When my friends on Digg.com used to find something interesting, they would “shout” it to me.  I’d review the stories they sent me, and I would Digg the ones I liked.  This was the how we shared our findings on the vast space known as the world wide web.

Figure 1 - Despite this feature disappearing, I will still not join Twitter.

In late May, Digg announced that “shouts” were no longer going to be an accessible feature to notify your friends of articles on the site.  Let me take a step back.  For those of you not familiar with Digg or social bookmarking in general, I’ll fill you in.  Social bookmarking is a method for internet users to store, manage, share, and organize bookmarks of web pages.  I’ve written an article on social bookmarking here.  More specifically, Digg is a site where users submit images, articles, and videos in different categories, and other users “digg” or “bury” the links.  Those with the most “diggs” make it to the front page, where they get more exposure.  Community interaction is encouraged in the comments of each link, where comments themselves can be “dugg” or “buried” as well.

Shouts were an easy, localized way to share links with your friends.  Now, when someone shares an article with me, I typically get an email saying something to the effect of “Digg is completely retarded and disabled shouts, so I’m sending you this link.  Copying and pasting sucks dick.”  If shouts were an easy, widely used method of distributing content among Digg users, why were they removed?  The Digg blog says:

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My girlfriend is on a streak, or she just knows me really well.  It’s pretty hard to top gifts like a leather Lord of the Rings beer mug and a Dremel, but she manages to do so. For Christmas this past year, she got me a Sony PlayStation Portable (Model PSP-2001, otherwise known as the “slim”).  Given my tinkering nature, there was just one problem.  My PSP, being one of the later slim models, contained a motherboard that, to this point, had been found to be…[Insert ominous music here]…unhackable.

…sigh…

Figure 1 - My PSP, ready for its new motherboard from the dark side.

What was a warranty voider to do?  After some research, I had found out how to tell if a PSP is hackable. There is a great forum post over on pspmod.com containing a guide on how to determine the hackability of your PSP.  I confirmed that my PSP contained the thus far unhackable TA-88v3 motherboard. I decided the simplest route would be to purchase a PSP identified as hackable from eBay, and swap out the motherboard with mine.  Upon completion, I would sell the eBay purchased PSP back on eBay with the disclaimer that the motherboard had been replaced.  It was a flawless plan, except that the aforementioned guide required knowing a lot of information about the PSP before purchasing it. I was not looking forward to Q & A sessions with many sellers asking for serial numbers and box codes.

There was, however, a simpler solution.  The guide also mentioned confirmed motherboards in certain limited edition PSPs:

Daxter Limited Edition Pack (TA-85v2/3.80 OFW)(CONFIRMED)
God of War Limited Edition Pack (TA-88v2/3.95 OFW)(CONFIRMED)
Madden 09 Limited Edition Pack (TA-88v2/3.95 OFW & TA-88v3/4.01 OFW)(CONFIRMED)
Star Wars Darth Vader Edition Pack(TA-85v2)
*Note – OFW stands for “Official Firmware”

I decided to go with the TA-85v2 motherboard. Why?  No technical reason.  I just felt that my PSP could use a little dark side with the Star Wars Darth Vader Edition PSP.  I was victorious in my online auction and was ready to swap motherboards.

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I’ve decided to fight back for the sanity of web developers everywhere. Anyone visiting 2Lincolns with an 800×600 resolution will now be redirected to this page.

Figure 1 - Listen to "Rage Against the Machine", but don't actually fight the machine please. Update your display settings. (Image courtesy Sony)

I spent a decent amount of time designing 2Lincolns.com catering to those users who may visit the site with a resolution of 800×600 and those who may be using Internet Explorer 5.5. After awhile I asked myself, why the hell am I catering to the 1% of people stuck in the age of free Geocities web pages and animated GIFs? Many web developers feel my pain. With the quirks and periodical noncompliance of older browsers, as well as the display restrictions a resolution of 800×600 imposes, these internet users can be a hindrance to progressive and compliant web design.

It is my duty as a member of the internet community to discourage the usage of primitive technology for the sanity of web developers everywhere.  People, update your display settings or GTFO.  If you insist on browsing the internet in 1996 style, I’ll give you the internet circa 1996. That being said, if someone is visiting 2Lincolns with a resolution of 800×600, tough shit, they don’t get to see the page everyone else does.  Instead, they get served the following page:

Click here to time travel to 1996

I’m thankful to see that the majority of my visitors are using modern browsers such as Firefox and larger display resolutions, so the negative nature of this post doesn’t apply to most of you.  Just sit back, saavy internet user, and enjoy this walk through memory lane.  Table layouts, animated GIFs, horrible color schemes, and just overall HTML hell.  You know, kinda like Myspace.

Figure 1 - I created this image in Microsoft Paint. I also made it extra shitty on purpose to prove a very stupid point.

This is one of the few assurances the internet offers aside from an abundance of viruses, porn, and opinions. You can almost guarantee that when somebody posts a picture of something remotely interesting or unlikely on the internet that someone, somewhere…

…will claim it was “Photoshopped.”

I’ll start off by noting for the purposes of this article, the terms “Photoshopped”, “Photoshopping”, “Photoshopper”, and “internet trolls who live in their parents’ basements” are being used to reference situations in which others may use them, and I am not endorsing their use. Why the disclaimer?  I’ll get to that later.

A few months back, I posted a photo, which, at the time, I did not think would garner much interest. The photo was of a sealed package of Fig Newtons that, upon inspection, revealed one of the Newtons turned the opposite direction of the rest.

I must have been hurting for material.

Nevertheless, I thought it was at the least somewhat funny, so I took a picture and posted it. The post became wildly popular, and by 2Lincolns.com standards, that means about 384 people visited the post.  Self deprecation aside, it was actually a lot more than that.  With popularity comes both admiration and scrutiny, and the comment brigade began. Many just enjoyed the post for what it was: a simple glitch in normalcy.  A few others, whom some would refer to as “internet trolls who live in their parents’ basements”, claimed I was a “Photoshopper” who in the act of “Photoshopping”, had “Photoshopped” the image. Some claimed to be experts, stating that they had, um…”examined the pixels.”

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Figure 1 - Progress, but weeks from portable nostalgia. (Click to enlarge)

I’ve decided to update the site with a couple of things that have been occupying my time, leading to less frequent posts. I became interested awhile back in homemade portable video game systems thanks to the very talented Ben Heckendorn. For my birthday back in August, I received quite possibly one of the greatest gifts ever: a Dremel.

So I broke out the soldering iron and began working on a portable, handheld, Nintendo Entertainment System that would accept NES cartridges. For the portable community, yes, this is a NOAC (NES-On-A-Chip) build. I haven’t yet named my portable, but work is coming along nicely. When completed, I will post a full build log with pictures and descriptions, and most likely a demo video. For now, here is a picture of the front of the portable (paint finished) with the controls and screen loosely set in for mock-up purposes. Pay no attention to the fact that the controls aren’t seated properly as there’s nothing holding them in.  They’re just set in there for the picture.  Enjoy!

The case is a frankencase combination of Polycase’s AG-85 enclosure, the plastic from an NES controller, and the screen bezel from a PSOne screen.  It took about 7,283 coats of Bondo and sanding, plus some precision painting to get what you see here, but this is indeed handmade.  Check back for more updates as I provide them!