links.lmorchard.com

February 2010

155 bookmarks saved in February 2010

David Simons, the author of Simons' Basic - Commodore 64 (C64) Forum

http://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=394597&sid=5186e8a3fc0f2c10e1271ffdb34afddb#394597
"After Simon's basic I went to university and studied computing and economics. From there I joined SCO (Santa Cruz Operation) and worked on their Unix kernel which was something I always wanted to do. I then joined a startup which unfortunately didn't make it but had a lot of fun (implementing an open source J2EE app server). I've since worked for a number of other companies including Sun and I now work for the leading virtualization company."
#basic #c64 #commodore #commodore64 #retro #simons #simonsbasic
archive.org #12921

Schism Tracker - SDWiki

http://eval.sovietrussia.org/wiki/Schism_Tracker
"Schism Tracker is a free reimplementation of Impulse Tracker, a program used to create high quality music without the requirements of specialized, expensive equipment, and with a unique "finger feel" that is difficult to replicate in-part. The player is based on a highly modified version of the Modplug engine, with a number of bugfixes and changes to improve IT playback. "
#music #schismtracker #trackers
archive.org #12919

ScienceDirect - Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine : Are full or empty beer bottles sturdier and does their fracture-threshold suffice to break the human skull?

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_acct=C000050221&_coverDate=04/30/2009&_docanchor=&_fmt=high&_ob=ArticleURL&_orig=search&_rdoc=1&_sort=d&_udi=B8CY1-4TVY5PW-1&_urlVersion=0&_user=10&_userid=10&_version=1&md5=e198291d4a28294f4d077e1d6888f8ce&view=c
"Beer bottles are often used in physical disputes. If the bottles break, they may give rise to sharp trauma. However, if the bottles remain intact, they may cause blunt injuries. In order to investigate whether full or empty standard half-litre beer bottles are sturdier and if the necessary breaking energy surpasses the minimum fracture-threshold of the human skull, we tested the fracture properties of such beer bottles in a drop-tower."
#beer #bottles #fights #science #skulls
archive.org #12912

RANDOM.ORG - True Random Number Service

http://www.random.org
"Perhaps you have wondered how predictable machines like computers can generate randomness. In reality, most random numbers used in computer programs are pseudo-random, which means they are a generated in a predictable fashion using a mathematical formula. This is fine for many purposes, but it may not be random in the way you expect if you're used to dice rolls and lottery drawings."
#entropy #math #mathematics #nifty #numbers #random #science #security #statistics
archive.org #12911

Dave Farquhar's Silicon Underground - How to connect a Commodore 64 to a television

http://dfarq.homeip.net/article/20050104084808610
"What if you can't find a Commodore video cable? If you're handy with a soldering iron, you can make your own cable with parts from Radio Shack. You'll need a 5-pin DIN plug, two male RCA plugs, and two lengths of speaker wire. Shielded cable like RGU-58 would be better, but isn't totally necessary. "
#c64 #cables #commodore #hardware #retro #video
archive.org #12902

C64 Standard Tape Interface

http://www.zimmers.net/anonftp/pub/cbm/documents/projects/interfaces/soundcard2tape.html
"This is an interface which lets you connect your C64 to ANY standard Tape Player instead of the custom made C1531 device, which can be hard to get today. Also it means you can connect your C64 to any PC with a sound card and let the PC act as a Tape Player with a perfectly clear sound - so there are no Load errors possible."
#audio #c64 #commodore #datasette #hardware #retro
archive.org #12900

The Pythagorean Lambdoma Harmonic Keyboard May Reveal Key to the Universe » Synthtopia

http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2010/01/10/the-pythagorean-lambdoma-harmonic-keyboard-may-reveal-key-to-the-universe
"The Pythagorean Lambdoma Harmonic Keyboard, designed by mathemetician Barbara Hero, is an unusual MIDI controller that’s based on ancient concepts and fundamental harmonic relationships between notes. The keyboard is based on the Lambdoma Matrix, a mathematical grid attributed to the philosopher Pythagoras. The Matrix plots whole-number ratios, with whole numbers along on side (1,2,3,4….) and their inverse fractions (1/1, 1/2, 1/3, 1/4….) along the other."
#keyboards #midi #music #odd #pythagorean
archive.org #12896

Horizontal and vertical: The evolution of evolution - life - 26 January 2010 - New Scientist

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527441.500-horizontal-and-vertical-the-evolution-of-evolution.html?full=true&print=true
"JUST suppose that Darwin's ideas were only a part of the story of evolution. Suppose that a process he never wrote about, and never even imagined, has been controlling the evolution of life throughout most of the Earth's history. It may sound preposterous, but this is exactly what microbiologist Carl Woese and physicist Nigel Goldenfeld, both at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, believe. Darwin's explanation of evolution, they argue, even in its sophisticated modern form, applies only to a recent phase of life on Earth."
#coding #darwin #dna #evolution #genes #genetics
archive.org #12882

Unorthodox - Opinionator Blog - NYTimes.com

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/unorthodox
"This has three odd consequences. The first is that, by the end of sex, the two individuals have become genetically identical. It’s as if you and your mate began coitus as yourselves and finished as identical twins. The second odd consequence is that, partway through its life, a ciliate can radically alter its genetic make-up; genetically speaking, the transformation is so extreme that it’s as if you changed into one of your children. Talk about being reborn."
#biology #clilates #dna #evolution #genetics #reproduction #science #sex
archive.org #12881

Measure the Speed of Light Using Your Microwave | Orbiting Frog

http://orbitingfrog.com/blog/2008/05/13/measure-the-speed-of-light-using-your-microwave
"The fact that microwaves are now readily available to most of us in the western world and they are only a few centimetres in length, means that you can measure the speed of light in your very own home.The quickest and tastiest way to perform this little experiment is with marshmallows, but chocolate chips also work. You’ll obviously need a microwave oven as well, and a large, microwaveable dish. You will need a ruler, too."
#experiments #light #marshmallows #microwaves #physics #science
archive.org #12879

FC5025 USB 5.25" Floppy Controller - Device Side Data

http://www.deviceside.com/fc5025.html
"Device Side Data's FC5025 USB 5.25" floppy controller plugs into any computer's USB port and enables you to attach a 5.25" floppy drive. Even if your computer has no built-in floppy controller, the FC5025 lets you read those old disks. And it's not just for IBM PC disks – it also understands formats used by Apple, Atari, Commodore and TI, among others."
#archival #backup #floppies #hardware #oldschool #preservation #retro #storage #wishlist
archive.org #12877

Turkey: Archeological Dig Reshaping Human History - Newsweek.com

http://www.newsweek.com/id/233844
"Standing on the hill at dawn, overseeing a team of 40 Kurdish diggers, the German-born archeologist waves a hand over his discovery here, a revolution in the story of human origins. Schmidt has uncovered a vast and beautiful temple complex, a structure so ancient that it may be the very first thing human beings ever built. The site isn't just old, it redefines old: the temple was built 11,500 years ago—a staggering 7,000 years before the Great Pyramid, and more than 6,000 years before Stonehenge first took shape. The ruins are so early that they predate villages, pottery, domesticated animals, and even agriculture—the first embers of civilization. In fact, Schmidt thinks the temple itself, built after the end of the last Ice Age by hunter-gatherers, became that ember—the spark that launched mankind toward farming, urban life, and all that followed."
#anthropology #archaeology #culture #evolution #history #prehistory #religion #ruins #science
archive.org #12870

#Teleku , Teleku Launches!

http://teleku.tumblr.com/post/405877949/teleku-launches
"Teleku is a new cloud-based telecom company that allows Web developers to build and host phone applications that answer inbound calls and initiate outbound calls, interact with Web applications, and send/receive SMS text messages! Using simple XML responses in your HTTP Web pages, you can deliver sophisticated interactive voice response (IVR) telephony applications in as little as 5 minutes!"
#phoneml #service #telephony #voicexml #webdev
archive.org #12867

Mimeo and the Kleptopus King // ShaunInman.com

http://shauninman.com/archive/2010/02/23/mimeo_and_the_kleptopus_king
"Mimeo (even the name) started as a Mario clone with a twist: instead of power-ups affecting the player, they affect the entire game world. A story and mythos quickly developed. The so-called Mimeoverse consists of two 16-bit demiverses sharing 32-bits between them. When the evil Kleptopus King, an 8-bit octopus with an inferiority complex, discovers a portal into Mimeo’s realm and begins to syphon off its bits, Mimeo is sucked in and downsampled to 2-bit. So begins Mimeo’s quest to restore balance to the demiverses."
#art #games #gaming #iphone #kleptopus #mimeo #mobile #nifty #shauninman
archive.org #12860

JavaScript Commodore Emulator

http://www.kingsquare.nl/jsc64
"jsc64 is a Commodore 64 emulator written in JavaScript by Tim de Koning. It's a port of the FC64, the Commodore 64 emulator written in Actionscript by Darron Schall and Claus WahlersThis emulator is meant as a 'proof of concept' and uses the HTML5 Canvas-element to render the Commodore 64 screen layout. This means it will work on all modern browsers, being the lastest version of Firefox, Google Chrome and Safari. Rendering on Internet Explorer should be possible with some minor fixes in the 'Renderer class', but I'm afraid performance will be appalling.his emula"
#awesome #c64 #emulators #javascript #webdev
archive.org #12855

Padraig O'Sullivan - Building a Small Cassandra Cluster for Testing and Development

http://posulliv.com/2009/09/07/building-a-small-cassandra-cluster-for-testing-and-development.html
"For college, I was playing with cassandra and thought I would document my experience in setting up a small cassandra cluster for playing around with. For this article, I actually used virtual machines (3 of them). I am assuming that we have a fresh ubuntu installation on each node. I'm also assuming static IP addresses so the /etc/hosts file on each node will have the following entries ("
#cassandra #clusters #sysadmin
archive.org #12850

The GET LAMP Coin

http://inventory.getlamp.com/2010/02/19/the-get-lamp-coin
This. This is awesome. And also making me want to hit eBay for an original copy of Zork or a Zorkmid.
archive.org #12846

Contrary Brin: The Real Struggle Behind Climate Change - A War on Expertise

http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2010/02/real-struggle-behind-climate-change-war.html
"Of course, to typify any lawful profession as across-the-board corrupt or cowardly is absurd, but to so besmirch the one professional cohort that is unambiguously the most brave, individualistic, honest, curious and smart of all, well, there has to be an agenda behind such drivel -- and there is one. The good old Boffin Effect. "
#boffins #brin #globalclimatechange #globalwarming #science #waronscience
archive.org #12833

Researchers hope to make texting by voice a safe alternative

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/02/researchers-hope-to-make-texting-by-voice-a-safe-alternative.ars
Seriously? No definitive answer why? How about: It's more efficient than voice and dispenses with a lot of the friendly handshaking involved in making a call.Texting is less disruptive and all-consuming of attention, and is more easily interleaved into the course of a day. That is, if you're not doing anything that doesn't need constant visual attention. Like, you know, driving.
#tech
archive.org #12819

Judging Stimulus by Job Data Reveals Success — Officially Lucky ❡ a blog by Clint Ecker

http://blog.clintecker.com/post/395053473/judging-stimulus-by-job-data-reveals-success
"Imagine if, one year ago, Congress had passed a stimulus bill that really worked. ... Well, it would look almost exactly as it does now. Because those nice descriptions of the stimulus that I just gave aren’t hypothetical. They are descriptions of the actual bill."
#economy #jobs #politics #stimulus #unemployment
archive.org #12817

John O’Duinn’s Soapbox » Unveiling Mozilla’s Faraday Cage

http://oduinn.com/2010/02/11/unveiling-mozillas-faraday-cage
"We’re planning for at least 400 phones all fitting inside the wireless room, so how to deal with cross interference. Not big enough to just arrange on desks / floor like we did while we were waiting for the Faraday cage to be built. Have to think 3D. ... BedBathandBeyond.com sell rolling mobile bamboo garment racks, which can be assembled with 20 screws each. These can be assembled in minutes. ... They also sell hanging shoe racks which velcro to the cross-rail, are made of heat-resistant fabric, have plastic as a firm base to each shelf and hold 20 phones each."
#bedbathandbeyond #cage #faraday #mobile #mozilla
archive.org #12794

Wii to fret over 'Rock of the Dead'

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/02/11/wii-to-fret-over-rock-of-the-dead
"the game allows you to use a Rock Band or Guitar Hero ax to chop through the legions of the undead. Obviously, a guitar peripheral will be mandatory, though the developer is preparing contingency plan should Nintendo frown upon the requirement."
#gaming #rockband #wii #zombies
archive.org #12792

iProcessing

http://luckybite.com/iprocessing
"iProcessing is an open programming framework to help people develop native iPhone applications using the Processing language. It is an integration of the Processing.js library and a Javascript application framework for iPhone. The iProcessing download consists of a set of example XCode projects that demonstrate many of the Basic Examples from the Processing web site (originally written by Casey Reas and Ben Fry unless otherwise stated) as well a number that demonstrate the use of various iPhone features such as multitouch, accelerometer, orientation, location, sound play/record, app state saving and so on"
#apple #development #iphone #javascript #processing #visualization
archive.org #12790

Hands-on: D&D on the Microsoft Surface

http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/02/10/hands-on-dd-on-the-microsoft-surface
"I just returned from the Microsoft campus (well, I stopped for a panini), where students from Carnegie Mellon University are showing off their awesome project, a version of D&D that runs on the Surface. Now, before you start rolling your eyes, just recognize that this isn’t just a holy grail for tabletop gaming nerds. I mean, it’s that too, but really it’s a proof of concept that shows how fun and intuitive something like this can be, and how accessible a team can make it. I honestly think that if they had these things scattered around like Golden Tee cabinets, they’d get a huge following. "
#dnd #dungeonsanddragons #gaming #microsoft #rpg #surface
archive.org #12789

Stefano’s Linotype » The screen mimics the sky, not the earth

http://www.betaversion.org/~stefano/linotype/news/166
"The screen mimics the sky, not the earth. It bombards the eye with light instead of waiting to repay the gift of vision. It is not simultaneously restful and lively, like a field full of flowers, or the face of a thinking human being, or a well-made typographic page. And we read the screen the way we read the sky: in quick sweeps, guessing at the weather from the changing shapes of clouds, of like astronomers, in magnified small bits, examining details. We look to it for clues and revelations more than wisdom. This makes it an attractive place for the open storage of pulverized information – names, dates, library call numbers, for instance – but not so good a place for thoughtful text."
#earth #screen #sky #typography
archive.org #12784

Everything You Love about Java is Everything I Love About Good Design | Virtuous Code

http://avdi.org/devblog/2010/02/09/everything-you-love-about-java-is-everything-i-love-about-good-design
"The Java ecosystem warps your brain into a mode of thinking where modularity patterns like DI and decoration are like ancient gods which can only be invoked with a great deal of pomp and ceremony. And I think that perspective tends to make it hard to see that other programmers use the same patterns, just with less fanfare. For an even better take on this topic than mine, read Jamis Buck’s classic account of writing and discarding two Ruby DI frameworks."
#deign #java #oop #patterns #ruby
archive.org #12783

Joe Dog Software - Siege Home

http://www.joedog.org/index/siege-home
"Siege is an http load testing and benchmarking utility. It was designed to let web developers measure their code under duress, to see how it will stand up to load on the internet. Siege supports basic authentication, cookies, HTTP and HTTPS protocols. It lets its user hit a web server with a configurable number of simulated web browsers. Those browsers place the server "under siege." "
#benchmark #http #loadtesting #performance #testing #webdev
archive.org #12782

cloudhead.io

http://cloudhead.io/toto
"toto is a git-powered, minimalist blog engine for the hackers of Oz. The engine weighs around ~230 sloc at its worst. There is no toto client, at least for now; everything goes through git."
#blogging #git #ruby #webdev
archive.org #12779

Op-Ed Columnist - America Is Not Yet Lost - NYTimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/08/opinion/08krugman.html
"The truth is that given the state of American politics, the way the Senate works is no longer consistent with a functioning government. Senators themselves should recognize this fact and push through changes in those rules, including eliminating or at least limiting the filibuster. This is something they could and should do, by majority vote, on the first day of the next Senate session. Don’t hold your breath. As it is, Democrats don’t even seem able to score political points by highlighting their opponents’ obstructionism. Well, America is not yet lost. But the Senate is working on it. "
#america #gop #history #krugman #obstructionism #politics #republicans #senate #stupidity
archive.org #12778

Bad Nomenclature » Blog Archive » A rant about PHP compilers in general and HipHop in particular.

http://blog.paulbiggar.com/archive/a-rant-about-php-compilers-in-general-and-hiphop-in-particular
"One saving grace is that they didn’t patent it. I have an email in my inbox from one of the HPHP developers saying he couldn’t talk to me about the compiler because they might patent it. That’s pretty shitty. Thank god they open-sourced it instead [9]. It sounds like it was a bit touch and go for a while."
#compiler #facebook #hiphop #hphp #performance #php #webdev
archive.org #12777

Displaying PHP APC Cache Information

http://www.electrictoolbox.com/apc-php-cache-information
"APC is the Alternative PHP Cache, which is a free, open, and robust framework for caching and optimizing PHP intermediate code. I posted about how to install APC on Linux a couple of days ago, and will now look at the apc.php script which comes with APC and shows information about how much of the cache is being used, what files are being cached, the number of times they've been accessed etc."
#apc #caching #gui #php #webdev
archive.org #12776

Publishing Mercurial Clones - MDC

https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Publishing_Mercurial_Clones
Finally figured out how to setup my own repos at hg.mozilla.org "When working with Mercurial, it is often nice to publish your changes on a server so others can examine and work with them as well. If you have commit access to CVS, you should have an LDAP account, and that should allow you to push to hg.mozilla.org. If you do, you can create clones in the /users directory and share them with others."
#dvcs #hg #mercurial #mozilla #vcs
archive.org #12775

Microsoft Pulls Plug on Xbox 1’s Online Play - UNG» UnNamedGaming.com

http://unnamedgaming.com/?p=11136
"I wanted to let you know that on April 15, 2010 Microsoft will discontinue Xbox LIVE service for original Xbox consoles and games, including Xbox 1 games playable on Xbox 360. Our first step in this process will be to turn off auto-renewals for those members who only use Xbox LIVE on a v1 Xbox. While I can’t comment on the specifics, this change will allow us to continue evolving the LIVE service with new features and experiences that fully harness the power of Xbox 360 and the Xbox LIVE community. We did not make this decision lightly, but after careful consideration and review we realize that this decision will allow us unprecedented flexibility for future features."
#eol #gaming #xbox
archive.org #12774

Hack Brings Mac OS X to the Nokia N900 - PCWorld

http://www.pcworld.com/article/188271/hack_brings_mac_os_x_to_the_nokia_n900.html
"Finnish geek Toni Nikkanen has become the first person to successfully run Mac OS X--in this case, Mac OS X 10.3 "Panther" (released in 2003)--on a cell phone. The phone he managed to achieve this feat with - Nokia's N900 smartphone. Sadly the hack, which makes use of PowerPC emulator Pear PC, runs incredibly slowly."
#mac #n900 #nokia #osx
archive.org #12772