Author: preston.lee

  • The Worsening Fragmentation of the eBook Market

    My biggest of fear with regards to the emerging ebook market is now in full swing. Not only are there subtle, often incompatible (and proprietary) differences in ebook data between reading application software, but most of the time I can’t even legally attempt it.

  • Ruby: On The Perl Origins Of “&&” And “||” Versus “and” And “or”.

    Overview Avdi Grimm has a recent post noting the use of “and” and “or” Ruby keywords as essentially control flow operators, and hinting on their Perl origins. This instantly recalled several mental notes of old Perl programs, so I though I’d put out a few quick notes on the Perl equivalents for Ruby programmers not…

  • 2010 Libertarian Primary – Governor Candidate Comparison

    If you’re a registered Libertarian in Arizona you may have noticed that, in most districts, you don’t have many candidate options. In my district, the only real choice was for state governor. You can quickly make that decision in about 45 minutes by reviewing the following material. Debate recently hosted by PBS. (~25 minutes) Websites…

  • 2010 Arizona Citizens Clean Election Commission .PDF Downloads

    Arizona Voters: A .pdf (70MB) version of the giant tree-wasting booklet published by the Citizens Clean Election Commission that you may have received in the mail–the one with little blurbs/statements on all the candidates–can be found here. Other currently relevant publications from the AZ CCDC can be found here. General elections are just around the corner,…

  • South Korea Travel Tips For United States Travelers

    Interesting tidbits on Seoul for United States travelers: The food is generally awesome, though the beef sucks and is more expensive. If you decide to try American-style fast food, expect variations customized to the locale. (For example, the McDonalds I tried had “Bulgogi Burgers” as the #1 combo item. Interesting to try, but still McDonalds.)…

  • The $1K CD/DVD/LightScribe Replicator: The DIY Guide To Manufacturing Your Own Discs For Less Than $1 Each

    I’ve slowly updated components of The $1K Home Studio over the last few years, but have never had a low-cost, DIY solution for disc replication. After playing with external CD burners and evaluating various proprietary hardware options such as the Aleratec auto-flip burner , MicroBoard tower replicators amongst many others, I decided that the current…

  • Book Review of DIY U: : Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education

    Question: If I complete my general physics and mathematics studies using freely available MIT OpenCourseWare content on my own time, computer science study on campus at ASU Polytechnic, and general education requirements at UoP, all for a degree program at Berkeley, what’s wrong with that? After all, as long as I can demonstrate the competancies…

  • 3D OSX Applications With Ruby-Processing Screencast

    A two-part screencast series demonstating two different 3D ruby-processing applications. A slide presentation from 2009 created for the Phoenix Ruby Group is also attached as bonus material. Enjoy! Part 1: Starfield Demo of a 3D starfield simulation written in pure Ruby, running on the JRuby runtime as a nicely packaged .app program for Mac OS…

  • Free Copy Of Portal With New Mac Steam Client

    Got a Mac? Like games? Great news! Value’s “Steam” software finally launched for Mac, allowing you to purchase some great gaming titles on your OS X machine. When a game is available on multiple platforms, a purchased license appear to be portable as well. And as a launch promotion, Value is giving away free copies…

  • Mini-Review: Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and the Government Bailout Will Make Things Worse

    Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse by Thomas E. Woods Jr. My rating: 5 of 5 stars Meltdown is a evidence-based, academically credible, and brutally honest analysis of the causes and effects of economic depression faced in the United States since…