did you hear a pop just now?

my new desktop wallpaper:

I strained a tendon in my right palm (ha ha, but I'm left-handed smarty pants) ... and now the swelling (which has continued over 9 days) is pressing on the nerves in the carpal tunnel, so I'm all numb and tingly on my mouse-hand.

So now I've got a cool brace and a new desktop pattern, and if it's still like this next week, a shot of 'roids in the hand.

posted at 02:12 PM

MLB.tv on appletv

What this is is MLB.tv streaming to my AppleTV (specifically, the China/Korea game from the World Baseball Classic)

Looks pretty good, actually, for a 600KB stream.

The purpose of this experiment (other than to drive some folks nuts on twitter ... heh.) was to see if the network stack and 1ghz chip in my appletv had enough juice to handle it. It does. (although it buffers for a healthy amount of time first)

I'll leave the "how to do it, and not get sued" to the Boxee/XBMC developer-types, or to the guys on the 5th floor at work. The platform is *really* viable, though! Just not at all user-friendly. I've got some ideas for the Boxee people that I hope to bounce off them at the meetup march 24th.

posted at 07:16 PM

Prototype kitty desk basket

After seeing this, I thought I could build my own to keep the cats off of lap and keyboard, but still nearby (they love us so...).

...so tonight, I prototyped this, from a $12 basket, scrap wood, and some clamps:

next, i'll probably refine the perch, mount the basket to it permanently, and replace the bar-clamps with a bolt and wingnut.

posted at 10:43 PM

Inkjets for Obama

cool benefit of being a home-owner, is I finally get to put up yard signs and stuff. Makes me feel super-grown up.

However, yard signs are pretty much considered by political scientists to not have much of an effect, and cost campaigns money that'd be better spent elsewhere, so they're not just giving them out this year, especially in uncontested New York.

In addition, apparently yard-sign stealing is high sport this year. So I went to blockposters.com and printed up a big-ol' sign for the picture window, and spent my Saturday coffee-time taping it together and hanging it.

UPDATE: here's a link to the 20-page pdf, if you'd like to download print it without messing around recreating it yourself

It also keeps the sunset-glare off the flatscreen TV. Can we watch college football during the afternoon without closing the drapes? YES WE CAN!

posted at 01:16 PM