Winning Rice for the UN

FreeRice

And interesting site that tests your vocab and claims to provide the UN with 10 free grains of rice for each word you get right. Rather interesting and the words can get very very hard rather quickly with ones such as pettifogger, degustation and others. Also along with give out the rice it gives you a Vocab score which I think correlates to how harder a words you know.

So far my vocab score been hanging around 40-41, so have a go and let me know what sort of score you get on average!

The Diamond Age

If your looking for some interesting Science fiction I'd highly recommend Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age or, A You Lady's Illustrated Primer".
A very interesting book where societies, cultures and Nations are memes and Nanotech isn't so much technology as everything.

It's a very interesting book and I highly recommend it.

Suicide Bombing Makes Sick Sense in 'Halo 3'

Suicide Bombing Makes Sick Sense in 'Halo 3'

It was after pulling this maneuver a couple of dozen times that it suddenly hit me: I had, quite unconsciously, adopted the tactics of a suicide bomber -- or a kamikaze pilot.

An interesting little article.

Some Mozilla Bugs

Some rather "interesting" bug reports on the Mozilla firefox Bugzilla.


Bug 95849 – Lack of Sex is interfering with my ability to triage bugs
Bug 360323 - Firefox development conflicting with my environment

Linux is Productive

Well I've finally managed to finish installing the latest version 64bit of Mandriva Linux on my laptop, the result being much to my supprise I actually got some acutal work done due to the lack of games etc to distract me from my task. Along with the advantages inherent in Gnome desktop compared to Vista. Virtual desktops, Scale/Exposé andvarious other difference between the systems make the Gnome Desktop much better at handling work that envolves 10+ windows and 3-4 different apps, even on a 1440x900 res screen.

Also being 64bit it's nice to know the 4GB of RAM can actually be used rather than 3.5GB when running in 32bit Vista.

Eee PC

Any one looking for a cheap (NZ$600) ultraportable laptop? The Asus Eee Pc seems to have hit off rather well, with a heck lot of info on the web about it.


The review sites love it.

Asus Eee PC 701 4G Review
Eee PC Review

The specs are decent
* Processor: Intel Celeron M ULV 900MHz
* Graphics: Integrated Intel GMA 900 GPU
* Storage: 4GB of Flash-based storage (SSD)
* Memory: 512MB of DDR2 RAM (667MHz)
* OS: Xandros Linux (Asus customized)
* Screen: 7-inch screen with 800 x 480 resolution
* Ports: 3 USB 2.0, 1 VGA monitor out, headphone jack, microphone input, SD card reader (SDHC compatible), Kensington lock slot, Ethernet 10/100
* Webcam (0.3 MP)
* Battery: 4-cell 5200 mAh 7.4V Li-Ion (rated at 3.5 hours)
* Wireless: 802.11b/g Atheros
* Input: Keyboard and Touchpad
* Weight: approximately 2 lbs with battery, 2.5 lbs travel weight with AC adapter.
* Two-year warranty

And it's so small that some people have been shiped boxes of five when they order 1.
Asus' Eee PC laptop so small, buyers sent boxes of five


Certainly rather tempting for the price though the low resolution for the screen seems abit of a pity. Be tempted if I had a six hundred dollars sitting around.

Linux desktop lacks innovation - The INQUIRER

Linux desktop lacks innovation - The INQUIRER

An interesting article which for the most part tends to support the statement that the desktop may lack innovation. However I'm not so sure about the Microsoft patents part. Is resemblence enough enough to sue? And are the desktops really that similar? Thinking about both KDE and Gnome there certainly are similarities but there are also alot of differences, somewhat more so with Gnome HIG than KDEs interface.