--A very primitive braille2text translator. Unfortunately, it only does the most basic type of Braille, letter to letter translation (Grade One) As it turns out to do Braille properly, you need to translate hundreds of abbreviations and alternate characters. I was surprised I couldn't google someone doing this already... it's tricky, but you could probably get a good 90/10 solution in a day or two.
If there's any kind of interest I might try to enhance this so it can do a reasonable facisimile of Grade Two, but really I was kind of more interested in the UI of it.
...of the moment
Amazing football last night! Meanwhile, in NE, Belichick decides he can run EVERY damn aspect of the team. Has he done anything on his own?
http://harveyjames.livejournal.com/152287.html - Harveyjames' english lessons are the most amazing thing ever.
Remember "Pillow Book" where the she yells at him for having sloppy boring handwriting? Weirdly that makes me regret my bad penmanship.
Sigh. I suspected Microsoft was shoving yet another Update at my poor XP tablet when Firefox took minutes to load, and lo and behold...
--Elevator Panel Detail from 133 Federal Street in Boston, MA
...of the moment
Note to self: if the page you googled up about recording video on PC is talking about "Windows Millennium Edition" it's probably too old.
Things I am sick of: usb gadgets lacking 64-bit windows drivers. Endless Microsoft updates. Shitty HP hardware.
"after the Superbowl Google Ad Hey, this Google thing looks pretty nifty! Ball's in your court, Altavista." --http://twitter.com/JustinFowler
sam:http://www.sharenator.org/If_browsers_were_women/ amber: sad about Chrome, kinda :-(
I am switchin' to Safari! sam: IE is my favorite on this list, truly. :-) amber: shoulda had a Mosaic one! sam: How about a gopher one? amber: LOL!!!! I'd hate to see that! sam:
It would look.
Something.
Like this.
Yeah?
amber: or like this?
--Email exchange (massaged into a convo) between Amber and her friend Sam. I kind of misread it and thought the stick figure was a good representation of the old text-based web browser "lynx"... I never used "gopher" much, but they functioned in similar ways, so the same joke works with both...
...of the moment
"When all you have is a hammer, a nail, and 95 theses, everything looks like a church door." --http://twitter.com/loresjoberghttp://www.popularmechanics.com/science/air_space/4344036.html how to (try and) survive a fall from 35,000 feet...
Battlestar Galactica the board game does a remarkable job of capturing the political infighting and hopeless despair of the series.
http://projectionpoint.com/ - neat test; less about the accuracy of your T/F answers, more about how accurately confident you are - I got 81
I'm relieved but a bit weirded out that Boston doesn't seem slated to get the "Snowmageddon" the mid-Atlantic is bracing for.
http://slatest.com/ - this might be my new favorite way of keeping up with the news.
"Without a belief that you will be rewarded or punished after the end of your life--what drives morality among your people? . . . I know that you're a good person. Where does that goodness come from?"
"I behave as I do because it is right for me to do so . . . by the standards of my people."
"But where do those standards come from?"
"From . . . from our conviction that there is no life after death! . . . A person's life is completely finished at death; there is no possibility of reconciling with them, or making amends after they are gone. . . . If I wrong someone . . . under your worldview I can console myself with the knowledge that, after they are dead, they can still be contacted; amends can be made. But in my worldview, once a person is gone . . . then you who did the wrong must live knowing that person's entire existence ended without you ever having made peace with him or her."
--Neanderthal- and Cro-Magnon-descendent discussing the afterlife in Robert J. Sawyer's "Hominids". This passage is quoted in Gabriel McKee's "The Gospel According to Science Fiction", a survey of various SF books with religious implications my mom got me for Christmas
...of the moment
"Man is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness from which he emerges and the infinity in which he is engulfed." --Blaise PascalDamn it, Google searches for "Romper Stomper" are dominated by some dumbass skinhead Russell Crowe movie. I miss the toy + show.
S'funny, kind of, how the old school bathroom white earbuds and synch cables clash with the new Apple look of glossy black with silver trim.
I love (read:hate) when an MS browser considers XML "active content" to be blocked -"DONT THEY KNOW HOW DANGEROUS INFORMATION CAN BE?"
