I am powerless to resist.
Showing newest 41 of 60 posts from November 2009. Show older posts
Showing newest 41 of 60 posts from November 2009. Show older posts
He'd have hours, nay, DAYS of entertainment with this next link.
May I present to you The Incredible Beer-Dispensing-And-Still-Functional-Case-Mod! This is just one of 13 ingenious food-related case mods demonstrated. 
Remember that one time where we heard about that kid who was taught Klingon? Where's here's a baby who's actually speaking Klingon.
See the knife? That's for the Hegh'bat after the kid's first day of school.
So back in Rome during the 1st century BCE, these guys Aurelius and Furius were talking smack about Gaius Valerius Catullus' poetry. They believed that his poems were "mollici" and probably that his mommy bought his togas for him. Anyway, whatever they said, it gave him a chippius maximus on his shoulder and he came back at them harder than Jay-Z at Nas.
The result was Catullus 16- a poem considered so offensive, it wasn't even fully translated into English until the 20th century.
Edit: Removed the actual poem after my mother read it and had a cow. If you're still curious, its over here at Wikipedia.
This is actually Ken's find. This is an amazing time capsule. The person who filmed this wordlessly tells the story of the Chronicle putting out the special edition for Kennedy's assassination. It starts with ripping the story off of the teletype machine (they probably staged that part) and goes all the way to individual drivers taking the papers into the city. It looks like an episode of Mad Men. You can see the Rice Hotel through the windows of the newsroom. A new 1963 Chevy drives down the street. Almost none of the machines or processes used to put out the paper exist any more. About all that's left is the printing press itself, which still sits in the basement of the building. It's unused, but unmovable. The building is built around it. Step into the "Way Back Machine" and enter the world of November 22, 1963.
This 1958 Disney video demonstrates the spectacular future of the American highway system. The most incredible thing about this video is how little has actually changed since it's creation. How many improvements to cars and roadways in the last 50 years can you think of? Where's my sun powered electo-suspension car?
My favorite thing with old movies about 'THE FUTURE', is how incredibly optimistic they are. So much imagination and creativity. The technology to create almost all of these things exists today. I guess if we weren't hindered by budgets or bureaucracy (or just let Steve Jobs run the world), some of these things could become a reality.
(EDIT: Just for kicks, here's an incredibly punny video about The Car of Tomorrow.)
My favorite thing with old movies about 'THE FUTURE', is how incredibly optimistic they are. So much imagination and creativity. The technology to create almost all of these things exists today. I guess if we weren't hindered by budgets or bureaucracy (or just let Steve Jobs run the world), some of these things could become a reality.
(EDIT: Just for kicks, here's an incredibly punny video about The Car of Tomorrow.)
One freeze-dried turkey for mankind.
Astronauts on the International Space Station show us their Thanksgiving meal.
A follow up to Beaker's "Ode To Joy", an amazing, spectacular, incomprehensibly awesome all-muppet rendition of...
Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody"!!!
You're welcome.
"Dismembering a turkey is much like dismembering a human, actually."
In honor of the upcoming holiday...
Chef, author and world-traveling badass Anthony Bourdain gives some advice on your holiday meal in this clip from a special episode of "No Reservations".
Tattoos: They've always been icky, but now they can move and change color? What hath Bradbury (Ray, not Kyle) wrought?
"Pig Meat and Fruit- Delicious!"
In the first of what i'm sure will become a series of food-related viral videos, I would like to introduce to you Georgia Hardstark and Alie Ward.
Anyone else as excited as I am for the upcoming HIMYM 100th episode musical? NPH is psyched. Alyson Hannigan is nostalgic (but will be singing mostly filler). It remains to be seen how well Josh (Ted) and Cobie (Robin) can sing and dance. And Jason Segel? Oh yeah, he's set.
Here's hoping a certain someone gets a crack at writing some lyrics. Not certain of the air date yet, but the next episode is #97. So soon.
With the launch of Ultralingua's new translation software, a non-paid advisor for the company just revealed that he spoke both English and KLINGON to his son (now 15) for the first 3 years of his life. And then tries to claim he's "not a Trekkie".Reason # 1 to have kids: They're sometimes more useful than guinea pigs.
Personally, I think its kind of cool for this dad to do a little experiment with his son, but why Klingon instead of Italian or Spanish? Not sure what that particular bit was supposed to prove. But I bet the ESL teachers had their hands full with the little guy.
He probably didn't share well with others, either...
"How dare you steal my Tonka truck?! Hab SoSlI' Quch!"
You know who hates cats besides Jamie? Hitler. Take from that what you will. This is a pretty cool comic about house cats on www.theoatmeal.com. This is a great site to waste a lunch break but check out the cat comic here.
Its that time of year again- when the NOAD (or, for the uninitiated, the New Oxford American Dictionary) releases a number of new words to be printed in the newest edition...including their Word of the Year! This year's winner?
Unfriend.
Unfriend – verb – To remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook.
As in, “I decided to unfriend my roommate on Facebook after we had a fight.”
Christine Lindberg, Senior Lexicographer for Oxford’s US dictionary program, gushes about the WOTY choice:
"Most “un-” prefixed words are adjectives (unacceptable, unpleasant), and there are certainly some familiar “un-” verbs (uncap, unpack), but “unfriend” is different from the norm. It assumes a verb sense of “friend” that is really not used (at least not since maybe the 17th century!). Unfriend has real lex-appeal.”
(sidenote- I think I might love this woman)
Other new words include:
intexticated – distracted because texting on a cellphone while driving a vehicle
zombie bank – a financial institution whose liabilities are greater than its assets, but which continues to operate because of government support
teabagger -a person, who protests President Obama’s tax policies and stimulus package, often through local demonstrations known as “Tea Party” protests (in allusion to the Boston Tea Party of 1773)
The last one has caused some uproar, apparently from teabaggers themselves, after having (finally) discovered the ACTUAL definition of teabagging. Whoops!
Click here to read the other words and some of the nit-picky, incensed and just plain crazy comments.
...Is "Comment Troll" part of the new dictionary yet?
Says Galvin: “It’s like a chubby little mobile phone...You switch it on and off, just like switching on the TV."
...
Wow.
Even though he has to get the muscles replaced every few years, it seems like a small sacrifice to pay for dignity, normality and a fully functioning ass.
For the grammar Nazi in all of us, apostrophe.me includes an illustrated guide to the apostrophe. I thought I was pretty good with this, but apparently I've been incorrect some times. (And yes, the title is purposely wrong.) You can also purchase the chart as a poster starting around $10.
(via lifehacker)
I am still getting the hang of how to format pages on here, but I wanted to share these photos with the Apple faithful.
Meh. Just here for the free shirt. Yay! Apple Store!
Here are some interior shots. She commented that she didn't ever learn to use a Mac before because her teacher didn't use Macs. That got a FAIL! from her.
Ok, I admit, I didn't watch the whole thing. I mean, come on, it's an hour long. But it's definitely surprising. Good songs and high production values. High school UIL acting, but whatever.
Read this article today about one girl's terrible interview with Google. It made me feel better about my HEB debacle, but its still pretty cringe-worthy.
What was interesting, though, was a link in the piece with 15 Google interview questions that will make you feel stupid. Im not sure what position these are designed for, but it seems like a cross between a MENSA application and a game of Cranium.
Some gems include:
What is the significance of dead beef?
You are shrunk to the height of a nickle and your mass is proportionally reduced so as to maintain your original density. You are then thrown into an empty glass blender. The blades will start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do?
How many piano tuners are there in the world?
The answers are posted at the end of the series, and out of the problems that actually had answers, I got zero correct. Google just made me feel like an infant child. I will never questions their maps again.
Gizmodo's series on "This Cyborg Life" covers "meat band-aids"; factory grown living tissue for use in medicine. Fascinating, and a little disgusting.
When I visit nerdy websites, a lot of the banners advertise online video games. And their tactics are no different from more traditional advertisers. They know: sex sells. One game in particular is an egregious offender. Evony. Their advertisements started fairly harmlessly.
Dude in armor, free game, cool, right!? I guess not enough people thought that, because the advertisements started getting more aggresive.
Wow, her cups floweth over. But you know, a busty wench is not that uncommon in fantasy (how else are they supposed to attract all those nerds?). But wait, play discreetly? In what way?
Dude in armor, free game, cool, right!? I guess not enough people thought that, because the advertisements started getting more aggresive.
Wow, her cups floweth over. But you know, a busty wench is not that uncommon in fantasy (how else are they supposed to attract all those nerds?). But wait, play discreetly? In what way?
Ok now, really!? "Evony" has been moved to the bottom left-hand corner, and the rest just looks like the dvd cover to a soft-core porn. So, what sort of game is this? And how do these to tropical ladies fit into it? By this point you're basically expecting an online strip club, except you know, with swords. (Not those swords.) So, what's the game look like? This:
Yes, you're right. It looks like it's from the 90's, with graphics about on par with Carmen Sandiego. I see no busty maidens, no tropical islands, only huge tracks of land. And my guess is that you won't actually be playing with any girls. In fact, you'll be playing with this guy, who's been making all his hot babes with ASCII art since 1986.
So, Evony, if you want someone to play your game, MAKE A GOOD GAME. Or at least advertise it appropriately. Because congratulations, you've just created one of the largest communities of perverts and pedophiles on the internet. Well, except for teensgirlsgames.com, which also advertises for Evony. (And on second thought, probably isn't a site for teen girls so much as it is about teen girls.)
The internet is a scary, scary place. A full history of Evony banner ads is here. Be warned, there's a lot of NSFW-ness.
"Why me not get royalties on this?"
The Cookie Monster, in an interview for Sesame Street's 40th, ruminates (pun!) on veggies, proper cookie-eating method and the origin of the "OM NOM NOM" internet phenomenon.
And finally, just because I like it, here's a little something for your Hump Day enjoyment.
PS- Am unsure what it says about me that, in less than a month of use, I have already authored 2 muppet-related posts...
Strange that the people most upset about people speaking languages other than english are the ones most in need of a little refresher. Enjoy.
via (TheDailyWhat)
I originally read about 826 stores about a year ago in McSweeney's. 826 Valencia, a San Francisco-area literacy workshop designed to help kids and adults read and write, set up a pirate supply store to help raise funds.
Obviously, the idea was a big hit.
An 826 superhero supply store opened up in NY, and now Seattle has an 826 space travel supply store while Chicago has everything you need for your super-secret spy needs. Michigan and LA also boast a time travel store and a cryptozoology shop respectively.
ANYWAY, now there is finally an 826 National catalog, featuring some of the best products from all of the different stores, hilarious blurbs and even notes from the designers and people that have purchased the products!
Here's an example:
826NYC “Muscle” and “Speed of Light” Canisters:
The general concept for the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company store, from the beginning, was that it was a kind of Lowe’s or Wal-Mart for Superheroes. It would be the place where heroes could come get all the necessities imaginable that one might need for crime-fighting at unbeatable prices. So, we knew that our flagship line had to have that generic feel to it—as though there were a bunch of other fancy, expensive superhero products out there, but ours was the exact same thing only cheaper. Once the label was designed, the hard part would be thinking up a whole range of products that superheroes just wouldn’t be able to live without.
– Sam Potts, 826NYC Designer
The general concept for the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company store, from the beginning, was that it was a kind of Lowe’s or Wal-Mart for Superheroes. It would be the place where heroes could come get all the necessities imaginable that one might need for crime-fighting at unbeatable prices. So, we knew that our flagship line had to have that generic feel to it—as though there were a bunch of other fancy, expensive superhero products out there, but ours was the exact same thing only cheaper. Once the label was designed, the hard part would be thinking up a whole range of products that superheroes just wouldn’t be able to live without.
– Sam Potts, 826NYC Designer
Its a great way to learn about and support 826 stores until you can get a chance to visit one in person. And really, you must. I hit the Pirate Supply when I was in San Francisco. AMAZING.
Sociological Images posted this hilarious-yet-true breakdown of the Big Six Disney Princesses.
By now, most women understand and accept the dissapointing tendancy of these young women to be saved only by their beauty (sexuality) and men. But its still pretty annoying. Even the more modern "princesses", like Pocahontas and Mulan, are little more than depressing characatures of ethnic and gender stereotypes. But at least they get weapons. I guess.
Then they turn around and show us what Disney teaches boys.
Lol. I know that most of these stories are based on old fairy tales, with simple morals, that are blatantly misogynistic in the first place. But my thing is, you'd think that a company taking so many creative liberties with other parts of the stories could find the time to make their characters a little more...inspiring?
Scientific American published a great article that explains why the Good Guys wear white hats, and the Bad Guys wear black.Using a test based on the "Stroop Effect" (you know the one, where the word "Blue" is written in purple, and you have to name the color, not the word) they wrote morality-related words like "greed" and "cheater" in black and white, and then had subjects read them aloud, gauging reaction time to determine if they instantly linked black thoughts to black colors.
The results are pretty amazing:
"And they did, so quickly that the connections could not possibly be deliberate...Just as we unthinkingly—almost unconsciously—“know” a lemon is yellow, we instantly know that sin and crime are black and that grace and virtue are white."
"Why would this intrinsic association exist? One possibility is that the metaphor is more complex, embodying not just right and wrong but purity and contagion, too. Think of the metaphor “new-fallen snow.” It is not only white, it is also virginal and unadulterated, like a wedding dress. And blackness not only discolors it, it stains it, taints its purity.
This result offers pretty convincing evidence in itself that the connection between black and bad is not just a metaphor we all have learned over the years, but rather it is deeply associated with our ancient fear of filth and contagion."
The researchers also tested that moral fastidiousness is often linked to an intensive attention to personal hygiene. The article also tentatively mentions the implications such a study would have on understanding racism.
It really makes you think about instinct v. environment.
Im curious to know the age range of the sample subjects. While kids might be more open-minded, their moral compasses are pretty North/South. Hell, even as a kid I understood that Snidely Whiplash wore all black because he was the bad guy.
At the same time, the older you get, the more moral "grey areas" turn up, giving you a broader understanding of "good" and "evil" concepts.
Just released for some mac lovin', Orb 2.0. Orb has been around for a little while, allowing Windows users to stream their media anywhere they can access the internet. Now, it's available for mac. I tried it out this morning, and only have two words. Holy crap.
Before work this morning, I spent about three minutes downloading Orb and going through it's set-up process. It's fairly straight forward. You set up a user name for an account, and it will automatically index your iPhoto and iTunes libraries. If you have other folders you want to share, select those during the set-up. Because my carpool was coming, I didn't have time to test anything out, so I selected my external drive (with all my films and series) and let it do it's thing. When I got to work I had a confirmation email from Orb asking me to confirm my account. I clicked OK, logged in, and was brought to the web interface. My jaw dropped, and a little puddle of drool formed on my desk. All of my media and files: my iTunes, iPhoto, my hard drive and external drive, could be streamed to me through my browser.
The built-in player is great, with a simple interface and fast load times. I just clicked on a tv show and instantly started watching. Now, the connection I'm using is from my home FIOS (2mb/s upload) to a corporate network (50+mb/sec download). And the quality was great. My guess is that the quality would degrade a bit over a slower connection. But it will work over a slower connection. Because here's the awesome part: they have an iPhone app. Oh yeah, did I mention that Orb works with your TV tuner to stream live TV? (That's right, eyeTV live on your iPhone).
The iPhone app works over EDGE, 3G, or Wifi, so you should be able to access your media wherever you go. It's $9.99, but hey, sometimes I don't mind paying for apps is they provide this kind of great functionality. I haven't downloaded it yet (but thinking about it), and if I do, I'll make sure to do a write-up about it.
Also, you can share media with friends and family. I've posted my movie collection for now as a test:
You can stream and download anything from this link. I have it hidden, so it's not viewable from my public profile. (Note: So far, I haven't really had any success getting movies streaming from this channel, but I can download them just fine. Let me know if you get it to work.)
"SETI@home is a scientific experiment that uses Internet-connected computers in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). You can participate by running a free program that downloads and analyzes radio telescope data."
The process is simple. You go to the download the program and it runs in the background while your computer is idle. This distributing computing method helps them process the mounds of radio frequency data to search for extra terrestrial signals. If you wanna join the Soapbox Nerds team, do this:
-Go to the website and make an account
-Search for and join the Soapbox Nerds team
-Download and run the program
-Attach the SETI@home project
-Find aliens!
Let me know if you have questions. This is best run on a computer that is plugged in (so it won't drain your battery), or is on all the time (mac mini *cough cough*).
(idea totally stolen from Macenstein)
Let me know if you have questions. This is best run on a computer that is plugged in (so it won't drain your battery), or is on all the time (mac mini *cough cough*).
(idea totally stolen from Macenstein)
You'll get Rick Roll'd. The first worm for Jailbroken iPhones is pretty harmless but it does change your wall paper to an awesome picture of Rick Astley.
You can read more at Sophos.
Wait- weren't we?
Anyway, the Foods Standards Angency (aka British USDA), has unleashed a slew of commercials featuring talking foods to promote healthy eating.
And, being british, they span the gauntlet from boring to creepy, hilarious to WTF.
Here's a clip from the 2009 documentary about industrial design called "Objectified". Ive not only talks about the Apple design process, but gives us peak at what looks like a secret Apple design bunker. I think when people want to sell stuff, they should ditch all the Billy Mays-esque infomercials and just hire an Ive impersonator. The man explains design like Jamie makes me want to try every food ever.
Watch it before it mysteriously disappears off of YouTube. Bonus: Crazy German designer in the beginning of the clip.
The Daily Beast posted an article, Tina Fey's 10 Favorite 30 Rock Moments. You should check them all out but below is one of my favorites.
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