Wikipedia in Tok Pisin

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While visiting Wikipedia this morning, I saw a link to the Tok Pisin version. There doesn’t seems to be a whole lot there, and the spelling and grammer strikes me as being quite bad, but even so, I think it’s pretty cool. I might need to start contributing some to keep my Pidgin skills up to par. Also of interest: the main Wikipedia article on Tok Pisin and an entry on Wikibooks with more about the grammatical structure. Of course, nothing beats hearing it spoke for real, so give me a call and listen to the real deal! :-)

Read more | Comments (0) | July 4, 2005, 9:09 am

Bad Product Designs

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As a software designer, I ask myself these questions everyday: "Will a user be able to figure this out? Is this intuitive?" Someone at Microsoft shared this link with me:

http://www.baddesigns.com/examples.html

It’s about bad designs of physical things, but the principles can be applied to other design work. I don’t agree with everything there, but it’s a good read nonetheless.

Read more | Comments (0) | June 28, 2005, 10:21 am

Interview with a Search Engine

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Dr. Sbaitso was a psychiatrist program that I first played with as part of my Sound Blaster 16 (my first sound card!) Friends and I actually made some prank phone calls using it. Hysterical! Anyway, here is a funny article outlining a "conversation" with the Jeeves search engine of Ask.com. Prepare to laugh. :-)

Read more | Comments (0) | June 15, 2005, 3:41 pm

The History of the GUI

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I really enjoyed this article, though it could have gone further in depth about some of the advances made in the 90’s. The 80’s coverage was pretty good, and the history of PARC and even before was excellent, but it abruptly ended with Windows 95 and OSX, and left out a lot of the *nix GUI "experiments" from the mid-90’s. It really made me want to learn more, especially about NeXT and BeOS (which I have actually used, believe it or not!) and their history. Thank God for Wikipedia! Oh, and there’s also a decent screenshot archive at http://www.aci.com.pl/mwichary/guidebook/interfaces.

Read more | Comments (0) | May 7, 2005, 8:52 pm

How Lightsabers Work

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As if we needed any more proof that lightsabers are cool, HowStuffWorks.com has a story explaining how lightsabers work. It is hilarious, and frighteningly informative, and made my entire day at the office bearable. Here are some choice quotes from the article:

…be sure to handle any active lightsaber with extreme care until you are completely familiar with its feel and handling.

By using the Force, the wielder can anticipate the path of the blaster bolt and align the blade with that path prior to the bolt’s arrival. Using normal visual tracking to accomplish the same effect can be far more difficult.

The risk of personal injury is much higher with a double-bladed lightsaber, and their practical applications around the home are limited. Therefore, it is probably best to save your money and stick with the single-blade version.

Although a lightsaber is typically used as a defensive weapon by Jedi knights, the availability of lightsabers on consumer sites such as eBay is growing. It is a sad fact of life, but if a Jedi knight falls on hard times, his lightsaber is one source of quick cash. He can always build another one.

…many new owners are pleasantly surprised by the many domestic uses of a lightsaber around the home or office.

There are also some excellent pictures with captions. Here are a couple of my favorites (without captions).

Read more | Comments (0) | May 5, 2005, 3:59 pm

Congratulations Hawktour!

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I’m pleased to say that the Hawktour project came away from IPRO Day with the website award, and picked up second place in their track. I am really proud of the team and how they managed to come together even though I abandoned them half way through this semester. Santhosh did a great job pulling everything together. Even though we didn’t win our category, for three semesters we have been a top-ranked team, and it’s a source of great personal pride to know that I was instrumental in getting us there.

But the real boon this semester was to finally beat out our arch-nemesis in the website category, IPRO 329. They have consistently beat us in the website category for the past two semesters, even though we have consistently improved our site and they have done very little, if anything at all, to theirs. At the beginning of the semester, Satish (the designer of the website that rocketed us to website stardom three semesters ago) said that it was his goal to win that category this semester. I am glad he made it happen. Topping them was an even bigger deal than winning our category. I feel that IPRO Day is a bit of a sham anyway. :-) Of course, we’ll take the awards if they want to give them to us. ;-)

Check out the award-winning Hawktour website, and see why all IPRO’s should strive to be as good as we are.

Read more | Comments (0) | April 30, 2005, 8:18 am

Yiddish Curses

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My friend Dan is Jewish, and he was telling me the other day about Yiddish curses. He had some pretty funny ones, and he managed to find a site or two that listed some more. I don’t know Yiddish, and I can’t even pronouce it based on the spelling, so I’m not going to waste the space of including the actual Yiddish here. If you actually want the Yiddish, go to the sites listed at the bottom of the page. Anyway, here are a few of my favorites.

All problems I have in my heart, should go to his head.

He should marry the daughter of the Angel of Death.

God should visit upon him the best of the Ten Plagues.

Venereal disease should consume his body.

I should outlive him long enough to bury him.

God should bless him with three people: one should grab him, the second should stab him and the third should hide him.

He should have a large store, and whatever people ask for he shouldn’t have, and what he does have shouldn’t be requested.

God should bestow him with everything his heart desires, but he should be a quadriplegic and not be able to use his tongue.

He should be transformed into a chandelier, to hang by day and to burn by night.

May your bones be broken as often as the Ten Commandments.

May you every day eat chopped liver with onions, herring, chicken soup with matzo balls, carp with horseradish, roast beef with tsimmes (a sweet side dish), pancakes, and tea with lemon – and may you choke on every bite.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040401/news_1c1yiddish.html
http://www.yiddishradioproject.org/exhibits/stutchkoff/curses.php3?pg=3

Read more | Comments (0) | February 1, 2005, 9:45 am

Turducken!

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I really should be writing my novel right now, since it is due in six days and I still have quite a bit to write, but this is just too cool. I heard about it on the radio yesterday, and I wish I’d heard about it sooner, because I would have ordered a turducken for Thanksgiving, instead of buying a bunch of fried chicken from Popeye’s, which is what I am probably going to do. What is a turducken, you ask? Only the coolest thing ever known to man: It’s a boneless chicken stuffed in a bonless duck, stuffed in a boneless turkey. The whole thing is stuffed with Cajun sausage, I believe. I should have known something this awesome would come from the Cajun culture. Anyway, you can actually purchase them online at CajunGrocer.com, which I plan to do as soon as the holiday is over. I’ll let you know how it goes. My mouth is watering already…

Read more | Comments (0) | November 24, 2004, 8:32 am

What Video Game Character Are You?

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Saw this link over at Patrick’s blog. According to the quiz:

I am a Light Cycle.

I drive fast, I turn fast, I do everything fast. I even breakfast. I tend to confuse people with my sudden changes of heart. Sometimes I even confuse myself, which tends to cause problems.

Frankly, I didn’t think this description was really accurate, so I took the quiz again. The second time, I turned out to be:

I am an Asteroid.

I am a drifter. I go where life leads, which makes me usually a very calm and content sort of person. That or thoroughly apathetic. Usually I keep on doing whatever I’m doing, and it takes something special to make me change my mind.

While I think this is more accurate, I decided to take the site’s advice and pick my own character. So, for the record, I really am a:

I am Kung Fu Master.

I like to be in control of myself. I dislike crowds, especially crowds containing people trying to kill me. Even though I always win, I prefer to avoid fights if possible.

Maybe this explains why no one ever wants to play games with me? Because I always win? :-)

What Video Game Character Are You?

Read more | Comments (0) | October 5, 2004, 9:25 pm

Firefox Extensions (Updated)

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I have quite a few Firefox extensions that I find extremely useful, so I thought I’d share them.

Update 09/22/2004
OK, so the new version of Firefox (1.0PR) just isn’t cooperating with TabBrowser Extensions and pop-ups. I want my pop-ups to appear in new tabs, but I don’t want all of them blocked – especially in GMail. Despite adding the GMail domain to the Exceptions list in the Firefox pop-up blocker, things still won’t work. I think the problem is with TabBrowser Extensions, since disabling it made everything work again. Anyway, in the meantime, I have tried to find a few other smaller extensions that will emulate the TabBrowser Extensions functionality to get around this. Here’s what I’m using right now.

One minor aesthetic problem is with TabX. It just puts simple X’s for close buttons, unlike the nice looking red buttons that TBE puts there. Oh well, beggars can’t be choosers, right? I just hope that TBE doesn’t cause these problems when a new version is released.

Read more | Comments (0) | September 13, 2004, 8:06 am

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