Free Joost Invites

Joost was first brought to my attention via MS newsgroup and it seemed like a really interesting idea. From What’s Joost?:

What’s Joost?
Joost is a new way of watching TV on the internet. With Joost, you get all the things you love about TV, including a high-quality full-screen picture, hundreds of full-length shows and easy channel-flipping.

Inside the box
You get great internet features too, such as search, chat and instant messaging, built right into the program – so you find shows quickly and talk to your friends while you watch. And with no schedules to worry about, you can watch whatever you want, whenever you like – as often as you want. Joost is completely free, and works with most modern PCs and Intel Mac-based computers with a broadband connection. Get Joost today!

Free TV
Now showing at Joost: hundreds of full-screen shows from your favourite channels.

Exciting extras
Chat, instant messaging, search and more – baked right into the TV experience.

Complete control
With Joost, you’re in charge. No more schedules – watch what you want, as often as you like.

Coming soon…
Write your own add-ons, watch yet more great content. Come back regularly for updates.

However, it appeared you needed to be invited to join the beta and I didn’t want to be one of the many sending a reply all email asking for an invitation.

Anyway, a day ago, this thread was brought to my attention: Free Joost Invites.

GigaOm, NewTeeVee and Joost are excited to invite you to experience the next generation of television

Get your invitation to Joost today and you’ll enjoy a TV-like experience enhanced with the choice, control and flexibility of Web 2.0. Joost can be accessed from your PC or Mac with a broadband Internet connection and offers broadcast-quality content for free.

To get invited, sign up here: Please invite me!

Within a few minutes after you sign up, you’ll receive a email:

GigaOm, NewTeeVee and Joost are inviting you to participate in the Joost beta testing program.

As you may know, Joost is a project that we think will completely revolutionize the way you watch TV. Joost brings you full-screen, high-quality TV on your PC or Mac – combined with the best interactive and community features of the Internet.

We hope you’ll join our beta-testing program and help us put the finishing touches on Joost. This is still a private, invitation-only beta, and the software is being rigorously tested, so we very much value your opinions and appreciate your feedback.

You can download the Joost software right away, by clicking on the link below. You’ll find instructions for installing and running the software on our download pages.

[insert Joost download link]

We look forward to seeing you on Joost!

Best regards,

The Joost team

Installation was simple and went through flawlessly. However, to launch the program, I needed to run as an administrator. My default account is running as a regular user, so that was a bit inconvenient, but oh well. The quality was really good. It wasn’t HD, but it was definitely TV quality or better. I watched some Robot Chicken and started browsing the other channels. It took me awhile to figure out how to convert it into Window mode (double click anywhere on the screen) and how to actually close the application. Had to turn to Ungsunghero for help. Apparently there’s a power button on the navigation control and by default this puts it to sleep inside your task tray. If you go to advance settings inside My Joost, you can change power to close the application.

File Transfer

Windows’ Words of Doom (from B$) –

  1. The Time-Fluctuation Phenomenon
  2. The Delayed-Query Syndrome
  3. The Long-Filename Anomaly
  4. The Drive-Full Abort
  5. The Multiple-Folder-Slowdown Paradox
  6. The Yes-to-All Baffler
  7. The Cannot-Erase-File Gotcha

I’m not one to post Dvorak’s stories as I think he’s one of the biggest trolls around, but this article does have merit. Most file transfer systems on OS has many of these problems and it’s not just Windows.

I’ve always wanted a file transfer manager, sort of like a download manager. Features I would love in this file transfer manager:

  • Be able to queue up a list of transfers instead of executing them in parallel
  • Limit the number of simultaneous transfers
  • Continue to next file or transfer if error occurs or needs user action (i.e. overwrite a file or not)
  • Support Yes, No, Yes to All, and No to All
  • Be able to pause, stop, and resume transfers
  • Be able to re-order when transfers are executed
  • Show the speed of transfer
  • Better approximate time left for transfer
  • Force start a transfer to ignore the limit

This seems like a very easy system to write, yet no OS has this capability. I can of course write my own, but it would be so much better if it was incorporated into the core system, so I can copy or move files via the explorer and having automatically bring up the file transfer manager, like when I download using Firefox, the download manager automatically loads.

I am able to explain “the long-filename anomaly”. Windows XP has a 255 character limit for file names. Windows Vista supports up to 260 characters. But this not counted the same way you’d think filename characters are counted. Most people assumed that filenames only refer to the filename + file extension (i.e. MyPhoto.jpg would have 11 characters). Filename in this scenario includes the entire file path, so that means file “C:\Users\me\My Documents\My Photos\MyPhoto.jpg” really counts as 46 characters. So if you tried to move MyPhoto.jpg into a directory which already has 245 characters, it wouldn’t work.

Hannibal Rising

This movie was somewhat disappointing when compared to Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, and Red Dragon. All of those were a thriller trying to solve a puzzle. This one was just telling a story that was laid out in plain site and just executing with no sense of mystery at all. There was enough gore if that’s what you like.

Official Site
IMDb: User Rating: 6.0/10 (7,639 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: D+ / Yahoo! Users: C+
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating: 15% / Average Rating: 3.9/10
Apple Trailer
Amazon.com DVD
Amazon.com Book
MY RATING: 5/10

hannibal rising poster

Spoilers: (Show)

Emoticons – East vs West

Emoticons carry cultural baggage

Emoticons act as proxies for facial expressions, and there are a lot of studies showing that many facial expressions can be interpreted correctly by all human cultures. Despite that universality, however, there are subtle differences in interpretations across cultures. The authors propose a model in which a culture’s interpretation of facial expressions is dependent upon a combination of the culture’s emotional openness and the challenge of controlling certain facial muscles. As they put it, “Given that the eyes are more difficult to control than the mouth when people express emotions, we predicted that individuals in cultures where emotional subduction is the norm (such as Japan) would focus more strongly on the eyes than the mouth when interpreting others’ emotions. By contrast, we predicted that people in cultures where overt emotional expression is the norm (such as the US) would tend to interpret emotions based on the position of the mouth, because it is the most expressive part of the face.

You can download the research paper here (PDF). To bring this point across, they provide this example:

For example, in the United States the emoticons :) and :-) denote a happy face, whereas the emoticons :( or :-( denote a sad face. However, Japanese tend to use the symbol (^_^) to indicate a happy face, and (; _ ;) to indicate a sad (or crying) face (Pollack, 1996).

Random Crap:

Puget Custom Computer’s mineral-oil-cooled PC (from Maxxius) – We’ve definitely seen our share of wacky CPU cooling (and silencing) schemes, but most liquid-cooling setups aren’t as, uh, immersive as Puget Custom Computer’s mineral-oil-cooled PC. Essentially a motherboard in an aquarium topped off with fluid, the Washington company claims the oil effectively cools system components for up to 12 hours at peak load. While traditional homebrew oil-cooling setups use vegetable oil, the Puget crew chose mineral oil because it’s perfectly clear and, more importantly, doesn’t go rancid after a while. Disadvantage? Large quantities of mineral oil are difficult to find — Puget had to explain what they were doing to a local vet, who normally uses the stuff as a horse laxative. That means those of you looking to build one of these better get friendly with Fido’s doc, cause Puget isn’t planning on selling these. Peep a vid of the crazy setup — including the aquarium’s bubble bar in action — after the jump. I’ve seen my share of mineral oil cooled PCs, but this is the first one I’ve seen in a aquarium. Usually the ones I’ve seen are in Styrofoam boxes.

If this thread is true: Citi Dividend Platinum Select MasterCard – 5% rebate again YMMV, those who have the Citi Dividend Platinum Select card might have their cashback program bumped back up to 5%. A few months ago, they dropped the cashback program from 5% to 2% and I’ve completely stopped using them and swapped over to my Chase Cash Rewards card, which had exactly the same 5% cashback program. However, that card is no longer available to apply for and basically I’m grandfathered in.

I found this image off someone’s FaceBook picture and thought it was really cute and decided to share it.
bleach kon plush
Kon Plush (from Bleach)

10 Totally Stupid Online Business Ideas That Made Someone Rich (from Digg) – I wish I cam up with a stupid idea that made me rich too!

Wis. festival sells deep-fried testiclesAround here, it may be tough to pass up anything deep-fried. Wisconsinites have deep-fried cheese curds, candy bars and Twinkies. They now have deep-fried livestock testicles, too. … “Once you get over the mental (aspect) of what you’re eating, it’s just like eating any other food, and it tastes good,” Buster Hoffman said. … “After a few beers, you can’t really tell the difference,” Joubert said. Yum?

The “official” X-clamp Replacement Success Thread, Please read the first post carefully! (from Digg) – With the recent discovery of replacing the x-clamps on the motherboard being a good fix for 3RLOD, RBJtech suggested that we keep track of results. 3RLOD = 3 red lights of death, a pun on the BSOD (blue screen of death). Many Xbox 360s have encountered this unfortunate disaster. Microsoft hasn’t released any official numbers of how many Xbox 360s have received this fate, but I recall hearing less than 1%. You’ve probably heard of the Towel Trick. Many have guessed by using the towel trick, it heats the system to the point the re-solders the gpu back correctly. However apparently if you replace the x-clamps on the Xbox 360, many have reported success in fixing their Xbox 360s. The score so far is 150 vs 7 (95.5% success rate). So if your Xbox 360 is out of warranty, there’s no harm in trying to replace your x-clamps. Detail instructions are provided over at Tutorial : X-clamp Replacement – RBJtech’s Method and Tutorial : X-clamp Replacement – Lawdawg0931’s Method.

I was reading up on some new deals with Vizio and found out that they have a 0 dead pixel policy. I was shocked! Even Samsung doesn’t offer that here in America. Most companies have a 4-7 dead pixel policy where they’ll fix or replace your LCD if you find more than the given number of dead pixels. Vizio will replace your LCD if you find just 1. From A Lot of LCD for a Little Bit of LootAnd speaking of pixels, Vizio also offers a “no dead pixel” guarantee, which is rare in the LCD TV industry, particularly at entry-level price points. I examined the L42 closely and was not able to find a single dead pixel, so kudos to Vizio in that respect.

UserFriendly – Consumer Choice Enhancement – If HBO thinks it can get away by calling DRM Digital Consumer Enablement (which by the way, enablement isn’t a real word), by that logic piracy should be called Consumer Choice Enhancement.

Infrared – More Than Your Eyes Can See (from Digg) – I was watching this video about how night vision works and I had a hard time digesting the fact they were calling everything from radio waves to microwaves to even gamma rays light. I understand they are all part of the electromagnetic spectrum, but I’ve always associated light to only the visible range of that spectrum. According to Wikipedia: Light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength that is visible to the eye (visible light) or, in a technical or scientific context, the word is sometimes used to mean electromagnetic radiation of all wavelengths. I guess with the latter definition, they were using it correctly.

MK vs. SF 3 (from RayAlome) – MK vs SF 3. See part 2 if you haven’t. Most likely the final one of the series. This is the 3rd and apparently final chapter of the MK vs. SF series (Mortal Kombat vs. Street Fighter). The animation is done really well as well as the fight choreography. All is done with sprites, which is amazingly pretty.

Fox sues website for “The O.J.Simpsons” (from Digg) – Fox doesn’t seem to have a sense of humor about a “Simpsons” parody that’s been going around the net called “The O.J. Simpsons,” reports TV Guide. The parody is quite obviously about O.J. Simpson, but done in the style of “The Simpsons,” with the same music and similar animation.

How not to ship a plasma TVThe guy who shipped this may or may not have been a professional delivery person. It’s tough to tell based on the work he did on this plasma TV. Seriously though, he might as well have shipped this thing using bowling balls. Or, I dunno, hammers. Ouch!

Cyclist OK after truck runs over headA delivery truck ran over a cyclist’s head, leaving him only with a concussion and a mangled helmet. Ryan Lipscomb, 26, was shaken up, especially after he saw the condition of his helmet. Check out the damage of the helmet and you’d be surprise he’s still alive: Bike helmet crushed, but head fine (from Digg)

Teen hurt whacking bullets with hammer– A teenager who put bullets in a vise and whacked them with a hammer to empty the brass shell casings was wounded in the abdomen by approximately the 100th bullet he hit, according to Warren County deputies. Sigh…

Texas man charged in Skittles heistA man caught removing tires from a truck has been charged with stealing the tractor-trailer containing $250,000 worth of Skittles, police said. How many tons of Skittles is that!?!?!

Light Criticism (from Consumerist) – This is the first collaboration between the Anti-Advertising Agency and Graffiti Research Lab. Modified from Ji Lee’s Abstractor TV. We used black foam core ($10/sheet) cut with a laser cutter – however, this project can be done with an x-acto blade, black construction paper, and duct tape for next to nothing. It can be repeated using any backlit display – bus shelters, display ads, television store windows… dream big, act now. NYC’s TRUE GRAFFITI PROBLEM Watch the video here.

Coca-Cola settles lawsuits over benzene (from Consumerist) – Fanta Pineapple, Vault Zero had ingredients that could form substance. The Coca-Cola Co. has agreed to offer replacements to people who purchased two soft drinks to settle lawsuits over ingredients that can form cancer-causing benzene, the plaintiffs said Monday. The only interesting part of this article was the fact that I’m a big fan of Fanta Pineapple.

Weird Al – I’ll Sue Ya (from Consumerist) – Hilarious song from Weird Al from his new “Straight Outta Lynwood” album, done in the style of Rage Against the Machine. The vid features animation by Thomas Edward Lee. Enjoy! This is so sad, yet so true. Americans have become sue-happy.

2-pin 3-pin Power LEDs?

So last night, I finally got enough motivation to figure out how to get my Power LEDs working in all my computer cases. All my computer cases have a 3-pin connector for the Power LED, while all my motherboards have only 2-pins for the power LED. What’s interesting is that there’s really only 2 sockets inside the 3-pin connector that are used? I always thought it was a new convention that new motherboards will be using, but the last 2 motherboards I got (one last summer: ECS P4M800PRO-M, and one just a month or 2 ago: abit IL9 Pro) both have only 2 pins for the Power LED.

I actually started searching online to see where I can buy a 2-pin to 3-pin converter for the Power LED and found this at Directron: 3-Pin Female to 2-Pin Male Power LED Adapter/Connector:
2-pin 3-pin power led adapter

Unfortunately it’s out of stock, but most importantly, it’s not the correct adapter. I have a 3-pin connector and 2-pins poking out on the motherboard. What I need is:
2-pin 3-pin power led adapter

The adapter that Directron was selling was converting cases that have only 2 pins for its Power LED connector to have 3 sockets. What is the purpose of the 3rd pin/socket anyway? A quick search online didn’t result in anything that provided a reasoning. It’s also unclear to me if the 2-pin connector is newer or the 3-pin connector.

Anyway I ended up on this thread: Case LED power indicator connector 3 pin, mobo 2 pin? which redirected me to this page: REWIRING A MOTHERBOARD HEADER CONNECTOR.

Don’t let those pictures intimidate you. It’s in fact quite easy to rewire these connectors. The only tool you need is a very thin and firm tool and a pair of hands. I ended up using a razor blade. Initially I tried it with a small flat head screw driver, but it was still too big. On the connector, there are these little tabs that hold the wires preventing them from sliding out of the connector. Use the razor blade and slightly lift up the tab that is keeping it from sliding out. Do be careful as I didn’t know how flimsy these tabs were and managed to snap one of them.

Anyway, you should also make sure you know which wire you want to move where. One end of this connector will be sticking out and the reversing the cables is not an option. My first try was a failure which ended up with my Power LED blinking when the system was off and the Power LED completely off when the system was on.

I hope this helps! Now all 3 of my computer cases have a functional working Power LED. I couldn’t believe the solution was so simple.

While I was working on one of file server box, I noticed that the 2 hard drives which are currently ghetto-rigged into the system were very hot. I had swapped out some 80mm fans because they were starting to make noise in my main box and thought I’d be able to use one of the less nosier fans with these hard drives. The final result is:

ghetto rigged hard drives with fans

They were originally stacked one on top of another and I was actually trying to stick pens in between them to allow air flow. But then I got to thinking what if the fan goes out? Would these pen melt? So instead, I have it set up like how my Lian Li case does it where they sit sideways and have the fan blowing at it from the front.

Random Crap

Ceiling Height Alters How You ThinkWorkers have long been concerned about glass ceilings at the office. Now they can wonder if the physical ceiling is keeping them from their full mental potential. A recent study at the University of Minnesota suggests that ceiling height affects problem-solving skills and behavior by priming concepts that encourage certain kinds of brain processing. “Priming means a concept gets activated in a person’s head,” researcher Joan Meyers-Levy told LiveScience. “When people are in a room with a high ceiling, they activate the idea of freedom. In a low-ceilinged room, they activate more constrained, confined concepts.”

Motorists drove around dead body on roadMore than two dozen Israeli motorists maneuvered around the dead body of a road accident victim lying in the middle of a busy intersection, failing to stop to help in an incident captured by a traffic camera. Sigh… those 2 dozen people better have a good reason/emergency why they didn’t stop to help.

Microsoft pranks with oFone, Apple rolls eyesSeeing as the Zune was such a hit, Microsoft decided to repeat the success and tackle the iPhone before it even gets out the gate; friends, we give you the Microsoft oFone. Not to be outdone by Apple’s multi-touch keyless interface, the oFone features not one or two, but three keyboards that can all pivot about the small central screen. Need to bag some wild game for dinner? No worries, oFone can do that too, simply extend the three arms (like in the pic above) and it apparently makes a decent boomerang. We’re loving where they’re going with this idea — cool and unusable, just how we like our fake phones. Check the vid after the break.

Oral sex can cause throat cancer (from Tera) – People who have had more than five oral-sex partners in their lifetime are 250% more likely to have throat cancer than those who do not have oral sex, a new study suggests. That means each oral sex partner you have increases your chances of throat cancer by 50%. The researchers believe this is because oral sex may transmit human papillomavirus (HPV), the virus implicated in the majority of cervical cancers. The new findings should encourage people to consistently use condoms during oral sex as this could protect against HPV, the team says. Other experts say that the results provide more reason for men to receive the new HPV vaccine. Interesting…

Quadradius (from Hjo3) – The game’s interesting, though I’d suggest you go through the tutorial before jumping into the game. I was tricked when Hjo3 said it was like checkers so I tried jumping over opponents and setting myself to do so, which ended up with me losing a lot of soldiers. The pieces move up, down, left, right and 1 step at a time. No need to jump over an opponent to take his piece. There are these power ups and I suggest you familiarize yourself with them before using any. I managed to do some pretty disadvantage things to myself when executing power ups at the wrong time. All in all it’s a pretty fun game. I’m pretty sure my opponent thought I must’ve really sucked.

Richard Box’s ‘Light Field’ (from Digg) – Using wasted energy, Richard Box was able to get over a thousand fluorescent tubes powered by low overhead power lines. Derek had mention this at work. I think it was Derek and I mentioned it was similar to the scene in The Prestige when the guy lights up all the light bulbs.

richard box - fluorescent lights powered by power lines

Richard Box, artist-in-residence at Bristol University’s physics department, got the idea for Field (2004) – 1,301 fluorescent tubes powered only by the electric fields generated by low overhead powerlines – after a conversation with a friend. ‘He was telling me he used to play with a fluorescent tube under the pylons by his house,’ says the artist. ‘He said it lit up like a light sabre.’ Box decided to see if he could fill a field with tubes lit by the ‘waste’ energy emanating from powerlines. Box denies that he aimed to draw attention to the potential dangers of powerlines, ‘For me, it was just the amazement of taking something that’s invisible and making it visible,’ he says.

The Simpson vs. Family Guy (from Digg) – With the ongoing pop-culture debate of which show is actually better raging at an all-time high, we at Unibrow decided to put an end to the conversation with the ultimate showdown. While Simpsons fans say that Family Guy ripped off The Simpsons, the Family Guy faithful declare that The Simpsons now rips off Family Guy. We figured the only way to settle this was by having the main characters of each show face-off in a no-holds-barred family cartoon slugfest.

Mr. Jukes’ Halo 3 Betalicious Video! (from Digg) – Check out Mr. Jukes’ Halo 3 “Betalicious” Video. Halo 3 looks like it’s going to be lots of fun. The red laser seems awfully powerful though. The guys over at Bungie like his video so much, they decided to distribute it.

Turning the tables on Nigeria’s e-mail conmenMike is a “scambaiter,” dedicated to fighting back against those who send out the notorious 419 e-mails, promising untold wealth to anyone gullible or naive enough to disclose their bank details. Ungsunghero tells me his code name is “shiver metimbers” and you can find his stories over at: 419 Eater.

perth hillarys australia day 2007 (from Digg) – This panorama shot is amazing! Fireworks on 1 side and lightning on the other. It’s just so pretty.

Truth About Food video (from Digg) – Find out how to be healthy, how to sexy, how to feed your kids, how to be slim, how to stay young and beautiful, and how to be the best. You can also watch the videos without using their interactive flash player: no flash.

101 Greatest George Carlin Quotes (from Digg) – The man who says “life is worth losing” turns 70 today. George would say that’s irony, not a coincidence. George Dennis Carlin was born May 12, 1937 in New York City and for the last 47 years he’s been doing stand-up comedy better than anyone else on the planet. In the process he’s pissed off a lot of people and accumulated some of funniest, and most controversial, quotes known to man. Even a list of 101 quotes is just scratching the surface. In no particular order here are his 101 best… I love this guy and his quotes. 🙂

Lawsuit Claims Pinkberry Isn’t Really Yogurt (from Ungsunghero) – Pinkberry has lots of fans — there is often a long line at the stores. But now there is controversy, and even a lawsuit, over whether or not it’s really frozen yogurt. For a company that’s only been around two years, Pinkberry has figured out how to make frozen yogurt a hot item. Now the company is catching some heat over what’s in its yogurt — or more specifically, what isn’t. It’s neither pink, nor a berry. And now critics say Pinkberry frozen yogurt isn’t even yogurt. … Bryan Williams of L.A. says there’s no “yo” in their “fro-yo.” Williams’ lawsuit says Pinkberry’s catchy jingle and signage claim its healthy, but that the frozen treats don’t have the bacterial cultures that make yogurt good for you. Ungsunghero then brings up another good point. If Pinkberry does win this lawsuit and is able to prove that they are indeed yogurt, then they’ve basically admitted to breaking the law. Well, if Katz provides evidence that Pinkberry’s frozen yogurt is, indeed, made out of yogurt, Katz would have another problem to deal with. Apparently, it is illegal in the state of California to manufacture yogurt anywhere other than a state-licensed dairy facility; Pinkberry manufactures their “yogurt” at each individual store.

Random Crap

A new free XBLA (Xbox Live Arcade) game is available: Aegis Wing (from MS newsgroup). It’ll only be available free for a limited time, sort of like Texas Hold’em which was free for the 1st week. I downloaded the game last night and gave it a try. It’s a spaceship shooter type game like Gradius or Defender. It’s actually rather hard (even in normal mode). The fun part of it is you can play 4 players in local mode, which would be neat the next time I gather some friends over.

Evolution for cows is occurring rapidly lately:

  • Calf born with 6 legs on Nebraska farmA days-old black Angus calf romps about a central Nebraska farm just like any other — only this one romps with six legs. “He’s a real freak,” said Brian Slocum, who said the calf was born Sunday to one of his cows. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
  • Wis. farmer finds new calf has two noses – Mark Krombholz had to look twice at his new calf, Lucy — one time for each nose. “I didn’t notice anything too different about her until I got her in the barn,” Krombholz said, “and all of a sudden I went to feed her a bottle of milk, and I thought maybe she’d been kicked in the nose and there were two noses there.”

6 legs and 2 noses, what more does a cow need for his next generation!

Woman’s 11-stone legs may be lost (from Digg) – A woman is campaigning to raise awareness of a rare condition which has left her with 11 stone (70kg) legs.

Brazil nixes online ad for sale of wifeThe government has ordered an Internet auction site to remove an advertisement in which a Brazilian man offered to sell his wife for about $50.

Balls of Fury – I saw this trailer a week ago and this movie is awesome! It reminds me of Shaolin Soccer, but in table tennis (or ping pong) and instead of an all Chinese cast, this is mostly American. I believe that part of the trailer actually uses a track from Shaolin Soccer. Hiro Nakamura from Heroes actually makes an appearance!

Brewer must pay alcoholic beer tasterA Brazilian court has ordered local brewer Ambev to pay 100,000 reals (US$49,400; euro36,400) to an alcoholic beer taster who drank about a liter and a half (3.2 pints) of beer each day. The unidentified employee alleged that the company did not provide the health measures needed to keep him from developing alcoholism, a labor court in the Rio Grande do Sul state said in a statement Friday.

Google Search – she invented (from Digg) – Google suggests: Did you mean: he invented

Doctor finds spiders in boy’s earThese guys weren’t exactly Snap, Crackle and Pop. What began as a faint popping in a 9-year-old boy’s ear — “like Rice Krispies” — ended up as an earache, and the doctor’s diagnosis was that a pair of spiders made a home in the ear.

U.S. spouses cheat like the French, but feel worseMen in South Africa say they cheat instead of taking second or third wives, Americans lament that love has died in their marriages, and the Japanese believe ex-marital sex isn’t adultery if they pay for it. Haha!

monty python football (from FuzzyWuzzy) – monty python guys with their crazy ideas. What happens when you pit a bunch of German philosophers against Greek philosophers on the football (soccer) field.

Gran Turismo HD: Real Life Comparison (from Digg) – these image comparisons are amazing! I honestly couldn’t differentiate which ones were real and which ones were fake.

Japanese find sleep and shelter in cyber cafesYet the 26-year-old has been sleeping in a reclining seat in an Internet cafe every night for the past month since he lost his steady office job and his apartment. It’s cheaper than a hotel, offers access to the Internet and hundreds of Manga comic books, and even has a microwave and a shower where he can wash in the morning before heading off to one of his temporary jobs ranging from cleaning to basic office work. We need internet cafes more like that here!!!

VR Defender Y3K (from Artemyst) – Another Defend the Castle type of game where you build towers who purpose is to to stop those little guys from reaching your base. This one’s really done well and even has different levels.

Sumo-Mongolian sumo wrestler banned for car crashThe Japan Sumo Association, which forbids its wrestlers from driving, also fined Kyokutenho for smashing into the back of a car in Tokyo last month. Interesting… I wonder why they don’t let them drive? Too big to fit in a car?

Sentence: Wear a sign that says ‘I AM A THIEF’ (from Consumerist) – Don’t shoplift in Attala, Ala. That’s the message Judge Kenneth Robertson Jr. sent when he ordered two convicted shoplifters to spend eight hours wearing signs that say “I AM A THIEF I STOLE FROM WALMART” while standing outside the store. I love punishment like these.

The Dating Game (from Digg) – I didn’t lose a sofa, I gained a wife. All I wanted to do was sell my sofa. Is this suppose to be a good thing?

the legend of neil – webisode 1 – the beginning (from 1P Start) – the first episode of the second effinfunny original series finds neil trapped inside the legend of zelda video game. tony janning and mike rose star. Who knew that masturbating to the fairy in The Legend of Zelda and asphyxiating oneself would be a portal into the game!

The Luigi Story (from GameDrift) – The real story behind the infamous underdog plumber and everybody’s favorite player two. Best Short Film Winner at the 2006 GenCon Film Festival. This short film goes through the life of Luigi. Mario always gets the main focus. I mean it’s a game about 2 plumber brothers, but the title is always Super Mario Bros. What about Super Luigi Bros. or Super Segali Bros.? The main focus on all the cover art is also Mario and Luigi’s may be hiding in the background somewhere. Luigi’s life is tough and even tried to spin off and record his own album. Then he went into a life crime. Not all is bad. He did score the Princess and had a baby mushroom. Really funny stuff.

Unique USB gadgets (from Digg) – USB is intended to help retire all legacy serial and parallel ports. USB can connect computer peripherals such as mouse devices, keyboards, PDAs, gamepads and joysticks, scanners, digital cameras and printers. For many devices such as scanners and digital cameras, USB has become the standard connection method. Another compilation of funky USB devices.

And the real Lotto winner is … that man at the cash register (from Digg) –

  • January 4, 2005: Winning Lotto ticket worth $574,000 lodged at World Square newsagency. An employee, Chris Ong, substitutes claim form, and sends his claim and ticket to NSW Lotteries.
  • January 12: NSW Lotteries sends Ong a letter congratulating him on his win.
  • January 18: NSW Lotteries transfers money into his account. The following day Ong withdraws $574,000 in cash.
  • January 27: Ong leaves Australia.
  • January 31: The real winners, Mei-Yin Lee and Caroline Day, contact NSW Lotteries inquiring about their prize.

But three weeks later when Dr Lee rang NSW Lotteries to inquire about the money, a “bold” fraud by an employee at the newsagency came to light – and it would be another 27 months before the pair saw their money.

Vienna library launches erotica hotlineThis isn’t the typical whispering you might expect to hear at a library. Vienna’s City Hall has launched a “sex hotline” to raise money for the capital’s main public library, officials said Tuesday. It’s unusual, but it’s not particularly raunchy: Callers pay 39 euro cents (53 cents) a minute to listen to an actress read breathless passages from erotica dating to the Victorian era.

Gas station owner told to raise pricesBut the state
Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection says those deals are too good: They violate Wisconsin’s Unfair Sales Act, which requires stations to sell gas for about 9.2 percent more than the wholesale price.
What the f*ck? Why would the government care if I sold gasoline at lower than whole sale cost? Sigh…

FrontDeskTip.com – Your First Bet should be at Hotel Check-inNot everything at the casino has house edge. Real experience shows that people have a 74.08% success rate of getting a hotel room upgrade by tipping the front desk clerk a $20! Interesting… It all started with this FW thread: LAS VEGAS FRONT DESK TIPPING! and someone decided to spin off a site based on the comments inside. I’m tempted now to slip a $20 bill to the clerk next time I visit a hotel.

The Cornucopia Institute: Wal-Mart Slapped for Misleading Organic ConsumersConsumer fraud investigators in the state of Wisconsin released their findings this week after a three-month long investigation into allegations that Wal-Mart stores throughout the state of Wisconsin had misled consumers by misidentifying conventional food items as organic. In a letter to Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., based in Bentonville, Arkansas, the Wisconsin
Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection stated they’d found numerous instances of conventional food products improperly labeled as organic by the retail chain. Specifically, Wisconsin authorities told Wal-Mart’s legal counsel that “use of the term ‘Wal-Mart Organics’ in combination with reference to a specific non-organic product may be considered to be a misrepresentation and therefore a violation” of Wisconsin state statutes.
I wonder what their definition of Wal-Mart organic is…

tsa security (from Consumierist) – This is the SNL (Saturday Night Live) skit on TSA (Transportation Security Administration) security. This is a parody of what the training would be like when the new liquids and gel rule went into effect.

Confirmation: GrandCentral + TMobile = Cheap Incoming Phone Calls?You can get cheap calls on your T-mobile plan by hooking it up with Grand Central, reader Noah’s T-mobile bill confirms. Grand Central is a free service that creates a new phone number that you can link to other phone numbers. When someone calls your Grand Central number, it forwards to the other numbers you have attached. T-Mobile has a “My Fave 5” plan that gives you unlimited nationwide calling to those numbers you put in your Fave 5 network. I’ve mentioned this in the past, but one thing I was never clear on was how the caller id would work. In order for My Fave 5 to work correctly, it has to tell T-Mobile it’s always calling from the same number. Unsunder posted a comment: It lets you know the caller info from your address book through Grandcentral when you answer. It would say call from “Ben”. So you would have to answer to find out who was calling. If they’re not in your address book then they are asked to state their name and the info is stored. So yes you do lose your caller id. Although you get it back in a crippled way.

World of Warcraft VISA Credit Card (from Ungsunghero) – Earn gametime with card purchases / Receive a month of WoW with first use. I was thinking, if I was an MMORPG and was issuing a credit card, I’d be giving out in-game money/currency/gold (costs me nothing) and if they accumulate a certain number of points, they can use it to obtain a rare item, maybe even an item that you can only retrieve by using the card.

A Sweet So Sour: Kool-Aid Dills (from Ungsunghero) – Those pickles were once mere dills. They were once green. Their exteriors remain pebbly, a reminder that long ago they began their lives on a farm, on the ground, as cucumbers. But they now have an arresting color that combines green and garnet, and a bracing sour-sweet taste that they owe to a long marinade in cherry or tropical fruit or strawberry Kool-Aid.

You Know You’re in College When…

This list was taken from The Burning Biscuit (from Digg). I’m going to cheat on this entry and just make comments on ones I find interesting. The ones that have comments are in bold and my comments are placed between within the [].

  1. High school started before 8am, but now anything before noon is considered “early”. [It still is!!! You can ask my co-workers what time I get into work. ;p]
  2. You have more beer than food in your fridge.
  3. Weekends start on Thursday.
  4. 6am is when you go to sleep, not when you wake up. [ah… i still do this on the weekends]
  5. You know many different ways to cook ramen noodles or macaroni and cheese. [this I learnt from Liam]
  6. The health center gives out free condoms, and people take them… just in case.
  7. Instead of falling asleep in class, you stay in bed. [haha. so true! why go to class and fall asleep in an uncomfortable chair and risk being caught when I can stay in my warm comfy bed.]
  8. You know how late McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Qdoba, etc. are open.
  9. You think it’s the weekend on a Wednesday and you don’t know what month it is.
  10. You can’t remember the last time you washed your car.
  11. Your underwear/sock supply dictates your laundry schedule. [I did laundry every 2 weeks – which was the point when I ran out of underwear and socks. now that I have a job, I’ve upgraded to an extra week of socks and underwear so I only have to do laundry every 3 weeks!]
  12. You check Facebook/Myspace more than once a day.
  13. You get drunk dialed on any night of the week.
  14. You wash dishes in the bathroom sink.
  15. You’ve fallen off a loft bed.
  16. You talk about beer pong like it’s a sport.
  17. Finding random people in your house is perfectly normal, and you even sympathize with them… sometimes when you wake up you have no idea where you are.
  18. Your primary news sources are the Daily Show and the Colbert Report. [what’s wrong with getting our daily news from these 2 “reliable” and funny news sources?]
  19. You open a beer at 10 am and your roommate asks you if there’s more.
  20. The standard of meals per day falls to two, sometimes just one. [i woke up too late for breakfast, and since I had to rush to class, I’d miss lunch too, and usually end up eating only dinner]
  21. Your trash is overflowing and your bank account isn’t.
  22. You go to Target or Wal-Mart more than 3 times a week.
  23. You wear the same jeans for 13 days without washing them.
  24. Your breakfast consists of a coke or cereal bar on the way to class… anything with caffeine will do.
  25. Quarters are like gold. [always needed quarters for laundry]
  26. Your idea of feeding the poor is buying yourself some ramen noodles.
  27. You live in a house with three couches, none of which match.
  28. You try to study but seem to procrastinate by eating, going to study breaks, talking to people, etc…
  29. You talk to your roommate on instant messenger when you’re both home. [why waste energy yelling across the room?]
  30. You ask people what YOU did last night.
  31. Certain things are now deemed “Facebook worthy.” When friends take pictures of you, you wonder how long it will take them to post them.
  32. You’ve seen a hit and run involving a bicyclist/pedestrian.
  33. You see people you know you’ve met but can never remember their names or how you know them. [I thought I just had a bad memory!]
  34. You sleep more in class than in your room [this actually contradicts #7, and I’m a big follower of #7]
  35. Your idea of a square meal is a box of Pop-Tarts.
  36. You’ve traveled with bags of dirty clothes.
  37. You go home to do your laundry because you’re too poor to pay the $2… or too lazy to go to a change machine. [unfortunately I didn’t have this luxury as I only went back home 2 or 3x a year]
  38. You pay $100 for a book you don’t read once, return it four months later, and get $7. [these kids need to be taught a lesson on how to buy and resell books]
  39. More than 20% of your household furnishings are made from milk crates.
  40. You recognize the meat in the dorm soup as yesterday’s meatloaf, and thus decide to eat a nice bowl of cereal – a safe bet for any meal.
  41. You use words like “thus” (see #40).
  42. You throw out bowls and plates because you don’t feel like washing them.
  43. Your beer pong table is nicer than all your other tables.
  44. It takes preparation… and 3 people… to take out your garbage.
  45. Going to the library is a social event.
  46. You wear flip flops in the shower your freshman year… you know why.
  47. You start joining clubs because of the free food. [I didn’t join the clubs. I just went to their events. *whistles*]
  48. Visits home depend on how much money you have for gas. [as Ungsunghero said, they forgot to factor in the money they’ll be receiving when they get home.]
  49. You skip one class to write a paper for another. [Ah… I’ve done this before.]
  50. You have no idea where your tuition money is going… technology fees? I think not.
  51. Bicycles don’t seem as lame as they did in high school.
  52. You stay up late to finish homework then sleep through the class in which it was due.
  53. Girls: You’ve balanced your foot on a shampoo bottle to shave.
  54. Your backpack is giving you scoliosis.
  55. You’ve written a check for 45 cents or stopped to get $2.00 of gas.
  56. Your bill in the bookstore will be comparable to tuition.
  57. Going to the mailbox becomes an ego booster/breaker. [if you knew me, I had packages coming in almost every other day. I always liked finding surprises.]
  58. Most of your T.A.’s are foreign…what’s the deal?
  59. You never realized so many people are smarter than you.
  60. You never realized so many people are dumber than you. [I don’t know about smarter, but there were definitely a lot of dumb people]
  61. Western Europe could be wiped out by a terrible plague and you’d never know, but you can recite the last episode of your favorite show verbatim. [I actually slept through 9-11 and only woke up sometime after the 2nd crash. I thought some meteoroid had crashed landed (like Armageddon)]
  62. Care packages rank right up there with birthdays. [boooo! I never got a care package]
  63. You craft ways to make any game into a drinking/stripping game.
  64. You meet the type of people you thought only existed in movies.
  65. Printers break down only when you desperately need them.
  66. Anything can be cooked in a microwave. [you haven’t master the art of cooking as a college student if you can’t figure out how to cook everything with a microwave]
  67. Two words: bike cops.
  68. You have Safe Ride programmed into your phone.
  69. Old school Nintendo… and guitar hero… are pretty much the best things ever.
  70. Going to the grocery at midnight is completely normal. [I’ve gone to Safeway at 3am so many times]
  71. You call restaurants that deliver more than you call your own family. [fortunately for me, there were about 10 restaurants next to my apartment building]
  72. You’ve paid bills over $5… in coins.
  73. You can’t imagine life without your computer/cell phone/ i-pod. [I don’t really think this belongs in this list as so many people too are so reliant on electronics]
  74. Hoodies and sweatpants become the norm – jeans are considered “dressy” at certain occasions… like school.
  75. A canceled class is almost as exciting as Christmas. [Unfortunately, to find out that the class was canceled usually required waiting in the lecture hall for 15 minutes and deciding to leave when the professor didn’t show up.]
  76. Taking a nap in the library is perfectly acceptable.
  77. Your professors speak English… as a second language.
  78. Your teachers swear in class and no one cares.
  79. Candles in your dorm room are considered contraband, but cigarettes are ok.
  80. You take condiment packets and napkins from fast food restaurants – hey, they’re free.
  81. Betta fish are like your family.
  82. You bring back socks from the laundry room that may or may not be yours.
  83. You know what people carrying suspiciously heavy backpacks after dark are doing…
  84. The elevators take forever but you’ll wait 10 minutes just so you don’t have to climb stairs. [I never really got this. I lived on the 2nd floor and I always took the stairs. Stairs were always faster even if we started at the same time. I hate it when people take the elevator when only going up 1 floor. People still do that. The other day at work, some guy comes in and pushes the “2” button. He looks at me and explained and says that the stairs were too far away. I do have to admit that stairs should be conveniently placed next to the elevator which isn’t the case in my building, but the fact that he apologized or gave an explanation meant he knew it was just not socially acceptable to use the elevator to go up 1 floor.]
  85. Your roommate asks you to check the weather on your computer when they’re standing 5 feet away from the door.
  86. Showers become more of an issue.
  87. You press the automatic door opener instead of simply grabbing the handle when you approach a door. [They must be referring to the handicap buttons. I always found it useless as it took longer for the door to open, then if I had pushed it. And once you push the button, using force is no longer an option as the door pushes back against you.]
  88. Christmas lights seem to be acceptable all year round.
  89. Class size doubles on exam days. [Did I tell you for my Calculus class, I went on the 1st day, went for the mid-terms and went for the final. After the final, I asked my friend if the professor change his hair style. He tells me he’s had that hair style for the entire semester. Apparently my impression of what my professor looked like came from his website that he posted assignments to.]
  90. You donate plasma even though you know it’s pretty sketchy.
  91. You are no longer thankful that fire alarms are here to protect you. [those idiots in the dorms pulled the fire alarm during midterms and finals. it was annoying as heck. then there was once when popcorn was overcooked and smoke from the microwave set it off too.]
  92. You’ve bought Christmas presents from the book store and charged it to your student account so your parents pay for the gifts because you’re too broke.
  93. You begin to include ketchup on your list of acceptable vegetables.
  94. You stay on campus for hours in between classes when it’s too cold to walk home.
  95. People have to help you kick the vending machine just so you can get your 50 cent bag of chips.
  96. There’s always a “question kid” in at least one of your classes, and you really wish someone would just tell him/her to shut the hell up. [yes, the very annoying question kid. he should just stay after class or visit the professor during office hours.]
  97. You steal dishes from the cafeteria so you don’t have to wash your own.
  98. Laundry is an all-day event. [it’s not suppose to be? shoot, I must still be doing something wrong when I do laundry.]
  99. You no longer find it uncool to take naps. In fact, you quite enjoy them. [naps are AWESOME!!!]
  100. It’s illegal to drink in the dorms yet they sell an assortment of shot glasses, beer mugs, tankards, etc. in the bookstore.
  101. You find your list of acceptable napping places expanding daily to increasingly uncomfortable locations.
  102. You fill out credit card applications for the free food. [i got a free t-shirt once. I remembered it as the dumbest thing I did because I was contemplating if I should continue filling it out when I noticed it required my SSN, and I don’t really trust this guy giving out free t-shirts for credit card applications. I eventually did give him back the form and got my free t-shirt, and the Bank of America sends me a rejection letter months later.]
  103. You’ve eaten cereal out of a cup… with a fork. [Hey! There was no clean spoon! They were all dirty and piled in the sink.]
  104. Dressing up for Halloween becomes cool again.
  105. You know at least one person who has dropped his/her cell phone into a toilet.
  106. You hang multiple shirts on the same hanger to save space/money.
  107. You become increasingly annoyed with the “old” people in class – props to them for going back to college but they generally ask really, really annoying questions.
  108. You admire people’s alcohol bottle shrines.
  109. You set your clock 5-10 minutes ahead so you can potentially make it to class on time.
  110. You check ratemyprofessor.com (or something of the like) before choosing your class schedule. [I’m pretty sure each college had their own professor rating site.]
  111. You text faster than you type. [This is just sad…]
  112. You only find out a class is cancelled after you get there and sit for about ten minutes. [exactly what I said in #75]
  113. You actually start using coupons, especially those school coupon books. [I was more of a technology/online shopping coupon user]
  114. You open canned food and eat it… out of the can. [what’s wrong with eating out of a can? you save yourself from having to wash a bowl! I call that genius!]
  115. You run out of black ink and, instead of buying a new ink cartridge, decide blue is a nice substitute… adds a little flair. [Haha! I personally had a black and white laser printer, so there was only one color to begin with. But I did have people IM me when they ran out of ink asking how they can tell it to use a different color to print. Speaking of printers, I never bought replacement toner cartridges, as it was cheaper to look for a deal on a brand new laser printer and sell the existing one.]
  116. You have numbers in your phone with labels like “Sketchy Steve” and “Alcohol Guy.”
  117. The food in your fridge may or may not be older than your little brother. [I think this is still true for my fridge today… I’m sometimes to find stuff that’s been in there since the beginning.]
  118. You finish reading this and wonder how you can procrastinate next. [if I was still in college, this would definitely be true.]

Along with this entry, I’ll link you to this recent Little Gamers comic strip: Chocoate Dinner. Being grown up rocks!

Checks?

So I was reading an article over at Consumerist: Check Fraud Is Alive, Well, And Preventable, which talked about check washing, where you use water or some chemical to dissolve regular ink off a check, and write a new amount and maybe even a new payee. They then suggested the use of a “secure” ink instead of a regular ballpoint pen to prevent this.

This got me thinking. How often do people use checks these days? Back in the day before credit cards and eChecks, I can see this as common scenario. I mean once in awhile I still see someone at a supermarket or Costco take out their checkbook to write a check. Speaking of which, apparently if you want to use a check at Costco, the check has to be in the card holder’s name. However, they’ll accept debit/credit cards that are not in the card holders name which I found interesting.

Anyway, back to the original topic. When I see people whip out a check, it always surprises me why in this day and age they’d want to use a check and not a debit card per se. I’ve always seen checks as inherently flawed due to the fact as long as someone has your routing number and your account number (both available if they get ahold of a copy your check), they can then produce their own checks with the same information. There’s some verification these days, but not everyone does it. Also, all it takes for me to link accounts is a routing number and an account number. Some financial institutions have a secondary check where they make 2 small deposits into the account you want to link and make you verify you’re the account owner. A long time ago, I thought I’d open a bunch of checking account and link them all to PayPal and make them deposit tiny amounts. However, that plan was scrapped after I decided how much effort was needed to just make a very small amount (similar to the scheme where you get those coupons/rebate forms that have 1/100 cent value and cash in. KACHING!)

Anyway, in this age and time, I only write checks to people I’m familiar with and trust. Everything else, I do bill pay/eChecks (where the bank transfers the money or mails the check for me). I don’t think I’ve ever used my bank card as a debit card either. The last check I wrote was to Derek since we were splitting a huge order and the amount was not a friendly figure. Before that it was probably back in college and I don’t even remember what anymore. Maybe to link my account on ING Direct?

I have 6 check books (3 for Washington Mutual and 3 for Bank of America) and have not completed one of those checkbooks yet. I got them when I first opened my accounts which was right before I went to college.

Another interesting point is that I never keep over $500 in any of my checking accounts, usually around the $200 range. The reasoning behind that isn’t because I don’t think its secure. It’s just that they have 0% interest, so I have no reason to keep money there besides paying bills, which I’ve already swapped over most to my ING Direct Electric Orange account.

Similarly, this article was posted a few days later: Fraud hits home — my front porch! (from Consumerist) – If you close your account because some jerk stole your student loan payment check and is trying to cash it, you might want to switch banks. Otherwise, Bank of America might helpfully link your new account to your old one so the #%@$# can still cash the stolen check.

Obviously Bank of America is in the wrong here and they should’ve done everything they could to rectify the problem as soon as possible with least amount of inconvenience to their client, but of course this is never the case. They probably made it even worse by making the client jump through hoops to resolve this problem. But that leads me to the main question of this entry. Why wasn’t he using bill pay or EFT (electronic fund transfer) to pay his student loans? I even get an extra 0.25% discount on my interest when I chose EFT. That way, a random check of yours could not have been stolen and if electronic transfer was not and option and Bank of America had to print and mail a check, chances of that being altered/forged is very unlikely given that they printed the check with “secure” ink and probably have a way to verify the check’s information.

Missing Codecs in Firefox to Play Video in Gallery2

Update:

Instead of doing all the work below, you should first try installing this plug-in: Windows Media Player Firefox Plugin

Every once in awhile, I’ll hit a video on my gallery that requires me to download a codec, but telling it to download fails to find a codec that’ll work. If I copy and paste the URL into IE, the video plays fine. I started searching the Gallery forums.

I found this thread: Combination Gallery 2/AVI/Firefox does not display video, and it appears a lot of people are hitting this issue:

When adding an AVI file to my gallery it is recognized and ffmpeg creates a thumbnail for it. Viewing the item with Internet Explorer will result in the video being displayed.

However this does not work with Firefox. For some reason it seems that the Windows Media Player plugin in firefox does not recognize the video/x-msvideo MIME-type. Check about:plugins and scroll to Windows Media Player to confirm this.

Technically this is not a Gallery problem, but a bug by Microsoft in there Firefox support. However since Microsoft is not very likely to fix this it would be nice if someone could provide a work-around and integrate this into Gallery.

Before, I would just tell every video to use mime type: video/x-ms-wmv, however, Gallery2 supports a wider range of mime types, so I decided to let it do its own thing.

It turns out, to fix this problem, you need to associate video/x-msvideo in Firefox. Instructions provided by: Avi in firefox.

To do this, open the following file in notepad:
%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\pluginreg.dat

Search for “Windows Media Player Plug-in Dynamic Link Library” and add the bolded lines:

Windows Media Player Plug-in Dynamic Link Library|$
10
0|application/asx|Media Files|*|$
1|video/x-ms-asf-plugin|Media Files|*|$
2|application/x-mplayer2|Media Files|*|$
3|video/x-ms-asf|Media Files|asf,asx,*|$
4|video/x-ms-wm|Media Files|wm,*|$
5|audio/x-ms-wma|Media Files|wma,*|$
6|audio/x-ms-wax|Media Files|wax,*|$
7|video/x-ms-wmv|Media Files|wmv,*|$
8|video/x-ms-wvx|Media Files|wvx,*|$
9|video/x-msvideo|Media Files|avi,*|$

Increasing 9 to 10 tells it that there’s 10 mime types you should associate this plug-in with. Adding the video/x-msvideo line tells it to associate mime types of that with Windows Media Player. Afterwards, all my avi files began to play fine.

After saving this file, restart Firefox and video with the mime type of x-msvideo should play fine.