2002

Wow. I think I'll be picking up the newly-remastered TRON soundtrack on CD this weekend. I've had the MP3s for a while (ripped directly from the LP), but I hadn't really listened to them until Ray Weigel (a TechTV Product Analyst) outted himself as a TRON fanatic the other day. Walter Wendy Carlos is a musical genius. I hope Disney has her slated to craft the soundtrack for the upcoming TRON 2.0. It'll be hard to recapture the same “screen magic” as the original, but with a good script in hand, the much-anticipated sequel should prove to be fun.

Read more on TRON Ruminations…

Just a quick comment about TV channel one. When the frequencies were opened up for television, there was a channel one. However, it caused considerable
interference to the adjacent frequency band (or was it the reverse?), so North America dropped the channel one. Broadcasters never worried about it at that time, they were too busy fighting to get channel 3-6 slots in their areas.
At that time, I was in communications. The original band pass filters for
microwave communications had about an extra 20 db loss on channels one and
13 compared to the rest of the TV band. The extra loss could be corrected
but the noise ratio was worse. No broadcaster wanted them. Usually Public TV
wound up with 13, while one went unassigned. (Jack Sager)

Read more on Channel One…

While I'm sitting here waiting for the CFH rerun to finish, I might as well find out how my name is doing on Google. Ya know, before I started this blog, I wasn't even in the top three million “Chris” hits. As of this entry, I'm sitting at number THREE, baby! Go ahead, search for Chris and see what comes up. I've taken a screen shot for posterity (and sanity). Out of 3,900,000 “Chris” pages that Google has indexed, I'm sitting near the top. And I will not stop until I've hit number one – for a whole day, at least. This is the happiest moment of my life! Then again, I was just as happy when Gretchen told me that I could go out for lunch tomorrow. So, take my enthusiasm with a grain of salt, folks.

Read more on Chris Number Three…

Notified Weblogs.Com that Chris Pirillo's Headline Happiness updated. And it said in response – Thanks for the ping. We checked and found that the “Chris Pirillo's Headline Happiness” weblog has changed, so it will appear in changes.xml next time it is updated.

Read more on Thanks For The Ping…

Want to attach a background sound to your HTML e-mails? In Outlook Express, start with your favorite piece of stationery, click Format | Background | Sound, then browse for your favorite MIDI or WAV file. Be forewarned, though: people (like me) don't really look forward to hearing audio with our e-mails. However, we do look forward to greeting cool studio guests. Matt from DeviantArt is going to be on CFH in a few weeks. It'll be like meeting a Web celebrity. I hear he only eats green M&Ms. That remains to be seen.

Read more on Being A Deviant…

Dinner smells like fart.

Just because I use a piece of software on my computer doesn't mean you have to use it on yours. Indeed, you may use something completely different to finish the same tasks. Why? Because it's your computer! I'm trying to settle a bet with my wife Gretchen. She thinks that more people are using Netscape. I think more people are using Internet Explorer. Of course, my dog Sprocket thinks that more are using Opera. We're losing sleep over this, folks. Can you tell me what your favorite / default Web browser is, and why?

Read more on Really Hyper Text…

My full name finally made it into a Blogsticker. Your life is now complete. My life is now complete. You may move along. I may move along.. But not before you check out pictures of the Clonetrooper. Is it just me or is his uniform ten thousand times as cool as the regular Stormtrooper's? My favorite used to be the AT-AT Driver – as that was the first Star Wars figure I ever owned. Biker Scouts were awesome, too. Imperial armor design rocks! Beats Leia in Bespin Outfit any day of the week. She's got a smile twelve parsecs wide.

Read more on Star Stuck…

Palm Launches i705 Handheld. After months of delays and uncertainty, Palm Monday launched its i705 wireless handheld device.

A Glove That Speaks Volumes. A teenager has turned a golf glove into a tool that can translate American Sign Language into text. Want to know more? Talk to the hand.

Read more on Explosive Headlines…

Horsehead Nebula. “Do you think there are people on other planets?” “I don't know. But if it's just us, it would be…

Apple Poised for FireWire Jump. Having secured a position on the 1394 Trade Association board for one of its product developers and buoyed by the introduction of a bevy of new compliant devices, Apple now is preparing to move the FireWire I/O standard to higher speeds and higher exposure. [osOpinion]

Read more on Noiseworthy…

When I wanted to stay over at Jimmy's house, I had to ask for
permission. When I wanted to have ice cream after supper, I had to
ask for permission. When I wanted to open and edit my wife's
documents, I didn't have to ask for permission. She was using an
unsecure system! Thank goodness for FAT32, eh? We receive
countless e-mails from people asking how they can password-protect
their files and folders. The quickest way to do it is to ZIP up
the objects in question, and then place a password on that
archive. That's not the most convenient route, however. If there
are multiple people using one machine, Windows 2000 and XP make
protecting your data infinitely easier. With either on an NTFS
hard drive, you can set user-level permissions. Depress ALT while
you double-click a file or folder, flip to the Security tab, then
set how you want to allow your users to interact with the data.
Give 'em full control, the ability to modify, read & execute,
read, write, etc. If you're worried about a young one (or novice)
deleting your documents, this will help keep your bases covered.
In Windows 9x, you'd need to find a third-party utility to do the
same thing.

Read more on This Week's Tips…

To all you would-be chatter abusers: your IP address is being logged. What does that mean? Well, that means if you post something extraordinarily offensive or abusive – we can go to your ISP and have your lovely little account deactivated. Don't be stupid.

Read more on Word Of Warning…

So, I'm sitting at my desk this afternoon (trying to avoid work). I wanted to see if I could get my Webcam to stream an image of whatever was on my computer screen. This particular Intel Pro device has a “video in” jack. The laptop has an svideo connector; with an adapter, I connected it to the Webcam and enabled dual-monitor support in XP. My favorite Webcam application was acting as a second monitor! It was weird, let me tell ya. But I wasn't satisfied with that. I wanted to do more. My TV/VCR combo unit doesn't have an “out” option, but the Satellite receiver / decoder does. With a few quick clicks, I had my boob tube broadcasting on the infobahn. If you're the curious sort, keep an eye on the appropriate sidebar link in my blog.

Read more on I Love Geeking Out…

It doesn't have to end here. Many of us are gone from Enron now. Wherever we go, we should all stay in touch. There are businesses to start, friendships to continue, and stories to tell. Enron has been home to many amazing and talented people, and the great things we did at Enron are not the last great things we'll do.

Read more on Former Enron People…

Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
Peanuts are one of the ingredients in dynamite.
There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.
A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
There are more chickens than people in the world.
Two thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey.
On a Canadian two dollar bill, the flag flying over the Parliament building is an American flag.
All of the clocks in the movie “Pulp Fiction” are stuck on 4:20.
No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple.
All 50 US states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the US$5 bill.

Read more on Had Enough Yet?…