Open Synapse

Design By Humans 20% Off Referral Code + Contest

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:14:34 -0700

I got this in my email today so I thought, why not? Use this 20% off referral code and I’ll have a chance to win an iPhone I’ve been coveting for about as long as everyone with one has been mocking me for not having it. The first place winner also wins a MBP but I highly doubt I’ll get that far. I’m fine with Top 5.

Design By Humans 20% Off Referral Code: abhay (Expires July 6 @ midnight)

The super awesome designs that I own:

pollution effect

Must Destroy The City

Memory Ln.

Circular Reasoning

The only unfortunate part of it is that you have to pay tax in CA. Bah!

Am I the only one who went “Aaaaaah, he’s going to...

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:41:44 -0700

Am I the only one who went “Aaaaaah, he’s going to attack those kids!” when viewing this illustration? Way to really ruin a moment, Newsweek.

Also, as Dave said, “The Men of the USS Vista were never seen again.” Stormy waters, indeed.

The Tesla doing a lap at Le Mans.

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 10:11:57 -0700

The Tesla doing a lap at Le Mans.

It’s unfortunate that I’m actually posting this on...

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:54:36 -0700

It’s unfortunate that I’m actually posting this on Tumblr but….

Firefox 3 Download MIrrors

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 11:09:00 -0700

I haven’t been able to download the new Firefox 3 package all morning so I went hunting for mirrors.

Here’s a direct link for those on Mac and wanting the en-US release: dmg, checksum

There’s a full mirror list where you can get more download links while the mozilla.org site stays up. You can find your platform and language via that list. More examples: linux-i686, win32

Fedora mirrors being wonky

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:03:41 -0700

This post is mostly so I remember this myself but when I logged into my VPS this evening and tried to use yum, I got the following silliness

Could not retrieve mirrorlist http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/mirrorlist?repo=fedora-8&arch=x86_64 error was[Errno 4] IOError: Error: Cannot retrieve repository metadata (repomd.xml) for repository: fedora. Please verify its path and try again

I’m not really sure what’s going on over there but I’m impatient.

I just modified the mirrorlist line in /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora.repo

mirrorlist=http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/mirrorlist?path=pub/fedora/linux/releases/$releasever/Fedora/$basearch/os

Extra points

If you add country=us, to the mirrorlist url, you’ll get a more restricted repository list.

Really neat video showing a synopsis of the American Civil War....

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:48:00 -0700

Really neat video showing a synopsis of the American Civil War. I think the coolest part is Sherman’s March to the Sea.

America’s Joyous Future [via Defiler in #nyc.rb]

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 16:21:52 -0700

America’s Joyous Future [via Defiler in #nyc.rb]

Here’s an awesome annotated ink drawing floor plan of one...

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 13:08:00 -0700

Here’s an awesome annotated ink drawing floor plan of one of the most famous fictional residences ever. I think this is going to go up on my bedroom wall as soon as I can get a poster print of it. Fortunately the artist, Russ Stutler, has given all of us a very liberal license (although this could have been achieved very simply by a CC BY-ND license) on his work:

You have my full permission to use this image. Just don’t erase my name and claim that you drew it. You are above that.

There are some links on Stutler’s site for the full-sized annotated version and several formats for printing. [via strangemaps]

This is from namecheap.com’s account profile page where...

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 11:57:53 -0700

This is from namecheap.com’s account profile page where you can set some defaults. Indian Band was eventually explained to me as: “a group that is usually associated with a reserve or small patch of land, but it’s a band whether or not it has its own land base.” The Queen or Crown happens to still be the “head of state” in Canada as well.

Seriously…. [xkcd]

Fri, 30 May 2008 13:38:00 -0700

Seriously…. [xkcd]

I think my equivalent would be some sort of computer.

Thu, 29 May 2008 17:41:11 -0700

hugehuge:

Recumbent 3 a.m. conversation a few days ago:
She [sincerely and without warning]: I’m attracted to everything about you. Even the Darth Vader sword hanging on your wall.
Me [thinking]: Oh my god, that’s the sweetest thing anyone has said to me in a very long time.
Me [out loud]: Correction: it’s a lightsaber.

I walked right into one of the best "that's what she said" moments of recent times.

Fri, 23 May 2008 09:46:04 -0700

Me: It's pretty cool that 7 of my 397 facebook friends were born on 5/25. That's about 6.5 times the expected birthday collision.
Cliff: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD09xx/EWD980.html and http://www.mste.uiuc.edu/reese/birthday/
Me: two is easy... but seven? that makes it interesting.
Cliff: and that's what she said.

The Telectroscope, a really neat art installation by Paul St. George that is operational from today...

Thu, 22 May 2008 21:04:45 -0700

The Telectroscope, a really neat art installation by Paul St. George that is operational from today through June 15. Here’s the gimmick from the website:

Hardly anyone knows that a secret tunnel runs deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean. In May 2008, more than a century after it was begun, the tunnel will finally be completed. Immediately afterwards, an extraordinary optical device called a Telectroscope will be installed at both ends which will miraculously allow people to see right through the Earth from London to New York and vice versa.

Wikipedia gives us a little more information:

From May-June 2008, artist Paul St George will exhibit two outdoor interactive video installations linking London and New York City in a simulated “telectroscope”. Although St George claims that the device works using a transatlantic tunnel started by his great-grandfather, it is actually the product of two high definition cameras connected through a fiberoptic link.

I’m really looking forward to visiting it when I’m in New York this weekend. Hopefully going at around 3-4 AM will allow me to skip the curious crowds and also show me the London Bridge area as our friends across the pond are waking up.

I feel like I was always either a second-row or a back-row kind...

Mon, 19 May 2008 22:46:03 -0700

I feel like I was always either a second-row or a back-row kind of person.

Powerset hooks people up at launch parties.

Mon, 19 May 2008 12:34:42 -0700

Powerset hooks people up at launch parties.: Apparently we hooked people up at our launch party [craigslist]

A little downtime

Sat, 17 May 2008 18:10:17 -0700

Some of the services I run, including the calais text tagger, will be down for a little while as I’m doing some server maintenance. I apologize for any inconvenience.

Ryan Leslie plays piano over Lil Wayne’s Lollipop on...

Thu, 15 May 2008 13:01:00 -0700

Ryan Leslie plays piano over Lil Wayne’s Lollipop on Invasion show on SIRIUS [via Rishi]

After

Thu, 15 May 2008 12:19:11 -0700

After

Before

Thu, 15 May 2008 12:18:22 -0700

Before