Rand Wacker

Koders - Source Code Search Engine

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how-to record on your ipod (for free) - ipod hacks - ipod.hackaday.com

This requires installing Linux on to the device, but its a cool tool for people who need it.

How to fix Mom’s computer [Scribbling.net]

Need to do this next month…

UPS Tracking With RSS

Sweet, someone has come up with a little UPS-to-RSS gateway for tracking your package.

jluster.org | textual being since 1999

(Mini) Review Treo 650

manybooks.net - Free eBooks for your PDA

This site contains more than 10,000 eBooks formatted for reading on your Palm, PocketPC, Zaurus, Rocketbook, eBookWise-1150, or Symbian cellphone. When eBooks are added to the site they’re listed on the Recent Additions page.

Got around to finishing a couple of books that are worth mentioning. The first was the recently popular Guns, Germs, and Steel. Its an interesting survey of the natural aspects of the planet that led to people in certain areas getting a head start on technological evolution, from the beginnings of agriculture to the refinement of technology. Quick read for a reasonably thick book, but I think thats because it was relatively light on real insight. Most of the key arguments could have fit in to a volume a fifth this long. There was quite a bit of personal anecdotes from the author about his experiences working with native tribes in New Guinea. I hate personal anecdotes (one reason I can’t stand to read anything by NY Times Journalist Thomas Friedman).

Anecdotes aside, some of Diamond’s (well-supported) assertions are that the initial availability of highly suitable agricultural crops (namely high-yield grains and domestic-able animals) gave early European and Asian peoples a head start on settling down. The east-west climate axis of Eurasia also made it easier for agriculture to spread quicker than going north-south as it had to in Africa and the Americas. He draws a lot of parallels between different people on different continents, and has many good stories, and its an enjoyable read, I’m sure which has contributed to its popularity.

A more interesting (to me) read was The Wealth and Poverty of Nations. A good friend of mine was reading this a couple of years ago and I picked it up, but its taken a while to get through the full thing. I believe dense is the word I’m looking for here. This book is chasing a similar topic, but from a fairly different angle. Instead of looking at environmental differences as a cause for the disparities in the modern world, Landes looks for cultural and socio-economic differences between early nations to explain how different nations advanced more quickly than others. In some places his arguments can be seen as a rah-rah endorsement of free-market economies, but this is in no way simple propaganda. There are several interesting stories of how certain civilizations missed their chance to advance rapidly because they weren’t able to harness the power of some of their more interesting inventions due to various attitudes holding them back.

Good reading, both of them. Now I think its time for something a little more brainless, me-thinks.

A perfect last-minute Christmas present for that hard-to-please corporate drone on your list: The Cubes

Each set has one 2-3/4″ posable plastic figure and all the necessary plastic parts to build a classic corporate cube: four walls, desk, chair, file cabinet, in/out box, phone, and computer. Comes with a sticker sheet of decor for your cube, complete with graphs, charts, screens for the computer and pithy office posters. Also includes a job title sticker sheet so you can create a convoluted and meaningless position for your employee.

This is very cool. Yahoo has added the ability to overlay real-time traffic information on their mapping system. Reminds me of a much more advanced system I’ve seen in Tokyo where they constantly are broadcasting traffic information to be received by in-car navigation systems, which display current road conditions on a map and re-calculate your route based on current information.

This looks like it might be interesting.