Month: July 2005

Some results coming in…Every new book we published was scanned and made navigable online, free, at the same time it was available for sale. To our delight, we found that page images with searchable text behind them actually seemed to increase sales, not replace them with online reading…For the last few years, I’ve heard (mostly older) scholars and librarians moan, “If they can’t Google it, it doesn’t exist for these kids.” That’s a reality publishers should be loath to deny… If the new digitally driven scholars can Google an essay or book, then they’ll use it for further research. Link.

Good overview. Unlike burning fossil fuels, using nuclear fission to generate electricity produces no soot or greenhouse gases. This helps keep the skies clean and doesn’t contribute to global warming. The World Nuclear Association estimates that the electricity industry would add 2.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each year if it used coal power instead of nuclear Link.

Martha Stewart said she found out how to remove those house arrest bracelets on the internet- she’s a better HOW TO Googler than I am, I was curious but couldn’t find anything. Asked about the electronic monitoring device she must wear on her ankle she has complained repeatedly that it irritates her skin Stewart says she knows how to remove it. “I watched them put it on. You can figure out how to get it off,” she is quoted as saying. “It’s on the Internet. I looked it up.” Link.

I’ll try this. Steep a full pound of coarsely ground coffee in 9 cups of cold water in a sort of plastic pail and allow the “mulch” to soak for 12 hours. With the pull of a plug, a thickish coffee syrup drains through a filter into a glass carafe which you then store in the refrigerator. When you want coffee, you measure some into your mug and add hot water or milk. Link.

If you are the owner of a Bluetooth headset, you will be glad to know that besides using it with your cellular phone, you can also use it together with your Windows XP PC. However, you may have attempted to pair up the headset with your PC only to find out that the built-in Bluetooth stack in Windows XP Service Pack 2 does not support the headset. Link.

Everything is contained in a standard, run of the mill, metal toolbox. The bottom drawer contains a working computer with a VIA EPIA V motherboard & cpu, memory, hard drive, cd rom drive, fans, power supply, and cables. The middle drawer contains a usb audio interface, roll-up keyboard, mouse, and a Gameboy running Sludgeon2. The top contains a midi controller, power cables, surge protector, and a crappy lcd screen mounted to the bottom of the lid. Holes were drilled so that the power cables in the top could be connected to their respective devices in the middle and bottom drawers and would not impede the opening and closing of these drawers. [via] Link.

Noah Vawter (part of the team behind the the Chiclet DSP Music Box, and loads of other cool stuff) and Nathan Wray have developed PSPKick, a sample-based drum machine for the PSP. Looks like a 12 track xoxox inteface, and can output drum loops into wav files on the memory stick. Fun fun fun Link.