2009 mid-year link clearance

Raymond Chen

Time for the semi-annual link clearance.

• How to rotate your Samsung Syncmaster 245BW into portrait mode.
• Watching the global cycle of airline traffic through the day. [via]
• Glowing Cities Under a Nighttime Sky, a time-lapse video shot out the window of a commercial airline. [via]
• The least-visited attractions in Italy. “Until recently, many museum directors viewed visitors as a disturbance or distraction.”
• The hidden stairways of Queen Anne Hill. You can order a map for $5 (+$1.50 shipping/handling).
• How to link to a timestamp in a YouTube video.
• A gift for your favorite Mac user.
• How much does a gigabyte weigh?
• If you’re a customer of Waste Management in the Seattle area, the stuff you put in the recycle bin might very well end up at the Woodinville facility. And as a point of useless trivia—as opposed to useful trivia?—back when Microsoft used polystyrene plates and cups, the collected recyclables were sent to Spokane where they were burned to generate electricity.
• Yoram Bauman, the stand-up economist (mentioned earlier), posted another one of his routines from earlier this year where he discusses the financial crisis.
• The police tip line is for providing tips to the police, not for asking the police for tips on how to thaw a turkey.
• The Greeters are a group of volunteers who take visitors on quirky tours of their home city of Paris. It looks like many cities have programs like this.
• I find the television show How It’s Made oddly mesmerising. Farhad Manjoo investigates why.

And, as always, the obligatory plug for my column in TechNet Magazine:

• Last Check-In Chicken. The story begins with Larry Osterman’s description of the “game”. Then comes losing the game twice in a row. That TechNet article is the next step in the series, which explains why you often see the same people win over and over, and it’s not because they’re bad developers.
• The Case of the Disappearing Cursor.
• The Forgotten Hotkey. How an ancient hotkey from 1983 can save you.
• Forcing Handles Closed. Why forcing a handle closed is another name for “corrupt my hard drive”.
• Finding the Right Volume.
• When Windows Audio Goes Haywire.

Raymond Chen

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