Some nice Wallpaper To decorate my machine at home when I get back from work is a link to a wallpaper named The night of titans.

Da Vinci's Notebooks a day at a time (in RSS!) Very cool.... there is an RSS link for reading The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci. This is particularily interesting as Da Vinci plays a big part in the book I'm reading currently, The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.

TODO - Web page analysis For my reference (I'm sure I've posted this in the past) - Web Page Analyzer for seeing why your page is slow.

First Look at Longhorn 4074 There is an interesting article with A First Look at Longhorn. Lots of screenshots and some commentary on some of the new features from the latest build (4074, WinHEC version).

My opinion on this is pretty much as follows. Looks mostly like XP with a black skin. Many of the changes appear to be cosmetic, and some major components are lacking in any really exciting upgrades (ie: IE has pop up blocking (which warns you that it might not work!), but no tabbed browsing or anything else that looks remotely revolutionary. Some things are just wacked, like the sync manager still uses the windows 95(!!!!) offline webpages icon, and the icons still don't seem to be scalable.

The 3D avalon mode looks pretty swanky, but nothing that hasn't been in OS/X for 4 years and Linux (in various forms) for a while. Basically it's dropshadows and a nifty thumbnailing alt-tab mode. All this requires a fair amount of hardware of course. Of course, sometimes features like this new alt-tab are far worse than the tried and true classic. Anyone using the new alt-tab replacement that came out for XP, which thumbnails and gives you huge ass icons in your alt-tab list? Didn't think so.

Overall the interface is pretty similar to XP, but in some places it looks far more cluttered, a step backwards, not forwards, to me. Of course, this is still pre-beta, full of debug code and un/half-implemented features, and the final product is still years from release. It's still interesting to see what's coming up. Based on this though, I'm not chomping at the bit yet.

Halo 2 3D Dana passed on this very nifty Halo 2 3d screenshot. It's one of those quicktime panorama dealies, and looks pretty nifty. I'm still waiting for Doom3 and HalfLife2 though :)

Another Comment Spam Killing Solution While MT-Bayesian isn't perfect, it could have some advantages over mt-blacklist. For those of us who were caught over the weekend by the comment spam zombies and had to (in my case) clean 1200+ comments out, this might be something worth looking at. If you are running mt-blacklist don't forget to upgrade to the latest version and to import the master blacklist file.

Why You Don't Run Windows Luke points out some of the disadvantages of running Windows.

As a friend of mine mentioned it is possible to get 0 errors back from ad-aware by using your computer smartly (not running IE, watching cookies, changing your security zone, not running as admin), but in my opinioin this isn't the way that most "normal" people work. They turn on the computer and use what is available, click on pop ups, click executables that come in email, and are blissfully are hosts to adware, spyware, worms and viruses. The number of worms and crap that float around support this theory :)

Some Atom Syndication Info Mark has some good info on Atom and how to work with it. The example is making a linkblog in Atom, but the info there is also useful for learning how to work with Atom period. For those who don't know, Atom is an alternative XML syndication format "competing" against RSS.

Of course, my opinion of the whole RSS vs. Atom thing is that it's egos competing and that it really doesn't matter, but that's a different issue :-)

Stern Torrents I finally found a site that has the Howard Sten E show torrents. Yay!

Mini vs F150 Crash Results Scoble linked this page with some pictures comparing Crash Testing a MINI Cooper vs Ford F150. Granted as my studious coworker pointed out the F150 has a lot more weight behind it, but it's interesting to see the images. It would be interesting to see a test comparing the same amount of force of a crash though, to compare purely the way the car reacts to said force in a crash.

Apple and Microsoft... Lovers vs. Whores Charles Miller over took an amusing look at Microsoft and Apple when asked by someone about buying apple. The Mac is a Harsh Mistress is funny because, well, it's true :)

Microsoft, ladies and gentlemen, is a cheap whore. She lives on the fringes of the law, but there�s no getting rid of her because she fulfils a certain need in our society. People want what she is selling.
[...]
I have bought more software for my Mac than I ever did for my Windows PCs, most of it shareware. Is it really that much higher quality? Or am I buying her presents?

Great post :)

Geek Check out where you fit in the geek hierarchy. Link via geeky chicks what makes a geek. I feel glad I only fall around the "Video Gamers" area...

Mozilla for Porn = Pornzilla Who said that IE had it all? Pornzilla: Free tools for surfing porn with Mozilla Firefox shows you all the tools, settings, and extensions you need for Mozilla/Firefox to make your porn browsing experience 100x better!

The Spatial Way The Spatial Way posted on gnomedesktop.org gives the "right way" to use the new (and hotly debated) "spatial mode" in the new GNOME 2.6 nautilus file browser.

Google takes a stand on spyware.... Google's software principles basically say "don't screw over the customer". This isn't going to stop spyware bastards from doing their dirty work, but it is nice to see that someone is thinking of trying to start a trend towards making your computing experience safe.

These guidelines are, by necessity, broad. Software creation and distribution are complex and the technology is continuously evolving. As a result, some useful applications may not comply entirely with these principles and some deceptive practices may not be addressed here. This document is only a start, and focuses on the areas of Internet software and advertising. These guidelines need to be continually updated to keep pace with ever-changing technology.

Read it all here. Via Scripting.com.

Best WalMart Revenge Ever The Wal-Mart Story is old but good, and shows what one can do when properly motivated (or fired) from walmart. Fantastically funny, though not recommended for recreation.

I need to make it absolutely clear that for legal reasons, neither Joe Peacock nor Mentally Incontinent can recommend that anyone ever reenact the following descriptions of my actions If anyone chooses to take it upon themselves to reenact the following plan, we cannot be held liable for the outcome. (We do, however, heartily endorse them if you do them. We won�t accept responsibility for your actions, but we WILL send you some awesome greeting cards and pat you on the back once you are released from jail.)

Lila Theme The Lila Theme is a nice theme that is quite (IMHO) usable. The home page is here and you can get the latest and greatest icon/gtk/gdm/grub and backgrounds from there. Screenshot.

Windows XP Tweaking Guide Found the XP Tweaking Guide via OSNews. Here's another.

OpenSceneGraph Open Source 3D Toolkit Oohhhh...... OpenSceneGraph is pretty swanky. Boone pointed it out this morning, it runs on most every OS, uses OpenGL, and looks pretty good too.

Unreal 3 Tech Page As a bit of a follow up to the Unreal 3 video I posted about last month, there is a Unreal Technology page up with some details of what's in store when the game is released (sometime before 2010 I hope!). Graphics, physics, characters, and lots of tasty screenshots for your drooling.

Help Support Daniel Robbins of Gentoo Looks like Daniel Robbins of Gentoo fame accumulated quite a bit of debt in his role of chief architect of the Gentoo project. Gentoo users are helping out with donations by clicking the big donate button on the top right and buying things from the gentoo store. I'm going to pick myself up a couple of t-shirts or something, and I hope you (other gentoo users or helpful individuals) do the same.

Some OS Myths Debunked There's a good series of articles over at OSNews.com on Common OS Myths Debunked. Not all Linux friendly and not all Windows friendly. I don't agree with all of the writers opinions, but so far it seems to be pretty brually honest. For example, when talking about the "myth" that windows is bad for the server the author says (after agreeing that the myth isn't a myth at all):

s more effectively, than on a Linux system where the web server is running "far removed from the OS." I am no security expert but if you tried to sell your web server to the Linux community on the basis that it "works in kernel space instead of user space!" you would be laughed out of the room, and possibly the state.

It's a good read, both to take stock of your own misconceptions as well as to get some ammo when talking to people who insist that "X is better than Y for Z".

Programmers Fonts Some nifty keen programming fonts found.

Musical Relationships Boing Boing pointed to a site called Music Plasma, which is a nifty little flash app which creates a visual relationship between the artist of your choosing and others that are related. No idea where they are getting their information, but it's very similar to what AudioGalaxy (if you remember them) had, as well as various other services which have a "others who have listened to this music also enjoyed...." link. Seems like a great way of searching for new artists to listen to though! Now this just needs to get integrated into MusicBrainz :)

Old but Good, the Hacker Manifesto Randomly came back to The Hacker Manifesto, old but good, and a must read for all those who are that type...

Damn kid. Tying up the phone line again. They're all alike...

Learning to use MovableType Learning Movable Type is a good page for beginners getting into weblogs. Everything from pop up windows, syndication, rss, printer friendly pages, etc.

Debian Wallpapers Amayita has posted links to some very cool debian wallpapers. Sweet!

Happy Tree Friends is Wacked The Happy Tree Friend flash video is probably the most wacked thing I've seen in a while. If you like it, there are lots here and here. Thanks Dana and Oneiros!

Voting and IQ I'm not saying I put anything on statistics, but Accordian Guy found some interesting info comparing each states average IQ and how they voted in the last election. Hmm.......

Huge Camera Lenses Wanted to do some cool macro photography.... from say, mars? Check out these babys. Kinda big :)

5200 mm 1:14
Dimensions Length: 1290mm (hood 390mm) Wide: 500x600mm Weight: 100kg

Tax Dollars at Work Thanks Cat5 for sending along a nice look at our tax dollars at work.

RedHat from IRC The history of RedHat as an IRC log. via Neurobashing.

The Ultimate Boot CD Cool, looks useful, the Ultimate Boot CD. Especially when combined with the Open CD.

Next Gen MacOS on June 28th Boone threw me this link with info about the Apple WWDC (World Wide Developer Conference) which will start on June 28^th and will include a preview of the next version of MacOS, "Tiger". No info on the page about this though.

It'll be neat to see what the folks at Apple have planned. They contrast sharply with the Microsoft folks these days, who are telling us again and again how wonderful Longhorn will be when it comes out .... uhmm.... eventually. History though has shown that this MacOS update will probably be an evolutionary jump like Panther was and not the revolutionary jump that the original Mac OS/X was. If the hype from Redmond is correct though, Microsofts Longhorn will be revolutionary (well, assuming it ever comes out :)

Anti-Porn I'm sure sure if this is a parody or just a very screwed up message, but it's on the "ProjectGod" website, so who knows. It's a very odd anti-porn film which was pointed out by boing boing blog.

24 Hours of Running Just who are these crazy people?

Other GNOME Theme Sites Well, since art.gnome.org is still down, I found a thread withsome other theme site recommendations.

Desktop Screenshot Archive Cool, someone has setup a project to archive screenshots. This is from the May Gentoo Screenshot thread on the gentoo forums.

Gartoon Icon Theme Found the home of the Gartoon icon theme. Looks cool, must try later.