I have this minor fetish for maps. Several of them are hung as posters in my cottage, and I’ve gotten quite a few somewhat rare maps as gifts over the years. I was pleasantly surprised to stumble across map24.com, which has a fantastic mapping engine. While it seems a little less accurate than mapblast, the dynamic nature of the maps more than makes up for it, and it’s much faster at showing you adjacent regions of the area you’re looking at compared to other systems, plus it has the unique ability for you to plot your route directly on the maps. This last is the best feature – you can generate precise mileage estimates for everything from cross-state trips to your local jogging route.

Even if none of the above interests you, I’d still encourage even the casual browser to check out the site at least once. Among other things it’s a great example of a rich web app with a fantastic interface – the shape, one hopes, of things to come.

I should also note – you need Java on your system and functioning within your browser, and if the maps don’t appear to be dynamic to you, make sure to click on the ‘interactive’ link at the top if the interface.

This one’s for Andrew, but anyone who grew up watching the Transformers will probably enjoy this obsessively researched timeline of the Transformers. A pop-culture history lesson in 15 minutes – who can resist? Note that this is an angelfire.com link, so engage your popup blocker at its highest setting if you’re going to cick on the link.

I needed to order a few things at Amazon.com this weekend and when I was checking out, I noticed I was getting a small discount on my order. It turns out if you use the new A9.com search engine, you’ll automatically get a discount on your Amazon.com orders. My order was around $60 and I saved a little over $1. This undoubtably uses cookies so you’ll need to have cookies enabled in your browser for this to work, and you’ll probably need to first log into your amazon.com account (to set the token for your identity) then go use A9 to search for something. While that sounds cumbersome it’s a relatively painless way to save a little money. And the search engine’s not bad, especially if you’re looking for images.

I’ve mentioned before how audiobooks make great mp3 player content while I’m jogging. I just happened across audiobooksforfree.com, which has a great, ever-growing collection of free, legal audiobook downloads. Looking for some rights free content for your mp3 player? This is another great resource.

This is for my own records more than for any of you 😉

I’m finally out of debt. No job/paycheck for like 10-12 weeks all told, coupled with a lot of vacation activity coupled with some ridiculously profligate spending (I prolly bought about 10 ps2 games alone since I left Bowdoin) left me with a $2500 credit card balance.

A month and a half of fiscal responsibility and a moving expenses payment from Skidmore later and I’ve zero debt again. Woot! Time to buy me a zoomy game or two 😉

…a chopstick? Strange as it seems, it’s true. Great scrambled egg texture anyway. Instead of using your spatula to mash your eggs about the next time you go for scrambled eggs for breakfast, use a chopstick instead, and use a swirly motion on the eggs as they cook. Makes for a much better texture to the eggs than the typical spatula mash.

Updated regularly, this site can help you keep track of who’s likely to win this November’s election. It’s been depressing watching Bush steadily take over since the convention. Let’s hope Kerry can show something during the debates or it seems likely we’re doomed to 4 more years of Bush.

One and all should go grab the new version of firefox that’s out, it’s the best browser available these days by a long shot. Mac users will find this handy – instructions on how to make sure firefox ALWAYS opens new links in a tab instead of in a new window:

For the users that complain that links/URLs from external apps don not open in tabs but new windows you can change the behavior as follows. you need to edit the mozilla startup script(I have been doing this way back by entering some code manually but now they have in entered for you you need only comment and uncomment a line.) To do this edit //firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox You can do this on the command line with vi if you know how or you can use textedit in the finder(you must also right click/control click on your firefox application and select show package contents to do this in the finder). in the script about 190 lines down you will see two lines “_open_type=”window”” and “#_open_type=”tab”” comment the window line so that it looks like #_open_type=”window” then remove the # sign from the tab line. Now firefox will spawn new tabs from links from external apps… Hope this helps some users out there…

I got these instructions off of versiontracker.com, kudos to db23 for posting this.

And now for something completely useless, or almost – a nicely done map of Springfield, with an comprehensive set of locations from the show mapped onto the town. This is a good candidate for flashification imho, imagine binding this with a bunch of media assets from the show (audio, still images, video and so on).

So, once again my body is complaining. This time I’ve come down with an internal infection, probably e coli bacteria, and it’s attacked one of my internal organs. Fun stuff. I’m on a course of antibiotics to fend it off, and hopefully it will clear up without too much trouble. But anyway that’s why I haven’t posted in about a week. I’m feeling somewhat better now. The worst thing for me is, no exercise for at least a couple of weeks, and I had stopped exercising a few weeks ago when I first started feeling sick, so by the time this is all through I’ll have gone at least a month without any real exercise. I’ve already lost 4-5 pounds (I was 157 when I weighed myself this morning), and I think it’s basically all muscle mass I’ve lost. Lame. Let me tell you, this aging business in conjunction with crappy genes is the pits.