RockBox: Open source firmware for your ipod and other mp3 player

I'm gonna try this out. I hope it doesn't kill my ipod. :)

Rockbox . Main . IpodFAQ: "



This FAQ covers questions about the work-in-progress port of Rockbox to the iPod.

"

(Via .)

ooooo! coming SOON!

Justice League Heroes developer, roster announced:

"

For those wondering what Snowblind Studios has been up to, let Justice be served! The Baldur's Gate: Dark
Alliance and Champions of Norrath developer has been identified as the architect behind Justice
League Heroes, an action-RPG due out this fall for Xbox, PS2, and PSP.

Warner Bros. Interactive also
confirmed the official roster of playable characters and said there would be more to unlock. Maybe we'll get to see
Green Arrow, Black Canary, and Hawkwoman in action. Justice for all!

(Via Joystiq.)

Friendster lost steam. Is MySpace just a fad?

This essay had so much good insight into the MySpace phenomenon, that I couldn't just paste any old thing. There are TONS of good things I could've pasted. So, I just grabbed the first paragraph or so. Go read it. The long shot is that MySpace is successful because it's hands-off, user-driven, and amiable. Good stuff. Go read.

Friendster lost steam. Is MySpace just a fad?: "

Friendster lost steam. Is MySpace just a fad?



danah boyd

March 21, 2006



[Note: this is an essay that would've been a blog post but it got too long.]


A lot of folks have asked me 'What went wrong with Friendster? Why is MySpace any different?' I guess i never directly answered that question, even though i've addressed the causes in other talks. Still, i guess it would be helpful to piece some of it together and directly attend to this question.

There is no single answer, but there are a lot of factors that must be considered. To an outsider, Friendster and MySpace seem identical. But they are far from that. They are rooted in different cultural practices and values. People use them differently and they relate to them differently. If you want to understand the differences, you need to understand the history, the decisions that were made, and how these decisions affected practice. Let me address some of the most critical components.
"

(Via .)

V FOR VENDETTA

Might be worth a watch, after all.

V FOR VENDETTA:

"Just back from V FOR VENDETTA. More thumbs up than a Chernobyl pianist. Superb. Splendid. Heartening. Go see.

'There are people who are going to hate this movie; people who don’t like to think, the brain dead, the fools. Referencing the still unseen film, one member of a politically minded film forum was quick to declare: ‘You can’t make a movie about a terrorist now without endorsing bin Laden’. It’s that mindset, which has become so ingrained in all of us since 9/11, that makes V for Vendetta so unsettling. At times it almost feels like you’re watching something forbidden, like you’re seeing something you shouldn’t be allowed to see. It’s shocking that a movie like this, especially in these times, ever actually got made. It’s even more unbelievable that it was made by a major Hollywood studio. It’s fun to accuse Hollywood of liberal activism, but you don’t expect this kind of real filmmaking bravery from corporate America or a company like Warner Bros. It’s a purposefully uncomfortable film, one that will affect different people differently depending on what you bring in with you.'
--Joshua Tyler, CINEMA BLEND"

(Via Gibson Blog.)

netnewswire power user tips

inessential.com: Weblog: 2006-03-19:

Here are some things you may not know about NetNewsWire... These apply to 2.0 and 2.0.1, even, not just the public beta.
(I like to write this kind of post now and again because I find, based on the questions we get, that there are things you may not know but that could be helpful.)

Looks good here. Lots of good info on NNW.

Wired News:

Wired News::

"      




The Ghost of Gaming Rip-Offs Past

 alt.text
I recently visited the Musee Mechanique in San Francisco. The Musee is a collection of coin-operated mechanical novelties that people considered fun back before entertainment was invented.
Walking past the impressive collection of wrinkled mechanical gypsy fortunetellers and cavorting wooden barbershop quartets, I had a sudden feeling of familiarity"

(Via Wired.)

zoocam!? coolcam!

When you can't get to the zoo, watch a Zoocam:

"

Sheri Reed, editor of Mamazine, has a rainy day zoo tip:

My 3-year old is obsessed with animals and the zoo, so when we can't get out to see either, he's happy to watch the live Zoocams at the San Diego Zoo or the Smithsonian National Zoological Park. San Diego also has great streaming videos of all the animals, including lots of baby animal footage, and some fun animal games too.

(Via Parent Hacks.)

Duct tape watch

Duck tape! Watch! Cool!

Duct tape watch: "

FractalSpin's stuff has been showcased here before, and I can personally vouch for their friendly, speedy delivery. I am, therefore, particularly happy to plug the new and lovely duct tape watch:

(Via Wonderland.)

GameSpy: The Nintendo DS Lite

Man, I am a sucker for this kind of thing. With the original DS going for $110 (used) here in Anchorage, I may have to get one of these babies. With the DS Lite, it looks like the screen is better and the size is smaller-ish. And it will play all the GBA games we have. Man, I'm so in trouble. I KNOW I have a PSP, and it's great as a media device and as a game platform, but I hate having to pay so much for new games. And I am sad about the lack of simple games for my kids. I'll never let go of my PSP (until they make a better version), but I may want to upgrade the GBAs in our house to a DS or Lite.

GameSpy: The Nintendo DS Lite:

"The first thing that struck me about the system is that now it looks more like an Apple product, and less like a clunky plastic toy. The choice of white color and the clear plastic casing that surrounds the entire machine is very reminiscent of Apple's iPod gadgets; which perhaps was the impetus at some level. The DS Lite isn't that much smaller than the regular DS, but it is thinner and sleeker, making it the more obvious choice for fitting in gamer's pockets over the original model. (We're still waiting on Nintendo to officially release final size specifications.) "

Galactica Returns In Fall

Sci Fi Wire -- The News Service of the Sci Fi Channel: "

SCI FI Channel announced that its hit original series Battlestar Galactica will return in October with a full 20-episode third season. Production on the third season begins in Vancouver, Canada, in April.

Battlestar Galactica returns in its 10 p.m. ET/PT Friday timeslot and brings back the ensemble cast, which includes Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell, Katee Sackhoff, Jamie Bamber, James Callis, Tricia Helfer and Grace Park. As previously announced, Lucy Lawless will also join the cast for a 10-episode arc, reprising her role as D'Anna Biers, a Cylon."

Getting started with Quicksilver: understanding the basics

Getting started with Quicksilver: understanding the basics: "/>

Prompted by a TUAW reader comment on my post the other day about some href="http://www.tuaw.com/2006/03/08/quicksilver-basics-shake-hands-with-your-preferences/#c1270456">Quicksilver
fundamentals, I thought I would take a crack at posting some short tutorials on what Quicksilver actually does, and
how to get started with it. I'm talking about the most basic of the basics here for anyone who is curious but still
confused as to what the heck they're looking at the first time they launch Quicksilver. To anyone who can't make heads
or tails of it: I don't blame you. It took me quite a while to wrap my head around all this stuff, so I hope I can do
you some justice with this post.

Disclaimer - I use a somewhat modified version of Quicksilver and I've
added a lot of extras, but for this demo I *think* I've properly fixed my copy to look like a default Quicksilver
install.

(Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW).)

Atkins Alcohol Carb Chart - Low Carb

Ok, then. Vodka and Whiskey shots all around. And, to get REALLY wacky and indulgent: a dry martini.

:)

Atkins Alcohol Carb Chart - Low Carb: "

The carb counts given here are effective carb counts, with the fiber removed. All amounts here are for a 1oz shot, except as indicated.



Armagnac - 0g

Beer (12oz) - 12.5g

Bourbon - 0g

Brandy - 0g

Cognac - 0g

Gin - 0g

Rum - 0g

Rum, Malibu - 5.1g

Tequila - 0g

Vermouth, Dry - 1.4g

Vermouth, Sweet - 4.5g

Vodka - 0g

Whiskey - 0g

Wine, Red (4oz) - 2.0g

Wine, White (4oz) - 0.9g

Note that there are of course mixed drinks that involve fruit juices, sugars, and other sweet concoctions. If you start mixing in sodas or juices for a cocktail, you're racking up the carbs very quickly. Use a diet soda whenever possible!"<

/p>

(Via .)

Is It True What They Say About Decaf?

Is It True What They Say About Decaf?:

"Most people who drink decaffeinated coffee do so because it doesn't make them jittery or keep them awake. But some believe it%u2019s better for them than regular coffee -- even though coffee has been cleared of nearly all health charges, and may actually be beneficial. Is decaf somehow healthier than regular coffee? Or does the decaffeination process itself represent a health risk? On the other hand, many Americans are drinking tea because they've heard how healthy it is. If they drink decaf tea, they may wonder, do they get the health benefits? Here are answers to these and other questions."

(Via .)

Prairie Games, Inc - Home

This has many features I like: Cross platform, a one time (not monthly) fee, and MMORPG goodness:

Prairie Games, Inc - Home:

"Minions of Mirth now available for Windows and OSX!!


 
'What we don't get to see nearly as often is anything about releases that might break or at least bend the proverbial mold.  Prairie Games' Minions of Mirth is one such endeavor.' - IGN.com



'This is something of a masterpiece of a game' - GameTunnel.com



'The sheer amount of content is enough to keep you busy for hours.' - Inside Mac Games



'The most unique, incredible part of this game is the amount of freedom that has been offered to the players' - GameP"

(Via Inside Mac Games.)

I am such a bad parent

Vegan Lunch Box: "
Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Corn Dog



A brilliant woman named Lisa emailed me after seeing my recipe for vegan Twinkies, and suggested I use my new Twinkie pan to bake vegan corn dogs (didn't I tell you the woman is brilliant?).
I used the easy corn bread recipe posted ..."

(Via Parent hacks.)

TUTORIAL: How to play backups w/o mod chip, only Max Drive Pro Memcard

TUTORIAL: How to play backups w/o mod chip, only Max Drive Pro Memcard: "
START
```````````````````````````

OK. I have received the Max Drive Pro in the mail today (about time) and am pleased to say it works FLAWLESSLY!
"

(Via Digg.)

Excellent article by David Brin, a favorite author of mine, on elitism vs poulism in science fiction.

Salon Arts & Entertainment | "Star Wars" despots vs. "Star Trek" populists:

"Comics treat their superheroes with reverent awe, as demigods were depicted in the Iliad. But a true science fiction author who wrote about Superman would have earthling scientists ask the handsome Man of Steel for blood samples (even if it means scraping with a super fingernail) in order to study his puissant powers, and maybe bottle them for everyone.


As for the literary elite, postmodernists despise science fiction because of the word "science," while their older colleagues -- steeped in Aristotle's "Poetics" -- find anathema the underlying assumption behind most high-quality SF: the bold assertion that there are no "eternal human verities." Things change, and change can be fascinating. Moreover, our children might outgrow us! They may become better, or learn from our mistakes and not repeat them. And if they don't learn, that could be a riveting tragedy far exceeding Aristotle's cramped and myopic definition. "On the Beach," "Soylent Green" and "1984" plumbed frightening depths. "Brave New World," "The Screwfly Solution" and "Fahrenheit 451" posed worrying questions. In contrast, "Oedipus Rex" is about as interesting as watching a hooked fish thrash futilely at the end of a line. You just want to put the poor doomed King of Thebes out of his misery -- and find a way to punish his tormentors."

(Via Salon.)

Abortion Now Criminal In South Dakota, More On The Way

More fear. I may need to move to Canada.

Abortion Now Criminal In South Dakota, More On The Way: "

A US state has signed into law a bill banning most abortions, in a move aimed to force the US Supreme Court to reconsider its key ruling on the issue.

The South Dakota law - approved by the governor on Monday - makes it a crime for doctors to perform terminations.

Exceptions will be made if a woman’s life is at risk, but not in cases of rape or incest.

Many believe new appointments to the Supreme Court may have tipped the balance in favour of anti-abortionists. The supporters of the South Dakota law say they want to trigger a battle over the 1973 Roe-versus-Wade ruling, in which the US Supreme Court established that governments lacked the power to prohibit abortions.

Under the law signed by South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds, doctors could get up to five years in prison and a $5,000 (£2,800) fine for performing an illegal abortion.

State proposals to ban abortion are before legislatures in Mississippi, Georgia, Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee.

(My American readers may want to check in with our friends at Planned Parenthood.)

"

I heard about this on the radio, and they said that Planned Parenthood would be leading the counter suit to make them take the law back. Crap, the world is ending.

(Via Warrenellis.com.)

Missouri May Make Christianity Its Official Religion

This just fucking scares me.

Missouri May Make Christianity Its Official Religion: "

Missouri legislators in Jefferson City considered a bill that would name Christianity the state’s official ‘majority’ religion.

House Concurrent Resolution 13 has is pending in the state legislature. Many Missouri residents had not heard about the bill until Thursday.

The resolution would recognize ‘a Christian god,’ and it would not protect minority religions, but ‘protect the majority’s right to express their religious beliefs.

The resolution also recognizes that, ‘a greater power exists,’ and only Christianity receives what the resolution calls, ‘justified recognition…’

"

(Via Warrenellis.com.)

TV not so bad after all?

TV not so bad after all?:

"As reported in yesterday's New York Times, a new study by two University of Chicago economists finds TV-watching to have little or no effect on kids' future academic test scores. The study says nothing about TV's effects on their behavior, attention or lack of physical activity, but academics doesn't seem to be a problem.

(Via Parent Hacks.)

TiVo KidZone

I'm really not one for censorship, but after my wife found my kids watching Drawn Together, a wholly wrong and hilarious adult oriented cartoon, i'm all for tivo's new parental controls. i'll have to see if it locks them out of things I want them to watch, or lets them see stuff i don't want them to see, but it's a positive step.

TiVo KidZone: "

TiVo has announced a new parental control feature called KidZone, standard for those with TiVo Series2 recorders starting June 2006. KidZone will do two things: it will simplify selecting family-friendly shows for kids to watch, and it will password lock all non-KidZone programming, so kids can't watch non-approved shows. GearLive has more detail about KidZone, and Thomas Hawk has plenty to say about it as well.

DirecTV/TiVo users (of which there are over 2 million, one of them being me) are out of luck; KidZone won't be available on DirecTV boxes.

(Via Parent Hacks.)

The Silent Universe Podcast

The Silent Universe Podcast



Supposed to be good stuff in here. *I'm* subscribing, how 'bout you?

join the party party

join the party party Go see this DJ Rx guy. He's got a whole album of mashup tunes, with George W. Bush singing vocals (from samples and speeches) It's great, especially the track: Imagine.

Boing Boing: RIP, Octavia Butler, "genius" science fiction writer

Boing Boing: RIP, Octavia Butler, "genius" science fiction writer: "

Octavia Butler, the brilliant science fiction writer, reportedly died on Saturday following a fall that was followed by fatal bleeding in her skull gave her a fatal concussion. Butler was the incredible writer who was the first genre author to win the MacArthur Foundation's 'Genius' grant. She was the first prominent African-American woman in the field, and her novels and short stories were an inspiration to a generation of writers of all backgrounds and both sexes (I was ready to give up writing after a five-year bout of writers' block in my mid-twenties when I read the introduction to her short story collection in which she recounted her own block and decided to keep trying). I recently reviewed her wonderful novel Fledgling here, a vampire book that, like all of Butler's work, was a disturbing, light-touch allegory about race and sex politics skinned with a fast-moving, heart-wrenching storyline.

"

(Via BoingBoing.)

Octavia Butler is DEAD?!!

My god. what a terrible thing.

Transcript: Octavia Butler's conversation with Delany at MIT: "Cory Doctorow:
Henry Jenkins of MIT's Comparative Media Studies program has posted a bunch of Octavia Butler related material in Ms Butler's memory. Octavia Butler was the first widely read African American woman science fiction writer, and her works wrapped up complex treatments of gender and race in palatable, fast-paced sf stories. She died on Saturday following a fall, leaving many of us shocked and saddened for the loss of one of literature's strongest, bravest, most inspiring voices.

Jenkins has posted the transcript of two of Butler's appearances at MIT, one a solo act, the other a conversation with novelist Samuel Delany, as well as a sharp essay Jenkins wrote following her visit.

Butler: I don't have access to this kind of thing on computer but, oddly enough, what you're talking about sounds very much like the way I start looking for ideas when I'm not working on anything. Or when I'm just letting myself drift, relax.

I generally have four or five books open around the house--I live alone; I can do this--and they are not books on the same subject. They don't relate to each other in any particular way, and the ideas they present bounce off one another. And I like this effect. I also listen to audio-books, and I'll go out for my morning walk with tapes from two very different audio-books, and let those ideas bounce off each other, simmer, reproduce in some odd way, so that I come up with ideas that I might not have come up with if I had simply stuck to one book until I was done with it and then gone and picked up another.

So, I guess, in that way, I'm using a kind of primitive hypertext.

Link

(Thanks, Henry!)

"

(Via Boing Boing.)

The Reverse Cowgirl

About fucking time, too.

One of the best blogs evar...

The Reverse Cowgirl: ""

(Via .)

Voices: New Media Fiction, Edited by Mur Lafferty

Voices: New Media Fiction, Edited by Mur Lafferty:

"

Since podcasting began, writers have been releasing their stories over their own podcasts. Both the beginners and the pros have experimented with reading their stories in serialized form.


Voices: New Media Fiction is the first anthology to bring several of these stories together. With everything from short flash pieces to lengthy novellas, Voices has eighteen stories spread over 23 files to join you in your MP3 player everywhere you go.

We hope this is Volume One, as people keep writing and podcasting, there is always more content.

All stories released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No-Derivs 2.5 License unless otherwise stated.

"

(Via BoingBoing.)