Logiciel Libre

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8590

Nice, cheap path towards a huge backup server.

http://www.iht.com/bin/pr…news/flight.php

I thought it was pretty amazing to hear about the Boeing 777 that flew 13,422 miles from Hong Kong to London. Even more amazing to me was the takeoff weight of the plane: 710,300 pounds, of which 360,700 pounds was fuel.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367089/

Apparently the CMTER (Canadian Movie Time Exchange Rate) is currently 1 Canadian minute minute for every 0.91 US minutes. The Squid and the Whale runs for 88 minutes in Canada, and 80 minutes in the U.S. of A.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/…6?node=15879911

Humans working for other humans is nothing new, but Amazon Mechanical Turk is. As a programmer, you could write an application that requires a human’s touch. For example, if part of your application required identifying if a particular image had a slice of pizza present, it would be much easier to have a human perform this task than to write some crazy pizza slice image recognition system. Mechanical Turk allows you to programmatically create a mini job description on mturk.com, and someone with the time will eventually perform this task and receive in exchange a few cents’ worth of payment.

This really freaks me out.

http://www.gotoreviews.co…om-philips.html

Just hold something in front of this lamp and the color of the lamp changes to that of the object. NEAT.

http://online.wsj.com/art…ersonal_journal

So, I’m a little miffed that the IRS apparently lost a check I sent in on time. Quoted:

On Sunday, Semptember 11, 2005 an accident occurred on the San Mateo Bridge near San Francisco, California involving a courier transporting payments to an IRS Payment Processing Site. A truck carrying tax payments overturned, causing approximately 30,000 Form 1040ES quarterly estimated tax payments to be ejected into the San Francisco Bay.

No joke. This is from their letter which basically said, sorry, we lost your check, send a new one.

1. Hopefully all involved are alive and well.
2. I have to pay $30 to stop payment on that check they dropped in the water, not to mention another stamp!

Well, that’s not entirely true… I can get reimbursed for the bank charges if I promptly file a Form 8546, Claim for Reimbursement of Bank Charges Incurred due to Erroneous Service Levy or Misplaced Check. Sigh. Sometimes I feel like I’m a character in Terry Gilliam’s Brazil.

http://flaurella.blogspot…para-duros.html

I like Pasta Para Duros. But what the heck is in this stuff?

Quoted, from http://www.ksdk.com/showme/showme_article.aspx?storyid=84810 …

These cute little wagon wheels are a very popular Latin snack food, very low in fat, and can be microwaved for about a minute or deep fried for a delicious snack. Served with hot sauce, salsa, or try with fresh lime juice and a sprinkle of Pico De Gallo seasoning powder. Prepare them by microwaving or frying them for approximately 2-3 minutes until they “fluff” up. They will look like a Cheeto without the cheese.

Buy some, if you dare.