Came across this going through a cigar box of State Quarters.

This Connecticut issue seems to have a much younger Charter Oak on its reverse due to a really — excusing the pun — striking example of what a bit of grease will do to a die (a.k.a. “struck through grease”).

Above is how it normally looks.

Peace,
-Steve

So, I’ve always been a fan of the old-time adventure games (Monkey Island, The Dig, Sam and Max, Beneath a Steel Sky, Broken Sword, etc. ). The same for my wife, my sister, my cousin, and a bunch of our old friends.

When I sat and thought about the fact that my wife is working on an awesome sci-fi/fantasy novel, my sister has magnificent artistic talent, my cousin is an amazing musician and that I had the technological know-how, I figured “What the hell? It’s about high time we did something.”

And so we are. And if we can scrape out a living from this sort of thing, I’d do it in a heartbeat.

The screenshot you see above doesn’t look very polished, but it’s a stepping stone on the way to something awesome.

The really neat part of it that isn’t obvious at all from that picture, is that it’s written completely in HTML5, which means that even the little demo we’ve put together so far is playable on all modern web browsers and mobile devices. Not too shabby.

Watch this space for more info.

Peace,
-Steve

Long story short, my wife got a new, free Nook Simple Touch with a subscription to the New York Times, and it is awesome. Wonderful, easy to read display, very responsive screen (both to touch and refreshing), and we were both very very satisfied with it… until the 1.1.0 software update downloaded itself and broke its wifi access, and apparently we’re not the only ones complaining.

Our home network is managed by our iMac (running Snow Leopard), which acts as out base station via the Internet Sharing option in Mac OS X. In essence, it takes our Internet connection and turns itself into a wireless router so we can use all of our devices through it. The update doesn’t seem to want to play well with it at all as it changed some very low-level code with how it negotiates with a DHCP server (the piece of software that assigns IP addresses).

Mac OS X’s DHCP server, by default, ignores requests with a reply threshold of 4 seconds or less, and the Nook’s update apparently fails those criteria. However, I have found a way to fix this on the Mac end, and allow the Nook to connect anyways.

Step 1: Start Internet Sharing. In the Sharing panel of the System preferences. This creates the file we’re going to have to tinker with named bootpd.plist.

Step 2: Make a temporary copy of bootpd.plist. Go to the Terminal and type in:

cp /etc/bootpd.plist /etc/bootpd.plist

Step 3: Shut down Internet Sharing. This causes the DHCP server to delete its copy of bootpd.plist as it doesn’t need it anymore.

Step 4: Edit our copy of bootpd.plist. Go back to the terminal and type:

pico /tmp/bootpd.plist

In the text editor that shows up find the text:

    <key>reply_threshold_seconds</key>
    <integer>4</integer>

and change the 4 to 0. Then press [ctl]-X to prompt closing the file, “Y” to confirm writing over it, and then the return key to save it.

Step 5: Substitute our copy of the file for where the DHCP server expects it. In the Terminal, type:

sudo cp /tmp/bootpd.plist /etc

It’ll prompt you for your password, so enter it. This is the step that makes the changes permanent. If you simply edit the bootpd.plist file that’s already there, it’ll be deleted and re-written by the DHCP server.

Step 6: Restart Internet Sharing. Now that there’s *your* file there, the DHCP server doesn’t have the permissions to mess with it, so it reads it as-is.

Step 7: Re-connect the Nook. It should work.

Enjoy!

Peace,
-Steve

You have to admit: The Archbishop of Canterbury (Rowan Williams) does look a heck of a lot like the Headmaster of Hogwarts (Albus Dumbledore).

Peace,
-Steve

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Hopefully I’ll find some time to slog through them all, as I have a number of species that I have never come across before.

Peace,
-Steve

Under that tissue paper is about 6 pounds of puffballs.