Now here’s an amusing web app:

If you live in Europe and are about to purchase Windows 7 (and apparently also for Vista and XP users), you will get to pick the browser you want to install with your operating system…no thanks to the European Union, which has gone further than even the US Government did a decade ago.

Don’t get me wrong…a whole bunch of Microsoft products still suck, but the Government should not be getting into what can and cannot be installed on an OS. Authoritarian groups tend to go for that.

Dang! Blambot is a great source for comic-strip typefaces, both free and pay-based; I downloaded some free ones and here’s the new listing:

I might use some of these in future parodies, so watch for them!

One of the many facets of The Mrs. which makes me love her even more…is her propensity for gadgetry. Witness this digital indoor-outdoor temperature gauge. She happened to bring this along and we set it up a few days ago.
Now, instead of hitting F12 on my keyboard to bring up the same thing, I can simply look at this gauge to see how cold (or hot) it is outside. She eventually wants to get one where we don’t even have to set the time, let the Atomic Clock do it for us. Neat-O!

I don’t like it at all when I have to get up, just to settle my stomach down. Yes, the event of the upcoming Nuptials is causing said stomach fits. As a result, I’m in ‘Might As Well, What The Hell’ mode, and I still have to go in to work today and Monday:

iPHONE STILL #3: After all these gangbuster sales here in North America, I’m truly surprised. Perhaps if Apple detached itself from T&AT, that might help.

АЙЕРС: I GHOSTWROTE ОБАМА‘s BOOK: Look for this Unrepentant Terrorist to be thrown under the Президент‘s bus soon.

MIXED REACTIONS: Оба́ма‘s Nobel Peace Prize is lauded by liberals, DFCs, and Islamofascists worldwide, while criticized by some past winners such as Lech Walesa and conservatives.

Take your baseship and go see this with your ridiculous, gelatinous orbs:

Oh that’s right, you’ve already seen death. Your own….

The US Air Force has published a report, warning NASA of the possible safety issues regarding the Ares I launch vehicle; in short, any astronauts atop this craft would be at greatest risk of catastrophic failure during the first minute after liftoff.
NASA had better remember that STS-51L exploded 73 seconds after liftoff. They had better test the hell out of this ship before they even schedule a manned flight. Don’t hurry Project Orion along for the sake of expediency.

Now that I no longer have that roommate who was so gung-ho with Apple (as if it can do no wrong), I can say what I want, and if he doesn’t like it, too bad so sad.
Recently, Apple’s latest iTunes release, 8.2.1, disabled syncing for Palm Pre users. I think this a damn petty move by Apple; there is no reason why there shouldn’t be multiple platform acceptance for iTunes syncing, as long as they meet Apple’s standards.
Well, Palm fights back; with an update to webOS 1.1, it restores iTunes syncing. Now, we’ll see if Apple continues with the pissing war.

It took a couple of years to get things going, and now I believe the iPhone has some serious competition coming its way. Not everyone wants an iPhone. Also, most ofl my friends and acquaintances who have them have two major complaints: 1) T&AT‘s service sucks, and 2) one cannot get an iPhone anywhere else in the USA without doing some unlocking on it, which is of course a no-no with Apple.
I totally understand why Apple does this; now since the Palm Pre is out with Sprint at first, and could be going to Verizon Wireless by January, T&AT ‘s going to have to initiate a drive to improve the iPhone’s service in order to keep their customer base. That said, it’ll be interesting to see if Palm decides to support Macs this time around. If they do, the game will be afoot.
Stay tuned.

UPDATE (2133 MST): Mark/Space has Macs covered. Yay!

According to this report, Betelgeuse, a red supergiant star located 600 light years from Earth, has shrunk 15% over the past fifteen years. That IS significant. It’s possible that we may soon see a light show like there hasn’t been one in, oh, almost a thousand years or so:

Supernovae can cause a whole bunch of damage to a planet’s ecosystem if they were close enough. But, due to Betelgeuse’s location and its rotational axis is not on the same plane as our solar system, any gamma rays which spew forth will miss us. As it may be, its impending demise is yet another Mystery of the Universe that God may give to us to gaze and wonder.

There, that’s done. It’s been out there for awhile, and until today I’ve been LAX in updating the blogging software. Again, about a half hour or so to back up the entire site (and with that, I’m in a lot better shape than I once thought!), and another twenty minutes to perform the update.
I went all geek on the Lady E, who told me she was amazed at all this. This is only because the life path she took didn’t take her down the same path as mine. There will be plenty of opportunities to teach her these things.

I gotta admit, I am geeked about this retro tech gadget which I’m resurrecting tonight. I bought almost six years ago when I started my MBA courses, just before I moved out to Arizona. I was going through some stuff a few days ago and I found this just sitting there, and I allowed it to deplete its power source.
Trouble was, I couldn’t find the charger nor the HotSync cable. So I went online and purchased a USB cable which does both. I received it in the mail tonight, and I went right to work. It may take a few days to configure this unit the way I want it to run.
Hey, why not! It works, so I might as well use it!

Not too long ago, Cuil was introduced as an alternative to Google. Now, another web research engine has gone live:

If you’re familiar at all with Mathematica, well, Wolfram|Alpha is made by the same guy. I’m going to have to putz around with it just to see what it can do.

This is the first of two projects I’m working on. I have a TV that’s gotta be at least 10 years old, so it’s fun to operate in this day and age. The remote is slowly losing function, and I managed to find and reconfigure this universal remote which accompanied the TV when I moved out to Arizona.
The second SoTA project in progress is dependent on a USB sync/charger cable which I just ordered over the Net, and should be delivered early next week. Once I get that, I can go to town! So stay tuned for that one.

Embedded in an article about turning one’s iPhone into a medical tricorder (which I admit is quite…fascinating...then again, the supporting software is Windows only) was this ad for the upcoming Star Trek reboot movie. To see the full-size image, click on it.
Now, the question put forth for discussion: wouldn’t this huckstering of Spock be somewhat…illogical?