Monthly Archives: September 2005

The Onion nominated for a Pulitzer Prize

Posted on September 10, 2005 by Eric

This week , The Onion (“America’s Finest News Source”) has abandoned their usual parody format in favor of completely factual reporting of the Hurricane Katrina disaster. It is nice to see that they are willing to take things seriously in … Continue reading →

Posted in Current Events, Legal & Political | Leave a comment

Talking Sysadmin Barbie says “Samba is hard!”

Posted on September 10, 2005 by Eric

Remember the furor in 1997 over the talking Barbie that said (among other things) “Math is hard”? I never understood why that was controversial; math is hard. If you don’t think so, maybe you can drop by sometime to help … Continue reading →

Posted in Software | Leave a comment

New Voyager calculator images for Nonpareil

Posted on September 10, 2005 by Eric

Maciej Bartosiak emailed me a new set of PNG image files for the Voyager calculators (HP-11C, HP-12C, HP-15C, HP-16C) which look even nicer, so they will be in the next release.

Posted in Calculators, Nonpareil | Leave a comment

Don’t try this at home (or anywhere else)!

Posted on September 9, 2005 by Eric

On the way to lunch with my coworkers this afternoon, I somehow managed to slam the tip of my left middle finger in the car door. It happened so quickly and hurt so much that I can’t recall the details … Continue reading →

Posted in Car, Health | 3 Comments

Patently Absurd

Posted on September 4, 2005 by Eric

If you thought shrink-wrap software licenses were bad, now the Ninth Circuit has upheld “box-wrap” patent licenses. When Lexmark sells you a printer cartridge, the box is labelled “single use only”, and the court has decided that when you open … Continue reading →

Posted in Patents | 1 Comment

2046

Posted on September 4, 2005 by Eric

Dan and I saw the film “2046“. I’d seen a review that said it was science fiction, but that was incorrect. Set in Hong Kong in the 1960s, the film is about a journalist who does write some science fiction, … Continue reading →

Posted in Film | Leave a comment

Microsoft vs. the Commonwealth of Massachusetts

Posted on September 4, 2005 by Eric

A CNN article describes how the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is adopting a new requirement that government documents be distributed only PDF and OpenDocument formats. The objective is to ensure that the documents are accessible to the public now, and will … Continue reading →

Posted in Legal & Political, Software | Leave a comment