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Paul Robertson pumps pixels for energy drink - Offworld

2008 Dec 30, 3:07I was not previously aware of Paul Robertson's videos which are done in old school video game style. His two non-commercial videos are pretty crazy. All available for viewing online...PermalinkCommentsvideo videogame paul-robertson music retro ad soda

A Reporter at Large: Atomic John: Reporting and Essays: The New Yorker

2008 Dec 29, 2:20"But the most accurate account of the bomb's inner workings-an unnervingly detailed reconstruction, based on old photographs and documents-has been written by a sixty-one-year-old truck driver from Waukesha, Wisconsin, named John Coster-Mullen, who was once a commercial photographer, and has never received a college degree."PermalinkCommentsvia:swannman bomb atom-bomb atomic-bomb history goverment nuclear physics security research science

World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> I played WoW, I became a terrorist (story!)

2008 Dec 29, 12:22"This wasn't my fault. Anyone could have dropped his stupid iPod in the toilet. It's really the government here. I mean, at this point the building contained six customs officials, an army of policemen, people from various security agencies, a bomb squad, and a couple of detectives."PermalinkCommentsipod toilet humor airplane plane security terrorism wow

Sam Kass's Blog

2008 Nov 17, 8:21"The organization is now five years old, and our membership is larger than ever. It is estimated that one out of every four people on Earth is now a devoted member. The secret language has been perfected-- it allows us to talk freely, and sounds just like normal small talk. Also, we have an order of special agents who are particularly dangerous, and are all disguised as normal people. Our goal is the annihilation of all paranoid people."PermalinkCommentshumor club paranoia sam-kass

The Roots: The Roots To Be Jimmy Fallon's Band; We Are Old And Sad

2008 Nov 17, 4:20"...he said that The Roots were retiring from touring in order to become the house band for Jimmy Fallon when he takes over Conan O'Brien's late night show next year. But that video was quickly pulled, so everyone has been scrambling to find out whether this apocalyptic... thing is actually true. NBC has no official comment, but we hear that it probably is. Essaywhuman?!!!??! This is one of those things that proves you're getting old."PermalinkCommentsvia:ethan_t_hein tv the-roots music

Keepon lite coming soon? - Short Sharp Science - New Scientist

2008 Nov 13, 10:30"There was bittersweet news for Keepon fans last month. The funky fuzzy yellow robot - pictured - is to be released commercially. But it won't come cheap - it carries a $30,000 price tag."PermalinkCommentskeepon robot dance humor video

I Voted

2008 Nov 9, 11:18

I Voted 2008 - Farewell to Polls by RedRaspusThis past Tuesday I voted in my first presidential election. Of course I was eligible twice before so don't tell my social studies teacher. I read about folks who stood in line for twelve hours waiting to vote but I personally had no issues. I found the voting location around 10am and it seemed appropriately busy: There were people voting but no lines. I came in and looked confused until an elderly lady gave me a paper to bubble in. The voting booth was more like a fold out voting table at a very awkward height and in the end my back ached. It feels better to vote in person and have a back ache after. Its more like I've accomplished something.

PermalinkCommentspersonal voting

OpenID being Balkanized even as Google, Microsoft sign on

2008 Oct 30, 12:13On hearing news of Live ID supporting OpenID this is pretty much exactly what I was thinking: "With every big portal acting as a provider but not a consumer of identity credentials, users are still going to wind up creating accounts for more than one service (says this user of Flickr and Google Calendars). When it comes to third-party sites, they may not need to remember a new username and password, but they will have to remember to which of the providers they chose to provide the credentials for their account. Anyone who slips up may wind up with three or more identities on a single website, with different data associated with each."PermalinkCommentsopenid identity microsoft google

Investigation of a Few Application Protocols (Updated)

2008 Oct 25, 6:51

Windows allows for application protocols in which, through the registry, you specify a URL scheme and a command line to have that URL passed to your application. Its an easy way to hook a webbrowser up to your application. Anyone can read the doc above and then walk through the registry and pick out the application protocols but just from that info you can't tell what the application expects these URLs to look like. I did a bit of research on some of the application protocols I've seen which is listed below. Good places to look for information on URI schemes: Wikipedia URI scheme, and ESW Wiki UriSchemes.

Some Application Protocols and associated documentation.
Scheme Name Notes
search-ms Windows Search Protocol The search-ms application protocol is a convention for querying the Windows Search index. The protocol enables applications, like Microsoft Windows Explorer, to query the index with parameter-value arguments, including property arguments, previously saved searches, Advanced Query Syntax, Natural Query Syntax, and language code identifiers (LCIDs) for both the Indexer and the query itself. See the MSDN docs for search-ms for more info.
Example: search-ms:query=food
Explorer.AssocProtocol.search-ms
OneNote OneNote Protocol From the OneNote help: /hyperlink "pagetarget" - Starts OneNote and opens the page specified by the pagetarget parameter. To obtain the hyperlink for any page in a OneNote notebook, right-click its page tab and then click Copy Hyperlink to this Page.
Example: onenote:///\\GUMMO\Users\davris\Documents\OneNote%20Notebooks\OneNote%202007%20Guide\Getting%20Started%20with%20OneNote.one#section-id={692F45F5-A42A-415B-8C0D-39A10E88A30F}&end
callto Callto Protocol ESW Wiki Info on callto
Skype callto info
NetMeeting callto info
Example: callto://+12125551234
itpc iTunes Podcast Tells iTunes to subscribe to an indicated podcast. iTunes documentation.
C:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunes.exe /url "%1"
Example: itpc:http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=35
iTunes.AssocProtocol.itpc
pcast
iTunes.AssocProtocol.pcast
Magnet Magnet URI Magnet URL scheme described by Wikipedia. Magnet URLs identify a resource by a hash of that resource so that when used in P2P scenarios no central authority is necessary to create URIs for a resource.
mailto Mail Protocol RFC 2368 - Mailto URL Scheme.
Mailto Syntax
Opens mail programs with new message with some parameters filled in, such as the to, from, subject, and body.
Example: mailto:?to=david.risney@gmail.com&subject=test&body=Test of mailto syntax
WindowsMail.Url.Mailto
MMS mms Protocol MSDN describes associated protocols.
Wikipedia describes MMS.
"C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe" "%L"
Also appears to be related to MMS cellphone messages: MMS IETF Draft.
WMP11.AssocProtocol.MMS
secondlife [SecondLife] Opens SecondLife to the specified location, user, etc.
SecondLife Wiki description of the URL scheme.
"C:\Program Files\SecondLife\SecondLife.exe" -set SystemLanguage en-us -url "%1"
Example: secondlife://ahern/128/128/128
skype Skype Protocol Open Skype to call a user or phone number.
Skype's documentation
Wikipedia summary of skype URL scheme
"C:\Program Files\Skype\Phone\Skype.exe" "/uri:%l"
Example: skype:+14035551111?call
skype-plugin Skype Plugin Protocol Handler Something to do with adding plugins to skype? Maybe.
"C:\Program Files\Skype\Plugin Manager\skypePM.exe" "/uri:%1"
svn SVN Protocol Opens TortoiseSVN to browse the repository URL specified in the URL.
C:\Program Files\TortoiseSVN\bin\TortoiseProc.exe /command:repobrowser /path:"%1"
svn+ssh
tsvn
webcal Webcal Protocol Wikipedia describes webcal URL scheme.
Webcal URL scheme description.
A URL that starts with webcal:// points to an Internet location that contains a calendar in iCalendar format.
"C:\Program Files\Windows Calendar\wincal.exe" /webcal "%1"
Example: webcal://www.lightstalkers.org/LS.ics
WindowsCalendar.UrlWebcal.1
zune Zune Protocol Provides access to some Zune operations such as podcast subscription (via Zune Insider).
"c:\Program Files\Zune\Zune.exe" -link:"%1"
Example: zune://subscribe/?name=http://feeds.feedburner.com/wallstrip.
feed Outlook Add RSS Feed Identify a resource that is a feed such as Atom or RSS. Implemented by Outlook to add the indicated feed to Outlook.
Feed URI scheme pre-draft document
"C:\PROGRA~2\MICROS~1\Office12\OUTLOOK.EXE" /share "%1"
im IM Protocol RFC 3860 IM URI scheme description
Like mailto but for instant messaging clients.
Registered by Office Communicator but I was unable to get it to work as described in RFC 3860.
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office Communicator\Communicator.exe" "%1"
tel Tel Protocol RFC 5341 - tel URI scheme IANA assignment
RFC 3966 - tel URI scheme description
Call phone numbers via the tel URI scheme. Implemented by Office Communicator.
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office Communicator\Communicator.exe" "%1"
(Updated 2008-10-27: Added feed, im, and tel from Office Communicator)PermalinkCommentstechnical application protocol shell url windows

Language Log - Congress plans bailout for grammar epidemic

2008 Oct 23, 2:18I had no idea lingual prescriptivists vs descriptivists were split in a partisan manner: '... The Secretary [of the Department of Education] released a report that includes dire warnings of impending doom...The cause of this immanent catastrophe is, of course, those pesky linguists, the libertarian destroyers of good usage who claim that, well, anything goes. According to the report, "the language problem has now reached the crisis level and we are now experiencing a severe epidemic of bad grammar that will affect the very fiber of our nation." The Secretary added, "an alarming number of children are suffering from the bad advice given by those socialist, left-wing, atheistic linguists and we just gotta do something about it."'PermalinkCommentshumor language politics grammar

Windows Vista Team Blog : Introducing Windows 7

2008 Oct 13, 3:26'But now is a good time to announce that we've decided to officially call the next version of Windows, "Windows 7."' No new name for Win7. That's one less thing for me to remember.PermalinkCommentswindows windows7 blog vista microsoft

Tom Ricks's Inbox - washingtonpost.com

2008 Oct 13, 2:40Watch out for too good to be true washing services (or free network traffic anonymization): "The laundry would then send out "color coded" special discount tickets, to the effect of "get two loads for the price of one," etc. The color coding was matched to specific streets and thus when someone brought in their laundry, it was easy to determine the general location from which a city map was coded. While the laundry was indeed being washed, pressed and dry cleaned, it had one additional cycle -- every garment, sheet, glove, pair of pants, was first sent through an analyzer, located in the basement, that checked for bomb-making residue." From the comment section of Schneier on Security on this topic: "Yet another example of how inexpensive, reliable home washers and dryers help terrorists. When will we learn?"PermalinkCommentssecurity history laundromat ira terrorism bomb

YouTube - KEATING ECONOMICS: John McCain & The Making of a Financial Crisis

2008 Oct 7, 4:52"KEATING ECONOMICS: John McCain & The Making of a Financial Crisis", Obama campaign's faux-documentary on McCain's involvement in the 80's Keating financial crisis.PermalinkCommentseconomics politics obama mccain video youtube history documentary

ANTLRWorks: The ANTLR GUI Development Environment

2008 Oct 2, 9:37Cool graphical ANTLR IDE! They didn't have this the last time I used ANTLR. "ANTLRWorks is a novel grammar development environment for ANTLR v3 grammars written by Jean Bovet (with suggested use cases from Terence Parr). It combines an excellent grammar-aware editor with an interpreter for rapid prototyping and a language-agnostic debugger for isolating grammar errors. ANTLRWorks helps eliminate grammar nondeterminisms, one of the most difficult problems for beginners and experts alike, by highlighting nondeterministic paths in the syntax diagram associated with a grammar."PermalinkCommentsantlr ide graph grammar tool free download development opensource java

HELLO, I'M FAMOUS STARRING JOHN HODGMAN: GQ Features on men.style.com

2008 Sep 30, 12:11"Before he was on The Daily Show, before he was the PC in the Mac commercials, John Hodgman wondered, just like you, about the very special world of famous people. Now he explains why being one of America's best-known minor celebrities is even better than you imagined"PermalinkCommentsjohn-hodgman humor article apple tv fame

How To Build Better High Fructose Corn Syrup Propaganda | The A.V. Club

2008 Sep 29, 2:33A short post on the topic of those irritating high fructose corn syrup commericals: 'Really, there's no way that you could make something called "high fructose corn syrup" sound good for you. Which is why, instead of irritating the public with defensive commercials featuring gross, brightly colored "juice," the Corn Refiners Association should just call "high fructose corn syrup" something more appealing: like "Deliciosity," or "Yummy Tummy Syrup," or "So You Think You Can Sweeten?" or "Fun Sugar"'PermalinkCommentshumor onion video corn-syrup corn propaganda tv commercial

The diskette that blew Trixters mind - Oldskooler Ramblings

2008 Sep 29, 1:45"So the manual is correct, and this truly is a mixed-format, mixed-architecture, mixed-sided diskette. This diskette has officially blown my mind."PermalinkCommentshack disk hardware history game computer

Sarah Palin's Hacked Yahoo Email Account Timeline

2008 Sep 18, 10:05Sarah Palin's Yahoo email addresses were hacked. I agree with the commenter: "I was just about to post how I feel bad for her despite disagreeing with most of her politics. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to attack her (or any politician), but this is clearly personal, not politics. From what I've read, this wasn't even the account she used for those communications she wanted to hide from subpoena, so the vigilante justice angle is BS. This is just plain mean." Although the last sentence of the following made me laugh: "A good samaritan in the /b/ thread reset the password account with the intention of handing it over to Palin, a process known on /b/ as "white knighting". This locked everyone else out of the account. The "white knight" posted a screenshot to /b/ of his pending message to one of Palin's contacts about how to recover the account, but made the critical mistake of not blanking out the new password he set."PermalinkCommentssecurity politics hack privacy government legal email yahoo

The Quantified Self

2008 Sep 16, 4:56All about self-trackers who track and graph all sorts of personal data. I suppose mycrocosm is like the self-tracker's twitter. "A quick overview of the emerging culture of self-tracking ran in the Washington Post the other day. Called "Bytes of Life: For Every Move, Mood and Bodily Function, There's a Web Site to Help You Keep Track." The subtitle is a gross exaggeration, although in time it will be true."PermalinkCommentsprivacy data social personal kevin-kelly

mycrocosm

2008 Sep 16, 2:44Update via the web, email, or your phone, stats on day to day activities. For example send 'lunch time' to create a new time dataset named lunch and then send 'lunch' when you eat lunch and it will note all the times you ate lunch. I was tempted to use this to see a graph of when I add delicious posts but it doesn't support importing old data. Don't think I'll use it but it uses OpenID perfectly.PermalinkCommentsblog statistics openid social graph visualization tool
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