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Saturday, January 31, 2009

Kürzungen für jeder

Accessibility Shortcuts


Several resources are available to help increase speed and effectiveness for keyboard users. Here are keyboard shortcuts for leading Microsoft products that help save time and effort and provide an essential tool for some people with mobility impairments.

  • Internet Explorer 7/6/5/4
  • Office (2007/2003/XP/2002/2000/97)
  • PhotoDraw
  • PowerPoint
  • Producer
  • Publisher
  • Windows (Vista/2003/XP/2000/98/ME/NT)
  • Windows Media Player
  • Windows Movie Maker
  • Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005
Microsoft.com Keyboard Assistance.



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Monday, January 26, 2009

Graphics from the '50s

Remember it the way you want to


Original fifties clipart? Just in time for the holidays, some Ozzie and Harriet style pics.



"Most communities in the fifties had small town print shops that doubled as printers of local news and advertising papers. These printers could not afford graphic artists so they used stock clipart supplied by large companies who distributed common graphics for use in advertising sections of the papers. They were provided for the printer in lots of categories to meet any advertiser's needs."

Retrographix.com



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Thursday, January 22, 2009

SuDoku

CrossNumber puzzles


I have to admit that I have not caught the fever that these puzzles seem to have generated.

Most every newspaper in the world has started publishing these brain teasers.


"Sudoku , sometimes spelled Su Doku, is a logic based placement puzzle, also known as Number Place in the United States. The aim of the canonical puzzle is to enter a numerical digit from 1 through 9 in each cell of a 9x9 grid made up of 3x3 subgrids (called "regions"), starting with various digits given in some cells (the "givens"). Each row, column, and region must contain only one instance of each numeral.
Completing the puzzle requires patience and logical ability. Its grid layout is reminiscent of other newspaper puzzles like crosswords and chess problems.
Although first published in 1979, Sudoku initially became popular in Japan in 1986 and attained international popularity in 2005."


Wikipedia — Sudoku

Here is a download that will construct as many of these puzzles as you might be Jonesing for.

Andy Pope Su Doku

Also:

Su Doku.com

Web Su Doku

Here's an Excel template from the Redmond people:
  1. Enter puzzle values in Starting position grid
  2. Set Game state to 1
  3. Press F9 to calculate
  4. The Possible numbers grid will show the first step in the solution
  5. The Final position will show the current result
  6. Continue to repeat calculation by pressing F9 until the puzzle is solved or the solver stops responding
Sudoku solver




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Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Hole in Backyard

A guy digs a hole in his back yard


"About 2 years ago I decided to dig a hole in my back yard.
Why?
Why not.
Its good exercise and I could get a tan too. Plus holes are cool."

Seven pages of pictures



" I'm considering selling scoops of dirt from the hole. I figure 12 bucks should cover the shipping and the trouble. I'll send you a baggie of dirt, with a signed certificate of authenticity. If you want it, you better ask for it now. My house has a sale pending so I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to do this.

If you want some other piece of a hole like a wood chip, a dead frog, or maybe a mud stained rag. Just ask."




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Thursday, January 15, 2009

Light Up Where You Live

A nation's porch light


"Ben Fry is a doctoral candidate at the MIT Media Laboratory. His research focuses on methods of visualizing large amounts of data from dynamic information sources. This work is currently directed towards "Genomic Cartography" which is a study into new methods to represent the data found in the human genome."


He has a fascinating demonstration of data display technique:




Zip Code Demonstrator.

Type in a zip code one number at a time to see how zip codes are distributed in the US.




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Saturday, January 10, 2009

John Titor - 2036

The future came back


Why speculate about the future, when we've already been visited by a representative?
"A tale that disturbed me, concerned me, made me wonder if our world as we know it has less than 15 years left.

It is the tale of John Titor, a self-proclaimed time traveler from the year 2036.

Okay, it sounds crazy. It's not crazy, though . . .it's simply a hoax. It's a compelling hoax, so I decided to write my take on it. After some initial 'what if' excitement about it, the reality set in that this wasn't what it appeared to be. In this piece, I hope to prove relatively clearly that his claims are false both in theory and in fact. He seemed to know enough about physics to pass amongst laymen, but unfortunately he skipped philosophy and economics while he was reading all those physics books.

Since this story just won't seem to die and there is evidence that the same perpetrator is now claiming to be an alien on various boards across the web, I felt it was worth sitting down and analyzing."


Tackling John Titor, Time Traveler



Wikipedia:
John Titor

"John Titor was the name of a purported time traveler from the year 2036. He posted on several time travel-related Internet bulletin boards during 2000/2001, making many vague and seemingly falsifiable predictions about events in the near future and giving an explicit, detailed account of his supposed native time period. Whether or not John Titor was a hoax is a topic of controversy on web-based paranormal discussion boards."

John Ttior's Story

"Someone using the assumed name of John Titor and claiming to be a soldier on a mission from 2036 presented a considerable amount of information on the Web beginning around November 2000 about his mission and time travel machine, his perspective on our society, how our society is going wrong, and how society as we know it will end in a very short but massive global nuclear war in 2015. He's gone now, back to 2036 he said he was going in his last posting on March 24, 2001, and the threads he left across the Web in his five months with us have been slowly evaporating since then."



AboveTopSecret.com:
The John Titor Project

"Although many find it easy to dismiss all this as either science fiction or an elaborate extended hoax, there are those who still read his information and agree that there is something very troubling about John Titor and what he had to say."


Answers.com:
John Titor

" He claimed his time machine — a "C204 time displacement" machine-was created by General Electric. Supposedly, he transported it in a standard motor vehicle (a black, model-year 1966 Chevrolet Corvette Convertible shown in the photographs he provided), and the car also served as his vessel whilst traveling through time (it remained stationary throughout with the engine off). He claimed that the public is fully aware of time travel in his time period, although the extreme skeptics of his day do not believe it exists."




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Wednesday, January 07, 2009

An Obsession with Butterflies

Quote



"Architecture is a plant's first defense. Once a caterpillar begins to eat, compounds in its saliva can be recognized by the leaf as a form of attack. Whang, whang, whang. The entire plant goes on alert. A hormonal burst starts a second defense system, a counter attack that may include rushing newly produced toxins to the damaged leaf, as well as compounds that slow a caterpillar's ability to digest the plant as food."



About the Author

Sharman Apt Russell teaches writing at Western New Mexico University. She is also the author of Anatomy of a Rose, Kill the Cowboy and Songs of the Fluteplayer.
She has a unique voice. Inherently complex topics are made enjoyable.

Book Description

From the beastly horned caterpillar, whose blood helps it count time, to the peacock butterfly, with wings that hiss like a snake, Russell traces the butterflies through their life cycles, exploring the creatures' own obsessions with eating, mating, and migrating. In this way, she reveals the logic behind our endless fascination with butterflies as well as the driving passion of such legendary collectors as the tragic Eleanor Glanville, whose children declared her mad because of her compulsive butterfly collecting, and the brilliant Henry Walter Bates, whose collections from the Amazon in 1858 helped develop his theory of mimicry in nature. Russell also takes us inside some of the world's most prestigious natural history museums, where scientists painstakingly catalogue and categorize new species of Lepidoptera, hoping to shed light on insect genetics and evolution.






By Sharman Apt Russell
ISBN 0-7382-0699-7
Perseus Publishing 2003


Also see:

The North American Butterfly Association (NABA)

and,

AmazingButterflies.com:
A Talk with Sharman Apt Russell




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Friday, January 02, 2009

Practice, Practice


"With the TypingMaster Online Test you can assess your personal typing skills in minutes for free - within your web browser.

Based on the short text typing sample, this Java™ applet will estimate your typing skills including typing speed, accuracy and net speed. You can also receive test results directly to your email address."

TypingTest.com

MrKent.com

Typing and Ten-key Tests

Also:
CalculatorCat.com

Typing test




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