I’ve put together two new computers recently, one for my mother-in-law and one as a replacement for a system that died here this week. I used some parts I already had from their predecessors (the monitors, keyboards, mice, hard drives, and CD/DVD drives), but even considering that, they were extremely inexpensive — the motherboard (with [...]
Archive of entries posted on March 2009
“Best ‘Looking for a Job Ad’, Ever”
I have to admit, it ranks pretty high on the things I’ve seen too. I’m not sure I’d employ him though.
Microsoft helping startups?!
It’s a curious move, coming from one of the largest software companies in the world, but a welcome one. Yes, it’s a transparent attempt to fight open-source software by getting companies hooked on their product before they’ve grown into the next Google. But it can also help such companies when they need it the most. [...]
“Israelis develop ‘safe’ plutonium: good for power, bad for weapons”
Of course, it’s only good until someone else comes up with a way to remove the contaminant that makes it safe. Something you know will happen, eventually.
“McDonalds to cook up EV charging station network”
Well, that’s one good way to get around the chicken-and-egg problem with electric vehicles.
Roast Pidgin
A few days ago, I started getting this message from Pidgin, the instant-messaging client that Ubuntu Linux uses by default: The client version you are using is too old. Please upgrade at http://pidgin.im Well, I’ve seen that happen before, so I waited. Sure enough, that evening’s software update told me that there was an upgrade [...]
Geek Drivel Updated
As you can probably see, I’ve made some updates to the blog. Some are visible, like the new “favicon” and a new theme; some aren’t, like removing some junk plugins and making some security improvements. All in all, I’m fairly happy with the results, but let me know if you see any weirdness.
Superbug!
(This entry is for software developers only. If you’re not a software developer, stop reading now, or you risk terminal boredom. ) As I’ve mentioned before, I wrote a program (which I refer to as Project Badger here) that was sold to a larger company, which keeps my company on call to advise on its [...]
Ford’s Latest TV Commercial
GoddessJ and I watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report every night that they’re on. (They’re really the only shows that we watch, we mostly use the TV for watching DVDs and playing the occasional PS2 game.) The only real complaint that we have about it is the sheer mind-numbing repetition of the ads. [...]
Two New Insights on Batteries
Want to charge your lithium-ion battery in three seconds? It’s apparently coming in the next couple years. And the longer term may hold Magnetic Tunnel Junction batteries, which could be even more useful.