Microsoft (or rather it’s PR company) made Fortune magazine’s list of the 101 Dumbest Moments in Business list for 2007, for its gaffe when it inadvertently sent a dossier on Wired journalist – to the journo himself. The 13 page dossier described him as “tricky” among other things – and of course became a pretty meaty story for Wired itself. That little PR disaster is old news, but I thought Fortune’s list might make for some cruisy Friday afternoon before Christmas reading. :)
Here’s a fun tip courtesy of the “Google Tip of the Day” gadget for iGoogle. The Google Image Labeler site lets you play a game and help improve Google’s image search at the same time. It’s kind of an online version of Pictionary in reverse – you are randomly paired with a partner, both shown the same set of images, and asked to provide labels for those images. When you and your partner provide matching labels, you score points, and move on to the next image. It’s a nice brain exercise cum time killer.
If you don’t think you can count on your poor parenting skills and the angst of existence in our hellbent society to ruin your child’s life, why not ensure it by chosing a nerdy name for him or her from the annals of science fiction? You have to wonder just how nerdy we’ve become when Sci-Fi Baby Names: 500 Out-of-This-World Baby Names from Anakin to Zardoz gets published. It got me to wondering how many girls are running around out there named Leia. Nice name, but do you think she’ll ever forgive you for it?
I guess parents have been embarrassing their kids like this forever – my dad’s middle name is Rhett because my grandmother was watching Gone with the Wind while in labour, and I’ve met a couple of people named after Lord of the Rings characters. So, do you have a nerdy name, or know someone who does? Spill all in comments please!
Aw, little Nuchadnezzar has your dimples! [Wired's Geekdad blog]
As Crikey was pleased to point out today, some enterprising soul has put a John Howard pinata up for auction on ebay, just in time to provide “the perfect entertainment for your election night party”. They want $280 for it though, ouch.
Ever gotten the error message: “BIOS Flash Successful. CMOS Checksum destroyed,” or tried to give tech support to someone in a burning building? These guys have. A nice example in “What not to do”…
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2210607,00.asp [ExtremeTech]
However did I survive before the MAKE blog? Here’s just a couple of gems they’ve posted recently:
How to get the Dalek Builders Workshop Manual
How to build articulated wings
How to build a lifesize Jabba the Hutt
My life is now complete!!!
Just when I’d written off Mick Keelty, head of the Australian Federal Police, as a nutjob for predicting that Australia’s greatest future crimal threat is robots… it turns out that iRobot (the makers of Roomba, the adorable robot vacuum cleaner) are about to unleash a race of robot warriors on the world. For reals. Spec sheet and photos are here.
[Via Amygdala]
The Digital Inspiration weblog found a hidden Facebook feature—the ability to view your friends as a grid of profile pictures. Here’s how: Step 1: Log in to your Facebook account and click the Friends tab.
Step 2: Select the drop-down box and click the list separator (-).
You’ll get back a neat collage of your entire friends list in profile photo thumbnails. Okay, so Facebook’s not the most productive webapp out there, but it is great for networking. How do you get stuff done (besides playing Scrabulous) on Facebook? Let us know in the comments. Create a Photo Collage Using Pictures of Your Facebook Friends [Digital Inspiration]
Flummox your coworkers with an “Insert Coin” message on the office printer using the HP Printer Job Language (HPPJL) command set. The Hackszine blog describes how to customise the Ready prompt on HP printers’ LED display with a few simple commands: I haven’t been able to test yet (no HP printer here), but if I’m reading the code right, you can actually do this right from the command line using telnet. Just telnet to port 9100 and type in the following:
\e%-12345X\@PJL JOB
\@PJL RDYMSG DISPLAY="MESSAGE HERE"
\@PJL EOJ
\e%-12345X
Sadly, I don’t have an HP printer here to test this out either, but I’d love to see someone pull this off. If you do, let us know how it goes in the comments. (Oh yeah, and here’s how to undo it when the boss hunts you down.) Change the message on HP printers [Hackszine]
The next release of video game franchise extraordinaire – The Sims – will include climate change as one of the factors which can affect a player’s city, writes the EcoGeek blog. The game, SimCity Societies, comes out next month.
“Players can build their cities with ecofriendly options, such as wind turbines, hydrogen fuel stations, and green buildings. Their decisions will ultimately drive the climate of their city and even imperil it with disasters should their CO2 levels go too high. Pollution also affects the health of the population, and quality of life. Building these green options are more costly than conventional ones, which lends a realistic approach to the game as well.” I have to admit that it’s been a good few years since I was a Sims player, but it’s awesome to see that they’re building in some environmental awareness to the game. As the EcoGeek wrote: “The latest supercomputer climate models won’t capture the interest that a video game can… Hopefully this Sim will be able to make an impact IRL.” SimCity – SimClimateChange [EcoGeek]
