In "Devices"

Teledildonics in the house!! I give you the The Internet-enabled iVibe Rabbit

In "De-Frenched Fries Stripped of "Freedom""

Don't forget Poland!

In "Curious George What <i>do</i> I do?"

Professional Image Consultation, Pre-Press and Finishing Technician.

In "Curious George: Flash mp3 Player"

T AL Z, Options are good. Providing a download link is preferrable to many people for various reasons. Embedding a player isn't necessarily bad in my book, as long as a download link is available and the player doesn't start automatically.

In "Why aren't you using RSS?"

Have a gmail address? Then chances are, you have a little known, but world-class RSS reader at your fingertips. *And* it's frighteningly easy to use.

In "Curious George: Flash mp3 Player"

Forgive me if I've strayed into "design nazi" territory, that was not my intention.

T A L Z, I would consider avoiding an embedded mp3 player. Surely, everyone in the market for mp3s already has an mp3 player installed. Provide an mp3 link for each song if you like, and consider running a shoutcast server (or other kind of standardized streaming mp3 protocol) to provide an option to visitors that do want to listen right away. Remember, a lot of people can't listen to music at work (especially those in a cubicle environment where headphones aren't allowed). If you choose to embed a player in each page - please don't force the player to begin the music automatically.

In "Portland Meetup!"

Crap. I just realized that it's Sunday already and I forgot about it. I went to the local bar to play darts last night. Oh well, next time. Though I still think I'd like to visit Ian's place and try it out.

Perhaps I'll even show up. Not that any of you really know me yet.

In "Technician George - "

nonbinary: Connection to the net is almost irrelevant if you have a hardware firewall solution, like everyone *should*, and don't go browsing around anywhere except the update sites until everything is current. Unfortunately, most people don't or can't plan ahead and download all the updates first. Additionally, the problem of which you speak (connecting a freshly installed OS to an unprotected net connection) afflicts linux and BSD as well (exlcuding OpenBSD for the most part).

Microsoft uses different CD key generation/vaildation methods for different releases, builds, and channels. For instance, if you have a corporate cd, you have to use a corporate CD Key, and if you use an OEM CD you'll need an OEM CD key. As far as I know, VLC can somewhat stream wmv files. To really solve the problem - start off with a clean install after a quality format. Go get a Windows 98 bootdisk, and format the drive. This kills all your data, so backup what you need. When you've booted with the Windows 98 boot floppy, at the command prompt type in: format c: \u The \u is key, this creates an unconditional drive format. Get your original Windows CD. Install using that CD and your key. If you don't eventually security updates for your computer and your buddy's will get shut off and you'll have to get clever to apply them. And if you run Windows, you *need* the security updates. Problem solved. I deal witha lot of computers issues for people at work and at home. 75% of them could be completely avoided if people didn't half-ass things and expect them to magicvally work perfectly. Don't be one of these people. If you do things right, and do them right from scratch you will have a much more problem-free computer life.

In "Curious George: Music Rights"

rumblefish.com

In "MYPETCAMS"

Ummm, I hate to be overly critical - but what makes their service special? I've been streaming webcams focused on my living room and cat food bowl for years now. It's not like streaming web apps are new..

In "Curious George: Message board elitism."

I am involved to varying degrees on many boards, and have seen this many times. K5 (kuro5hin.org) is the best example. The site became more and more popular and shifted focus from member contributed news and interest stories to user diaries and the like. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that, of course. But the site admin took a very hands-off approach, and the new users, trolls, trollbiters and crapflooders began to own the site. Things did not in fact return to normalcy. The strong and loyal user base felt abandoned. Cabals evolved and offshoot sites were created. I still post at two of them. One is a private "gated community" if you will, and the other is a public scoop site that for the most part is made up of the original, and forgive my arrogance, most intelligent and contributing users. These days, K5 is a shitbox, with posts dominated by trolls, skilled and otherwise, and the morons that bite on the trolls. It is my strong opinion that a sandbox for new users to get their feet wet, a public area for all, and an advanced area where only quality senior contributors can post provides the best quality control and lets you retain focus and decorum in the public section, which really is the most important section. Ruling with either an iron fist or an anemic "please.." won't work. Fairness and degrees of separation and mobility provides the groundwork for the best communities. Of course, this is just my opinion.

In "The Defiant Digit."

Speed limits are false measures of safety. Increasing your speed a few mph above the posted limit does not endanger lives, contrary to popular programming. Just saying...

In "Curious George:"

Simple! A netgear doc on this very subject Ignore the model names, this has worked for me every time I've tried it. If you still have troubles, let me know!

In "The Defiant Digit."

jb: Well, in case it's a dark and foggy road with hairpin turns, I guess you had better flip someone off with a lighted display in your rear window. :) That seems much more logical than doing your best to either find a way to remove the obstacle (yourself) or live with the tailgater until you can pull over. All I'm saying is that you're better off resolving or ignoring the issue than escalating it with an antagonistic display.

Um, actually - I find the best way to get rid of tailgaters is to speed up. I know, I know - madness. But the fact is that you're obviously in the way, so do the polite thing and either get out of the way or speed up a bit. Cold hard logic is so sweet sometimes. And free.

In "Are you an upper-class monkey, a middle-class monkey or a lower-class monkey?"

Whoa, according to the times, I pretty classy after all!! On second thought, nah. Can't be right. stripe: I don't consider myself a conservative in any regard, but I have never seen the value or fairness in an estate tax. Of course, before everyone jumps all over that single statement - I think the rest of the tax code is f'ed up beyond all hope of fairness too. (not trying to hijack the thread either!)

In "Curious George: fat cat problem."

Think about this from a different perspective. Your cats probably do not exclusively have a food problem, but also an exercise problem. I'm guessing that your cats are indoor only cats. Mine are, and I have a similar problem. I have two lovely siamese, but cannot allow them to be outside cats due to the amount of predators around (racoons, possum, coyotes and hawks). It doesn't help that they're lovable as hell, but not the sharpest creatures. I live in a small, apartment-sized house. This creates a problem. There isn't enough space for them to exercise properly. That is, without people help. I buy lots of cat toys to keep them active (hey, if everywhere I went was full of couches and beds, I'd spend all day lying down in the sun too, unless I had outside motivation!). I also try to spend at least 20 minutes playing with them every evening. I mean, get-down-on-the-floor-and-tear-ass-around-the-house-chasing-and-being-chased play time. Sure, they're still just a bit more plump than they could be, but making sure they're active every day helps quite a bit. Still, I do feed them Iam's Eukanuba low fat cat food. Of course, I fill a half-gallon size gravity feeder for them and let them eat whenever they want. I only do this because I'm often a bit too hurried in the morning and feel like a very bad person when I used to forget to put food out in the morning for them. But I bet that encouraging your cats to play and exercise every evening would help, at least a bit.

(limited to the most recent 20 comments)