I am the ghost of groovymother.com. Woooooo!
This is an old page from Rod Begbie's blog.
It only exists in an attempt to prevent linkrot. No new content will be added to this site, and links and images are liable to be broken. Check out begbie.com to find where I'm posting stuff these days.
Entries for week beginning October 26, 2008
➠ November 1, 2008
How We Prepare a Demo
Great tips on making a tech presentation. In particular, the suggestion of using screencast software to demo your software makes a huge amount of sense, and is something I’m surprised more people don’t do to mitigate risk.
lbrandy.com : Demotivating a (Good) Programmer
Posted without comment.
If the World Could Vote | ForeignPolicy.com
How the electoral college of “the world” would vote. Unlike most of the other online polls, this at least has an ounce of statistical rigour to it. Also interesting: Which countries think the US presidential choice will have an effect on them.
➠ October 30, 2008
➠ October 29, 2008
I Voted
The true symbol of democracy in America -- The smug satisfaction of getting to wear the elusive "I Voted" sticker.
It was the only reason I bothered voting, to be honest.
(t-shirt)
All filled out
The seven sides(!) of the ballot, filled out and ready to be deposited in the ballot box.
This sample ballot shows how much crap I had to vote on after making my presidential selection.
What two-party system?
My first vote as an American
The basement of City Hall
There were about 40 people in front of me waiting to cast early ballots.
San Francisco City Hall
JSSpeccy: A ZX Spectrum emulator in Javascript
Officially the best thing in the entire history of the internet today.
The GOP ticket's appalling contempt for science and learning. - By Christopher Hitchens
“This is what the Republican Party has done to us this year: It has placed within reach of the Oval Office a woman who is a religious fanatic and a proud, boastful ignoramus.” I love Hitchens.
rodbegbie's first tweet
A chance to revel in my earlyadopteritude.
The Unfinished Swan
Video preview of a really interesting looking new indie game where the world is completely blank until you fire at it with your one weapon: A paintball gun which helps you “see” the obstacles. Watch the video to see it make sense.
Vote Flipping Caught on Tape
The engineers who “designed” these machines, and the civil servants who approved their use, should be named, shamed and banned from ever being involved in electoral process again. Love the way the guy is trying to argue “Well, this would only happen if the machine is misconfigured”, then configures it correctly and it STILL fucks up.
5th Grade Reporter Interviews Senator Joe Biden
Feeling oddly patriotic that the combination of easy access to video cameras and internet video distribution mean a fifth-grader can score an interview with a VP candidate and share it with the world!
➠ October 28, 2008
Bassets for Obama
Warning: contains awesome shots of basset jowls flapping in the breeze.
➠ October 27, 2008
FiveThirtyEight.com: The Three Ashleys
I mostly enjoy FiveThirtyEight for the statistical geekery, but some of the blogessays posted are great too. I really enjoyed this one by Sean Quinn on “The Three Ashleys”
I got me a whatnot
Spent some birthday cash creating my own custom Muppet Whatnot on the FAO Schwartz website. I'm thoroughly excited at the prospect of having a Muppet of my very own.
Unrelated: I am 32.
typeface.js -- Rendering text with Javascript, <canvas>, and VML
Amazingly clever piece of hackery. Embed fonts seamlessly in your pages in a manner that works with all released major browsers (including iPhone), but degrades gracefully. Need to do some playing with this…
➠ October 26, 2008
A thoroughly productive weekend
My Xbox gamertagusernamethingummy is the unimaginative RodBegbie if you want to befriendify me. (At least until I overcome my aversion to paying Microsoft TEN! FUCKING! DOLLARS! to change it)
How to Take American Health Care From Worst to First
Op-Ed piece encouraging taking “Moneyball” approach to healthcare. Hands up anyone who ever thought they’d see the NYTimes run an article with the byline “By BILLY BEANE, NEWT GINGRICH and JOHN KERRY”.
About This Site
This is an archive of groovmother.com, the old blog run by Rod Begbie — A Scottish geek who lives in San Francisco, CA.
I'm the co-founder of Sōsh, your handy-dandy guide for things to do in San Francisco this weekend.