Can you guess the 100 most common words in the English language in five minutes? Neither could I. How’d you do?
Category: Cool
Free Games If You Have a nVidia or ATI Video Card
I’m not much of a gamer, but I can never turn down freebies:
Through an exclusive deal with Nvidia, Valve is offering Portal: First Slice (demo) along with Half Life 2: Death Match, Lost Coast and Peggle Extreme. All you’ve got to do is install Steam on your system.
ATI also has a similar deal, but the nVidia deal comes with more games.
If you don’t know what kind of video card you have, there’s a really good chance it has a chipset from either ATI or nVidia if it’s an add-in card (meaning it’s not built into the motherboard). If you don’t know still, click here to install Steam, and then click on the nVidia link or the ATI link and see which one will let you install. If neither of them work, then go ahead and uninstall Steam if you don’t want it.
Working Around NBCOlympics.com’s Stupid Restrictions
I’ve always loved the Olympics, but have hated NBC’s coverage. This year, they promise to have more coverage, including a ton of online coverage. I’d prefer to watch the BBC’s coverage, as I’ve always have heard it’s better, but NBC’s exclusive rights to American broadcasts forces the other providers to lock us out.
Wired Wiki has a great bit on how to watch the Olympics online. One thing I’ve found out about NBCs online video system is that access to some videos (encore and live videos, for example) is restricted if your cable provider doesn’t participate. According to the NBC site, BendBroadband doesn’t participate, as I was trying to watch an encore video of the Prefontaine Classic and couldn’t.
The workaround I found? Select another zip code and known big-name provider for that are. I personally selected 97403 (a Eugene zip code) and Comcast and was able to get in fine. So just get a zip code for one of Comcast’s markets and use it, since Comcast appears to be participating
(Or maybe it’s a local NBC-affiliate issue, I have no idea, but the local KTVZ Olympics page itself seems to work fine.)
I tried selecting DirecTV and 97701 (a Bend zip code) and the site told me that DirecTV doesn’t serve this area (which it actually does), so I envision a bunch of people getting angry at the NBC site when Olympic coverage starts in earnest tomorrow.
Update on 8/14/08: First off, welcome Bulletin readers. If you’re trying to get good high quality clips online, Waxy has a great write-up on Pirating The Olympics
Time Killer For The Evening
Seriously, Momentum Missile Mayhem will kill off far too much time if you play it. But enjoy it anyway.
The Penguin Gets Its Revenge
Remember the popular time-killer Smack the Penguin? This time, the penguins fight back.
My best was 3956 (which really probably isn’t that good). How’d you do?
More Random Links
A bunch of links that have been sitting here for a while (hmm…sounds like yesterday)…
- Best remix ever? Radiohead’s “Nude” performed by a ZX Spectrum, dot matrix printer, scanner, and hard disk array.
- What’s beyond the edge of the album art?
- How to hide MP3s in Flickr images.
- The Ebb and Flow of Movies: Box Office Receipts (great interactive journalism).
- Seth Godin asks “Why bother having a resume?“
- Creative barcodes (only in Japan).
- Lies I’ve told my three year old recently (one of the most entertaining MetaFilter threads I’ve ever read).
- Viagra, Cialis, Levitra: Customer Service Deathmatch.
I need to sleep. More tomorrow.
Random Links
Been getting behind on my link sharing, so here are a few older links of all sorts:
- Find items at a variety of stores with free shipping (including Amazon and eBay).
- Newbie time-travelers always kill Hitler their first trip (they obviously didn’t follow these time-traveler tips).
- In case you need help convincing the wife, here are 10 reasons to have sex tonight.
- How to guarantee that a woman never breaks up with you.
- Facinating interview with Keith Richards (is he still alive?)
- Safely send NSFW links to your buddies.
- Screw deciding on college, these parents decided to fight over which gang their four-year-old should join.
- This is exactly how I feel about techno music.
- So this is how big media is going to make money in the future: T-Shirts with headlines on them.
- Probably the best thing you could buy for your car.
- For the crazy money-blowers out there, the $500 Ethernet cable (read the if you want a great laugh).
- The Big Picture is probably my favorite new blog (interview with its creator).
- Is that number you’re calling a home number or a cell phone number? Look up the phone company for the number here (thanks Dave!).
- If you want to be really anal-retentive (or are a magazine designer), here are ten typographic mistakes everybody makes.
- What newspapers still don’t understand about the Web.
More later. I need to sleep.
You Don’t Watch Rambo For Romantic Moments
You watch it to see raw carnage:
Addicting Game For The Night
This one will kill off your Monday: Boomshine. I got to level 12, but had to quit before I went nuts trying to get enough of a chain reaction.