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Gadgetology Should We Talk About The Weather? Television & Movies

A challenging emulation situation

O'Brien forecasts the weatherI recently had to put an insane amount of time and research into setting up a new emulator for an extinct computer system whose output I once relied upon to a great degree. I’ve set up complicated emulators before, all the way back to the earliest versions of MAME where there wasn’t much of a community yet and you really were on your own figuring it all out. And even that was simple compared to this.

Is it an emulator for a game system, or so I can play a game? No. It’s an emualtor that makes one of my computers generate a display like the Weather Channel’s local forecasts from the early 1990s. … Read more

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Gadgetology Gaming

Oh look, a LIGHT-UP membrane keyboard.

We’ve had another one of those trapped-on-the-hill-in-the-house-by-copious-amounts-of-snow-and-ice events this week, which can be fun when it’s day one and it’s just snow…

…but becomes an everyone-in-the-house-simultaneously-becomes-cranky-with-cabin-fever crisis on day three, when everything’s coated with ice and you can’t. go. anywhere.

Fortunately, a friend of mine drew my attention to something that’s kept me at least a little bit happy today. … Read more

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Gadgetology

Podcasters podcast about podcasting (addendum)

HEADPHONES ONI recently put in a brief appearance in an all-star edition of Rob O’Hara’s You Don’t Know Flack podcast, in which Rob and a rather stellar selection of fellow podcasters (of which I’m pretty sure I’m the most small-time of the bunch!) talk about the process of podcasting, from picking a topic and format to the actual technical side of getting the thing made. I originally rambled for about 11 minutes and then realized I was rambling, and then went back and redid it in about 5-ish minutes. (If I can’t talk about my five-minute podcast in five minutes, there’s a problem.)

The perversity of the way my luck runs, the very day that Flack posted this installment (which brought more attention to the Escape Pod than I’ve been able to do myself since the initial launch), I started a new job and promptly fell behind on my supposedly daily podcast. I’m working on that as we speak. Oops.

Anyway, here are some additional sleeve notes for the Escape Pod, for those interested. … Read more

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Gadgetology Gaming

Convention update: GlitchCon video game history panel

OdysseyI’m going to be at Glitchcon in Springdale next month, showing off the various fruit that falls off of the multifarious branches of theLogBook.com – the books, the DVDs, the podcast, the ‘zine, the site itself. Heck, you can probably talk me into letting you hear some Kasatochi. I’ll have a table in the vendors’ room – drop by and say howdy! (Fear not, there are faaaaaaar more interesting things than me to see, including Steve Downes, the voice actor behind the helmet of Master Chief in the Halo games, sneak-previewing something perhaps Halo-related at his panel.)

I’ll also be hosting a panel of my own, though it’ll be unconventional to say the least. I’m going to do an early-history-of-video-gaming panel, and allow everyone to get their butts out of their seats and try stuff out hands-on. … Read more

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Gadgetology

Next…?

I was in a car wreck over the weekend, which has knocked the wind out of my sails a bit. I was the only person in my car, and I walked away from it, so as sore as I am, I think I rolled a good saving throw against Getting Smooshed. The thing that sucks is that it was a pretty good weekend, marred by one big bone-jarring BOOM. But let’s focus on the positive (yay), which brings me to my big purchase of the weekend…

NextbookRead more

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Funny Stuff Gadgetology

The chat in the hat

I recently installed a LAN instant messenger program on our PCs at home. Once Little E is in bed, it’s typical for me to retreat to my room to try to squeeze a little more writing or copy editing out of my day. This way, my wife can sit in bed with her laptop, where she’ll often browse the web or watch something before bedtime, and can ask me questions like “Why haven’t you let the dogs back in?” And she gets helpful replies like… this.

(10:26:53 PM) Haven’t heard them at the door.
(10:29:17 PM) Haven’t seen them on the floor.
(10:29:28 PM) Haven’t smelled them, what’s the use?
(10:29:34 PM) Wow, I sound like Dr. Seuss!

😛… Read more

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Gadgetology Music

That sounds familiar

I CAN'T HEAR YOUInternational Space Station astronaut Chris Hadfield has posted a really interesting sound file or two on Soundcloud. In response to a Twitter question about what it sounds like aboard the ISS, Hadfield posted a recording of the ambient sound of constantly-running life support/air conditioning and a few dozen computer fans. You can hear it here.

Kinda sounds like home to me. I’d be the last person to trivialize spaceflight or anything related to it, but that wall of computer-fan-and-A/C sounds an awful lot like… … Read more

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Cooking With Code Funny Stuff Gadgetology

Yes, I am that much of a geek

I recently got a new phone (way before Black Friday, mind, so no, I haven’t taken part in any retail stampedes), the first one I’ve had where the whole thing’s basically a touchscreen. It’s ridiculously customizable as far as caller images, wallpapers, event sounds, etc., so I’ve been, as they say, geeking out.

If you’re actually in my contact list, then believe it or not, you’ve got one of these graphics with your name on it:tomb of the unknown caller
tomb of the unknown caller

Hey, my cat calls me a lot. 😆 (It’s pretty quick work to apply the individual name to the basic template. I may have had some free time on my hands today, but not that much.)

I whipped up a couple of geek-a-licious animated wallpapers as well; suffice to say, they’re in the same “universe.” I’ll show them off another time.… Read more