Friday Five - Random Stuff
Grok Headline matches for Friday Five - Random Stuff
Random Friday stuff
Random Friday stuff
10/31/2003 12:50 PMIt took me a whole Strokes album to get to work this morning. Which is
actually not a long time, but still. ("Strokes album" is...
Just a whole mess of random stuff
Just a whole mess of random stuff
12/02/2003 01:19 AMI learned this morning that it's not a good idea to be wearing a green
face mudd mask when attempting...
Good stuff and bad stuff
Good stuff and bad stuff
02/12/2004 07:25 PMThe bad stuff first: The wireless connection here sucks. It sucks
less today than previously, but it is still bad. The other thing is
that there are far too few power strips available, and I've on several
occasions had my laptop die on me.
But the cool stuff just continues: Programmable matter and quantum
dots by Wil McCarthy just blew me (and probably everyone else)
away with the visions of windows that move according to sunlight,
wires that grow inside the walls as needed, walls that can produce any
sort of light at command, quantum wells and artifical atoms, but
especially the palm-sized, paper-thin über-PDA, which does
*everything*, including cooling your drinks. And it all works on
"ambient energy" - harvesting stray photons, sound and
movement. When any physical object can have any functionality you
desire, you get into some pretty interesting scenarios...
High sci-fi, mindblowing stuff - but the theory says it should
work.
I love Ferrari stuff. Got all stuff from
cap/jackets/T-shirts etc. Would love to
go for Ferrari Laptop. What's
I love Ferrari stuff. Got all stuff from
cap/jackets/T-shirts etc. Would love to
go for Ferrari Laptop. What's
07/14/2004 08:09 AMTechTree Jul 14 2004 12:21PM GMT
/dev/random for HP-UX 11.00 0.0.3
/dev/random for HP-UX 11.00 0.0.3
12/15/2003 05:59 AMA /dev/random device for HP-UX 11.00 (DLKM).
Net-Random-1.1
Net-Random-1.1
09/07/2004 07:08 AMMath-Random-MT-1.03
Math-Random-MT-1.03
05/09/2004 12:17 AMThe Perils Of Random
The Perils Of Random
06/15/2004 06:03 PM"It was not until Pennsylvania that we realised that we had neglected
to turn off the 'random' feature of the iPod, so we were getting
chapters in arbitrary order, the plot entirely in the mischievous
hands of fate."
By Leander Kahney, Cult Of Mac (via MyAppleMenu)
Random comics
Random comics
04/26/2004 05:00 AM
Earlier this month, we
posted Monochrom's call-for-submissions for jpegs of random
punchline-text from comic strips. Now, Monochrom brings us the
outcome: a web page werein a single-frame comic and a punchine are
combined at random. The results are funny-esque and very weird. Reload
often.
Link
(
Thanks, Johannes!)
Random Rants
Random Rants
04/15/2005 04:40 AM US Government Bans Books: According to the security guy that patted
me down, it's not just lighters not allowed on flights, but our book
capacity has been trimmed from 4 to 2. Tivo and Netflix Need Each
Other: Why...
Random Noise
Random Noise
12/31/2004 01:24 AMSonicMood might not be everyone's cup of tea, but surely I can't be
the only person in the world who occasionally wants this sort of sound
to emanate from the computer, and in any case it has certainly been
helpful to me in my work. By Matt Neuburg, TidBITS
Some Random Thoughts
Some Random Thoughts
12/02/2003 03:11 AMNaturally, I love that Cingular is using Tommy
Tutone's song "867-5309" to
promote number
portability! (Isn't it weird that G
ooglism is a Google search
result?)
With the holidays fast approaching, it's important to note that
there is an RSS
feed for What's
New at ThinkGeek!
I can tell that PC sales are up because I am busy dispensing
computer advice in my neighborhood. One neighbor bought a new computer
tonight, while another needs lessons to burn CDs. Neither has
broadband access, so we're still a pretty typical neighborhood.
There's a new link on the right over there for pointers to my past
Presentations and Articles.
And yes, I'm truly loving my Treo 600, thanks for asking. I promise to write up my
experiences with it to date later this week!
The Joy of Random Shuffle
The Joy of Random Shuffle
04/16/2004 02:22 PMRandom Freezing
Random Freezing
04/12/2004 06:05 PMIs there no worse problem in all of computer-dom than random
locking? You know, when the computer just freezes — hard-drive
light goes out, mouse stops moving, keyboard is unresponsive, etc.
The screen is just frozen in time.
Talk about frustration. There's no error message to Google, no log
file to review, no rhyme or reason to how or when it happens. It just
happens.
How many geeks at help desks around the world shudder at the words,
"It just locks up for no reason." You hope that "locks up" means it's
just slow or the hard drive cycles for a while. But, with a sinking
heart, you realize that "locks up" means just that.
There's no...crack in the bug into which you can dug your fingers
to pry out a solution. The bug is as solid and impenetrable as a
solid hunk of aluminum. It's like trying to attack a Borg cube.
So, what do you do? You start looking for change you just made.
Well, I just reloaded an OS from scratch, so that's no real help. You
start reloading drivers. You know it can't be a hardware
incompatibility because it worked fine before with the same hardware.
You run Windows Update, you tweak BIOS, etc.
Still locks. What do you do? Do you start replacing parts? But
what a money hole that can be. Taking an educated guess, these things
happen a lot with bad video cards. But what if you buy one and that's
not it? Do you just keep replacing parts until you find the one that
makes it go away?
I have another machine to which this problem happened about 18
months ago. All the debugging I had to offer was no use. It still
sits there, with a ghost in the machine that renders it useless for
about anything. It's just waiting to be parted out since the sum of
the parts contains a phantom bent on destroying the whole.
Random freezing is the single worst desktop computer problem in the
world. Vent over. Thanks.
Click here to comment on this entry
OM being random - but very
deliberate....
OM being random - but very
deliberate....
07/25/2004 02:12 AMI finally got to meet Om Malik
in person. The fact that I never ran into him in the 90's says
allot about me "taking the 90's off." Quite frankly I just
didn't care.
But now I do!
Great to meet Om!
Here's his recent post...
It is a cold, cloudy drank Saturday afternoon in San Francisco. Go
ahead and summer in San Francisco. I am migh
ty pissed off at the hooligans who started a
fight, got our hottest hitter thrown out of the game and basically
used all underhanded tactics to win when all athletic prowess failed.
(I think they are not even going to make it as the wild cards - go
Athletics!)
Nevertheless, watching the game also gave me some time to ponder
over the last week which involved nearly six conference calls, ten
interviews, one story, one online column, and one conference, BlogOn. So here are some
conclusions from that one conference, and other conversations.
[Om
Malik]
Om is right.
BlogOn was acomplete corporate sellout and a complete bore. The
only thing going on was out in the hallways. All the old Apple guys
are back, AOL, CNN and Yahoo were on stage saying nothing and they
even put abunch of irrelevant PR flacks on stage.
Oh boy.
Next week's OSCON will be exactly the opposire. ONLY OpenSource
folks - no old PR flacks or big irrelevant companies. Sorry I can't
be there.
Random Absurdities
Random Absurdities
02/01/2005 09:07 PM
A few recent occurrences that have me wondering about the
general sanity of publishing online.
Random ID checks are next
Random ID checks are next
06/08/2004 10:27 AM
Unreasonable Search and
Seizure? Boston's MBTA to begin randomly searching passenger bags
and packages next month on subway and commuter trains. Last month they
started playing frequent Big Brother-type announcements as part of
their
See
Something? Say Something(pdf) -
Transit Watch program. I'm either
reminded of
"Loose Lips,
Sink Ships" or Starship Troopers'
"Do you want to know more?".
Random aphorism
Random aphorism
03/19/2005 03:28 AMThere's no "I" in "team" but there are two "me"s in meme....
Math-Random-MT-1.02
Math-Random-MT-1.02
05/08/2004 12:38 AMRandom notes
Random notes
05/14/2004 03:01 PM
I
noticed with some amusement and glee on Monday that the Wall Street
Journal published a list of the fastest-growing employment sectors in
the latest jobs report, and what was at the head? "Internet content
producer"! OK, it's not 1999 all over again, and thank goodness for
that; the actual number of new jobs in the field (2000) was small. But
hey -- after what this business has been through, any good news is
good news.
I
haven't gotten it together to spend the money on one of those
PC-to-stereo bridges that lets you stream music from your computer to
your home audio systems, but when I do, I'll look first and most
closely at the Slim Devices
Squeezebox -- not
only because it looks like a good product, but because the company
that makes it lets anyone play with the open-source software that runs
it:
Slimserver.
I've been having fun with Slimserver: You install it on the computer
that has your music library and you can then access your library from
any remote computer with a decent Internet connection. Requires a
little effort to get the hang of it, then seems to work like a charm.
A browser interface lets you control what's playing. Very cool.
I've turned on "item level titles and links" in Radio Userland, so
instead of handcoding my little headlines, they should appear in RSS
2.0 feeds as properly coded titles. You can do this too -- just look
under Radio's preferences under "item level titles and links." Thanks
to
Tim Bishop for the tip.
Another useful piece of open-source software I'm making a note of
(thanks to
Jon Udell
for the pointer):
Audacity, an audio-file
editor.
"Random Drawings"
"Random Drawings"
04/24/2004 03:25 AMCrypt-Random-1.20
Crypt-Random-1.20
05/21/2004 11:33 PMCrypt-Random-1.21
Crypt-Random-1.21
05/25/2004 12:39 AMRandom links
Random links
05/26/2004 09:22 PM Fascinating tale of
documentary maker Errol Morris's "Interrotron" device, which makes his
interviewees appear to be addressing the camera directly, while
they're really talking to a teleprompter-like image of him as the
interviewer (Link courtesy
Kottke)
Dan Bricklin reports on an interesting
onstage conversation between Malcolm Gladwell and Scott
Kirsner.
Transcript of brilliant Bruce Sterling rant, turning the saga
of an open party he throws each year at South by Southwest into a
parable for Internet development, electronic security and more.
The Random Map Generator
The Random Map Generator
05/01/2004 02:24 PMA beginning
Crypt-Random-1.22
Crypt-Random-1.22
06/02/2004 12:58 AMCrypt-Random-1.23
Crypt-Random-1.23
06/02/2004 04:47 PMA few more random thoughts
A few more random thoughts
03/27/2005 01:39 PMThere are a few things that continue to grate on my nerves as we near
the start of the second half of Apple’s fiscal year, so I though I’d
throw them all out there at once. Have fun.
Why can’t Apple allow first- or second-generation iPod users enjoy its
Lossless Encoder? If a simple firmware update can bring it to the mini
or the later-model players, why not all of us early adopters, too? If
you’re like me, there are at last 10 CDs that haven’t made their way
to your iPod, because you’re too last to re-encode them.
Do the actors in their commercials reflect what Dell really thinks of
its customer base? From the “Dude, you’re getting a Dell” guy, to the
trio of geeks fighting over control of their gadgets — one watching
cartoons, one singing hopelessly out of key and the other looking
playing a video game that involves the obligatory silver key — how
does this help expand its marketshare? If I was in the market for a
computer, those three fools certainly wouldn’t sway me.
Why is Apple the only company that gives any thought to naming its
music players. Dell and Creative both names theirs Jukebox (Creative
came first) and most of the others merely use a series of letters and
numbers to distinguish between models. On Dell’s commercials, they
shirk the name entirely. The guy says, “Just listen to your Dell.” Who
says that!?!
If, like me, you thought the $16.99 price was too high, but PodBrix’s
black Lego figurine holding a miniature iPod is currently selling for
more than $150 on eBay. And you guys wonder why Mac people are so
misunderstood.
Since I downloaded the $35 coupon from Amazon.com before it was
pulled, will I be able to use it? And will I once again get three
utterly useless software update coupons?
And why has Apple not built a store in Rhode Island? The Providence
Place Mall is a four-story behemoth in the heart of the capital city,
and with Brown University within walking distance, it only seems
logical. Oh, and Spymac’s weekend columnist lives right around the
corner.
Seventeen of the top 20 items selling at the Apple Store are iPods or
iPod-related. And to think, when it was released less than four years
ago, it was riled as an overpriced niche product.
These days, signing a contract with Apple is a bad luck charm. Teaming
with Hewlett Packard and Pepsi were disappointing, IBM has struggled
with supplying G5 chips, and now Motorola, who has struggled with
Apple in the past, has sputtered twice with the unveiling of its
iTunes phone. Maybe Apple should start partnering with its
competitors,
On the subject of IBM, what happened!?!? Back in July 2003, Steve
promised 3GHz inside of a year and now, nearly two years later, we’re
still 500MHz away. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with missing a
goal, but Apple and IBM seems to have all but forgotten it existed.
And it’s been nearly a year since the Power Mac has seen a speed bump.
And finally, someone should start an iPod recycling company, With four
million sold in three months, there are going to be an awful lot of
discarded iPods in a year or so. Perhaps a modern art exhibit can be
opened. Or maybe they can be donated to starving rap artists in need
of bling.
Michael Simon is a freelance writer and editor, and paginator for The
Times in Pawtucket, R.I. He is the author of Failed Attempt, written
under the moniker of Morlium, which may be purchased for $9.99, either
through the iTunes Music Store or as a full-color paperback. He can
be reached for comment or inquiry by e-mail at morlium@mac.com.
Random Acts of JD
Random Acts of JD
03/13/2003 10:25 AMJD Lasica talks about blogging as "random acts of journalism." Good
phrase, good thoughts....
Random PHP Oddity
Random PHP Oddity
03/19/2003 10:27 PMRandom PHP Oddity
Here's an interesting one. I was using strtotime() and I
noticed it failing (it returns -1 when it fails). So here was my
input:
$pubdate = "March 18, 2003, 06:20:15 PM";
When I tweaked it until it worked, I ended up with this:
$pubdate = "March 18, 2003 06:20:15 PM";
Yup. That's right -- I removed 1 comma. I
wonder if this is a) php bug b) gnu time bug or c) by design.
And so it goes.
Oh and a quick regex to fix it and Voila! Dates
that parse.
Math-Random-OO-0.10
Math-Random-OO-0.10
12/28/2004 07:05 PMMath-Random-OO-0.11
Math-Random-OO-0.11
01/04/2005 11:08 AMHow To: Random quotes in PHP
How To: Random quotes in PHP
03/15/2003 11:29 PMI’m sure you’ve noticed my love of random quotes by now as
I’ve stuffed them at the top, bottom, and side of all my pages.
While I know how to program, I’m also a bit lazy and would have
rathered...
Math-Random-0.67
Math-Random-0.67
03/14/2003 06:16 PMRandom Question
Random Question
12/19/2004 03:02 PMMost people have a few moments in their lives that they regret. But
what moment if any would you like...
Random PPC Assembly links
Random PPC Assembly links
04/06/2005 02:54 PMMark
Dalrymple: “Learning PPC assembly has been on my
‘to-do’ list for awhile. sknaster and I were bouncing some
links back and forth, so I figured I’d accumulate them
here.”
For hard-core geeks only. I might click on a few of the links. But
carefully.
(I used to know some 6502 assembler, but I’ve forgotten almost
all of it. Something about JMP seems to stick. Oh no, wait—
here it all is. Holy
cow, I used to spend long hours with this stuff. In the days before
Macs.)
sample a random bl0g
sample a random bl0g
12/24/2004 01:08 PMblogger.com/redirect/next_blog.pyra?navBar=true
track this
site | 3 links
Random Tiger Notes
Random Tiger Notes
06/05/2005 10:57 PMMichael
Tsai posted an interesting list of Tiger observations.
Random scene from my life
Random scene from my life
06/06/2005 12:09 AMI took my car into the shop for its regular servicing this morning,
and I got comfortable in their waiting room while repairs occurred.
The service guy sees me on my PowerBook, and said, "Hey, it's too bad
that you're...
Grok Description matches for Friday Five - Random Stuff
GrokA matches for Friday Five - Random Stuff
Friday Five - Random Stuff
