Author Archives: lonnon

WTF global warming?

Ah, spring in Seattle. The flowers are blooming. The trees are turning green. The birds are singing. The snow is accumulating.

Yes, snow. Last I checked the calendar, we’re in the latter half of April, and the magnolia in the front yard has a dusting of snow on its new blossoms. The drive home this evening [...]

Back to Paragon City

Near-constant discussion of City of Heroes / City of Villains on IRC over the last couple of days has chipped away at my will, and I nabbed the Good Versus Evil Edition from the local Gamestop for twenty bucks. I gave up on City of Heroes some time ago, getting bored at level 24 on [...]

Blogging from the Q sucks

It’s shocking how bad the Windows Mobile browser is. Not only has it taken vast amounts of time waiting for pages to load, I’m not entirely certain I’m entering this in the correct part of the WordPress interface. Regardless of whether or not the post even appears, I won’t be able to read it, because [...]

Once more, with feeling

Or at least with more consistency. I’m firing up the old blog again after leaving it fallow for a couple of years. I’m finding I miss committing thought to text, tossing ideas out into the ether for people to see. Or not. It matters little to me whether or not I have a huge following; [...]

Deep thinking on Nintendo’s strategy

Amidst the uproar and ridicule over the wacky new controller design for the Nintendo Revolution, it’s great to see some more level-headed commentary on what Nintendo might be trying to accomplish. Nintendo’s Genre Innovation Strategy: Thoughts on the Revolution’s new controller is an insightful article about how Nintendo has positioned itself as an innovation leader [...]

Paris Métro X-wing

Some of the most clever paper engineering I’ve seen has resulted in the transformation of a pair of Paris Métro tickets into an itty bitty X-wing fighter. X-wing en tickets de métro step by step contains all the instructions you need to convert your Métro tickets into the premier starfighter of the Rebel Alliance.

Emacs makes you retarded

As a long-time Emacs afficionado, I find this article rather amusing. Emacs Key Bindings Make You Retarded makes the case that years of being used to abominations such as hitting Ctrl+A to go to the beginning of a line can actually prevent you from using newer interfaces that are probably much better, ergonomically and productively. [...]

Moving sale funnies

Yeah, it’s probably been linked to a jillion times by now, but it’s new and freshly hysterical to me. If you haven’t given it a gander, you owe it to yourself to read The “Holy Crap We’re Moving Saturday And Need To Sell Our Stuff” Sale” over on craigslist LA.

Brits doing stupid things with fire

It’s always nice to see that insanity among the geek set isn’t a purely American phenomenon. Case in point: one Briton’s construction of a PVC flamethrower from bits available at any hardware store. This isn’t perhaps as crazy as Interpretive Arson’s Dance Dance Immolation, but probably equally likely to instantly remove your eyebrows should a [...]

Analog digital printing

Need to make readable signage, but your handwriting with a Sharpie is wanting for legibility? Enter Instant Labeling Tape, which allows anyone with a black marker to crank out labels that are at least as readable as a typical cash register display.