Welcome to Scrybe

Welcome to Scrybe: "Scrybe: Demo of the gods

...intuitive and fluid are words that come to mind.

- Rafe Needleman
"

A really nice killer web app. Not a new idea, but a lot of new thought went in to the design.

Watch the demo video...

How Many of Me - Census Search

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 127 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

HOWTO negotiate your salary and benefits - for women

HOWTO negotiate your salary and benefits - for women: "This HOWTO describes how to negotiate your salary and benefits when applying for a job, with a special focus on problems women face. Written from the perspective of a programmer, but broadly applicable."

Very well written and very well done. It contains a lot of good advice on this topic.

Microsoft gives hardware wonks a Vista break

Microsoft gives hardware wonks a Vista break: "The spokesVole said that Vista was 'more flexible' and that re-activations caused by minor changes to a PC are likely to be less common.

The reason for this, apparently, is that Microsoft's Vista uses an 'undisclosed algorithm' to track changes before deciding that the operating system is sitting in a different computer.

Ars T seems to think that while Vole is sitting on a one re-activation per machine policy, there is some truth to rumours that it has a safety net in place if too many punters go incandescent and get 'up in arms'.

So details will stay 'secret' and only known to a select handful, much in the same way as happened in the case of Windows XP."


SO who are we to believe? I think that what is coming out of Redmond at the moment, via official channels and otherwise, is a steaming load. Even if is is disinformation it has certainly put a number of folks off of upgrading, myself included.

Gateway FPD2485W 24-inch HD Widescreen LCD announced - Engadget

Gateway FPD2485W 24-inch HD Widescreen LCD announced - Engadget

I have the 21" version of this and it is indeed a nice monitor. For comparison, at work I use a Dell 24" (mentioned in th article) and this is easily as good as the Dell. Both are nice, sharp monitors and have a lot of extra features.

Report: College degree worth extra $23,000 a year - CNN.com

Report: College degree worth extra $23,000 a year - CNN.com: "College graduates made an average of $51,554 in 2004, the most recent figures available, compared with $28,645 for adults with a high school diploma. High school dropouts earned an average of $19,169 and those with advanced college degrees made an average of $78,093."

Duh. This from the Center For The Obvious. Of course, what they don't show are the figures comparing the cost of this (4 year degree)over the earnings and how much you have to work to recoup the investment. It should be obvious that the payback is fast enough to make it more than worthwhile.

Cool Fusion: AMD's plan to revolutionise multi-core computing | Reg Hardware

Cool Fusion: AMD's plan to revolutionise multi-core computing | Reg Hardware: "What Fusion represents, then, is the shift of the integrated graphics core off the North Bridge and onto the CPU, improving the speed of its link to the main core and the memory controller, and reducing system power consumption into the bargain."

Not to mention allowing AMD to dynamically reconfigure the purpose of the cores on the multi-core die as needed. Need 2 of each? No sweat, 3 CPUs and a GPU? Also, no sweat. Remember as stated in this article--a GPU does PHYSICS. Not just graphics.

MaxStream announces XBee, the 40-mile range ZigBee bridge - Engadget

MaxStream announces XBee, the 40-mile range ZigBee bridge - Engadget

Talk about bridging your wirelss netwroks! This will be awesome if it works as intended. Covering the 'last mile' indeed...

Vista changes lock out antivirus makers

Vista changes lock out antivirus makers: "I take it for granted that the black hats will find ways into the kernel. Do you want security software to be able to go in and root the bad stuff out? If not, I believe your only alternative will be to wipe the disk and reinstall. Of course, a wipe-and-reinstall is not a bad idea if you want to be sure you've completely eliminated a pest. But we have to recognize that this is simply not practical advice for the vast majority of users."

Duh.

Microsoft in 64-bit Vista lockdown | The Register

Microsoft in 64-bit Vista lockdown | The Register: "There's going to be a kybosh on naughty developers mucking about with the 64-bit kernel; patching will be banned. McAfee and others seem to have already learned of the new deal at Microsoft. Speaking at the RSA Europe conference in Nice, Microsoft security technology unit corporate VP Ben Fathi said the 64-bit kernel will be a 'black box'."

A start down the road Apple chose a long time ago. Perhaps in an attempt to get a handle on the way this is going on now...

DIY Thumb Drive Raid Array - The Red Ferret Journal

DIY Thumb Drive Raid Array - The Red Ferret Journal: "The transfer rate for a four drive RAID 0 array was quite impressive, offering up to 6x the speed of a single drive while writing, and 2x the speed of a single drive while reading."

and as the size of these things creeps upwards, this type of arrangment might actually make sense.

Plastic Logic bumps their flexible E Ink display to 150ppi - Engadget

Plastic Logic bumps their flexible E Ink display to 150ppi - Engadget: "The E Ink-display is just part of long line of prototype displays from Plastic Logic, but a commercial display is still a good bit off -- they're hoping to mass produce a 10-inch 150ppi flexible display in 2008."

Sony claims Xbox 360 requires HD DVD, etc., thus costs $700 - Engadget

Sony claims Xbox 360 requires HD DVD, etc., thus costs $700 - Engadget: "remember, kids, an HD DVD drive is not required to do anything but watch high def movies -- it has nothing to do with high def gaming. "

Now this is a really stupid tactic. Sony chose to make the PS3 "more than a game console" they need to suck it up. Making the extra features add-ons is just smart business. That way all segments of whatever you see the market to be get to participate at whatever price point is approriate.

Sony claims Xbox 360 requires HD DVD, etc., thus costs $700 - Engadget

Sony claims Xbox 360 requires HD DVD, etc., thus costs $700 - Engadget: "remember, kids, an HD DVD drive is not required to do anything but watch high def movies -- it has nothing to do with high def gaming. "

Now this is a really stupid tactic. Sony chose to make the PS3 "more than a game console" they need to suck it up. Making the extra features add-ons is just smart business. That way all segments of whatever you see the market to be get to participate at whatever price point is approriate.

Xbox 360 sells out in Japan, PS3 cables cost extra

Xbox 360 sells out in Japan, PS3 cables cost extra: "Xbox 360 sells out in Japan, PS3 cables cost extra "

So Sony is like standing there with a smoking automatic weapon and an ass full of holes laming Microsoft for mugging them? Ha! They didn't need to. Sony has done all of this to themselves.

raving lunacy

raving lunacy: "If you upgrade to Vista and your asshole feels like a freight train is running in it, don't complain to me. You have been warned."

LOL.

WotR 78 - Real World Physics

WotR 78 - Real World Physics: "Movies have always had to work harder than games, but their resources have, and continue to be, that much more plentiful in the aesthetic sense. If you can sashay past the gaming hype of 'next-gen' this and 'cutting-edge' that, you'll see precisely the same ambition; to entertain without patronising. In the gaming essence, today it isn't working. Tomorrow it might, but not if we laugh it out of court on a technicality."

ldopa.net » archive » dear chemistry guys: thanks. love, jimmy

ldopa.net » archive » dear chemistry guys: thanks. love, jimmy: "The “thanks but no thanks” award in this category goes to Sierra Mist Free, as not even the inclusion of a drop of dewy-sweet sweat shaken from the hips of Shakira herself would encourage me to ever again imbibe this viciously rank brew…. Not to mention my complete spiritual aversion to their cosmically unfunny ad campaign."

LOL, but true.

Virtual economies attract real-world tax attention - Yahoo! News

Virtual economies attract real-world tax attention - Yahoo! News: "'You could argue that to a certain degree the law has fallen (behind) because you can have a virtual asset and virtual capital gains, but there's no mechanism by which you're taxed on this stuff,' he told Reuters in a telephone interview."

Uhh, that's because it is 'virutal', I.E. 'not real' aka 'monopoly money' or at least, that is what it started out being ;)

Intel is following in AMD's footsteps

Intel is following in AMD's footsteps: "With the acquisition of ATI, AMD now as the potential to offer its own GPUs to fill those co-processor sockets, ushering in a more practical, commonplace use of CP-GPU based application development. Eventually, the GPUs could be offered as addition cores on the Opteron/Athlon die."

Yea...

iPod massacre - The Red Ferret Journal

iPod massacre - The Red Ferret Journal: "Surely the most beautiful iPod pouches available in the UK, the cotton candy model consists of gorgeous pink fluffy hair all round to keep your ipod safe and sound while also making it a leading fashion statement."

Yea, if your statement is something like "I have taste in my ass..."

DirectX 9.L will be a DirectX 10 for Windows XP

DirectX 9.L will be a DirectX 10 for Windows XP: "DirectX 9.0 L is simply a renamed and refurbished DirectX 10 for Windows XP. It will make DirectX 10 games to work on Windows XP."

Wow, who would have forseen THIS type of weasel approach... seriously, nobody expect XP to quitely fade away in a week.

Groundhog Day

Groundhog Day: "Love is faith in action. I was wondering what grace was the other day.

After a while, I figured grace is the state of awareness of the universe's faith in you. After all, you're here aren't you? Or are you somewhere else? Some people are. Being here is hard. Sometimes I'm not even here. The lights are on, but no one's home.

Grace can be very hard to find, but keep looking. I find it every now and then. But, just like my car keys, I seem to misplace it. It's a lot harder to find than my car keys."

New Illinois robot seeks and destroys pesky weeds - Engadget

New Illinois robot seeks and destroys pesky weeds - Engadget

"the weedinator" That is classic...

Sand in the Gears

Sand in the Gears: "I suspect that the truth of it is simply that we are alive when, instead of killing time, we take time. When in the midst of our tearing around in our busy-ness trying to do something, we stop once in a while and just let ourselves be something, be who we are. When by unclenching our fists, we give life a chance to do something with us. When we take the little piece of time that we have in this world and pay attention to what it is telling us, not just to what it is telling us about the beauty of the sun as it sets, God knows, but to what it is telling us about all the wildness and strangeness and pain of things, the tears of things . . . as well as the joy of things."

Amen.

Wired News: Why Everyone Must Be Screened

Wired News: Why Everyone Must Be Screened: "This issue is no different than searching airplane pilots, something that regularly elicits howls of laughter among amateur security watchers. What they don't realize is that the issue is not whether we should trust pilots, airplane maintenance technicians or people with clearances. The issue is whether we should trust people who are dressed as pilots, wear airplane-maintenance-tech IDs or claim to have clearances."

Windows Mobile "crossbow" in the wild? - Engadget

Windows Mobile "crossbow" in the wild? - Engadget

Cool. While many PocketPC and other mobile devicew are still running 2003 versions of the OS, the latest rev. was waaaay back in '05. High time for a new release :)

Vista gaming will be 10 to 15 per cent slower than XP

Vista gaming will be 10 to 15 per cent slower than XP

I certainly wouldn't doubt these are realistic numbers. Given that eacb new release of hte OS wants more eye-candy (and so do the users) what more can we expect? I would expect that the new versions of directx would lean how to completely bypass this and keep the games speeding along...that was the whole point of directx after all.

CNN.com - Scientists teleport two different objects - Oct 4, 2006

CNN.com - Scientists teleport two different objects - Oct 4, 2006: "Beaming people in 'Star Trek' fashion is still in the realms of science fiction, but physicists in Denmark have teleported information from light to matter bringing quantum communication and computing closer to reality."

CNN.com - A look inside Virgin Galactic's new ride - Oct 4, 2006

CNN.com - A look inside Virgin Galactic's new ride - Oct 4, 2006: "The first SS2 will be called VSS Enterprise, and Virgin Galactic expects its first full fleet to comprise two motherships and five SS2s -- which would also permit the company to quickly expand its operations beyond the initial spaceport in New Mexico to other countries that permit the flights (the U.K. is high on its list)."

GM developing home-based hydrogen filling station - Engadget

GM developing home-based hydrogen filling station - Engadget

Sweet. All that needs to be said, here...

Playstation 3 'gets too hot'

Playstation 3 'gets too hot'

Really the problem isn't likely to be the heardware itself, rather that SOny is going to be caught as the expensive man out. They are likely to get seriously dighned by the WII and continue to be troubled by the fact that the XBox has already been out long enough the make a base. XBoxen are now starting to see real next-gen titles that will be lacking in some cases by as much as a year for the PS3 and the WII will certainly attract the less enthused/casual gamers. Some of the games we have seen previews for are actually quite good on that console.

Things You Never Knew Existed : Star Trek 40th Anniversary Phaser (#81803)

Things You Never Knew Existed : Star Trek 40th Anniversary Phaser (#81803)

OK, we knew they existed, but not that they were for sale (or that they were this cheap).