Monthly Archives: May 2008

I’m done with high school

By probabilityZero | May 29, 2008

So long and thanks for all the fish.

Posted in Other | Tagged | 1 Comment

Some schools have “minimum grade” at 50

By probabilityZero | May 23, 2008

USA Today reports:
In most math problems, zero would never be confused with 50, but a handful of schools nationwide have set off an emotional academic debate by giving minimum scores of 50 for students who fail.
(…)
Their argument: Other letter grades — A, B, C and D — are broken down in increments of 10 from [...]

Posted in Opinion | Tagged , | 4 Comments

How to make Windows XP look and act like Fluxbox

By probabilityZero | May 19, 2008

Fluxbox is a minimalistic window manager for *nix systems, based on Blackbox. You can replicate its look and feel somewhat well with complex shell replacements like Litestep, but there’s no reason to settle for that. Blackbox itself was actually ported to Windows, and there are several projects now in development based on that code. The [...]

Posted in Other | Tagged , | 6 Comments

The good and bad of CAPTCHAs

By probabilityZero | May 18, 2008

I run several websites, a few of which have user-generated content and have to deal with spam. Because of this, I’ve occasionally had to use CAPTCHAs. If you don’t know what they are, they’re the little images with letters/numbers in them that you need to reproduce to prove you aren’t a bot. They’re generally thought [...]

Posted in Tech and games | Tagged | Leave a comment

First impression of “[true knowledge]“

By probabilityZero | May 14, 2008

I got my invitation to be a beta tester for [true knowledge], and I’ve been playing around with it. Basially, it’s a search engine that can handle natural language search queries, and find relevant information even if the specific terms used in the search query aren’t found. This is a fascinating technology that I wish [...]

Posted in Tech and games | Tagged | 2 Comments

Aldous Huxley quotes

By probabilityZero | May 13, 2008

I’ve posted a few quote collections before and they’ve been quite popular, so thought I’d try it again. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is an amazing book, so go read it if you haven’t already. Both inside and out of his novels, Huxley is extremely eloquent and insightful.

I wanted to change the world. But I [...]

Posted in Other | Tagged | 3 Comments

Quotes from Percy Bysshe Shelley

By probabilityZero | May 9, 2008

If he is infinitely good, what reason should we have to fear him?
If he is infinitely wise, why should we have doubts concerning our future?
If he knows all, why warn him of our needs and fatigue him with our prayers?
If he is everywhere, why erect temples to him?
If he is just, why fear that he [...]

Posted in Atheism, Other | Tagged | 38 Comments

New Nine Inch Nails album available completely free

By probabilityZero | May 5, 2008

I just downloaded the FLAC version of it and I haven’t finished listening to it yet. So far, it’s totally kickass.
NIN has been putting out a lot of stuff lately, and it’s of consistently good quality. Even better, it’s nice to see a major artist who’s actively embracing creative commons.
theslip.nin.com

Posted in Other | Tagged | Leave a comment

Maybe we should take comic book movies seriously

By probabilityZero | May 5, 2008

I saw Iron Man yesterday with a few friends, and I liked it more than I was expecting to. Sure, it had a borderline-ridiculous plot, but Robert Downey, Jr. was brilliant. He’s has been one of my favorite actors ever since I saw A Scanner Darkly, and his role in Iron Man is the only [...]

Posted in Current events, Other | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Removing DRM from Microsoft Reader eBooks (*.LIT)

By probabilityZero | May 1, 2008

I recently purchased an ebook of Daughters of the North from HarperCollins.com after hearing lots of good things about it. I downloaded and activated Microsoft Reader first, then downloaded the LIT file from HarperCollins (you have to use Internet Explorer to activate Reader and download the ebook). So, after downloading it, I opened it up [...]

Posted in Tech and games | Tagged | 3 Comments