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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

Cursebird: What the f#@! is everyone swearing about?

2009 Feb 10, 6:34Real time stats on folks cursing on Twitter. Shows percentage change in usage by curse word.PermalinkCommentstwitter humor language swearing mashup

Web Proxy Autodiscovery Protocol IETF Draft Document

2009 Feb 5, 8:39The long expired draft of the Web Proxy Autodiscovery Protocol (WPAD). To summarize, use DHCP and failing that DNS to find the name of a web server and on that web server find a Proxy Auto-Config file at a well known localtion.PermalinkCommentswpad proxy internet reference browser dns dhcp

draft-masinter-dated-uri-05 - names are readily assigned, offer the persistence of reference that is required by URNs, but do not require a stable authority to assign the name. The first namespace ("duri") is used to refer to URI-

2009 Feb 4, 4:30New URN schemes with no central minting authority. duri allows you to name a resource that was identified by the specified URI at the specified date (e.g. refers to the IETF's homepage at the end of the year 2001). tdb allows you to name a physical object or entity that was described by a resource that was identified by a specified URI at the specified date (e.g. refers to IETF the orginization as referenced by their homepage at the end of the year 2001). Date format is concise but I'd prefer RFC3339 rather than roping in another date format.PermalinkCommentsduri tdb uri url scheme reference ietf date datetime rfc

Meteorology Law of the People's Republic of China -- china.org.cn

2009 Feb 4, 4:16From Sorting it all Out wrt the weather gadget in Vista's sidebar, this link to China's laws on weather forecast: "Article 22 The State applies a unified system for the issue of public meteorological forecast and severe weather warning... No other organizations or individuals may issue to the community such forecast or warning." "Article 25 When the media, including radio, television, newspaper and telecommunication, issue to the community public meteorological forecast or severe weather warning, they shall use the latest meteorological information provided by a meteorological office... Part of the revenues from the distribution of meteorological information shall be drawn to support the development of meteorological service." Whether an application is legally allowed to provide a weather forecast is not an attribute I would have imagined necessary for a localization API.PermalinkCommentsvia:michael-kaplan china law legal politics weather forecast localization

The WHATWG Blog - Blog Archive - This Week in HTML 5 - Episode 20

2009 Feb 3, 11:15"r2719 specifies that browsers should not allow scripts to set document.domain to anything on the Public Suffix List, such as "com" or "co.jp". Essential background reading on why this is dangerous: Untraceable XSS Attacks. Most browsers already block this attack, e.g. Firefox since 3.0. [Background: Re: Setting document.domain]"PermalinkCommentshtml5 tld publicsuffix dns security html internet web reference w3c

STARMEN.NET - MOTHER 2 / EarthBound Music

2009 Jan 31, 1:47Music from the SNES game EarthBound. Time for new ringtones...PermalinkCommentsearthbound music mp3 mother2 videogame

Sarah and I Are Engaged

2009 Jan 30, 5:21

Shot on the RocksOver the previous weekend Sarah and I got engaged. I had a limo pick us up and take us to a park that has a beautiful view of the Seattle skyline where I proposed, then out for dinner and drinks including a bottle of wine for the ride back. What's the point of a limo ride if you don't drink while being driven around? It was a nice night and only had a hint of rain when we came home. We don't yet have a date set.

PermalinkCommentsengagement personal nontechnical

Gravity Bone

2009 Jan 29, 10:22Play this game now. Its like half of a delicious club sandwhich. Love the music. "To make it in Nuevos Aires, one has to have nerves of silk and the filthiest of hands. Mix together a batch of espionage, some high- speed car chases, fire-spewing assassins, and you've got one oven that'll never bake cookies again. We provide the pliers and you bring the moxie."PermalinkCommentsgame videogame quake gravity-bone humor spy espionage

Visualisation Magazine vol1

2009 Jan 29, 1:57A magazine in flash with various visualizations from around the web.PermalinkCommentsvia:infosthetics visualization art graphic magazine web

GROW TOWER(GAME) (EYEZMAZE --FLASH GAME--)

2009 Jan 27, 4:00"I'm very sorry to have kept you waiting so long. I've just finished New GROW !"PermalinkCommentsgame flash cool puzzle

shazow.net - Google's Lucky is fickle, too

2009 Jan 27, 10:41I just noticed that Google's Feeling Lucky doesn't work if your query contains a 'site:...' entry unless the HTTP request has a referer header pointing to Google. This person noticed too and wrote a Google App that acts like Feeling Lucky without this restriction. "It appears that Google has some secret threshold to decide when to get in the way of your destination like an angry ceiling cat catapulting itself onto your face."PermalinkCommentsgoogle im-feeling-lucky search http referer http-header app

metric fuckton@Everything2.com

2009 Jan 26, 3:18As used in a sentence: "There are lots of audio codecs. Did I say there were lots of video codecs? Forget that. There are a metric fuck-ton of audio codecs." (via )PermalinkCommentsmeasurement unit metric humor

DIY Pepsi Challenge

2009 Jan 25, 5:39

Deutsches MuseumMicrosoft isn't completely shielded from our economies issues but I still have a job and still get free soda. While that's all still the case, I decided to test Sarah's claimed ability to differentiate between Pepsi, Coke, and their diet counterparts by taste alone. I poured the four sodas into marked cups and Sarah and I each took two runs through the cups with the following guesses.

Soda Identification Challenge Results
Drink Sarah Dave
Guess 1 Guess 2 Guess 1 Guess 2
Coke Coke Coke Pepsi Diet Pepsi
Diet Coke Diet Coke Diet Pepsi Diet Coke Diet Coke
Pepsi Pepsi Pepsi Coke Coke
Diet Pepsi Diet Pepsi Diet Coke Diet Pepsi Pepsi
Total (out of 8) 6 3

As you can see from the results, Sarah's claimed ability to identify Coke and Pepsi by taste is confirmed. The first run through she got completely correct and on the second run only mistook Diet Pepsi for Diet Coke. Her excuse for the error on the second run was a tainted palate from the first run. I on the other hand was mostly incorrect. Surprisingly though my incorrect answers were mostly consistent between run one and two. For instance I thought Pepsi was Coke in both runs.

PermalinkCommentscoke microsoft waste of soda pepsi waste of time soda

PolitiFact | The Obameter: Tracking Barack Obama's Campaign Promises

2009 Jan 24, 2:42"PolitiFact has compiled about 500 promises that Barack Obama made during the campaign and is tracking their progress on our Obameter. We rate their status as No Action, In the Works or Stalled. Once we find action is completed, we rate them Promise Kept, Compromise or Promise Broken."PermalinkCommentspolitics news government obama election president tracking

Eco Cars: EDAG Showcases Electric, Recyclable Concept Car For Geneva Motor Show - Ecofriend

2009 Jan 22, 9:57'Dubbed the "Light Car," the concept car is designed to communicate with other drivers using a system of OLED lights, which rest on the some part of the body of the car including the front and rear light, in the form of an OLED display panel.'PermalinkCommentscar led communication sign signal

It's Me, and Here's My Proof: Why Identity and Authentication Must Remain Distinct

2009 Jan 22, 9:48"Revocation presents another challenge. If a system relies only on a biometric for both identity and authentication, how do you revoke that factor? Forgotten passwords can be changed; lost smartcards can be revoked and replaced. How do you revoke a finger?"PermalinkCommentsarticle microsoft security identity authentication biometrics

Paper: "moral panic" behind attempts to link games, violence

2009 Jan 22, 9:43'Behind the press reports, the academic community has been engaged in a hot debate over whether the evidence supports a connection between the violent content of games and any behavioral effects. One of the researchers who has argued forcefully that it's not is Christopher Ferguson, who has just published a paper that argues that the continued societal focus on games as a causal factor in violence is an example of what's termed a "moral panic."'PermalinkCommentsgame violence society videogames

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

Flickr: Search - Obama Street Sign

2009 Jan 20, 2:04"Early this morning in San Francisco, Bush Street was changed to Obama Street along its entire length, from Presidio to Battery."PermalinkCommentsvia:boingboing flickr obama cultural-disobediance streetart street sign photo
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