justin's blog

Reznor offers a variety of options for new NIN album: Ghosts

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 11:30:45 -0600

After the release of Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D, a.k.a. Halo 25, the remixed version of Year Zero, Trent Reznor of NIN is officially free of the Interscope label. His next album, Ghosts I-IV, a.k.a. Halo 26 comes with a variety of free download and purchase options in multiple digital and physical formats, many exclusive to the Nine Inch Nails website:

http://ghosts.nin.com

YoYoJam Lyn Fury, a great beginner to advanced yoyo

Sat, 08 Sep 2007 21:19:16 -0500

YoYoing is for geeks who can't juggle. Well, that's my excuse because I really can't juggle and yoyoing requires some amount of skillz and is also fun. I got into yoyoing when my 5th grade teacher, Mr. Jaeger, sold Pro-Yos (which are still sold and are great for looping). After being away from it for a long time, I've recently gotten back into yoyoing only to find that modern yoyoing is a whole new world: there is unresponsive play, hubstacks/t-stacks, and top-tips. So after buying over 15 new yo-yos, I'd like to focus on a favorite brand of mine: YoYoJam, and here specifically their "Lyn Fury." YoYoJam isn't as big as brands you may have heard of like Yomega or Duncan, but I think they offer a lot more choice and playability.

Casio Waveceptor: Atomic Timekeeping & Solar Powered

Fri, 11 May 2007 20:15:26 -0500

Be geeky without looking the part

I was in search for a watch with some geeky features, but suitable enough that I can wear it while dressing up without looking like a pocket-protector wearing nerd. I knew Casio had a wide variety of watches with atomic timekeeping features, but the last time I wore a Casio I was in grade school and they looked something like these:

Upgrading the 4th gen iPod HD & battery for Rockbox, FLAC

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 15:27:12 -0500

Kill your iPod (part II).

When it comes to audiophiles all is but lost.

With the advent of MP3, the idea of lossless audio seemed to have fallen upon deaf ears. Enter: FLAC, the Free Lossless Audio Codec, it compresses waveforms by finding similarities (like bzip), not by changing the the waveform itself (mp3 et. al.).

When it comes to playing FLAC on a portable, a HD based one is the only way to go because of the increased size of FLAC files -- roughly 1/2 the size of the original uncompressed stream. FLAC players are listed on the FLAC website, but as far as I see it there are only two choices for gapless MP3 and FLAC playback:

Rio Karma -- purchase from Karma Limbo, his are pre-hacked with upgrades
a Rockbox enabled device such as iRiver, or iPod

Gapless MP3 & FLAC in Linux with MPD

Thu, 15 Mar 2007 10:11:26 -0500

Kill your media player (part I).

When it comes to digital formats quality is all but lost.

I enjoy listening to CD quality (uncompressed) audio streams and have been known to bring a CD to work on occasion to do so. However most media players geared towards playing file streams (like MP3s) have broken implementations for CD playback. So I'll stick to encoded files for media players -- and why not FLAC? Lossless, yes, gapless, maybe. Let me restate that if several tracks from the same CD bleed into each other across the track marker, surely our 21st century computers should be able to reproduce the 'gapless' 1980's technology known as the 'compact disc' (even if they're in separate, adjacent files). Tracks should play back with no interruption AS GOD INTENDED IT.

Fast Forward Football

Tue, 05 Dec 2006 00:49:53 -0600

Ingredients:

1 DVR device of sorts
1 NFL football game, recorded/recording (at least 2/3rds through)
1.5 hours of time (to watch a 3.5 hour game)

This recipe is best used for anyone that enjoys watching football, but maybe can't dedicate the usual 3hrs. to the ritual. Especially if the team is not your team, but you suspect it may be a game worth watching. It's also useful if you don't particularly care for the inter-play dialogue supplied by the "color commentary." Believe it or not, I enjoy Sunday Night Football on NBC (gasp!) more than Monday Night because as lame as Madden can sometimes be, he and Michaels are brilliant compared to the guys on ESPN.

MythTV & High Definition...minimum requirements

Sat, 02 Dec 2006 23:13:05 -0600

Why have you forsaken me?

My MythTV box has been chugging along nicely, playing DVDs and recording two shows off of a 2-tuner standard definition hardware MPEG encoder card (doing all at once). Just before Thanksgiving, I purchased a projector that can do 720p and had been enjoying the finer detail of my DVDs at full resolution. However, standard definition material really looks like crap when displayed on a 69" screen. Enter: High Definition. I bought a HDTV tuner card, thinking that I had prepared myself for this moment. According to the MythTV documentation, the minimum recommended processor speed for recording and playing off of one HD Tuner card is about 2.4GHz. So I built my box with an Athlon XP 2800+ (2083MHz clock speed) thinking it would be up to the task. Think again...

X-treme Programming in the real world

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 01:05:57 -0500

Stevey, a Google employee/programmer type talks about life at the company. More importantly he debunks the fad-diet equivalent programming mantras with some real world experience of what works and what doesn't in the software development world.

CES, a week after

Sun, 15 Jan 2006 03:21:19 -0600

Now that I've had a week to recover, let's do a damage estimate...

A Sirius Letdown.

I found the Sirius' S50 (like much of this show) to be underwhelming. While this unit is quite sexy and small, I found out what its achillies heel is: you must have the unit docked to listen to live satellite radio. Yes, it can record shows from satellite and play mp3s, but no radio while undocked? Bummer.

Double the memory, double the fun!

Wed, 16 Nov 2005 22:57:07 -0600

So I thought I noticed the other day that my computer was showing 512MB of RAM installed. I thought to myself, "I'm pretty sure I bought two 512MB sticks, making an even 1G." Later that week, to assure myself that I had indeed not gone crazy, I opened up my case and found two sticks of RAM installed, 512MB each. So then I dismissed me seeing the 512MB of installed RAM as me going crazy on an earlier occasion (maybe I was reading the swap space size?).

So, I double checked. My BIOS said I had 512MB of RAM installed. So I cracked the case again. Yep, still two sticks of 512 in there. Now I was thinking, "Oh, great I have to send back one of these sticks gone bad." Luckily I bought them from a reputable dealer (newegg.com) and they were a reputable brand (crucial) that has a lifetime warranty. So I took one out to see if my computer still boots.... it does. "So what is wrong with this stick of RAM I'm holding?" I asked.

Recipe: Thai Iced Coffee

Mon, 17 Oct 2005 22:03:53 -0500

subtitle: Starbucks, drink your heart out!

So here it is, Jason's famous iced coffee recipe -- ripped off by myself (which has also been ripped off of every Thai restaurant in the world).

Here's what you need:

Ice
Coffee (double shot/two parts)
2 Tbsp. (one serving/one part) Sweetened Condensed Milk (full-fat, low-fat, fat-free, etc.)

Optional: Hammer & sandwich bag (for crushing ice if you like it that way and don't have a crushed ice ice-maker)

Geeks, get girly!

Sun, 14 Aug 2005 00:33:58 -0500

This subject may be taboo, but since I've been diagnosed as being 47% gay (care of some random internet test), I figure it's an appropriate subject. The item in question is: The Man Purse. Seinfeld tried it, should you?

My night

Mon, 08 Aug 2005 13:47:25 -0500

This is not informative or educational. But it is funny which may additionally qualify it as interesting. So here is an email I received from a friend/co-worker (maybe less of a friend after his experience) after a party this weekend. Some background info: The "T-Club" was supposed to be a club where in order to join you would have to consume eight (8) "T-Bombs" in 2 hrs. A "T-Bomb" is similar to a Jäger-Bomb where you would drop a 1 oz. shot of Jägermeister into a glass of Red-Bull. However a T-Bomb (or Todd-Bomb) replaces the Jäger with Bacardi 151, a 151 proof (75.5% alcohol) rum.

Book Review: Cryptonomicon

Wed, 13 Jul 2005 13:39:51 -0500

Yes, this is probably an "oldie" to most hackers out there... but just last week I became a self-proclaimed stupendous badass by finishing this 1000 page monster. The book is great and a recommended read to hackers and generally avid readers alike. Some things I found interesting:

Ask BlogCadre: Good websites?

Wed, 22 Jun 2005 17:58:45 -0500

Maybe it's just me... but while doing web design, I like to look for inspiration in other sites that I like. Maybe that's because I'm more of a coder than a creative type. I do work for an internet marketing company, however a lot of our external sites are very cookie-cutter. So let's hear it, what are your favorite sites and is it for fashion or function?