Start Me Up
Sometimes, people post things on the Internet that just plain make me feel glad to be living in a world where someone spent the time to make them up.
The “Lions In Kenya” and “Shirley Bassey Getting the Party Started” videos are two examples. Here’s another:
I successfully stayed up all night on Saturday night. We decided that our level 56-ers needed to hit 58 This Weekend, which we reached about 6 am. It was nice to know that I can still do that… a year of 10pm bedtimes had left me doubtful. Still, I had to down several Tums, as one of the tricks my body uses to try to get me to go to bed is surges of stomach acid. Also, I was kind of out of it the next day; so, I’ve learned from this that I can do it, but not easily.
Found a website that generates an automatically updated stat block I can use for my characters, like so…
Too bad that the servers are now far too overloaded with requests to actually function properly. (This one won’t update, it’s static.)
Local TV re-ran the Special Edition “Trouble With Tribbles” this weekend, so last night I dug out the “Trials And Tribble-ations” DS9 episode for Starr, who’d never seen it. Great fun! And then it hit me… there’s no way in heck that J.J. Abrams’ Lt. Uhura will be running around in that red minidress. Not in a 2008 feature film. I weep.
Plot a course, Mr. Mayweather
Here is a link to a picture of the flight deck of an Airbus A830, the largest passenger aircraft in the world:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/Airbus_A380_cockpit.jpg
Notice that the flight control sticks have been moved to moved to the side, to make room for the primary control – the laptop keyboard.
Note also, without comment, the two Windows-based displays in the front panel.
This is looking less like a plane cockpit, and more like the bridge of the NX-01.
Rrrrrrradar!
This is one of the niftiest uses of Second Life I have yet seen.
Using (time-delayed) FAA data, a company has constructed an (almost) real-time model of the airspace over LAX airport.
That’s just keen. I’d love to see a BattleTech game played in a similar manner.
If you are a programmer, this may be funny
I read a dduane post, bounced through a couple of links, and found lolcode.com:
HAI CAN HAS STDIO? I HAS A VAR IM IN YR LOOP UP VAR!!1 VISIBLE VAR IZ VAR BIGGER THAN 10? KTHXBYE IM OUTTA YR LOOP KTHXBYE
… I want a T-shirt. This is probably too big for one of trenn‘s buttons, sadly 🙁
A hacker’s machine
A little timeline here (without many dates, cause I can’t remember them):
2005: Apple announces it will be moving the Macintosh over to Intel-based motherboards. Geeks all over the place ask if they can run Windows on them too: Apple says it won’t intentionally block the ability, but won’t support it either.
Later 2005: We discover that Intel Macs don’t use a BIOS to start up their operating system, but something called EFI. Since all versions of Windows use a BIOS, this is a terrible incompatibility, making Windows on a Mac seem unlikely.
2006: Apple releases Intel Macs.
March 2006: Hackers are able to cajole, trick, and otherwise force Windows XP to boot without a BIOS. It doesn’t run great, but it runs. Other excited hackers start working on the “runs great” part.
April 2006: Apple, seeing that it’s about to run out of time on its little 10.5 surprise, says, “oh okay, we were gonna wait ’til later, but look. Here’s Boot Camp. Go ahead and install Windows. It’s beta software, so don’t expect much.” It runs great.
One machine that runs OS X, XP, Linux, BSD, and/or a half-dozen other OSes on command? I’m suddenly a little more interested in a shiny-new Intel Mac…
Adobe Priceyshop
From a humor website: Encyclopaedia Dramatica. I think this may actually be true…
“Photoshop: Adobe’s® professional photo editing software, often used to create background images, icons, image macros, and to airbrush webcam photos. Nobody actually knows how much Photoshop costs, because nobody has ever actually purchased a copy of it before. Every copy of Photoshop out there is actually the same pirated copy downloaded off of a file sharing system. In fact, it is now believed by computer scientists and warez kiddies that Adobe doesn’t actually even create Photoshop anymore.”
MacWrite? What’s that?
It’s quite trying to have to find 15-year-old install floppies so one can access archived stuff in an obsolete format. (And find a floppy drive while I’m at it.)
I should just thank Eris that the old software even runs. I need one of those Federation tricorders that can access 1000-year-old alien logs in 20-30 seconds of thinking.
Clearing the mental registers
Latest reading / writing progress: Finished a re-read of Tom Clancy’s Red Storm Rising, which is like The Lord Of The Rings of military thrillers; long and complicated, but internally consistent and plausible and worth the read if you can stick it out. Trying to read Terry Pratchett’s Men At Arms or The Truth, but I keep stalling in the early pages of each. Last year, Witches Abroad did a much better job of sucking me in.
Wrote a bunch of flavor text last night, and a few hundred words for “Cat Out Of Hell” over the weekend. Also figured out what the MacGuffin should be for “That Goat Doesn’t Belong To You”, making it more a part of the story and slightly less of a MacGuffin.
Our Lord of the Rings CCG is addictive, and I’m not saying that as an employee, either. raininva keeps killing me at the Bridge of Khazad-Dum, though.
I got honked at on the way to work this morning because someone mistimed his sudden acceleration and wasn’t able to cut me off as he’d planned. I guess he was trying to say, How dare you prevent me from being rude to you!
I did nothing for Mardi Gras last night, continuing a tradition I’ve maintained as long as I can remember. I will probably continue that tradition next month in a few months for Cinco de Mayo too. But at least Card Night will probably be a go this weekend – MarsCon and sicknesses have put a damper on the last few.
Just discovered NeoOffice, the OS X port of OpenOffice. Basic MS Word / Excel functionality, for free? I knew this had to suck… except it doesn’t. Now I’ve got it installed on all the machines I use at work or home.
And that’s Wednesday morning.
Weekend thoughts
Ocean’s Twelve had some really funny parts, but it wasn’t really a good caper movie. It’s so busy being cute and inscrutable that the we give up on the plot too long before the Big Twists are revealed. Still worth a ticket for the good bits, but don’t expect the coolness of the first one.
Continued musings on the plight of the superhero: if you have a Code Against Killing, but the serial-murdering super-villain you’ve just captured laughs at you and tells you he’ll be back on the street killing people in 6 months – and you know he’s right – what do you do? Break your code and make sure the villain can’t hurt anyone else ever? Or follow your code, knowing that the likelihood is that people will die for your choice?
Morning linkage: This is a keen Smithsonian webpage that allows you to sit in the cockpit of several aircraft, from a Spad to a Mercury capsule, using QuickTimeVR.
Saw the last of the Vulcan arc of Enterprise this weekend – it did not disappoint. As usual, a few quibbles – I’d have like to have gotten farther in the head of the main bad guy, and another character did something stupid for an excruciatingly long time before stopping and admitting he should have known better – but plenty of good stuff. Trip is growing up fast, and it’s great to watch; and the sehlat exchange was classic Vulcan dry humor. “You keep a pet – Porthos.” “Porthos doesn’t try to eat me if I’m late with dinner.” “Vulcan children are never late with dinner.” I’m back to being a regular watcher, I think.
I’ve had a cold or a bug or something for days. Sore throat and stomach issues all week, then weakness Friday and Saturday, and Boom! – Sunday was Drainage and Constant Sneezing Day. This morning, it’s nearly all gone away – I am thankful.
