mmm not so good

Sunrise in Beijing (from Michael Kanellos, CNet).

Intel Metro

This is all over the net right now. I'm a bit hesitant to give the thumbs up on the design, but I wouldn't mind if one of these showed up on my doorstep.

Short Names

Short names were originally implemented to maintain compatibility with programs that could only handle filenames in 8.3 format, meaning 8 characters, a dot, and a 3 character extension. This short name compatibility really bogs down the NTFS file system.

To disable the generation of short names, go to regedit and set

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/FileSystem/NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation

to 1.

This and similar registry keys are found in Windows XP, Vista, 2003, and perhaps other versions of Windows that use NTFS.

Setting the key doesn't eliminate existing short names, but it does stop new ones from being created.

You'll have to reboot for the changes to take effect.

Windows NT

What does the NT stand for?
Officially(?): New Technology
Unofficially: No Tabs

Since the devs were all using different text editors, tabs in the source code were not interpreted identically. What would look like cleanly aligned code to one programmer might look like an exploded spaghetti bomb to another.

Therefore, tabs were forbidden in source code, hence the name, "No Tabs."

Ancient Egyptian Nanotechnology

"...the ancient Egyptians were the original-albeit unknowing-nanotechnologists."

Why do the results of Barsoum's research matter most today? Two words: earth cements.

"How energy intensive and/or complicated can a 4,500 year old technology really be? The answer to both questions is not very," Barsoum explains. "The basic raw materials used for this early form of concrete-limestone, lime, and diatomaceous earth-can be found virtually anywhere in the world," he adds. "Replicating this method of construction would be cost effective, long lasting, and much more environmentally friendly than the current building material of choice: Portland cement that alone pumps roughly 6 billion tons of CO2 annually into the atmosphere when it's manufactured."

"Ironically," says Barsoum, "this study of 4,500 year old rocks is not about the past, but about the future."

- LiveScience

Picasa on Linux

From picasa.google.com/linux/thanks-deb.html:




Yes, that's right. When adding a folder to Picasa on Linux, the default action is to remove the folder. How intuitive!

The tips make the HCI glitch seem more annoying than it is in real life.

Myers-Briggs

I just took a personality test. Here are the results:

ENTP: The Mad Scientist

The ENTP, like the ENTJ, is charismatic, outgoing, and intelligent. ENTPs are often quickwitted, clever, and genial; they typically display a highly organized, rational cognitive ability which makes them natural scientists and inventors.

ENTPs are creative, complex people who seek to improve their understanding of the natural world, usually by building armored fifty-story-tall robotic monsters with iron jaws and death-ray eyes, or by creating genetically mutated plagues that spread unstoppably across the land, turning all who are contaminated into mindless zombie drones. They are less likely to want to conquer the world than to destroy it utterly, reducing it to nothing but slag and rubble--though this is often merely a side-effect of their pursuit of knowledge.

RECREATION: ENTPs enjoy recreational activities which challenge them physically and intellectually, such as water skiing and porting Linux to their iPods. They are also fond of collecting gadgets like combination cellpone/PDAs and orbiting arsenals of brain lasers, which they may port Linux to as well.

COMPATIBILITY: ENTPs and ENTJs make natural companions, as the one's unspeakable hunger for power complements the other's unspeakable hunger for knowledge. They do not generally build successful relationships with ESFJs, as ENTPs they are prone to behaving in inconveniently erratic ways, which pisses ESFJs off to no end; and because ENTPs simply do not know how to dress appropriately for formal occasions.

Famous ENTPs include Spencer Silver (the inventor of Post-It Notes), Robert Oppenheimer, and Dr. Jeckyll.

Yep, I'm the mad scientist. But, instead of destroying the world, I'm here to save it. (It's worth a shot.)

Description from here.

Highly Targeted Spam?

It's probably just an illusion, but I seem to be getting targeted spam lately.

How targeted spam might work: A crawler goes out and indexes an email and context. It then uses the context to generate a relevant spam title and keyword text that can then be matched to relevant messages from a database of client advertisements. The filter-defeating cocktail is then shuttled out to unwilling recipients across the web.

This is horrible. It's like adsense for spam.