A few months back I started keeping track of where my podcast listeners are geographically located.

Hold up privacy nuts: this is only for my nefarious and amusement purposes. I’m not selling anybody’s locale data.

So anyways, doing what you do when you’re me, I mapped them out last night and am now sharing said map with you. I do enjoy seeing how wide spread my listeners are. I was also interested to learn that there are a few Facebook employees listening in various states across the U.S.

Now then… if this is the first you’ve heard of my podcast don’t worry, you’re not too late. Open up your nearest podcast app and plug “tcr diaries podcast” into the search bar. If your app doesn’t have a search bar then it sucks. Get a different one.

If you have Amazon’s Alexa at home it’s even easier! Say to her, “Alexa play the tcr diaries podcast” and boom, you’re done.

#diariespodcast #geekystuff #webdev

To stop data theft, pull the plug - I, Cringely

It makes no sense, none, nada, for a bank to send financial transactions over the public Internet risking data theft.

In related news, I remember saying almost a decade ago that plugging Win95 into the Internet was the dumbest thing Microsoft had done for customers yet.

#geekystuff

Minecraft to Join Microsoft

Today is an incredibly exciting day for our team as Mojang and the Minecraft franchise join Microsoft. Minecraft is one of the most popular video games of all time, with more than 100 million downloads, on PC alone, from players since its launch in 2009. Minecraft inspires millions to create together, connects people across the globe, and is a community that is among the most active and passionate in the world.

Minecraft is written in Sun’s Java programming language. I wonder if Microsoft will re-write it using C# and abandon the old codebase.

Also, I can not say enough how big Minecraft is to M. and her friends. It’s like their Star Wars.

In related news from the original Minecraft developer: I’m leaving Mojang.

#geekystuff #minecraft

I don’t know why they make these crappy devices.

The buyer will be disappointed and it’ll be just one more electronic in the landfill.

#photos #geekystuff

Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface

When Jobs introduced the iPad, he wanted it to be seen as a productivity device. He had Phil Schiller demo Keynote, Numbers, and Pages.

I used the Newton as a productivity device. I used the P800 as a productivity device. But at least for me, the iPad never turned out to be a good productivity device. It turned out to be great for browsing the web, watching movies, and playing games. Great for reading books and comics. Great for consumption. But not great for production.

I’m in complete agreement.

I have a Nexus 10 and I might peck out an email or two but other than that, I don’t do ANYTHING but consume content. Anything more than banging out a few letters leads to sheer, utter and absolute frustration.

When posting to this site with it, I might send a one-liner but never a full-on post. The Nexus 10 has a good size display but when the on-screen keyboard comes up, it fills pretty much half of it. Any special characters— I need to go into a sub-menu and fancy special characters, a sub-sub-menu. Then my train of thought is blown.

Trying to research something in one place and then typing in another, you know that whole multi-tasking bit — forget about it. When I have a browser tab open and type in it, and then switch to another app, even another tab, and then come back to the open-typing tab, it’ll refresh.

And then I loose EVERY THING that I typed. 90% of the time it does this and it reminds me of the old days of typing something into Notepad before pasting it into Internet Explorer because I was worried of losing my hard-won wordage.

Sure, I could type it first in Evernote since it (and most every app) will auto-save when it looses focus but then I have three different apps that I’m working with. All of this to write a simple post. Again — forget it.

I could get a bluetooth keyboard I suppose and dink around with that but then I remember I have a 13” MacBook Air that I use for work and for play. I wrote the code for tcrbang.com on it, do all of my work stuff with it, all our household finances, write long form emails, blah, blah, blah.

Plus the bastard is portable as a goose — I sit at my desk, in the conference room, in the basement, at the kitchen table, in the bedroom, on the couch. The battery lasts for hours and it weighs less than 3 pounds. And it’s (more or less) only 3” bigger than the Nexus 10.

The touch screens are great for watching Netflix, looking at Instagram, listening to Polish Girl, and/or playing The Room but if you wanna pound out that thesis on automatic CS paper generation, don’t waste your finger strokes. Just be a receiver.

Oh, and I read shitloads on the Nexus. I mean shitloads of comiXology and web articles. And doodling is kinda fun.

#microsoft #geekystuff

Blinkenlights - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Blinkenlights is a hacker’s neologism for diagnostic lights on old mainframe computers, minicomputers, many early microcomputers, and modern network hardware.

I have none when my MacBook Air is open. ~sniff.

#geekystuff

Pretty easy to know me based on the magazines I keep: Catwoman, Scary Monsters and Mental Floss.

Linear notes:

“Winick’s perfected a strange, easy magic with Catwoman” reads the cover. This might have something to do with the 15+ ass/crotch shots but I’m not sure. The story and art are good, though. Seriously.

Scary Monsters has some way-cool Frankenstein dot art by Rick “Spike” Mountfort. There’s also a photo of an early 70s article titled “Dracula Was A Woman” which persuades the reader that the count was actually based on Elizabeth Bathory. Don’t look.

Mental Floss told me that I spend an hour a day chewing. Groan, I got other shit to do. I might just start swallowing whole.

#geekystuff

18 Predictions for the Year 2013 from Science Fiction Stories

2012 has been an incredible year for futuristic developments, from the Olympics’ Blade Runner to chimp enhancement. So what might the coming year hold? With another year upon us, we look at what science fiction books, television, comics, and movies say will happen in year 2013.

Judging from this list, the year 2013 sounds rather dismal. Here’s to a new year that’s happier than what we’ve cooked up in fiction

Down with the barcodes.

#geekystuff

angeline writes:

Yoda. Designed by Kawahata Fumiaki.

Origami Yoda by Kawahata Fumiaki

Saw this link and thought you would like it!

#geekystuff #starwars

Crayons of Science Set

Art+science=epically and intelligently aesthetic awesomeness. Prove the equation with these crayons (or have your fellow Geekness prove it to/with you), which are aptly named in this manner[…]

More goodness at WeTheSciencey.

#geekystuff