Monthly Archives: May 2007

Gish – novel computer game, using 2D physics

Posted on May 10, 2007 by Eric

Hanford Lemoore recently wrote about the low sales figures for the indie game Gish. in which the player controls a gelatinous blob of tar, navigating subterranean coridors and traps, dealing with monsters, etc. They actually have a Linux version (as … Continue reading →

Posted in Blog/website/news comments, Games, Linux | 2 Comments

Popemobile

Posted on May 9, 2007 by Eric

BBC World Service aired a news item concerning the Pope’s visit to Brazil, and mentioned that he rode in the “popemobile,” though the word is not used in the written news story on their web site.  Wikipedia confirms that it … Continue reading →

Posted in Portmanteaus, Neologisms, and Sniglets | Leave a comment

lcdtest 1.04

Posted on May 7, 2007 by Eric

lcdtest wasn’t working properly with German keyboard layouts.  It was using keysyms from SDL key events, and those only indicate what the unshifted key legend is.  The fix was to enable the optional SDL key event Unicode mapping, and switch … Continue reading →

Posted in lcdtest | Leave a comment

Always mount a scratch monkey: the real story

Posted on May 7, 2007 by Eric

There’s an old computing maxim that one should “always mount a scratch monkey”. The most commonly found explanation is that of the Jargon File (and thus the New Hacker’s Dictionary), and while the story is amusing, it is also fairly … Continue reading →

Posted in Blog/website/news comments, History | Leave a comment

Java’s Number class is completely useless

Posted on May 6, 2007 by Eric

The Number class in Java is completely useless.  It doesn’t provide arithmetic or comparison, which should be defined on all numbers. I’m writing a generic class, and what I need is something similar to the Smalltalk Magnitude class.  I don’t … Continue reading →

Posted in Computing | Leave a comment

Death threats by email

Posted on May 5, 2007 by Eric

I just received this death threat by email. I can’t imagine that anyone would actually be willing to spend $650K to kill me. I’m guessing that it’s an attempt at extortion; otherwise there would be no point to let a … Continue reading →

Posted in Spam | 35 Comments

Can a company own a number?

Posted on May 4, 2007 by Eric

The AACS-LA claims to own the hexadecimal number 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0 (decimal 13256278887989457651018865901401704640), and is threatening those who post it online, even though they also claim that the distribution of the number is not a problem for the viability of the AACS … Continue reading →

Posted in Blog/website/news comments, Copyright, DRM | 2 Comments

R.I.P. Wally Schirra, astronaut, 12 March 1923—3 May 2007

Posted on May 4, 2007 by Eric

Wally Schirra flew on the Mercury 8, Gemini 6A, and Apollo 7 missions.

Posted in In memoriam, Space | Leave a comment

Tasty tuna snacks

Posted on May 3, 2007 by Eric

At the entrance to Fry’s checkout line, they had a display stand of “MyGourmet Tuna” snacks, described as a “Meal To Go,” “Low Carb Wild Caught.” They contain a small can of tuna salad with various added spices, six crackers, … Continue reading →

Posted in Comestibles | Leave a comment

Just what I need for my desk at the office

Posted on May 3, 2007 by Eric

Brutal Soft Toys (h/t GMSV)

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