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Tweet from Philip II

2016 Jun 9, 9:01
Silly Queen Elizabeth thinks her nation secure from our Spanish Armada. We will soon see @lizbet1533 in chains. No naval power. Sad!
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Tweet from David_Risney

2015 Oct 19, 9:37
Amazon Fresh just went up $300/yr. Angry and sad to switch services after ~5yrs. Alternatives recommendations? http://www.geekwire.com/2014/tough-swallow-longtime-amazon-fresh-customers-bolting-new-299year-subscription/ …
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Retweet of paulrust

2015 Mar 13, 3:15
If you haven't seen it yet... here's a music video for DON'T STOP OR WE'LL DIE's Lisa w/ @michaelcassady & @twittels https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yk4lp2GTdE …
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Retweet of TimHarford

2015 Feb 26, 2:01
Does using Facebook make you sad? The answer: yes, if you use it in certain ways... http://dlvr.it/8lzYyS 
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Words with Hints Windows 8 App Development Notes

2013 Jul 4, 1:00

My second completed app for the Windows Store was Words with Hints a companion to Words with Friends or other Scrabble like games that gives you *ahem* hints. You provide your tiles and optionally letters placed in a line on the board and Words with Hints gives you word options.

I wrote this the first time by building a regular expression to check against my dictionary of words which made for a slow app on the Surface. In subsequent release of the app I now spawn four web workers (one for each of the Surface's cores) each with its own fourth of my dictionary. Each fourth of the dictionary is a trie which makes it easy for me to discard whole chunks of possible combinations of Scrabble letters as I walk the tree of possibilities.

The dictionaries are large and takes a noticeable amount of time to load on the Surface. The best performing mechanism I found to load them is as JavaScript source files that simply define their portion of the dictionary on the global object and synchronously (only on the worker so not blocking the UI thread). Putting them into .js files means they take advantage of bytecode caching making them load faster. However because the data is mostly strings and not code there is a dramatic size increase when the app is installed. The total size of the four dictionary .js files is about 44Mb. The bytecode cache for the dictionary files is about double that 88Mb meaning the dictionary plus the bytecode cache is 132Mb.

To handle the bother of postMessage communication and web workers this was the first app in which I used my promise MessagePort project which I'll discuss more in the future.

This is the first app in which I used the Microsoft Ad SDK. It was difficult to find the install for the SDK and difficult to use their website, but once setup, the Ad SDK was easy to import into VS and easy to use in my app.

PermalinkCommentsdevelopment technical windows windows-store words-with-hints

Sadly, this is not The Onion

2013 Feb 28, 3:02

Not The Onion subreddit is for real stories that sound like The Onion articles. This is a compilation of those stories into a page that looks like The Onion.

PermalinkCommentshumor news

Why 'Nigerian Scammers' Say They're From Nigeria (microsoft.com)

2012 Jun 20, 5:05

Far-fetched tales ofWest African riches strike most as comical. Our analysis suggests that is an advantage to the attacker, not a disadvantage. Since his attack has a low density of victims the Nigerian scammer has an over-riding need to reduce false positives. By sending an email that repels all but the most gullible the scammer gets the most promising marks to self-select, and tilts the true to false positive ratio in his favor.

PermalinkCommentshumor security scam

Star Trek: TNG Season 8 illustration has us longing for more [Star Trek]

2012 Mar 5, 3:17

Fictional plot summaries of TNG S8 episodes.    Like:

  • Q’s back: he’s wearing scuba gear and needs Picard’s help dumping his girlfriend. Barclay accidentally locks himself outside the ship.
  • Geordie and Data nurse a space bird back to health, and are sad when they have to release it. Picard is trapped in a turbolift with a baby.
  • Starfleet sends a cantankerous admiral to boss around Picard during delicate peace talks. Data seems to have mastered bragging.
  • Riker’s ex-girlfriend arrives and dies, leaving behind a pile of glowing dust and a mystery. Picard is trapped on a turbolift with a horse.
  • A planet of suspicious docents abduct Riker for their museum of amazing men. Geordi and Data are too excited to sleep at their sleepover.
  • Picard is trapped inside a sentient turbolift. A clip show highlights the most memorable “Picard is trapped on a turbolift” moments.
PermalinkCommentshumor twitter tng tv

Sad bookshelf is sad...

2010 Nov 22, 1:52
So sad
PermalinkCommentstechnical

FORA.tv - Adam Sadowsky: Music, Machines & Life

2010 Jun 6, 4:39
Adam Sadowsky of Syyn Labs presents at Maker Faire about how Syyn Labs produced the Rube Goldberg machine for the OK Go This Too Shall Pass video.
PermalinkCommentsadam-sadowsky ok-go music video maker-faire

Spite Houses, built to piss off the neighbors Boing Boing

2009 Dec 18, 2:36"I somehow ended up reading about spite houses (homes built specifically to piss off a neighbor) this evening, which I had never heard of before. Flickr has several when you search the tags, including the sad story behind this house in Connecticut."PermalinkCommentshumor spite hose flickr image

All Together Now!: 30GB Zunes Failing Everywhere, All At Once

2008 Dec 31, 12:2730GB Zunes are all failing apparently. Its certainly the case with my Zune... sad. They're calling it Z2K9.PermalinkCommentszune fail microsoft music hardware

Clips: The Kids In The Hall Think Portal Is HILARIOUS

2008 Nov 20, 11:30KITH + Portal! "We're not sure how deep into the goof juice the Kids in the Hall were when troupe funnyman Scott Thompson started sulking and playing Portal in the back of the tour bus, but something got into Kids during this sad little gaming session. Yes, the comedic stylings of Valve writer Erik Wolpaw are most amusing, as is the struggle of watching Thompson attempt to do anything more than move a cube - uncrouch already! - but something tells me there's something magical in those cups. Thanks for the tip, Sascha23!"PermalinkCommentsportal video humor valve kith scott-thompson

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

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

& Teller (iTricks.com Magic News, Magic Videos and Podcasts - Blog Archive - iTricks.TV Pick Of The Day)

2008 Mar 8, 10:48"remember Dawn Of The Dead? Did you ever wonder how that horrifying turn of events would effect Las Vegas? What about specifically Teller, of Penn and Teller?"PermalinkCommentsteller penn-and-teller video zombie humor sad via:boingboing

SourceForge.net: ZPlet: A Z-Machine for Java

2008 Feb 25, 2:09PermalinkCommentsdevelopment if interactive-fiction java opensource

Ex College Roommate News

2007 Nov 9, 2:38Jon's leaving for Germany today which of course is sad. On Wednesday, Jon came over and we watched Hackers. There's a few things you probably wouldn't notice without repeated viewings of the film: In similar ex college roommate news, I'm going to California over the weekend for Angie and Kane's goodbye party. They're heading for Australia for like a year or something. Angie's got a blog about her travels but rarely seems to update it. I'll get to see Carissa and Elijah there too, almost completing the ex college roommate experience. To avoid confusion I should mention that unlike everyone else I know, Carissa and Elijah aren't leaving the country.PermalinkCommentspersonal nontechnical

Guy on highway

2007 Nov 4, 11:20This weekend Sarah and I went to Tariq's house warming party in Issaquah and then to Seattle for Jon's going away party at Pike's Pub. On the drive over, just after getting through traffic on I-5 South, I saw emergency vehicles lights on the North bound side and suddenly found my lane stopped. I found out why when a man ran from the left most lane to my lane the right most, then darted left one lane and back right again. Cars started leaving my lane and I could see the man now lounging on the pavement in front of a jeep. Apparently not hurt, he got up and started walking down the highway. He didn't appear to be in his right mind and after walking by our car Sarah reported it to 911. The rest of the night went on as normal and I had fun with Jon and his friends. It'll be sad to see him go next week.PermalinkCommentsnontechnical

Small World ride revamped for bigger passengers (CalorieLab Calorie Counter News)

2007 Oct 30, 12:29DisneyLand is updating the Small World ride to support fatter passengers. That is so sad.PermalinkCommentshumor health article disney obesity
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