2000.07 (Jul)
2000.07.30 (sunday)
What’s the deal with this trend of photos of random gen-x people on websites where they’re looking up at the camera? It’s really getting old.
9:55:40 PM #
Video Equipment Performance Tests and TuningForget the others linked below, this is the one-stop shop: comprehensive collection of test patterns and test-generating software, as well as exhaustive technical explanations and usage guides.
9:33:40 PM #
BBQ - A Southern Cultural IconExcellent thesis paper by an American Studies student. Unfortunately, all of the pictures are corrupted and the links are broken (the links all point to .html files, but the files are all actually named .htm, so you have to click the link, then delete the trailing “l” in the address bar to see the page). I tried to email the author, but it bounced. She left a note that she graduated and started working for some website called PoliticsUSA, but that site has been defunct since April 1996, so I pretty much gave up on finding her.
7:15:05 PM #
The Birth of TelevisionAn excellent condensed history of Philo T. Farnsworth and his invention.
The image Phil attempted to transmit was simply a black horizontal line painted on a glass slide. He reasoned that if the receiver could show whether this was horizontal or vertical, his test was successful.
In a separate room, Cliff dropped the glass slide between the Image Dissector and a bright carbon arc light. Phil, his wife Pem, and his investor George anxiously watched the flickering of Phil’s receiver. When the static had cleared, all three could see the glowing image of the straight line in the crude receiver. Cliff rotated the slide and these first television viewers saw the line rotate. Television was born!
6:29:43 PM #
Color Bars and How To Use ‘emA good technical explanation of NTSC color bars.
6:26:07 PM #
This note introduces the two main user adjustments of a video monitor, Black Level and Picture (sometimes called Brightness and Contrast). I explain the effect that these controls have on picture reproduction, and I explain how to set them.
These two controls are sometimes called Brightness and Contrast, and those labels are still found on many television sets. Unfortunately, those labels are misleading with respect to their functions: the control called “brightness” mainly affects reproduced contrast, and the control called “contrast” is supposed to affect only brightness. The misleading labels have led to a great deal of confusion about how to set up a monitor for good reproduction.
6:15:22 PM #
This is a discussion of video and computer graphic test patterns with illustrations and working examples. It’s been slightly revised as of 2/15/97. It is boring as dirt. No, more boring. If you’re not asleep in fifteen minutes I’ll be really surprised.
6:13:50 PM #
All About RibsAnatomy and Terminology of BBQ ribs.
8:29:41 AM #
2000.07.28 (friday)
Partial Solar Eclipse - Sunday, 31 July 2000This map shows where the eclipse will be visible; it may be hard to read at first, but its fairly intuitive. The three lines running diagonally from the top right to the bottom left indicate the area in which the eclipse will be visible; observers closer to the Western boundary will see more of the eclipse than those to the East, so Seattle should get a pretty good view.
7:37:05 AM #
2000.07.27 (thursday)
North Georgia Lego Train Club
9:39:45 PM #
2000.07.25 (tuesday)
Boeing 747 hull-lossesA listing of all Boeing 747 aircraft damaged beyond repair in accidents. I looked this up after hearing several reporters refer to the Concorde as the “World’s Safest Passenger Aircraft.” I suppose they base this on the fact that today’s crash was the first for the Concorde, but I think it’s a totally bogus statement. This page lists 28 “hull losses” for the 747 through 1997, including:
- 4 lost to hijackings/terrorists
- 1 shot down by the Soviets
- 1 destroyed while on the ground at the Kuwati airport during the gulf war
- 1 unoccupied plane destroyed by fire while parked at the airport
- 2 lost in a single, human-caused collision
http://www.boeing.com/commercial/747family/timeline.html states that the 1,200th 747 was delivered in 1999. There are 13 Concordes in operation (err, 12 now), roughly 1/100th of the number of 747s, and they’ve had 1/28th of the number of total-loss crashes, so I guess you could say the Concorde crashes 3 times as often as the 747 (5 times as often if you discount the above “bogus” losses). Obviously, due to the small sample of Concordes available this isn’t exactly scientific, but it’s better than the methods the TV guys used to award the Concorde the “Safest Airliner” title.
11:54:03 PM #
Heineken BarTrackerFinally, the killer app for Palm! Download this to your Palm, hook up your GPS unit, and it will guide you to the nearest Heineken-Friendly bar. It only works with a few bars in a few cities right now (only New York in the US), but they are adding more. There is a little demo-type flash app.
9:43:28 PM #
2000.07.24 (monday)
IFITL: Integrated Fiber in the LoopIFITL is a technology to deliver broadband to homes served by fiber, rather than copper, from the phone company. Since DSL requires copper, and most new homes are serviced by fiber, this is a Good Thing. The Bad Thing is that it eliminates the competition from ISPs who provide DSL service - you can only get IFITL service through the phone company.
4:21:33 PM #
Ebay Search: “Velvet Elvis”
11:28:45 AM #
2000.07.23 (sunday)
Common Illnesses - Nosebleed (Epistaxis)Some real “duh” advice here; under “Prevention:”
Avoid injury if possible.
under “Diagnosis and Treatment:”
Clamp your nose closed with your fingers for 5 uninterrupted minutes. During this time, breathe through your mouth.
I found at least one other page that gave the “breathe through your mouth” advice…
8:58:58 PM #
Resources for Translators (English, Italian, Latin)You have to scroll down a bit to get to the goodies. I was trying to find a babelfish-type translator that would handle Latin, but it appears that no one has wasted their time on such a beast (yet).
8:50:09 PM #
Text-to-Speech Pig Latin “Translation”You can even pick the vowel to use for the final syllable!
8:44:30 PM #
2000.07.22 (saturday)
Method for verifying human identity during electronic sale transactions
A bar code or a design is tattooed on an individual. Before the sales transaction can be consummated, the tattoo is scanned with a scanner.
I particulary like the way they’ve dismissed any “prior art” claims:
There have been other methods to permanently identify humans. During the holocaust, the Nazis tattooed the arms of Jews with a unique identifying number. On an episode of the “X-FILES,” a fictional television program on the FOX television network, a human was abducted by aliens who conducted experiments on the abductee. In order to permanently tag the abductee, the aliens etched a unique bar code onto one of the abductee’s teeth. Neither of these methods is practical for marking humans for electronic sale transaction purposes. First, social conscience dictates that any permanent marking of humans not be conspicuous, such as a visible numbering on an arm like the holocaust victims. Second, the bar code must be long enough, large enough, and accessible enough to make the transaction efficient. Thus bar codes on teeth would not be practical because of the limited size of the teeth and the embarrassment caused by sales personnel placing scanning equipment in a customer’s mouth.
3:01:19 PM #
Soldering Guide“Soldering for Dummies” may have been a better title.
11:12:12 AM #
GeckOS/A65 Operating SystemNow you can have a “Real” OS on your C64 (native C128 port coming soon).
OS/A65 is a full-featured Multitasking/Multithreading operating system for the 6502. It is preemptive and implements some Unix-like features, like signals, semaphores, relocatable fileformat, standard library, internet support via a kind of simplified sockets and last but not least virtual consoles.
10:22:35 AM #
2000.07.21 (friday)
Making the Macintosh: Technology and Culture in Silicon ValleyTons of historical information, including a great section on the development of the mouse, featuring a page of primary material with lots of sketches, brainstorming notes, and photos of early prototypes.
“Making the Macintosh” is an online project documenting the history of the Macintosh computer. The Macintosh stands at a cusp in the history of computing and Silicon Valley: it brought together (and sometimes transformed) a number of technical and conceptual threads in computing that developed in the 1960s and 1970s, but it also was responsible for sparking new movements in computing. This project collects and publishes primary material on the Macintosh’s development and early reception. It draws on the extensive holdings of the Stanford University Library’s Department of Special Collections, the personal papers of engineers and technical writers involved in the Macintosh project, and interviews conducted for the project.
11:34:47 PM #
International Travel GuidePick a country and get details on electrical and telephone adapters you’ll need, as well as health and safety tips.
11:25:04 PM #
FCC Adopts 3-Digit Numbers for Travel, Services511 has been assigned for “travel-related information, including road construction and congestion points,” while 711 (which I thought was reserved for travel-related services) has been allocated “to connect the hearing and speech impaired with operators to help them carry out conversations with others.”
The agency also adopted a plan that requires television broadcasters to offer video descriptions in their transmissions to help the visually impaired starting in 2002, a service already provided by public television.
3:45:06 PM #
2000.07.20 (thursday)
Bioluminescence is a primarily marine phenomenon. It is the only source of light in the largest fraction of the habitable volume of the earth, the deep ocean . In contrast, bioluminescence is essentially absent (with a few exceptions) in fresh water, even in Lake Baikal. On land it is most commonly seen as glowing fungus on wood, or in the few families of luminous insects.
10:40:55 PM #
The Jellyfish ConnectionAn explanation of bioluminescence, with insights into other aspects of cellular mechanics.
10:37:52 PM #
2000.07.19 (wednesday)
Send an asteroid or comet hurtling toward your favorite planet!
3:21:34 PM #
Our Resource Center accompanies the popular PDR Nurse’s Drug Handbook and includes a searchable drug database (minus Nursing Considerations).
3:19:13 PM #
2000.07.18 (tuesday)
The World’s Largest and First Piloted Rubber Band Powered Aircraft
11:31:34 PM #
CD FreaksA newslog for CD-R junkies.
11:29:52 PM #
Movies of the latest Earth-directed CMEAnimated GIFs, MPEGs, and more from the recent solar activity.
9:52:51 AM #
2000.07.17 (monday)
Although there are thousands of viruses discovered each year, there are still some that only exist in the imaginations of the public and the press. This is the comprehensive list of viruses that DO NOT EXIST, despite rumor of their creation and distribution.
3:24:13 PM #
Cow Torture for Fun and Profit 11:17:12 AM #
The Sushi World GuideI thought this might be useful until I started reading it - mostly its just a listing of sushi bars in various cities, and not very comprehensive. Also they actually printed a “review” of Circle Sushi in here in Atlanta that was submitted by circlesushi@yahoo.com - no doubt a reputable source…
11:06:42 AM #
RFC2516 - PPP Over EthernetThis sounds pretty useless at first, until you you read about it…
This specification is intended to provide the facilities which are defined for PPP, such as the Link Control Protocol, Network-layer Control Protocols, authentication, and more. These capabilities require a point-to-point relationship between the peers, and are not designed for the multi-point relationships which are available in Ethernet and other multi-access environments.
This specification can be used by multiple hosts on a shared, Ethernet to open PPP sessions to multiple destinations via one or more bridging modems. It is intended to be used with broadband remote access technologies that provide a bridged Ethernet topology, when access providers wish to maintain the session abstraction associated with PPP.
11:00:32 AM #
2000.07.10 (monday)
MiniDisc Techincal Information
11:01:15 PM #
A Fundamental Introduction to the Compact Disc Player
This brief text attempts to inform the reader of the basic fundamentals of the compact disc player. It is a assumed that the reader has a basic knowledge of the fundamentals of signal processing, although it is certainly not a prerequisite for learning a great deal from the reading.
10:55:14 PM #
CD-ROM Technical Summary - From Plastic Pits to “Fantasia”
This summary describes how information is encoded on Compact Disc (CD) beginning with the physical pits and going up through higher levels of data encoding to the structured multimedia information that is possible with programs like HyperCard. This discussion is much broader than any single standards document, e.g. the CD-Audio Red Book, while omitting much of the detail needed only by drive manufacturers.
10:52:00 PM #
Consumer Electronics Design Education ProjectBe sure to check the library of instruction material, which is where most of the interesting stuff is.
10:50:20 PM #
An Introduction to Compact Discs
10:44:56 PM #
The Ten Worst High Tech Gadgets
Can’t hang up on pushy telemarketers? Well, you’ve got two options: Either develop a backbone or get this simple device that, with a press of a button, says politely, “I’m sorry, this number does not accept this type of call. Please regard this message as your notification to remove this number from your list. Thank you” and hangs up. Better yet, it only costs $29.95. Oh, and your dignity.
8:40:09 AM #
2000.07.09 (sunday)
BartlebyClassical literature, reference and verse e-texts, online for free. Not as much as Project Gutenberg, but each has some works the other doesn’t.
8:25:06 AM #
The Dictionary of American Regional English
The Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE) is a reference tool unlike any other. Its aim is not to prescribe how Americans should speak, or even to describe the language we use generally, the “standard” language. Instead, it seeks to document the varieties of English that are not found everywhere in the United States–those words, pronunciations, and phrases that vary from one region to another, that we learn at home rather than at school, or that are part of our oral rather than our written culture.
8:10:05 AM #
2000.07.06 (thursday)
Light Field Authoring and Rendering Basically, taking recorded images from film, video tape, etc. and producing a 3D rendering based on those.
…techniques for representing environments and objects as a “light field” — i.e. the flow of light through space.
9:36:04 PM #
Tennessee Tombigbee Waterway
9:27:23 PM #
Chick-Fil-A’s Little Dwarf HouseI drove by a “Dwarf House Chick-Fil-A” yesterday and was puzzled and somewhat disturbed. I was needlessly worried - it’s just a regular Chick-Fil-A that also has a section where you can sit down and get waited on. Apparently these Chick-Fil-A variants are only in the Atlanta metro area.
The Dwarf House in Hapeville, Georgia was the very first Chick-Fil-A.
4:28:32 PM #
When the first nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, popular culture was quick to respond.
4:24:19 PM #
2000.07.05 (wednesday)
Atlas of Cyberspaces 11:01:24 PM #