iTunes appears to have a bug related to importing playlists (i.e., “.m3u” files). If you drag a playlist into iTunes, the music files are added to iTunes but will not show up in the iTunes Library. Consequently, the added files don’t show up in searches or Smart Playlists either. What’s especially confusing is that the …
Wired.com has an interesting article on the cognitive benefits of chewing gum of all things! Why do people chew gum? If an anthropologist from Mars ever visited a typical supermarket, they’d be confounded by those shelves near the checkout aisle that display dozens of flavored gum options. Chewing without eating seems like such a ridiculous …
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A full-term pregnancy lasts 40 weeks, but some women are now electing to deliver two or three weeks early. Even though 37 weeks is still considered full term, studies show that babies born even a few weeks too early are at greater risk for health problems than those who are born later.
After I upgraded to the latest version of VirtualBox, my virtual machines wouldn’t launch. The error reported did not seem very helpful — something like the following. Failed to load VMMR0.r0 (VERR_SUPLIB_WORLD_WRITABLE). Unknown error creating VM (VERR_SUPLIB_WORLD_WRITABLE) Googling around, I found an entry in the VirtualBox.org forums from February 2011 that suggested removing world-writeable permissions …
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I didn’t realise that this bird of prey is the fastest living creature on Earth — fascinating information from today’s featured Wikipedia article. The Peregrine Falcon is a cosmopolitan bird of prey in the family Falconidae. The Peregrine reaches speeds of over 320 km/h (200 mph) during its characteristic hunting stoop, making it the fastest …
This NASA video is fascinating and beautiful. Most time lapse videos of the night sky show the stars and sky moving above a steady Earth. Here, however, the frames have been digitally rotated so that it is the stars that stay (approximately) steady, and the Earth that moves beneath them. The video dramatically shows the …
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I was getting error messages regarding USB 2.0 when launching Windows virtual machines in VirtualBox 4.0+. The message mentioned loading the “Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack”. Like Oracle’s VirtualBox, the extension pack is free. The extension pack can be downloaded from the VirtualBox download page. It’s a one size fits all extension. The link is …
David Pogue, an excellent popular tech writer, has posted a bunch of really useful computer and tech gadget tips that every novice (and expert) should know. He covers cell phones, smart phones, cameras, web browsing, general computer shortcuts, e-mail usage, and so on. Highly recommended! Basic Technology Made Easier, Volume One – State of the …
James Taylor reports online at Forbes in the blog column Endpoint Analysis: “Faced with the embarrassing fact that sea level is not rising nearly as much as has been predicted, the University of Colorado’s NASA-funded Sea Level Research Group has announced it will begin adding a nonexistent 0.3 millimeters per year to its Global Mean …
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Today’s featured article on Wikipedia is The Rosetta Stone. “The Rosetta Stone is a fragment of an Ancient Egyptian granodiorite stele whose engraved text provided the key to the modern understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphs. The inscription records a decree that was issued at Memphis in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy V. The decree …