You can view Sagan’s whole Cosmos series here.

So the word is that the gamers in Australia are effectively being “Lef t 4 Dead” when it comes to the new zombie shoot-em-up of the same name, Left 4 Dead 2.

My only question is, does this prevent them from obtaining it via Steam? Is it only banned in stores / box versions? The internet as a global media distributer may trump all, especially if the “sale” is taking place “out of the farkin’ outback”.

Good Grief.  Read on.

I was looking up some old toys I had when I was a child but didn’t know what they were. Wikipedia has a construction toy category so I was able to get some spoilers on my childhood.

Going through the different kinds I eventually came across the ones I had, Construx. The entry for which has a link to the ridiculous creation you see above.

8Bitone is an iPhone synthesizer and sequencer of impeccable taste.

If you have some time on your hands, check out the excellent tutorials posted on the author’s site.

“And you’ll be what, the Pope-Emperor of the World?”

via When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth, by Cory Doctorow.

Hulu Desktop (available for Mac and Windows) seemed like a great idea when I heard about it earlier, so I’ve taken it for a test drive with some original Battlestar Galactica and found it to be better than the experience of watching through the browser.

How so? Firefox on Mac at least is riddled with issues involving Flash, seemingly randomly it slows down and locks up. With Hulu Desktop, the Flash instance is outside of Firefox and runs smoothly. On my Vista 64 desktop as depicted above, Hulu Desktop runs smoothly as well.

On both platforms there are various handy features missing, like an “always on top” option. As this is a beta product I’m not surprised that various features aren’t here, and Hulu says they will listen to customer feedback for fixing them.

There are a lot of people who would rather just download their television shows using Bit Torrent, I think Hulu Desktop is making it much easier to stay legal. You can hook this up with an HDTV and your mac mini or PC for a very good TV watching experience with software that is a billion times more responsive than the software on a Tivo.

Found tonight under the free section on Craigslist in Philadelphia:

“Unopened box of Kotex Super Plus tampons. They will be in a plastic bag hanging on the mailbox at 359 Richfield Road in Upper Darby. Don’t bother emailing, just come and get them. Post will be removed as soon as they’re gone.”

Marijuana Farms Take Root In National Parks : NPR.

“My husband and I bought Google (T-Mobile) G1 phones in December and there are tons of free apps you can download,” says Jessica Singleton, a 29-year-old freelance writer from Seattle. “He downloaded this one app, “DeskBell,” which makes noises, including a gong, a cowbell and a ‘ding’ like a service bell.”

Unfortunately, her husband began using the app whenever she said something he didn’t like.

“There have been a few times when I’ll say ‘Can you take out the trash?’ and I get gonged,” says Singleton, who recently got revenge by downloading “That’s Not Funny,” another noise-making app.

“He got home and I asked him how his day was. When he mentioned he’d lost a bet with a friend, I played the ‘Wa-wa-wa-waaaah’ noise, the one you hear on old sitcoms sometimes.”

via Are you ‘app-noxious’? – Tech and gadgets- msnbc.com.

Today, I just received my copy of the OpenSolaris Bible by Nicolas A. Solter, Gerald Jelinek, and David Miner. While the post office only dropped this off today, I’ve been frequenting my local bookstore to read this book several times over the past week. To be honest, I haven’t yet finished the book’s meaty 971 pages, but I’ve read enough that I feel confident in telling you: I love it.
(more…)

1984: The masterpiece that killed George Orwell | Books | The Observer.

A lot of webmasters such as bloggers or webcomic authors have fundraisers from time to time. It’s usually for something like a new computer (they are upgrading so they can better bring YOU content. How benevolent!), or some other piece of electronic equipment, or maybe even a medical procedure.

This practice is of course self-indulgent bullshit. If you need money for something, go get a job and save the money yourself. Shaking coins from your readership like a piggybank at the threat of suspended content or hiatus is a crass move indeed.

Unless you have a really good reason, that is. Like me.

via Andrew’s Blog: Need for the Steed.

“I went over to our nearest KFC a few minutes ago … and chaos ensued,” the e-mail read. “Despite the very visible grilled chicken behind the register, the manager told everyone with coupons to leave and that the promotion was over for the day. The people there are currently holding a sit-in and refusing to leave until they get their free chicken. … There were 911 calls. Racial epithets were being spewed, people who actually wanted to pay for chicken were facing a potential beat-down, and the manager ran from the screaming horde. Oprah, what have ye wrought?”

via Oprah’s Free Chicken Leads to Long Lines, Sit-In – ABC News.