opie’s blog has been dead for so long i can barely even remember the last time it was updated. well, fear no more! opie’s site is alive and kicking it, and he wants you to read his new blog so bad he’s asked me to help him promote it! so without further ado i give you:



positronik 4.0

avast ye land lubbers. today is the finest holiday that the earth ever did see…. national talk like a pirate day is upon us. so break out yer bottles of rum and yer wooden legs. we’re chuggin’ one back for old Blackbeard before we’re sent down to davey jones’ locker. yar!

this post is a loving tribute to man kind’s 2 greatest inventions. versatile, delicious, and wholly satisfying… these inventions have withstood the test of time and are beloved by millions, maybe even billions. they are great inventions in their own right, but when combined make for the best damn sandwich this side of the atlantic. drum roll, please! the 2 inventions are (in no particular order):

1. Peanut Butter
2. Jelly

make that peanut butter extra crunchy y’all!

car-mounted auto-assault rifles w/ 40 round grenade launcher. (warning: site is in spanish)

http://spanish.engadget.com/2006/08/09/aquandi-llega-el-fin-de-los-embotellamientos/

just read a really good interview with my favorite musician matt embree (aka lead singer/song writer for rxb): http://www.leakmob.com/showthread.php?threadid=2125. check it out.

from time to time i like to go visit an interesting site known as the “wayback machine“. it’s a basic search engine that will give you an archive of any URL back to jan 01, 1996. after looking at all the different designs and weird stuff i’ve posted throughout the years, i figured i’d give a link/screenshot to each major change in my online blog since it’s inception (according to the wayback machine: somewhere around april 2001). so without further ado, in the spirit of the daily show, i give you:

Arcaner.com: 5 fucking years

	April 17, 2001		May 24, 2002
	February 11, 2003		September 20, 2004

after tirelessly reading comment after comment about the nokia n93 over the past week, i’m sorry to say i’ve decided not to buy the phone. it’s really sad, as everything about this bad-boy looked good on paper. unfortunately, according to reviewers i trust (apoc, gsmarena), this thing just doesn’t live up to the hype. some of it’s supposed upsides are a very fast processor, nice form factor, and good video recording. but it’s “selling” feature (the one that it’s supposed to be great at — taking still pictures) is more than lacking.. while many reviewers are also reporting a crashing OS, and a battery life shorter than most movies when using WiFi. unfortunately, i’ve decided to withold this time around, and go for the n93’s little brother, the n73. it has the same camera lense, but does a much better job in firmware apparently. the n73’s pictures are on par with the k800i, and that is saying something to me, as I’ve been a SE enthusiast for a while now. other advantages the n73 has are that it weighs *much* less at 116g (opposed to n93’s 180g!!), and it also ships in my form factor of choice — candybar :). all in all the n73 is basically the same phone as the n93 save a few notables:

- No WiFi or H.264 video
- CIF (352×288) 15fps video instead of VGA(640×480) 30fps
- Slower processor
- 64g less weight, significantly smaller dimensions, candybar vs. flip/fold form-factor
- great battery life

the n73 also sports the carl zeiss 3.2mp camera, 2.4″ QVGA(320×240) screen, Series60 3rd edition/Symbian 9.1 (all features shared w/ it’s big brother), and also has quad-band support, meaning it will probably make it’s way stateside eventually. that won’t stop me from importing it first though ;).

moving on to more geeky things now (as if cell phones weren’t bad enough)… i just found out that Lego has released their open source firmware, drivers, and specs for the new mindstorms nxt brick. for those who don’t know, paige bought me the mindstorms nxt kit from lego which lets me build anything my heart can imagine with lego, and then program it to do my bidding using a “smart brick” that is basically a mini-computer with lego attachments. needless to say, this is a geek’s wet dream. at any rate, now that we have specs and tons of code to look over, this means there will be a nxt development environment for linux “Real Soon Now(TM)”. hell, i might even contribute some eclipse plugins if i can find the time.