Meet the Sniper

Big Ideas (Radiohead remix)

This is awesome!


Big Ideas (Don't get any) from 1030 on Vimeo.

Hack a DS to Make a Digital Sketchbook

A brief How To article can be found here to boot digital art pad software on your Nintendo DS.

This site displays many images created using the "Colors!" digital sketchpad software for the Nintendo DS.

Why I Don't Participate in Bike Races

USA Today: Car plows into bike race in Mexico, 1 dead

(Photo: AP)

The Hydra offers its condolences to the family of the man killed. Given the photo, it's a small miracle that he was the only one. As you might guess, the driver of the car was drunk.

Kobe is a Wild Boy

I don't know if these are real, but entertaining nonetheless.

This stunt caught their attention:



This one was with the "professionals":



Even pros need a reason to get on youtube. Looks like Kobe's got a backup career.

Where's all the Wii Fit?

I need to start attending talk shows, especially female hosted ones, they give out the best loot. Kotaku article on the show.

The Japanese Office

Ricky Gervais: "It's funny ... 'cause it's racist."

Ars Technica gets acquired

Talk about breaking news.

Dating Advice

McSweeney's lists good dating advice, taken from a GameFAQ for GTA: San Andreas. Some advice from the FAQ that's funny when taken out of context:

Just because she says she likes something doesn't mean that it's true. You are usually better off doing the opposite of what she says.

Perhaps if she's related to George Costanza ...

If you were going out with the girl and you killed her on a date, then you're in a situation similar to if you were dumped.

Um, "similar" is one word for it ...

It might be that some kind of event triggers phone calls, as you can often stand outside a girl's house for weeks without getting one.

The number she's calling at that point is probably only three digits long ...

The best haircuts for sex appeal are the cornrow, blonde cornrow, groove cut, and detail cut. Haircuts that give no boost to sex appeal include pretty much any that involve coloring (other than blonde) and the Elvis hair. Afros, mohawks, and goatees tend to give pretty low boosts as well.

Elvis hair, no sex appeal? You sure about that?

Gaining fat is easy. Just go to the fast food restaurant of your choice, and order up to 11 of the biggest meal they have. Don't have more than 11 meals in a 6-hour period though, or you'll vomit and gain nothing.

Profound.

The third basic type of date outcome is an abandon date. [...] The easiest way to do this is to get into a car, and then quickly drive away before your girlfriend can get in. [...] This is just like a failed date, but faster.

I can't tell you how much time I've saved over the years doing that ...

Yes, you can date all of the girls at the same time, and I recommend that you do.

Easy for you to say!

Clearly you both enjoy coffee a lot.

So Long, Sweet Mazdas

Mazda is destroying thousands of unused cars worth about $100 million:

It all started about two years ago, when a ship carrying 4,703 shiny new Mazdas nearly sank in the Pacific. The freighter, the Cougar Ace, spent weeks bobbing on the high seas, listing at a severe 60-degree angle, before finally being righted.

Nobody knows exactly what parts the salty ocean air corroded, or what other issues arose from having the vehicles tilted for so long. Despite having many willing takers for the cars anyway, the company is afraid of the implications of the cars getting into the hands of scammers and their unsuspecting victims.

Wrecking that many cars presents particular challenges. Hazardous fluids must be disposed of properly, potentially salvageable parts must be irreparably broken, and then there's the matter of the airbags:

For instance, most of the cars have six airbags, and discharging them individually (forcing them to inflate so they can't be resold) takes about five minutes apiece -- or a total of a half-hour per car. So engineers back at Mazda's headquarters, in Hiroshima, fashioned a device that can discharge all six at once. Multiplied by 4,703 cars, that trick alone saved months of work.

Don't worry, environmentalists, the scrap will be recycled.

The Journal article simply mentions that the Cougar Ace was "righted"; detail on that operation is in a dramatic Wired feature, which illuminates the lucrative, but high-stakes, profession of salvage work:

"Shut up!" Habib shouts. He explains that the Cougar Ace has become a labyrinth. Since it's heeled onto one side, they'll have to learn how to walk on walls and scale the sloping, perilous decks. Unfortunately, they'll have to learn to do it in the middle of the ocean. This will be their only chance to practice before they board the ship. Hopefully, no one else will die.

Don't worry, entertainmentalists, the story will be adapted into a movie.

Coffee table NES controller

Either it's a huge controller turned coffee table or a coffee table turned controller. More on this work of art here.

How to Prototype a Game in Under Seven Days

A brief article on a team of five prototyping 50 games in one semester here.

Colbert vs Rain

The feud escalated, and Colbert threw down a challenge to his nemesis, Rain:



It looked as though the challenge was unanswered, but in the wee hours of the night, the challenge was answered:

The real get realer

Force Dynamics is the company who made the racing simulator previously posted. The sim in the previous video was their 301 model. The current 401 model is featured below. The newer model adds rotation to the sim.

Real racing simulator

Who needs GT5 with a Logitech G25 and racing seat? This is the real simulator with the best game! Turtle throwing sim to come.

Video Gamer-lite

I've accepted the fact over the past few years, that I'm not quite the gamer I used to be. I thought once I got a job, I'd have all the systems and a nice setup, but truthfully other things are more important. This top 11 shows that I'm part of this category. I think I fell into more than half of this list.

Day of the Golden Eagle

This post has been translated into English from its original form, a series of bleats and baas called out into the wilderness.

To our faithful goat audience — do not let this scare you away! It is only a vision [no equivalent for "movie" in goat parlance —ed.] ... Turn the young ones' eyes away, but teach them the story. The mighty death bird [Golden Eagle] is to be feared! See this vision of its air walk ending the life of your babes in a most horrifying way:



[via Waxy]

Terminator Company's first steps

More on Cyberdyne's HAL suit. Increased human strength demo at ~3:20 in the video.

What Plastic Recycling Symbols Mean - Earth Day was April 19

The Daily Green offers this handy guide on the various types of plastic:

Number 1 Plastics -- PET or PETE (polyethylene terephthalate)

* Found In: Soft drinks, water and beer bottles; mouthwash bottles; peanut butter containers; salad dressing and vegetable oil containers; ovenable food trays.
* Recycling: Pick up through most curbside recycling programs.
* Recycled Into: Polar fleece, fiber, tote bags, furniture, carpet, paneling, straps, (occasionally) new containers

It poses low risk of leaching breakdown products. Recycling rates remain relatively low (around 20 percent), though the material is in high demand by remanufacturers.

Number 2 Plastics -- HDPE (high density polyethylene)

* Found In: Milk jugs, juice bottles; bleach, detergent and household cleaner bottles; shampoo bottles; some trash and shopping bags; motor oil bottles; butter and yogurt tubs; cereal box liners
* Recycling: Pick up through most curbside recycling programs, although some only allow those containers with necks.
* Recycled Into: Laundry detergent bottles, oil bottles, pens, recycling containers, floor tile, drainage pipe, lumber, benches, doghouses, picnic tables, fencing

HDPE carries low risk of leaching and is readily recyclable into many goods.

Number 3 Plastics -- V (Vinyl) or PVC

* Found In: Window cleaner and detergent bottles, shampoo bottles, cooking oil bottles, clear food packaging, wire jacketing, medical equipment, siding, windows, piping
* Recycling: Rarely recycled; accepted by some plastic lumber makers.
* Recycled Into: Decks, paneling, mudflaps, roadway gutters, flooring, cables, speed bumps, mats

PVC contains chlorine, so its manufacture can release highly dangerous dioxins. If you must cook with PVC, don't let the plastic touch food. Never burn PVC, because it releases toxins.

Number 4 Plastics -- LDPE (low density polyethylene)

* Found In: Squeezable bottles; bread, frozen food, dry cleaning and shopping bags; tote bags; clothing; furniture; carpet
* Recycling: LDPE is not often recycled through curbside programs, but some communities will accept it. Plastic shopping bags can be returned to many stores for recycling.
* Recycled Into: Trash can liners and cans, compost bins, shipping envelopes, paneling, lumber, landscaping ties, floor tile

Historically, LDPE has not been accepted through most American curbside recycling programs, but more and more communities are starting to accept it.

Number 5 Plastics -- PP (polypropylene)

* Found In: Some yogurt containers, syrup bottles, ketchup bottles, caps, straws, medicine bottles
* Recycling: Number 5 plastics can be recycled through some curbside programs.
* Recycled Into: Signal lights, battery cables, brooms, brushes, auto battery cases, ice scrapers, landscape borders, bicycle racks, rakes, bins, pallets, trays

Polypropylene has a high melting point, and so is often chosen for containers that must accept hot liquid. It is gradually becoming more accepted by recyclers.

Number 6 Plastics -- PS (polystyrene)

* Found In: Disposable plates and cups, meat trays, egg cartons, carry-out containers, aspirin bottles, compact disc cases
* Recycling: Number 6 plastics can be recycled through some curbside programs.
* Recycled Into: Insulation, light switch plates, egg cartons, vents, rulers, foam packing, carry-out containers

Polystyrene can be made into rigid or foam products -- in the latter case it is popularly known as the trademark Styrofoam. Evidence suggests polystyrene can leach potential toxins into foods. The material was long on environmentalists' hit lists for dispersing widely across the landscape, and for being notoriously difficult to recycle.

Number 7 Plastics -- Miscellaneous

* Found In: Three- and five-gallon water bottles, 'bullet-proof' materials, sunglasses, DVDs, iPod and computer cases, signs and displays, certain food containers, nylon
* Recycling: Number 7 plastics have traditionally not been recycled, though some curbside programs now take them.
* Recycled Into: Plastic lumber, custom-made products

A wide variety of plastic resins that don't fit into the previous categories are lumped into number 7. A few are even made from plants (polyactide) and are compostable. Polycarbonate is number 7, and is the hard plastic that has parents worried these days, after studies have shown it can leach potential hormone disruptors.
Sources:

* The Daily Green March 31, 2008

A Day At The Cube For the Cube Competitions

On Saturday April 19 2008 the Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana funded in part by Taco Bell once again held "Rubik's" cube competitions. It is called The Cube since its most prominent feature is a very large black cube on the outside.

There's going to be a competition at Disneyland. Date Unknown. And a competition in San Diego on May 24 2008.

About 32 people competed. The final times were computed from the average of 5 solve times dropping the worst and best time.

All competitors are given a scrambled cube, scrambled the same way for everyone, and up to 30 seconds I think to view the cube before starting their solve.

The winning times in minutes:seconds.hundredths of seconds were:

3x3x3 one-handed 23.17 (best time 21.10)
3x3x3 blind-folded 4:11.56 (this year only one person completed a solve)
3x3x3 13.79 (best time 11.84)
4x4x4 1:03.12 (best time 59.18)
5x5x5 solution-1 41.31 (best time 30.00)
5x5x5 1:56:04 (best time 1:44:18)

Solution-1 is a cube shape when solved but changes shape as it is solved. It was released by Rubik's and is now being made by other people. The patent period has run out on the original 3x3x3 cube.

People are making their cubes. One made a 2x2x5 out of four 4x4x4 cubes using a single 4x4x4 core and all edge, middle and corner pieces. No center pieces.

oo

You'd Better Wait For The 2nd Marshmallow - But Read This NOW!!!

This is from a comment posted to a blog entry about Dealing With Information Overload

A study of emotional intelligence and the ability to wait as an illustration on how this ability to wait could be used as a stronger predictor of the future success level than IQ - all because a 4 year old could wait for the 2nd marshmallow.

Walter Michel of Stanford created a test to determine how well a group of 4 year olds could control impulses and delay gratification. Each child one at a time went into a room with a one-way mirror. The child was shown a marshmallow. The experimenter told the child he had to leave and that they could have the marshmallow right then, but if they waited for the experimenter to return from his errand, the child could have two marshmallows. A single marshmallow was left on a table in front of the child. Some children grabbed the marshmallow within seconds of the experimenter's departure from the room. Others waited up to twenty minutes for the experimenter's return. In a follow-up study (Shoda, Mischel, & Peake, 1990), the same children were tested at 18 years of age and comparisons were made between the third of the children who grabbed the marshmallow (the "impulsive") and the third who delayed gratification in order to receive the enhanced reward ("impulse controlled"). The children who were most impulsive at four years old scored an average of 524 verbal and 528 math. The children who waited patiently scored 610 verbal and 652 math.

google the STANFORD MARSHMALLOW STUDY for more info.

Ken Lee by Valentina Hasan

Mariah's response to the video was, "I applaud anyone who can perform in front of an audience."

Miss Hasan got better though:



The original version was so popular, you can support it here.

Arris Cable Modems and Wireless Routers

Henry's Transcoding MKV/OGM to MP4 tutorial is the most popular entry on our blog, since many people find it via its Google search results position, so I thought I'd try to increase my practical post count in hopes of dethroning him solving people's problems.

Here's one I came across in helping some family friends with their home networking troubles ...

Having trouble getting your Arris telephony cable modem (used for digital phone and internet) to work with your wireless router, while it works fine with your PC?

The solution is to press the reset button on the back of the Arris device and make sure that the router is the first thing you plug in to its Ethernet jack afterwards. Just unplugging it and plugging it back in — the method Kyle Broflovski used to fix the giant Linksys Wi-Fi router we call the internet — won't work.

In my friends' case, it was a model TM502 modem from Time Warner Cable and a Netgear wireless router, but I think the same solution applies to TM402 models, Comcast or Cox cable, or other wireless and non-wireless brands of routers (e.g., Linksys, Belkin, Apple AirPort).

The Arris modem remembers the MAC address of the first device it connects to and won't work with any other device (even another computer) until it's reset. I suspect that the cable companies like this feature because they can instruct their installers to connect the modem to your "primary PC" and then force you to either pay some kind of extra "home networking fee" or at least pay for a service call to have someone come out and "upgrade" you.

Guaranteed to not get arrested

Tagging in 3d virtual space.

Mario Car

http://view.break.com/487616 - Watch more free videos

Wow.

The Original Running Man

English band Utah Saints reveals the origin of everyone's favorite dance move in its Something Good '08 video:



The part where the whole dance floor is doing a synchronized running man to the fast beat of the song really throws my mind for a loop!

[via Kanye West's Vimeo page via Kottke]

Update: the original embedded video was no longer available, so I swapped in one from YouTube. You can also watch a QuickTime version via the director's portfolio.

Phoenix Wright spinoff

The prosecutor with a past tie-in to Phoenix Wright, will be getting his own game, Perfect Prosecutor. Apparently the detective work done in the attorney games, will now have a walking character where he can interact with the scene for the detective work. This game will also co-star Dick Gumshoe, the friendly but down on luck detective from the Ace Attorney series.

New Audio Recording Processing Technology

There's a video on Melodyne Direct Note Access with commentary from Peter Neubacker the inventor of Melodyne along with four pages of technical info and a Q & A page and a media page with other presentations.

Blood, Sweat, and Bears

Some videos to pass the time:

• Here, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty ... of death!


• In America, you hit tennis ball with racket. In Soviet Russia, racket hits you! (apologies to Yakov Smirnoff)


• Kids, don't miss out on the hottest new dance craze that's sweeping the nation — do the Bear! (plays after a short ad)


• Keep those Rock Band skills sharp, my friends; you never know when your musical talents will come in handy. (read the linked Wikipedia page too, if you have the time)

Professional badminton

Somehow when I got back to the office from lunch, I was thinking about Yonex tennis racquets. Reading up on the company taught me that they are quite popular in badminton racquets. I had never seen a professional badminton match before, which led me to below.

Sweded Tron

Here's a CG (cardboard graphics) swede of Tron:


(via EPIC-FU via Neatorama)

Here We Go With Another Ridiculous Flash Animation

The Old Gray Lady has a fun interactive feature on Al Jaffee's fold-ins for Mad magazine. I was amazed to learn the following from the main article:

And while other Mad features, like Spy vs. Spy, have changed artists over the years, only Mr. Jaffee has drawn the fold-in. Since the first appeared in April 1964 all but a handful of specialty issues of the magazine have had one.

My favorite of the fold-ins featured is probably "Drug Trip", which is not as funny as the others, but has a powerful message. What's your favorite?

Extra Credit: How many Charlie Browns can you spot?

scott caan where are you?

Never woulda figured Scott Caan to rip it up in the bowl at Supreme on Fairfax. Here's to another celebrity skater.

Check out this page that I'm sure will change once they add more articles to the blog. It's under the video "Wednesdays With Reda" (second week). I couldn't figure out how to link just one posting.

Just thought it was pretty interesting.

Guitar Hero on DS

Guitar Hero to go!

Mr. Show: The Fairsley Difference

It's about time for me to post another Mr. Show video. Enjoy!



[via Waxy]

Simplicity in Software Products

This comic is both funny and true at the same time.

Spy Hunter car come to life

Ad for the Pontiac G8 GT channeling Spy Hunter.



Update: Looks like previous video link died. Added youtube video.

A Dozen Bytes Free

For the video game (or tech company) historians out there: Landon Dyer talks about creating the cartridge version of Donkey Kong for Atari. My, how far gaming has come ...

(via bb)

useful calculator

With the recent passing of Gary Gygax, we were trying to determine what an original Dungeons and Dragons would cost today (10.00 in 1974) and nanoflux and I found this calculator.

This calculator uses all sorts of different methods. We arrive at:

Current data is only available till 2007. In 2007, $10.00 from 1974 is worth:
$42.03 using the Consumer Price Index
$34.47 using the GDP deflator
using value of consumer bundle *
using the unskilled wage *
$65.35 using the nominal GDP per capita
$92.29 using the relative share of GDP

* Data for consumer bundle is only available till 2006.
* Data for unskilled wage is only available till 2006.

Microsoft Excel: Revolutionary 3D Game Engine?

Is this touch-in-cheek or not? You decide.

oo

Garfield Minus Garfield

Before this becomes the last blog on the internet without a link to it: garfield minus garfield

There Will Be Speeches

A couple of my fellow bloggers and I saw over 10 hours of movies yesterday, as part of AMC's Best Picture Showcase. There was a diverse audience, composed of people who want to see good films even if they may not like them, who get into the films enough to respond outwardly, and are ready to chat about them while waiting in line at the concession stand or when milling about between films — the best kind of audience, in my opinion. It was a fun experience, and I hope they continue to do it every year.

As for the Oscars themselves, here are George Clooney's picks:

Picture: No Country For Old Men
Director: Joel and Ethan Coen (No Country For Old Men)
Actor: Daniel Day Lewis (There Will Be Blood)
Actress: Julie Christie (Away From Her)
Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem (No Country For Old Men)
Supporting Actress: Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone)
Original Screenplay: Diablo Cody (Juno)
Adapted Screenplay: Joel and Ethan Coen (No Country For Old Men)
Cinematography: Robert Elswit (There Will Be Blood)

I'm inclined to agree with Clooney's picks, although the Actress categories are up in the air for me. The winners could easily be Marion Cotillard and Cate Blanchett, or Laura Linney and Saiorse Ronan (OK, maybe not that far). Also, I wouldn't count out cinematographer Roger Deakins, who's shooting for his first Oscar (he's up for two films). I'll go out on a limb and say that Ratatouille will win for Animated Feature, although I wouldn't be too surprised to see Persepolis take it. I've seen both, and they're great in their own ways.

SNL was back last weekend, and here's its spoof of the Oscar nominated films:

You can also consider the latest Digital Short a movie spoof as well. (Not a movie spoof: Tina Fey and Steve Martin brought the funny in the monologue.)

Be Kind Rewind

Usually before going to watch a movie I'll do some cursory web surfing about the movie. I ran into something interesting. I haven't researched this a little more but this post seemed interesting. I don't think Michel Gondry commented on this yet. I don't know about the use of "steal" etc. It's interesting nevertheless.

I think one comment on the post resonated with me:

I do find it utterly strange that movies come in twos so often, however, independent inspiration exists, and having a similar plot just isn’t a big deal anymore.

In keeping with the theme of documentaries....

In speaking of documentaries. I just got done watching a good documentary on Howard Zinn. It's a quick watch. I was just checking google news and found that they're bringing readings of it to film. With a strong lineup it sounds like an entertaining documentary.

I was hoping it was going to be a film and not just a documentary. I know that Michel Gondry "worships" Noam Chomsky (link)
and a lot of people who like Chomsky like Zinn. Maybe he could throw together a film where they pair a comedian with a rap star like Artie Lange and E-40 and reenact moments in history. I'd definitely watch that. Twice.

King of Wrong

Juno-bashing is so mainstream at the moment; if you want to be out of the box, start hating on the documentary King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. Jason Scott wrote about why he hated the film, and later added a follow-up (short version, long version), after a lively discussion sprouted up in the comment section of his original post.

In summary, he dislikes the film because the plot and character conflict that make it so compelling are a deliberate fiction, presented as fact (beyond the normal editorializing that all documentaries have). I haven't seen King of Kong yet, but I wonder how Scott's criticisms (which seem apt to me) change people's opinions of what they saw.

I will refrain from using the cliche "skateboarding is not a crime"

I found this on Thrasher this morning. Not that I condone how the kid acted but I thought it was interesting how the cop acted. Despite a level of acceptance there is still a big stigma attached to skateboarding. Part of it is cool that the stigma is still there, but it's reaching the point where it's walking a thin line between "fit in my back pocket" vs. full blown multi-zillion dollar demographic etc.

The attitude today very much seems like, "Skateboarding is cool in video games (EA Skate, Tony Hawk part 1 thru 390091491), sports channels (Xgames, dew tour, and anything sponsored by a deoderant brand), and MTV (Rob and Big, Life of Ryan, MADE). It's even cool to buy and even buy shares of the products. Whatever you do you better not be doing it in the real world."

Before this becomes a full blown rant, here's the video from the article:


Here's another one different place/people:

Happiness is a warm puppy

This article covers the return of the aptly named "Uno" the beagle as winner of best in show at the Westminster dog show.

The only breed consistently among the nation's most popular dogs for nearly 100 years, a beagle had never won in the 100 times the Westminster Kennel Club had chosen a winner. That changed when judge J. Donald Jones pointed to this nearly 3-year-old package of personality.

No longer an underdog — make that an Underdog — Uno beat out two neatly primped poodles, a top Sealyham terrier, a sleek Weimaraner, a lively Australian shepherd and a sprightly Akita.

I don't know too much about dog breeding etc. but the story caught my interest with the title, "Hail, Snoopy! Beagle Wins Westminster".

I. Drink. Your. Milkshake! I Drink It Up!

alliesglove asked me for more There Will Be Blood links.

Link the first: Alex Ross on Jonny Greenwood's musical score in The New Yorker.

Most soundtracks lean so heavily on a few preprocessed musical devices—those synthetic swells of strings and cymbals, urging us to swoon in tandem with the cheerleader in love—that when a composer adopts a more personal language the effect is revelatory: an entire dimension of the film experience is liberated from cliché.

Link the second: American Cinematographer's coverage of TWBB's cinematography in its January 2008 issue. As usual, it's a bit technical and jargony, but it also has some great insight into how the film captured the era it depicts.

Shaking his head at the memory, Elswit adds, "The next night, we had to shoot the reverses of the actors reacting to the big fire, and Paul didn’t want to use any artificial light." In fact, these reverses were lit with real fire generated by either the powerful flame jet operated by Cremin and his crew or, for certain shots, flamethrower-like devices. Crewmembers were protected from the heat by flame-resistant suits, but the grimaces on the actors' faces are genuine. "The flames got very, very hot, but that’s how we did it," says Elswit.

Link the last: USA Today's story on the growing popularity of "I drink your milkshake!" as a catchphrase. The article digs up its origin (via director P.T. Anderson):

Anderson concedes that he's puzzled by the phenomenon — particularly because the lines came straight from a transcript he found of the 1924 congressional hearings over the Teapot Dome scandal, in which Sen. Albert Fall was convicted of accepting bribes for oil-drilling rights to public lands in Wyoming and California.

In explaining oil drainage, Fall's "way of describing it was to say 'Sir, if you have a milkshake and I have a milkshake and my straw reaches across the room, I'll end up drinking your milkshake,' " Anderson says. "I just took this insane concept and used it."

The film's studio, Paramount Vantage, is even using it as a marketing slogan.

paper iphone

I was having a recent conversation with Arun and Henry and the hipster PDA came up. After a little research I found this site: pocketmod. Totally cool applet that lets you print out a customized 8 page "mini-zine" format. Definitely a useful applet.

Many things make this little personal organizer special, here is a list.

1. It fits easily in your back pocket or purse.
2. It's as cheap as one piece of paper (Because that's all it is!)
3. It opens like a book. Leading to easier to find, more organized notes.
4. The first page has a pouch, big enough to carry a business card!
5. Customizable with "Mods" tailored to your needs.
6. It's free and fun!

Olafur Eliasson

SFMOMA has an Olafur Eliasson exhibit that alliesglove was talking about yesterday, and — not-coincidentally — a couple of the bloggers I follow mentioned seeing his works there recently.

unacceptable

UFC spoof. Some lines are pretty funny and characterize the UFC archetype...

for the working man

I guess we all hustle. Kat Williams + Rick Ross...



Too bad he didn't do it for someone sitting at a computer all day.

Toughest Terminator Breakdown

I've had this conversation with many people many times over the years. Here's Popular Mechanics' take on the situation.

Bobby Fischer

Bobby Fischer died earlier this week. His genius in the realm of chess is not in much dispute, but his actions outside of the ranks and files have won him many enemies. I'm interested to see what people will write about him now that he's passed.

The Atlantic ran a long profile of Fischer in 2002, which covers many of the bases.

Why he stopped playing tournaments, and how his life unraveled so pathetically, is a story one can learn only by seeking out those who actually know Fischer. There are surprisingly few such people—and fewer yet are willing to talk. Fischer doesn't tolerate friends who give interviews. His address book is a graveyard of crossed-out names of people who have been quoted in articles about him. But some formerly loyal Fischer associates, appalled at his recent behavior, are finally talking about him. They reveal that Fischer's story doesn't follow the usual celebrity-gone-to-seed arc. He has not been brought low by drugs or alcohol, by sex scandals or profligate spending. Instead he is a victim of his own mind—and of the inordinate attention that the world has given it.

In the days after his death, The New York Times had not just one ...

Bobby Fischer — the rebel, the enfant terrible, the uncompromising savage of the chess board — had captured the imagination of the world. Because of him, for the first time in the United States, the game, with all its arcana and intimations of nerdiness, was cool.

... but two pieces about Fischer.

A child’s gifts in such realms can seem otherworldly, the achievements effortlessly magical. But as Bobby Fischer’s death on Thursday might remind us, even abstract gifts can exact a terrible price.

Slate chimes in ...

His triumphs and the prize money he demanded helped transform what had been considered an obsession of "shadowy, unhappy, unreal-looking men" (as H.G. Wells put it) into an alluring form of mental recreation in the 1970s.

... as does TIME, with a photoessay.

Hot Rod

I've seen some amazing and critically-acclaimed films recently, like No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood, as well as some not-as-amazing but still critically-acclaimed films like Juno and American Gangster. But the film I'm going to bless with a review on this blog is ... Hot Rod. Why Hot Rod? Because it's the film you are least likely to have seen. My review might not change that.

I had put Hot Rod on my Netflix queue, and it hit the top spot recently, so I gave it a chance to make me find it funny (a chance all comedies deserve). What I got was like a series of high-production-value Lonely Island videos played back-to-back, but not all ones that I like. It has the same quirky, 1980s-meets-internet-age vibe as Napoleon Dynamite, and many other similarities too, but I can see why Napoleon found more of an audience, before people became tired of quirk in general.

Of course, there are parts that I found funny — when Rod introduces his "crew" to the girl-next-door (literally), and they don't quite understand how to say a few words about themselves; the first jump, on the non-reinforced ramp; Will Arnett. Other things just didn't do it for me — Rod's enthusiastic fan, who loves to dance (it's funny because he's Asian!); Rod's "2 Legit 2 Quit" speech and subsequent crosswalk accident; the behind-the-scenes DVD extra that kind of made me want to punch people in the face. Many gags were so unrelated to the plot or tried to wring humor out of being so drawn out — Rod falling down a hill; an impromptu "cool beans" musical number; Ebenezer Scrooge. Family Guy has really played that out already.

As an example of where this film went wrong, for me, consider a scene in which Rod is telling someone about his biological father's death. Rod describes a series of gruesome injuries that his dad incurs during his last attempted stunt and ends with: "he died instantly". That's already funny, because it's comically redundant after what we hear the bike did to its rider, right? No. Too highbrow, apparently; Rod has to add: "... the next day". I un-laughed. The line that I found so disappointing is now listed as a "favorite quote" on many a MySpace page, though, so what do I really know about comedy?

I'm not surprised that they had to test-screen the movie to death, or that the same scene would be listed as both an audience's favorite and least favorite. Every joke is hit-or-miss. I watched all of the deleted scenes and outtakes, and I think I could edit together a version of the film that I would find at least 10x funnier (especially using some of Danny R. McBride's ad-libs or some of Will Arnett's alternate dialogue). The problem is that your funnier version might need different discarded clips, or clips from another movie.

The Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security

I stumbled upon this site when I was reading the discussion of the following article on Ars Technica.  It's a pretty interesting read.

2007 Screenplays

It's awards season in Hollywood, and that means "For Your Consideration" websites from the studios, with downloadable PDFs of screenplays. Here's what I could find; get 'em while they're up:

• Fox Searchlight — The Darjeeling Limited, Juno, The Namesake, Once, The Savages, Waitress
• Universal — American Gangster, The Bourne Ultimatum, Breach, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, The Kingdom, Knocked Up
• Paramount Vantage (Flash link) — A Mighty Heart, Into The Wild, The Kite Runner, Margot At The Wedding, There Will Be Blood
• Miramax — No Country For Old Men, The Diving Bell And The Butterfly, Gone Baby Gone, Hoax

You might have to click posters and "screenplay" or "script" links at each website.

It's interesting to see how the final film differs from what's on the page. The PDFs are all "shooting scripts" — basically final drafts — so they don't show how the screenplay may have evolved from what the studio or filmmakers originally saw. What you can see, though, is what was changed on-set, ad-libbed, or edited out after filming.

I skimmed through Juno's screenplay, since it was still fresh in my mind from having seen it a couple of weeks ago. What you see on the screen is mostly there on the page. Contrast that with a comedy like Knocked Up where certain scenes are edited together from the actors' ad-libbed riffs. Diablo Cody's script supposedly improved compared to early drafts, and there were a number of lines cut from the shooting script too. It was clear that leaving those lines in would have pointlessly extended some scenes and disrupted the overall flow of the film, just to squeeze in a few more bits of quirky dialogue. The pair of shots from Juno's POV as she walks through the masses of students at her school, which visually depict her transition from unnoticed to "cautionary whale", are also notably present on the page — I thought those might be a contribution of director Jason Reitman, who Cody credited in an AP article with the "tone" of the picture.

Next up for me is probably There Will Be Blood, which alliesglove and I saw last night, and which I will need to delve into to help me process everything that happened in that epic film. I've already noticed some differences in the ending. Apparently there are also some lines in the script that spell out some of Daniel Plainview's motivating issues (Spoilers!). Most likely, I will be happy that those lines were left unsaid in the final picture.

Wheel of Lunch

ECK pointed this out to me today.  If ever we were stuck on deciding for a place to go to lunch, this nifty web applet can help out.

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