…nevermind
Nevermind is not actually a word of course, but it’s very commonly used. Is this due to Nirvana, or would it occur if they never existed? Are people who use nevermind consciously aware of their misspelling? I am.
The semicolon is way underused
I declare 2010 the year of the semicolon. You heard me. Everyone needs to use them more. I’ve been making a casual effort to use them wherever possible. It’s clearly one of the better punctuations that exists. I mean look at it; it’s like a comma and a period rolled into one. It’s a wink, it’s a vampiric pierce. It lets you tell a story with one sentence. It eschews supposedly beauty-defining symmetry with a rebel yell. Now get using them.
Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto 1 and 2 are free to download
The classics. “These games, each available free of charge and optimized for play on modern PCs, offer a nostalgic trip back in time to the early days of the Rockstar legacy.”
Search any site with Google
Most sites have search features nowadays. Sometimes they’re decent, sometimes they’re terrible. Sometimes they give you advanced sorting options, sometimes they don’t. Forget all that roulette and let the master do it: search any site with your warm and fuzzy Google. For example the following query narrows results to only those from voyhere.com:
search terms site:voyhere.com
Note the use of the top- and second-level domains only; don’t use any www or anything. Now you can employ/enjoy all of Google’s search refinements. If Google’s not your flavor I’m sure yours has the equivalent.
Cat vs Black bear
This is pretty crazy, cats are so badass. Few points:
-Felix must still have his [large] cojones. And claws: it looks like he may have caught the bear’s nose a couple of times.
-Funny how the cat went NUTS when the bear grabbed the loot, but then let him have it anyway.
-Do NOT leave your garbage on the porch when you live adjacent to the woods.
-There’s some stuff out by the car; I wonder if she saw the bear while outside and ran in.
-I’m glad the baby found it hilarious, hah, he could have been the main course.
Contra as a first person shooter
This is Contra re-imagined in 3D via Half-Life 2 mod. I need to play this, first I gotta find a download link though. There also exists a GoldenEye mod. And there’s a good-looking “Update Mod” probably worth getting for replaying the original HL2; see its video comparison here (watch in 720). And Black Mesa is a much-anticipated not-yet-released mega-mod which reinvents HL1 using the max of HL2 engine’s capabilities. It looks sick. And when the heck is EP3 coming out? HL HL HL
Death Metal Rooster
Apparently roosters are to death metal as goats are to Usher.
Grooveshark is my new favorite website
Tons of music streamed free. Mucho live stuff. Playlists. Snappy flash interface. No need to even register. Seriously, I’m not seeing a downside. Nearly perfect.
Update. Some protips:
-Click an album name to get at full albums easier, plus they’re then sorted by track number ready to play all.
-You can email or bookmark the URLs of albums, artists, queries etc.
-There’s also an embedding widget, here.
-Add a Firefox search for Grooveshark by hitting the search dropdown in the upper right and picking ‘Add “Grooveshark Search”‘
-The RADIO button in the lower right is your new Pandora.
-Their FAQ here.
List of 100 things restaurant staffers should never do
Bruce Buschel in a New York Times blog put out a list off one hundred things which restaurant staffers should never do. It might seem a bit finicky or pretentious to some, but I think this stuff is quality. It’s not as if basic restaurant service is rocket science; I think establishments would be well served to establish these things, especially in this economy, and since so many restaurants fail. I don’t work in or own a restaurant but it’s interesting nonetheless.
Thom Yorke track, Hearing Damage
A part of the “new moon” soundtrack. What a beat.
A tear in the membrane
Allows the voices in
They wanna push you off the path
With their frequency wires
And you can do no wrong
In my eyes (x2)
You can do no wrong
In my eyes (x2)
A drunken salesman
Your hearing damage
Your mind is restless
They say you’re getting better
But you dont feel any better
Your speakers are blowing
Your ears are wrecking
Your hearing damage
You wish you felt better (x2)
You can do no wrong
In my eyes (x2)
You can do no wrong
In my eyes (x2)
In my
In my eyes (x3)
(link)
Ubuntu 9.10: Out, and Hot
Yes, it’s out. Took me 12 hours to download today, but it’s done.
Noteables:
- Firefox 3.5 (woo!)
- OpenOffice 3.1
- Out of the box support for my Creative X-Fi finally
- Sound no longer dies after coming back from Hibernate (woo!)
- Mouse’s “Back” button now works in Nautilus (woo!)
- Sexier startup
- Seems to have sped up my shabby notebook a lot from 9.04
All in all I am very pleased. None of my precious Firefox plugins were broken in the upgrade and I’m happy to finally be on board with 3.5, it seems much faster and lighter.
Slight issues I’ve had:
- Search bar icons not showing up in the dropdown, but I fixed that via System->Preferences->Appearance->Interface->Show Icons in Menus. (source).
- My media files were also playing back in a strange blue hue which drove me nuts for a second but all it took was go into Movie Player, Edit->Preferences->Display, and reset the Hue value which was for some reason set all the way to the left.
- The new “Ubuntu Software Center” is great and all but I prefer the old style of Add/Remove Applications (with the star ratings), and I discovered how to bring that back by just installing “gnome-app-install” via Symantic, then it is to be found under System->Administration.
- My Conky also got a little quirked but I’ll figure it out.
Get 9.10 from System->Administration->Update manager
Or from here if you’re some kind of late adopter.
Then go get your free stickers.
Understanding peak oil
Interesting, informative, eye-opening, and a bit depressing. Even if you think it’s sensationalist, these should really be required viewing for all, as the Peak Oil phenomenon is not a question of if, but when. My takeaway: we all need to use less energy, and have fewer kids.
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