Diary of Ironman Preparation (no, not mine)

"A few days ago I was thinking about doing something good with my life. Instead I decided I would sign up for Wisconsin Ironman."

   -- Thus begins my cousin's new blog chronicling his year of preparation for the race on September 9, 2007.

Tags: ironman, triathalon

Higher gas mileage (in the same car)

The Washington Post ran an article a couple weeks back on improving gas mileage. It's written from the point of view of a hybrid driver, but it says that these tips can be used in other vehicles as well.

Tags: hybrid, mileage, prius

Your Brains

It's been a while since I posted and even longer since I posted something just fun and not too techy. But this just cried out for propagation -- a new(-ish) song from Jonathan Coulton (the guy who covered "Baby Got Back" in a nice, easy, banjo-heavy acoustic style):

If Hollywood has taught us anything, it’s that being trapped in a mall surrounded by a million zombies would be really troublesome. But how much more annoying would it be if the head zombie used to be your co-worker, and he was kind of a prick even before he got infected? And now he’s right outside and he just keeps talking and talking - still the same jackass, only now he wants to eat your brains?

An mp3 file can be downloaded from Coulton's site or you can listen while you watch video game characters act it out (complete with a little air guitar and dancing).

Tags: zombie, brains, jonathan coulton

Geeky Friday: Essentials for linux

Mark Pilgrim has updated his "essentials" list to reflect his recent switch from Mac to Ubuntu linux ("Ubuntu, which is an ancient African word meaning "can't install Debian".") This is a nice list of useful software (and links to each) for linux. His older list is for mac users.

Tags: linux, mac, ubuntu, essentials

X1 search for free

I've been using X1 desktop search since I got a free copy in Oct. 2004. The news of the day is that it's now free for everybody (via LifeHacker). Try it. I like it a lot.

Tags: search, x1

DougDoug

I believe my wife will start to use this when we're driving in unknown areas -- even though I'm usually the driver and she's the navigator.

Geeky Friday: Extra-geeky, extra-fancy search and replace

Steve Yegge writes about Emacs 22 -- specifically about its internationalization support and its improvements to search and replace by regular expression. He writes:

Emacs 22 sports an amazing new editing feature that's had me drooling in anticipation since I first heard about it, maybe six or eight months ago. As you can well imagine, that's a lot of drool.

And what might the feature be, you ask? Well, they've enhanced M-x {query-}replace-regxp to accept lisp expressions to be evaluated in the replacement string.

He gives some cool examples of how this can be useful. (Sorry, non-geeks, this edition of "Geeky Friday" is over the top geeky.)

Tags: emacs, lisp

Black Apple

There's a rumor that Apple and RIM, creator of the BlackBerry, may be forging a partnership. Speculation is that they might try to build on each other's innate strengths.

I use a BlackBerry for a while and was unimpressed. It does "push email" well and wireless sync well, but that’s about it. The basic PIM tools are weaker than what my PalmOS Handspring Visor had 6 years ago and there is comparatively little third party software. My biggest gripe was having only a thumbwheel for navigating a big screen. A combination of touch screen and wheel/buttons is easier.

I think that many people who rave about their crackberries had never used a PDA previously and were issued one by their offices. Compared to lugging around a laptop or having nothing at all, the BlackBerry is a nice tool.

Apple can, and should, do better.

Perhaps may just license the software for connecting to a Blackberry Enterprise Server. This would enable companies to deploy either RIM or Apple devices and their employees would be able to get their email, calendars, etc.

And about the name "AppleBerry". I don't get why the tech press is using that.

  "Black" - color, serving as adjective
  "Berry" - fruit, noun, modified by the adjective

  "Apple" - fruit, noun

Wouldn’t "BlackApple" be better? and cooler sounding? Or is a black apple a rotten apple? But if black apples are bad, why does Apple charge so much more for the blackbook black macbook?

Tags: blackbook, appleberry, blackapple, blackberry, apple, rim

World Cup Intro for Americans

This week on "Wait Wait -- Don't Tell Me!", the NPR news quiz, host Peter Sagal and soccer expert and radio host Steven Cohen discuss soccer and the World Cup. Sagal's introduction:

Those Americans who are watching sports late at night, say, and they can't find any baseball or football or basketball or golf or NASCAR or lacrosse, wrestling, bowling, scrabble, curling, knitting, might find finally themselves settling on this very odd game where people chase this ball around in a field with no equipment at all. It's called "soccer". It seems very popular in other parts of the world. Well, it's got some sort of big tournament coming up. So to explain this exotic game to us Americans, we put in a call to Steven Cohen, soccer expert and real life British person.

Cohen immediately jumps in with a correction:

Cohen: Actually in most parts of the world it's actually called "football". Sagal: Well that's wrong though.

They go on to discuss (among other things):

• Popularity of soccer in the US
• Impatience and ADD of US sports fans
• Scoreless draws in soccer vs. pitcher's duels in baseball
• US sports that take 2-3 times longer than actual game time
• What to look for in the World Cup teams
• What would happen if the US were to win it all

Listen in Windows Media or Real Audio. Go to the rundown of this week's show click on the "Not My Job: Steven Cohen" link.

Tags: soccer, world cup, football

Happy Towel Day

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the subject of towels. A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have."

Happy Towel Day. Thanks for all the fish good books, Douglas Adams

sww: Sorry Wrong Window

It has happened to everybody and will continue to happen, hopefully without too much embarrassment. You have two or more chat windows open and you type something and then realize, after having already hit enter (or the send button) that you typed it to the wrong person.

So, I propose that rather than typing out "sorry, wrong window" every time, we standardize on "sww". If I type that to you, now you'll understand.

Tags: sww, im

An alternate way to create web pages

"It really is an html frame, with a jpg, of a scan, of a print, of a digital picture, of a print, of a word document, of the information that needs to go on the web."

Tags: wtf