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Brief Miscellany

2007 Oct 29, 7:07Two brief updates to previous posts:

  1. I noted that I had a new entry on the IE blog. Some comments on the IE blog have recently been rude in their request for information on future versions of IE. For example see the first two comments responding to my post. Feeling bad about that I looked at my posts entry on delicious and saw the following:

    "This is the first blog from the IE team that I have found rigorous and informative. I skipped to the bottom to find it was written by one of the TA's from my first class at Cal Poly."

    That made me feel a bit better and I was able to catch up with someone from college. Thanks Kris!

  2. I previously had my GPS set with an Australian accent. When it encountered 'WA', as in the abbreviation for Washington in freeway exits, it pronounced it 'Western Australia'. Now I've got it with a British accent and WA is just 'W.A.' but when I tell it to drive to 'MS', the name of my saved location for work, it pronounces it 'Manuscript'.
PermalinkCommentsmicrosoft blog gps personal nontechnical

IEBlog : URI Comparison Functions

2007 Oct 24, 1:19My blog post on unmanaged Win32 URI comparison functions.PermalinkCommentsie blog me uri microsoft win32 windows

IEBlog: URI Comparison Functions

2007 Oct 24, 6:20I have a new post on the IE Blog on the topic of Win32 URI Comparison Functions.
I've blogged there previously on the topics of IPv6 URIs in IE7, International Mailto URIs in IE7, File URIs in Windows, and CreateURLMoniker Considered Harmful. Hooray for URIs!PermalinkCommentsmicrosoft technical blog url win32 ie windows uri

The Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) : MSRC Blog: Additional Details and Background on Security Advisory 943521

2007 Oct 11, 5:57Notes on two URI & ShellExecute related Microsoft security issues.PermalinkCommentsmsrc shellexecute windows security microsoft ie ie7

Awesome Movies Unknown to Me

2007 Aug 12, 2:50Thanks to Netflix I've been able to enjoy several movies that I'd never heard of.



Brick is a classic PI film set in a modern high school. Its fun figuring out which high school students correspond to which film noir archetypes.

Primer is a sci-fi movie but it doesn't focus on action or effects. Its like watching an excellent Twilight Zone episode. I hate to describe this any further for fear of giving something away.

The Amazing Screw-On Head is an animated version of the one shot comic. It feels like the 1800s precursor to the The Venture Bros. and stars Screw-On Head, a steam-punk robot head thing and Abe Lincoln's top spy for occult matters.

The Quiet Earth is the movie version of the book about a man who awakes one day to find himself alone(... or is he?) It was made in the 80s and in Australia but don't hold that against it.PermalinkCommentsscifi primer movie amazing screw-on head personal netflix brick the quiet earth

Chicken Roundup

2007 Jul 11, 3:52I realized that I have short list of chicken related things I find humorous and they're all available for the linking to via youtube.

Chicken: The Powerpoint Presentation. This is a power point presentation of a research paper written in the language chicken. (video)

Bluth Family Chicken Dances. From the show Arrested Development many Bluth family members had their own chicken dance. (video)

Peter Fights the Giant Chicken. A man sized chicken fights Peter from Family Guy for multiple minutes in several episodes mimicking famous action sequences. I must admire the writers dedication to the gag. (video1, video2)

PermalinkCommentsroundup video personal chicken humor nontechnical

Wiimote wiissues

2007 Jun 7, 5:29The other day I had the best idea for my Wii remote. Clearly I should use it to control the rotation of Tetris pieces in my N-dimensional Tetris game Polytope Tetris. One of the issues I described with Polytope Tetris is user input. Given a Wii remote the user could rotate a piece through 3 dimensions in a manner that's much easier to adjust to than particular keys on the keyboard.

Anyway, I did a little research into how this might work. I knew that the Wii remote used infrared for absolute positioning and Bluetooth for everything else (LEDs, speaker, accels.) I bought a Bluetooth adapter for my PC after realizing that none of my computers had one already. I used GlovePIE to ensure that my Wii remote could connect and successfully communicate with my computer. GlovePIE is actually pretty cool -- it provides a simple script layer over the Wii remote to control things like your mouse.

Since Polytope Tetris is in Java I looked for and found a Java library for operating with the Wii remote and a long forum thread discussing its use. I then read up on Bluetooth in Java. Apparently JSR 82 is the name of the standard that describes the API a Bluetooth stack should expose in Java. That is, to get Bluetooth working in Java one needs an additional package for Java that actually implements the Bluetooth Java API. This package would depend on the system so I suppose I can't fault Sun for not including it... Where to find such a package? I found a comparison list of implementations and tried the ones that support javax.bluetooth. None of them worked for me because none can address USB devices it seems or they cost money and I couldn't get the trial version working. I also tried bluesock (not listed on the previous list) which seemed promising and could produce an address for my Wii remote as a connected device but couldn't use that address.

And I thought that after I found the Wii remote Java library it would be easy... Oh well...PermalinkCommentsjava bluetooth wii technical remote jsr82 tetris polytopetetris wiimote

Zoo Trip

2007 Jun 7, 4:35TigerA few weekends ago Sarah and I visited the Woodland Park Zoo (Finding its website I'm amazed that its domain is 'zoo.org'. Somebody in Seattle was quick on the domain registration.) I liked the zoo except for all the children. Human children... As visitors to the zoo... What did you think I meant? The kids are everywhere! Shouldn't they be inside playing video games or something?

Gorilla HomelessThere was a gorilla that was wrapped in a dirty blanket. It looked like a homeless person and very sad. I'm reminded of the episode of the Simpsons in which the octuplets work at the zoo and the scene in which while Homer is breaking out the children a gorilla tries to get him to take her child too. Looking for a clip of this to post here I can only find clips from the Simpsons in German for some reason. Like this one.

HipposTwo thirds or so of the way through my camera started running low on power. We were forced to choose which animals were camera worthy. Is it too common? Is it cute enough? Etc. Sarah took a very nice shot of some hippos under these conditions. Unfortunately I couldn't get a good angle and view of the Elephants. But they were cool and had an interesting habitat (that's zoo for large-ish cage.)PermalinkCommentszoo personal nontechnical

YouTube - Futurama: Deadly Deadly Bees

2007 Jun 4, 5:26Music video for Deadly Deadly Bees the lead song from the album based on the Futurama episode The String featuring clips from the episode. (youtube version take down, argh!)PermalinkCommentshumor music futurama video music-video

Atomic Raygun Attack!!

2007 May 24, 9:16Band has free mp3s including album based on the Futurama episode 'The Sting'PermalinkCommentsfuturama music humor video mp3

San Francisco Trip

2007 May 11, 7:48Hotel Diva BedAfter Carissa and Elijah's wedding Sarah and I went to San Francisco. We drove in, well Sarah drove anyway, still in the PT Cruiser Sunday morning and checked into our hotel, Hotel Diva. I was originally concerned that I wouldn't fit in as I don't really consider myself a diva, however the hotel was cool. They have Internet rooms setup in various themes, the front desk is always staffed, our room had a very modern look, and when we entered the flat-screen over the front desk was playing an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

Outside the SF Museum of Modern ArtWe walked around a bit before going to the SF Museum of Modern Art. There was a Picasso exhibit at the time which we could see for only $3 more. It felt kind of wrong like my ticket was super-sized. I think the most memorable piece I saw was three white panels which consisted of three blank panels. Art. Sure. After that Sarah wanted to see the giant Hello Kitty store she had heard of from her sister. We ended up going to the Westfield Shopping center which has a disappointingly average sized Hello Kitty store. Apparently the giant one is gone. That night we went to First Crush for dinner. I had a flight of wine which consists of three one-third sized glasses of various but complimentary wines. It was a great restaurant in terms of food, drink, atmosphere and service.

Sarah & I Pier 39The next morning we were even more the tourists when we went down to Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39. We visited the famous wax museum and purchased multiple pounds of taffy. On the way back to the Oakland airport we got to experience a little traffic as part of the 580 freeway had collapsed the morning we arrived and was still under repair on our way out. We survived of course and I think the trip went rather well.PermalinkCommentssanfrancisco personal california sfmoma nontechnical

Java Bluetooth.com - Development Kits

2007 May 11, 1:44Comparisons of features and prices of Java bluetooth libraries.PermalinkCommentsbluetooth java library download programming research:wii-remote

Missing Bee Roundup

2007 Apr 15, 4:06For the past several months I've seen various articles suggesting why bees are disappearing. At first I thought this was another crackpot's article that somehow made it onto digg.com. But they keep coming and sometimes from credible sources. After the article I saw tonight I thought I should go back and put together the various articles I've read on this topic. Bees may be disappearing due to pesticides, new organic pathogens, genetically modified crops, mobile phones, or climate change. Apparently, the US hasn't been keeping accurate counts of its bees so we don't know the extent of the situation. There's an interview with Maryann Frazier, M.S., of the Dept. of Etymology at Penn State and a congressional hearing on the matter.

I know this is all very serious and could signal the end of our ecosystem as we know it, but I can't help throwing in the following links as well. The bees could be hiding in this Florida couple's kitchen. Or perhaps they're laying low while being trained by the government to fight terrorism. Or they're hiding in extra dimensions that we mere humans can't perceive (I'm fairly certain that's what this article is suggesting. Really. Read it. Seriously. Its awesome.)PermalinkCommentsroundup personal bees nontechnical

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters

2007 Apr 15, 7:37Friday Jon, Daniil, and I saw Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters. It was really great. The quality of individual Aqua Teen episodes varies wildly but this movie was very funny. It was like watching an excellent episode that happened to be 87 minutes long.

I had some difficulty generating interest for the movie as many didn't think this was 'their kind of movie'. I asked Sarah and she said no but I talked to her about it again later after she watched a clip and she said she really didn't want to see it because it looked too weird. I asked her what she saw in the clip and she said a man with weird pants was talking with french fries while a drink was getting a meatball to push him around in a cart.

Well, when you put it like that it does sound weird...PermalinkCommentsmovie personal nontechnical

XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes Second Edition

2007 Apr 12, 12:35XML schema describes ISO 8601 date time formats including duractions.PermalinkCommentsdate time xml schema w3c syntax reference standard

ISO50

2007 Mar 30, 1:50Cool retro shirts and posters.PermalinkCommentscool poster shirt retro product shopping

Graffiti Research Lab - L.A.S.E.R. Tag

2007 Mar 15, 1:08Graffiti project using laser tagging to project a giant car mounted laser onto a building. Very cool video.PermalinkCommentsart cool graffiti movie video technology weapons laser projection cultural-disobediance

vLite - Windows Vista configuration tool

2007 Mar 12, 5:21vLite lets you create custom installs of Vista on a DVD. It lets you remove system components and drivers.PermalinkCommentsvista windows tools howto iso boot dvd free install

Mapping the Malweb - Interactive Map

2007 Mar 12, 12:46An interactive map showing where Internet attacks are coming from by top level domain.PermalinkCommentssiteadvisor map malware exploit security visualization

Episode 1 | You Don't Know Jack - BETA

2007 Mar 5, 7:34The game 'You Don't Know Jack' now available on the web (in a limited fashion). I remember playing this game way back when. Fun!PermalinkCommentsflash games quiz ydkj
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