The Homebrew Channel

/. had a link to some hack for the Wii called The Homebrew Channel, which allows running homebrew code on a Wii. I knew there was a good reason for buying the Zelda Twilight Princess game: even though I haven't played it yet...installing the "Twilight Hack" apparently requires the game. A software hack sounds a lot more attractive to me than having to install a hardware mod that may get screwed by a Wii firmware update.

Another way to beat jet lag

Russ sent me this link to an article regarding how to beat jet lag—by going hungry.

変圧器

秋葉原で見てきた。これは西口の線路下の店や、ラジオ会館の店じゃなくて、駅の南にある、線路下のほうだ。俺的に新しい発見の、「ニューアキハバラ。」そこの店に真空管アンプ専用変圧器などが置いてある。

Californication

I found a blog that has a translation of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Californication into Japanese. Wacky! And I think the guy did a pretty good job. As well as making reasonable sense of Anthony Kiedis' lyrics!

Pop Baby Names

CNN had an article recently about the top 10 baby names for 2007. Essentially it was a wrapper around the SSA's press release. "Emily" (12 years running) and "Jacob" (9 years running) are the most popular names...? I don't know any Emilys or Jacobs, but then again, I don't know anyone with 9-12 yr olds.

Previously I'd linked to a CNN article on "baby name remorse" and the SSA's top name list. Search for "baby" on here to retrieve all such links.

渡辺玲子

Her version of Tzigane kicks ass.

Gun Links from Edo

Ed sent me these a while ago in an IM session. Most are C&R related.

IMA
Model 1 Sales
AIM Surplus
SOG
Military Gun Supply
Akron Armory
Classic Arms

Happy Hour

This is so friggin' true.

Konica Pages

I found a site with scanned Konica user manuals. There was another somewhat interesting one as well.

Camera Fungi

I didn't realize how mold/mildew or whatever could grow in camera lenses. I mean, I'd heard of it, but never knew how it could happen. It's humidity that does it. While I was in Japan, it was much more humid than in the upper Midwest of the U.S., so some SLR lenses I had grew some stuff. That really sucks. Here's some stuff about cleaning out fungi. Professional help may be best. However, apparently the fungi can etch the coating on the lenses, which sucks. Act fast.

Fungi in Photographic Lens [sic]
Camera cleaning, restauration [sic] and maintenance
Cleaning lens fungus

FlatWire

Digging through some old WSJs that had piled up, I found reference to a product called FlatWire, a paper-thin wire that can be used to add lighting without tearing up a wall to install. They have A/V models, too. I've seen flat speaker wire before, but not quite this thin.

43 Folders

43 Folders is Merlin Mann's personal productivity site. (Link to most popular posts.) I stumbled upon it when googling David Allen's Getting Things Done. Apparently 43f has a bunch of "life hacks" in the GTD vein.

The tip about metering usage of clothing by putting the hangers up backward, replacing them the right way, and after six months purging clothes that are unused is particularly interesting. I have a closet full of stuff that I don't wear but can't seem to part with. My work room is strewn with stuff like that. I need a bigger place to hide my stuff.

Pilkington Competition Equipment

My dad sent me a link to the Pilkington site, since they're one of the few places that have information on the Beretta 89. I'm still not clear on how it differs from the 87, other than the grip, but they sure as hell look cool.

Bogus Shooting

CNN has an article about the dude in NYC who was shot by plainclothes cops. Here's the comment I submitted.

I wasn't there, so I don't know the exact situation.

However, if I were getting into my car and some guys in plainclothes drew guns, I'd get out of there. Why would you trust someone who pulled a gun and claimed to be a police officer? No uniform, no car, no badge. It could be just a robbery!

Based on the limited facts, I'd say that Sean Bell did nothing wrong -- nothing I, as a law-abiding citizen, wouldn't have done. I'd say the cops reacted out of proportion and therefore did the wrong thing.

Japanese Gun Videos

Some dude on YouTube has videos from some Japanese TV program showing various guns in action. The G3 one is pretty sweet with the cut-away of the roller-delayed blowback action. The HK G11, PSG1, MP5SD, MP5A3, MP5K in briefcase, FN P90, FAL and others are shown. Man, those Japanese know how to film guns!

Various c|net

Blog post comparing "computers, chips, [and] coffee"
Malcolm Gladwell "not thinking" at RSA2008 (comment)
Another blog post about combating burnout

"AR-57"

Some company's making an AR-style upper in 5.7x28mm. Very interesting. Might have to get into that cartridge yet. Looks like the retail price will be around $700.

Olmsted County Property Information

After some googling, I found the Olmsted County property record information that I was looking for. The Olmsted County site isn't easy to navigate, so it takes a bit of digging. The property information site and the plat maps are the most interesting.

I found the assessed value of a couple places the wife and I were looking at, which was quite instructive. One place was asking $20k over the assessed value, so it's somewhat out of the picture. From the property info, there's a link to Microsoft Virtual Earth, which gives a sweet bird's eye view of the prospective houses. Pretty cool!

From someone's address you can find the full name of who lives there, approximately how much their place is worth, and how much they pay in property tax. I started to feel a bit like a stalker checking all this stuff out.

Random Geek News

A guy who built himself a mini tank....
The top 10 gadgets you [reader] can't get here [U.S.] yet....
A place called Dynamism that sells Japanese electronics....
And Plat'Home's mini Linux box making it to the U.S. market...?

Clinically Nuts

With all the presidential election brouhaha lately drawing all the nutjobs out of the woodwork, I've been more and more disgusted with people. Especially Democrats, who apparently are clinically nuts. Hah, I knew it!

Ugly Americans

There was an article on CNN about the movie "21", which is based on the Ben Mezrich book "Ugly Americans". (I read the book some time ago and posted about it on my main blog.) The CNN bit led me on a kick where I checked out the Wikipedia article, which mentioned a possible true identity for the protagonist. A blog post had some more information and pointed to a Boston Globe article along the same lines. Is the reality as interesting as the book? It'd be interesting to find out for sure.

Statistics for Dollar-Value

Historical gas prices
Retail milk prices
(USDA ERS data sets)
Historical gold price
Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index

SATA Dev Resources

The Linux ATA project has a page for SATA development resources. Just in case I want to refer to it later.

Sad Socket

In Tuesday's edition of WSJ there was an ad by the Galvin Electricity Initiative with the tagline "Meet Sad Socket" and the catchcopy "You'd be sad, too, if you had to power digital-age businesses on 1950s technology." While Tesla's system worked well for the turn of the century—the 20th Century, that is—the grid as it is today is overtaxed and vulnerable to disruption. With people as ignorant as they are about infrastructure issues, reform is highly unlikely.

Egg McMuffins

The inventor of the Egg McMuffin has died. As I really like the Sausage & Egg McMuffin, I feel saddened by this news.

日本に住んでいた時も、朝早く起きたらたまに嫁と「朝マック」していた。

.50-Cal Hysteria

CNN has an anti-gun article that appears to be an attempt to garner negative public opinion of firearms using the .50 BMG cartridge. I submitted a comment on the article. CNN probably won't post it, so here it is:

While I don't doubt there's a problem in Mexico, in the U.S. there is no recorded case of a .50 BMG weapon being used to commit a crime. The rifles used to fire this round are huge and not easily portable because of the heavy action, long barrel, and the need to otherwise suppress recoil. Since .50 rifles aren't a problem in the U.S., what needs to be questioned is how the guns are getting into Mexico. It's illegal for non-immigrant residents to purchase firearms in the U.S. It's also already illegal in the U.S. to move firearms across borders without declaring them to CBP, and it's probably illegal in Mexico to take firearms across the border as well (I'm not familiar with Mexican law). Someone's not enforcing laws already on the books. Maybe this is another reason to put up that border fence.

Further comments:
.50 BMG is a very expensive cartridge, costing over $4 a round for surplus. Often times surplus comes belted, and must be de-linked before being fired in a non-belt fed rifle. Unless the agents found a real Ma Deuce (Browning M2 machine gun), this statement misleads readers to thinking there was one. An M2 is even less portable than a Barrett, by the way: over 120 lbs without the ammunition!
FN's 5.7x28mm cartridge is a carbine round, not a rifle round, meaning that it's closer to the 5.56x45mm cartridge, aka .223 Remington, used in the M-16. (The M-16 is indeed a carbine, not a rifle, and is maligned at the end of the article for being too weak. That may be true, but then why does the U.S. military still issue them, and why does U.S. law enforcement still buy them? For reference, a .22LR cartridge is 5.7x15mm!) A certain type of 5.7x28mm round is considered to be armor piercing, but it is for military use only and its sale to civilians is illegal. The attraction of the Five-seveN is that it uses the same cartridge as the P90, and has 30-round capacity magazines.
If the Mexican police really captured that much ordnance from criminals, why don't they use that equipment, or use the $200M to buy better standard issue arms?

Overall, this article was very misleading, and should be considered anti-gun propaganda. When it comes to firearms-related topics, CNN is absolutely biased in the negative.

Affiliate Scout

これって役に立つ？Affiliate Scout

そういえば、eBayもそういうのがあるらしい。

将積健士

ググってみたらアタリが出てきた。へー。

Info Athletes系のサイト：
ブランドガイド
バレンシアガ
キッズブランド

Advanced Ventilation Systems

In browsing house listings, I found a place that claimed to have an "advanced ventilation system (AVS)" installed. Having no idea what that was, or if it was for real, I did a search and found a store, Conservation Technologies, that has a few filtration products that look interesting. Interestingly enough, they're based in Duluth, MN.

The brand name is distinct, so I further searched on that and found the manufacturer's site: Venmar, in Canada. The site describes a Heat Recovery Ventilator, which apparently takes stale indoor air, uses it to cool fresh outdoor air, and expels the stale air while passing in the fresh air. That might be useful for the house I end up buying.

Dial 911 and Die

This is more proof that people need guns to keep criminals at bay. The cops won't save you—in fact, they have no obligation to even respond to a 911 call.

The best thing to do is get a big-ass gun and shoot the fuck out of assholes that try to rob you. Someone who threatens one's life to rob and plunder deserves to die. Anyone who says citizens don't have a right to own guns means they want you to roll over for criminals and get raped in the backdoor. I say they need to get shot too.