Archive for the ‘Geek’ Category

If you have read my posts or know me in person, you already know I am one of the ‘weird ones.’ But, the price of therapy is too much for me to pay. Or maybe I just don’t feel like it.

My computer does a lot for me. Its like a little attachment to my brain. And, now I know how to make it listen to me like a therapist would.

In the Mac Terminal (or at any command line), type emacs, hit Enter, press Escape, type “xdoctor” (no quotes).
What you get: An interactive dialogue with a shrink named Eliza. To get out of it, hit Control+X Control+C.

Try it out. You know you need the help…

Do you want to know what the whole internet looks like? Head over to this site to view a map of all IP addresses. Its similar to Google Maps, but using IPs and not geographical data.

I recently came across Philip K. Dick. He is an amazing writer. If you have ever seen Blade Runner, The Minority Report, or A Scanner Darkly, then you have seen his work. Those movies were all based on his writing.
Yesterday, I read The Minority Report. My recommendation to you is to get a copy of it and read it. It’s less than 30 pages. You can read that much, I promise. The story is truly something.

On a similar note, check out The Final Cut. It is a movie that came out in 2004, starring Robin Williams.
Here is a plot summary from IMDB:

“In a near undefined future, people may have a Zoe microchip implanted in their nervous system to permit their families retrieve the best moments of their memories and watch on video after their deaths. This process is called “Rememory” and Alan H. Hakman (Robin Williams), a man traumatized by an incident in his childhood, is the best cutter of the Eye Tech Corporation. The company is facing groups that oppose to the “Rememory” and the ex-cutter Fletcher (Jim Caviezel) is leading these opponents. When Alan is assigned to prepare the final cut of the memories of the Eye Tech lawyer Charles Bannister, his Zoe chip is disputed by Fletcher. Meanwhile, Alan finds that he has also an implanted microchip, which is against the rules of a cutter.”

Well, I can’t really decide if it is THE best. But I use it all the time for debugging my sites. I know it has saved me hours of html/css induced pain and agony. You can get it here. Its just this little thing that goes in the bottom of Firefox. If you are ever working on a website, or want to know how someone made their site, get it. It will rock your web-world.

I was just thinking. About the first time I ever geeked out. It was on this mac. It was still dad’s computer at that time. I came upstairs and sat down on this new leather chair dad bought. I think he got it so he could sit and be comfortable as he geeked out. Well, one day, he wasn’t using it. So I had it. I opened up an app called Comic Life. It came with the mac, and it lets you make your own comics out of pics and thought bubbles and action noises, etc. Really fun program. But I needed some pics to put in it. So, I opened up the Photo Booth app. I used the built-in camera on the computer to take pics of myself. Once I did that, I put them in to Comic Life.

That was sometime in the summer of 06. Now, I am a bona fide geek. Only a year and a half later, and I probably could have graduated from geek college if i had gone.

It all started with something so simple. And now, I actually think that source code makes for a good read. What happened?