29th
June
2008
Ponderings For 2008-06-29
posted in Ponderings |- Nice short post today to make up for the lack of them recently…
- For those that missed news of the big event, Bill Gates officially stepped down at Microsoft on Friday, ending a major era of computing. One little tidbit: I’m roughly as old as Microsoft (born in 1975).
- The official site for Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog has launched, along with a trailer. This is the production Joss Whedon did during the writer’s strike. Should be loads of fun.
- The fourth Jason Bourne movie is now a go.
- This’ll teach you kids to not capriciously jump around in mud puddles.
- Tweak Firefox 3 to display fancier colors
- I’ve seen WALL-E twice now, and loved it just as much the second time round. Go out and see it, folks. And while you’re at it, look for the usual hidden bits in the movie.
- Here’s an interesting little piece of history from the Apollo program. Not to mention the Cold War.
- Sony has been taking quite the loss on the PS3. Doesn’t come as a huge shock, given that most game consoles cost their companies quite a bit up front. Now, if only Sony hadn’t screwed up the line by dropping the Emotion Engine from recent models.
- Interesting. Robert Rodriguez is remaking Red Sonja with girlfriend Rose McGowan. I hope they at least reference Ennio Morricone’s score - easily the best part of the original film.
- IsoHunt has gone SSL. That’s a move that I think all the torrent sites should be doing (The Pirate Bay also recently did the same).
- One of the many strange places one might find a server room, due to the expense of moving them: a women’s bathroom
- For those who think there just aren’t enough monuments in this world
- An interesting and exhaustive set of Q&A facts about LEGO
- An amusing mistake in a Dell support online chat session
- Putting those undergarments to good use
- The Oasis Of The Seas: for those who want to take a cruise, but have zero idea that they’re on a ship.
- Is Sears really too incompetant to take your money? Wouldn’t surprise me.
- For you fellow Chicagoans, here are some fun stats about heat waves in the area over the decades. Sure does make the global warming nutters seem a little bit wrong.
- Speaking of Chicago, the Tribune has posted a collection of pretty nifty Chicago photos.
- Composer Bear McCreary has been doing detailed breakdowns of his scores for Battlestar Galactica over the past couple years, episode by episode. They may be a bit steeped in musician technical jargon, but they are still great reads. He even does plenty of responses to fans in the comment sections. Check out his particularly detailed and interesting write-up on Revelations, the recent mid-season finale (which had some amazing scoring work).
- This wouldn’t be quite as pathetic if she actually did look hot.
- This will teach you better than to actually believe your own brain
- Is it really a surprise how much people hate dealing with communications companies?
- Some more amusingly poor Enlglish sign translations
- Speaking of amusing English translations, here’s an interesting article on the dominance of English as a language, and how the control of the language may not be in the hands of those who actually know how to speak it. Suddenly, the world of Firefly may not seem like too much of a stretch.
- A write-up that the rest of us Windows users would likely agree with
- What it’s like to go gun shopping in Mogadishu
- A book on Steven Seagal that I might actually have to check out.
- Here’s a fascinating hobby: documenting secret satellites
- Shiptool is an interesting utility site for hunting down cheapest shipping rates
- Here’s a great, detailed history of video game consoles of the 70’s. I have very fond memories of some of them (and own a handful of them that are still functional)
- The fascinating great grandfather of modern computers
- Speaking of which, check out this amazing work in 1934 that has some eerie early hints at what would eventually become the internet.
- The next generation of tornado tracking equipment
- You think you’ve made some mistakes in job interviews and on applications…
- They were seriously going to let this talentless hack do the next Bond title song?
