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Battlestar Interview - Concurring Opinions

2008 Mar 3, 5:49An interview with the creators of the recent BSG on the topics of law, religion, torture, government, etc. wrt BSG.PermalinkCommentsaudio battlestar bsg fiction interview law podcast politics scifi

frontline: secret history of the credit card: watch online | PBS

2008 Mar 3, 4:18PBS documentary on the history of the credit card. Looks interesting.PermalinkCommentsvia:mattalyst documentary credit-card credit card economics education history tv video

The life and times of America's greatest hoaxer. - By Joe Keohane - Slate Magazine

2008 Mar 3, 4:16An article on the documentary of Alan Abel hilarious hoaxer. "The idea was to write a satire about a group called "The Society for Indecency to Naked Animals," or SINA, which would call for animals to be clothed for the sake of decency."PermalinkCommentsvia:mattalyst humor article Abel-Raises-Cain dvd movie documentary Alan-Abel cultural-disobediance

Identifying Vegetables with 20q Pocket Mind Reader

2008 Feb 26, 2:24

A shallot sliced in two.At the grocery store the other day Sarah and I attempted to find shallot for a recipe, but I can't tell the difference between shallot, sweet onions, yellow onions, etc. etc. We found something that we decided was the closest we'd find in the store and I believe we picked correctly because at checkout the cashier rang it up as shallot.

I think this could be a practical problem that the 20q Pocket Mind Reader should be able to solve: obtain the name of an unidentified object. When we got home I decided to test the 20q Pocket Mind Reader on shallot. Unfortunately, it told me I had an onion, but I think if these were designed for identifying unknown objects based solely on information you can obtain by looking at it, rather than requiring knowledge of seeds, where it grows, etc. it would do better. Or I could just ask someone who works at the grocery store.

PermalinkCommentsonion shallot toy 20q random

The Anonymity Experiment | Popular Science

2008 Feb 26, 11:28An article about a fellows attempt to be anonymous in his daily life.PermalinkCommentsprivacy article read popular-science

The Ebb and Flow of Movies: Box Office Receipts 1986 - 2007 - The New York Times

2008 Feb 26, 10:08"February 23, 2008 The Ebb and Flow of Movies: Box Office Receipts 1986 - 2007 Summer blockbusters and holiday hits make up the bulk of box office revenue each year, while contenders for the top Oscar awards tend to attract smaller audiences that build ovPermalinkCommentsmovie movies visualization via:swannman information graph

Mechanically Separated Meat - Blog Archive - Super Mario World vs. the Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Physics

2008 Feb 19, 8:57A video of a player's many attempts at the same level in a hacked Super Mario World game overlayed on top of one another.PermalinkCommentsvideo mario game quantum-physics via:boingboing

Schmap Licenses my Photos

2008 Feb 18, 1:34

Hotel Diva Computer RoomI got a FlickrMail from Emma J. Williams a bit ago saying that they wanted to use two of my photos in their Schmap San Francisco Guide online travel guide. So now you can see two of my vacation photos on the Westfield San Francisco Shopping Center Schmap page and the Hotel Diva Schmap page.

Westfield San Francisco EscalatorI think its wonderful that digital cameras are at the point where I really don't have to know much about their workings to produce a photo that's reasonable looking. And its thanks to Flickr and searchable tags that Schmap could find my photos. Since my photos on Flickr are all licensed under a Creative Commons license named Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic which only applies to non-commercial uses, Schmap, which is advertisement supported, kindly asked me if they could use my photos. I agreed to their license which was human readable and included wonderful stuff like I get in place attribution and the license is only applicable while Schmap makes their guide freely available online.

Previously I've only heard of folks having their flickr photos used without their permission so I'm glad to know that's not always the case. Or perhaps this is just Schmap's clever method of getting me to blog about them.

PermalinkCommentsme photos creative-commons shcmap flickr

EFF Sues AT&T and Mini History of EFF - California Lawyer Magazine

2008 Feb 3, 11:01FTA: "Like Klein, EFF senior staff attorney Kevin Bankston had spent much of the previous December reading press accounts of the administration's secret surveillance program. "It was all I thought about over the holiday," he remembers. In fact, at his bosPermalinkCommentsvia:boingboing eff article law privacy government history

New Scientist Technology Blog: Phones that plan their meals

2008 Jan 25, 1:54Research paper suggests location aware cellphones ask their owners to charge them when the phones see they're at home.PermalinkCommentsarticle newscientist research cellphone battery power microsoft

Crossing Four Way Stops Fast and Searching Closed Caption MCE Videos: More Stolen Thoughts

2008 Jan 22, 9:56

More ideas stolen from me in the same vein as my stolen OpenID thoughts.

Fast Pedestrian Crossing on Four Way Stops. In college I didn't have a car and every weekend I had weekly poker with friends who lived nearby so I would end up waiting to cross from one corner of a traffic lit four way stop to the opposite corner. Waiting there in the cold gave me plenty of time to consider the fastest method of getting to the opposite corner of a four-way stop. My plan was to hit the pedestrian crossing button for both directions and travel on the first one available. This only seems like a bad choice if the pedestrian crossing signal travels clockwise or counter clockwise around the four way stop. In those two cases its better to take the later of the two pedestrian signal crossings, but I have yet to see those two patterns on a real life traffic stop. I decided recently to see if my plan was actually sound and looked up info on traffic signals. But the info didn't say much other than "its complicated" and "it depends" (I'm paraphrasing). Then I found some guy's analysis of this problem. So I'm done with this and I'll continue pressing both buttons and crossing on the first pedestrian signal. Incidentally on one such night when I was waiting to cross this intersection I heard a loud multi-click sound and realized that the woman in the SUV waiting to cross the intersection next to me had just locked her doors. I guess my thinking-about-crossing-the-street face is intimidating.

Windows Searching Windows Media Center Recorded TV's Closed Captions. An Ars-Technica article on a fancy DVR described one of the DVRs features: full text search over the subtitles of the recorded TV shows. I thought implementing this for Windows Media Center recorded TV shows and Windows Search would be an interesting project to learn about video files, and extending Windows Search. As it turns out though some guy, Stephen Toub implemented Windows Search over MCE closed captions already. Stephen Toub's article is very long and describes some other very interesting related projects including 'summarizing video files' which you may want to read.

PermalinkCommentsstolen-thoughts windows search mce windows traffic closed captions four-way-stop windows-media-center

Howto: iPhone Webclip icons

2008 Jan 16, 2:53These are as bad as favicons! Boo on URI space squatting.PermalinkCommentshowto apple iphone icon favicon webdesign web ipod development via:swannman

Excercise Bike and Tacoma Screw Products

2008 Jan 13, 11:07

Sarah and I got an exercise bike on sale and when attempting to put it together found that it was missing a bag of about ten different screws. The manufacturer website said we could order a replacement bag for thirty dollars (!!) but since the instructions listed the various kinds of screws we needed I figured we could just go to a hardware store and buy them.

We started at Home Depot because I didn't know better. The screws are all listed in metric sizes which is apparently uncommon and a helpful senior worker forwarded us to McLendons whose stock was better but we were again redirected this time to Tacoma Screw Products.

Tacoma Screw Products is great! See them for your hardware needs first! The store has a back area with every kind of screw ever. I felt a little out of place as as all the customers looked like contractors. The employee who helped me explained the various options I had in screws as the bike instructions weren't as explicit as they could have been. In the end I bought all my screws for only one dollar (much better than $30!) and they all fit correctly.

PermalinkCommentsscrew bike personal tacoma screw products nontechnical

Vegas and New Year

2008 Jan 2, 8:57

Normal Sized Slot MachineTwo and half weeks ago Sarah and I went to Las Vegas where I got to see Jesse, Pat, Chris, and (briefly because he's some kind of big shot too busy for his friends now etc) Grib from college. They're mostly in San Jose and I hadn't seen them for a while so it was a lot of fun to hang out. We all stayed at the MGM which is a nice hotel with some good restaurants. In other Vegas related links, Sarah added Sarah's Las Vegas restaurant reviews to her reviews and Jesse has Jesse's Vegas photos up too.

Vegas DinnerSarah and I saw the Blue Man Group (video from a concert) and the Price is Right Live Show. The Blue Man Group was very cool although the music was all rock with a heavy drum focus (not depicted in the videos I linked) which I got a little tired of. But despite that I really enjoyed the show, very funny and I totally recommend it. The Price is Right Live Show is like the regular show on TV except the recording is not televised and its not hosted by Bob Barker or Drew Carey. So folks from the audience are still called up to play the same games and really win prizes. It was advertised as hosted by Todd Newton, B-list game show host, but was instead hosted by JD Roberto who hosted such things as "Reality Remix" and the show "Are You Hot? The Search for America's Sexiest People". The showcase showdown included the 2008 version of my car and thankfully I wasn't picked to compete for that because, well I don't know where they bought the car, but I would have gotten the price very wrong. We sat right next to the stage for that show and had a good time.

MGM Grand in Las VegasFor New Years Eve Sarah and I stayed in and watched the glitched Seattle Space Needle fireworks show from a safe distance. On New Years we went to a pot-luck at Todd's house and had a fun time. Todd's place is on the top of a hill and has a lovely view of Washington's snow-capped mountains.

PermalinkCommentsnewyear vegas lasvegas personal bluemangroup

Cycling around Seattle

2007 Dec 28, 8:23Todd's cycling blog.|Todd SahlPermalinkCommentsfriend blog microsoft bike todd-sahl seattle

Old Miscellaneous Thoughts

2007 Dec 26, 5:45Miscellaneous thoughts I had that would have been relevant many months ago:
PermalinkCommentspopfly apple personal history-channel indiana-jones pipes mac technical microsoft mashup yahoo nontechnical

Wired 13.08: Art Attack

2007 Dec 23, 8:48Banksy article and interview in Wired.PermalinkCommentsart article banksy graffiti hack humor wired streetart interview

How To Spot a Cylon - Propaganda Style Poster

2007 Dec 18, 11:18A poster with a checklist on spotting Cylons done in a 50's propaganda style.PermalinkCommentsvia:boingboing bsg battlestar art design howto humor poster propaganda scifi television wishlist shopping

Angie and Kane Went Away

2007 Nov 19, 12:35Angie and Kane Go Away PartyTwo weekends ago I went down to California for Angie and Kane's going away party. It was fun despite going to a country western club. It was a very large place with plenty of space for line dancing, a dentist chair turned into a make-margaritas-in-your-mouth chair, and of course a mechanical bull. Surprisingly, I did not fit in.

Jon's Go Away PartyThis past weekend Sarah and I went to the EMP and SciFi Museum. The last time I was there was for the Star Trek convention (I'm cool) and Sarah hadn't been before. We also ate in the attached diner which was acceptable.PermalinkCommentsemp seattle nontechnical

SMBlog -- 12 November 2007

2007 Nov 14, 2:56News on recent privacy related matters with social websites and Donald Kerr's redefinition of privacy. Lots of good links.PermalinkCommentsprivacy anonymity blog post article government politics donald-kerr steven-bellovin
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