October 2007
Ballmer Peak →
September 2007
Scott Westerfeld's Extras - a superb volume in... →
Scott Westerfeld’s Extras is the latest volume of the series that includes Uglies, Pretties and Specials, picking up the story with a new cast of characters who are even more likable, and a premise that is even more gripping, than those of the original books (and that’s saying something!).
The three books concerned themselves with the adventures of Tally Youngblood, who inhabits a...
spaetzel: G’Morning Twitter. It feels like today will be a productive day (via Twitter / spaetzel)
nora’s spark #2 →
The fabulous Nora Young has just launched a new podcast (that also happens to be a CBC Radio* show), called Spark. Covering technology, art, society, it also aims to try to get more interactive feedback from the net. Comments, participation, stories and the like. As with all of Nora’s radio work, it’s good good stuff. The next episode has a segment about the Warbike: Did you know that almost...
Facebook To Launch Friend Grouping. Competition... →
So Facebook will finally allow users to group friends and control information flow based on friend type. For guys like Robert Scoble, who have 5,000 friends (the limit), this may be a way to finally sort through the real friends from the fans. It’s a much needed feature that people have been requesting for a long time. It also shows the steady maturity of Facebook from a college network to a full...
Have An Old, Broken iPod? Get Cash For It Fast →
Sure, you can always sell those old iPods (working or not) on eBay, but it’s far easier to use BuyMyBrokeniPod, a site that promises to buy any model of iPod, working, broken or in between, with no questions asked. You even get an estimate of the price before you send it to them. Since launching earlier this year, the guys who run the site say they’ve purchased more than 1,000 iPods from happy...
spaetzel: @billdeys. Damn that was quick! (via Twitter / spaetzel)
spaetzel: Back home. Going to eat some pizza and then I think I’ll do some work on CastRoller (via Twitter / spaetzel)
Wanna work for Mozilla? →
Mic Berman of Mozilla is looking for people to work with Mozilla, specifically on creating Canadian and French Canadian versions.I use Mozilla products every day and couldn’t get along without them. Think of this as your chance to change the world. Technorati: mozilla open source Powered by Bleezer
More blogging needed
I am sitting here in BarCampWaterloo5 and really wishing that I blogged more often. I thtink what has been stopping me this time is the desire to do a good job blogging my Wedding. So much happened, that I want to cover it all completely. Perhaps I’ll give a good summary for the wedding tonight, and then I can get on with a lot more blogging.
New AT&T terms of service: We'll cut off... →
AT&T has brought down new Terms of Service for its network customers. From now on, AT&T can terminate your connection for conduct that “tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries.” So AT&T customers aren’t allowed to write/podcast/vlog critical things about AT&T, its billing-practices, or its cooperation with...
New AT&T terms of service: We'll cut off... →
AT&T has brought down new Terms of Service for its network customers. From now on, AT&T can terminate your connection for conduct that “tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries.” So AT&T customers aren’t allowed to write/podcast/vlog critical things about AT&T, its billing-practices, or its cooperation with...
spaetzel: At BarCampWaterloo5 with @billdeys (via Twitter / spaetzel)
spaetzel: @billdeys. I’m still at home. I’ll be there in 10 min. Waiting for LL to pack. (via Twitter / spaetzel)
spaetzel: @billdeys Can do. I’m on my way to the University now. (via Twitter / spaetzel)
spaetzel: @billdeys See you there! (via Twitter / spaetzel)
spaetzel: Have finished the fight! “I thought I’d shoot my way out, you know, mix things up a little…” (via Twitter / spaetzel)
Bad Pilot Decisions: Three Emergency Landings in... →
A few weeks ago this story caught my eye and I’ve been meaning to write about it ever since. A pilot (William Supan) flying his Piper Tri-Pacer from the Modesto Airport was taking a passenger (Jinhua Lin) for a first airplane ride. He had to make an emergency landing due to smoke coming out of the engine.
Upon landing, he apparently found a problematic hose clamp and went to the nearby...
spaetzel: Looking forward to beating Halo 3 tonight. (via Twitter / spaetzel)
Media Minutes Podcast →
Media Minutes is a weekly, headline-style radio news program focused on issues of media policy and reform. A new show is made available every Friday.
Extra-special two-headed turtle →
This two-headed red slider turtle, now living at Big Al’s Aquarium Supercenter in Pennsylvania, is particularly rare because the heads are on opposite sides of the shell. From The Metro:
Jay Jacobi, the shop’s exotic reptile manager, said: “The two heads seem to have their own thoughts, operating independently.
“But sometimes they seem to put their two heads together...
Extra-special two-headed turtle →
This two-headed red slider turtle, now living at Big Al’s Aquarium Supercenter in Pennsylvania, is particularly rare because the heads are on opposite sides of the shell. From The Metro:
Jay Jacobi, the shop’s exotic reptile manager, said: “The two heads seem to have their own thoughts, operating independently.
“But sometimes they seem to put their two heads together...
iPod Touch →
I figured it would happen, the moment I walked into the Mac Shop the decision was made! I now am the proud owner of an iPod Touch. It is one slick device, in typical apple fashion navigating around is amazingly beautiful. Menus sweep across the screen and the “flick” motion looks brilliant and feels very natural. Like I said the intuitiveness is Apple to a T! The cover flow mode is a cool option...
spaetzel: Debugging instead of coding. (via Twitter / spaetzel)
How to build a toilet-flushing Lego robot →
Filed under: Robots
We were always a little wary of bringing our Legos into the bathroom, but if you’ve got no such baseless fears, BattleBricks has published a handy how to on building one of those fancy auto-flushers you see in some of the finest washrooms worldwide. Using only parts from a standard NXT Mindstorms kit, Will Gorman rigged up a contraption that uses the ultrasonic sensor...
Facebook: What If More Is Less? →
In our recent post,
MySpace: Hot or Not?, we took a look at the social networking
giant to understand what’s going on with the site. We found that while ‘MySpace’ is slowing down as a trend, the site
is alive and kicking and people are actively communicating (although some communication is focused on fairly questionable topics).
While doing research for that article, the...
Celebrity Workspace: Tina Fey Organizes with... →
And uses a Mac! But she seems to be losing the war against clutter.
(Photo from an American Express ad.) See also: attack of the piles in Al Gore’s home office.
A dream come true →
spaetzel: @billdeys I forgot about that. I’m going to London for Homecoming, so I won’t be there (via Twitter / spaetzel)
spaetzel: @billdeys Lucky man. I’ve made myself a diet goal before I’m allowing myself to buy one. You better bring it on Wednesday. (via Twitter / spaetzel)
spaetzel: 4 hours till Halo 3! (via Twitter / spaetzel)
spaetzel: @vveerrgg I’ll be there, waiting in line! (via Twitter / spaetzel)
PodShow Available On TiVo →
Adam Curry’s Podshow will formally announce an alliance with TiVo next week that sees PodShow content becoming available to TiVo’s 10-12 million users in the United States. According to our source, the news is planned to be formally announced the day before the Podcast and New Media Expo to maximize Podshow’s coverage during the event. At this stage there is no word on the deal from Podshow...
The Nuclear Option: Resetting The Crap Out Of Your... →
I was having a number of strange network issues on a laptop today. Here’s the complete
nuclear option for resetting your whole IP stack. This is for when “Diagnose and Repair”
isn’t cutting it. Thanks to JohnP for his help.
Go to the Start Menu, type cmd and right click, and select “Run As Administrator”
Type the following commands, each...
$1 Cdn = $1 US →
The Canadian dollar reached parity with the U.S. greenback on Thursday for the first time since November 1976.
spaetzel: Off for a bike ride with mywife (via Twitter / spaetzel)
Mint: The easiest way to manage your personal... →
Mint, a long-awaited online tool for managing your personal finances, has launched today.
For those who have used Quicken or other traditional personal accounting software to manage your checking, savings and credit card accounts, Mint will be a relief.
Once you sign up, you provide Mint with access to all of your accounts. Mint automatically categorizes each paycheck and each expenditure, then...
EFF's cheap legal bootcamp for Web 2.0 startups →
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is hosting another of its annual Web 2.0 “compliance” roundtables, a cheap one-day boot-camp for Web 2.0 startups looking to make sure that they end up on the right side of any lawsuits.
Does your interactive company have to contend with the maze of laws dealing with user privacy and publishing user content? Want to do the right thing by the online...
New Nano’s Feature Crooked Screens →
A few people have turned on their Nano’s for the first time to be flabbergasted at the one to two millimeter slant on the media players screen. Now you can say we’re nitpicking if you want, but that’s the kind of thing that would annoy us to within millimeters of insanity. Hopefully this is a bad production run and the more cautious buyers will have perfectly straight screens.
Hit the jump for...
spaetzel: Testing a post from Twadget (via Twitter / spaetzel)
iTunes meta data support catches up, iPod still... →
My biggest complaint with iTunes was always it’s mediocre metadata support when compared
to Windows Media Player. However, sometime in the past year Apple quietly updated
iTunes to support the last remaining critical meta data field, Album Artist.
Why do I care about Album Artist? Well lets take a look at the latest George
Michael Twenty Five CD (yes, I do in fact like George...
Announcing VoiceMail for Facebook →
I have been involved in the world of Internet Communications since before the founding of pulver.com back in 1994. Free World Dialup now known as “FWD” was launched in 1995 and remains the longest running open communications network.
During 2007 I have been living inside the world of social media and have been thinking about the evolution of real-time social communications. A few months ago I...
VoIP: Vonage Destroys Router, Refuses To Issue... →
I have been a loyal Vonage customer for 3 years. Within the last year (I can’t remember when) I purchased a new Linksys WRTP54G router to replace my existing router. This router has built-in Vonage voice ports. What Vonage and Linksys do not tell you when you purchase this router is that Vonage has 100% full access to your router and can do with it what they choose.
What they chose to do...
Simpons meet Star Wars →
Another example of the creativity unleashed by the internet and youtube. There’s a whole series of these.
Their Pink Shirts →
Central Kings Rural High School students David Shepherd and Travis Price bought 75 pink tank tops and other pink items for students to wear after a new student at the school was bullied for wearing a pink shirt. This incredible display of awareness and generosity can only be described as noble. Classic story of going beyond the excuse of “I’m only one person - what can I do?” to...
Clutter: Corral Your Cables with Pipe Insulation →
The Unclutterer weblog highlights a simple method for cleaning up your cable mess on the super-cheap with foam pipe insulation. Just cut the insulation to size, slice down the length, and insert your cables. It’s not that we haven’t covered tons of cord hiding and management solutions already, but this is a nice alternative to add to your list of options. The post comes courtesy of...
spaetzel: @cc_chapman Done, my slackershot http://www.flickr.com/photos/redune/1379681181/ (via Twitter / spaetzel)
Beehive in a glass jar →
At first, I thought this was a photo of a glass eye with a snakeskin design. Actually, it’s a bell jar that was placed over an opening in a beehive.
Here’s a slideshow of the bees building the honeycomb inside the bell jar. Link (Via That’s How it Happened)
Canadian gov't convenes secret net-tapping inquiry →
A reader writes, “The Canadian government has launched a private consultation on new rules that would require Internet service providers to hand over a wide range of subscriber information without a court order. The new rules would cover cell phone data, email addresses, and IP addresses. The government has not made the consultation public nor identified who it is...