Do something stupid:

...the Guy Who Was So Into Super Monkey Ball Deluxe That He Decided To Live in a Ball.

[ The True Adventures of Chad... ]

I'm still not sure if this is stupid funny or stupid stupid, but if he ends up dating the ponytail girl, it could lean more toward funny.

Courtesy Doug:

A caulk gun? Hey, if it’s good enough for Taco Bell guacamole and sour cream, it’s good enough for a fine and delicate espresso, right?

[ How-To: Make a cheap portable espresso machine - Engadget ]

However, I'm not too convinced. The parts are not detailed well enough for me. If they had the part numbers so I could ensure that I had exactly what was needed, perhaps. Plus I'm not sure that everything he uses is food-grade or has been tested with the type of pressure that is required for espresso. I think I'll agree with a few of the comments and look into a COTS product that I can just stuff in my pack like:

or:

Update: Some site called Firebox also carries this Presso Coffee Maker, but has sexier images and a little movie showing it in action.

Update: Both of these are so tempting to add to my collection of coffee and tea paraphernalia, except I just dropped a couple bucks on a Philips Senseo. Perhaps I'll have to treat myself for my birthday with yet another coffee making device that I never or rarely use...

Interesting article by a hijab-wearing American Muslim.

During my senior year of high school, a teacher I had known for four years asked me off-hand where I had learned my English. He was so impressed that I managed to rid myself of all traces of an Arab accent. After an awkward pause, as it slowly dawned on me that no, he was not joking, and yes, he really thought I was an immigrant, I had to explain to him that I had been born 10 minutes away from the school building. The reason my English was so accent-less was because I really was an American, even with my hijab on.

[ The Harvard Crimson Online :: Opinion ]

Reminds me of when I was in Mecca, so many people asked where I was from. I said America. They looked puzzled, and would change the question: "where are your people from?", to which I'd say America. Usually more puzzled looks, sometimes the offering of "you mean Syria?". Basically the thought of an Irish American Muslim was just not conceivable.

I don't have to go to smoky clubs, or listen to crap pop radio stations, and get to find great music. Sure it's a few years old. Sure Sousa's been listening to this guy for years, I'm sure. But I like a new find:

Fantastic Plastic Machine is the project of Japanese DJ Tomoyuki Tanaka. Much of his music reflects a strong bossa nova influence; other tracks are representative of Happy Charm Fool Dance Music

[ Variety Is the Spice of Life - Fantastic Plastic Machine ]

FPM on Rhapsody Radio for those so inclined.

Not davidkearns.com, but Doceus:

Developers will work closely with our VP of technology to architect and deliver solutions for DC-area businesses, associations, and non-profit organizations.

[ Doceus - About Doceus - Employment Opportunities ]

And this job description neglected to say that all employees get to work with me!

Whether or not you are a fan of NPR, hopefully you can appreciate a good story:

Our storyteller shares the tale of an animal rescue -- or an attempt at an animal rescue -- involving a beaver, a box, great compassion and perhaps a bit too much beer.

[ NPR : The Great Beaver Rescue Effort ]

I'm always happy to hear of people willing to carry on story telling traditions, especially when they are this entertaining.

I've just received an email from gmail:

Thanks for signing up to be updated on the latest Gmail happenings. We hope it's been worth the wait, because we're excited to finally offer you an invitation to open a free Gmail account!

Since the email that I gave them now feeds into my gmail account, I received this invitaiton about gmail via gmail, but gmail was nice enough to tag my gmail invite as spam.

I assume that this means that gmail is invite-only no more. Though I still have 50 invitations available to me.

Update: someone should tell Google, though, as the graphic still reads beta...

I may have thought I'd see this on a Microsoft website someday:

ph34r my l33t skillz

[ Microsoft's parent's primer to computer slang ]

But never placed there on purpose, by Microsoft.

As seen on Joe Grossberg and Slashdot.

Odd, no mention of Micro$oft or 114m4 or Micro$ofty 114m4Z...

Which reminds me, I should be wary of my Sidekick II and it's evil H4X0R calculator:

Note the "secret" message typed in the calculator...

A.San did point out that there is only one true way to discover if your kid is a hacker.

Frequently I find Anisa Mehdi's editorials a bit too liberal, but this one is spot on:

Now that the elections in Iraq are over, the work of writing the Iraqi constitution can begin. A Shi'ite religious party will have the most representatives, raising some concerns that the constitution will be based on Islamic law. But commentator Anisa Mehdi says that basing the new constitution on the laws of Islam is a good idea.

[ NPR : Islamic Law and the Iraqi Constitution ]

Though I think pointing out terrorists justifications for obscene acts of violence has little to do with Islamic law.

Does anyone else think this is a good idea?

Ubisoft and U.S. giant Electronic Arts are holding talks two months after Ubisoft dismissed EA's acquisition of a near-20 percent stake in the French video game maker as "hostile," the Wall Street Journal said on Wednesday.

[ Yahoo! News - Ubisoft, EA Hold Preliminary Talks -Paper ]

Does anyone else care? Stop the madness!

When Dari got me hooked on this stuff, I had no idea:

Listen, if you haven't yet, to the great pop stars of Senegal: Youssou N'Dour, Cheikh Lo, Baaba Maal. You'll adore what you hear and discover what they have in common, like the hustle and ping of their sound, etched with koras and horns. The other is what they sing about: transfixing passion, not for earthly lovers but for the holy men, marabouts, the Sufi saints of Islam.

[ Caught Up in the Aura of a Senegalese Saint (New York Times, requires registration) ]

I don't know much about this West African Sufi movement, but my brothers in Senegal sure know how to play some great tunes. If you Rhapsody, or even Napster, I recommend at least sampling a few tunes. Come to think of it, Dari digs the Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan too. Based on his recent post, perhaps I should check out the Sufi roots of Hall and Oates.

Apparently there is a large movement afoot:

"As adults we must each own our own beliefs," said Prof. Fidelma O'Leary, biology, St. Edward's University, to a packed auditorium in Goldwin Smith on Friday night. Her lecture, "An American Woman's Jihad," detailed her spiritual journey as an Irish-American Muslim.

[ The Cornell Daily Sun - An American Woman's Jihad ]

OK, maybe not, but the did put "Irish-American Muslim" in print. Maybe we should form a PAC so we can be heard on the hill.

This is what I've been saying:

It's still pretty scary. Leave your debt unattended for just five years, and it will triple in value. Are you gaining any understanding of just how profitable business has been for many credit-card issuers?

[ How to Owe $40,000 by Doing Nothing [Fool.com: Commentary] February 11, 2005 ]

Well, maybe not quite, but since when did loan-shark like practices become legal? Isn't this the sort of thing that we actually need protection against? If anything is going to ruin the US economy it's this sort of crap (IMHO).

Props: G$

Ashley said something about a design she's working on being freaky. I beg to differ, this is freaky:

Mr. Cage isn't promoting pachinko palaces in these ads as much as a company that makes the machines that take the money from the customers who go into those palaces.

[ Japander.com ]

Of course so are:

• Domokun
• Spong Monkies
• Ninjas

But these are all old, where are today's fun freaky websites?

Apple users think their OS is soooooo superior to Windows, well witness:

A few days ago I needed to install software from ISO images. There were two possibilies[sic]: burning the ISO images to a CD-ROM or using a virtual CD-ROM drive that can mount ISO images. My preference went out to the latter, so I decided to Google for it. And apparently Microsoft has an unsupported "Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel for Windows XP".

[ Tom's corner - Mounting ISO images in a virtual CD-ROM drive ]

Now Windows has a non-supported, hard to find, extra install to give it much needed functionality that MacOS has had for about a decade or so. Take that Steve Jobs!

This is the stuff that Fan Boy's like me live for:

According to various Japanese publications, the new Resident Evil 4 team is encountering a few problems porting Resident Evil 4 to the PS2. Why do you ask? Hardware, Hardware, Hardware.

[ GAF - News - Resident Evil 4 Porting Issues? ]

Now how to get this info into a time capsule and send it back to the year 2000...

The tech I've been waiting for is finally headed our way. Sure the FlipStart still isn't out, and the OQO isn't quite what I'm looking for, but the competition is heating up, and the lines between handtops and tablets are blurring:

The FlyBook (FB) from Dialogue, a Taiwan based manufacturer, just barely squeaks in as a handtop. While it may not fit in your pocket and is bigger than other handtops, I seriously doubt that the OQO / FlipStart will fit into any regular pocket either. It's an extremely powerful handtop with more connectivity options than any other device I've seen, and as such, may warrant more than a passing look for those who find the OQO/FlipStart/U70 too limiting.

[ Handtops.com- FlyBook ahoy ]

And did I mention it does GPRS? The only thing that puzzles me is why it isn't running XP tablet.

I concur with Tony:

I'm not totally enamored with the DS yet. I toyed around with the Metroid game, which was pretty cool, but I still haven't been "WOW"ed by anything DS-related yet. Well that was until I saw this.

[ ButtonMashing.com ]

Feel the Magic: XY/XX was intreaging, but not enough to buy it. I did get a copy of Mario 64 DS, but it still feels like more of the same. I have a feeling that the PSP forced Nintendo's hand and they had to release the platform without sufficient launch titles. I think the DS will really shine when some of the multi-player and online capabilities are revealed, and more titles like the one here. I can now imagine a dead sexy Resident Evil title on the DS, as well as a cell-shaded Zelda title.

At what point does Nintendo's "kiddie" rep fuel itself?

Nintendo has definitely embraced the kid-friendly image but maybe the embrace has turned into a bear hug and Nintendo can't let it go.

[ ButtonMashing.com: Some light reading. ]

Sure, my license plates announce to the world that I'm a total fan boy, but I still think that I can be objective. The fact of the matter is that this is how I see the current three consoles:

• X Box
  
  Pros:
  
  Games all have at least a T rating, if not M. Anything that even begins to smack of less than T gets a dose of blood or guts or sex to boost the rating, thus no games for kids.
  
  Most appealing due to on-line play excellence, thus best liked for death matches and Madden (and other sports too, I guess).
  
  Most choices in controllers. I like seeing some of the crazy controllers that people come up with for the XBox. There are all types of gamers and they appreciate all types of controls. I would like to see the NextBox have mice available for it without having to hack it, that would silence a large number of FPS PC gamers.
  
  Best FPS experience due to Halo & Halo 2. What can I say, picking up Bungie was a great move for Microsoft, and one that has gone the farthest to making them a contender.
  
  Cons:
  
  New to games, still trying to figure out what everyone wants. Not able to be all things to all people. Too concerned about their image to release games like Katamari Damacy or Pikmin.
  
  Likely to have culture conflicts with Microsoft proper. Microsoft truly wants to build the one ring to rule them all, and could be forcing things on the NextBox that will make it unpalatable to the gaming community at large.
  
  
• PS2
  
  Pros:
  
  Biggest library. Again a vicious cycle. If you want to maximize your sales you write your games for a minimum of the console that most people have (unless you're a 2nd party developer). Thus the Playstation gets the most games because it has the most games.
  
  Most appealing due to breadth of games. Best platform for RPGs due to exclusive on Final Fantasy series. More best fighting games.
  
  Cons:
  
  Crappy hardware. Higher failure rate than any other console. Crappy support for getting things fixed too.
  
  Only 2 friggin' ports. Why not just put in 4 ports and fore go the stupid multi-tap?!?!?
  
  Most expensive console (especially with above crappy multi-tap)
  
  Super crappy website. Sure that has little to do with the purchase of a console, but I really think Sony can do better.
  
  
• GameCube
  
  Pros:
  
  Great first party games, great second party games. Best designed hardware giving great value for the money. Tight controls over hardware and software reducing the chance of buying crappy 2nd or 3rd party software or peripherals.
  
  Tons of innovation means you never know what to expect. If something is hot in games there is a good chance that Nintendo tried it first (except on-line, but I agree with Nintendo).
  
  Cons:
  
  "Kiddie" rep keeps "mature" gamers from considering the platform. This one drives me crazy, there are adult oriented titles out for the Cube, and for the most part these titles are only when necessary. I think that the blood and gore and extreme violence are great in Resident Evil 4 and Eternal Darkness, but somewhat unnecessary in PS2's Mark of Kri. This means that I can't play these games with my impressionable young daughter around, and cuts into my gaming time.
  
  Rep also seems to make people think that the Cube is less powerful than other platforms. I'm not sure where this comes from. The base specs for the Cube put it squarely between the PS2 and XBox in terms of power. I'm amazed by some things on the PS2 that would seem commonplace on the Cube. So many reviews of RE4 expressed surprise in the quality of the game on the Cube, but I think it's par for the course. Of course XBox has the most power here, but the Cube still is heads above the PS2 across the board.

I currently own a GameCube (duh) and a PS2. The PS2 came down to a price that I was willing to give it a chance, and I'm glad that I have. There are enough gems for the PS2 that it was well worth picking up: Ico, Ratchet & Clank, Kingdom Hearts. Due to my current experience I'll be doing everything to ensure that I have a Nintendo Revolution and PS3 around their launch dates.

As for XBox, I'm starting to see the appeal. I still don't understand why I'd want to go on-line and get my butt whipped by an anonymous 12 year old at every game that I buy, but there are a few XBox titles that I'd love to play: Halo, Halo 2, and Fable for example. If the NextBox will be backward compatible, I'll likely wait for it's price to sink a bit, if not I'll likely pick up a 2nd hand XBox.

Where has Nintendo gone wrong? Lost too much in the 2nd party arena. I don't pretend to know everything about the inter-workings of the gaming business, but they let slip Rare, Silicon Knights, and an exclusive on Resident Evil 4. Surely one of those at a minimum was worth a few bucks on Nintendo's part. Rare hasn't come up with much for the XBox, and I'm not sure what happened to Silicon Knights, but Resident Evil 4 rocks. If Nintendo would just pony up the cash to turn the Resident Evil series into a Nintendo exclusive, and bundle RE4 with cubes, I think they'd sell a ton. Perhaps they are already giving up on the GameCube and have something certain with the Revolution, we'll have to wait for the gunfight at E3 to tell for sure.

For quite a while now Gmail has been telling me that I could invite 6 people to use their service. Unfortunately I don't think I know 6 people who are looking for another email address. This morning, however, I notice that I've been bumped up to 50 invites. I assume that I'm not special, and all Gmail users now have many available invites.

Thanks for using Gmail and helping us improve the service. We're ready to expand our test to a few more users, and because you've been a trusted early tester of Gmail, we're looking for your help. Please invite a few more people who you think would like Gmail and could help us make it even better.

[ Invite a friend to Gmail! ]

I've you've been trying to get a Gmail account, but no one would give you one, now must be the time. Just find anyone with a Gmail account, and I'm sure they can spare a dozen or so for you.

A while back the "Desert Moon Café" on King St. (near Atlantis) closed. No big loss, their food tended to be dry and bland. Apparently about 3 months ago, in the same spot, a new Mexican restaurant opened up:

A short trip from the Zoclo through narrow winding streets, past mission churches sinking with the city on foundations built long ago upon an ancient lakebed, will bring you into the Calle Tacuba, the site of the longest running restaurant in the city--Café de Tacuba-- founded in 1912. It is here that the idea for Tacuba Cantina was born.

[ Tacuba - History ]

OK, their marketing copy is a bit over the top. And they only have one location, yet already have a guy in charge of franchising. Very audacious goals, I think. However, I do think it's one tasty place. I've only been once (today), and it was serendipitous, but the #5 combo was rather good. I got an order of chips too, and I can vouch for their salsa (even if the chips are a bit odd, they're actually chili dusted tostadas). And drinkers will be even happier, their selection of Tequila must be the biggest in the DC area.

Their website doesn't mention it, but they have 2 other menus too. A rapido lunch menu, and a brunch menu. If you have never had a Mexican brunch, I highly recommend it. Huevos Rancheros is a great way to start a weekend. Their brunch is available 11-3 Saturday and Sunday.

I know nothing about OS X, and it's blatantly obvious when I read something like this:

This article explains how to set up a Mac OS X client machine to authenticate against an Active Directory Server without implementing any schema extensions to the AD server. Note that the management capabilities with only basic authentication implemented are limited.

[ Mike's Mac OS X Management Software and Tips ]

Step One: Open the Directory Access application located in the Utilities folder.

Open the what? In the where? Can't find either of these, nor can my "Finder".

I used to know how to do this sort of thing, then OS 9 came out, oh wait X. I guess I'm a bit behind...

Update: this page did it. Eventually I read this close enough, and soaked up some "Applespeak" and got the integration working. I must say this was much easier than trying to get OS8 to use a Novell 3.12 server...

Then I'd know how to navigate this overwhelming mess of information, and find out what options I have in automated PDF creation from a website.

Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Professional software is the advanced way to create, control, and deliver more secure, high-quality Adobe PDF documents. Assemble electronic or paper files — even Web sites, engineering drawings, and e-mail — into reliable PDF documents that are easy to share with others using free Adobe Reader 7.0 software.

[ Adobe Acrobat Professional ]

My buddy Adam got married over in the North of England so my other buddy Tom and I decided to do the "visit the mother country" deal. It was awesome. I highly recommend to anyone a visit to the Emerald Isle, and I also recommend to anyone to visit the land of your ancestors.

So my best friend, Jill Bauland, is getting married and I'm one of her bridesmaids. The wedding will be in Ireland so I'm finally getting a chance to fly home to my mother country. Green Grass, Good Times and Guinness. Can't wait. I really don't have much to say about the whole thing yet but she insisted I write a post about her so she can google her name and have something come up.

[ Laura Foy...: Always a Bridesmaid... ]

I should say that I still imbibed the alcomahol when I visited, and Galway is a great pub town.

$79 for unlimited two day shipping? Sign me up:

Enjoy free second-day shipping on every order or overnight shipping for only $3.99 per item to addresses in the continental United States, and the convenience of 1-Click ordering. Items in multiple-item orders are shipped as soon as they're available—at no extra charge. And you can invite family members living in the your household to share the benefits. As an Amazon Prime member, you won't have to think about shipping charges when you order.

[ Amazon.com ]

But wait, I should read the fine print first, eh?

This program is limited to certain products sold by Amazon.com on www.amazon.com that are shipped to continental United States addresses, excluding Alaska, Hawaii, P.O. boxes, APO/FPO and U.S. territories, possessions and protectorates. Though Two-Day and One-Day shipping benefits do not apply to these excluded addresses, members are entitled to free Standard shipping on eligible items shipped to P.O. boxes in the continental U.S. and APO/FPO addresses with U.S. zip codes. We may exclude products in our discretion, including, for example, oversize or heavy items, items regulated as hazardous materials, and other items with special shipping characteristics. Products are eligible for Prime only if designated on the website. Products sold by third parties, or through third-party areas such as Marketplace, Auctions and/or zShops, are NOT eligible for Prime.

[ Amazon.com: Help / Items Eligible for Amazon Prime ]

So about nothing I order is covered, eh? Only if I ordered dozens upon dozens of books and cds each year would this make any sense. Still seems like a good deal for some, but pas de moi.

Now if they extended this to video games and cheese, it might just be worth it...

Yes the CSS Zen Garden is olds (and not news), however I had no idea that they had so many designs. For me this is like "porn for guys":

There is clearly a need for CSS to be taken seriously by graphic artists. The Zen Garden aims to excite, inspire, and encourage participation. To begin, view some of the existing designs in the list. Clicking on any one will load the style sheet into this very page. The code remains the same, the only thing that has changed is the external .css file. Yes, really.

[ mezzoblue css Zen Garden — Design List ]

So many great ideas, and clear proof that the sky is the limit when it comes to designing for the web. If you are a designer and somehow reading this (which is doubtful due to my atrocious design), take this example to heart and make your next site design a real winner.

It's a bit surprising that this list would need to be made, but then again not.

Over the years, we've developed a list of issues like these, that we call the 10 Immutable Laws of Security.

[ Microsoft TechNet: 10 Immutable Laws of Security ]

Did they call the list "Immutable" from the start? ;-)

I do believe that we need to start younger teaching things like security. Most security systems need to be explained to be successful, and many of the exploits are the same exploits that have been taken advantage of for years just wrapped up in a new package. The real issue is the changing of our culture so that average joe user understands the dynamic and can guard themselves against black hats and ignorance exploitation.

I picked up the EyeToy for Iman because she always wants to play around with it at the store. I should have picked it up earlier, by the time I got around to getting it the Best Buy only had EyeToy:Antigrav and no more copies of EyeToy:Groove or EyeToy:Play, but I know she'd at least like the hover-boarding game. I then GameFlyed all of the EyeToy games that they have (except Groove, 'cause I found out that Iman says she wouldn't like it). The first to arrive is Nicktoons Movin'.

I didn't expect much from this game, but the whole reason to have GameFly is to try games that only Nate would buy, sight unseen. And this one is all the stinker you would expect it to be, or so says Iman. She lost interest in this before even trying all of the games. It appeared that the same gimmicky ideas were hashed and rehashed through a series of games highlighting characters from a dozen or so Nicktoons. Some silly cartoons introduced each barely thought out game. Granted many of the games were no more creative than a WarioWare or Feel The Magic XY/XX game, but (at least in the case of Wario) there are hundreds of those, not dozens.

Even if you do have an EyeToy, I'd recommend skipping this one. Unfortunately that doesn't leave a ton of games left to try, as the EyeToy games aren't coming out too quickly, and in respect for my downstairs neighbor, I refuse to get DDR Extreme.

Apparently kids today are enjoying Japanese Culture:

Japanese comics, called manga, take up more and more space on American bookshelves, and they've infused new life into the publishing industry. Japanese animation, anime, is on more and more movie and TV screens. Neal Conan and guests discuss the growing influence of Japanese culture in America.

[ NPR : Manga, Anime and Japanese Culture in America ]

Oh, wait, I knew that...

The first speaker's book Wrong About Japan : A Father's Journey with His Son isn't quite out in paperback. And Viz published many manga and the magazine Shonen Jump, which I almost picked up for Iman, perhaps when she's a bit older.