mike the mountain

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do... Especially With Your Blog Host

2008-05-03T12:40:00.004-06:00

Blogger's been good to me, but it's time to move on.

I have no complaints at all about Blogger. It's not them, it's me. I just want something new, something fresh. I want to have more control over this relationship.

I'm moving in with Wordpress.

Wordpress is a system that allows me to host my blog fully on my own domain, with all the control and functionality that it permits. It's open source, extensible, and constantly being added to and improved upon by a massive community.

I would like to invite you all to visit my very rough, very beta, very new blog at:

www.mikelawton.com/blog

For those of you who subscribe via newsfeed (RSS, etc.), please make sure to update your feeds to:

http://www.mikelawton.com/blog/feed/

I have nothing but love and gratitude for the Blogger crew; they've been awesome to me for the past 4 years. I hope we can remain friends.

Blogging about twittering, twittering about blogging. The circle of geek forms another loop.

2008-05-02T15:17:00.001-06:00

I Don't Believe I'm Doing This... Again...

2008-05-02T14:53:00.004-06:00

After resisting for far too long, I have succumbed to yet another "Web 2.0" darling.

What the heck's a 'blog'?

The bookmarks folder in my browser is fine...

My .Mac photo page is all I need...

And now...

What kind of loser would want to post one-sentence updates on his daily minutiae?

Once again, it took me months to finally try, and about 10 seconds to fall in love with it. I only have so much time in the day to waste on bull-$#!t self-aggrandizement, what's next??

If Only We Could Get The Taliban To Sing "Beverly Hills"

2008-04-01T10:37:00.005-06:00

A Finnish new-wave band... called The Leningrad Cowboys... backed up by the Soviet Red Army Choir... singing "Sweet Home Alabama"...

Yes.

I don't know when this concert was held, but I really hope it was in cold war times because I would have to give serious credit to this geo-political anachronism for knocking down the Berlin Wall by sheer force of irony alone.

I wonder if the choir singers knew what they were singing, or if they were just following along phonetically.

I Was A Jedi Back When They Were Still Cool

2008-03-27T09:45:00.006-06:00

OK, I admit, they're still cool...

Not everyone loved Michel Gondry's latest flick "Be Kind Rewind", but for a film geek like me it was pure heaven. In particular the idea of super low budget fan made films is so awesome... it reminds me of the summer of 1998 or 1999 (just before Star Wars: Episode One was released) when dear friend and uber-genius Steve Tsuida had the idea for a group of us to film a "trailer" for a new Star Wars movie.

The idea was to create a "proof of concept" for a film club for kids and teens. We wanted to get kids to build their own movie(s), start to finish, on a grander scale than just a school project type thing. Everyone would get to do something, whether it was fund raising or set design or costumes or makeup or stunts or writing... everything would be done by the kids, we would just handle the logistics and overall management. Wonderful idea, then we found out about the joys of insurance costs and legal issues involved with putting a bunch of minors on camera. Oh well, maybe we'll try it again sometime now that I'm like, old 'n stuff.

So anyway, before finding out the bad news, we spent the summer scouting locations, building props and costumes, and learning how to do all sorts of neat CGI effects on this new-fangled candy-coloured gumdrop computer called an iMac. What we wanted to do was show both the kids and prospective donors the kind of project we were proposing; that we were actually serious about making a film and had at least a base starting knowledge of the work involved.

Having the luxury of southern Alberta at our fingertips, finding otherworldly locations wasn't very difficult. One particular highlight was having our shoot interrupted by a busload of Japanese tourists who, in full cliched stereotype mode, had us pose for a few hundred pictures! We made our own costumes, dear sister did our makeup, best buddy Dave "Chainsaw" Bargen choreographed a sweet little lightsaber battle, and Steve put it all together with music and sound effects (it's amazing how much information you can find online about the low budget effects used in the first movie).

Sadly, I can't find the finished video (I'm sure it's buried on some CDR backup somewhere in my basement), but trust me, it was awesome. Now that Be Kind Rewind has come out, it seems that people everywhere are realizing how much fun it can be to make their own versions of their favourite movies... screw budgets and effects and all that other nonsense! Fun and passion are the only things you need. Makes me miss my brief foray into "real" movie making with my RoLL Video buddies back in Ontario.

Here's a great example by some French dudes taking on the famous Light Cycle scene from Tron:

Tron
by freres-hueon

This is exactly how people discover their true talents and passions. I love that it's become "cool" for anyone to post their own projects where the only factor they're being judged on is how much fun they had making it! I gotta get me a camera...

Everyone's Irish For A Day

2008-03-17T09:23:00.002-06:00

Guinness with a hint of green please...

Happy St. Patrick's Day to all the men with Irish in 'em and all the ladies who would like some...

"Here's to you and yours, and to mine and ours.
And if mine and ours ever come across to you and yours,
I hope you and yours will do as much for mine and ours,
As mine and ours have done for you and yours!"

Today Is A Very Happy Day

2008-03-14T13:59:00.000-06:00

Celebrate with the one you love.

Also, π Day.

Two very special days all in one.

The order in which you choose to honour them may say more about you then you think.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go have something to eat.

:)

Food From The Dark Side

2008-03-14T12:28:00.005-06:00

Some things make me wonder if I should look to my fellow humans with awe and admiration... or fear and loathing (Vegas optional).

Point of debate: the Luther Burger and the Hamdog.

The Luther Burger: A bacon cheeseburger served in a Krispy Kreme doughnut bun. Though attributed to R&B singer Luther Vandross, I personally prefer to think of it as a weapon designed by an evil genius to destroy Superman.

As inspiring as that is, even the mighty Luther must bow down before the Hamdog: a hot dog wrapped in a beef patty, deep fried, covered with chili, cheese and onions, and served on a hoagie bun topped with a fried egg and two fistfuls of fries.

The culinary Cthulhu that brought this creation to the world is Chandler Goff, of Mulligan's in Decatur, Georgia. Methinks I must visit.

Now that I know such things exists, I must try them. Why try food like this? Why climb Everest? Because it's there. And what is life but a search for stories that your children will tell of you.

"Your great-grandfather, long ago, walked into a pool hall in Georgia..."

Xel-Há presents "through changing, you're through"

2008-03-13T20:12:00.004-06:00

After seeing the results of my Dada album cover yesterday, Dreamgirl decided she wanted her own band.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to present the world premiere of Xel-Há...

Now, judging purely by the look of the albums, what kind of music do you think our bands play? And even more importantly, who opens for who?

Dada Album Cover Exercise

2008-03-12T20:46:00.000-06:00

Ladies and Gentlemen, punks, drunks, and skunks, bow your heads and throw up the horns for the hardest of the hardcores, the newly crowned kings of kink and rulers of rock, whether you like it or not, here comes ATG5!!!!!

OK, maybe not the catchiest name for a band, but check out our latest album cover:

Random musical fun from the one and only Accordian Guy...

Dada Album Cover Exercise

via The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century : Joey deVilla's Personal Blog by Joey deVilla on 1/16/08

Via David Janes, here’s a little Dada album cover exercise. You can come up with an album cover for a hypothetical band by doing the following:

Use the random Wikipedia article feature — the title of the article that appears is the name of the band.
The name of the album is the last four words of the last quote on the random quotes page at Quotations.com.
For the cover art, use the third image that appears when you visit Flickr’s interesting photos for the last 7 days.

Here’s what I got: the Wikipedia entry for “hematoma block”, the quote “It is hard work, but there is happiness in it.” by the creators of the game Animal Crossing: Wild World and this photo by Emmanuel Smague. Based on these results, I made this album cover:

Look out, Nine Inch Nails, I just out-moped you!

Movie Night

2008-02-29T22:18:00.003-07:00

I love it when the movie planets align and I can just settle into the sofa, light up the big screen, and watch back-to-back-to-back-to-back flicks! All different channels, giving a nicely eclectic mix of genres, right up my alley:

Pi
300
Robin Hood: Men In Tights
Videodrome

Can't wait to see what kind of dreams I'll be having tonight...

---

Oh, and a big "how's it goin', eh?" to my friends over at Diesel Sweeties for giving a shout out to my Prairie Paradise!!

Bitchslap of Mortality

2008-02-28T21:31:00.002-07:00

The long arm of reality gave me five across the eyes yesterday.

A couple of weeks ago I was up at Sunshine, and the FIRST freakin' run, the easiest wimpiest green run on the mountain, I catch an edge. A wee little tumble, hardly anything at all. Except for landing on my elbow at a funny angle. And hearing this odd "pop". And feeling my whole arm go numb.

Well, the doc confirmed it. Minor dislocation, torn rotator cuff. Luckily, not a complete tear, so I don't need surgery. But I do get the joy of physiotherapy for the next 6 months or so. Which means my snowboarding season is likely done. Which would be REALLY F'N ANNOYING!!!!

Bah, I'm a quick healer, and the season's long. We'll see how I feel after a month or two.

Stupid non-invincible muscle fibers. When the heck are my super-powers going to kick in anyway??

Love Songs

2008-02-26T13:03:00.005-07:00

I know I'm way late to the game with these clips, but dang they're just some of the funniest s#!t I've seen in a long time!!

The lovely and hilarious Ms. Silverman with an unfortunate confession...

... and a truly "bravo" response from her gentleman counterpart Mr. Kimmel.

Don't Call It Metro: How To Shave Like A Man

2008-02-13T21:09:00.001-07:00

About a year ago I decided to finally ditch the overpriced multi-blade monstrosities and cheap smelly goop from a pressured can. Stopped paying $2 a blade for poor design, bad performance, and painful skin torture. Do you hate shaving? I did. Razor burn a constant partner. The morning shave something to dread, rush through, and regret while wistfully remembering the joys of a full beard for no reason other than to not have to drag a row of dull metal edges across my soaped-up unlubricated skin before further punishing my leather-like visage with whatever sugary perfumed crap could be found to dry my skin out even more.

Shaving for me used to be a necessary evil, an annoyance, certainly nothing to ever look forward to, experiment with, or be proud of.

But that's exactly what I do now.

I LOVE shaving. I look forward to it. I play with it. Take my time. Try different combinations and techniques. Take care of my face at least as well as my car or my shoes (actually better).

Like most guys, I'd long thought about looking at a straight razor, but having no idea where to find one or how to use it, the idea stayed back in the "cool ideas that don't go anywhere" file. But then I started reading this guy, and began looking into the "wet shaving" scene for real. Read everything on Corey's site (like this, this, and this), then LeisureGuy, Badger and Blade, Shave My Face, and Mantic59's videos.

I was sold.

Hit Lee's Safety Razors and ordered a Merkur HD (aka: "Heavy Duty") and a Vulfix #2233 Super Badger shaving brush. Ordered some Israeli Personna "Super+" DE razor blades from Encure (about 25 cents a piece, including shipping). Kiss My Face Cool Mint Moisture Shave Cream, Alum Block, Thayers Alcohol-Free Rose Petal Witch Hazel Toner, and Jojoba Oil from my local organic market.

After much sampling and testing I've since added Crabtree & Evelyn's amazing men's shave line to my repertoire. Dreamgirl loves the Sienna line, I use their shave cream and aftershave balm, along with the Naturals Face Scrub. And a dollar-store cappuccino mug to whip up some luxurious lather in.

So yes, I use half a dozen different products on my face when I shave, take a good 20-30 minutes, and enjoy every second of it. After 4 or 5 passes with a fine blade my face feels smooth as silk, smells amazing, subtle, and masculine. My razor burn has completely disappeared.

This ain't "metro". I've reclaimed one of the old classic men's grooming rituals that has been nearly extinguished by the marketing power of Gillette and their ilk. Go ask your fathers and grandfathers how they used to shave. There's a reason men used to go to a professional (aka: a barber) when they needed a good shave. There is nothing more meditative, more relaxing, and more masculine than a proper shave. I invite all men to discover this wonderful ritual once again.

---

PS - I just found a barber in the city who not only offers straight razor shaves, but who makes his own! Looks like I'll be pulling that idea out of the file after all...

Why I Have A Geek Crush On Wil Wheaton

2008-01-31T17:01:00.001-07:00

Dude's just got exactly my sense of humour...

the loneliest number

via WWdN: In Exile by wil@wilwheaton.net (Wil Wheaton) on 1/31/08

I have a sticker on my car that says, "There is no place like 127.0.0.1"

I get to explain it to a lot of people, and I'm usually rewarded with a blank look, followed by a pitying look, followed by parents holding on tightly to their children as they move away slowly at first, then quickly, never turning their backs on me.

Such is the life of a geek among normals.

My pal R. Stevens, creator of the always-awesome Diesel Sweeties comic, has a new T-shirt with a different take on the 127.0.0.1 joke that hit a little close to 127.0.0.1 for me:

There will be 10 kinds of people in the world: those who get this shirt, and those who don't.

(Okay, that was taking it just a little to far, I will admit.)

For the record, no that joke's never too far (and yes, I own the t-shirt), and I totally know what you mean about your car (see my personal example to the right).

This Just Blew My Mind

2008-01-23T13:27:00.000-07:00

You can check out more of this dude's projects here.

Nothing Says "Happy Mike Day" Like Hundreds Of People Taking Off Thier Pants

2008-01-14T14:18:00.000-07:00

It gladdens my heart and embiggens my soul to see people celebrating my birthday (aka: "Mike Day") in the appropriate fashion:

No Pants Day!
On Saturday, January 12, an estimated 900 New Yorkers dropped their drawers on the train. The question wasn't modesty—it was, 'Boxers, briefs, or bikinis?'

New York has always been so kind to me.

Willamette Week| "Pants. Off. Now."

Mary Allison Tadina wants to take off your pants. The 22-year-old Portland-born flight instructor is the instigator behind the city’s first ever No Pants on MAX event. In a feat of nonironic titling, the event is exactly what it sounds like: Participants meet at the Lloyd Center MAX station on Saturday, Jan. 12, and take off their pants. They get on the westbound MAX train. They attempt to act normal. “Well, you can to wear a winter coat and [hats and gloves],” Tadina explains, with a nod to the weather. “Just no pants.”

I never knew I was so popular in Portland...

Neighborhoods of the traveling pantless
Some thought it was art. Others thought maybe an advertisement. And many were simply bewildered as throngs of people in their tighty-whiteys, flannel boxers, and floral briefs made their way through the T yesterday.

Boston is such an amazing city, I love you all!

No pants the better way for a day

Even my old home town of Toronto came out in force to celebrate with me!

Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, even my friends down in Australia got in on the action. I tell you, it feels so good to have made an impact on the world like this. To see my message of "No Pants" being taken far and wide, thousands of people loudly proclaiming their love and appreciation by dropping trou.

I just... I can't say how much it means to me...

excuse me, I've got something in my eye...

In My Humble Opinion...

2008-01-11T15:40:00.000-07:00

This is the post in which I, Michael Lawton, will attempt to piss off as many people as possible, further ensuring any future political aspirations will be inevitably and irreparably coloured by the insane ramblings of his 29 year old ignorant, egotistical, pathetic need for self-important outbursts.

These people actually exist!

OK, maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit, but the point I'd like to make is how difficult it seems to be these days for anyone to hold and voice an opinion on something without worrying about coming across as a fool. Magnifying this is just how foolish those that DO proudly and loudly express themselves tend to appear. The rational tend to speak more softly, acknowledge that there may be other valid opinions, admit when information is not perfect or complete, then try to honestly explain why they came to the conclusion they reached. The foolish wave placards, shout slogans, and typically have little to no understanding of any information that does not conform to the opinion they, in most cases, were directed to have by another party with their own agenda.

Example: I do not think that the United States nor it's partner countries should cease their military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan at the current time. *note: I am Canadian, and while we are actively involved in Afghanistan, we are only peripherally supporting the forces in Iraq.

Talk about a fun one to come out in favour of! It's a little easier to have this discussion in Canada, since there isn't as massive a social/political schism around the issue as there is in the US. On the other hand, being one step removed tends to make it easier for those who chose to do so to stereotype: Stay in Iraq = Bush supporter = crazed ignorant racist uneducated gun-toting ultra-neo-conservative super-fundamentalist-Evangelical-Christian redneck, right? Think there's any chance I'm basing my opinion solely on what I consider the likely ramifications of withdrawing an arguably stabilizing force from a volatile and demonstrably UNstable region?

Does this mean that I agree 100% with the decisions that led to the West's present involvement in these conflicts?

Does this have anything to do with my opinions on gay marriage, immigration, capital gains tax, oil tariffs, environmental policy, copyright reform, domestic surveillance, racial profiling, gun control, or tie colour?

Example: I think that the current US administration is an embarrassment to all the things they claim to stand for; an embarrassment to conservatives, an embarrassment to Christians, and an embarrassment to Americans. *note: remember, I'm Canadian, which means that I do have a filtered view of the political landscape in our neighbouring country. I do hope that I have a balanced enough perspective to take what I see in a proper context.

This is most likely the wrong place to invite debate over such an issue. While the breadth of the internet offers the potentially greatest diversity of opinion and input, the sad fact is that the most obnoxious contributors simply exhaust the enthusiasm of those interested in honest discourse (see John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, or pretty much any comment thread or popular forum that touches on the slightest political or cultural activity).

I love a good honest passionate debate between people able to separate their emotions from their discourse. The mark of a truly skilled debater is one who can choose any side of a discussion and offer meaningful, intelligent insight, regardless of his or her personal feelings on the matter.

"Stay at home in your mind. Don't recite other people's opinions. I hate quotations. Tell me what you know." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

“And it's my opinion, and that's only my opinion, you are a lunatic. Just because there are a few hundred other people sharing your lunacy with you does not make you any saner.” ~Oleg Kiselev

"Opinions are like assholes. Everyone's got one, and they all stink." ~unknown

If you could blow up the world with the flick of a switch
Would you do it?
If you could make everybody poor just so you could be rich
Would you do it?
If you could watch everybody work while you just lay on your back
Would you do it?
If you could take all the love without giving any back
Would you do it?
And so we cannot know ourselves or what we'd really do...

With all your power
With all your power
With all your power
What would you do?

If you could make your own money and then give it to everybody
Would you do it?
If you knew all the answers and could give it to the masses
Would you do it?
No no no no no no are you crazy?
It's a very dangerous thing to do exactly what you want
Because you cannot know yourself or what you'd really do

With all your power
With all your power
With all your power

The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song by The Flaming Lips

M3rry G33km@s and a H@ppy 11111011000

2008-01-01T01:06:00.000-07:00

HUGE year for The Mike.

Moved from Ontario back to the Homeland, the Wild West, Prairie Paradise, River City, City of Champions and Festivals, a.k.a. Edmonton, Alberta. Brought the girl of my dreams with me of course!

Joined the family business, finally started building a real career like a big boy.

Now it's time to actually start building a life.

I've been horrible about staying in touch with my friends here while I've been out East, so now I really want to reconnect with everybody. Facebook's been a great start, but once my office blocked it I dropped out again. No more.

I also want to get a serious grip on my health and finances. I make these goals every year, but this year I'm putting a serious plan together, something measurable, something that I can track and hopefully stick to.

So without further ado, let me now present the first step of my plan, publicly listing my goals, to maximize all the wonderful benefits of shame and peer pressure:

1 - Body weight of 225 pounds (I'm a soft 210 right now, gotta lose about 10 pounds of flab and add 25 of decent muscle)
2 - Bodyfat %... (to be updated when I figure out what my current bodyfat is, and what it should be)
3 - Run 1/2 marathon (we loved it last year, might even go for a full this summer!)
4 - Zero credit card debt (one massive monkey I need off my back)
5 - $100 per month into my RRSP (to start anyway, gotta practice what I preach)
6 - At least one blog post per week

Challenging, but achievable. I'm looking forward to seeing how the year goes!

May the lessons of the past carry you forward to a new world of inspiration and amazement. In the words of one of the smartest and funniest people on teh webs: "You know how some people consider "may you have an interesting life" to be a curse? F#^% those people. Wanna have an adventure?"

You Need To Know What's Happening: Canadian Copyright Law and Political Piracy

2007-12-10T11:45:00.000-07:00

If you care at all about Canadian musicians, writers, TV or film workers, or any other artist... you need to know what is happening.

If you care about your own rights with regards to music you listen to, movies you watch, literature you read, software you use... you need to find out about the new legislation being proposed by the federal government.

If you care about who is influencing our politicians, and who's interests our laws are being written to protect... you need to think very hard about what this new proposal says.

If you don't (or even if you do) understand terms and acronyms like DRM, DMCA, EULA, WIPO, P2P, Open Source, Creative Commons, and Fair Use... how confident are you that your politicians understand how they affect you as an individual (as opposed to what they are told about them by those that can afford lobbyists)?

(For a great explanation of what some of these concepts are and what this proposed legislation might mean to us, check out this slideshow by Wellington Grey about what has happened in the US.)

Laws that are written under the influence of foreign parties with commercial interests, and without public input, forced through without proper debate, education, or review, that directly affect nearly every citizen, and are modeled after a foreign act that has been a near total failure on every level... can not be tolerated.

People and organizations that benefit from this type of political piracy depend on a lazy and uninformed public. I beg you, educate yourself, then at least you'll know why you're so pissed off!

HOWTO Fight Canada's coming DMCA copyright law

via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow on 12/2/07

Canadian copyfightin' law prof Michael Geist has revisited his list of "30 things you can do to stop the Canadian DMCA" -- first posted the last time the Canadian government tried to bring down a US-style copyright law. The US's approach to enforcing copyright in the digital age has resulted in 20,000 lawsuits against music fans, technology companies being sued out of existence for making new multi-purpose tools, and has not put one penny into the pocket of an artist or reduced downloading one bit. The USA stepped into uncharted territory in 1998 with the DMCA and fell off a cliff -- that was reckless, but following them off the cliff is insane.

The Canadian minority Tory government is planning to do just that, first thing in the New Year, with a full-court press for a Canadian DMCA that goes way beyond the US counterpart, making it one of the worst copyright laws in the developed world, with extra-strong anti-circumvention rules that prohibit making and using tools that open up locked digital files, even when those files belong to you.

The last two Canadian Members of Parliament who championed a Canadian DMCA lost their jobs. Good things come in threes.

# Write to your local Member of Parliament. Nothing is more obvious or more important. Letters (which are better than email) from just a handful of constituents is enough to get the attention of your local MP. It is often a good idea to ask the MP to forward your letter to the relevant Ministers. Contact information for all MPs is available here. Online Rights Canada also provides an easy way to write to your local MP.
# Write to the Prime Minister of Canada. Contact information here.
# Write to Jim Prentice, the Minister of Industry. Minister Prentice is responsible for the Copyright Act in Canada. Despite the fact that Minister Prentice trumpeted his pro-consumer approach on the spectrum auction issue, the rumour mill suggests that he supports DMCA-style reforms and has little interest in advocating for consumer concerns. Minister Prentice's contact information is here.
# Write to Josee Verner, the Minister of Canadian Heritage. Minister Verner is one of the two ministers responsible for copyright policy in Canada. Prior Canadian Heritage Ministers have been perceived to be close to U.S. copyright lobby groups and copyright collectives. Ministry contact information here. Minister Verner's contact information is here....

Link (Thanks, Ryan!)

Canadian DMCA rally in Calgary -- photos, videos, reports

2007-12-10T11:33:00.000-07:00

For all my sermonizing, I found myself woefully unaware of the biggest public action on Canada's proposed new copyright legislation nightmare, happening right outside my door! I was only a couple hours away too, hiking around a serene (if chilly) Lake Louise with Dreamgirl. Damn. I really would have liked to have been there.

Below is a report from those that were there, and I really hope they had the effect they were looking for!

Canadian DMCA rally in Calgary -- photos, videos, reports

via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow on 12/9/07

Kempton Lam, who organized Saturday's anti-DMCA rally at Industry Canada Minister Jim Prentice's office in Calgary, Alberta, has posted a GREAT couple of articles reporting on the day, which looks to have been an unqualified success. The Minister (who was in Calgary for an open house at his constituency office) is introducing copyright legislation that mimics -- and exceeds -- the worst elements of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998, a law that has resulted in lawsuits against 20,000 music fans, harmed free speech and innovation, and failed completely to enrich any artists or prevent infringement.

Minister Prentice has refused to answer any of the 250+ questions that the CBC Radio programme Search Engine compiled from its readers' suggestions; and he shut Canadian artists, industry and consumer groups out of the drafting of the bill, writing it with the help of US entertainment giants and the US Trade Representative. The Minister's office says that consumer interests in the bill will come about as the result of a separate committee, the kind of thing that usually takes a decade to come to fruition in Canadian law.

So on Saturday, some fifty concerned people attended the Minister's open house and asked him some of the questions that the CBC had compiled. Hundreds more wrote and called the office (I tried to leave a message late on Saturday and found that all three of his office voicemail systems were filled and no longer accepting messages).

Word is that the Minister had no idea that this would be such a big deal for Canadians (the week-old Facebook group for fighting the bill just crested 10,000 members and is growing fast), despite the fact that the last two MPs who tried to introduce a slightly better version of the law ended up losing their jobs.

Word is that the Minister and his advisers are scrambling, rethinking the entire matter because of the public outcry. It's thanks to you all -- everyone who wrote and called, and especially people who went to the Minister's office on Saturday, and especially Kempton Lam, who organised the whole event. (Be sure to check out all the videos Kempton filmed of Canadians putting questions about the proposal to the Minister)

We've killed the Canadian DMCA twice now. We will do it a third time, a fourth, a fifth, and forever, until Canada's politicians start drafting balanced copyright laws that protect Canadian artists, scholars, critics, schools, libraries, and the public interest. Link to Part 1 of Kempton's report, Part 2 of Kempton's report

(Photo credit: _DSC0046 from LiminalMike's Flickr stream)

Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies with Maple Cinnamon Glaze

2007-12-09T11:09:00.001-07:00

Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies with Maple Cinnamon Glaze.

Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies with Maple Cinnamon Glaze.

Do you really need to hear anything else?

Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies with Maple Cinnamon Glaze.

Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies with Maple Cinnamon Glaze

via The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century by Joey deVilla on 12/8/07

"Muffin", the author of the blog Ooh, You Tasty Little Things..., writes:

This whole thing started the other night when my husband and I were having a conversation about what foods could and could not be made better with the addition of bacon. (mike: just for the record, Bacon Makes Everything Better.)

You can see the end result of said conversation in the photos that accompany this article: Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies with Maple Cinnamon Glaze.

She says they taste good — and why not? She's not the only person who's mixed bacon and chocolate: consider the bacon chocolate bar created by Vosges, the gourmet chocolatier and heartily recommended by none other than supersexy celebrity chef Nigella Lawson.

Luckily for those of us with brave culinary spirits, "Muffin" has published the recipe for the cookies and the glaze. Who wants to try making a batch of these with me over the Chrismukkah break?

"Are you also divergent, friend?"

2007-11-23T21:05:00.000-07:00

Theory: Fight Club and Twelve Monkeys are part of the same story, and Brad Pitt plays the same central character. Fight Club takes place in the mind of Pitt's character (Jeffrey Goines) in Twelve Monkeys while he is committed to the insane asylum.

Jeffrey's obsession is with the "system" that controls and indoctrinates the population.

"There's the television. It's all right there - all right there. Look, listen, kneel, pray. Commercials! We're not productive anymore. We don't make things anymore. It's all automated. What are we *for* then? We're consumers, Jim. Yeah. Okay, okay. Buy a lot of stuff, you're a good citizen. But if you don't buy a lot of stuff, if you don't, what are you then, I ask you? What? Mentally *ill*. Fact, Jim, fact - if you don't buy things - toilet paper, new cars, computerized yo-yos, electrically-operated sexual devices, stereo systems with brain-implanted headphones, screwdrivers with miniature built-in radar devices, voice-activated computers..."

Tyler Durden leads an anarchist army to tear down and destroy the "system".

"God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off."

However, the connection is more interesting that that, delving into some deep psychosis, into multi-level personality schisms: Jeffrey (Brad Pitt) imagines that he is someone else (Fight Club's nameless narrator), and that person is imagining that he is in turn another identity (aka: Tyler Durden, Pitt again), only free to live out his hyper-violent cathartic fantasies. He imagines that he is someone else, imagining that he is himself. Leading the army, destroying the system, "looking like he wants to look, f***ing like he wants to f***."

...

I love stuff like this.

Reminder of Mortality

2007-10-11T20:37:00.000-06:00

It's a rare and wonderful treat for the smallest of nature's creatures to bestow upon me the physically and spiritually humbling experience, nay epiphany of having my own body become an incubator, a living home, for an entire civilization of replicating microscopic entities.

Really, what are minor luxuries like sleeping and breathing when compared to this immaculate Gaia-like existence?

...

I hate being sick.

ARRRRR!!!!

2007-09-19T09:50:00.000-06:00

Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day!

Why do pirates always bury their treasure 18 inches below the ground?
Because booty is only shin deep!

I May Be Late To The Table, But This Still Tastes DEL.ICIO.US To Me!

2007-09-18T15:31:00.000-06:00

I've known about the "social bookmarking" site/app/Web 2.0 darling del.icio.us since it launched, I guess I just didn't really clue in to it's awesomeness until today.

OK, so I'm a little slow sometimes.

I am what you may call a voracious reader. I usually have 2-3 books on the go, stacks of magazines that I never throw out (which I'm sure doesn't annoy my girlfriend at all, right honey?). I can't take a poop or fall asleep without something to read. The whole "blog revolution" (blogolution? bloggervution? I smell a new buzzword!) has been awesome for a connoisseur of the obscure, inane, insane, wild, wonderful, and OMGWTF such as myself. My brain is Augustus Gloop and the net is my river of chocolate (see, I knew that whole "series of tubes" analogy made sense!).

It was bad enough when I had to hunt and peck around for some nuggets of info, I had enough sites memorized that I knew I enjoyed. Occaisionally they'd link to other cool places that I'd have to remember or bookmark. But then sites like Fark started to gather lots of links together in one place. And then other sites started doing the same thing, on every topic imaginable. RSS feeds came along, and that was like adding a nozzle to the firehose, because at least I could get all the stories and posts and pics and jokes and articles in one place. Bloglines, Google Reader put it all online for me, so now I didn't have to be at any one computer to go through all my favourite sites and feeds. And they made it so easy to subscribe, I'm now getting a stupid amount of posts, hundreds a day, far more than I could ever keep up with (and still do things like work, sleep, eat)!

The productive life is about efficiencies. I can scroll through a few hundred links, and mark the ones that sound interesting for later reading! For a while it was just in an ever-growing folder of bookmarks on each computer I used... then I clued in on one of the reasons I started this little bloggity-blog all those many years ago, to store and share the cool stuff I find! So a few links here or there, then a big "link dump" every once in a while to clear out the bookmark folders. Not very efficient, but improving. Google Reader added an "Email" link to each post, which allowed me to post the entire article on here, which I thought was really cool, but now I'm stuck with 40 or 50 unpublished articles that I have to go through, clean up, and write some kind of comment about. Yikes. Back into overload again.

So this is what brought me back to looking at del.icio.us. I wanted some place to keep my bookmarks that would allow me to access it from any computer and easily share with anyone who was interested, and if I could keep a bit of an update going on my website here, bonus!

Well, those of you who read this site directly (as opposed to through a RSS feed) should see a new section for "Recent Links" (or whatever I've changed it to that day), as well as a link back to my del.icio.us page, where I will be linking to all the various little items of interest I stumble across as I surf the tubes. You can even subscribe to my link feed, and get all those wonderful little links without having to dirty your browser with my digital brain vomit.

The "Links"... um... link... still stays. It's more of a source list for the individual pages and articles that I'll tag in del.icio.us. I'm stoked about this, it's giving me another layer of efficiency that I can use to optimize my time without sacrificing the random knowledge that I've been feeding my brain since I got my first Guinness Book of World Records and Uncle John's Bathroom Reader. Of course, I haven't yet got to the point of taking my laptop into the bathroom with me, so Uncle John still has a place of honour... right beside the throne!

Buy My Scion

2007-09-10T11:34:00.000-06:00

Sometimes, painful sacrifices must be made for the greater good.

My girlfriend and I want a house. We have two cars. We only need one car. Her car is paid for.

Anyone want to buy the coolest car I've ever owned?

As difficult as it may be for me, I am offering someone else the opportunity to own one of the most unique and kick-ass vehicles on the road today. You can't get these in Canada. Heck, there's only about a half-dozen states in the US that are selling them right now. I've seen a grand total of three other Scion xB's in Alberta.

You want a car with a ton of head room, amazing gas milage, buckets of storage space, and an appearance guaranteed to get you noticed on the street... this is the one.

I've kept her stock, aside from an upgraded stereo with an MP3 player input jack on the face for my iPod, but if you were so inclined you could mod this thing up like crazy. Do a google image search on Scion xB and see some of the stuff people have done.

You can see more information and pictures on BuyMyScion.com, and you can check out my ads on Kijiji and Craigslist.

I'm asking $24,900. $100 off if you can tell me what my license plate means. If you'd like to talk to me about it, leave a message in the comments or e-mail me at michael@buymyscion.com.

Hatchet

2007-09-07T15:13:00.001-06:00

What can I say? I love me some good old fashioned slasher flick! And everything I've read about Hatchet makes me very excited to see this one!

I'm not the biggest film snob by any means, I can shut my brain off and enjoy a lot of crap, but I do have to agree with pretty much everyone that modern Hollywood seems to be making a lot more garbage than they used to. Sequel after prequel after remake after reimagining... I know they're running a business like any other, and a guaranteed mediocre profit on a throwaway flick with a bunch of hot-at-the-moment actors might make more sense to a corporate bottom line than taking on an unknown entity that might bomb... but there's gotta be someone fighting for new and exciting stories, someone willing to take a risk for the sake of the art. We're going to run out of stuff to remake at some point!!

Anyway, my point is, if you have any love for the horror classics of this generation (Freddy, Jason, Michael, Leatherface, etc.), and would like to see something new that other real die-hard fans of the genre are going crazy over, get out and see Hatchet this weekend. If it's playing near you (dang limited release for indie flicks). There's even a contest over at Horror-Movie-A-Day for the person that gets a picture with the most people they've brought along!

Just remember to promise your girlfriend that you'll watch Oprah with her or something... secretly, she really enjoys these types of movies, they just don't want to admit it!

... right, honey?

Best Run Ever!

2007-08-14T10:02:00.000-06:00

We did it!! And my knee didn't blow up!! And we set our personal best time ever!!!

Dreamgirl and I did the Edmonton 1/2 marathon (that's 21.1 Km) in a grand total of 2:11:39. Better than we ever thought we'd be able to do it in. The day was just perfect... perfect temperature, perfect weather, we were feeling strong, had the right crowd with us... it was just awesome.

This was Chrystal's first real big organized race (we did a little 10K in Banff once, but it was nothing like this). She's hooked now, we already signed up for another 1/2 marathon clinic with the Running Room, this time for a race in Las Vegas! We're also hoping to do a run in Okanagan, BC in the late fall.

A huge thank you goes out to the Running Room at South Edmonton Common for getting us ready for this race. Never would have done it without them. Marla was an awesome group leader who kept us motivated throughout the summer. Thanks to everyone that ran with us and congratulations to us all!

Run Mikey Run

2007-08-11T14:24:00.000-06:00

Tomorrow Dreamgirl and I will be running in the Edmonton 1/2 Marathon!! 21.1Km (13.1 miles for you "flat-earth" types) over and around the biggest river valley park in North America.

We've been training with The Running Room since April, 5 days a week (when we don't miss one or two runs), slowly building up our distances. Longest run so far was 20K.

Today is all about hydration and carbo-loading, ie: drinking lots of water and eating lots of pasta. Tonight will be a good stretching session and an early sleep.

This is a big milestone for both of us, for different reasons: Chrystal had never run outdoors prior to starting this clinic, so not only will this be her first real race, but the longest distance she's ever run in her life!

I got into running a few years back, did a bunch of races around Ontario, eventually decided I was going to run a marathon. I did the Running Room clinic in Toronto, got about 2/3rds of the way through when we started doing hill training, and snap. IT Band. I took a few weeks off, did some physio, then after a couple ok light runs I decided to try and do the marathon.

Not a good idea.

It started getting sore about half way through, then right in front of the 31 Km marker it seized on me. Couldn't stretch it out, couldn't walk it out... but I wasn't going to give up... so I did my best Terry Fox impression for the last 11.2 Kilometers. It was slow, it was ugly, but I finished. Couldn't walk for a couple weeks afterwards, but I finished.

Haven't run 2 steps since. Until this clinic.

I've been terrified every run, waiting for that twinge of pain to shoot up my right leg, but nothing came. I bought great shoes, stretching like Gumby every run... so far I've been fine! That's what this race means to me: I've made it through all the training, once I finish this race I'll know that I don't have to worry about anything stopping me from continuing to run. Maybe even do another marathon, try to redeem myself completely!

Trippy YouTube Fun: Polaroid Flipshow

2007-08-10T09:03:00.001-06:00

The coolest video created with 987 Polaroids and no computer compositing you'll probably ever see:

Process Enacted: by Jordan C. Greenhalgh

Root Beer Cupcakes and "Happy" Memories

2007-08-10T08:54:00.001-06:00

I wonder what kind of root beer would taste best in cupcake form... I've always loved Dad's, the stuff they sell at the big Conklin fairs in the giant wooden kegs taste fantastic (probably just some no-name generic cheapo brand, but the whole fairground experience makes everything taste like magic), there used to be a local pop... brewery? pop-ery? what do you call a place that makes pop?... anyway, there used to be a local company called "Happy Pop" that made a whole line of amazing sodas in stubby glass bottles with a big yellow smiley face on the side. I bought it by the case every chance I got, but they're long since out of business. I miss Happy Pop. The Lime Rickey was incredible.

Root beer cupcakes

via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow on Aug 10, 2007

Cory Doctorow: I try not to eat sugar, or flour, or practically any of the other ingredients in cupcakes -- but this recipe for "Root Beer Cupcakes" has me drooling and wondering how long the sugar-coma would last.

Root beer floats are one of those things that my brothers and I loved as kids. I don't know about them, but for me, its still something that I love to have on occasion. That's why I wanted to make a cupcake that tasted like a root beer float. I mean come on, nothing is more fun than a cupcake, or root beer floats... why not combine the two. Now, I did find a couple recipes online, that just added a can or two of root beer to the batter. Not good enough for me... the flavor of the root beer kind of faded away. And I was super picky about the flavor on this one. It's taken several tries at this recipe to get it right...

Link (via IZ Reloaded)

Flood Warning

2007-08-08T16:42:00.001-06:00

Sorry about the post flood lately... I haven't been keeping up with my bloggy-blog in the last few months, but I kept tossing stuff in my "to post" file. The last couple days I've been trying to get through it all, and I'm finally caught up.

Of course, this has all been at the expense of actual work, so I won't be spending quite so much time playing on here in the future (I hope!). A couple times a week should suffice. Hope that's cool with you too.

I Wish We Could Change Our Office Wallpaper This Easily

2007-08-08T12:36:00.001-06:00

Your desktop is probably the one picture you're going to look at more often than any other during the course of your day. Why not make it an enjoyable view?

Lifehacker Top 10: Top 10 Free Wallpaper, Fonts and Icon Sources

via Lifehacker by Gina Trapani on Aug 08, 2007

Spicing up your computer desktop or documents is a cinch with the right fonts, wallpaper or icon set - but finding the best ones isn't an easy task. Googling free wallpaper or fonts turns up a gaggle of random sites with flashy ads and mediocre art. In retaliation, today we've gathered up our favorite sources of quality, good-looking free desktop wallpaper images, fonts and icons for your downloading pleasure.

Top 10 Free Desktop Wallpaper, Fonts and Icon Sources

10. Pixelgirl (wallpaper and icons)

9. Dual Screen Wallpapers

8. Veer designer wallpaper

7. exljbris (Fonts)

6. Crystal Clear icons

5. Windows Vista wallpaper pack

4. TypeNow.net TV/Movie/Brand-themed fonts

3. Public Domain Icons

2. InterfaceLIFT (wallpapers)

1. Fonts 500 (fonts)

If you're a font or icon newbie, check out a few helpful tutorials on putting your new downloads to good use:

How to install a new font in Windows [Microsoft]
How to smooth your Windows fonts [Lifehacker]
How to install a font on Mac OS X [dafont]
How to change your icons in Windows [Pixelgirl]
How to change your icons on your Mac [Pixelgirl]

Update:

Lifehacker readers come through with more additions to the list, like:

Mandolux dual-monitor wallpaper - gorgeous split images, one for the left monitor and one for the right. Thanks, DocGratis!
Windows Vista Fonts - for those of you on XP. Thanks, Jarhead!

Pretty Words

2007-08-08T09:22:00.001-06:00

Working for a small company like ours, I get to flex my marketing-design muscles a little bit once in a while. Having no real skill, I try to keep things as simple and clean looking as possible, blatently copying the successes of others. However, it is good to have a resource for the occasional original idea.

Photoshop Tip: Give your text the Photoshop effect

via Lifehacker by Kyle Pott on Aug 07, 2007

Improve your Photoshop skills and make your documents pop with Photoshop text effects. Tutorial site The Photoshop Roadmap compiled 80 tutorials of text effects for Photoshop. The tutorials are laid out so you can easily see the final product before sifting through the tutorial. Although not exactly beginner-friendly, most of the tutorials are very detailed. If you've got some free time, these sure beat the lame-o text effects included in Microsoft Office.

The Best 80 Photoshop Text Effects on the Web [The Photoshop Roadmap]

GIMPing Up My Pics

2007-08-07T11:59:00.001-06:00

I'm trying to stay on top of a few basic tricks with GIMP... hoping to be able to play around a little more once we finally get a decent camera and start really shooting!

GIMP: Intermediate GIMP image editing tutorial

via Lifehacker by Kyle Pott on Aug 03, 2007

Cross platform, open source image editor GIMP is a powerful alternative to Photoshop that has many useful features waiting to be unlocked. Some of GIMP's intermediate features are demonstrated in this short video tutorial by the VnTutor weblog. The demonstration includes: working with gray scale, adjusting brightness and contrast, adding noise, and working with layers (which can be very difficult for novice GIMPers to understand). The video above is just 1 of 10 GIMP video lessons if you're itchin' for more intermediate tutorials.

10 GIMP Video Lessons online [VnTutor]

Terminal Cheat Sheet

2007-08-07T11:54:00.001-06:00

So far I've been able to copy and paste every command I've needed to enter into the terminal via detailed online tutorials. But it would be nice to actually grasp what the heck I've been doing for the last while.

Still not quite 100% with Ubuntu. I tried watching a fullscreen video a couple days ago, kept freezing up, dropping frames, etc., on a vid that plays fine on my 4 year old iBook. Something ain't right. Also, had to hard-reset after it locked up while totally idle except for a basic screensaver. Hmm.

I'm amazingly more tolerant of minor bugs when they come with a system offered freely and supported passionately, as opposed to one that charges stupidly and treats me like a criminal. I'm willing to invest the effort to get this to work.

Terminal: Printable beginner's guide to the terminal

via Lifehacker by Kyle Pott on Aug 07, 2007

Linux users: Don't fear the terminal! Take the plunge and learn the basics of the terminal with the printable guide put together by FOSSwire. FOSSwire covers the very basic ins-and-outs of the terminal on a one page PDF. Included in the guide are commands for: working with files, obtaining system information, managing processes and file permissions, file compression, shortcuts, network management, and SSH. This guide is perfect for recent switchers ready to take the terminal head-on. While you're learning the terminal, turbocharge it.

Unix/Linux Command Cheat Sheet [PDF Altert via FOSSwire]

Literary Linkage

2007-08-02T08:40:00.001-06:00

I think I've posted about this before, but it's cool enough to get my attention again. I love this idea, and it sounds like a perfect way to chew through some of those classic stories I've always meant to read.

I used to always have 2-4 books on the go at any one time; typically one good engrossing fiction to read before bed, one way-over-my-head intellectual/science/philosophy book to read during the day when I needed to stretch my brain, and sometimes a light biography/memoir that was like an easy conversation. Don't always have time for all that these days, but I'm signing up for one of these books right now (I've wanted to read Flatland since I first heard of it as well).

Thanks again for the head's up Wil!

the coolest thing i've seen all day

via WWdN: In Exile by wil@wilwheaton.net (Wil Wheaton) on Aug 02, 2007

I'm having a bad day. There, I said it. Details will not be forthcoming, but if you were wondering why I may seem like Captain Crankypants, now you know why.

However, I still came across something that's so totally awesome, I thought I'd share with my usual enthusiasm:

DailyLit sends you bite-sized chunks of public domain books (including many classics) daily, on weekdays, or three times a week via email or RSS -- for free. Each serving takes less than five minutes to read, and if you want, they'll send you the next installment right away if you click a link. The whole idea is to read short segments for a few minutes in your spare time.

When you find a book at DailyLit, (via Title, Author, or Category) it tells you how many parts you'll be subscribing to, so you can get a sense of how long it will take to finish the book, and what kind of commitment you're making. I've subscribed to Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, which I've meant to read for an embarrassingly long time. It's 37 parts, and I'll get it three times a week at noon, just in time for my lunch break.

(Via Cool Tools)

I Didn't Even Know I Could Shut Off Our Firewall From Here

2007-07-31T10:55:00.001-06:00

The office I'm in right now would probably have me shipped to shipped to Siberia for even reading an article like this... oh well, sometimes one has to be a little flexible in their interpretations of corporate policy in order to properly execute one's priorities.

That sounds nice and defensible, doesn't it?

Productivity: 10 things your IT department won't tell you

via Lifehacker by Adam Pash on Jul 31, 2007

The Wall Street Journal talks to 3 IT experts to find out what risky computing they try to keep you from engaging in, then asks 3 productivity mavens (including our very own Gina Trapani) how to get around the blocks. The list offers a nice point-counterpoint of why your IT department considers something a risk, how you can bypass their roadblocks and do it anyway, and--perhaps more importantly--how to get around it in a manner that won't completely freak out your IT department. (I'm not saying it won't just a little.) For more, see how else you can survive IT lockdown.

Ten Things Your IT Department Won't Tell You [WSJ]

Robots Are Perfectly Safe, Nothing Could Ever Go Wrong

2007-07-31T10:18:00.001-06:00

Good selection, totally worth it for the movie clips!

List of 50 best movie robots of all time, with video

via Boing Boing by Xeni Jardin on Jul 30, 2007

Xeni Jardin:

The guys at Times Online (UK) have compiled a list of the 50 coolest movie robots, measured with the following factors in mind:

Plausibility (meaning how likely it would be that, with advances on currently existing technology, such a device could be built)
Coolness (just how well designed, shiny or generally well-appointed the robot appeared to be)
Dangerousness (scoring not only on built-in weaponry, but the robot's eagerness to use it) Related Links
Comedy Value (how effective the robot is at providing light relief in the film in which it appears)

Link to list, which includes lots of video clips -- this is a fun, obsessively assembled homage. (thanks, Mikey)

Reader comment: Mark Christian says,

Heya. If you feed that link into Chime.TV, you can watch all the video clips in one go. :) Link.

Links of Linux

2007-07-26T21:04:00.000-06:00

Hey, if I wanted something that just worked out of the box, I'd have got another Mac.

Actually, I tried to get another Mac, just couldn't justify the finances when I added in the price of a full version of Windows to run all my biz software.

Point is, Linux, even a flavour as refined as Ubuntu, does not work straight "out of the box", especially on a new generation laptop. Takes a bit of effort, but I'm hoping it will be worth it.

HUGE thanks to everyone linked below for their help in getting me set up and rocking. She's looking better all the time, no major glitches, response is fantastic (finally feels like a new computer!).

I'm just waiting for the first client to recognize what I'm running... guaranteed sale!

Linux Tip: Smooth out your fonts in Ubuntu

via Lifehacker by Kyle Pott on Jul 20, 2007

Ubuntu Feisty users: Improve the look of your fonts in 2 minutes flat by installing a few packages. The font change is very noticeable in Firefox and the terminal. If you want to get technical about it, the process detailed in the Ubuntu Forums improves Feisty's subpixel rendering. After you complete the steps, you will need to restart your open apps in order to see the difference. The lorem ipsum screenshot, shows the impressive result.

Improved subpixel font rendering for Feisty [Ubuntu Forums]

E-Mail Overload, What's The Problem?

2007-07-26T12:46:00.001-06:00

I admit, I've become one of those "pile, then file" e-mail guys, with hundreds of messages in my inbox that I'll go through and label/file in one huge blitz every couple months. It's that dang GMail! Google search is just so convenient that I don't need to bother organizing anything!

Bad form, I know. Anyway, check out this video from the guru of e-organization.

Email: Merlin Mann presents on "Inbox Zero"

via Lifehacker by Gina Trapani on Jul 25, 2007

King of the empty inbox Merlin Mann did an hour-long presentation on dealing with the daily onslaught of email for Google employees this week, and the video's now available to the rest of us. Hit the play button to see Merlin's full presentation (slides available here) which is based on his excellent Inbox Zero series at 43 Folders. His system inspired most of the empty inbox proclamations here on Lifehacker, so this is your chance to hear it from the horse's mouth. Thanks to Merlin and everyone at Google for making this one available to the public.

[via 43 Folders]

What, You Don't Listen To Hardcore Balkan Klezmer Remixes? Sellout.

2007-07-26T12:23:00.001-06:00

More of that kind of music that makes people go "what the heck is that, and where you do find this stuff??"

MP3 Mixtapes: Balkan hotsteppaz, hardcore klezmer, Roma rap, Raï

via Boing Boing by Xeni Jardin on Jul 26, 2007

Xeni Jardin:

(1) A Belgian DJ named Typsy Gypsy (half of the Balkan Hot Stepsoundsystem duo) has uploaded a srsly kickazz 2-part mixtape set featuring a wide array of Balkan, Gypsy, Raï, and Klezmer beats -- all over 150 bpm -- that will make you go hopa.

Link to the referring blog ('T Nieuwe Werck), which posts direct MP3 links and a detailed tracklist so you can go out and buy some of this great stuff after you've tasted it.

A quick exploration of Typsy Gypsy's MySpace page leads to two even more recent mixtape uploads, which are part of a regular podcast transmission: check out "Balkan Bangers," July 26, 2007, Link to part 1, Link to part 2. Check out the Beastie Boys mix on that myspace page, too.

Subscribe to the podcast here: iTunes Link.

(2) In a similar vein, here's a mix set featuring "Sinti- and Roma (/ -inspired) tunes, ranging from Paris to Bucharest and several places in between." Link.

(3) While you're at it, here's another sweet download -- flowing Spanish-language rap over dance beats: Link.

(Balkan stuff via Blentwell / all of it thanks Brendan !)

Update: Schobbejak of the T Nieuwe Werck blog where we found this stuff says:

Thank you for your post on boingboing.net. The Typsy Gypsy mix is one great mix! And you can also tell people that there will be another typsy gypsy release soon!

The Penguin Has Landed

2007-07-25T16:58:00.000-06:00

I am writing this post from my brand new install of Ubuntu 7.04 (aka: Fiesty Fawn) on my HP Pavilion dv9000 laptop (aka: work computer).

Came with Vista... hate it.
Dual-boot installed XP for legacy industry software... still hate it.

Sick of the crashes, freezes, stupidly slow response times to the most basic requests.

Been reading about this Ubuntu monster for long enough, time to finally give it a try.

Triple-booting at the moment, in case I cant get my biz stuff to run in virtualization (WINE, VMWare, etc.).

Had a minor issue with the LiveCD install route, found a solution in a very detailed and excellent forum (that I will link too as soon as I get back on the Vista side to recover my bookmarks)(here it is!), but other than that everything seems to be running ok!

Except for some reason, just now, I started having problems with my -quote- key. When I press it, I get nothing, then a system beep when I hit any other key afterwards. Must be something to do with my keyboard settings... being from Canada I often find software trying to force a French-Canadian or International keyboard layout of some kind. No worries, the key thing about linux is the will of the user to find the answer.

Wow, an operating system that doesn´t think it´s smarter than me!

...

I just figured it out... I have to hit the -´- key twice, otherwise it´s set up to accent certain letters for French spelling (é, ó, ć...). Just have to change the keyboard layout to US instead of French-Canadian.

I AM THE SMART!! S-M-R-T!!

I´ll keep you up to date on how my Ubuntu adventures progress in an actual work environment... I can´t freakin´ wait!!!

Happy Sysadmin Day, Should I Send Myself Virtual Flowers?

2007-07-25T15:40:00.000-06:00

Being the resident unofficial techie of my friends, family, and now office, I'm going to allow myself an extra 3d6 minutes of blogging, screwing around with Ubuntu, and randomly flipping through Userfriendly archives.

Geek-break begins... well... I guess about 5 minutes ago when I started writing this.

ahhhh...

When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth

via WWdN: In Exile by wil@wilwheaton.net (Wil Wheaton) on Jun 24, 2007

I just finished reading Cory Doctorow's Locus Award-winning novelette When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth, which has been made freely available for all of us to read at Baen's Universe.

It's the first story I've read in ages that I read completely without stopping, and the first full-length story that I think I've ever read in its entirety online. Cory is one of the very few authors who inspire me as well as entertain me, because he tells great stories like this one.

Hear Someone That Knows What They're Talking About Make Fun Of Cheesy Old Movies

2007-07-25T10:10:00.001-06:00

A bit of movie-geek fun. I've been getting more and more into listening to commentary tracks on movies that I enjoy, so I find it really interesting to hear these directors talk about their memories and experiences from the same side of the camera as I am (ie: watching the movies, not making them). Letting them rip on these cheese-tastic classics just makes it ten times better!

Trailers from Hell: directors muse on schlocky movie faves

via Boing Boing by Xeni Jardin on Jul 25, 2007

Xeni Jardin:

The idea behind the recently launched "Trailers from Hell" website is simple and fun. Each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, there's a new video segment in which a renowned movie director comments over one of their favorite b-movie / exploitation / grindhouse flick trailers. Lots of personal memories, inspiration revelations -- it's like having a beer with a filmmaker whose work you dig, and fessing up about crappy movies you're both ashamed to admit loving.

One of this week's uploads is Mick "Masters of Horror" Garris waxing poetic about "The Vampire Lovers": Link.

What's extra cool here is the fact that each trailer is offered both with and without commentary. Great picks, and the commentaries I've watched are most watchable.

For instance, John Landis pointing out people he went to high school with who appear in "The T.A.M.I. Show," the musical variety epic filmed in "Electronovision" in 1964: Link.

Or Joe Dante on the sciencesploitation crapsterpiece "Incredible Petrified World": Link. ("You gotta hand it to [Jerry Warren] -- he made Ed Wood look like Bernardo Bertolucci, but he got these things made and people paid to see 'em!").

The commentaries feel authentic. You can't really fake this stuff, so there's a lot for fringe movie buffs to enjoy.

The only criticisms I have about the project are nitpicky UI issues -- I can't subscribe to an RSS feed (opt-in email updates, but that's kinda lame); the website has a big-ass noisy Flash intro at the front gate; audience comments would be nice; and I wish the content were available on some of the web video networks I get most of my daily video pickins from.

Still, I'm totally bookmarking it and planning to come back regularly. Here's hoping they'll make these very good goods a little easier to access as time goes on. (Thanks, Elizabeth Stanley!)

Boy, That Guy Sure Seems To Be Sending A Lot Of Pictures Of Unicorns These Days...

2007-07-25T09:42:00.001-06:00

Interesting... I haven't quite yet come across the need for such paranoia in my own communications, but it's good to know my options.

If you're dating a cryptography geek, you should totally embed a steamy love note inside a cutesy romantic picture and then get him/her to figure it out. They'd be totally impressed!

How To: Hide files inside of JPEG images

via Lifehacker by Gina Trapani on Jul 25, 2007

Blogger Jimmy R. demonstrates how you can embed hidden files into an innocent-looking JPEG image using the free 7-Zip and the Windows command line. See more on the art of file hiding inside files in our previously posted feature, Hide data in files with easy steganography tools.

[via Daily Cup of Tech]

101 Fewer Excuses To Order Delivery... Dangit

2007-07-25T09:41:00.001-06:00

This is a great list of quick-hit meals... and most of them actually sound pretty good! I'm always looking for something to throw down my gullet between running in the door after work and running out the door to whatever we're doing that day.

101 Simple Meals

via Dethroner by Joel on Jul 25, 2007

Most guys who complain about not being able to cook imply that they don't have enough time to make the magic happen, resorting to PB&J or, time-permiting, pan-fried PB&J. This new list of 101 simple recipes from the Times should side-suto those excuses; Each recipe is simple enough to be written up in a couple of sentences.

28 New Joe's Special, from San Francisco: Brown ground meat with minced garlic and chopped onion. When just about cooked, add chopped spinach and cook, stirring, until wilted. At the last minute, stir in two eggs, along with grated Parmesan and salt and pepper.

29 Chop prosciutto and crisp it in a skillet with olive oil; add chopped not-too-ripe figs. Serve over greens dressed with oil and vinegar; top all with crumbled blue cheese.

30 Quesadilla: Use a combination of cheeses, like Fontina mixed with grated pecorino. Put on half of a large flour tortilla with pickled jalapenos, chopped onion, shallot or scallion, chopped tomatoes and grated radish. Fold tortilla over and brown on both sides in butter or oil, until cheese is melted.

Print this out before it goes behind the paywall and get cooking.

Summer Express [NYTimes]

Dance, Little Froggy, To The Sound Of My Pings

2007-07-24T14:13:00.001-06:00

This is one of the creepiest and coolest things I have ever seen in my life! Even better than the glowing dead rat LED throwie!

Dead frog with a webserver can be controlled over the net

via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow on Jul 24, 2007

Cory Doctorow: The Experiments in Galvanism frog floats in mineral oil, a webserver installed it its guts, with wires into its muscle groups. You can access the frog over the network and send it galvanic signals that get it to kick its limbs.

Experiments in Galvanism is the culmination of studio and gallery experiments in which a miniature computer is implanted into the dead body of a frog specimen. Akin to Damien Hirst's bodies in formaldehyde, the frog is suspended in clear liquid contained in a glass cube, with a blue ethernet cable leading into its splayed abdomen. The computer stores a website that enables users to trigger physical movement in the corpse: the resulting movement can be seen in gallery, and through a live streaming webcamera.
- Risa Horowitz
Garnet Hertz has implanted a miniature webserver in the body of a frog specimen, which is suspended in a clear glass container of mineral oil, an inert liquid that does not conduct electricity. The frog is viewable on the Internet, and on the computer monitor across the room, through a webcam placed on the wall of the gallery. Through an Ethernet cable connected to the embedded webserver, remote viewers can trigger movement in either the right or left leg of the frog, thereby updating Luigi Galvani's original 1786 experiment causing the legs of a dead frog to twitch simply by touching muscles and nerves with metal.
Experiments in Galvanism is both a reference to the origins of electricity, one of the earliest new media, and, through Galvani's discovery that bioelectric forces exist within living tissue, a nod to what many theorists and practitioners consider to be the new new media: bio(tech) art.
- Sarah Cook and Steve Dietz

Link (Thanks, Stuart!)

Sound Waves From Uncle Wily

2007-07-23T10:11:00.001-06:00

I always love to hear what gets other people's toes a' tappin'... especially interesting people like Mr. Wheaton, who is in all honesty one of my favourite people on the internets.

Radio Free Burrito: The Mix tape, Volume 1

via WWdN: In Exile by wil@wilwheaton.net (Wil Wheaton) on Jul 23, 2007

As long as I can remember, my friends and I made mix tapes for each other. We'd grab stuff off the radio, record each other talking, tape tracks from records, and even grab stuff off the television.

A few minutes on the Internets revealed that I was not unique at all in this activity, which is as unsurprising as it is totally awesome.

I found myself in an empty house this weekend, and I became inspired by a midnight viewing of Videodrome to audio hijack some dialog from the film, drop in some of the weird audio I've scraped off the tubes in the last couple of months, and put it all together just like I did with those magnetic tapes so many years ago.

The audio levels are not as equalized as I'd like, but that's the way it was back then, too, so try to think of it as part of the charm, instead of an annoying technical failing on my part.

There aren't any show notes for this one, because we didn't bother to make show notes back in the old days. There are some titles embedded in the file, though, so you can imagine that they're scrawled on the TDK cardboard insert in blue Bic pen.

This was fun as hell to make, and I hope you like it. If you can spare a mirror, I'd be most grateful, because the file is quite large to preserve the audio quality.

Mirror (Thanks, herdivineshadow!)
Mirror via MoronLife.com (Thanks, Clay!)
Mirror on S3 (Thanks, Keith!)
Mirror at Effluxity (Thanks, John!)

Download radio_free_burritos_mix_tape_volume_one.mp3

TRT: 32:30
Filesize: 29.6 MB (Yep, it's all music, so it's huge, even encoded at 128).

(Image via Make)

Summer Neglect And Better Things To Do

2007-07-23T09:50:00.001-06:00

Summer's a tough time to get some things done.

Work...

Work out...

Write on a blog...

Basically anything that involves being indoors when I'd rather be out.

Not that blogging is a chore, I not only enjoy

(I just violently broke wind and got smacked for it. Ain't love grand?)

excuse me.

Not that blogging is a chore, I not only enjoy it thoroughly but I miss it on these nice long hot sunny days when I'm happy to be outside but feel like I'm neglecting a conversation with an old friend.

Back when I used to not give a crap about my job it was much easier to write for hours on end, surfing endlessly for inspiration and amusement. I'm actually working now, and evenings are filled with running, golfing, BBQing, hiking, and all sorts of things that I would be insane to give up so I could spend another hour in front of another computer.

Oops, I think I just lost 2 geek points.

Tutorial: Learn how to give a good back massage

via Lifehacker by Wendy Boswell on Jul 22, 2007

eHow has created a good tutorial on how to give a relaxing back massage, including a step by step how-to and accompanying video. As someone who frankly sucks at giving back massages, I was happy to find this.

I can guarantee that will you become quite the Popular Paula/Paul once other people learn that you know how to give good back massages. If you are already the master of massage, please share your best tips in the comments.

How to Give a Back Massage [eHow]

Bacon Makes Everything Better

2007-07-20T11:01:00.001-06:00

It's always encouraging to see people's efforts and ingenuity being applied to such noble pursuits...

Bacon...burger? Baconburger!

via Dethroner by Joel on Jun 21, 2007

Brilliance often comes in a flash, when we realize we have always had the answers to life's questions right in front of us. To wit: the baconburger, produced by grinding a pound of bacon into loose meat, creating a patty, and frying the whole thing up.

God help me, that actually looks amazing.

Bacon Burger [Pepper And Smoke]

Bacon Vodka

via Dethroner by Joel on Jul 16, 2007

Some say that the internet's obsession with bacon is over, but I defy this on two counts: first, no one has yet been spotted cramming bacon into their anus, creating a Goatse-inspired BLT (Bacon Ligament Tearing); second, no one has yet made bacon-infused vodka.

Oh wait: Yes, they have. [BaconVodka.GooglePages.com] (Thanks, Brownlee!)

Bacon Salt: It's Vegetarian!

via Dethroner by Joel on Jul 20, 2007

From the "Bacon Salt Story" page:

It was then that Justin told Dave and another coworker named Kara about his idea for Bacon Salt(tm). Kara, who is a vegetarian, loved the idea. Dave, a card-carrying carnivore and Midwesterner, loved it even more. Even the waiter at the fancy restaurant loved it.

That's right: a seasoning that makes everything taste like bacon. And salt, one would presume.

There's actually something to this. Bacon is the Great Seasoner, something well known to anyone who has eaten Southern cooking, turning basic blanched green beans into a soupy morass of savory slop. While I doubt Bacon Salt will completely replace little cubes of fat back in my life, I can see using it to add bacon flavor to attempts at otherwise healthy cooking.

Plus it sounds a little like "Bacon Assault," and there's nothing wrong with that.

Product Page [BaconSalt.com via MeFi]

Bacon ice cream is an Udder Delight

Posted Aug 6th 2006 12:02PM by Nicole Weston

The Udder Delight Ice Cream House in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware makes some of the best ice cream you'll find anywhere. In fact, their Peanut Butter and Jelly ice cream won the World Series of Ice Cream in 2004. To be sure, all of their flavors are very high quality - which is Udder Delight-speak for very high in butterfat - because they use dairy with extra-butterfat for all of their ice cream bases, and the best ingredients they can find as flavorings.

As you might guess from the Peanut Butter and Jelly ice cream, they offer some unusual ice cream flavors. They have Cappuccino Stout Beer, Cake Batter, Honey Fig and Pear Green Tea, and while they don't have a super spicy flavor , they do have Memphis Barbecue and Bacon. That's right, bacon. The bacon ice cream has small chunks of actual bacon in it, which puts some people off it entirely, but fans have likened the texture to pecans.

Bacon ice cream probably won't catch on any more than bacon cereal will, but if nothing else, it is worth a taste when you stop by to sample their other excellent flavors.

I Still Like To Draw On The Wall, I Just Want To Be Able To Wipe It Off Now

2007-07-18T13:47:00.001-06:00

This is exactly what I've been looking for for one of my offices! All the office-supply-type stores charges huge for the size of whiteboard I want... if this thing works, I'm all over it!

Weekend Project: Gigantic whiteboards on a budget

via Lifehacker by Wendy Boswell on Jun 30, 2007

Make a ginormous white board on an itsy-bitsy budget with this simple how-to from chrismetcalf.net.

All you need is some showerboard, plywood, and some liquid nails - all available from your local hardware store. Other than allowing everything to harden up overnight, this project takes very little time and the finished project is just as good as the boards that sell for literally hundreds of dollars.

How-To: Dirt Cheap Wall-Sized Whiteboards [chrismetcalf.net]

Backup Utilities: Save your weblog with Blogger Backup

2007-07-18T13:38:00.001-06:00

YES!! I really really hope this works as well as advertised... I've been terrified for as long as I've been writing on this blog (3 and a half years! That's practically ancient by blog standards!) that one day the earth will open up and swallow the happy little server farm that's hosting my little slice of cyber-egotrip. I had read about a way to temporarly list all your posts on a single page and save that as a backup, but with over 350 posts I can't imagine that working as well as one might hope. Never mind how would I ever get it back up online if the unthinkable did happen...

Now I haven't checked this program out yet, but it certainly seems a far more elegant option. You know how it is, the only way to make sure I never need a backup, is to back up!

Backup Utilities: Save your weblog with Blogger Backup

via Lifehacker by Gina Trapani on Jul 05, 2007

Windows only: Save a local copy of your entire Blogger blog using the new Blogger Backup utility (currently in beta). Weblog Digital Inspiration reports:

With Blogger Backup, you can backup your blog posts into a single file or one blog post per file or multiple posts per file. The future versions may even save your blog posts into PDF files that you can distribute as eBooks.

Blogger backup can download everything or you can do incremental backups meaning backup just the new posts since your last backup or download blog posts posted between any two given dates.
Being Blogger blog-less, I haven't given Blogger Backup a spin, but it sounds way more user-friendly than using DownThemAll! or other web site copiers. Blogger Backup beta is a free download for Windows only.

Blogger Backup [via Digital Inspiration]

More GMail Tweaks

2007-07-18T13:20:00.001-06:00

I've got my office running on Google Apps, using Google to manage our domain, e-mail, etc. I'm working more and more on using Google Docs and GCal for some of our office work, but that's just for me to test for now. GMail seems to be doing a fine job for us so far, but I always like to see how we can improve it.

Unfortunately for everyone else, it looks like most of these are for Firefox only (which I run on my laptop, but almost everyone else is restricted to IE... trust me, not my choice). Even so, I don't know how many of these will be usable in our domain-hosted environment. Meh, still worth looking at...

Lifehacker Top 10: Top 10 Unofficial Gmail Apps and Add-ons

via Lifehacker by Gina Trapani on Jul 18, 2007

Gmail's huge success owes itself in large part to the wide range of applications, browser add-ons, styles, scripts and bookmarklets that work with it. From the get-go Google's stayed out of developers' way and turned a blind eye to unofficial Gmail add-ons, even ones that may very well violate its terms of service. Smart move: Google's high tolerance for third-party apps have only helped Gmail win the hearts of power users and tweakers everywhere. To celebrate, today we've got our top 10 list of unauthorized and unofficial but hella-useful apps that make Gmail that much better.

Top 10 Unofficial Gmail Apps

10. Drag and drop attachment upload (Firefox)

9. GmailThis! bookmarklet (all browsers)

8. Import old email with Gmail Loader (Windows/Linux)

7. Check multiple accounts with Gmail Manager (Firefox)

6. Gmail Encryption (Firefox)

5. Gmail Skins (Firefox extension)

4. Saved Searches (Firefox)

3. Gmail Macros (Firefox)

2. Conversation Preview (Firefox)

1. GmailDrive file manager (Mac/Windows/Firefox)

No Girlfriend, Lots Of Video Games. Girlfriend, No Video Games. Coincidence?

2007-07-17T14:56:00.001-06:00

I miss video games. Haven't played them in months. It's probably a good thing overall, doing a lot more hiking, camping, snowboarding, travelling... that kind of fun stuff. But still, every once in a while, I hear those opening notes from Final Fantasy drifting through my head, and I think... there are worlds that need me.

World's Best/Worst Videogame Endings

via Dethroner by Joel on Jul 17, 2007

Unlike the Mortal Kombat 4 video we've got after the jump, this ending from Neo Contra is clearly tongue-in-cheek. That doesn't make it any less great, however; I think I'll watch it every morning to prepare to face the day.

The MK4 ending is just trash, though. What a joke of a series.

Canadian Pirates vs American Bull$#!t

2007-07-16T20:06:00.001-06:00

This stuff scares me. Laws are being written by politicians with no clue under the "advice" of corporations with no concern beyond short-term profit maximization/loss minimization, at the expense of long-term industry sustainability, artistic creativity, and most importantly the protection of the public interest.

I honestly believe that if someone was able to effectively communicate to the average consumer (Canadian, American, anywhere!) what was being done to our rights, the sort of common sense, "of course I can do that" stuff that we all take for granted... I dunno. I'm pissed about it, anyone I talk to is either a) also pissed, or b) totally unaware of what's going on.

Does Joe Public care that he can't see some of the most amazing movies from around the world, because DVD manufacturers and movie studios have put regional locks on their players in order to manipulate prices on a market-wide scale?

Or that billion-dollar corporations, built from the ground by "re-imagining" classic stories, are trying to make sure that they continue to make money off of the work of artists that have been dead for decades, while also ensuring that no one can ever use their stories to draw inspiration for a new generation?

I am by no means a "burn-the-rich" anarchist. I'm writing this in my office, wearing a suit and tie, all corporate. I believe in business and profit and people getting paid for what they do. However, I do believe that the government is supposed to be there for the service and protection of it's citizens, to offer a balance against those forces that may reach a tipping point at which they become a detriment to the public good.

Debunking Canadian "piracy" claims - video from Michael Geist

via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow on Jul 12, 2007

Cory Doctorow: Copyfighting law prof Michael Geist and filmmaker Daniel Albahary have put together a great short film called "Putting Canadian 'Piracy' in Perspective." It's a great, systematic debunking of of the claims that Canada is a haven for piracy, demonstrating that these claims are just scare-tactics from American corporate and government interests looking to change Canadian law to favor American firms to the detriment of the Canadian public. Link (Thanks, Robbo!)

Just Because I'm Not Blogging...

2007-07-06T16:09:00.000-06:00

... doesn't mean I'm not thinking about it!

Anyway, I'm on a beach, and I'm just not that hardcore to break out the laptop when there's sand and water to play in.

Vacation. Girlfriend's parent's 2-minutes-from-the-beach cottage. AKA: better things to do.

Of course, I have managed to watch half of the first season of Heroes (gimme a break, I missed the first couple episodes and haven't had a chance to catch up yet!), start and finish Cory Doctorow's novel "Someone Comes To Town, Someone Leaves Town", and tonight we're going to catch a double bill of 300 and Transformers at the local drive-in!!

You can take the boy out of the city, but you can't take the geek... I mean, you can take the geek out of the boy... no, I mean you can't take... whatever. I'm a geek. Rawk.

"Someone Comes To Town, Someone Leaves Town"

2007-07-03T12:16:00.000-06:00

I am currently devouring a fantastic novel by Mr. Cory Doctorow, "... a blogger, journalist, and science-fiction author who serves as the co-editor of the blog Boing Boing." The story itself is wonderfully unique, gloriously dissectable, and positively glowing with the love Cory has for his home town (and my former stomping grounds) Toronto.

A large part of the narrative involves wireless networking technology, a topic for which I have a passing interest, though no actual skill or knowledge to speak of.

But it gives me a nice segue (I wish I had a nice Segway) into this article from Lifehacker on a few fun things I can do next time I get around to tweaking my network...

Lifehacker Top 10: Top 10 Network Utilities

via Lifehacker on Jun 08, 2007

Looking at the history of computing, anyone can see that it wasn't until some brilliant folks connected a couple of computers together that the real fun began. Countless tools let you do all sorts of network trickery, many with their roots at the Unix command line. But forget arcane command line tools. Today we've picked out 10 of our favorite, free, point and click software applications and webapps that help you make the most of the giant web of connected computers that is your network.

Lifehacker Top 10: Network utilities

Happy (Belated) Canada Day!

2007-07-01T20:23:00.001-06:00

I'm hanging my head in shame as I write this... I don't mind letting a few half-written posts build up in my list, stuff that I've bookmarked to put up and talk about when I get some free time, but there are some rather date-sensitive topics that one should really stay on top of.

In my humble, meager, half-assed defense, I left for a two-week vacation the day before, and purposely didn't even crack open my computer for at least the first 3 or 4 days. I'm only now digging back into my older unfinished posts from earlier in the summer when I came across this wonderful little tribute to a piece of unforgettable musical history.

(I am going to adjust the post date in Blogger to put this where it should have been, we'll just keep this whole 5-weeks-late business between us, ok? Cool.)

Happy Canada Day!

via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow on Jul 01, 2007

Cory Doctorow: It's Canada Day, the day that marks the anniversary of Canadian Confederation on July 1, 1867. We Canadians celebrate it with days off work, beer, and fireworks. It's like July 4, without the revolutionary overtones.

There is no more potent symbol of Canadianness than the National Film Board of Canada's musical short, The Log Driver's Waltz: more than Leonard Cohen's groans, more than Dan Ackroyd's rampant toryism, more than "timbit" jokes about Tim Horton's tragic car accident, The Log Driver's Waltz defines Canada for its expatriate thirtysomethings. Just singing a few bars of this in a crowded space is enough to flush the crypto-Canadians out (Canadians are like axe-murderers, we look just like regular people) in throaty voice. It's even more reliable than stepping on everyone's foot until someone apologises.

Happy Canada Day to my fellow Canadians, both domestic and expatriate.

As a bonus be sure to catch this unforgettable punk cover from Midget Militia. Link

Update: Here's another version, performed by Captain Tractor -- thanks, Heather!

Legal guide for Canadian podcasters

2007-06-27T09:23:00.001-06:00

I haven't really thought of doing a podcast of my own, too many other little projects on the side right now. But it's always good to keep up to date on the current copyright playground, if for no other reason than to feel smarter than 95% of our media and politicians!

Legal guide for Canadian podcasters

via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow on Jun 27, 2007

Cory Doctorow: Creative Commons Canada has produced a legal guide for Canadian podcasters -- here's how Canadian podcasters can navigate the legal minefields of copyright, libel and so on. Link

Word 2007: The Best Marketing For Google Docs

2007-06-26T14:21:00.001-06:00

I'd love to meet anyone that has used even half of the crap Microsoft has stuffed into their latest bloated monstrosity. Between OpenOffice and Google Docs & Spreadsheets, I haven't had to open anything in MS Office in weeks!

Word Processor: Streamlined alternatives to Microsoft Word

via Lifehacker by Wendy Boswell on Jun 23, 2007

Workplace productivity blog Web Worker Daily has written up a list of their picks for the top ten streamlined alternatives to Microsoft Word - and they're all free.

There are a lot of really great picks on this list - Google Docs, Zoho, AbiWord, and more. When all you need is something that will help you write content without a lot of extra unnecessary features, this is definitely a good place to look. What's your favorite alternative to MS Word? Let's hear it in the comments.

10 Free Minimalist Word Processors for Greater Productivity [Web Worker Daily]

So I Just Push The Big Button Right?

2007-06-26T14:20:00.001-06:00

Can't wait until the Dreamgirl finally gets her adorably cute little hands on a decent camera... I'm hoping stuff like this will allow me to at least contribute a little to her meteoric rise to becoming the next... uhhh... <insert famous photographer here>!

Digital Photography: A goldmine of photography resources online

via Lifehacker by Wendy Boswell on Jun 24, 2007

Web 2.0 tracker Mashable has compiled a monster list of more than ninety online photography tools and resources.

You can find online photo editors here, as well as photo sharing sites, free photo hosting, photography blogs, mashups, photo printing helps, and a lot more. Personally I'm loving this list, as I'm trying to get more out of my camera and pictures, creativity and productivity wise.

90 Online Photography Tools and Resources [Mashable]

Redundancy: Not Just A River In Egypt

2007-06-26T14:13:00.001-06:00

Years worth of photos. Thousands of mp3s. Gigabytes of e-mail, some actually worth keeping.

I am terrified of what it would mean if Susie (my Apple iBook) were to ever go down hard and take it all with her. I've got a firewire drive I'm backing things up to, "when I remember" (ie: not often enough). I've been researching hooking up a cheap file server to my router, hopefully if I can get that done in the near future one of these apps will help keep me a bit more secure.

How To: Backup your Mac

via Lifehacker by Kyle Pott on Jun 26, 2007

The MacZealots weblog runs down several ways to back up data on your Mac. Gina's been down this road before, however MacZealots reviews a plethora of alternatives including: SuperDuper, Synk Backup, Apple Backup, iBackup, CrashPlan, and Leopard's built-in Time Machine. Their conclusion?

Like most pieces of software, there isn't a single solution that is a perfect fit for everyone. Each backup solution I look at in this article has a unique feature set to help it stand out from the competition.

The reigning Lifehacker champ is SuperDuper. What kind of experience have you had with the other apps mentioned? Let us know in the comments.

Backing Up Your Mac, Don't let disaster strike [MacZealots]

Cool Video, or Annoyingly Effective Proof-Of-Concept Marketing?

2007-06-26T13:51:00.001-06:00

To prove the effectivness of viral marketing, these guys created an insanely cool video that got tons of attention. I'm not exactly sure what it proved, they weren't selling anything other than the fact that they were able to get people's attention for a few minutes... which in the marketing world, especially online, really is a tremendous success!

Well, you can think too hard about it and get a headache, or just watch the video.

Ultimate rube goldberg machine

via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow on Jun 26, 2007

Cory Doctorow: This video documents a rube goldberg machine that spans multiple storeys of a residential house, running from room to room, with transitions that include stairwalking slinkies, a computerized magnetic chess-set, and the piece de resistance, a cellphone that calls another phone elsewhere in the house, setting off a vibration ringer that triggers the next reaction. Must be seen to be believed. Link (Thanks, Richard!)

July 25: Sysadmin Appreciation Day

2007-06-25T18:50:00.000-06:00

Did you remember to hug your geek?

Calendar: The best Google Calendars for geeks

via Lifehacker by Wendy Boswell on Jun 17, 2007

I told you Google Calendar's public calendars last week; well, this week, techie site Mashable has come up with the top ten best GCal's for that oh so charming geeky side in all of us.

There's Mozilla Development! HD DVD release dates! Geek Holidays! Any self-respecting geek (of which I'm sure we have quite a few among our intrepid LH readers, right?) will be sure to find something that fits his or her style here; but hey - if you've found yet another goodie in the Google Calendar public offerings, let's hear it in the comments.

The 10 Must Have Google Calendars for Geeks [Mashable ]

Hard Drive? What's A Hard Drive?

2007-06-19T12:54:00.001-06:00

Won't be long before we look back at the idea of storing files and applications on our own individual computers the way we look at having to get up off the couch to change the channel. Ubiquitous, ultra-high-speed, wireless connectivity combined with cheap, convenient dumb terminals of every shape and size, running everything off of web-based services and online data storage.

Could be sweet, if someone finally manages to light a fire under our buttheaded telco monopolies and get them to actually offer decent service instead of the global embaressment that is our current lot! Is it too much to ask for a pricing structure that is at least as fair as those in 3rd world dictatorships!?

Bah, I'd be happy if just ONE of our major carriers offered an unlimited data plan...

Web As Desktop: 20 Web operating systems reviewed

via Lifehacker by Kyle Pott on Jun 19, 2007

The Frantic Industries weblog has a two part series that reviews 20 web operating systems. A few weeks ago we introduced Desktoptwo and received bunches of comments and questions about other web operating systems. The review done by Frantic Industries does an excellent job of introducing each web OS and giving a rundown of the pros and cons. If you've been searching for a usable web OS, give the Frantic Industries articles a read and let us know which OS you prefer and why.

10 online operating systems reviewed [Frantic Industries]
Another 10 web operating systems reviewed [Frantic Industries]

So Much For Next Year's Vacation Plans

2007-06-18T15:33:00.001-06:00

Futility of space exploration

via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow on Jun 16, 2007

Cory Doctorow: Badass ninja science fiction writer Charlie Stross has just posted a killer essay on the futility of space exploration. Nutshell: it's far and hostile, and we can't even figure out how to live in the Gobi desert or the ocean's floor, infinitely closer and more hospitable.

Here's a handy metaphor: let's approximate one astronomical unit -- the distance between the Earth and the sun, roughly 150 million kilometres, or 600 times the distance from the Earth to the Moon -- to one centimetre. Got that? 1AU = 1cm. (You may want to get hold of a ruler to follow through with this one.)
The solar system is conveniently small. Neptune, the outermost planet in our solar system, orbits the sun at a distance of almost exactly 30AU, or 30 centimetres -- one foot (in imperial units). Giant Jupiter is 5.46 AU out from the sun, almost exactly two inches (in old money).
We've sent space probes to Jupiter; they take five and a half years to get there if we send them on a straight Hohmann transfer orbit, but we can get there quite a bit faster using some fancy orbital mechanics. Neptune is still a stretch -- only one spacecraft, Voyager 2, has made it out there so far. Its journey time was 12 years, and it wasn't stopping. (It's now on its way out into interstellar space, having passed the heliopause some years ago.)
The Kuiper belt, domain of icy wandering dwarf planets like Pluto and Eris, extends perhaps another 30AU, before merging into the much more tenuous Hills cloud and Oort cloud, domain of loosely coupled long-period comets.
Now for the first scale shock: using our handy metaphor the Kuiper belt is perhaps a metre in diameter. The Oort cloud, in contrast, is as much as 50,000 AU in radius -- its outer edge lies half a kilometre away.

Link

James Miller's Cryonics Agreement

2007-06-14T15:18:00.001-06:00

James Miller's Cryonics Agreement

via Accelerating Future by Michael Anissimov on Jun 13, 2007

James D. Miller, an Accelerating Future reader and associate professor of economics at Smith College, just came up with a really interesting hypothetical economic agreement about cryonics, reproduced here for your convenience:

"Some people are planning to have their head frozen just after they die. These believers in cryonics think that freezing the head preserves brain patterns. They also believe that there is a reasonably high chance that someday humanity will have the technology to restore life to those who have undergone cryonic head freezing.

If the price of cryonics becomes low enough then a cryonics believer and unbeliever should try to come to the following three part agreement:

(1) The believer will immediately pay the unbeliever some amount of money.

(2) The believer will pay for the unbeliever to undergo cryonic freezing shortly after death.

(3) If the unbeliever is ever brought back to life he will owe a huge debt to the believer. It is hard to know what will be valued in the far future. But if brought back to life the unbeliever promises to try his best to spend at least 50% of his time and resources improving the life of the believer.

This agreement will always make the unbeliever better off, and given his beliefs it may well improve the expected future welfare of the cryonics believer."

In an unrelated item, I've joined the SIAI blog team and made my first post here.

Turn your webcam into a photo booth with Cameroid

2007-06-13T13:59:00.001-06:00

Fun with webcams... other than that.

Friday Fun: Turn your webcam into a photo booth with Cameroid

via Lifehacker on Jun 08, 2007

Web site Cameroid lets you play photo booth with any webcam in the comfort of your browser.

The web site is basically a web version of Mac's PhotoBooth program, offering you different effects for your pics, from colorful filters and scenes to the popular morph settings. After you take a picture, you can save the image to your desktop or their public page, email it, or print it out. If you've got a webcam and an internet connection, Cameroid promises hours of free fun.

Cameroid [via Photojojo]

Who Needs Addresses?

2007-06-13T13:58:00.001-06:00

I really really really want a GPS.

I want one of those watch-style ones for running, to track pace and heart rate and all that other good stuff.

I also one of those hand-held map units, for geocaching and hiking and roadtrips and all that other good stuff.

Garmin seems to be the best known brand, but I'm sure there are others out there worth considering. Ah well, maybe I'll have to do a little research around Christmas time!

Google Maps: How to find latitude and longitude

via Lifehacker on Jun 09, 2007

The always helpful Tech-Recipes has come up with an ingenius way to find latitude and longitude values for any location using Google Maps.

You'll first need to look up an address (duh), but this trick only works if the address is centered (it's centered by default). So, moving the map around will not make this work. When the address you want to find latitude and longitude for is dead center, copy and paste this code into your browser bar:

javascript:void(prompt('',gApplication.getMap().getCenter()));

You'll get a popup with the coordinates. How cool is that, I ask you! -- Wendy Boswell

Get Latitude and Longitude values from Google Maps [Tech-Recipes ]

How The Next Apple Will Taste

2007-06-13T13:50:00.001-06:00

Always fun to hear it straight from the horse's mouth...

Apple WWDC '07: What's new in Leopard and how it will affect your life

via Lifehacker on Jun 11, 2007

Today's Apple WWDC keynote event brought us a great insight to the future of Mac OS X Leopard, and it actually looks pretty exciting. Jobs' 10-point keynote highlighted the new and improved Finder, the desktop manager Spaces, the automatic back up utility Time Machine, some great collaboration tools built into iChat, among several other updates.

Hit the jump for an overview of the new features and a rundown of how they may change the way you work on your Mac (and your Windows box, if Safari piques your interest).

Whats new in Leopard

I left out the new Finder features, since Gina covered them in excellent detail here.

As you can see, while WWDC didn't have a lot to show on the new hardware front, there are a lot of interesting new features on their way in Leopard. Some are plain eye candy, while others (like the new Finder, Spaces, Time Machine, iChat, etc.) actually hold a lot of promise for improving your productivity.

Photoshopping Faces

2007-06-13T13:37:00.001-06:00

This ugly mug o mine needs all the help it can get!

Photoshop Tip: Remove blemishes from your pictures

via Lifehacker on Jun 13, 2007

A reader at the Canon Digital Photography Forums demonstrates how to remove skin blemishes and imperfections using Photoshop. The tutorial is a comprehensive guide that'll show you how to give your pictures that "Photoshopped" look you've come to know and love. The tutorial is 12 steps and chock full of screenshots. Finally you can edit away that horrifying blemish you had on prom night 20 years ago! The tutorial is doable for anyone with beginner to intermediate Photoshop chops.

Airbrush A Person [Canon Digital Photography Forums]

New Pics: Banff-Jasper Roadtrip

2007-06-10T18:01:00.000-06:00

There we were, up in Canmore on a sunny Sunday. We had just finished a 10K run that morning and were trying to decide what to do for the afternoon. Wanted to enjoy some mountain scenery, but didn't have the energy for a hike.

Then it hit me. Dreamgirl's never seen the Columbia Ice Fields. Or Jasper. Or one of the most beautiful mountain roads the world has to offer.

This calls for a roadtrip.

It was over 30 degrees out, perfect blue sky, tons of snow melting off the mountain peaks creating endless rushing waterfalls and fast moving rivers cutting through the forests as deep dark green as an emerald dream.

We left Canmore around 2, I knew it would take about 3-4 hours to drive to Jasper, then another 2-3 hours to Edmonton after that. Get us home around 8 or 9 I figured, no problem.

Of course, I didn't take into account that we might want to stop for a picture. Or two.

Or two hundred.

Or take a tour of the Ice Fields, or stop in Jasper for pizza.

We may not have got home until the wee hours of the morning, but the lack of sleep was totally worth a day like a dream. There's a reason this trip is listed everywhere as one of the places you have to see before you die.

Master Link Post

2007-06-10T15:41:00.005-06:00

Everything
Fark
Boing Boing
Digg
Reddit

Cool People Doing Cool Things
Amber Mac
The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century
The Adventures of Cristobal
tonypierce.com + busblog
True Stories
Warren Ellis
Warren Kinsella's Latest Musings
WIL WHEATON dot NET

Movies and Music and Pictures and Stories and Games
io9
Ain't It Cool News
Cute Overload
Chrystal's Photos
[daily dose of imagery]
Fast Fictions
Flickr - Banff
Flickr - Calgary
Flickr - Canmore
Flickr - Edmonton
Flickr - Toronto
Indieish : Your Free Music Daily
Kotaku
Mighty Optical Illusions
stereogum
Tcritic - Daily T-Shirt Blog
Teaching The Indie Kids to Dance Again

Philosophy and Politics
Accelerating Future
Adbusters Blog
a puke green world
Consumerist
kuro5hin.org
Let It Bleed
Life Beyond Code
Logical Philosopher
Genuine Curiosity
New Scientist
Ranting and Roaring
Rick Mercer's Blog
Treehugger

Makes Me Laugh
5ives
Behind the Counter
Clublife
Dethroner
I Can Has Cheezburger
Overheard at Western
waiterrant.net

Comics
Dilbert
User Friendly
PvP
Little Gamers
Ctrl+Alt+Del
Sore Thumbs
The Joy of Tech
Full Frontal Nerdity
Dork Tower
Looking For Group
Order of the Stick
VG Cats
Penny Arcade
Bob the Angry Flower
Sinfest
Diesel Sweeties
Joe Mathlete Explains Today's Marmaduke
Least I Could Do
Questionable Content
My Stupid Life
Nothing Nice to Say
Real Life
Theater Hopper
Joe Loves Crappy Movies
indexed
Filibuster Cartoons
Wondermark
Dinosaur Comics
xkcd
Homestarrunner
Red vs Blue

This Might Actually Come In Useful
43 Folders
acleareye
beyond bullets
Brand Autopsy
brandXpress blog
Download Squad
Fast Company Now
Freakonomics Blog
Get Rich Slowly
Google University
hack a day
Life Hut
Lifehacker
Mac 911 Weblog
Mac Gems Weblog
MacOSXHints.com
MacRumors
MAKE: Blog
Presentation Zen
Seth's Blog
Slacker Manager
TED Blog
The Meatriarchy
The Tom Peters Weblog
Travel Alberta
Tricks of the Trade
Visual Being
Well Fed Network
What's Your Brand Mantra?

Post 2.0

2007-06-09T16:56:00.000-06:00

OK, this is a new one.

I had written my post "Susie 2.0" a few weeks back, talking about erasing and reinstalling OS X on my iBook. I then received an anonymous comment of a rather lengthy and unusual nature.

I used to get a ton of comment spam, the usual crap about porn, \/!@6r@, and the rest. Thankfully, Blogger offered a CAPTCHA word-verification option for comments, haven't had any problems since. Until this one.

I'd love to post the entire body, but it seriously goes on for pages and pages. Pages of... are you ready... Women's track and field throw teams.

Women's track and field throw teams.

3/13/07
Katie Richardson, Fresno State Montague, Calif. 6-0
Dia Matthews 6' 0" Fresno, California
Sarah Reed Florida State. Punta Gorda, FL.

3/15/07
Nicole Sauer University of Wisconsin 5-9 East Greenwich, R.I.

3/16/07
Stephanie Robbins CSUChico Torrance, CA
Jennifer Sturm CSUChico Manawa, WI

3/17/07
Sarah Robles University of Alabama San Jancito, Calif.

...and on, and on, and on. Hundreds of lines.

Has anyone out there seen this before?

...

So here's where my little conspiratorial mind starts to have fun.

Why would someone post a list like this?

Say someone wanted to hide a message, a code of some kind. But they didn't want to send it to the intended recipient in a way easily traced, or that could present a link between the sender and recipient. Perhaps they had a prearranged topic, nice and innocent sounding (like sports statistics) that they would keep an eye out for around the blogosphere. Stuff that would get posted to some unknown personal vanity blog that nobody has any reason to pay attention to, and would hopefully just get left there by a confused but unconcerned blogger.

It's a little "Mission Impossible", but hey, what would life be without a little fun and mystery?

(if you're curious, I kept a copy of the whole thing)

And yes, I know it's far more likely that Blogger just had a little hiccup and accidentally posted a message intended for another person's blog... but what's the fun in that?

Susie 2.0

2007-06-09T16:54:00.000-06:00

Finally did it.

Susie (my 4 year old white G3 800mhz Apple iBook) was practically flatlining. Crashes, dropped wifi signals, major system lags... couldn't even play videos without tons of choppy playback and dropped audio. Never mind the hard drive has been at 99.9% capacity (at least) for the past year (dang indie music blogs!).

I came very close to buying a whole brand spankin' new macbook, but I just couldn't justify the finances. And I knew that Susie still had life in her. So I maxed out the RAM a few months back (a whopping 640 megs!). Helped a little. I stripped everything I could off of her, keeping pretty much nothing but my music, photos, and e-mail (still had less than a gig of free space on the hard drive). Done everything I could think of to optimize the software. Still couldn't even watch a clip on YouTube without it chopping out.

Time for more drastic measures.

I knew what I had to do. First things first: back everything up. Grabbed my backup drive, copied over all the files I wanted to keep. I already had .mac backing up a lot of my system settings and passwords, but just to be sure I wrote down all my essentials. A while ago I grabbed a copy of OS X 10.4, ie: Tiger. I put it in, my plan was to first do a "Archive and Install", which preserves my current installation while making sure my Tiger install goes smoothly. No such luck unfortunately, some kind of error on my hard drive prevented me from doing anything but a complete erase/format. So with a prayer to the geek gods and a root beer sacrifice, I wiped Susie out and put a Tiger in her tank! (hard drive, whatever.)

So far so good, she's running like a dream! I'm being very picky about what goes in here. Quicksilver and Firefox so far. I'm going to try and stay open source as much as possible. OpenOffice.org (or maybe NeoOffice), GIMP, and the granddaddy of them all: Linux.

And with all the love for Ubuntu these days (like the article below for example), and my own brief but very positive experience, I know exactly what I want to do to add another "personality" to my little white weapon!

Operating Systems: Learn how to make the switch to Linux

via Lifehacker on May 10, 2007

Hardcore-user mag Maximum PC shows you how to make the switch to Linux.

Specifically, Ubuntu Linux. This exhaustive article covers every step, from downloading and installing the OS to connecting to your network to actually using Linux. The author covers real-world topics like managing photos and music, configuring your e-mail and even setting up a printer. In short, it's as comprehensive a switch-to-Linux guide as you're likely to find anywhere (though here's another one, just for reference). Interestingly, the article itself is open-source: Maximum PC has released it with a Creative Commons attrib-sharealike license, so anyone can download, share and modify it. Rick Broida

You Can Switch to Linux! [Maximum PC]

Baby Got Back, by Gilbert and Sullivan

2007-06-05T15:06:00.000-06:00

Gotta see it to believe.

YouTube - Back Got Back - Gilbert and Sullivan Style

PDF Filler-Outer

2007-06-04T13:31:00.001-06:00

One thing about my job... there is a ridiculous amount of paperwork. Paperless office? Don't kid yourself.

There are more forms available online all the time, but of course they all expect you to print them off and fill them out by hand. Anything that can help me cut down the amount of time I have to spend writing the same info out over and over again is great with me!

I'm using Foxit for my usual PDF needs, but I'm a cheap bastard and don't want to pay for the full version with the typewriter function. Looks like this might do the trick.

Featured Windows Download: Fill out any PDF with PDF-XChange Viewer

via Lifehacker on Jun 01, 2007

Windows only: Freeware application PDF-XChange Viewer is a quick PDF reader that lets you perform all kinds of useful PDF editing tasks.

Among all of the features (and it is rich with them), PDF-XChange Viewer's killer feature is the Typewriter editing mode, which lets you overlay text anywhere on a PDF--a feature that's invaluable for filling out forms that aren't actually made to work as PDF forms (we've all been there). Add to that thumbnail previews, a nice tabbed interface, bookmarks, and sticky notes, and PDF-XChange Viewer is a formidable PDF tool. It may not be poised to replace Foxit Reader, but if you fill out a lot of PDFs, it's definitely worth a place in your Programs folder.

PDF-XChange Viewer [via FreewareGenius]

More Fun With Templates

2007-06-03T13:02:00.000-06:00

If you read this site directly (as opposed to using an RSS/Atom feed), then you may have noticed my fancy new layout. No particular reason this time, I was just bored.

I got this template from the same place as my last one, the graphic gods over at Gecko & Fly. This one's called Emire, with a couple minor tweaks of my own.

One of the things I'm going to do to clean up the appearance a bit is get rid of the long lists of links, blogs, and comics that I have in the sidebar. Instead I'm going to put them into "Master Link Posts", ie: link pages that I can keep updated as I change my reading habits. I like that better.

So if you're looking for a particular site that I used to have up in the sidebar, I will put up a link to those pages as I get them together.

More Ubuntu Fun

2007-06-01T13:19:00.001-06:00

I know I keep saying that I'm going to get Linux loaded up one of these days... I really do want to. I've heard that getting Ubuntu on my iBook isn't going to be as simple as I would have hoped (older hardware), and I just haven't taken the time to backup my work comp and give her a try yet (had enough headaches just getting XP and Vista to play nice together). But, I'm still collecting everything I can for when I do finally take a weekend and rock that penguin!

Lifehacker Top 10: Top 10 Ubuntu applications

via Lifehacker on Jun 01, 2007

Ubuntu 7.04 has quickly become the operating system of choice for millions of people around the world - whether they're Linux newcomers, Windows and Mac defectors or pony-tailed system administrators who wear watches displaying the time in binary. While Ubuntu comes jacked with useful applications out of the box, there's a big selection of free, thriving Linux desktop software which matches or betters their Windows and Mac counterparts in terms of features.

Today we've chosen our favorite ten Ubuntu software applications that are exclusive to GNU/Linux. Add them to your Ubuntu desktop to make your install pop.

Lifehacker's Top 10 Ubuntu apps

So, Ubuntu fans, what did we miss? Post up your favorite Linux apps in the comments.

500 Pics Of Hot Chicks

2007-05-31T11:57:00.001-06:00

What did you think I meant?

Morphing history of female portraiture

via Boing Boing by David Pescovitz on May 31, 2007

David Pescovitz: This beautiful video morphs through 500 years of female portraits in western art.
Link

Movies: From The Best To The Worst

2007-05-31T11:21:00.000-06:00

A couple must-see YouTube vids.

First, a trailer for an upcoming movie about a very special date: 5-25-77

if you're not geek enough to get it, it's the day that Star Wars premiered. Looks awesome.

And for a few laughs, here's a fantastic compilation of some of the worst movie scenes ever. I think I've seen every one of them, and I'm not sure how I should feel about that...

How's Your Vocabulary?

2007-05-29T15:02:00.001-06:00

I've always been proud of my linguistic abilities, but there are a couple here that I'm completely clueless about. How'd you do?

100 Words Every High School Graduate Should Know

via The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century :: Joey deVilla's Personal Weblog by Joey deVilla on May 28, 2007

According to the folks at Houghton Mifflin, every high school grad should be familiar with the words in the list below. I'm not surprised that I was unfamiliar with the word abstemious given its meaning, and moiety is now part of my vocabulary.

abjure
abrogate
abstemious
acumen
antebellum
auspicious
belie
bellicose
bowdlerize
chicanery
chromosome
churlish
circumlocution
circumnavigate
deciduous
deleterious
diffident
enervate
enfranchise
epiphany
equinox
euro
evanescent
expurgate
facetious
fatuous
feckless
fiduciary
filibuster
gamete
gauche
gerrymander
hegemony
hemoglobin
homogeneous
hubris
hypotenuse
impeach
incognito
incontrovertible
inculcate
infrastructure
interpolate
irony
jejune
kinetic
kowtow
laissez faire
lexicon
loquacious
lugubrious
metamorphosis
mitosis
moiety
nanotechnology
nihilism
nomenclature
nonsectarian
notarize
obsequious
oligarchy
omnipotent
orthography
oxidize
parabola
paradigm
parameter
pecuniary
photosynthesis
plagiarize
plasma
polymer
precipitous
quasar
quotidian
recapitulate
reciprocal
reparation
respiration
sanguine
soliloquy
subjugate
suffragist
supercilious
tautology
taxonomy
tectonic
tempestuous
thermodynamics
totalitarian
unctuous
usurp
vacuous
vehement
vortex
winnow
wrought
xenophobe
yeoman
ziggurat

If you're a Simpsons fan, the word chicanery should be familiar to you ("Oh, Mr. Homer...What has reduced you to such cheap chicanery?"). If you remember your Phil Hartman-era SNL, you might recall his use of the word jejune ("Compulsion" by Calvin Kleen). Monty Python fans will have run into a form of expurgate (the bookstore skit), lugubrious appears in both Lou Reed lyrics (The Original Wrapper) and an old Zippy the Pinhead comic strip and I recall the word sanguine being used in an 80's-era X-Men comic.

OpenCola - Open Source Soft Drink

2007-05-29T14:57:00.001-06:00

From a pure geek perspective, I gotta try this stuff. Not that I really need an excuse to drink more pop, but hey, now I can take a little pride in it!

HOWTO make OpenCola

via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow on May 24, 2007

Cory Doctorow: Wiki-How has a page up today on making OpenCola, a freely licensed soft-drink. I helped found the company that developed and released the OpenCola drink, and it was developed by Amanda Foubister in our kitchen. It tastes excellent, but it also highlighted for me just how much sugar there is in this stuff -- a lot. When you make cola, you basically end up filling a glass with sugar and then adding just enough water and ancillary ingredients to get it to dissolve.

Flavoring
* 3.50 ml orange oil
* 1.00 ml lemon oil
* 1.00 ml nutmeg oil
* 1.25 ml cassia oil
* 0.25 ml coriander oil
* 0.25 ml neroli oil
* 2.75 ml lime oil
* 0.25 ml lavender oil
* 10.0 g gum arabic
* 3.00 ml water

Link (Thanks, Joe!)

Toronto In The Future? Maybe They'll Finally Fix The QEW!

2007-05-29T14:50:00.001-06:00

There's something cool about reading a book and being able to identify the setting... of knowing exactly what the place they're talking about looks like because you've been there. It puts you in the story on another level. And one of my favourite cities on the planet (one that I've spent a bit of time in) happens to feature in quite a few fun stories...

Fantastic Toronto: sf from T-O

via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow on May 29, 2007

Cory Doctorow:
Fantastic Toronto is Karen Bennet's massive, wide-ranging bibliography of science fiction, fantasy and horror works with some or all of the action set in Toronto. I LOVE reading stuff written in my hometown -- and I've even written a bunch of it. Link

Literary Linking

2007-05-25T09:43:00.000-06:00

I noticed a couple interesting "How-To" type links today, one on starting a book club, something that Dreamgirl and I have been talking about (it's tough coming back to the city you grew up in, suddenly all your friends that you assumed would be right there like old times are gone or married!). Figured it'd be a cool way to meet some halfway interesting people. Or a total PITA. Either way.

Along a similar mindset was a rough guide to self-publishing a magazine. Now I've toyed with the idea of writing a couple books, but doing a tiny zine could be another fun excuse to meet people, practise writing, maybe even make a few bucks. I'd love to use it as an excuse to get the girly to start taking more pictures too!

Default Installations Are Boring: Top 10 Mac utilities

2007-05-24T09:16:00.000-06:00

Now that Susie's OS is all clean, shiny, and new, it's time to see what new and wonderful things I can do with her! As I said before, I'm being very picky about what goes in here now, but lists like the one below are good places to start.

Lifehacker Top 10: Top 10 Mac utilities

via Lifehacker on May 11, 2007

It's not always the full-blown software applications that make the biggest difference on your computer; often it's the small do-one-thing-well utilities that enhance our computing experience that much more.

Today's top 10 covers the system utilities that add a extra polish and convenience to your Mac's working environment. Most (but not all) of these little suckers are free, many live in your Mac's System Preferences pane and on the menubar, and all of them greatly enhance your overall Mac experience.

Top 10 Mac utilities

Honorable mentions include InstantShot, Nocturne, Google Desktop, Do Something When, smcFanControl, MacFUSE , and VirtueDesktops.

PLEASE Tell Me You Don't Still Use IE

2007-05-22T09:32:00.001-06:00

I know that Microsoft finally started catching up to the stuff that Firefox was doing years ago, but they still suck at it. Give Firefox a try, not only is it a heck of a lot safer, but all the addons and extensions they have, not to mention the little tricks mentioned below, make it so worth it. I know I'm preaching to the converted for you techies out there, but even for the casual user, you'll be a lot happier.

Browsers: Fifteen ways to make Firefox do your bidding

via Lifehacker on May 19, 2007

Lifehack.org has come up with a list of fifteen cool Firefox tricks, from smart keywords to how to limit RAM usage.

We certainly do love our Firefox here at Lifehacker, and this list of tips and tweaks is a super addition to our treasure trove of foxy love. This is a pretty good list, but do you see anything missing that you've just gotta add? Come on - you know what to do. Wendy Boswell

15 Coolest Firefox Tricks Ever [Lifehack.org ]

"A Fair(y) Use Tale"

2007-05-20T17:02:00.001-06:00

This is sheer genius... the best explanation of how copyright laws work that I've ever seen. And the way this guy did it. Wow. You have to see this.

Fair(y) Use Tale: AMAZING video cuts up Disney to explain copyright

via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow on May 19, 2007

Cory Doctorow: Bucknell prof Eric Faden has produced the most amazing video mashup I've ever seen: "A Fair(y) Use Tale" cuts together thousands of extremely short clips from dozens of Disney cartoons, lifting indivudal words and short phrases to spell out an articulate, funny, and thoroughly educational lesson on how copyright works. This is the most subversive and hilarious use of Disney material I've ever seen -- and there's even a really smart chapter about why Faden used Disney material to make his film. This should be required viewing in every K-12 classroom in the country. Coral Cache link to MP4 download, Link to Stanford page for the film (Thanks, Church!)

Update: Here's the YouTube version -- thanks, Pawel!

Update 2: Here's another mirror, courtesy of Alan

Tweaks and Treats for My Mac

2007-05-18T11:53:00.003-06:00

With my dear iBook (Susie) getting a tad... mature... I'm looking for every little boost and optimization I can give her.

Lifehacker Top 10: Top 10 Mac OS X tweaks

via Lifehacker on May 18, 2007

Mac OS X is a great operating system out of the box, but a few simple customizations can make it even better. OS X ships with some odd and sometimes inconvenient default settings, and it's got a few nifty little perks for power users who enable them, no third-party software required.

After the jump, check out our top 10 favorite Mac OS X tweaks for making your Mac experience even more personalized, customized and convenient.

Lifehacker Top 10 Mac OS X tweaks

Note: due to a bug in our photo galleries which we're working out now, to get to the next photo click on the NEXT>> text link in each photo's caption. Our apologies for the inconvenience.

What are the first OS X settings you change when you get a new Mac? Let us know in the comments. Gina Trapani

Optimization: Speed up your Mac

via Lifehacker on May 18, 2007

While we all wait for Leopard to get released, here are 52 Ways to Speed Up OS X. [via OS X Hacker]

Beauty is in the Wallet of the Rights-Holder

2007-05-17T16:05:00.001-06:00

OK, bit of a stretch, I know, but it's still an interesting issue.

Smithsonian images migrated to Flickr for fair-er use

via Boing Boing by Xeni Jardin on May 17, 2007

Xeni Jardin:

Carl Malamud says,

SmithsonianImages.SI.Edu has 6,288 images of tremendous historical significance, but this federal institution protects their "property" with draconian copyright notices.
Most of this stuff appears to be in the public domain which means you can do whatever you want with it, but the Smithsonian site has considerably chilled our ability to increase or diffuse this knowledge.

To better ascertain the public domain nature of this archive, we scraped their html and piped all 6,288 lo-res images to Flickr (check out the cool tag cloud). For those interested in purchasing images to upload back into the public domain, we've created a public domain prospectus on Lulu. For the historic Muybridge Cyanotypes, we've started purchasing the hi-res images and have posted those for bulk download as well as created a series of derivative works.

There is a 2-page memo explaining the issues and the actions we've undertaken to better increase and diffuse this knowledge onto the net.

Link. Above, a cropped detail from the Edward Muybridge cyanotypes subset.

Can't Board, Gotta Bike

2007-05-16T16:15:00.001-06:00

Winter is snowboarding, summer is mountain biking. Of course, my bike is currently in it's "moving across the country" state, ie: no pedals, seat, or tires, covered in dust and tape. Time for a tune. I'll get one of my buddies over at River Valley Cycle to give her a once-over before hitting the trails!

How To: Maintain your bicycle

via Lifehacker on May 16, 2007

Web site WikiHow has a detailed guide for bicycle maintenance to help keep your bike in tip-top shape.

With summer just around the bend and gas prices creeping and crawling ever upwards, using a bicycle to get around has never been more attractive. Treat your bike well and it'll keep you saving money, saving planets, and saving time at the gym for years to come. The guide focuses on maintaining a mountain bike, but almost every one of the detailed suggestions is applicable to whatever bike you're sporting. Adam Pash

How to Maintain a Mountain Bike [WikiHow]

"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that."

2007-05-15T16:39:00.001-06:00

101 Greatest George Carlin Quotes

And, a little story for you flyboys:

The King of Speed

There were a lot of things we couldn't do in an SR-71, but we were the fastest guys on the block and loved reminding our fellow aviators of this fact. People often asked us if, because of this fact, it was fun to fly the jet. Fun would not be the first word I would use to describe flying this plane. Intense, maybe. Even cerebral. But there was one day in our Sled experience when we would have to say that it was pure fun to be the fastest guys out there, at least for a moment.

It occurred when Walt and I were flying our final training sortie. We needed 100 hours in the jet to complete our training and attain Mission Ready status. Somewhere over Colorado we had passed the century mark. We had made the turn in Arizona and the jet was performing flawlessly. My gauges were wired in the front seat and we were starting to feel pretty good about ourselves, not only because we would soon be flying real missions but because we had gained a great deal of confidence in the plane in the past ten months. Ripping across the barren deserts 80,000 feet below us, I could already see the coast of California from the Arizona border. I was, finally, after many humbling months of simulators and study, ahead of the jet.

I was beginning to feel a bit sorry for Walter in the back seat. There he was, with no really good view of the incredible sights before us, tasked with monitoring four different radios. This was good practice for him for when we began flying real missions, when a priority transmission from headquarters could be vital. It had been difficult, too, for me to relinquish control of the radios, as during my entire flying career I had controlled my own transmissions. But it was part of the division of duties in this plane and I had adjusted to it. I still insisted on talking on the radio while we were on the ground, however. Walt was so good at many things, but he couldn't match my expertise at sounding smooth on the radios, a skill that had been honed sharply with years in fighter squadrons where the slightest radio miscue was grounds for beheading. He understood that and allowed me that luxury. Just to get a sense of what Walt had to contend with, I pulled the radio toggle switches and monitored the frequencies along with him. The predominant radio chatter was from Los Angeles Center, far below us, controlling daily traffic in their sector. While they had us on their scope (albeit briefly), we were in uncontrolled airspace and normally would not talk to them unless we needed to descend into their airspace.

We listened as the shaky voice of a lone Cessna pilot asked Center for a readout of his ground speed.

Center replied: "November Charlie 175, I'm showing you at ninety knots on the ground."

Now the thing to understand about Center controllers, was that whether they were talking to a rookie pilot in a Cessna, or to Air Force One, they always spoke in the exact same, calm, deep, professional, tone that made one feel important. I referred to it as the "HoustonCenterVoice." I have always felt that after years of seeing documentaries on this country's space program and listening to the calm and distinct voice of the HoustonCenterControllers, that all other controllers since then wanted to sound like that... and that they basically did. And it didn't matter what sector of the country we would be flying in, it always seemed like the same guy was talking. Over the years that tone of voice had become somewhat of a comforting sound to pilots everywhere. Conversely, over the years, pilots always wanted to ensure that, when transmitting, they sounded like Chuck Yeager, or at least like John Wayne. Better to die than sound bad on the radios.

Just moments after the Cessna's inquiry, a Twin Beech piped up on frequency, in a rather superior tone, asking for his ground speed.

"Ah, Twin Beach: I have you at one hundred and twenty-five knots of ground speed."

Boy, I thought, the Beechcraft really must think he is dazzling his Cessna brethren.

Then out of the blue, a Navy F-18 pilot out of NAS Lemoore came up on frequency. You knew right away it was a Navy jock because he sounded very cool on the radios.

"Center, Dusty 52 ground speed check."

Before Center could reply, I'm thinking to myself, hey, Dusty 52 has a ground speed indicator in that million dollar cockpit, so why is he asking Center for a readout? Then I got it -- ol' Dusty here is making sure that every bug smasher from Mount Whitney to the Mojave knows what true speed is. He's the fastest dude in the valley today, and he just wants everyone to know how much fun he is having in his new Hornet.

And the reply, always with that same, calm, voice, with more distinct alliteration than emotion:

"Dusty 52, Center, we have you at 620 on the ground."

And I thought to myself, is this a ripe situation, or what? As my hand instinctively reached for the mic button, I had to remind myself that Walt was in control of the radios. Still, I thought, it must be done -- in mere seconds we'll be out of the sector and the opportunity will be lost. That Hornet must die, and die now.

I thought about all of our Sim training and how important it was that we developed well as a crew and knew that to jump in on the radios now would destroy the integrity of all that we had worked toward becoming. I was torn. Somewhere, 13 miles above Arizona, there was a pilot screaming inside his space helmet.

Then, I heard it. The click of the mic button from the back seat. That was the very moment that I knew Walter and I had become a crew. Very professionally, and with no emotion, Walter spoke:

"Los Angeles Center, Aspen 20, can you give us a ground speed check?"

There was no hesitation, and the reply came as if was an everyday request:

"Aspen 20, I show you at one thousand eight hundred and forty-two knots, across the ground."

I think it was the forty-two knots that I liked the best, so accurate and proud was Center to deliver that information without hesitation, and you just knew he was smiling. But the precise point at which I knew that Walt and I were going to be really good friends for a long time was when he keyed the mic once again to say, in his most fighter-pilot-like voice:

"Ah, Center, much thanks. We're showing closer to nineteen hundred on the money."

For a moment Walter was a god. And we finally heard a little crack in the armor of the HoustonCentervoice, when L.A. came back with,

"Roger that Aspen, Your equipment is probably more accurate than ours. You boys have a good one."

It all had lasted for just moments, but in that short, memorable sprint across the southwest, the Navy had been flamed, all mortal airplanes on freq were forced to bow before the King of Speed, and more importantly, Walter and I had crossed the threshold of being a crew. A fine day's work.

We never heard another transmission on that frequency all the way to the coast. For just one day, it truly was fun being the fastest guys out there.

Seven Wonders of Canada

2007-05-15T16:17:00.001-06:00

CBC has compiled a list of nominees for what they're calling the "Seven Wonders of Canada".

Some of them I don't really understand (the canoe?), some seem like obvious regional pandering (crooked trees?), but there are many great highlights of our country included here. The nitpicker in me questions what kind of definition they're using; should we really be comparing natural phenomena (Northern Lights, Prairie Skies) and man-made structures (Confederation Bridge, Rideau Canal) on the same list? And if we're going to look at conceptual inventions like canoes and igloos along with one-off achievements like the CN Tower, does that mean we're ignoring all other Canadian inventions, like penicillin?

I think a more specific definition of "Wonder" might have given this project a bit more resonance. But regardless of what this list will ever mean it's an excellent reminder of some of the truly unique and amazing wonders this country has to offer.

Insanely Hard Mario Level Solved

2007-05-11T12:25:00.001-06:00

I posted a link to an incredible video of someone playing the original nintendo Super Mario Brothers on some insane advanced level that I didn't even know existed. What really makes the vid worth watching is the commentary though... absolutely hilarious! I've since found out that it's not the player on the voice over, just a guy that found the original video online and decided to have a little fun with it. Still dang funny.

Anyway, the only annoying part of the video is the fact that the level never gets finished! I was dying to find out how the heck someone could wrap that thing. Thankfully, someone has. It's a "tool-assisted" speed run, which means he used various hacks and/or cheats to get it done, but hey, I'm just glad to see that little flag fall.

I Don't Need To Know Everything, I Just Need To Know Where To Find Those That Do

2007-05-11T12:17:00.001-06:00

One of my big projects at work right now is redesigning our website. I tried messing around with a couple different designs I had seen, first from just a plain text editor (jEdit), then with a WYSIWYG app (Nvu). As much as I enjoy goofing around, I saw very soon how much time and effort it was going to take me to get something very unprofessional thrown up there. Not what I wanted, and a pretty crappy business decision.

Now, I have long been fortunate enough to surround myself with people of great talent. I don't want to give his name away here, since he's doing a bit of freelance work for me here and I don't want to take any chance of causing him any stress at work, but a great friend and incredible designer agreed to put something together for me. And I can't wait to see what he's got up his sleeve!

I still enjoy playing around with design stuff, that's one of the reasons I've got my little blag-o-blog here. So while my buddy has the skills and tools to work magic, when I want to put my own meager visions to the screen I can really use the help of places like these guys:

Site Tools: Create your own web buttons

via Lifehacker on May 11, 2007

The aptly named Button Maker lets you whip together custom web buttons, the kind you usually see for RSS feeds and the like.

This simple little web-based tool lets you choose background, border and text colors using a pop-up picker. You can even make modifications down to the pixel level, like how far text should start from the side. Click Submit and presto: Instant button. Alas, you can't change the overall size of the button, but this is still a nice little tool. Want something a little fancier? Check out the oldie-but-goodie Glassy button maker. Rick Broida

Button Maker [adamkalsey]

Stretching Your Brain A Little More

2007-05-10T08:39:00.001-06:00

Singularity Summit video/audio

via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow on May 10, 2007

Cory Doctorow: Last year, I spoke at a Ray Kurzweil's Singularity Summit at Stanford, a day-long event about the future of technology and the possibility of a coming Singularity. There were some killer speakers (including my hero Douglas R "Godel, Escher, Bach" Hofstadter).

The technological Singularity -- what Ken Macleod called "The Rapture of the Nerds" -- is the moment at which it is possible to make a computer that is as smart as a human, and then smarter. The idea is that we will irrevocably change as a species at that moment.

The Singularity Institute has put up full videos and audio from the Summit now -- there's some great stuff here. Link (Thanks, Tyler!)

A Little Boy Scout Refresher

2007-05-09T10:10:00.001-06:00

Knots: The ten most useful knots and how to tie them

via Lifehacker on May 06, 2007

Tying various kinds of knots is just one of those skills that comes in handy when you least expect it, and while we've definitely written up how to tie useful knots before here at Lifehacker, this picture tutorial from Mother Earth News on how to tie the ten most useful knots is also incredibly helpful.

Some of these knots left me going "huh?" until I studied the diagrams a bit more. Sure, you might not be able to think of a situation off the top of your head where you absolutely need a Sheepshank loop, but isn't it good to be prepared? Wendy Boswell

How to Tie the 10 Most Useful Knots [Mother Earth News]

Another Excuse To Try Ubuntu

2007-05-09T10:02:00.001-06:00

I gotta get the time & guts to actually get this up and loaded on at least one of my computers! Looks like it's getting easier all the time to take her for a test drive...

Posted with Google Reader:

Featured Windows Download: Take Ubuntu for a non-invasive test drive with Wubi

via Lifehacker on May 09, 2007

Windows only: Wubi is a Windows-based Ubuntu Linux installer that lets you run the OS on your Windows XP box--no partitions, bootloaders or Live CDs required.

Wubi appears to be an evolved, community-supported version of the Ubuntu Windows installer prototype we looked at a while back. Just run the executable, reboot, and choose Ubuntu from the boot menu that appears. Like a Live CD, Wubi makes no changes to your system but affords full access to your hardware and comes with a robust suite of Linux apps and utilities (the same stuff that comes with Ubuntu).

Wubi is beta, but it worked fine on my XP system and uninstalled without a hitch. Some users will undoubtedly prefer the Live CD approach to Linux test-driving, but this saves you having to burn a CD and affords a more permanent Linux presence--if that's what you want. Wubi is free; it requires Windows XP. Rick Broida

Wubi