2000.06 (Jun)
2000.06.30 (friday)
…the world’s most comprehensive travel guide to Canada’s Arctic - one of the last great eco-tourism and adventure travel destinations on Earth.
2:14:09 PM #
Nunavut, Canada’s Newest TerritoryNunavut was carved out of the Northwestern Territories in 1999. It spans four time zones (though there is a move to unify the territory under one time zone) and covers two million square kilometers with a population of 24,000 (85% Inuit).
2:13:03 PM #
areacode-info.comThis is getting into some heavy-duty area-code-nerd territory.
11:16:27 AM #
Telephone Area Code FinderThis pretty much has all the info that my list (below) has, and of course I found it after laboring over mine. It also contains some geographical hints.
11:13:41 AM #
Area CodesI made this text list of area codes for a script at work - I needed to be able to get the time zone when given an area code, and the database we had was horribly out of date. The easiest thing to do is just grep this list, so you can get a time zone given an area code, or a list of all area codes in a given state, etc.
11:10:59 AM #
As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.
8:35:34 AM #
2000.06.28 (wednesday)
Guitar ChordsPick a chord, it shows you how to play it - hit the “MIDI” button and it will (surprise!) send you a MIDI file of that chord.
6:57:14 PM #
Higher Order Voronoi DiagramsAn obscure mathematical java toy.
Let S be a set of n sites in the Euclidean plane. Informally, the Voronoi diagram is a subdivision of the plane into regions such that each point of a region has the same closest site.
6:55:14 PM #
Tank HunterBattlezone-esque java game.
6:49:58 PM #
GraviluxA cool java-applet gravity simulator-toy. Left click attacts, right click repulses. Fun.
6:48:48 PM #
Blast MapperSelect your warhead (1 or 25 Megaton), select a target (even a street adress), and get a damage assesment, fallout estimate, and more!
6:46:29 PM #
2000.06.27 (tuesday)
The Motives and Psychology of the Black-hat CommunityThe author has a great selection of whitepapers and publications that also deal with the security aspects of system administration.
11:08:03 PM #
Make Yer Own Round Cables!! (link has been pr0n-bombed)A quick how-to outlining the process for “rounding” your internal IDE and SCSI cables, which can save a lot of space inside your PC’s case. It’s a pretty simple process, but there are a couple of things to watch out for that you may not think about, so this quick read could save you some trouble.
10:23:40 PM #
2000.06.26 (monday)
History of Early Color Television
11:55:28 PM #
The World’s Earliest Television Recordings - Restored!
From the dawn of our television technology age comes the restored wonders of original recordings made in the era of mechanically-scanned television! Not until the computer era came on us could we study these images. Now they can be seen in as close to their original quality as the latest techniques can take us.
11:50:24 PM #
Popping a Water Balloon in Space
11:45:29 PM #
Black CD-R media Also available: red, amber, and purple CD-R media.
11:26:33 PM #
Tablets
This is easily the most natural form of input for people who grew up writing on paper that has to be precisely aligned along lines of magnetic force, using a pen that actually leaves marks on an entirely different piece of paper a couple feet away. For everyone else, though, there’s a period of adjustment to the fact that a tablet works just enough like a pen and paper to fuck you up. B
10:50:46 PM #
NeoTrace Purchase OptionsNeoTrace is a little graphical traceroute - it plots hops on a map for you. For this, they expect you to pay $29.95, but that’s not even the dumb part. There are two purchase options - “Ship & Download” or “Immediate Download”. It costs the same either way - but if you want the disks, they make you wait 24 hours before you can download it. Why not just charge more for the disks? And that 3.5″ disk is so passe…
6:58:05 PM #
Professorial Home Page of Ted NelsonAlthough he is best know for his Xanadu project, I think his transpublishing and hypercoin micropayment systems are far cooler.
My favorite metaphor. Consider the “clipboard” on the Mac, PC or XWindows. It’s just like a regular clipboard, except (a) you can’t see it, (b) it holds only one object, (c) whatever you put there destroys the previous contents. Aside from that, IT’S JUST LIKE A REGULAR CLIPBOARD IN EVERY OTHER RESPECT– EXCEPT THERE AREN’T ANY OTHER RESPECTS!
11:27:13 AM #
Daryl Hugh HeptingLots of mathematical visualization, imagery, and art.
11:25:20 AM #
2000.06.25 (sunday)
Nuclear and Missile Facility Satellite Images 1:17:04 PM #
We who teach introductory physics have to acknowledge, if we are honest with ourselves, that our teaching methods are primarily those of propaganda. We appeal—without demonstration—to evidence that supports our position. We only introduce arguments or evidence that support the currently accepted theories, and omit or gloss over any evidence to the contrary. We give short shrift to alternative theories, introducing them only in order to promptly demolish them—again by appealing to undemonstrated counter-evidence. We drop the names of famous scientists and Nobel prizewinners to show that we are solidly on the side of the scientific establishment. All of this is designed to demonstrate the inevitability of the ideas we currently hold, so that if students reject what we say, they are declaring themselves to be unreasoning and illogical, unworthy of being considered as modern, thinking people…
Listen carefully and courteously to what knowledgeable people have to say, and be able to use that information when necessary. Weigh the arguments for and against any issue but, ultimately, stand up for what you believe. Don’t ever feel forced to accept something just because some “expert” tells you it is true. Believe things only when they make sense to you and you are good and ready for them.
10:39:06 AM #
American Heritage of Invention and Technology
10:32:05 AM #
SciTech Daily ReviewThe science & technology counterpart to the Drudge Report.
10:28:51 AM #
2000.06.24 (saturday)
(ruth’s chris placeholder)
6:30:17 PM #
Subhonker Filter 2.0The Subhonker Filter is back from a brief hiatus, and it has a new location, new features, and a new interface. It takes a while to set it up the first time, but makes keeping up with your commonly-read weblogs much easier.
3:33:37 PM #
2000.06.23 (friday)
Nick Moffitt’s $7 History of Unix
2:28:06 PM #
The Evolution of the Unix Time-sharing System
This paper presents a brief history of the early development of the Unix operating system. It concentrates on the evolution of the file system, the process-control mechanism, and the idea of pipelined commands. Some attention is paid to social conditions during the development of the system.
2:16:40 PM #
2000.06.21 (wednesday)
ElectronicsCooling is the premier magazine dedicated to engineers responsible for thermal management in the electronics industry. The magazine’s mission is to disseminate practical information that relates to cooling of today’s electronics.
11:31:10 AM #
2000.06.19 (monday)
The Sparking of Grapes in Microwave Ovens and Cause Thereof
An investigation into the cause of sparks between grape halves when exposed to microwaves of varying intensity and direction at 2.54 GHz.
9:58:10 PM #
JaycorScary stuff, including a “water cannon” liquid stun gun and HERF guns for debilitating getaway cars.
Innovative Products and Solutions For Government
5:23:08 PM #
What could have been IEEE 1003.1e/2c
The standards IEEE 1003.1e and IEEE 1003.2c are both drafts and withdrawn. This means, that both are neither finished nor worked on by the IEEE any longer. However, there are some goods idea in the standards paper, so that people may be interested in reading them anyways.
3:21:15 PM #
The Single UNIX Specification
3:08:19 PM #
Sources for Time Zone and Daylight Saving Time Data
3:06:10 PM #
2000.06.17 (saturday)
BIG.MONEY.NOWThe cannonical parody of the “make money fast” pyramid schemes that have plagued USENET since its earliest days - now HTMLized for your reading pleasure, with the original (and excellent) ASCII art intact!
Dear Friend: If you’re insane, please take a moment and read this…
11:53:55 PM #
Past Winners of the IgNobel PrizeBrought to you by the Annals of Improbable Research.
1:43:59 AM #
Pop Goes the PlasticVery cool exhibit of plastic home furnishings.
The Visual and Cultural Aesthetic of a New Technology, 1960 - 1975
1:26:23 AM #
In 50 years, the computer you are using to view this will be landfill, but your slide rule will just be nicely broken in.
12:34:50 AM #
A Report on the Internet Worm (1988)A detailed analysis of the infamous Sendmail Worm of 1988.
12:30:30 AM #
2000.06.16 (friday)
Date and Time GatewayI found this looking for the POSIX 1003.1 (aka POSIX.1) spec online. Unfortunately, the IEEE has not made it publicly available online, and a hard copy must be purchased. Anyway, I was looking for it to find out why the timezone names have been changed - what used to be GMT-5 (US Eastern Standard Time) is now GMT+5. This is completely counter-intuitive and conflicts with the established usage. I can find no justifaction for this anywhere - that’s design by comittee for you.
These are ISO/IEC 9945-1 ANSI/IEEE Std 1003.1 (aka POSIX.1) timezone names (they are not GMT offsets) [see section 8.1.1; Note: POSIX.1 is not available online, you must purchase it from your friendly, local standards body]. Specifically, POSIX.1 says that they are offsets that you must add to the local time to arrive at Coordinated Universal Time.
I finally found a hard copy of ANSI/IEEE Standard 1003.1 (second edition, 1996) here in our library at work (it is not available on-line anywhere), and Part 1, Section B.8.1.1 is very clear that this is how it should be:
System V uses the TZ enviroment variable to set some information about time. It has the form (spaces inserted for clairity):
std offset dst
where the first three characters (std) are the name of the standard timezone, the digits that follow (offset) represent the time added to the local time zone to arrive at Coordinated Universal Time, and the next three characters (dst) are the name of the summer time zone. The meaning of offset implies that most sites west of the Prime Meridian will have a positive offset (preceded by an optional plus sign, “+”), while most sites east of the Prime Meridian will have a negative offset (preceded by a minus sign, “-”). Both std and offset are required; if dst is missing, summer time does not apply.
This would seem to indicate that neither GMT-5 nor GMT+5 would be correct for US Eastern Standard Time - it should be EST5 or EST+5. Eastern Daylight Time should be the familiar EST5EDT or EST+5EDT (both of which I have seen). Upon further examination, I realized I (sort of) misread this part - this is simply the “rationale” and not the actual standard - the real standard is simply an extension of this idea from SysV. Section 8.1.1 outlines the real deal, which takes this and adds an expanded format for the offset, an option to specify the summer offset, and an option to indicate rules for when to change to and back from summer time. This, of course, does not explain the “GMT+5″ convention used in Digital Unix 5.x (and elsewhere). Still diggin’!
UPDATE 2005.03.15: fixed link.
9:32:23 PM #
Americans for Common CentsA group committed to preserving the penny.
3:12:14 AM #
How to play FreeCellGood guide for beginners, and some decent strategy for advanced players (nothing I hadn’t already figured out on my own, though).
2:44:55 AM #
World’s 9 Worst Convenience Foods
6. Armour Pork Brains in Milk Gravy (Dial Corp.): If you’re really looking to clog up those arteries in a hurry, you’ll be pleased to learn that a single serving of pork brains has 1,170 percent of our recommended daily cholesterol intake.
2:24:54 AM #
thelogbook.com’s history of classic video and computer games
2:12:00 AM #
Shiny, Aluminum, Plastic, and Digital You’ve probably already read Courtney Love’s diatribe against the corrupt music industry. This essay give some more historical reference, showing how record labels used the compact disc to screw both artists and consumers.
…someone at the Phillips Corporation had the bright idea that it would be good for their stockholders and investors if they could get the music consuming public excited about buying music again by introducing a new format and a new machine to play it on (i.e. how can you convince that aging baby boomer to buy yet another copy of DEJA VU by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young when they already have one?)
Thus was born THE COMPACT DISC in all it’s shiny, aluminum, plastic and digital glory.
1:55:22 AM #
2000.06.15 (thursday)
MailmobileThis is the mailbot we have at my office. Ours is about 10 years old, but looks exactly like the new ones. The new ones can evidently go forwards or backwards. I’ve never seen ours go backwards, but since our building is circular it doesnt really need to. Usually it doesn’t even go forward - it just blocks the hall after running out of battery power or losing track of the fluorescent stripe on the carpet that it follows.
5:21:40 PM #
2000.06.12 (monday)
Palindromic URLs 5:16:56 PM #
UnitWizConvert length, area, density, energy, force, mass, power, pressure, speed, temperature, and volume.
8:09:02 AM #
2000.06.11 (sunday)
Cliche Watch (Google)
- haXX0r - 45
- h4XX0r - 14
- suXX0r - 4
- fuXX0r - 0
- d00d - 2,668
- d00dz - 1,640
- d00ds - 424
- c00l - 1,084
- k00l - 926
- w00p - 577
- wh00p - 150
- w00t - 670
- l00k - 315
- f00d - 201
- b00k - 154
- p00p - 130
- d00r - 56
- 31337 - 3,974
- l33t - 2,619
- “first post” - 29,382
- “first post, bitches” - 5 (all from http://www.shugashack.com )
- Nth “post, bitches” - 25
11:24:24 PM #
This site is a starting point to help you find information related to the tradition of Shape Note singing. While most of these materials relate to the largest surviving branch of this tradition, The Sacred Harp (four shape), we also include information about New Harp of Columbia (seven shape), Southern Harmony (four shape), Christian Harmony (seven shape), Harmonia Sacra (seven shape) and West Gallery (round note) traditions.
4:06:14 PM #
Roadside America - The Mütter MuseumMany other offbeat tourist attractions can be found from the Roadside America main page.
The Mütter Museum at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia promises - and delivers - an afternoon of esoteric and incredible sights. The sophisticated, high-ceilinged gallery that houses this collection of medical monstrosities helps us rationalize our interest in it. Designed for perusal by present and future members of a dignified overpaid profession, the museum is two floors of dark wood-trimmed display cases and a library-like stateliness. Shouts of “Will ya look at this MONSTER BABY?” are entirely inappropriate.
12:31:57 PM #
Planet 3DOpenGL planet-rendering software, with high-quality maps included. Choose from Earth3D, Mars3D, Venus3D, and Lunar3D.
Earth3D renders the whole surface of Earth using 3.6 Million Polygons and accurate topology data from the GLOBE project.
12:13:48 PM #
Video Game Music Archive 12:04:33 PM #
2000.06.10 (saturday)
National Food Safety Database 11:09:21 PM #
2000.06.09 (friday)
Web Log Scoop IndexI don’t think I’ll be showing up here since I pretty much stopped linking “news” type stuff. But it’s super interesting. It needs to list the links each weblog scooped or was scooped with, and who the scooped or were scooped by.
The Scoop Index measures how often a web log (or other frequently updated news source) beats other web logs to a link. Every time two logs link to the same location, the earlier log gets a point provided it wins by at least 30 minutes and the later link happened for the first time in the last 24 hours.
9:53:36 PM #
Stallion Ejaculation Induced by Manual Stimulation of the PenisAfter reading this, I suggest following up with Reproductive Progress, as seen here 4 Jan 2000.
9:39:05 PM #
The Mellotron is a sample replay machine but as it was developed in the early 60’s before the invention of solid-state memory, floppy discs or microprocessors then it used lengths of recording tape to store each ’sample’.
8:57:18 PM #
2000.06.08 (thursday)
Flowers By Harry Send virtual Lego flower arrangements via email á la Blue Mountain Greeting Cards
10:02:22 PM #
Bloatbusters Solar Winds ReportNot an astronomical report, but an examination of Bloatware. These guys took the Solar Winds Software DNS Resolver (bloated at 4MB (for a DNS resolver?!?!?)) and pared it down to an incredible 7KB.
In other words, Solar Winds entices you with the prospect of FREE software, gets you to give them your complete personal details, both email and terrestrial address and phone number, gets you to install, clogs your Registry with over 100,000 bytes of JUNK, and then, and ONLY then, when you finally start up the application, do you discover you’ve been cheated, HOODWINKED - it’s a DEMO version, it is not free - and it’s going to DIE too.
9:54:01 PM #
Inventor(s): Strom; David L. , Aurora, CO 80010
Issued/Filed Dates: Feb. 15, 2000 / Oct. 2, 1997
Application Number: US1997000942824
12:30:12 PM #
2000.06.07 (wednesday)
The Louie Louie Pages
Be sure to check the discography.
3:24:11 PM #
The Best Of Louie Louie Vol. 2Ten covers of “Louie, Louie” by different bands for your listening displeasure. A cow-orker of mine actually bought this.
3:23:04 PM #
2000.06.06 (tuesday)
Welcome to Ryberg Electronics Corp., manufacturers of the world-famous Interociter!
12:09:02 PM #
2000.06.05 (monday)
Wattco
These guys make all kinds of cool stuff, mostly for police cars, ambulances, and other emergency vehicles. Their new products include ultra-slim internal LED red/blue flashers. They also have a large selection of LED tail lights, which is what I was looking for, though they don’t look like they would be easy to modify to install in my car.
7:20:22 PM #
“Lorem ipsum dolor” is the first part of a nonsense paragraph sometimes used to demonstrate a font. It has been well established that if you write anything as a sample, people will spend more time reading the copy than looking at the font. The “gibberish” below is sufficiently like ordinary text to demonstrate a font but doesn’t distract the reader. Hopefully.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetaur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat…
8:57:46 AM #
2000.06.04 (sunday)
Commercial Sweet Potato Production 9:38:50 PM #
Sweet Potato Varieties 9:38:01 PM #
General Partitions Corp. - Urinal Partitions
12:24:40 PM #
Restrooms of the FutureThe “Restrooms in the New Millennium” section is currently “under construction,” but there is some additional content.
12:21:41 PM #
Help solve the greatest mystery known to mankind. How do we wipe our asses? Are our habits regarding tush care learned? Or are our dealings with the gluteus maximus genetically determined?
12:18:14 PM #
Target in urinal reduces spillage
Each urinal at the Amsterdam airport has the black outline of a fly etched into the porcelain - “This improves the man’s aim,” says Aad Kieboom, an economist.
12:04:59 PM #
This life size fake urinal is extremely realistic and can be attached to most any surface.
12:03:49 PM #
Street Urinal
12:02:29 PM #
Waterless Urinal
A US Navy research project. Using seawater to flush can lead to a buildup of hard calcium carbonate deposits in the plumbing, which is obviously a problem. Curiously, the antiquated term “water closet” is used here when referring to toilets.
As the name implies, the waterless urinal requires no flushing water. It uses a specially designed trap containing a liquid, BlueSeal®, with a specific gravity less than urine’s. When the urinal is used, urine sinks through the BlueSeal® into the sewer line. The BlueSeal® floats on top of the urine that is not discharged down the drain, sealing the sanitary space from the sewer line and its malodor. The urinal bowl is precoated at the factory with a water repellent protective coating to minimize bacteria growth and solids build up.
12:01:13 PM #
There are several posts around Ars Technica and Hard|OCP about people putting plexiglass windows onto side of their cases, so I decided to try my hand at a window. Neon lighting interested me, because I knew about how cool PCBs looked under black light, so I wanted to show off the innards of my machine with black lights.
11:56:24 AM #
2000.06.02 (friday)
Museum of Soviet Calculators
Of particular intrest are the sections on display technology and the RASA, with its Thyrotron Powered Spinning Stroboscopic Display (very cool).
5:14:47 PM #
2000.06.01 (thursday)
CD-Recordable FAQ 10:28:41 AM #
This little tool lets you read the ATIP (Absolute Time In Pre-Groove) of CDR (CD-Recordable) media with most of the current CDR recorders. This information tells the real manufacturer and type of dye used for this media.
10:27:56 AM #