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How to win friends and bullshit people
Magicians'll tell you that giving up the trick ruins the entertainment value. Bah. Derren Brown is a white-hat brain hacker for BBC 4, and his "tricks" are even more fascinating than cold-reading John Edwards type douchebaggery, because we're in it.
Things to do in Iowa City when you're a Nerdster
If you went to Iowa, you'd probably complain the whole time. The tough, on the other hand, get going. This guy saw that in Chinese crisis and opportunity are the same word, and got to work making a sweet ipod battery out of an Atari cartridge.
Alphabet Soup
Omniglot is a rather comprehensive survey of written communication. If you ever wanted to bring the Mayan alphabet back, this is the site for you.
More computer history
Today via BoingBoing, the history of portable computing. Via Slashdot, Icons through the ages. And someone within that slashdot thread brought up the history of Moof the Dogcow, which looks quite a bit like my Jersey dog Zuzu.
Using gmail with your browser
This may not apply to you. But if you're using gmail and gmail notifier, and mailto: links don't seem to work right, do this: Change the word "tearoff" in the url that comes up to "tf" and you'll get an email window. Please, Google, fix this!
Casual Encounters of the Third Kind
I can hear the conversation now:
"Emperor Zorq, we've received a transmission from a small planet in the Delta Quadrant."
"What are they saying?"
"They're selling something called a mint vinyl collection. They also want to sit on our face."
"Sounds harmless. Send a scout drone to check them out."
"Oh -- and, they're energetic self-starters who want a career in Entertainment law."
"Prepare my battleship."
Using Word Again
This might be an especially significant problem for web designers. For years, I've used word as an afterthought, something I print envelopes and resumes with, or a vessel for incoming information from clients. But it's designed to be used intelligently, and it's capable of separating semantics and presentation. From one of my favorite flash blogs, some tips on using Word the right way.
Drawing your subject lines.
Spamusement is like Exploding Dog but with Spam. Wow. That sentence would've been gibberish 10 years ago.
More on flash popups.
Remember this article on the oncoming threat of the Flash popup? An enterprising nerd has found a solution within Firefox.
Feeling Thirsty?
Mookie found a resource for the tippling web enthusiast: Droogle. Search for a drink name and up comes the cocktail. Plus, the liquor cabinet function allows you to go to war with the alcohol you have, not the alcohol you want.
Hack Your Way Out of Writer's Block
I've been looking for tips on this forever, as my ability to come up with content for this blog is often stymied by all-too-logical thinking. So here's Merlin's methods.
Could a Google Toilet Be Next?
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA - March 3, 2005 -
The recent hire of plumber Ed Kowalsky has the Internet abuzz with rumors that Google (GOOG) may offer a toilet service in the coming months. While Google has not released any official statement, technology insiders believe that the popular search engine may see a huge opportunity for profit in the lucrative home fixtures market, currently dominated by American Standard and Kohler.
Speculation about the gtoilet has focused on its anticipated feature set. "The possibilities are limitless," said Internet pundit Irwin Grimace. "Judging from past initiatives like gmail, we can expect a huge increase in storage capacity and a better user experience. Why flush when you have eight times the storage of other systems? A urinalysis feature could allow the system to gauge metabolic statistics and other medical data. And it goes without saying that the search function in a gtoilet would be nonpareil."
Others are more guarded in their anticipation of the gtoilet, citing privacy concerns. Anton C. Sousa, columnist for the magazine Desktop Weekly, noted: "If the Gtoilet follows the lead of Google and Gmail, the business model will be targeted ads. Sure, it would be nice to see ads for All Bran or Metamucil after an atypically long session. But do you really want internet advertisers to know how drunk you were last night?"
Details of the contract between Kowalski and Google are sketchy, but sources revealed that Kowalski has ordered three vaccuum breakers, a cone washer, and a j-bend from his supplier, and that he has only scheduled one week onsite with Google.
A whois of the domain gtoilet.com revealed no registration, and it is expected that attention to the gtoilet will wane somewhat on Friday, when a three-minute Japanese cartoon about a masturbating robot is due for release.
Eamesy Goodness
File Apartment Therapy under furniture blog, but stay for the classifieds.
The Drugs I Need
The Consumers Union has created this splendid spoof of drug commercials, in a style best described as Jibjab meets Ren and Stimpy. The only thing that would make this better would be removal of Comic Sans from the end.
And what the hell is this?
From within the Hitchhiker's Guide trailer:
I think they're testing to see if we're paying attention.
HHGTG gets all meta
The new trailer of Hitchhiker's Guide. It's about trailers. It really looks like they're not screwing this up yet. Here's hoping that Marvin doesn't become the next jarjar.
Will we have to turn off Flash?
Dominey writes about a creeping problem in the alternate browser world: ad slimeballs are exploiting Flash to circumvent pop-up blockers.
He's concerned that it could mean a flash-toggle feature in browsers. I think it's more likely that future pop-up blockers will disable javascript calls from within flash. It's a shame, because I use them all the time for clients. (not pop-ups, I need the karma)
New York 100 years ago
The Museum of the City of New York has a great photographic exhibit online.
Imagining a Microsoft Unix
At the heels of Dvorak's piece on the subject, another blogger wonders what a Windows based on Unix would look like.
