Month: April 2006

— current events, thoughts —

strategypage: iraq, iran, etc

April 6, 2006

There’s some good stuff on “strategypage”:http://www.strategypage.com/ today. First off, “an article”:http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htarm/articles/20060405.aspx on the development of the Iraqi army, specifically the 9th Mechanized Division. It’s interesting that we’re choosing to outfit these divisions with practically all old Soviet-bloc equipment. Another article “explains”:http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htiw/articles/20060406.aspx why the “recent coverage”:http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/173248/3/ of Iran’s supposed new “super weapons” is mostly just hype.… Read More strategypage: iraq, iran, etc

— computing —

Windows clone

April 6, 2006

“ReactOS”:http://www.reactos.org/xhtml/en/index.html is taking an unusual tack from most other free-OS developers. Rather than building a new UNIX-based distribution, their goal is to create an operating system that is completely binary compatible with Microsoft Windows using only open source code. That means it should be able to install and run both applications and drivers designed for… Read More Windows clone

— links —

Lego carrier

April 5, 2006

Here’s a project by someone with *way* too much time on his hands: “Lego carrier”:http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=126969 It’s pretty cool though.

— quotes —

John Stuart Mill on War

April 5, 2006

Here’s an interesting quote to ponder: bq. War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important… Read More John Stuart Mill on War

— current events —

Biometrics in Iraq

April 5, 2006

“This”:http://jccc.afis.osd.mil/images/sres.pl?Lbox_cap=1318057&dir=Photo&vn=&ttl=060328-M-9174M-009&ref is interesting. I had no idea that we had a usable biometrics system that small yet, let alone that it was being used so actively in the field. Apparently they’re using the system to create a comprehensive biometric database to apprehend terrorists and (apparently) to prevent infiltration of the IAF(Iraqi Armed Forces). Here’s another… Read More Biometrics in Iraq

— science —

Digital chauffeur?

April 4, 2006

It “looks like”:http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=184400297 it may not be too long before self-driving cars are technically feasible. It’s probably too much to wish for to actually see something like this in production for quite a while though. For one thing, I suspect the public would have to get more accustomed to high levels of automation performing less… Read More Digital chauffeur?

— meta —

new url

April 4, 2006

You may have noticed from the site that I purchased a domain name. I decided to go with “stephenmoody.info”:http://themoodysideoflife.com/ after all, which I registered through “mydomain.com”:http://www.mydomain.com. Feel free to update your bookmarks (?) accordingly. I found out that I also apparently “own” “stephenmoody.net”:http://www.stephenmoody.net which I registered through a free trial of MS OfficeLive’s Beta I… Read More new url

— links —

Song tapper

April 4, 2006

“Here’s”:http://www.songtapper.com/s/tappingmain.bin?dotap=1 an interesting applet I found today. It matches a rhythm tapped out on the keyboard to one of over 18000 (!) songs in it’s database. Also, “another page”:http://cgi.sfu.ca/~gpeters/tapper/tapper.cgi with more info on how it works. Apparently it correctly identifies the song or places it in the top 10 possibilities well over 2/3 of the… Read More Song tapper

— links —

Honda commercial

April 3, 2006

Here’s a cool commercial by Honda: “Honda Accord commercial”:http://www.steelcitysfinest.com/HondaAccordAd.htm It’s absolutely amazing that they were able to pull it off, although considering how many takes and how much cash it took they were bound to get it to work eventually.

— meta —

Help name my blog

April 3, 2006

I’m extraordinarily uncreative when it comes to thinking of names for stuff like this, which is part of the reason this site has such a generic name at the moment and no domain name at all. So, if anyone has a good idea on a name for my blog and/or a good domain name to… Read More Help name my blog