Snippets

Consent

Without a doubt, the clearest message about what is and isn’t consent. And parents, please remember to teach your children — especially …

The Double Toothbrush

There is one facial hair style I can’t recall ever seeing: the double toothbrush. This would be a clean-shaven philtrum with a …

For many weeks I’ve been having tons of problems with my mouse pointer skipping across the screen seemingly without rhyme or reason. After much wailing and gnashing of teeth (I won’t admit to the renting of raiment…or the refusing to paint of raiment) I think I found the reason: the color in parts of my mouse pad rendered the laser in the mouse ineffective to the cause. Since changing out that mouse pad for a different one which lacked the offensive color zones, no noticeable problems (so far).

Sometimes it’s the simple things that trip us up the most easily in our complex technological world.

S&L Sad News, But Maybe Not Forever

I”m sad that Sword & Laser is ending its run on Geek & Sundry. That and Table Top are the only G&S …

I dug into the archives and started reading the ads from a 1981 issue of Byte Magazine. My gosh, how in the world did we ever find the money to buy any of this marginally useful stuff? At this point in time I was on my second computer and about to do my first build from scratch using chips, wires, wirewrap boards, and discreet components — releasing much magic blue smoke during that learning curve.

You could buy one of them there new-fangled 5MB (yes, megabyte) hard drives for just $2995! For those who wanted so much storage that no one could possibly fill it, you could get up to 100MB of HD storage for only $19,980. These come with data transfer rate of between 590 kB/s and 900 kB/s. By comparison, you can now get a Seagate 4TB hard drive (that’s ~4,000,000 MB) with 146 MB/s (~146,000 kB/s) average throughput, for $209.

If you didn’t have that kind of cash, you could snag an 8″ double-density floppy drive (about 500 kB formatted) for just $425 – box of 10 disks only $24. A bargain!

John Adams Would Not Like the Current Congress

Posterity! you will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a …

As Apocalypses Go, Not Bad

Wow. That was impressive. You don’t usually see trans-dimensional god-like overlords get worked up like that.

U.S. Soccer Unveils Name of New Women’s Soccer League – U.S. Soccer

This makes me very happy. A new league administered by US Soccer. Salaries for USA, CAN, and MEX national team players being …

Religious Freedom?

Lots of self-identified religious folk in the U.S. whine about religious freedom…or rather how they are being persecuted/denied that freedom. They don’t …

Julian Treasure: Why architects need to use their ears (TED)

This is an issue with a great deal of importance to me as my brain isn’t much help in separating ambient sound from the …

The Bootstrap Annoyance

I’m happy to cheer on people pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps. (Seriously…have you seen them try? It’s frakkin’ hi-larious.) Me? …

Cursive Commentary

I’ve lately been revisiting an old skill and reconnecting with writing in the “olde tyme” manner. Sometimes it’s good to take a step back.

James Madison on Wealth in Government

James Madison was perhaps the most influential figure when it came to the writing of both the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. When he states his view/warning on the wealthy’s influence on the government he’s designing, we should probably take heed.

What am I Great At?

A friend of mine, Aurora de Blas, posed this question: “What are you great at?”

The Penis’s Hydrostatic Skeleton (possibly NSFW)

Here’s the question: increasing fluid pressure inside a penis makes it enlarge, but what makes it inflexible? Not a lot of people have the…uh…inspiration to explore this area with scientific rigor. Fortunately, Diane Kelly happened upon the necessary inspiration and she shared her insights at TEDMED.

New Art – “We Fear No Elephants”

Over on the art site I posted a new scratchboard work. You should take a look.

We’ll know that we’ve created artificial intelligence the moment we realize that we’ve also created artificial stupidity. That revelation might be delayed a bit, however, as natural stupidity is so pervasive and we seem to lack adequate filters.
CJ Carter

→ April 8, 2012

Rob Reid: The $8 billion iPod (TED)

Something that I rail against is the abhorrent greed shown by the entertainment industries. It’s really amazing that they are in business at all given that (according to their armies of accountants and lawyers) nothing ever actually makes money.

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