I highly doubt it, Strider. Penny Arcade initially tried to donate lightly-used gaming hardware, but was turned away by every hospital. So they started Childs Play to raise the funds to buy new equipment. The expense to sanitize a console and a kiosk for kids with suppressed immune systems to play would be quite prohibitive.

Excellent reference, #3!

My father passed away when I was eight. At the time he worked for National Semiconductor, and would bring home chips from trial runs for the Atari 2600. My mother remarried, we moved to Oregon, and every now and then I'd break out the 2600, and the chips nestled in their black foam, and play a few games. Every now and then a pen would get bent, only to be carefully tugged at with small fingers until it was straight enough to fit into the adapter.

They were lost in a move, and years passed.

My dear mother then passed away in 1999. My (step) dad started preparing the house for sale.

One day I remembered about the 2600, and the rare, unmarked games. Realizing he was going through every box in the house from past moves, I made the call.

"Hey, could you keep an eye out for the old 2600 and some chips in black foam? I know you're trying to fit everything into your car for the move; I'll pay to have them FedExed."

There was a long pause.

"I'm... I'm sorry, Tom. I did come across it... but I threw everything away two days ago."

A sharp inhalation. "Oh. Well, that's ok. No worries dad. I was just curious."

"I am sorry... I didn't even think about it."

"No, no, it's ok. Don't worry about it at all. How are you doing? Have an idea when I can fly down to help on the drive up?"

...

One of the few tangibles I have from my father, and a piece of gaming history. Wonderful memories remain.

I nearly cried after I hung up.

I drink between one and two 64oz Double Big Gulps of water (it's a great container) per day. I'm not thirsty... I find that if it's right there I drink up, but if it's empty I'll be fine.

I started on the water when I cut out 8-14 Diet Pepsi's a day, cold turkey. That stuff is addictive, and probably wasn't too healthy for me.

There is indeed a security problem, #1... how do they keep pranksters from twisting all the caps in the store?

I'm reminded of a study done in the 90s that analyzed the faint electromagnetic fields that the body naturally creates, and could consistently correlate certain frequencies to the colors seen by multiple aura readers. They had something like 10 different readers, and had them independently "read" individuals. Take with a couple pounds of salt, but I've always thought this would be worth more investigation.

Honestly, I just want a working non-invasive medical device... Ok, I want my tricorder, and I figure this is our best shot. :P

I like this comparison map of Wal-mart vs. Starbucks...

http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2008/03/starbuckswalmar.html

Reminds me of the Stairway to Heaven sung backwards (though he's sent take-down notices of all his videos for some reason).
http://www.freewaves.org/artists/j_offerman/

The Mute Math "Typical" shot entirely backwards:
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1749622

and (sad) Coldplay's The Scientist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3Kd7IGPyeg&feature=related

I also remember a video of an elderly gentleman walking sloooowly on the sidewalk, even sped up, but can't fnd it.

#8: I'm extremely partial to "The Hacker Diet, How to Loose Weight and Hair through Stress and Poor Nutrition."

That catchphrase is just to get you reading. He's a programmer that decided to tackle his weight problem with black-block diagnostics. An insightful and sometimes funny read aimed at engineers, and his day-trader graphs let you monitor your weight trends to within less than a 100 calories.
http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/www/part1_1.html

And a website that does the graphing math for you:
http://www.physicsdiet.com/

I'm surprised no one's mentioned that she did it wrong:

http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=575026 (though he goes overboard... you only need the vapor phase)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urophagia#Health_issues

#3... Tadah!
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/07/09/textbased-ajax-clien.html

#36: "There's probably a better solution, but at the moment I can't think of one."

I don't know... but 2 seconds seems rather short for platonc hugging. Upping it to even 5 seconds would go a long ways.

Blistering Barnacles! Way to go for using the Tin-Tin image!

#40:
.2g of C, administered orally? Well, there's the problem. The original studies were all about intravenous injections...
http://www.seanet.com/~alexs/ascorbate/198x/smith-lh-clinical_guide_1988.htm

Which allow for up to a 70-fold increase in blood levels: http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/140/7/I-61

And I wouldn't say it's snake oil. From the very link you posted...
"Nevertheless, in six trials with participants exposed to short periods of extreme physical or cold stress or both (including marathon runners and skiers) vitamin C reduced the common cold risk by half. "

#4: I'm personally waiting for the epoch (2038) failure. I think we'll have some interesting outcomes...

http://maul.deepsky.com/~merovech/2038.html

I bet it could have pulled the truck if they used the same device as in the commercial. If you watch closely, you'll see that his device has lots of holes, that the putty could squeeze into. This device transformed the tension stress into a shearing stress (which, given the surface area, is much more easily handled).

I've seen metal chain snap like a twig trying to help pull a big rig out of the mud (it wasn't sunk in, just didn't have traction). So I'm not surprised that it failed the news people's test.

Um... yeah Brian (#10). They *did* release it onto bit torrent. I guess we'll see you there.

http://www.thedailyswarm.com/headlines/nine-inch-nails-go-online-new-ighosts-i-ivi-album/

And as far as your other commentary... If you're downloading the uncompressed originals directly from their site, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect them to try to cover their costs. $5 for two hours of uncompressed content? On a server farm that's going to be hammered for weeks? Still a good deal, IMHO.

W000t: Indeed. This fellow wrote one in an evening, during a month-long application-a-day self challenge:

http://www.anappaday.com/downloads/2006/10/day-17-wpm-tray.html

@ #1 If you were indeed interested in the answer to your question, you may have found the article a fascinating read:

"But he won't be launching that from his pasture near Chilliwack. He acknowledged he'll need a proper site where passing airplanes would not be at risk - something along the lines of the military test facility at Cold Lake, Alta."

Great review. I still remember coming across v1.1 in the rural town of Roseburg, Oregon, sitting on a grocery magazine rack. I was blown away... everything about it was fresh, from the typography to the fact that you could publish articles about hacking cell phones in a mainstream publication. Like others here, I still have my copy.

I've got fond memories of building a huge lunar base, complete with monorail. It was probably the hardest thing I put together, and I was proud of the accomplishment when I finished.

I bought several lots of legos a few years back for my son, and he now plays with the lunar crater floor tiles of my childhood, and the large viewscreen crops up in his creations from time to time.

Thanks for the great interview!

Woot! One step closer to Gibson's... material...

Case felt her move her fingers experimentally. The material of the ball seemed to offer no more resistance than temperfoam. "I wouldn't move them, if I were you." The interior of the ball seemed to tighten slightly. "It's a sex toy Jane bought in Berlin. Wiggle them long enough and it crushes them to a pulp. Variant of the material they make this flooring from. Something to do with the molecules, I suppose. Are you in pain?"

Not *one* mention of Scrooge McDuck and the Secret of Atlantis [otherwise known as The Sunken City]?!

He spends the first half of the story convincing everyone in the world to sell him a particular year of coin... then he "loses" all the coins but one over the ocean, drastically inflating the rarity. By the end of the story, he discovers there's only one duck that can afford to buy the last coin... Scrooge himself.

http://www.amazon.com/Walt-Disneys-Uncle-Scrooge-Donald/dp/0944599273/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196450211&sr=1-1