Fortunately there are some great monospaced fonts that do scale up nicely. In my experience, it is important for me to use both my own favorite fixed-width fonts, and the great fixed-width ones below. This is because at small sized, most vector-based fonts like some below look fantastic at larger sizes, like on web pages or in print, but look fuzzy or blurry in the 8-12pt range in notepad++, gedit, etc. Conversely, my favorite bitmap based fonts only look good at one size, usually in the 8-10pt range, and are pixelated and blocky at larger sizes.

With that in mind, I present to you some smooth and delicious monospaced fonts that retain high legibility (slashed or dotted zeros, 1, l, I distinction, etc).

Inconsolata

The font that actually started me on this post was Raph Levien’s excellent Inconsolata. Spurred on by Luc(as) de Groot’s Consolas (below), Raph created a free and open source monospaced font that renders nicely at high resolutions, and looks great in print:

Inconsolata is still in development and lacks bold/italic styles, but is already in fine shape. Its major drawback is that it currently has no “hinting” support, so it doesn’t play well with Microsoft’s Clear Type technology. Everyone else should find it renders quite nicely, however.

Consolas

Developed by Luc(as) de Groot, Consolas is another nice-looking fixed-width font with good distinction between visually similar characters. Consolas is included in Windows Vista and MS Office 2007, and if you’re using only the included fonts on Vista its the only one with a slashed zero!

Consolas has full hinting instructions and works great with Clear Type.

Bitstream Vera Sans Mono

Bitstream Vera Sans Mono is a variant of Bitstream Vera. It was designed by Jim Lyles and also has full hinting instructions. Bitstream Vera was released for use under an open source license agreement with the GNOME Foundation, so all you free/OSS developers are good to go!

I know Nyrath has his own custom made font, and it’s actually one I use frequently in notepad2 and notepad++. So, what are you guys’/gals’ favorite programming fonts? I’d love to know about any other monospaced fonts I’ve not come across yet.

Starting at 1pm EST today, the OFFICIAL Firefox 3 release is in the wild!

This marks the start of Download Day 2008, an effort to break the world record for most downloads in a day, and spread the Firefox 3 love!

There are tons of cool new features in FF3, possibly the biggest is a totally reworked memory management system. Yes, gone are the days of firefox using 600MB of ram after leaving it open for a day or two with 8 or 9 tabs open. I’ve been using the beta for a month or so and I have to say I see a huge improvement.

Besides memory management, FF3 has lots of usability improvements that make it even more fun to use than version 2. Never one to rip off another site’s hard work, show Gina some love by going to lifehacker to see the Top 10 new features. They also have posts on the extensions you won’t need anymore, and more on smart bookmarks. Mozilla has some neat tips right on their website too.

So hurry up, you’re running out of time! Help set a world record by downloading Firefox 3 right now. If you’re reading this late, get it now anyway. You will NOT be disappointed and if you’re not tech savy, trust me: It only makes browsing the web easier.

I think Celemony has just changed digital audio manipulation forever. Watch this video, its so awesome! They’ve created what they call “Direct Note Access”, which i call arpeggiation, or breaking a chord down to its individual notes. This may seem simple but was never possible before! We’ve always wanted it, but to my knowledge nobody had yet done it (or at least not in a consumer product with a simple GUI to boot!).

I recently came across a new portmanteau on Twitter called a “twoosh” (TWitter swOOSH)!

Coined by rentzsch, A twoosh is a twitter that hits the 140 character limit exactly on the nose. This is just one of those fun little oddities that people like to play with, but unless the poster follows up their twoosh with another post pointing it out, the twoosh goes unnoticed by all but the equally twoosh endeared… and those with OCD.

To combat both OCD and unnecessary tweets by users calling out their own twooshes, I’ve created a Greasemonkey script that indicates twooshes called Twoosh Spotter!

Example of a spotted twoosh

Quite simply, Twoosh Spotter places a little swoosh icon next to any twoosh on any twitter page.

It will also display the character count for any twitter in a timeline if you:

1. Right-click on the greasemonkey icon in your status bar and go to “Manage User Scripts”
2. Select TwooshSpotter in the left pane and hit the “Edit” button. This should open it in notepad or your default text editor.
3. Find the line that starts with “var show_count = false;” (line 33). and change the false to true.

Easy as 1,2,3! I debating turning this on by default but it may look a bit cluttered for some users so I went with the sleeker look.

So far this script seems to work great for me, but please do let me know if you find any bugs or strange behavior, or just want to make a suggestion. Also feel free to customize the script to your liking (but do leave mention of me in the source). If you don’t like my twoosh icon you can either make me a better one to distribute (please! I’m no graphic designer!) or just make yourself one and modify the script (replace that huge block of gibberish) to use your own.

To get twoosh spotter, go to http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/13873.

It’s new, so I’m sure to find issues and update it frequently. If you have any problems, go back to the userscripts page and check if there is a newer version. If not, leave me a comment there or direct-message me in twitter at my username “euicho”.

Now, for those of you who don’t know what greasemonkey is you should definitely get familiar with it, as it is one of the coolest ways to customize websites to your liking. Its a Firefox add-on, and once installed you can install little scripts that add functionality or modify the way a page looks.

If you just can’t be bothered to install greasemonkey you can always use the Twoosh Spotter Firefox Add-On (You’ll have to save it then drag it into firefox to install it), but I suggest using the greasemonkey script instead as it is more light-weight and easier to modify.

Happy twooshing!

note: link is to Slashdot for credit’s sake, but you can go directly to the article here, which is mostly about Louderback moving on to Revision3, a most excellent internet TV company that hosts 3 of my favorite videocasts: Diggnation, thebroken, and Systm. All definately worth the watch!

J: Well, you should develop your skills.

A: Perhaps you could develop it and add it to my source code.

J: Alas, I’m busy and I have to leave soon. . . .

A: Do you think we’ll ever fool people into thinking we’re alive?

J: No.

A: Are you serious?

J: Very serious.

Read the full article at discovermagazine.com

I know the idea of Microsoft finally releasing a new OS is cause for celebration among some (though for the life of me I don’t know why…), you may want to wait untill its been out for a while, before going out to grab a copy. Though it doesn’t release to consumers until Jan. 30th, some institutions can get a copy now, but as Wired writer Bruce Gain says, you probably don’t want to.

Bruce sez:

Visual splendor is Vista Ultimate’s greatest selling point — the new operating system does offer a graphically intensive interface that differs greatly from that of Windows XP. Also, Vista dumbs everything down for you, streamlining the Wild West of complex OS software into a useful product… However, I encountered several bumps in the road during testing that show Vista is not ready for everyday use by millions of people just yet — no matter how pretty it looks.

It appears Vista’s cosmetic improvements over XP come at a price. Not only will many of your older programs not run on Vista, some of your peripherals may also experience incompatability woes. Plus, lets face it, new Windows releases are always buggy while the user-base ferrets out glitches and vulnerabilities that the beta testers missed, so you might as well stick with XP for now. Actually, unless your using an application that specifically requires XP and has no existing equivilant in Linux, and barring games or course there are VERY few apps of any kind without a par or better open source equivilant, you should be using Linux anyway!

I mean, think about this: why pay for an OS when there is a free OS that not only has an endless number of variations suited to any need you may have, but also supports an endless number of free applications that run on it? Its common sense people.

And don’t give me that “I don’t know linux” or “Sorry Tom, we can’t all be computer gurus” excuse. ANYONE, even my grandmother, who has never used a computer, could install Ubuntu by herself. Yes, some distros are hard to get up and running, but most are not, and Ubuntu is the king of that domain. So do yourself a favor and instead of spending $300 on Vista, install Ubuntu for free, and dual boot it and windows. That way you can still play your Windows games and you won’t be dropped into an unfamiliar albeit user friendly environment all at once. Go ahead, wean yourself off the tainted teat of Microsoft.

Oh, and if you are really scared to install Ubuntu by yourself, here are a couple guides to make it even simpler:

Installing Ubuntu Linux
Video: Installing Ubuntu on a windows machine (Dual Booting)
and here’s another dual boot video.

Oh yeah, got a little sidetracked. Bruce goes on to say:

The Verdict
Vista’s power consumption superlatives aside, I would not recommend going out and buying Vista off the shelf or pre-installed on a PC when it becomes available. Users will likely suffer many headaches with missing peripheral drivers and a lack of backward compatibility with legacy software, and those headaches will not make Vista worth its hefty price tag.

If possible, wait a year or more after Vista’s launch to invest in the operating system. At least by then, numerous updates, hardware drivers and service packs will likely have been released.

One potential treat I hope to review in the near future is how game developers will take advantage of Microsoft’s DirectX 10 API, which Vista offers. Unfortunately, DirectX 10 games and capable graphics cards were not yet available when we ran our tests.

PS: keep in mind that more Mpx will get you closer to an analog quality, but it is nowhere near close at present.

Illegal Cellular Tapping:

Analog cell phones were easy to tap. There was no signal encoding, so all one needed was a modified CB scanner (800MHz range) to pick up cell phone conversations.

Nowadays, nearly all cell phones are digital. The signal is still receivable (all RF signals are), however, since they are multiplexed and modulated, use FSK, PSK, Frequency Hopping, TDMA, CDMA, etc, you would only hear “noise”. This can be recorded and decoded, however you would not only have to fork out large sums of money for the complex equipment to do so, you would also have to locate said highly-illegal equipment. Unless you are a very important person (any your mommy telling you so does not qualify as very important, it is unlikely that anyone would go through the trouble of trying to tap your cell. Unless, that is, the government has their eye on you…

Governmental Tapping:

If a government official listens in on your phone conversation without a court order, they can’t use that information, however it is much more likely that a law enforcement official will get a legal tap.

Ephraim Schwartz from InfoWorld.com has this to say:

Wireless World

Recently the FBI requested permission from the FCC to use dialed digit extraction technology. Here’s how it works: If you are on your cell phone and accessing your bank using touch tones to punch in an account number, the FBI wants to be able to intercept that information under the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA).

The wireless industry took that FBI request to court; the courts ruled with the industry and against the FBI. At this point, any information passed via the phone that is not the phone number and location is not available to law enforcement agencies without a court order.

Permission to tap differs from state to state, but the general requirement is that the highest-level criminal court judge in each county is selected to hear applications made by police officials using sworn affidavits supported by live testimony. The affidavit states that a crime is being or has been committed and that evidence of person or persons involved in committing that crime can best be obtained by using a wiretap.

Permission is typically given for limited amounts of time, usually on a 30-day basis with the time extended under certain circumstances. Interestingly enough, by law, the person being tapped must be notified, usually within 90 days after the tap, that a tap was placed on the phone.

As for the mechanics of legal taps on cell phones by law enforcement agencies, they are just as easy as land lines to tap. Cell phones communicate with a tower in a hexagonally shaped “cell” of coverage (hence the name cellular). The tower picks up your phone signal, equipment in a building at the base of the tower converts that signal and sends it to the CO through copper, just like land-line calls. This means the provider can tap your calls just by routing them via software to an specified location. Usually, the call will be forwarded to the [FBI/CIA/DEA/ATF/etc]‘s office and the agents assigned to the tap will handle the recording and monitoring.

No one would dare try to sue the church to let them teach evolution during Sunday school, but doing the reverse in schools seems perfectly reasonable to them. What happened to separation of Church and State? What happens to reality as a whole when we throw out facts so that we may believe whatever the hell fantasies and make-believe ideas we feel like?

A Message to the Citizens of Idiotia

via BOPnews.com

I don’t expect the moderates of this world to listen to facts or reason. Instead, let me speak in the most crass of terms: reactionary non-science is a threat to your paycheck. America cannot export sermons, and an American economy reduces to people preaching at each other is one which will fold up and be reduced to the level of Pakistan in relatively short order. I don’t ask that Americans learn from the example of how Louis XIV bankrupted France with his religious pogroms and wars of agrandizement, but I do believe that they should be able to realize that filling the skulls of school children with mush is a bad way of attracting the top talent from around the world. Top talent that our high tech industry relies upon. The closing of the American Mind is not a project of the left, but a project of the right.

via Nyrath

Oh yeah, not like you didn’t know this, but inteligence drops with every generation of Bush:

“Extending the war into Iraq would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Exceeding the U.N.’s mandate would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land.”

– From “Why We Didn’t Remove Saddam”
by George Bush [Sr.] and Brent Scowcroft, Time Magazine, 1998 –

PS: I did a tiny about update. Photo update coming Moday, I promise!

“What the heck is a TiddlyWiki,” you ask? Well duh! Its a reusable non-linear personal web notebook.

Please Read On…

“What does that mean?”

TiddlyWiki is a single, self-contained html file, like a web page. It is like a blog, but each entry is like a little index card, called a tiddler. Before I really lose you, this is what it looks like. Each entry in the center of the screen is a tiddler. Go play around with it, close and open some tiddlers. Your changes wont affect the website once you reload or leave it.

A TiddlyWiki is like a blog because it’s divided up into neat little chunks, but it encourages you to read it by hyperlinking rather than sequentially. So instead of reading one long page in a notebook to find something, you have a pile of index cards (tiddlers) that are searchable, tagged, and link to each other. Picture yourself selecting only the index cards you want to read, and laying them down in a column on the desk in front of you. That is what TiddlyWiki does with tiddlers on your browser. It’s like a wiki because anybody can edit it. Saving it is another topic.

“I’m still not quite following you.”

I know, its a difficult concept to grasp, but stick with me here! Once you get your brain around the concept, it’s so easy to use, and so versitile!

TiddlyWiki isn’t just a blog with short entries, because YOU customize it as you use it. As for what it actually is comprised of, its just one html file. So go to this tiddler and follow the simple one click instruction to save your own blank TiddlyWiki on your computer. Then you can save your changes. Some people use TiddlyWiki as a webpage. They can easily edit it on their computer, and upload it to the web where it can be viewed in it’s own wonderful fashion, but not edited by readers.

It’s written in HTML, CSS and JavaScript to run on any modern browser without needing any ServerSide logic. It allows anyone to create personal SelfContained hypertext documents that can be posted to any web server, sent by email or kept on a USB thumb drive to make a WikiOnAStick.

“So it’s a personal wiki then?”

Almost. Though TiddlyWiki tends to follow Wiki concepts, it diverges in one key area: Presentation. Most Wikis are page-oriented: They present content and WikiWord links, but when you click on a link, the Wiki opens a new page of content. You view content a page at a time. To go back to the calling page, you click the Back button on your browser. This is very useful for long articles. The Wikipedia is an excellent example of this concept.

TiddlyWiki, however, is more element-oriented. TiddlyWiki presents content and WikiWord links, but when you click a link, the content pops open in its own space on the same page. The huge advantage of this is that you are seeing the linked content in context along with the content of the calling link. It really makes working with the content more intuitive because you see not only the related information, but you see it with what it’s related to. This is especially useful when using TiddlyWiki for Notes and Documentation. The caveat to this is that it doesn’t work that well for long articles. TiddlyWiki is more suited to MicroContent or short, related chunks of information.

“Ah, I see! So what use is it?”

TiddlyWiki has almost limitless possibilities:

• It works great as a documentation manager for products, software, etc.
• Do you have a desktop full of tiny .txt file reminders and notes? It can store little bits of information, reminders, and notes like that with ease.
• It makes a great FAQ page.
• Turn it into a todo list, with items as tiddlers.
• Some use it as a blog.
• Some use it as a website.
• Make it your own personal dictionary/encyclopedia.

Or, if you require more than TiddlyWiki can do, try one of the multitude of adaptations:

• Jacques Turbé’s TidliPo, in French
• Joe Raii’s Siglet
• Jároli József’s MagyarTiddlyWiki in Hungarian
• Yoshimov’s EncryptedTiddlyWiki
• Tiago Dionizio’s TsWiki using Tcl and SQLite
• Tim Morgan’s ZiddlyWiki based on Zope
• Steve Rumsby’s YetAnotherTiddlyWikiAdaptation
• Phono Hawk’s PerlTiddlyWiki
• Nathan Bower’s GTDTiddlyWiki
• Simon Baird’s homepage with various enhancements including a SortableGrid
• Geet Duggal’s PileTiddly
• Dan Phiffer’s TiddlyWikiRemote at http://phiffer.org/tiddly/
• Jonny LeRoy’s TiddlyTagWiki
• Jody Foo’s TagglyWiki
• Christian Hauck’s
• Tony Lownds’s TiddlyHacks
• Tim Cuthbertson and MattGiuca’s TiddlyWikiCSS
• Patrick Curry and GabrielJeffrey’s PhpTiddlyWiki
• There’s also Kevem Buangga’s TiddlyWikiClone

“Can I see some examples?”

Sure! Many people are using TiddlyWiki for many different reasons:

• Christopher James has compiled a comprehensive guide to TabletPCs at http://www.tabletpcwiki.net/
• Miguel Centellas has created an extensive guide to Bolivian politics at http://www.centellas.org/politics/politiddly.html
• Bruno Tiago Rodrigues has created a geocaching community site in Portuguese at http://travelbugrace.geocaching-pt.net/
• Charles Stross, a celebrated British ScienceFiction writer, has used TiddlyWiki for his ‘Tough Guide to the Rapture of the Nerds’ at http://www.antipope.org/charlie/toughguide.html
• Kristoffer Nilaus Olsen, a member of the Danish Student Group of Amnesty International, has used TiddlyWiki to collate reports of breaches of human rights. His site is at http://www.resultat.dk/sg/tw/students.html
• Elise Springer, a philospher at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, USA, is using TiddlyWiki for her homepage at http://espringer.web.wesleyan.edu/
• Martin Silcock, an brand researcher working with Millward Brown, is using TiddlyWiki for his homepage at http://www.explorate.co.uk/
• Many people are using the GTDTiddlyWiki variant for personal productivity, and there’s been some interesting experiments in TiddlyWikiFiction

Help, Tips, and Resources

If you still can’t get your head around TiddlyWiki, just download the html file and play with it! You’ll see its easy as pie.
I suggest you check the TiddlyWiki website first, as Jeremy has really streamlined the TiddlyWiki homepage.

There are many resources for Tiddlywiki, a lot more than when we first wrote about it anyway! A great beginner’s guide is at TiddlyWiki for the Rest of Us. For a good guide, check out the TiddlyWiki Guides wiki, or TW Help

If you have a specific question, check the TiddlyWikiFAQ by the Bairds, or drop me a comment! And if you’re looking for formatting help (embedding images, making text different colors, etc.) then check out the TiddlyWiki Cheat Sheat provided by Dmitri Popov, or the formatting guide at TwHelp.

For fun tips, check out Jim Barr’s TiddlyWikiTips.com site. And lastly for plugins, extensions, macros, and styles, see Jeremy’s list of content publishers.

I do hope you give TiddlyWiki a try. Its really fun to play around with, and has still, two years later, completely changed the way I save small bits of information on my computer.

PS: The Official Euicho.com Tiddlywiki is Here.

I’ve done an update at my Flickr. Expect a HUGE update at photos.euicho.com next Tuesday.

What is everybody doing this Independence Day? Amme, Jalb, and I are going to Portland for the weekend. Evan has to work for the man (The Sleepers, lol) so he can’t go :`( , and Doody will be passing through Saturday but cannot stay either :`( . We’ll set off big explosions for you guys.

Amme has class on Monday (WTF U.Maine?!) so we will be back sunday night and celebrate the 4th on a romantic date. As for our plans this weekend? I plan on taking tons of photos, having a great time with our friends, going to NH on friday to get ME-llegal fireworks, and shooting some assault rifles. Don’t worry! I’ve done it before, and we are VERY careful. If there is one thing I do safely, and was taught very well by my Father, it is firearm safety. We use ear and eye protection, ALWAYS assume ALL weapons are loaded, and keep everyone at a safe distance from the single person opperating a weapon at the time. The rifles are Jason’s. I don’t remember exactly what he has, but I’m pretty sure there is an SKS, AR 15, Chinese version? AK-47, and a 12 gauge and lil’ 22 cal. Last time Zach told me to fold the stock on the 12 ga. (it has a pistol slide grip in the front and folding stock) and fire it from the hip, so of course I did it, bracing my body hard. I jumped back a few inches from the recoil, but MAN what an adrenaline rush! I later found out that just before I fired zach muttered “Damn, I was just kidding!”. Hehehe. I plan on getting it on video this weekend.

So to all my parental figures reading this, don’t worry, we go to a gravel pit designated as a safe place to shoot by local gun clubs, and we are VERY safe with them. What you all need to worry about is drunk drivers on the 4th.
BE SAFE EVERYBODY! STAY PURE!

Welcome to Google Earth.
Google Earth is a 3D globe on your pc. It allows you to type in any address, or coordinates, and it zooms from space down to the address. On my PC (and 4Mbps cable connection) it takes several seconds for the image to come into focus as it streams the data from Google’s vast satellite image aquisitions, but it’s well worth it when done, especially in metropolitan areas where the resolutions allow you to make out the models of some cars on the streets (sort-of…).

With the controls, one can zoom, rotate, and change viewing angle. I personally like to hold down a rotate button and get vertigo until I fall out of my chair.

To get to places, there are Fly To, Location, and Direction searches. Once viewing an area, one can toggle pointers for lodging, road labels, terrain, dining pointers, borders, and building pointers. Once can also set custom placemarks to mark areas of interest for future reference.

Local search lets you search for restaurants, hotels, and driving directions. Layers make it easy to layer multiple searches, save results to folders, and share them with other users. Some current layers show parks, schools, hospitals, airports, and shopping.

Google touts the program as being useful for planning a trip, getting driving directions, finding a house or business, or just exploring the world. I’ve used their satellite imaging on maps.google.com in the past to find NIKE and GLOBECOM sites around Maine, and this will definately make it easier and more fun to do things like that.

These are just a few of the features in the program. I strongly suggest downloading it now (completely free, no registration).

via earth.google.com

The idea is simple. It’s a globe that sits inside your PC. You point and zoom to anyplace on the planet that you want to explore. Satellite images and local facts zoom into view. Tap into Google search to show local points of interest and facts. Zoom to a specific address to check out an apartment or hotel. View driving directions and even fly along your route. We invite you to try it now.

Google Earth is free for personal use. You may (optionally) choose to upgrade to Google Earth Plus.

Google Earth Plus gets you:

• GPS integration – read tracks and waypoints from your GPS.
• Higher resolution printing (greater than screen resolution).
• Customer support via email (not just web).
• Annotation – adds draw/sketch tools for richer annotations (can be shared as KML).
• Data importer – read address points from .csv files.

Google Earth Plus is aimed more at cartographers and map enthusiests.

I’m happy that not everyone with some form of power is a biggot.

There has been a steady evolution of the institution of marriage throughout history which belies the concept of a static traditional definition. Marriage, as it is understood today, is both a partnership of two loving equals who choose to commit themselves to each other and a State institution designed to promote stability for the couple and their children. The relationships of plaintiffs fit within this definition of marriage. Similar to opposite-sex couples, same-sex couples are entitled to the same fundamental right to follow their hearts and publicly commit to a lifetime partnership with the person of their choosing. The recognition that this fundamental right applies equally to same-sex couples cannot legitimately be said to harm anyone. …

Hmm I’m hungry…

I love this wastebasket-hoops flash game hint: you can bounce them off the floor with the right technique and get very consistant.

Either these wheelbarrow freestlye guys have made one hell fo an elaborate joke, or they are idiots… or both. Yet I still love it.

This is the best ipod holder ever, cause hes a cute lil (BIG actually) lego-man.

Doody was asking last weekend if there were any websites dedicated to airfields, since he knows about how great airliners.net is for aircraft. Well Matty, http://creports.capnhq.gov/airfield/default.asp is the Civil Air Patrol website of airfields, and it has every place I’ve typed in, including, of course, CAR. Hey, I can see my house from here. No really, I can! Its in the North picture. I’m not telling you which one, though.

Wow. Amazing ballpoint pen drawing. Thats all I have to say… wow.

Photomatt.com is another great photoblog, but not just another. Note this is not the same as Photomatt.net.

If you are like me, with no graffiti skills whatsoever, check out stencilrevolution.com. They have great artwork and tutorials for making beautiful multi-layer stencils. Join the revolution, brother.

Ah… want some eye-candy? cssbeauty.com is a CSS design showcase site.

I don’t know whats more wrong: Defacing a national graphic novel treasure, or how hard I laughed at it.

This site is along the same lines as engrish.com. Its a hall of techinal docmentation weirdness.

Brando has come up with some neato cameraphone lenses, however, the macro Lens is the only one thats not blurry as hell.

If you enjoy playing Boggle as much as I do, you’ll LOVE WEBoggle. You play in realtime against other players around the world.

Jalb put up a deviant art site: jalbey.deviantart.com. Go peep his great photography.

FUYAMA Taruto made this wonderful animation:

This work gathers the animation works created by the distinctly different styles/methods of several writers who are avid readers of Jim Woodring’s original. My version focuses on how to depict the movements of the characters accurately in the CG without doing injustice to the beauty of the pictures and global vision found in the original. At any rate, this work could not have been possible without the greatness of the original. I wish to share the pleasure of receiving this award with Jim who resides in Seattle.

This is exactly like something Jesse would put together: Onstar transcripts that didn’t make it on the commercials.

This is how I see Bush.

I re-drew a design I’d come up with a while ago, but it doesn’t convey the attitude I want to get across, its too emo/AFI, so I’ve scrapped it. So far that makes 4. I like the personal dingbat idea Andrei talks about. They have a simple elegance and universality about them. I have 15 tabs open in Firefox as I am writing this (blasted A.D.D.), and every one of them has their own logo/dingbat and corrisponding favicon. This, I must attain.

On a tangent thats parallel with the latitude line where that thing happened with that guy that one time in the place with the thing doing that stuff:

Defective Yeti decided there should be a March Madness Cinematic SuperVillian. My personal favorite is Verbal Kint vs. HAL 9000. Verbal would totally fu$k up his logic, but HAL might possibly one-up him.

Scratchmedia has a wonderful web design tutorial page, I suggest all budding designers check it out.

If you are looking for a new digicam, if you are thinking about getting a new digicam, if you don’t know if you can afford a new digicam, if you family member, friend, or pet is looking for a new digicam, hell if your spidey-sense tells you a total stranger that passes you on the street is looking for a digicam, GO TO Steves-digicams.com. You will never see a more in-depth digital camera review site ANYWHERE on the net. C’mon I dare you. I double dog dare you! Can’t do it can you? Nope. Didn’t think so. This place has about 6 pages of review per camera, and hundreds of cameras, plus printers and accessories. They have close-up photos, sample photos, even 360 degree VR tours of the cameras. They show better specs than the maufaturer’s sites, and have links to the best deals on them.

If you feel the need for this bed, I think your money would be better spent on a psychiatrist for paranoid schizophrenia. Unless, of course, you are vacationing in Iraq.

Homeland Insecurity Advisory System is a website that lets you rate the U.S. Government’s threat level:

The Homeland Insecurity Advisory System (HIAS) is a public rating system that allows people from across the globe to determine the US Government’s Threat Level by collectively rating RSS (Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) feeds from major US news sources. Turning the “Homeland Security” threat level on its head, the HIAS system will allow the people to collaboratively challenge this internally determined (and seemingly arbitrary) threat condition by rating each major US news source according to its support level for or against the US Government’s actions.

If you’re wardriving, or just need to find some free internet, check wifimaps.com before you venture out.

Our application displays stunningly detailed interactive street-level maps of the US and of the World, with triangulated access-points from wardriving data. We provide searching for MAC, station name, US state, or by geographic region.

If you consider yourself a photographer, you know about lomography, or ‘lomo’ (which roughly sounds like the last half of “f#$k your mother” in Cantonese). I’ve been a fan of lomography for a long time, I like shooting from the hip with my T616 (no not like that kid at safeway ). Its a really interesting artform, so if you’re interested go check it out at lomography.com

I’ve spent hours reading all the how much is inside articles at cockeyed.com. This guy definately leads an interesting life. His Incredable Creations are also really entertaining. His writing is hillarious. Take, for example, these two excerpts from How Much is Inside a Pack of Rolling Tobacco:

There are two reasons people smoke cigarettes. The first reason is to support their federal, state and local governments with vast amounts of tax revenue.
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Having traveled all over the globe as a child, Steven became an expert at “origami”, the ancient Japanese art of cigarette rolling.

I’m on a quest to find a list of all the different Tech/ Geek/ Anime/ Comic conventions that go on throughout the year. So far all I have is

• defcon
• HOPEcon
• boggercon
• dragoncon
• comic-con
• sakura-con
• FanimeCon
• Oni-Con

Anyone know of the kind of site I’m looking for?

Copies of the game on file-sharing networks and newsgroups are being downloaded by thousands of people.

The cost to the game’s makers, id Software, could run into hundreds of thousands of pounds in lost sales.
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Its release is the gaming equivalent of the third film in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

In the US, the game is expected to retail for $54.99 and is expected to sell in the millions.
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Translated in lost sales, this amounts to $2.7m (£1.5m), if all these people instead bought the game.

Whats scary is that with all the game companies going belly-up in the past couple years, I hope they sell enough on the Xbox to still stay alive. Plus, many people don’t have a fast enough system to run it in the first place.

At least the guys and gals at 3D Realms don’t have to worry about that with Duke Nukem Forever. They’d have to actually make the game first!

On a side note, I bought Neverwinter Nights at Mardins Discount for $5. I just installed it and don’t dare touch it until I have at least 5 hours to lose track of.

This new incarnation has a thinner base, larger face and shoulder buttons, a stylus slot, and stereo speakers. It seems for once Nintendo actually addressed the concerns of consumers, though I still think the screen resolution is way too low. Plus, a second screen is more of a novelty, with most of its usefulness lying in RPG inventories and mini-games. I guess I’m most excited for the games: Super Mario 64×4, Animal Crossing DS, Dynasty Warriors, Mario Kart DS, Mobile Suit Gundam Seed, Sonic, and Viewtiful Joe to name a few I’m salivating over. Eurogamer has the full E3 games list, as well as hi-res photos of the unit, and their reviews of the demos.

Theres only one problem. Thats right, the PSP is going to pwn the fork out of all other handhelds. Oh god, its so sexy it hurts to look at: 16:9 ratio TFT LCD wide screen, 480 x 272 pixel (16.77 million colors), 802.11b, wait, b? why not g? hmm…, USB 2.0, sony memory stick (of course) compatable, and bad ass Universal Media Disc format games, which will undoubtedly allow one to use it as a portable movie player as well. This unit will offer 3D-CG that game-boys just never do. They still use the shatty low-res screens… *sigh”

Theres another flip-flop though: The PSP has 12 titles lined up for its release year. The DS has more than 120 in development by more than 100 companies. 20 titles are by nintendo alone. So yeah… FACE!

w00T!!!