semicircular.net http://semicircular.net Fri, 01 Jan 2010 12:27:39 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9 en hourly 1 Ideal things to look for in a laptop http://semicircular.net/2009/12/31/ideal-things-to-look-for-in-a-laptop/ http://semicircular.net/2009/12/31/ideal-things-to-look-for-in-a-laptop/#comments Thu, 31 Dec 2009 04:46:36 +0000 Adam Kent http://semicircular.net/?p=211
  • Regardless of physical dimensions, a fine dot pitch display. My current screen is a 15" normal (non-widescreen) display SXGA+ which has been great. That works out at about 116 DPI or a 0.2177mm dot pitch. It's well worth whatever it costs extra to get a good built in display. Screen DPI calculator.
  • No shiny / reflective display finishes. Quite simply, a deal breaker. I hate those shiny screens.
  • Built in serial port. USB to Serial converters are such a pain. Having a permanent /dev/ttyS0 makes such a difference.
  • A good keyboard, or at least, one that you could type on all day without causing injury.
  • SD card reader.
  • Reasonably sized hard drive and lots of memory. Probably more important than a grunty processor.
  • Sensibly positioned USB ports and other sockets. Preferably on the back, as frequently used ports on the side can be annoying.
    • ]]>     http://semicircular.net/2009/12/31/ideal-things-to-look-for-in-a-laptop/feed/ 0     Links for 30 August 2009 http://semicircular.net/2009/08/30/links-for-30-august-2009/ http://semicircular.net/2009/08/30/links-for-30-august-2009/#comments Sun, 30 Aug 2009 12:54:02 +0000 Adam Kent http://semicircular.net/?p=205
  • google-diff-match-patch - The Diff Match and Patch libraries offer robust algorithms to perform the operations required for synchronizing plain text. (tags: diff patch software algorithms)
  • The 3 key parts of news stories you usually don’t get (tags: journalism writing)
  • You work for me, Computer: Dropping Django (tags: python django)
  • Liquidware Antipasto: Introducing the Illuminato X Machina (tags: arm electronics opensource)
  • Official Gmail Blog: Send mail from another address without "on behalf of" (tags: gmail smtp)
  • Damon Young - Opinion - Dreams don't come in instalments - "The point is this: Freud devoted his home to his work, we often devote our work to owning a home. But the urge to ''own the dream'' can become a distraction from dreaming itself; from spontaneity, innovation, reflection and clarity." (tags: philosophy mortgage life housing)
  • SparkFun Electronics - GeoChron Blue - Field-hardened GPS Logger with Bluetooth (tags: gps bluetooth logger sparkfun)
  • Fixing the font rendering in Ubuntu – Johan Kiviniemi’s series of tubes - "If you’re like me and hate the blurry font rendering used by default in Ubuntu since 8.04 (hardy), you might want to install the following config files" (tags: fonts linux lcd ubuntu)
  • Starcraft II delayed and other Activision Blizzard updates | Technology | guardian.co.uk - "Were you really expecting to play Starcraft II this year? Activision Blizzard announced last night that the long awaited RTS game would be arriving in 2010." (tags: games starcraft blizzard announcement newsarticle)
  • Rental Relocations Australia New Zealand United States Canada - Hire Now at StandByCars - Cheap deals for one way car / campervan rentals. (tags: travel australia cheap relocation)
  • Bill the Lizard - Blog featuring programming and mathematics puzzles. (tags: programming blog puzzle)
    • ]]>     http://semicircular.net/2009/08/30/links-for-30-august-2009/feed/ 0     Links for 23 March 2009 http://semicircular.net/2009/03/23/links-for-23-march-2009/ http://semicircular.net/2009/03/23/links-for-23-march-2009/#comments Mon, 23 Mar 2009 10:44:22 +0000 Adam Kent http://semicircular.net/?p=185
  • Command-line Fu The best UNIX commands on the web - (tags: linux programming reference bash shell)
  • Chrome Experiments - Detail - Browser Ball - "Open new windows. Throw a beach ball through them." (tags: programming javascript)
  • GlobalScale Technologies - SheevaPlug Dev Kit - (tags: linux embedded marvell)
  • ack -- better than grep, a power search tool for programmers - "ack is a tool like grep, aimed at programmers with large trees of heterogeneous source code." Like an internal tool we have called "find-in-files" but way way better. (tags: programming perl find grep)
  • libevent - The libevent API provides a mechanism to execute a callback function when a specific event occurs on a file descriptor or after a timeout has been reached. Furthermore, libevent also support callbacks due to signals or regular timeouts. libevent is meant to replace the event loop found in event driven network servers. An application just needs to call event_dispatch() and then add or remove events dynamically without having to change the event loop. (tags: programming event epoll libevent)
  • Cocktail Recipes for the Recession: The New Yorker - Nasdaiquiri: Add a dozen IPOs to portfolio, wait until bubble bursts, drink all day every day. (tags: funny finance alcohol stockmarket)
  • Glennz Tees - T-Shirts - Some of these are classic. (tags: clothing cool t-shirts)
  • Balsamiq Studios, makers of plugins for Web Office applications - (tags: software design tools ui)
  • Technological Wasteland: Use Mercurial, you Git! - "I ordered a version control system, not a toolkit for building one! If I'd wanted building blocks for rolling my own, I'd have gone to Home Depot and bought a 1 and a 0." (tags: funny mercurial git dvcs)
  • Yahoo! Connected TV: The best of the Internet on your TV - (tags: internet yahoo tv widget)
  • EmbeddedPython - PythonInfo Wiki - "On yet another hand, one can start with a full build, and simply remove unneeded modules (eg Tkinter) to realize a reduced-size Python with little effort." (tags: python embedded)
  • The memory fragmentation problem: Solved? - (tags: programming memory research fragmentation)
    • ]]>     http://semicircular.net/2009/03/23/links-for-23-march-2009/feed/ 0     Afternoon light http://semicircular.net/2008/12/15/afternoon-light/ http://semicircular.net/2008/12/15/afternoon-light/#comments Mon, 15 Dec 2008 07:13:52 +0000 Adam Kent http://semicircular.net/2008/12/15/afternoon-light/ Afternoon light]]> http://semicircular.net/2008/12/15/afternoon-light/feed/ 0 Morning Coffee http://semicircular.net/2008/10/12/morning-coffee/ http://semicircular.net/2008/10/12/morning-coffee/#comments Sun, 12 Oct 2008 03:15:22 +0000 Adam Kent http://semicircular.net/2008/10/12/morning-coffee/ Morning Coffee]]> http://semicircular.net/2008/10/12/morning-coffee/feed/ 0 Links for 06 August 2008 http://semicircular.net/2008/08/06/links-for-06-august-2008/ http://semicircular.net/2008/08/06/links-for-06-august-2008/#comments Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:41:50 +0000 Adam Kent http://semicircular.net/?p=113
  • Leaving Yahoo - Chad Dickerson: "I'm leaving Yahoo! to pursue another very exciting opportunity: joining the Etsy team as CTO." (tags: blogpost etsy yahoo)
  • AP News - Unlike McCain, many seniors depend on the Web - "How unusual is it for a 71-year-old American to be unplugged?" (tags: internet mccain politics usa)
  • Freighter Travel - Internet Guide to Freighter Travel - (tags: cargo freighter passenger ship transport)
  • Information Arbitrage: Monitor110: A Post Mortem - "1: The lack of a single, "the buck stops here" leader until too late in the game. 2: No separation between the technology organization and the product organization." (tags: failure management startup)
  • Large Hadron Collider nearly ready - The Big Picture - Boston.com - Some amazing photos of CERN's Large Hadron Collider and associated equipment... but "I have my crowbar ready for any unforseen consequences" ... (tags: photography cern physics)
  • Liminal Existence: Announcing Jabber::Simple - The Twitter Jabber bot back in 2006: "So far we're running just a single instance, and it's doing fine. Scaling will happen later, and there are a number of mechanisms for doing it elegantly." ... and where the hell is it now!!? (tags: jabber twitter bot programming)
  • Eatability - La Disfida Sydney - Pizza in Haberfield (tags: pizza restauraunt food sydney)
  • There's a large hole in the plane: pilot - smh.com.au - "There is a big hole in the belly of the aircraft near the right wing about three metres in diameter..." (tags: newsarticle travel qantas aeroplane accident)
  • A Guide to Cheap Snacks in Manhattan's Chinatown | Serious Eats : New York - MMm, dumplings! (tags: food nyc usa chinese dumplings)
  • allconsuming: The seven hour roast lamb - "This lamb is officially called Le Gigot D'Agneau De Montgeoffroy... marinate for 24 hours, turning when you remember... preheat oven to 120C ..." (tags: recipe blogpost lamb roast cooking)
    • ]]>     http://semicircular.net/2008/08/06/links-for-06-august-2008/feed/ 0     Links for 25 June 2008 http://semicircular.net/2008/06/25/links-for-25-june-2008/ http://semicircular.net/2008/06/25/links-for-25-june-2008/#comments Wed, 25 Jun 2008 12:24:42 +0000 Adam Kent http://semicircular.net/?p=109
  • Year 2038 problem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Better get on with fixing this, we've only got 30 years... (tags: c code computers software unix y2k)
  • Visual C++ 2008 Express Edition - Free Visual Studio, nice... (tags: c++ development free microsoft)
  • Hanoi crazy night traffic on Vimeo (tags: timelapse traffic video vietnam)
  • iBanjo - Programmer Insecurity - "[Some] programmers don't want their peers to see mistakes or failures. They want to work privately, in a cave, then spring "perfect" code on their community, as if no mistakes had ever been made." (tags: codereview collaboration programming scm)
  • Algorithm Geeks | Google Groups (tags: algorithms programming)
  • Amazon.com: Denon AKDL1 Dedicated Link Cable: Electronics - The $500 ethernet cable (tags: audio denon funny ripoff)
    • ]]>     http://semicircular.net/2008/06/25/links-for-25-june-2008/feed/ 0     Anzac bridge fog http://semicircular.net/2008/06/14/anzac-bridge-fog/ http://semicircular.net/2008/06/14/anzac-bridge-fog/#comments Sat, 14 Jun 2008 11:32:51 +0000 Adam Kent http://semicircular.net/2008/06/14/anzac-bridge-fog/ Anzac bridge fog

    Incredible fog in Sydney last Thursday on the drive into work...

    ]]>     http://semicircular.net/2008/06/14/anzac-bridge-fog/feed/ 0     Links for 14 June 2008 http://semicircular.net/2008/06/14/links-for-14-june-2008/ http://semicircular.net/2008/06/14/links-for-14-june-2008/#comments Sat, 14 Jun 2008 11:30:55 +0000 Adam Kent http://semicircular.net/?p=105
  • Last-gasp win for Swans as Eagles falter - 8 June 2008 - "Sydney had to come from a 36-point half-time deficit to win this one, yet win it the Swans did — 12.11 (83) to 11.12 (78) — hitting the front for the first time in the match at the 32-minute mark of the final term..." (tags: afl newsarticle sydneyswans)
  • Patak's Lime Pickle - It still exists! My local Coles have stopped stocking this, damn them! (tags: coles indian lime pataks pickle)
  • Deep-Dish Sausage and Tomato Pizza on Flickr - Photo Sharing! - One damn good looking home made pizza. (tags: food photography pizza slashfood)
  • Big Ideas (don't get any) on Vimeo - Radiohead's "Nude" reproduced by printers, scanners, old hard drives (tags: music printers radiohead remix retro)
  • Interactive Polyline Encoder Utility - Google Maps API - Google Code - (tags: api google mapping)
  • l33t eye chart on Flickr - OMG WTF STFU PWN3D URAN00B LMAOROTF KTHXBYE:P -- If you can read this, ur eyez r teh l337. (tags: eyechart funny)
  • 10 paths to painless pizza-making | smitten kitchen - (tags: cooking food italian pizza tips)
  • TWoP Single Page Recaps – Userscripts.org - "Combines TWoP's multi-page recaps into one page." (tags: greasemonkey television)
  • programming: Ask Reddit: What's the most beautiful piece of publically available source code you saw? - Powerset functions in python using generators (tags: powerset programming python)
    • ]]>     http://semicircular.net/2008/06/14/links-for-14-june-2008/feed/ 0     Links for 07 June 2008 http://semicircular.net/2008/06/07/links-for-07-june-2008/ http://semicircular.net/2008/06/07/links-for-07-june-2008/#comments Fri, 06 Jun 2008 23:42:58 +0000 Adam Kent http://semicircular.net/?p=104
  • APOD: 2008 June 4 - Chasing the ISS - Timelapse of the space shuttle discovery catching up with the ISS, from earth, complete with an iridium flare! (tags: astronomy photography space timelapse)
  • Bug #226279 in linux (Ubuntu Hardy): "Kernel 2.6.24-17 - broken resume from suspend to RAM" - It sure is broken... extremely frustrating, particularly considering this is supposed to be a LTS release? (tags: bug linux ubuntu)
  • Flight 2 - Helium Baloon Mission to Near-Space - My project launched a payload with GPS, camera, sensors and communications to an altitude of 30km. (tags: electronics photography projects space)
  • Aza’s Thoughts » Blog Archive » Vote! How to Detect the Social Sites Your Visitors Use - Such a clever idea: "I know that you visit: Digg, Reddit, Facebook, Del.icio.us, Slashdot, and Last.fm. It’s a bit scary, I know." (tags: howto javascript web2.0)
  • Simpsons/Futurama - Simpsons and Futurama universes collide... (tags: art comic futurama simpsons)
    • ]]>     http://semicircular.net/2008/06/07/links-for-07-june-2008/feed/ 0