• And these points of data make a beautiful line…

    (and we’re out of beta, we’re releasing on time… Err… deliverable code freeze will happen monday morning, or wednesday afternoon (due date), or before 50% of the devices are sealed up for delivery with the code already on them, whichever comes before the last bug is found. [Especially if the bugs are discovered in hardware,…

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  • Deep Session Control – proposed browser feature to increase privacy

    As you probably know, a Web cookie is a small bit of information (typically a server-generated ID number) a Web site can store on your computer to read back on any subsequent visits, even years later. Currently, the major browsers support making all cookies “session-only” (even if the site sends them with an expiration date…

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  • NorrisolideFacts.com

    Ok, so apparently this is pants-pissingly funny to chemists* :-) NORRISOLIDE FACTS Norrisolide does not dissolve in water. It pounds the water into a pulp and bathes in where its blood would be if water had blood. Norrisolide does not get metabolized. It gets even. Norrisolide consists of x carbon, x hydrogen, x oxygen and…

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  • Comcastic!

    So, Friday morning I’m doing some prep for our Cape Cod camping trip online, and I notice a Comcast truck parked in front of the neighbor’s house, and the Comcast guy putting a ladder up against the telephone pole. I go to take a leak, and when I get back, the truck is gone, and…

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  • Beer!

    I’m contemplating picking up some homebrewing equipment this week. Anyone else interested in making (+ drinking) some homebrew beer?

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  • [meme] The Omnivore’s Hundred

    The Omnivore’s Hundred is a list of foods the gastronomic Andrew Wheeler thinks everyone should try at least once in their lives. The rules of the meme: 1) Bold those you have tried 2) Strikethrough those you wouldn’t eat on a bet. 3) Italicize any item you’ll never eat again. 4) Asterisk any items you’d…

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  • Eggcorn, or possible computer-spellcheck-gone-wild?

    Saw this in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal and it made me snerk: “In the case, Leegin Creative Leather Products Inc., a maker of womens’ purses and accessories, was sued by Kay’s Kloset, a Dallas retailer, after Leegin cut off shipments to Kay’s. Kay’s had been discounting Leegin’s wears.”

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  • smallfish@tech

    So yeah, that particular work project just keeps getting better. Today I got this in my email from the manufacturer of a critical component, reaffirming my personal “If it’s not in-stock on Digikey, I do not specify it in my design” policy. […] The <display> is on hold. There are no technical reasons but it…

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  • WinLIRC stuff

    Yes, it means I’m hacking around on a MythTV setup again. LIRC is Linux Infrared Remote Control, a program for receiving keypresses from a remote control (TVs, etc.) on the computer, and/or blasting out simulated remote-control keypresses. WinLIRC is the same thing, for a Windows box*. Its documentation is a bit lacking however, so this…

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  • IT Groaner

    Q: What’s the last thing you do when you know your hard drive’s about to die? A: Read its last writes…

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  • It’s a mean old bitch and it has stupid name, bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch

    So, I got an email back today from a contractee, whereupon I learned: 1) A technology I created, which I envisioned as having significant pro-consumer subversive uses, will instead be used as a carrier for evil (“hey, can it collect usage data to sell to credit-card companies every time they use it? That would be…

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  • Haulin’ Gluteus, and maybe kickin’ some!

    So, this weekend was the weekend of much furniture and other Stuff hauling, helping Kr* move into the World’s Tiniest Apartment in Waltham. Here is where our childhood Tetris addictions paid off. Budget Rent-a-moving-truck was supposed to have the 10-footer we reserved, but, whoopsie-doodle, didn’t. So the options were either a smaller van, or a…

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  • Bank of America(R) Doesn’t Like your Lifestyle

    Via LJ::pervygeekfancy Geek dating site opens, accepts most comers, including all gay/bi/lez/mixed/poly preferences which are somewhat heavily represented in geekdom. Bank of America(R) signs on as merchant account support. Bank of America(R) isn’t cool with poly. Poly users get their profiles kicked off the dating site with a polite, but unambiguous letter essentially saying, “our…

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  • Garden stuff!

    So, we’ve been tearing weeds (once in a while) out of this garden for a while now, but few people have actually seen it. So here it is! [Our Garden] It’s in a great spot since directly behind our house is a ballfield, which means a) plenty of light (no tall houses behind it blocking…

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  • First New England RepRap User’s Group Meeting at Olin College

    Toward the end of July a couple friends and I had the chance to drop in to the first New England RepRap usergroup meeting. RepRap is short for Replicating Rapid Prototyper (a.k.a. 3D printer), the goal being an open-source machine design capable of making most of its own parts. The machine itself consists of a…

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  • Only in Medford…

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  • Howto: Talk to arbitrary USB devices with Processing (1.0 Beta)

    I’ve been playing with the Processing language (http://processing.org) a little bit and liking it so far. For anyone not familiar, it’s a Java-based rapid-prototyping language that includes very friendly libraries for graphics, sound, video and select hardware (e.g. serial port). One thing I couldn’t find much info on was talking to arbitrary USB devices (not…

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  • House wiring, A Beautiful Mind style

    Our power went out sometime in the last couple days’ raging thunderstorms and reset all the computers/clocks in the house, so I figured before I reset them, this was an excuse to do something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time: map out the breaker box. (Exciting, ya? Well, this anti-electrocution research is…

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  • Evil thought of the day…

    When I noticed more and more Web sites trying to detect and block ‘bad’ or otherwise unprofitable users (e.g. those using ad- or popup-blockers, privacy tools, etc.), and banking sites like the one I use trying to detect potentially compromised machines, I thought, “How long will it be until some unnecessarily clever dickface just adds…

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  • My Fossil Collection

    Fossils in ironstone nodules I collected near my folks’ place on a strip-mine lake near the Mazon Creek in Grundy County near Morris, Illinois. This area is sometimes referred to as one of the Lagerstätten (i.e. mother lode) – one of few places on earth where conditions were just right to preserve a rich deposit…

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