July 20, 2005
Google Moon
So you've been using Google Maps for a while now, right? You love the interface, the quirkiness and the satellite images. But have you ever wanted to travel to another body?
Today in 1969, Apollo 11 landed on the moon. In honor of that, Google's gone and put moon images into the maps interface and created Google Moon.
Be sure to click on the various landing site, and zoom all the way in to see the truth about the moon. Oh, and read their FAQ, too.
Posted by Samer at 08:10 AM | Comments (0)
May 01, 2005
Tiger
So, Tiger has been out for a couple of days. I don't own it -- yet. I will, and the reasons are many.
The technologies behind the new operating system are, simply stated, big moves. Apple has essentially identified really granular things that the OS should be doing and moved them where they belonged. They've finally made APIs available to developers that won't be broken in the next OS release. They've opened up major technologies for easier access by developers. And they have laid the ground work for even more innovative programs and features in future releases.
Apple could spend the next two or three OS release cycles leveraging everything that Tiger is introducing under the hood. And that's why I will spend the money, and recommend anyone else spend the money, on an upgrade. This isn't a small performance boost and it isn't improvements meant to make the OS more stable and more usable (though those are there). This is, conceptually, as big a leap under the skin as was OS 9 to OS 10.
I could go on and on about the changes but, lucky for me, John Siracusa over at Ars Technica already has. In an impressive dissection of Tiger, Siracusa takes you into the guts of the new OS, as well as showing you the new applications and user interfaces. He digs under the hood and provides the reasons for speed improvements and shows all the building blocks that have to go together to make those new technologies work.
I know it is very long, sometimes rather technical and often preachy, but it is worth every minute you spend reading it. The future is there, it has to be harnessed.
Posted by Samer at 06:00 PM | Comments (0)
March 15, 2005
Lose Your Appetite
In 1974 Weight Watchers published a bunch of recipe cards to help you lose weight. Apparently, they wanted you to lose your appetite as part of the weight control.
The descriptions of the dishes are wonderful, but the commentary is hysterical. Standouts include: Slender quenchers, snappy mackerel casserole, mousse of salmon, and Frankfurter spectacular should tide you over!
Posted by Samer at 10:20 PM | Comments (1)
March 09, 2005
Paper Chef Winner
The Paper Chef 4 contest is over, and Sam at Becks & Posh has announced the winner: Cocoa-Pomegranate Roast Chicken with Eggplant Stuffing by Fatemeh of Gastronomie. Congrats to Fatemeh for what is a very simple and clean looking recipe. I'm almost tempted to make it, but like I said in my entry, I'm not the biggest fan of eggplant.
To see the full roster of entries, head on over to Domestic Goddess and check out the list.
Posted by Samer at 08:26 AM | Comments (1)
March 06, 2005
Skype Calling
I've just used Skype to make two international phone calls -- one to Lebanon and one to the UK. The quality was passable, the Lebanon call was a bit choppy, though the other side didn't complain of anything. The UK call was fine and I didn't notice anything at all wrong with it.
The best part is the cost: just over $1.50 for many many minutes of talking. Their rates are pretty damn good. I think the service is great, and I'm going to use it a bit more. And calls from one Skype user to another cost nothing.
Posted by Samer at 11:41 AM | Comments (0)
March 04, 2005
Sudden Motion Sensor
In the latest PowerBooks, Apple has added a sudden motion sensor. The idea is if the machine senses that it is falling or moving erratically, it will park the heads of the hard disks so as to prevent damage to your data.
Well, Amit Singh over at Kernel Thread, has taken a long hard look at the software that runs this sensor and has come up with some interesting proof of concept programs to use this information. One of the programs creates a "stable" window that stays aligned properly when you rock your PowerBook back and forth.
He admits that these concepts are just teaching tools, but does posit one very interesting idea for actual use: map the movements to keyboard keys, like the right and left keys. Using something like this, you should be able to rock your laptop and scroll web pages or large images or Google Maps.
Almost makes me want to go get a new PowerBook so I can play with it.
Posted by Samer at 02:18 PM | Comments (0)
February 22, 2005
One Moment in Time
Ever wondered what a moment in time looks like? Jonathan Harris did, and he did something about it. He created, among other things, 10x10. It's a site that takes news every hour and finds the 100 pictures and words that are most common (okay, so a lot of the pictures overlap).
I don't know quite what to make of it. It's part art, part information mapping, part oddity. I'm not really sure of the value of looking at news in the way, but it does bring a different view to the news. Picking up the most interesting words and seeing where they intersect is, in a word, very interesting. Wired has the story.
Posted by Samer at 11:43 PM | Comments (0)
February 20, 2005
Veiled Conceit...
... Or: "Bobby Flay is an Ass".
I've been meaning to post about Veiled Conceit ever since a friend brought it to my attention. It's witty, funny, cutting and, sometimes, cruel. The concept is pretty simple, and has been done on various morning and drive time radio shows: take the local paper's wedding announcements and make fun of the silly pictures and prose in them. The main difference between those radio shows and Veiled Conceit is that Veiled Conceit's local paper is the New York Times, and the "making fun" part is often times tear inducingly hysterical.
Also, most radio shows can't tell you Bobby Flay is an ass. Well, not and actually say the word. Today's entry has it all: ranting and raving, taking apart the victim, comedy, links to other criticism, etc. It also made me nod in agreement and sums up why I dislike this man, as well. An excerpt from "Bobby Flay is an Ass":
If you've got a year-or-so on your hands, go to Flay's "Ask Bobby" feature on his homepage. It's admirable that he would take the time to answer his fan mail, but when you think of it, it's obvious. Of course he loves reading letter after letter proclaiming how "hot" and "talented" he is, even if the letters are clearly written by ignorant, tasteless, Applebee's patrons who clamor for anything with grill marks on it and the word "southwest" in the description. The worst are those writers who applaud his "creativity." Bobby is one of the least creative chefs I know of. Take meat or trout, add ancho chili sauce, serve with mango relish and voila! you have mastered the art of Flay. If you really want creative, look up Ferran Adriá, or Wylie Dufresne. But Bobby Fucking Flay? Hardly. I've seen menus at Chili's with more creativity.
This may not be the best of Veiled Conciet, but it's the one I like the most.
Cheers!
Posted by Samer at 11:58 PM | Comments (0)
February 18, 2005
MacOSX Hint
My first MacOSXHints.com hint has been published. It's the one about the GMAP plug-in for Address Book! Go me!
Update: MacMerc made my hint the top Freeloader Friday item!
Posted by Samer at 09:28 AM | Comments (0)
February 16, 2005
Moon Panorama
Panoramas.dk has some great panoramas of the moon. Stitched together from NASA images of the moon's surface taken by astronauts and overlaid with commentary from the radio transmissions of the astronauts, they are really fascinating to look at. Fire up your QuickTime and head on over there.
Posted by Samer at 08:15 AM | Comments (0)
February 14, 2005
Happy Valentine's Day
It's that time of year again. And, thankfully, we have the Onion to protect us.
They've created some pretty funny love coupons taking the piss out of traditional love coupons that people give out (or is it that marketers and sappy books hope people give out?).
.
Posted by Samer at 12:58 AM | Comments (0)
February 12, 2005
Google Maps Address Book Plug-Ins
So you want to use the great Google Maps with Address Book? Why, just go get and install GMAP and you are off to the races.
It is a collection of two Address Book plug-ins that will give you two new menu items to get maps using Firefox. Since Safari is not yet supported by Google Maps, you must install Firefox for this to work.
In order to get directions, you must have set your own card. To do this, select your card in Address Book, then choose "Make This My Card" from the "Card" menu. The first address in "My Card" will be used.
I was inspired to do this (and used some of the code from) this hint at MacOSXHints.com. If you want to learn a bit about how to make an AppleScript plug-in, just read the code samples from the site and tinker. I added a bunch of comments that try to make clear what's going on where.
Thanks to UnixJunkie and MikeD.
Posted by Samer at 06:01 PM | Comments (0)
February 10, 2005
How do they do it?
Following yesterday's post about Google Maps, I ran across this website where a web developer takes apart what Google is doing and shows how they do some of the magic they do. It is pretty damn impressive, if you can follow along.
Thanks bOINGbOING.
Posted by Samer at 11:43 AM | Comments (0)
February 09, 2005
Maps
Google is going to take over the world, and as further proof I present the latest from their incredible Labs, Google Maps.
I'm sitting at home, sick, playing around with it because it amuses me. It's really well done. Click on it and drag the map around, or use the plus and minus keys, as well as the arrow keys to navigate. Type in an address, then type in "pizza" for a list of pizza places near by. Try doing a directions search, too.
You want to know how good this is? It does not work with Safari, yet, but I will launch FireFox just so I can look at these maps.
Simple and elegant. Another impressive offering.
Posted by Samer at 09:11 AM | Comments (0)
January 26, 2005
Ouch
This video is bloody clever. The song is "Bushes" and the video is the reaction of those having them stripped off. Excellently funny.
Posted by Samer at 11:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 19, 2005
This is your brain...
... This is your brain on Gmail.
A very interesting article from Digital Ocean about managing information in your life by creating a Gmail account strictly for the bits of info you need to do something with. Tag it with a reasonable tag and then have Gmail do the filtering. See something you want to read later, send an e-mail with "READ: something cool" and some information about what it is. Make a new contact, drop yourself a "CONTACT: " note.
A very interesting concept, and I think it might help me out a lot. Or it could give me a ton of snippets of stuff I will still have no time to look at.
Posted by Samer at 09:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 12, 2004
Have you ever seen a llama...
... kiss a llama on the llama?
No? Well, then you need to see the llama song. No, really, you have to.
Llama, llama, cheesecake.
Thanks, Law-rah!
Posted by Samer at 11:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 11, 2004
ZipDecode
I just love this Java application. It is called ZipDecode and it lets you fly over the US and zoom in on zip codes. Click on the map, hit "z" and then start typing your zip code. Very cool.
Posted by Samer at 12:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 09, 2004
Law School
I have two good friends who are in law school. One, AB, recently started blogging on her PIEL blog, which I talked about a few days ago. The other, law-rah as she calls herself, also writes a blog called WonL. They've both been prepping for finals, and they are both a little stressed by the immersive experience of studying.
On WonL, law-rah's been keeping a list of things that she's learnt while studying (for the record: I love that word). An example or two:
4) my roommate really doesn't care about UCC 2-207..but found Williams v. Walker Thomas extremely interesting (could've been due to my theatrical performance of replevin...perhaps as an encore, I will throw large pieces of lumber off of the 2nd floor at my other roommate below)
11) I think I have an unhealthy obsession with collecting markers and highlighters
I've found the series amusing, myself. Check them all out. Of course, I think number 15's pretty good.
Good luck to both of them, and hope they kick some law school ass.
Posted by Samer at 12:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 03, 2004
What the ... ?
I bring you The Gobbler.
It was a concept motel in Wisconsin. I promise you that if you go look and read the captions to the pictures (click on the "Let's go Gobblin'" link) you will laugh out loud.
Posted by Samer at 09:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 02, 2004
The ABlog
One of the coolest and funnest people I know, my friend AB, has gone out and got herself a blog: "PielBlog...My Life In Interesting Tidbits". Piel, she explains in her first entry, is public interest environmental law, in case you were wondering.
I like the way she writes, and I like that I can keep up with her more often. If you like following someone through the trials of law school, reading about some law stuff and seeing how passionate she is about the things that matter to her, then take a look.
Posted by Samer at 09:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 10, 2004
New Digs
As you can see, I've made some changes to the blog. The changes were precipitated by moving to GoDaddy for hosting. Yeah, I know it is a silly name, but they have good deals and a reasonably good and responsive staff.
In addition to moving up to MovableType 3.1, changing the look of the blog and renaming it to 'samer/thoughts', I've created a photo blog. 'samer/pictures' will be the place to look for the latest pics from my travels (more on that soon).
Drop me a line if you like what you see.
Posted by Samer at 07:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack