Category Archives: Culture

Geek culture

Girls, music, and virtual PCs

Hmm, a calendar of Australian IT women, in the name of encouraging more women into the industry. Available online at itgoddess.info.

If you’re more at home with mucking about on Virtual Machines, then you might be interested to know that Virtual PC is now free.

Billy Bragg has applauded MySpace for backing down on their T+Cs imposed on artists who used the site to distribute music. “I am very pleased to see that MySpace have changed their terms of agreement from a declaration of their rights into a declaration of our rights as artists, making it clear that, as creators, we retain ownership of our material.”

I’m a tech luddite

I’ve come to realise I’ve become something of a tech luddite. Once upon a time I was an early adopter. Not any more.

I am only just now updating my computer monitors to LCD. (Samsung 19 inch 940N, very nice, very cheap.)

I didn’t start using Visual Studio.Net properly until it had matured to VS 2005.

I didn’t touch Windows XP at all until SP2 was well-established, and basic PC specs had caught up with its demanding requirements. And I’ve only just put it on my secondary PC.

Vista? Pah, unless I see something DAMN COMPELLING, I won’t be going there until at least 2009 I reckon. When the average PC has at least double the grunt specified on the box.

I refuse to get a wireless keyboard/mouse. I can’t see the cost benefit. Besides, given how messy my desks are, I’d inevitably lose them.

I’m getting my first camera phone shortly, having waited until the resolution and the price were up/down to a reasonable level. And it’s not 3G, but 2G. A tried and trusted Nokia.

And I’m not planning on upgrading my 4:3 CRT television any time soon. (As one recent review commented, they’re actually great value if you’re buying a TV.)

(I’m sure I’ll thing of more examples shortly. Like my stove/oven, made circa 1930.)

Snippets of geekitude

Gmail geekitude — In GMail with US English set, when you delete mail it goes to the “Trash” folder. Set it to UK English, and it’s “Deleted Items”.

TV geekitude — See how the ABC News titles look with no stories and no voiceover.

Google Video geekitude — Lots of snippets of info here, including the fact that Google’s video format is pretty much just a renamed DivX AVI.

Webmail geekitude — My web mail (Horde) puts a little flag against the country of the domain name of the sender. Of course it’s a little misleading when a message from someone using fastmail arrives, as it reckons it’s the Federated States of Micronesia…

Web design geekitude — The best freebie DHTML menus I’ve found so far are here. (Which I’ve implemented here and here. I reckon without too much trouble, WordPress’s categories could drive it automatically. Maybe something to put on the list for Geekrant 2.0.

Digital TV takeup

Absolutely superb article in today’s Age.

The federal government wants to close down the analog TV signal. It can’t do that until enough people have digital TV receivers. People don’t particularly want to spend the time or money purchasing a digital TV set top box. So the government is going to have to spend a couple of billion dollars to continue broadcasting the analog signal for longer.

Sony have even suggested spending $200 million on consumer education, I guess to tell us why we should buy digital set-top boxes.

Alex Encel thinks we should just spend $150 million to give everyone a digital set top box for every TV they own.

What a brilliant solution! It’s not often you get to achieve your goals and also save a couple of billion dollars at the same time!

Bored with Rubik’s cube?

So is the standard Rubik’s cube so easy that you’re bored with it? Can you solve it in 12.1 seconds?

Well, try your hand at a 4D Rubik’s cube.

Then, if your head hasn’t exploded, check out the 5D Rubik’s cube! From the site: “In the spirit of taking things too far, here is a fully functional 5-dimensional analog of Rubik’s cube.”

Sadly, 5 people have already solved the 5D cube. You can’t be first.

DIY Digital Picture Frame

Full, step-by-step instructions (with pcitures) on building your own cheap and easy Digital Picture Frame. Answering an unasked question on the selection of componentry, the author says:

Why a toggle switch? Because toggle switches rule, that’s why. We don’t want no puny sliding power switches. Oh no, this power switch is 25 percent functional, 75 percent hardcore awesome.

But why do this? You can buy one for a few hundred bucks. I guess it’s just the whole DIY thing, isn’t it? I guess you’re also recycling unloved tech into totally hardcore awesome tech.