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September 30, 2003
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How cool is this?
This site explains how this dude, Trevor Blackwell, built his own Segway scooter (he is a professor who works on robots not just a kid who stuck two wheels on a board).
The results are quite good and ended up costing him much less than the $5000 that a real Segway costs.
Quite impressive!
Posted by Guy at 12:38 AM
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Warning: geek alert!
A professor offered extra credit to anybody in his class who would replace the lowest layer in the OSI networking model with a set of bongo drums (in order to show that the lower layers of the OSI model can be replaced with any form of media without affecting the layers above it).
After eight weeks a group of his students had implemented TCP/IP using bongo drums as the lowest layer!
It works at the "amazing" speed of 2bps and as one of their classmates put it: "dial-up has never looked so good!".
Posted by Guy at 09:50 AM
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The Recruit could have been an excellent movie but they made it too complicated and didn't bother to explain everything at the end.
I'm all for making the plot interesting by keeping everything mysterious to the degree that you aren't sure who's who and what's going on, but only if by the end everything is clear and you understand exactly what happened.
This movie was very complicated (in a good way) but when it was over you weren't sure exactly what happened.
I need closure damn it!
 
Posted by Guy at 08:45 AM
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September 28, 2003
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This dude's wife suffers from repetitive stress problems in her fingers and wrists.
She mentioned that she finds old-fashioned mechanical typewriters much easier on her fingers because they offer gradual resistance rather than the feeling of moving through air then hitting a wall, like most computer keyboards.
So the dude bought an old typewriter and converted it into a working keyboard.
The pictures of it look really cool and the thing is is still fully functional as a typewriter!
Posted by Guy at 11:14 AM
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September 27, 2003
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Microsoft Wireless Optical Mouse and Keyboard
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Actually the full name of this is Microsoft Wireless Optical Mouse and Wireless Multimedia Keyboard.
I ordered this set online from Netaction.co.il and it arrived pretty quick (in less than a week I think).
It did come in an OEM box (instead of a nice fancy retail package) but I did know that before I ordered.
The box contained the optical wireless mouse, wireless keyboard, keyboard armrest (a long strip of black plastic that attaches to the bottom of the keyboard), one receiver (that works for both the keyboard and the mouse), four AA Energizer batteries, and a getting started booklet (with four readable pages).
A drivers CD and maybe a manual would have been nice.
Out of the box I popped in the batteries (2 for the keyboard and 2 for the mouse), attached the receiver to the PC, and what do you know: it works!
Both the mouse and the keyboard worked without needing to reboot (this is Windows 2000 you know) and seemed to work perfectly.
I walked around the room a bit and discovered that the range for both the keyboard and the mouse are about 2 meters (about 6 feet) from the receiver.
Then I started playing with the extra keyboard buttons (the ones at the top) and noticed that other than the web and email buttons nothing worked.
A quick Google pointed me to the Microsoft keyboard download page where I was able to download "Microsoft IntelliType Pro"(the software for the keyboard) and "Microsoft IntelliPoint"(the software for the mouse).
Both are about 10MB each so as long as they are on the Microsoft site I guess you don't really need the CD (but who knows when they'll disappear from there).
I installed the keyboard software (IntelliType Pro) and even without a reboot all the extra keyboard buttons started working.
The only button that didn't work for some reason was the Messenger button.
But when you press it a IntelliType Pro screen opens and you can easily fix the problem by manually assigning the button to the MSN Messenger executable (or any other command or program, for that matter).
Installing IntelliPoint wasn't as easy.
I started the installation and everything seemed ok but suddenly (out of the blue) I get a blue screen of death!
After my computer started up I tried to install again and the installation told me that I already have IntelliPoint installed and that if I want to reinstall it I need to remove the previous version.
So I uninstalled IntelliPoint and started the installation again (hoping not to see the BSOD again).
Luckily the installation was completed successfully this time and when finished it announced that it needed to reboot my computer in order to finish the installation.
Ok, I rebooted the system again and when it loaded I noticed a little mouse icon in the system tray.
Other than that I couldn't see any other difference in the way that the mouse worked (it was working perfectly well before I installed the software but I thought that, like with the keyboard's software, I would get some added value from installing it).
Oh well, at least everything was working properly.
As for using the keyboard:
overall it's pretty handy not having a wire tying you to the computer but with the keyboard it doesn't really matter (I plan on using the wireless keyboard and mouse for controlling a multi-media PC from the couch so I will be using the keyboard from pretty far).
The top buttons are very useful, especially the media related ones (play, volume, mute, pause...) and you can assign any command or program to any extra button that you want.
They'll be even more useful once I get my multi-media PC hooked up.
As for the downsides of the keyboard:
In order to make some space for the extra buttons at the top, they needed to move some buttons around a bit (which can never be a good idea on a keyboard that you are used to using on a daily basis).
Check out what they did with the DEL key:
I don't really mind that the DEL key is huge it's just that they also changed around the normal order of the Home, Del, Ins... keys, which makes finding the End key horrible.
You have to look down in order to get your finger near it otherwise you hit the huge DEL key (why the hell did Microsoft feel the need to make the DEL key so big?) and since the order of the keys is different it will take a while to remember them by heart.
Since this isn't the only keyboard that I use I'm probably going to have a hard time getting used to that.
Another keyboard "feature" that is quite the contrary is the dual functionality of the F keys.
What they did was give each F key dual functionality: the standard and extra functionality like "New", "Copy", "Paste"...
The added functionality would come in quite useful if they weren't using the F keys but were added as extra buttons on the keyboard (like the multimedia extra buttons).
Then they would come in very useful since these are common operations that just about every program today uses.
But since they added these operations to the F key you have to choose whether you want to use the standard F functionality or the extra operations.
You select whether to use the standard F keys or not by using the "F-lock" button. The F-lock is a dual mode key (like the caps lock key).
When it's on then the F keys are the regular F functions and when the F-lock is off then the F keys are the extra copy/paste/.... operations.
This may sound pretty simple but it's a real pain to use.
The whole idea behind these extra function keys like copy, paste, undo, etc is to have quick, easy access to these functions.
Therefor to make it quick you have the F-lock off most of the time (which means that the F keys are the extra functions).
While I was testing out the keyboard I hit ALT+F4 in order to close a window but since the F-lock was off it did a "New" instead.
Then I tried to hit the escape key but got the "My Documents" instead.
So instead of closing one window I ended up with three open windows that I didn't want!
I'm going to have to get used to working with the F-lock and these extra buttons at the top.
Another disappointment from the keyboard is the low quality plastic.
I'm not saying that the plastic is a disgrace it's just that I had expected high quality plastic (like the Microsoft Force Feedback Steering Wheel) and was quite disappointed when the keyboard's plastic was a bit cheap.
One last rant I have about the keyboard is that the caps lock, num lock, and F-lock lights are on the receiver not on the keyboard itself.
I understand that they did this in order to save the battery power of the keyboard but it's still an annoyance, especially if you plan to sit far from the computer (which is what I plan to do).
As for the mouse:
It's a pretty standard optical mouse, nothing special.
It is pretty great that it doesn't have a wire since the wire on the mouse always has a tendency to tug on the mouse.
This is a major improvement (unlike the keyboard where loosing the wire didn't make much of a difference).
Since the mouse itself is pretty standard there isn't much to say about it other than two downsides:
- I would have enjoyed a few more extra buttons on the mouse. Nice to have but not a deal breaker.
- The mouse jumps around a bit every once in a while but it's not too annoying.
The one fear I had about getting a wireless keyboard and mouse system was the battery life.
I don't know how long the batteries will hold but I do hope that they will last a while.
The last thing I need is that my keyboard and mouse stop working because of old batteries.
I also hope there is some sort of visible indication that the batteries are running low before they run out (I can't see any sort of indicator on either the keyboard or the mouse so I can only hope that the software will alert me when the time is up).
Overall the keyboard and mouse are of pretty decent quality and seem quite good.
All I need is to get used to the extra keyboard keys and the different key placement.
If I can and the battery lifespan is decent then this set will be an excellent buy.
For now I give it
Posted by Guy at 02:28 AM
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The Dyson telescope game (yea the same Dyson from the vacuum cleaners) is basically a way for Dyson to promote their telescope (whatever that is).
The game is an online puzzle game where you have to use these telescopes to push and pull a ball into a hole on the board (it's much less complicated than it sounds, just give it a look).
I played up to level 20 and got pretty bored with it.
There's also a version that you can download to your computer but I didn't check it out.
Posted by Guy at 12:12 AM
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September 26, 2003
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When it's my to time to be flushed down the toilet you could have a motorcycle sidecar hearse drag my rotting corpse around for a while.
Too bad it's only in Britain.
Posted by Guy at 11:03 PM
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Just a shout out to all 'em Jews:
Shana Tova!
(ok for all the gentiles in the house, also have a great year ;-)
Posted by Guy at 11:50 AM
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September 25, 2003
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Check out the pictures of these cool contact lenses.
I'm sure these would come in very handy in a job interview ;-)
(those fire lenses really go with my red dress :o)
Posted by Guy at 09:35 PM
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This dude created an auto car cover for his Corvette.
Basically he hooked up some sheets to his electric garage door in a way that when the garage door closes it automatically covers his car.
Pretty neat.
Posted by Guy at 09:21 PM
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Joel Spolsky's company (Fog Creek) just moved into their new offices and to quote Joel: "Most software managers know what good office space would be like, and they know they don't have it, and can't have it. Office space seems to be the one thing that nobody can get right and nobody can do anything about...Well, it's my own damn company and I can do something about it, so I did."
Check out what went into the design of the bionic office.
Posted by Guy at 02:23 PM
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Google has added another new tool to its Google Labs: Search by Location.
Basically all you do is enter your search terms and a location (street address, city, or zip code) and Google will spit out a results in that area and show them on a map.
BTW: there are lots of innovative search tools at Google Labs.
Posted by Guy at 07:36 AM
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September 24, 2003
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This short spelling quiz has 15 commonly misspelled words (with two choices for each word).
You'll be surprised by how you aren't sure how to spell these common words.
Posted by Guy at 08:45 PM
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Eliyon Networking has created a search engine for finding past employees and employees' history.
They gather all their information automatically by scraping the web and collecting and matching information about people from different web sites.
The results are pretty amazing for an automatic system.
Posted by Guy at 02:47 PM
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And here's yet another game!
I played Trial Bike Pro (or a similar version) a while ago and found it very addictive (at least until you are able to complete the course).
Today I ran into this version and checked it out.
I can tell you that it's much harder than the previous version that I played (and that version was pretty hard too).
Give it a trial (pun intended :o).
Posted by Guy at 12:38 AM
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In this online game (which has a cool eerie feeling about it) you have to roll a ball and collect different objects.
Usually ball rolling games are pretty tough (since you usually have to keep the ball steady without it rolling off the "board") but in this one controlling the ball is very easy.
I only played the first several levels and they were quite easy so I don't know how hard this game actually gets.
Posted by Guy at 12:25 AM
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This little online flash game is pretty fun once you get the hang of it.
It's basically a version of tennis (or ping pong if you prefer).
Just make sure you look at the controls before you start playing (player 1 uses Z, X, and S).
Posted by Guy at 10:49 PM
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 That's right, what you see there is a horse hanging upside down!
(If you click on the image you'll see a larger version of it)
I guess that's the standard way of giving horses medical treatments.
It looks just like those gravity boots that people use for exercise.
Posted by Guy at 11:26 AM
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I added another new feature to Guy's World: the daily comment.
This is only available in the daily updates mailing list (you can subscribe be entering your e-mail in the little text box at the right).
At the beginning of every mailing (at least I'll try to do it every time) I'll add a comment about something that happened that day or about the contents of the daily mailing.
Remember that this in only available in the mailing list so sign up now and we'll throw in a free set of Ginsu knives, a retail value of $299.99, that's right a value of $299.99 :o)
Posted by Guy at 12:33 AM
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September 22, 2003
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A few days ago I wrote about the how many CDs per Sharpie experiment.
The same dude who did that experiment also conducted several other "useful" experiments.
His site, How Much Is Inside, follows the different experiments that he conducted.
Among the experiments are:
- How much is inside a roll of paper towels?
- How much is inside a ketchup packet?
- How much cereal is in a box of Cheerios?
- How much white cream is in a box of Oreos?
- How much is inside a print cartridge?
and the all time favorite: How much aluminum foil is in a roll?
And I thought that the Sharpie experiment was a waste of time!?
This guy has really made a career out of this!
Posted by Guy at 08:30 AM
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While the RIAA keeps saying that P2P file sharing networks are killing the music industry, one company (BigChampagne) is using those same P2P networks to find what's most popular and selling that information to the music industry.
Some music labels say that this information is very useful for them while the "music industry" keeps telling us that peer to peer is killing them (and are suing the very people who create this valuable information).
The music industry is going to have to change the way that it embraces file sharing and the ease in which the Internet lets us share information, whether they like it or not.
Posted by Guy at 08:12 AM
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September 21, 2003
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Here a good guide (from Dolby) on home theater sound.
It explains some of the basic concepts of home theater (like what 5.1 surround sound is) and helps with setting up the system.
The best part is chapter 3 which explains how to place your speakers in order to get the best results from your system.
I think I need to raise my rear surround speakers...
Posted by Guy at 06:03 PM
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According to this article, by the year 2005 65% of bank ATMs will run Windows.
They will use a stripped down version of Windows but with all the viruses and worms that are spreading daily you've got to be a bit worried about this.
Posted by Guy at 07:58 AM
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Ever run out of Monopoly money?
Now you can print your own Monopoly money thanks to Hasbro.
Just don't try using this money in real stores ;o)
(if only I could find a site like this for real money...)
Posted by Guy at 07:29 AM
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What a dream: to make money playing video games.
Actually that dream is quickly becoming a reality.
According to this article, new video game systems will allow players to make money by playing one another.
The idea is that all players will have to pay a fee in order to participate and the players who win will get the money from the players that lose.
This will probably only attract the best gamers since players who aren't top of the notch will just be losing money.
It's also pretty easy to cheat at video games so they'd have to find a way to make sure that nobody is cheating.
I wonder if they'll have a Bouncing Baby tournament... :o)
Posted by Guy at 03:00 AM
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September 19, 2003
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The 100 hour TiVo has a 120GB hard drive but now Sony is going to come out with a new version of its CoCoon DVR (model CSV-EX11) that has a 500GB hard drive!
It also has dual TV tuners so you can record two channels simultaneously and has a Memory Stick slot (I guess for downloading pictures from your digital camera).
For now it's coming out only in Japan.
Posted by Guy at 12:23 AM
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September 18, 2003
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Ok this dude really took the idea of having too much spare time on your hands, too far.
The most popular use for a Sharpie pen is, of course, to label CDs.
So this guy decided to find out how many CDs you could label with one Sharpie.
It took him two months and about 1000 CDs (that he bought for the experiment) to finish one Sharpie.
His site documents the whole experiment.
He also tried to simulate real use of a Sharpie for labeling a CD so he (and his friends) made up realistic titles and labels for the CDs.
To what lengths will a man go in the name of science?
Oh yea, now he's selling the blank CDs from the experiment on ebay.
Posted by Guy at 03:43 PM
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40GB PS2 HD!
Translation: Sony is coming out with a 40GB hard disk for the PS2.
The hard disk will be used to save game settings, to download content such as new levels and characters, and to store music tracks and photos.
The drive will go on sale in March and is priced at $99.
Posted by Guy at 07:45 AM
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¿ye loo>
¡hl!sea s!y+ peaj o+ alqe aq ll.noh uay+ umop ap!s&n abe& ay+ ujn+ noh J! llaM
¿¿s!y+ peaj noh +.uec +eyM
What can't you read this??
Well if you turn the page upside down then you'll be able to read this easily!
Cool ah?
Actually the upside down paragraph is exactly the same as the second paragraph.
In order to create upside down text and translate upside down text to regular text (without having to turn the screen upside down) then you can go to Upside Down Typing.
It is hard to read but it's still cool.
Posted by Guy at 12:20 AM
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Sleepy is a free program that can prevent you (or your kids or spouse) from staying up all night on the computer.
What Sleepy can do is turn off your computer at specific times (and on days that you specify).
I guess some people could find this useful but I'm not going to install it.
I'm not addicted, I can stop any time I want ;o)
I don't need a program to tel....Shutting down...
Posted by Guy at 12:30 AM
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September 16, 2003
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I picture says a thousand words:
Ok if you still want to read about this picture then you can here.
Posted by Guy at 09:22 PM
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In order to remove the annoying margins from a form you can use:
<form style='margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0;'>
Or in a case you want to use a CSS class:
.form_class{ margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0;}
Posted by Guy at 03:51 PM
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Researchers have calculated that the memory capacity of a single human brain is MUCH greater than the amount of memory that even the biggest computers have.
The biggest computer may have a memory capacity of 10,000,000,000,000 bytes (10 to the power of 12) whereas the human brain has 10 to the power of 8,432!
That's right ladies and gentleman, 10 with 8,432 zeros after it.
Think about that next time you can't find your car keys :o)
Posted by Guy at 01:58 PM
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September 15, 2003
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If you're in the neighborhood for some free fonts for you computer (either PC or Mac) then check out FontFreak.com.
They have quite a bit of fonts there.
Posted by Guy at 10:17 PM
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aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are,
the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit
pclae.
The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm.
Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a
wlohe.
Amazing, ah?
Posted by Guy at 10:43 AM
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Ever try to take a picture of dog and have him always coming up to the camera instead of sitting still?
Here's a site filled with pictures of up close dog noses.
Posted by Guy at 07:22 AM
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Here's an article on how to reinstall Windows without losing your data.
Every Windows computer starts becoming instable after a few years and after a while you're inevitably going to have to reinstall your computer (once it starts taking your computer 10 minutes to load you a blue screen).
Thanks to this article you may be able to reinstall your machine without having to format your hard disk and loose all your precious information.
I'm going to keep this link on hand cuz you never know when you might need it...
Posted by Guy at 12:36 AM
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 Today I saw Bruce Almighty.
The movie is pretty much what you expect (if you've seen the trailer then you know exactly what the movie's about).
But surprisingly it's still pretty good.
Unlike The Truman Show, which was a 2 hour version of its trailer, Bruce Almighty is fun to see.
Just don't expect any surprises.
Posted by Guy at 12:56 AM
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 Yesterday I finally finished watching the Back To The Future Trilogy (I saw Back To The Future 3).
This is my least favorite of the three movies but it's still a great movie and I give it five stars.
The bonus material on the third DVD was a real disappointment.
The deleted scenes had only one 10 second deleted scene and the other bonus features were more or less the theatrical trailers.
The entire trilogy is still outstanding!
Posted by Guy at 12:46 AM
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September 13, 2003
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Never park your car under a tree when you are on vacation.
This might happen to you...
Posted by Guy at 06:35 PM
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Rotation is a cool little online game.
Basically it's a mind game where you need to turn pieces of the board in order to create a given pattern.
It's very hard to explain the game so just check it out and you'll understand.
The concept of the game is very simple game but the gameplay is challenging (especially as you advance with the levels).
Posted by Guy at 12:10 AM
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September 12, 2003
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Gamesindustry.biz managed to get there hands on the much anticipated Nokia N-Gage, which is a mobile phone that is also a portable video game system (competing with the Nintendo GameBoy).
Their conclusions aren't too good and they were overall disappointed with the N-Gage system.
They had complaints about how difficult it is to change games (you need to remove the battery!?! in order to change games) and how long it takes for games to load.
We'll see what the public has to say about it when it comes out on October 7th...
Posted by Guy at 11:28 PM
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Just an interesting fact: you know the computer hardware manufacturer BenQ?
Turns out that the name BenQ is an acronym for "Bringing enjoyment 'n Quality" to life!
What TWAIN was already taken??
(for those who don't know, TWAIN (the name of the technology for input devices like scanners) is an acronym for Technology Without An Interesting Name)
Posted by Guy at 11:15 PM
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According to this site, if you can find the man's head within 3 seconds then you're a genius.
If you find the man's head within 1 minute the right side of your brain is developed normally and if you can find the man's head within 1-3 minutes your right brain is slow in reacting.
If it takes you more than 3 minutes then the right side of your brain is a disaster!
I won't tell you how long it took me....
Posted by Guy at 06:48 PM
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I didn't know this but it turns out that the Beatles parent company is called Apple Corps and they have been suing Apple computers since Apple first started.
When Apple Computer first started, The Beatles sued them for the use of the name and won.
Apple agreed to only use the corporate name for computer products and not enter the music business (and also paid a large cash settlement).
When Apple Computers added music playing capabilities to their computers Apple Corps sued them again and won.
Now that Apple has come out with the iPod and the iTunes Music Store Apple is being sued again!
So far it is estimated that Apple has paid $50 million to Apple Corps.
Posted by Guy at 03:24 PM
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September 11, 2003
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Blogger is making all the advanced features of Blogger Pro available to all Blogger users.
This strategic move by the most popular blogging service was made after Blogger was acquired by Google several months ago.
The reasoning behind this is given in the following quote by Jason Shellen, program manager for Blogger:
"A comparison could be made to Google itself. Google offers great free web search. We're offering, hopefully long-term, a great free web publishing tool. If anything, it's a step to make Blogger more prominent."
Blogger is giving all Blogger Pro users a Blogger hoodie sweatshirt as thanks for the support of all the people who did pay for Blogger Pro.
Posted by Guy at 09:00 AM
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Guess where Mario (you know, from Nintendo's Super Mario Bros.) got his name....
The answer: Mario got named after the landlord in Nintendo of America´s office in New York!
The landlord´s name was Mario Segali and he came from Italy.
That site also has some of the origins of other Nintendo characters (like Donkey Kong).
Posted by Guy at 12:19 AM
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September 10, 2003
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Pointlesswasteoftime.com has an article about the future of video game consoles.
There are some explanations on why (according to the author) certain consoles have succeeded (Sony PS2), others have failed (Nintendo Game Cube), and others will succeed in the future (MS Xbox).
The language of the article is a bit crude (not something that you'd see in the New York Times).
Posted by Guy at 02:09 PM
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This article on Yahoo show some of the methods that a hacker uses in order to break into a corporate network.
The article follows Ryan Breed, a 28 year old "ethical hacker", also known as a "white hat", and the steps and tools that he uses in order to hack into the network of a large enterprise.
It's a very interesting piece.
Posted by Guy at 09:39 AM
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September 09, 2003
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Geek alert!!
All non geeks can stop reading now, the rest will just bore you :o)
I just spent about an hour trying to install Image::Magick on a Windows 2000 machine.
After running around between 5-6 sites (and downloading and installing various packages) I finally ran across the proper instructions how to install it.
In order to install Image::Magick on Windows 2000 follow the instructions from this page.
Since I just did it I'll explain the basic steps that you need to do in order to save you some time:
That should be it.
Good luck....
Posted by Guy at 10:37 PM
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Charles McKinley (25) wanted to save a few bucks getting to his parents house so he shipped himself in a crate from New York to Texas!
The crate he was in was put on a plane from JFK airport in New York to Fort Wayne, Ind. and then was transferred to another plane to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
From there a ground shipping company delivered the crate to McKinley's parents.
When the crate arrived Charles pried open the crate with a crowbar, shook the hand of the shocked deliveryman and walked away.
I wonder if he got peanuts on his flight....
Posted by Guy at 06:55 PM
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The RIAA (you know the guys who are trying to kill all the music sharing on the Internet) have filed 261 lawsuits against people who have downloaded illegal music from the net.
It turns out that among the people who are being sued is a 71 year old grandfather (who says that his grandkids used his computer when they visited) and a 12 year old girl (who downloaded nursery rhymes and some TV show theme songs).
I don't know but it doesn't sound like good business sense to start suing your customers....
Posted by Guy at 04:15 PM
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According to a new survey the number one profession that kids want to be is in technology even more than being a rock star!
The reasons that kids gave for the popularity of IT were a high salary (34 percent) and the desire to work with exciting technology (33 percent).
Maybe they should start having reality programming (as in software programming) programs on TV....
Posted by Guy at 12:26 AM
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The Walk-thru Fog Screen (aka WAVE: Walk-thru Virtual Environment) is a way of projecting high quality images in mid air enabling people to walk thru the screen.
The fog screen feels like nothing and does not make things wet.
It creates a magical effect as if the images are floating in thin air.
There are some images of the fog screen on the web site.
Posted by Guy at 07:29 AM
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There's another new addition to my site: a mailing list.
Now you can make sure that you don't miss anything that I write here.
All you have to do is sign up for the mailing list and you'll receive a daily email with of all the things that were posted on that day.
In order to sign up for the mailing list just type your email into the little mailing list text field on the right (the one near the top of the page, not the search field ;-).
You'll be sent an email in order to confirm that you really own the email address that you entered (just click on the link in the email that you receive and everything should be ok).
If you have problems signing up then just drop me a word and I'll add you to the list.
In order to create the daily emails I whipped up a simple system (written in Perl of course) for sending a HTML page (the daily archive that is created by Movabletype) by email and for managing the users who are on the list.
Sign up today for the mailing list and you'll even get this post in your inbox :o)
Posted by Guy at 12:14 AM
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September 07, 2003
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This is post number 400!
Congratulations to me and all the people that read the crap that I write here.
See ya' in 100 more posts for a 500 celebration.....
Posted by Guy at 01:49 PM
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Remember the cool robot vacuum cleaner, Roomba?
Since Roomba is basically a robot it was just a matter of time that a bunch of geeks would get their hands on some Roombas and start messing around and hacking them.
The Roomba Community is dedicated to hacking the Roomba.
Some of the applications they are working on are: have Roombas playing tag, improving the vacuum algorithm, creating a mobile security robot by adding a wireless webcam to a Roomba....
I'm sure they'll come up with some cool uses for this household vacuum cleaner.
Posted by Guy at 12:52 AM
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September 06, 2003
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A small Danish company called KiSS Technology has come out with a 42 inch plasma TV that has integrated 802.11g (the standard for wireless networking) and comes with a built in DVD player that can play DivX movies!
This TV can use the wireless connection to view video (and audio) from a PC on your home network.
It's about time we start seeing things like this but I just hope we'll start seeing similar lower end products soon.
Maybe I'll add this to my wishlist...
Posted by Guy at 06:27 PM
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September 05, 2003
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Here are some guys with a LOT of free times on their hands.
They actually went and recreated the scenes of a PS2 game called Getaway.
On The Real Getaway Tour, their web site, you can see the side by side comparison of different scenes from the game and the pictures they took in real life.
It's actually quite amazing how similar the images look (and that they were able to (and wanted to) do this).
Posted by Guy at 03:11 PM
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Check out the size of the propeller of the 86,000-ton U.S. aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk:
Amazing!
Posted by Guy at 12:11 AM
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September 04, 2003
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The "Vanishing Osama bin Laden Urinal Screen" is just that: a urinal screen with a picture of Bin Laden that vanishes when heated (the picture returns when flushed).
According to the site "the purpose is to help vent frustration and help the victims and their families that were affected by the attacks on the Twin Towers".
Just $5.95.
Posted by Guy at 06:56 PM
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For just $650 you can buy a bullet proof laptop bag.
According to the site the idea is that your laptop bag has a "quick release lock for rapid shield deployment" so once the bullets start flying you can quickly turn your laptop bag into a ballistic shield (and continue surfing the net).
And for just $100 more ($750!!) you can get a leather version of the bag.
Posted by Guy at 07:49 AM
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Microsoft announced that they are coming out with a new series of mice and keyboards.
Aside from the new styles and colors, including black leather, the new innovation is that the mice have a tilting wheel for horizontal scrolling.
Two of the mice are wireless and also have new battery saving technology.
The new "Tilt Wheel Technology" allows users to scroll left and right in addition to up and down without having to use the on-screen navigation bars, handy when navigating a spreadsheet or an unwieldy web site.
Posted by Guy at 07:34 AM
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