Dave

Oh man I keep forgetting to mention here that I'm making this. This is going to drag your Apple II kicking and screaming into the late 90s. Or kill it in the process! One of those. Just have to wait for the parts so I can make a prototype.

I bought a Chumby, since it was cheaper than usual if you built it yourself and supplied your own case. And then I did.



I'm planning on getting a better case before I leave this thing on overnight, but for now the box it came in is good enough to demo it on.

( In which I talk to myself about a CD-ROM from 1998 )

Something I've been working on to get me used to WebOS development on the Pre.



So I got a Pre instead of an iPhone half because I'm stuck on Sprint and half because I thought it would be easier to get my stuff out there without Apple's famous App Store approval shenanigans. But it turns out no! Oh well.

Download
Unzip
Run Installer
Open Dictionary.app
Click 'Pokédex'
Search for a Pokémon

THEY FINALLY PULLED THE PLUG ON COMPUSERVE!

YOU SONS OF BITCHES! YOU HORRIBLE SONS OF BITCHES!


GOD DAMN YOU, WORLD WIDE WEB!


Now only the empty husk of America Online remains... But it is only a matter of time before AOL turns off its classic servers and becomes a standard ISP, killing the online service for good.



Damn, thirty freaking years (forty if you count their non-consumer services) and now they're gone for good.

(c/o this guy and ottietav)

So, I like to play some Team Fortress 2. I like the game so much that I bought some of the posters. Back in February I got the Sandvich and Flamethrower posters for my kitchen, and a couple days ago I received a Sentry poster for my office slash workshop. I put it in a cheap poster frame and held it up, looking for the exact right place to hang it. Right after I found that place, I accidentally dropped it. As it fell behind my desk, I had an instinctive reaction - I spontaneously imitated the engineer's signature line.

I didn't think I played all that much, but maybe I need to cut back a little.

One of my favorite books, The Policeman's Beard is Half-Constructed, is available cheap on eBay. This is like the fifth time the seller put it up, and the low bid has been getting lower every time.

A full PDF of it is available here, but if you want a copy that's probably the best price you'll get.

I got one of those bacon chocolate bars for my birthday and it's pretty good, guys.

Okay, so, knock on wood and all, but I think I just finished designing a goddamn microchip.

It might be horribly broken and not work at all, though. I don't really understand Verilog very well. But I think I did it.

More on this later.

GIVE THESE NERDS THE NOBEL PRIZE!

Explanation: THEY MADE A GEL THAT'LL UNDO DISCOLORATION OF ELECTRONICS!

It will TURN YOUR PISS-COLORED SUPER NINTENDO WHITE AGAIN!

Look at that Osborne THAT IS THE NICEST LOOKING OSBORNE I'VE EVER SEEN!


NOBEL PRIZE
NOBEL PRIZE
NOBEL PRIZE GOD DAMN YOU

REMEMBER GUYS: The Puppy Bowl is on Animal Planet from 3PM to 5AM.

DON'T MISS A MINUTE!
YOU MUST WATCH ALL SEVEN SHOWINGS!

So.

Went to an estate sale and the Thrift Store today. Estate sale was kind of a wash, except for some packs of cards. I started buying packs of cards at estate sales so as to (almost) never go away empty handed. Usually I can find some Congress cards with interesting backs, or cancelled casino souvenirs, or something. Anyway, I found a couple packs of Bulldog Squeezers, one red one blue, except the red box actually had jumbo index cards in them with boring backs. But the blue pack was good and complete.


This design has a neat history behind it, too.

The Thrift Store brought the best find: a freaking IBM Correcting Selectric II in really good shape! I think a minor gear needs to be reseated or replaced to fix the pitch lever, and I need to grab a roll of lift-off tape, but otherwise it's awesome! It even came with ink. I probably won't ever type anything on it, what with my modern text editors and word processors and layout crap. But! Oh man I love it. And it was only ten bucks!
(For my future reference here are links to compatible ink ribbons and lift-off tape.

DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY: I tried to work "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" into that last paragraph but I couldn't.

Okay, I've got no evidence for this whatsoever, but just in case, if six months pass and Steve Jobs comes back from his medical leave a chick, let it be known that I called it.

Okay, I've got no evidence for this whatsoever, but just in case, if it turns out that Patrick McGoohan isn't really dead, but everyone was made to act like he's dead so that he'll think he's some kind of poltergeist and, in his loneliness, begin talking to himself about why he resigned, let it be known that I called it.

If you have been having troubles with The Internet, I apologize. I just noticed that the batteries have run down, and the light stopped blinking. I did not anticipate that happening for a while longer. They have been replaced.

I will have to find a better power source than two AAA Duracell®-brand batteries.

Hey guys if you're on a Mac and you're worried about LiveJournal going away maybe, you can download and run this to get a complete dump of all your posts and comments delivered straight to your desktop folder. All it does is download, configure, and run ljdump.

I wouldn't be too worried, though, the Archive Team is on the case.

Still, they can't get to any private posts, so back up, fellers.

“This is monumental day for both death ray technology and open source software” said Dr. Heinous.

THE FULL STORY

What am I working on, you may not be asking?

An iPhone app. Not that I have an iPhone, but I thought of a COOL IDEA that could potentially make me TENS of dollars.


THE DITHERING IS ALL WRONG >:(
I have a closer algorithm than that one but it still doesn't seem right.

Also the colors, (er, grays) are off.