Since I’m lazy, I created a bookmarklet which automatically sends you to the USCCB’s readings page for the current date.
Drag this link onto your bookmark bar, and it should give you a nice Today’s Readings button (right-click and hit “Add to Favorites” if you are in Internet Explorer; unsure of Mac/Safari or Chrome):
Over the course of using a VirtualBox virtual machine, you will find that your virtual disk image file (assuming it is a dynamicly-expanding disk, rather than a fixed-size one) will grow in size. This isn’t normally a problem, but if you happen to be running low on disk space and have a well-used VM, the difference between what the guest and host OS reports used can be dramatic. For example, your guest OS reports 15GB used, but the actual VDI is just over 30GB.
What gives? (more…)
I am currently listening to Utada Hikaru’s album titled “Ultra Blue”. The whole reason I bought it is for the song “Passion”, a.k.a. “Sanctuary” (Passion is the Japanese version, whereas Sanctuary is the English version). If you like the music from Kingdom Hearts (“Simple and Clean” is in the first one; skip 45 seconds in if you don’t appreciate the beauty of this opening) I would definitely recommend the rest of Utada’s collection. Disappointingly, it appears that “Simple and Clean” is not available as a download; looks like you’ll need to purchase the $15 imported CD (Amazon link) if you want a legitimate copy.
Speaking of Kingdom Hearts, I found a bunch of Kingdom Hearts sheet music on SquareSound.com. A few of them are in Sibelius format, which is a bit annoying, but I definitely intend to practice up at least a couple of these songs. There are these and many more available; take Google for a spin if you are interested.
This is something I have dreamed of since I was 7. A company called 900Global, out of Texas, is manufacturing a remote-controlled bowling ball, the RC-900.
According to the company’s FAQ, the ball can be thrown as a normal bowling ball, but it works best when rolled down a ramp. It appears that the niche this company is trying to fill is that of assisting handicapped bowlers. After having helped with the bowling event of Special Olympics, I can definitely see the need for a device like this.
Also, I stink at bowling and always have, so I definitely would like one of these for myself.
Video after the break.
When I upgraded to Ubuntu Karmic, I reloaded Eclipse from the repositories, and everything seemed to be happy. Except my cherished autocomplete!
I dug around online, and found this site; the solution wasn’t in rebuilding my project, but rather in the comments.
Go into Window > Preferences > Java > Editor > Content Assist > Advanced and make sure “Java Proposals” is checked.
If you find that some members are missing, you may need to muck with some of the other checkboxes in that screen. However, when I checked “Java Non-Type Proposals”, “Java Proposals”, and “Java Type Proposals”, every member was duplicated in the list. That’s not damaging, but it is irritating. Just leaving “Java Proposals” checked seems to have made everything happy once again.
Cory Doctrow has written a book, Makers, in which he tells a story of hackers that enjoy building new things out of trash. He has made the book available for free on his website.
Videos of each of the following are embedded after the break.
Todd Harrison carved a pumpkin like many of us, but unlike many of us he filled his with some electronics, including some lights, a big red button, and a car horn. It would be obvious enough for the horn to go off immediately when someone presses the button, but Todd made it light up the eyes, wait a moment, and then honk the horn. I want one! A video and writeup is available on his website.
Blogger Macaba created a balancing scooter that functions much like a Segway. I have been intrigued by these since I rode one, and once I get some money I very well may make one of my own.
The original source is here, but I cannot seem to find the original source’s video; this YouTube link will do. The video shows a speaking piano–that is, a mechanically-controlled piano with a computer playing the correct frequencies so that it plays back the words originally recorded into the computer. This has to be one of the coolest videos I’ve seen, and it is definitely worth watching. As a side note, I think the YouTube video I linked seems a bit spammy, but the presence of a translation makes it worth bearing.
And last but not least, three guys from Poland got together and created another of the coolest videos I’ve seen. They made a glass tabletop on which they placed bottle caps; each bottle cap represents a sound. A webcam underneath the table connects to a PC, and the PC does some image processing to find the bottle caps and play back the track, left-to-right repeatedly. It makes a lot more sense if you watch the video. A full writeup is available in Polish on their website (Polish) (Google Translation).
To the casual observer, I look like a stereotypical computer geek, and it is true that I do know my way around computers. However, I really am a geek of all trades. I have a multitude of geeky levels, and one such level is music. Nine years of piano lessons and two of choir will do that to you!
Now, music is fun, and computers are fun…what happens when the two are fused is something I could spend a whole lot of time on. There are a lot of music enthusiasts who are computer geeks…hence the plethora of projects out there for working with music on the computer.
Continue reading to see a couple awesome and free music-centric programs available! (more…)
I got a gift card for iTunes from my parents. Normally, I wouldn’t buy iTunes credit, opting rather for Amazon MP3 for my online purchases, but since this was essentially free money, and Apple has removed the Digital Rights Management from their online store, I figured I would go for it.
What I didn’t anticipate is that iTunes would work worse than it did years ago.
I will let my message to Apple Support speak for itself. (more…)
Each summer thus far, I have wandered all summer long and never made any progress on any leads I’ve had, programming-wise or otherwise. I hope to change that this summer.
So I’m making a list.
The penlight, in its nonfunctional state on the palmrest of my laptop.
My penlight stopped working.
It’s perfectly fine with me; it was a freebie I snatched up from the Michigan Tech Advanced Technologies Development Complex during orientation week. But still…it worked, and then it didn’t. And I wanted to know why.
So I cut it apart.
Turns out that these puppies house an entire triple-A battery inside them! The outside housing of the battery is connected to the negative side of the
The penlight, cut open and splayed out on the table.
battery, so it comes all the way around to the positive side. It has a spring that pushes the battery away from the light bulb; when I press the switch, it mashes the spring and pushes the battery to the light bulb. Except the bulb was burned out. Oops.