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Police Slog Through 40,000 Insipid Party Pics To Find Cause Of Dorm Fire | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

2009 May 31, 7:52"jeffgrako: HOLLA IF YOUR AT THE #FIRE"PermalinkCommentshumor video satire culture internet fire college phone

Infrared Paint Link Roundup

2009 May 29, 2:50

I like the idea of QR codes, encoding URLs and placing them on real world objects, but the QR codes themselves are kind of ugly. To make them less obvious I thought I could spray QR codes on to an object with an infrared reflective paint and shine infrared light on the QR codes, since most cameras, for instance the camera in my G1 phone, pick up infrared that our eyes do not.

In my search for infrared paint I've found a seller of IR ink (via programming forum) and an Infrared Paint Recipe (via IR FAQ).

In looking for this paint I've found that it comes up a lot in relation to the military for things like paint markers that are visible at night with proper equipment, and paint that absorbs IR light to make vehicles less obvious to night vision goggles. Even though the first reflects infrared light and the second absorbs it websites end up refering to both as infrared paint which made it difficult to search.

Additionally I found links to some other geeky infrared projects:

PermalinkCommentsir paint technical ir infrared qr qr code

Caught with Fake Info for Albertson Grocery Card

2009 May 25, 3:02

QFC grocery card barcodeChecking out at a grocery store to which I rarely go, the cashier asks me if I want an Albertson's card. I respond sure and she hands me the form on which I give up my personal information. I ask if I need to fill this out now, and she says yeah and it will only take two minutes, which surprised me because at QFC they just hand me a new card and send me on my way. I fill in my phone number as the first ten digits of pi so I don't have to worry about getting phone calls but its something I can remember next time I'm there and don't bring the card.

I turn to leave and the cashier asks me is that a '759' or '159' in my phone number. I stop for a second because I only know the digits as a sequence from the start and pause long enough reciting it in my head that its clear its not my phone number. And she calls me out on it: "Is that your real phone number?" I sigh, "No, does it have to be? Are you going to call me?" "Yeah," she says, "I'll call you." (ha ha) "Well I'll try entering this number," she says doubting the computer will accept the fake phone number. "On the number's already registered," she says, "So you already had a card." "No," says the manager who had walked up during for this exchange, "It means someone else used that same number." So the moral of the story is, try your fake phone number before trying to use it to get a new card.

PermalinkCommentspersonal2 pi albertsons

Where are you in the movie?

2009 May 5, 9:38"If we started a movie on the day you were born, and stretched it over your lifespan, this is where you'd be in that movie. So if you're a teenager, you might see Luke arguing with Uncle Owen, or Cameron making a phony phone call to Ed Rooney. If you're a retiree, you might see the Marshmallow Man, or Toto pulling away the curtain. And if you're in your mid-thirties, you might be relieved to know that Ferris is still eating lunch, and the Millenium Falcon hasn't left Tatooine."PermalinkCommentshumor clock calendar health movie

CSS - Contents and compatibility - mobile

2009 May 3, 4:42A comparison of the implementation status of various CSS features across mobile browsers.PermalinkCommentsvia:connolly css html browser web mobile android google iphone compatibility

WebGuide - Streaming TV, Remote Scheduling and Media Sharing for Windows Vista and Media Center

2009 Apr 20, 6:15Remotely set shows to record, watch recorded shows, etc etc for Windows Media Center. Lots of cool looking stuff I need to try it out. The old MSN Remote Record service is gone and in its place Microsoft has struck some sort of deal with the author of WebGuide such that its free!PermalinkCommentsmicrosoft windows tv mce plugin pvr cellphone remote free

Please help with PhoneStateIntentReceiver WORKING example :: anddev.org - Android Development Community | Android Tutorials

2009 Apr 20, 4:23Some folks stab in the dark at handling incoming phone calls on Android.PermalinkCommentsandroid phone cellphone api java development

whocalled.us

2009 Apr 20, 3:14This site does user generated reports on (mostly) spam phone numbers. They have a RESTful API to get at that data too! I'm looking for more like this.PermalinkCommentsapi phone spam search reference telemarketing telephone lookup

Send URL to Cellphone - QR Encode Accelerator

2009 Apr 14, 9:26

I've made a QR Encode accelerator around Google Chart's QR code generator. QR codes are 2D bar-codes that can store (among other things) URLs and have good support on mobile phones. The accelerator I've written lets you generate a QR code for a selected link and view it in the preview window. In combination with the ZXing bar-code scanner app for my Android cellphone, its easy for me to right click on a link in IE8 on my desktop PC, hover over the QR Encode accelerator to have the link's associated QR code displayed, and then with my phone read that QR code to open my phone's browser to the URL contained inside. Its much easier to browse around in the comfort of my desktop and only send particular URLs to my cellphone as necessary.

PermalinkCommentstechnical boring accelerator android barcode ie8 google qr code

Awesome Spokesmen Billy Mays and Vince Offer

2009 Apr 8, 4:06
Vince Offer photo from onebutan-iphoneBilly Mays photo from onebutan-iphone

There can be no doubt that infomercial pitchmen Billy Mays and Vince Offer are awesome, but how can I decide which is my favorite?

Infomercial Performance.
Among other things they sell Zorbeez and ShamWow respectively, both of which are absorbant towels so first up I can get a somewhat apples-to-apples comparison on informercials for comparable products. Thankfully someone has created a Vince Offer vs Billy Mays youtube video featuring these informercials.

Billy has an upbeat yell to everything he says while Vince has an endearing condescension to his "You followin' me camera guy?" In the end I must give this one to Vince Offer.

Extracurriculars.
Billy Mays has a new show Pitchmen on the Discovery Channel, a reality show involving folks pitching inventions to the pitchmen Billy Mays and someone else. Vince Offer was arrested for assaulting a prostitute. A clear win for Billy.
Intra-pitchman Interactions.
Billy has challenged Vince to a pitchman-off which on the surface sounds like a point for Billy, but if you listen to the challenge Billy says that Vince attempted to extend the olive branch. Billy Mays calls out Vince on the Adam Corolla Show
PermalinkCommentspersonal2 infomercial stupid vince offer billy mays

Platonic Ideals in Anathem and The Atrocity Archives

2009 Apr 7, 11:58
The Atrocity ArchivesThe Jennifer MorgueAnathem

This past week I finished Anathem and despite the intimidating physical size of the book (difficult to take and read on the bus) I became very engrossed and was able to finish it in several orders of magnitude less time than what I spent on the Baroque Cycle. Whereas reading the Baroque Cycle you can imagine Neal Stephenson sifting through giant economic tomes (or at least that's where my mind went whenever the characters began to explain macro-economics to one another), in Anathem you can see Neal Stephenson staying up late pouring over philosophy of mathematics. When not exploring philosophy, Anathem has an appropriate amount of humor, love interests, nuclear bombs, etc. as you might hope from reading Snow Crash or Diamond Age. I thoroughly enjoyed Anathem.

On the topic of made up words: I get made up words for made up things, but there's already a name for cell-phone in English: its "cell-phone". The narrator notes that the book has been translated into English so I guess I'll blame the fictional translator. Anyway, I wasn't bothered by the made up words nearly as much as some folk. Its a good thing I'm long out of college because I can easily imagine confusing the names of actual concepts and people with those from the book, like Hemn space for Hamming distance. Towards the beginning, the description of slines and the post-post-apocalyptic setting reminded me briefly of Idiocracy.

Recently, I've been reading everything of Charles Stross that I can, including about a month ago, The Jennifer Morgue from the surprisingly awesome amalgamation genre of spy thriller and Lovecraft horror. Its the second in a series set in a universe in which magic exists as a form of mathematics and follows Bob Howard programmer/hacker, cube dweller, and begrudging spy who works for a government agency tasked to suppress this knowledge and protect the world from its use. For a taste, try a short story from the series that's freely available on Tor's website, Down on the Farm.

Coincidentally, both Anathem and the Bob Howard series take an interest in the world of Platonic ideals. In the case of Anathem (without spoiling anything) the universe of Platonic ideals, under a different name of course, is debated by the characters to be either just a concept or an actual separate universe and later becomes the underpinning of major events in the book. In the Bob Howard series, magic is applied mathematics that through particular proofs or computations awakens/disturbs/provokes unnamed horrors in the universe of Platonic ideals to produce some desired effect in Bob's universe.

PermalinkCommentsatrocity archives neal stephenson jennifer morgue plato bob howard anathem

Chart Types - Google Chart API - Google Code

2009 Mar 12, 12:04Google's chart API can generate QR codes. Just specify in the URL the chart type as 'qr', and the data you want encoded and the returned resource is a QR code image for that data. Just installed a QR code reader on my phone.PermalinkCommentsqr barcode google api chart mobile web cellphone qrcode

Back From Vegas

2009 Feb 28, 2:21

Penn and Teller StageSarah and I met up with Jon, Scott, Jesse, and Grib in Las Vegas last weekend and we had a fun time.

PermalinkCommentspersonal2 monorail vegas penn-and-teller

YouTube - VMware demo showing two operating systems running on one phone

2009 Feb 27, 10:49Finally, you can play solitare on your phone while waiting for Android to boot with VMWare's mobile phone OS: "VMware has demoed its mobile virtualisation platform, which could potentially let users simultaneously run two different operating systems."PermalinkCommentsvideo vmware mobile phone cellphone os android google microsoft windows windows-ce

android-vnc-viewer - Google Code

2009 Feb 23, 6:00"A VNC viewer for Android platform. android-vnc-viewer is forked from tightVNC viewer. This project is still under development. ... When android-vnc-viewer is more stable, it will be available on Android Market. In the meantime you can install the development builds."PermalinkCommentsandroid vnc client viewer phone cellphone google remote g1 open-source

MyFonts Blog - Blog Archive - Introducing WhatTheFont for iPhone!

2009 Feb 11, 10:05"With the iPhone version of WhatTheFont you can use the phone's built-in camera to photograph the text in question (or choose an existing image from your photo albums)... After confirming which characters are used in the image, the app provides a list of possible matching fonts."PermalinkCommentsfont iphone camera typography

nru, another step towards magical augmented reality phones - Boing Boing Gadgets

2009 Jan 20, 2:20"Because the G1 has a compass inside, nru presents its data as a sonar-like spinning map when held parallel to the ground, but presents a snazzy augmented reality overlay when tipped up towards the horizon. It's easier to grok when you can see it in motion; there's a video up above."PermalinkCommentsg1 phone cellphone compass geolocation video android

Post to Twitter using the command line - Download Squad

2009 Jan 15, 10:28Thanks to Matt, for the first time I can see myself using Twitter. Twitter app on my phone notifies me when something's posted so my build process can let me know when its done, or when sync finally finishes, etc. I'd been meaning to setup a mini-notification system with a command line tool to my phone (w/o paying per text msg) but I didn't think of Twitter.PermalinkCommentsvia:swannman api internet curl cli twitter

Instaviz: Graph Sketching for your iPhone

2009 Jan 15, 8:00Cool application that turns your sketches into graphs. I wonder if this can ever come to my phone? "Sketch a rough shape with your finger and Instaviz transforms what you drew in a split second. Sketch a link between two shapes and Instaviz quickly redraws the graph with the best layout."PermalinkCommentsgraph visualization iphone graphviz phone software application development

Etre Touchy - Welcome - Gloves for your iPhone, iPod Touch, Nintendo DS, Blackberry, PDA and more...

2009 Jan 8, 5:49Gloves with the ends of the index finger and thumb missing for using phones and the like while keeping the rest of your hands warm. Good idea!PermalinkCommentsglove design shopping wishlist phone cellphone clothing gloves
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