A friend was having problems with his GPS reciever. He figured out that the thing probably needed a "reset", but there was no reset button, and removing the battery had no effect. After a bit of sleuthing, he figured out that there was a "backup" battery which is why removing the battery did not cause a reset.

I liked his write-up of the process to bypass the backup battery to get the device to reset. This is a great example of why all electronics need a "reset" button. It's stupid that he had to go to these extremes just to reset the dang thing.

Anyone who tells you that all software has bugs is being honest.

Anyone who tells you that all software is equally buggy is trying to sell you their very buggy software.

(inspired by this Slashdot post by "Frater 219")

http://liihs.irit.fr/dragice/foldndrop/

Fold n' Drop is a new interaction technique for seamlessly dragging and dropping between overlapping windows. It allows you to fold windows while dragging objects. Although it is still a research prototype, having it integrated into most popular window managers is technically conceivable.

Gobs of technical details behind the mods that allow Xbox owners to run Linux and other software on their Xbox.

http://www.xbox-linux.org/wiki/The_Hidden_Boot_Code_of_the_Xbox

I found this via an Aug 10, 2005 posting in Bruce Schneier's security blog.

Below is the second half of a Vermont Agency of Natural Resources article.  You may want to read the first half of the article if you're interested in a bit of history on flourescent lights. 

Many people continue to believe that it takes significantly more electricity to turn on a
fluorescent lamp than to operate the lamp for long periods. Modern fluorescent lamps, however,
use little starting energy. Turning them off actually helps them last longer and lowers lighting
energy costs. Researchers at the U.S. Naval Civil Engineering Laboratory have found that a
fluorescent lamp

Here's a fascinating blog post by "Ovid" on how he caught his ID thieves in only a couple of hours. They had racked up a few thousand dollars of charges on his credit card. Maybe Ovid should be a detective, although he did get a couple of lucky breaks. Of course, the credit card companies would never have held him responsible, but it must feel good to personally catch the bad guys. His story is also being discussed on this Slashdot thread.

The first generation of PPU cards are coming to market. Anandtech is reporting on the PhysX PPU card from AGEIA.
Just like GPU cards which added 2D graphics acceleration and later 3D, PPU cards will accelerate physics (no pun intended :-) calculations. Software developers can use the PPU cards to do much better physics simulations without running out of processing power in the CPU.

From a Seattle Times review of the Suunto X9:

Imagine, a GPS receiver that is smaller than some of the basic altimeter watches on the market today. Add in the fact that this GPS receiver also incorporates a magnetic compass and a highly accurate barometric altimeter, and you have a complete backcountry navigation tool. One that fits on your wrist and weighs just 2.5 ounces

If you do a google search for

inurl:"ViewerFrame?Mode="

all the hits will be for remote-controlled web-cams. Almost all of them are for public places, and most are not password protected. I found out about this in the comments following up on a March 18 entry on Bruce Schneier's weblog.