A Geek, Observed

Quote of the day

2006-11-02T17:13:10Z

Quote of the day: “That's not so bad. Call me when the dog is purple.”
(From Dive Into Mark)

A quick guide

2006-10-12T21:12:38Z

Radio station that plays Weird Al's "White and Nerdy": good.

Radio station that plays Chamillionare's "Riding Dirty" (the song parodied by the above): bad.

Radio station that plays both (at different points in their normal lineup, not to highlight the parody): WTF.

Going through old photos

2006-10-05T19:39:02Z

Now wasn't I a cute kid?

Lovely analogies

2006-09-30T05:43:45Z

Andy Ihnatko:

“When you get past the schoolyard mentality and the stupid, ignorant prejudices,” you have heard people say, “what we have are two different operating systems that each work very, very well. Really, it’s not a matter of good or bad. It’s just a matter of personal preference.”

Those are very wise words. I have said much the same thing. But what I’ve endured over the past few months is the equivalent of a weeklong road trip with someone [you’ve] enjoyed, but never really known as a true friend. Windows has propped its bare smelly feet up on my dashboard and told me the story about how he was so hung over during his aunt’s funeral that he threw up into the coffin a little. His greasy hair has left smears on the inside of the window that no solvent can shift. He just sort of assumed that he could use my iPod, and during the one time he took a turn at the wheel, the battery was completely flat and I had to listen the story about the funeral a second time.

(more)

danridley @ 2006-08-12T17:17:00

2006-08-13T00:18:51Z

I love Wikipedia. What other site would have a straightforward, informative entry on FTFF?

Damn good waffles

2006-07-23T17:37:07Z

Tofu + yogurt + applesauce + nutritional yeast + white flour + baking powder + a smidgeon of oat flour + skim milk = heavenly, eggless, very nutritious waffles. Go heavy on the tofu and light on the flour. Just be careful not to burn them, the transition from "done" to "burned" happens pretty quickly, where more normal waffles will spend a while just getting too dry before they actually get burned.

In other news, I'm (mostly) leaving the consulting business to become a corporate wage slave — and I'm looking forward to it, at that. Meet my new masters. (Yeah, revamping their Web site is in progress.)

Also, check out this odd photograph of a splash on the Sun. I don't know what it is, and the link from spaceweather.com didn't really explain it, but it's sure gorgeous.

Visualizing very large numbers with scrollbars

2006-07-22T14:02:52Z

Two interesting examples of playing with the medium of the pixel and visualizing very large numbers:
Population: One, a page with 6.5 billion pixels. You are one. The rest are everyone else on Earth.
And, a little more esoteric in subject matter but I think more effective in its use of the medium, an atom, to scale, primarily demonstrating the vast, vast amount of empty space between the proton and electron.

Cool photo

2006-07-08T15:53:13Z

Check out this picture of a mouse atop a frog, staying out of floodwaters.

danridley @ 2006-07-05T13:34:00

2006-07-05T20:37:42Z

There's a chill in the air today, and it's more than the weather. This is a day with sharp edges.

Good news is coming, and I wonder what the price will be.

danridley @ 2006-07-04T09:45:00

2006-07-04T16:49:12Z

I can't summarize this any better than John Gruber, so allow me to quote his summary:

U.S. Senator Ted Stevens Explains How the Internet Works

Hard to tell how much to attribute to his being stupid, and how much to his being a nut-job.

Woot!

2006-07-04T16:33:46Z

Hey — I got front-page treatment from Mark Pilgrim. I feel so... special.

danridley @ 2006-06-21T09:44:00

2006-06-21T16:44:23Z

We had a party yesterday for River's, Jaden's and my own birthdays — we each had a birthday in one of the three previous months, and they went by relatively unobserved for various reasons.

I've posted a photoset of the party at flickr. Or you can download the whole set (21 MB) at full resolution. (This second option includes a couple extra pictures of the lake & sunset, since I hit my upload bandwidth quota at Flickr.)

You can sleep when you are DEAD

2006-06-15T16:07:41Z

I can't decide if this advertisement is hilarious or just incredibly creepy.

danridley @ 2006-05-26T17:41:00

2006-05-27T00:41:34Z

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself--and you are the easiest person to fool.… After you've not fooled yourself, it's easy not to fool [others]. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that.”
— Richard Feynman

danridley @ 2006-05-17T20:30:00

2006-05-18T03:30:00Z

I am so buying a Nintendo DS because of this.

danridley @ 2006-05-01T22:38:00

2006-05-02T05:38:35Z

From some random forum post via Diane Duane:

Aslan is what Jesus would have been if the Bible had been written by an American. After his "sacrifice", he comes back with a huge army and bites his enemy's fucking head off. Much cooler.

danridley @ 2006-04-22T11:28:00

2006-04-22T18:28:05Z

This footage of a hard drive in action is really, really cool, especially because it's narrated so you know what's going on.

danridley @ 2006-04-13T10:35:00

2006-04-13T17:35:14Z

Forgive the excessive acronymage, but the only way I can describe this is omg wtf lol!.

danridley @ 2006-04-13T08:51:00

2006-04-13T15:51:47Z

Classic comment over at CAR:

My Boot Camp experience went like this:
After the interminable Windows installation which stops several times during the 40 min installation to ask inane questions instead of waiting until the end, I spent the next 20 mins dismissing 150 repeating speech bubbles which “plop” onto the screen asking inane things like…
“Do you want to activate now, go on, you know you want to, because if you don’t I’ll just remind you another 132 times… per day”
and, “Found new hardware but I’ll wait for you to install it because I can’t so it was a bit pointless mentioning it wasn’t it”
and, “Your computer might be at risk because with 96% of the market we’re targetted left right and center with viruses, spyware, trojans, and more nasty stuff than a nightclub full of teenage goths, just thought you’d like to know”
and, “I’ve found a wireless connection so I’ll use it, even though you already had a perfectly good cable Ethernet connection which was much faster, but hey, that’s what speech bubbles are for isn’t it!”
And then there’s the Start Menu prompts, “You’ve got new software! I’m sure you wanted to know that, since you just installed it yourself and would already know, but hey, I’m being a helpful little OS today.” And program prompts, “I know you’ve just installed Firefox and made it your default browser, but IE is lonely and wants some friends, so please make it your default browser again, please!”
And, “Your desktop has unused icons, would you like me to move them to the Recycle Bin, because I’m good at that, it’s not like you actually put them there for a reason is it, or maybe it is, but go on, let me do it anyway”
...
The only sane part of the experience I found was the great new Control Panel which I hadn’t seen before which said “Startup Disk… Mac OS X.” I clicked it and sanity returned.

danridley @ 2006-04-06T10:54:00

2006-04-06T17:54:05Z

I asked for this feature in Mozilla years ago, but nobody ever wrote it. (Including me.)

danridley @ 2006-03-26T10:17:00

2006-03-26T18:17:58Z

Only if I also told you what muppet I am.

Rant

2006-03-16T23:03:58Z

I'm grumpy. No, not grumpy. Curmudgeonly.

To: Verizon Wireless

No, I do not want to “Transl8 my msg.” I do not want to “spk n'txt.” The malformations of language that people are required to use when text-messaging is a failure of technology, not some kewl clturl shft. Instead of offering a button on your Web site allowing me to “transl8 my msg,” why don't you consider rolling out cell phones and services that can handle more than 160 characters?

Linky

2006-03-04T03:53:15Z

Very Big Photos so you can read Very Brain-Numbing Text.

danridley @ 2006-02-28T12:16:00

2006-02-28T20:16:48Z

Best packaging parody video ever.

Hmm. Not a very wide field, is it?

danridley @ 2006-02-28T10:11:00

2006-02-28T18:11:44Z

My predictions for Apple's mystery announcements today:

The Intel Mac mini won't be the primary focus.

At least one major item not predicted by the rumor mill.

iTunes 7 at the event this morning, followed by iTunes 8 after lunch.