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Ping Test
Give it a try here: http://www.pingtest.net This is especially useful for people in Thailand trying to stream data or play multi-player games on servers overseas. Try testing your latency to Bangkok, then to a foreign destination. The traffic bottlenecks at the undersea data cables after being squeezed through government filters and ISP proxies, which explains the pitiful latency. It’s not quite as bad as DSL being beat by carrier pigeon, but it does explain why Skype and internet radio reception can be so crappy a lot of the time.
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Dark Stalking
This is really interesting: Dark Stalking on Facebook “But by far the most interesting part of all of this have been dark users. Like dark matter, these users are not directly observable, usually because they’ve completely disabled API access. In fact, some of these users are completely dark unless you’re a friend. They don’t show up in search results. They don’t show up on friends’ lists. You can’t send them messages. If you try to navigate to their user page (assuming you know it exists), you get redirected back to your homepage. These users have their privacy settings turned up real high, and are supposed to be hard to find.…
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Banana Flower Photo
When a cluster of bananas appears on a tree, you wait a while and lop off the flower (which grows upside-down from the bottom of the cluster’s stalk). This is from the biggest tree in our backyard, of which there are always 5 to 10 in various stages of growth (I cut them down after we harvest the bananas, and new ones sprout up next to the stumps). A banana flower is a beautiful thing. It looks like something out of a Giger sketch.
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Kokia Live
This is an awesome song in a Gandalf/Runemaster/Operatic Celt kinda way. This is Kokia.
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Spontaneous glass breakage
Well, I’d heard of it before (wpedia link), but never seen it. Didn’t see it happen this time, either, but Nam said this glass pot lid (which was thankfully placed inverted on the pot for storage under the sink – this kept glass from flying around) suddenly exploded when I was in the shower half an hour ago. The most common theories are installation damage (N/A here), thermal expansion or manufacturing impurities. However, another theory states that it might be caused by an “ultrasonic sound wave at a harmonic of the glass’ resonant frequency.” Oh.
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Beware of “pleas for help” scam on Facebook
Robbed by Facebook’s enemy in the camp The more info you give to Facebook, the easier it is for malicious people and apps to exploit you. For your own sake, stop providing info that can be used against you! Facebook has no stake in protecting you because they are not liable, and using that very info makes them money.
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Toyota Floormat Recall
This is a pretty serious problem: Toyota plans huge U.S. recall for dangerous floormats It sounds more like a headline from the Onion, but it seems like it’s responsible for deaths. I can attest to the dangers of certain types of floor mats because they caused problems in my car last year a few times. I was using an aftermarket rubber floor mat on the driver’s side of our Cefiro and the mass of the raised lip made the front edge heavy. The mat was naturally pushed forward when I moved my feet around while driving, and once in a while it would get pushed up onto the accelerator. When…
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A Visa Crawl
Long-term foreign residents of Thailand not fortunate (unfortunate?) enough to have a permanent residency or Thailand Elite card must apply for visa extensions, usually every year. It’s pretty much expected to be a long and drawn-out process. This year proved to be no exception. We left Mahasarakham at 6:15 AM and arrived at Mukdahan immigration shortly after 9. Because the idiots in our personnel department couldn’t get our documents together, our trip had been delayed until one of the busiest days of the year – just a couple days before many people’s contracts (and hence visas) end. The whole day was long and tiring; I spent most of it standing…
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A photo of Max and mommy the other day
We keep forgetting to take photos of her “bump”, which although not evident in this particular photo, is quite… big.
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100 Greatest YouTube Hits in 3 Mins.
