Category: Odd

Every-three-month(ish) Link Dump

OK, so I know I’m totally neglecting things here. My new job at a local outsourced IT company is going well, but keeping me busy. And yes, I did just try to give them some SEO linkage there because they need it. But after dealing with computers and people’s issues with their computers all day long, sometimes I just don’t feel like turning mine on in the evening. But otherwise, it’s going well, the people are cool, and I have health insurance for the first time in 11 years (which would have came in handy nine years ago).

That being said, I’m still collecting a link pile, and have some to share, so enjoy!

November 29, 2012

Mass Link Dump

Something old, something new, all in one big pile. Enjoy!

September 11, 2012

Reading (and Watching) Material

Top Gear’s “Stig” Revealed and subsequently canned, called a “Greedy Twat” by one of the hosts. Apparently the upcoming U.S. version of Top Gear will have a stig as well.
25 Mario Facts for the 25th Anniversary.
Speaking of Mario, here’s an adaptive Mario game that gets easier or harder depending on how and where you die (or how quickly you finish the level).
You may have read Stuff White People Like, but here is the real stuff that white people like.
From Canada to Mexico on a single tank of gas.
Three Ways Facebook is Killing Your Website.
More Facebook news: Facebook lets publishers contact “Likers.”.
AMD to take stand against laptop stickers. Too bad the problem stickers on most laptops are put on by the manufacturers and are usually a pain to get off cleanly.
Turn your blog into an iPad Web app with Padpressed.
10 Free WordPress Themes for Small Businesses.
According to one politician, Girl Scouts breed “pro-abortion” lesbians.
A good post 9/11 column by the late Hunter S. Thompson that everybody should read.
Young gamer goes back and tries playing games older than him, and gets his rump kicked by a couple classics (I finished Contra with a friend of mine, but only because of the Konami code).
I’m amazed that space shuttles can ever take off, consider the amount of satellites orbiting our planet. You can see the entire mess in Google Earth.
Why our government never gets anything, reason #4817: obscene flowcharts.
Install the new versions of iTunes without the bloatware.
A local blogger (and friend of mine) is working on an Oregon XC Documentary and I’m sure I’ll know quite a few people in the final product.
Every app has a scary basement.
A good list of netbook operating systems to Windows.
A stamp I need for the oddball crap that ends up on my desk.
Ozone allows you to get instant suggestions from 15 sources to find what you’re looking for fast.

Check out some videos after the jump.

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September 13, 2010

Reading Material

Missle Command in 1KB of JavaScript.
How to automatically upload pictures to the ‘net as you take them (great for journalists).
I’m building a HTPC and am probably going to cancel my cable, and this wood computer case is going on my (never going to happen with my budget) wish list.
Set Bing backgrounds as automatically updating wallpaper.
Is Android surging only because Apple is letting it?
When you’ve done everything you can with Ruby On Rails, it’s time to meet the MVC web framework to end all MVC web frameworks: DOS on Dope, a modern MVC framework built on the awesome power of Batch scripts.
Charles Darwin’s ecological experiment on Ascension isle was probably his best-kept secret.
For you old-timers out there (like me): A big list of still functioning BBSs, mostly accessible via Telnet (though there are a few dial-in nodes there).
For fun weather graphs, pictures and tracking this hurricane/tornado/winter season, StormPulse is a fun little toy.
Didn’t know this: Google has a bunch of online classes, lectures and tutorials for a bunch of programming languages.
Wesley Snipes could have been Geordi, a part that ultimately went to LeVar Burton.
AMD has gotten rid of the ATI brand, making Radeon its own.
Gmail makes it easier to get through your inbox with priority inbox (somebody needs to make this a Thunderbird extension — or I just need to funnel all my accounts into Gmail).
Handy ways to make your USB sticks and Flash Cards easier to recognize in Windows.
Simplicity is highly overrated.

September 6, 2010

Reading Material

Where’s my red turtle shell for that guy that just cut me off? Mario Kart Symbols appearing on bike lanes in Portland.
If you have an iPhone 4, here’s a pretty good collection of wallpapers.
I’m doing a bit of research on creating a iPhone-friendly version of a site for my day job and the UiUIKit CSS and HTML framework is going to help out quite a bit, I think. PhoneGap, Appcelerator and Sencha Touch also look interesting as well. Booking marking that all for my reference.
I’m terried of older web developers because I’m becoming one.
Introducing JITB. a Java-based Flash player that runs pretty dang fast.
Because you never know when it will come in handy: File I/O in Every Programming Language.
Looking for a way to compress JS and CSS? Convert it to a PNG.
Great list of Lifehacker’s best Android apps.
What’s my computer doing? is a simple way to figure out what programs are thrashing your CPU and hard drive.
A graphic illustration of music industry licensing madness. That flowchart makes my head hurt.
How to disable Facebook’s new “Places” feature.
12 Great Ways to Customize Your Facebook pages.
Need to see if a site is safe for work before visiting? Variably Safe For Work might help.
100 Quality WordPress Themes.
That’s going to sting a bit.

August 24, 2010

Reading and Watching Material

Have some links and some videos (videos after the jump):

Top free Mac apps for Graphic Designers (though there are a load of apps there that would be useful for non-designers as well).
That fancy new iPhone4 has a glaring flaw with its antenna. It works great, as long as you don’t hold it wrong. More on Gizmodo.
A lorem ipsum tool that generates readable text.
Entertaining Facebook thread for text-adventure geeks.
Remember that whole fiasco with Conan getting kicked off and Leno getting his time slow back? Hasn’t worked out so well, as his ratings are lower than Conan’s.
If you’re prepping to launch a web site, you’d best go over these two checklists to make sure you’ve got everything covered.
No idea how well it works, but here’s a quick tool to convert spreadsheets into HTML tables.
Google Voice is now open for all (it will be tremendously useful to me when they get number portability).
Five awesome tools for Freelancers for Time Management.
The hilarious story of one woman’s attempt at running in the NCAA West Regional 5,000m race. As somebody’s who’s tried to run a race before when I was horribly sick, I feel her pain.
That Steve Martin guy is high maintenance when he’s on tour.
I just need a poster for my lost kitty. Why is that so hard?
How to setup OpenID on your own domain (here’s how to do it with a fallback provider).
YouTube gets a Vuvuzela button.

Videos after the jump …

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June 24, 2010

Reading Material

IBM’s Watson could kick your butt at Jeopardy!.
This is just mesmorizing to watch: Live train map for London Underground.
What it’s like to own an Apple product.
Amazing invention: insulin that doesn’t need a fridge or a needle.
10 Facts You Didn’t Know About Google.
Speaking of Google, they have a command line interface that does some pretty cool stuff.
Want a high-definition Google streetview photo? Here’s a way to get it.
How Xerox Helped Win The Cold War: Interesting story about sneaking cameras into copy machines.
Soluto is Anti-Frustration Software for your PC.
NYC (and the east coast in general) is full of all sorts of cool historical buildings and tidbits. Like this collection.
Thinkgeek gets a cease-and-desist letter for Unicorn meat, which is obviously a fake product.
If you’re a LOST guy (I’m not, but I’m looking at you, Jon), you might appreciate this island map.
Six organizations that you didn’t know were secretely badass.
Exploring the software behind Facebook.
Better security whenever possible: HTTPS Everywhere Firefox extensions forces HTTPS requests on some major sites.
Sexy tooltips with CSS.
Create PDF files with JavaScript.
A bunch of really good HTML5 and CSS3 frameworks.
Related: CSS3 techniques you can start using today.

June 21, 2010

Reading Material

Apparently Hollywood has only one prop newspaper and it’s used in a ton of shows and movies. It’s like the Wilhelm scream of the prop world.
One of these days I’m going to get an Android phone. Some Android reading: 10 Things Android does better than iPhone (though some of these are moot after yesterday), the new HTC Evo (I want, I want) was rooted before it was officially released, and why Android fragmentation might be its downfall.
CSS3 and HTML5 will take over the world. Or something: 48 Potential Flash-Killing Demos, Easy Link Prefetching, a bunch of good CSS3 techniques you can use right now, Apple’s HTML5 showcase (Safari only, which is silly), and 10+ Free HTML5/CSS3 templates to start with. If you’re wondering why you should care about HTML5, see this pretty graphic (and see how MSIE isn’t even remotely ready).
With the iPad getting as popular as it is, :hover might become worthless. Speaking of designing for the iPad, you’re going to have to take into consideration what happens to your design when the screen is rotated — here’s some CSS to help you out.
How the U.S. Government Killed the Safest Car Ever Built.
What’s the worst-case scenario for the gulf oil spill? Let’s ask Michael Bay.
Wired News (and Adrian Lamo) report alleged Wikileaks “Collateral Murder” video leaker.
What happens when you add Alka-Seltzer to a drop of water in microgravity?
More videos: Steve Jobs introduces the Death Star, Super Mario 64 Avoid the 1-Up and collect the red coins challenge .
Mapping the damn tourists.
Open source tools for working with dual monitors.
Notepad++ is moving off SourceForge because of an idiotic decision by SourceForge.
LifeHacker Pack 2010: Essential Windows Downloads (I really need to update my list).
32 Incredible Bookmarklets for your browser.

June 8, 2010

Reading Material

How to increase conversions on any Website in 45 minutes.
Why is Oprah replacing David Attenborough as narrator of Life? Personally, I think it’s stupid, too, as I’d much rather listen to David Attenborough than Orpah (yes, I spelled that right — look it up). But one redditer has a theory: “I’m sure Oprah loves nature. She’s certainly eaten her fair share of it.”
If you have an extra $20,000, you can buy yourself the ultimate chick magnet/repellent (be sure to read the reviews). Thanks Greg for that one.
Twilight is crap because it isn’t bacon.
Why ad blocking is devistating to the sites you love. Hopefully none of you are blocking ads on this site and are helping me feed my family by supporting our advertisers clicking on an ad or two or 12.
Resume in Google Maps. Probably would be worthless for me, since most of my jobs have been in Oregon.
NewEgg selling fake Intel CPUs, though obviously not intentionally. Just the same, everybody’s in a dither, even though I’ve never had bad luck with the Egg, and just recently discovered their business section.
The 12 biggest rip-offs in America.
What does Google suggest?
Yikes…RSA 1024-bit private key encryption has been cracked by fluctuating with the power.

March 10, 2010

I Need Sleep…

…but you don’t:

Why we should be eating horses instead of riding them.
Great use of Google Maps: Zombie Outbreak Simulator.
Help Save MySQL from Oracle.
International Backup Awareness Day — which is why I’m working on adding even more redundancy to my office and server backups.
How would you give directions with street names like this?
The best twitter prank ever: the Twittering Honeymoon Bed.
Ridiculous user interfaces and the men who create them.
What if other celebreties were in Star Wars?
Unnecessary Censorship: Sesame Street.
Coolest Kid Ever playing the Ukulele.
BendBroadband Launches “Nation’s Fastest Wireless Internet Service”. I’m considering using it for a failover connection at my office in Sunriver, where the local cable company has more outages than I’d care to deal with.

G’night!

December 15, 2009