Well, there’s no proof it’ll take out Skype, but they’re still open to things like centrally-managed and policy-based rules for it.
Get GizmoProject here
But I had to download this version for it to work.
Posted on July 30th 2006 in Hardware
For Monkeypants,
Here’s the link for the heptagajillion different themes.
Posted on July 19th 2006 in Hardware
Via the cool and wonderfully mind-expanding We-Make-Money-Not-Art, where I go almost every day.
Animatronic Taxidermy
“Poekie, battery operated.”
You heard me. You probably also heard me go “BLEEAIGH!” when I thought about it for a minute.
From the site (WMMNA) ’cause I think they summed it up best:
Because taxidermy can never be too creepy, Dutch (and super talented) designer Erik Klarenbeek has created Poekie. The battery-operated stuffed cat is fitted with a mechanism that re-creates the animal’s breathing and purring.
This article about Valerio Spolentini’s project, called V-Scratch talks about this university student’s simple idea for video/audio scratching using a very simple layout.
A turntable with a record on it (any record with a paper label in the center, I assume).
A laptop (for the audio/video sources).
An audio mixer (but I’m not sure you’d REALLY need this)
Speakers
LCD projector (if you’re doing video)
and here’s the kicker:
an optical mouse attached to the turntable in such a way that it “sees” the record turning underneath it
The only other setup I’ve seen before now that did anything even close to this was FinalScratch by NativeInstruments, using specially crafted timecode-producing records.
I can’t wait until the HackADay people get ahold of this, and figure out how to do it, or even better: the guy either makes this an open-source project, or sells it direct to users, ’cause I’d flip him $50 for the software, if it works for mp3s and mixing.
Looks like BlueSecurity is making enough of a dent in spam (or at least is annoying enough to the spammer community) that the spammers are attempting to strike back. I’ve been using BlueFrog, which automatically reports spammers who fail to comply with the Do Not Intrude registry, for a few months, and today, for the first time, I received about eight anti-BlueSecurity spams on my work account, all claiming that I would receive many more of these unless I removed myself from the registry immediately.
I’ve reported them as spam, of course, so we’ll see what happens.
As of right now, it appears that BlueSecurity.com is not responding, which means one of two things, I suspect:
1) The spammers, having given up on spamming addresses in the DNI, have started DOSing the BlueSecurity site.
or
2) Someone posted this information to SlashDot before I did.
Still: What’s really sad is that someone, somewhere, is going to buy a sexual enhancement pill tonight because they got a spam. (Don’t get me started on why you’d do this).
Yamipod is Yet Another Manager for your iPod. I’ve seen a few managers out there, but this one seems to have it all, and it’s portable, so you can actually copy it onto your iPod itself. Available for Windows, OSX, and Linux.
I thought, “Yeah, right,” and downloaded the app to see what was what. It’s 12MB, so that’s not too huge. Opened it up without the ‘pod plugged in, and it told me to plug in my unit (hehe… he said “unit”).
…and it worked…
Just loaded up my library, and away it went.
There’s a column for Artist, one for Album, and a third for Playlists. Under that, the “raw” contents of my iPod, with the Title, Album, Artist, Length, Bitrate, Lyrics (?), Track#, and Size listed and sortable.
Oh, and it plays tracks too.
Now, I’ve got iTunes installed on this deck, but don’t know if that’s necessary or not. I’ll have to try it elsewhere, and see what happens.
Play tracks? Sure, with the built-in player. Aparently, yeah.
Copy tracks to the iPod? Yep. While playing audio? Uh-huh. Copy tracks OFF the iPod? That too. Synchronize your iPod with a directory somewhere (maybe called something crazy like, oh, I dunno “iPodBackup”)? Booya.
Here’s where it starts getting crazy: Download podcasts via RSS? Create/remove/edit your playlists? Submit those played tracks to Last.FM? Automatically remove duplicates? Yes!
Export yo-…
Never mind, just go get it, and flip the guy some Paypal bucks or something. This a beautiful piece of programming, (maybe the GUI could be a little prettier), and the ONE PERSON who wrote it deserves some kudo$.
Via Downloadsquad, which has interesting stuff every day I check it.
Remember that thing where you could move the fridge letters around? Kinda like that, I suspect, but I haven’t seen it in action much yet, ’cause I’ve gotta get going to work now, instead of having an argument with Ripley about whether or not his miniwheats can be “dipped” in his cup of water…
Can today at work please just be moderately normal? Yesterday (and most of last week) was outta control…
Battlefield 2142 has been announced. < - Click for trailer. Yes, it's cool. Yes, I've played it. No, you can't. (yet) Official announcement can be found here.
FlOw is a very mellow and relaxed sort of “eat what’s smaller than you” kinda game, and even though I generally hate these sorts of games, I found this one really soothing and sort of hypnotic.
Takes about 30 seconds to figure out what’s going on (holding down the mouse button makes you move faster), and about 15-20 minutes to play through to the bottom (no, there’s no giant boss at the end), and I’m told by a friend there’s something very similar for Nintendo DS, but hey.
Free’s good, and so’s pretty… Headphones/speakers add to the effect (and could just about put you to sleep).
