Geek Boy's blog
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Child's Play - when 11-year-old boys encounter my misspent youth
Here's two highly amusing sets of interviews. EGM magazine "rounded up nine children of the PlayStation generation—ages 9 to 12—and forced them to play a variety of titles from the late'70s to the mid-'80s. If you grew up with these classics, prepare to feel very old." The kids had to play various old games, including Pong, Donkey Kong, Tetris, and Space Invaders.
First set of interviews are here , second set is here. ¶ 1:19 AM 0 Comments Links to this post
First set of interviews are here , second set is here. ¶ 1:19 AM 0 Comments Links to this post
Tuesday, December 28, 2004
Jan 20th 2005 - "Not One Damn Dime Day"
Received a chain email from my mom a couple days ago. At the risk of annoying the source (does my mom read my blog?), I can see her saying "But eBay is OK, right?"
I like the idea here... not just as a form of political protest, but also as a rejection of commericalism. "The business of America is business" can't hold true without a set of moral values behind it. Moreover, it would make for some interesting noise the data for retail analytics software, and I'm ALWAYS in favor of that.
On the other hand, I doubt that a single day's worth of 'closing our wallets' will do much to impact our foreign policy.
It's also interesting to see what Mr. Google has to say on this thing, and to explore what comes back.
Without further ado, here's the chain mail:
Since our religious leaders will not speak out against the war in Iraq, since our political leaders don't have the moral courage to oppose it, Inauguration Day, Thursday, January 20th, 2005 is "Not One Damn Dime Day" in America.
On "Not One Damn Dime Day" those who oppose what is happening in our name in Iraq can speak up with a 24-hour national boycott of all forms of consumer spending.
During "Not One Damn Dime Day" please don't spend money. No one damn dime for gasoline. Not one damn dime for necessities or for impulse purchases.
Not one damn dime for nothing for 24 hours.
On "Not One Damn Dime Day," please boycott Walmart, KMart and Target.
Please don't go to the mall or the local convenience store. Please don't buy any fast food (or any groceries at all for that matter).
For 24 hours, please do what you can to shut the retail economy down.
The object is simple. Remind the people in power that the war in Iraq is immoral and illegal; that they are responsible for starting it and that it is their responsibility to stop it.
"Not One Damn Dime Day" is to remind them, too, that they work for the people of the United States of America, not for the international corporations and K Street lobbyists who represent the corporations and funnel cash into American politics.
"Not One Damn Dime Day" is about supporting the troops. The politicians put the troops in harm's way. Now 1,200 brave young Americans and (some estimate) 100,000 Iraqis have died. The politicians owe our troops a plan - a way to come home.
There's no rally to attend. No marching to do. No left or right wing agenda to rant about. On "Not One Damn Dime Day" you take action by doing nothing. You open your mouth by keeping your wallet closed.
For 24 hours, nothing gets spent, not one damn dime, to remind our religious leaders and our politicians of their moral responsibility to end the war in Iraq and give America back to the people.
Please share this email with as many people as possible. ¶ 1:23 AM 0 Comments Links to this post
I like the idea here... not just as a form of political protest, but also as a rejection of commericalism. "The business of America is business" can't hold true without a set of moral values behind it. Moreover, it would make for some interesting noise the data for retail analytics software, and I'm ALWAYS in favor of that.
On the other hand, I doubt that a single day's worth of 'closing our wallets' will do much to impact our foreign policy.
It's also interesting to see what Mr. Google has to say on this thing, and to explore what comes back.
Without further ado, here's the chain mail:
Since our religious leaders will not speak out against the war in Iraq, since our political leaders don't have the moral courage to oppose it, Inauguration Day, Thursday, January 20th, 2005 is "Not One Damn Dime Day" in America.
On "Not One Damn Dime Day" those who oppose what is happening in our name in Iraq can speak up with a 24-hour national boycott of all forms of consumer spending.
During "Not One Damn Dime Day" please don't spend money. No one damn dime for gasoline. Not one damn dime for necessities or for impulse purchases.
Not one damn dime for nothing for 24 hours.
On "Not One Damn Dime Day," please boycott Walmart, KMart and Target.
Please don't go to the mall or the local convenience store. Please don't buy any fast food (or any groceries at all for that matter).
For 24 hours, please do what you can to shut the retail economy down.
The object is simple. Remind the people in power that the war in Iraq is immoral and illegal; that they are responsible for starting it and that it is their responsibility to stop it.
"Not One Damn Dime Day" is to remind them, too, that they work for the people of the United States of America, not for the international corporations and K Street lobbyists who represent the corporations and funnel cash into American politics.
"Not One Damn Dime Day" is about supporting the troops. The politicians put the troops in harm's way. Now 1,200 brave young Americans and (some estimate) 100,000 Iraqis have died. The politicians owe our troops a plan - a way to come home.
There's no rally to attend. No marching to do. No left or right wing agenda to rant about. On "Not One Damn Dime Day" you take action by doing nothing. You open your mouth by keeping your wallet closed.
For 24 hours, nothing gets spent, not one damn dime, to remind our religious leaders and our politicians of their moral responsibility to end the war in Iraq and give America back to the people.
Please share this email with as many people as possible. ¶ 1:23 AM 0 Comments Links to this post
Awww- now that christmas is over, NOW I find what I wanted!
Check this guy's stuff out. Very classy. I particularly like the floating arm Trebuchet.
¶ 1:18 AM 0 Comments
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Monday, December 20, 2004
Out with the old, in with the new, part 2
Not that you want to read about my geek gear, but it was interesting to read in the Wall Street Journal on friday that the iPod is one of the hottest-selling items this christmas. Other sources mentioned that although the iPod itself is selling like hotcakes, the iPod Photo units aren't, and there are no supply issues with the photo. Although I understand the cost issues, this is a little surprising to me. The screen on the iPod Photo is lovely lovely lovely. Just like my wife and daughters. And, since I've got bunches and bunches of photos of beautiful wife and daughters to show, it's nice to have a pretty color screen and a capacious hard drive to hold them.
Of course, for the $599 that apple is asking for the thing, you could buy a used laptop with an even bigger screen to show pictures with... but there are some discounts out there. I got mine from Amazon for 5% off, and an additional $30.00 for opening up an amazon.com credit card. Choose your retailers wisely. ¶ 2:41 PM 0 Comments Links to this post
Of course, for the $599 that apple is asking for the thing, you could buy a used laptop with an even bigger screen to show pictures with... but there are some discounts out there. I got mine from Amazon for 5% off, and an additional $30.00 for opening up an amazon.com credit card. Choose your retailers wisely. ¶ 2:41 PM 0 Comments Links to this post
Friday, December 17, 2004
Out with the old, in with the new
I'm selling my 30gb 3rd-generation iPod on eBay. Bids are invited. 30 gig just wasn't enough, and so I got a 60gb iPod photo. The 30gig iPod was nice, but the 60gb iPod is better.
Oh, and Merry Christmas!
¶ 8:37 PM 0 Comments Links to this post
Oh, and Merry Christmas!
¶ 8:37 PM 0 Comments Links to this post
Couple recent kid pix
Here's two recent pictures of Laurel and Bea - click to enlarge:
¶ 8:19 PM 0 Comments
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¶ 8:19 PM 0 Comments
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Monday, December 06, 2004
QuickTime and a TIFF (LZW) decompressor are needed to see this picture.
Fun with powerpoint.
I'm doing up some slides on Mac OS/X, using Office 2004. I'm including some window grabs from Grab.app, and for many of the slides, instead of the picture, I see "QuickTime&trade and a TIFF (LZW) decompressor are needed to see this picture."
Nice. The 'Compatibility Report' for reading this file back to Office 2003 on windows says that it's just fine, thank you very much.
However, some of the images did work, and the ones that worked were the ones that I'd edited before pasting into PowerPoint, either in PowerPoint itself or in Photoshop Elements.
So, if you've got access to both platforms and need to fix this, the easiest way to fix it is to go through each image on the mac, and use the redeye remover or scratch remover tool inside Powerpoint to force the image to be converted to something usable on Win32.
Feh.
¶ 6:01 PM 75 Comments Links to this post
I'm doing up some slides on Mac OS/X, using Office 2004. I'm including some window grabs from Grab.app, and for many of the slides, instead of the picture, I see "QuickTime&trade and a TIFF (LZW) decompressor are needed to see this picture."
Nice. The 'Compatibility Report' for reading this file back to Office 2003 on windows says that it's just fine, thank you very much.
However, some of the images did work, and the ones that worked were the ones that I'd edited before pasting into PowerPoint, either in PowerPoint itself or in Photoshop Elements.
So, if you've got access to both platforms and need to fix this, the easiest way to fix it is to go through each image on the mac, and use the redeye remover or scratch remover tool inside Powerpoint to force the image to be converted to something usable on Win32.
Feh.
¶ 6:01 PM 75 Comments Links to this post
The Wired CD - {Rip. Sample. Mash. Share} Album Art
After unsuccessfully trying to hunt down album art for the Wired CD, I decided to just scan in the thing myself. Here it is. The large one is in .tiff format, right off the scanner, the second one is resized in photoshop to be a more appropriate size for adding to your new iPod photo.
¶ 3:39 PM 0 Comments
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| Tiff file, around 720x720 | jpg file, 350x350 |
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