• Faces of Meth
  Click on a face to see the effects meth addiction has on its users. From the Partnership for a Drug-Free America.
  (tags: health)
• Standpoint
  NPR’s “This I Believe” + Web 2.0 = This website.
  (tags: random)

• Neiman Marcus: Hello Kitty Collection
  The complete HK collection at Needless Markups, ranging from $200-$3500. [via vdentata]
  (tags: hellokitty stuff.to.buy)
• Dark Lilac’s Cross Stitch Generator
  Upload an image or enter the URL for an image to create a cross stitch chart. The image will be interpreted as “1 pixel = 1 cross stitch”. [via make:magazine]
  (tags: crafts tools)
• “Memory’s Ghost” by Philip J. Hilts
  From that time on, Henry had no memories of any events that occurred to him, and continues to live in the eternal world of the present. Henry can read the same newspaper again and again, and each time it will be new to him. [via metafilter]
  (tags: health)
• Google Code: Web Authoring Statistics
  In December 2005 we did an analysis of a sample of slightly over a billion documents, extracting information about popular class names, elements, attributes, and related metadata. [via metafilter]
  (tags: onlineculture design)

My geocaching can now go paperless! I haven’t used a PDA in a while - I gave my Palm m130 to A - but I realized I wanted one for geocaching. A pointed out that we still had some old ones…and sure enough, we had two Handspring Visors and a Palm III. Of the three old PDAs, only one of the Visors worked, and at first I thought it couldn’t sync but then it managed to. Of course the sync tried to load everything I’d had on my m130, which had more RAM and a more recent OS, so I had to clear everything off the Visor again and then just load Cachemate. When I discovered the shareware version only holds 10 records I promptly paid the $8 to register - if it had been $15 or $20 I probably wouldn’t have. I have also paid $3 for a month of premium service on Geocaching.com; I didn’t want to pay $30 for the year because I might not be doing this six months from now. But now that I’m set to go paperless I am looking forward to doing more caching in the area.

I’ve been reading Crime Library again lately. I’m not sure why I like that site. It’s good for research, sure, but I just pick feature stories at random and read them. Some of them get pretty gruesome, and I guess it’s just barely better than Rotten.com - it’s definitely pretty sensationalized.

I got a new digital camera today. My old one, an Olympus D510Z, which my parents gave to me for my 21st birthday, was really showing its age. A few pixels on the display had gone dark, but more importantly it would turn itself off randomly while you were trying to take pictures. It just wasn’t reliable anymore, so I needed a new one. I had a $50 Circuit City gift card, so I looked at some cameras on their website and checked reviews at Cnet and Epinions. I ended up with a Canon PowerShot A410, and I also got a 256mb SD memory card because my old camera only took SmartMedia cards.

We went geocaching out in Leesburg today; I had one failure followed by one success. We also got some pictures of an abandoned house out there.

• MailBigFile
  Send big files quickly and easily, without clogging up your email!
  (tags: tools)

• SU: soufoaklin.com/tattooartist.html
  Normally I wouldn’t tag a StumbleUpon page on del.icio.us, but this one is kind of funny. Nobody seems to have noticed that this is satire, and they get all upset. I just HAD to direct them to Snopes. That was MY public service.
  (tags: funny onlineculture)
• 100 Painless Ways to Cut Calories
  To lose a pound of fat a month, all you need to do is cut 100 calories a day from your diet, assuming the intake and expenditure of all other calories remains the same.
  (tags: diet)
• How long do burned CD-Rs and CD-RWs last?
  Recordable CDs use a dye that changes color or reflectivity when heated.
  (tags: technology)
• Alternative Universe
  A guided tour through the hallways of Mental Hell — er, Mental Health — by a counselor who works with the chronically mentally ill. [via newsweek magazine]
  (tags: health)

It’s been two weeks since my kitty girl had to leave us. I am doing much better but looking at this Catster thread still brings tears to my eyes. Recently we were driving on Route 29 near Fairfax Circle, near some condos or townhouses (something residential), and we saw several cars pulled over to the side of the road and a group of people standing in a circle around something in the middle of the road. As we drove by we saw it was someone’s golden retriever (or another large dog) who had been struck. That really wrenched my heart. I’m so glad we got to be with her, that we got to say goodbye, that she died peacefully. My torn heart just went out to the owners of that poor dog.

Wu is still in her little white box, and her picture is propped up in front of it right next to the TV in our bedroom so we see her all the time. (We had kept her in her favorite basket, but Toadstool only let us do that for a couple of days before reclaiming it.) Her urn is on top of the TV, and two of her favorite toys - the ring from around a milk jug and a thick little piece of black cord - are on top of her box. I don’t know when we’re going to put her in her last home. I can still see her in front of me on the table, see her fall as the drug went into her veins. Sigh…it seems I have mostly pushed the grief aside in favor of things like birthdays and legal drama, but when I think about her it just keeps hurting me. So I’m crying at the moment. I haven’t been able to look at her final picture lately, but this one is on my laptop’s wallpaper and this one is on A’s laptop wallpaper.

Oh, I miss my kitty girl.

• My Punk Baby
  Your alternative to the pink and powder blue baby. [via vdentata]
  (tags: fashion)
• Self-replicating robots
  Cornell University researchers have created a machine that can build copies of itself. Watch the video, it’s rather mesmerizing. [via make magazine]
  (tags: technology)
• The Inflation Calculator
  The following form adjusts any given amount of money for inflation, according to the Consumer Price Index, from 1800 to 2005.
  (tags: history tools)
• Kayak.com
  I was holding off on this one because I was annoyed that they’re using the word “kayak” for something completely unrelated to kayaking, but then I discovered it’s a best-airfare search combined with Google Maps. That’s too much fun not to mention.
  (tags: travel)

• Geocaching Icons Generator
  Another one like The Selector.
  (tags: geocaching)
• The Story of Signal
  Humorous story of the froggie mascot for Geocaching.com.
  (tags: geocaching)
• African-Made, Solar-Powered Hearing Aid
  The SolarAid is a hearing aid designed and built by Godisa Technologies, a Botswana company founded to make low-cost hearing aids for the developing world.
  (tags: deaf technology)
• Backmasking
  Listen to the forward version, listen to the backwards version, and THEN click to see what the supposed lyrics are. [via ear farm]
  (tags: media funny)
• TattooFinder.com
  Find the perfect tattoo. Download and print. Take the print to your favorite tattoo shop. [via acidjolie]
  (tags: body.art)
• Ergodex
  Redesign your keyboard any way you want. Including on curves. [via advocate magazine]
  (tags: gadgets)