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Archive for 2007

Max Maven at CFI

Sunday, October 14th, 2007

I had a great time seeing Max Maven last night at the Center for Inquiry West. Maven is one of the rare performing magicians who bills himself as a mentalist, a once common specialty that has vanished in recent decades. An intimidating presence in black suit and goatee, Maven is a master of the eye […]

Skyline Histograms

Friday, October 12th, 2007

Via Drawn!, David at Ironic Sans, demonstrates an amusing technique of embedding images, such as skylines, in the images histogram, so that when you view the levels in Photoshop, or similar software, you get a big surprise!

Daily Sudoku

Tuesday, October 9th, 2007

I like to do crossword & sudoku puzzles, but I have this odd notion that puzzles which are printed in today’s paper are more fun than puzzles which are collected in books. I don’t know why. I thought other people might suffer from this same ailment, so I set up a Daily Sudoku page, where […]

“Throwing Newton in Jail”

Monday, October 8th, 2007

Here’s Yahoo!’s Ian Rogers lecturing some music industry folks about the problems that plague online music distribution. My favorite quote: …If you don’t get a 404, you’ll get a Save As… dialog or the SAME GOD DAMN QUICKTIME BAR FROM 1995. OMFG. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? THIS IS ALL WE’VE ACCOMPLISHED IN 15 YEARS ON […]

More Easy Sudoku Puzzles

Sunday, October 7th, 2007

A few folks have written asking for more easy sudoku puzzles, so I’ve added two new sections to the site: More Easy Sudoku More Intermediate Sudoku Each section contains 800 new puzzles. Enjoy!

The Email Wormhole

Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007

Somewhere there is an email wormhole that is causing me to receive emails like the following one. Hello sir/madam Hello Goodday My name is Bob Smith.I will like to know if you sell banners.If yes.I want you to get me the 30 by 60 inhcesbanner with the color white,the art work should be (HAPPY BIRHTDAY)I […]

Nooks and Crannies: Let the Mashing begin!

Saturday, September 15th, 2007

Okay, here’s a few things I like about Mash, Yahoo’s new social toy, which rolled out in an invite only beta today. Disclaimer: I work for Yahoo! (but not for the Mash team — I work at Yahoo! Music). I did make a bunch of modules for Mash, just for fun, ’cause I’m a nerd. […]

Jim Bumgardner at Gel

Tuesday, September 4th, 2007

Near the end of last April, I spoke at the Gel (Good Experience Live) conference, in New York. Here is evidence, in the form of a couple of video excerpts. Here’s the first part of my presentation, in which I draw attention to the lowly screen saver and talk about my fascination with random numbers. […]

New server for krazydad

Wednesday, August 29th, 2007

Today I’ve moved Krazydad from it’s old hosting provider, TotalChoice hosting, to DreamHost. The move has been pretty painless, but if you spot anything broken, let me know. I’ve been using DreamHost for my other website, Coverpop, for a while now, and I like it much better. For about one quarter the price of what […]

Crop circles: real ones

Thursday, August 23rd, 2007

Kool Scatcat sent me this photo of actual crop circles. Apparently, in parts of the US, crops are actually grown in circles to optimize irrigation. There is a single sprinkler in the center of each one. UPDATE: Craig Kaplan wrote me the following note Jim, I wanted to pass on a couple of notes regarding […]