Liam’s Pictures from Old Books

Liam’s Pictures from Old Books: "Remains of Ruined Castles, Deserted Abbeys, Old Manor Houses, mansions and stately homes; also engravings, woodcuts and pictures of Old England and Wales; also other subjects mentioned below, including Pictures of old books, scanned, prepared and published by Liam Quin.

Over 1500 images scanned from more than 100 different old books, most with multiple high-resolution versions and many with text excerpts! They are mostly public domain (copyright-free, out of copyright) here in Canada, and often in other countries too, unless otherwise noted, and can be used as historical reference in teaching, royalty-free stock images, scrapbook clip art, or even on your own Web site (learn how). You can also get them on CD-ROM, or can donate money to encourage Liam to scan more images, or to help pay for the books."

Oracle Background processes

Oracle Background processes: "Oracle Background processes
Don Burleson
You can see the Oracle background processes with this query:
select * from v$session where type ='BACKGROUND';

Here are some of the most important Oracle background processes:"

Oracle10g Grid Book - 10g RAC Clusters

Oracle10g Grid Book - 10g RAC Clusters: "Oracle 10g Grid & Real Application Clusters
Oracle10g Grid Computing with RAC"

YouTube - Rolly Brown teaches 240 chords in 6 minutes

YouTube - Rolly Brown teaches 240 chords in 6 minutes: "Nat'l Fingerpicking Champ Rolly Brown of rollybrown.com teaches a simple exercise to increase your vocabulary of jazz chords. "

Boing Boing: Good documentaries on Google video

Boing Boing: Good documentaries on Google video: "You may be interested to know that google video also hosts a whole bunch of good BBC documentaries, including all three parts of 'The Power of Nightmares'; 'Tetris - From Russia With Love'; ' Louis and the Nazis' and 'A War On Science (Intelligent Design and Dover)'."

Quick Overview of Vampire

Quick Overview of Vampire: "Implementing Web Services

The XML-RPC service wrapper makes use of the 'xmlrpclib' module. As such, any types supported by the 'xmlrpclib' module can be used. Faults can also be raised using the 'xmlrpclib.Fault' class. Where the first parameter of a function is the 'req' parameter, it will be passed the mod_python request object."

Dr. Dobb's | Python 2.4 Decorators | April 1, 2005

Dr. Dobb's | Python 2.4 Decorators | April 1, 2005: "Decorators are a powerful Python 2.4 feature that helps you reduce code duplication and consolidate knowledge."

Dig Deep into Python Internals, Part 2

Dig Deep into Python Internals, Part 2: "In this article I will contrast meta-classes with decorators, explore the Python execution model and explain how to examine stack frames at runtime. Finally, I will demonstrate how to augment the Python language itself using these techniques. To do this I introduce a private access-checking feature that can be enforced at runtime."

Dig Deep into Python Internals

Dig Deep into Python Internals: "This article is the first in a two-part series that will dig deep to explore the fascinating new-style Python object model, which was introduced in Python 2.2 and improved in 2.3 and 2.4. The object model and type system are very dynamic and allow quite a few interesting tricks. In this article I will describe the object, model, and type system; explore various entities; explain the life cycle of an object; and introduce some of the countless ways to modify and customize almost everything you thought immutable at runtime."

Giant Panda in China rips off man's jacket - Google Video

Giant Panda in China rips off man's jacket - Google Video: "China: Tourist has jacket ripped off his back by Giant Panda in open cage at Nature Reserve dedicated to survival of the endangered species"

Toolmonger » Blog Archive » Finds: A Low-Cost Laser Level

Toolmonger » Blog Archive » Finds: A Low-Cost Laser Level: "This little device attaches to vertical and horizontal surfaces, adjusts via three screw-type feet, and then projects a beam to simplify the installation of items along the level line. Sure, there are zillion-dollar units designed for professional cabinet installers, but at just $30, this one looks like it’d be great for hanging pictures and such."

The New Yorker : fact : content

The New Yorker : fact : content: "
THE GOOD BOOK BUSINESS
Why publishers love the Bible.
by DANIEL RADOSH
Issue of 2006-12-18
Posted 2006-12-11"

Dr. Sanity: DR. SANITY'S PRACTICAL GUIDE TO VICTIMHOOD

Dr. Sanity: DR. SANITY'S PRACTICAL GUIDE TO VICTIMHOOD: "Becoming a victim --as we all have learned from famous TV stars, prominent politicians; religions, races, and even nations--is an advantageous state of being in many ways, several of which are:
"

Concurring Opinions: A Guide to Grading Exams

Concurring Opinions: A Guide to Grading Exams: "It's that time of year again. Students have taken their finals, and now it is time to grade them. It is something professors have been looking forward to all semester. Exactness in grading is a well-honed skill, taking considerable expertise and years of practice to master. The purpose of this post is to serve as a guide to young professors about how to perfect their grading skills and as a way for students to learn the mysterious science of how their grades are determined.

Grading begins with the stack of exams, shown in Figure 1 below."

Reporter Grabs a 6000 Volt Fence - Google Video

Reporter Grabs a 6000 Volt Fence - Google Video: "Funny video of a dumb reporter grabing an electric fence."

33 Names of Things You Never Knew had Names - Words - Book of Lists - Canongate Home

33 Names of Things You Never Knew had Names - Words - Book of Lists - Canongate Home: "33 Names of Things You Never Knew had Names"

Chris's Invincible Super-Blog

Chris's Invincible Super-Blog: "The Hypothetical Adventures of Conan, Part One

Because the answer to pretty much any question that starts with 'What if Conan...' is always the same: somebody would get their ass kicked."

United States Patent: 6243451

United States Patent: 6243451:

"United States Patent 6,243,451
Shah , et al. June 5, 2001
Service management access point

Abstract

A flexible service management system creates, provisions, customizes, and restricts service offerings available on an intelligent network. A service creation environment has a schema query, service screen builder, and logic analyzer that cooperate to create a service screen definition. The service screen definition supports graphical user interfaces that interface with a telephony database. The service screen definition is deployed to a service management system within a service definition package, the service management system interfacing with a telephony database storing telephony data for supporting a service. The service screen definition enables a screen interpreter that can reside on a service management access point to communicate and transact data with the telephony database. The screen interpreter interprets the service screen definition to allow and control access to telephony data and to direct provisioning of services to network elements, such as a service control point, that perform service functions according to customized subscription data in the telephony database. The graphical user interface can communicate through the world wide web to allow customer or other data entry operator access to data on a filtered or restricted basis.
Inventors: Shah; Tasvir (Irving, TX), Harrison; Mark A. (Fort Worth, TX), Bilbo; Matthew J. (Bedford, TX)
Assignee: Alcatel USA Sourcing, L.P. (Plano, TX)
Appl. No.: 08/947,693
Filed: October 9, 1997"

United States Patent: 6041325

United States Patent: 6041325:

"United States Patent 6,041,325
Shah , et al. March 21, 2000

System and method for controlling access to a telephony database

Abstract

A flexible service management system creates, provisions, customizes, and restricts service offerings available on an intelligent network. A service creation environment has a schema query, service screen builder, and logic analyzer that cooperate to create a service screen definition. The service screen definition supports graphical user interfaces that interface with a telephony database. The service screen definition is deployed to a service management system within a service definition package, the service management system interfacing with a telephony database storing telephony data for supporting a service. The service screen definition enables a screen interpreter that can reside on a service management access point to communicate and transact data with the telephony database. The screen interpreter interprets the service screen definition to allow and control access to telephony data and to direct provisioning of services to network elements, such as a service control point, that perform service functions according to customized subscription data in the telephony database. The graphical user interface can communicate through the world wide web to allow customer or other data entry operator access to data on a filtered or restricted basis.

Inventors: Shah; Tasvir (Irving, TX), Harrison; Mark A. (Fort Worth, TX), Bilbo; Matthew (Bedford, TX)
Assignee: Alcatel USA Sourcing, L.P. (Plano, TX)
Appl. No.: 08/948,161
Filed: October 9, 1997"

Reason Magazine - South Park Libertarians

Reason Magazine - South Park Libertarians: "Trey Parker and Matt Stone on liberals, conservatives, censorship, and religion."

Mozart's entire musical score now free on Internet | Entertainment | Entertainment News | Reuters.com

Mozart's entire musical score now free on Internet: "LONDON (Reuters) - Mozart's year-long 250th birthday party is ending on a high note with the musical scores of his complete works available from Monday for the first time free on the Internet.

The International Mozart Foundation in Salzburg, Austria has put a scholarly edition of the bound volumes of Mozart's more than 600 works on a Web site.

The site allows visitors to find specific symphonies, arias or even single lines of text from some 24,000 pages of music."

xkcd - A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language - By Randall Munroe

xkcd - A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language - By Randall Munroe: "Map of the Internet"

myelin: HTTP / XMLRPC debug proxy

myelin: HTTP / XMLRPC debug proxy: "If you're doing XML-RPC in Python, you have little requirement for debugging tools because it handles exceptions and all that very nicely and you can just dump debugging stuff to the console.

However, if you're doing XML-RPC in PHP, you'll get all screwed up if you don't have some way of seeing what's going on. Whenever your script gets a warning or fails to compile, the error goes to the browser rather than the log file, which is guaranteed to kill the XML parser at the calling end of the link.

This little script is one solution to this problem. It's based on the simple proxy in the Medusa tutorial (that's the asynch socket library that Python Community Server uses), and slightly modified to not mangle XML-RPC responses.

Run it on your local machine (or your web server, if you prefer) and point your XMLRPC client at it rather than at the target. It will proxy your requests through and also dump them to the console, so you can see what's going on."

DarwiinRemote is released! (Hirolog)

DarwiinRemote is released! (Hirolog): "# DarwiinRemote is a tiny software which reads data from and sends data to Nintendo Wii Remote

* Inputs
o 3-axis acceleration sensors
o all buttons except power button on/off
* Output
o 4 LEDs
o Force Feedback

# DarwiinRemote allows you to control other applications by using Wii Remote"

Glassy Eyes | Shattering the Eyeglasses Scam

Glassy Eyes | Shattering the Eyeglasses Scam: "It started with a post proclaiming my satisfaction with my new glasses. Eyeglasses I got at an excellent price -- online. It's caused quite a stir, and opened up a whole lot of information that (if the email and comments I've received are true) has saved hundreds of people, thousands of dollars. "

Glassy Eyes | Shattering the Eyeglasses Scam

Glassy Eyes | Shattering the Eyeglasses Scam: "Zenni had a couple of titanium, hingeless frames. I priced them out. I decked them out with AR coating ($4.95 compared to $50+ in the stores), a clip-on sunshade ($3.95 versus $70 in the store) and went to the optional higher-index (thinner) lenses. Total?

$81."

Gift Card Fraud Rumors and Reality

Gift Card Fraud Rumors and Reality: "Opinion: As gift cards soar in popularity—some $25 billion in gift cards are expected to be sold this holiday season alone—the attempts to use them fraudulently have also soared. "

StorefrontBacktalk - Is The Unredeemed Giftcard About To Go Away?

StorefrontBacktalk - Is The Unredeemed Giftcard About To Go Away?: "A new Web giftcard exchange could shake up the giftcard space, with cards selling to consumers for less than face-value and retailers getting the gift that keeps on giving: heretofore unavailable data on who is using these cards.

Trying to address the hundreds of millions of dollars lost each year in giftcards that are never redeemed, a Fresno, California, company has created a Web giftcard exchange with a difference. The difference from consumers selling their unused cards on Ebay? The site is selling valid giftcards for less than the card's face value, which could have a significant impact on retail giftcard sales.

PlasticJungle.com's CEO said the firm plans on partnering with major retailers, to help them reduce accounting losses from unredeemed giftcards."

Welcome to Gorilla Gutters

Welcome to Gorilla Gutters: "GORILLA GUTTERS
PROFESSIONAL GUTTER
CLEANING & REPAIR"

DOFI-BLOG どふぃぶろぐ SAND SAND SAND公開

DOFI-BLOG どふぃぶろぐ SAND SAND SAND公開: "SAND SAND SAND公開"

Geek to Live: Make your own font - Lifehacker

Geek to Live: Make your own font - Lifehacker: "Ever since we posted about Fontifier, a webapp that creates a TrueType font from your handwriting, I thought the nifty idea was almost too good to be true. Turns out that Fontifier delivers exactly what it promises. Knowing absolutely ZERO about fonts and typography, I was able to hand-draw, correct and create my own installable system font for use in digital images and documents in an afternoon with Fontifier."

Christmas Quiz

Christmas Quiz: "CHRISTMAS QUIZ PAGE"

Free Childrens' PowerPoint Lessons

Free Childrens' PowerPoint Lessons: "Welcome to the Lessons of Love children’s series as provided with love by the church of Christ in Carbondale, Illinois. These lessons and illustrations were created using paper flip charts and colored markers. You can print these out and use as regular flip charts. Print the illustrations on one side of the paper and the notes on the other. You can also simply present them from your computer."

LifeWay: Biblical Solutions for Life

LifeWay: Biblical Solutions for Life: "LifeTrak Bible Study Outlines
LifeTrak 4.1 Bible Studies for Younger Youth
LifeTrak 4.1 Bible Studies for Older Youth"

LifeWay: Biblical Solutions for Life

LifeWay: Biblical Solutions for Life: "Student Bible Studies for Life Podcast

Student BSFL PodcastNow you have a new audio companion to help you as you prepare for your Sunday School & small group lessons! Introducing the Student Bible Studies for Life Podcast! This new leader preparation tool will help you as you use the new student Bible Studies for Life Leader Guides - whether you are using Life Focus, Life2, or LifeFX. Each week helpful insights will help you and your teachers be prepared for the week ahead!"

LifeWay: Curriculum Guide

LifeWay: Curriculum Guide: "Student Bible Studies for Life
2006-2007 Study Themes and Bible Areas"

LifeWay: Curriculum Guide

LifeWay: Curriculum Guide: "Children's Bible Teaching for Kids
2006-2007 Study Themes and Bible Areas"

The Japanese Wii Safety Manual is Crazy - Gizmodo

The Japanese Wii Safety Manual is Crazy - Gizmodo: "The Japanese Wii Safety Manual is Crazy"

IdeaChannel.tv

IdeaChannel.tv: "Free To Choose
In honor of Milton Friedman, we are streaming the ground-breaking Free to Choose series as it originally aired in 1980 as well as an updated 1990 version. Also watch for a biography, 'The Power of Choice' which will air Monday, January 29 on PBS. This date has also been declared as Milton Friedman Day."

The Simple Dollar » 30 Essential Pieces Of Free (and Open) Software for Windows

The Simple Dollar » 30 Essential Pieces Of Free (and Open) Software for Windows: "What follows is a list of thirty pieces of software that are the cream of the crop of open source software for Windows. Not only is every piece of it free, almost all of them directly replace expensive software packages."

The Online Photographer: $10 Digital Camera—How Do They Do It?!

The Online Photographer: $10 Digital Camera—How Do They Do It?!: "So Walgreens is selling a digital camera for $10—I kid you not. It's not a recyclable camera you have to turn in to get the photos out. Just plug it into the USB port in your computer, download the photos, and go out and make more. It's barely the size of the box of pocket matches. Irresistible! I bought four of them."

Monks and Choirs of Kiev Pechersk Lavra: Chants of the Russian Orthodox Church

Monks and Choirs of Kiev Pechersk Lavra: Chants of the Russian Orthodox Church: "
Monks and Choirs of Kiev Pechersk Lavra
Chants of the Russian Orthodox Church

Total time: 73:45
Release date: 10/20/03

Part of these collections: Choral, Eastern Voices, Ukraine.

Location of artist: Kiev, Ukraine.

Play entire album: hifi lofi"

Musopen.com: About

Musopen.com: About: "Musopen is a community driven, online music repository started by a music and economics college student named Aaron Dunn.

This site takes music that is in the public domain, meaning a work that belongs to the community, and has it recorded by individuals and college/community orchestras throughout the United States and stored online so it can be accessed for free through this website."

panopticist: A Screaming Comes Across the Screen

panopticist: A Screaming Comes Across the Screen: "The video below is a compilation of dozens of Wilhelms from the last half-century."

The Wilhelm Scream

The Wilhelm Scream: "One sound effect that has found a following with many sound editors and observant movie fans is a distinctive scream named Wilhelm."

LiveScience.com - Study Reveals How Magic Works

LiveScience.com - Study Reveals How Magic Works: "Scientists are figuring out how magicians fool our brains in research that also helps uncover how our mind actually works.

A great deal of what scientists now understand about how the human visual system works stems from research into our susceptibility to optical illusions.

'It made sense to look at magicians to advance knowledge of human cognition, since magicians have been working on figuring out how certain principles of psychology work for hundreds of years,' said researcher Gustav Kuhn at the University of Durham in England, a cognitive psychologist who has also performed magic the past couple decades.

'Magicians really have this ability to distort your perceptions, to get people to perceive things that never happened, just like a visual illusion,' he added."

Women talk three times as much as men, says study | the Daily Mail

Women talk three times as much as men, says study | the Daily Mail: "It is something one half of the population has long suspected - and the other half always vocally denied."

Under The Sun: Top 20 replies by Programmers to Testers when their programs don't work

Under The Sun: Top 20 replies by Programmers to Testers when their programs don't work:

"20. 'That's weird...'
19. 'It's never done that before.'
18. 'It worked yesterday.'
17. 'How is that possible?'
16. 'It must be a hardware problem.'
15. 'What did you type in wrong to get it to crash?'
14. 'There is something funky in your data.'
13. 'I haven't touched that module in weeks!'
12. 'You must have the wrong version.'
11. 'It's just some unlucky coincidence.'
10. 'I can't test everything!'
9. 'THIS can't be the source of THAT.'
8. 'It works, but it hasn't been tested.'
7. 'Somebody must have changed my code.'
6. 'Did you check for a virus on your system?'
5. 'Even though it doesn't work, how does it feel?
4. 'You can't use that version on your system.'
3. 'Why do you want to do it that way?'
2. 'Where were you when the program blew up?'
1. 'It works on my machine'"

Instapundit.com -

Instapundit.com -: "WHY DOES FLU SPREAD IN THE WINTER?

In a paper scheduled for publication next month in the journal Epidemiology and Infection, a Harvard University-led team proposes that a vitamin D deficiency caused by inadequate winter sun exposure may predispose people to infection.

If this theory proves correct, it would not only solve a long-standing mystery, but could also have major public health consequences.

Influenza kills an average 36,000 people in the U.S. each winter, mostly the very old and very young. If scientists could pinpoint the secret behind its seasonal recurrence and somehow alter it, 'the potential impact would be far greater than the current influenza vaccine,' says Dowell. . . . In their new paper, which draws together strands from more than seven decades of vitamin and flu research, Cannell and his colleagues argue that vitamin D stimulates production of a natural infection-fighting substance in the body called cathelicidin.

Although cathelicidin has yet to be studied directly on influenza, recent research has shown that it attacks a variety of fungi, viruses, and bacteria - including the bug that causes tuberculosis, researchers reported last March in Science."

Science & Religion Series TTBOOK

Science & Religion Series TTBOOK:
"Electrons to Enlightenment:

The Big Questions:
1 Science or religion?
2 Are We Alone in the Universe?
3 What Does God Look Like?
4 Do You Believe in Evolution?
5 What's Your First Memory of God?

EXCERPTS:
from interviews with TTBOOK Executive Producer Steve Paulson (Templeton/Cambridge Journalism Fellow in Science & Religion)

E.O. Wilson
Francis Collins
Richard Dawkins
Karen Armstrong
Michael Ruse
Ursula Goodenough
Sam Harris"

Oracle SQL

Oracle SQL: "
* Constraints:
o Deferring Constraint Checking
o Constraint Violations

* Triggers:
o Basic Trigger Syntax
o Trigger Example
o Displaying Trigger Definition Errors
o Viewing Defined Triggers
o Dropping Triggers
o Disabling Triggers
o Aborting Triggers with Error
o Mutating Table Errors

This document was written originally by Yu-May Chang and Jeff Ullman for CS145..."

Using Oracle PL/SQL

Using Oracle PL/SQL: "
* Basic Structure of PL/SQL
* Variables and Types
* Simple PL/SQL Programs
* Control Flow in PL/SQL
* Cursors
* Procedures
* Discovering Errors
* Printing Variables

This document was written originally by Yu-May Chang and Jeff Ullman for CS145....
"

Interactivate: Tessellate!

Interactivate: Tessellate!: "Tessellate!
Shodor > Interactivate > Activities > Tessellate!"

Re: database connection pooling from mod_python app

Re: database connection pooling from mod_python app:

"1. Reused Transaction vs Connection Pool Leaks

It is critical that a persistent connection's transaction is *always*
completed - either with commit or rollback. If you forget to do this
then database operations during the next request that the process
handles will use the same transaction ... which could be disasterous.

A connection pool will only give out a connection that is 'closed' and,
typically, rollback() is called by the pool manager as a connection is
returned. This avoids the problem of transactions spanning multiple
requests. A common problem when using connection pools are connection
leaks - a connection is not closed and hence is never returned to the
pool - but IMHO this is less serious. I would rather see an application
hang waiting for a connection to become available than have corrupt data.

The reused transaction and connection leak problems are both programming
errors (use a finally block to avoid the problem) but it is easier to
spot a connection pool leak - set the maximum pool size to a low number
and hammer the application. You'll soon find out if there are any
problems . Add some logging to the pool implementation to record who
opens and closes connection and you can easily find offending code that
forgets to call close().

2. Apache forking

As Ian mentions, Apache creates multiple processes to handle requests. A
default installation of Apache 1.x on Debian has a MaxClients of 150,
i.e. 150 processes. If each one of those processes maintains a
persistent connection you can easily hit your database server's
connection limit. 150 is a *lot* of connections to keep open anyway but
many requests will not even need database access, i.e. images, CSS,
JavaScript etc.

Perhaps you've tuned your Apache config and set MaxClients to something
more approriate, 30 for instance. Even then, it's likely that the number
of simultaneous connections that are required is much lower than 30.

Matt Goodall, Pollenation Internet Ltd
w: http://www.pollenation.net
"

Instapundit.com -

Instapundit.com -: "And here's my recipe for roast Thanksgiving lamb.

1 semi-boneless leg of lamb (about 8 pounds)
2 cups merlot
1 cup each worcestershire and teriyaki
2 cloves garlic, crushed (more is better!)
1tbsp sugar
2 oz. olive oil
rosemary, thyme, salt, and pepper to taste
Disposable aluminum roasting pan.

Mix merlot, worcestershire, and teriyaki, plus sugar, and marinate, preferably overnight. Heat a covered gas grill to high temperature on one side, low on the other.

Rub the lamb with olive oil, garlic and other spices. Place the roasting pan on the 'low heat' side. Place the lamb on the 'high heat' side of the grill and sear; rotate until all sides are browned. Move to the roasting pan, and turn the 'high' side down to low as well. Close the grill cover and cook. If the lamb seems to be browning too much, cover with aluminum foil.

Cook until a meat thermometer inserted all the way to the center reads 140-145 degrees. (Don't overcook, or the lamb will be dry and tasteless; the outside can be pretty crispy, but the inside should be rare). Remove, let cool for a few minutes, and serve. Juices will make an excellent lamb gravy, especially if you add more merlot."

nemo 33 : LEARN TO DIVE AT NEMO33.

nemo 33 : LEARN TO DIVE AT NEMO33.: "Far from quarries and pools with poor hygiene, NEMO33
offers maximum security and an incomparable learning comfort :

*
a crystal clear, drinkable spring water
*
an exquisitely heated water at 30°C, with almost no chlorine smell
*
a complete visibility down to 33m
*
a pool with different depth levels to learn and progress step by step"

ArtRage 2

ArtRage 2: "This is the homepage for ArtRage, the easy to use, stylish painting package that lets you get painting from the moment you open it up. You can paint with oils, sketch with pencils, sprinkle glitter, and more. You can paint with gold leaf, silver foil, and other metallic colors. You can even load in your photos as Tracing Images to help you recreate them as paintings."

Templar quotes from the Movie Quote Generator

Templar quotes from the Movie Quote Generator: "Templar! Why did it have to be templar?
Which movie was this from?"

Templar quotes from the Movie Quote Generator

Templar quotes from the Movie Quote Generator: "Templar! Why did it have to be templar?
Which movie was this from?"

Seed: Who Wants to Be a Cognitive Neuroscientist Millionaire?

Seed: Who Wants to Be a Cognitive Neuroscientist Millionaire?: "A researcher uses his understanding of the human brain to advance on a popular quiz show."

31 Wheel Roller Suit - BREAK.com

31 Wheel Roller Suit - BREAK.com: "11/9/2006 - A French guy named Jean-Yves Blondeau has created a plastic suit equipped with 31 wheels which allows him to roll down streets at speeds up to 60 miles per hour while switching positions at any time. This is pretty awesome, it's like break dancing, plus roller blading plus street luge."

russell davies: how to be interesting

russell davies: how to be interesting: "The way to be interesting is to be interested. You’ve got to find what’s interesting in everything, you’ve got to be good at noticing things, you’ve got to be good at listening. If you find people (and things) interesting, they’ll find you interesting.

Interesting people are good at sharing. You can’t be interested in someone who won’t tell you anything. Being good at sharing is not the same as talking and talking and talking. It means you share your ideas, you let people play with them and you’re good at talking about them without having to talk about yourself."

Top-Rated Water Heaters

Top-Rated Water Heaters: "Gas Storage Water Heaters

This table summarizes the most efficient available products. For more information on specific models and their features, see the GAMA database (produced by the Gas Appliance Manufacturer's Association)"

ConsumerReports.org - Water-heater tips 2/05: Gas hot water heater, electric hot water heater

ConsumerReports.org - Water-heater tips 2/05: Gas hot water heater, electric hot water heater: "Sawing open 18 gas and electric models confirmed that paying a little more for a longer warranty typically buys you a better water heater. Several smart steps can also help you save money, avoid installation hassles, and get enough hot water, even on busy mornings."

The Truth Laid Bear

The Truth Laid Bear: "On Election Day, the latest news and results will be posted here."

The Dilbert Blog: Affirmations

The Dilbert Blog: Affirmations: "There’s a book called The Luck Factor, in which researcher Richard Wiseman describes studying people who considered themselves lucky, to see if they had any special powers along the lines of ESP. It turns out that they don’t. But he did discover that people who expect luck have a more powerful ability to notice opportunities in their environment. Optimistic people’s field of perception is literally greater. And the best part is he discovered that when you train people to expect luck, their field of perception increases accordingly. I think part of the mystery of affirmations has to do with the fact that it improves your ability to notice an opportunity. And when you do, it seems like a lucky coincidence. In my case, about half of my seemingly miraculous results with affirmations could be traced back to my noticing something important."

Bizarre Boiling

Bizarre Boiling: "Watching liquids boil in low gravity is an out-of-this-world experience. It has plenty of entertainment value, but it's teaching scientists some important physics lessons, too."

Coke and Mentos Fountain at EepyBird.com

Coke and Mentos Fountain at EepyBird.com: "Thanks to The Coca-Cola Company and Mentos for helping make this video possible. Be sure to visit Coke.com to find out about our Poetry in Motion video challenge!"

The Secret Life Of Machines Home Page

The Secret Life Of Machines Home Page: "Just how does a video recorder work? And how about fax machines, cars, washing machines, electric light, telephones, vacuum cleaners, and refrigerators? You'll find the answers here. This site is designed as a companion to the TV series 'The Secret Life Of Machines' written by Tim Hunkin, and presented by Tim Hunkin and Rex Garrod."

Botnet Command and Control - Raw Executable Code

Botnet Command and Control - Raw Executable Code: "This shows one of the simplest spreading mechanisms bots use: raw executable code included in a simple field (in this case, the topic of a channel). Once connected, the victim's computer would then download this code and run it."

830! How a carpenter got the highest Scrabble score ever. - By Stefan Fatsis - Slate Magazine

830! How a carpenter got the highest Scrabble score ever. - By Stefan Fatsis - Slate Magazine: "On Oct. 12, in the basement of a Unitarian church on the town green in Lexington, Mass., a carpenter named Michael Cresta scored 830 points in a game of Scrabble. His opponent, Wayne Yorra, who works at a supermarket deli counter, totaled 490 points. The two men set three records for sanctioned Scrabble in North America: the most points in a game by one player (830), the most total points in a game (1,320), and the most points on a single turn (365, for Cresta's play of QUIXOTRY)."

'I didn't want to run companies' | Technology | Guardian Unlimited Technology

'I didn't want to run companies' | Technology | Guardian Unlimited Technology: "Apple's co-founder came to the company through a series of 'little accidents' and insists that he remains an engineer at heart

Interview by Bobbie Johnson
Thursday October 26, 2006
The Guardian

Technology Guardian: The heart of the new book is Apple and how you started the company.

Steve Wozniak: I think the early history - how the hell did you start this whole, basically, industry, this business, this company with absolutely nothing being so young. Just a bunch of ideas, where did the skills come from - how did it happen is just an amazing story."

Northwestern Infolab - Projects - News At Seven

Northwestern Infolab - Projects - News At Seven: "News At Seven is a system that automatically generates a virtual news show. Totally autonomous, it collects, parses, edits and organizes news stories and then passes the formatted content to an artificial anchor for presentation. Using the resources present on the web, the system goes beyond the straight text of the news stories to also retrieve relevant images and blogs with commentary on the topics to be presented."

"It's for you"

"It's for you": "This cute Coke ad's been out for almost a month now, but since I still haven't gotten tired of it, I thought I'd share it with the folks out there who aren't blessed with the wonders of Chinese TV. Through the magic of YouTube, then, here is 'Ringtone':

This is another in a series of Coke ads starring Wilbur Pan (潘玮柏) and Angela Chang (张韶涵). Here's an earlier spot, which, much like the S.H.E. World of Warcraft ads (endings 1, 2, 3), features Coke-stealing hijinks in a virtual environment."

eatingchinese.org :: View topic - Making Jian Bing -- YouTube videos

eatingchinese.org :: View topic - Making Jian Bing -- YouTube videos: "Here's a couple of nice videos of two different styles of jian bing (a.k.a. 'dan bing') beign made by streetside vendors, posted by 'sunnata' on YouTube. The 'Northern Style' jian bing is very similar to those that I enjoyed near Tongji University in Shanghai recently.
"

The Day That Nothing Happened

The Day That Nothing Happened: "The Wal-Mart in the basement of my building sells live frogs in a big aquarium, for eating. I don't know what surprised me more when I moved here - the frogs, or the Wal-Mart. Our favorite intergalactic retailer doesn't mess around when it comes to creating 'capitalism with Chinese characteristics', as a group of Kentucky tourists hunting fruitlessly for American cheese in the dairy aisle found to their chagrin the other day. The company knows its market; in addition to the frogs there are live turtles (plastic bar code tags threaded through little holes in their shells), a special hot Peking duck stand, endless noodles and only a small selection of beer and spirits, though you are welcome to down a big shot of Chivas regal from the sampling booth as you shop. Chinese "

YouTube - Dan Bing - Southern Style

YouTube - Dan Bing - Southern Style: "Slightly different from its Northern cousin. This egg pancake (dan bing) was an important part of my diet while living in Shanghai. "

The Daily WTF - Table Scan Hell

The Daily WTF - Table Scan Hell:


"Re: Table Scan Hell
by nonDev


Fred:

db2:

Nick:
[Obvious joke about mysql not being a real database]
[Lame recommendation to try postgresql, oracle, sqlite, etc]

[obligatory varchar2 dig]

[varchar2 retort]
[general, unrelated stab at the uselessness of VB, in any situation, and how solves all my problems]
"

The Logic of Collective Action

The Logic of Collective Action: "Special Interests and Economic Policy
There are a lot of government policies, like airline bailouts, that from an economic perspective don't make any sense at all. Politicians have an incentive to keep the economy strong as incumbents are reelected at a much higher rate during booms than busts. So why do so many government policies make such little economic sense?

The best answer I've seen to this question comes from a book that is almost 40 years old. The Logic of Collective Action by Mancur Olson explains why some groups are able to have a larger influence on government policy than others. I'll give a brief outline of The Logic of Collective Action and show how we can use the results of the book to explain economic policy decisions."

Boost socket performance on Linux

Boost socket performance on Linux:
"Four ways to speed up your network applications.

The Sockets API lets you develop client and server applications that can communicate across a local network or across the world via the Internet. Like any API, you can use the Sockets API in ways that promote high performance -- or inhibit it. This article explores four ways to use the Sockets API to squeeze the greatest performance out your application and to tune the GNU/Linux® environment to achieve the best results."

The truth about that one red paper clip

The truth about that one red paper clip: "Kyle traded his way up through a fish pen, a Coleman stove, a generator, a snowmobile, a van, one year's free rent in Phoenix, an afternoon with rock star Alice Cooper, and finally to the house, one year later.

That sounds impressive, but was it worth the time and trouble? The answer is yes, but not for the reasons we might think."

Take My Wallet, Please

Take My Wallet, Please: "What's a classic ploy?
A pickpocket squirts mustard on you unawares. He approaches you, points at the stain and starts to clean it. While he distracts you with one hand, he robs you with his free hand."

$.05 Toy Hovercraft / Helicopter

$.05 Toy Hovercraft / Helicopter: "This instructable will show you how to make a simple toy hovercraft for small children. It is suitable for daycare projects, science projects (aerodynamics and gyroscopes) as well as general fun. This is a project can be built by small children since it requires no cutting."

Fifteen Minute, Self-propelled hovercraft

Fifteen Minute, Self-propelled hovercraft: "This instructable coves how to build a hovercraft out of a foam tray, cardboard, and some other household items."

fish oil

Clayton Cramer's BLOG: "We are suffering, he believes, from widespread diseases of deficiency. Just as vitamin C deficiency causes scurvy, deficiency in the essential fats the brain needs and the nutrients needed to metabolise those fats is causing of a host of mental problems from depression to aggression. Not all experts agree, but if he is right, the consequences are as serious as they could be. The pandemic of violence in western societies may be related to what we eat or fail to eat. Junk food may not only be making us sick, but mad and bad too."

The Corner on National Review Online

The Corner on National Review Online: "U.S. Math Scores [John Derbyshire]
Math-teaching anecdote from chez Derb. Nellie is doing factorization of quadratic forms—factorizing, for example, 2x^2+5x-3 into (2x-1)(x+3). She had done all the homework exercises, but had a test next day, so came up to my study to beg me to write out some more exercises she might try. "

Information

Information: "Gawker is an application for Mac OS X that creates time-lapse movies using a webcam. Images from your camera can be shared, allowing other users to record your image stream. Streams can also be combined to create a time-lapse movie with up to four locations side-by-side."

Hot Library Smut

Hot Library Smut: "Yesterday I came across a truly gorgeous book of photographs by Candida Höfer titled, Libraries, a title which pretty much says it all, because that is just exactly what it is, one rich, sumptuous, photo of a library interior after another. It’s like porn for book nerds. Seriously. They are gorgeous photos, nearly all without visitors and just begging to be entered. (ha. sorry.)

See below for 14 examples which I particularly liked, but keep in mind these 500px wide version can’t really compete with the big, glossy, real thing."

Forbidden Crypts Of Haunted Music!

Forbidden Crypts Of Haunted Music!: "Welcome to the Forbidden Crypts Of Haunted Music! I Am Making Each
Album Into A Listening Sound Page! I Hope You Enjoy Listening To Them As Much As I Did Recording Them! For Those Of You Who Think The Sound Files Have Too Many
Pops And Clicks, GOOD - That's The Way I Meant Them To Sound. Just Like You Are Listening To The Albums Yourself!"

RAND | Monograph/Reports | A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates

RAND | Monograph/Reports | A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates: "Not long after research began at RAND in 1946, the need arose for random numbers that could be used to solve problems of various kinds of experimental probability procedures. These applications, called Monte Carlo methods, required a large supply of random digits and normal deviates of high quality, and the tables presented here were produced to meet those requirements.This book was a product of RAND's pioneering work in computing, as well a testament to the patience and persistence of researchers in the early days of RAND. The tables of random numbers in this book have become a standard reference in engineering and econometrics textbooks and have been widely used in gaming and simulations that employ Monte Carlo trials. Still the largest published source of random digits and normal deviates, the work is routinely used by statisticians, physicists, polltakers, market analysts, lottery administrators, and quality control engineers."

tacotrucks.net

Taco Trucks in Oakland

The Nietzsche Family Circus

The Nietzsche Family Circus: "The Nietzsche Family Circus pairs a randomized Family Circus cartoon with a randomized Friedrich Nietzsche quote. "

Gnese - Comic Book DS

Gnese - Comic Book DS: "Comic Book DS is a program making it possible to read your Comic Books on your Nintendo DS."

vNES - Virtual Nintendo Entertainment System with 395 Games

vNES
Here, you can play NES Games in your browser, using Java Applet Technology. All you need is Java 1.5.0 or higher. If you need to upgrade, click here. Before you begin, please make sure you understand the controls. The controller at top will always remain there, for reference. We are not affiliated with Nintendo in any way. This is an emulator. It was built so we would have something to do.

Online Pirate Translator - Pirate Monkeyness

Online Pirate Translator - Pirate Monkeyness: "This here be an English t' Pirate translator. Jus' enter some English in the top, then skewer the 'Translate' button tah get the Pirate version. If ye're wantin' to know what's behind it, 'tis usin' some Javascript to hit a Perl script that does the translatin'. In other words, it's usin' some of that shiney, new AJAX stuff to get this done."

Ig Nobel prizes hail 'digital rectal massage' - opinion - 06 October 2006 - New Scientist

Ig Nobel prizes hail 'digital rectal massage' - opinion - 06 October 2006 - New Scientist: "Runaway electrical impulses in the vagus nerve cause intractable hiccups, so Fesmire attempted to block them by stimulating the nerve. Gagging, tongue pulling, sinus massage and pressing the eyeball to stimulate the vagus all failed to stop the hiccups. Then he remembered reading about a case in which digital rectal massage – inserting a finger into a patient’s anus – had slowed a racing heartbeat, an effect similar to runaway hiccups."

The Best Time to Buy Everything (Deal of the Day: Personal Finance) | SmartMoney.com

The Best Time to Buy Everything (Deal of the Day: Personal Finance) | SmartMoney.com: "We talked to the experts, and found the best time to buy everything from wine to wedding dresses."

Dead Bachelors in Remote China Still Find Wives - New York Times

Dead Bachelors in Remote China Still Find Wives - New York Times: "The rural folk custom, startling to Western sensibilities, is known as minghun, or afterlife marriage. Scholars who have studied it say it is rooted in the Chinese form of ancestor worship, which holds that people continue to exist after death and that the living are obligated to tend to their wants — or risk the consequences. Traditional Chinese beliefs also hold that an unmarried life is incomplete, which is why some parents worry that an unmarried dead son may be an unhappy one."

PODZINGER

PODZINGER: "PODZINGER unleashes the content within audio and video.
To find the podcast you want, don't just search for it ... ZING IT!"

laocoon.JPG (JPEG Image, 664x700 pixels) - Scaled (85%)

laocoon.JPG (JPEG Image, 664x700 pixels) - Scaled (85%)