Pancake City

The first U.S. public bike program is launching soon…in DC.  It’s cool and a little surprising DC is the first city to do this. I would have expected some place like Granola Town or Hippieville to have launched a program already in the 70s on their day off from the commune.

The program, Smartbike DC, has an annual fee of $40 and a three-hour limit per rental. It will be interesting to see if this takes off. My first reaction is that a basket (edit: looks like it has a front basket) or panniers for light grocery shopping would greatly enhance its usefulness. Three hours is on the short side but understandable for a pilot program.

How to make Firefox a lot faster in less than three minutes [via] ([via] also from [via]).

It makes a huge difference with certain web pages. Like this one.

(Note: This will be the first and last time I ever link to freerepublic.com.)

1. Install Adobe Reader 6.0 and notice where it is installed.
2. Navigate to that folder in Explorer, locate the plug_ins subfolder and rename this folder to plug_ins_disabled.
3. Create a new plug_ins folder.
4. Move the files EWH32.api, printme.api and search.api from plug_ins_disabled to plug_ins

(link)

My first impression of Gmail, Google’s email service currently in a beta test to select Internet cognoscenti like myself, is that it is the third Musketeer in paper, scissors, and rocks. It’s fast, well-designed, and comes with a gigabyte of space.

You need an invite to get an account. I got mine by begging a stranger, but Pancake City is a place of dignity, so if you want an account just let me know in the comments. I have six invites, but since this site only has five readers that shouldn’t be a problem.

In their cartoon, “Brother, Can You Spare a Job?“, Tom Neely and Greg Saunders have done a superb job of capturing the depression era of the ’20s and ’30s via old-fashioned cartoon antics and the use of period music.

Okay, that’s from their press release. I’m too lazy to come up with my own description. But it’s extremely well done and worth watching, even though the message isn’t novel.

Let’s go to Burger King!
(details at Boing Boing).

There is no other contender.

You make a tint of a color by adding white to it.
You make a shade of a color by adding black.

I stumbled upon a “Last 100 questions asked” page of a natural language search engine. A smattering:

* who is kane (followed a few questions later by) “who is kane the wrestler”
* What primary colors do you mix to make orange?
* (A funny question about porn there’s no way I’m repeating)
* why does a cow produce white milk
* WHAT WORDS END IN GRY?
* Is Richard Stallman a dirty Gnu hippy ?
* Which president made the swivel chair?
* How can I determine the sex of my baby?
* Who invented the paper clip?
* What are some different sexual positions we can try?

Answer a short series of questions and find out which Presidential candidate is right for you. According to the quiz, my two candidates are Dennis Kucinich (100%) and Howard Dean (99%). These picks are probably accurate, although I have a few disagreements with both candidates. George W. Bush, making a strong showing, edged out Howard Phillips (Constitution party) and Lyndon LaRouche (”Prepare for the RevoLaRouchian!”).

Send me an email with your results so I can have another reason to like or hate you. (Just kidding. The lens I use to look at people is only made up of important things: size of tail fin on car, favorite breakfast cereal marshmallow, number of vowels in name…)

This man is moderately talented at origami. Also, I am moderately hairy.