Useful Programs

I thought I'd compile a list of programs I use either on a regular basis or that I find useful. In no particular order:

1. Snitter. This Adobe AIR powered Twitter desktop application looks great, works great and I love using it. In my opinion the best multi-platform twitter desktop app, and certainly the best Windows-compatible twitter app.

2. PDF Creator is useful for converting a Word document into a PDF file, if the need arises.

3. ISOBuster/Daemon Tools/Infra Recorder see to all my burning and imaging needs.

4. Object Dock is one application I could not live without. Provides dock functionality for Windows similar to that found on the Mac.

5.DVDFab Platinum can burn from DVD to DVD, or convert the contents of a DVD into a generic or Ipod or PSP compatible format. Very useful.

6. Qwix can connect to your modded (original) Xbox via FTP and load, create and manage ISO files.

7. Azureus is my choice when it comes to peer-to-peer downloading.

9. Notepad ++ is pretty useful programming-friendly notepad with support for a variety of languages.

10. Firefox. Firefox 3 (Beta 2) is my choice of browser at the moment. Firefox 3 Beta 2 has been significantly more stable for me than Firefox 2 ever was. Stability issues with Firefox 2 saw me switch to Opera, and despite my love for it I desperately missed Firefox's plugin functionality. If Firefox 3 lives up to expectations, my switch back to Firefox should be permanent.

Pretty Porcelain Pieces (and awesome alliteration!)

Check out these pretty porcelain pieces plus pictures (wow! do I rock at alliteration or what?)

Intended to be a romantic heart-shaped tea-cup, some astute commenters over at boing boing pointed out that to a left handed user this resembles nothing so much as drinking liquid from a vaguely ass-shaped receptacle. How pleasant!

Personally, as a right-hander, I think the cup is pretty neat. For only $13 each why not?

Link (via Boing Boing)



This little piggy bank literally spills his guts when you crack him open; the intent being to disgust the owner into leaving the money untouched and the bank unbroken!

Link(via cribcandy)

Tweets for Today

00:18 arguing with Juliet about whether WoW is competitive. im of the opinion that the huge time investment needed is inherently uncompetitive #

00:53 From my Blog: Tweets for Today: 00:09 scientists find new drug that could "replace .. tinyurl.com/yqohvq #

01:10 downloading Diablo II...another one of those classic games ive managed to miss somehow #

01:14 i'm a bit burnt out from mass effect, but i'm going to give it another play thru after having a nice long break #

12:07 just finished downloading Diablo II, now im heading over to dads *sigh* #

21:44 I greatly dislike beaches, swimming and water. I believe I am something of an oddity, for an Australian. #

21:45 my internet is acting up, im having some trouble connecting to snitter and MSN but my web browser is functioning perfectly #

21:54 From my Blog: Links for the err past couple of days: Tidbits on TwitterThe picture on th.. tinyurl.com/2vw37z #

21:55 oh god...i just realised how many of my dads character traits i imitate...the way i sit, sigh, stand...even my writing looks the same. #

22:12 signing up for Remember the Milk www.rememberthemilk.com #

22:29 i think this is an interesting tumblog chrisunplugged.tumblr.com/ #

23:25 testing out twitteresce #

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Links for the err past couple of days

Tidbits on Twitter

The picture on the left which caught my fancy is from geekculture.com. I was actually linked to this from twitter. Link

An interesting article about the many uses of twitter is available here, I found it darn interesting; even if it was well over 140 characters ;-)

Another huge use I have found for Twitter is as a "knowledge network". A "network" of people to whom I can pose questions and - usually extremely rapidly - get back responses.

Tetris Packing
I found the picture on the left to be thoroughly awesome. I trust you do too.

Java Programming
Interesting article about programming and the manageability of coding large projects in static languages like Java. Link

RIAA, screwing customers, raping the law
Link

Eyescape
Pretty awesome series of photographs of various human irises. Scrolling through them is almost hypnotic! Link

Rock Band
Pretty cool video of some guy passing Tom Sawyer with 99% on expert on the drums. I could do that...

Tweets for Today

00:09 scientists find new drug that could "replace sleep" snurl.com/1vxbs #

07:06 From my Blog: Mass Effect: I received Mass Effect for Christmas, so I've been a bit pre-.. tinyurl.com/2ufwxe #

07:06 From my Blog: Tweets for Today: 00:07 now 15 hours in to mass effect # 01:35 arguing wit.. tinyurl.com/2gtcmc #

12:28 woo just finished downloading a bunch of snes roms :) #

12:38 extracting about 800 ROMS... #

15:36 about 26 hours into mass effect now #

18:43 30 hours into mass effect! and i've finished temple of the winds and moved on to soul of the fire. #

19:28 watching 300 for the first time #

19:41 spartans seem incapable of communicating in anything except shouts... #

23:18 well! just finished mass effect, in 35 hours. it was a very satisfying experience, great story, but I still think KOTOR had more personality #

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Tweets for Today

00:07 now 15 hours in to mass effect #

01:35 arguing with Phoy about the existence of god...i enjoy debating :-) #

01:35 From my Blog: Tweets for Today: 00:23 whew, 5 hours into mass effect and decided to take.. tinyurl.com/2b6zwo #

03:18 upon landing on an uncharted planet in mass effect i am notified that the big flashing exclamation mark on the hud is a "hidden base". orly? #

15:55 drinking a coke spider...delicious! #

18:55 really enjoying mass effect now. about 22 hours in #

19:16 wow really awesome article about twitter here snurl.com/1vx27 #

22:04 now that i think about it, i think that KOTOR has a more complex and deeper world than Mass effect; it has more personality. #

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Mass Effect

I received Mass Effect for Christmas, so I've been a bit pre-occupied to write any blog posts. Never fear however! Once I'm finished I will once again find time for compulsive blogging and/or twittering ;-)

Tweets for Today

00:23 whew, 5 hours into mass effect and decided to take a break :) #

00:54 From my Blog: Tweets for Today: 00:57 From my Blog: Tweets for Today: 00:16 @newmediajim.. tinyurl.com/29n4tq #

01:44 eating ice cream, topped with yoghurt, and reading (temple of the winds-terry goodkind) #

01:58 wired suggests info overload+interruptions (eg getting email) lowers productivity; imagine the effect twitter could have snurl.com/1v #

12:49 searching for beanie/balaclava manufacturers to work with #

12:53 good article on business and how to be creative snurl.com/1vuxn #

13:41 researching tetrominos (the blocks made famous by tetris) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetromino #

14:11 its always so awkward entertaining people you don't know while they wait for a friend or relative of yours in your house #

16:24 really starting to get into mass effect now #

17:00 i love nectarines #

17:20 annie's explanation for why she would bungie jump or sky dive: "if i dont, ive got no stories to tell god when i die ;-)" #

17:51 i want a twitter app that i can use to highlight a quote from a web page and then right click to twitter it along with a link to the source #

21:07 @motownmutt thanks, ill check it out #

21:17 @motownmutt not quite wat im looking for sorry :( it doesnt post direct to twitter which is what im really after. thanks for the help tho! #

21:17 @motownmutt it does look useful tho, i think i might check it out anyway #

21:31 @motownmutt yeah it isnt working so well for me either. this snurl.com/1vvg5 or this snurl.com/1vvg6 are better #

22:12 @motownmutt i prefer zoho as a service anyway, but it also offers a browser extension for ease of use. so you get the best of both worlds #

22:51 Mout-Eye Pictures! snurl.com/1vvi7 #

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Tweets for Today

00:57 From my Blog: Tweets for Today: 00:16 @newmediajim the ability to import blogger posts m.. tinyurl.com/2ddcky #

00:57 From my Blog: Hapy Fucking Whatever!: I saw this absolutely awesome all purpose gift wra.. tinyurl.com/3dz7aa #

01:04 signing up to del.icio.us ... i really am slow to adopt popular and useful services... (like twitter!) #

01:07 + check out toodledo www.toodledo.com #

01:43 @motownmutt hi there thanks for following my twitterstream :) #

01:49 just switched back to firefox 2 to test out the zoho notes plugin. can't wait until firefox 3 supports more plugins; its so much better. #

01:55 and if opera had plugin functionality to match firefox i'd be using it again in a flash. opera is a better browser but that really hurts it #

02:21 is there no way to edit a number of bookmarks at once in del.icio.us? i want to add a tag to a bunch of bookmarks at once..not one at a time #

02:25 @motownmutt oh and Merry Christmas! is it still christmas where you are? Christmas ended about 2 hours ago here- in Aus its 2 am ^_^ #

02:33 @motownmutt i hope you're having a great day! FL for now? Moving? #

02:46 sorting through my assortment of random bookmarks thanks to trying out del.icio.us- im findng a lot of interesting stuff id forgotten about! #

03:11 just realised i'm running on 3 hours sleep thanks to being woken at 7 on Christmas after a 4am...so THATS why i'm tired! off to bed for me! #

03:12 + sort through my del.icio.us tagging when I wake up, and can think sensibly #to-do #

12:57 heading out to see sylvie and alan, then i think i'll get into my new copy of mass effect! #

17:38 "the drawers here are so shallow, all they can hold is a tube of toothpaste...its like living in some sort of weird nightmare." -sylvie #

17:40 just played a couple games of pool with gordon and my godfather. even managed to win 2! its a fun game, we should get a table #

17:46 i really respect sylvie. despite how sick she is she never complains about it #

20:35 playing mass effect (just started it) #

21:17 slowly getting into mass effect...it starts out kinda slow #

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Tweets for Today

00:16 @newmediajim the ability to import blogger posts makes it a relatively painless ordeal, so i decided to give it a shot! #

00:50 wordpress didn't appear to support javascript/html widgets; only pre-approved widgets. my goodreads and twitter widgets wouldn't work :-( #

00:54 From my Blog: Tweets for Today: 00:15 awesome lego guitar for guitar hero! snurl.com/1vq.. tinyurl.com/28x4a5 #

00:54 From my Blog: Links for the Day: Lego GuitarSweet mod for guitar hero, this guy ripped o.. tinyurl.com/2t7ddt #

00:59 reading a chronology of the year in web 2.0 snurl.com/1vrq0 #

02:27 merry christmas to my fellow australians, and happy christmas eve to those of you in America! #

09:55 From my Blog: Merry Christmas: Ho ho ho and all that. Merry Christmas :-) tinyurl.com/2ggku9 #

11:26 just about to have christmas lunch. im starved! #

12:43 i should practice my indonesian, its getting a bit rusty...yaitu, Bahsasa Indonesia perlu saya latih #

16:24 sitting down in the rose and crown cellar chatting. #

16:26 its really cool in here! theres still the original well down here, used by the convicts to make beer in the 1800s #

16:44 getting a unique insight into the service industry, sitting here listening to the chatter of the staff. stuff like cost per head etc #

19:18 reading some more Order of the Stick, upto #376 now! snurl.com/1vskz #

20:43 wow its HOT. 41 degrees (celcius) today. i want to have a white christmas for once, i want to see some snow! #

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Happy Fucking Whatever!

I saw this absolutely awesome all purpose gift wrap a while ago, but it is particularly suited for Christmas! Having found it again I must post it before it is too late!

According to my clock I have 2 minutes left to post this on Christmas day/night.

So there you go ladies and gentlemen...Happy Fucking Whatever! Other cool giftwrap is available at their site. My favourite is the "Its the thought that counts...right?" wrapping. Though the site is listing them all as out of stock at the moment.

Merry Christmas

Ho ho ho and all that. Merry Christmas :-)

Links for the Day

Lego Guitar

Sweet mod for guitar hero, this guy ripped out the interior to his axe and placed it in a fully lego shell- complete with lego strummer, buttons and whammy bar. Awesome!

Apparently this is the third lego guitar he has made, and his best.

Link

Free Online Uni Courses
A lot of Universities are beginning to offer free course material online; notes, assignments, video lectures etc. You can find a great selection of Universities with the best free online courses here

Right now I'm perusing the Philosophy course on offer at MIT, which I'm finding extremely interesting!

EDIT: Found some old links, collecting dust in my bookmarks... Free Educational Podcasts and Free Education List

Le Web 3

Le Web 3, Fourth Edition was recently held in Paris. Originally a blogger's convention, it has evolved to encompass technology and the web. Key note speeches and panels from Le Web 3 can be found here. I linked some of my two favourites a few days ago, but they are all extremely enlightening.

Hand Bell Hero
In the spirit of Christmas comes Hand Bell Hero! Who needs Rock Band or Guitar Hero when you can rock out to tunes like Jingle Bells in this neat little rhythm game?

Megaman turns 20 and platformers.net gives a very nice rundown of its history.

Scientists Inscribe 300k Words Onto Pinhead
It took scientists 60 minutes to inscribe the hebrew bible - approximately 300,000 words - onto a pinhead, demonstrating that eventually vast amounts of data could be stored on bio-molecules and DNA.

Death Penalties
Website eldergame.com has an interesting look at the effect of death penalties in MMO's. Not too long, and despite the fact I no longer play WoW, I found it to be quite thought provoking; i lap that sort of game-design stuff up.

Tweets for Today

00:15 awesome lego guitar for guitar hero! snurl.com/1vqep #

00:42 From my Blog: Tweets for Today: 02:12 finally succumbed and created a facebook account #.. tinyurl.com/3dam67 #

00:54 reading The Order of the Stick #71 snurl.com/1vqfz #

01:56 just before i head off to bed...megaman turns 20 today (snurl.com/1vqhk), and as my homage i've been playing megaman 3 on nester :) #

03:37 + remember to bring favourites over from opera, sort them #

13:19 reading the best web2.0 applications for education snurl.com/1vr44 #

13:30 seems like windows live messenger is going to integrate with google talk snurl.com/1vr56 #

14:31 reading my news feeds, which have seen a dramatic increase since i joined twitter and started actively searching for more feeds #

14:48 On Jan 20, '08, Australia will introduce ridiculous content restriction system for adult content snurl.com/1vr8j #

15:32 i just remembered its christmas eve... #

15:38 ugh, sorting through the mess of bookmarks i have...i really need to think about organising them AS i bookmark #

16:18 don't glaze me, bro! snurl.com/1vrdo #

16:37 still have a lot of books left to add on my goodreads account... #

16:42 From my Blog: Tis the Christmas Season: Well, tomorrow is Christmas Day, and I hope to b.. tinyurl.com/yrscdc #

16:42 From my Blog: Don't Glaze Me, Bro!: Following from the popularity of Dont Tase Me, Bro! .. tinyurl.com/3bcbm2 #

16:42 From my Blog: Wired Foot-in-Mouth Awards: Wired has an article about the top foot-in-mou.. tinyurl.com/2x5emz #

16:55 checking out FON; worldwide wi-fi sharing service snurl.com/1vreh #

17:28 The Order of the Stick is HILARIOUS snurl.com/1vrfd #

17:33 i should get around to tagging my books on goodread... #

17:40 reading temple of the winds (terry goodkind), about to put out a blog post, and reading Evidential Arguments from Evil from MIT philsophy #

18:17 phew, just survived a whirlwind session of gift-wrapping. i pity whoever ends up with the gifts I wrapped-ugly little things that they are #

18:44 heading off to a christmas eve dinner with Jen's family. yawn. #

22:15 just saved my dads ass after he forgot to buy his wife a present. i grabbed a new book off my shelf and wrapped it while he distracted her! #

22:54 cinematographers party! ;-) #

23:00 being regaled with tales of Pablo Brown, i should write these down some day! #

23:36 @newmediajim i recently started an account at blogger, but am thinking of moving to wordpress. is it worth the move in your opinion? #

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Wired Foot-in-Mouth Awards

Wired has an article about the top foot-in-mouth moments of 2007. This one is my favourite of the bunch:

James Watson, the co-discoverer of DNA, talked his way into retirement by telling a London newspaper that he feared for Africa because black people aren't as smart as whites.

Watson told The Sunday Times he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours -- whereas all the testing says, not really."

Watson subsequently resigned his position. After he published his sequenced genome online later in the year, Nobel Prize winner Watson was found to have 16 times more genes of black origin than a typical white European.

That certainly came back to bite him!

Link

Don't Glaze Me, Bro!

Following from the popularity of Dont Tase Me, Bro! comes this hilarious picture created by Boing Boing reader Marty Z. It is available for purchase in t-shirt form too!

Link (via Boing Boing)

Tis the Christmas Season

Well, tomorrow is Christmas Day, and I hope to be inundate with books, glorious books. An iPhone would be cool, but considering they haven't been released in Australia...maybe I'll get a Nokia N810, that thing looks absolutely sick. You can see I haven't lost touch with the true meaning of christmas ;-)

Tweets for Today

02:12 finally succumbed and created a facebook account #

02:14 + remember for later, there is a great list of snes roms available here: snurl.com/1vp90 #

03:14 From my Blog: Tweets for Today: 00:06 the last episode of weeds season 2 was absolutely .. tinyurl.com/3d2lk2 #

03:30 @newmediajim hi! i'm new to twitter, saw you on tweeterboard, and thought your updates looked interesting so i thought i might add you! #

03:53 in just a few short days Twitter has me completely hooked...i'm really starting to love this service #

04:06 reading The Off Chance Num 140 (snurl.com/1vpdb), then heading to bed #

04:11 i really need to start keeping normal hours...starting tomorrow no more going to bed at 4 in the morning... #

14:05 i think i'm going to be reading today (Temple of the Winds-Terry Goodkind) and sorting my books on Goodreads.com. i still have plenty to add #

14:27 cataloguing my Raymond Feist books (riftwar saga, serpentwar saga etc.) on my Goodreads profile: snurl.com/1vpyg #

15:19 i just found a collection of my childhood books while sorting thru my books for Goodreads.com! I loved these books! This is a happy moment! #

15:50 reading thru these books reminded me how much i loved and adored the Pagemaster! both the book and the movie #

17:30 hmmm...netvibes or google reader? I'm starting to get too many streams to be able to cope with them on netvibes #

17:37 Scott Karp's blog just reminded me of the most hilarious satire I have ever seen; A Modest Proposal: snurl.com/1vq5i #

17:43 trying out google reader #

17:53 From my Blog: Goodreads: I've been using Goodreads quite a bit recently, both to catalog.. tinyurl.com/2uwe4b #

17:53 Full text of A Modest Proposal: snurl.com/1vq5v This is an absolutely hilarious satire, published in 1729 #

18:31 reading about Dunbar's number: snurl.com/1vq6x which is particularly relevant having just recently started blogging and twittering #

18:54 From my Blog: Swaktopus!: Absolutely awesome zombie octopus from Societysedso!Link (via .. tinyurl.com/2ogx9a #

19:49 Reading The Order of the Stick #38. The latest webcomic i'm enjoying, absolutely hilarious. snurl.com/1vq8z #

20:14 Woman has two vaginas? Interesting... #

20:15 Oops forgot to include the link: snurl.com/1vq9g #

20:30 Watching some more videos from Le Web 3 '07. Making your information social, with Kevin Rose from Digg: snurl.com/1vq9k #

20:54 From my Blog: Interesting...: Didelphic Uterus...sound interesting to you? No? What if I.. tinyurl.com/22sq8r #

22:54 From my Blog: Links for the Day: Vertical Farming:With a third of the world's surface al.. tinyurl.com/2yrg4b #

23:04 Genetically modified mouse no longer fears cats after that particular receptor is blocked: snurl.com/1vqcm #

23:18 well i had a reasonably enjoyable day; i had a nostalgic moment over some childhood books, wrote a few blog posts, found some news feeds... #

23:24 + rudd's '07 campaign platform: federal-state reform, climate change, Iraq, Work Choices #politics #

23:41 reading lecture notes (Existence of God: Ontological Argument) on MIT's philosphy course. Very interesting! snurl.com/1vqde #

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Links for the Day

Vertical Farming:
With a third of the world's surface already tied up in agriculture, we are rapidly running out of space and land for agricultural expansion. To solve this problem, Columbia University professor Dickson Despommier has proposed Vertical Farming, a technique which involves huge multi-story greenhouses powered by solar energy to meet growing world food demands. The professor suggests that a single tower would pay for itself in 10 to 15 years, and widespread adoption could free up enough land to allow for the regrowth of our forests. Very, very interesting article available on Wired.

A Modest Proposal:
I was reminded today, in the wake of the Fake Steve Jobs Shutdown Drama, of the existence of "A Modest Proposal", which is perhaps the greatest satire ever penned. A Modest Proposal, more fully known as A Modest Proposal For Preventing The Children of Poor People in Ireland From Being Aburden to Their Parents or Country, and For Making Them Beneficial to The Public was written by Jonathan Swift in 1729. It playfully suggested that a portion of poor children could be sold each year to the rich to be eaten as a delicacy, with the rest comprising the "breeding stock" for future generations.

I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled ... I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children.

The full text can be found here.


Order of the Stick is a hilarious webcomic that I've recently found, based on the adventures of a bunch of DnD characters who represent their class stereotypes; there is a warrior, paladin, bard, rogue, mage and ranger, and so far I've found it terribly amusing!

popurls is an interesting content aggregator. The site displays feeds from a vast number of popular sites, including Digg, Reddit, del.ico.us, truemors, wired, boing boing, google news, and a whole lot more. The site looks pretty slick too.

Interesting...

Didelphic Uterus...sound interesting to you? No? What if I told you it was a condition which causes some women to be born with two vaginas? Now that, I'm sure, is something most males could get into. *ahem* Sorry, that was in poor taste ;-)

Link

Swaktopus!

Absolutely awesome zombie octopus from Societysedso!

Link (via Boing boing)

Goodreads

I've been using Goodreads quite a bit recently, both to catalog and tag my existing library and to search for new and interesting reads. Despite only really using one side of the service (I have yet to engage in any of the social shenanigans the site offers), I'm really starting to enjoy it. As I sort through my books, cataloging them in Goodreads, I'm reliving my favourite adventures and remembering some I'd forgotten I even had. In a sense Goodreads has helped me to remember why I love reading. One event, in particular, firmly established this in my mind.

While sorting through my books I stumbled across a treasure trove of some of my childhood books. Flipping through cherished books like the Pagemaster and Peter Rabbit reminded me of the simple joy and pleasure of reading that I experienced as a child; a joy that I think can become tempered through the passage of time. Books, as all things, lose some of the luster they attain when viewed with the wide-eyed wonder of a child. As a child things are brighter, sweeter, more wonderful because everything is new. For just a few short moments I was able to recapture those feelings. I was able to recapture the essence of what forged my love of stories.

So thankyou Goodreads, not only do you provide an excellent service but you have reminded me why I love reading and rekindled the simple passion and joy I experienced as a child. I'll consider it an early Christmas present ;-)

Tweets for Today

00:06 the last episode of weeds season 2 was absolutely amazing... #

00:08 From my Blog: Tweets for Today: 01:35 blogging ( snurl.com/1vlts ), watching Weeds seaso.. tinyurl.com/34fxjk #

00:31 the first time I open up IE in months, and it shits itself and crashes after literally 3 seconds. pathetic #

01:10 From my Blog: Game Publishers: Gamespot has a really interesting article on the publicat.. tinyurl.com/2t9tbd #

01:53 + reading The Off Chance Num. 100 #

12:42 Downloading the Crayon Physics game mentioned on Penny Arcade. Available here: snurl.com/1vomx #

13:54 From my Blog: Quotes and Articles: Quotes and Articles that have tickled my fancy so far.. tinyurl.com/32o2cz #

14:38 reading article from The Age: Doctors Shed Light on Testiculation. About new, vaguely tech inspired, doctors terminology. #

14:56 The ass at PerezHilton.com thinks way too much of himself. snurl.com/1vor6 #

14:57 From my Blog: Seven Great Medical Myths: Reuters has an article about the "Seven Great M.. tinyurl.com/2rb3zx #

15:31 + try out Senduit.com next time I need to upload a file #

18:00 mucking around with blog templates...i should learn html... #

20:33 just finished watching Top Gear #

21:41 just finished Megaman 2. w00t, emulators ftw #

22:01 now i'm playing megaman 3 #

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Seven Great Medical Myths

Reuters has an article about the "Seven Great Medical Myths"; a paper published in the British Medical Journal on Friday. Some of the myths identified were

• Reading in dim light ruins your eyesight

  The majority of eye experts believe it is unlikely to do any permanent damage, but it may make you squint, blink more and have trouble focusing, the researchers said.

• We use only 10 percent of our brains

  This myth arose as early as 1907 but imaging shows no area of the brain is silent or completely inactive.

• Hair and fingernails continue to grow after death

  This idea may stem from ghoulish novels. The researchers said the skin dries out and retracts after death, giving the appearance of longer hair or nails.

This very much puts me in the mind of a book given to me some time ago, Great Myth Conceptions (left), which similarly puts to ground a lot of false myths (like the myth that Einstein failed his last year of school).

Quotes and Articles

Quotes and Articles that have tickled my fancy so far today...

boing boing on animal sexual harassment...

Using sign language, Koko is able to communicate with humans. Over the years, Koko has repeatedly requested that female human visitors display their breasts to her. In fact, certain of Koko's hand movements were interpreted as a "demand" by Koko to see exposed human nipples.


Wired on the Futurama game...

Played it, beat it, forgot it... Oh, and it has the worst unlockable secret ever - an art gallery of the load screens...that's right, the ones burned into your memory during the long load times. Gee, thanks.


Wired Magazine on Clinton's crackdown on videogames...

The ESRB re-rated the game to AO for "adults only," raising the minimum age of purchase from 17 to 18 years old -- a crucial year in which a teen develops the necessary psychological defenses to resist the Siren song of polygon porn.

Ars Technica on the RIAA

"Watch for compilation CDs that could only exist in the dreams of a music fan," viewers are warned, a statement that only serves to highlight the fact that pirates do a better job of providing what music lovers want than the industry does. Whoops.

Game Publishers

Gamespot has a really interesting article on the publication and pitching process that games have to go through. It explains the difficulty game developers have in pitching new or innovative offerings. Like Katamari (left)

Link

Tweets for Today

01:35 blogging ( snurl.com/1vlts ), watching Weeds season 2 (hilarious), perversely enjoying cataloguing books on Goodreads.com #

02:55 From the Blog Travel Thoughts on Twitter: I've been getting into a lot of new stu.. tinyurl.com/2rmhzn #

04:01 marvelling at how much better Azureus is than the official BitTorrent client #

04:13 From my Blog: Things I kinda wanted to write about...: Well, I've reset my twitterfeed a.. tinyurl.com/3cmxcs #

14:30 i should know not to go to book stores when i have money... #

16:38 watching Hans Rosling at Le Web 3 snurl.com/1vn99 #

17:38 purchased George Orwell's 1984 earlier, adding it to my pile of books to read, which includes Confessor and Ladies of Grace Adieu #

17:56 From my Blog: Le Web 3 Conference: Hans Rosling speaks about the world, and how we view it. tinyurl.com/2fe7v8 #

18:37 watching Digitized Worlds: talks about the real-life benefits gained from games; eg leadership skills from WoW raids snurl.com/1vnei #

21:47 watching 2nd last episode of weeds season 2 #

22:53 Watching John Battelle on 2007 predictions snurl.com/1vnl3 #


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Le Web 3 Conference

Hans Rosling speaks about the world, and how we view it.



Absolutely amazing talk from Le Web 3 in Paris about Digitized Worlds, and also the role of Creative Commons and content integration.

Things I kinda wanted to write about...

Well, I've reset my twitterfeed and I need to write a new blog post, so here is a list of things I want to write about soonish.

• Recently moved back to firefox. I was using Opera, but I really missed the firefox plugins. I'm hoping firefox 3 fixes the stability and memory issues that drove me away before. I loved the Opera browser, but missing plugins is a real blow, and it wasn't handling javascript very well. I'm going to miss mouse gestures though...
• Qik looks awesome.
• I want to write something about memory; its a topic that really interests me. Here's a bunch of links I found really interesting.
  

Method of Loci

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The Outboard Brain

Wired Mag

43 Folders

Time Mag

NY Time

Boston

Oh and Whales may have evolved from ... ancient racoon sized deer?

The Ladies of Grace Adieu

I just purchased The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke. The Ladies of Grace Adieu is a collection of short stories set in the same world as her famous work Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - one of my favourite novels - and I'm looking forward to reading it.

Alt.Santa

Why should Santa hold a monopoly on gift-giving? Lore Sjöberg of Wired Magazine proposes a number of hilarious alternatives.

Objectivist Santa

As this Santa will tell you, the entire concept of "gift giving" is an immoral construction designed to perpetuate a contemptible society based on entitlement and the parasitic draining of those who have earned the fruits of their labors. That an innocent child would be indoctrinated to expect presents with no effort or capital invested into the exchange is an evil unseen since the days of Franklin Roosevelt. Objectivist Santa offers children a choice: They may have a copy of Atlas Shrugged, for which they must give up a beloved toy, or they may choose to writhe and mewl in ignorance, and receive nothing. Objectivist Santa only has to carry around one copy of Atlas Shrugged.

Link

Evolution of Search

Technology Review has an interesting article on the evolution of search.

TR: Companies such as Ask and Powerset are betting that the future is in natural-language search, which lets people use real, useful sentences instead of potentially ambiguous keywords. What is Google doing with natural language? 

PN: We think what's important about natural language is the mapping of words onto the concepts that users are looking for. But we don't think it's a big advance to be able to type something as a question as opposed to keywords. Typing "What is the capital of France?" won't get you better results than typing "capital of France." But understanding how words go together is important. To give some examples, "New York" is different from "York," but "Vegas" is the same as "Las Vegas," and "Jersey" may or may not be the same as "New Jersey." That's a natural-language aspect that we're focusing on. Most of what we do is at the word and phrase level; we're not concentrating on the sentence. We think it's important to get the right results rather than change the interface.

Link

Jinxlet Plush

One of my favourite webcomics, Starslip Crisis, jinxlet plushies are now available for preorder. These little things are absolutely adorable! Link

Links for the Day

The Great Firewall of China

Interesting article about censorship in China and how the Great Firewall of China is becoming as ineffective as its physical counterpart.

Link

Virtual Cable

Through the use of already available, mass-produced, materials and parts New Jersey company Making Virtual Solid can produce a navigational 3D overlay displayed on a car's windshield. The product - Virtual Cable - which must be factory installed, is capable of interfacing with any route-planning device, such as PDA, PC or GPS devices.

Link (via Engadget)

Goodreads.com

Goodreads allows users to review and rate books they've read, as well as catalogue and tag their own collection. It combines this with social networking features - friends and groups particularly - which allow users to interact, compare and recommend books. I've been using it quite a bit recently, just to begin cataloguing my book collection (which can be found here).

Link