The Bit Mine

Well, that is horrifying.

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 17:07:53 -0500

Well, that is horrifying.

"They don’t even have Mr. Pibb; they foist Dr. Pepper on you with a maddeningly un-apologetic..."

Thu, 20 May 2010 18:47:24 -0500

“They don’t even have Mr. Pibb; they foist Dr. Pepper on you with a maddeningly un-apologetic shrug when any fool knows that Dr. Pepper is no substitute for Mr. Pibb, and it’s an absolute goddamned travesty, or — at best — extremely dissatisfying indeed.”

- David Foster Wallace, Shipping Out
This may be why I don’t particularly care for DFW.

newsweek: soupsoup: (via The Onion) Listen, Onion, it takes a...

Thu, 20 May 2010 16:13:05 -0500

newsweek:

soupsoup:

(via The Onion)

Listen, Onion, it takes a lot more than meaningless numbers to make us ejaculate.

Amen, Onion.

Nesting Dolls

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 03:12:00 -0500

I’m in the middle of installing Windows XP in VirtualBox running on Ubuntu Netbook Remix, which is running in VirtualBox on Windows 7. There is a method to my madness, I promise.

Update: I somehow ended up running two simultaneous software updates and didn’t notice until I tried to reboot while the first update was still going. Result: Broken system. I guess it’s going to be a format, reinstall, try again kind of night.

"It’s ‘Anaconda meets Jurassic Park,’ ” says Jason Head, a paleontologist at..."

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:32:48 -0600

““It’s ‘Anaconda meets Jurassic Park,’ ” says Jason Head, a paleontologist at the University of Toronto who worked with Wilson’s team. “These sauropods would lay these huge fields of eggs that we find in India, just kind of kilometers of dinosaur eggshell, and so with these hatchling dinosaurs it must have just been a smorgasbord where a whole ecosystem of predators could basically come in and feed on them.””

- NPR: Snake Vs. Dinosaur Deathmatch Preserved In Fossil Find

via www.blogadilla.com

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 12:35:27 -0600

via www.blogadilla.com

On Cleaning

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 13:31:56 -0600

It took me three years of living on my own, but I’ve finally figure out The Basic Truths of Keeping My Place Acceptably Clean:

Just putting my shit away gets me 75% of the way there.
Vacuuming, dusting, and wiping down the flat surfaces takes care of the next 20%.
The last 5% is serious sleeves-rolled-up scrubbing, but I hardly ever actually have to do it. A couple of times a year for most of the apartment and once a month for the bathroom.

Cell Size and Scale

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:21:21 -0500

Cell Size and Scale:

From coffee beans to carbon atoms.

Towing a barge (not just any barge, a hover barge!) with a...

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 02:37:44 -0500

Towing a barge (not just any barge, a hover barge!) with a helicopter in Alaska.

Must see.

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:59:13 -0500

Must see.

Beechcraft D-17 Staggerwing. Beautiful airplane.

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:25:12 -0500

Beechcraft D-17 Staggerwing. Beautiful airplane.

5 Guys in a Limo.

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 14:46:58 -0500

5 Guys in a Limo.

Photo

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 13:18:46 -0500

Crystal Cave of Giants - Naica, Mexico

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 13:15:14 -0500

Crystal Cave of Giants - Naica, Mexico

jQuery and XML namespaces workaround

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 17:46:58 -0500

From Kevin Whinnery:

After some Googling, I figured out a round-about way to get at this tag using an attribute filter for nodeName:
$(this).find("[nodeName=namespace:tag]").text();
Attribute filters, FTW! Hopefully if you find this post first, it will save you some Googling.

23 days without Internet or cable

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:11:20 -0500

Despite my and my landlord’s best efforts, we just can’t convince Comcast that sometimes after a house burns down it gets rebuilt.

On the plus side I’m making really good progress on all of those DVDs that I bought and never watched, and I’m getting to bed really early.

Sony wired remote pinout / voltages

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:41:00 -0500

Sony wired remote pinout / voltages:

A reference for wiring up your own Sony remote commander for car stereos. With this, a SoundGate Zune Core System and a little PIC magic, I should be able to wire my Zune up to the steering wheel controls of the new Mazda. Oh yeah, I got a new Mazda 3.

Haskell Platform

Wed, 06 May 2009 14:09:52 -0500

Haskell Platform:

All-in-one, easy Haskell installer for Windows. Maybe this will finally push me into checking it out.

Celebrity Lookalikes Where I Work

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 22:55:06 -0500

Kurt Vonnegut
Ernest Hemingway (before he shaved his beard)
Skinny Michael Caine
Stuart Scott (he even has a lazy eye!)
70s Porn Guy
90s Porn Guy

Ok, those last two aren’t really specific celebrities but take my word for it, they fit the stereotypes. The even sit together at lunch sometimes!

Getting SATA drives working under Windows 7

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 21:43:24 -0600

This is mostly a note to myself, but if you have SATA drives, an Asus P5B Deluxe motherboard, and Windows 7, it might be of interest to you as well.

Enter then BIOS and put the drives in IDE compatibility mode.
Install Windows 7.
Open regedit and set HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\msahci\Start to 0 (zero). This enables the built-in AHCI driver in Windows (see note below).
Reboot. In the BIOS, switch from IDE compatability to AHCI.
Windows should re-detect your drives and SATA controllers. Download the latest Intel Matrix Storage Manager. Run the installer as administrator. Reboot.
When you boot back into Windows, your drives will again be re-detected, this time by the Intel drivers.

Note: Why not just install the Matrix drivers before while in IDE mode? The Intel installer won’t let you, and if you try to install or update the extracted drivers manually, Windows will also refuse. This is problematic because the AHCI driver that comes with Win7 is apparently crashy on some systems. You might not be able to get the system running in AHCI mode long enough to install the Intel drivers.