Public messages have got to be one of the most effective ways to raise public awareness. Most people have the correct instincts, just need to be reminded once in a while about their priorities or world happenings.

This is an especially neat way to do some culture jamming. I like it not only because the inner geek in me loves taking cheap electronics and repurposing them, but also because it doesn't involve any destruction of public/private property.

Disposable Camera Flash Billboards
http://www.hactivist.com/flashpoint/index.html

Since we're looking to make some cupcouture t-shirts for the fun of it, I scoped out a site that does one-off digital printing to t-shirts. http://www.zazzle.com. We'll see how it works.

If this isn't the future of photography in 5 years I don't know what is. Absolutely awesome.

http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/lfcamera/

The crazy thing is that it was done with off the shelf hardware. (albeit some construction needed past that and not cheap hardware) The ability to refocus a picture after you take it will completely change photography, this is a bigger shift than film->digital by far.

Some interesting facts on the changing PDA / Smartphone market. The landscape is changing quickly as hardware is becomming less expensive. It's just a matter of time until everyone can afford a smartphone.

Although, it's also interesting to note that the vast majority of units shipped in 2005 are "feature phones", which support basic SMS and some email, but that's about it. Smartphones and PDAs are still a small percentage of the market.

http://www.crn.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=162600037&flatPage=true

Some interesting facts about a new air-powered car.



- 200Km range on a single tank
- Tank costs about 2EU to fill (Aprox $3)
- No emissions, No combustion
- Oil Changes once every 50,000Km

http://www.theaircar.com/

Using USGS tiles which aren't always super nice, but still kinda neato UI.

http://www.inio.org/~inio/terrastream.swf

They look kinda interesting, just an interactive manual with some good examples really:
http://www.photoworkshop.com/canon/index.html

Another option using Mono:
http://user.cs.tu-berlin.de/~nowozin/autopano-sift/

And a walkthough:
http://rbpark.ath.cx/articles/create-panorama

Why the shuffle requires a special database is absolutely beyond me, but apparently you can't just treat it as the mass storage device it is:

http://shuffle-db.sourceforge.net/

An exciting new video game! Teenage Mum - brought to you as a public service announcement from those crazy people in Belgium.

I acutally thing this is great! I only wish we had clever advertising like this in the USA.



Click here for the teenage mum video:
http://www.boardsmag.com/screeningroom/animation/1146/

... how do you know it's getting better? (or worse)

Let's hope this isn't true - the source isn't yet confirmed. If it is however, it's quite disturbing to think that the administration might eliminate this information... It seems like it's the only way to measure progress on the war on terror.

from the seattle times: U.S. eliminates annual terrorism report

I found this on alexking.org, but it's originally from PHPMyAdmin. A Useful block of code...

It's sometimes hard to remember all the different form object names and syntax for Quickforms. It's a pretty diverse package for PHP enabling you to build out forms, validate them and submit them in a nice object oriented fashion.

Here's where I go when I Look for info.

The Linux Consultancy: PEAR HTML_Quickform

Looks like Macromedia has made a leap to mobile platforms with Flash Lite. They're offering a general rich-media development environment, as well as an existing set of channels with which rich content is delivered.




An interesting slide presentation can be found here.

- Flash profile specifically designed for mobile phones
- supports rapid application prototyping and deployment
- Enables consistent delivery of rich content across handsets
- Utilizes device capabilities with the runtime for bundled applications and interfaces
- renders dynamic engaging experiences

They also are discussing FlashCast, a content service:
- Channel-like mobile data service
- Delivered to subscribers consistently across handsets
- Easy to Discover, personalize and use.
- Voice, SMS/MMS and browser integration
- Pay per view billing.

Apparently they already have partnerships with Nokia, Motorola, Sony, KDDI and T-Mobile.

I'm needing to update the IR Analytics 4.0 FAB, and am doing a little research into what it takes to write a good one. It looks like there's a wide range of opinions out there - everything from list as many features as you can to focusing content on only the one or two things that really matter to customers.

Either way, Marketing is a black art that leaves you feeling a little icky when you're done with it.

Here's a methodology suggested by Catherine Franz:



Seems like good advice - Narrow your message down to the thing that counts - and only really discuss that. I wonder whether it's really practical in sophisticated software sales though.

Read the full article here.

CSS has been driving me nuts. In CSS, when you place content in a div tag, the background color will only extend around the area of the content. If you're trying to build a multi-column layout, then you're out of luck. One column or another will always turn up short, creating a really annoying effect of one column being shorter than the other.

Since a ton of sites don't seem to have this problem, I decided to start digging to figure out their tricks...

A few articles explain how to achieve this effect by... well, cheating. they use a background image on the page to simulate columns. They then use CSS as nothing but containers with which to place / format text.

I have to admit, I'm not terribly impressed with CSS. It seems like HTML is still better for some things (e.g. basic framework of a page through table structures) than using CSS in a hack-mode to achieve a nice layout.

The other thing that I find a little weird about the CSS-design scene is the way in which designers are boasting about their CSS prowess - but they're just hacking. The difference is that their hacks have catchy names... "Liquid Bleach", "sliding doors", "faux columns". I guess you need a catchy name to market yourself.

Here's are a few articles detailing the column approach:

A List Apart
Liquid Bleach (StopDesign)

Interesting to listen to some of these speeches:
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/top100speechesall.html

One particularly great one is Malcom X's 'Ballot or Bullet' speech. Fantastic. Basically he's talking that the black population was robbing itself in those days by not supporting their own businesses. Just like the old mining towns of old, any money they did make they spent at white-owned stored, therefore guaranteeing that they would not be able to move up the economic ladder. This was a huge point for him.

It strikes me that the same can be said today with how you spend. You can choose to buy goods manufactured abroad or by mega-corporations. And that money will leave your neighborhood, your city, possibly even your country. You are basically transporting you wealth somewhere else. That can be viewed as positive, but in most cases you are only making the mega-corps richer, making a few CEO's richer at the expense of some poor workers abroad.

So instead, buy local. Local produce, local products, think of who you are supporting. The parallel to Malcom X's plea is clear, though we choose to ignore it.

If you're looking for some quick how-to's on CSS / HTML layouts, here's a nice site that provides some handy tutorials.

The nice thing about CSS is that you can really control the layout of your pages through a stylesheet. This allows you to radically change the design / look and feel of a site with little to no HTML coding changes.

Don't be fooled though, CSS isn't exactly easy to wrap your head around - you still need to use DIV tags to chunk up your content - and the cascading nature of CSS is still a mystery to me... This blog page is the first CSS I've really written to take advantage of the fact that I can completely avoid tables now.

Anyways, the tutorials are below.

MaxDesign CSS Tutorials

Here's a site that's a greate example of how you can create a skinnable website using CSS. The content all remains the same, but with a few changes to the CSS, and some nifty graphic treatments, you can radically change the look and feel of a website.

I think this CSS thing might catch on...

CSS Zen Garden

I hate to say it, but MSDN is probably one of the most useful resources I've found for CSS and DHTML references. They provide a great cross-referenced list of css styles, object types, and attributes.

The downside is that the site is definately focused on IE features, which makes it a little less useful when developing across platforms like firefox / mozilla.

Oh... and by the way, it only really displays properly in IE. Go figure.

Worth checking out: MSDN DHTML / CSS Reference

And windows actually. Looks even more detail oriented than most commercial ones, worth checking out sometime:
http://hugin.sourceforge.net/

And a tutorial for usage:
http://hugin.sourceforge.net/tutorials/two-photos/en.shtml

I came across this looking up ugly dolls (don't ask). Anyways, WishingFish.com offers a wide collection of random knick-nacks you don't need.

Perfect for Kelly Turner's Super Startup Idea.

WishingFish.com

Ahah, this is exactly what I was looking for.. an easy way to start hacking
on Gnome:
http://live.gnome.org/GnomeLove

I came across some really cool toys for Chlo�. Here's a quick list just to keep them as a reference.

Radio Flyer Trike

Vroom Vroom Vehicles

My First Piano - Schoenhut Red Spinet Piano

More magical than he was before - although much more lame as well. The first one was much better than this sequal - but there you have it. It's hard to beat the original.

Magical Trevor 1

Magical Trevor 2

A really nice website with rich content and a fantastic design. This could be a good template for a political website to help reframe the debate for progressive politics.

Change This

Seems this isn't obvious
http://fedoranews.org/contributors/stanton_finley/fc3_note/#nVidia

Kinda neato, have to mess with these sometime:
http://gdesklets.gnomedesktop.org/index.php

Pretty easy install:
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-5464.html

For media servers (aka musixbox):
http://www.upnp.org/standardizeddcps/documents/MediaServer1.0.pdf

Quite a pain actually, but made nice and easy with
this boot/install disk:
http://wiki.osuosl.org/display/LNX/Debian+on+Dell+Servers

Qualifying Prospective Clients

By David C. Baker. Originally published by Recourses, Inc
<http://www.recourses.com> .
Life would be sweeter if you could just anticipate the quality of a
client relationship before accepting it. The ideal client roster has 3
clients, each of whom represents 25% of your work, and then 3-4 "feeder"
clients who comprise the remaining 25%, any one of which could become
significant in terms of billings.

That scenario is tough to find in the real world, but it's worth honing
your "dating" skills so that you are only spending time with
marriageable material. And the easiest way to do that is to ask
questions of the prospective client.

First determine who they've used in the past. You don't care so much who
it was, but you do want to know that they've used a firm like yours (or
better). If they haven't, and in essence you'll be breaking them in, run
like heck. This is the most important criteria. If they haven't used a
professional provider before, politely throw up a roadblock so that they
are scared away (or further qualified) at the outset. Note: even if it's
a startup, at least the decision maker has to have used a firm like
yours before.

Second, make sure the decision maker is spending a budget and not their
own money. Buy-in at the highest level is important, but when people are
too attached to their own money they skimp and bring the potential
results down with them.

Of course there are others things to consider, like chemistry, potential
billings, creditworthiness, etc., all of which should be evaluated.

But here's a quick question that separates the qualified prospective
clients from the really qualified ones: "what is your budget?" Ask that
question and pay careful attention to the answer. It is a watershed
identifier.

When asked about their budget, the prospective client will say: "Our
budget for this is $130,000." Then they'll follow it with a question of
their own: "What do you think we can get done for that amount of money?"

When that same question is asked of the unqualified prospective client,
they'll say: "We aren't sure yet what our budget will be [the first lie,
usually]. But here is what we need done. Can you get back to us with a
price?" They think it's like Priceline has come to the marketing
communications world, and they suspect you'll rip them off if they tip
their hand and let you see the budget.

A really nice website with rich content and a fantastic design. This
could be a good template for a political website to help reframe the
debate for progressive politics.

http://www.changethis.com <http://www.changethis.com/>

-Marc

Ok, so here's a go at it..

http://maps.google.com/?q=redmond,wa&output=xml

Returns us:
lat="47.674167"
lng="-122.120278"

39.5
-98.35

And we fetch a bunch of images with:
x = -589
y = -265
zoom = 5

If we plug this all into our equation:
x = -122 - - 98.35 * 32 * .7771 = 587?
y = 47.67 - 39.5 * 32 = 261?

Let's try another:
http://maps.google.com/?q=chicago,il&output=xml

Returns us:
lat="41.850000"
lng="-87.650000

Images fetched are:
x=261
y=-75
zoom=5

If we try to plus in the same way:
x = -87.65 - - 98.35 * 32 * .7771 = 266
y = 41.85 - 39.5 * 32 = 75.2

So it seems to work, but we have our signs messed up.. Basically the
equation is:

Aha, finally got a look at it and it's not bad at all:

Still doesn't talk about the latt->google id conversion but it's a start:
http://jgwebber.blogspot.com/2005/02/mapping-google.html

The nice tidbit is you can add &output=xml to any query and only get the
stuff you care about back.. very nice.

-Nic

It's somewhere in here.. whee
http://maps.google.com/mapfiles/maps.1.js

So neato..
http://maps.google.com/

Disecting it a bit.. the URL for a query is:
http://maps.google.com/?q=seattle

Particular frames are acquired via:
http://mt.google.com/mt?v=.1&x=-2367&y=-1039&zoom=3

The frame calculation is done via the result from the above query, which
contains this tidbit of stuff:



So the question is, what is the conversion from one to the other?

Seems too good to be true?
http://www.serverpronto.com/

Filed in 1980, so expired in 2000.
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?
Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/
srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=4207087.WKU.&OS=PN/4207087&RS=PN/4207087

Neat idea, but especially neat because it's easy to do with iPhoto:
http://www.mikematas.com/blog/2005/01/how-to-make-life-poster.html

From the mainframe days, still valid today:
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20050117_guidelines.html

Maybe things are getting better?
http://www.lungusa.org/atf/cf/%7B7A8D42C2-FCCA-4604-8ADE-7F5D5E762256%7D/SMK1.PDF

If I ever get that laptop this would be worth setting up:


3. Big Speed And Reliability Improvements For Software Suspend
25 Dec 2004 - 31 Dec 2004 (4 posts) Archive Link: "swsusp: Kill O(n^2)
algorithm in swsusp"
Topics: Software Suspend
People: Pavel Machek, Rafael J. Wysocki

Pavel Machek said:
Some machines are spending minutes of CPU time during suspend in stupid
O(n^2) algorithm. This patch replaces it with O(n) algorithm, making swsusp
usable to some people.
I'd like people to test this. It should probably spend few weeks in -mm tree
to get some beating. OTOH SUSE has variant of this patch in its kernel.
Someone reported tremendous improvements with this patch, saying that their
system would suspend in about 5 seconds, as opposed to a minute or more
without Pavel's patch. Eduard Bloch also found it very stable and reliable,
even after many many uses. And Rafael J. Wysocki added, "Confirmed. I've
been running it for quite some time with 2.6.10 on an AMD64 and it works
great."

When I have time?

Someone asked how best to get started with kernel development, and Christoph
Anton Mitterer (another newcomer) pointed him to Kernelnewbies. Jim Nelson
said, "Hit http://www.dit.upm.es/~jmseyas/linux/kernel/hackers-docs.html -
has a good selection of dead-tree and online references. The kernel-janitors
project - http://www.kerneljanitors.org/ - is a good starting point; that's
where a lot of kernel hackers get their start." Pedro Venda also remarked:
this has been very recently asked on the list. some of the suggested answers
were:
books:
linux kernel development by robert love
linux device drivers by Alessandro Rubini and Jonathan Corbet.
understanding linux kernel by Daniel P. Bovet and Marco Cesati.
(last two will have new editions soon covering 2.6 kernels)
Deepak Kotian had read and liked 'Linux Kernel Development', but wondered
when the 3rd edition of 'Linux Device Drivers' would be out; and Jonathan
Corbet replied, "LDD3 (by Jonathan Corbet, Alessandro Rubini, and Greg
Kroah-Hartman) will, it is hoped, be ready to be the star of the show at
LinuxWorld in Boston, next month. The online release will, as usual, take
some time to prepare; I can't predict just when that will be."

Good or bad?
http://www.treehugger.com/files/clothing/index.php

Vaughn's Enchilada Recipe

Something to note about my enchilada recipe, is that is in the Tex-Mex
style. for those of you who aren't familiar, Tex-Mex is very different
from authentic Mexican cuisine. it comes on large hot plates, dishes are
big and flat, often times there is so much spicy sauce that entrees
resemble soup more than solid food. the hardest part of this recipe is
the timing. it's easy to make it too soupy by not letting it cook long
enough - and it's almost easier to cook it down too much after it
reaches the right consistency. once you've made it a few times, you'll
find a sense of timing with it that'll make everything come out perfect.


another thing to note, I say ground beef for the filler and beef broth
in the sauce - but you can use any other combo if you'd like. I've used
shredded chicken, chopped steak and ground turkey as fillers as well as
other chicken and vegetable broths in the sauce. ground beef (the less
lean the better) and beef broth seem to produce the the best results for
me.


enchilada sauce:
* 1 qrt beef broth
* 1 tbsp of crushed red pepper flakes
* 2 tbsp vegetable oil (saffola's my personal choice)
* 1 1/2 tbsp butter
* 2 heaping tbsp flour
* 1 qrt beef broth
* 1 tbsp of crushed red pepper flakes
* 1 dash cinnamon
* 1/2 pinch allspice
* 1/2 pinch clove
* 1/2 tsp ground cumin
* 1/2 tsp oregano
* 2 toes garlic, peeled, but not chopped
* 1 1/2 tbsp tomato paste (or 1/4 cup of pureed or crushed tomato)

* 1/2 red onion, finely chopped
* ~1/2 tsp salt
* 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar (or white vinegar)


beef enchiladas/filling:
* 1 tbsp vegetable oil
* 1 solid round slice off of a red onion (which will be broken in
to round rings, like onion rings)
* 1 lb ground beef
* 1 tbsp chili powder
* 6 tortillas (either flour or corn will work, they should be
larger than 6")
* 6 slices of cheese - either queso fresco, mild cheddar, colby or
even jack will work.


refried beans:
* 1 tbsp vegetable oil
* 1 solid round slice off of a red onion (which will be broken in
to round rings, like onion rings)
* 2-3 cups of cooked pinto or red beans. (depending on how much
you like beans) drained, rinsed canned pinto's will work just fine
* ~1/4 tsp salt
* ~ 1/4 cup beef/chicken/vegetable broth or as needed


sauce:
bring the 1 qrt of beef broth and crushed red pepper flakes to a boil in
a small sauce pan. take the sauce pan off the heat after it reaches a
boil then set aside to let the pepper steep. make a roux in a 10" - 12"
fry pan by melting the butter with the oil and then mixing in the flour
over medium/medium-high heat - about about ten minutes or when it turns
golden brown. sometime before it turns golden brown, pour the broth
through a strainer (to strain out the pepper flakes) into a pitcher or
pyrex container. (something good for pouring without spilling.) when the
roux is turns golden brown start slowly mixing in the broth, in little
batches while constantly stirring. it's important not to put in too much
broth too soon or you'll get floury chunks/dumplings in the sauce - many
of which will not boil away, no matter how long you cook it. when you
have added all of the broth the consistency should be like a light,
creamy soup. add spices, garlic and tomato. (if you are using tomato
paste, pull out a little broth in a cup and mix the tomato paste into it
before adding it to the sauce to avoid lumps.) bring to a light simmer.
the sauce should simmer until it is the consistency of heavy cream. this
can take as much as 45 minutes and as little as 20. (depending on the
weather I think. I can't explain why there has been so much discrepancy
in times, that's why you should aim for the consistency.) a film will
try to form on the surface after a few minutes of simmering - it is
important to stir the sauce enough to prevent that film from becoming
too solid, about every 5 minutes or so.

in a separate fry pan, fry up the chopped onion in a little oil until it
is glassy. add to sauce.

about 10 minutes from when the sauce is ready, add vinegar and salt to
taste.

enchilada filler and beans:
while the sauce is cooking... separate the onion slices in to separate
onion rings. put two separate fry pans (one for the beans and one for
the beef) over medium-low heat with onions and oil in both. stir and
flip onions periodically so that they don't brown on the ends. when the
onions are just becoming glassy add the beef and chili powder to one pan
- taking care to break the beef up into smaller chunks while mixing in
the chili powder. turn the other pan down to low add the drained beans
and a little broth. mash about a quarter of the beans with the flat end
of a spoon until the beans start to blend with the broth. add salt to
taste. it's ok if the beans are a little soupy, they will eventually
cook down. if they get too thick, add more broth - they should still be
a little soupy when they go on the plate, because it's all going into
the oven when the enchiladas are built and you wouldn't want them to dry
out. stir the beef occasionally until it's all browned, then turn off
heat.

when the meet is almost browned and the beans and the sauce are almost
the right consistency preheat the oven to 315 degrees. heat up a skillet
or fry pan to medium heat (yes, I know, Another fry pan. karina likes to
call this my "every-pan-in-the-house-enchilada-surprise") while the
skillet is heating it's a good idea to set up the cheese and tortillas
so that they are easily accessible - the enchilada building process
needs to go pretty fast so as not to let the sauce thicken in the
process. one at a time, heat up the tortillas on the heated skillet for
about a minute - flipping once. as one comes off, another goes on. dip
the freshly heated tortilla into the sauce so that the middle of one
side is coated, making a thick line from one edge of the tortilla to the
other- this will be the inside of the enchilada. flip it over and fill
it with a line of browned beef down the center, on top of the sauce. (if
it doesn't seem like you have that much beef, it's because you don't.
remember, these are enchiladas, not burritos.) put cheese over the beef,
then fold over the sides, rolling it up like a loose cigar. place the
freshly wrapped enchilada (with the flaps on the bottom) off to one side
of a large, ovenproof plate (preferably one with a good-sized lip for
the sauce). then grab your next tortilla on the skillet and do it all
again. repeat this process until you have two enchiladas per plate, and
enough space on one side of the plate for beans. place a dollop of beans
to the side of the enchiladas. put cheese length-wise on top of the
enchiladas and then pour a healthy bit of sauce over the enchiladas so
that they spill over each side and cover the plate. put all the plates
in the oven and cook until the cheese has melted to the point that it's
sliding off the sides of the enchiladas. if you're using queso fresco
for cheese, crumble some over the beans when the plates come out of the
oven. serve on trivets so you don't burn you're table and enjoy!

serves 3-4 people (6-8 enchiladas) depending on how big you make the
enchiladas.

variations:
one of the original recipes that I based this on had a different method
of preparing the broth that I have only tried once. it is a lot of
trouble, and I'm not positive that it makes a whole lot of difference in
the final taste of the sauce, but is the authentic mexican way of
starting this sauce and is worthy of mention.

instead of steeping crushed red pepper flakes in broth... you take 10
dried ancho peppers, remove the ends and the seeds, slice lengthwise,
and the toast them on a skillet heated to medium-low heat. flip them
periodically so that they don't burn and *VERY IMPORTANT: make sure you
have exhaust fans goin and windows open, otherwise the effect is like
pepper spraying that entire area of your house! also, be sure to wash
your hands religiously and DO NOT TOUCH YOUR EYES during, or after any
of this process. (I learned all of this the hard way. buy me a beer
sometime, I'll tell you about it.) after the peppers are toasted, put
them in a glass and add boiling water. use a curved strainer to hold
them under the water - where they will reconstitute for the next
30-minutes to an hour. strain and then put the peppers in a blender with
a little broth and then puree them. mix this with the rest of the broth,
bring to a boil. then set aside and continue the rest of the recipe -
Without straining the peppers out. leave them in. as the sauce simmers
they become less potent and, apparently, add a lot of flavor to the
sauce.

another variation that I really like... is to take a small can (4.oz) of
chopped green chilies and put them in a blender with about a cup of
broth. about ten minutes before the sauce is done, (the same time that
the salt and vinegar are going in,) I puree the mixture and then add it
to the sauce with the salt and vinegar. this may add a little cooking
time to the sauce, but it's a wonderful touch.

and yet another variation... is to take two medium sized tomatillos,
(peeled with their outer shells off,) place them in a pot of boiling
water until one of them splits (like a tomato would in boiling water,
but it usually takes a little longer) then chop them into quarters and
put them in a blender with 1/2 cup of broth. puree them and then add
them to sauce in place of the tomato paste or tomato puree.

--

enjoy,

-v

Turns out this is hard to find, but a helpful customer service rep set me up
after I e-mailed them.

Well, ok, maybe not, but he sure is entertaining:
http://www.cis.yale.edu/record/media/developersmusicvideo.mov

Relevant to Hipster:
http://library.lp.findlaw.com/articles/file/00974/009078/title/Subject/topic/Communications_Internet%20and%20World%20Wide%20Web/filename/communications_
2_1699

A rendering plant that processes 250 tons of turkey carcasses into
biodiesel:
http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/18/18953/1.html

Too bad these are hard to come by in the states:
http://www.dansdata.com/firewheel.htm

By JWZ:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/jwz/198086.html

Nice analysis of their extremely 1337 javascript:
http://serversideguy.blogspot.com/2004/12/google-suggest-dissected.html

Yumminess!

http://seattle.indymedia.org/

If you define it as from the center of the earth, is actually Mount
Chimborazo, at 20k feet.

Would make a fun trip sometime..
http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/moments/s1086384.htm

In the public domain for games:
http://www.molotov.nu/?page=graphics

http://www.quirkle.com/

It's pretty much unanimous:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686

Since we've been trying to find some work on the side, this seemed like a relevant article. A number of bids we've done never resulted in a contract, despite some great work we did thinking about and structuring the problem. The proposals were solid, so what happened? Was it the cost? Was it the timeframe? Was it the fact that we were a small businesses? Or... was it that the client wasn't qualified properly?


http://www.recourses.com

Trying to delete a folder and windows won't let you? You can use this
little utility to find what file handles are open by which process on a
windows machine. Then you can kill the offending process.



http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/handle.shtml

Cool snd fx.

http://www.partnersinrhyme.com/soundfx/warsounds.shtml

Honda Diesel sedan in Europe:
http://www.carpages.co.uk/honda/honda_diesel_sets_new_world_records_12_05_04.asp?switched=on&echo=853430025

92mpg for a full size sedan. (accord) Goes 130 mpg to boot.

Yes there is very much a releation between HiptopConnection and HiptopTransaction. To send data do something like the following:



Where "username" is the user you are sending to, Data is a byte array, and 1
is the sequence number. The only thing the sequence number is used for is
that when the other hiptop recieves it will get the same number. This is
useful for keeping track of state. For instance in a game if you have one
type of data that you sent to start a game you can set it to 1, and then
when some one makes a move they can send a type of 2, and so on. Or you can
actually use it as a sequence number, for instance it would get incremented
each turn in a game, and if you get one other than the one you expect you
know that you missed one.

Now to receive is a little bit trickier, but not too bad. You need something
like this in your main class.



So like I said, its purdy simple.

More mac os X mods:
http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/docs/?page=What+is+Quicksilver%3F

Optimized versions of Firefox for specific intel processors:
http://www.moox.ws/tech/mozilla/releasebuilds.htm

Believe it or not, finding an alternate player from iTunes to play m3u
playlists is pretty much impossible. iTunes handles these playlists in
a bit of a braindead way, adding all the titles to your main library,
but not actually fetching the contents until the song is played. This
sounds logical but because of how iTunes sorts its library causes only
the first song to play then continues with the rest of your library
songs, not those in the m3u file.

This little bit of applescript I found on the web seems to fix things,
at least it's nice things are easily scriptable..

I love the concept of using commodity hardware like this. Powerful
processor, durable etc.. Perfect for the brains of your robot army.

http://www.charmedlabs.com/xportrobot.htm

And these are good pranksters..
http://www.cockeyed.com/

As a real deb, here's a quick walkthrough that made things easy.

http://www.martinfowler.com/bliki/DebianJava.html

Automatically starts a vncserver for specified users at startup for debian
distros.

Of a journalist.. oofta:
http://www.espritdecorps.ca/new_page_243.htm

Image 100+mpg running biodiesel. Not really that far off.

http://www.benerridge.freeserve.co.uk/es3.htm
http://www.benerridge.freeserve.co.uk/imogen.htm

http://seattle.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2004/05/31/story4.html

Inspired by spam headlines:
http://spamusement.com/

Very odd, strangely catchy. Most of them loop and you can't help but
watch it over.

http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/

Very cool concept:
http://www.emachineshop.com/

Their pricing is incredibly good. Order 10 and the price is downright
cheap. I could see this really changing lots of hobbiests who like
modifying their cars, bikes, motorcycles etc.. Not to mention allowing
small companies to create products for very little, as the prices get
downright cheap in quantities of 100 or more.

And a similar concept for circuit boards:
http://www.pad2pad.com/

Format for crossword puzzles, the actual format for .puz files doesn't seem
to be public knowledge, but it's easy enough to reverse engineer and lots of
people have done it.

Format:
http://www.taedium.com/python/acrosslite.py.txt

Sources:
http://www.fleetingimage.com/wij/xyzzy/nyt-links.html

Route info:
http://members.tripod.com/~Schryer/marymoore.html

These would be perfect as a 'remote' to musixbox.

http://m4i.homeip.net/

Tiny modification that's actually hinted at in the CSS template itself, this removes the two column format and makes it one column instead. Easier to tell the order of things and the format doesn't break on Gizmodo and the like which have large images.

Of course, this all requires Firefox, which after using regularly for a while I find vastly superior to IE.

Longest sport route in North America.. just have to get myself leading
5.10b sport.. doh.

http://www.alpinedave.com/garfield/infinite_bliss.htm

http://www.sgi.com/grafica/fold/page001.html

For writing software:
http://blogs.msdn.com/David_Gristwood/archive/2004/06/24/164849.aspx

A few people have actually climbed all of these, Pat'O'Brien of WAC fame
is getting pretty close.

http://www.mountaineers.org/club/peaks.html

Good mind expanding stuff on a variety of topics (mostly tech related):
http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html

These are weird. I saw a guy in Seattle the other day use them. He was
just walking along, crossing an intersection and all of a sudden he strarted
rolling across it (pretty fast) on the heals of his shoes. Very weird.. but
really, why haven't shoes evolved into something like this?

http://www.heelys.com/frame.asp?p=/advanced/videos.asp

We had some folks over this weekend and cooked a 6 course meal. One of
the courses was a palette cleanser, which was a grapefruit sorbet. We
stumbled upon this combination of sorbet and wine, which was absolutely
killer. Not bad for a $6 bottle of wine.

We served the sorbet in bowls we made from ice. The bowls had flower
petals frozen in them - it mad for an impressive course...

The Wine:

Domaine Des Cassagnoles (2003)
Vin de pays des cotes de gascogne

The Sorbet:

2 cups of sugar
2 cups of water
1 1/2 cups of pink grapefruit juice
2 tbs of grapefruit zest
4 tbs-ish grapefruit pulp
Juice from 2 large lemons.

1) Boil the water
2) Add the sugar, turn heat down to low, let the sugar dissolve
completely.
3) Take the water off the stove, let it cool completely. (should be room
temperature).
4) Add juice, zest, pulp. Mix well.
5) Pour into your ice-cream maker, turn it on, and let it go about 25-30
minutes (until slushy / firm). Pour out into a bowl, and freeze for at
least 2 hours.

The Ice Bowls:

Take two muffin tins (same size) - fill one up (3/4 way) with water.
Place the other on top of it. Put some rice in the depressions to weigh
down the tin. Place in a freezer, edges against the back and side of the
freezer to keep the tins centered.

If you'd like, drop flowers into the first muffin tin to freeze them
into the bowls.

A few Notes:

Only about 3/6 turn out. It may take a few times to get enough of them.

If the edges shatter when you take them out, you can sometimes "glue"
them back by wetting the edge that broke, putting the piece back on, and
putting it back in the freezer.

Having something that glows for 12 years would be useful on your
keychain:

http://www.gadgetwizard.com/product_info.php?products_id=125

Most of the time I just boil water, and this one is strangely appealing.
Only big issue is that fire danger can get pretty high here in the
cascades, but seeing as the fire is always enclosed in the furnace I
think that it would be manageable.

http://www.oldjimbo.com/survival/kellystove.html

Eric and I have been looking for a place to host HipTalk and other
projects we've done for the HipTop. SourceForge never accepted our
application, but BitKeeper's solution looks reasonably nice:

http://www.bitkeeper.com/Hosted.Overview.html

Only downside (if it is one) is that it's obviously not CVS, but BK,
which seems more similar to perforce with personal workspaces etc..
Probably a bit overkill for our purposes, but might be worth a try.

Marc found this recipe and adapted it for Salmon, absolutely killer. Note
that this makes a lot more marinade than is really needed if you are just
feeding two.

Everybody loves basking in other's misfortune, especially those with too
much money and expensive cars:
http://www.wreckedexotics.com/newphotos/exotics/

Check out that balance!

Not sure why this is useful to me, but I have this desire to keep a
bookmark:

http://hostip.info/

And not only that, I have an unusually large mouth. See?

Haven't read this, but did see some good quotes that seem to counter my
usual an