Cheerful Curmudgeon

A complete lack of ideas and the power to express them.

  • Home
  • About Me
    • Art Zemon’s PGP Key
    • Privacy Policy
  • Bede BD-4C
    • Hall of Fame
  • Piper Arrow

Programming Feeds the Mad Scientist

May 4, 2009 Art Zemon

I have been writing a new program, having a ball doing it, and it has brought to consciousness something which I have not thought about for years: There is a bit of Dr. Henry Frankenstein in me. I love to create things which do stuff autonomously and, when I create these things, bigger is definitely […]

Pyschology, Software

Newborn Feeding Patterns Correlated to Adult Sleep/Wake Patterns

April 1, 2009 Art Zemon

Researchers have found a strong correlation between newborn feeding patterns and the seemingly immutable “night person” or “morning person”  patterns which govern our adult lives. Dr. Emily Erudita of the Hatch Institute of Mamalian Studies reports in today’s issue of Pan Generational Physiology, In a study of 1,063 adults, 97.2% of the “night people” had […]

Family, Fun, Health, Internet

Checking In, Avoiding Hidden Dependencies

March 31, 2009 Art Zemon

I woke up in a good mood this morning and then… Sometimes one piece of technology makes another, seemingly unrelated, piece of technology misbehave. It happened this morning at 12:15am CDT when an automated program that I run in Amazon EC2 failed to do its thing. The EC2 instances (that’s geek speak for “virtual machines” […]

Business, Communicating, Software

Sony eBook Library Runs Under VirtualBox

March 21, 2009 Art Zemon

I am thrilled to report that the magic software which Sony requires me to use to download ebooks from their on-line bookstore finally runs under VirtualBox. For reasons which I understand, but do not agree with, Sony requires use of their special software to download anything from their eBook Store, even free ebooks. Since I […]

eBooks

IE6: Get Over It

March 9, 2009 Art Zemon

I am fed up with wasting clients’ dollars “fixing” web sites so that they look good in Internet Explorer 6. IE7 has been out for 2 1/2 years. IE8 is available as a free beta. There are lots of other browsers available for free. All of these browsers work better than IE6. If you still […]

Business, Communicating, Internet, Rants & Raves, Recommendations

Sony PlayStation 3 as a Home Theater PC

February 1, 2009 Art Zemon

Candy and I have talked about building or buying a home theater computer (HTPC) for years. We have a pretty nice home theater including a projected HD picture that is almost 100″ diagonal and fairly impressive 5.1 sound. This gear works great for DVDs and HD-DVDs (yes, I picked the wrong horse in that race) […]

Fun, Photography, Technology

Poisoning People with Old Electronics

January 13, 2009 Art Zemon

This article in Slashdot about the electronic trash that we create hit home. I cannot think of a good way to paraphrase it so here is the whole thing: Every day, Americans toss out more than 350,000 cell phones and 130,000 computers, making electronic waste the fastest-growing part of the US garbage stream. A lot […]

Ecology, Technology

Benjamin Franklin’s Electrical Kite

January 11, 2009 Art Zemon

We all know the story of Benjamin Franklin flying a kite in an electrical storm. I always thought that it was kind of fanciful, along the same lines as the myth about George Washington cutting down a cherry tree. Guess what: I was wrong. Franklin not only flew the kite in a storm, he held […]

eBooks, Physics

Tinkering for Fun

January 7, 2009 Art Zemon

When I was a kid, my parents got me a chemistry set, signed me up for the science kit of the month, and encouraged an incredible of experimentation which stank, buzzed, glowed and occasionally broke stuff or blew fuses. I performed useful public services by keeping trash like antique speakers and yards of old extension […]

Fun, Technology

Step 2: Google Chrome to Replace Microsoft Windows, Apple OSX, and Linux

December 6, 2008 Art Zemon

Do you remember when I predicted that Google Chrome would take over the world replace Microsoft Windows, Apple OSX, and Linux? Here is the next step, to be released for CES which begins January 8, 2009. If all you want from your computer is to read your email (Gmail) and surf the web and use […]

Business, Internet, Software, Technology

Reader Plates – Economical Paperless IFR Approach Plates

December 5, 2008 Art Zemon

I purchased my Sony PRS-505 ebook reader primarily to run Reader Plates. This is a set of electronic IFR approach plates or, to be technically correct about the name, the FAA (NACO) Terminal Approach Procedures. When I fly IFR (in the clouds), I use these half-page charts when taking off from or landing at an […]

Aviation, Technology

Trial Licenses and Books

December 2, 2008 Art Zemon

My Sony PRS-505 ebook reader continues to delight me. I have chewed my way through a couple of books and several short stories, all without the bother of braving the mall to reach Borders or the traffic to reach the library. As I have finished these books, I simply let them evaporate into the ether, […]

eBooks, Economy

Loving the Sony PRS-505 eBook Reader

November 24, 2008 Art Zemon

Having spent almost a week with my new Sony PRS-505 eBook reader, I am way past infatuated and well into love. For reading books, it just plain works. No fuss; no muss. I have grabbed several books, some old, some new, and am thoroughly enjoying reading them. The first line of the main menu, visible […]

eBooks, Technology

eBook First Impressions

November 21, 2008 Art Zemon

I bought an ebook reader this week (a Sony PRS-505, more on that in another posting, I promise) and have been so busy figuring our the whole ebook game that I have not taken the time either to read many of the blogs that I follow or to write. Here are my first impressions of […]

eBooks

Added Benefit of On-line Family Trees

November 17, 2008 Art Zemon

I published my family tree on-line so that other family members and genealogists would have easy access. I never imagined that it would turn into a way to find long lost friends. I just received this email message: A friend of mine from college was looking for me.  So, he googled my family name and […]

Communicating, Genealogy, Internet

What if the Matrix Ran on Windows?

November 10, 2008 Art Zemon

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Fun, Software

Bye Bye Windows 3.x

November 5, 2008 Art Zemon

The headline The end of an era – Windows 3.x startled me this morning. My first thought was to look at the dateline; it had to be in the distant past and I wanted to see how distant. I will save you the tension and anticipation; the dateline is November 1, 2008, just four days […]

Software

Cross Browser Testing

October 29, 2008 Art Zemon

Cross browser testing is always a pain to coordinate but at least it just got a lot less expensive. Amazon Web Services just released AMIs running Windows which means that you can now get Windows virtual machines for as little as $0.125 per hour. These beasties make great platforms for doing cross browser testing. The […]

Internet, Recommendations, Technology

Boom or Bust for Open Source Software?

October 23, 2008 Art Zemon

You might have noticed a bit of “uncertainty” in the economy these days. I was fascinated to see these two articles show up within 24 hours of each other: Economy to Give Open-Source a Good Thumping by Andrew Keen <snip> So how will today’s brutal economic climate change the Web 2.0 “free” economy? It will […]

Business, Economy, Philosophy, Software

Steal This Comic or Song

October 17, 2008 Art Zemon

I buy a lot of music on-line and it breaks down like this: 1,268 completely unlocked MP3 files, easily playable on any computer or device, all purchased from eMusic.com. (Here’s a link to get 25 FREE iPod® compatible downloads from eMusic! Choose from over 2.8 Million songs! ) 0 DRM-locked files from iTunes, Audible.com, etc.

Rants & Raves, Recommendations, Technology

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • …
  • 10
  • Next Page »

Categories

  • Aviation (261)
    • Bede BD-4C (174)
    • Soaring (5)
  • Bicycling (37)
    • St. Louis to Atlanta (8)
    • St. Peters to Minneapolis (18)
  • Business (48)
  • Cabbages & Kings (24)
  • Communicating (37)
  • Ecology (21)
  • Economy (8)
  • Family (35)
  • Finding the Good (43)
  • Fun (188)
    • Six Word Stories (8)
  • Gardening (5)
  • Genealogy (5)
  • Government (35)
  • Health (67)
  • Judaism (10)
  • Men (12)
  • Mideast (5)
  • Movies (8)
  • Philosophy (15)
  • Photography (27)
  • Rants & Raves (103)
  • Recommendations (35)
  • Safety (37)
  • Science (22)
    • Biology (7)
    • Physics (7)
    • Pyschology (3)
  • Technology (195)
    • eBooks (7)
    • Internet (66)
    • Software (63)
    • VOIP (5)
  • Travel (43)
  • Tzedakah (12)
  • Women (5)

You Will Also Like

  • Art Zemon's Genealogy
  • Art Zemon's Photos
  • Mastodon @babka.social
  • Mastodon @raphus.social

Search

#DonorForLife

6 gallon blood donor badge
#DonorForLife - Give Blood - Save Lives

Archives

Copyright © 2025 · Daily Dish Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in