Category Archives: Tech

Software, Tech

Fixing problems

So I use the Scribefire plugin for Firefox to post on the blog sometimes. It’s pretty handy if you happen on a page you like, you can blog right from there with out having to got to your site, and open up admin, etc…

But, for a ouple ofmonths now, I’ve been getting this error message:

The server returned a malformed response. Please check that your blog and API URLs are correct.

I searched everywhere for a solution, but the Scribefire people kept saying it wasn’t there fault. Well it turns out they were right. Today I had some time to track stuff down, and finally found out it was one of my other WordPress plugins screwing stuff up for me.
The plugin was Open Web Analytics, and it was using GET instead of POST to get stuff from the API. I deleted it, and installed a different one (myStat–which is prettier anyways). Problem solved.
Yay, me!

Alt, Politics, Tech

Another reason not to use Facebook?

Is FACEBOOK run by D.A.R.P.A’s Information Awareness Office? | Daily Newscaster

Is FACEBOOK a Department of Defense data mining scheme run by the CIA and D.A.R.P.A.? Should you be trusting all your personal data to FACEBOOK’s management?

FACEBOOK was initially conceived by Mark Zuckerberg but the venture was first funded with $500,000.00 in capital from PayPal founder Peter Thiel. With millions more to come from sources with close ties to D.A.R.P.A, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of Defense….

Is this paranoid, or maybe true? God, I love a good conspiracy theory. I always say be careful what you hang out there on the web. Personall, after last week’s Term of Service fiasco at Facebook, I wouldn’t be trusting them much anyways.

Tech

WebTV Anecdotes–The wrong error message (NSFW)

WebTV Anecdotes
This brought back some memories–my first encounter with the internet was via WebTV, and I remember it being a delightful, if limited user experience. I lasted about 4 months with it before buying my first Gateway computer, and I’ve been online ever since.
fckdialog–whoops!

This, of course, never happened to an actual WebTV user, but was caught in testing, just before rollout–luckily.  It’s a coding error, and the article explains it all.  There’re several more anecdotes on the site.  Enjoy! 😀

General, home repair, Tech

today

I spent most of my day replacing the heater/vent/light in the bathroom. What a pain in the butt. this one seems to be slightly better made than the previous two, so I’m hoping that the heater lasts longer (which is why I had to replace it). Last time I just replaced the heater, but this time, the insides are totally different, and actually the dimensions are slightly different also, so I had to do some cutting in the ceiling. Two things that suck about the unit:

  1. 1. The wiring box needs to be bigger, so that you can actually close it when you get all the wires in.
  2. 2. The way the light reflector is held in is engineered stupidly–you screw a cap nut onto a bolt until it’s tight and then keep going until the bolt unscrews itself out of the cross bar it’s in until the cap nut pulls the reflector against the bar. Why not just use a short sheet metal screw like they always have? Why make it difficult, and non-obvious? Jeez!

For those who wonder the unit is a Nutone 665RP.

Tech

Translucent Concrete Lets The Light Shine In (via io9)

Mad Materials Science: Translucent Concrete Lets The Light Shine In

translucent concrete

What’s particularly impressive about translucent concrete is that the optical fibers only make up 4% of the mixture, which is what allows (they claim) the concrete to retain the same “technical data” as normal concrete. In layman’s terms we’re assuming this means “Pretty light shine through, house not fall down.” Based on the photos of the concrete in action, and if this load-bearing claim holds up (get it?) then we imagine that this would get put to immediate use in the construction of formerly boring government buildings everywhere.

More from a google search.
Hehe, this looks pretty cool, and vaguely useful. Like you can see how big a mob as amassed outside your walled fortress, and never have a baseball-shattered window again. 😀

Art, Jewelry, Tech

Mechanical Chic – the Jewelry of Connie Verrusio

Mechanical Chic – the Jewelry of Connie Verrusio
Fascinated by the way things work, Connie Verrusio creates radical new jewelry forms from leftover functions.

Connie Verrucio who uses mechanical “junk” to make fine jewelry.  Gears, lugpins, screws, nails, old film–they don’t sound like the subjects of fine jewelry, but that’s just what Connie Verrusio turns them into.

Gear earrings

“I am fascinated by all things mechanical,” she says, “and the choices I make reflect a deep reverence for the quality of workmanship, all too often a thing of the past.”

Ruler Bracelet

It’s steampunk without the attitude.