Cat is out of hibernation...

Cat came out of her cave...

...but didn't get to far.

Expelled the Movie

I'm sure you've all heard the story of PZ and Dawkins going to see a movie by now... I want to make sure I get a link in to the site about Expelled the Movie with Ben Stein somewhere.

lol's

Most people have heard of I Can Has Cheezburger?, now there's also lolcats can has science, and LOLTheist: Blasphemy is Teh Funneh... but don't forget lolhistory....

(This one was so good, I thought I'd save the punch line for the original posting. Check out the title and the tags, if you don't get it right away)

Why can't I listen to my podcasts?

First I wasn't allowed to listen to the BBC Proms, now I have a backlog of podcasts to put on my iPod and Cat will not let me listen to them....

The reason for the season...

Holiday card idea...

Thanks to Phil.

iPod Touch

I've been playing with an iPod Touch for a while now and thought I'd touch on a few points... First, the touch interface is nice and very usable. I've adjusted to the keyboard and can type almost as fast on it as I can on a regular keyboard (a couple words a minute). I've used it for days without charging it and the battery has only got down to about 20%. I have a lot of stuff on it and I only have about half of the 16GB full. The iPod Touch is similar to the iPhone, except it doesn't have the phone part, or the camera.

I have a few little issues. I know you can't always get what you want, but you can try sometimes.

1. I had to Jailbreak it to allow 3rd party apps to be installed. The stock iPod Touch cam with only a couple applications.


2. The alarm on Apple's clock program doesn't have the ability to play a playlist as the alarm. I think the original iPods would do this. It will only play a couple built in sounds for the alarm. I would like to be able to hook it up to my stereo and have a playlist start playing in the morning to wake me up.


3. The build in speaker is not loud enough for me to hear when the iPod is in my pocket, making the calendar alerts pretty useless.


4. The Calculator program will not do trig or other functions you would find on a scientific calculator. With the power the iPod Touch has it should be able to emulate an HP-48. Until then I'll have to kept carrying around my slide rule.


5. It would nice to have the option of reducing YouTube and other videos size when going out to a TV. I have the cable that allows me to it up to a TV, but the people tend to make YouTube/Internet videos that have titles all the way to the edge. In the settings, under Video, under TV out, in addition to the type of TV signal it would be nice to see something like reduce video: 5%, 10%.


6. A flash plugin will be needed eventually.


7. When tapping on an address in Contacts, it would be nice if it sent the address to Safari and opened the GoogleMap page with it.


8. Someone has to figure out how to get NetHack to play in the vt100 terminal app that someone made.


9. It's missing a good screensaver that shows a big clock, any countdown timers or pending alarms, and current song playing.


10. When playing music to a TV it would be nice to see the track info and album art on the screen.

I've thought of a few others, but then forgot them...

I remember the other one...


11. The text in the music playlists is way to big. This is especially a problem in podcasts or audio books. For example I have a bunch of Sherlock Holmes old time radio shows. In the playlist they show up as "[DATE] - Sherlock Holmes:..." It truncates the name. I can't tell which episode I listened to last, because the name is missing, (the Red-Headed League, the Hound of the Baskervilles, the Adventure of the Speckled Band, etc). The text is also shortened when you start playing. In iTunes, longer song names will scroll. On the iPodTouch there is no way to see long song names. It would be nice to either adjust the text size in the preferences, or be able to scroll a truncated name (perhaps by swiping a finger to the left).
    

Cat waking me up in the morning

GrrlScientist has a video that illustrates how Cat gets me up in the morning...

Credit goes to Lynette the Zoo Keeper for sending the vid to me first.

Is it Christmas yet?

A useful blog has appeared that will let you know if it is Christmas yet... http://www.isitchristmas.com/. Or you can just subscribe to the rss feed. If only retailers would check the Is It Christmas? site before putting up all their decorations.

Other similarly useful sites would be http://www.isitfriday.biz/, and the Abe Vigoda Status page.

Free Rice

I just donated 250 grains of rice to the UN... http://www.freerice.com/. They give you a word and you click on the matching word. They donate 10 grains of rice for each correct word. You can go up to vocabulary level 50, I stopped at 46 or 47. I'll go back and try again later.

One Laptop Per Child

Want a cheap laptop for a kid and want to have one sent to empower a child to learn in a developing nation? One Laptop One Child has a deal where you buy a laptop for $399 and they will send one to a child in a developing nation. This was originally known as the One Hundred Dollar Laptop Initiative. It has a 7.5" screen and a bright green case, so it's not designed to appeal to adults. It might be useful as an ebook reader, or (because it's very rugged and has very long battery life) it might be something you can take on a camping trip so you can type your journal.