<$BlogRSDUrl$>




Please click here to go to the new site. Please update your bookmarks!





Saturday, August 23, 2003

Including That Half Hour Newfoundland Debacle 

Time Zones in Canada 

H-P Has an Easy Way to Let You Convert Old Videos Into DVDs 

Hewlett-Packard now has a gadget called the DVD Movie Writer dc3000. It's an external accessory for Windows computers that combines, in one integrated box, an analog-to-digital converter and a DVD recorder. It will be sold late next month at $399. 

My New Timex Dick Tracy PDA Watch 

With a built-in USB port for connection to my Microsoft Outlook on my PC. With a Magic 8-ball for answering all of my Big Life questions. $60 at walmart.com. 

Friday, August 22, 2003

And Wrapping Up This Episode of Tooltime, We Have . . .  

Kleptomania: "Kleptomania 2.4 allows to capture and process text from any (even clipboard-unaware) application. Copy text onto clipboard, launch internet browser or email editor, sum numbers, count a number of words/characters. Process text of folder trees, file lists, database reports, text content of messages and dialog boxes, menus, status lines, visible text of legacy systems, and more. Kleptomania does not rely on any data communication scheme behind the scene. Uses OCR and delivers ultimate text capture and processing abilities." 

More Metadata Madness 

AttributeMagic: "Utility to modify file-folder date-time stamps and attributes en masse. You can set or reset individual attributes, Accessed, Modified and Created dates, JPEG metadata, MS Office document dates and properties. Custom file filters, batch file processing, date-time shifting and masking. Rich options."

Catalogue: "Catalogue is a file cataloging utility that enables quick creation of HTML pages listing files and associated metadata, managing and updating document properties associated with such files as: Microsoft Office, retrieve information from OpenOffice.org, StarOffice, Visio documents, PDF documents, export metadata from photos JPEG, Tiff images (IPTC fields). Catalogue also collects Adobe XMP file information (eXtensible Metadata Platform) metadata associated with documents produced by recent Adobe applications: Photoshop 7.0, Acrobat 5.0, FrameMaker 7.0, GoLive 6.0, InDesign 2.0, InCopy 2.0, Illustrator 10.0, LiveMotion 2.0 . " 

Another Internet Tool So You Can Amaze Your Friends 

Explorer Bar Maker: "You don't have to be a programmer to create your own Explorer bar. Explorer Bar (Band) Maker is a Windows tool (one-step wizard) that lets you create your own Explorer bar from any HTML page, picture or Macromedia Flash file. Usually, making Explorer bars includes COM programming, that can be complex and confusing. This work has done for you. Now, making a new bar is so easy as selecting a file. An Explorer bar (band) is a panel like the Favorites, History or Search panels that you see in your Internet Explorer (IE) or Windows Explorer. An Explorer bar can be an excellent solution for setting the things in the right order in the Intranet inside your organization. Or, you can create new panels to explore Internet, or to advertise you products and services. Your homemade bars can enhance and personalize your working place, make it more convenient as well as amusing and funny. " 

The Best Online Maps . . .  

Are at Rand McNally. How Mapquest is still so buggy is beyond me . . .  

What Do Betty Friedan, Richard Pryor, and Bishop Fulton J Sheen All Have in Common? 

Why, they're all from Peoria! (Via The Peoria Pundit, of course.) 

Thursday, August 21, 2003

The White LED Flashlight for the Next Blackout 

The Hardware Maniac: "The C.Crane Expedition 600 is the best general purpose, full sized flashlight I've tested or owned to date. It's a throw it in a drawer, in a vehicle, in a backpack, or in a boat, and forget about it light. It won't break if abused, it won't rust or corrode, it won't leak if it gets wet and it won't stop working if it gets covered with dirt or sand. It will run through many nights of a power outage, or around a campsite, without needing fresh batteries. It makes a great work light or a great reading light, and propped up will light up a room at night quite well. " 

Real Cowboys Roll Their Own Buckyballs 

Multimodular Origami Polyhedra: Archimedeans, Buckyballs and Duality: "Experienced origamists can explore the link between paperfolding and mathematics with this well-illustrated guide to creating a world of multifaceted wonders that draws on elements of crystallography. Photographs, diagrams, and charts illustrate the relationship between the origami waterbomb base and a mathematical principle from ancient Greece. Instructions show how to apply this relationship to models of the buckyball, a sphere of interlocked hexagons and pentagons that resembles engineer Buckminster Fuller's famous geodesic dome. Detailed instructions and clear diagrams show how to use gyroscope transformation to form the buckyballs into even more interesting shapes. A challenge to origami devotees, these remarkable projects will also provide perfect aids to classroom demonstrations of geometric principles." 

A Useful Tool for Sensitive Documents 

"The Metadata Assistant will analyze Word/Excel 97, 2000, and 2002 documents to determine what metadata (hidden information) a client might see, display its findings then offer the ability to clean the document by selecting a variety of options; this version can operate as a standalone utility or work from within Word, Excel and Outlook 2000 and above. It can analyze and clean the active document in Word/Excel or you can designate a specific document not currently open in Word or Excel. It can also clean multiple documents located in the same folder all at the same time. It will even clean documents attached to Outlook mail messages. " 

And Now He's The Guy Behind the Return of Breck Shampoo 

BW Online: "Over two generations, New York-based Himmel Group has purchased and rehabilitated the likes of Lavoris mouthwash, Doan's backache pills, Gold Bond medicated powder, and Ovaltine chocolate drink. 'We look for the brands that are well-known, but mistaken for dead,' says Himmel, who adds: 'We bring them back.' His resusitation tactics are deceptively simple. No big budgets or Internet strategies. Just a good old-fashioned advertising overload, carried out by a staff of 35.

How does he do it? Himmel starts by finding a brand with what he calls 'dormant equity'. Often, that's a brand that had its heyday years ago and has since languished on the roster of some conglomerate, neither thriving nor dying. He purchases the rights to market the brand. And then, the road back begins. " 

The New York Blackout As Seen From Space 

From Dean's World. Looks a lot like Canada. 

Wednesday, August 20, 2003

And It's One Of the Weirdest Films You'll Ever See 

Un Chien Andalou: "The initial seeds of surrealism begin to grow. You have to admire the temerity of Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali to create this piece of material circa 1928, when it was going to cause an outrage in that taboo period. Bunuel allegedly took stones to the premiere to throw at the critics. The film opens with Bunuel in the infamous scene where he slashes the eyeball of a woman with a razorblade. After this initial disturbing image, the rest of the film has other dreamlike sequences, which cannot be easily explained. But it's a very accomplished piece of filmmaking - well crafted, and displayed the promise of Bunuel and set him on the road to his legendary career. A magnificent landmark and watershed of artistic filmmaking."

Compared to this, Dali's paintings are positively tame. (via Emily) 

The George Kennedy Appreciation Society 

This site serves as their international base of operations and links George Kennedy fans (affectionately known as Georgies) all over the world to each other. A bit dated, but then again, so's George. (via Brian Kane Online) 

The Cult of the Cluetrain Manifesto 

John C. Dvorak: "This 1999 keeper is a book that tells us how the Internet changes everything and tops that statement with every other cliché we've become sick of over the past few years. The book is written by a cast of characters who were apparently caught up in the dot-com scene at its peak, and they managed to capture in one book almost all of the lunatic fringe dingbat thinking that characterized the Internet boom. Through the miracle of self-serving Web logs—or blogs—they have managed to keep these now- retro thoughts alive and kicking in cult form.

The giveaway that cult thinking is present in any environment is how responses are given from possible cult members to probable nonbelievers. If you disagree, then you "don't get it." Werner Erhard of EST (the über-cult of the 1970's) used to use this phrase over and over. Tell Erhard that something makes no sense. "You don't get it." Tell him that something is self-contradictory. "You don't get it." Tell him that something is just plain stupid. "You don't get it." This is the level of debate you can expect when cult thinking is present. But, of course, "I don't get it." "

Somehow I had missed this when it first came out. Fun reading. 

Evidently These Are The Guys Who Think Al Franken is Funny 

The Lefty Directory: A Guide to the Blog Left. Something for my high school buddies Jeff, Jeff, and Jim (but not the other Jeff). And my brother Tim. Click away, guys! 

Model plane goes transatlantic 

BBC: "An international team of model aeroplane enthusiasts say they have managed the first successful flight by a lightweight remote-controlled plane across the Atlantic. US, Canadian and Irish engineers worked together to ensure 'The Spirit of Butts Farm' - named after its testing site - landed safely in County Galway, Ireland on Monday 11 August, some 38 hours after it took off from Canada. The balsa wood and mylar plane flew 3,039 kilometres (1,888 miles) using satellite navigation and an autopilot system overseen by engineers and radio operators using laptop computers." 

Tuesday, August 19, 2003

Open Source for the Other Half of the Brain 

"Open Source Web Design is a community of designers and site owners freely sharing designs as well as design information. If you have come to download free designs, check out the Search Designs page where you will be able to search by color and W3 validation among other things. You can also see some OSWD designs in action by visiting the Links page. If you have come for design information, look into the Forum and the Design News, which outlines articles about design across the web. If you are a designer, please become part of the family by signing up for a free membership. With your membership you'll be able to share your designs with those who are in need of them. Help make the internet a prettier place! " 

Software Developer Needed for Timex Ironman Data Link USB Watch 

Developer Info. A nice, affordable geek factor, don't ya think? 32K, it'll be just like the good ol' days! 

Super Sticky Post It Notes 

From 3M, via Marilu Henner, via Dave Barry.  

An Advertisement, Sorta 

I think you might enjoy Bobos in Paradise (Unabridged) by David Brooks. Visit www.audible.com/tellAFriend/29036TD5333 find out more about this digital audiobook and get a great deal your first Audible title. 

Can We All Just Admit it Now? 

That The Graduate was a stupid movie and Mrs. Robinson was a stupid song? Koo Koo Ka Choo . . . .  

Monday, August 18, 2003

Win Big Money With These Non Transitive Dice 

From Grand Illusions: "Ask your opponent to select any one of the four dice. You select another and both dice are thrown, at the same time, a predetermined number of times, to see who gets the highest number on each throw, and hence wins that throw. In a game of 'The Best of Ten Throws' you will almost always have more wins. Invite the player to choose another die - perhaps your 'winner' - leaving you to select another for yourself and play again. Again you will win. Whichever die your opponent selects, your choice, in a longer run of ten or more throws, will always win. " 

Laundry Wars: Men Unite!  

Making money off an old argument: "I got a bone to pick with GE. It's about the laundry. You see, the company is trying to sell its fancy new washing machines. That's fine. But it is doing it by stirring up an age-old argument. One where my gender usually gets the shaft. Women do the laundry more than men. Or at least they complain that they do. We (especially us guys) know that. But the latest study from GE seems to be exaggerating it a bit. Eighty-nine percent of the women surveyed by GE's consumer products division (the one that sells washing machines) claim to be the family launderer. . . .These kinds of tit for tat arguments over laundry and other household chores happen between couples all the time. GE is simply fanning the flames, hyping its survey and declaring that August should be "National Men Do the Laundry Month. . . .

Yeah, yeah, women of the world, unite. Can it be "Women Mow the Lawn" month too? " 

New Word of the Day 

The Discount Blogger coins a very useful term, the Obvioust.  

Catenary or Parabola? 

Catenary: "It looks like a parabola, but it's not. The Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri is an inverted catenary. A catenary is the curve of a hanging chain. Galileo thought this curve was a parabola, so don't feel bad if you were also fooled. The catenary shape minimizes the potential energy throughout the chain. When shifted, a hanging chain will naturally return to this position. At each point in a hanging chain or arch, the opposing forces (chain: tension forces, arch: compression forces) are balanced. This creates stability."

Parabola: "So, how is the curve of the cable in a suspension bridge a parabola? When the structure is being built and the main cables are attached to the towers, the curve is a catenary. But when the cables are attached to the deck with hangers, it is no longer a catenary. The curve of the cables become the curve of a parabola. Unlike the catenary, which is curving under its own weight, the parabola is curving not just under its own weight, but also curving from holding up the weight of the deck. The cable of a suspension bridge is under tension from holding up the bridge." 

Three Card Monte: How It Works, and Why You Cannot Win At It 

Howstuffworks : "Even armed with all this knowledge, you still can't beat this game. If you see the card switch, track the right card and put down money on the actual queen, one of the shills will just put down a higher bet on another card, and the tosser will decree 'one bet at a time.' Or a shill might bump into the table, 'accidentally' knocking it over, voiding the game. Or the tosser might suddenly spot the police, and pack the game up. So in most cases, there really is no way to win these games -- the crew is only out to take money, never to give any of it up. " 

Sunday, August 17, 2003

The Ty Cobb Humanitarian Award 

The Baseball Reliquary: " Ty Cobb was one of the greatest ballplayers of all time. He was also mean, vindictive, selfish, vain, paranoid, a bully, and a racist -- in short, one of the game's most badly disturbed personalities. Despite the enormity of his statistical accomplishments on the ballfield, he had few friends in the game. And when he died, only three baseball people showed up at the funeral.

. . . Although he was the recipient of countless athletic accolades during his career, it is believed that this was the only award ever bestowed on Ty Cobb for "humanitarianism", as the quality or state of being humane was a trait rarely associated with "The Georgia Peach". " 

Tom McMahon, Meet Atomic Man 

Atomic Movie Posters 

Look Ma! Glowing Feet! 

Shoe-Fitting Fluoroscope: "These units were commonly seen in shoe stores in the 1930s through 1950s. They consisted of a vertical cabinet with an opening at the bottom into which the feet were placed. A fluorescent image of the bones of the feet and the outline of the shoe could be seen through each of the three viewing ports on the top of the cabinet (e.g., one for the child being fitted, one for the child's parent, and the third for the shoe salesman)." 

The Most Lucrative College Degrees 

Via CNN 

MyBestBets.TV 

MyBestBets.TV: "MyBestBets.TV offers personalized movie and TV recommendations based on your tastes. With MyBestBets.TV, you can:  

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?