Sub-Eclecticism

We’re choosing food for the ba…

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 16:41:21 GMT

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

We’re choosing food for the baby based on the potential amusement value for the adults. Mean? Maybe, but she’s too young to remember this.

Today was our big Thanksgiving…

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 04:53:48 GMT

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

Today was our big Thanksgiving get together and dinner day with Prairie’s family. Good, but getting tired. Almost time for dessert, though!

Just got my first Google Voice…

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 23:20:57 GMT

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

Just got my first Google Voice automated voicemail transcription. Close enough to get the gist, but very amusingly questionable accuracy.

I’m #reading Deep Domain by Ho…

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 16:37:09 GMT

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

I’m #reading Deep Domain by Howard Weinstein - http://bit.ly/5hHrWF

Prairie had leftover apple pie…

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 22:46:54 GMT

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

Prairie had leftover apple pie filling. Too much to toss, too little for much else. Gave it to me, hot and drizzled over ice cream. Yum!

All I need to do is to start m…

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 21:46:12 GMT

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

All I need to do is to start making Snuggies out of Sham-Wows, and I’ll be a gajillionairre by next year.

Happy Thanksgiving to all, and…

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 17:33:36 GMT

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

Happy Thanksgiving to all, and to all a good turkey coma!

Glad we left Seattle as early …

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 21:20:11 GMT

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

Glad we left Seattle as early as we did, driving on or around holidays is not fun. Lots of idiots, almost got hit once. Shmucks, all of ‘em.

Facebook ‘Dislike’ Button Suspicion

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:49:36 GMT

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

I just got an invite to a Facebook group titled “DISLIKE BUTTON is here - ADD it now!”. After looking this group over, I have very strong suspicious about it, and my first impulse is to recommend that everyone ignore it.

First: Facebook still isn’t adding a ‘dislike’ button. This is a third-party software hack, and has nothing to do with Facebook. Admittedly, the group does admit this on their info tab — but placed so far down the page that most people will never see it. This is shady.

Second: The instructions on how to add the dislike button have very little to do with adding a dislike button, and everything to do with getting as many people as possible to look at the group. Out of five ‘installation’ steps, only one — the last one — has anything to do with installing the button. The other four are just about spamming the group out to everyone on your friends list. This is shady.

Third: The dislike button itself is a Firefox browser add-on, and will not work for anyone using Internet Explorer, Safari, or any other browser. This is not mentioned anywhere on the dislike button group page. This is shady. Also, because they stress that you have to invite all your friends to the group before adding the button, many people will not realize that the button will not work for them until after they’ve already spammed all their friends. This is doubly shady.

Now, I don’t know what the dislike button Firefox add-on actually does or does not do once it’s installed on someone’s computer. However, given that they’re being sneaky about the entire process, and seem more concerned with getting their software on as many computers as possible, this doesn’t look good to me.

If you get an invite to the dislike button group, I strongly suggest ignoring it. if you use Firefox and have already installed the Firefox addon, I strongly suggest removing it. I don’t know that it’s bad, but from what I can see, I strongly doubt that it’s good.

On last night’s NCIS:LA, the g…

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:10:30 GMT

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

On last night’s NCIS:LA, the goth/steampunk club was sweet, but the “muggles all look alike to me” crap from the bartender? Subculture fail.

This is a test of Echofon Pro’…

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:40:04 GMT

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

This is a test of Echofon Pro’s ping.fm integration. Move along, nothing to see here….

Installed the demo of Parallel…

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 23:36:13 GMT

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

Installed the demo of Parallels 5. The only Windows installer I have to use is Win 2000 Pro. Funny to watch that boot on my iMac.

I want to read: Under the Dome…

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 22:04:19 GMT

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

I want to read: Under the Dome by Stephen King - http://bit.ly/8SgkwA

_Throw Momma From the Train_ t…

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 03:02:21 GMT

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

Throw Momma From the Train totally stands up to the test of time. Hilarious movie, even over 20 years after it came out.

I’m #reading Vulcan Academy Mu…

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:32:33 GMT

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

I’m #reading Vulcan Academy Murders, The by Jean Lorrah - http://bit.ly/59iTw

Anybody know if Sunday’s MLS f…

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:03:11 GMT

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

Anybody know if Sunday’s MLS final match will be streamed over the ‘net live? Looks like it’s being broadcast on ESPN, which we don’t have.

Links for November 12th through November 19th

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:00:47 GMT

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

Sometime between November 12th and November 19th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

Official Google Blog: Finding the laws that govern us: Starting today, we're enabling people everywhere to find and read full text legal opinions from U.S. federal and state district, appellate and supreme courts using Google Scholar. You can find these opinions by searching for cases (like Planned Parenthood v. Casey), or by topics (like desegregation) or other queries that you are interested in. For example, go to Google Scholar, click on the "Legal opinions and journals" radio button, and try the query separate but equal. Your search results will include links to cases familiar to many of us in the U.S. such as Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education, which explore the acceptablity of "separate but equal" facilities for citizens at two different points in the history of the U.S. But your results will also include opinions from cases that you might be less familiar with, but which have played an important role.
The History of the Internet in a Nutshell: If you’re reading this article, it’s likely that you spend a fair amount of time online. However, considering how much of an influence the Internet has in our daily lives, how many of us actually know the story of how it got its start? Here’s a brief history of the Internet, including important dates, people, projects, sites, and other information that should give you at least a partial picture of what this thing we call the Internet really is, and where it came from.
It’s true: all the taken men are best: Women: do you have a man? If you do, better beware. Chances are that some lone female has her eye on him. A new study provides evidence for what many have long suspected: that single women are much keener on pursuing a man who's already taken than a singleton. "The single women really, really liked the guy when he was taken," says Melissa Burkley of Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, who conducted the "mate-poaching" study with her colleague Jessica Parker.
Meep! Nonsense Word Gets Students in Hot Water: "Bob Thompson, a pop culture professor at Syracuse University, said he first heard students meep about a year ago during a class screening of a television show. 'Something happened and one of them said 'Meep,'' he said. 'And then they all started doing it.' The meeps, he said, came from all of the students in the class in rapid-fire succession. When he asked them what that meant, they said it didn't really mean anything. 'It's almost like they look at you like it's a silly question,' he said. But meeping doesn't seem to be funny to Danvers High School Principal Thomas Murray, who threatened to suspend students caught meeping in school." Wow, dumb (the principal, not the kids). Also, lots of fun silliness and stories of teenage silliness in the Metafilter post about this article.
Mandelbulb: The Unravelling of the Real 3D Mandelbrot Fractal: "The original Mandelbrot is an amazing object that has captured the public's imagination for 30 years with its cascading patterns and hypnotically colourful detail. It's known as a 'fractal' - a type of shape that yields (sometimes elaborate) detail forever, no matter how far you 'zoom' into it (think of the trunk of a tree sprouting branches, which in turn split off into smaller branches, which themselves yield twigs etc.). It's found by following a relatively simple math formula. But in the end, it's still only 2D and flat - there's no depth, shadows, perspective, or light sourcing. What we have featured in this article is a potential 3D version of the same fractal." I don't get the math in all of this, but there are some gorgeous pictures. A lot of them look to me like perfect sets for the home planet of Giger's Alien.

Sadly, I never got to see NIN …

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:56:58 GMT

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

Sadly, I never got to see NIN live. Wish I had during their “glory years” (pre-Fragile, in my universe). Would be cool to hear that, though.

Evidence of my onetime NIN obs…

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:26:07 GMT

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

Evidence of my onetime NIN obsession: a list of all my NIN-related goodies. This webpage was last updated in 1996. http://djwudi.com/p

My favorite old-school NIN quo…

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:15:47 GMT

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

My favorite old-school NIN quote: “My moral standing is lying down.” Last NIN album I really enjoyed: The Downward Spiral.

I like the new retweet, esp. a…

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:33:52 GMT

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

I like the new retweet, esp. after reading the reasoning for the design decisions: http://djwudi.com/o Needs support from Twitter clients.

Looks like I’m part of Twitter…

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:23:45 GMT

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

Looks like I’m part of Twitter’s new retweet function beta. Went back 7 hours to find an example, and it was a whine about the new retweet.

Should-be-a-word of the day: P…

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 01:36:09 GMT

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

Should-be-a-word of the day: Penultimatum. As in, “this is your second to last warning.” (All credit to Jason Henninger.)

A student mentioned psi chi (h…

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:02:57 GMT

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

A student mentioned psi chi (honors society). I heard “sci-chai,” and my brain interpreted that as an indian tea sold at SciFi conventions.

Good: management getting the c…

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:40:54 GMT

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

Good: management getting the carport that our neighbor backed into fixed. Bad: listening to jackhammers as they remove the damaged post.