Crazy glass armonica
This ‘glass armonica’ a banned musical instrument apparently “causes insanity” – I’m not sure about that but it’s gorgeous looking and sounding… (more about it at the Wikipedia too).
From the linked article:
The glass armonica’s sound is perceived by human ears differently than other instruments because its range is between 1,000 and 4,000 hertz. When sounds are below 4,000 hertz, the human brain compares “phase differences” between the left and right ears to triangulate the origin of the sound rather than comparing volumes. This causes hearing disorientation and a “not quite sure” feeling about where the sound is coming from.
(Via Make.)
Microsoft to Limit Capabilities of Cheap Laptops
This is why Microsoft annoys the crap out of me.
Microsoft plans to offer PC makers steep discounts on Windows XP Home Edition to encourage them to use that OS instead of Linux on ultra low-cost PCs (ULPCs). To be eligible, however, the PC vendors that make ULPCs must limit screen sizes to 10.2 inches and hard drives to 80G bytes, and they cannot offer touch-screen PCs.
This irks me because Microsoft has no interest in providing quality low-cost computers, they only have an interest in making sure that people don’t use something else
Granted, most computer makers don’t have much interest in making low-cost computers either because they know what 90% of users out there don’t care what they use so long as they can read their email and browse the web. Regardless, whenever I hear news like this it reminds me that Microsoft is the king of the mountain not because they make a great product that everyone wants to use but because they make “back room” deals to make sure that everyone has to use their product.
(Via Daring Fireball.)
The hidden value of processing.js
We’re already starting to see the results. John released his code on Thursday. By Friday, someone had already duplicated the processing.js environment as a XUL program and someone else already created an editor where you can try out processing scripts
If Bender had a website, this would be it: http://maddox.xmission.com/
Found after reading an old (237 in internet years) erm, “iPhone article”: http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=iphone
John Gruber is pretty good at picking good quotes out of an article.
Darby Lines on the Safari-for-Windows software update nano-scandal:
Second, bitching that anyone is a ‘bad’ Windows citizen is the rhetorical equivalent of arguing that one turd in a sea of shit is particularly stinky. Microsoft is a bad Windows citizen.
(Via Daring Fireball.)
Observations:
- By a large margin (12,900 votes compared to 2,700 for the runner-up), Ellen’s “Yup, I’m Gay” cover is ranked as #1, above the striking 9/11 cover and the Challenger disaster (as of this writing). Take from that what you will.
- The “best of the year” covers for 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 document the… well, let’s be honest, the legacy of the Bush administration.
Dear Zachary is a documentary made by Andrew Bagby’s filmmaker friend Kurt Kuenne. Andrew was murdered a few years ago and this documentary was made to capture the memories of Andrew in order to show his son Zachary the kind of man he was. That’s all you need to know going in, because the less you know, the more you’ll gain coming out of this. It moved me to tears and left me astounded at the end – this is a film that deserves more appreciation than it’s getting.
