The Little Hacker's Room

Happy Birthday Shell Script - Happy birthday to the shell script that runs Gina Trapani's life.

Oil Spill Big Picture - Images from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Free Portal - Download Portal for free until May 24.

Total Recall Musical - They're turning Total Recall into a musical (not really).

Fanboy Field Guide - Your guide to figuring out what kind of fanboy you are.

Minor Characters - 10 best minor characters in geek fiction.

Don't Buy Office? - Should you just move to Google Docs instead of using Office 2010?

Brought to you by the giant oil blob in the Gulf of Mexico...

You will finally defeat Aquaman, since there's no sea life for him to summon.

The get the geek a new computer drive has started off with a bang. I'm already up to $113.68 for my new mobo, cpu and memory combo. I'm probably going to need a little bit more to get something geekworthy. Help out here.

In other news, a fellow panelist at Penguicon has made our Humor in Sci-Fi and Fantasy panel available in his podcast. There's plenty of humor throughout the podcast, so it might be worth a listen. Here's are some photos of the panel as well.

That's all for now. Stay geeky!

With competition from smartphones and other devices, dedicated GPS units are trying everything to compete. Several company have licensed voices to use on their units. These five units have done even more...

TomTom XL 340-Smurf - Fans of the 80s cartoon feature the little blue Smurfs will love this limited edition GPS device from TomTom. The Smurf blue exterior adds a touch of class, but what really sets this device apart is the software. Father Smurf or Smurfette direct you during navigation and replace every street name with "smurf." Proceed along smurf and turn left in 500 yards at Smurf Avenue." Aboslutely Smurf-a-rific!

BB on Humor - Audio recorded from the panel I was on with Jim C. Hines and Daniel J. Hogan about humor in science fiction and fantasy during Penguicon 2010. Thanks to Daniel J. Hogan for the recording.

Jupiter Demoted - The big planet loses a strip foreshadowing the end of the solar system.

Lasers - Is there anything they can't do?

Open Facebook - Some guys are working on an open alternative to Facebook that won't violate your privacy.

Police Sketches - How accurate are police sketches?

Top 10 Series Finales - The top 10 most watched series finales in TV history from my friends at Mental Floss. Surprised that Firefly isn't on there.

Too Big to Fail - The more you know.

Who can I turn to to remember pi?

For the rest of the month any new donations I receive (donate here) will go toward the hardware upgrade fund. As I did last time, I will be reporting any injuries that will inevitably occur when I upgrade the hardware (knuckles you have been warned). I appreciate your support in helping this geek get a CPU that's less than 5 years old.

Hole in Space - What happens when there's nothing there?

Hollywood Never Learns - FCC allows blocking of outputs on set-top boxes to prevent copying. Oh yeah, no one who wants to copy something will be stopped by this though.

Far, Far, Away - The most distant galaxy found to date.

Firefox 4 - It'll be interested to see if it gets me to switch back to Firefox.

Android Outsells iPhone - Doesn't mean too much in the grand scheme of things, but if it continues it might.

Rolling Up - These wooden balls defy gravity, or do they?

Conan @ Google - Conan O'Brien's Q&A at Google.

Procrastination Killers - Time to get things done people.

Video Game Worlds - Very large video game worlds.

Spellcasting Soda - Limited edition Dungeons and Dragons flavored sodas.

Magnetic Stripe - Exposed with iron particles.

Fake Science - An excellent blog dedicated to helping create more BBelievers.

Jedi A-Holes - Not all Jedi use their powers for good.

Weapons of Firefly - A detailed list of weapons in Firefly.

South Lyon, MI - Ryan Petry had a plan to avoid helping his family with computer problem on Mother’s Day Sunday, and executed it flawlessly.

“I knew, going in, it was going to be tough to avoid doing computer work, because my mom had called on Saturday and said that her computer was running slow. I didn’t let that discourage me though. I promised myself no computer work this weekend,” said Petry.

Petry works in the IT Department at Globochem fixing computers five days a week. “With my job, the last thing I want to do on a holiday is fix computers. I tell my family that, but they never listen,” he said.

Office 2010 - Gets dissected by Computer World.

Six Cores - AMD's new 6-core CPUs are a little cheaper than Intel's.

Tim Bray on HTML5 - Some interesting thoughts on HTML5.

Task Manager - A nifty looking task manager for those that use a lot of Google stuff.

Adapting a Novel - How to adapt a novel for a podcast from a panel my friend Daniel J. Hogan did at Penguicon.

Spell It Out - The story behind some company initials.

100 Words to Know - Here are 100 words you should know according to some random site on the Internet. You know you're going to click to see how many you already know.

Here's another one of those trailers where I have to ask myself if it's worth reviewing. Is there a geek out there that hasn't heard of this or made up their mind on it? Probably not. To make this trailer review worthwhile for you, the reader, I'm going to have to tell you something you don't already know. Here it is...

Scarlett Johansson is hot. Crap, you already know that? Mickey Rourke is creepy? Don Cheadle and Sam Rockwell are awesome? I like to dress up in women's clothes and sing Barbara Streisand tunes on karaoke night? That too? Geez, Google really does know everything. OK, I've got it, the woman who does the acrobatic wrap-around move on the guard is supposed to be Scarlett Johansson, and not so obviously a stunt person.

Google Flattens Logo - So what do you think of Google's new look logo?

This Changes Everything - The story of the memristor.

Quality of Service - AT&T doesn't have it.

Mario 2010 - What if Super Mario was created in 2010.

Chrome vs. Potato - Chrome wins.

Metropolis Restored - New footage for Metropolis gives the classic film new meaning.

Custom Chocolate - Create your own custom chocolate bar.

Triple Boot - Triple boot your Mac with Linux, OS X and Windows.

Chrome Beta - Latest Chrome Beta release fastest yet.

Star Wars Voices - For your GPS unit.

The Indie Bundle - Pay what you want for these indie games.

Intel Predictions - Here's what was predicted for Intel chips in 2010 from the year 2000.

Facebook Connections - Not as awesome as you don't think it is.

Atomic Cookies - No lead apron required.

Procrastination Killers - Time to get things done people.

Video Game Worlds - Very large video game worlds.

Spellcasting Soda - Limited edition Dungeons and Dragons flavored sodas.

Magnetic Stripe - Exposed with iron particles.

Fake Science - An excellent blog dedicated to helping create more BBelievers.

Jedi A-Holes - Not all Jedi use their powers for good.

Weapons of Firefly - A detailed list of weapons in Firefly.