This is the homepage for James Brokaw. I'm a Lieutenant Commander in the United States Navy, currently stationed in Washington State. I'm a avowed snow lover, part-time ski instructor, and year-round backcountry enthusiast. The header photo was taken of me atop Cowboy Mountain. Other hobbies include hacking, juggling, and generally being geeky.
This page exists primarily to serve as a homepage and link list for my web server, but it's set up as a blog, and I'll post interesting thoughts and ideas here.
Log into Hedgie
Hedgie Photography
Hedgie Photography Blog
Ladyhedgehog's Web
Waiting for War
Alpha Centauri on Linux
Links off Hedgie:
Slashdot
Quadradius
Hack A Day
Beermapping
GovTrack
I believe it’s time to build an open social networking service, similar to Facebook, MySpace, etc., except not controlled by a single company. By creating an open internet standard, developers can create interoperable applications without product lock-in. I’m proposing such a project, and looking for help getting it going.
(continue down this rabbit hole)David Gewirtz wrote a great price entitled ““Apple is not your mother”(ZDNet Article)”:http://government.zdnet.com/?p=8177 in which he examines Apple’s motives in restricting what can and cannot be put onto an iPad. His conclusion is Apple suffers from Steve Jobs’s personality, and is effectively a corporate control freak incapable of following its own best interests. But what about the best interests of the consumer? How should we feel about Apple products?
(continue down this rabbit hole)Great news! Somehow this bill passed through Congress completely under the radar, and despite my use of GovTrack RSS feeds, somehow I missed this until it became law. I haven’t seen any mention on military.com or other sites.
(continue down this rabbit hole)So there are two different XBox 360’s you can buy — the expensive one with a hard drive, or the cheap ($199) one with no hard drive. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work very well without a hard drive, so people go and buy memory units to let them save games. Even users with hard drives often buy memory units to let them backup games, or transfer data to friends’ consoles. Basically, the memory units expand the functionality of the XBox 360, making it a more desirable product and improving sales, right? So Microsoft would want people to buy memory units, right?
(continue down this rabbit hole)
Okay, its a pretty cheesy flash game. But the turn-based air combat reminds me of paper games I played in school, and what’s not cool about steampunk? Steambirds
| ¶The weight of the world has forced me to install Twitter. Dunno if I’ll actually be an active twitterer or not, but I need it to follow people. Dammit. Anyway, I’m LordHedgie if you want to see if I get active.
| ¶Believe it or not, Cisco is putting flash games on the web now. Check out the Binary Game which tests your ability to convert to and from binary quickly. For those of a less nerdy nature, try Bubble Spinner, the first game to actually improve on the classic Bubble Shooter game.
No comments | ¶TinEye is in open beta, meaning anyone can get an account. It is to images what Google is to text — it searches not for words (like Google Images does) but for the image itself. Upload an image, and it will find copies and varients across the web. Good for locating stolen copies of copyrighted images, or sources of photoshopped pictures, etc. Very powerful and interesting web tool for graphics!
one comment | ¶Here’s another high-quality free game, better than most store games — Battle for Wesnoth is a turn-based strategy game similar to Warlords. Try the Wesbowl multiplayer variation for unique fun!
No comments | ¶When it comes to beer, its quality over quanity. But how do you find the gems amongst all the Coors? Try Beer Mapping, the Google Maps of beer.
No comments | ¶Okay, I’ve been playing this for years. I’m a lifetime member of Quadradius (username Hedgie). You can play for free; members get some extra options and extra powerups appear in member-only games. Try it out, and if you see me, say Hello.
No comments | ¶