GlitchNYC.com

The Wikinews Crossword

While working at Wikinews editing an article tonight, I came across the Wikinews Crosswords. Apparently someone is putting together daily crosswords for free as part of the Wikinews project released, as all wikinews content is, under a public domain license. This is brilliant!

There's a bit of discussion as to whether it's appropriate for wikinews since the wikinews is not a print publication, but I agree with many others there that crosswords are often topical and related to current news and repeat crossword users will also be repeat readers.

2:22 am | permalink | /technology/web | 0 writebacks |

From Zero To Wiki In the Time It Takes to Eat A Burrito

Recently I've become pretty involved with The Wikimedia Foundation (the nonprofit organization which runs wikipedia) the wikimedia commons (where Ardvark lives) and wikinews.

I'm fascinated by collaborative writing and once you get familiar with using a wiki, they're really brilliant things. Even the syntax is elegant: to link to another article in a wiki you don't have to stop what you're doing, look up the link, make the href in your html, etc etc... All you have to do is wrap a word in double square brackets, and [[viola]] - it's now a link to the article of that name.

The first wiki I used was the AudacityTeam.org project wiki, and while I was using it I got the idea that there were massive applications for that type of communal collaborative environment outside the open source world. Instead of documenting and discussing an open source audio editor, we could be using the knowledge management potential of a wiki at Common Ground to develop our projects and staff.

I've been toying with the idea for weeks, and this friday I had an hour to kill while waiting for lunch and took the plunge.

Around the time my burrito arrived, I had found the source for wikimedia and was downloading it. I idly clicked away, going through the extremely easy and straightforward setup, and by the time I was done with my burrito, Common Ground had its very own wiki.

If you've already got a LAMP server, installing mediawiki is as simple as

• download
• untar
• point your browser to the directory you just made (which you may want to rename to just "wiki")

I was excited. Too excited, perhaps, but I love it when an idea comes to fruition so easily. I immediately began to tweak it to be CGC specific and added some starting point articles, happily double square bracketing any word that I thought should be filled in later.

The brilliance of a wiki is that those square bracketed words create red links, which means that there's no article under them yet. When a reader clicks on the link, it asks them to fill in whatever information they know. They write a bit and create more links, which invites more people to write.

The entire system is one giant open invitation to users to get involved and add their input.

I've now spent a big chunk of my weekend filling in what I know about Common Ground in an effort to get the ball rolling. There's a lot of writing to be done to really make this a useful tool, but I think there are a lot of people itching to take some ownership of the projects they work in, and sharing their knowledge and expertise is a great way to do that.

In interest of full disclosure, the burrito was from Burritoville, so that thing was HUGE.

8:30 pm | permalink | /technology/opensource | 0 writebacks |

Ice Pellets

This is my favorite. Every time there's a forecast for Ice Pellets I practically pee myself.

Why am I so excited about Ice Pellets? Simply because the description is above and beyond the call. There's no need for it, but there it stands, proudly describing the weather in NYC tomorrow on wunderground.

Sara: Ice pellets? Why don't they just say Ice Rockets. Or Ice Daggers.

"Cloudy with a chance of Ice Daggers tomorrow." You know some stiff corporate guys were like "Oh, no, you can't say Ice Rockets." I'd be fighting for Ice Rockets if I worked there. The guy's like "Fine, ok, can we at least put Ice Pellets? (muttered) and if I slip and put Ice Bullets..."

Why don't they just say hail?

Eric: I don't know, but that's the beauty of it. Tomorrow, Thirty-two degrees and Ice Pellets. Awesome.

11:58 pm | permalink | /technology/web | 0 writebacks |

Wordplay For Graduates

So Sara's recently found a new job, and the guy runs a small business and wants to do his background checking on his own.

That's fine and actually kind of admirable (it's more work than you might think) but it means that Sara has to call Wagner and ask them to send an official transcript.

Here's the problem - when you call the college, how do you introduce yourself?

Hi, My name is Sara, I'm an Alumn... **Screeeeeech**

And this is where the conversation comes to an abrupt halt.

Somewhere, in the back of your mind, you know that the word Alumni is incorrect in this context. The question is, there are a slew of other words that might be right. Alumnus, that's singular, but isn't that just for men? So is it Alumna? Who's ever heard anyone actually say the word alumna in conversation?

Lets ask google.

We used to have “alumnus” (male singular), “alumni” (male plural), “alumna” (female singular) and “alumnae” (female plural); but the latter two are now popular only among older female graduates, with the first two terms becoming unisex. However, it is still important to distinguish between one alumnus and a stadium full of alumni. Never say, “I am an alumni” if you don’t want to cast discredit on your school. Many avoid the whole problem by resorting to the informal abbreviation “alum.”

Sara: So I can say I'm an alumnus, or an alumna. Hmm. Those both sound retarded

Eric: You could say I graduated in 2001.

Sara: Oh yeah. That'd work.

11:33 pm | permalink | /life | 1 writebacks |

Fantastic Wireless USB NewsForge Article

I just ran into a great article on NewsForge about a topic that I've been asked about twice in the past 2 months:

Can you use connected to a wireless network from Linux

The answer is a bit complicated, as many of the newer commercially available cards and USB adapters are unsupported, and sometimes even certain models of a specific card will use a different chipset depending on whether they were made this year or last.

Luckily, netgear's cheap USB adapter (the MA111, available for $15+ on ebay) seems to work well. I got myself 2 just to have them if I need them.

Once you get the little adapter, setting it up can be a bit tricky. There are a few manual steps to go through, but the newsforge article sums up what you need to do nicely.

1:43 pm | permalink | /technology/opensource | 0 writebacks |

Who Decides What Software Is Running On Your Computer?

Now, I'm all in favor of Anti-Spyware and Anti-Adware tools becoming mainstream. In fact, I think offerings from all the major vendors from Symantec to Microsoft are long overdue.

That said, installing an application by Microsoft which allows them to decide which programs can and can't run on my computer has a bit of an ominous feeling to it.

I'm sure ADP (who is the company that provides many of our paychecks. Literally.) isn't too happy about their products being one of the first "false positive" casualties of Windows AntiSpyware.

It's an interesting question. How much control do you give Microsoft in exchange for the safety of your PC?

I can feel us inching closer to Palladium *Ahem* - I mean "Next-Generation Secure Computing Base for Windows"

1:09 am | permalink | /technology/microsoft | 2 writebacks |

Placemat Art

Well, I was going to paste up some of the doodles that we all drew at Colleen's b-day last friday, but she beat me to it!

• Tons of Placemat Art. Whoever brought the sharpie was a genius.


• Real photos from the party.
  
  
  • There's some freaking gems in here, let me tell you. I may have a new contender for the "Worst Picture Ever" of me.

Colleen is FurboaJerboa on LiveJournal for anyone looking to add her there or here's her rss feed for fellow rss-loving nerds.

3:20 pm | permalink | /technology/web | 0 writebacks |

Furboa Jerboa

Okay, I love finding zany things on the net and I love pimping friend's stuff, and today I get to do both at the same time. Both projects below are products of Colleen Af Venable's wonderfully demented mind.

FluffInBrooklyn.com is a new webcomic with a cast of 3 stuffed animals and a microscope. It looks like it's going to be quite funny, and it's only in the 4th episode. Check out the characters page to get a glimpse of what's to come.

(What do you mean you don.t know what a JERBOA is? Man...okay, click HERE and if you want to see a whole slew of um click HERE)

STALKING AND MURDERING OF A CHILDHOOD GIRAFFE is a series of 250+ photos of Collen with various giraffes.

2:05 pm | permalink | /technology/web | 1 writebacks |

Choosing the Right Laptop

Now that PC's are plummeting down under $500, many of my friends are looking to purchase laptops. Perhaps not coincidentally, many of these same friends are living in NYC apartments and have no place to put big noisy doorstops otherwise known as PCs. I've always been a fan of being able to go in and fix problems myself, so I generally lean towards desktop systems, but I'm happy to do some research for friends.

Now, from one geek to another, what you "should" buy in a laptop will differ greatly. Arguments back and forth regarding speed, hard drive size, dvd burners, reliability, and more will get your recommendations from $700 to $3000. Finding the "sweet spot" where you're getting the most utility for the best value can be difficult, but or me, there is only one real requirement. The Screen.

Modern PC's, even pieces of crap like E-Machines, can handle just about anything you want to throw at them. Processors are insanely fast, even default low end hard drives are big enough, and memory is abundant. Everything has evolved so quickly that the normal user will never even touch 90% of their computer's potential. They just want to surf the web, watch some movies, and write a paper or two.

Even as a mega-geek, I'm firmly in this camp. I'm not rendering 3D or movies (and even when I do, I can start a render job and then go to bed), and most of the daily work I do takes place in a web browser, email client, or text editor. My main computer at home is a small-form-factor 1ghz machine that was originally going to be a MythTV box.

The only thing that hems me in when I'm working on a computer is the number of pixels on the screen. I need at least one web browser open to a decent size and a bunch of space around the edges so I can keep an eye on my other open programs and multitask efficiently.

1024x768, also known as XGA, just doesn't cut it for that basic daily work. You find yourself maximizing your web browser and all other programs and you become oblivious to other things going on on your machine, like IM windows popping up or emails coming in.

Most bargain laptops, regardless of screen size, come with an XGA resolution monitor. If you can find a good laptop with at least WXGA (or better, like UXGA, WUXGA or WUSXGA - more letters are better) for cheap, you're good to go.

I recently stumbled upon this deal. AMD Athlon 3000+, WXGA screen, DVD+-RW, for $900? If I had the cash, I'd own this thing already. Even if that laptop isn't available anymore or you want to go with a different vendor, I think the basic specs hold up well as far as what to look for in a great bargain laptop.

Anyway, until I have $1000 to throw around, I'll just have to drool over strongbad's new laptop. If you haven't seen it yet, start with the "virus" email.

3:31 am | permalink | /technology/gadgets | 0 writebacks |

Sorry Everybody

My good friend Alan pointed me to SorryEverybody.com the other day. The basic concept is that everyone and anyone can send in a photo apologizing to the rest of the world for reelecting Bush.

Some of the photos are very funny and Al himself is in there!

2:34 am | permalink | /technology/web | 0 writebacks |

Veronica Varlow Vehicle "Revolver" Closer to Reality

Revolver, the brainchild of Danger Dame seamstress Veronica Varlow has moved from a screenplay and some cool pictures to an amazing trailer.

Although it's still not a full movie (they're looking for investors), the trailer sets the mood amazingly and then finally gives us a glimpse of the storyline.

Now they've won the Golden Trailer award which pretty much fast-tracks them to getting picked up by a studio.

Veronica: Jeremy Sisto of "Six Feet Under" presented our category, "Best Trailer No Movie". He said, "A regular trailer has to be good enough to get someone to drop 10 bucks. In this category, the trailer has to be good enough to get somebody to drop 10 million bucks."

And then he said the words..."And the nominees are...."

Read the rest

Our friend PJ just moved to Hollywood to work on big pictures (he's working on "War of the Worlds" right now) and this seems right up his alley. I'll have to drop him a line to see if he's interested. As far as I know, they're still looking for cast and crew.

• Download the trailer (hi-res quicktime, mplayer friendly)
• Check out the movie site for Revolver
• DangerDame.com is the fashion store of Veronica Varlow, where she sells many of the 50's pin-up style outfits you see her wearing in the trailer.

1:29 am | permalink | /technology/film | 6 writebacks |

More Awesome Indie Clothes

While looking for screenshots from BeetleJuice for the Fish Hook Story, I stumbled upon Plastik Wrap, an independent clothing designed with a serious bent towards techno/goth/sci-fi garb.

My only gripe is that I wish there were more men's clothes but the few items they have are decent and the women's stuff is amazing. It's as if Jennifer Connelly's character from Requiem for a Dream finally opened a fashion store.

Check out the Plastik Wrap store

While we're talking about cool clothes, I should mention that Veronica Varlow of DangerDame.com has added some new items since I last featured fashion here at GlitchNYC.com .

Link stolen from Void-Star.net who also has some BeetleJuice and Ragnarok inspired "slashy, high-tech, high-fantasy" fiction going on at her site.

1:13 am | permalink | /life/freak/garb | 1 writebacks |

Audio and Video of Wil Wheaton Reading Just a Geek

I'm sure he posted this ages ago and I'm just behind the times, but I figured that I'd blog it now since I just saw it.

Wil Wheaton has linked to free downloads of movies and audio of him reading from Just a Geek and Dancing Barefoot. I'm pulling down the video right now, and it's flying in at 685 KB/sec. It seems that when RCN rolled out their new higher bandwidth services (7mbps to the home!) their other tiers of service got a nice boost as well.

His readings are supposed to be very entertaining, so if you're a fan at all or just interested to hear some funny stories from a guy who's had a very interesting life so far, give it a look.

10:55 pm | permalink | /technology/web | 0 writebacks |