How does Spot feel about you?

New research to tell if a dog is happy / scared released.  I don’t know how practical it is, but it’s interesting.. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/24/science/24wag.html?ex=1335067200&en=ab3e625105f41358&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

Optical Illusion.. movement

I’ve enjoyed optional illusions, since being introduced to Escher drawings as a kid.  I’ve had my share of the various 3-d books that you find yourself crossing your eyes more than you should.  This latest one your brain I convinced the image is moving.  Check it out here:http://fun.sdinet.de/pics/augenkrebs//The_latest_works3.gif

Ice Storms & Electricity

A news crew caught this power line arcing during an interview.

ATI and Vista

I had a problem where Catalyst Control Center refused to run.  It turns out you have to manually add ccc.exe, Mom.exe and cli.exe to the firewall exception list.  Hmm…

Win a Canon 1Ds Mark II & a 50mm f1.5 lens

Ok, this is too good to pass up.  All you have to do is submit you best photo on their theme.

http://www.crestock.com/blog/photography/the-crestock-photography-contest-2007-57.aspx

 

Technorati tags: Canon photography win

Windows Vista / RDP 6.0 stinks..but

.. there is hope on the horizon.  The new protocol used to remote control desktop has some new features that are needed for the upcoming Longhorn Server, but these features are making remote controlling into a PC from Vista a pain in the arse to use with current OSes.

Users are reporting all sorts of problems changes the team have made, but I have to give them credit, a beta will be released soon that addresses most of the problems reported.   More info to come..

Don’t use Windex to clean a flat-panel TV!

..or any other cleaning products for that matter..

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-entertainment/this-is-why-you-shouldn’t-clean-your-hdtv-with-windex-251527.php

 

Technorati tags: tv cleaning windex bummer

Medieval tech support

YouTube – Helpdesk eng sub.

Technorati tags: Video Medieval Tech Support Funny

Real Estate Roller Coaster Ride – adjusted to inflation..

No really, here is a video showing how much real estate has gone up since the 19th century, adjusted for inflation.  It’s puts things in perspective.

 

 

Technorati tags: real Estate Prices Inflation Roller Coaster

Taxes almost due.. and you’ve almost worked enough days this year to pay for next year..

Normally by Feb I already have my taxes calculated, but this yea has been a whirlwind, and I’m still working on it.  This year we moved to a new house, and having a home business makes tax time even more fun.  Turbo Tax seems to have failed me this year; I have so far run into two known unresolved bugs with the software, which makes the process so much more pleasurable.    Apparently, if you had been working 7 days a week since January 1st, you have now worked enough to pay for your taxes for next year.  yes, it takes 4 continuous months to make enough for the government.  Each year adds more time you have to work to pay your taxes.  Perhaps some day soon this will change for the better. http://money.cnn.com/2007/03/27/pf/taxes/tax_freedom/index.htm

Windows Vista stability – update to upgrade experience

Previously I posted a blog on a pitfalls I ran into with my NVidia video card.  Since then the ATI 1950 pro video card has seemed to be working flawlessly. Now I have to add that I was impressed with the way Vista handled the video card problem. At the point where the video driver became unresponsive, after a minute or so Vista restarted the GUI with a generic driver and a warning that the video driver hang.  I’m guessing that the video driver in Vista was removed from the same ring as the kernel to prevent the video driver from crashing the system with a blue screen, but I have not verified this.

I have run into some other issues/bugs with Vista.  My ABIT 3rd-eye motherboard has a built-in gigabit network interface that seems to work fine with Vista, but the networking tab on task manager shows some peculiar things.   The interface shows in a regular pattern the utilization going from 0%-100%-0%-100% etc.  if you look at details, it shows 0% then 1125899906842624%, then 0% then -3220323232% etc (note theses are examples, not actual.)  Both Microsoft and ABITs drivers seem to have the same result.  Since it’s not causing a problem that I can tell, I have not put much effort into fixing it.

I’ve been pretty impressed with the stability of the OS, but I had my first real hang of Vista.  I had 3-4 intense applications running (photo editor, photo development, etc) and the system just became unresponsive.  I was able to alt-ctrl-del to select task manager, but even after 15 minutes task manager never was shown.  There was occasional disk activity so it seemed to only be the GUI that was unresponsive.  I tried tapping the power button which in most cases would start a graceful shutdown, but to no avail.  It was a “5-second hold the power-button” resolution.  When windows came back up, the only pop-up notice I received was DreamScrene was disabled do to a potential problem. 

Update:
Since posting, I’m getting less happy overall with the Vista’s stability. Hardware diagnostics check out, but I contiune to have system hangs. I’ve had perhaps 7 so far since installing Vista some months back. My advice: wait until sp1

Technorati

I’m still exploring the world of blogging, and one item that keeps popping up is Technorati.  You add tags to posts, which links you to similar posts etc.    I’ll be giving a try.   Anyone have any experience with Technorati?

Technorati Profile

100 Playable Nintendo Games..

I was amazed how many games I remember..  http://nintendo8.com/toplist/more/

A hint at what Dark Energy might be…

There seems to be a lot of talk about Dark Energy lately.  This is a recent article that proposes what is is sounds possible source: http://space.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn11523&feedId=online-news_rss20

A Blast from the Past – Lemonade anyone?

I remember this game from “yesterdecade. ”   I made $97 in profit - can you beat it?http://www.lemonadegame.com/

The results are in! Did DST change lower power consumption?

Nope.

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyid=2007-04-02T223538Z_01_N02447830_RTRUKOC_0_US-DAYLIGHT-ENERGY.xml&src=rss&rpc=22