mike's web log

Childhood trauma

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 00:12:39 GMT

For some Friday Fun, a cartoon out of a recent edition of The New Yorker:

If I could save time in a bottle ...

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 10:51:12 GMT

I am endlessly amused by the sponsored links on Google that are driven off the current search term. Especially the ones -- eBay, Target -- that are, mmm, indiscriminate in what they want to sell you.

I was looking up the current time today and was offered this amazing deal:

Roundup

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 14:55:04 GMT

Today we concentrate on people's opinions, I guess. Except for that teeth thing.

Grammar Girl's Strunk & Twite: An Unofficial Twitter Style Guide. Grammar Girl posts thoughts (more like commandments) on how to write tweets. [via Fritinancy]

Chew on this: We'll soon be able to grow replacement teeth. "Now comes tooth regeneration: growing teeth in adults, on demand, to replace missing ones. Soon." Finally, a good use for wisdom teeth.

The Secret saved my life! If you've ever wondered about all the hype around the book/CD/DVD The Secret and its claim to be able to improve your life just through the power of thinking, you might find this book review quite inspiring! [via (again) Fritinancy]

And speaking of Amazon reviews, have a look at the customer reviews for the Playmobil Security Check Point.

[via Friend Megan]

How to Give Directions. I take a professional interest in how people write up recipes and in how they give directions. Both can be harder than they appear. This, another entry in the eHow wiki, is excellent advice for the second of these challenges.

Roundup

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 12:02:59 GMT

Sort of a holiday-catalog theme going on here.

A behemoth of a knife! The ultimate Swiss Army knife. They claim it's the complete list, but it does not appear to have, for example, a USB flash drive. That might be a different Swiss Army knife company, tho.

Dogs Understand Fairness, Get Jealous, Study Finds. They even get petulant: "The unrewarded dogs eventually stopped cooperating."

Bad Moon Rising. "Do you suffer from the heartache of Plumber's Butt?" DuluthTradingCompany.com has the solution for you.[1]

[via Friend Dennis]

Fortune this! What if Italian restaurants gave out fortune cookies? (Read the comments.) Sample: "Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a day. Send him to sleep with the fishes and he never needs to be fed again." [via Fritinancy]

[1] We are fans of this catalog, actually. I love that they have a section for "dog stuff."

Roundup

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 13:33:52 GMT

Getting toward gift-giving season. Let the crass ads begin ...

Jackson Pollock by Miltos Manetas, aka make your own Pollock. Just move the mouse around and click. [via Daughter Sabrina]

Microsoft's SideSight: Something Apple Should Watch. Taking the touch screen virtual, for (e.g.) devices that don't have enough actual screen space.

Hamlet (Facebook News Feed Edition). Sample: "Hamlet and the queen are no longer friends." The original is on McSweeney's; Angela Liao has created an image of what the Facebook page would look like:

[via Son Zack]

My First Rifle. Crickett .22 rifles. Perhaps your young one wants the Model 221 in pink.[1] It's probably a pretty good idea for the company to add the tag line "Not a toy." (This ain't no Red Ryder carbine-action range model air rifle, kid[2].)

[via Colleague David]

[1] [more]

Versus interruptus

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 07:41:35 GMT

Some pre-holiday tomfoolery. In an email, Sabrina noted that a friend of hers had written the following:

A paradoxically self-referential Haiku

Or maybe it's self-referentially paradoxical?

Seven syllables?
Not for me, thank you;
I'll just stick with five.

Haha. I liked this so much that I decided I wanted to do this, too, and I came up with the following:

There once was a lim'rick (so-called)
That started but then it got stalled
Five lines? What a chore
This one had four

Ok, your turn ...

Roundup

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 18:20:09 GMT

Polls, polls, polls. What is this, Livejournal? One more for youse.

Choose wisely. "There is no question, but there are eleven possible answers." [toque salute: Fritinancy]

You Suck at Craigslist. Choice morsels carefully selected from among the ads posted by our ... less gifted writers, let's call them. [via Friend Kim]

Tastespotting. Per the contributor (Daughter Sabrina), "Just like notcouture, except food and not clothes!" Basically, food pr0n.

Men's Reactions Peak at Age 39. Took me a moment to get this. [via Jeff Atwood]

Roundup

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 08:55:21 GMT

I'm waiting for A Very Important Delivery today from UPS. Knowing the kind of pace that those guys work at, tho, I'm afraid to even, like, go tinkle lest I miss the harking of the doorbell.

Brain quiz. How much does your brain know about your brain? Haha. I got 9/10, meaning that I was not using 10% of my brain. Haha again.

The 2008 Ig Nobel Prize Winners. Always amusing. Samples:

ARCHAEOLOGY PRIZE. Astolfo G. Mello Araujo and José Carlos Marcelino of Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil, for measuring how the course of history, or at least the contents of an archaeological dig site, can be scrambled by the actions of a live armadillo.

CHEMISTRY PRIZE. Sharee A. Umpierre of the University of Puerto Rico, Joseph A. Hill of The Fertility Centers of New England (USA), Deborah J. Anderson of Boston University School of Medicine and Harvard Medical School (USA), for discovering that Coca-Cola is an effective spermicide, and to Chuang-Ye Hong of Taipei Medical University (Taiwan), C.C. Shieh, P. Wu, and B.N. Chiang (all of Taiwan) for discovering that it is not.

100 Skills Every Man Should Know: 2008's Ultimate DIY List. There are a number of things wrong with the premise of this article. Among them is that it's hard to sort out the practical from the macho. Note that there are a couple of items that were probably not on the 1962 version of this list. [via Michael B]

Take our survey. A Language Log contributor posts a survey about surveys. Most representative question:

[more]

Roundup

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 11:40:12 GMT

Happy first day of autumn, or as we say around here, fall. Note: Offer limited to northern hemisphere. Void where prohibited by geography.

5 Things Hollywood Thinks Computers Can Do. "Hacking is to this movie what magic is in the Harry Potter stories: plot-hole spackle. All the gaping cracks in logic between scene A to scene C can be neatly smoothed over with the mystical power of hack." Plus four more! [via The Code Project]

Death and Taxes. A "large representational graph and poster of the federal budget." Paging Dr. Tufte. Beautifully executed graphic that uses Flash very effectively to let you navigate and visually study a complex set of data. [via Son Zack]

Internet Memes Timeline. Remember the dancing baby? Hampster dance? Revisit those good times in the long-ago days of the Internet.[1] Wikipedia has a list that overlaps.

Letterfu. Origami meets correspondence. Print a pretty design, write on the back, fold, seal with stamp. I'm not so sure about this, but it's an interesting idea, anyway. [via Steve Spalding]

[1] I was not able to find Mahir ("I kiss you!!!!!", 1999)

Roundup

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 13:55:33 GMT

Somehow I ended up with five things today. Guess I'm super-excited about all this stuff.

Procrastination (video). "This morning I got up and got ready quickly because I had to get a lot of stuff done ..." [via (sort of) GOOD blog]

Hurricanes, as seen from orbit. Awesome. [via kottke.org]

Distributed Proofreaders. Help Project Gutenberg by proofreading OCR scans of books, one page at a time. I'm signed up, are you?

Plastic Logic reading device. Wow: "Differentiated by a stunning form factor (the size of 8.5 x 11-inch paper), the Plastic Logic reader features a big readable display. Yet it’s thinner than a pad of paper, lighter than many business periodicals, and offers a high-quality reading experience - better than alternatives of paper or other electronic readers on the market today." Man, I can't wait till e-reader devices are commodified.

How to Find Out Anything: 7 Tips. One (perhaps controversial?) tip: know a lot already. Another excellent tip: mine the "invisible Internet" -- stuff that isn't indexed by search engines.

Roundup

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 09:19:30 GMT

In honor of my being on vacation, a frothy confection of brain candy. Some items might be past their freshness date, oh well.

'Llectuals. (video) If PBS did a dramatic series about young urban people. (Notice I didn't say young, hip urban people.)

How to Discuss Popular Music. One in a series of Basic Instructions. Update Just found How To Give Directions. Please also note the disclaimer at the bottom of the page. Just in case.

Cake Wrecks. When professional cake decorating goes wrong.

Impostor. "My Hobby: Sitting down with grad students and timing how long it takes them to figure out that I'm not an expert in their field."

Roundup

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 15:54:03 GMT

If you're reading this, I got the new router to work.

Campaign Gaffe Remix. Good to remember that political campaigns are, above all, theater. Often comedy.

Nuke the Fridge. Jason Kottke discovers, tracks, and grows weary of an Interent meme based on the latest Indiana Jones movie.

SAM by Cree. Dang, I want one of these. All-electric two-seater made of recyclable materials.

[via GOOD blog]

The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000 From the American Library Association. See also: Uncle Bobby's Wedding, in which librarian Jamie Larue responds thoughtfully to a patron who wants a children's book about gay marriage removed. [book list via jeff atwood; Larue's letter, I forget.]

"Me, too!!!"

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 11:05:56 GMT

As noted, we recently had an outbreak of "Me, too!!"-itis in email around here. Matthew Baldwin, who is a) an employee, b) defective yeti, and c) a funny guy, captures the whole bidness perfectly:

re: Cephalopod

Roundup

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 10:05:05 GMT

Although I am a late adopter, eventually I get it.[1] These days I am thinking about big TVs and about e-book readers (list here). Ack, the price.

Who’s Mindful of Who’s Apostrophes’?. "It was not the brightest day for the English speaking world when the apostrophe invaded its books." If its/it's bothers you, you might want to read a little history here. As I might have noted before, wouldn't it be easier to just do away with the possessive apostrophe? [via fritinancy]

Goliath - Official IFC Trailer. (video) "Goliath is missing. And that's just the beginning."

Starbucks Closure List: All 600 Stores, searchable. In the comments (couldn't resist): "Oh no! Where will I go for overbrewed, burnt tasting, hyperexpensive coffee?" Sarah comments: "It's a little pathetic how many of these Starbucks I've been to." [via Scott Hanselman]

Butchered Title Requests. From a librarian. Example: "Fire Hydrant 415," "What Color Is My Umbrella?". It might be fun to see if you can guess what the patron intended by looking only at the requests. [via growabrain]

[1] Nancy Friedman [more]

Roundup

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 02:32:53 GMT

Randomer than the normal randomness.

Word 2003 to Word 2007 interactive command reference guide. Flash-based tool to help you find Word 2003 commands in Word 2007. There's a Web version, or you can download and install.[1]

26 Key Innovations of the Last 20 Years. It's always arguable what should (and shouldn't) be on a list like this. But it's interesting to review the kinds of changes that we've seen in even the recent past.

passive aggresive notes. Sort of like postsecret. Except for notes. That other people wrote. When they were mad. "You know who you are!"

Cheap Wine. The economic benefits of inexpertise. "Do not let yourself become a wine expert who can tell the difference between cheap and expensive wines. When it comes to your pocketbook and wine, ignorance is bliss." [via jeff atwood]

The Periodic Table of Videos. Videos from U Nottingham (UK) illustrating elements. Not all are there, but lots. [via jason kottke]

[1] I'm awful late with Office 2007 stuff, I realize.

Political truths

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 13:32:07 GMT

A funny, and I'm sure quite intentional, juxtaposition just now on iGoogle:

Roundup

Sun, 25 May 2008 11:46:11 GMT

Meteorologically, Seattle still can't decide what season it's in. A particularly sunny say made me complacent enough to leave the sunroof open on my car. Oops.

Ex-Boyfriend Jewelry. Like eBay, sort of, with the added twist that everything for offer on the site has a (bitter) backstory. Their motto: "You don't want it. He can't have it back."[1] [via how to split an atom]

Stuff White People Like. Just in case you haven't seen this. (That seems unlikely, but ya never know.) Very clever, mostly subtle set of essays. A particular favorite, of course, is #99 Grammar:

Another important thing to know is that when white people read magazines and books they are always looking for grammar and spelling mistakes. In fact, one of the greatest joys a white person can experience is to catch a grammar mistake in a major publication. Finding one allows a white person to believe that they are better than the writer and the publication since they would have caught the mistake.

The 3000-mile myth. For those who actually think about oil changes in their cars: how often should you change the oil? The premise is that the 3000-mile recommendation that most of us (old guys) have imprinted on our brains is way too often, resulting in environmental unfriendliness. You can look up the manufacturer's actual recommendation here. [via GOOD Magazine]

[more]

Roundup

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 08:07:11 GMT

My propensity for[1] agreeing to interesting-sounding projects has sucked up all sorts of time in the last couple of weeks. On the plus side, they are in fact interesting projects.

Indexed. This is actually all over the place right now, so you've probably seen it. Graphs meet social commentary:

Just a burger. The 21st annual Rube Goldberg Machine Contest: "This year's task was to assemble a hamburger consisting of no less than one precooked meat patty, two vegetables and two condiments, sandwiched between two bun halves. More than 1,500 people attended the event." I link to Hanan's post because he includes a video.

Magic 8 Ball Fortune Generator. A customizable version of the classic management advisor.

[via Kim]

Lace Your Shoes. "Before you tie 'em, you have to lace 'em -- and you can choose from among 43,200 perfectly legitimate ways to do it. A smart stringing strategy can actually improve your game." I haven't investigated fully, but I don't spot one for swimming.

[1] Which route would you take: propensity for or propensity to?

Roundup

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 12:48:01 GMT

It's snowing. Sheesh.

Clever Billboard Advertisements. "How do you stand out in the crowd? Here are a few examples."

The only valid measurement of code quality: WTFs/minute. Not just code, methinks. [via grow-a-brain]

Simpsons Brand-o-Rama. Inspired by Heidi Harley's yearly roundup of linguistic gems from The Simpsons, Nancy Friedman surveys the amazingly clever array of brand names that make an appearance on the show.

Judge: Learn English or Go to Jail. Maybe not what it seems at first glance. "A judge known for creative sentencing has ordered three Spanish-speaking men to learn English or go to jail. The men, who faced prison for criminal conspiracy to commit robbery, can remain on parole if they learn to read and write English, earn their GEDs and get full-time jobs."

Roundup

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 11:31:23 GMT

The calendar says spring, but the weather says not so fast, buddy. On the plus side, we made it to equinox without, like, killing ourselves or something. :-)

And Great Lyrics Quiz Rock Roll The. "Each of the items below consists of the complete lyrics for a well-known rock song placed in alphabetical order, with each word appearing no more than once (regardless of how many times it appears in the actual song). Try to name the corresponding songs."

Non-European PhDs In Germany Find Use Of 'Doktor' Verboten. A legal issue in Deutschland that for some of us, at least, is entirely academic, haha.

Garfiels minus Garfield. "Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life?" Certainly an improvement on the original. [via Daughter Sabrina]

IM IN UR QUANTUM BOX. lolcats for physicists. [via Son Zack]

Roundup

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 12:36:43 GMT

Spent all day yesterday on materials for MIX 2008. The weeks leading up to conferences and tech shows are always, um, exciting times around the office.

Java developers ... . T-shirt slogans for Java nerds. Of a kind with this stuff. Don't miss this one!

Did IPods Cause a Crime Wave? "One widely accepted theory holds that crime happens when three things come together: A motivated offender encounters a suitable victim and perceives a high chance of getting away with it. And the Urban Institute researchers believe the sudden prevalence of iPods increased all three factors."

LOTRO - Jam Session. (video) A virtual music jam, as described to me by Son Zack: "Recently, a Lord of the Rings MMORPG came out, which was just another of these sorts of games until they implemented the ability to buy and play musical instruments. Apparently it has become very popular, and you can find lots of videos on youtube, but this is the best i have seen."

Clive Thompson on How DIYers Just Might Revive American Innovation. "[W]hen we stop working with our hands, we cease to understand how the world really works. [...] It might even screw up our brains. Neuroscientists have shown that working with your hands exercises different parts of your cerebrum than sitting and cogitating." Hey, playing guitar: good for the brain. Note also that this appears to argue against virtual jam sessions. :-)

Roundup

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 19:38:58 GMT

In a sampling of the population of our house, 75% reported colds or sore throats.

HEMA. "You can't order anything and it's in Dutch but just wait a couple of seconds and watch what happens. This company has a sense of humor and a great computer programmer." [via Friend Christy]

Talk to the Machine. The Phraselator -- "This is a (large) PDA-size device that emits perfectly pronounced words and phrases when the user picks them from a list on the PDA screen, or speaks the English version into a microphone." My personal favorite part: "The Department of Defense has bought nearly ten thousand so far, and the troops agree that it sure beats sign language or thumbing through a phrase book. The locals like it because it's yet another neat American gadget, and one that won't kill them as well." [via Friend Steve]

And the Greenest Car in America is ... Is it the obvious choice, perhaps?

Idioms in Code (Take a Guess). Fun for those what can read C-style programming language code. Example:

// idiom 9
prey = 'worm';
time = getCurrentTime();
if (time >= 4 && time <= 8) {
    bird.catch(prey);
}

[via wishydig]

Roundup

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 11:09:22 GMT

A slight pecularity of our work is that the company has no official holidays between New Year's Day and Memorial Day. I mean, how are we going to celebrate National President's Day Sale if we have to go to work?

Let Me Save You $40: Here’s How to Be Happy. A kind of "eat less, exercise more" (ie, common sense) version of how to improve your life. It leads off with this attention-getting advice: "1. Stop Being a Dick" [via ... I forget, sorry]

Customer review. Amazon reviews for the BiC Kugelschreiber Cristal. [via Colleague Alec]

Guitar Rising. Guitar Hero that teaches you to play for real. Note that you have to go to the product site to see the demo video. I must say, I'm kinda tempted. [via Son Zack]

James Bond fanatic creates underwater car. "Sadly, those taken by the sQuba may never be able to get their hands on it as there are no plans to put it into production."

[via Friend Steve]

Roundup

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 10:57:20 GMT

Quiz of the day. In a 2-digit prime number of days (as of last night), on a prime number day, I will achieve a prime number age. My first presidential vote was for Carter (who lost). What age will I be? What possible days could be my birthday?

Nurture baby collaborations in their nest. (video) One of the weirder (in a good way) recruitment videos you'll ever see from Microsoft, I would venture. Featuring Roy, the Job Opportunities Cowboy. "Milk, milk, milk, milk-milk, milk-milk." For more such, click the msft cracks me up tag.

Be my Support Group. Erik Sink was trying to post a comment to a Wordpress blog and something went awry. Rather than retype it ("The text I wrote was perfect. I probably won't be able to remember it just the way it was."), he spends two hours recovering the text that he knows is somewhere out there in limbo. It was a pretty geeky solution to the problem. His question: what have you done that's that geeky?

Cheeseburger in a Can. You read right. [via Friend Steve]

Wife Carrying World Championships at Sonkajärvi. I never even heard about the regionals. Note that there are individual and team competitions.

Roundup

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 16:40:04 GMT

We seem to be going multi-media around here.

The Monty Hall Game Show Problem. (video) A visual explanation of a probability exercise with a famously counterintuitive solution. I'm with Mr. Explainer -- I think I'd rather have the goat.

National Grammar Day. Nominally interesting -- if only people really were interested in grammar -- but in fact it's just a peevology fest. (Stop harassing people about apostrophe[']s already, for heaven's sake.) Oh, well.[1] [via John McIntinre, copy editing god, who nails this thing exactly right -- read his post]

Cool new feature in Office: The Blue Squiggle. The Microsoft Office spelling checker can now optionally check spelling in context, which will find an error such as "Can I fine a good example?". (That error would pass ordinary non-contextual spell check, of course.) See also the post's comments and counter-comments for a discussion of limits of this feature. [via Language Log]

Why Doesn't Predictive Text Do Swear Words? (video) "I believe predictive text can be a real force for good, turning rude messages into politer versions, such as 'Sips off, you ducking yanker.'"

[1] FWIW, punctuation isn't grammar. Oh, well.