Category: Geek

Open Letter to Amazon.com

So, about 7 years ago, when I was building my kayak, I ordered a couple of books (actually, about a half-dozen) off of Amazon to learn how to keep my head above water, literally and figuratively. Likewise, before the first kid, ordered a couple of baby-type books to have something to thumb restlessly through while trying to figure out why Pinky wouldn’t stop crying.

However, it’s been nigh-unto six years since I’ve even looked at another kayak book – water’s still wet, paddling in bad weather and rough seas will still leave you exhilarated or dead, and there’s still a dozen potentially life-threatening conditions that could be happening for every observable feature of a baby.

So, Mr. Bezos (or lackey) – run on down to the folks who draw up your algorithms. Hand them this idea:

Instead of recommending based on who I used to be, see what folks who used to be like me are buying now, and offer me that crap instead of the fifth edition of a book of which I bought the third edition…

Favorite Podcasts 23 Feb

Cory Doctorow’s Craphound.com – The (former) voice of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Cory Doctorow’s a Canadian. His podcast is usually a read of one of his short stories or novellas. At his website, craphound.com, you can download any of his novels, published under creative commons licenses. He also is one of the folks behind boingboing (dangerous to productivity, and occasionally NSFW-not safe for work). He’s one of those crazy overproductive people. Check this podcast out if you like scifi.

Despair.com – bitterly funny. Dilbert without the kindness, or faith in humanity.

Escape Pod – More scifi. Occasionally flagged “Mature”, mostly rated R. Great shows in the archive already, including a wonderful one on Free Will, and another great one about exile in time. If you’re interested, drop me a line and I’ll see if I can get URL’s for those.

Etherbeat – Ever since Wefunk dropped their podcast (bandwidth issues? Not sure…), I’ve been looking for a daily dose of funk. Etherbeat works. Not quite so well as WEFUNK, but good enough.

Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me – Weekly News Quiz. Features semi-comics from left and right. You might recognize names such as Tom Bodette, from the Motel 6 commercials, or PJ O’Rourke, from such seminal works of right wing philosophy such as “Age and Guile beat Youth and Innocence” and “A Parliament of Whores” (which should be used as a standard high school civics text). This show alone is worth donating to your local NPR station. Even if you live outside of the US.

Slacker Astronomy – actual PHD astronomers trying to be funny, and giving out decent star advice all at the same time. Entertaining. Bonus star tip – check out Stellarium. It’s an open source and free (as in both speech and beer) planetarium application that runs on OS X, Linux, and another operating system by a little company out of somewhere near Seattle, I think. Great for cloudy (or cold) nights.

Lastly, TWIT – The week in tech. Alpha Geeks being geeks. Search the archives for the shows with Steve Wozniak. Priceless.

So? What are you listening to? I generally still run to music. The podcasts are great for the commute, when you cannot stand another minute of listening to the news.
(thanks to Brogan for sparking this thread)

Pimpin’ ain’t easy

Sorry. This is a blatant advertisement to get free stuff off of the web. I grabbed some free space at PB Wiki (Tagline “PBwiki makes creating a wiki as easy as making a peanut butter sandwich”). Why? Dunno. I haven’t used it for anything, really.

But it don’t cost nothin’. And they offered to double my space if I blogged about it.

Surely I can think up a use for a free Wiki… (think, think)

You could, too.

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Newsvine

Got invited to Newsvine’s beta courtesy of the good folks at the Mac Observer’s Mac Geek Gab.

As a result, I’ve got invites to give. Let me know if you want to try it. I’m still kind of up in the air over its usefulness or lack thereof. Not quite sure if I really “get” it. We’ll see.

As another question, I’m looking to change my layout to a three-column dealie. Anyone got recommendations for wordpress templates, as I’m running way behind in learning HTML, CSS, etc…

Italian Giro Coverage, complete w/ Theme Song

Now, by all means, I hope that everyone in the US reading this heads out and pays for OLN’s webcast of the Giro, then sends OLN a nasty message about needing to support Macs (Since serious cyclists are more intelligent than average folks, and hence more likely to use a superior computing platform – vis, a Mac).

However, if you want to see a polished version of the Giro, click on over to Rai, who, I’m guessing, is the Italian Network carrying over the race. Select “Sport” in the left hand column, then “88th Giro”, then “Si Gira” (or any of the content in the right panel”, and lastly any of the stages. Sit back, turn up your speakers, and wait for the theme to begin. It’s followed by programming. I don’t speak Italian, but having taken French and Spanish, I can pick out enough to make fun to watch.

Woo Hoo!

My iBook is back! All my data is still intact. Life is good.

Now, to tempt fate, I will repartition the drive, reinstall OS X, and try to get Mandrake PPC running!

Beautiful day, the new plan is kicking my butt, but life is good. I tried climbing the random rope I found in a tree today – didn’t get very far. Tomorrow I will get farther.