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Rick Cook, the author of the 5 novels in the "Wizard's Bane" series of computer-infused light fantasy from the early 90s (
the first two are available, free, and legally, courtesy of the Baen Books Free Library) was in the middle of writing a sixth in Spring 2000, when he underwent emergency heart surgery. The result of that, and the meds that followed — he says in his blog — is that he has the sixth book (
The Wizard Recapitalized) about 90% complete, but can't finish it, and
he wants to know if he should release it anyway. Not all that much
posted to MetaFilter by baylink
at 7:41 AM on February 22, 2008
(22 comments)
Snakes on a Base!
In the wake of today's announcement that Raul Castro will be 'temporarily' taking power in Cuba while Big Brother (did I say that?) has an operation for some GI bleeding, The Smoking Gun has published some declassified Spec Ops planning cover sheets from the 60s and 70, listing plans to destabilize Cuba. Operation Bingo, on page 3, is especially amusing.
posted to MetaFilter by baylink
at 9:16 AM on August 1, 2006
(15 comments)
Who wants to own
an aircraft carrier? Possibly the best geek gift ever, if you're Bill Gates or someone. Note especially the *category*...
posted to MetaFilter by baylink
at 6:06 PM on December 29, 2003
(20 comments)
It takes all kinds to make a web. With
these guys, I would have to say we got all kinds. Remember SaveKaryn, the website where the lady collected dollar bills from all and sundry to get out of debt? Well, the idea caught on (unsurprisingly), and PimpingThePoor.com has set out to be the 'Consumer Reports of begging sites".
posted to MetaFilter by baylink
at 12:10 PM on December 28, 2003
(8 comments)
I'm amazed. (And no, this isn't a Lone Star thread.) For all the politics fuss we've engaged in over the last 2 years, I'm a bit surprised that no one thought it a fit topic for discussion that
Florida lost 100,000 votes this week. In Broward County. But of course, those are the *only* votes we lost track of, right...?
posted to MetaFilter by baylink
at 10:11 AM on November 8, 2002
(8 comments)
Now
here's guy who'll be pretty popular with the ladies: Italian man refuses to stop shtupping woman -- whom he'd just met -- in pool,
until she has an orgasm.
posted to MetaFilter by baylink
at 7:11 PM on August 19, 2002
(55 comments)
The link between geekiness and Aspergers Syndrome (a mild form of autism) is fairly well known, if not scientifically proven. But now, a study
reported in tbe BBC says that there's a wildly high incidence of childhood autism where geeks are mostly mating with other geeks...
posted to MetaFilter by baylink
at 12:28 PM on August 17, 2002
(40 comments)
The September 11th 'Ground And Freeze' order which halted air travel for 4 days didn't come from the president, nor SecTrans... not even the Adminstrator of the FAA. Nope, it came from
Ben Sliney. [ Actual journalism in McPaper. Whoulda? ]
posted to MetaFilter by baylink
at 2:52 PM on August 12, 2002
(22 comments)
Anyone who ever spent any time on the Domain-Policy mailing list before NetSol shut it down without warning a year or more back (it was starting to look evidentiary, you see, and they didn't want to get sued...) will be familiar with much of what's in
this Salon piece about John "Gnu" Gilmore, CORE, ICANN('t), and the Great Domain Registration Fiasco.
posted to MetaFilter by baylink
at 12:16 PM on July 3, 2002
(7 comments)
Well, well, well... it's amazing the unrelated links Google can turn up when you're careless about your keywords. Looking for the 75th anniversary Hallmark commercial (with all the people on the hillside), got
this PDF file [110kb] from a UK insurance actuaries organization about the possible risks at the World Trade Center.
posted to MetaFilter by baylink
at 7:17 AM on May 17, 2002
(9 comments)
Does anybody really know what time it is?
If anybody really cares, the NIST is the place to go for not only the answers (including a list of government operated open access NTP servers), but more information than you probably ever wanted to know about standard time.
posted to MetaFilter by baylink
at 6:36 PM on January 5, 2002
(15 comments)
Ok, maybe TiVo isn't sticking it to people (over privacy), even though they can. Their competition, however,
is. (Link courtesy this week's
RISKS Digest, which also has a piece of mine on Internet voting and it's potential pitfalls :-)
posted to MetaFilter by baylink
at 7:58 PM on April 2, 2001
(11 comments)
A era comes, as they like to say, to a end.
The final burn of the Progress cargo ship attached to MIR is underway; she's a comin' down. Obvious CNN link attached; NASA likely swamped; other good links welcome...
posted to MetaFilter by baylink
at 9:25 PM on March 22, 2001
(18 comments)
Last week, we got news of new.net, who decided to make a big splash in the alternative Top Level Domain (.com/.net/etc) game, with some moronic, un-coordinated with the other people scheme including some "patented new technology" that amounted to 'set new.net as the search path in your DNS setup'.
Well, apparently they've started a trend, as
now there's another player in the market...
posted to MetaFilter by baylink
at 7:00 PM on March 8, 2001
(1 comment)
Ok... let me get this straight.
copyright.net has turned loose a tapeworm, called CopyrightAgent, that
crawls around on your computer without your permission, looking for copyrighted MP3 files. If it find them, it reports back your IP address, and they have Napster block you, if you're a Napster user. Otherwise, they contact your ISP, and have *them* block you under the DMCA.
And the first
I heard about this was a Knight-Ridder wire story in
my local paper?? Why the hell hasn't the Internet reacted by burning these people's offices (or uplink :-) to the ground?
posted to MetaFilter by baylink
at 8:18 AM on March 3, 2001
(20 comments)
Cringeley, from the Pulpit,
on Starband satellite internet, and it's use with home LANs and non-Wintel machines. Yes, you *can* get an Ethernet connection to the external box instead of that silly-ass IP over USB thing...
posted to MetaFilter by baylink
at 11:42 AM on February 4, 2001
(32 comments)
See? Y'all sent me off to TVTechnology, and I found something interesting... Remember a couple years ago -- The Day The Pagers Died? They died because Galaxy 4 fell over, which in turn was because its Satellite Control Processors broke.
Both of them.
4 other birds are down one processor; a total of 25 are in danger -- all built on the Hughes HM-601 satellite 'bus'. What is it we always say about genetic diversity being good? Wouldn't you hate to be the engineer on the hook for *this* 12 billion dollars?
posted to MetaFilter by baylink
at 1:31 PM on January 29, 2001
(7 comments)
Quoth the Ravens,
nevermore. 34 - 7, and the Vince Lombardi trophy goes back to Baltimore. My favorite spots were...
posted to MetaFilter by baylink
at 7:07 PM on January 28, 2001
(35 comments)
This
is, of course, intended as humor, albeit rather coarse humor, but it's all too depressingly accurate. Why does customer service suck so badly these days? [Spotted at
Joel on Software, whom I haven't disagreed with much lately... probably because he hasn't
said much lately. :-)]
posted to MetaFilter by baylink
at 10:08 AM on January 24, 2001
(58 comments)
A while back, you'll remember, a professor from Princeton cracked the SDMI watermark, but couldn't publish [
MeFi search], and weren't awarded the prize because they wouldn't NDA. Well, a French team has also cracked it, and not being bound by the US DMCA,
they've published. Good thing? Or bad?
posted to MetaFilter by baylink
at 11:47 AM on January 23, 2001
(3 comments)
John Gilmore (via Wes Felter) lets the dogs out
on the new Mac DVD-R drive. Seems it's a DVD-General drive, rather than a DVD-Authoring drive, and, therefore, there are lots of things you might want to do with it that you can't.
This is how Apple can fit a $4500 drive into a $3500 machine.
posted to MetaFilter by baylink
at 12:09 PM on January 22, 2001
(23 comments)
Well, only 10 shopping days left until Super B(bleep)l Sunday, and of course, everyone's ready for the big... commercials.
This one, from People for Eating Tasty Animals -- er, um, sorry; mispronounced that -- was refused by CBS, or so saith the minions at AdCritic. Hope they're planning a Superbowl focus page during and after the show. They really oughtta hold a vote. No, wait... it would take too long. :-}
posted to MetaFilter by baylink
at 5:19 PM on January 18, 2001
(7 comments)
Not the turtle, but maybe a relation?
A company called Terapin is selling a recorder that can create CD-audio and CD-V (MPEG 1 video) disc recordings (CD-R and CD-RW), from real time sources. Now, this may seem like a day late and a dollar short, but DVD-R's are still 5 grand, and real-time MPEG video encoders ain't that cheap either. For 6 bills, who knows? Anyone got/seen/played with one of these, or knows who's selling them? I've got a few blank CD-R's I'm not using...
posted to MetaFilter by baylink
at 11:59 AM on January 5, 2001
(7 comments)
Privacy is an endangered species at work.
Not that this is a surprise... but I'm wondering. Will we see a wave of MIS professionals who become conscientious objectors on this topic, similar to the responses engendered by 'defense' projects in the early days of computing?
posted to MetaFilter by baylink
at 8:35 AM on January 3, 2001
(4 comments)
Random Cheer Bombing II: Happy (Gregorian) New Year!
(Yes, I'm early; but I have a ways to drive to get kissed, so y'all can just deal. :-)
posted to MetaFilter by baylink
at 8:05 PM on December 31, 2000
(6 comments)
Merry Christmas; you're fired.
K-Mart thanks a bunch of the people who helped it stay open 24/3 by canning them. I thought only the military and CIA called it a RIF...
posted to MetaFilter by baylink
at 7:21 AM on December 28, 2000
(6 comments)
Lucifer's Hammer... misses.
Well, ok, maybe it was only his tack-hammer, but the people in London would have hated it... [scroll down to second story]
posted to MetaFilter by baylink
at 6:50 PM on December 25, 2000
(2 comments)
