« Previous Day | Main | Next Day »

25 February, 2004

Hacking iPod Mini

From stuido2f.com: Size matters.

The $249 iPod mini contains a $479.95 Hitachi MicroDrive. So the best deal on buying a MicroDrive for my D100 is to buy a iPod mini and take it apart. You get the MicroDrive for almost 50% off and you get a free pair of headphones. Slap an old compact flash card into the mini and keep on rocking.

The MicroDrive is 4 Gbytes.

(via Boing Boing)

Posted on 25 February, 2004

Write A Pro-Bush Letter

If you're a Bush supporter, you can go to the Bush Cheney 04 web site and write a letter to your local newspaper about national security.

And if you can't write or if you're unable to think for yourself, they make it very easy. Just click the "Talking Points" tab, and you can insert boilerplate text into your letter. For example, one click is all it takes to write this:

America is winning the war on terror. After September 11, President Bush acted decisively to rout Al Qaeda from their hiding places, and America is safer as a result. He continues to wage the global war on terror with focus and determination. Our military proceeded with skill and bravery to liberate the people of Afghanistan and Iraq, and ensure that weapons of mass destruction never find their way into the hands of terrorists.

If national security isn't your thing, they have boilerplate text for other topics.

Who said it's difficult being a political activist?

Posted on 25 February, 2004

Mouse Update

Regular readers may recall that I've had some mouse problems. I'm referring to the rodent variety, not a computer input device (see this, this, and this).

I tried several snap trap baiting suggestions, with no success. I also purchased some worthless worthless live catch traps. A guy at Home Depot suggested using a rat trap. I had one in the garage, so I set it up. The first night, I got a rat. The second night I got a bird. Desperate, I bought some poison. That killed at least one mouse -- maybe more. I'll know for sure if I smell decaying mouse flesh.

In the past two days, there have been no signs of mice. I bought some wire mesh and installed it in the spa vent where the mice were coming in. So any mice left inside won't be able to get out. But even better, mice will no longer be able to get in.

Hopefully, this will be the last time I write about mice.

Posted on 25 February, 2004

BIYOU

Care for a cup of BIYOU?

BIYOU concentration liquid is the nutrition cosmetics drink which condensed the sheep placental extract of the China Qing Hai Omi plateau said for air to be most clear in above sea level [ of 3,800m or more ], and the world 40 times.

The white sheep, which lives in this area, is excellent in vitality, and since it says that it is not polluted, it is exported to the West, such as France Canada, including the MECCA of a cosmetics plastic center treatment, and Switzerland. The sheep plastic center undiluted solution said to be the closest to People's amino acid composition was blended 40% or more into 10ml per, the know-how of cosmetics Chinese medicine was taken in, and the ample type, which is easy to absorb to the body whole body, was made for the first time in Japan.

Maybe something got lost in translation.

Posted on 25 February, 2004

Ultimate Computer Simulation?

From BBC News: US military creates second Earth.

The US Army is building a second version of Earth on computer to help it prepare for conflicts around the world.

The detailed simulation will be drawn from a real-world terrain database and will be drawn to the same scale as the original.

The software Earth is being created for the US Army by gaming company There, which is currently working on a virtual world for gamers.

Cool. Let's see how long it takes them to destroy the virtual planet.

Posted on 25 February, 2004

Polygamists Outraged

From the Daily Farce: Polygamists Outraged By Proposed Amendment Defining Marriage As "Between One Man and One Woman."

In a press conference today immediately following President George Bush's announcement that he is endorsing a new amendment that will define marriage as a union between 'one man and one woman', in essence making it illegal for same-sex marriages to occur, the United Polygamists Association, UPA, announced that this amendment would infringe upon their legal and religious rights to marry more then one woman at a time.

Posted on 25 February, 2004

Green Acres In My Head

For the past few hours, the theme song from "Green Acres" has been running through my head. Why? Because I visited Tom McMahon's site. I didn't even read the article. Just looking at the photo was enough to trigger it.

Posted on 25 February, 2004

Microsoft's First Web Site, Clarified

A few days ago, I posted a link to an image that appeared to be Microsoft's first Web site. Thanks to Scott (from Scott's Live Journal) for pointing out this interesting link: A Brief History of Microsoft on the Web, by Dave Kramer.

It seems that the image I linked to is legit. That site design existed from April 1994 through August 1995. It averaged 124,655 page views per day, and ran on three servers.

Here's a screen shot of how the site looked after it was redesigned.

Posted on 25 February, 2004

Bill Gates Goes To College

From the Daily Illini: Campus gets visit from Gates.

Before Gates spoke, about 15 students - one dressed in a penguin suit - handed out hundreds of CDs with Linux software, along with informational pamphlets about the operating system.

Posted on 25 February, 2004

How To Get Fired

Harmon Leon writes: Get Fired in 3 Hours or Less.

My goal was to find a job and get fired within three hours. But to make my challenge all the more difficult, the editors of this publication put forth the following ground rules:

1) I cannot put a single true bit of information on my job application.

2) I must be indignant during the interview process.

3) I must show up late for my first day of work.

4) I must talk in a fake foreign accent.

As you'll see, getting fired from Jack-In-The-Box is not easy.

(via Peterbe.com)

Posted on 25 February, 2004

Ultimate Boot CD

I haven't tried this, but it seems like it could be very useful: The Ultimate Boot CD. It's a bootable CD-ROM, filled with useful utilities. You can download the ISO image and burn it to your own CD.

(via Compact Framework Musings)

Posted on 25 February, 2004

Write Like Leonardo

Enter some text, and see how Leonard Da Vinci would have written it: Leonardo - Right to Left.

Leonardo wrote in Italian using a special kind of shorthand that he invented himself. People who study his notebooks have long been puzzled by something else, however. He usually used "mirror writing", starting at the right side of the page and moving to the left. Only when he was writing something intended for other people did he write in the normal direction.

Posted on 25 February, 2004

Bathroom With A View

From MSNBC: A new way to view London: from a toilet.

Visitors to Britain will find a new stop on London's site-seeing route this spring: a usable public toilet enclosed in one-way mirrored glass situated on a sidewalk near the River Thames. The contemporary art exhibit, which allows the user to see out while passers-by cannot peep in, toys with the concepts of privacy and voyeurism.

Posted on 25 February, 2004

Build A Computer

If you're short on cash, you may find this helpful: How to build a computer for almost no money at all!

There is a mystique surrounding computers - we are led to believe that they are sophisticated and complicated pieces of equipment that need to be built by trained experts using special tools such as "screwdrivers". This is simply untrue.

Building a computer is a surprisingly easy process that requires no technical knowledge or expensive components. Just follow my easy tutorial and you will soon have a computer powerful enough to play the latest games like Half-Life 3 and Doom 7 - for almost no money at all!

Follow the instructions, and you'll end with something like this (the rabbit is an optional case mod):

Posted on 25 February, 2004

Good News Only

Google News shows you all the news. Goodle News shows only good news. Unfortunately, the headlines are all fake.

Posted on 25 February, 2004

Astronaut Photos

The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth.

Our special collections feature choice photographs, description and captions of the best images of Earth taken by astronauts. The "Mission Highlights" collection introduces you to the breadth of imagery acquired by each crew. The "Earth From Space" collection allows you to search outstanding photographs by theme or geographic area. The "Cities From Space" collection is the fastest way to see how your city looks from orbit.

Shown here is a shot of Hurricane Dolores, taken in 1997.

Posted on 25 February, 2004

Headline Of The Day

From Poynter Online: Headline of the day. This is a collection of unusual headlines. They are real headlines from real news sources submitted by real people.

Posted on 25 February, 2004

Michael Jackson Soundboard

Here's another one of those soundboard site -- this time, featuring phrases uttered by Michael Jackson.

Posted on 25 February, 2004

Velvet Elvis

Get Velvet Elvis (and more) at the Velvet Store. Here is their biggest seller:

Personally, I prefer the Velvet Dogs Playing Poker.

Posted on 25 February, 2004

Googlemania

From Wired: Googlemania!

They named their new search engine Google, for the biggest number they could imagine. But it wasn't big enough. Today Google's a library, an almanac, a settler of bets. It's a parlor game, a dating service, a shopping mall. It's a Microsoft rival. It's a verb. At more than 200 million requests a day, it is, by far, the world's biggest search engine. And now, on the eve of a very public stock offering, it's cast as savior, a harbinger of rebirth in the Valley. How can it be so many things? It's Goooooooooogle.

It's 13 pages of Google articles..

Posted on 25 February, 2004