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The Soladey-J3X [toothbrush] has a solar panel at its base that transmits electrons to the top of the toothbrush through a lead wire. The electrons react with acid in the mouth, creating a chemical reaction that breaks down plaque and kills bacteria. The toothbrush requires no toothpaste, and can operate with about the same amount of light as needed by a solar-powered calculator.
(PhysOrg.com)

I tried downloading StarCraft II via the provided Blizzard downloader app, but pointed it to a partition that was formatted FAT32. Since the file is larger than FAT32 can hold (~4GB) the download failed. The downloader does not provide you with a way of switching the download location after you run it the first time; to do so, you need to edit the Windows registry. Here’s how:

Click your Windows “Start” button and select “Run”, or hold down the “Windows Key” and press “R”.
Enter “regedit” in the “Open:” dialogue box and press OK.
Press “Ctrl” and “F” to open the Find dialogue.
Enter “Blizzard Entertainment”. It should display a folder on the left entitled “Blizzard Entertainment”. Expand this folder by clicking the “+” to the left of it. You should see a “Downloader” folder. Expand this too. There should be a key with some random string of alphanumerics. Click on that.
In the right pane you should see a key that titled “Path”. Right click on that and click “Modify.”
Change the “Value data” to set the location for the download folder and press “OK”. Close RegEdit.
Enjoy!

Standard disclaimer: when mucking about in your registry, be careful, as you can bork Windows.

Suppose you want to take a picture of yourself laying down in the mud in front of a bulldozer. What side should the bulldozer be on when you take the picture?

Does the directionality of a person’s primary writing system (left-to-right, top-to-bottom for English) affect the way in which they take in other compositions, such as a photo or painting, creating a “perceptual directionality”? If so, should visual composition be informed by knowledge of the target audience’s perception directionality? After a brief search I came up with this paper, which seems to indicate that I’m not too far off the mark.

Writing Direction Influences Spatial Cognition

Now that doesn’t exactly answer the original question, although it does inform the decision of how to compose the shot.

Due to (a bug in) the way fonts are rendered in the “SQL Query Area” of the MySQL Query Browser[1], most of the fonts available end up looking clipped. Beyond aesthetics, you might want to change the default font due to its lack of support for UTF-8 characters. You can change the “Code Font” choice under Tools > Options > General Options.
I prefer Arial Unicode MS 8.3pt for default & data, but due to it rendering poorly in the code area I’m using Bitstream Vera Sans Mono 8pt as a tolerable alternative. Both support UTF-8.
[1] MySQL Query Browser 1.2.17 on Windows XP.

“Plastic takes thousands of years to decompose — but 16-year-old science fair contestant Daniel Burd made it happen in just three months.

The Waterloo, Ontario high school junior figured that something must make plastic degrade, even if it does take millennia, and that something was probably bacteria.”

I am rejoicing in the upswing of philosophical sci-fi. Action sci-fi is nice, but I like cake with my frosting, and sometimes a good cake doesn’t need any frosting. Moon gets extra points for stopping where Sunshine should have.

Also, another great Clint Mansell score.

Who would have thought working two jobs would impact my opportunities to maintain my own projects? *facepalm* Well, I’ve bought back 10 hours per week… what to do first, hmm… *heads to bed*

There was an old mariner of yore,
whose trip started out as a bore,
then the silly old fuck
shot the bird of good luck
and he barely made it back to shore.

There once was a girl who got moany
just because she wanted a pony
but her `rents shook their heads
and the girl’s life force ebbed
and now her parents are aloney.

There once was a guy at the door,
and a confused exchange, and what’s more,
the exactlywatt
had a chain through his gut
and I never could figure what for.

There once was a fridge, and a bear,
and some butter, some paws, and some hair
and soda, and rice,
and noodles, and ice,
and a kid due for more than a scare.

Sorry, I was inspired by Bad Gods’s Famous Poems rewritten as limericks.

You may have heard the saying “You are your most demanding boss,” or some variant, in regards to being self employed. You may also be aware that some jobs don’t allow you to waste their precious time on non-work related timewasters such as, just as an example, blogging. Combine and shake well; serve cold. Here’s a linkdump in pennance.

Facebook for Spooks: FBI creating social networking site for INtelligence community (thanks to taziarm for this one)

McCain on Network Neutrality: NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERDS!
“John McCain does not believe in prescriptive regulation like “net-neutrality,” but rather he believes that an open marketplace with a variety of consumer choices is the best deterrent against unfair practices.”

Why would he believe that data networks are an open market, and that regulation would not be in the public interest?

“U.S. Telecom Association president and CEO Walter B. McCormick Jr., Sprint CEO Daniel R. Hesse, and Verizon chairman and CEO Ivan G. Seidenberg have each raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for McCain’s campaign. AT&T executive vice president for federal relations Timothy McKone has raised at least $500,000.” Link

Visit Scrumdidlyumptious Land: The Branflakes make happy noises. New site, new music!

Has anyone else been noticing the proliferation of technology openly being developed that will enable people to construct Marvel style superhero suits and combat (or pursue a life of ) crime?
DARPA wants to float stuff: All manner of levitation effects possible*
Electrosticky droid boffin in spider-gecko tech bitchslap:Robo-thopter spy bat ‘gargoyle mode’ cracked?
That headline is all Reg and too good not to re-use. But seriously, when can I get my spiderman suit made?
Jets: His backpack’s got ‘em: Amateur jetpacking is all the rage these days.

Street Fight, Act I: Rock opera about Street Fighter evokes The Decemberists and is full of Chun Li.
The full first act is available for free download off their myspace page.
Also thanks to Penny Arcade:
The Protomen: Megaman mystique in distilled rock form. This isn’t your father’s Flashman remix! Bonus points for a sweet music video site intro.

Flock: a “social web browser”
Has anyone tried this? I haven’t had time yet but it looks interesting.

Scott McCloud does Google’s Chrome guide: Whether or not you try/like Chrome, hey, it’s Scott McCloud! I was glad to see, upon finishing it, that they had paid him to do it instead of just ripping off his style. But then, who can’t Google pay to buy cred?
leading into…
Chrome guide photoshopping: Because this is the internet and it’s funny, so there.

Brad Sucks: Sophmore album from another CC licensed artist.
I kinda dug it, I kinda didn’t. But it’s free, so give it a shot!

Dual booting Vista and Linux: Because it comes pre-installed on every PC now and you can’t even get XP.
In case you want to keep Vista (hey, with Gigs of drivespace these days, what do you bother deleting?) and want to play with the penguin. This is easier than ever, srsly.

Authonomy: HarperCollins crowdsources its slushpile.
Geeze, publishers are starting to get it. Finally. But will it matter?

School of Everything: Connect with teachers for whatever you want to learn.
Another idea I’ve been sitting on for years due to lack of time, I’m glad someone put this together and wish them much luck. Want to find someone to teach you the finer points of shellfishing, or small engine repair? Check it out.

Zoe Keating (of Rasputina fame): More awesome cello music please!

Button, button: How about 50 high quality color buttons for $20?
I look forward to trying out PureButton’s services in the near future. Who doesn’t like buttons? Let me know, because otherwise you’ll probably end up with one of mine.

DS + Korg: Official music synth program for the Nintendo DS from Korg.
The reason I might finally get a DS.

and of course:
Diplodocus: Korg DS music: Tracks to dig (and dig you should!)

Piracy vs Obscurity: Neil Gaiman leads a discussion on media dissemination in the digital age, focusing on the creators’ perspective.

OK, sorry about that. Carry on.

Last night I got to share The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra with another two friends and wondered if there might be a soundtrack out there somewhere. As these pursuits often do, I surfed down a few links and ended up with:

The Lost Skeleton Returns Again!: 10 teaser trailers for the sequel, now in post production. And there was much rejoicing.

15 Tips to choose a good text-type lays out the style elements involved in assessing fonts. Word nerds, you might scoop up some enlightening descriptive words here. Unless you knew all this stuff already, but I haven’t seen it laid out this well elsewhere. I’m sure there are other, even more definitive sources, so if you know if any, please point them out.

I stole some time in the last day to dip into two series I’ve meant to pick up for a while.

Animal Man : “Deus Ex Machine” The run of revived Animal Man written by Grant Morrison. I’ve enjoyed a lot of art whose artists decided to cast it as a “comic”; this is a comic in the most obvious, underwear pervert sense of the word, and it excels as a piece of art worthy of critical acclaim. Thankfully, sitting in bed and reading the first several pages out loud as my daughter fell asleep, I was not asked what a peyote ritual was.

Elf Quest: “The Grand Quest”

Somehow I haven’t gotten my hands on this until just now. It’s… Elf Quest.?! I grabbed a manga sized copy because it said “#1″ and I was in the same physical location, something that hadn’t yet occured. Now I’ll probably end up trolling through the Online Archive they’re releasing, trying to catch up with 32 years of comics. At least I won’t need to wait for the next one

Oh, and I also just started reading “Dresden Codak”, and it is wonderful. Very well illustrated and exactly on the mark to tickle my fancy… philosophy, psychology, physics, undead, robots, adventure, humor… it reminds me of good conversations I’ve had that turned into shared mini-stories. I think I may now recover from my sense of loss at the end of the “Perry Bible Fellowship”.

I saw Diary of the dead last night. I liked it in excess of what fault I found, most of which came from the somewhat burdened dialog. If you’re watching this it almost certainly isn’t the first zombie movie you’ve seen, nor are you unfamiliar with the social commentary embodied therein. Just add the thrill, chill and kill scenes to a story arc that give you a vehicle for your message, don’t push it through dialogue; it does nothing but make it harder to suspend disbelief. Recommended in proportion to the number of zombie movies you’ve already seen.

I’m watching Paprika for the third time since I bought it Saturday, but for the first time with just the English dubbing. It always find it interesting to compare the differences in the spoken and written english translations, including the different ways the voice actors portray their characters. Highly recommended for people who like pretty mental exercises and full length features with multiple subplots. Bonus points for already liking animation and foreign language movies.

Hope it was a good one.

I have a template I apply before releasing a program at work, most of which is a header of documentation boilerplate. I included a “Bugs & Limitations” section, and prior to testing I list the limitations I can forsee that (I believe ;) fall outside anticipated usage.

More than once, just the exercise of writing this section has ”encouraged’ me to go back and make changes to the program, just so I can remove a limitation comment from the documentation. Not every limitation gets removed, especially for small, limited usage cases, and I find that putting in warnings for future maintainers provides an immediate sense of relief for some part of my release anxiety. If I’m unable to dump most of this anxiety by documenting or testing then it isn’t ready for release.

OK, so I also keep a to-do list, and will write down things I’ve done just to cross them off…

“The Commerce Department has been forced by Judicial Watch to turn over records of spring, 2001 meetings held between Dick Cheney and execs from global oil giants, records that suggest that the group decided months before September 11th that the US energy policy would center on taking control of Iraq’s oil”

From Jon Talpin via BoingBoing