November 2004
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Day November 18, 2004

The Jean-Paul Sartre Cookbook

A really funny diary of when an existentialist cooks.

October 4

Still working on the omelet. There have been stumbling blocks. I keep creating omelets one after another, like soldiers marching into the sea, but each one seems empty, hollow, like stone. I want to create an omelet that expresses the meaninglessness of existence, and instead they taste like cheese. I look at them on the plate, but they do not look back. Tried eating them with the lights off. It did not help. Malraux suggested paprika.

Strange Toy Sculptures

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They are called Toddlerpedes. Yuck.

(via Reality Carnival)

When Celebrities Attack…

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Some pictures of Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake’s tiff with a photographer. I love it when celebrities get mad at the paparazzi. It is the price of fame. Live with it.

Google Scholar

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Google Scholar enables you to search specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research. Use Google Scholar to find articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web.

Million Spider March

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A warning: If the thought of tens of millions of tiny spiders spinning a web 24 hectares – 60 acres – in size and crawling all over it scares the wits out of you, you might want to tread carefully over the following. Because that’s exactly what happened last month on a farmer’s field near McBride, about 220 kilometres east of Prince George. For reasons that area scientists don’t really understand, millions and millions of tiny black spiders called Halorates ksenius – they have no common name – became trapped in Russell Jervis’ clover field and started spinning webs.

(via Monkeyfilter)

Cardboard House

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This isn’t a new concept. I see many people during the morning in Harvard Square living in cardboard houses. Granted they are a bit smaller and box-like.

The Cardboard House represents the reduction of technology and the simplification of needs. By demonstrating that we are able to recycle 100% of the building components at extremely low cost, the Cardboard House is a direct challenge to the housing industry to reduce housing and environmental costs.

Or you could live in a glass house.

(via Grow a Brain)

Online Hunting

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Kill all the game you want from the comfort of your own home!

LIVE-SHOT is a new concept. You can challenge yourself and compare your skills to other members with our on-line target shooting. We have developed a system where you can control a pan/tilt/zoom camera and a firearm to shoot at real targets in real time.

While your membership is active, access the viewing cameras to see how others stack up to your abilities, control the pan/tilt/zoom camera to take a look around, and schedule a reservation for your on-line shooting experience.

Currently, shooters will be able to fire 10 (ten) .22 caliber rounds at paper and silhouette targets. You may also have a DVD recording and/or the paper target from the session shipped as an option. Look for additional, varied shooting systems along with competitions to come online soon.

There are a few news stories about this and the site must be getting a lot of traffic because the connection was a bit slow this morning.

The Light Sleeper

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Here is an interesting concept for an alarm clock although it is a bit too subtle for me. I need something screaming in my ear to scare the sleep out of me. At least until I hit the snooze.

A silent alarm clock, an illuminating, personalised alarm integrated into your bedding that gently wakes you in the most natural way. Ever since the beginning of time light has controlled our body clock telling us when to sleep and when to wake. As lifestyles are rapidly changing with increased travel and demands on our time, people’s natural body clocks are out of sync. This pillow and duvet simulates a natural dawn that eases you into your day. Light Sleeper Bedding uses electroluminescent technology allowing traditional textile surfaces to become a reactive light source.

MIT Car Hack

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My favorite MIT Hacks are when they utilize the Great Dome somehow. Such as putting a campus police car on it.

The car turned out to be the outer metal parts of a Chevrolet Cavalier attached to a multi-piece wooden frame, all carefully assembled on the roof over the course of one night. The hackers paid special attention to detail. Not only had the Chevy been painted to look just like a Campus Police car from all sides, but a dummy dressed up as a police officer sat within, with a toy disc gun and a box of donuts. The car, numbered “pi,” also sported a pair of fuzzy dice, the license number “IHTFP,” an MIT Campus Police parking ticket (“no permit for this location”), and a yellow diamond-shaped sign on the back window proclaiming “I break for donuts.”

More hacks here.

How to install Windows XP in 5 hours or less

This is the funniest thing I have read in a long time. The amazing thing is that it only took him 147 steps.

My Windows XP installation has reached its half-life. (You do know that Windows has a half-life, don’t you? Every installation of Windows naturally degrades along a logarithmic curve until it becomes annoying, then unbearable, then unusable. Each successive revision of Windows has featured a slightly longer half-life. Back in the day, Windows 95 would last me about 3 months, while my copy of Windows XP has lasted me almost 9. I’m not bitter; when you realize that you’re measuring on a logarithmic scale, a factor of 3 improvement is really quite impressive.)

Still, the fact remains that my Windows XP laptop can no longer (a) print, (b) sleep, or © change network settings without crashing. This is not multiple choice; it can’t do any of those things. It’s time for a clean re-install.


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