It is an hour each way from the station near my house in San Francisco to my office in Sunnyvale. I have been riding the train more often now since I figured out how the schedule works. Its funny how something as simple as a train schedule seems complicated if you have never had to use one. Same thing for the bus routes around the city.

I have been using the 511.org site to plan out more optimal routes for my commute. I am getting to where I can perform "hop" stops at key locations to get onto different trains if I arrive at a destination too soon or too late.

If you live in the bay area and you don't use 511.org, I encourage you to try it out. It doesn't calculate hopping in the route planner (maybe a next version will), but it at least gives you the train/bus schedule at each stop.

Something else I would like to see is a rolling schedule planner. It would show you the next transport to get you to your destination if you miss a time-slot at a certain stop on a route.

Oh, before I forget to tell you. I don't know about the baby bullets, but on the other Caltrain cars the power plug is in the middle of the cab on both the top and bottom levels.

Created 88 weeks, 3 days ago

The long hair project continues. Some things that others might want to note before starting this project.

#1. Hair really hurts when it touches your eyeballs

#2. As I sleep it wants to turn into dreadlocks. Not cool. If it turned into a dreadnought that would be cool

#3. It is kinda warm

technorati: hair, blue, boards of canada, boardsofcanada

Created 89 weeks, 11 hours ago

My RSS reader is my new Intertube browser. Some days I might spend all day consuming my feeds and never visit the sites on the other end.

With that said, here are some things I can't get via RSS yet (without some fancy HTML to RSS conversion tool, which might compromise the security of some of these items).


Content I would like to have access to:

---

• My Pop3 email (I started working on this)
• Seats that just opened up (cancellation, etc) at hard-to-reserve restaurants in San Francisco [probably through OpenTable]
  
• Changes in my stock portfolio realtime
  
• My bank account and credit card recent credits and debits
• Changes to my aggregated credit report
• Voice mail left on my phones

Features I would like:

---

• The ability to detect if a linked resource in a post I am reading is available via its own RSS feed. This way I could stay inside my RSS reader, it could pull in the content of the link (if it is available via RSS) and would let me stay inside my RSS reader.
• Advanced RSS exploring. The RSS reader could determine the publishing engine of the feed to take advantage of things such as retrieving the entire history of an RSS feed, detecting Comments RSS and other such items.

---

Of course, almost all of these require some level of security. But with https and the like, it shouldn't be too hard to create this stuff.

If these exist, please let me know.  Thanks.


Created 89 weeks, 20 hours ago

I love GUI Gallery. I was browsing the old Packard Bell interfaces when I happened upon this screenshot of the Packard Bell Navigator 3.9 (circa 1996). I remember when a friend of mine bought one of these $3,000 Packard Bell machines back in 1993 and it had so many features and micro applications that he was overwhelmed and never figured out how to use the thing.

I will admit that it was hell navigating through these virtual rooms to launch your applications. Did I leave Lotus 1.2.3 in the Study with the Candlestick, or maybe in the Gameroom with Sarge? This metaphor for virtual rooms was used far too often back in those days.

Reminiscing on these interfaces I laughed when I came across this screen with one of the virtual rooms called "Myspace". And I love the description that goes with it:

"Myspace is the place for older kids to hang out and use all the great features and programs available on your Packard Bell computer."



After spending some time on MySpace.com today, I think they should change thier slogan to: "Myspace.com is the place for older kids to hang out and use all the animated gifs, obnoxious background songs and tacky graphics available on the internet tubes."

technorati: myspace, funny, packardbell
del.icio.us: myspace, funny, packardbell

Created 90 weeks, 14 hours ago

I wrote a Feedburner feedflare unit that links to your comment RSS for each item in your feed (Note: depends on wfw:commentRss element).

Once you install it, it should look like this:

technorati: feedflare, feedflareunit, feedburner, blog, scripts
del.icio.us: feedflare, feedflareunit, feedburner, blog, scripts

Created 90 weeks, 1 day ago

Surprise from Microsoft! Windows Live Writer comes packed full of features for composing your posts on the train, plane or when the wireless is more hassle than it is worth. It has the live preview feature that some of the other blog posting tools started to support, but for Free! It has a great WYSIWYG editor and time will tell if it supports web standards and well-formed XHTML.

The image tool is nice. It would be even cooler if there were some plugins to work with some of the lightbox scripts out there. Well since Microsoft has an SDK for Windows Live Writer there is an idea for someone.

 
Windows Live Writer in Live Preview Mode

Here are some more plugin ideas:

• Calendar view
• Blog Post Scheduling
• Multi-blog posting
• E-mail notification to a list
• Pingback from the tool
• Social tagging
• Plugin support for things like code hilighting and music importing
• More Remote Storage Linking options (box.net, etc)
• Browser plugins for retrieving importing hilighted content
• Archiving tools (for catastrophes and changing blog engines)
• Auto-link content to web services or info-sites (answers.com, etc)
• Robust custom HTML template/snippet engine
• Spellcheck, spellcheck, spellcheck
• Drag-drop support for all types of items
• Blog management tools (manage posts, comments [comment API], etc)

Created 90 weeks, 2 days ago

Insound sent me notification that Ratatat's new album is very close to release. I first saw them when they opened for Mouse on Mars in Austin late 2004. I have been hooked on their work ever since.

The album will be shipping August 22, 2006.

To get a listen to some of the new sounds, check out the Ratatat myspace page. They also go on tour in September. I missed them last year and I don't plan on letting that happen again.

1. Montanita

2. Lex

3. Gettysburg

4. Wildcat

5. Tropicana

6. Loud Pipes

7. Kennedy

8. Swisha

9. Nostrand

10. Tacobel Canon

Created 90 weeks, 2 days ago

So, this morning I have 666 unread messages waiting for me in my inbox and tonight I buy groceries and they total $6.66. Its a buncha muncha cruncha weird coincidences.

Created 90 weeks, 3 days ago

I got an email from Antonio Madonna that BrowsrCamp is now back online and offering a free safari test and a full featured pay-for-use VPN option he is calling OS X Livetest. If you need to test web pages on a Mac, this looks like one of the best offerings you can find short of buying yourself one.

This site used to have the VNC service for free but Antonio had to shut it down after people were starting to abuse its freeness (isn't that always the case).

This adds another service to the list of free and paid services I discussed back in April. When is anyone going to get mobile / WAP / pocket / exotic (PSP, DS, etc) testing going?

Created 90 weeks, 3 days ago

Went to the eye doctor this morning for an exam. Eyes are good, no changes since my last exam.

She then sent me an e-mail attachment of the images of my eyes from the microscope. How cool is that.

Created 90 weeks, 3 days ago

I knew it was going to be one of those days when I saw my Inbox this morning. update: And then this the same night!

Dang spam.


Created 90 weeks, 3 days ago

Wow, what a show. The shows title was GHOSTLY SCENES of INFERNAL DESECRATION. After watching I know why. Tons of robots spewing fire, destroying things and running amok, what more could you ask for.

also, check out these post-event reports and info stories:

http://news.com.com/2300-1043_3-6105432-1.html?tag=ne.gall.pg

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4609876

Technorati surival research labs SRL zero one
Del.icio.us surival research labs SRL zero one

Created 90 weeks, 6 days ago

Tonight I am heading to the SRL Robot "performance" in San Jose.

the machines unloaded

From the website:

Some things are purely mythic like Survival Research Labs, which springs from the shell of abandoned buildings, monster robotic history, and fire. An interdisciplinary mash-up like no other, SRL, brings a newly conceived performance to ZeroOne San Jose full of its legendary machines, flame-throwers, and bombastic sound. Humans are only present as audience or operators; in this show it’s all about the machines.

Awww yea. Plus a picnic at google first. Look for pictures tomorrow.

 

Created 90 weeks, 6 days ago

The X-Prize Foundation who offered the $10 million ANSARI X PRIZE for space flight now has a new competition to bring a 100+ mpg vehicle to market.

Sure sure, getting to space is tough. Creating a fuel-efficient vehicle is tough. But how about an even tougher challenge.

Have your web site be the #1 link result for the single keyword "google" using google web search from www.google.com.

That's tough.

Created 90 weeks, 6 days ago

If you didn't know, the giant Amorphophallus titanum flower in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden is flowering. Here is a description of the event from the BBG website:

"The titan arum (Amorphophallus titanum) is one of the world's most remarkable plants. Native to tropical forests in Sumatra, it produces a monstrous four- to seven-foot-tall flower head, which releases a monstrous stench of putrefaction at peak bloom (another name for the plant is the corpse flower!). The species rarely flowers in cultivation—the last time one bloomed in New York was 1939. However, Brooklyn Botanic Garden's ten-year-old specimen has recently begun to flower. It's expected to reach full bloom at the end of the second week of August."

Such an interesting plant. And it takes so much work and care to create such a beast. Definitely the work for scientists, particularly mad ones who pine for the smell of rotting flesh.

The flower in bloom

The best part of my visit to the website was seeing this photo of a guy pollinating the flower with pollen of another flower from Virginia Tech. Too bad it looks so clinical and sanitary. What a shame.

guy pollinating flower

via BoingBoing : Brooklyn's corpse flower is blooming

Created 90 weeks, 6 days ago

Today I received the following message about my Netflix widget builder. I wanted to address it here if anyone else had similar concerns.

From: Interested Person

If I give you the URL for my RSS feed, you have access to my entire queue forever.

Even if I trust this to you, do you prevent others from being able to get access to all my RSS feeds (other than what shows up in the widget)?

And this was my reply:

Hello,

To address your questions:

1. The system must know the URL to your RSS in order to publish it.

2.  I apply a level of encryption to the script that removes your URL from public consumption. Try generating the script or viewing the script on my site to see what I mean.

3.  I personally have no interest in anyones queue outside of just wanting to share my movie tastes with the world, I thought it would be nice to allow the same for others by writing this script.

4. If I was the unscrupulous type, having your RSS URL doesn't allow me to do anything except see what movies you have checked out, have returned, and what is in your queue. I suppose I could use that information to determine what types of movies you like. Seeing as Netflix only has a limited range of Adult-content movies, I don't know how this type of information could be used against you, even if I knew who a person was from just a movie queue.

Outside of that, I cannot modify your queue, access your account, or otherwise affect your Netflix service. This is because Netflix creates that RSS ID separate from your login information.

Thanks for the interest in the script!

 

I plan on providing similar levels of security to all parameters that the system needs for all my upcoming scripts.

I worked along time on creating what I thought was a decent security model for JavaScript objects that attempts to obscure and protect script settings.

Not that any of the content contained within is ever going to be the type of data that has much risk associated with it, but rather to make it a single line of <script> and make it easier to paste into your pages.

Build your own Netflix widget.

 

Created 91 weeks, 16 hours ago

Since everyone else important seemed to be talking about how old their hugely successful web sites were, I thought I would take time to acknowledge the coming-of-age of a lesser known web site.

My domain livemetal.com, the root domain for much of my Web foundation-building experience turns 10 years old tomorrow.

Through those ten years it has been a site for web services, freelance programming, computer sales e-commerce and even a brief foray into the world of streaming music [before ipods and blogs]. After each adventure it again transforms into a landing page that showcases some of the things I am interested in (it attracts even more spam with each reincarnation too).

This last incarnation lasted a little longer than I would have liked. I treated it like a cat over holiday by leaving it a huge pile of food and a deep bowl of water. I had things come up.....man.

So happy birthday root domain of mine. And in your 10th year know that you will become something else really cool [I have plans for you].

Created 91 weeks, 1 day ago

Over at the University of Michigan is a nice little flash presentation on embryonic stem cells. My friend Brad who is a scientist in this field is talking about this stuff all the time and I typically don't know what he is talking about.

So it was a great reward to me to find such an easy to understand source covering the qualities of the different types of stem cells.


As a bonus, I wonder how much controversy could have been avoided if researchers and scientists would have consistently referred to the cells as Creo-B-Plastiocysts or some such.

Obviously alot of people get caught up in the emotional ties with the word "embryo".

via Wired: Bodyhack




Created 91 weeks, 2 days ago

So, I just got an e-mail last night confirming the delivery date for the Optimus mini three keyboard I pre-ordered back in February 2006 from Art. Lebedev.

Needless to say, I am excited.

Created 91 weeks, 6 days ago

If you haven't already downloaded every single episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force from eMule (or your favorite P2P network), here is your chance to get a legit DRM copy of some of the best of Williams Street and Jackson Publick.

iTunes now has the following shows available ...

Aqua Teen Hunger Force
If you have to ask what Aqua Teen Hunger Force is about, it's probably not a show for you. Those in the know will go on thrilling to the adventures of Frylock, Meatad, and Master Shake as they, you know...hang out.

"You stay away from it. Because you are weird." - Carl Brutananadilewski

The Venture Bros.
The Venture Bros. follows the adventures of two dimwitted brothers, Hank and Dean Venture, their self-centered scientist father, and his bodyguard, uber-spy Brock Samson.

"Ma Venture didn't raise no fools" - Hank Venture

Sealab 2021
The crew of the classic 1972 series Sealab 2020 has been replaced with a gang of misfits unfit for public service. In 2021, Sealab rises imperiously from the ocean's floor, her crew charged with exploring the possibility of underwater colonization. That is, when they're not exploring communist theory.

"Um, I thought it was just a nickname. Y'know like Dr. Dre...'Eastsiiiide!'" - Derek "Stormy" Waters

Created 92 weeks, 2 days ago

Hrmm....

Created 92 weeks, 2 days ago