Trespassing on Memory Lane

by Jim on 08-Dec-2008

The first computer I owned (er, was given by the parental units), circa 1983-4:

Timex/Sinclair 1000

…and the second computer (the 800XL, not the 800), circa 1985-6:

Atari 800/800XL

Going all the way now:

Here’s the 6502 assembly language cartridge I spent innumerable hours on the Atari with (and that mysteriously disappeared one day, which, ~25 years later, I still have not forgotten because I bought the thing with my own money):

Wikipedia MAC/65 Article

MAC/65 Cartridge

Now, of course, any given LCD monitor with on-screen controls has more computing power than either of these systems. But, that’s the way it goes. :-)

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SoBe Bottle Cap Qoute

by Jim on 21-Feb-2006

This was on the bottom of my SoBe bottle cap today. 50 points to the first person who can, without referencing any source outside their own skull, leave a comment telling us where this quote is from (sadly, I already know so this is just for fun):

NEO-MAXI
ZOOM
DWEEBIE

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How to Identify Good Chocolate

by Jim on 20-Feb-2006

While not your usual step-by-step instructions, it provides more information than I think 98-99% of the U.S. population has that’s required to know what’s “good” and what’s… not good.

The February 2006 issue of Gourmet magazine has a nice ranked list of chocolate (available in the U.S.) that they tested in a brownie recipe. Valrhona was ranked #1, an relatively unknown at #2 (no one I know has heard of them), and Scharffen-Berger at #3.

(Click on Read This Post (right-side menu) for full entry. (CSS in the theme is screwing up the formatting if I leave the entire post to display here.))
[click to continue…]

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Excerpt:

Creating Passionate Users: Mediocrity by “areas of improvement”
How many times in your life (school, career, relationships) have you been told about your “areas of improvement”? How much time and energy have you spent working on those areas? If you’re a manager, how much emphasis do you put on those areas during a performance review?

Maybe instead of working on our weaknesses, we should be enhancing and exploiting our strengths? What if the price for working on weakness (and who even decides what is and isn’t a “weakness”?) is less chance to be f’n amazing?

There are several books out about this, although I haven’t read them — but the idea gets my attention:

Teach With Your Strengths, which says on its Amazon page,
“Defying the orthodoxy that teachers, to be more well rounded, should work to strengthen their weaknesses, this book, drawing on research by the Gallup Organization, maintains that great teachers are those who teach with their greatest talents and abilities.”

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Excerpt:

WWdN: In Exile: Seeking a potential Marrow Donor
One of my fellow Los Angeles Poker Bloggers, StudioGlyphic (who won the WPBT Winter Classic last December) is looking for some help for one of his friends, whose girlfriend is very sick with cancer, and desperately needs a bone marrow transplant to survive. The odds of finding a donor match are about 1:20,000, but this girl’s odds are even longer because she is Fillipino:

So please, contact your friends, and ask them to contact their friends. Anyone you know who is Filipino and between the ages of 18 and 61 is a potential donor. The system is nationwide, so it doesn’t matter where they live. Signing up on the registry is easy and painless. All it requires is a simple blood test. Some hospitals charge a small fee for this blood test, however if your friends contact me directly, I can put them in touch with one of the hundreds of local organizations that will do the blood test for free. They can use this email address: jacobkrueger@gmail.com…

…and…

There are lots of misconceptions about donating bone marrow. (I know I was terrified of doing it before I learned how minor the procedure actually is.) The procedure is simple and safe. You will be anesthetized the whole time, so you will not feel anything. When the procedure is over, you may have some soreness in the area for a few days and you may feel a little tired. That’s it. The bone marrow you donate is replenished within 3-4 weeks. And again, you will only undergo this procedure if your blood sample shows that you are a match and you decide to donate, in which case the slight soreness you’ll be feeling will be saving someone’s life.

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Jupelo spends a year and $100K at Walt Disney World

January 11, 2006

Excerpt:
Jupelo – Who Be Me?
The Most Basic Basics
Goal 1: Spend an entire year at Walt Disney World and record every second of it for you to see.
Goal 2: Begin building the world’s largest Disney collection (there’s more to this – see below).
Goal 3: Not go insane.

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MonopolyHomeRules

January 11, 2006

Excerpt:
Play Again Games : MonopolyHomeRules
Monopoly Home Rules
These optional rules may make Monopoly a whole new game for you. Please let me know if you have played any good home rules that I have not mentioned, or if you play with any of these rules tell me what you thought of them. I mark the ones [...]

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Summary/PDF: Crash Course in Learning Summary

January 5, 2006

Excerpt:
Creating Passionate Users: Crash Course in Learning Summary
Here’s a PDF (500k) with a two-page summary sheet (with the graphics as icon/reminders) of the full post I made previously. Do NOT look at this until you’ve read the earlier (big) post… it’s not meant to be stand-alone.

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Crash course in learning theory

January 5, 2006

Excerpt:
Creating Passionate Users: Crash course in learning theory
So, as promised in an earlier post, here’s a crash course on some of our favorite learning techniques gleaned from cognitive science, learning theory, neuroscience, psychology, and entertainment (including game design). Much of it is based around courses I designed and taught at UCLA Extension’s New Media/Entertainment Studies [...]

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Xmas tree@pier 39

December 10, 2005

Xmas tree @ Pier 39 San Francisco

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Bush ‘Flat Wrong’ on Kyoto

December 9, 2005

It will “hurt the economy”, eh? He probably means his personal economy. The problem isn’t going away and the country’s economy will probably be hurt worse the longer it takes the oil-mongers in Washington (DC) to realize that there won’t be one to hurt before too long. Then again, the oil-mongers will [...]

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Hardware Porn – Girls with Network Equipment

December 8, 2005

I… I… Um… Cool! Hehe…
HW-PORN – Girls with Network Equipment

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Creativity on speed (as in fast)

December 7, 2005

I’ve known for a long time that the best way to learn non-technical things and create artistic thingies was to get my logical brain the hell out of the way. This puts that idea into a very digestible, and vastly more useful, form.
Excerpt:
Creating Passionate Users: Creativity on speed
One of the best ways to be [...]

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Much To Do About Task Tracking

November 12, 2005

For all my procrastinating and/or overwhelmed-by-the-details friends, please for Heaven’s sake read this article (comments too; there are some gems) — and use it! You know you need to. :)
Excerpt:
David Seah – Much To Do About Task Tracking
However, when it comes to my personal time, I’d rather be more free-form. Unfortunately, I tend to [...]

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What are we doing when we look away during a conversation?

November 12, 2005

Excerpt:
Cognitive Daily – What are we doing when we look away during a conversation?
In face to face conversation, we often look away from the person we’re speaking with. Somewhat paradoxically, the closer people sit to their conversation companions, the less often they look at them.
But other factors influence how often we avert our gaze, too. [...]

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How “gut feelings” influence memory

November 12, 2005

Excerpt:
Cognitive Daily – How “gut feelings” influence memory
What does it mean to have a gut feeling that you remember something? You see someone you recognize in a coffee shop. Do you remember her from high school? Or maybe you saw her on television. Could she be the manager of your local bank? Perhaps you don’t [...]

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The Mystery of the Green Menace

October 28, 2005

Excerpt
Wired 13.11: The Mystery of the Green Menace
It’s been celebrated as a muse and banned as a poison. Now an obsessed microbiologist has cracked the code for absinthe – and distilled his own.

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Say hi to the new theme

October 21, 2005

As a tip o’ the hat to good ol’ Marketing 101 — that is, if it ain’t sellin’ change the labelin’ — and rather than create any decent/clever/relevant content, other than links, for the blog, I took some time to install/configure/customize a new theme for the site. Nifty, ain’t it? :) Check out [...]

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100 Most Often Mispronounced Words

October 19, 2005

I tend to be pretty picky about this sort of thing. This example is news to me, though. Check out the list for some others that might surprise you.
Excerpt:
100 Most Often Mispronounced Words
often: We have mastered the spelling of this word so well, its spelling influences the pronunciation: DON’T pronounce the [t]! This [...]

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Bugged games from World of Warcraft makers Blizzard?

October 15, 2005

Excerpt:
Boing Boing: Bugged games from World of Warcraft makers Blizzard?
Breaking the rules isn’t nice, but this is a game, people — a game! It’s not a matter of national security; nobody is going to get killed except the stupid video game avatars. Do you realize the government would have to have a warrant to get [...]

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The blogger who loathed me

October 13, 2005

Excerpt:
Salon.com Books | The blogger who loathed me
To be clear: Some bloggers, such as Wendy McClure, also happen to be terrific writers. They use their blogs to undertake the honest labor of self-reflection. The improvisational form activates their love of the language. More power to them.
But there are also bloggers who [...] are simply too [...]

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Study Confirms Ancient Myth

October 3, 2005

Yet more proof that chocolate is good for everything! :)
Excerpt:
Dark Chocolate Helps Diarrhea: Study Confirms Ancient Myth
History shows that the use of cocoa to treat diarrhea dates back to the 16th century by ancient South American and European cultures. Until now, no one knew exactly why the cocoa bean appeared to be a remedy. “Our [...]

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Dignity is Deadly

September 26, 2005

As usual, good stuff from Kathy Sierra.
Exerpt:

Creating Passionate Users: “Dignity is deadly.” – Paul Graham
What goes away when a company moves past the start-up phase? Living only on take-out and caffeine. Working in a [small] living room. Crazy, stupid, unprofessional behavior. Wearing nothing but shorts and ripped t-shirts.
Is this a good thing?

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Beautiful CA Sunset

September 22, 2005

snapped with the treo on my way home today.

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Voice-jail shortcuts to speak to humans

September 22, 2005

Very handy!
Excerpt:

Boing Boing: Database of voice-jail shortcuts to speak to humans at big companies
Database of voice-jail shortcuts to speak to humans at big companies
The Find-a-Human database is a collection of touch-tone recipes that get you through big companies’ voice-jail systems and through to a live operator.

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A bioterror attack in World of Warcraft

September 20, 2005

Excerpt:
collision detection: A bioterror attack in World of Warcraft
Dig this: An Ebola-like epidemic is raging in World of Warcraft, the enormously popular online game — and it’s killing players left and right. The trouble began when Blizzard, the company that runs World of Warcraft, introduced a new opponent called Hakkar, the “god of blood”. When [...]

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Another Talk Like A Pirate Day!

September 19, 2005

It’s Talk Like A Pirate Day again! Which also means I’ve been running WordPress for a bit more than a year… Oooo aahhhh.

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9rules network

September 16, 2005

I discovered the 9rules site via Creating Passionate Users. If you’re looking for a way to find the creme de la creme of weblogs, this is certainly a really good place to start. My Newsgator/Feeddemon article count just grew a bit. :)
Excerpt from the ‘About’ page:
9rules network
Overview
About the 9rules Network
The 9rules Network is [...]

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Evolution of New Orleans

September 16, 2005

Excerpt:
The Week Magazine
The evolution of the Big Easy
Its French Quarter is actually Spanish, many of its streets are below sea level, and many of its former public officials and judges are in jail. How did New Orleans become the nation’s most eccentric city?
9/16/2005
Why was the city built below sea level?
Founded in a marsh in 1718, [...]

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Wordpress Gallery2

August 26, 2005

This looks entirely too awesome! I’ve been toying with Gallery2, and obviously already have Wordpress going. The combination of the two will be a lot of fun, assuming setting it up isn’t too great a headache. :)
Wordpress Gallery2 – WPG2 Main Page
WPG2 is a Wordpress Plug-in that embeds Gallery2 within Wordpress to share [...]

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