1999.12 (Dec)



1999.12.31 (friday)


António Cidadão has a great astrophotography page. The QuickCam photos are incredible. By far the coolest is this animated .gif of lunation (the very subtle wobble in the moon’s orbit). 5:00:25 PM #


Looking for a small, stable shell replacement for Windows Explorer? Try Geoshell.
4:40:25 PM #

SAS has the best Quake 3 FAQ I’ve yet seen.
3:37:25 PM #


Here’s a better article about the new JPEG2000 specs. 2:31:25 PM #

1999.12.30 (thursday)


Chris DiBona has posted a pretty comprehensive summary of events from the hearing yesterday.

But I mean -jeez- the judge had obviously seen that mahir guys web site or something, because his eventual ruling to quash the TRO showed he understood the velocity of information on the net.

10:37:25 PM #



JPEG 2000 specs finalized
11:37:25 AM #


Super Audio CD info (PDF)
6:37:25 AM #


Robert Cringely’s predictions for 2000:

Sony will take on Microsoft and ­ for a few moments at least ­ appears to win. This will be, however, just an artifact of the $2 billion PlayStation 2 launch. In the long run, though, Sony IS Microsoft’s biggest threat. Remember that as a Microsoft OEM, Sony knows almost everything that Microsoft is planning while Microsoft knows little or nothing about Sony.

6:00:14 AM #

1999.12.29 (wednesday)


The EFF will be sending a lawyer to the DVD Consortium’s motion filing today. More info can be found at Chris DiBona’s website. UPDATE: Bruce Perens reports the judge has denied the request for a temporary restraining order! Huzzah!
3:08:34 PM #


Yet another push for an “Internet Time” standard. At least this one is based on GMT, instead of being arbitrary, like Swatch’s brain-dead “beats” plan. I still don’t understand the difference between GMT (or UTC) and the new “Get” (shouldn’t that be “GET”?).
11:30:26 AM #


BBC Link parade:

8:21:45 AM #

1999.12.28 (tuesday)


The DVD Consortium is threatening lots of people who are distributing DeCSS, LiViD, and other DVD decryption programs with a big fat lawsuit. The toys, legal notice, and some good commentary can be found at http://www.lemuria.org/DeCSS/.
7:35:02 PM #


Dawn’s Virtual Currency Collection - pretty comprehensive resource for those curious about money. Of particular note: Anatomy of a Note and Myths, Legends, and Trivia. 5:01:45 PM #

1999.12.27 (monday)


Today I walked into best buy with the intention of buying a digital camera, a telephone, and possibly Quake III Arena; I walked out with nothing. The customer service was non-existent. I must have looked at digital cameras in the display case for at least 15 minutes without one person asking me if I’d like to take a look at one more closely; I then proceded to the telephone department where I was further ignored for 20 minutes or so before I left in disgust. It wasn’t just that no one asked me if I needed help, there was no one around that I could ask. I don’t know why I even expected help from their employees; in the past, even when I was able to talk to someone there, they have always been totally non-helpful. They are generally high school kids, and are mostly ignorant of the details of the products. Today, however, they missed one of the easiest sales they would have made all year - all they had to do was have an employee there to show me the damn camera, and I would have bought it - after all, I walked into the store for the purpose of buying something.
6:28:25 PM #


1999.12.26 (sunday)


Also on I-24, I saw these strange signs on the side of the road: there was a series of square signs with the even numbers from 0 to 10, and each one was a different color. They were all about 50 feet apart from each other… If anyone has any idea what these are, let me know.

7:59:40 PM #



I’m back in Atlanta. On the way in, I stopped at what claimed to be “America’s Largest Fireworks Store” or something like that. It was HUGE… It was on Interstate 24 between Nashville and Chattanooga. If you’re coming from Chattanooga, you can’t miss it, as it is in the middle of the highway and has more neon than a Las Vegas casino. I looked around for a while, but didn’t buy anything.
7:51:28 PM #

1999.12.24 (friday)


I bought David Bowie’s new album, Hours. It’s pretty awesome, but you might not like it too much if you’re not a big Bowie fan. I’ll probably write an epinion about it after I listen to it for a few more days.
5:46:40 PM #


You can send Christmas Greetings to the crew of Discovery. The deadline is midnight tonight. The crew will spend Christmas in orbit on their mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. There is a great picture of the Discovery/Hubble docking at Astronomy Picture of the Day 12:30:36 PM #


Roger Ebert on why digital projection is not the future for movie theaters. Some excellent peeks at cutting-edge film projection technology. Update 16 May 02: the link above was time-bombed, but the story has been reproduced [qv] on the MaxiVision48 page.
10:39:24 AM #


1999.12.23 (thursday)


No links this morning; I spent all day yesterday driving here from Atlanta. Last night I heard a great interview with David Bowie on the radio.

It’s wierd being back in a seven-digit-dialing area. Just seeing phone numbers without the area codes is kinda creepy.

I may work on a FAQ or an “about me” page or something like that today if I don’t spend all day doing last minute shopping.
7:09:54 PM #


1999.12.21 (tuesday)


Check out Jeff K.’s Homepage. WARNING: Do NOT goto this page if you are currently drinking a beverage! I got Diet Coke all over my keyboard.
6:56:54 PM #


The weather in Atlanta today sucked - overcast and drizzly all day, and it’s starting to get cold.
Haven’t had much time for web-surfing today. I’ve still got to pack for the Christmas weekend and I’ve been trying to play Quake 3. 5:54:00 PM #

1999.12.20 (monday)


I’ve spent the rest of the night wrestling with the Quake 3 Arena demo for Linux. I finally got it to run, but it uses my Millenium II instead of my Voodoo 2 card, so I get a whopping .5 frames per second. Any tips would be appreciated.
11:20:07 PM #

I went to see Princess Mononke tonight. I’m too tired to write a review, and I’m generally not very good at writing about movies anyway. I’ll just say it was worth the $6.50.
10:34:48 PM #

1999.12.19 (sunday)


I just got back to Atlanta; we were delayed due to “air traffic congestion” or something like that… ick. While waiting in the New Orleans airport, I was having trouble identifing some of the aircraft, so I just dug up this Aircaft Spotting Guide which is pretty detailed; unfortunately, it is missing most of the AirBus aircraft. The New Orleans airport (MSY) is in the middle of some heavy renovation, but the parts that have been finished are really top-notch - very modern and super-clean - probably the nicest airport i’ve been in, and by far the easiest to get around in. The Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport (ATL) (Which, BTW, is the busiest passenger airport in the world) by comparison, is a mess - it’s pretty shabby, way too congested, and a real bitch to get around in.

As a side note, “MSY” is used as the identifier for New Orleans because the airport was built on the former site of Moisant Stock Yards - more information (should you really desire it) can be found at the MSY FAQ.

More Airport Goodies:

7:18:44 PM #

1999.12.15 (wednesday)


Some useful links to improve your web-surfing in Linux:

9:48:01 PM #


ASCIIfy any JPEG on the web.
8:32:58 PM #

1999.12.11 (saturday)


Today I was driving around with a friend, and I asked about this hotel that is near our office. “How do you get to that hotel?” It can’t be more than 100 feet from the the road I drive down to work every day, but there is no driveway or connecting road to it. “I don’t have any idea,” he replied. In hindsight, it’s pretty pathetic that we’ve grown so dependent on roads; the terrain between the road and the hotel is not difficult - it’s pretty much just a field - yet without a paved path to its front door, we both just implicitly assumed it was inaccessible.

Now, at this point, it would be great if I could make some comparison to current technology that’s inaccessible or some “visionary” thing like that, but I can’t, and I really don’t even want to.
9:43:38 PM #