Archive March 2007
[VIDEO] Interviewing Al Roker – Today’s Weatherman
What’s the weather like in your neck of the woods? In Seattle, it’s almost always rainy (which isn’t a cliché – it’s largely true). A few months ago, sunshine finally broke through the clouds – and while some dismiss the appearance of Al Roker at a local Sharper Image as coincidence, I knew it was [...]
What Do Geeks Eat for Dinner on Saturday Night?
I’m having honey roasted peanuts for dinner tonight. Mind you, they’re completely nutritious! Sugar, honey, fructose, corn syrup… hey, wait a second! That’s all sugar! Since when did sugar make a good dinner? Well, I could wander downstairs and reheat some leftover pasta – but this bag was much more convenient. Thank goodness it was [...]
Pet Food Recall: DANGER
Dude! If you have any of the following pet food products (made by Menu Foods) in your pantry, THROW THEM AWAY IMMEDIATELY: Americas Choice, Preferred Pets Authority Award Best Choice Big Bet Big Red Bloom Cadillac Companion Demoulas Market Basket Eukanuba Food Lion Giant Companion Great Choice Hannaford Hill Country Fare Hy-Vee Iams Laura Lynn [...]
UPS Opinions and Choices
In last night’s email newsletter (picks@lockergnome.com), I linked to a video question submitted through my EyeJot video widget. Recently, Aaron asked a question about Uninterruptible Power Supplies. I suggested getting a unit that included Automatic Voltage Regulation (AVR), subsequently hyperlinking everyone to a classic story on UPS batteries. Fellow Lockergnome subscriber Brian Newell submitted: Regarding [...]
Pirillo’s Picks for 03/23/2007
I send my picks to 140,000 subscribers every day – join them by sending an email to picks@lockergnome.com. If you blog and encourage others to subscribe to the list, your site will be placed in the queue to be featured in an upcoming Pirillo’s Picks! [WINDOWS] Universal Plug-and-Play Tester (tags: upnp, plugandplay, windows, microsoft, network, [...]
Microsoft is its own Worst Enemy!
This video interview features MSR’s Jasha Droppo: I have been with Microsoft Research since July, 2000. My primary task has been to explore different techniques to make ASR more robust to additive and channel noise. Other projects I’ve worked on include general speech signal enhancement, pitch tracking, multiple stream ASR, novel speech recognition features, MiPad [...]
Growing up Catholic
“I grew up Catholic – then I grew up.” I wrote that for the first time a few years back (and still find that statement somewhat humorous, given that I once considered becoming a priest). You could likely blame my University education for this fall from faith – after discovering that most world religions are [...]
Pirillo’s Picks for 03/22/2007
I send my picks to 140,000 subscribers every day – join them by sending an email to picks@lockergnome.com. If you blog and encourage others to subscribe to the list, your site will be placed in the queue to be featured in an upcoming Pirillo’s Picks! [ORGANIZE] Create a virtual bookshelf (tags: books, library, social, community, [...]
Coffee!
I’m sipping my first cup of coffee for the evening… which means I’m going to be up LATTE! Yeah, I’ve got too much “work” to do before crashing (physically, not Vista-literally). Coffee helps get me through the day. This cup has been brewed at home with a French press (and a grind specific for the [...]
The Lab Launches with Leo Laporte
Leo and his crew invited Ponzi and me up to Vancouver today to help them kick off his new show, “The Lab with Leo Laporte.” We drove in late last night, and will be returning home before tomorrow morning (likely, taking off this evening). Cat Schwartz is up here, too! It’s just like old times [...]
Weather or Not: Al Roker
I interviewed Al Roker a few weeks ago. Not really a big deal – unless you consider that I wanted to be a “weatherman” when I grew up. Seriously. No joke. Look at that freakin’ cloud, man! I still remember going to “WHO” company picnics as a kid (my grandfather worked at the radio tower [...]
Top 10 Things that Twitter Can Do
According to nobody, here are the top ten things that Twitter can do: Balance the national budget Detect the presence of anthrax Bullseye womprats Lower your mortgage payment Find lost pets Forge a parent’s signature Slice bread (NOTE: rye only) Debbie Set us up the bomb Cure cancer Okay, so maybe some items are a [...]
Crowdsourcing Videos of the War in Iraq
Michael DiBenedetto from Next Next Entertainment sent me this announcement a few hours ago: March 19th is the fourth anniversary of the war. And here’s an interesting perspective on Iraq… it’s a web documentary series about life in Baghdad – shot by Iraqi filmmakers. My company in NY helped produce it and is now distributing [...]
Instant SMS Friend Updates via Twitter.com
I did something I haven’t done in a while – opened up the toll-free line (1-888-PIRILLO) to enable you to record your thoughts on the latest Internet addiction, Twitter. According to the unofficial wiki: Twitter is a way of life. It’s living with a publicity policy. It’s friends, Romans and country people the world over [...]
R.E.M. Debuts Song on YouTube
I was a late-blooming R.E.M. fan (attatching myself to their style not long after Yankovic parodied “Stand”). Now, I can’t imagine my life with out ‘em. I blasted Ethan Kaplan a quick IM to suggest a few things they could do with their YouTube account, and he told me that R.E.M. just debuted a song [...]
