Throb

R2D2 Tones!

Found this R2D2 site that lets you create MP3s for ringtones in R2D2s chirping language. Here's my name in D2ish. My geek cred continues to skyrocket.

Ginger Spice

MacWorld 2007 Announcement #4

Anticipation is building up around Apple's big MacWorld event this coming Monday. After briefly slipping and naming the software products that will be released, Amazon.com renamed the place holder pages "Apple MacWorld Announcement" numbers 1 through 4. I wasn't sure I was going to like it until I read the user reviews for Apple MacWorld 2007 Announcement #4:

**000

A nice-looking product but not nearly as reliable as Macworld 2007 Announcement #2. Mine crashed on startup, making it necessary to revert to the previous version. Maybe Apple will iron out the bugs in Announcement #5.

****0

Once more, Apple has done it again! Announcement #4 is the best version of it I have used. Not only was it easy to install (insert disc and click on the installer icon) but the installation was fairly faster compared to previous versions. Once installed Announcement #4 was better than I expected. The whole thing seems snappier and more intuitive. I highly recommend it to anyone using a Mac.

*****

Apple once again are the kings interface of design and ease of use. Apple MacWorld 2007 Announcement #4 was ridiculously easy to set up and getting started with. I got one, my two kids got one each and my wife is even thinking about getting one. The only problem I've had so far is that a piece of plastic on the backside was broken for me. I don't know how that happened, but I turned it in at one of their Apple retail stores and they fixed it for me pretty quick.

****0

I've been using Apple MacWorld 2007 Announcement #4 for almost no time, and I can safely say it's the best #4 I've ever experienced. I thought #3 was good, but this is ridiculous.

Mad

Mad magazine covers back in time. I found these covers to be an interesting way to look at history.

Mine shall be off-white

Many of us take ribbons for granted. When cars pass us on the highway with 2, 3, even 8 ribbons it's easy for us to think that every cause has a ribbon.

Unfortunately, that's far from the truth.

Night walking

Nice trick from Tricks of the Trade. I should have thought of this...

If you get up in the middle of the night to grab a glass of water, there's a simple way to avoid stubbing toes on the way back to bed. Close one eye just before you you turn on the light or open the fridge door, and keep it closed the whole time the light is on. When you turn the lights off, open both eyes. The eye you kept closed will still be dilated, and allow you to see in the dark.

With one eye shut you probably have like zero depth perception, which may make this whole exercise useless... you'll still stub your toe. I usually wander around at night by memory anyway. I suppose this trick could come in handy in unfamiliar places though...

RIP

Someone has, like, been here before

Wow. This random Ask Metafilter page about finding pornography in the woods has me in stitches. It reminds me of the first images of naked girls I saw as a kid riding the bus to school. I'm really glad that it seems to turn out that extremely dangling labia like the first ones I laid my eyes on (pun intended) are actually kind of rare.

We now return to regularly scheduled programming.

Konzert-Flügel für Schimmel

Ich fand dieses interessante Klavier. Ich wundere mich, wenn es hart ist, den Sitz zu justieren?

Transferring the job of each box into number form is very laborious

I found this collection of pages from an old book called "How It Works... The Computer" surreal and absorbing.

Errors

Common errors in the English language.

For Tara.

Just kidding.

Not really.

Yes I am.

Maybe.

Or not.

Um.

Antimagnets

Your browser does not support hyperactive alpha wave memestreams

Holy cow. Have you seen The Onion from the future this week? You'd think the future would have abandoned flash. Guess not.

Probably the funniest web comic in history

Ha!

616

Via Metafilter, the number of the beast was probably supposed to be 616. I like this improvement. It adds up to 13, a prime number, a floor missing from many tall buildings on the east coast and the chapter of Revelations in which the false prophet appears. Also I have a tattoo on my hand that says 616. I'm not sure where that came from. Strange.

Anyway, by total coincidence, 6/16/04 is precisely the date when I realized that it was likely that GW would be re-elected. 616 is also the area code for Battle Creek, MI, home of Kellogg's cereal and the world's longest breakfast table. EEEVIL!

Some searching on numerology, which is at best moderately interesting gobbledegook to most non-khabbalists, brought up the following:

Virtually every reference to the "beast" in the Hebrew Old Testament is a multiple of 616 and appears throughout the New Testament in connection with related topics (e.g. the Greek for "deceived", "the harlot", "evil", "wickedness", is 616 or a multiple thereof). The idea that 666 is the "number of the beast" could well be a myth, therefore, unless both numbers are appropriate. Since Nero in Hebrew adds up to 666, the appearance of this number may well be accounted for in the later manuscripts as Christians sought to identify this antichrist with the end-time Beast.

Highly reliable source

Another source mentioned that numerologically adding up the digits of the hebrew word for Caligula comes to 616.

Man I need to rent that movie.

Tiled Coopers

A show of promotional MINI Coopers skillfully decorated with tiles is coming to NYC. My desire center just exploded all over my monitor.

I've often wondered if a textured surface on cars would decrease wind resistance (similar to the dimples on golf balls) by creating a turbulent buffer layer. Tiles might be just the thing to do the trick! Wouldn't want to get into an accident if you owned one of these though. Expensive.

How to fake fingerprints

This site contains detailed instructions for how to fake your fingerprints. I'm not sure if this works, because the final fake fingerprint doesn't seem to give off the same natural fats and oils that a real finger would, but it's neat anyway.

I don't take responsibilty for what you do with this information, you naughty kids.

Freedom of Speech

Image above is from the Onion, link goes to the blog of the guy who does Sally Forth, I think.

By the way, 200th post! Woohoo!

UndiesDrawer

Good lord, narrowcasting has gone too far.

M$FT 5P33K5 1337!!!111!!

The end of the world is happening right before our eyes. w00t!

Social Disease?

Thanks to my buddy Kali for pointing me to this interesting article on one of the strange apparent contradictions of Seattlites: We're nice and polite and friendly and, no, we don't necessarily want to be your friends.

Personally, I think I like this about Seattle. You can go around your day without getting hit by a car, have a friendly conversation with your barista, but you don't have to get shanghaied into a constant social life for the sake of the other people you know. I'm reminded of those TV commercials which show harried women running around trying to be a thousand things to a thousand people. The solution won't be found in a faster cleaning product or a prescription drug, it's Seattle. I do recommend that you import or pre-meet some friends to get started if you're going to be moving here. :)

FlickrGraph

Holy cow. This is so cool I cry. FlickrGraph lets you see your connections to other Flickr users and their photo collections in a gorgeous visual interface. Clickyclicky.

Very Small Objects

A classification system for little things, or a good image source for icons:
www.verysmallobjects.com

Digital Gibson

Oh man. Gibson just released a digital Les Paul. Droool...

Trackball

Here's a concept for a ball with a tracking device embedded in it which reports its precise location to a central server 2000 times a second. The place I found these expects these to help referees make better calls and allow fans to be able to view arcane information about the way the game worked out (eg. "the ball missed the goal by 3.6 cm"), but I envision a future in which these, combined with some clever real-time digital mapping of players body positions, will enable sports fans to see digitally modeled instant replays from any direction, transparent atheletes and calculated fly-throughs. Anyway, here's the link.

Notochord

Gail Wight is an artist who creates strange robots and musical instruments for animals to inhabit. The videos [big vid] are super neat. I can't deep link into her site for highlights (due to the lameframe design) but it's worth poking around.

What do you believe, but can't prove?

Jason Kottke points out a thread at Edge on their World Question for 2005, asking leading intellectuals: What do you believe but cannot prove?
A number of Kottke's favorites are on his site. After the jump: some of my my faves from the Edge site, as well as a few beliefs of my own.

Robert Trivers
...Processes of self deception are important in limiting the achievement of individuals.

Anton Zeilinger
...Quantum physics teaches us to abandon the distinction between information and reality.

Marti Hearst
Advances in computational linguistics and user interface design will eventually enable people to find answers to any question they have, so long as the answer is encoded in textual form and stored in a publicly accessible location.

Randolph Nesse, M.D.
I can't prove it, but I am pretty sure that people gain a selective advantage from believing in things they can't prove.

All in all, a wonderful read.

Some of my own:

I believe, but cannot prove, that some genetic or epigenetic change occurs to living organisms during their lifetimes and is passed on to their offspring, maybe through a process of selection during the fertilization process. This is written off as Lamarckian by modern scientists, but I believe it is a small but critical part of the evolutionary process. Mutation is less random than is currently supposed.

I believe, but cannot prove, that human beings have many undocumented instinctual behaviors, both as children and as adults.

I believe, but cannot prove, that a human will one day create an algorithm which could recreate our universe exactly. But I don't think it will just be numbers.

Cirque du Soleil and more

This looks like a great party (Warning: fairly big QuickTime progressive download file).

Found this video at Moment Factory, pretty impressive stuff.

Internal Mantras

Here's a great thread at Ask Metafilter about personal internal mantras.

I have a few of my own. Don't take these too seriously, I'm formalizing some of them as I write this. To coin a verb: Mantra them at your own risk.

[12/9 - re-read this list. some of them made me cringe, so I shrunk it - ed.]

"That's probably funny in some way."
"I'm in the most fortunate 1%."
"There's probably no way to kill her and get away with it."
"What would a creature of extreme ultra loving deliciousness do?"
"Focusing on the negative empowers the negative."
"Jah will provide."
"Wouldn't this make a great story?"
"My heart has infinite room for love."
"Help!"
"Sex, kill, go fast" - The design philosophy of a favorite professor
"Steven Jesse Bernstein"

Emergency Bot

More from the League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots

Via Everlasting Blort

Yale vs. Harvard

This was on Metafilter tonight. Too damn funny not to share:

Bizarchitecture

Cool photoshop contest, loads a bit slowly:

The terrorists have won

Send me money, or I kill my hampster. A new low for humanity. Where will it end?

Anyway, if I was this guy I'd find a better (more anonymous) way to get paid. PayPal is reknowned for doing a shoddy job of protecting its customers. How long before a SWAT team from PETA takes this guy out?

How long until Abu Musab al-Zarqawi gets an online shopping cart up?

gapingvoid

Jason clues me in to gapingvoid, a site I hadn't seen before. This guy makes humorous markings on business cards. I'm not sure whether to be impressed by his self-marketing acumen or just by the fact that he's funny as hell.

Electrolicious

Sweet new Volvo electric car concept: the sleek laptop-battery powered 3CC can go 85mph and has a range of 180 miles on a charge. I'm smitten.

Team America, Part 2

Wow. Hate to link to the Drudge Report, but Sean Penn wrote an open letter to Trey Parker and Matt Stone about Team America. He's kind of a stud.

P.S. Take this as a personal invitation from me to you (you can ask Dennis Miller along for the ride as well) to escort you on a trip, which I took last Christmas. We'll fly to Amman, Jordan and I'll ride with you in a (?) 12 hours through the Sunni Triangle into Fallujah and Baghdad and I'll show you around. When we return, make all the fun you want.

heheheh

Technicolor WWI

Found this crazy site full of color pictures of WWI in color after digging around through a related Metafilter link. I think it's extremely trippy to see pictures of World War I in color. Most of them, interestingly, aren't retouched or colorized, but were taken using a cool technique being used by the French as early as 1904.

Strangely, I find myself relating not only to the soldiers depicted, but also the photographer himself in a deeper way than I ever have before. Got to dig those funky uniforms. Glad I was born in the 1970's.

Music reviews by kids

frances: could you turn this off?
sarah: you don't like it?
frances: no.
sarah: a lot of people think this is a great new band.
frances: who thinks that?
sarah: i don't know. music people.
frances: i think it sounds bad. it hurts my head like a hundred dogs.

Google SMS

define: Google SMS

via Mefi

Non-options

George Conard writes a great post about the "Mexico City Policy", reinstated by the Bush administration, which refuses US governmental funding to any national or international organization which provides information related to abortion.

Vote. Do it for the children. Or lack thereof.

Republicans attract hurricanes?

Wishful thinking or no, someone out there in internet land thinks God hates Republicans. I'm all for the sweet vengeful wrath of a smighty god, just as long as it isn't aimed at my party. Interested in the progress of Jeanne. Glad I don't live in Haiti.

Tricks of the Trade

"For every occupation, there is a catalog of secrets only its employees are aware of—such as how waiters with heavy platters know to look straight ahead, and never down. Armed with a bag of reader mail, Matthew Baldwin unfurls a whole lot more true insider knowledge."

http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/how_to/tricks_of_the_trade.php

Pop your Gmail

Pop into your gmail account using a POP3 email client and other cool gmail tricks!

Mouths of Babes

Not what you're thinking. Ok, not what I thought.

Mouths of Babes