Fnord.

Shoulda sold it on ebay.

(Click for full-size)
Somewhere in central Illinois, on the way to Ron’s. Damn, I miss Ron’s. And Ron himself.

Sigh. Killer Cajun in the middle of nowhere, Illinois. Who woulda thought?

Oh yeah, the plane - Beechcraft, provenance unknown. Dedication sign in lower left corner.

Chris, at Sarah’s phd graduation.

Picture links to review on PMWF
In my initial look at flying watches, I drooled on the Omega X-33. (Later, too.) As you can see, the Pulsar is a pretty close copy:

The Pulsar is model PK2003, looks like its been recently discontinued. Hmm. The PMWF review was so-so, but they are cheap. Looks like some of the flight-specific stuff got lost (e.g. 80dB alarm), but since I’m grounded that’d be OK. There’s also a reverse LCD version.

Hmm. Also pushes my ‘analog/digital’ button.

Ahh. Tasty. Courtesy of the very cool Official Seal Generator. Free, fun, make one for your family/tribe/social gathering unit today!

According to my student, this is addictive as hell and quite fun. He bought it within ten minutes. PC/XP only, so I’ve not tried it yet.

The normal weather pattern here is that the coastal areas are quite temperate, with the inland areas trending towards desert. The gradient can be steep as hell; during the heatwave it was 85 on the beach and 106 at our house!

This is today’s predicted highs, from weather.gov:

Verra nice.

One of the things I most value on the net is unbiased (hey, I can dream) reviews of stuff I may need or want. To my mind, being able to find sources not paid to review stuff, cater to advertisers, etc is the best thing ever.

So. Here’s a partial list of my favorites, with notes. Please feel free to comment, I’ll add ‘em in.

Cars/vehicles

Edmunds, easily the best. Click and clack are arguably better, but have much fewer reviews. We have used their mechanic recommendations with good results. For resale values, Edmunds again and Kelly blue book.

iPods, iPod cases, headphones, accessories

iPodlounge. Their reviews are excellent, as is their free PDF book of all things iPod. For really geeky reviews, Dan’s Data is my all-around favorite internet review site. It’s mostly computers, but he also does headphones now and then. Headphone.com has good specs and reviews, but their prices are high - try Amazon or ebay or your retailer of choice.

Computer hardware

This is a big one. These days, I mostly just buy a few parts now and then, or maybe a cheap motherboard/cpu/memory combo, for which the Ars Technica system guides are invaluable. Ars doesn’t do a lot of hardware reviews, but what they publish is in-depth and worth reading. They review Mac hard/software too.
As mentioned above, Dan’s Data is essential here too.

Cameras, digital of course

DP Review, Imaging Resource and Philip Greenspun’s reviews. Also check out photo.net

Watches

Heh. You knew this one was coming, eh? For basic reviews and learning about new watches, Watch Report is good. For forums with good reviews, try Seiko-Citizen watch forum, Poor Man’s Watch Forum, TimeZone and probably others.

I may post places to buy watches in a follow-up post if I have time.

Cool Random Stuff

Cool Tools defines this genre all by itself. I don’t always agree, but all are interesting.

See also the randomness of Tricks of the Trade.

And of course, Woot, which should come with an ‘addictive’ label.

And Think Geek, cool but a trifle pricy.

More on this topic later.

Thankgiving, I think it was.

If ever there was a post better matched to Chris and I, I’ve not seen it. This one covers the continued world domination of the sinister handed, and that “taller people earn more because they are smarter.”

Freakonomics, of course. I love their blog, econ continues to produce interesting and counterintuitive results.

Update 5/07: I got a nasty submitted comment that took this as an insult. It’s not; it’s merely a pointer to research that indicates that I’m overpaid due to height.