If I was cool enough to write an in depth hard science Sci-Fi novel I would want Philip Straub to do the illustration.

I saw his work on the GelaSkins site, and had to track down his work. Luckily the interwebs make this easy.

I’ve recently become very interested in this primarily Japanese barcode scheme. It packs a LOT of data into a very small area.

The big feature though is the way it can be used with properly programed phone and scanners. In Japan, many phones pick up tags in the text to do automated features like browsing to a web page or sending a SMS text message.

I’d love to see this in domestic magazines. Imagine at the end of a technical article instead of having text links to resources being able to scan codes to quickly bookmark and access additional info. VCards and similar address book schemes are also already being packed into the code.

Read more HERE. And play around with generating some codes HERE

So it’s been less than a month and I’m back on Del.icio.us. In a recent blog posting I had declared that Firefox’s new tagging feature would liberate me from the need for the popular bookmark site.

I admit it, I was wrong. Del.icio.us’s website was gracious and didn’t even have a php script send me a page bearing the heading ‘I told you so’

Ok, this hurts. I have no idea or will to do the math on how much money this site would have saved when I was a kid.

During my active RPG days I was usually the DM. OCD and a Dungeon Master’s guide is a bad combination. I’m not sure exactly how much money I dropped on plastic scenery, but I know it was a lot.

Stones Edges offers papercraft style 3d environments for gaming. Here is a link for free samples. I’ve download them myself, and they look high quality…. now if only I could get refunds on half a rainforest of plastic crates. …

I’m finally sorting out some of the debris in my basement and I’ve come across a lot of left over documents from my school days. Some is bitter, some is sweet, the rest is just laughable.

Below are two “poems” I had scratched out in the back of a binder. Yes, I was a little frightened by how INSIPID I sounded. If I’m correct, these were written during a period where we were “learning” poetry in english class. Despite my begging and warnings about war-crime violations, the teacher still insisted I write at least several couplets a week.

MURDER:
Three spent casings on the floor
Count them once
Crow never more

Blood dries
Rain Pours
Three spent casings on the floor

- this had three little drawings of what I think were supposed to be shell casings next to the title. FYI: this was written PRE-Columbine

GRADUATION:
Many fools
Make many rules
And
Many rules
Make many fools

- accompanied by a surprisingly recognizable picture of the hats worn on graduation day for the entertainment of parents and younger siblings.

Man I was a warm-hearted little freak wasn’t I?

Carl Sandburg, eat your heart out!