Happy Holidays, Pittsburgh Trivia Edition

So I recently got the opportunity to spend some time exploring downtown Pittsburgh on foot. During these long walks I came across some really interesting sights. The first is very appropriate for the holidays, it looks like a simple nativity scene in front of a big building. It's actually Pittsburgh's "Vatican Creche", the only authorized replica of the nativity scene in front of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

This year is the city's 250th anniversary (yep, I don't know why I was surprised to discover this city has been around that long), but this is not the only anniversary being celebrated. Some nice locals told me that it was also the Steeler's 75th anniversary, and the 35th anniversary of the "immaculate reception." One Pittsburgh-area local I had the immense pleasure to see on the streets of Pittsburgh, was none other than Zachary Quinto (Sylar from NBC's "Heroes"), sporting a Steelers hat no less. This turned out to be the Thanksgiving day parade. It was still very weird to see Sylar waving from a limo while wearing Steeler-wear (photo credit: I'm afraid I didn't have a camera with me, but a local friend who had gone to see the parade was better-prepared and kindly provided the picture in this post, anonymously by request).

Pittsburgh has more bridges than any other city except Venice, and has a lovely skyline that is particularly impressive when viewed from Mount Washington. That particular location is both historically and geologically interesting. It's the site of the single most valuable mineral deposit ever discovered. And no, it was not a gemstone mine, it was coal. A lot of coal. Gems or hydrocarbons, it hardly matters while taking in the view.

Well, that's about it for my trivia-from-Pittsburgh post. I doubt I've done the city any justice, but felt this blog deserved a post. I've been too swamped to post anywhere near as regularly as I should, and hope to remember to post a Weird Al link tomorrow.

Goodnight and Happy Holidays to all.

Weird Al Wednesday - Amish Edition

Well, yet another missed wednesday last week (again, my apologies), and hardly any posts to speak of over the last couple of weeks. Alas it hasn't been the most pleasant of weeks, but then again I must take the example of the main character in Weird Al's "Amish Paradise" and keep cool. I plan to post a few items about time I spent in PA, so this vid seemed particularly appropriate.



[via Revver]

SNL Shorts: Natalie Raps and Steve Martin Bonds with Sting

Okay, the actress who so impressed me in Leon/The Professional has totally redeemed herself from any negative cred gained by way of the new Star Wars movies (or the sub-par adaptation of V for Vendetta for that matter).

On the same site, there's also this classic clip of Steve Martin as budget-minded Bond facing off against GoldSting.

[via NBC]

Japanese Road Tunes

While driving down this particular road in Japan, the road noise from your tyres might eerily suggest a tune. That's because it is indeed intended to do so. Really weird, seems highly impractical and possibly annoying, and yet the "Melody Road" is IMHO very cool nonetheless.



[via YouTube]

Weird Al Wednesday

There was no Weird Al video last week, I apologize. I'm afraid I was a little under the weather. This week, I just feel like I need to visit the gym more often. Not necessarily to exercise. It's just that the machines look so shiny. This particular video never fails to make me file like going to the gym and actually exercising.

Unlike Michael Jackson's version, this was not directed by Scorcese, and Wesley Snipes does not make an appearance. It is however very true to that original video in every way that counts, and is exceedingly more hilarious.




[via Revver]

Vader Von Karian

This is just sooooo cute.



[via YouTube]

"Yes Minister" definitely blends.

I was warned many, many years ago by the great Jonathan Lynn, co-creator of Yes Minister and director of the comic masterpiece My Cousin Vinnie, that Americans are not raised in a tradition of debate and that the adversarial ferocity common around a dinner table in Britain is more or less unheard of in America.

[via Stephen Fry].

Very true, though of course it differs from group to group within America. For example, some vocations can be very debate-oriented (particularly the sciences and some of the more "scientific" arts ... oops, I just let a bias slip). But hang on a second, the director of "My Cousin Vinnie" was the same guy as the co-creator of "Yes, Minister." COOL!

Seriously though, the article makes a good logical argument on a very serious topic. Click on to read the full article, fair warning, it's a "blessay" not a short "dork talk."

It's pronounced Herbs! with an H!

This just cheered me up when I came across it a few weeks ago. I accept both pronunciations gladly, but it just strikes me as particularly funny as I know a few people who completely drop the H in "hotel," and yet pronounce it very forcefully when saying "herbs."



[via YouTube]

Perspective and the Moebius Transform

University of Minnesota researchers have prepared the most eloquent, and visually informative, explanation of the underlying nature of a Moebius transform. It's very good as an example of the importance of the right perspective, and how warped and fragmented the view can be from a limited or spatially biased perspective.



[via YouTube]

Fry on Botnets

Stephen Fry has posted a new "Dork Talk" article. This time it's a lovely and concise description of botnets, and some good general advice about avoiding enslavement, phishing, and similar online perils.
SPOILER ALERT: the last passage is simply hilarious and is quoted below for those too lazy to read the whole article (which I am hoping is nobody).

So they you are. Botnet: not a diaphanous material designed to make the buttocks look more alluring, but rather the very stuff of sci-fi nightmares. And it’s living with us now. Be vigilant, my friends.

[Via Stephen Fry].

Hi-ho ... "Dino" ... ?

The Image You've Slogged Through the Whole Set to See
Originally uploaded by John Scalzi

John Scalzi's deliciously snark-tastic photoset of his visit to the Creationist Museum. Start out by reading his short essay about the experience, and then go on to check out the complete photoset.

[via Whatever and BoingBoing]

On the care and feeding of your nerd

A wonderful post - "The Nerd Handbook" - it's both funny and so terribly true. Finally I can point non-nerd friends and loved ones to an astute explanation of the benefits of monospaced text.

Map the things he's bad at to the things he loves. You love to travel, but your nerd would prefer to hide in his cave for hours on end chasing The High. You need to convince him of two things. First, you need to convince him that you're going to do your best to recreate his cave in his new surrounding. You're going to create a quiet, dark place here he can orient himself and figure out which way the water flushes down the toilet. Traveling internationally? Carve out three days somewhere quiet at the beginning of the trip. Traveling across the US? How about letting him chill on the bed for a half-day before you drag him out to see the Golden Gate Bridge?

[via Rands In Repose].

The trouble with the trouble with tribbles

... is deciding whether to recap it through Edward Gorey-vision, or LOL-vision. I can has both?






[Images from Live Granades and shaenon: New Smithson!]

Heroes and the iBook ad

Is this a young "Peter Petrelli" in an old iBook ad called "Middle Seat?" And if this is how the Heroes character behaves on flights, could this help explain how he wound up in that shipping container?


[via YouTube via Macenstein]

Pixilation or Metapixilation ... it's still old-school cool

The two videos below are great examples of pixilation or more precisely "meta-pixilation" as pointed out by Adam on Drawn!.

The first video below is called "Flâneur" (via YouTube), and it's important to point out that there's no digital manipulation going on, it was all done with wheatpaste.


While the first video use polaroids, the second video is called "Process Enacted" (via Drawn!), and uses manipulated polaroids as its main medium.


As with the letter-press printing, there's something very charming and warm about achieving the desired aesthetic via a substantial mechanical component.

Letter-Press Printing

A beautiful video of Massachusetts' Firefly Press demonstrating the beautiful mechanical printing they perform. It's sad to hear the proprietor talk of the craft dying out eventually. I think I'd miss it greatly.

[via YouTube]

Punched again - the SNL short revisited

I'm reposting the SNL "punched" skit, as it has apparently been removed from YouTube. Fortunately there appears to be a second copy of it.

Nothing more worthy of comic ridicule than what strikes me (no pun intended) as a very stupid fad. And this is a truly brilliant send-up. Though I felt bad for the Foo Fighters, and am pleased to hear of Jon Bon Jovi's recovery :)

[via YouTube]

UPDATE: The YouTube links keep getting taken down, so here's a link to NBC instead.

Cheer Up!

Not to be a complete downer with my last post, I have to include a cheerful entry. This one is an excrutiating pun, but of this one I am innocent. It comes courtesy of the outstanding xkcd webcomic.



[via xkcd]

On destructive desires

Yes, this entry is not going to be true to form, it is far from cheerful. But I wanted to link to two touching expositions of addiction and compulsion from two normally cheerful sources. I list them together because I found them both to be extremely touching and insightful. Whether you suffer from one compulsion or another, yield to cravings you wish you could avoid, or just know what it's like to have to make an effort to gain control over a want that may well harm you, both Craig Ferguson's monologue and Stephen Fry's "Blessay" will hit home very hard. If you are fortunate enough (or, hopefully not, delusional enough) to feel completely untouched by any such affliction, they are both worth careful consideration and respect, and have both earned my sincerest admiration.

The following excerpt is from Stephen Fry's "I Give Up" blog entry:

Imagine that one day someone hit himself lightly on the head with a parsnip. Instead of stopping (for this is a foolish thing to do) he carried on doing it. When he eventually did stop he went about his business but discovered, much to his surprise, that he had a sudden unconquerable urge to hit himself lightly on the head with a parsnip all over again. So he did. And the more he did it, the more he needed to do it. The act of doing it gave him a tiny surge of joy, a little rush of pleasure that had to be elicited, never mind what a twazzock he looked, parsnipping himself on the head all day.

[via YouTube and Stephen Fry's Blog]

24 ... pre-SmartPhones

Well, I couldn't help but smile at all the references to "old" tech in this College Humor parody of Fox's "24." I'm embarrassed to say that I still remember the (ancient?) days of the BBS and acoustic couplers. Agent Jack Bauer would have a much harder (and in this case hilarious) time without the widespread acceptance of smartphones and "rich media." Keep an eye out for the pre-Google references to Lycos and Encarta.



[via College Humor via Engadget]

Model B29 with Bell X-1

While not a rocket-powered X-Wing, this is still an impressive demonstration of an impressive model B-29 with accompanying X-1.



On a very marginally related note, if you don't fancy the flying fortress, a fun video of "flying boats" can be found here.

[via YouTube]

How to build your own lightsaber ....

... in the manner used for the Star Wars movies. Just follow this link.

[via finkbuilt]

Weird Al Wednesday - Medical Edition

[via Revver]

Dutch promo website - outstanding use of flash

I tend to hate flash-heavy websites. The Dutch retail chain Hema have forced me to make an exception. A truly amazing (and flash-heavy) website promo that is just a delight to watch. Follow this link and you will not be sorry. Give the site a few seconds to load, and enjoy one very creative website.

[Via Boing Boing]

LotR Origami

Each from a single uncut sheet of paper. Impressive!


[Via Boing Boing via Neatorama]

ZeFrank on the Writer's Strike

ZeFrank on Strike Day

Hilarious!

Let Fry Commence

Stephen Fry's nascent blog is taking its first few steps. And what steps they are - simply amazing. Unlike this humble blog (I am ashamed to use the word in any proximity to mention of Mr. Fry's blog), I am left in awe by his wit, humour, clarity, and lengthy prose. I complain not of length or quantity, and will never complain of quality. Every entry is a gem, as evidenced by the delightful anecdote below.

Lord Reith, founder of the BBC, legendarily fired off an angry memo to his staff after a broadcast in which someone or other was described as “the famous lawyer”. The memo went like this: ‘The word FAMOUS. If a person is famous it is superfluous to point out the fact, if they are not then it is a lie. The word is not to be used within the BBC.’ Way to tell them, Scottish guy.

[Via Stephen Fry].

The EFF' "Test Suite" for Fair Use Videos - includes "The Vader Sessions"

The EFF has prepared a suite of videos for testing against automated "copyright infringement detection" software. Among these videos was the excellent "Vader Sessions" below. I don't think I can watch the first Star Wars movie in quite the same way again.



[via Boing Boing]

Hiro is an OLPC ambassador

Masi Oka (Hiro of Heroes) ...

has now signed up to be OLPC's "ambassador" to really flesh out his resume. The guy majored in Math and Comp Sci at Brown University, and did odd acting gigs while working at ILM programming special effects, so he's no pretender to this nerd throne.

[Via Engadget].

Yay Apple Store! They really do listen to their customers.

So today I come across the story of Apple's VP for retail operations exercising stock options and netting $100M+ in the process. And less than ten minutes later I get a phone call that makes me very pleased to hear that news. It was the local Apple store calling me about a bad experience I had reported. I had been treated in a very condescending and insulting manner by a cashier. This was the day after the Leopard launch, and I suspect the poor guy was simply frazzled and impatient. I suppose he could have been covering up his embarrassment by getting aggressive and angry at me (apparently for not handing him my ID as quickly as he'd have liked). Well, I left the store stunned, and feeling very foolish for liking the Apple stores as much as I had until that point. When I got home I found an e-mail with my receipt, and a link to a simple feedback form. I felt bad enough about the experience that I clicked the link and described the experience, and how it had been bad enough that I really didn't want to go to that particular store again. I figured this would go into the database of complaints and surveys, to be mined in the future for internal auditing and evaluation purposes, my feelings on the matter relegated to a minor nameless contribution to a performance statistic. So getting a call and a personal apology from the store manager within less than two days (and timed at a considerate hour) just leaves me speechless and very happy with the Apple Store. All is well with the world again ... and I feel the VP for retail deserves every penny. Thank you Mr. Johnson, and thank you local Apple Store. I'm still a big fan.

Weird Al Wednesday - Eat It!

It doesn't matter what you had for lunch, just ...


[via Revver]

Wil Shipley (of Delicious Monster) on CompSci Education

So I've run into a lot of Computer Science students who don't seem to know the value of a particular course they're taking. I've met some at a later date who realized the benefits of a particular class, but it's still distressing to think of the number of students who don't know why they are studying something. I came across Wil Shipley's post "CS OMG WTF?" and wish I could point every CS student to it, if nothing else it'd help give them some perspective (and a very astute perspective at that).

[via Call Me Fishmeal]

Animated ThinkGeek T-Shirts

Perform a public service and let everyone know the WiFi signal strength, or just help them visualize the ambient sounds around you. These are just two of the useful things you can do by wearing one of ThinkGeek's animated t-shirts. Alright, I'm not sure how I feel about wearing a tee with a battery pack, as when I'm in a t-shirt mood I typically don't want it to be weighed down. I'll have to reserve judgement till I get one, but which one? Other t-shirts include animated Pong and one shirt that's more than meets the eye. I think I like the WiFi and Equalizer shirts the most though.

Photos of Old Bank Vault

Old Bank Vault - 007
Originally uploaded by JasonBechtel

Beautiful photo set of an old bank vault. You've got to love the detailed etching on the large cog, and the patterns on the retracting bolts. It would so easy to just make the mechanism plain and angular (not necessarily a bad thing), the effort that went into making vault locks look so good is greatly appreciated, as are photos like this that highlight them. Thanks Jason!

Weird Al Wednesday, and "This is the Life."

I have to confess to loving the incredibly corny movie "Johnny Dangerously," and was a little saddened that the Weird Al theme music was not included in the home video release. But here's Weird Al, along with scenes from the movie, performing "This is the Life." This post in no way indicates my approval of price-stickering puppies, I strongly recommend against such a practice ... apparently puppies don't like it and the stickers just come off too easily.

[via Revver]

Riddle of the dead readers!

Why is it that if only you, myself, and dead people can read hex, then we're obviously deaf hex readers?

(yes, it is indeed a riddle, comment if you've figured it out)

Flip Mode

An interesting perspective on switching (from PC to Mac).

[via graphpaper.com and Daring Fireball]

Mac vs. PC ... and Finder Sings (in addition to finding stuff)

After watching this, I want an Amiga to sit next to my NeXT.

What the F---: Why We Curse

An excellent essay by Steven Pinker in The New Republic.

The response is not only emotional but involuntary. It's not just that we don't have earlids to shut out unwanted sounds. Once a word is seen or heard, we are incapable of treating it as a squiggle or noise; we reflexively look it up in memory and respond to its meaning, including its connotation. The classic demonstration is the Stroop effect, found in every introductory psychology textbook and the topic of more than four thousand scientific papers. People are asked to look through a list of letter strings and to say aloud the color of the ink in which each one is printed. Try it with this list, saying "red," "blue," or "green" for each item in turn from left to right:

red blue green blue green red

Easy. But this is much, much, harder:

red blue green blue green red

[Via Daring Fireball].

Tanks for the memories

Need a fun corporate event and tired of picnics and similar outings. Take the tank option instead. No, I'm not kidding, a company in the UK offers tank rentals for fun events. The link is currently reporting an error (www.tanklimo.com), but there's a wonderful picture on the Neatorama blog (copy below). A couple more pictures can be found on Make:.



UPDATE: BoingBoingTV features the tanklimo in its latest episode. I wonder if it'd be wise to take one as an alternative to a taxi to the airport, or would it look bad?

Old Onion "News" - Seven Trampled In Annual Running Of The Congressmen

I came across this old Onion headline, and couldn't keep from laughing out loud. I remember the article clearly, and am glad to see it can still make me smile after more than ten years (wow, it's been that long?).

Seven Trampled In Annual 'Running Of The Congressmen'

[The Onion]

Weird Al Wednesday ... and it's Ground Zero

Fair warning, this can be a pretty disturbing video for some people ... so if you're particularly fragile on the topic of nukes, don't watch it. I'm in the mood to watch this video again, and as it's wednesday I'm sharing the experience with anyone fond of Al. So click below to watch "Christmas at Ground Zero."



[via Revver]

Cory Doctorow's Future of Air Travel

From Boing Boing comes Cory Doctorow's vision of the future of travel. Click on through for the full quote.

I've said it before, but it bears repeating: the future of high-end air-travel is Ninja Air. The night before your flight, a highly trained ninja sneaks into your bedroom, blowdarts you, packs your suitcase, shrinkwraps you and sticks a routing tag on you. You are shipped, unconscious and stacked like cordwood, to your destination. Another ninja carries you (and your bags) off the plane and checks you into your hotel.

[Via Boing Boing].

"Punched" a great SNL short

Nothing more worthy of comic ridicule than what strikes me (no pun intended) as a very stupid fad. And this is a truly brilliant send-up. Though I felt bad for the Foo Fighters, and am pleased to hear of Jon Bon Jovi's recovery :)



Update: It appears the video has been removed from YouTube, a second copy can be found here.

[via YouTube]

Gas Tank Iconography - The Hidden (and useful) Truth

So it turns out the gas icon in that rental car is stealthily conveying the crucial location of your gas tank opening.

[via Bits & Piece]

Update on the X-Wing Rocket ... video of disintegration now available.

A quick update on the X-Wing rocket story. Video is now available.



[via Slashdot]

Little Bobby Tables - great SQL joke on XKCD

Weird Al Wednesday - I Love Rocky Road

I'm in the mood for ice cream, so this seems appropriate. Keep an eye out for the gentleman in the Top Hat (it's Dr. Demento)



[via Revver]

Not a terrorist! But a Felfeet or Gooey fan?

V.U.
Originally uploaded by irishbrendandonnelly

It's a "Velvet Underground" t-shirt, redone in Arabic. For more info check out this style article, or just go to the gallery at brendandonnelly13.
It's fun to realize that not all English sounds are available in the Arabic alphabet (even though Arabic has more characters, including three forms of what English speakers might call "Z" ... two forms of "T" and two forms of "S"). There is no "P" in Arabic, and no "V" ... so it's reasonable for an Arabic-speaker to read the t-shirt as the "zee fell-feet andar-gerawoond" at least it's bossible. I can joke about that because I do speak Arabic and find the transliteration of English words can be priceless entertainment (in case you're wondering, when I first read the Joy Division t-shirt it parsed as "Gooey Defeegin" and then it parsed as "Jawey Defeegin" which meant "my weather is ..." and the word defeejin/defeegin had me mystified.

Asteroid Sulu

Congratulations Mr. Sulu.

The International Astronomical Union has given asteroid 1994 GT9 the new name of 7307 Takei in honor of George Takei, the actor who played Hikaru Sulu

[Via Boing Boing].

iPhone Battlefleet

Just a fun implementation of Battleship with an iPhone-suitable interface. It plays reasonably well through a regular browser version as well, though annoyingly slides the screen between turns ... in spite of there being enough room to fit two screens for full-scale browsers.

[Link]

Nobel Prize for Hard Drives

Well, actually it's the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics awarded for the development of Giant-Magnetoresistive technology. Albert Fert of France and Peter Gruenberg of Germany were announced as winners for this work which has enabled the continued increase in disk capacities over the last decade. This should not be underestimated, as it's easy to ignore the fact that hard drives have increased in density faster than processors over the same period.
It's great to see contributions to computer systems (and storage - YAY!) recognized by the hard sciences, especially in one of the five original Nobel categories.

I'm rooting for Pixie Dust/AFC recording for next year, and racetrack memories (NewScientist Article) for the year after that!

[via Bloomberg and Associated Press]

Hifana's Wamono - Incredible Japanese Music Video

A great animated music video by Hifana, telling the tale of two fishermen and the huge catch they set off to pursue. [note: brief animated partial nudity, might be NSFW for some people]



Hifana sound amazing, and significant processing contributes to their recorded sound, but they are equally impressive when performing live and depending primarily on pads and scratching. Their live performances of Wamono (link1, link2) are not to be missed.

[via YouTube]

A new sideline for the RIAA and MPAA?

Here's a thought - why don't the RIAA and MPAA redirect some of their expenditure to preserving public domain content. It's a crazy thought and totally opposed to what critics describe as their real purpose, but it seems in line with their stated purpose and may be a good source of profit to the organization and content creators as well. I realize this sounds naive, but why not? The Internet Archive has numerous movies and cartoons that have been uploaded for preservation in the archive, but by its nature this content tends to be poorly indexed and catalogued. I would gladly pay for a service that allowed me to download high quality mp4s of old movies that included full and accurate metadata tags, or DiVX versions with multiple soundtracks, or why not full VIDEO_TS folders of DVD versions of these old movies. The distributor need only produce an electronic image of a DVD, and provide me with some assurance that the information was accurate. The RIAA and MPAA are in a strong position to do so, and to further entice me to buy such content they could even offer a guarantee that a portion of the proceeds would get to the original artists, their heirs, or some project to preserve more the artists works. This would seem to place the RIAA and MPAA in the roles of philanthropic organizations, and I'm not naive enough to imagine them as such, they are looking out for material interests. I'm just saying that they could look out for such material interests by adding value, adding knowledge and resources that they would typically use to track copyrights. Such information becomes useless to these organizations when a copyright expires, but this gives them a way to keep generating revenue and giving the customers something they want and are willing to pay for. Bottom line, there's too much content that is being lost due to lack of motivated custodianship, and it wouldn't hurt to see energies that are being expended on punitive measures be redirected to preservation efforts. Digital media makes it easier for pirates to copy, but why can't these organizations make use of how much cheaper it makes it to produce and distribute larger media libraries. Three or four man-hours expended in transferring an old film to digital format (about the time it takes me to transfer and tag a home movie or presentation) is much cheaper than pressing a production run of DVDs and CDs. Distributing a library of cult TV shows and movies becomes less of a risk, and would be a service, to the public, the artists, and the bottom line. So why not? You can't make a profit off public domain material by restricting people's use of it, but you could potentially make a profit by making it available in an attractive package ... option 1: make no money, option 2: make some money for the artist and yourselves from those who value the work. It seems like a worthy cause to me.
Would it be that bad to spend a tiny fraction of the resources expended on litigation to such a purpose, or am I just being too naive?

Cordially,

Argy

[Update: On a related note, here's an amazing presentation from Yahoo!, via Oreilly Radar and BoingBoing]

Andrew Ridgeley (of Wham!), member of the SAS

I was surprised to hear that, but it probably isn't the SAS that first pops to mind. It's actually an organization campaigning for safe recreational waters, free of sewage and other forms of irresponsible pollution - Surfers Against Sewage. All kidding aside, that's a very good and worthy cause.

And just in case you don't know who Andrew Ridgeley is, you should check out this video, and if you're old enough to remember it'll come back to you.

[via Wikipedia]

Matt as Matthew, Damon with a dead-on McConaughey impersonation

Not the kind of post I'd typically put up, but Matt Damon was just too funny.



[YouTube Link]

Weird Al Wednesday - on UHF!

Worth it for so much, but the George Michael "Faith" impersonation is just priceless.


[via Revver]

X-Wing Model (Rocket-Powered, 21-feet, and it flies too)

Gizmodo has an excellent gallery of this incredible 21 foot long model of a Star Wars X-Wing. It has four solid-fuel rockets, and radio-operated control surfaces ... yes, that means it does indeed fly, and lands with the help of three parachutes.


[via Gizmodo]

notMac Challenge Winner Announced

Ben Spink has just been declared the winner of the notMac Challenge. This is great news, as a free and open-source alternative to .Mac is something I've been hoping for.

Whitehall - divine jeweller's? or just a weird sign?

This is something that struck me at the mall recently, the logo for "Whitehall Co." jeweller's spells out the word "Allah" in Arabic. It's actually the "WJ" ... and since it needs a very thin capital J to work, and a fairly elaborate scrolling of the W, I can't help but wonder how much of a coincidence this is. Or if it's not a coincidence then why can't I get any further information on the subject? (the employees were oblivious to the matter). It's very eye-catching for anyone who reads Arabic. Could that be the reason? I tried doing a quick websearch, and all I could come up with was web pages talking about lawsuits, customer service complaints, and investment info. The link below is to the sole blog entry I found that includes a decent picture and seems to have noticed this as well.

If anyone knows more about this, or just thinks I'm seeing things, then let me know what you think in the comments.



[Link to blog entry]
[Link to larger version of image]

Weird Al Wednesday - BoB!

For all you palindrome fans.




[Via Revver]

The LSST - a really big scanner for the sky

I was listening to a talk a few hours ago, and the subject of the LSST (Large Synoptic Survey Telescope) has come up, so I had to look it up, and it turns out to be very cool indeed.
It's a proposed new digital telescope, but a very special one. Here are some basic stats:

Mirror Diameter: 8.4 meter diameter mirror
Camera Resolution: 3.2 gigapixels (more than 200 sensors used)
Field of view: approx. 32,000 square centimeters (capable of covering all visible sky from its location in Chile)
Capture Rate: 15 seconds per picture

The telescope is designed to cover a larger part of the sky than is typically focused upon by other telescopes. With this telescope the entire night sky can be scanned every three days. The camera actually reads out 3.2 billion pixels each 2 seconds, and demands a data rate of 3GB/sec. That's actually 6GB for each image (at 16 bits per pixel), and remember this telescope is meant to cover the entire night sky, which means it will be generating 20 to 30 Terabytes every night.

This can detect variable objects, since it will effectively produce an incredibly detailed movie of the night sky. This results in the ability to see transient objects like cosmic explosions and the ability to discover moving objects (such as asteroids that might move close to the earth).

It'll take 12 years to finish building it, but be sure to check out the excellent LSST Tour.

(image credit: LSST Corporation)

Fingerprints can be scanned at 10 meters

A Reuters article on the technolofy of Homeland Security has this interesting quote

"We can read fingerprints from about five meters .... all 10 prints," said Bruce Walker, vice president of homeland security for Northrop Grumman Corp (NOC.N). "We can also do an iris scan at the same distance."

[Via Schneier on Security]

PS3 helps Folding@Home reach a PetaFLOP

Now how will so-inclined parents claim video games consoles don't contribute anything constructive?

In an achievement that is heavily weighted towards the addition of a PS3 client to the project, Folding@Home has busted through the Petaflop mark, producing a distributed supercomputer capable of above and beyond a thousand trillion flops. Currently the client stats show 1.194 Petaflops of activity, 0.93 of which is due to the PlayStation 3's contribution.

[Via Engadget].

I'd been amazed by the PS3's use in Folding@Home before, but hadn't fully realized the impact of the cell processors. It's interesting that the PS3 clients can't be used for all the computations needed by the project, but they are useful for the most common computations, and are blazingly fast at them, so the combined supercomputer formed by PS3s and the other platforms is a truly amazing example of massive parallelism in system where each compute node is not created equal.

Wil Shipley on ignorant pro-DRM analysts

In a brilliant post titled "Steve Jobs v. Underwear Gnomes" Will Shipley offers this excellent conclusion to his most eloquent rant.

Next time, AP, call me, I'll give you a damn quote. Here, the first one is free: "It's about time record execs pull their heads out of their asses, and, after the giant 'schloORK' sound is done ringing in their ears, they start treating valued customers like they are valued and/or customers, instead of like a seething criminal class. Yes, there will always be people who steal music. So either offer the rest of us a compelling alternative to being one of them, or die the dinosaur's death that you so richly deserve."

[Via Call Me Fishmeal.].

The thing is, I'm a Delicious Monster client, and have no doubt I will remain so through future versions. Not because there aren't alternatives (none as nice yet, but there are a couple of promising challengers), and not because I can't live without the functionality the software offers (though it is a godsend). It's thanks to my experience a few months after buying a license. I had a question about library merges and scanning cover art, and was expecting a few days wait while someone got around to sending me a form reply, or a referral to a new version of a FAQ, or some other time-waster to check if my problem would just go away. It saddens me that I've come to expect that from most services providers. But lo and behold, within a few hours there was in my inbox a very thoughtful reply, several suggestions for solutions, and an explanation of why some feature was currently unavailable. And did I mention that it was thoughtful, well written, and quite funny in places. Most importantly it was a personal reply from someone who took the time to care that I was having trouble figuring out how to use the application in an undocumented manner. So yes, treating a customer as a valued customer really works for me at least. Thanks Wil!

P.S. Oh, be sure to read Wil's full post, it's very good, it's nice to see someone take note of how frustrating pro-DRM arguments by "analysts" can be for computer scientists ... I don't know if analysts like this even care if they're wrong or right, or if they simply care about sounding right for their clients (pity the ignorant, for preaching to them is easy).

From Flickr: The Sound Burger

sound burger
Originally uploaded by Wire & Twine

Would you like a nano with that? Beautiful device, even if it doesn't play movies or even work on the move.

Traveling Terabytes & Jim Gray

TG Daily is reporting about a New Jersey network engineer is sending digital care packages to troops. The packages are media-filled hard-drives, cables, and international power adapters, packaged in very appropriate Pelican cases. These packages are intended to continue "traveling," with the recipient encouraged to add-to and forward the package.

This idea seems to be hit, and reminds me of the work of the great Jim Gray (wikipedia entry), who (among many other contributions) suggested the efficiency of sending data in the mail thanks to the small size and increasing capacities of hard drives. He was very accurate, prescient, and is sorely missed. It saddens me more to think of how many people outside the research and academic worlds must not realize how much our digital world owes to him.

If you don't know of his work, consider the following. Every time you use a modern database, every time you you use an online map, or an online telescope. You are using systems and ideas that Jim brought into this world. And in saying that, I probably fall short of doing him justice.



Jim was helped set the Internet2 Land Speed Record, and yet was still able to envision the use of commodity drives as Storage Bricks. I find it impressive that he could consider such cutting edge projects and not lose sight of the practical nature of sneakernet, but to embrace it where appropriate and extend it to include the idea of mailing commodity PCs packed with disk when necessary (treating a NAS server as a "removable media" :)

Thank you, Jim, we miss you.

Saudi Sandal Road-Skating

YouTube - The new extreme sport: Saudi Sandal Skating

Surreal and Scary. Scary because I'm used to roads having a fair amount of friction and the occasional pothole.

[via YouTube]

Great collections of riddles and puzzles, and a great collection of ambiguity

Collection of Ambiguous or Inconsistent/Incomplete Statements

[ wu :: riddles ]

Update on Stephen Fry's smartphone post

So it's been a couple of days since I came across Stephen Fry's post (link, via Daring Fireball). I cannot thank John Gruber enough for posting a link to Fry's webpage. I had to mention it on this blog, and have since come across it on Boing Boing Gadgets, but have noticed the following. I can get to the article in the mornings, but by afternoon, I run into 503 errors. I can only guess that the site is very popular, and I hope it gets a lot more visits, and that it can hold up to the traffic (let me know in the comments if you can think of another reason for the outages).

In case you're wondering, I went back to the article to re-read it. And then to re-read again the next day - twice. It's just ... "delicious" would be the word that comes to my mind.

Here's an excerpt to whet your appetite, it's Fry's sidebar rant on design

By design here, I mean GUI and OS as much as outer case design. Let’s go back to houses. The sixties taught us, surely, that architectural design, commercial and domestic, is not an extra. The office you work in every day, the house you live in every day, they are more than the sum of their functions. We know that sick building syndrome is real, and we know what an insult to the human spirit were some of the monstrosities constructed in past decades. An office with strip lighting, drab carpets, vile partitions and dull furniture and fittings is unacceptable these days, as much perhaps because of the poor productivity it engenders as the assault on dignity it represents. Well, computers and SmartPhones are no less environments: to say “well my WinMob device does all that your iPhone can do” is like saying my Barratt home has got the same number of bedrooms as your Georgian watermill, it’s got a kitchen too, and a bathroom.” … I accept that price is an issue here; if budget is a consideration then you’ll have to forgive me, I’m writing from the privileged position of being able to indulge my taste for these objects. But who can deny that design really matters? Or that good design need not be more expensive? We spend our lives inside the virtual environment of digital platforms - why should a faceless, graceless, styleless nerd or a greedy hog of a corporate twat deny us simplicity, beauty, grace, fun, sexiness, delight, imagination and creative energy in our digital lives? And why should Apple be the only company that sees that? Why don’t the other bastards GET IT??

[via Stephen Fry's Blog]

Video of Walt Mossberg reviewing the iPod touch

Alright, so TUAW has a post with Walt Mossberg's video review of the iPod Touch. I'm including that video in this post for another reason, the video glitch (slight banding in top center and top left of view at the 20-second mark) just had me crack up since it looked like Walt's head was smoking or had been zapped by some form of soft fluffy lightning. That's a terrible description, but I think you get the picture, and if not, just play the video since it's a good review of a fun product that I doubt I'll buy till it can (is allowed) to do more.

Chickens boycott Agatha Christie bookclub

... they'd heard talk of "murder most fowl"

I did warn the puns can be bad, and not in good funny way either.

Stephen Fry ... Gadgethound!

Who knew? John Gruber points out Fry's extensive survey of the smartphone market.

The P1i is what happens when “oh, that’ll do” becomes the corporate motto. UIQ promised something, the actual GUI is reasonable, in fact quite delightful, but it needed refinement, it needed acceleration and it needed flair. Instead we’ve got a very, very slow device that eats power, is difficult to use in varying environments and frequently hangs and crashes. In a word unusable. And I can just hear them hiding behind the excuse of “price” and “sectors of the market” and other bullshit. What, Apple’s a bigger company than Sony? Got more muscle? What muscle it has got, it got from daring to be better. That was once true of Sony too.

You can find John Gruber's post here, and Fry's brilliant post "Devices and Desires" here.

[via Daring Fireball].

P.S. If you haven't already seen it, check out the Voco clock, it even went Creative Commons.

[via boingboing]

UPDATE: I take it back, a gadgethound by his own implication, a brilliantly eloquent and knowledgable tech historian by my perception. I particularly liked the following passage from Fry's wonderful post:

Bandwidth and memory ceased almost to be an issue and those of us who had once spent hundreds on a 256MB Compact Flash looked in amazement at the cheap 2Gb thumbnails hanging in blister-packs from any old airport Dixon’s.

This morning over at Boing Boing Gadgets, Joel Johnson likened the article to "a mental massage"

Weird Al Wednesday!

Yes, it's that time of the week again, here's another fun Weird Al video.
If you enjoyed last weeks "white & nerdy" video, then it's the same song again here, but this time, it's all Donny, and just as hilarious (if not a little bit more so).



You can catch the behind-the-scenes video on YouTube here.

Are you owed a refund on your online purchase? do you check?

Well, you don't really need to anymore. Price protectr is a really great service, it tracks price changes in anything you might have bought from online stores that offer a price-drop guarantee. If the price drops, and you notice it, these stores offer to refund you the difference, but in almost all cases that is dependent on you asking for the refund.
Amazon, Costco, CircuitCity, Sears, Costco, Staples, Best Buy, and Staples are included, though the full list of stores they cover can be found here.

An optical illusion from NASA's APotD

From the Astronomy Picture of the Day site comes this gem of an optical illusion. The A and B squares are the same color.



To see how that can be, follow this link.

Rami Efal, Simple and Beautiful Illustrations

You can find Rami Efal's photostream on Flickr.

Interactive Weave and Peg Mirrors

Now this isn't exactly iPod Nano screen resolution, and is much bigger to boot, but it's very impressive anyway.

The "Weave Mirror" and "Peg Mirror" projects from Daniel Rozin are both interactive installations that use physical objects as pixels to create a low-rez, real-time display. Weave Mirror uses strips of laminate with varying shades of grey, which it turns to match the grayscale value of its camera, while Peg Mirror turns its 650 wooden dowels that are cut at an angle to produce varying shadows.

Rozin's interactive mirrors at Bitforms [WMMNA]

[Via Boing Boing Gadgets].

Anime song generator and an Otaku Prime Minister?

Sounds very cool. I remember an academic project in the early 90s that attempted to do this, but which didn't really get very far, or so I recall.

Vocaloid is a technology and application software developed by Yamaha that enables users to synthesize authentic-sounding singing by just typing in the melody and the lyrics of a song.

This news item is closely followed by another news item regarding the manga-interest of Taro Sato, possibly Japan's next PM. The post refers to a CNN Money item, which credits a 71 percent bump for a manga retailer's stock price to the news of Taro's potential election.

More info about Vocaloid can be found at the Yamaha website.

[via Hobby Blog]

Killacycle almost kills owner

The Killacycle, an all-electric bike that claims the title of "world's quickest" crashes into a parked van at Wired NextFest. Luckily Bill Dube is fine.

You can see Killacycle breaking a world record at 155MPH here, and see the crash two thirds of the way into the video here. The crash video really makes it clear how quickly this bike can accelerate.

[via tgdaily]

I am not a number! ... but I do own one now

Freedom-to-Tinker shows you how to own your own number. If you aren't familiar with the AACS code issue, then this won't be as funny as it sounds. Oh, and my number is 77 C5 6C 3A 5D 7E 61 32 6C B1 42 60 2F 7A 55 2A, it's mine! all mine! So hands off and get your own.

If you don't get the "not a number" reference, go here.

[via Freedom to Tinker]

Printing projector film using an inkjet and transparencies

Jesse England shows how video frames can be printed on transparency sheets using an inkjet printer and cut to form Super-8 film.

[via Jesse England's Website]

Pink Panther makes "100 Sexiest Cars" List

The Land Rover "SAS Pink Pather" made Top Gear's 100 Sexiest Cars list at 84.

The number one car may come as a bit of a surprise, it is Italian and very very cute. It's the Fiat Cinquecento.



[via Top Gear]

Make a Foxhole Radio

[Via MAKE: - Weekend Project Podcast]

Coudal Partners' Layer Tennis

Coudal Partners' Layer Tennis is a fun idea. Art "volleys" passing back and forth, with each artist given a fixed amount of time to embellish and improve while a writer provides the commentary. At the end, fans vote for a winner.

MS-DOS 5 Rap Video

Unbelievable!

[via BoingBoing Gadgets]

It's Weird Al Wednesday!

The new tradition, starting today, is for me to limit my praise of Al to Wednesdays. It's the middle of the week, so here's a little something to get you over it in maniacal glee (if you're like me, anyway). Don't miss the guest stars.





P.S. The Biography Channel will premiere a bio of Al on October 11, 2007 at 10pm.

4-D Cubes in Memory of Madeline L'Engle

Physicist David Morgan explains 4-D cubes, tesseracts, in an NPR interview. The interview was in memory of Madeline L'Engle, the children's author who wrote "A Wrinkle in Time", and who sadly died last weekend.

[via NPR]

Pun with Pride! - Culinary Edition

Iron chef, but fluff-and-fold the waiters.

Stamp of Security and yet No Security of Stamp

I don't see why electronic stamps cannot simply be generated, validated upon sale, and invalidated upon use. I know there's an address-space concern, but wouldn't that be more convenient (and effective) the the German and British systems?

[via Bruce Schneier]

Weird Al

If you haven't already done so, I highly recommend getting Weird Al's latest album. Or any Weird Al albums you don't already have. Or spare copies for the ones you do have. Or attend the next nearby tour date. Even if it isn't actually near.

Alright, I admit it, I like Weird Al Yankovic's parody music.

Do you miss Kwirk or Sokoban? Try Bloxorz!

Kwirk was a fun game (similar apparently to Sokoban) on the Gameboy. For a while there was an excellent Java version of the game by Hani Naguib. Unfortunately that version doesn't seem to be available online anymore, which is why I was delighted to come across Blockorz, an arguably more fun puzzle game.

On a side note, Albino Blacksheep also feature a Weird Al flash animation gallery.

[via Albino Blacksheep]

The name and aim of the blog

While my nom de plume is entirely made up, "Argyderus" is not entirely fictional. The name was chosen out of respect for a body of work and a genre in art and fiction. Please leave a comment if you recognize the reference, it is very obscure.

As my profile mentions, I write under a fake name. The point is, if you're reading this blog you likely do not know me at all, and if you do (I have a more serious - i.e., boring - identity that is often required to maintain a web presence) I don't want you to be influenced, put-off, or otherwise inconvenienced by that knowledge. I don't blog about my work, though I do want to be helpful and bring the reader some use out of this blog. I will post the occasional rant on subjects about which I feel strongly. Some of those subjects are incredibly frivolous, while the occasional one will be serious (though in Argyderus and reality I try hard to never be really serious). One of those topics is writing. Not creative writing, or technical writing, or writing as a form of expression, but the preservation of memories and knowledge. The writing and preservation of any data, to any form, for any purpose. I am interested in any technology that deals with the enabling of more efficient expression, the realization of more robust and indelible memories, the easing of sharing memories, and even the ability to keep better secrets. And so it would be hypocritical of me if I did not maintain this open channel, even if it is only frivolous links, humor, and the occasional opinion made open to public ridicule and criticism. I hope you find the blog fun, if not informative.

Multi-touch interface for $2

The last post featured Jeff Han's TED talk, but the reason for this post is what Erling Ellingsen did with a plastic bag, some blue dye and an iSight. The result, the $2 dyeSight. I can't imagine it has a high resolution, but then again that doesn't make it any the less brilliant.

Jeff Han's TED talk - multi-touch is cool

You may have heard of multi-touch interfaces (assuming you've heard of the iPhone, then you definitely have), but might not realize just how impressive an interface development it is, or can become. To give a little background, take your old laptop trackpad and touch it with two fingers, or take an old touch screen and touch it in two places simultaneously. When you do that, a surface that isn't multi-touch capable registers your touch as being in one position central to the two contact points. A multi-touch interface notes the different locations of the multiple touch points "at once." Thereby allowing the interface magic seen here.

[via TED]

The great pyramid of ... Germany?

I'm not sure how I feel about the idea of the German great pyramid. I am biased (being of Egyptian origin myself), but it isn't simply a jealous reaction on behalf of a surviving wonder of the ancient world. First off, I love the idea of a monument that can be incrementally enlarged over time, and which serves a purpose useful to many people.

The illustration below predicts the projects growth over time increasing the size of the pyramid as more and more concrete blocks are added.



I like the idea of a growing monument, the words that bring me pause are "grave" and the (very noble) goal of building a monument/memorial/tomb that can be visited by those of any religion. That last point worries me because not all religions find the idea of cremation and encasement in a concrete block to be ideal. I guess the plan could be modified to include the option of encasing an entire burial plot (of whatever structural requirement) within a concrete block, which in turn would need to be much larger and more expensive than the 700 to 900 euros proposed for an ash-laden mini-block. Cost aside, I suspect many would not want to be buried first - as the pyramid would grow around the earliest blocks, thereby cutting off physical access to any specific block. I guess I'm being unreasonably put off by the subject of death, and will blatantly go with that line and suggest that it might be cool to have a pyramid built as the worlds biggest time-capsule repository. Encase anything you want and send it in ... I suppose people might want to send in ashes of loved ones, but somehow I feel suggesting that might be too disrespectful of the dead. I apologize for my thoughtlessness.

But still, a growing pyramid ... that is cool!

[thegreatpyramid.org]

Trompe l'oeil

A great mural, "Art Imitating Life Imitating Art Imitating Life," by John Pugh.

[via eyetricks.com, and illusion-art.com]

Build your own laser microphone

Here's an interesting and fun demonstration of a DIY laser microphone for use with a computer. laser pointer: $2, photo cell: $0.30. Cool DIY tech: priceless! (my apologies to MasterCard).



Laser Espionage Microphone (how-to) - video powered by Metacafe

[via LifeHacker]

Inverted pendulum robot

This is just an incredibly interesting video of a robot attempting (and succeeding) to balance an inverted pendulum.

Too cute ... Meerkat photography

[Via The Telegraph]

Update (7 Sept. 2007): A pity that the story reporting their photographic talent was a hoax, but the picture is still very cute, even if it was a film camera.

Hollow Face and Dragon Illusions

The hollow-face illusion shown in this video features the face of Richard Gregory, Emeritus Professor of Neuropsychology at the University of Bristol, particularly apt given his papers on the subject of perception and illusions.





Another very cool illusion is also the Mini Dragon, which is doubly cool thanks to the availability of a how-to for making your own.

[Via grand-illusions.com, eyetricks.com, and richardgregory.org]

Motionless rotors

An amazing video of an apparently motionless helicopter rotor. This is actually due to the rotor speed being synced to the frame speed (or is it more accurately frame capture rate?). The same kind of effect that used to make video of video look so bad on older TV shows.


New Anti-Gravity Helicopter

In case the helicopter looks familiar it has appeared in Metal Gear Solid and is fairly iconic as the big heavy Russian helicopter gunship.

[via Dan's Data and BoingBoing Gadgets]

Dazzle camouflage

For the first post, here's a stunning picture of HMS Furious with "Dazzle" camouflage from 1918.






Click on through to the "Architectures of Control" post for more details and an insightful comparison to casino carpets.

[via Architectures of Control]