The slickest deal for free air miles.

Turn coins to air miles.

As I post this, I am sitting in a chair ...

... IN THE SKY.

(Thanks, Google.)

Cue John Williams

I'm not much of a mariner, and stories like the following recent news item are a reason why:

A 10-foot great white shark was recently caught off the coast of Queensland — after being mauled by a 20-foot great white!

The 10-foot great white was almost bitten in half.

The fictional shark at the centre of the Steven Spielberg blockbuster Jaws was estimated to be just five feet longer.

Thankfully, we're keeping a closer eye on great whites now, since not everyone can be this guy:

Who are the ad wizards who came up with this one?

Japanese arcade game Cho Chabudai Gaeshi is a score attack game that lets players pound a soft table for combos and then upend it for the finishing move. Settings include a host club, a wedding party, an office and a Japanese style living room. So for example, in the living room stage, players bang on the table as their family complains more and more and finally flips over the table.



Post via kotaku.

More U.S. Open

I'm sure everyone has seen this shot already, but I figured I'd post it for posterity, and to cancel out the clip of Fed falling. Also, if he needs something to boost his spirits after the outcome of the Final, he can come here and watch the clip again and again.

Finally, here are a couple of interesting blog posts from The New York Times:

What it Takes to String for the Pros

When the string bed of each racket is struck, both should ping at precisely the same pitch, indicating the string tension is identical. But Heydt’s were slightly off.

“I could hear it right away,” he said. “Yat said, ‘Your tensions are different. These may be one pound off, but this is unacceptable.’”

A Speed-of-Serve Snapshot

But how is that 148 miles an hour determined? Rallis Pappas, president of Information & Display Systems and a U.S.T.A. consultant who works in the IBM Statistics room at the Open, says it’s not as simple as putting a radar gun on the court. “It’s Doppler radar, but there’s a lot of software that’s part of the system,” Pappas says. “We really refer to it as a serve speed system because of that.”

Busted

Pirates beware.

Federer's Footwork and Safina's Serve

With the U.S. Open getting into gear, the New York Times comes through with two interesting links.

First, an analysis of Roger Federer's footwork, complete with slow-motion video and animations.

As he elevates off the court to create the split step, watch how he opens his right foot slightly when he sees that the ball will go to his right. This makes for a quick move toward his forehand. When landing on the split step, he quickly pushes off with his left leg and makes a final stride with the right. Notice the exaggerated heel-to-toe foot placement. Federer does this to maintain good balance, as the heel-toe foot strike allows him to slow the acceleration of his body and position himself for the shot.

Second, a piece on some of the top women's players, and their service troubles. An excerpt:

The serve and the free throw share key components: foot placement; body balance; weight shift; toss and follow through. Misses happen when players’ minds are willing but their mechanics are weak, or vice versa.

Update 2009/09/04: The Wills, Arnett and Ferrell, joined the Andys, Roddick and Murray, on court for a celebrity doubles match, with SNL's Kenan Thompson as the "umpire", to do pretty much the opposite of what Roger Federer does:



Update 2009/09/07: I must've jinxed Federer — I caught a portion of his match against Hewitt on Saturday, only to see what commentator Mary Carillo called "the most awkward thing I've ever seen Federer do". It's not as awkward or embarrassing as what this ball boy did, though.

Lost Package?

If you ever think you lost something in the mail, maybe this guy got it. Just look at the list of stolen goods.

Sony's new PS3 ads

These are actually good for a change:





Via Engadget.

a Bolt and a Bullet

Those who were wondering just how fast Usain Bolt could run if he didn't start celebrating before the end of a race got their answer this week as Bolt broke his own world records in the 100M and the 200M by 0.11 seconds apiece.

Tyson Gay ran the non-tailwind-assisted 100M of his life with a time of 9.71 — the third fastest ratified time in history — and was still clearly in Bolt's wake at the finish line. (The 200M was no contest at all.) In fact, had Bolt run through the line without looking for Gay and easing up slightly, his time might have been even faster.

With a few years left before he hits his prime, how fast will Bolt eventually go?



When talking about Bolt's feat at lunch one day, and trying to put the 100M race into perspective, I noted that it's like running over the length of a football field (100M is about 109 yards) in under 10 seconds. Two questions then arose: First, how many of us could do it in under 20 seconds? (The jury's still out on that one.) Second, what would Bolt be like in the NFL? Would he just make a fool of everyone?

Not necessarily.

The NFL actually has a history of sprinters joining its ranks as running backs or wide receivers. Even those who never ran track in high school, college, or international competition have shown world-class speed, especially when considering that running in football rarely involves going in a straight line all the way.

Take, for example, one legendary figure, as described by TIME:

Among then was Bob (Bullet) Hayes, who won the gold medal in the 100-m sprint at the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo and recorded what some observers consider the top time ever achieved by a human with an 8.6 split in the 4 x 100-m relay. (Relay marks are faster than regular sprints because runners receive the baton while in motion, enabling them to accelerate quicker.) Hayes later parlayed his speed into a career as a wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys; his passing in 2002 prompted one columnist to remark that Death must have tied his shoelaces together to catch him.

When looking for some videos of Hayes to link, I stumbled upon the YouTube holy grail — a video for which the comments are an actual intelligent conversation! (Compare that with the comments on the Bolt videos, which are a mind-numbing mix of inanity, sheer idiocy, and outright racism.) The debate that the commenters are having is whether or not Hayes could best Bolt's time on a modern surface, with today's equipment and advanced training techniques (and drug testing).

Whatever would happen on the track, from watching Hayes on the gridiron, it's clear that he had the ability to run routes, make the catch, shake a tackle, juke a defender, and get into the endzone — something one can't be certain that Bolt would have.

So, which would be more likely, Bolt breaking the 9.4 second barrier (I won't even pretend that 9.5 is out of his reach), or scoring an NFL touchdown?

Conan does anime voiceovers

Hilarious!


Via Japanator.

Conan's Backdrop

One fan's take on Conan's new backdrop on the new Tonight Show set. Update on what Nintendo thinks about the backdrop.

Gymkhana

Pretty awesome gymkhana video. Gymkhana is like a mix between rally and autocross and drift all rolled into one, which is pretty crazy.



From Autoblog.

The "original" video of awesomeness.

Transforminators

Pretty good mashup with Transformers and Terminator: Salvation.



From IGN via Gizmodo.

Creation of the original PlayStation

This article has a retrospective on how the original PlayStation was conceived. Pretty interesting stuff.

From Edge Online via Gizmodo.

Couple o' Trailers

First up, Duncan Jones' Moon — starring Sam Rockwell and the voice of Kevin Spacey — an indie sci-fi picture that has echoes of 2001, Silent Running, Alien, Solaris, and more:

The score is by Clint Mansell, and the poster is worth a look as well.

Secondly, Idiocracy's Mike Judge returns to the office space (har har) for his next film, Extract, starring Michael BluthJason Bateman, Ben Affleck, Mila Kunis, and J.K. Simmons:

"She's a tramp!?"

Rose Ball

Anybody here ever play it?

From what I've read:

this is Street Fighter IV, in practice mode. Both players are handicapped so they have a pixel of health, and both have selected Rose as their character. They are playing best of 9. At the beginning of each round, one of them “serves” by performing Rose’s “Soul Spark” move - a half-circle towards on the joystick, and a punch button. Then, they take it in turns to perform her “Soul Reflect”, which can reverse projectiles; this is a quarter-cirlce away on the stick, with a punch button. Whoever fails to time the parry correctly will get hit by the “ball”, and the other player will win the round.

So: they’re playing Pong, inside Street Fighter IV.

The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One

I didn't want to include links to things related to this kind of stuff, but I don't know that there is anything off limits here, and the interview itself moved me enough to put it up. I got the link from a fellow Hydran and felt it was worthy enough to get this out there into the netherverse. The link is an excellent interview with Bill Moyers about the economic mess and the aftermath. It gets more disgusting the more people expound on this. Hopefully people like William K. Black can get something going.

Gaming on the Cloud

Now this is an interesting idea, cloud computing for gaming. Whether or not it will work has yet to be seen.

[Part 1, Part 2 - via Joystiq]

Space Bat

A small, crippled bat clung to the space shuttle Discovery's external fuel tank as it launched into the heavens yesterday. Although NASA's report says that "the animal likely perished quickly during Discovery's climb into orbit", I'd like to imagine that, in its final moments, it saw something like this:


John Herrman of Gizmodo Australia would have preferred that NASA's release read more like his:

Bereft of his ability to fly and with nowhere to go, a courageous bat climbed aboard our Discovery with stars in his weak little eyes. The launch commenced, and Spacebat trembled as his frail mammalian body was gently pushed skyward. For the last time, he felt the primal joy of flight; for the first, the indescribable feeling of ascending toward his dream—a place far away from piercing screeches and crowded caves, stretching forever into fathomless blackness.