UNDERDOG of PERFECTION

I was dismayed yesterday to discover that the built-in iSight camera on my new MacBook was apparently dead. Photo Booth couldn’t find it, and neither could the Flash-based profile picture taker (whatever it’s called) in Facebook.

I figured it was just dead. Disappointing, but it’s not uncommon given the cost-cutting measures just about every modern high-tech company, including Apple, undertakes these days. At least it was just the iSight camera, probably the feature of this computer I use least (other than the video-out port). If it really was dead, I’d probably just live with that instead of the much greater inconvenience of a couple of weeks without my computer.

But before I gave up on it, I decided to do some research and it turns out that resetting the SMC (the new MacBook’s equivalent of the PowerBook’s PMU) should do the trick.

Here’s what you do:

1. Shut down the computer.
2. Unplug the power and remove the battery. (That last part is important.)
3. Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.
4. Reinsert the battery, plug the MacBook back in (if you want), and restart.

It did the trick… my camera is working again! (Not that I really care enough to warrant that exclamation point, but… well… at least I don’t have a month-old computer with a defective component. That’s worth celebrating, no matter how irrelevant the part is.)

Here’s cool video on skepticism (or, if you’re British like the narrator, scepticism) and open-mindedness, or how to tell the difference between a ghost and a fan heater.

Also featuring wicked awesome vintage comic book style art (with just enough Jack Chick thrown in to keep things creepy… and ironic) and elementary school film strip retro design.

Found on BuzzFeed.

Can’t go wrong with Moog synthesizers. The bloopier, the better. This is first-rate stuff. But nothing prepared me for the end. (Not even the title of the video, which I apparently didn’t read before watching it.)

(From here via here. And just in case you were wondering…)

It’s become an annual tradition: websites playing increasingly elaborate pranks for April Fools Day. The only downside is that it’s now so common that the pranks rarely fool anybody anymore. But they’re still pretty occasionally funny.

I’m not planning to compile an exhaustive list, but I will update this post throughout the day as I come across them.

Twitter switch for Guardian, after 188 years of ink

The nearly two-centuries-old UK newspaper will begin the process of converting all of its archives to tweets. A couple of samples: “OMG Hitler invades Poland, allies declare war see tinyurl.com/b5x6e for more”; and “JFK assassin8d @ Dallas, def. heard second gunshot from grassy knoll WTF?”

Brand New: Verizon Turns to the Clouds

The country’s largest wireless carrier unveils a rebranding that, frankly, doesn’t hold water. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

No Lions and Orioles and Bears? Oh, my!

I heard this on NPR this morning, but since it’s online as well, I figured it counts.

Amazon MP3 Daily Deal: William Shatner’s The Transformed Man for 99 cents

OK, this isn’t technically a prank — you really can buy the album for 99 cents today. But I think the date is no coincidence.

Amazing: The Swiss even clean their mountains

Not quite sure if this video is an April Fools joke or just a regular old joke, but it’s a good one regardless.

Alpine Legend

Coming soon (or not) to the XBOX 360. This joke was already done much better back in 2007

Slashdot

Just about everything on Slashdot today is an April Fools joke, which is diminishing my enthusiasm for this whole enterprise. Also, Gizmodo was apparently hit by the Conficker virus. Or was it? Yawn.

Found a gem of your own? Share it in the Comments section!

Today, with some help from SLP, I hatched a new scheme (can schemes be hatched?). OK, not really a scheme. A new blog. 52 Coffees.

We were sitting at Caribou in Highland Park, discussing the merits of working from a coffee house (at least, one with free WiFi). I idly suggested I should do it once a week, visiting every Caribou in the metro area. She upped the ante and lowered the lameness quotient by suggesting that I only visit independent coffee houses (at least, ones with free WiFi). And blog about it.

So that’s what I’m going to do. Starting next week. I may seek some assistance from Google Maps to locate all of the coffee houses in Minneapolis and St. Paul and visit them sequentially in an radiating pattern from our home. Or I might just randomly visit them. Or a mix of both. I’m not sure, and I’m even less sure you care. But the point is, I’m starting next week, with Minnehaha Coffee. Be sure to follow the blog. And I’ll try to get rid of the default WordPress theme soon, I promise.