Eric

Cartoon That Explains Space Invaders

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I remember Space Invaders well. It was the beginning of a whole new era — right at the start of high school. Video games had arrived and lunchtime involved playing Space Invaders, Asteroids, and then Pac Man and so on. But where did those Space Invaders come from? Why were they invading? What were their … Read more

Problem accessing secure pages and other web pages on amazon newegg and more

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For a week or two (I’m pretty sure this started before Hurricane Irene) I’ve been having trouble accessing secure pages on amazon.com. I can’t see my past orders, reach my Amazon Cloud Drive, or now even place a new order. I discovered today that I can’t get the newegg.com site to work either — so I’ve got no way to order computer stuff I need.

At first I thought it was something corrupted on my main computer.

I’ve tried Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari browsers. Then I tried my older computer that’s running Linux. I’ve tried my laptop.

Nothing works. On amazon and newegg I can’t access any page that’s secure.

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Amazon’s New Look

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Amazon showed me a new clean look today… Nice design with lots of white. here’s a product page:Update: September 4, 2011 Now amazon has gone back to looking how it used to. (But I still can’t access my amazon account!!!). I did find this interesting article on the evolution of the amazon add to shopping cart button.

Hex Paper Games of the 1980’s

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Oh how I loved these games! Cheap little things in plastic bags with a sheet of paper and little cardboard square pieces and a complicated rulebook set in the tiniest type font available. And then it all led into Star Fleet Battles. But it started with simple games like OGRE and Asteroid Zero Four. I … Read more

APC UPS Fails When The Battery Is Dead

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Friday night I was getting ready to go out to see Marshall Tucker and Kansas at a free concert in Eisenhower Park. I was trying to figure out what to bring with me since it was supposed to be thunderstorms… and the lights all go out.

So now the only light in my room is the light from my monitor, thanks to my APC BX1300LCD. So I go over to my computer to hibernate it, since I was going out and wouldn’t be needing it on anyway.

I reach for the mouse and… the screen goes dark and I hear the computer fans whirring down.

So now I’m standing in darkness. My first thought is, I’d better go turn on the lights! Then I realized, the light switch probably wasn’t going to help.

Argh. So I searched for my flashlight, grabbed whatever seemed like it would be useful, and left.

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