Author Archives: Marshall
kottke.org redesign, no comment?
Jason Kottke is messing with us — he’s made a major change to the design of kottke.org and has yet to comment about it, 2 days later and counting. For the uninitiated, this is the web equivalent of changing the … Continue reading
Pollan: Open Letter to the Farmer in Chief
Michael Pollan wrote this open letter to the next President a few months ago in the New York Times. On the verge of the inauguration, it seems like a good time to revisit his suggestions for the next “Farmer in … Continue reading
How to restore a Dell to factory original settings
If you’ve got a Dell computer (desktop or laptop) that you’d like to restore to its factory original settings, hit CTRL-F11 on boot (at the Dell logo, before the Windows logo) to bring up the built-in system restoration features. You … Continue reading
Resetting a Mirra: discovery error
If you’re using Mirra and you experience a problem where the client software can’t discover or detect the Mirra server, try hitting CTRL-SHIFT-R in the application to reset Mirra. This undocumented command will refresh the cached network settings and possibly … Continue reading
Natural resources: some are more scarce than others
The United States has one of the best public water systems in the world, but Americans are avid consumers of bottled water. The price of oil is an obsession, but we pay much more per unit for bottled water… and … Continue reading
What and How to Eat (NYT)
Michael Pollan’s recent piece in the New York Times, “Unhappy Meals“, is the single best piece I’ve read on food in the last five years. By synthesizing the recent history of American diet trends with the uncertain science that inspires … Continue reading
Edward Tufte on presenting information
If you make presentations of any sort — in print, on the web, on stage, etc. — check out the work of Edward Tufte. His forums contain first rate discussions and his one-day course, which includes his four well-crafted, self-published … Continue reading
SwingScore.com, shuttered
I’ve decided to close the baseball tracking project at SwingScore.com. Thanks to everyone who participated! Perhaps as expected, it proved to be a fun way to keep tabs on the emotional state of the fans more than anything else. By … Continue reading
If you’re interested in magic…
Blaine, Copperfield… hacks. To learn more about the greatest magic artist (and author) of our time, check out Ricky Jay’s website. Be sure to check out the New Yorker piece, and also read up on how his firm “Deceptive Practices” … Continue reading
Dell Dimension E510, iastor.sys, Windows XP blue screen error, stop code 0x000000D1
visitors: Thanks for coming by. If you’ve experienced the problem described below, please leave a comment and Digg this story. Dell is aware of the problem identified here, but rather than take the proactive step of notifying customers who purchased … Continue reading