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Sony Releases New Stupid Piece Of Shit That Doesn’t Fucking Work This has been around for a while but it’s fun. There’s language so make sure you blast this at work. Happy Friday.

While the newer versions of OS X have been great and the dock has matured, I hated one thing. Sometimes I just want to put a directory on the dock without it doing it’s crazy effect stuff to it like Fan, Grid, List, etc. Many times all I want is a dock icon that will just open a directory in finder. Fortunately, I figured out how to do this!!! Create a link to the directory of your choice on the desktop. For instance, I created a link (By holding down the “option”, “apple/command” keys down) of my home directory on my desktop. Now, drag that link to the dock. Bingo! I have a dock icon that will just open a finder window of my home directory.

Why is it that every time I purchase something with a credit card at most stores I end up having to do the credit card swipe dance. And how did this ever replace the good ol’ “cashier single swipes the card and here’s the receipt” days? Technology sucks sometimes… Me: Swipe now? oh not yet. ok now? YES ok… Cashier: “Press the yellow button, and… wait - need to add your special member discount to the amount. Canceling the transaction.” Me: So… Now swipe again? oh not yet…. ok now? YES. ok… Cashier: “Press the yellow button and it should say credit or debit, press 7 for credit… It’s not saying anything?” Me: It says - “wait for cashier”. Cashier: “Ok - now it should say credit, …” Me: Ok, pressing credit. whoops, pressed cancel. Cashier: “Um… ok I’ll restart the process. Press the yellow button….” Call me crazy but this whole process just seems stupid. Stores should never trust that I could do something better than their own staff.

I recently began a quest to replicate my house data with a hosting service so if my house goes up in a fire I still have my data elsewhere. The utility that seems to work the best for this is called rsync, and is available on most flavors of Unix, including Apple’s OS X. Why is it good? Well, rsync talks to the remote host and compares file meta-data like modified times, checksums, etc. to determine if a file needs to be transmitted. It can handle partial file retransmission which is very nice if your dealing with large files. It’s much more efficient than other methods that clumsily send all data over the line to have the destination server determine if the data should be discarded or not. Here’s an example of the command I use (disk1 is a directory with a bunch of directories and files): ...

Last year HP Labs was able to create the long theorized electrical element, the Memristor. While most people have not heard anything about the memristor, it will soon change the whole face of our electronics world. The Memristor was a theoretical element in electronics that was postulated in the late 1960’s and was finally created in 2008. Our entire electronics work today is only based on the other 3 elements - Resistor, Capacitor, and Inductor. Why should you care? Imagine your next computer with 10 terabytes of RAM, with no hard drive and no need to “load” programs. Imagine the same computer powered off without loosing any information, requiring no voltage draw and at a fraction of the size of the smallest computers today - heck I could have described the iPhone of the future. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Analog processors, extremely fast crossbars, and others are on the near horizon. 20-50 years? No. I’m talking about the next 2-5 years. Here’s a few links regarding the memristor: ...

If you ever get a chance to kick back at a java joint with John Common take it.

This is a great project for just about anyone who ever went to class with a TI calculator. With a few lines of code on the calculator and a 2.5mm male to male plug you can create time lapse photos. Turn a TI Graphing Calculator into an Intervalometer and Create Time Lapse Videos - More DIY How To Projects