
The US Patent & Trademark Office has published Apple’s trademark for podcasting, right, trademark application number 77235043. The logo is used by Apple within iTunes and on its site to represent podcasting. Apple describes the mark like this: “The mark consists of a stylized person or antenna surrounded by concentric circles/broadcast waves.” The trademark is significant to podcasters,...
Space Travel: Explosion at Virgin Galactic Motor... →
There’s been a sad setback for Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic space tourism company today: an explosion during a rocket motor test killed two people and injured another four. It’s not clear exactly what happened, but sometime earlier today the nitrous oxide motor exploded on a remote pad at the Mojave Air and Space port, mangling an 18-wheeler and spewing debris hundreds of...
William Spaetzel: William is on the (hopefully) last day of the crunch. http://tinyurl.com/2jk2o3 (via Twitter / William Spaetzel)
How To Sync your Apple Newton MessagePad with... →
I bought
a Newton recently, rather than an iPhone. I bought it from Jonathan
Wise (Here’s a Wired
article with Jonathan and our Newton).
The picture at right is my Newton MessagePad 2000 just after syncing with Outlook
2007. Yay! A few thousand contacts and a three hour long initial (overnight via serial)
sync, and I’m in business.
The Newton came out in May of 1992....
Munchcast →
Your weekly trip down junk food lane with Cammy Blackstone and Leo Laporte. Another tasty netcast from TWiT.tv.
The largest island on an island on an island... →
Mark Frauenfelder:
Josh says:
A couple of days ago you noted Elbruz.org’s geographical claim, in this post:
There is a larger one on Glover Island on Newfoundland.
I should know: I believe I’m the only person to have ever slept on an island on an island on an island. I went to Newfoundland once and camped on one the islands in the lake on Glover.
Link (This is a Google...
Windows: The Blue Screen of Death Tattoo →
We’re not sure what’s worse; the Zune guy getting three Zune tattoos, or this painful-as-hell Microsoft blue screen of death (BSOD) tattoo up this guy’s entire right arm. We’re guessing this guy is a Windows fan, because nobody hates Windows THAT MUCH to endure hours of pain just for the constant reminder that Windows occasionally crashes when you install the wrong driver....
Foreword Thinking - The Business & Motivational... →
Foreword Thinking discusses today’s top business and motivational books. Tune in as host Mitch Joel guides you through the fascinating world of personal and professional development.
Featured Firefox Extension: Speed up and protect... →
Windows/Mac/Linux (Firefox): The Secure Login Firefox extension adds an extra layer of security to your saved Firefox usernames and passwords. After it’s installed, saved login info won’t autofill when the page loads (autofilling passwords poses a small security threat); instead, you can either hit the Secure Login button (which you’ll need to add to your toolbar) or press Alt-N,...
Consumer Action: Support The Arbitration Fairness... →
Let’s end mandatory binding arbitration. Companies force consumers to revoke their right to lawsuit by embedding language in terms of use contracts that say in the event of any dispute, both parties have to go to an arbitration firm, which the company pays for… The Christian Science Monitor found that the top 10 most used arbitration firms only found in favor of consumer 1.6% of the...