Pied Type
SciTech
Skyrim … doh!
*** Spoiler Alert *** While other people were engrossed in All Things Superbowl, I was playing Skyrim. I almost wish I hadn’t. At level 34, I was feeling pretty strong and headed out to hunt dragons. Long story short, I ended up pursuing Alduin, the top dog … er, dragon. One thing led to another … Continue reading
Study correlates low IQ with racism, conservatism
The Huffington Post headline reads: “Intelligence Study Links Low I.Q. To Prejudice, Racism, Conservatism” and the story says, “The study, published in Psychological Science, showed that people who score low on I.Q. tests in childhood are more likely to develop prejudiced beliefs and socially conservative politics in adulthood.” The study’s lead author Gordon Hodson said: … Continue reading
At last: Reverse robocalls
Apparently I’m the last person in the world to hear about an outfit called Reverse Robocall. But it seems it provides a way for you to place your own robocalls to supporters of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA). A story on Ars Technica has all the details and links. … Continue reading
A Skyrim situation
This blog probably won’t be getting much love this week. In what apparently seems hilarious to the non-family members who hear about it, my son and I gave each other “Skyrim” for Christmas. It’s an Xbox video game. And no, I don’t think they’re so much amused by the coincidence of the mutual gifting as … Continue reading
Technology lets Santa make ‘personal’ phone calls
I don’t know how well publicized it has been, but there’s a Google website out there that let’s you send a personalized phone call from Santa to the person of your choice. Children are the obvious recipients for such calls, but you are limited only by your imagination, as demonstrated by one ABC reporter. The … Continue reading
Unidentified signal disables openers on 40 garage doors
Conspiracy theorists will have fun with this story. It seems in one Denver neighborhood, the garage door openers on 40 different homes in a half-mile area have been disabled by some sort of radio signal. The homes were all built by the same builder and all have the same type of opener. So far no … Continue reading
Plan B: Politics trumps science
Something disturbing happened in Washington this week. No, it wasn’t election related. It wasn’t even Congress related. It was a single individual, Katherine Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, deciding to overrule the FDA and its determination that Plan B, an emergency “morning after” contraceptive, is safe to be sold without a prescription to … Continue reading
Got apophenia?
Today is 11/11/11 or 11.11.11 or 11-11-11. It’s lovely to look at. A palindrome even. But there’s nothing special about the date other than its interesting appearance. The apocalypse is not scheduled for today. Thinking otherwise, tempting as it is, means you’ve got apophenia. Apophenia is the experience of seeing meaningful patterns or connections in … Continue reading
When not to test an emergency alert system
There’s an interesting confluence of events occurring next week — the first nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System and the flyby of an aircraft-carrier–sized asteroid a mere 200,000 miles overhead. That’s closer than the moon, folks. I’ve already concluded that although the numerous announcements about the EAS test are designed to warn everyone about … Continue reading
The downside of gaming
Frustrating afternoon. Somebody hacked my Xbox account, bought $50 worth of Microsoft points, and got away with 4,000 ill-gotten points plus some 400 or so I had residing on the account. Bank of America, the bank you love to hate, was somehow alert enough to pick up on the activity, consider it suspicious, and call … Continue reading
R.I.P. Steve Jobs
What a remarkable individual he was. He defined a generation, an age, a revolution. In one way or another, he touched the life of every American. Somehow I thought he’d find a way to beat it. He’d pulled so many other rabbits out of his hat; I’d hoped he had one for himself. R.I.P. Steve … Continue reading
Grandma fixes Lion’s pinch-zoom function in Firefox
Mac users who’ve recently installed OS X Lion (Ver. 10.7) may have noticed the touchpad’s “pinch-zoom” function no longer works in Firefox. (It still works in Chrome, but not in Firefox.) Distressing, since this was one of the Mac functions I’d very quickly come to love. I prowled around a few forums and discovered that … Continue reading
A reminder about online privacy
I just saw a CNN report on Internet privacy and how so many entities track your every move for fun and profit. Far too many Internet users never give and thought to privacy — and then they wonder why they get so much spam, junk snail mail, and robocalls. The story reminded me that since … Continue reading
NASA space shuttles fly into history
In pre-dawn darkness, with appropriately dramatic lighting, U.S. space shuttle Atlantis made its 33rd and final landing this morning at Kennedy Space Center. The landing marked the end of America’s space shuttle program. Thank you, NASA. It’s been the ride of a lifetime.
PC to Mac: The journey begins
A week ago I finally got my long-awaited hand-me-down MacBook Pro laptop from my son. As I explained way back when, it was originally configured to meet the needs of a developer, so it has a lot of capability — certainly far more than my old dying Dell. Faster processor, bigger HD, more memory. And … Continue reading
Atlantis marks end of an era; future vague
Space shuttle Atlantis, the last of the U.S. space shuttles, is currently in orbit on its last mission. There will be no more manned space missions launching from the U.S. in the foreseeable future, although Pres. Obama has predicted we’ll be landing on an asteroid by 2025 and Mars by the 2030s. And while the … Continue reading
Miss me?
No doubt you’ve been concerned that I might have fallen off the edge of the earth or something. Well, no, but I did wake up Saturday to discover I had no Internet connection. That’s a catastrophe of the first order around here. Nothing I did could breathe life into my connection, so as a last … Continue reading
Rediscovered — my all-time favorite screensaver
I feel like a kid in a candy store right now. You remember screensavers, don’t you? Back in the day you absolutely had to use them or you’d burn weird images into your monitor’s screen. And there were screensavers galore to choose from and play with, settings to tweak just so, etc. Everyone had a … Continue reading
Gadgets that changed the world
There was an intriguing new (to me, anyway) program on the History Channel this evening: “101 Gadgets That Changed the World.” For reasons I can’t even explain, a title like that was a guaranteed gotcha. I just had to know what those 101 gadgets were and how they were ranked. The list was compiled by … Continue reading
Media dumb down the news with ‘bug expert’
It’s no surprise, I’m sure, that I have another gripe about the media. And this time, “nit-picking” may be a particularly appropriate term. Everywhere you turn, you hear about the Casey Anthony murder trial, and if you’ve paid any attention at all, you’ve probably heard a reference to a “bug expert.” Reporters everywhere are referring … Continue reading
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