Mike's Archive

Blog

  • How To: Sort your Chips and French Fries for most tidy consumption.

  • The Next Killer App

    Do you have an IM program? Do you go to websites or use plugins to manage a blog? Do you email files to friends or have an account on Friendster or LinkedIn? Do you play head-to-head games over the internet with friends or strangers? Do you chat? Do you listen to streaming music like WOXY? Do you like to use your broadband connection for cool video content like guys dancing? Do you like to share pictures online? Do you have a library of digital music?

    You’ve probably been using lots of different applications and websites to do these things. Maybe you’re using Snapfish or Flickr to share pictures, Miranda or GAIM for IM (or AIM) and YouTube for video. Have you tried delicious for managing links (and the community)? Maybe you like to pass yor time playing Puzzle Pirates against other people. You probably listen to music using iTunes, WinAmp or somesuch. If you’ve got a blog you’re probably using Blogger or WordPress to manage it. If you’re sophisticated you might be streaming music using Shoutcast or Icecast.

    Recently a few applications have emerged for Windows (there may be Mac analogues but I’m not aware of them – please post in comments if you’re aware of any) that have been bundling a lot of this functionality. I’ve been trying them out with friends and the’re very exciting. Here’s a synopsis of three feature-rich (and free) apps:

    • Grouper bundles picture and file sharing, streaming audio between users, messaging, and the concept of “groups” into a polished interface. Groups are basically communities that you can set up with their own permissions where you can share your pictures, music, documents and whatever else with the other members of your group. Of course, all the other members have to have Grouper to participate.

      We liked the Grouper interface a lot. But, we didn’t like the absence of a universal instant messaging client so that we could use existing AIM/MSN/ICQ/Yahoo accounts to IM one another. In addition, Grouper, undoubtedly terrified of the RIAA and MPAA lawyer-army, restricts music sharing to streaming only in certain formats. So, I can connect to my groupmates’ machine and listen to their music, but I can’t actually download it from them. While I understand the effort to preserve the rights of the artist, it’s an ultimately false one because a determined user can simply convert said files into another format or archive it in order to share it over Grouper.

    • Qnext bundles universal IM, streaming audio, online game-play, videoconferencing, remote PC access, picture and file sharing, group chat and ICQ and VoIP internet calling. It’s a pretty phenomenal feature set and it has taken hold among our group.

      The user interface is pretty good and where Grouper has groups, Qnext has shared “zones” where you set up who gets access to what. The photo sharing is great – with zoom/pan, slideshow and save functions but image tagging like Flickr would make it better. The streaming audio “jukebox” zone allows the user to define what quality level stream to provide, either 64kbps or native quality, or both, thus enabling a cap on bandwidth usage for this function. Of course, this could be better with more support for the smaller audio formats. The universal IM client works but is a bit kludgy and slow and isn’t as configurable to your own personal habits as other clients like Gaim (with plugins) or Trillian.

    Google image sharing?

    Regardless of what app you’re using, the major barrier to taking full advantage of this software is adoption. While you’ll find your net-savvy friends with always-on broadband may jump right in, you’ll more likely find them wincing at having to download and install something, paranoid about privacy, or just “not getting” the concept. In addition, opening the proper ports to use these apps is a major hurdle – I’ve got several friends that have vociferously expressed interest and have waged war with the XP firewall and their own routers to no avail. While some utilize UPnP, support for UPnP is mixed and in my real-world experience it has been no help.

  • The new Strokes album

    First impressions of First Impressions of Earth: Well for starters, it’s 50 minutes and should be about 35. In one track, J.C. repetitively sings, “I’ve got nothing to say,” which becomes quite evident after a while. Songs are way too drawn out. In some respects they are branching out in new directions, which I applaud, but in some respects this album also feels kind of stale. They cautiously explore some new song structures and production tricks and this pays off – but they also maintain the now signature Strokes sound, which of course they should. However, it is a double-edged sword. Write Strokes songs and sound like the Strokes, but don’t rewrite the same Stokes songs over with different chords. Unfortunately, as they take steps forward, they also takes steps back by being stifled by formulas. Maybe we should call this the Weezer phenomenon. Knock us on our asses with two highly original creative records and then coast on fumes that gag us after. First Impressions of Earth is not a terrible record, so it is unfair to compare it to the horrid shit Weezer has been foisting on us, but it also not great or the record most of us wanted from them. I hope that they are able to exploit what is new and fresh about FIOE and come back at us with something that does not feel so reigned in, cautious, and unsure.

  • Grinds My Gears: Road Rules

    You know what really grinds my gears? When people rewrite “right of way” rules, just to be nice. The other day I was backing out of my driveway, which is semi-difficult, when I saw another car coming down the side of the road I was jutting out into. Seeing that I had only come a few feet into the road, I simply moved forwards so the oncoming car could pass. So, this idiot, instead of going, just stops in the middle of the street. Keep in mind that, at this point, I’ve already moved fully back into my driveway. Now this guy is waiting for me to pull out again. Well, I refused to do it. I waited a few seconds, and when he still hadn’t moved, I honked until he did. It is not that I don’t appreciate a fellow man trying to help me out — I am a strong believer in the courtesy wave — but in this case there was simply no need for him to stop. I was already back in my driveway! If I was in the street and he waved me on, that I can see and would appreciate. But this was just flat out excessive.

    Another example: I’m walking down the street near my house the other day right where this pedestrian path crosses the street. this street has a double yellow line but really doesn’t get all that much traffic, just a car or two at a time. so these two people walk up to the crosswalk and, as their mother taught them, look both ways to cross the street. They stop when they see a car coming on one direction (the only visible car on this street). The person driving this car proceeds to step on their brakes excessively, stopping abruptly right in front of the crosswalk and waves the walkers across. Looking quite confused, the people cross the street.

    Now, as Mr. Wisdom pointed out to me, technically the pedestrian does have the right of way, as stated by PA law § 3542, “When traffic-control signals are not in place or not in operation, the driver of a vehicle shall yield the right-of-way to a pedestrian crossing the roadway within any marked crosswalk.” However, as the law goes on to say, when a vehicle is “so close as to constitute a hazard”, the onus is on the pedestrian to stay out of the way. Obviously this is a judgement call, but to this observer, if the car has to forcibly put on the brakes, they are so close as to constitute a hazard.

    The amazing thing to me about this situation is that if the car had simply driven through, it probably would have taken less time for the people to cross the street. Not only did they have to wait for the car to come to a complete stop, they had to figure out why this lunatic jerked to a stop right in front of them. In addition, if I was the pedestrian in this situation, it would annoy me to have to cross right in front of the car. Is one expected to hustle across to pay the person back for stopping? What if I want to saunter across at a leisurely pace?

    The bottom line is that when you don’t just go about your business on the road as expected, it creates unnecessary confusion for other drivers (and/or walkers). This wastes time and creates the potential for dangerous situations.

    Yep, that’s what really grinds my gears.

  • Ask Songoose: What’s the Difference between a Pimento and Roasted Red Pepper?

    New feature on the website: Send us your random, stupid or crazy questions and we’ll answer the interesting ones.

    This week’s question comes was asked by TJ from Philadelphia:

    Q: What’s the difference between a pimento and roasted red pepper?

    A: Wisdom and I had a long discussion about this one and our consensus was that pimentos generally suck and roasted red peppers are generally good. However, some netsearch suggests that this is not the whole truth.

    Pimento is actually type of chile pepper, which is different than the bell pepper that is normally used for roasted reds. Both peppers, however, are sweet and mild and therefore ideal for a little roasting and enjoying.

    I think the reason pimentos are more often considered to suck more is that pimentos are found commonly in jars, while bell peppers are more easily found fresh. I’m sure a fresh pimento, roasted and drizzled with a little olive oil would be quite tasty, just as a unripe bell pepper stored in a jar for several months wouldn’t be all that great.

    So, bottom line: two different peppers with a similar look but a slightly different flavor. When in doubt, go fresh.

  • Amanita Design

    http://nlp.fi.muni.cz/~xsvobod4/amanita/plantage/

    top


    Polyphonic
    Sandoz?
    Amazing Flash?

  • Pepper Dennis

    Seriously, is there any reason anyone would even consider watching this show? Maybe it’s an obvious one, but it’s a question that needs to be asked.

  • Dooby Dooby Doo

    Another classicly absurd commercial, penguin style:

  • Gelllin

    I sometimes wish my name was Mike McMellen, so I could be gellin’ and zinfandellin’. Don’t you?

  • Amazing Phone Number Coincidence

    So the other night I met up with a few old friends, and we all swapped phone numbers. Unbelievably, my friend Kally’s number uses the exact same digits as mine — basically, if my number was 123-4564, hers would be 132-5446.

    What are the odds of that??? And these are cell phones — back when we used home phones with the same first 3 digits (i.e. everyone in town is 687), this may have been more common, but nowadays, this seems pretty out of the ordinary.