February 2008
New Arbitrary TSA requirement: all electronics out... →
I thought it was silly when a TSA agent at the Oakland airport asked me with concern in her voice to remove my thin cotton sweater before walking through the metal detector this afternoon, but it sounds like things are even sillier at San Francisco Airport. Scott Beale reports:
Wow, flying out of SFO just became much worse. While traveling this morning I surprised to find out that TSA is now...
The Pain of Being Down and Out →
A necessary evil for many online businesses is having service outages so they can perform scheduled maintenance. For most companies, this is pretty dull stuff that few, if anyone, notices.
There are times, however, when routine maintenance is far from routine. Twitter discovered this the hard way earlier this week when scheduled maintenance to upgrade its infrastructure went terribly astray. In...
January 2008
Geotate wants to geotag the world →
Filed under: Digital Cameras, GPS
The highlight of an otherwise lackluster PMA 2008 came not from Nikon, Canon, or any of the other big name companies, but rather General Imaging: GE’s new camera division announced that it will release one of the world’s first point-and-shoots with embedded GPS. Well, to say that the E1050 has true GPS would not be totally accurate — but the...
40. Nerd Rants →
Twitter: We Had a Rough Night, But...Wait,... →
As many of you are well aware Twitter was down for just about all of yesterday evening. While as many correctly note that some of this outtage was planned, the vast majority of it was not. This prompted Ev Williams (founder of Twitter) to post an update/apology this morning and declare them back online - the problem of course is that they are not in fact back online. Certainly regular maintenance...
And Twitter is down again.
find boredom again →
I worry for the children …that with all of this information, they will not have the chance to be aware of their own lives… Head for the hills! Go to the woods, get away from all these people! Go to a place where boredom is available to you; there’s where you will start to remember all the things that have ever happened to you.
– Garrison Keillor, on the Book Show.
Indeed. There is so little...
Just installed OutTwit. Interesting way to hide the fact that I am twittering at work
Hmm, Just saw that Pownce now has an “Accept All” button on the friend requests page. El Sweeto
MythBuster vents about common tech headaches,... →
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
They’re about as far from myths as you can get, but MythBuster Jamie Hyneman nonetheless took it upon himself to explore seven tech headaches that many of you are likely all too familiar with in the latest issue of Popular Mechanics, and he’s offered a few suggestions on how companies could fix ‘em. Those headaches include the ever-popular cordless...
MythBuster vents about common tech headaches,... →
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
They’re about as far from myths as you can get, but MythBuster Jamie Hyneman nonetheless took it upon himself to explore seven tech headaches that many of you are likely all too familiar with in the latest issue of Popular Mechanics, and he’s offered a few suggestions on how companies could fix ‘em. Those headaches include the ever-popular cordless...
spaetzel: And Twitter is down again. http://tinyurl.com/38286g
Facebook adds a “Clear All Requests” button, still not as good as the Auto-Block Facebook Apps Greasmonkey script http://snurl.com/1ym9x
SixApart Offers MT Activity Plugin: This Is Good →
SixApart have launched a plugin for MovableType that offers a similar activity stream service to Facebook and Plaxo, but you get to host it.
The Action Streams plugin, like Facebook and Plaxo, pulls your data from other services and lists it on the page, for example blog posts, Flickr photos, Tweets and more. The plugin does rely on having MovableType installed, but is self hosted, meaning that...
Spiral Jetty, monumental earthwork, threatened by... →
Paddy from the blog Art Fag City says:
I just received an email from a colleague of mine informing me that new oil development plans threaten the integrity of Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty. According to the artist’s widow Nancy Holt, a number of pipes and pumps will be laid beneath the water and shore, as well as roads built for oil tank trucks, and cranes for other project needs,...
2GB of Free Backup Space @ Mozy.com →
Mozy.com, a site which offers secure online data backup for home and business use, currently offers 2GB of 100% free backup space for personal use. Online storage of important data (like documents, photos, or whatever you deem vital) can be a real life saver in the event that something happens to your computer or hard copies. This 2GB free offer has no setup fee, no need for credit card...
ControlC: Turning Cut & Paste Into A Web... →
ControlC is an interesting new site that takes normal copy and pasting (Ctrl-C) and runs it through a web service.
At its most basic, after you create an account and install the software, any time you hit Ctrl-C, the information is saved to the ControlC website as well as your local clipboard, as simple text or as a URL link if what you’ve copied is a link. The information is both private and...
Anyone planning on playing Suvivor Fantasy: http://snurl.com/1yilr Join the “Twitter on Survivor” tribe. The password is “twitter”
I Pirate Music t-shirt →
Our pals at Gama-Go, creators of the Boing Boing hoodie, have issued this fantastic t-shirt for advertising your pirate pride. The “I Pirate Music” t-shirt, $28, is also available in red. Link
Casas's ballpoint pen artwork →
Spanish artist Juan Francisco Casas creates his large artworks using just a blue ballpoint pen. Link (Thanks, Lindsay Tiemeyer!)
canadian = black →
When I worked in New York in a financial brokerage house in 2000-2001, my colleagues (I think it was Manus, a short funny Italian from New Jersey; and Bill, my office-mate, from Texas; and probably a few others) told me that in the banking/finance business - at least their end of it - “Canadian” was a code word that actually meant “black.” I had the impression the term had been used like that for...
Automattic Launches Group Twitter-style Platform →
Automattic has released Prologue, a Twitter style service for groups that is also being pitched as a distributed Twitter.
According to Automattic’s founder Matt Mullenweg, the new service is way for users to share short messages with a corporate structure, or with private messaging between different groups. Mullenweg says that although it’s not initially aimed at becoming a distributed Twitter,...
MythBusters tackles "plane on a conveyor belt... →
Last night I spoke to Adam Savage, co-host of MythBusters. He’s in Alaska, where current temperatures range between 0 to 30 degrees below zero. He just finished a test on “cabin fever” (he wouldn’t say how long he lasted before murdering his cabin mates and running out into the frozen wilderness wearning nothing but longjohns and a sleeping cap) and is now working on...
This week on Arcade: Rez HD and Chessmaster LIVE →
Rez HD and Chessmaster LIVE will be available this Wednesday for 800 points each.
SmugMug’s Private Photos Aren’t Really Private →
Photo hosting site SmugMug apparently has a security issue which allows anyone to easily access other users’ photos which have been marked as “private,” reports Google Blogoscoped. What’s worse, the folks at SmugMug are aware of the issue, but claim this is intended behavior, separating the notions of “privacy” and “security.”
In a nutshell, the problem is this: if you set your photos as...
Chuck Norris Is Hiding →
First result for Googling “find Chuck Norris” and hitting “I’m Feeling Lucky.”
(thanks, David)
EA vs Fox: Adam Sessler Weighs in [Mass Effect] →
G4 host Adama Sessler gives his opinion on the whole Fox News/Mass Effect imbroglio in this clip from a recent episode of X-Play. He presents the facts with much more aplomb and fairness than Fox did, but in the end turns the tables to give the network and author Cooper Lawrence a taste of their own medicine. Although Lawrence has since apologized for her missteps, it’s still fun to watch...
Gibson Screws Musician Out Of $10,000 Worth Of... →
A musician named Tonedeff won the Lolapalooza Last Band Standing contest in 2006. Part of the prize package was “$10,000 worth of equipment from our friends at Gibson. (yes, believe it!).” Well, Tonedeff believed it, and he’s spent the last year and a half trying to get Gibson to make good on their promise. As Tonedeff notes on his blog, maybe he should have seen this coming...
The Political Game: Stand up and be counted →
Filed under: Features, Politics
Each week Dennis McCauley contributes The Political Game, a column on the collision of politics and video games:
The video game industry finally stood up for itself this week when Electronic Arts called Fox News out over the network’s lies about Mass Effect. It’s about time. The theme of this column, in fact, was going to be a rant about game...
@gillie Well Baltar and Head Six as well as Helo and Athena could be the “Star Crossed Lovers”
Use Google Reader to Make Any Site Mobile-Friendly... →
The Digital Inspiration blog points out a neat URL trick that makes Google Reader into a mobile-sizing tool for any web site with a RSS feed. Even better, you don’t have to be a Google Reader user, or even have a Google account, to use it. To try it out, find and copy a site’s feed address. Then paste it at the end of a Google Reader mobile address, like so:...
@tommyvallier Perhaps I saw it there then, short memory I suppose
How long has twitter had featured users on the public timeline? http://twitter.com/public_timeline
@trevoro Sounds like a great idea. But then, when would be sleep? When it is bright out?
Elect - Nokia N800 back at dell.ca for $229 →
Not as good a deal as the pre-Christmas $199 price, but better than currently offered by NCIX or TigerDirect. http://accessories.dell.com/sna/prod…sku=A130007 8
Giving up on FeedDemon again. It just doesn’t fit the way I’ve grown used to reading feeds.
@billdeys @happyguy I’ll let you know soon what my verdict is. I am very comfortable on GReader, FeedDemon has a different way of doing it.
*@billdeys There is NetNewsWire for mac. Here is my shared feed http://snurl.com/1y2nv, what’s missing? I’m not convinced yet, but am happy
Playign with FeedDemon again. Discovered that I can create an RSS feed of my “Clippings” letting me continue to create my linkblog
UPDATED: The Onion fires up some controversy over... →
A local news story caught my eye and ear today. The facts are these: (I’m in Pushing Daisies withdrawal, ok?) Rudy Lindia, a decorated veteran Ottawa firefighter agreed to take part in a photo shoot for some recruiting work for the fire department in 2000.
He remembers signing a waiver, but says he “believed it was a release for the city to use his image.”
The image ended up...
@billdeys Got your MoodBlast, twice…
Canadian Privacy Commissioner: DRM is legalized... →
It’s not often that I find a relevant post on Boing Boing, but then again this one is by Canadian Cory Doctrow:
At issue in Stoddart’s letter is the idea of protecting “Digital Rights Management” anti-copying and use-control systems in law. These systems frequently spy on users and then “phone home” with detailed information about your activities. The Privacy Commissioner is understandably...
Set Your Online Status for Multiple Apps with... →
Mac OS X only: One very annoying aspect of status update applications—from Twitter to Facebook to IM—is that there are so many places to update your status, and if you’re not diligent you’ll end up “out to lunch” for weeks on end. Freeware application MoodBlast updates your status on chat apps, Facebook, Twitter, and more through one universal interface. That means you can...
Moore's Law in reverse. →
In general, over time the performance of technology increases, while the costs of that technology decrease. Except when it comes to telecom/cable providers.
Rogers, a Canadian cable company, is raising their rates across the board:
Rogers, for example, will be raising prices for three of seven high-speed packages - claiming the new rates are being introduced “so we can continue to bring you...
Off to the gym. Perhaps someone will Pownce while I’m gone… (Its lonely here)
spaetzel: Off to the gym. Perhaps someone will Pownce while I’m… http://tinyurl.com/yuuzw4
Just set up Twitterfeed Via Yahoo Pipes to post my Pownces to Twitter. Perhaps I’ll stick around on Pownce for a while.
@doshdosh I read the beginning of your post and was ready to link to Twitterfeed, then you blew me out of the water.
Pownce definitely needs a way to accept all friend requests in one swoop. I’d kill for a good set of checkboxes
spaetzel: Just set up Twitterfeed Via Yahoo Pipes to post my… http://tinyurl.com/2hc5gv