Category:fun

a history of hollywood and hacking

Posted on by merikebiCategories:fun

As shared in the most recent Crypto-Gram, {{Bruce Schneier}}’s monthly newsletter. 1980s – kid hackers, nerds and Richard Pryor 1990s – Techno, virtual reality and Steven Seagal’s Apple Newton 2000s – Real life hackers, computer punks and Hugh Jackman dancing

lock screen slideshow in windows 10

Posted on by merikebiCategories:fun, tutorial

In similar fashion to what I wrote about for {{OS X}} last year, and spurred by this article from {{Microsoft}}, here is my brief guide for doing the same on {{Windows 10}}. Click your Notifications button near the clock. Now click All Settings And you’ll see this Click Personalization, then Lock Screen. Select “Slideshow” from the …
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hey yahoo! sports – why not always post the magic number for every team?

Posted on by merikebiCategories:fun, personal

Since the magic number (and I’ll take the example of baseball, because while I don’t get to watch them much, I do follow the Mets) is so easy to calculate, why not post it on the standings as soon as there have been games played? This would be a good use of technology relative to baseball …
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ifttt & box drive my desktop backgrounds … with a little cron happiness

Posted on by merikebiCategories:fun, technical

I love that {{OS X}} lets me change my background on a schedule (I use every 30 minutes now). But I don’t like having to find pictures to populate my desktop menagerie with. Enter completely SFW backgrounds via RSS feeds! Using IFTTT, I watch for new items from a variety of daily photo feeds, and …
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programming your home by mike riley

Posted on by merikebiCategories:books, cool, education, engineering, fun, ideas, review, technical

{{Mike Riley}}’s entry in {{The Pragmatic Programmers}} series, {{Programming Your Home}} – automating with {{Arduino}}, {{Android}}, and your computer – was a lot of fun. While I am not really in a position to do many of the mini projects given in the book (wrong type of house plus we rent), reading some of the …
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the announcer’s test

Posted on by warrenCategories:fun, reprint

{via wikipedia} One hen Two ducks Three squawking geese Four Limerick oysters Five corpulent porpoises Six pairs of Don Alverzo’s tweezers Seven thousand Macedonians in full battle array Eight brass monkeys from the ancient, sacred crypts of Egypt Nine apathetic, sympathetic, diabetic old men on roller skates with a marked propensity towards procrastination and sloth …
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100000 years ago tonight …

Posted on by merikebiCategories:fun, personal

… in binary. Not sure how DST factors into it all, but my parents welcomed me into the world approximately 32 years ago now (at 2323 local time in 1981). It’s been a great first 25 years, and I can’t wait for the next 26!

an rts or tbs game like aoe or civ, but where the player only influences via stealth and espionage

Posted on by merikebiCategories:fun, ideas

That may be the longest blog title I’ve ever had. I know I will never be a game developer. I thought several years ago it would be something I’d like to get into, but it’s just not me. However, I do enjoy playing certain kinds of games – especially the strategy and puzzle varieties. I …
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gardening efficiently – for fun and profit

Posted on by merikebiCategories:commentary, cool, food, fun, personal

I have gardened off and on for most of my life. Back in the 1980s, there was a show called “Square Foot Gardening” on PBS hosted by Mel Bartholomew. Now there is a website. When we lived in Albany, we purchased the book {{Square Foot Gardening}} (which has been updated and simplified even further by …
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some great finds

Posted on by merikebiCategories:cool, fun, technical

Diagram.ly – it’s sorta like Visio, but free, and web-based. Meetings.io – like webex, including conference calling and file and screen sharing. Qama – a calculator that doesn’t give an answer until you provide a “reasonable” guess. Udacity – a free computer science program. Urbanchickens – dedicated to raising chickens in “non-traditional” environments (like cities).

technical career development

Posted on by merikebiCategories:education, fun, ideas, personal, technical, work

Career development. Career path. Development opportunities. Taking your career to the next level. Terms and phrases we all hear and pretty much pass over in our day-to-day lives. Right up until we want to move to a new/better job or performance reviews roll around. But what do they mean, and how can you advance your …
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light shows

Posted on by merikebiCategories:fun, personal

I’ve recently had some travel for work that had put me up in Indianapolis. Tuesday evening I watched the best light show ever: a miles-high, miles-wide thunderhead flashing nearly constantly for over 30 minutes. It was a little east of where I was staying in Fishers, but man was it pretty! For the record, God’s …
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auctions

Posted on by merikebiCategories:fun

Following-on with what my wife wrote last week, we’ve been enjoying going to local auction houses again recently – even on nights when there’s nothing we want, it’s still at the very least entertaining 🙂 The last couple times we’ve gone, we’ve been to the Williamsburg Auction Center, near where my wife grew up. The building …
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1421 by gavin menzies

Posted on by merikebiCategories:books, fun, history, review

I enjoy histories – especially when delivered in the format that {{Gavin Menzies}} employed in “{{1421}} – The Year China Discovered America”. The only other history I have read in the past 5 years I can recall reading so fast was Gideon’s Spies. Gavin makes a compelling presentation, interpretation, application, and conclusion of a host …
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the cuckoo’s egg by cliff stoll

Posted on by merikebiCategories:books, fun, review

Several years ago, {{Cliff Stoll}}’s amazing, true-life account of espionage and system administration in the 1980s was recommended to me. Mr Stoll started his professional life in astronomy, but, due to budget cuts at Lawrence Berkeley Lab, he moved into systems administration. Interspersed through the book are both political commentaries (he was after all at …
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