Now this is a great invention

A tie, with built-in in attachment points for an iPod nano.

Unfortunately, I don't own a nano (a mini would be too heavy for a tie) and I don't wear ties. Otherwise, it's a wonderful invention.

Planarity

Here's a fun game to waste a few hours/days/lifetimes on....

Adobe is a gang of idiots

I launched the Adobe Reader to read a PDF file at work. It popped up a window requesting me to download and install an update. That's fine - updates happen. So I click the link, the update downloads and installs, and it asks me to reboot Windows. OK. lots of programs require rebooting Windows for no good reason. So I reboot and what happens? The stupid installer asks me to reboot AGAIN!

What kind of brain-dead installer requires not one but TWO reboots? Not even Microsoft's Windows system updates require this! Unless the Adobe Reader is more complicated than Windows itself, there is no justification for this behavior.

I don't know what's worse. That their programmers are unwilling/unable to write a proper installer or that Adobe's management considers this behavior acceptable for a product.

As far as I'm concerned no application should ever require a reboot of any kind. I never have to reboot when installing/updating my Linux boxes (aside from kernel updates.) I almost never have to reboot when installing/updating Mac stuff. But on Windows, every program wants to reboot after an installation. And Adobe wants you to do it twice.

WARNING! Your mouse has moved. Please restart the computer for the changes to take effect.

Very cool illusion

Persistence of vision is an amazing thing. Visit this link to see an interesting trick.

I got mentioned in an AP article

Stephanie Hoo, of the AP wrote this article about how personal electronic devices (specifically, those with hard drives) don't work at high altitudes (like in Tibet).

In trying to figure out why, she ran across some blog posts of mine and contacted me for additional information, which was cited in the article.

Multi-Touch Interaction Research

You've got to see this to believe it.

Jefferson Han, at NYU has been working on a multi-touch screen. This is effectively a touch-screen display that is capable of detecting and tracking a large number of simultaneous finger-touches.

When used in conjunction with appropriate software, this system creates the possibility for UI designs that traditional mouse/pen interaction (which are single-touch) can not come close to.

Note that many of the demos in the video use a zooming user interface. A concept that is (IMO) made far more useable in conjunction with the multi-touch display.