Friday Links #34
16 Jan 2009Asynchronous Fire and Forget With Lambdas – Check out the comments. Writing good multithreaded code is never as easy as it seems.
Geeknews » Playmobil Security Check Point Toy? WTF? - How in the world a toy company thought this would make for an interesting plaything I’ll probably never know. But here it is, available on Amazon for US $55 in all it’s Homeland Security glory. The only thing missing is the ATF, the cavity searches, the torn locks on the luggage and the latex gloves. Think that’s weird? Check out Barak Obama’s inauguration in Legos!
Installing the Windows 7 Beta with Virtual PC 2007 SP1 – Microsoft technical evangelist Brian Keller’s step by step procedure with screen shots.
dimebrain « Introducing tweet#, the complete fluent C# library for Twitter – Complete C# library for Twitter that allows you to write short and sweet expressions that are automatically converted to Twitter queries.
the physics arXiv blog » Blog Archive » Memristors made into low cost, high density RRAM – This is pretty cool. It’s a brand new passive component for electronics discovered only months ago (the others being the resistor, capacitor and inductor). Memristors (from memory-resistors, geddit?) are resistors whose resistance depends on their past. In that sense they remember the past or, as an electronics engineer might put it, they store information. Obvious computer memory applications are being developed.
Ubuntu and Its Leader Set Sights on the Mainstream - NYTimes.com – Did you know that Ubuntu is championed by an Internet billionaire (he founded Thawte Consulting which was later bought by Verisign).
NANY 2009 Release: DropCommand - DonationCoder.com – Vista won’t allow you to drag and drop files onto the cmd window like earlier versions. This program solves that problem in part.
| [Army going electric for light-use vehicles | Planetary Gear](http://news.cnet.com/8301-17912_3-10140994-72.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5) – Pure electrics are coming! Even the armed forces see their utility. |
| [Murder conviction for teen in ‘Halo’ case | Gaming and Culture - CNET News](http://news.cnet.com/8301-10797_3-10141467-235.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5) – Even when parents “Do the right thing”, it can go very wrong. Sad story. |
ScreenToaster Does a YouTube for Screen Videos - ScreenToaster, the best online screencasting application that lets you record as well as host screencast videos, just got better.
Toolmonger » Blog Archive » A New Twist On Wire Connectors – Much nicer the the crimp kind.
Geeknews » Klingon Keyboards Are Here, Bring On Vulcan – Standard keyboards with Klingon lettering. Very geeky.
Monitoring HTTP Output with Fiddler in .NET HTTP Clients and WCF Proxies - Rick Strahl – Fiddler is a great tool for Internet Explorer that has other uses.
Hardcoding Considered Harmful - or is it? : Jeffrey Palermo – Controversial to say the least. Good argument.
Patrick McGoohan dies at 80; TV’s ‘Secret Agent’ and ‘Prisoner’ – This is definitely a generational thing. I have fond memories of watching the Prisoner with my Dad. RIP.
Download jQuery 1.3 – It’s here…
| [Pop Music Mystery Solved | Popular Science](http://www.popsci.com/entertainment-amp-gaming/article/2009-01/pop-music-mystery-solved) - The opening chord to “A Hard Day’s Night” has reached an almost mythical status. For years, no one knew what it actually was. People would come close, through trial and error, watching Ed Sullivan performances, and studying advanced music theory, but no attempts ever quite captured the exact chord (until now). |
Coding Horror: Die, You Gravy Sucking Pig Dog! – An entertaining story about garbage collection vs. explicit memory management.