Gawd, I love GlobeTrekker.
Ian, keep it up!
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Will the last person leaving Livermore please unscrew the lightbulb in Fire Station one?

Know those stupid talking plastic fish? Hack 'em to run Linux, and imagine the possiblities!
Big Mouth Billy Bass runs Linux, does impressions

Now that the antimated talking fish doll Big Mouth Billy Bass is out of fashion and can be had at pennies on the dollar, why not try your hand at installing Linux on it and getting it to lipsynch funny Simpsons quotes or act as the phyical avatar for someone at the other end of a teleconference line?

We will make the following improvements to Big Mouth Billy Bass.
* User defined audio clips
* Lip syncing
* Video recording
* Audio recording
Link
via Boing Boing
(via Smartpatrol)

update to "ipod's dirty little secret":ipodsdirtysecret.com's dirty secret

The guy who donated bandwidth to ipodsdirtysecret.com (about two brothers who spraypainted complaints about lousy batteries on iPod posters) is pissed a plenty.

via Boing Boing, Link (thanks, Ian!>

Eroticising trademarked battlemechs
OMFG! Creativity takes all forms on the internet.


ScoutWalker is a novel form of Star Wars porn: giant AT-ST Walkers engaged in scenes from the Kama Sutra.

via Boing Boing

List for Chris & Co.:
Intel, AMD, VIA, ATI, NVIDIA, Cosair, Crucial, Mushkin, OCZ, Sandisk, Seagate, WD, Fujitsu, Toshiba, Samsung, Antec, Forton, Nokia, Sony, HP, Cannon, Red Hat, SUSE, Adobe, Pinnacle, Roxio, Ahead, ABit, Asus, Plextor, Palm, VMWare, Broadcom, Atheos, Biostar, Linksys, D-Link, IBM, NetGear, SMC, FIC, MSI, Gigabyte, Apple, ebay, Viewsonic, Pioneer, Kodak, Snapstream, RealNetworks, Alcohol, etc.


Big guys instead of trinket peddlers. Check that. How 'bout small mid-cap companies that don't make the news much, but are changing our world?

I thought I'd name this blog Signal to Noise, but I realized I probably spurt out more noise than signal.
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It's good that we now have a professional Auction House here in DM. They allow online bids on ebay.

Englishman Discovers He's a Canadian Native Chief (Reuters)
Reuters - A 59-year-old retired builder from
Yorkshire, northern England, was shocked to discover he is in
fact a tribal chief with a claim to thousands of acres of land
in Canada, British newspapers reported on Friday.

Perks to Be Slow for Japanese Digital TV
via AP
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Where You Can't Hear Me Now in New York City
more on Bloomberg's campaign for better cell coverage.
via Yahoo-Tech-Reuters

[Listening to: this is radioioBEAT. NOW LIVE! - radioio. it's the music that matters. - (00:00)]

UK debut for 'blind' mobile Finally, specialized (cell) phones for blind people.
via BBC News

Streaming Audio Tutorial

You want to DJ, but don't want to hang out in clubs with all those annoying raver types? Let the Fezguys show you how to stream audio to the world right from a home PC.
via Webmonkey

Apparently, like the big wall-sized plasma screens, iPods may have a dirty little secret.
Anti-advertising to out iPod's dirty secret



iPod's Dirty Secret is a three-minute movie made by an iPod owner to protest the fact that Apple won't replace his 18-month-old iPod's dead battery. He's engaged in a one-man guerrilla anti-advertising campaign to stencil a warning over Apple's street posters promoting iPod.
6.9MB Quicktime Link
via Boing Boing via Dan Gillmor

Wired 11.12: View Fiber to the People!
Slashdot | Fiber to the People: Lessig, IEEE & AFNs /. discussion on it.
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I still love Calvin and Hobbes.
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Wi-Fi Networking News: A University's Real-Time Wi-Fi Usage Map
-Wi-Fi Networking News: A University's Real-Time Wi-Fi Usage Map Watch as the nodes/NICs re-assert themselves.

Male birth control pill soon a reality
I laughed when I got to the "deter some women out there from their nefarious plans" quote by a trial volunteer.
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MSN Learning & Research - Quizzes Feeling smart today?

Modern Ballot Tampering Yes, I know, it's not a new issue. Just thought I'd put my 2� in.
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Ever have conversations with imaginary people, but you're really just talking to yourself?
Good, at least I'm not the only one.
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Just found out someone I went to school with just opened his own gallery on ingersol. More art is a good thing around here.

The hypocrisy of Burning Man

Internet Explorer to stomp pop-ups | CNET News.com Once again the last to jump in (at least in this category), MS adds pop-up blocking to IE.

Freddie Mac Overstated 2001 Results By Up to $1 Billion ;multi. sources
If a company plugged into the government can't get it right, how are the rest? If this doesn't call for more oversight, I don't know what does..
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I just heard in a review (sorry no link, it was on the radio) that The Cat in the Hat is as bad as it looks. Even dark in places. :(
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Wired 11.12: CodeFellas; Tech Support for the Mob.

BellSouth Internet Service Wow, living in the south is nice. Dialup for $5 monthly, and DSL at $30 & $40 levels.
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Is anyone else peeved at the rampant misuse of English on the internet? It's like the entire collective intelligence of America (where this is stemming from) is being drug down by laziness! If I had a nickel for every time I've seen there and their mixed up.... We are taught English in elementary school, and should have it mastered by High school. What's your excuse?!
I could go on and on, but I can't spend the time today.

Joel on Software - New Server at Peer 1 Network
another hosting/colo consideration
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New York, New York - Does Covad use Verizon?
I remember dealing with this between 98-00 for companies. Nice (sarcasm) to see it's the same still.
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"Throw some hardware at the problem because at the end of the day the high end consultant costs as much as the hardware and you get to keep the hardware." good quote, wish I knew the source.

Timothy McSweeney's Internet Tendency: About McSweeney's; see Frequency
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Believe it or not, the Register had an article on Geocaching Thursday!

Customers rage at Google tweak | CNET News.com

I was browsing around this morning and found out there's a barber in Camanche with the same name. Hmf. And no, I wasn't googling my own name. (what's the word for that again?)

Thomas Jefferson
"Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies."
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Apparently, "If there's frost on the pumpkins, there's love in the air."
More babies are born in August* than any other month. That makes November the month when the most babies are conceived. I guess everyone's first reaction is to cuddle up when it starts getting cold.
*Supported by US Statistics only.

Thank you Seth, for making a TiVo FAQ page. I'll be referring back to it when I finally make the plunge.
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Stories for Robots are from a Mac guy, but still amusing.
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I think I know what I'm getting most everyone for Christmas. It'll be easier this year, as I can give the same thing to everyone and it won't be a problem. Intrigued? To bad. I can't say, as some of those people (you know who you are) read this.
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Know how you're browsing along, using the forward and back buttons as a sort of navigation tree? Then you accidentally (or, if you're unlucky enough, crash) kill the browser window and lose all those sites you hadn't finished reading? Uggh!
There's an alternative browser available that'll keep track of your browser history/navigation tree. Which is it? Opera? Something else? I know I've got a link stored on that crashed W2k box, it'll just take forever a long time to sift through to find it.

CNN.com - Concorde sell-off goes supersonic People pay XXX times the value for antennae, speedometers, and other mondane parts of the Concorde.
Shall I get into the point of the concorde shutting down when NOT losing money? Nah, I'll let it die.
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MobboI'd really like a voicemail greeting from here, to bad they don't sell to the US.

$129/month for a T1? I knew capacity had driven prices down, but wow! I'm adding them to my 'possible providers' list.
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from the Venting yet another sw iritation file; Does every other internet radio station really need to take over my browser to fly over to their site? If I like the selection of music you're playing, I may visit your site. Otherwise, Stop redirecting my computer! It only hurts you in the long run anway, as it turns me off to your brand, and that's all you've got left with streaming.
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Wired 7.01: Look Who's Talking
While this is old, it's about: Are we going to fast with technology?-Here's how the Amish do it.
"The celebrated "anarchy" of the early days was possible only because of the near-universal adherence to largely unwritten rules. But the Internet population has grown fast - so fast that the sudden influx of tens of millions of newbies has overwhelmed the capacity of the old-timers to pass on the Ordnung. In the process, the Internet loses its unique hallmarks..." I like it. This is so true.

[Listening to: DR Jazz - - (00:00)]

audblog : sounding out
Now you can blog from a phonebooth. Well, not really. It doesn't do any speech-to-text conversion, but it does tag what you say to the blog as an mp3.
Actually, it reminds me of voicemonkey.

a boy and his computer - church signs and the Church Sign Generator
found via shellen.com

[Listening to: Track 5 - Unknown Artist - Unknown Album (11/14/2003 10:03:15 AM) (03:41)]

Fired Microsoft Blogger Offers His Two Cents
Microsoft temp worker Michael Hanscom is now known as the first Microsoft employee to lose his job over his blog. But Hanscom says he doesn't believe it was the act of blogging, per se, that led to his firing.
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Longhorn: Can Microsoft Deliver on Its Promises This Time?
via MS Watch

New York Post Online Edition: business; WAL-MART TO OFFER ONLINE MUSIC SHOP
My oh my, do we really need this?
What we actually need is a greater selection at the existing legit online outfits.

MSN Money - SuperModels:How mutual funds stole your money
Once again, light is shown on the dark side of the moon Wall Street. God this stuff pisses me off. These guys need to go to jail. Not white-collar-country-club jail, Real jail. As Elitists, they sit in their ivory towers thinking, "What's the worst that could happen to me? Min. Sec. prison for 6 months with a X mil. (or bil.) dollar payout waiting for me when I get out. Ha!"
They think what they're doing is not really criminal, and won't untill we put them with "harder" criminals. For these practices to stop, we need to treat the legal ones like the used car salesman they are, and put those who've broken the law in the prisons with the "real" criminals.
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DVD±RW drives; gawd they're gettin' cheap, aren't they?!

Oh my, where's the end?
In the latest twist on guerilla marketing, an ad agency excuse me, marketing agency in LA has placed actors in movie showings. The test case was for client Nissan during showings of Relovutions, but who cares. The point is they're hiring actors to sit in the theater with you, yelling things at the screen during the commercial. This is absurd. Where's this going to end?

Awful Plastic Surgery; Oh, why? Most of these people were fine before...

TyperA - test your typing skills

HD for sale: 40GB WD - $30

So many people have been hit by the 419 Nigeran scam, someone finally put up a site just on it.
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Dissertation Could Be Security Threat (TechNews.com) Dated, but still interesting.
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Creative Commons : Open but legal licensing for artists.

[Listening to: eir - - (00:00)]

NOW reported on the VA prob. Soldiers are coming back from Afganistan to find the VA much slower than the DOD, and are being told to wait. In extreme cases, years. The average wait to see a VA doctor is 7 months. We actually got here because our Health Care is so good. We have fewer dead and more wounded than in previous generations, and the VA is not set up/funded to deal with that. Some how, we need to fix this before the legions come back from Iraq.
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Have you read Salon or Slate lately?
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A tough lesson on medical privacy / Pakistani transcriber threatens UCSF over back pay
This is bad....
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Credit agencies sending our files abroad : This is so wrong.

[Listening to: eir - - (00:00)]

Understand Your Dog More proof that people 'll buy anything..
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Novell to Buy SuSE Linux for $210 Million What's this? Novell wants to buy SuSE?
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MS just released Office 2003. They're patching it already!

Thanks to Nick Bradbury, I've now put myself in a big project: archiving feed items so I don't lose them when I must upgrade. Don't get me wrong, Nick's a good guy, I'm just overwhelmed at the moment. (I know it's my fault for relying on a beta- but it's a great beta!)
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Creative Commons
When you really don't want to release your works in the public domain, but you don't want to be a hard-*ss about copyright either, this is want you need. Release your stuff into the open and still require credit. It sounds a little like copyleft. I didn't know this existed, I'll need to read more.
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Economist.com | The next hot internet stock; How good is Google?
llllsxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxedit later.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Wired News: Autopilot Telescopes Ease Gazing
Distributed Computing takes on Astronomy. Many telescopes across the globe, all connected to a grid. The grid then searches the skies for 'significant' changes/events many times faster and more complete than humans. Another positive is astronomers getting slices of telescope time at places on the other side of the world. An option for the future: (not in the article) taking pictures from multiple sites, then layered together in the grid to create real 3D telescopic pictures of celecial targets.
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Wired News: Are You Too Stupid to Surf?
Well, are you?
Early on, it was rude to not hand-hold newbies, but now...
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Wired News: MS Calls Out Bounty Hunters
Offering $250,000 for information leading to the arrest of the writers of SoBig and MSBlast.
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Halo: Combat Evolved for Windows
Yea! Halo is now out for the PC! (windows only, of course)

The Matrix
Just re-watched Reloaded to brush up on the story in my mind, before I go see Revolutions.
Naturally, all the Q's come flooding back; Is the Architect a program? Is Meschasi a program, and why is he the only one who's written a program? Is Neo a program? Or is he part human? Is Zion still in the Matrix? Is the whole thing just VR in someone's mind? Is the whole thing just a program?

-the crazies are moving north-
I admit I don't watch Living in Iowa much, as it's usually boring, but I did catch a few minutes this week. After a piece on the Reiman Gardens (which are great for kids, btw), they had one on those Transcendental Meditation crazies from Fairfield. I say >from< because, as it turns out, some of them have now created a new town just a few miles north of Fairfield. For those that don't know; imagine the gated community-control concept, but expand it to a whole town with the town ordinance power to match. Now imagine the whole town as Scientologists, with the double-speak that goes with it. They couldn't bend Fairfield enough to their craziness, so they went and built their own town! They call it Vedic City, but I'm going to call it Cuckoo city.

Don't forget to Vote today!
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BTW, this was amusing.

Will someone buy me a Tablet?
I understand now why so many bloggers have/use laptops. The need/want to add or edit this at times other than when I'm at my PC. You find yourself thinking, "Why should I have to go back to my (desktop) PC to edit xyz?(fill in the blank)" With blogging, it's just one more thing thrown on the mountain of reasons to have one. Besides, I've been yearning for a laptop (or tablet) for a good long while now. The ability to take a VM to a client site has been the No.1 driver of this thought.

[Listening to: ClubFM Trance - Las Vegas USA - (00:00)]

Wired News: Students Toil as Spyware Hunters
This is good news.

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Wired News: Cloaking Device Made for Spammers
This is not.

Matrix Revolutions
Only 2 days (and counting) till the last Matrix movie!
Apparently, it's also simultaneously getting released in IMAX. neat.

[Listening to: grooveradio - - (00:00)]

New rant-
Ok, call me a sucker, but I signed up with Gomez ............, and I haven't been paid a penny yet! Despite the thousands of hours my PC has worked for them, I'm still in "Pending" status. I'm not going to link to them here either. Seems the only way to get any cash is to refer people, and that seems like a pyramid to me. My decision now is, Capcal is better. Their sw may be flaky, and their website second-rate, but at least they distribute the load better and pay every month. Wouldn't it be neat if we could get the best of both worlds? I guess that's just asking too much.

[Listening to: MSNBC Live video - MSNBC - (01:00:00)]

Ex Cathedra: Top 10 U.S. contractors
Hate to do a 'Ditto', but Bob said it just right.