March 2009Monthly Archives

Now, I know that the message of Christ's death and resurrection sin so that humans can spend eternity in Heaven isn't being sold by (most) Christians as steak and chocolate and unicorns. That's not my point. I do not want or intend to discuss the actual merits (or lack thereof) of the Christian faith. My point is simply that you're asking a group of people to believe in something they do not believe exists, for a reward they cannot prove they'll ever obtain

Last weekend, I started a 4E campaign for my son Nolan and his friends. All week, I've been posting about the session, and today I thought I'd wrap the whole thing up with some thoughts about what I learned from my first time behind the screen as a Fourth Edition DM.

With more than 120 million blogs in existence, how do people find YOUR content on the Internet? The key starts with great search engine optimization (SEO), which is an art and a science that helps search engines discover your content and understand how relevant it is to specific search queries.

The closest most of us 'round here will ever get to outer space is blogging about the Lunar X Prize, so our inner astronauts get rather giddy any time an amateur makes it to the cusp of the gravity well. The above photos were taken by the Meteotek team, a teacher and his four students from the IES La Bisbal school in Catalonia, Spain. The group designed and launched a balloon kitted out with a Nikon Coolpix and custom built electronics, intending to get some shots at 30,000 feet. Well exceeding their expectations, the $80 digicam (held aloft by a $60 latex balloon) reached over 100,000 feet, at which point it lost inflation and fell to the earth. As the balloon rose, the team was able to map its progress using Google Earth via the craft's on-board radio receiver. After it fell back to earth, the group "travelled 10km to find the sensors and photographic card," said one of the students, "which was still emitting its signal, even though it had been exposed to the most extreme conditions.

NASA is pulling something cute right now: a March Madness-like mission playoff, where readers can vote on certain NASA missions to move on to the next level. Eventually, on April 8, a winner will be announced.

Firefox users love their tabbed browsing capability, but if you leave tabs unchecked they can get completely out of control. For those of you who feel lost in a sea of tabs, there are numerous ways to manage them; Here are over 40 of the best extensions.

Another day, another new feature in Gmail Labs. This one could be more useful than most, as it’s something you probably have a reason to use with some frequency. It’s called “Undo Send,” and as the name suggests, it lets you take back a sent email, as long as you act quickly enough.

The funny thing about the new wave of journalism is that news organizations are requiring journalists to learn additional technical skills, but aren't making the necessary training readily available. In order to be or remain employed in this industry its essential to hunker down and learn some new skills.

The following tutorial sites will take you from journalist to multimedia journalist, something that looks great on any business card

For a quick set of directions it's tough to beat Google Maps, but what if you need to use the map data for publishing or other projects? OpenStreetMap is free, editable, and remix-friendly. All the street data in OpenStreetMap has been created from free sources and user input.

Linux, Mac, or Windows with Cygwin: If you have ever wanted to show a list of subdirectories underneath the current directory while at the terminal prompt, there's a simple command that can help. Simply run the following command from the bash terminal prompt, which filters the file listing to only show folders:

As STS-119 works on loading a new truss and solar panel set on the International Space Station, it all seems like science fiction, removed from human contact. However, spotting the ISS and Shuttle is actually pretty easy, and you can do it with the naked eye!

what can be seen in your sky – and when!

Here's The Colbert Report interview

With Battlestar Galactica rocking to an end Friday, the show's producers promise a bravura conclusion that will knock our socks off. But it's got some stiff competition – here are science fiction television's greatest endings. Spoilers!

Finding inspiration is not always as simple as it sounds, whether you’ve been designing for years or only weeks. Below is a collection of 100 great web resources to find inspiration and direction on your next project, whether it be online or in print.

Every one of us needs a home. The world needs a home. There are so many young people who are homeless. They may have a building to live in, but they are homeless in their hearts. That is why the most important practice of our time is to give each person a home.

Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh

Now that you can export and import email filters with Gmail, we've decided to compile some of our favourite filters for organizing your inbox into a single, handy download. Come and get it!

There are many, many Linux distributions, and a lot of unique reasons to like them. Read on to see which open-source operating systems inspired our readers to provide our biggest Hive Five response to date

Doctor Who's time-traveler, The Doctor, may be the last of his kind… but he's not the only one who can regenerate. K-9, the Doctor's metal dog, will follow suit in his new show.

So, if you're looking around for a great web editor for Linux, just what is the state of editors for Linux and does it get any better than Vi or Emacs? Let's take a look at what options are on offer today.

Well, it finally happened: after nearly a 2 year delay, GoogleGoogle reviewsGoogle reviews has finally put Grandcentral, a service it acquired back in 2007, to good use. The new service is called Google Voice, and it’s currently available as a preview to GrandCentral users and a small number of users with invites.

Naked DSL — a broadband connection via a phone line but without paying a line rental fee for the associated voice service — is an increasingly popular strategy for saving money on communications costs. Going naked can help cut down your monthly bills, but before taking the plunge there are some key issues you'll need to consider.

I couldn't find a laptop bag I liked in the stores, they were either black and boring or bloody expensive, so making one was a pretty good idea. Since I have a few yards of precious Ikea fabric stash, I decided to make one with a set of tea towels and a favourite piece from the discount bin.

or What's A Tentacle-Faced Thing Like Me Doing In A Sunken City Like This (Latitude 47° 9' S, Longitude 126° 43' W)?

Windows only: The PortableApps.com Suite, a full-featured app package that runs from a USB drive, has upgraded with a crisper-looking and more customisable menu, the latest versions of a ton of great freeware, and other improvements. A new theme brings some transparency, mouse-over effects, and display improvements to the PortableApps menu, but the release notes bury the big news—you'll be able to theme the suite yourself in the next release, due out in less than two weeks.

Apple's just reached a whole new level of stupidity in App Store approval shenanigans: the Tweetie 1.3 update was just rejected for displaying "offensive language" in its Twitter trend search view. Right, not for offensive language in the app itself, but for offensive language on Twitter — an insanely strict new standard that could conceivably be used to reject each and every iPhone Twitter client out there. (And if you haven't noticed, there are quite a few iPhone Twitter clients.) Hell, Apple might as well reject the next versions of Safari and Mail, since they can display dirty words too — and let's not forget the awful things people are doing with Notes and the camera. Better lock it down.