Lair - A Game Review

Bottom line: Don't buy or even rent this crap game. I don't know why I rented this game even though everyone said that the game was crap. The controls are too clunky; it uses the Sixaxis control scheme, which can be very annoying since your arms can get tired. The gameplay is weird, almost as if it is trying to be a free roaming version of Panzer Dragoon. Can't really comment on the story since the gameplay is sucktastic. Production values are high for the cutscenes, but sadly, this doesn't translate into anything worthwhile for the game.

DeskTopTwo

Another crack at a web based Desktop called DeskTopTwo. This one is entirely Flash based. It is blocked from the "corp "network though.

Intriguing literature site

The site Daily Lit helps you read over 500 books, mostly classics. It helps you read in manageable installments whenever you need a break and it will email a small chunk to you each day as well.

Web based MS Office 2007 file reader

I was looking for a way to read MS Office 2007 files, in particular the new XML based .docx and .pptx files. The site Think Free is in beta and is actually free. It reads MS Office 2007 files.

MMO Game Eve Online Billion ISK Heist

An ISK is the unit of value equivalent to a USD in the MMO game Eve Online. The most successfull heist to date in an online game was accomplished by a corporation on another corporation. A corporation in Eve is the equivalent of a clan or guild in other MMOs.

Transcoding MKV/OGM to MP4

After endlessly mucking around with transcoding MKV files to MP4 and going through many false leads from various Google searches, I've finally figured out a decent way to transcode from MKV to MP4 without too much of a problem. Here are the prerequisites in order to do the following task:

• Some Unix variant. In this case, I used Mac OS X Leopard. This should definitely work in Linux, though.
• x264/XviD codec libraries. For this example, I will be using x264, so be sure that the required libraries and binaries are available.
• faac/faad audio codec libraries. We want to be able to create a video file that is playable in both QuickTime and on the PSP/PS3, so using the AAC audio codec is a must.
  
• mplayer/mencoder binaries. The newer, the better. SSA/ASS support needs to be compiled for embedded font support for subtitles.
• (Optional) Multiple processors. This will definitely speed things up, so it is a must if you have a bunch of stuff to transcode.

After the prerequisites are met, you can do the following in order to transcode between formats:

1. Open two terminal windows.
   
2. In one terminal, create a work directory. I created a folder in my home directory called encoding.
3. In that directory, create a fifo pipe: mkfifo stream.yuv.
4. Dump the audio from the video file to a .wav file:
   # mplayer FILENAME -vo null -vc null -ao pcm:file=audiodump.wav
   
5. Start playback of the video file that needs to be transcoded within your work directory:
   # mplayer FILENAME -vo yuv4mpeg -ao null -nosound -noframedrop
6. In the other terminal, cd into your work directory and start the transcoding with the following:
   # cat stream.yuv | mencoder - -o OUTFILENAME.mp4 -mc 0 \
   -ovc x264 -x264encopts global_header:bitrate=400:\
   vbv_maxrate=768:vbv_bufsize=2000:partitions=all:\
   trellis=1:level_idc=30:threads=auto \
   -vf harddup,scale=480:-10,expand=480:272 \
   -sws 9 -audiofile audiodump.wav -oac faac \
   -faacopts br=128:mpeg=4:object=2:raw \
   -channels 2 -srate 48000 -ofps 24000/1001 \
   -of lavf -lavfopts format=psp
7. Wait for completion.

In this case, the mencoder command specifically creates a file that is playable on the PSP/PS3. As a consequence of the settings though, it is also playable in QuickTime. These settings are completely tunable, depending on what is needed. An entirely different codec, e.g. XviD/DivX, can be used instead in order to fit whatever requirements you may have.

From my limited experience, two-pass encoding with x264 is almost always better than only doing one-pass, even if it is more time consuming. I am not sure whether or not the resultant video stream that is piped into the fifo will be the same for both passes, but it should be a good estimation regardless. You probably do a two-pass encoding as follows, given that you have performed steps 1-4 beforehand:

# mplayer FILENAME -ass -embedded-fonts -sid 0 -correct-pts -vo yuv4mpeg -ao null -noframedrop -benchmark -nosound -really-quiet &; cat stream.yuv | mencoder - -o /dev/null -mc 0 -ovc x264 \
-x264encopts pass=1:turbo:global_header:\
bitrate=400:vbv_maxrate=768:vbv_bufsize=2000:\
partitions=all:trellis=1:level_idc=30:threads=auto \
-vf harddup,scale=480:-10,expand=480:272 \
-sws 9 -audiofile audiodump.wav -oac faac \
-faacopts br=128:mpeg=4:object=2:raw \
-channels 2 -srate 48000 -ofps 24000/1001 \
-of lavf -lavfopts format=psp
# mplayer FILENAME -ass -embedded-fonts -sid 0 -correct-pts -vo yuv4mpeg -ao null -noframedrop -benchmark -nosound -really-quiet &; cat stream.yuv | mencoder - -o OUTFILENAME.mp4 -mc 0 -ovc x264 \
-x264encopts pass=2:subq=7:me=umh:global_header:\
bitrate=400:vbv_maxrate=768:vbv_bufsize=2000:\
partitions=all:trellis=1:level_idc=30:threads=auto \
-vf harddup,scale=480:-10,expand=480:272 \
-sws 9 -audiofile audiodump.wav -oac faac \
-faacopts br=128:mpeg=4:object=2:raw \
-channels 2 -srate 48000 -ofps 24000/1001 \
-of lavf -lavfopts format=psp

Two new options for the x264 encoder: subq and me. These options will make the encoding significantly longer, so be forewarned. I prefer that the video to be of good quality, so I usually use them for the second pass. Which is why the recommendation for a multicore/multiprocessor system. Also, the quiet flag will completely squelch the output from mplayer, so take this out if you don't want this. For more information about any of the mplayer/mencoder options, please refer to the Mplayer documentation or man page.

Hopefully, this has been somewhat informative. So, get on with some transcoding now, eh?

Vince Carter

For any of the non-meebo users out there:
http://blog.meebo.com/?p=374

The post is an interesting take on the whether or not to get help from Venture Capitalists when starting a new company. I'm sure there is definitely one hydran that can relate to this:

The idea of starting a company’s pretty exciting. You have a vision, you begin to talk to people about it and form a solid team of folks to execute on the idea, and you begin work on the actual product. Of course, without money in the bank funding people’s salaries, an office, a copier and fax machine, etc, it seems pretty tough to actually get going. The result’s that more often than not, people wonder how to attract the attention of VCs when they’re just starting to build their product. My simple answer:

Don’t.

I would definitely agree in trying to avoid getting the help of VCs if at all possible. Not that I've ever started a company, but after speaking with numerous people and seeing what happens places it might best to pursue other means if possible.

Computer game for your viewing pleasure

Recent computer games, I realize, have quite extensive film making feature implemented. (e.g. Halo3, Tf2.. etc) So I search around on youtube for a bit and here are a couple of interesting ones that i came across.

Team Fortress2:





Halo3:



But none of them can top this:

One sided conversation + Link

Yesterday's picture came in the form of an e-mail forward and this one came in as an IM (xxx replacing sender of IM):

xxx: http://movies.aol.com/movie-photo/matt-damon-best-worst-roles
xxx: check this
xxx: your mancrush

I know there might by some readers that would disagree with the Legend of Bagger Vance call. I myself thought Brothers Grimm and Stuck on You weren't that bad. Then again Matt Damon is my "mancrush"

Whistler Blackcomb Pictures

Finally posted some pictures onto Picasa Web for my Whistler Blackcomb trip. As for a sample of pictures, here's a shot of the Little Peak on Whistler Mountain.

Always check your kid's homework

Here is a funny picture I got as an e-mail forward. I don't get e-mail forwards as often as when AOL2.5 was THE internet. The title of the e-mail was "Always check your kid's homework". I guess it gives a new meaning to career day.

Why I miss Tennessee

Warning, this video is not safe for work due to language. The video contains a daring stunt, slow-mo replay of the stunt, and color commentary. Video link in the first comment.

Anti-Drug public announcement

Website : TED - ideas worth spreading

An interesting web site offering short video talks, tutorials and short courses with outlines and such.

Talks Vilayanur Ramachandran: A journey to the center of your mind.

knol? thoughts?

Google announces Knol project

Another interesting link

I personally am a fan of Wikipedia but am beginning to get unhappy with things like lame (in my opinion) policies.

I'm still formulating thoughts on Googles initiative to have a wiki-esque product. What do you guys think of their approach/idea.

killing pablo the penguin

With Christian Bale's recent run of good movies and Javier Bardem's outstanding performance in No Country For Old Men, it is time they converge. Killing Pablo (Escobar, not the penguin from Backyardigans) looks to be a movie that I'll be eagerly anticipating. I'm always down to watch a movie about the Michael Jordan of drug dealing.

Space Shuttle vs. Giant Spider!!

I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords.


[via ... the whole internet]

Things I Didn't Know, December '07 Edition

Here are some of the things I've learned over the last couple of months:

— Phil Knight, founder of Nike, has been taking writing classes at Stanford, and is a good classmate.

— Nintendo has some excuses for its (mind-boggling, IMO) inability to meet the demand for Wii systems, as elaborated in Wired and in the WSJ.

— Bill Bellamy is Shaq's cousin (link to FHM, so maybe NSFW).

— There's a documentary about CalTech basketball called Quantum Hoops.

— PCs with some Award/Unicore BIOSes will, seemingly at random, play classical music to signal problems with CPU fans and power supply voltages!

— Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer, was created as an advertising gimmick for Montgomery Ward. His creator's brother-in-law wrote the now iconic song about Rudolph, sung by Gene Auntry, for a Max Fleischer cartoon.

— Speaking of Christmas music, there are tons of cover versions of "Last Christmas", Wham's gift to the world.

— The Ten Mafia Commandments.

— An expert Scrabble player would not have set the highest Scrabble score ever, given the same circumstances in which it was achieved.

— The first three-way tie in Jeopardy history (where everyone came back) was a true act of generosity, and the guy who made it happen planned it that way.

Cherry Chocolate Rain

If you haven't seen it yet, Tay Zonday is back, this time on behalf of Dr. Pepper.

How to Beat the Pats

For alliesglove, here's Slate's analysis of how to beat the New England Patriots:

The Patriots aren't unbeatable, but if you want to take them down, you'll need great players, great strategy—and some luck wouldn't hurt. If the Steelers, or any other team, want to end New England's reign, here's the master plan they'll need to follow.

The Eagles and Ravens came close, and provided the "blueprint", but it's hard for a team that hasn't executed for a full four quarters all year to suddenly do so in a single game, especially its biggest of the year. The Steelers don't fall in that category, though, so let's see what they can do.

Slate also re-printed an older article about why journalists deify Brett Favre, which asks, among other questions:

While Favre is lionized for playing through tragedy, Terrell Owens' success has never been given the same kind of context. [...] Why is every hurdle Favre has jumped over presented as the Pillars of Hercules, while a guy like Owens is dismissed as a loudmouth?

It's always good to remind ourselves that our perceptions of famous people really are shaped by the media, whether or not they fit those perceptions in real life.

(Jess + Peter Petrelli)/Skateboard

The dude who will always be Jess from Gilmore Girls (Milo Ventimiglia) in my mind I just found out can skate! I doubt he's better than Jason Lee (Many pros refer to his video part as one of the most famous ones)

rap as expressed in graphs

as linked on the great crail. a buncha charts linking to their respective videos. some are funny some aren't. some have poor spelinlg some don't. have fun

Here He Comes

USA Today provides first look photos of the Speed Racer movie, and AOL Moviefone has the trailer.

The filmmakers are clearly trying to preserve the colorful, campy, and over-the-top tone of the cartoon, but I'm not quite sure it translates to live-action film. As one blog commenter put it, it looks "like a rainbow barfed". They've translated some things faithfully — Speed's neckerchief — while making typical Hollywood changes to other things — turning Racer X's costume all-black, for example. Fans of the show in the blogosphere seem to be excited by the pictures and the trailer, though, so maybe the siblings Wachowski have hit their mark. As usual, for those unfamiliar with the 1960s cartoon, Wikipedia has a good summary.

To me, it's funny that the Wachowskis made this film. The "bullet time" effect, made famous by their film, The Matrix, always reminded me of the end of the Speed Racer title sequence (though their direct influences, I think, were two other manga/anime, Akira and Ghost in the Shell).

Speed Racer itself reminds me of middle school, since there was a time back then that my friend and I would play the computer game a lot. (I still have the installation floppies somewhere in my closet!) Maybe, then, it's fitting that the film turned out to look like a big-screen video game.

The Past Wasn't Always More Civilized

Robert Edward Auctions is not sure it wants to auction a piece of "blue" baseball-related memorabilia (contains images with potentially NSFW old-timey language):

Among the items was the 1898 document pictured above, entitled "Special Instructions To Players," regarding the use of obscene language by players at the ballpark, to intimidate umpires and opposing players, and to verbally battle with unfriendly fans. [...] This piece is ironic as it provides many examples of exactly the kind of "brutal language" that was being outlawed. In fact, it is so over the top that at first we thought it was some type of a joke.

It's somehow comforting to know that people living in the 19th century said things like, "You ****-****er!", "**** my **** you *** of a *****!", and "I'll make you **** my ***!". Heck, I even learned a couple of new ones!

[via]

Smart Kids are Strong Too, Right?

TIME says there's big demand for the Smart car:

To address safety, Smart has placed a steel safety cage and four air bags in the compartment to protect motorists and provides standard electronic stability control to help prevent the vehicle from swerving off the road. "Safety has to be a given," Zetsche said.

Well, I sure hope it's a given ... given that I've seen this video:

Brawndo — The Thirst Mutilator

It's got what plants crave! Now on sale!



Update: There's also a commercial, and a name for this trend of bringing products from movies into real life &mdash defictionalization. To steal a joke from the preceding link: I hope this trend doesn't extend to Soylent Green!

Bale in Terminator?

Christian Bale is apparently in negotiations to play the lead in the fourth Terminator film, to be directed by McG. Bale's resume speaks for itself, as does McG's. Despite my knowing nothing else about this film, this is the first role choice of Bale's in recent years that makes me go, "huh??" Obviously, Bale sees something he likes, so hopefully his fans will see something they like as well. This is a film I was planning to basically skip, but now I'll have to give it a look — if Bale does end up as its star.

2007 Lists

Fimoculous has published its annual year-end list of lists, with all the usual suspects — books, movies, music — but also stuff like: the world's most expensive homes (mine just missed the list, again!), best UFO photographs (if it were really the best UFO, it couldn't be photographed!), and Japanese buzzwords (there's a fine line between motepuyo and just plain chubby!).

Infoporn: Steam Stats

Valve has a Steam & Game Stats site with fantastic infographics that may be more interesting than the games themselves — to people like me, at least.

For example, there's a hardware survey that shows Intel, nVidia, and Realtek leading in their respective hardware categories, among the users sampled. I also learned that a majority of the users of the service have monitor refresh rates of 60 Hz, about a fifth of users have HyperThreading enabled, and 6.43% have over 250 GB of free hard disk space.

The coolest, though, are the Half-Life 2: Episode 2 Death Maps that show where players died most often in each map.

[via Kottke]

An elephant never forgets how to serve

Amazon Kindle

Rumors had been swirling about the imminent release of an e-book reader and service from Amazon, and Steven Levy has the scoop on "Kindle" in the latest issue of Newsweek. You can read the epic article or your favorite gadget blog for the particulars.

Update: Or you can get the particulars from our own Nanoflux, who wrote:

Amazon will be releasing Nov 21, 2007 a new e-book reader using digital ink called Kindle for $399. I'm not sure I'm bothered by or not bothered by the fact that it is entirely closed. It is closed and only uses EVDO to get content. It's about the size and weight of a "large" paperback but at 600x800 167ppi it's still not the same resolution of a similar book.

Could it do what nobody has yet been able to do? From Levy:

Though Bezos is reluctant to make the comparison, Amazon believes it has created the iPod of reading.

I think it will be a while yet.

Set aside the not-so-physically-attractive hardware and price, since they will surely improve. Some of the features — annotations and highlighting, text search, the ability to load your own PDF and Word documents, and wireless Wikipedia access — are steps forward, compared to what's on similar devices now.

Content is the key, though. The Kindle store may not revolutionize its industry's sales and distribution as quickly as the iTunes Store did, since "Search Inside the Book" and free first-chapter previews are not quite substitutes for the bookstore experience. The iPod also caught on because people already had enough content with which to fill the device, since music can easily be ripped from CDs. Not so with books. There's also no denying the role of file sharing in the nascent days of digital media players. Can't share Kindle e-books like you could loan out a book (which is just the way the publishers like it). You can burn your iTunes Store purchases back onto CDs, but you can't print out Kindle books. The list goes on.

Still, some of the aforementioned problems may not be show-stoppers. There may be enough people out there who only read books once, don't loan them out much, and read mostly new and popular ones, which people might look hard at the Kindle, especially if the wireless features live up to their potential.

What do you all think?

Nanoionics results in new memory type

1000 Gigabyte Thumb Drives. Maybe. We'll see.

Researchers have now developed a brand new memory technology, unlike anything currently available. At one-tenth the cost of flash memory, and 1,000 times as energy efficient, Programmable Metallization Cells (PMC) is bound to revolutionize the technology industry as we know it.

Michael Kozicki, director of Arizona State’s Center for Applied Nanoionics, and the developer of this new computer memory states the first product containing PMC memory is slated to launch in 18 months.

This new memory uses a technique that manipulates charged copper particles at the molecular scale. Instead of storing bits as an electronic charge, PMC creates nanowires from copper atoms the size of a virus to record binary ones and zeros. The key technology is that of nanoionics.

Sources:
* Wired October 26, 2007
* IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices October, 2007

Also see:
Goodbye Flash Memory We Hardly Knew Ya

Nanosciences

Spot the Video Game References ...

... in this halftime performance by the Cal band:


Cal Band Great!!

The Gimli Glider

The aptly named DamnInteresting.com (a personal favorite) has an article about The Gimli Glider, an Air Canada 767 that lost engine power in mid-air:

After repeated unsuccessful attempts to restart the stalled engines, Pearson and Quintal once again consulted the 767 emergency manual, this time for advice on an unpowered landing. Much to their dismay, no such section existed, presumably because a simultaneous engine failure had been too ridiculous for Boeing engineers to contemplate.

epicly later'd

The VBS.tv show Epicly Later'd has been picked up by mtv2! Check it out when it airs. It is a show that takes a very candid look at the lives of professional skateboarders. Can't wait.

Check it

What's wrong with Heroes Volume 2?

Heroes fans, do you agree with creator Tim Kring's assessment of where volume two (the first half of season two) went wrong?

Mr. Show: Pre-Taped Call-In Show

"Don't call to talk about it; it's too late! Instead, call about cooking, which is next week's topic ..."

Turtle Shel Silverstein

Slate talks about Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels. Probably old news to the Nintendo junkies and Wii owners out there, but it got me thinking about what must've been going through Shigeru Miyamoto's head when faced with the task of creating a sequel to his industry's Citizen Kane.

After lulling you into complacency with the game's superficial similarity to Super Mario Bros., Miyamoto (depressed or not) signals that he intends to torment you. The first row of question-marked boxes you encounter includes that familiar mushroom, Mario's iconic power-up. Except this mushroom is different. It's deadly. As Mario was tossed from the screen, I experienced a combination of shock and puzzlement. That would become a familiar sensation over the next three hours. Again and again, the game uses your familiarity with Super Mario Bros. to subvert the playing experience.

Mental Floss Magazine profiles Shel Silverstein's career, from Playboy cartoonist to children's books author to musician.

Silverstein made it pretty impossible to get pigeon-holed into a poetry-and-cartooning rut by simply tossing in a few other careers on top—songwriter, musician, novelist, you name it. In 1959, just a few years before he started to write children’s books, Silverstein began a respectable career in music. How respectable? Well, he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriter’s Hall of Fame, won two Grammy awards, recorded more than a dozen albums, and wrote hundreds of songs that were recorded by artists including Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings, and Jerry Lee Lewis.

Info on $199 dollar PC sold by Walmart

The $199 Everex TC2502 Green gPC w/ Via C7-D Processor, 1.5 GHz (misprint says MHz) Via Technologies C7-D Processor, 512MB RAM, 80GB hard drive, DVD-ROM drive/CD burner, gOS operating system is for sale at walmart.com and limited Walmart stores. Free shipping is supposedly available to "your store" in 7-10 days.

Did a search within 100 miles of Irvine,CA with no stores carrying it.
Did a search within 100 miles of Los Angeles,CA with one store carrying it (out of stock) in Panorama City, CA.

http://tailrank.com/3572328/Everex-TC2502-Green-gPC-w

I guess it is called "green" because the C7-D is touted to be the world's first carbon free processor. And max power consumption is 20W at 1.8GHz. It is "carbon free" via offsetting.

http://www.via.com.tw/en/resources/pressroom/2006_archive/pr060913VIAC7D.jsp


oo

And now for something completely different!

When the thirteen colonies were still a part of England, Professor Alexander Tyler wrote about the fall of a republic over two thousand years previous to that time.

Tyler proclaimed, a democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the electorate (the majority) discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most privileges and the most benefits funded from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship (bondage).

The U.S.A. was set up as a republic which essentially has been transformed into a democracy.

Tyler proclaimed the average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years.
They have progressed through the following sequence:
from bondage to faith,
from faith to courage,
from courage to liberty,
from liberty to abundance,
from abundance to selfishness,
from selfishness to complacency,
from complacency to apathy,
from apathy to dependency,
from dependency back to bondage.
- Alexander Tyler, 1750, known to not be an exact literal quote

Where do you think we are today in this cycle?

One possible hint. Ask a random person on the street what is the biggest problem in America today, ignorance or apathy? A likely answer is "I don't know" and "I don't care".

oo

Detailed Ars Technica review of OS X Leopard

As usual, Ars Technica has a very detailed review of the new Apple OS X Leopard that came out. In (a very brief) summary:

• Lots of potentially good backend changes
• System speedups all around
• Good overall UI interface changes
• Bad Dock
• Stacks doesn't work as well as it should
• WTF did they do with the old icons
• Finder still sucks in some ways

Maybe I'll put up my impressions sooner or later about Leopard.

Sometimes Steal Music

Remember, kids: Don't steal music.*

*Unless you use it — along with video copyrighted by Apple — to make your own clever ad for the iPod touch, which the company's longtime ad agency, TBWA\Chiat\Day, spots on YouTube and remakes into a broadcast version, with you at the helm. Also, it helps if the song you steal is hip, catchy, and has a lyric that seems to reference the product.

Update: Don't worry if the song has already been used in a bizarre ad for a competitor's product.

Post of the Uncanny

Again With the Comics has scans from the Alan-Moore-penned 1963 Book Three: Tales of the Uncanny, an homage to both Marvel Comics' Tales of Suspense and Edwin A. Abbott's Flatland. [via BB]


MEANWHILE...
Todd Klein does in-depth comic book logo studies, tracing the evolutions of superheroes' insignias, like that of Batman.

BACK AT THE VILLAIN'S LAIR...
xkcd, the "webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language" — known around my office for its nerdy take on sandwich-making — is the source of another oldie-but-goodie, people playing chess on roller coasters. Pick your favorite wooden monster from the Roller Coaster DataBase [sic] and recreate the comic for yourself!

WILL OUR HERO SURVIVE...
Further evidence that there is a home on the Internet for everything: Nad Shot, a blog that catalogs instances of groin-targeted attacks in comics, such as this reminder that Wolverine's healing factor applies to all of Wolverine.

ACROSS TOWN...
See Mike Draw has some funny, but disturbing, comics.


FINALLY...
Put on your Fantastic Forefathers t-shirt and check out Robot Chicken's spoof of 300, 1776.

RPS or RSP? You Decide!

Take a moment to vote in the poll on the right. The future of your country is at stake! (The future of what your country calls Bato Bato Pick, at least ...)

See also: Pop vs. Soda

Names for 10^n and 2^n

At least in the U.S.A. people in the hardware and software industries routinely use the 10^n names instead of using the 2^n names. Disk makers use the 10^n names too. See here for the difference between a Gigabyte and a GibiByte along with a table for other powers. Someone wrote a System Monitor for FC7 and they used the GiB (2^n) instead of the GB (10^n) notation.

RPS Variants

We all know that paper covers rock, scissors cuts paper, and rock crushes scissors. But did you know that robot tramples medusa?

It's part of "RPS-101", one of the rock-paper-scissors variants invented by David C. Lovelace. Learn them well, as they make come in handy (no pun intended) when doing business in Japan.

Nissan GT-R

Fina-freakin'-lly!! Nissan has announced the 2009 GT-R (no longer related to the Skyline sedan, our Infiniti G-35). The last model year in which the Skyline GT-R was produced was 2002. Nissan showcased a prototype of this new incarnation at the 2005 Tokyo Motor Show. Soon, I will be able to whip out my Centurion Card and actually buy the thing!


More at Edmunds.

Out of the Broom Closet

Author J.K. Rowling had a surprise for the Harry Potter fans in Carnegie Hall last Friday night:

After reading briefly from the final book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," she took questions from audience members.

She was asked by one young fan whether Dumbledore finds "true love."

"Dumbledore is gay," the author responded to gasps and applause.

Okami + Wii = Awesome!

Okami on the Wii.

'Nuff said.

ask.com-2 google-0 The Javier Bardem Story

I was having a conversation about an upcoming movie. It is called No Country For Old Men.

During conversation the actor named Javier Bardem came up. I wasn't sure who exactly he was. I went back to my desk to do a search. As touched upon very briefly in an earlier post, I'm doing a search engine bake-off between google and ask.com. For background I began using ask.com for the following reasons:

1) I saw a cool commercial for ask.com where there is no narration and the website and clicking does all the talking.

2) I'm a fan of Barry Diller (minus the Dennis Kozlowski-esque luxuries).

3) I am a (very small) share holder of IACI, so I figure I'd use one of their 238,427,530,238,492,034,234,626,234 products.

4) I definitely like to try different things as well as have the belief that certain types of competition breed better products.

I still have a knee-jerk reaction of typing in google.com when I open a web browser. This time was no exception. I figured all I'd need is an image of Javier Bardem so I did a Google image search instead of going to IMDB. Google images is billed as, "The most comprehensive image search on the web." Here is what I found:




Now I'm not saying that any software in any universe is perfect but recently as I've been performing searches with both search engines I've been getting better luck with ask.com. My bake-off is not by any means academic, but it's just my framed experiences. The thing that sucks most about the Javier Bardem search is that I did this at work. If you take a look at the first image that was returned by google, it is by no means a "SafeSearch" image. I hope that the people that monitor the web browsing at work don't think I look at questionable material. All jokes aside, lets look at what ask.com (which is not billed as the most comprehensive anything) returned:


When I first started using google a long time ago I really appreciated it's simplicity. I still do. Given that 100% of my home computers are not even "worthy of donations" as someone put it, my computer has a hard time processing a lot of busy stuff. ask.com is definitely busy compared to the likes of google. At home, something like a google is well suited to my tastes/needs. At work, one of my computers is not so old so ask.com works just fine and fast.

Although I do appreciate the simplicity of google, it is refreshing to see a website that intelligently employs useful tools such as wikipedia and news integration and also related names and other search suggestions. I don't necessarily need everything spoon fed to me, but it is cool to see that ask.com provides extra value when available and appropriate. I know that one could easily argue that an image search should have images only, but I feel like their layout has a good mix of nice-to-haves and focus on the image search. One major plus is that the images are at least suitable for work. It is funny to see that the first image that shows up on both search engines is not exactly what I was expecting. Maybe people who normally search for Javier Bardem are looking for that?

Without getting into a search engine religion argument, ask.com seems to be pulling ahead in my (poorly written) book. (Cliche high school newspaper style article ender coming up...) Now if I could just get a faster computer and stop myself from typing the G-word everytime I open a web browser...

EDIT: I just reviewed the now published post/images and realized that whether you're ask.com google.com or gramma's search engine, image searching still has a long way to go. Half the pictures returned by either search engine were way off. Unless there is a lot more to Javier's career than I'm aware of...

Street Fighter 4!?

As most sites I went to put it, "Hell has frozen over, and wishes do come true."



It's just a teaser trailer with no actual gameplay. Capcom hasn't evenannounced the style of play or which studio will be designing, but there is an actual officical website.

The Hero with Two Faces

A funny synopsis of Star WarsHarry Potter:



[Original Link]

Star Wars and Harry Potter are just two examples of stories based on the same archetypal structures found in mythology throughout history, famously explored by Joseph Campbell in his work The Hero with a Thousand Faces. George Lucas, in fact, has discussed the direct influence of Campbell's work on his space opera.

Cannonball Run

Wired: "Alex Roy has a crazy dream: to beat the legendary Cannonball Run record by crossing the country in under 32 hours and 7 minutes."

As in any marathon, exhaustion and fear make quitting seem smart. You can say you tried, blame the weather, and find a hotel. But breaking a record — any record — takes something more, something personal. Right now, it will take everything. There's no room left for strategy. Roy simply has to hit it hard.

The radar is crazy with bleep! and blatt!, the spreadsheets litter the cockpit like dirty floor mats, but Roy hits it anyway. He doesn't need charts anymore. He is the chart, and Excel and Google Earth and Garmin MapSource and something more, too, a guy with something to prove.

See also: C'était un Rendez-vous and 32 Hours 7 Minutes

Update: Plenty more links and commentary on MeFi.

New Office Policy

Funny e-mail that was forwarded to me:

NEW OFFICE POLICY - EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY!!!

Dress Code:
You are advised to come to work dressed according to your salary.

If we see you wearing Prada shoes and carrying a Gucci bag, we will assume you are doing well financially and therefore do not need a raise. If you dress poorly, you need to learn to manage you money better, so that you may buy nicer clothes, and therefore you do not need a raise.


Sick Days:
We will no longer accept doctor's statement as proof of sickness. If you are able to go to the doctor, you are able to come to work.


Personal Days:
Each employee will receive 104 personal days a year. They are called Saturdays & Sundays.


Bereavement Leave:
This is no excuse for missing work. There is nothing you can do for dead friends, relatives or coworkers. Every effort should be made to have non employees attend the funeral arrangements. In rare cases where employee involvement is necessary; the funeral should be scheduled in the late afternoon. We will be glad to allow you to work through your lunch hour and subsequently leave one hour early.


Bathroom Breaks:
Entirely too much time is being spent in the toilet. There is now a strict three minute time limit in the stalls. At the end of three minutes, an alarm will sound, the toilet paper roll will retract, the stall door will open, and a picture will be taken.

After your second offense, your picture will be posted on the company bulletin board under the "Chronic Offenders" category. Anyone caught smiling in the picture will be sectioned under the company's mental health policy.


Lunch Break:
Skinny people get 30 min for lunch, as they need to eat more, so that they can look healthy.

Normal size people get 15 minutes for lunch to get a balanced meal to maintain their average figure.

Chubby people get 5 minutes for lunch, because that's all the time needed to drink a Slim-Fast.



Thank you for your loyalty to our company. We are here to provide a positive employment experience. Therefore, all questions, comments, concerns, complaints, frustrations, irritations, aggravations, insinuations, allegations, accusations, contemplations, consternation and input should be directed elsewhere.

Watterson on Schulz

Bill Watterson reviews David Michaelis' controversial new book, Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography [excerpt] in the Wall Street Journal. Yes, that Bill Waterson.

My brain just exploded.

The wonder of "Peanuts" is that it worked on so many levels simultaneously. Children could enjoy the silly drawings and the delightful fantasy of Snoopy, while adults could see the bleak undercurrent of cruelty, loneliness and failure, or the perpetual theme of unrequited love, or the strip's stark visual beauty.

The Zettabyte of Data Cometh

Source Linux Journal November 2007 Issue 163. Back issues excluding the current month are available for view online at www.linuxjournal.com. The journal each month for a long time has a regular column titled "LJ Index". It's typically a stream of about 20 statistics somehow connected...maybe.

The sources listed at the bottom include a whitepaper which is actually cited from an emc website along with a web ticker estimating total data created and replicated to date this year. See Expanding the Digital Universe. Guess I'll go read that white paper sometime.

1. Average measured speed in Mbps of a broadband connection with "up to 8 Mbps download speed: 2.7

2. Lowest measured speed in KBps of a broadband connection with "up to 8Mbps" download speed: 90

3. Number of consumers out of five who get the broadband they signed up for: 1

4. Percent of surveyed consumers out of five who have felt mislead byh providers' advertising: 30

5. Billions of Internet users in 2006: 1.1

6. Additional millions of Internet users expected by 2010: 500

7. Millions of video streams per day served by YouTube: 100

8. Number of surveillance cameras in London: 200

9. Trillions of bits sent by London surveillance cameras to their data center: 64

10. Terabytes accumulated per day by Chevron: 2

11. Total exabytes of data in 2006: 161

12. Multiple in millions of 2006 data total to all information in all books ever written: 3

13: Percentage of the digital universe that will be created by inidividuals by 2010: 70

14: Percentage of the current digital universe that is subject to compliance rules and standards: 20

15. Percentage of the current digital universe that is potentially subject to security applications: 30

16. Exabytes of "user-generated content" expected by 2010: 692

17. Total exabytes of data expected by 2010: 988

18. Percentage of the 2010 digital universe for which organizations will be responsible for security, privacy, reliability and compliance: 85

19. Exabyte capacity of media ready to store newly created and replicated data in the 2010 digital universe: 601

20. Year in which the amount of information created will surpass available storage capacity for the first time: 2007

Sources: 1,2: which.co.uk, 3,4: moneysupermarket.com, 5-20: Expanding the Digital Universe by John F. Gantz et al, a March 2007 IDC whitepaper.

oo

The Days and Knights of Tom Murphy

Washington Post Magazine tells the story of a chess player in D.C.'s Dupont Circle, which is basically a movie waiting to happen:

Murphy is himself one of the least encumbered people you are likely to meet. He has no telephone, no bank account, and, at the time I caught up with him, he was spending most nights on a bench in the park and passing his days at his chosen employment: offering lessons at $15 to $20 per and hustling speed chess for $2 to $5 a game. Yet as a player, Murphy's fame extends far beyond the park. In past years, he'd racked up major tournament wins, routing some of the best chess players in the country and cementing a widespread reputation as a player who might have risen to international prominence had his life taken a different turn.

Update: Another choice quote:

The proudest teaching I ever had was I taught a pimp in New York. His name was Comfort, as in 'comfortable.' I was going down the street to my friend's house. I had my board with me. He said, 'You know anything about that game?' I said, 'Yeah.' He said, 'You have time to show me?' I said, 'Yeah.' He said, 'Step into my office,' which was a pink, long Cadillac. I got in. It had a bar in the car and everything. I started thinking, 'Now how in the world am I gonna show this pimp how to play the game of chess?' So he asked me, 'What do the queen do?' I said, 'The queen do all the work.' He said, 'Ohhhh, now what do the king do?' I said, 'The king don't do nothing.' His eyes lit up when he heard that. He said, 'Man, I like this game already.'

someecards

someecards "may or may not be the greatest thing since ecards"

Deep Blue for President

We may need the computerized chess master in the Oval Data Center if Garry Kasparov succeeds in his bid to become the next President of Russia, a feat that may not be so easy to accomplish ...

As the summer wore on, however, it became clear even to Kasparov that the Other Russia could only put forward a “parallel” candidate, a symbolic one. At first, Kasparov was reluctant to be that candidate, but when he proceeded to win many of the Other Russia’s regional primaries in August and September he began to change his mind. “It seems I have no choice,” he said.

The Traveling Companion

October 5th marked the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik, which TIME describes thusly:

The Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the world's first satellite, and the U.S. reacted the way any mature, technologically savvy nation would — which is to say we lost our marbles.

This quote comes from its photo-essay commemorating the anniversary, which lists the "highs and lows of space exploration", from the moon landing to the deaths of the Apollo 1 astronauts and more. As for the moon landing:

So, here was the proposal: The nation that had launched precisely one astronaut into space on one mission that had lasted 15 minutes was going to put a man on the moon in less than nine years, bring him home alive, and do it all before the Russians — who, let's face it, had a surer hand with this kind of thing than we did — could. Oh, and this bright idea came from the man who had signed off on the Bay of Pigs.

No mention of "the Russians used a pencil", but there are more harrowing moments that sometimes get lost in histories of the "space race".

Here's a syllogism every astronaut knows: Space pilots are test pilots; test pilots die; therefore, space pilots will die. The key is not to be one of them.

Legendary author and futurist Arthur C. Clarke was asked for his thoughts on Sputnik by IEEE Spectrum. Obviously, he provides a perspective that few others could:

Launching Sputnik and landing humans on the Moon were all political decisions, not scientific ones, although scientists and engineers played a lead role in implementing those decisions. (I have only recently learned, from his long-time secretary Carol Rosin, that Wernher von Braun used my 1952 book, The Exploration of Space, to convince President Kennedy that it was possible to go to the Moon.) As William Sims Bainbridge pointed out in his 1976 book, The Spaceflight Revolution: A Sociological Study, space travel is a technological mutation that should not really have arrived until the 21st century. But thanks to the ambition and genius of von Braun and Sergei Korolev, and their influence upon individuals as disparate as Kennedy and Khrushchev, the Moon—like the South Pole—was reached half a century ahead of time.

One tangential thing that struck me while reading the TIME photo-essay and during my consequent (and inevitable) jaunt through Wikipedia is what it must be like to be any astronaut not named Neil Armstrong or Buzz Aldrin (the list may also include John Glenn, Alan Shepard, and Jim Lovell). Take, for example, John Young. He flew two Gemini missions (smuggling the first corn beef sandwich in space onto Gemini 3), two Apollo missions (testing the lunar module on Apollo 10, and setting the moon speed record with the lunar rover on Apollo 16), and two shuttle missions (the first, STS-1, as well as the first to use Spacelab, STS-9) — the only man to command missions in all three programs. Quite a career, if you ask me, but spent in relative obscurity.

S&P info

I was searching for information about the average p/e ratio for the S&P 500 and had some trouble doing so. The reason why I have been searching for this information is because a book I have been reading refers to getting the average P/E of indices such as the S&P 500. The book I have been reading (at a glacial pace) David Dreman's [old but genius interview] Contrarian Investment Strategies in the Next Generation .

Hopefully I'll finish reading this book before his next update to the book is published.

So I went searching ...

Side note: I've been trying to kick the google habit and found more success with ask.com tonight. Score one for ask.com! Unfortunately, I still have this habit of opening a web browser and typing "www.google.com" which is proving difficult to break.

I'm not saying that google couldn't find it but I am saying that I didn't have to re-word my search with ask.com or paw through any extra links. In any case here is the article that shows you where to go.

Just in case the information in this article vanishes one day, here is the pertinent information:

Go to www.sandp.com, select United States, then click on the "products & services" pull-down bar, then the "indices" option. Next, choose the "learn more" option listed under the Standard & Poor's 500 entry. Next, click the "data" tab, select "earnings' and then scroll down a bit to "S&P 500 Historical Average Price to Earnings Ratio." That will open a spreadsheet showing the S&P 500's P-E ratio every quarter going back to the index' inception in 1936.

Here is the link to the data page that I am sure will change once the S&P dudes redo their site.

The intangible wealth of nations

Source:

Intangible Wealth

Excerpts:

A Mexican migrant to the U.S. is five times more productive than one who stays home. Why is that?

The answer is not the obvious one: This country has more machinery or tools or natural resources. Instead, according to some remarkable but largely ignored research—by the World Bank, of all places—it is because the average American has access to over $418,000 in intangible wealth, while the stay-at-home Mexican's intangible wealth is just $34,000.

The rule of law explains 57 percent of countries' intangible capital. Education accounts for 36 percent.

Switzerland scores 99.5 out of 100 on the rule-of-law index and the U.S. hits 91.8. By contrast, Nigeria's score is a pitiful 5.8...

In his brilliant 1972 book Dissent on Development, Bauer wrote: ... "If all conditions for development other than capital are present, capital will soon be generated locally or will be available . . . from abroad. . . . If, however, the conditions for development are not present, then aid . . . will be necessarily unproductive and therefore ineffective."

The World Bank's pathbreaking "Where is the Wealth of Nations?" convincingly demonstrates that the "mainsprings of development" are the rule of law and a good school system. The big question that its researchers don't answer is: How can the people of the developing world rid themselves of the kleptocrats who loot their countries and keep them poor?

I have 1/2GB of video RAM I don't know what do with?

Bizarre but true...you use it for fast swap.

Water at a micro scale

Snow pictures made by a microscope.

Water at a macro scale

There are some pretty interesting views of clouds at the The Cloud Appreciation Society

Supersize Me TV Shows, Laddy

I've been following along with the U.K. sitcom The IT Crowd. I think it's funny, though not "DRM-bustingly" so, as Cory Doctorow might say. And definitely on the traditional side — more Are You Being Served? than The Office. The show recently finished its second series of ... 6 episodes? Counting the episodes from the first series, that makes a grand total of ... 12 episodes!

Now, we Yanks may be known for our outsized motor vehicles, Coke cups, and waistlines, but this is one area in which I feel that excess is warranted. It really says something about the talent and productivity of the industry when a good U.S. sitcom can run for over a decade, with three to four times as many episodes per season as it would get in the U.K., and be consistently funny over that span. This probably has to do with budgets and the sizes of writing staffs, but I wants me my Arrested Development and 30 Rock, you know what I mean?

Am I just flag-waving here, or do the numbers back up my sentiments? Here's a table to look at:

U.S. Show	No. Seasons	Tot. Episodes	U.K. Show	No. Series	Tot. Episodes
Cheers	11	273	Absolutely Fabulous	5	36
Curb Your Enthusiasm	6	58	Are You Being Served?	10	69
The Cosby Show	8	201	Blackadder	4	24
Everybody Loves Raymond	9	210	Dad's Army	9	80
Frasier	11	265	Father Ted	3	25
Friends	10	236	Fawlty Towers	2	12
The Larry Sanders Show	6	89	The Office	2	14
M*A*S*H	11	251	Porridge	3	20
Roseanne	9	222	Spaced	2	14
Seinfeld	9	180	Yes Minister/Yes, Prime Minister	5	38

Source: Wikipedia

Note: all shows chosen arbitrarily, by me, though I did look at these Wikipedia articles: 1, 2, 3, 4.

Clearly, the U.S. wins in terms of quantity (episodes per season, number of seasons), though the HBO shows bring down the average a bit. As for quality, I leave that to the reader to decide. It's not like Fawlty Towers or The Office weren't considered hilarious or influential on this side of the pond. And as for creativity, the U.K. did also provide America with the premises for The Office, Sanford and Son (Steptoe and Son), Three's Company (Man About The House), and All in the Family (Till Death Us Do Part). But I'm going to give the award to the Americans here, because it takes a lot of work to even come up with non-shark-jumping plotlines after 100 episodes, much less the classics that Seinfeld did.

Postverbindungen: October 7, 2007

The Batman TV series of the 1960s was known for its campiness and deus ex utility belt, but how soon we forget the wisdom of the caped crusader:

Batman: "Cattail Lane and Nine Lives Alley. The Grimalkin Novelty Company is on that corner."
Robin: "Grimalkin? What kind of a name is that?"
Batman: "An obscure but nevertheless acceptable synonym for cat, Robin."

If I had a glass of milk, a webcam, and some Legos, I'd drink the milk, re-enact the Chocolate Rain video, and construct a wall. Friedrich Kirschner's 3-D Scanner shows that he is clearly smarter and more resourceful than I am.

Set your phasers on stun: Raytheon's Silent Guardian, a.k.a. the pain-ray gun.

Finally, what kid wouldn't love to have these plush toys as friends?

Forget the elevators take the slides

They get EVERYTHING in Hopkington. ;-)

http://hitslot.com/?p=86

Intel version of an iPhone like device

http://www.myitthings.com/nathan18/Post/tech/It_Device/Intel_shows_off_iPhone_competitor%21/86920200722357490.htm

Anyone who owns Apple stock Sell! Sell!! Sell!!!

Magnetic Confinement Fission as Rocket Propulsion

A reduced size version of the original Orion project -- capable of reaching 10% of the speed of light:
http://www.tfot.info/news/1006/mini-mag-orion-will-reach-for-the-stars.html

Bungie Splits from Microsoft

Apparently, it has been announced that Bungie will be splitting from Microsoft. Quite a move after releasing one of the most anticipated games of the year.

Requisite Memory Knowledge for Programmers

I stumbled upon this article some time, but never got the chance read more of it. It pretty much is an overview of the entire memory architecture that is commonly found on commodity computers. It also explains how memory works on a high level. The article itself isn't Linux specific, but the website has a whole host of information about Linux.

Crazy-ass plasma kill in Halo 3

Talk about lucky. From Joystiq and Kotaku.

Introducing the Vii

Those folks in the east can pretty much knock off anything, including the Nintendo Wii. Introducing the Vii, the greatest thing ever since...uh...ever.

Golf Tips

Two ends of the same game.

Swing from Sir Charles:



"Easy" tips to make golf fun:

Inhuman Brutality

Buzzfeed posts a collection of links that I think my co-bloggers would like: Animals Fighting!

Here's a preview:

quick game to pass the time.

Here is a cool little flash based brain teaser type game.

I read on some other sites that this game is given to people on a job interview. They said that the average applicant finished in 15 minutes.

Have fun.

Ridley Scott on Blade Runner

Wired has an interview with Ridley Scott about Blade Runner: The Final Cut [full transcript]. Warning: it contains major spoilers, so if you have never seen the film, put down your internet right now and go watch it.

And when Roy Batty came out of the phone booth, for some bizarre reason we never noticed that somebody's thumb was in the bottom left-hand corner. The phone booth had an automatic door and I couldn't de-automate it, and I was getting really beaten up 'cause we were up against the gun, so I just shot. And there was the bloody thumb in the frame. It's little mistakes like that that you're tempted to leave in. It's a signature that says, yes, it is fiction, it is moviemaking.

Update: Greencine Daily links to more articles on The Final Cut.

Top Execs Leave Nintendo

You have to wonder what Nintendo is going to do from now on with their marketing with George Harrison and Beth Llewelyn leaving.

Turkey Soda Anyone?

Being a former shareholder of Jones Soda I still sometimes keep up with articles about the company. Here is a cool interview with CEO Peter van Stolk. I don't normally follow Motley Fool but an interview is an interview.

Memorable quote:

The silliest thing that people do, in my opinion ... is they market before the product is on the shelf. It feels good and everybody gets excited, so I do a marketing campaign before I am on the shelf. I spend a lot of money, get people all buzzed about it, and then consumers go to find it, and they can't see it. And then I don't have any revenues to justify doing it again, and I look like a complete moron. That is real.

Flashblock

If you use Firefox, you should be using Flashblock.

That's all I got to say about that.

Dominos - Moustache

Those crazy Perlorian Brothers are at it again ...

(perhaps old to some, but new to me)



[QuickTime link]

Tennis Court Surfaces

The NY Times' concise graphical explanation of how clay, hard, and grass tennis courts differ, and why Rafael Nadal fares better on one versus the others. [via Kottke]

Schadendouche

built-in iSight + app to automatically upload Photo Booth images to Flickr + stolen iMac + unwitting (alleged) thief = this Flickr photo = schadendouche

See also: Orbicule's Undercover software

Simpsons and the Movies

A collection of Simpsons homages to films, brought to you by the hundreds of times we've heard — now that he's famous — that Brad Bird influenced the Simpsons early on to bring movie-like cinematography to animated television.

Update: Cinematical identifies the films and provides the images' source. [NSFW until you scroll down a bit, O my brothers]

AP: Space Flight Makes Germs Deadlier

Well, we're screwed:

It sounds like the plot for a scary B-movie: Germs go into space on a rocket and come back stronger and deadlier than ever. Except, it really happened.

Welcome to The Hydra

Check back soon for more posts!