http://www.ComputerBob.com/journal_archive/2006/04.php .
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ComputerBob.com is now available in Arabic, thanks to a new Arabic translator currently being beta tested by Google. If your computer has an appropriate Unicode font, you can click on the "Arabic" link at the top of my home page to see it in Arabic. Once you see my home page in Arabic, you can browse to any of my other pages and they will be translated, too.
When's the last time you used the free Microsoft Paint program that comes with Windows? It's been a few years since I used it. Would you use it more often if you knew that it could create incredible pictures like these?
When I was a kid, I loved the band formerly known as The Quarrymen, and was fascinated by the tight harmonies of the group formerly known as The Pendletones. In the 70s and early 80s I wrote songs that were heavily influenced by the duet formerly known as Tom and Jerry. Before they got famous, many popular bands of the past had goofy names. Of course, many of today's popular bands still have goofy names. I guess that's part of the whole rock and roll mystique.
Here's a video of some funny live news mistakes.
Seeing this simple animation of the notes of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor, allowed me to appreciate both its balanced simplicity and its beautiful complexity in a fascinating new way. I highly recommend it.
If you ever watched him on ABC's Monday Night Football, or if you've seen his commercials for Tough-Actin' Tinactin or Ace Hardware, you know that John Madden is a unique character. Here's a really funny Mad TV parody, showing him having a little trouble while trying to film
a commercial for a popcorn maker.
Here's some fun stuff to help brighten up your weekend, starting with Top 10 Bizarre Vehicles.
Teenage kids who want to do something stupid often say to their parents, "But all my friends are doing it!" And their parents usually respond by saying, "If your friends jumped off a cliff, would you jump off a cliff, too?" These people would.
Here's a commercial that puts an interesting twist on the idea of birds flying into windows.
Here's
a memorable commercial, starring a kid who's a walking, talking, screaming ad for birth control.
Do you think you can tell the difference between normal Web sites and Web sites that install adware or spyware on your computer? Take the SiteAdvisor Spyware Quiz and find out.
Most of us have at least one old TV, kitchen appliance, or electronic gadget that no longer has its instructions. Luckily, Users Manual Guide has free User Manuals for many different brands and types of electronic devices.
Would you spend any of your hard-earned money on anything on the list of Top Ten Dorky Computer Gadgets? I wouldn't, but I have a feeling that the list's author would -- notice how the list's URL calls the gadgets cool.
In another example of how the best commercials mix humor with a plot twist, this Japanese commercial will make you feel really sorry for a baby caterpillar. Even though, in real life, you would probably step on it.
Okay, I think I've figured out the difference between plain old weird stuff and weird stuff that is "art." If it can serve any purpose other than "just being art," then it is not art -- it's just weird stuff; however, if it exists without any purpose or redeeming value whatsoever, other than "just being art," then it is art. For example,
this weird piano illusion is truly a work of art. Am I right?
If your computer is running Windows XP, and you have it set to automatically download any new updates from Microsoft, you may want to reconsider that choice. Apparently, the latest update installs anti-piracy software that "automatically scans Windows computers and reports on whether they are powered by unlicensed software." Will it cause problems for users of licensed copies of Windows? Nah, of course not. Trust them.
I can't vouch for it because I haven't tried it, but here's a Web site that claims to offer free subscriptions to over 200 tech magazines. My advice is to pass on it if the fine print says anything about surrendering your first-born child.
Try not to take it personally if some of your favorite musical performers, songs, events, moments, or trends are on the list of the 50 Worst Things To Happen To Music.
Are you pretty intelligent? Are you good at spotting hoaxes? I bet you would have been fooled by at least a few of the Top 10 Greatest Hoaxes of All Time.
Jeff Dunham has an old friend named Walter. They're pretty funny together, but Walter is very crabby and his language can get pretty rough at times. Oh, and there's one more thing --
Walter's made of wood.
Here's another one of those subjects that resurfaces every once in awhile, but is worth repeating. On my computers, I use most of The Best Free Security Tools For Windows.
For years, Web developers have created tons of glitchy CSS work-arounds (AKA hacks) to try to solve the many Web page display problems caused by Microsoft Internet Explorer's lack of proper support for Web coding standards. And each non-backwards-compatible new version of IE has introduced its own new problems and required its own new set of CSS hacks, requiring hundreds of people to write articles and books about the best and most popular ones. Stop Hacking Or Be Stopped says that the upcoming IE7 will reduce the need for CSS hacks by supporting some new Microsoft proprietary (i.e. non-standard) code. To me, it sounds like Microsoft is just adding to its mess.
There are giant drawings of animals and shapes in a desert in South America. One guy made big bucks by writing books that basically said, "We don't know why they're there, so they must have been a landing strip for ancient aliens." In other words, beings that were intellectually and technologically advanced enough to travel through the vast reaches of outer space to find us, needed to see giant pictures of animals in a desert in order to know where to land. Learn more about that story and others in the 10 Most Amazing Ancient Mysteries.
I was pretty young at the time, but I still remember the controvery that his crazy legs caused when he sang on the Ed Sullivan Show. Still, I never, ever understood why he was so popular. Frankly, I think there's something obscene about the fact that although he sang flat, he was a laughably poor actor, and he has been dead for about 30 years, he still makes more money every year than most countries, and about 30,000 people in the U.S. make a living by pretending to be him. Now it looks like someone has figured out a way for his estate to make even more money by "authorizing" his impersonators. Will this madness ever end?
Wow, that really looks great! Now, be careful... Careful... Careful... Just a little more...
Oh, I'm so sorry.
If you use presentation software like Microsoft PowerPoint or OpenOffice.org's Impress, What Is Good PowerPoint Design? might teach you a few ways to improve your presentations.
While working on my Masters degree, I paid my tuition by teaching basic photography and television production courses at the University. I think it would have been fun to teach a course on how to take high-speed photos of bullets going through stuff.
If you're like me, it does your heart good to read stories about dumb criminals.
Just like gambling, I think the board game, Monopoly, has been popular for decades because it mostly involves the luck of the dice, so you can blame it on bad luck if you lose, but it also involves a certain amount of skill, so you can brag about it if you win. Make sure the odds are in your favor by learning How To Win At Monopoly.
For the past several years, nearly every TV sitcom has starred a stand-up comic -- except for Reba, but I'm not really convinced that that's a sitcom. Here's a funny video of The King of Queens,
Kevin James, doing a stand-up routine about going to the bank.
You've probably seen or heard the term Net Neutrality bantered about in the past several months, but do you know what it means, and why it's a really important issue involving the future of the Internet? Here's a 3-minute video that explains the basics of Net Neutrality in an easy to understand way.
Are you happy in your current job? Would you be happier if you had one of the 25 Most Bizarre Jobs? I think probably not.
Does your dog talk? These ones do.
Do you remember the actor, Adam West, who played the potbellied title character in the old Batman TV series? It seems like he's spent the rest of his career playing parts in which he makes fun of his own lack of acting skills. At least I hope he's making fun of himself on purpose. Here's an entire episode of a funny sitcom from about 15 years ago, starring Adam West as a bad actor named
Lookwell.
I've mentioned things like this before, but it's worth repeating. Services Guide for Windows XP is an excellent resource that will tell you all about Windows XP's many services, including their default settings and which ones you can safely disable to speed up your computer.
How well do you keep up with all the latest technologies? I thought I did a pretty good job of it until I only answered 7 of the 13 questions correctly in the Technology Quarterly Quiz. See how well you do on it.
Here's a site that claims that it can tell you about your personality traits, just by analyzing how you draw a picture of a pig. In my case, I think all it did was confirm that I can't draw very well.
While I only recognized a few of the many art-world "inside jokes" in this really strange cartoon, I'm sure that the more you know about art, the more you'll understand and enjoy Kunstbar.
Apparently, its creator is extremely cynical, and I don't agree with everything it says. Still, I think
Dance, Monkeys, Dance is really well done, and it makes some very thought-provoking points.
A person on eBay says that Jesus appeared to them, and for $25,000 (U.S.D), they will give a two-hour lecture in which they will reveal:
Wow, that seems awfully cheap. I'd expect to pay nearly twice that much, just for the cure for cancer.
It seems to me that the U.S. could completely eliminate its need for costly imported oil if it could just figure out a way to make things run on salt.
La-dies and gentle-men; boys and girls! Step right up and watch a happy, innocent young boy turn into a hideous, evil monster, right before your very eyes!
Here's a cute early 3D animation, created entirely on Macintosh II computers. There are a couple of funny lines in the credits, too.
It seems like it would be difficult enough to try to synchronize one or two animated musical instruments to their sounds, but I'd like to see how they created the multiple levels of precision musical animation in Animusic Acoustic Curves.
Yesterday, I stopped to get some groceries for the weekend. While I was paying for them, the middle-aged bagger announced his beliefs to the cashier. He said, "There's one thing he doesn't believe in, but I do." She sighed. He kept talking. "I believe in UFOs and aliens. Millions of people have seen 'em." He went on to describe a movie that he had seen about UFOs and aliens. She finally said, "Well, I've only seen movies about pretend aliens." He ignored her and continued to present his evidence. As he finished putting my groceries in my cart, he said, "Well, no one's ever going to convince me that they don't exist." As I pushed my cart past him, I stopped and said, "You're right." He looked me right in the eyes, relieved to have found a fellow believer. With a straight face, I slowly said, "We do exist." I heard the cashier laughing behind me as I pushed my cart out the door.
If you do a lot of cutting and pasting on your computer, you know that the Windows Clipboard is pretty limited in its features. Do yourself a favor and see if one of these Free Clipboard Tools will work better for you.
A professor in Oregon has invented a tiny chemical reactor that could allow farmers use what they grow on their farms to create their own biodiesel fuel. The goal is to have them run all of their farm equipment without having to depend on costly imported oil.
How Machiavellian are you? Take Salon's Machiavelli Personality Test and see. My wife's score was 50. Mine was 56.
Einstein is either a really smart bird or a really well trained bird. Or maybe his keeper is a ventroloquist. Watch this funny video and decide for yourself.
I guess
I'm not the only one who could never understand the lyrics in Michael Jackson's songs.
For years, PC geeks knew that you could save money and end up with a better quality PC if you built it yourself. Now, with the prices of individual components often being prohibitively high when purchased individually, it may or may not still be worth the time and trouble. If you decide that you want to build your own, be sure to read 10 things you should know about building a PC from scratch. Then read it again. Especially if you've never built one before.
I disagree with one of the Top 5 Things You Should Never Buy. For many years, I used a floor model NEC monitor that I bought from Best Buy at a huge discount because it had been replaced by a newer model, and I never had any trouble with it. So it's possible to buy a good floor model if you're very careful.
Two days ago, I mentioned that I've always been impressed by people who can create realistic looking artwork. That's why I'm very impressed by Incredible Vehicle Art. I just wish someone would write and tell me what the third photo down is supposed to be -- I can't figure that one out.
Are you smooth? Or are you rich? Here's a funny commercial that shows why it's better to be both.
In the U.S., dalmations are fire department mascots, so they get to ride on firetruck with the firefighters. In Japan, dalmations
ride bicycles. Don't ask me why they do either one.
Have you ever seen a water bridge, transporting one body of water over another body of water? Take a look at this and then you can say that you've seen one.
What did the fanciest Easter egg that you ever created look like? Was it anywhere near as fancy as this one?
Do you remember Sleepless In Seattle, the 1993 horror movie classic starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan? You didn't know it was a horror movie? Sure it was.
How good are your powers of observation? Even though it is right there in front of you, I bet you can't spot
the octopus before it moves, even if you replay the video over and over.
If you use Microsoft Word, you could save yourself a lot of formatting time if you follow the advice in Ten things every Microsoft Word user should know.
I've never tried one, but many people say that Mont Blanc pens are the finest writing instruments in the world. Unfortunately, they cost hundreds, or even thousands of dollars (U.S.) apiece. Fortunately, there's an easy way to use a Mont Blanc Rollerball refill in an inexpensive Pilot pen.
Uncle Dom taught me all about photography when I was 12 years old. I think a good photographer is someone who has "a good eye" for what constitutes a good photograph. While I've always been impressed with the work of really good photographers, I've always been even more impressed by people who can draw or paint realistic-looking pictures. Like photographers, they need to have a good eye, but they also need to be able to manually recreate what they see. That's why I'm really impressed by Amazing 3D Murals.
Here's an article about a couple of commercials that you'll probably never see on TV. One is very clever. The other is just plain creepy.
When you're watching a cross-country car race from the side of a road, there are good places to stand and there are bad places to stand. I'll let you decide which one
this was.
I've mentioned it several times in the past -- the best PC newsletter I've ever found is The LangaList. Along with lots of other useful information, today's issue introduces Fred Langa's newest article, XP's Little-Known 'Rebuild' Command. It could save you countless hours of work if you ever run into a startup problem with Windows XP.
Do you know all of the 10 things that scientists think you should know?
Before my wife and I got Pookie, I thought that cats were aloof and distant. I've since learned that they're very sweet, affectionate, and funny.
Here's another incredible video from Animusic. This one features a robot band.
I remember watching
The Flintstones
when I was a kid, and I even remember baby Pebbles Flintstone shouting "Gape dink! Gape dink!" in commercials for Welch's Grape
Drink. But I had completely forgotten that, in their first season, the Flintstones actually made
commercials for Winston cigarettes,
and the show's closing credits prominently featured a flashing Winston billboard. No wonder so many Baby Boomers grew up to be smokers.
This Journal entry is now a separate article, The Ever-Shrinking Circle, which may be viewed in my Abuse Info section.
If you like using freeware instead of commercial software, you should take a look at I want a Freeware Utility to ... 300+ common problems solved.
I think it's really good advice for sizing up a potential employee, friend, or spouse: If you want to see what a person is really like, watch how they treat the waiter.
Let me make sure I understand this correctly -- He's coming back to do oil changes?
I need to cheer up. Here's some comedy from
Robin Williams and
Kathleen Madigan and
Kevin Pollack.
Incandescent light bulbs -- the type that pass electricity through a metal filament -- are typically only 3-7% efficient. That means that 93-97% of the electricity that they use is turned into wasted heat. Even those bright LED lights used in newer flashlights are only 6-24% efficient. But now U.S. scientists have developed a new type of LED that is 100% efficient -- it turns all of the electricity that it uses into light. Using it could save the world untold billions of dollars worth of electricity every year.
I've mentioned before that many IT people like to feel intellectually superior to their clients by sharing stories about how stupid they are. Personally, I think that showing disdain for your clients is a totally demeaning activity that only serves to foster mistrust and widen the communication gap between them and you. That's why I think the title of Stupid user tricks: Eleven IT horror stories is really inappropriate, but I'm including it here because its stories teach a few good lessons.
Here's a video of a really good "up-close" magician,
Cyril Takayama.
If you enjoy that, here are
several more videos of him.
Years ago, I did my Masters thesis on the topic of creativity training. I created a 30-minute creativity training session based on the principles taught in a famous creativity guru's books, and did an experiment to see if it improved the creativity of college students. It did, and the improvement was statistically significant at the .10 level, but not at the more rigorous .05 level. Still, my results spoke well of those creativity enhancement principles, especially when you consider how short my training session was. Creativity Boosters explains some very similar techniques that could help you improve your level of creativity.
Here's an interesting story about how the very recognizable Citicorp building in New York City was built with a fatal design flaw that could have caused it to completely collapse with no warning. And the flaw wasn't discovered until a year after it was built.
Of the Top 20 Strangest Gadgets and Accessories, the only one that I would even consider owning is the Rat Race Clock.
What's the weirdest thing that you've ever heard of anyone auctioning off on eBay? Was it as weird as the items listed on the Bizarre Bids site?
The person who posted it says it's hilarious, and you may agree. I found it more impressive than funny. Someone did a lot of work to make Titanic: The Sequel look like a real movie promo.
I've never seen the TV show, The Sopranos, but I've heard that it contains a lot of "adult language." Here's a funny skit from
the people at Mad TV, showing what
an episode of the Sopranos
would look like if they edited ouf all of the bad language.
Over the past few years, many governments, companies, and individuals have discovered that they can save a lot of money by replacing the expensive, proprietary Microsoft Office suite with a free, open source office suite like OpenOffice.org. One guy felt that the presentation templates included with the open source office suites were too bland, so he created several fancier templates that anyone can use.
Are you old enough to remember the early days of computing? Here are nine interesting promotional photos from the past that remind us how far the technology has progressed since those days.
It's a reality that those who struggle with being overweight constantly face -- when you get fat, your body creates millions of extra fat cells. Even when you lose weight and "empty them," they're still there, waiting to be refilled again. Liposuction physically removes those extra fat cells, but it is a very costly and very dangerous surgical procedure. Now scientists are working on a way to use a laser beam to non-invasively melt fat cells under the skin, allowing the body to flush them out. If they are successful, the technique could also be used to treat acne and heart disease.
Christian Finnigan has some really funny things to say about playing Monopoly and dealing with friends.
Last night, my wife and I went to the Gulf Coast to watch the sunset. As we sat in our folding chairs, we saw two colorful kites flying over the beach, a few hundred feet from us. Over time, one of the kites slowly drifted out over the water. My wife noticed that it also started flying lower and lower. When it was about 30 feet above the water, she commented that whoever was flying it had better be careful or they'll lose it in the water. A minute later, it was only about 15 feet above the water, and it had drifted about a quarter of a mile out from the beach. We were impressed that the kite flyer had enough string to control it from so far away. Then it drifted even further out, still about 15 feet above the ocean. Within a minute, it was more than a half-mile away. That's when we realized that something was wrong -- no one has that much kite string. The kite string had broken, and its weight and friction in the water were keeping the kite in the air. Over the next several minutes, it stayed at the same height, but it drifted further and further away. We kept watching until it was a single "pixel" close to the horizon. Then it was such a tiny dot that we had to constantly move our eyes in order to keep it from disappearing. Then it was gone, on its way to Mexico.
The whole experience left with an overwhelming feeling of sadness. I didn't understand why until I realized that it reminded
me of
losing my brother.
I've spent quite a lot of time figuring out how to customize Tell A Friend, to have it display a "Thank You" confirmation page that provides a hyperlink back to the page that was recommended. I also spent a lot of time getting Tell A Friend to have the same overall layout, header, navigation column, and footer as the rest of my Web pages. I got it to work (mostly), but I think I've figured out that I've been doing it incorrectly, and I think I've figured out how to do it correctly. My brain is fried right now, so I'm going to take my dogs out for a walk and clear my head before I jump back into working on the problem again. Wish me luck. UPDATE: I got Tell A Friend to look and work exactly the way I want! Give it a try -- it's fun!
For truly hardcore geeks, The Definitive How-To Guide: Unattended Windows tells how to create a CD that will automatically install Windows your product key, specific settings, and all your favourite applications along with DirectX 9.0c, .Net Framework 1.1 and then all the required hotfixes, updated drivers, registry tweaks, and a readily patched UXTheme.dll. It looks like a lot of work, but if you do a lot of Windows installs, it could save you a lot of work and time.
A couple of years ago, I bought a bottle of Gorilla Glue, which claims to be "The Toughest Glue On Planet Earth." It turns out that it's not.
A man in Malaysia recently received a $218 trillion telephone bill. My favorite part of the story is the line that says, "It wasn't clear whether the bill was a mistake..."
Can you tell which of the images of rooms on
Maxwell Interiors- Day And Night, Benjamin Brosdau
are computer generated and which ones are digital photographs of real rooms? Incredibly, they're all computer generated.
Last night, I added a new feature to this site, to let you easily recommend any of my Web pages to a friend. When you're on a page that you want to recommend, just click on the Tell A Friend About This Page icon in the left navigation column, and fill out the short form that appears. When you submit that form, you will see a confirmation page, so you'll know that your recommendation was sent. Your friend will receive a short email message from you, recommending the page and giving them a hyperlink directly to it. And I will receive a copy of that message, so I'll know which of my pages are being recommended, and so I can take action if a spammer finds a way to use the feature to send spam messages. Share the joy!
Tell A Friend About This Page uses the popular PHP Tell A Friend script. I customized it to make it more spam-resistant, by replacing its user-inputted "Your Comments" form field with a static, non-editable recommendation message.
A few years ago, I completely redesigned this site, replacing its table-based layouts with CSS, XHTML, and structural markup. I learned why and how to make those changes by reading Jeffrey Zeldman's excellent book, Designing With Web Standards. Now ESPN has made those same changes, and in a very informative interview, their Associate Art Director estimates that one result is that they will save about 730 terabytes of bandwidth per year.
If you're looking for some simple ways to dress up your Web site's text, read Text Tricks In CSS.
Your Web site would be more popular if you followed the advice in Top Ten Tips On Creating A Successful Website.
That's enough Web site work for today. Let's have some comedy! Here are
Mr. Bean and
John Pinette.
If you're looking for ideas on topics to write about on your Web site, Top Ten Tips Topics has some good ideas for the types of things that people like to read.
A Chinese man recently tried to sell his soul on a popular Chinese auction site. I'm guessing that nowdays, many people's souls could be auctioned off pretty cheaply. But, if you were the winning bidder, how would you collect your merchandise? And what could you do with it?
An Ohio chiropractor is in trouble with the law for claiming that he can "treat anyone by reaching back in time to when an injury occurred." If I were one of those law enforcement officials, I'd think twice before making any trouble for a guy who could go back in time and give me back trouble.
Here is a video of a whole bunch of Japanese Rube Goldberg machines that are designed to display a small sign. If you play this video for your kids, I guarantee that they'll start singing along with its oft-repeated jingle, "Ee tah conah sue ee-chee," which I can only assume means, "There goes another 10 seconds of your life that you'll never get back."
You may not recognize the name of the artist,
M.C. Escher,
but I bet you've seen some of his
unique works,
which are often realistic depictions of scenes that couldn't possibly exist in reality. Car maker, Audi, has a
fascinating commercial
that depicts a car driving through some very Escher-like scenes. See if you can pick out all of its optical illusions.
It's Comedian Sunday at ComputerBob.com. Last night, I spent about 6 hours "auditioning" hundreds of comedians at youtube.com, looking for the best ones to show you today, and in the future. So sit back, turn up your speakers, and relax while you watch about 50 minutes of funny stuff.
I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.
Does anyone break dance any more? Call me old, but I've never done it. Here's an old video of some break dancers doing things that I wouldn't do, even if I could. Yeah, I must be old.
Here's a video of late comedian Mitch Hedberg appearing on TV.
Yesterday, I said that the best television commercials contain humor and an unexpected "plot twist." Here's a perfect example.
I wish jugglers would stop trying to be comedians. This guy's off-color joke is lame and predictable, but his
musical juggling
is astounding.
If you register to be a member of my forums, you'll encounter something called a captcha -- a test that forces you to read and then input a series of oddly shaped, randomly generated letters and numbers, to prove that you're a human being. Millions of Web sites use captchas to prevent automated software robots (spam-bots) from registering and posting spam messages in forums and blogs. Unfortunately, there are a few problems with using a captcha. For one thing, they make it more difficult for normal people to register. In addition, optical character recognition software is making it increasingly possible for spam-bots to pass captcha tests. One possible solution is for sites to use the kitten test.
Yesterday,
I mentioned that there are "... For Dummies" books on just about every subject. But I bet you can think of a few subjects that
don't have their own books yet. Now there's an interactive site that lets you
create your own
hilarious "... For Dummies" book covers. Click on the image in this Journal entry to see the one that I created. Amaze your
friends! Embarass your enemies! Amaze your enemies! Embarass your friends! Make your parents proud! Save hundreds of dollars! Do it
yourself! NOTE: Due to a huge surge in traffic, that site may be temporarily unavailable. If you get an
error message, please try again later.
What will they think of next? The Japanese have invented clear, interactive LCD touch screen panels that can be used separately or in groups. Watch the video and you'll see what I'm saying, then see if you can describe the amazing new technology to someone else.
Television commercials are usually boring or stupid. That's why so many people channel surf when commercials come on, or use Tivo
to "zap" commercials out of recorded programs. On the other hand, people tune in by the millions to watch TV shows that show
nothing but the world's best commercials. The obvious lesson to advertisers is that people avoid bad commercials, but
they love to watch good ones. Nearly all of the best and most memorable commercials contain humor and an unexpected "plot
twist." Here's
a memorable Pepsi commercial
that blatantly makes fun of Pepsi's biggest competitor, while showing that Pepsi is more "valuable."
Think about it: isn't the term, "self-help book" an oxymoron? Nowdays, you can find self-help books on just about any subject. I was surprised the first time I saw Divorce For Dummies. Yeah, why hire an experienced attorney to get you the very best possible settlement when you can trust a $20 paperback book that calls you a dummy? I've even seen Unix Server Administration For Dummies. It's an extremely large print book (one letter per page), and contains just one paragraph: "Do you have any idea how complicated a job it is to administer a Unix server? Do you know how much damage you can cause, and how many millions of dollars you can cost your company if you mess up its Unix server? If you're a dummy, you have absolutely no business trying to administer a Unix server. Try doing something easier, like brain surgery." Personally, I'm looking forward to skimming the second edition of "Brain Surgery For Dummies." I heard they forgot to put some important stuff in the first edition. Speaking of surgery for dummies, here's a site that says you can save big bucks by performing your own lasik eye surgery. I really like the illustration that says, "Don't blink!" as wisps of smoke drift up from the guy's lasered eyeball.
If you've ever seen anyone fold paper into the shape of birds, you know that the art of origami can be very beautiful. Here's a site that displays some amazingly intricate origami sculptures of animals, dinosaurs, people, insects, and more. Be sure to explore all of the choices in the left menu.
The heat pump at my house didn't do a very good job heating the place this past Winter, and a few days ago, it was running constantly, trying to keep the house at 75 degrees (F) when the outside temperature was just 78 degrees. Two mornings ago, I noticed that there was hardly any air coming out of the vents, so I went out to look at the heat pump compressor. Its internal parts were covered with ice almost 2 inches thick. I climbed up into our garage attic and discovered that the heater/air conditioner coil was completely iced up, too. That's what was blocking the flow of air to the vents. I did some research on the Web and learned that the icing was probably caused by a leak in the system that had caused a loss of some refrigerant, which was causing the compressor to overwork like crazy. When the repair man arrived, he suspected that there was a leak in the coil, up in the garage attic, so he climbed up there with his expensive leak sniffer. I was glad that he didn't find any leaks up there, because it would have cost nearly $1000 (U.S.D) to have him install a new coil. Then he checked the outside compressor unit, but he couldn't find any leaks there, either. Finally, he said, "Well, the only other place that could possibly be leaking would be here --" As he said that, he pointed his sensor at the connections where they add refrigerant to the system, and his leak sniffer started screaming like a geiger counter at Chernobyl. It turned out that the reason our electric bills have gone up and up for the past year, and the reason that our house was cool all last Winter and warm all last Summer, was because the guy who "fixed" the heat pump's inability to heat the house 15 months ago didn't bother to even finger-tighten the two threaded brass caps that seal the compressor's refrigerant connectors, so 1/3 of the system's refrigerant had leaked out. Less than an hour after the current repair man had fixed the problem and added the missing refrigerant, the temperature inside our house had already dropped to 69 degrees, with the outside temperature at 78 degrees. We normally keep it at 74 or 75, but I had set it lower, just to test the system. This may be the first time that our heat pump is working properly since we bought our dream home two years ago, and I think our electric bills are going to be significantly lower from now on.
His guitar is a little out of tune, its intonation is a little off, and he mutes a note here and there, but this guy still does a pretty mean version of The Simpsons theme song on his guitar.
Recycling is usually a good thing, but those of us who know a little about music have long suspected that most of the new songs
in the past decade have recycled the same musical themes and styles over and over. Here's a site that makes that point by playing
two Nickelback songs at the same time;
the one coming out of your left speaker is from 2001 and the one on the right is from 2003. The two songs are exactly the same
length, in the same key, with the same chords, the same drum parts, the same chorus, and the same dynamic contrasts in the same
places. I sure hope Nickelback didn't get paid for both of those songs.
Microsoft has finally admitted what many of us have known for a few years: that when a computer is infected with malware, it might be more practical and effective to blow away Windows and reinstall it from scratch, instead of trying to remove the malware. Now if they would just admit that it might be even more practical and effective to switch from Windows to MacOS or Linux.
A Connecticut professor predicts that time travel may be proven possible within the next ten years. Don't believe him -- his time travel theories are laughably wrong. The mysteries of time travel will finally be revealed as the result of a short circuit in a cold fusion flux capacitor in Turnersville, New Jersey, on December 7, 2045. It will take scientists another 25 years after that to figure out how to safely send people through time. On May 3, 2070, they send one incredibly handsome and intelligent man back to live in this current era, to punish him for resisting assimilation. He gets his revenge by killing their grandparents, thus preventing them from ever existing. And he also publishes his own Web site.
Some people are so talented that they can create fascinating artwork out of just about anything, even some sand on a back-lit table.
Here's a funny commercial that teaches us to drive a Chevy Impala as our crime-spree getaway car, so the police will enjoy chasing us.
The next time you get angry at your malfunctioning office copy machine, take a deep breath and remember
this commercial.
For the past several years, I used the free online Web site search tool from Atomz.com to allow visitors to search this site. It was powerful and worked really well. I was disappointed a couple of years ago, when Atomz began adding advertisements to its search results page. That made me want to find and install a good free search engine right onto my site. Unfortunately, most of the best free search engines that I found were feature-restricted, to try to entice me into purchasing their commercial versions. Yesterday, I finally found, installed, and configured Sphider, a lightweight web spider and search engine written in PHP, using MySQL as its back end database. It took me awhile to install and configure it, and it took even longer to manually create a new template for it, to make its search results page look like the rest of my site, but it was worth it. From now on, when you use the search box in the left navigation column of my pages, Sphider will be doing the searching for you. Go ahead, give it a try; it's really fast and it works really well.
The popular 1970 song said, "War! Huh! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!" Ironically, it turns out that some things that were originally created for war duty wound up improving our daily lives.
Here's one you probably saw coming. A woman had been totally blind since she lost her eyes in a car accident 15 years ago. Now she can see light and shapes through a special camera and computer that are wired directly into her brain.
Don't ever play billiards for money against a guy who can play like this.
When I tell people that my wife and I have two dogs and two cats, they usually ask, "Do they all get along with each other?" Yes, they all love each other like brothers and sisters, and in fact, they all sleep with us on our king-size bed every night. If you think that's unusual, take a look at a cat and a rooster who are best friends.
If you've seen one of these short videos in-between television shows on the PBS television network, you remember it. Each one
is an incredible blend of precision 3D animation, music, musical instrument engineering, and creative whimsy. Do yourself a favor
and watch
Animusic-Pipe Dream.
I guarantee you'll want to show it to your friends.
If you're looking to save some money on groceries, follow the good advice in 5 Simple Tips To Cut Your Grocery Bill In Half.
You know your fellow office workers love you when they fill your car with 3,000 golf balls.
The marketing message is clear -- if they can make an impressive, precision video out of automobile parts, then of course they can make an impressive, precision automobile out of those same parts. Of course.
I saw it several weeks ago with a different name, but it's still fun to try to master this little object-avoidance game. Just drag the red box around to avoid the other objects, and without hitting the walls. See if you can last more than a few seconds.
If you missed seeing it last night, here's the trailer for the upcoming Simpsons movie.
Fans of the NBC TV series, The Office, saw a couple of the cast's funny public service announcements during the
show's commercial breaks last week. They actually made
16 of those funny spots.
Every once in awhile, I find a good article about Linux, the family of open source operating systems that many people use instead of Microsoft Windows. Anyone who has taken a look at Linux knows that there are hundreds of brands (distributions) of Linux, making it hard to choose which one(s) to try. Overview Of The Ten Major Linux Distributions might make that choice a little easier for Linux beginners.
The BBC's Senses Challenge will ask you 20 timed questions, to determine how much (or how little) you know about the five senses of the human body. Give it a try -- it's a lot more fun and interesting than it sounds.
According to a new study, "Cockroaches govern themselves in a very simple democracy where each insect has equal standing and group consultations precede decisions that affect the entire group..." It sounds like cockroaches are more socially advanced than most countries. Ironically, if the countries of the world destroy each other in a nuclear holocaust, cockroaches will be some of the few remaining signs of life on this planet. I, for one, will welcome our new insect overlords.
How many puppies does it take to not be afraid of one cat? Apparently, more than seven. Speaking of cats, here's a funny old commercial that uses the memorable metaphor of herding cats to make its point.
You saw it on the Saturday Night Live rerun last night. It's the hilarious
Taco Town Commercial.
The BBC did a survey, asking their site's visitors to name the best 50 Things To Eat Before You Die. Most of those foods sound pretty good, but I can personally vouch for the fact that number 42 smells like really stinky socks. Number 48 sounds like something they make people eat on the TV show, Fear Factor. And number 19 -- no matter how good a cup of tea tastes, it's never going to be on my list of 50 top things to eat before I die.
According to its description, Global Desktop is a totally FREE webcam portal and combines several LIVE images from Webcams all over the World in a one page view! Unlike other portals with many dead links I manage the site on a daily base to keep the webcams up.
I've often thought that one reason that celebrities are famous is because they each have a unique (or even strange) look. That's what makes it so easy to identify most of them, even in photos of when they were kids.
I laughed out loud when I watched these videos of robots named
King Kizer and
Layered-X.