Interesting Links
5/24 '10 Ninjas save the day - totally awesome
"Three muggers in Australia got the fright of their lives when their attack was interrupted by five black-clad ninja warriors..."
5/2 '10 Death by powerpoint - interesting
“PowerPoint makes us stupid,” Gen. James N. Mattis of the Marine Corps, the Joint Forces commander, said this month at a military conference in North Carolina. (He spoke without PowerPoint.) Brig. Gen. H. R. McMaster, who banned PowerPoint presentations when he led the successful effort to secure the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar in 2005, followed up at the same conference by likening PowerPoint to an internal threat.
4/29 '10 Sid Meier 48hr game development - g33k
A 48hr game programming contest held here at UM. One of my former Arbor colleagues is in the flick.
4/22 '10 Foursquare stalking - interesting
When you see a friend check in on Foursquare, it is your duty to prank call them at that place...
'nuff said.
4/13 '10 Outcrazying The Crazy - politics
How A Prankster Plans To Infiltrate And Destroy The Tea Party Movement.
Levin is the leader of Crash The Tea Party, a plan to take down the tea party from the inside. Levin says he's got a growing cadre of supporters across the country, and conservatives from the message boards to the set of the Sean Hannity's show are getting nervous.
"Our plan is not to shout them down," Levin told me yesterday, "but to infiltrate them and push them farther from the mainstream."
4/12 '10 Robots on Segways - interesting
"Australia based Marathon Robotics have taken Segways and turned them into human-shaped autonomous robots capable of moving around streets and buildings just like people in a crowd! The Marathon bots can act like insurgents, hostages, or civilians, letting armed soldiers practice before being exposed to the real thing."
4/2 '10 Colbert gushes over the ipad - funny
This has a funny ending.
3/30 '10 how "brake override" stops runaway car - interesting
Most important thing to remember - keep your foot on the brake with continuous pressure.
3/30 '10 water usage during the hockey game - interesting
or "What If Everybody in Canada Flushed At Once?". A humorous look at how water usage in Edmonton differed during the day of the gold medal hockey game.
3/24 '10 Photoshop becomes content aware - 37337 h4x0rz
Now you don't need to have 17+ years experience with Photoshop and spend countless hours erasing things and filling in complex backgrounds or constructing realities that never existed... Just plump down the money and you can have "Content Aware" Photoshop.
I just hope it doesn't become self-aware.
3/21 '10 Run your own TV ad - interesting
Slate ad critic Seth Stevenson tries out a Google service that allows you to run your own commercial on national TV for as little as $100.
3/2 '10 OK Go Rube Goldberg - creative!
Starts off slow (when compared to some other recent Rube Goldbergs) but this one has the timing right and some extra flourishes which make it extra worthwhile... and while I suspect they cheated, it's very cool and entertaining.
3/2 '10 Fossilized snake eating dinosaur eggs - interesting
"We report on a partial skeleton of a new 3.5-m-long snake, Sanajeh indicus gen. et sp. nov., recovered from Upper Cretaceous rocks of western India. S. indicus was fossilized in association with a sauropod dinosaur egg clutch, coiled around an egg and adjacent to the remains of a ca. 0.5-m-long hatchling."
2/17 '10 Roaming Through Michigan - interesting
A short tourism documentary on Northern Michigan c. 1949 as part of James A. Fitzpatrick's "TravelTalks" series. Includes footage of Spikehorn Meyer, Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes, Mackinac Island, Traverse City, and other places.
2/15 '10 Mindstorms Robot solves Rubik's cube - 37337 h4x0rz
The Worlds Fastest Lego Mindstorms RCX Speedcubing Robot. Built entirely from lego elements now scanning and solving any 3x3x3 Rubik's cube combination in under 12 seconds.
2/15 '10 Difference between browsers and search - sad
"The next time you're building software and think to yourself, "Don't worry, users will be able to figure it out," I want you to remember this blog post."
"What's the difference between Google and a browser?"
2/11 '10 Don't ever search for your SSN - g33k
"...one of the topics discussed was why you shouldn't be searching for your SSN via Google. The reason this is bad should be fairly obvious, but having this information in Google's hands and in the hands of someone with malicious intentions is slightly different. Unless you can (or want to risk) compromising Google's systems, your search requests simply end up within their stockpile of information and hidden from the rest of the world. Or do they??"
He then goes on to put together a proof of concept way of phishing for someone's SSN and explains how to gather further information in order to exploit their data.
2/11 '10 Teach every child about food - +1, Insightful
"I wish for your help to create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity."
More info in the after-interview with CNN.
Interesting that this all dovetails with Michelle Obama's recent naming to head a national obesity campaign named Let's Move!
2/8 '10 why Microsoft doesn't define the future - interesting
"What happened? Unlike other companies, Microsoft never developed a true system for innovation. Some of my former colleagues argue that it actually developed a system to thwart innovation. Despite having one of the largest and best corporate laboratories in the world, and the luxury of not one but three chief technology officers, the company routinely manages to frustrate the efforts of its visionary thinkers."
2/2 '10 Why Republicans should really be angry - politics
...and it's not because of taxes, but health care costs.
1/28 '10 Geek behaviors during conversations - interesting
"Summary:
This article presents some common behaviors I've observed from my past few years of interactions with geeks, nerds, and other highly-smart technical people. For brevity, I will simply use the term "geek" throughout this article as a catch-all term for such people. I don't mean to pass any value judgments on people who exhibit such behaviors; these are simply my observations and personal theories for why these behaviors occur."
1/19 '10 CreateSpace: sell your own media - interesting
I knew something like this would come along - it's like cafepress, but for books, music CDs, and video DVDs. You upload the digital file, and Amazon creates the product to-order, so there's no inventory costs.
1/14 '10 never fight a land war in Asia - politics
"Citing sources in the defense contracting and intelligence consulting community, the iDefense report unambiguously declares that the Chinese government was, in fact, behind the effort."
1/14 '10 Augmented reality helps mechanics - 37337 h4x0rz
ARMAR, or Augmented Reality for Maintenance and Repair, is a head mounted display unit that provides graphic overlays to assist you in making repairs. An Android phone provides an interface to control the graphics you view during the process.
Which reminds me of the augmented reality iphone apps to help with wayfinding in large cities
I expect to see more cool apps like this to come.
1/12 '10 When video games become reality - 37337 h4x0rz
Awesome - a quadricopter which has a camera and is controlled by your iPhone/iTouch. Now this is a cool toy.
1/6 '10 Michael Pollan and Sustainable Food - love the earth
Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants
Three other revolutionary things we can do:
1) plant a garden
2) Get back in the kitchen and cook
3) Eat meals! Eat food at tables with other people!
12/29 '09 Change Blindness - interesting
As posted by Bruce Schneier: "Interesting video demonstrating change blindness: the human brain's tendency to ignore major visual changes. The implications for security are pretty serious."
12/14 '09 What evidence? - funny
Where did it go?
12/12 '09 epic beard - funny
All I have to say is that it's got a working door!
12/9 '09 Kseniya Simonova's sand drawing - creative!
This woman won the 2009 Ukraine's Got Talent with this amazing performance.
...which makes us wonder, why is American pop culture so vacuous?
I was also impressed with the judicious use of Metallica at the end.
12/8 '09 google chrome - headed for domination? - finally!
First Google Chrome Frame which allows you to embed the Chrome rendering engine in IE, and now the release of Chrome for Mac, which is quite impressive. Loading pages which I look at everyday seems downright snappy.
12/2 '09 making music with an iphone - interesting
OK, so the studies they show in the video seem elementary and wacky - kind of like the theremin, but I feel like this is just opening the door to a larger world of capabilities... imagine your own personal soundtrack (like Slade's "theme music") or audio based way-finding directions (think hotter/colder or metal detectors) or even real-world video games.
12/2 '09 the best pie chart ever - wack shit
Apparently, the Republican ranks have grown considerably since the last election.
Yet another case why pies should be saved for dessert
11/21 '09 Using photos to enhance video - interesting
"We present a framework for automatically enhancing videos of a static scene using a few photographs of the same scene. For example, our system can transfer photographic qualities such as high resolution, high dynamic range and better lighting from the photographs to the video. Additionally, the user can quickly modify the video by editing only a few still images of the scene. Finally, our system allows a user to remove unwanted objects and camera shake from the video. These capabilities are enabled by two technical contributions presented in this paper. First, we make several improvements to a state-of-the-art multiview stereo algorithm in order to compute view-dependent depths using video, photographs, and structure-from-motion data. Second, we present a novel image-based rendering algorithm that can re-render the input video using the appearance of the photographs while preserving certain temporal dynamics such as specularities and dynamic scene lighting."
I've wanted something like this for a long time... :)
11/21 '09 Innovative way-finding - design
"A way-finding-system for the Eureka Tower Carpark while working for Emery Studio. The distored letters on the wall can be read perfectly when standing at the right position. This project won several international design awards..."
Very interesting, and I like the bright colors, it makes it feel like a kid's play room. Way too often do I have a hard time finding the directional signs in parking garages, because I'm busy not hitting other cars or the walls.
10/28 '09 Acrostic Governator - politics
"A straight reading of the guv's letter laments "the fact that major issues are overlooked while many unnecessary bills come to me for consideration," and concludes, "I believe it is unnecessary to sign this measure at this time."
But a vertical read of the far-left-hand letters in each of the missive's eight lines offers a more blunt explanation..."
Now that the T-1000 has mastered steganography, the machines truly will conquer this planet.
10/20 '09 the Inhabited Web - 37337 h4x0rz
Shows a realtime representation of what other people are looking at on the same page you're viewing... I'm not quite sure how this would be used, but it seems like cool tech nonetheless.
8/26 '09 how old are your ears? - interesting
When wearing headphones, I can just barely... maybe hear something for the 16khz.
7/22 '09 the pitfalls of browser detection - wack shit
This single statement, apparently written by some sub-contractor they had outsourced admin interface programming to, cost them millions of NOK in lost sales.
7/13 '09 Atrocities with food - interesting
salt, fat and sugar
salt, fat and sugar
salt, fat and sugar
Notice a trend here? Just is like the car accident of food, it's irresistible. This is why you're fat.
7/9 '09 A Place Geeks Can Call Home - interesting
Ann Arbor's geek scene – also known as the entrepreneurial and start-up community – is finally becoming the target market for new alternative workspaces. These flexible, co-working clubhouses hope to fill the gap for tech-geeks and 1099ers (sole proprietors, often tech service-providers) who feel left out of SPARK's economic development/incubator model.
7/1 '09 Low Orbit Ion Cannon DoS tool - interesting
and I do mean tool here.
At least the pic of the victim in the lower left is really funny.
6/29 '09 teenager trades his ipod for walkman - funny
"Personally, I'm relieved I live in the digital age, with bigger choice, more functions and smaller devices. I'm relieved that the majority of technological advancement happened before I was born, as I can't imagine having to use such basic equipment every day."
6/16 '09 hoping for a little more audacity - politics
Obama needs to start putting it on the line in fights against the banks, the energy companies and the healthcare industry. I never thought I'd say this, but he needs to be more like George W. Bush. Bush was all about, "You're with us or against us."
Obama's more like, "You're either with us, or you obviously need to see another picture of this adorable puppy!"
Bush had horrible ideas, like torture and deregulation and preemptive war and tax cuts for the rich, but he pushed them through, in their full measure, never mind Congress or the Constitution or the Geneva Convention or the Magna Carta or the Code of Hammurabi.
The point is, he didn't care if it made him unpopular with every human on the planet not named Cletus or Fred Barnes. Which it did.
And we need to marry the good ideas Obama really believes in with that Bush attitude and Bush certitude. I'd love for Obama to come out one day and say, "Jesus told me to fix healthcare." Or, "History will decide whether stopping the polar ice caps from melting and drowning us all was a good thing."
6/12 '09 Goats enjoy living in their own tower - interesting
the next step beyond raising chickens in the backyard is to have your own Goat Tower!
Or if you're afraid that will take up too much of your time / money, there's always an elevated goat pen
6/12 '09 Traffic Barrel Monster Creator Arrested - creative!
NC State student Joseph Carnevale, the artist behind the Traffic Barrel Monster, has been arrested for stealing the barrels and "cutting and screwing them together to make a statue," which apparently is a misdemeanor in North Carolina.
Carnevale goes by the name "uliveuburn" and has been a fixture in the Raleigh-area street art scene for a while, notable for his creation of the Boylan Bridge Angry Man. Given the similar theme and creativity it didn't take the local police long to decide the 21-year-old is to blame. The total cost of the damage has been estimated at $360 and a court case is scheduled for July 21st.
6/11 '09 isamurai - creative!
Two-player swordfight.
Looks like a pretty creative use for a celphone, but it lacks the Wii tether.
6/5 '09 art flick lovers rejoice - interesting
It appears to be a site for discussing, learning about and watching art flicks. Many are free, some require a fee. Perhaps we could use this instead of netflix.
6/1 '09 Litmus - cross-platform browser testing - 37337 h4x0rz
"Litmus shows you exactly how your designs look on every platform, across every popular web browser. (And the not-so-popular ones.)"
Apparently, they have a farm of machines which just respond to browser requests, create snapshots and return them to you - allows you to test in many browsers all at once... and they have a nice free option.
5/29 '09 Fighting Cancer with Breast Milk - interesting
"When Tim Browne sits down to a bowl of corn flakes in the morning, he slurps up one unusual, and controversial, extra ingredient: his own daughter's breast milk."
5/28 '09 connecting with an ancient modem - 37337 h4x0rz
K.C. (a.ka. "Phreakmonkey") has a Livermore Data Systems "Model A" acoustic coupler modem, a 300 baud modem from the '60s--"one of the oldest modems of still in existence. It was given to me by the widow of an IBM engineer."
5/27 '09 linux machine as mac time machine - 37337 h4x0rz
"For quite some time I use my Ubuntu machine as a file and backup server for all Macs in my network which is perfectly accessible from the Finder in Mac OS X. There are some instructions available in the web for this task but all failed in my case so I wrote my own tutorial with all the steps needed for it to work properly."
Looks compelling
5/20 '09 German Suburb, Life Goes On Without Cars - love the earth
Residents of this upscale community are suburban pioneers, going where few soccer moms or commuting executives have ever gone before: they have given up their cars.
Street parking, driveways and home garages are generally forbidden in this experimental new district on the outskirts of Freiburg, near the French and Swiss borders. Vauban’s streets are completely “car-free” — except the main thoroughfare, where the tram to downtown Freiburg runs, and a few streets on one edge of the community. Car ownership is allowed, but there are only two places to park — large garages at the edge of the development, where a car-owner buys a space, for $40,000, along with a home.
As a result, 70 percent of Vauban’s families do not own cars, and 57 percent sold a car to move here. “When I had a car I was always tense. I’m much happier this way,” said Heidrun Walter, a media trainer and mother of two, as she walked verdant streets where the swish of bicycles and the chatter of wandering children drown out the occasional distant motor.
-- Sounds like an interesting place to live.
5/19 '09 vanishing employment across the country - interesting
An interesting data visualization showing job losses per county across the country. The animation shows how much of a snowball it's been over the past few months.
One critique I have of this visualization is that it's showing data compared to a year ago, which smooths out differences from month to month. Of course, doing a monthly comparison wouldn't be fair either because of holiday and seasonal influxes. Ultimately, I think they got the point across strikingly.
4/21 '09 photos from Cassini - interesting
Some rather stunning photos of Saturn, it's rings and moons.
4/14 '09 jack lessenberry's take on facebook - interesting
So Jack is a grumpy old man, what's new? He makes some great points here about how facebook is a huge waste of time, and is a huge liability risk for people's reputations.
4/13 '09 geeks, electric bikes, oh my! - g33k
It's exciting to see electric scooters, trebuchets, and various milling happening in a co-working space.
4/12 '09 time machine cheatsheet - g33k
If you happen to find yourself in a time machine and you've gone back in time... this cheatsheet may be able to help you take credit for the scientific achievements over the past 500 years or so... :)
2/26 '09 a linux server in a plug - 37337 h4x0rz
I could think of all sorts of nefarious things to do with something like this... including running a webserver. All you'd need is a USB thumbdrive.
2/12 '09 Obama ain't your bitch - onion wannabe
Buy your own damn fries... Sorry ass motherfuckers ain't got nothing on me.
1/31 '09 if you want something done right... - funny
you know the answer. See what happens when a cake order is taken over the phone.
1/31 '09 an insult to history - love the earth
Trust your tastebuds, nature has the answer for proper cultivation of our food.
1/22 '09 Prop 8, the musical - funny
funny... and yet stupid. But they do a good job in making their point.
1/20 '09 The Great Obama Traffic Flood - interesting
It's a good thing that extending broadband in this country is part of his platform:
* Deploy a modern communications infrastructure:
Obama and Biden believe we can get true broadband to every community in America.
1/20 '09 A retrospective of the Bush era - politics
Good-bye, farewell... how did anyone vote for this man?
1/12 '09 Disney Rejection Letter, 1938 - interesting
The iconic imagery here is enough.
1/2 '09 don't shout at your disks... - funny
They don't like it.
1/2 '09 Who was General Tso? - interesting
And other information on the history of Chinese food in America (and other parts of the world).
12/16 '08 secure line of sight communication - 37337 h4x0rz
LightSpeed Binoculars Transmit Sound and Image via Infrared LED
Military Special ops are stocking up on enhanced binoculars that give users more than a close view: They can transmit untappable voice and video signals.
12/12 '08 correcting mistakes - funny
What happens when an omnipotent being makes a mistake? Well, they correct it! :)
12/4 '08 amazing ping pong - totally awesome
Pretty damn impressive stuff - even if it weren't a real contest, these guys show some real athletic ability.
11/18 '08 The Complicator's Gloves - funny
"As I pedaled to work today, I thought to myself, why hasn't anyone ever invented a bicycle with heated handlebar grips? These New England mornings can really make your knuckles suffer! Has anyone seen or heard of something like this?"
and that's where it all begins to unravel.
11/18 '08 spider drawing as bill payment - onion wannabe
Dear Jane,
I do not have any money so am sending you this drawing I did of a spider instead. I value the drawing at 233.95 so trust that this settles the matter.
Regards, David
11/12 '08 monkey-picked tea - totally awesome
RARE WILD CHINESE TEA
PICKED ONLY BY SPECIALLY TRAINED MONKEYS
CONTAINS POWERFUL ANTIOXIDANTS
10/19 '08 what can be accepted for recycling - interesting
Real Simple Recycling A to Z
A Comprehensive Primer on Recycling Nearly Everything, Often for a Good Cause
10/6 '08 stunt city - fun!
well played.
9/30 '08 cheap night vision goggles - 37337 h4x0rz
There are some things that every citizen should have a right to: quality health care, a job that contributes to society, and night vision goggles. Before now, the ability to see in the dark was kept only for survivalists, hunters, and, of course, the armed forces. Luckily, Jakks Pacific has finally given the country what it needs: affordable night vision for the entire family.
9/5 '08 Political cross-branding - funny
When Political Cross-Branding Goes Horribly Wrong...
'nuff said
9/5 '08 double talk on palin - politics
Apparently, various conservative commentators change their mind when the hot-button issue of the day is being applied to one they're defending and promoting. This just increases my level of disdain for television commentators and political pundits, and re-inforces my belief that republicans are hypocrites.
8/22 '08 Sea Cowboys - interesting
Wired Magazine's "The Race to Save the Cougar Ace"
This story is fascinating.
8/22 '08 Le Moulin Ă Images de Robert Lepage - 37337 h4x0rz
It's Quebec City's 400th anniversary, and they've made this abandoned
grain mill into a screen. The scale of this thing is pretty amazing.
Those lights below the mill are cruise ships.
The technical side of this is no less impressive. Twenty-seven 20,000-lumen projectors are combined with 238 spotlights and 329 speakers, with a radio-broadcast soundtrack by Rene Lussier.
8/13 '08 LOLBush olimpix! - funny
iz made of chocolat?
8/12 '08 insane japanese halloween costumes - onion wannabe
There's some interesting imagery going on there.
7/29 '08 Toxic chemicals in scented products - love the earth
"I first got interested in this topic because people were telling me that the air fresheners in public restrooms and the scent from laundry products vented outdoors were making them sick," said Anne Steinemann, a UW professor of civil and environmental engineering and public affairs. "And I wanted to know, 'What's in these products that is causing these effects?'"
She analyzed the products to discover the chemicals' identity.
"I was surprised by both the number and the potential toxicity of the chemicals that were found," Steinemann said. Chemicals included acetone, the active ingredient in paint thinner and nail-polish remover; limonene, a molecule with a citrus scent; as well as acetaldehyde, chloromethane and 1,4-dioxane.
7/23 '08 making of HOU SE OF_C ARDS video - 37337 h4x0rz
No cameras or lights were used. Instead two technologies were used to capture 3D images: Geometric Informatics and Velodyne LIDAR.
7/17 '08 traumatizing infants - funny
"20 Baby Products Great For Traumatizing Infants"
I can't believe that some people would do this to their child... well, OK maybe I do believe it.
7/17 '08 Defender of the favicon - 37337 h4x0rz
The idea was to push the concept of generated favicons further and pack a thrilling retro shooter in 16Ă—16 pixels using JavaScript, canvas and data: URIs.
The menace come from above! Protect the humanoid population from the waves of aliens coming to abduct them. Thankfully the shield of your Defender can take a few hit.
7/1 '08 "The website is down" - funny
Hilarious dramatisation of the sales guy asking the web dude to fix his computer...
NOT SAFE FOR WORK... but funny as hell.
6/21 '08 The "bad boys" really do get the girls - interesting
The traits are the self-obsession of narcissism; the impulsive, thrill-seeking and callous behaviour of psychopaths; and the deceitful and exploitative nature of Machiavellianism.
But being just slightly evil could have an upside: a prolific sex life, says Peter Jonason at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. "We have some evidence that the three traits are really the same thing and may represent a successful evolutionary strategy."
6/18 '08 Can I get an Amen? - interesting
Fascinating history of the "Amen Break", following the rise and use of the break-beat, and how copyright law has become a tangled mess.
4/17 '08 Adaptation to my generation, daily photo - creative!
From the FAQ:
The whole project began out of spite. I had just purchased a digital camera (Nikon CoolPix 900), and it was rather expensive. My girlfriend asked me why I bought it and what I was going to do with it. I explained. She asked me if I was "going to use it every day", with sarcastic inflection. I told her yes, and resolved to do so. The project began there.
* Apparently this story is untrue. Michelle explained to me the other day that I had wanted to do this with a Polaroid prior to the digital camera, but couldn't justify the expense of doing so at the time.
Initially, I thought of the project focusing on the differences that one can see in the self from day to day. Same person, different personas. As the project grew and grew, it became more about the process of the whole. I began to look at the long-term changes that occur parallel to the short term changes. These changes will become more and more apparent as the project ages 20-30+ years. Now I'm looking towards the end. It's a morbid proposition, but something that must be faced.
4/14 '08 Mario Theme Played with bottles - 37337 h4x0rz
Super Mario theme recreated by driving an RC car at perfectly placed line of glass bottles. Some people just have way too much time on their hands.
3/20 '08 Boston Dynamics "Big Dog" - 37337 h4x0rz
Can you teach a robot dog new tricks? How about walking on various types of terrain? Quite impressive.
3/19 '08 Do the test - interesting
Did you see the Awareness Test with the basketball players? Pretty well done.
2/9 '08 advanced artificial arms on their way - 37337 h4x0rz
Dean Kamen of Segway fame has turned his focus on artificial arms, where the state of the art is currently far behind that for legs. The first cool thing is that he's named his project the Luke arms, after Luke Skywalker.
1/30 '08 Computational origami - 37337 h4x0rz
The intersections between origami, mathematics, and science occur at many levels and include many fields of the latter. We can group these intersections into roughly three categories:
* Origami mathematics, which includes the mathematics that describes the underlying laws of origami;
* Computational origami, which comprises algorithms and theory devoted to the solution of origami problems by mathematical means;
* Origami technology, which is the application of origami (and folding in general) to the solution of problems arising in engineering, industrial design, and technology in general.
Ultimately, some really cool applications with origami...
1/24 '08 False Pretenses - politics
President George W. Bush and seven of his administration's top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.
1/24 '08 Cool Tricks to do with the Wii Remote - 37337 h4x0rz
"In December 2006, Nintendo released the Nintendo Wii which featured an innovative controller containing an accelerometer and pointing capability. This provided millions of people with a new ways to interact with computers. As an HCI researcher, this became an interesting platform for showing people what they can do with their new toy that they never knew it could do."
Johnny Chung Lee is forging the future of human computer interaction in his living room, and as he put it... "I want to see some games!"
1/19 '08 Indoor skydiving - finally!
The next time we go to LA (or SF, or various other places), I want to go "indoor skydiving"!
It looks like they also have locations in various other places... too bad they're nowhere near the midwest.
various locations.
1/14 '08 Mercury mission Messenger's Earth video - love the earth
Amazing to see our plant spin off into the distance. How can someone say the earth is flat after watching this? If you look closely enough, you can even see the clouds moving.
1/13 '08 Easily merge two photos with Elements 6 - interesting
You too can be like Stalin, and merge photos together, erase history... and you don't even need to know how to use Photoshop.
1/12 '08 The story of stuff - love the earth
From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.
1/6 '08 crazy Japanese human tetris game show - funny
You don't need to know Japanese to find this hilarious.
12/30 '07 The Sci Fi Sounds Quiz - g33k
 |
I received 92 credits on The Sci Fi Sounds Quiz How much of a Sci-Fi geek are you? |
| Take the Sci-Fi Movie Quiz | |
12/19 '07 Processing programming language - 37337 h4x0rz
Processing is a programming language for people who want to create images, animation and interactivity without having to master creativity-numbing "real" programming languages like C++. With a low threshold for entry, anyone -- particularly non programming types like artists and architects -- can jump in and start playing around. Without needing a cumbersome runtime environment or having to compile code prior to use, playing around with Processing is quick and easy.
I look forward to sharing this and Wiring with my kid(s).
12/19 '07 The New Dawn of Solar - love the earth
Popular Science's "Innovation of the year" award goes to Nanosolar. They're manufacturing nano-solar panels which print onto a film of aluminum foil.
"Even the cheapest solar panels cost about $3 per watt of energy they go on to produce. To compete with coal, that figure has to shrink to just $1 per watt. Nanosolar’s cells use no silicon, and the company’s manufacturing process allows it to create cells that are as efficient as most commercial cells for as little as 30 cents a watt."
12/18 '07 How to be a "hybrid" - interesting
Somewhere in between a designer and a developer lives the hybrid - one who lives on both sides of the fence, and can come up with concepts which play off the strengths of both aspects.
12/11 '07 look like a badass, with a skull helmet - finally!
"This bad ass looking helmet will scare the crap out of any
onlooker while your enjoying you mid day cruise. Not only is
it light weight, but it's very comfortable inside, and has
a lot of breathing space. You might even want to buy one for
your buddy ;)"
12/10 '07 Like Your Own Personal Addams Family - parenting
Basically, you put these hand pillows around your little one to mimic the feel of your own hands on them, enabling you to walk away without disturbing the finally-asleep infant.
Creepy, and yet cute at the same time. I can see the utility.
12/10 '07 bisphenol A found in liquid baby formula - parenting
A potentially cancer-causing chemical called bisphenol A is in the lining of most cans of liquid baby formula and the chemical often leaches into the formula at levels that are dangerous for babies, says the Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Working Group.
Once again... breast is best.
12/5 '07 Healthy Toys - or, does it have lead? - parenting
The Ecology Center, located here in Ann Arbor, has recently started a new program they're calling Healthy Toys.
"HealthyToys.org tested over 1,200 children's products and more than 3,000 components of those products. Currently, the U.S. government and U.S. toy manufacturers are not providing this data to consumers."
The main page took a while to load for me, but it's a rather informative site.
11/20 '07 How well do you know your world? - fun!
Very cool little flash game quizzing you on what you know. It combines speed with knowledge. I got lucky on my first game and scored 345,362 on level 10. Of course, I tried again, and even though I had been told where a bunch of places were, I failed to pass the 6th level.
bah! addictive.
11/19 '07 I was born too early - creative!
Oh well, I guess my own kids will be able to appreciate the joy that is... the Chewbacca Backpack. Waaaaarrrgh!
11/15 '07 come fly with me - creative!
"Inspired by classic childhood books and modern superheroes, photographer Jan von Holleben has created a book of photography with a focus on the child's imagination. The photos are shot from above with all the action taking played out on the ground. The illusion of motion is created by the perspective of the photo and the positioning of subjects and props."
11/10 '07 the rise of the botnets - interesting
"We're investigating a new peer-to-peer botnet that may wind up rivaling Storm in size and sophistication," says Tripp Cox, vice president of engineering for startup Damballa, which tracks botnet command and control infrastructures. "We can't say much more about it, but we can tell it's distinct from Storm."
11/6 '07 There's nothing like your first... - funny
...sighting of goatse, that is. ;)
Hilarious series of photos of people seeing goatse for the first time.
11/5 '07 The styles of the 70s - funny
Picked on by a blogger in the naughties. How easy it is to say such things - how do you know that you wouldn't have been the one wearing the jumpsuit if you were born 30 years earlier?
11/1 '07 Robot Chicken Star Wars special - funny
Hilarious takes on the Star Wars universe
10/30 '07 You too can drive your own light-cycle - 37337 h4x0rz
This amazing thing gets 100mpg, and has a top speed of 100mph.
They seem to have taken down the estimated pricing, but it looks like this thing may go for somewhere between $18-22k.
10/23 '07 Mouse Acceleration Curve - interesting
So I bought a cheap new mouse the other day. For the first time in my 14 years
of using a Mac, I'm going nuts because my mouse doesn't accelerate the
way that it should, I keep missing icons, and needing to go back for them. I've
tried various free utilities, but none of them seem to do the job for me.
Now is this because of the change in the mouse acceleration curve introduced in
OS X? Did I not notice it before because I was using Kensington mice? Who
knows...? I'm thinking of taking this one back to the store
10/17 '07 picky about pens - +1, Insightful
The crisis arrived in the last month when a rush purchase at Office Depot resulted in a jar full of pens that demonstrated some of the worst writing utensil characteristics: cheap feel and erratic ink flow. Each time I picked this pen up I felt, "Everything I’m about to write is going to look like crap."
Thankfully, Rands has done the research for me.
10/11 '07 Switchy McLayout: Adaptive Layouts - 37337 h4x0rz
With a touch of javascript, you can tailor the presentation of your content for different audiences based on their screen size...
"Switchy McLayout lets you define the dimensions, information richness, and appearance of your content objects for set ranges of screen sizes. A news site, for example, could have one layout and appearance for wide screens, one for medium-sized screens, and another for PDAs. Images could shrink or even disappear according to the screen size, columns could come and go as needed to maintain readability, and you can achieve a more efficient use of the available space for each screen size."
10/10 '07 launching an X-Wing model rocket - 37337 h4x0rz
wow... they did a really great job... for the first 3 seconds, then it's a great recreation of Biggs.
10/10 '07 funny use of SQL injection - funny
Oh, yes. Little Bobby Tables we call him.
9/30 '07 Last graph - 37337 h4x0rz
Last, as in last.fm, this app charts the trends of your musical listening tastes over an arbitrary time period. Plus, the charts look sweet.
9/30 '07 Managing Humans - interesting
Rands writes about working as a software development manager, he has using tips on making an impression with your resume in 30 seconds, and how imporant the first 90 days of your new job are for learning the lay of the land. Some interesting stuff on his blog, perhaps I'll pick up his book.
9/29 '07 missing '04 Ohio ballots - e-voting
In 56 of Ohio's 88 counties, ballots and election records from 2004 have been "accidentally" destroyed, despite a federal order to preserve them -- it was crucial evidence which would have revealed whether the election was stolen.
9/29 '07 Are pixels the new pies? - design
An interesting infographic trend: Square blocks of color are now being used to represent percentage-based statistics instead of the traditional pie chart.
Was there a "Designing For Print" conference somewhere six months ago where a speaker made a particularly compelling case for squares over circles?
9/29 '07 musical graph theory - 37337 h4x0rz
Graph Theory enables you to navigate among 61 short, looping musical fragments to explore a composition for solo violin. The interface displays your current location within the graph of muscial fragments and lets you preview and select from the possibilities of where to go next (or to backtrack).
9/29 '07 http errors, illustrated - funny
These should go on the w3c page about Status Code Definitions
9/27 '07 motorized lego AT-AT - totally awesome
I want one. :)
9/25 '07 Look out, next it will be the Canadians - 37337 h4x0rz
Lockheed Martin Corp
Resembling the seed of a silver maple tree, the single-winged device would pack a tiny two-stage rocket thruster along with telemetry, communications, navigation, imaging sensors and a power source.
9/5 '07 dynamic image resizing with seam carving - 37337 h4x0rz
Apparently, this was a published paper presented at SIGGRAPH.
Plus a copycat version done in flash that you can play with.
8/30 '07 periodic table of data visualization - interesting
A really interesting look at how to graphically represent data using various layout techniques. I like the popup examples, but some are hard to view, particularly when they're near the bottom of the page.
8/28 '07 a human luge - WTF?!
Just watching the video got my adrenaline up... I wonder what it must feel like to be zipping down the mountain pass road at ungodly speeds on your chest. Wow.
8/15 '07 cheney: invading iraq would be bad idea - politics
He even uses the word "quagmire", and talks about how the state would splinter, there wouldn't be anyone to replace Saddam, and it's just not worth that many American lives.
What changed his mind?
8/8 '07 social engineering slower traffic - creative!
Mike Wood of Ohio made life-size cardboard photo cutouts of his children, and posted them near the street - effectively slowing down traffic.
"So far, Wood said it has worked. Motorists have slowed down, and some have even yelled at Wood for letting his children play so close to the street. His idea has already been posted on some law enforcement Web sites around the country. He’s now selling the signs for $60."
8/7 '07 teach kids to program with a game - creative!
Line rider is a rather creative flash app which allows you to create a track, then a rider follows. You can stop, start, and edit to your heart's content to get the rider to do as you like.
7/31 '07 Vegetarians save on life insurance in UK - love the earth
Non-meat eaters will be offered a 6% discount on premiums available from Animal Friends Insurance (AFI), in a deal believed to be the first of its kind.
The firm said vegetarians should pay less for the cover, which pays out in the event of the policyholder's death, because they were less likely to suffer from a range of chronic illnesses, including some cancers.
AFI's managing director, Elaine Fairfax, said: "The risk of vegetarians suffering from some cancers is reduced by up to 40% and from heart disease by up to 30%, but despite this they have to pay the same life insurance premiums as meat eaters.
7/25 '07 Victorian style keyboard and LCD display - 37337 h4x0rz
Very nice eye-candy, but some people have way too much spare time on their hands.
7/23 '07 Philippines Inmates do "Thriller" - wack shit
Wow, now that's something you don't see everyday.
7/20 '07 lineage of ATT - interesting
I've seen many representations recently of the lineage of AT&T. Stephen Colbert did a funny piece recently. Also, here's a really well done family tree, with years included.
7/18 '07 Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger Hands - creative!
A little slow until the 1 minute mark, then this gets rather interesting. I'm just glad the author didn't have dishpan hands.
7/15 '07 bill moyers on impeachment - politics
Bruce Fein: I think he was setting a precedent that placed the president above the law. I did not believe that the initial perjury or misstatements - that came perhaps in a moment of embarrassment stemming from the Paula Jones lawsuit was justified impeachment if he apologized. Even his second perjury before the grand jury when Ken Starr's staff was questioning him, as long as he expressed repentance, would not have set an example of saying every man, if you're president, is entitled to be a law unto himself. I think Bush's crimes are a little bit different. I think they're a little bit more worrisome than Clinton's. You don't have to have -
Bill Moyers: More worrisome?
Bruce Fein: More worrisome than Clinton's - because he is seeking more institutionally to cripple checks and balances and the authority of Congress and the judiciary to superintend his assertions of power. He has claimed the authority to tell Congress they don't have any right to know what he's doing with relation to spying on American citizens, using that information in any way that he wants in contradiction to a federal statute called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. He's claimed authority to say he can kidnap people, throw them into dungeons abroad, dump them out into Siberia without any political or legal accountability. These are standards that are totally anathema to a democratic society devoted to the rule of law.
...this could not happen if we had a Congress that was aggressive, if we had a Congress the likes of Watergate when Nixon was president and he tried to - obstruct justice and defeat the course of law. We have a Congress that basically is an invertebrate."
7/14 '07 Ultimate tractor lawn mower accessory - 37337 h4x0rz
Just pop these brackets on your wheels, and presto - you get to cut the grass and aerate it at the same time. Oh, and you can dress like Mad Max while doing it... If only Charlie had access to this thing. :)
7/2 '07 Why should we vote for Hillary? - politics
Part of me wants to jump up and down, wave my "Women for Hillary" flag and support her solely based on that one biological fact. But I won't - not until she gets a platform and convinces me that she's more than a political puppet vying to be America's sweetheart. And maybe, I don't know, starts acting like a Democrat.
6/30 '07 John Edwards Supports Open Voting - politics
John Edwards has become the first presidential candidate to support "open source code" for election systems. In a letter dated June 21st addressed to Alan Dechert, the Edwards campaign stated that, "To ensure security, these machines should be programmed with an open source code for complete transparency, and election results should be safeguarded by voter-verified paper records."
6/30 '07 low impact woodland home - love the earth
There don't seem to be any running around minding their hobbit-business in any of the photos of this house. This is a really cool "low impact woodland home". He claims that he only spent 3000 british pounds on it so far.
6/22 '07 Dads influence daughters' math interest - parenting
"They found that girls' interest in math decreases as their fathers' gender stereotypes increase, whereas boys' interest in math increases as their fathers' gender stereotypes increase."
6/20 '07 You can have a Star Wars themed baby - finally!
The ultimate stroller modification, complete with snowspeeder mobile. But don't forget the costume ideas as well:
* Baby Fleece R2-D2 Costume
* Princess Leia Fleece Infant/Toddler
* Darth Vader Dog Costume
5/23 '07 ice cube tray for making lego cubes - totally awesome
"build your own LEGO ice sculpture!"
If only construction were that easy. Unfortunately, there isn't a reverse mold, making the underside so one could snap these together.
5/14 '07 No ORGANIC Bee losses - love the earth
"Sharon Labchuk is a longtime environmental activist and part-time organic beekeeper from Prince Edward Island. She has twice run for a seat in Ottawa's House of Commons, making strong showings around 5% for Canada's fledgling Green Party. She is also leader of the provincial wing of her party. In a widely circulated email, she wrote:
I'm on an organic beekeeping list of about 1,000 people, mostly Americans, and no one in the organic beekeeping world, including commercial beekeepers, is reporting colony collapse on this list. The problem with the big commercial guys is that they put pesticides in their hives to fumigate for varroa mites, and they feed antibiotics to the bees. They also haul the hives by truck all over the place to make more money with pollination services, which stresses the colonies.
5/2 '07 The Hippies Were Right!? - love the earth
I'm talking about, say, energy-efficient light bulbs. I'm looking at organic foods going mainstream. I mean chemical-free cleaning products widely available at Target and I'm talking saving the whales and protecting the dolphins and I mean yoga studios flourishing in every small town, giant boxes of organic cereal at Costco and non-phthalates dildos at Good Vibes and the Toyota Prius becoming the nation's oddest status symbol. You know, good things...
4/19 '07 bathtime 101: when kids poop in the tub - parenting
I appreciate finding humorous spins on parental education like this one.
"Daddy Clay: Because it’s going to happen. You’ve got an eighteen-month-old kid, and they’re feeling relaxed, it’s warm, it’s nice, diaper’s off, they’re having a great time. Let me tell you, about one out of every five times, that kid, he’s going to drop a deuce. So to simulate that, we have this chili. Daddy Brad, you ready to run the drill. 3-2-1…and defecation!
Daddy Brad: Oh! We have an emergency situation."
4/14 '07 Are vegetarians smarter? - love the earth
Scientists in UK have found there's an association between childhood IQ and adult vegetarianism. This finding may raise more questions than it answers. In a report in the British Medical Journal, 8,000 children aged 10 entered a study when their mental ability (IQ) was assessed. Their diet was assessed when they were 30 years old. At that time, over 300 of them were self-reported vegetarians (actually, 4.5%).
So, which came first - the chicken or the omellete?
4/9 '07 chocolate nirvana - totally awesome
This is the best ice cream I've ever had. Yes, I know it costs twice as much as Ben & Jerry's, which is twice as much as most big name brands... but Green and Black's tastes like frozen chocolate mousse.
4/6 '07 but I love my organic raw almonds - wack shit
The USDA has enacted new rules that require all almonds grown in California to be pasteurized, either with heat or toxic chemicals, in order to prevent Salmonella outbreaks. Organic almond farmers fear the cost of the requirement may put them all out of business, as the use of poisonous chemicals is much more affordable than expensive roasting or steaming. It also means that, if all producers comply, you can have either raw or organic almonds, but not both.
3/6 '07 stopping global warming starts with gore - love the earth
The Vegetarian Organic Life blog lays down the gauntlet for Al Gore to live the lifestyle that he's been promoting.
Gore received a letter from PETA suggesting that if he really wanted to help the environment, he would become a vegetarian. PETA points out that, according to a recent United Nation's report on global warming, "raising animals for food generates more greenhouse gases than all the cars and trucks in the world combined."
They go on to describe how much energy his house uses, and how much fossil fuels he burns touring the world talking about ending global warming: Don't let his marketing and PR efforts fool you: Al Gore is the global poster child for a lifestyle that causes global warming. He's a meat-eating, gas-guzzling, jet-fuel-burning, serial waster of electricity and massive producer of green-house gases.
2/27 '07 why we use glass bottles - parenting
Independent experts convened by the National Institutes of Health will meet next week to review whether exposure to a chemical commonly found in plastic products like food containers and baby bottles causes health problems.
Separately, an environmental group said new laboratory tests at the University of Missouri found that the chemical, bisphenol A, leached into liquids at potentially dangerous levels from baby bottles sold by five leading brands.
Bisphenol A, also called BPA, is used in making polycarbonate plastic food and drink packaging.
2/6 '07 Florida Governor: Dump E-Voting Machines - e-voting
Florida Governor Charlie Crist says his state should dump the touch-screen voting systems that were installed after the disputed 2000 presidential race in favor of more reliable optical-scanning machines. Voters would mark up a paper ballot and be able to verify their vote on the spot with a paper receipt.
“You go to an ATM machine, you get some kind of a record. You go to the gas station, you get a record. If there’s a need for a recount, it’s important to have something to count,” said Crist. The governor plans to ask the Florida legislature for $20 million to replace the touch-screen machines.
The current machines provide no paper backup, and have been plagued by irregularities and scandal in recent elections. EFF and a coalition of voting integrity groups, representing Sarasota County voters, have filed suit in state court in Tallahassee asking for a re-vote in Florida's 13th congressional district. In a high-profile battle over former Rep. Katherine Harris' seat, the result was decided by 363 votes, yet over 18,000 ballots cast on Sarasota County's e-voting machines registered no vote in the race, an exceptional anomaly in the State.
1/30 '07 Andy Griffith and wiretapping - politics
Too bad our current president was drunk at college when this episode aired in 1967.
1/25 '07 Sun's project blackbox - finally!
Yeah, I'd like to order 2 mobile data centers to go.
Would you like fries with that?
Yes, you too can purchase (or maybe rent, that's not clear yet) a shipping container (i.e. semi truck trailer) filled with 250 1u servers. They're billing this as 7TB of storage.
What will they think of next?
12/21 '06 the world is in your hand - creative!
A neat photo / travel project.
12/16 '06 10 dangerous toys - funny
Funny how many of those I actually played with while growing up...
12/2 '06 Sitting straight 'bad for backs' - interesting
Scottish and Canadian researchers used a new form of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to show that sitting up straight places an unnecessary strain on your back.
They told the Radiological Society of North America that the best position in which to sit at your desk is leaning slightly back, at about 135 degrees.
11/13 '06 Florida Recount, 2006-Style - e-voting
The red flag rose in Sarasota County, the heart of the district, where, if the results are to be believed, nearly one in every six (16%) Election Day voters either skipped or missed the hotly contested House race and were not counted in the final tally.
During two weeks of early voting prior to Nov. 7, election officials noticed that an unusually high number of voters using the machines - one in five - seemed to miss the House race.
"Please remind every voter to make sure they do not overlook the 13th congressional race at the top of the second page of voting," wrote Kathy Dent, Sarasota's Supervisor of Elections, to poll workers on Friday, Nov. 3.
"Some voters are overlooking the Buchanan/Jennings race until they get to the review screen," Dent continued in the E-mail obtained by CBS News. "This is critical."
One poll worker who requested anonymity told us how she received the message and reminded people about the House race on Election Day. Her theory: "I am thinking people touched the square and didn't notice the X didn't come out."
The results in her precinct showed a huge "undervote" in the House race. "We thought, 'Oh man, we're in trouble," the poll worker says.
Compare the Election Day numbers to Sarasota's paper absentee ballots: only two-and-half percent of absentee ballots ignored the House race...
We need a paper trail and open source software running these machines.
11/10 '06 The right was right... - funny
Now that the election is behind us, and the Democrats control both houses of Congress, there's no reason not to admit it: the Right was right about us all along. Here is our 25-point manifesto for the new Congress... ;)
11/3 '06 The Conference Bike - WTF?!
Ever want to go biking with 6 of your friends? Yeah, me neither, but after seeing this, I can't wait! :)
11/1 '06 microbes compete with larger animals - interesting
Microbes may compete with large animal scavengers by producing repugnant chemicals that deter higher species from consuming valuable food resources -- such as decaying meat, seeds and fruit, a new study suggests.
11/1 '06 Pandora: discovering similar music - 37337 h4x0rz
Pandora is an AJAX application allowing you to explore the data in the massive database of...
The Music Genome Project
On January 6, 2000 a group of musicians and music-loving technologists came together with the idea of creating the most comprehensive analysis of music ever.
Together we set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level. We ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or "genes" into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony. It's not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records - it's about what each individual song sounds like.
Over the past 6 years, we've carefully listened to the songs of over 10,000 different artists - ranging from popular to obscure - and analyzed the musical qualities of each song one attribute at a time. This work continues each and every day as we endeavor to include all the great new stuff coming out of studios, clubs and garages around the world.
It has been quite an adventure, you could say a little crazy - but now that we've created this extraordinary collection of music analysis, we think we can help be your guide as you explore your favorite parts of the music universe.
We hope you enjoy the journey.
Tim Westergren
Founder
The Music Genome Project
10/23 '06 Bad baby names - parenting
Yes, child abuse can begin even before birth.
10/6 '06 ssh multiplexing - 37337 h4x0rz
re-use your ssh connections.
9/25 '06 Hospitals starting to use organic food - love the earth
"It is important that we recognize the connection between a healthy earth and healthy human beings," said Sr. Mary Ellen Leciejewski, ecology program coordinator for Catholic Healthcare West in Santa Cruz. "If we don't have a healthy planet, we won't have healthy human beings."
"All our ingredients are actually food."
9/21 '06 forget the aibo - 37337 h4x0rz
I want a little robot breakdancer... oh, come on - it's only $1300.
9/20 '06 Be Prepared - parenting
The Boy Scout-style manual you always wanted to help you become a new dad. No, this has nothing to do with the BSA, but it's totally written in the same style. It's educational, and has some great tips all the while being absolutely hilarious. Check out these sample pages, and don't miss "The big bath" on page 165.
9/20 '06 The Name Voyager - parenting
NameVoyager is a fascinating information visualization tool which allows you to "see" the universe of American first names in ways that can help you see which names are or have been most popular at any point in American recorded history and to discover and consider names that you would have not thought before.
Wow - this is some really cool data visualization.
9/9 '06 Make the most out of your ebay sales - +1, Insightful
"Professors of marketing, economics, management, and psychology have published dozens of papers to try to explain how and why eBay users buy and sell online. We've combed through the data to boil it down to what eBay sellers really want to know: How to get the best price. Here's what we found."
9/8 '06 Bill Clinton's lawyer writes to ABC - politics
Bill Clinton's attorney, Bruce Lindsey, has written to ABC chief Bob Iger protesting the network's decision to air the 9/11 docudrama, "The Path to 9/11." The letter demands that the network pull the miniseries unless it corrects all its errors: "The content of this drama is factually and incontrovertibly inaccurate and ABC has a duty to fully correct all errors or pull the drama entirely. It is unconscionable to mislead the American public about one of the most horrendous tragedies our country has ever known."
9/7 '06 have you no decency, Mr Bush? - politics
Keith Olberman skewers Bush and Rumsfeld for being un-american, and abusing their powers. How very pissed, and yet coherent, and dare I say... elegant?
9/7 '06 Clinton and anti-terror - politics
Republican leaders earlier met with White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta for about an hour in response to the president's call for "the very best ideas" for fighting terrorism.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, emerged from the meeting and said, "These are very controversial provisions that the White House wants. Some they're not going to get."
He also said he had some problems with the president's proposals to expand wiretapping.
8/22 '06 Compilation of Bush's lies about Iraq - politics
Sample fear mongering:
"All the world has now seen the footage of an Iraqi Mirage aircraft with a fuel tank modified to spray biological agents over wide areas. Iraq has developed spray devices that could be used on unmanned aerial vehicals with ranges far beyond what is permitted by the Security Council. A UAV launched from a vessel off the American coast could reach hundreds of miles inland."
Source: President Bush: "World Can Rise to This Moment", White House (2/6/2003).
8/21 '06 how to be l33t - 37337 h4x0rz
If you had to ask, you'll never know.
8/18 '06 Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music - where my dogz at?
This is a comprehensive tour to every genre of electronic music that you've ever wondered about. Don't front on this, he's done his research.
8/16 '06 soundtrack for flickr - funny
Yes, Jonathan Coulter - the self-styled nerd folker created a video illustrating the wonders of flickr.
8/16 '06 are your locks safe? - 37337 h4x0rz
I saw a fascinating lecture about lock picking at yesterday's SUMIT_06 Symposium. Unfortunately, there's no text with the slides, but wow. I'm going to toss those padlocks in the garbage...
8/8 '06 10 Things Not to Say in an Interview - +1, Insightful
So, you want to be a web developer? Well, don't answer questions like this. Thankfully, our interviews have been going far better recently.
8/7 '06 this is why I want to be a stunt driver - totally awesome
Check out some real (no CG here, this was done in the 80s) stunt driving made to sell cars to Japanese people by pulling amazing stunts in Europe.
8/1 '06 how old are your ears? - interesting
Take the test, and let the world know old your ears are.
They tell me:
You are in your twenties
You can still hear reasonably well and you can play this without my old fart colleagues hearing it which makes you feel kinda good.
The highest pitched ultrasonic mosquito ringtone that I can hear is 15.8kHz
7/31 '06 hello Darthy - WTF?!
Just look at this evil incarnation.
7/28 '06 Steganography with Spam - 37337 h4x0rz
Encode your secret messages in what looks like spam to onlookers! It also gives you a decoding tool.
7/28 '06 Vegan diet reverses diabetes symptoms - interesting
People who ate a low-fat vegan diet, cutting out all meat and dairy, lowered their blood sugar more and lost more weight than people on a standard American Diabetes Association diet, researchers said on Thursday.
Participants said the vegan diet was easier to follow than most because they did not measure portions or count calories. Three of the vegan dieters dropped out of the study, compared to eight on the standard diet.
7/19 '06 Dear Crazy-As-Bat-Shit-Lady - onion wannabe
I guess you get what you pay for when buying stuff used - who knew?
The fridge doesn't come with a pedigree!
6. No, I don't have the operating instructions. I can write them down for you though: Plug fridge in. Open door. Put crap inside. Take crap out when it's cold. Eat or drink crap.
7/18 '06 don't stretch your fonts too much - +1, Insightful
You can squeeze a font by 1–2% without substantial detriment to perception. Sometimes it may prove useful to make a paragraph fit on a page.
As a way to train the eye, we suggest that designers (and customers) take their own photo and distort it along with the font. When the distortions become visible on the face, it’s time you stop disfiguring the font.
Check out the tool he presents here to see how quickly fonts can look mangled.
7/18 '06 Why using tables for layout is stupid - +1, Insightful
The solution: CSS and structural markup
By using structural markup in our HTML documents and Cascading Style Sheets to lay out our pages, we can keep the actual content of our pages separated from the way they are presented.
This has several advantages over using tables...
7/16 '06 Bush Hijacks The Constitution - politics
It is only now, nearly five years after Sept. 11, that the full picture of the Bush administration’s response to the terror attacks is becoming clear. Much of it, we can see now, had far less to do with fighting Osama bin Laden than with expanding presidential power...
As for the Geneva Conventions, administration witnesses and some of their more ideologically blinkered supporters in Congress want to scrap the international consensus that no prisoner may be robbed of basic human dignity.
The recent disbanding of the C.I.A. unit charged with finding Osama bin Laden is a reminder that the American people may never see anyone brought to trial for the terrible crimes of 9/11.
Once again, the president has refused to acknowledge that there are rules he is required to follow.
7/13 '06 google spreadsheet rocks - 37337 h4x0rz
I never thought the web could replace the desktop. Now I do. This is a crucial part of it here:
How do I import an existing Excel file?
To import an existing Excel file, click the "Open" link, or use the "File" > "Open" command. Then, click the "Browse" and "Open" buttons to find and select your file. Finally, click "Open Now," and you'll see your Excel file as a web-based spreadsheet."
6/27 '06 George Bush sings "Sunday Bloody Sunday - politics
Yet another one of those "state of the union" mashups. Funny, and well done.
6/22 '06 deal on RC Shark, w/frickin' laser beam - funny
Yes, you too can own a remote control underwater swimming shark, and attach your own underwater laser to create your own Dr. Evil palace.
6/21 '06 US government asserts it's above the law - politics
Essentially the Government is saying that, even if the Judiciary found the wholesale surveillance program was illegal after reviewing secret evidence in chambers, the Court nevertheless would be powerless to proceed, because the Executive has asserted that the Program, which has been widely reported in every major news outlet, is nevertheless still such a secret that the Judiciary (a co-equal branch under the Constitution) cannot acknowledge its existence by ruling against it. In short, the Government asserts that AT&T and the Executive can break the laws crafted by Congress, and there is nothing the Judiciary can do about it.
We intend to vigorously oppose this radical assertion of power. Please consider donating to EFF and help stop the illegal spying.
6/9 '06 charges for Bush impeachment - politics
ILLEGAL WAR
ILLEGAL SPYING
ILLEGAL TORTURE
ILLEGAL DETENTION
ILLEGAL RELEASE OF CLASSIFIED INFORMATION
6/8 '06 Social Engineering, the USB Way - +1, Insightful
Excerpt from the article:
We gathered all the worthless vendor giveaway thumb drives collected over the years and imprinted them with our own special piece of software. I had one of my guys write a Trojan that, when run, would collect passwords, logins and machine-specific information from the user’s computer, and then email the findings back to us.
The next hurdle we had was getting the USB drives in the hands of the credit union’s internal users. I made my way to the credit union at about 6 a.m. to make sure no employees saw us. I then proceeded to scatter the drives in the parking lot, smoking areas, and other areas employees frequented.
After about three days, we figured we had collected enough data. When I started to review our findings, I was amazed at the results. Of the 20 USB drives we planted, 15 were found by employees, and all had been plugged into company computers. The data we obtained helped us to compromise additional systems, and the best part of the whole scheme was its convenience.
8/7 '06 How did Palpatine react to A New Hope? - funny
What do you mean "they blew up the death star"? Aww shit!
This is a hilarious reaction piece to what we can only assume happened off-camera.
6/1 '06 Graph your DOM - 37337 h4x0rz
Are you relying upon tables, or suffering from "divitis" in your website construction? find out how complex your page construction is -- visually with this really cool java applet.
5/26 '06 Multi-Touch Interaction Research - 37337 h4x0rz
The future of interfaces dumps the keyboard and mouse, and uses... just a touchscreen. This reminds me a bit of the tech displayed in Minority Report.
"While touch sensing is commonplace for single points of contact, multi-touch sensing enables a user to interact with a system with more than one finger at a time, as in chording and bi-manual operations. Such sensing devices are inherently also able to accommodate multiple users simultaneously, which is especially useful for larger interaction scenarios such as interactive walls and tabletops."
5/25 '06 brain waves control robot - 37337 h4x0rz
In a step toward linking a person's thoughts to machines, Japanese automaker Honda said it has developed a technology that uses brain signals to control a robot's very simple moves.
In the future, the technology that Honda Motor Co. developed with ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories could be used to replace keyboards or cell phones, researchers said Wednesday. It also could have applications in helping people with spinal cord injuries, they said.
5/22 '06 watch the milk you drink - love the earth
Women who eat a vegan diet are one-fifth as likely as other women to have twins, a U.S. researcher reported on Saturday.
The reason may be hormones given to cattle to boost their milk and meat production, said Dr. Gary Steinman, an obstetrician specializing in multiple-birth pregnancies at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, New York.
Yet another reason to not consume hormone-laden milk. However, I'm a bit disappointed that they didn't release the results of the non-vegan, vegetarian diets, or conduct the study with another group of women who exclusively eat organic.
5/19 '06 10 Things I Hate About Commandments - funny
Funny mash-up trailer parodying the 10 commandments.
5/19 '06 Stop Hayden from expanding the spying - politics
As the director of the National Security Agency, Michael Hayden
oversaw the creation of the massive domestic spying program revealed
last week. Now George Bush wants him to run the CIA. We can't be fooled by the rhetoric from the Republicans: domestic spying is not a partisan issue.
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
What this means to me is that the government won't keep taps on me, unless they have reason to believe that I'm participating in criminal activities, and get permission from a court to do so.
Republicans counter with "if you aren't doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to fear". This really depends on your definition of "wrong". What is wrong? Something that's illegal? immoral? Contrary to the beliefs of some legislators?
This is one more massive step moving the US toward "big brother". How long until we're arrested for thought crimes?
Please restore our freedoms. Reject anyone who supports spying on Americans without a warrant.
5/16 '06 What if Al Gore won in 2000? - funny
Funny Saturday Night Live piece, detailing an alternate universe. Too bad it couldn't have happened that way.
5/15 '06 Improve web usability for slow users - +1, Insightful
Yet another reason why usability is crucial when constructing a website:
"For websites, we don't have the luxury of selecting only the best users. We must cater to the people who visit our website, regardless of their abstract reasoning skills. People in the last quartile are customers, too."
5/13 '06 The nPod, the NES portable - 37337 h4x0rz
Harkening back to the VCSP (Atari 2600 Video Computer System), Ben Heckendorn brings us plenty more portable video game systems.
5/12 '06 NZ firm makes bio-diesel from sewage - love the earth
Marlborough-based Aquaflow Bionomic yesterday announced it had produced its first sample of bio-diesel fuel from algae in sewage ponds.
It is believed to be the world's first commercial production of bio-diesel from "wild" algae outside the laboratory - and the company expects to be producing at the rate of at least one million litres of the fuel each year from Blenheim by April.
11/3 '06 They are made out of meat - creative!
"They can even sing, by squirting air through their meat."
Very well done sci-fi short.
5/2 '06 Save the internet! - politics
Congress is pushing a law that would abandon the Internet's First Amendment -- a principle called Network Neutrality that prevents companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast from deciding which Web sites work best for you -- based on what site pays them the most. Your local library shouldn’t have to outbid Barnes & Noble for the right to have its Web site open quickly on your computer.
Net Neutrality allows everyone to compete on a level playing field and is the reason that the Internet is a force for economic innovation, civic participation and free speech. If the public doesn't speak up now, Congress will cave to a multi-million dollar lobbying campaign by telephone and cable companies that want to decide what you do, where you go, and what you watch online.
This isn’t just speculation -- we've already seen what happens elsewhere when the Internet's gatekeepers get too much control. Last year, Telus -- Canada's version of AT&T -- blocked their Internet customers from visiting a Web site sympathetic to workers with whom the company was having a labor dispute. And Madison River, a North Carolina ISP, blocked its customers from using any competing Internet phone service.
Learn more about what we could lose
4/27 '06 live reenactment of Super Mario Bros - funny
This is very creative, and a lot of fun to watch.
4/26 '06 Artificial flavorings kill people - wack shit
Bronchiolitis obliterans first emerged as a threat within the food industry in 2000, when the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health was called to a southwest Missouri popcorn plant to investigate lung illnesses among workers.
Investigators subsequently found the disease among popcorn workers throughout the Midwest. They linked it to diacetyl, a substance that is found naturally in many foods but which also is artificially produced and widely used as a less expensive way to enhance flavor or impart the taste of butter.
NIOSH has linked exposure to diacetyl and butter flavoring to lung disease that sickened nearly 200 workers at popcorn plants and killed at least three.
Do you need another yet reason to not eat fake food?
4/14 '06 Standing up to Bush - politics
“I feel like despite your rhetoric, that compassion and common sense have been left far behind during your administration,’ Taylor said, standing in a balcony seat and looking down at Bush on stage. ‘And I would hope from time to time that you have the humility and grace to be ashamed of yourself."
the video
4/7 '06 We need paper trail when we vote - e-voting
Ann Arbor News
Wednesday, April 5, 2006
Only by using a voter-verified paper trail can we ensure the integrity of our elections. If ATMs can do it, why can't our voting machines? We get a paper record when we're born, graduate, get married, buy a house, even when we die. Why can't we get a paper record when we vote?
3/28 '06 Ann Arbor #10 veggie-friendly city in US - love the earth
There are three things that Ann Arbor has an abundance of: college students, trees, and great vegetarian food. This beautiful city is home to the University of Michigan Wolverines. The school's large vegetarian population enjoys no shortage of delicious options, thanks both to the university's dining service and Ann Arbor's numerous vegetarian-friendly restaurants.
3/28 '06 Suckerfish HoverLightbox - 37337 h4x0rz
By combining 3 different DOM scripting utilities, he's created a rather impressive photo gallery presentation method - and has kept usability considerations in mind as well.
3/16 '06 NPR suffers embezzlement - wack shit
Three men were charged this morning in Ann Arbor with felony embezzlement, illegally taking such things as airline tickets, Persian rugs, golf club memberships and more while they worked for Michigan Public Media, which operates the radio station WUOM, 91.7 FM.
Washtenaw County Prosecutors say Michael Coleman, who left his job as deputy director for Michigan Public Media in July, faces a 5-year felony. He is accused of embezzling food, alcohol, airline tickets, lodging and money for his personal use.
Coleman, 40, of Ypsilanti now is the general manager for Detroit Public Radio, WDET, 101.9 FM. Coleman appeared in court this morning without an attorney.
For Willie Northway of Ann Arbor, a public radio listener, the charges are disturbing.
"This is a sad revelation for Detroit, which has functioned as Michigan’s cultural engine for so long," he said. "The talk and news offered by Michigan Radio is an invaluable service to the community, and WDET had been a unique jewel in this day of mega-radio conglomerates."
3/15 '06 petition for a paper ballot - politics
Entertaining, yet informative animation expounding on the benefits of issuing a paper receipt when casting your vote in our democracy. We start and end our lives with a piece of paper, when we buy a house, get married, or graduate from a school, we get a piece of paper - why can't we get one when we elect our representatives?
3/15 '06 number 5 is alive! - interesting
SWORDS - First Robots To Break Asimov's First Law Of Robotics
Next month, the US Army will be putting robot soldiers in the field in Iraq. The SWORDS (Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection Systems) robots are fully armed; when the human operator verifies that a suitable target is within sight, it fires. They are equipped with either the M249 (which fires 5.56-millimeter rounds at 750 rounds per minute) or the M240 (which fires 7.62-millimeter rounds at up to 1,000 per minute).
Great - how long until this gets hijacked? Or, sent to execute the next "Kent State"?
3/9 '06 build a word cloud from your blog - 37337 h4x0rz
This nifty app scans your blog for the most commonly used words, then creates a word cloud, and allows you to purchase a t-shirt with your zeitgeist plastered all over it.
3/7 '06 Vegan Lunchbox - interesting
Wow. I'm really jealous of schmooey.
This blog is authored by a stay-at-home vegan activist mom who makes
homemade lunches for her son (who's probably in 1st or 2nd grade). She
photographs it, includes links to the books where she got the recipes,
and even includes a verdict on how the meal went over.
Whoever thought vegan was boring should this out.
My next few dinner menus may come from this site. Although, I'll
probably refrain from making peanut-butter and jelly muffins as an
entree. :)
3/4 '06 EPA pushes cuts in teflon chemical - wack shit
"The EPA said in a statement released Thursday that consumer products made with Teflon and other non-stick coatings don't pose a risk to consumers.
The EPA said the eight companies that use PFOA have agreed to reduce PFOA environmental releases and levels in products by 95 percent by 2010 and to work toward elimination of sources of PFOA exposure by 2015."
So, my question is... if PFOA doesn't pose a risk to consumers, then why is the EPA so eager to phase it out?
3/2 '06 harnessing the power of the moon - love the earth
This summer the Popsicles at a Gristedes supermarket on Roosevelt Island, midstream between Manhattan and Queens, will be kept icy by power generated just a stone's throw from the riverbank. Anchored 30 feet down, six underwater turbines will turn day and night, driven by the tidal flows in the channel. At a fish-friendly 35 rpm, the propellers will crank out up to 200 kilowatts of clean power, or roughly half the peak needs of the supermarket.
It's not on Bush's alternative-energy agenda yet, but moon-driven tides, ocean currents, and waves generate more oomph than wind and are more consistent than solar.
3/2 '06 Bush, Chertoff Warned before Katrina - politics
Newly released video footage shows how, in dramatic and sometimes
agonizing terms, federal disaster officials warned President Bush and
his Homeland Security Chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the
storm could breach levees, put lives at risk in New Orleans' Superdome
and overwhelm rescuers. Bush did not ask a single question during this
final briefing before Katrina struck. Four days later Bush declared "I
don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees" that gushed
deadly floodwaters into New Orleans.
2/28 '06 Build your own rocket belt - 37337 h4x0rz
A good list to live by when building your own rocket belt:
1. Design and build a machine to make my own fuel.
2. Invent a catalyst pack that’s more reactive than what’s available now.
3. Design and build a rocket belt with new ideas about the placement of the nozzles and side tubes.
4. Teach myself to fly the thing.
5. Don’t lose all my money, or my life.
2/27 '06 wired's favorite flickr mashups - 37337 h4x0rz
Rather interesting collection of flickr hacks. I like retrievr, spelling with flickr, fastr is a lot of fun, and colorpickr may prove to be rather useful
2/25 '06 pimp my box - finally!
About a month ago, I noticed some hardware issues with my webserver, tidal, and decided to look into it further. I was fortunate that I was able to minimize any downtime by moving static versions of the various sites I host off tidal to my mac.
I took it into the shop, and they found a power supply with problems, and a fried power cable.
Unfortunately, they told me that this also affected the motherboard and the processor. My RAM was old enough that I couldn't really get another motherboard that was compatible with it, so I decided to go out on a limb and try something new. I bought a barebones package with some extra components to make it go zoom, salvaged the hard drives and CD-ROM from tidal, and built a pimpin' webserver - well, it's more than enough for my modest needs. My new machine, juicy, has a 2Ghz processor with a 40 GB RAID.
It also happens to have an internal blue LED with a plexi-side to the case, so all I need is some hydraulics, and I'll be rolling in the bling. :)
Anyways, this gave me an excuse to clean up my system and get back on track with gentoo's portage emerge system, which has saved me countless hours.
2/25 '06 join the UM webmaster team - 37337 h4x0rz
We're looking for a skilled web programmer.
2/25 '06 peer-to-peer philanthropy - love the earth
"By choosing a business on our website and then lending money online to that
enterprise, you can "sponsor a business" and help the world's working poor make
great strides towards economic independence. Throughout the course of the loan
(usually 6-12 months), you can receive monthly email updates that let you know
about the progress being made by the small business you've sponsored. These
updates include reports on loan repayment progress, photos of new capital
equipment, narratives on business growth and standard of living improvements,
and more. As loans are repaid, you will get your original loan money back.
How does the loan process work?
By partnering with existing microfinance organizations and institutions, Kiva
finds outstanding entrepreneurs who need loan funding. Our expert in-country
staff works with these partner organizations to conduct due diligence on each
business, and once approved, post each business' profile on our website. This
is where you come in. You can choose loan money online, using your credit card
or Paypal, in increments as low as $25 toward the loan needs of a business.
With your participation, Kiva gives entrepreneurs access to the capital they
need to lift themselves out of poverty."
This is one charity where you get your money back - the administrative
costs are funded by the interest payments of the borrower.
2/25 '06 True Majority's "oreo" budget plan - politics
Find out how we can work to reduce many large issues by simply cutting a little military spending.
1/22 '06 End of the Line photoessay - interesting
See photographs illustrating where supertankers go to die - along the beaches of Bangladesh.
1/22 '06 The Ultimate Showdown - funny
"A musical tale of the greatest battle to ever occur ever."
Find out what happens when Godzilla, Batman, Optimus Prime, Abe Lincoln, Robocop, R2D2, Indiana Jones, and Chuck Norris all duke it out to find the ultimate victor.
1/19 '06 s5 javascript slide show - 37337 h4x0rz
S5 is a slide show format based entirely on XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript. With one file, you can run a complete slide show and have a printer-friendly version as well.
The nice thing is that this can run locally without a webserver, since it's javascript.
1/15 '06 vista rips off tiger - funny
After hearing about the keynote address featuring the new additions with Windows Vista, I felt a sense of deja-vu... :)
1/13 '06 Polyphasic sleep - interesting
Or, how to pick up a second career by only sleeping 2-3 hours a day. Sounds interesting, but I'm curious what the long-term effects may be.
1/11 '06 Browse your music by album cover - 37337 h4x0rz
Truly sweet 3-d album cover browsing tool, which is integrated with iTunes, allowing one to play music.
This reminds me of Delicious Monster's Library.
12/20 '05 Ding Dong, the witch is dead - finally!
In June 2003, the Microsoft Macintosh Business Unit announced that Internet Explorer for Mac would undergo no further development, and support would cease in 2005. In accordance with published support lifecycle policies, Microsoft will end support for Internet Explorer for Mac on December 31st, 2005, and will provide no further security or performance updates.
Additionally, as of January 31st, 2006, Internet Explorer for the Mac will no longer be available for download from Mactopia. It is recommended that Macintosh users migrate to more recent web browsing technologies such as Apple's Safari.
12/20 '05 where's my "different kind of radio?" - wack shit
We, the Public, are deeply disappointed in Wayne State University’s decision to change the format of WDET. We should have a say in what is aired on WDET, OUR public radio station in Detroit. We have supported, promoted, and cultivated WDET for 35 years. It is a part of the fabric of this city, and was the last station whose format truly served the best interests of the public at large. Music is art, and it is also an integral part of Detroit’s history. Therefore, it should remain a large part of WDET, OUR public radio station.
We, the Public, would like to have a “Last Chance Fundraiser” to start on any Monday at 9am, live on WDET. If We, the Public, don’t raise the necessary funds to sustain the station, we’ll concede and Wayne State University can make any changes it wishes.
On Monday, December 19th we are filing a class action lawsuit against WDET for fraudulently taking donations for programming that have since been discontinued.
12/17 '05 He-Man and Wikipedia - funny
"He-Man is the most powerful man in the universe. Imbued with incredible magical power...
well, find out what Penny Arcade has to say about this Wikipedia entry.
12/15 '05 John Dingell to Bill O'Reilly - politics
'Twas the week before Christmas and all through the House No bills were passed 'bout which Fox News could grouse;
Tax cuts for the wealthy were passed with great cheer,
So vacations in St. Barts soon would be near;
Katrina kids were nestled all snug in motel beds,
While visions of school and home danced in their heads;
In Iraq our soldiers needed supplies and a plan,
Plus nuclear weapons were being built in Iran;
Gas prices shot up, consumer confidence fell;
Americans feared we were on a fast track to...well...
Wait--- we need a distraction--- something divisive and wily;
A fabrication straight from the mouth of O'Reilly
We can pretend that Christmas is under attack
Hold a vote to save it--- then pat ourselves on the back;
Silent Night, First Noel, Away in the Manger
Wake up Congress, they're in no danger!
This time of year we see Christmas every where we go,
>From churches, to homes, to schools, and yes...even Costco;
What we have is an attempt to divide and destroy,
When this is the season to unite us with joy
At Christmas time we're taught to unite,
We don't need a made-up reason to fight
So on O'Reilly, on Hannity, on Coulter, and those right wing blogs;
You should just sit back, relax...have a few egg nogs!
'Tis the holiday season: enjoy it a pinch
With all our real problems, do we honestly need another Grinch?
So to my friends and my colleagues I say with delight,
A merry Christmas to all,
and to Bill O'Reilly...Happy Holidays.
12/13 '05 Diebold CEO resigns amidst fraud - politics
The chief executive officer of electronic voting company Diebold who once famously declared that he would "deliver" Ohio for President Bush has resigned effective immediately.
In a story last week, RAW STORY recounted allegations made by a Diebold insider who said he/she had become disillusioned after witnessing repeated efforts by the firm to evade meeting legal requirements or implementing appropriate security measures, and who alleged that Diebold had put corporate interests ahead of the interests of voters.
“I’ve absolutely had it with the dishonesty,” the insider said. Blasting Wally O’Dell, the current president of Diebold, the whistleblower went on to explain behind-the-scenes tactics of the company and its officers.
“There’s a lot of pressure in the corporation to make the numbers: `We don’t tell you how to do it, but do it.’ [O’Dell is] probably the number one culprit putting pressure on people,” the source said.
12/14 '05 Constitution as good as toilet paper? - politics
"I don't give a goddamn," Bush retorted. "I'm the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way."
"Mr. President," one aide in the meeting said. "There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution."
"Stop throwing the Constitution in my face," Bush screamed back. "It's just a goddamned piece of paper!"
12/8 '05 Abramoff, Delay and forced abortions - politics
DeLay fully approved of the working and living conditions. The Texan's salute to the owners and Abramoff's government clients was recorded by ABC-TV News: "You are a shining light for what is happening to the Republican Party, and you represent everything that is good about what we are trying to do in America and leading the world in the free-market system"
In reference to the slave labor and forced abortions perpetrated in Saipan. So much for the "culture of life", eh?
12/6 '05 Pres. Bush addresses global warming - funny
"...your commander-in-chief, of the world..."
"the issue of the so-called global warmings, that are happening, on our planet."
Watch to learn more about why penguin orgies are bad.
12/3 '05 TinyMCE 2.0 final released - 37337 h4x0rz
Coolest open-source Javascript drop-in library I've played with. It adds a GUI html editor interface to your textareas. Awesome for content admin tools or blogs and stuff.
12/2 '05 have problems remembering your layout? - 37337 h4x0rz
This is one cool keyboard:
"Every key of the Optimus keyboard is a stand-alone display showing exactly what it is controlling at this very moment."
Featuring custom layouts for various languages and applications.
11/27 '05 Hops are healthy - interesting
Anti-cancer Compound In Beer Gaining Interest
A compound found only in hops and the main product they are used in - beer - has rapidly gained interest as a micronutrient that might help prevent many types of cancer.
Researchers at Oregon State University first discovered the cancer-related properties of this flavonoid compound called xanthohumol about 10 years ago. A recent publication by an OSU researcher in the journal Phytochemistry outlines the range of findings made since then. And many other scientists in programs around the world are also beginning to look at the value of these hops flavonoids for everything from preventing prostate or colon cancer to hormone replacement therapy for women.
11/21 '05 Your One-Stop Site For Sony Lawsuit Info - wack shit
This site has all the info that would want if you were to protest the Sony rootkits:
In many jurisdictions, Sony's fraudulent installation of the rootkit is a crime. You can contact your local police, or your Attorney General. If you contact the Attorney General, ask to speak with both the Consumer Protection Office and, if one exists, the Cybercrime Office. You can also contact the United States Department of Justice and let them know about the problem.
You can file your own lawsuit in small claims court for the damage done to your computer as a result of Sony BMG Music Entertainment's actions.
You might also wish to consult an attorney in your area if your computer was harmed.
You can donate to the EFF and help support their attempts to protect your rights in our digital age.
Finally, and most importantly, you can stop buying Sony products.
11/9 '05 US implicated in use of chemical weapons - politics
"Powerful new evidence emerged yesterday that the United States dropped massive quantities of white phosphorus on the Iraqi city of Fallujah during the attack on the city in November 2004, killing insurgents and civilians with the appalling burns that are the signature of this weapon."
There's a report on Italian TV about it.
The Army even published the fact:
"WP [i.e., white phosphorus rounds] proved to be an effective and versatile munition. We used it for screening missions at two breeches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with HE. We fired 'shake and bake' missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out."
11/7 '05 SCO vs. linux and the dukes of hazard - funny
Yee-hah!
11/5 '05 tired of losing? become a republican! - politics
Close your eyes. Plug your ears. Open your mouth.
11/3 '05 incompetence all around - politics
Only a brainless leader would hire someone so unqualified as the director of FEMA.
Melancon used an e-mail sent September 2, four days after the hurricane hit, to illustrate his point. On that day, Brown received a message with the subject "medical help." At the time, thousands of patients were being transported to the New Orleans airport, which had been converted to a makeshift hospital. Because of a lack of ventilators, medical personnel had to ventilate patients by hand for as long as 35 hours, according to Melancon.
The text of the e-mail reads: "Mike, Mickey and other medical equipment people have a 42-foot trailer full of beds, wheelchairs, oxygen concentrators, etc. They are wanting to take them where they can be used but need direction.
"Mickey specializes in ventilator patients so can be very helpful with acute care patients. If you could have someone contact him and let him know if he can be of service, he would appreciate it. Know you are busy but they really want to help."
Melancon said Brown didn't respond for four days, when he forwarded the original e-mail to FEMA Deputy Chief of Staff Brooks Altshuler and Deputy Director of Response Michael Lowder.
The text of Brown's e-mail to them read: "Can we use these people?"
10/28 '05 Don't Click It! - +1, Insightful
No, really, I mean it - Don't Click It!
Interesting concept of an interface designed for a computer pointing device without a clickable mouse button.
10/7 '05 Bush said God told him to invade - politics
"God would tell me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.' And I did, and then God would tell me, 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq ...' And I did. And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East.' And by God I'm gonna do it," Shaath quotes the president as saying in the three-part series.
Gee I wish that God would speak that clearly to me. I wonder what he would say... probably something along the lines of "give Mr. Bush the middle finger for me".
10/9 '05 Shining - funny
Meet Jack Torrence, and Danny and how their lives improve through the course of
this heartwarming movie... ;)
Also, suffer the wrath of Titanic, and run for your life in West Side Story
9/16 '05 take a hint... - politics
Open letter from Bill Maher to the President:
"Mr. President, this job can't be fun for you any more. There's no more money to spend--you used up all of that. You can't start another war because you used up the army. And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare: helping poor people. Listen to your Mom. The cupboard's bare, the credit cards maxed out. No one's speaking to you. Mission accomplished.
"Now it's time to do what you've always done best: lose interest and walk away. Like you did with your military service and the oil company and the baseball team. It's time. Time to move on and try the next fantasy job. How about cowboy or space man? Now I know what you're saying: there's so many other things that you as President could involve yourself in. Please don't. I know, I know. There's a lot left to do. There's a war with Venezuela. Eliminating the sales tax on yachts. Turning the space program over to the church. And Social Security to Fannie Mae. Giving embryos the vote.
"But, Sir, none of that is going to happen now. Why? Because you govern like Billy Joel drives. You've performed so poorly I'm surprised that you haven't given yourself a medal. You're a catastrophe that walks like a man. Herbert Hoover was a shitty president, but even he never conceded an entire city to rising water and snakes.
"On your watch, we've lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the City of New Orleans. Maybe you're just not lucky. I'm not saying you don't love this country. I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side.
"So, yes, God does speak to you. What he is saying is: 'Take a hint.'"
9/8 '05 "I might likely have to punch him." - politics
Louisiana Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu on Sept. 4th on ABC's Sunday morning news program, "This Week":
"If one person criticizes our sheriffs, or says one more thing, including the President of the United States, he will hear from me - one more word about it after this show airs and I - I might likely have to punch him - literally," says Landrieu.
I'd like to see that, personally. I'm not the only one.
9/2 '05 Mayor to feds: 'Get off your asses' - politics
NAGIN: I need reinforcements, I need troops, man. I need 500 buses, man. We ain't talking about -- you know, one of the briefings we had, they were talking about getting public school bus drivers to come down here and bus people out here.
I'm like, "You got to be kidding me. This is a national disaster. Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get their asses moving to New Orleans."
That's -- they're thinking small, man. And this is a major, major, major deal. And I can't emphasize it enough, man. This is crazy.
9/2 '05 Time to bring the National Guard home? - politics
New Orleans had been planning a hurricane strike, with broken levees for years. Why can't we get a better response to this tragedy? Is this how poorly our emergency resources would react to a nuclear explosion? Would we only have 4700 national guard troops on the ground if we were being invaded by a foreign army? People are dying, by the thousands.
"Homeland Security" is supposed to be about protecting our homeland, not securing one more oil field for our future use.
8/24 '05 Robertson Issues Fatwah - politics
he Bible tells us "thou shall not kill." And we consider it a key value to live by. It's a shame that Rev. Pat Robertson, self-appointed leader of America's so-called Christian right, does not.
Robertson's fatwah, calling for the assassination of the president of Venezuela—in the name of keeping access to a "huge pool of oil," among other excuses—exposed the warped values of many religious radicals with the ear of the president of the United States.
8/24 '05 "Intelligent Falling" Replaces Gravity - funny
"As the debate over the teaching of evolution in public schools continues, a new controversy over the science curriculum arose Monday in this embattled Midwestern state. Scientists from the Evangelical Center For Faith-Based Reasoning are now asserting that the long-held "theory of gravity" is flawed, and they have responded to it with a new theory of Intelligent Falling."
8/23 '05 Bush poo-flags - politics
Get your free dogshit Bush flags!
Police in Germany are hunting pranksters who have been sticking
miniature flag portraits of US President George W. Bush into piles of
dog poo in public parks. Josef Oettl, parks administrator for Bayreuth,
said: "This has been going on for about a year now, and there must be
2,000 to 3,000 piles of excrement that have been claimed during that
time."
- German police baffeled by Bush poo-flags
8/17 '05 rioting in the streets - onion wannabe
No, it's not an anti-war protest, or a lack of food. It's what happens when 5,500 people show up to try to purchase one of 1,000 4-year old ibooks for $50.
More articles with photos:
Houston Chronicle
Notebook Review
8/16 '05 Support Operation Yellow Elephant - politics
"...now more than ever, we need to recruit supporters of the Iraq Debacle to serve in our military in Iraq. The morale of the military demands it."
In regards to "censoring of the soldier Leonard Clark by the Army because of his opposition to the Iraq Debacle"...
"If, in the view of the military, it is undermining the morale of the troops, creating a distrust among comrades in each other's commitment and a breakdown in the vitally necessary interdependency needed within a platoon, as surely it must, then the request and the warning is properly delivered."
This is why we must support 
8/8 '05 A robot hand that can catch - 37337 h4x0rz
The robotic catcher, developed by scientists at the University of Tokyo, Japan, can comfortably grab a ball careering through the air at 300 kilometres per hour, or 83 metres per second, its creators say. And, of course, the robot never gets tired of doing so.
7/26 '05 No More Star Wars Interceptor Missiles - politics
Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) has introduced an amendment to cut the money for extra "Star Wars" missiles and spend it instead on nuclear nonproliferation programs. These are the kinds of proven programs that keep nuclear weapons out of our enemies' hands in the first place.
After all, we can still get hit by a mushroom cloud, and it probably won't be propelled through the sky on the tip of a missle.
7/25 '05 this bird thinks - interesting
Not only can he answer questions like "how many of these blocks are blue?" But also "there are 5 blocks of the same color, what is it?" He also is familiar with the concept of "none". This opens a window to the animal kingdom - we aren't the only species on the planet with cognitive abilities.
7/25 '05 poop makes the world go round - love the earth
"Prisoners' feces is converted into combustible "biogas," or methane gas that can be used for cooking. It has reduced by 60 percent the annual wood-fuel costs which would otherwise reach near $1 million."
7/23 '05 exoskeleton for seniors - 37337 h4x0rz
The robotic suit can give an average man twice his usual strength and was developed to assist the elderly in their everyday lives.
7/22 '05 how popular are you? - 37337 h4x0rz
How many heavily linked people have you in their buddy list who are signed on RIGHT NOW?
7/21 '05 I want sweeties! - funny
Watch the ad, and find out why certain decisions are more important than others.
7/25 '05 Build your own wind turbine - love the earth
So far the machine works quite well. It has such a huge swept area compared to our previous machines that it seems to start up in practically no wind, and it's making a little power by the time the anemometer says 5 mph. At 10 mph it's doing around 400 watts and at 16 mph it's up around 1.5KW
7/14 '05 LIES. - politics
That's what this war is about. The new revelations about Karl Rove isn't anything new.
7/13 '05 Karl Rove-gate - politics
"To: The White House
CC: White House Press Corps
It's time for the White House to come clean. Any administration official who had a role in leaking the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame should step forward and explain their actions. Our national security is not a political tool."
I think Rove outed himself to take the fall for Cheney. Rove can be dismissed, whereas Cheney would have to be impeached.
6/28 '05 the batmobile from "Batman Begins" - 37337 h4x0rz
"When production designer Nathan Crowley was trying to conceive the car's look, he went to a hobby shop and bought 1:12 scale models of a Lamborghini Countach and a Hummer.
Crowley cut those two models apart and combined them, dropping in the cockpit from a model of a P-38 lightening."
6/24 '05 my lawyers can beat up your lawyers - sad
You don't need a degree in graphic design to notice the similarities here. They're the fucking same. Oh, wait-- one is blue, not red, one says Major, not Minor, and, uh, okay, there are some Nike logos tossed in there. It sort of brings to mind that old interview in which Vanilla Ice attempted to defend the difference between "Ice Ice Baby" and "Under Pressure" ("dun dun dun duh-duh-duh dun" vs. "DUN dun dun dun duh-duh-duh dun").
6/23 '05 Emerging cybernetics - 37337 h4x0rz
"Jesse Sullivan lost both of his arms at the shoulders, but with the help of a prosthetic hand and a set of rewired nerves, he can now feel--and sense hot and cold--almost as if he had real fingers."
6/22 '05 Great Lakes surfing - interesting
You may have seen the puny waves in "Step Into Liquid", but the Great Lakes are capable of some intense weather, and are very surfable, as one can learn in the new flick, Unsalted.
"One part obsession, one part addiction and an unending quest for adventure makes Great Lakes Surfers a truly rare breed. Add 40-knot winds, 15 foot waves and frigid temperatures to a storm ravaged inland sea and they'll tell you it's a recipe for fun."
One can rent a board at Crystal Lake Adventure Sports in Frankfort and Beulah, Sleeping Bear Surf and Kayak in Empire, Third Coast Surf Shop in New Buffalo (or participate in their online forum), as well as Chapter 11 Sports in Spring Lake, MI.
Apparently, Modern Skate and Surf sells boards, but it's unclear if they rent to the public.
6/21 '05 Save NPR (and PBS)! - politics
"Recently, a key subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives voted to cut federal funding for public broadcasting by 45%. These cuts will be devastating to public radio and television stations across the country, including Michigan Radio and Television. Some in Congress say there is no longer a need to support public broadcasting. Others believe it is one of the worthiest places to invest federal funds. We hope you will call and weigh in with your Members of Congress and Senators on this question, one way or the other. But please act soon. The full House of Representatives could take final action on these cuts by Wednesday, June 22nd."
6/20 '05 boycott godaddy - politics
See, it turns out that it's owned by an ignorant asshole who wants to "destroy all the bastards", and goes into an rage about the Middle East - following the party line of conflating the attacks of 9-11 with Iraq.
6/18 '05 DJ Vader - funny
The force is strong with this one...
6/16 '05 the Destiny of Blacklists - +1, Insightful
The problem was, as vigilantes so often do, the guys at MAPS got carried away. They started to include servers on the list that they knew were not sources of spam, to pressure whoever owned the server to do what they wanted. For example, in order to get revenge on people they believed were spamming, MAPS would blacklist the mail server of the company hosting their site.
This is, strictly speaking, terrorism: harming innnocent people as a way to pressure some central authority into doing what you want.
...there is no one to watch the watchers.
6/15 '05 attempt to repeal the 22nd amendment - politics
Yes, this is the one that says "No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice".
http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Am22
what's going on with my country?
6/14 '05 Animals talk to each other - interesting
A Gunnison's prairie dog can describe and warn others of an approaching coyote or a red-tailed hawk, and do it by "name." There are consistent chirps that denote the presence of humans and even non-predators like skunks or badgers. There are specific calls for cows, elk, prong-horned antelope and domestic cats, and these calls are consistent across prairie dog colonies, Slobodchikoff says.
Slobodchikoff recognizes that it's difficult to know exactly what a particular call may mean to a prairie dog "intellectually," beyond a stimulus response. But he said he feels strongly that animals are "not just automatons running on programs of instinct. We're challenging that idea."
Are we sure that animals don't have a soul? I mean, that's the real dividing line that most people use to justify eating them.
6/13 '05 Downing Street Memo (or Minutes) - politics
The lies that the Bush Jr. administration used to justify invading Iraq far outweigh anything that Nixon or Clinton were impeached over. It's time for us to take our country back.
Petitions:
http://bsd.democracyforamerica.com/page/petition/downing
http://www.usalone.com/warlies.htm
http://www.moveonpac.org/tellthetruth/
6/8 '05 exoskeleton unveiled in japan - 37337 h4x0rz
"The 15-kilogram (33-pound) battery-powered suit, code-named HAL-5, detects muscle movements through electrical-signal flows on the skin surface and then amplifies them."
At last!
5/31 '05 cheese rolling - wack shit
From the land that brought you rugby...
5/31 '05 face morphing and candidate preference - politics
It seems that many in our population don't really pay that much attention to the issues, but care more that their candidate looks more like them.
5/25 '05 think you're 37337 enough? - 37337 h4x0rz
just try this keyboard... without any characters on the keys. They claim:
"Since there is no key to look at when typing, your brain will quickly adapt and memorize the key positions and you will find yourself typing a lot faster with more accuracy in no time. It is amazing how slow typers almost double their speed and quick typers become blazing fast!"
5/25 '05 Gunning for Stem-Cell Naysayers - politics
A pioneer of grass-roots internet movements is mobilizing a campaign to oust any legislator who opposes embryonic stem-cell research.
"If anyone really cares about this issue ... now is the time to put the 'ass' in 'grass roots' and get off their asses and do something," Hlinko said. "We want to very strategically do whatever is necessary to remove from office those extremists who are frankly blocking stem-cell research. Anyone putting theoretical possible life ahead of actual life is someone who should not be in office."
5/20 '05 google's portal - 37337 h4x0rz
of course it's using hot ajax action.
5/20 '05 a robot that can walk - 37337 h4x0rz
with animation and videos included.
5/19 '05 George Bush == Darth Vader? - politics
Both believe that "you're either with me (us) or you are my enemy (are against us)". Many other political parallels between an operating democratic republic, and a power-centrist Empire.
5/16 '05 Patrick! He's famous. - 37337 h4x0rz
Find out why Patrick uses a Mac.
5/13 '05 Beware of Darth Tater - funny
He's more chemical than spud. Join the rebellion to overthrow the forces of genetically modified foods.
5/9 '05 How to truly fix social security - politics
As usual, it involves fairness, and removing the special breaks for the ultra-rich.
5/4 '05 The Portion Doctor Kit - interesting
Ensure you only eat what's in your pyramid. Apparently, it's a good idea to shove a massive helping of flesh inside your maw at every meal.
5/3 '05 organic imac kiosk - 37337 h4x0rz
This puppy is a beautiful creation of functional art which encompasses an iMac.
4/28 '05 silly Detroit area Business names - funny
18. Clear!Blue Inc.
Great Scott! Because! Unnecessary! Puncuation! Is! Annoying!
19. The iMiH Group.
So aRe unNecEssAry cApiTal LettErs.
20. i33.
so are unnecessary lower-case letters. or ones attached to meaningless number5 for tha6t ma88tter.
3/31 '05 Gas-station delivery - wack shit
A woman rushing to a hospital to give birth hit a few stops along the way -- first at a gas station where she delivered the baby herself, then when confused police ordered her out of the car at gunpoint.
"She caught that baby, put it to her chest, gave me a look, like, 'I gotta go,' closed the door, put the van in gear and away she went."
3/17 '05 retro yumminess - where my dogz at?
Convert your old cassette tapes into mp3s, or record from your computer to create the ultimate mix-tape.
3/16 '05 unleash the ant mecha - 37337 h4x0rz
there are videos too.
3/17 '05 "OS X rocks. Homage to you." - 37337 h4x0rz
Google's love letter to the Mac OS X dock. They've implemented a development version of their navigation in a similar fashion.
update: they took it down, but there are mirrors: http://www.theplaceforitall.com/googlex/
http://googlex.foxified.info/
3/14 '05 Drag-and-drop Sortable Lists w/ JS & CSS - 37337 h4x0rz
Tim's curiosity leads him to experiment with sorting / ordering with CSS. I could see how this could easily lead to implementing Apple's "Dock" within a web browser. :)
3/3 '05 funny mime video for 'Torn' - funny
Know what it means to be too late.
3/3 '05 pimp my browser - where my dogz at?
PimpZilla lets you show your homies some class when surfin da web.
2/23 '05 tapes reveal Bush as a real loser - politics
Doug Wead's tapes reveal Bush for what he truly is - an idiotic asshole who has a lot of skeletons in his closet. How are we supposed to trust him on social security and his "moral values", when he reveals how much of a hypochrite he is? This nation needs to pull together and remove him from office before he commits any more crimes against humanity.
2/17 '05 Microsoft teaches parents 2b 37337 - 37337 h4x0rz
"Letters can be substituted for other letters that may sound alike. Using "Z" for a final letter S, and "X" for words ending in the letters C or K is common. For example, leetspeekers might refer to their computer "5x1llz" (skills)."
2/16 '05 What does security mean to you? - funny
How much effort will the people who you're trying to keep out exert to get in?
2/7 '05 Gigapixel camera - 37337 h4x0rz
Crisscrossing America taking giant, ultra-high-resolution photographsof cities and landmarks, retired Reagan-era Star Wars physicist Graham Flint has custom-built a camera that captures gigapixels.
1/27 '05 This is why we need science fiction - interesting
"Scientists have begun blurring the line between human and animal by producing chimeras—a hybrid creature that's part human, part animal."
1/23 '05 Number 5 is alive! - wack shit
The army plans to send robots into combat in Iraq... great. Really great. How long until someone decides to hack the radio waves, and r00+s them?
How long until the right wing mafia decides to unleash them on leftist protestors?
1/22 '05 Don't make the bed... - interesting
It seems that the dust mites who live in your bed thrive on moisture. By leaving yours sheets unmade, and open during the day, your sheets dry out, and they aren't able to reproduce as well.
1/21 '05 The U.S. After 4 Years of Bush - politics
Budget
2000 budget surplus $236.4 billion
2004 budget deficit $412.6 billion
That's a shift of $649 billion and doesn't include the cost of the Iraq war.
1/21 '05 Boromir's ramblings on Mordor - funny
One does not simply walk into Mordor...
Um...
Yes you do...
Shut up! No you don't!
1/16 '05 indeed job search utility - 37337 h4x0rz
As they say, "one search, all jobs". This is a killer app of localization. They have a very google-feel to them, but they're centered on job searching. The nice thing is that the listings are centered on classified ads aggregated from various sources... and the best part is that they support RSS!
1/12 '05 Changing the world with a blog - interesting
WorldChanging.com works from a simple premise: that the tools, models and ideas for building a better future lie all around us. That plenty of people are working on tools for change, but the fields in which they work remain unconnected. That the motive, means and opportunity for profound positive change are already present. That another world is not just possible, it's here. We only need to put the pieces together.
12/22 '04 The skunkworks of Graphing Calculator - 37337 h4x0rz
The ultimate story of devotion... to a cancelled project. These guys managed to create one of the best pieces of software bundled with the Mac OS, under the radar.
Why did Greg and I do something so ludicrous as sneaking into an eight-billion-dollar corporation to do volunteer work? Apple was having financial troubles then, so we joked that we were volunteering for a nonprofit organization. In reality, our motivation was complex. Partly, the PowerPC was an awesome machine, and we wanted to show off what could be done with it; in the Spinal Tap idiom, we said, "OK, this one goes to eleven."
12/16 '04 PSU: stop using MSIE - finally!
Penn State's Information Technology Services (ITS) is urging that the University computing community use standards-based Web browsers other than Internet Explorer to help minimize exposure to attacks that occur through browser vulnerabilities. Web browser options include Firefox, one of several alternatives available for Windows, Mac and other operating systems.
12/9 '04 Help support a voter's bill of rights - politics
- Guarantee a Voter-Verified Paper Trail for All Voting Machines
- Replace Partisan Oversight with Non-Partisan Election Commissions
- Celebrate Democracy: Make Election Day a National Holiday
- Make it Easier to Vote
- Count Every Vote!
- Re-Enfranchise Ex-Felons & Non-Felons
- Implement Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) and Proportional Representation (PR)
- Replace Big Money Control With Public Financing and Equal Air-Time
- Guarantee Equal Access to the Ballot and Debates
- Abolish the Electoral College
11/28 '04 Ray's MTB indoor park - interesting
This is pretty cool idea - build an indoor mountain bike park so that people can still get their fix in the winter. They've got all sorts of technical features: teeter-totters, jumps, inclined curves, etc.
11/19 '04 Florida vote messed up by e-voting - politics
Electronic voting machines in Florida may have awarded George W. Bush up to 260,000 more votes than he should have received, according to statistical analysis conducted by University of California, Berkeley graduate students and a professor, who released a study on Thursday.
"No matter how many factors and variables we took into consideration, the significant correlation in the votes for President Bush and electronic voting cannot be explained," he said in a statement. "There is just a trivial probability of evidence like this appearing in a population where the true difference is zero -- less than once in a thousand chances."
Van Houten's group, which monitored polling places on Nov. 2, found that at least 40 of 798 machines they monitored were unable to print out a final tally tape at the end of the night. In Florida, poll workers are supposed to print out two tallies from each machine -- one for county officials and another for posting at the polls so that voters can see what the tallies were.
11/15 '04 Dubya - the movie - funny
There's only one man who could play him... Don Knotts.
11/8 '04 Democrat Reps want voting investigation - politics
In their letter, representatives John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, Jerrold Nadler of New York and Robert Wexler of Florida asked the GAO to "immediately undertake an investigation of the efficacy of voting machines and new technologies used in the 2004 election, how election officials responded to difficulties they encountered and what we can do in the future to improve our election systems and administration."
11/7 '04 just what is an electoral mandate? - politics
As in other autocracies, Chinese political theorists faced a conflict between a theoretical structure that demanded absolute obedience to the Emperor and the empirical fact that emperors were regularly overthrown. The solution was found in the notion of the ‘Mandate of Heaven’. The idea was that the requirement of obedience was conditional on the Emperor's possession of the mandate of heaven. Once this was lost, rebellion was justified.
11/6 '04 US is moving toward a one-party state - politics
Blocking floor ammendments, excluding democrats from conference committees, and various rule changes were preventing democrats from participating in a meaningful way during the previous term.
This will be entirely different during the next term, as the democrats have lost even more control, and may even lose relevance.
11/5 '04 voting problems everywhere - politics
There are currently 18991 incidents recorded in EIRS regarding Election Day 2004. Guess who some of the worst offenders were? Yup, the states that had adopted e-voting, or to name some in particular: Florida and Ohio.
11/5 '04 e-voting machines need paper ballots - politics
JACKSONVILLE, North Carolina -- More than 4,500 votes have been lost in one North Carolina county because officials believed a computer that stored ballots electronically could hold more data than it did. Scattered other problems may change results in races around the state.
Local officials said UniLect, the maker of the county's electronic voting system, told them that each storage unit could handle 10,500 votes, but the limit was actually 3,005 votes.
11/5 '04 Further voting irregularities in Ohio - politics
COLUMBUS, Ohio - A computer error with a voting machine cartridge gavePresident Bush 3,893 extra votes in a Gahanna precinct.
Franklin County's unofficial results gave Bush 4,258 votes to Democraticchallenger John Kerry's 260 votes in Precinct 1B. Records show only 638voters cast ballots in that precinct.
11/4 '04 We need to count all of the ballots! - politics
Bush won Ohio by 136,483 votes. Typically in the United States, about 3 percent of votes cast are voided—known as “spoilage” in election jargon—because the ballots cast are inconclusive. Palast’s investigation suggests that if Ohio’s discarded ballots were counted, Kerry would have won the state. Today, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports there are a total of 247,672 votes not counted in Ohio, if you add the 92,672 discarded votes plus the 155,000 provisional ballots...
Most voters in Ohio thought they were voting for Kerry. CNN's exit poll showed Kerry beating Bush among Ohio women by 53 percent to 47 percent. Kerry also defeated Bush among Ohio's male voters 51 percent to 49 percent. Unless a third gender voted in Ohio, Kerry took the state.
So what's going on here? Answer: the exit polls are accurate. Pollsters ask, "Who did you vote for?" Unfortunately, they don't ask the crucial, question, "Was your vote counted?" The voters don't know.
I used to write a column for the Guardian papers in London. Several friends have asked me if I will again leave the country. In light of the failure—a second time—to count all the votes, that won't be necessary. My country has left me.
11/4 '04 Provisional ballots gave fleeting hope - politics
For 12 hours or so Wednesday, the outcome of the presidential election appeared to depend on thousands of uncounted provisional ballots scattered around Ohio - and the state seemed poised to endure its own version of the Florida election crisis. But after considering the cruel math that trickled out of Ohio's elections offices, Democrat John Kerry decided not to wage an uphill battle to close a 136,000-vote gap, and he conceded defeat to President Bush - though Kerry still insisted that Ohio's 155,000 provisional ballots be counted...
Blackwell said local election officials could begin reviewing their provisional ballots today. After verifying the voters' registrations, election boards must, by law, wait until Nov. 13 to count these ballots along with the other outstanding votes - those cast by military personnel and Americans overseas and mailed back to the U.S.
11/4 '04 Why Americans Hate Democrats - politics
The election results reflect the decision of the right wing to cultivate and exploit ignorance in the citizenry... Ignorance and bloodlust have a long tradition in the United States, especially in the red states.
The reason the Democrats have lost five of the last seven presidential elections is simple: A generation ago, the big capitalists, who have no morals, as we know, decided to make use of the religious right in their class war against the middle class and against the regulations that were protecting those whom they considered to be their rightful prey—workers and consumers. The architects of this strategy knew perfectly well that they were exploiting, among other unsavory qualities, a long American habit of virulent racism, but they did it anyway, and we see the outcome now—Cheney is the capitalist arm and Bush is the religious arm. They know no boundaries or rules. They are predatory and resentful, amoral, avaricious, and arrogant. Lots of Americans like and admire them because lots of Americans, even those who don't share those same qualities, don't know which end is up. Can the Democrats appeal to such voters? Do they want to? The Republicans have sold their souls for power. Must everyone?
11/4 '04 where democrats go from here - politics
Do not go gentle into that good night...
Do not forget that virtually HALF THE COUNTRY and the bulk of *your* constituents did not vote for the current administration or its policies of ruinous manifest destiny and fiscal recklessness...
And for god's sake, would one of you get off his lazy *ss and refuse to sit down until an independent counsel is appointed to give this whole Iraq war thing a proper inquiry and prosecution? Seriously, folks, you've rolled over like lovesick puppies at the sight of a big, fatherly hand lately and it's making me wonder if you've forgotten the heinous reaming our party took five years ago over a few bl*wjobs.
11/3 '04 This was not a real election - politics
Many votes were submitted into "black box" electronic voting machines - which have no way of being recounted. Many of these machines suffered tremendous problems.
The human error specifically was precinct officials getting nervous or overwhelmed by the number of people voting, and then failing to properly follow protocol to count the ballots in the machine, he said.
That led to some races showing votes of negative 25 million, Munroe said.
"The numbers were nonsensical so we knew there were problems," he said.
11/3 '04 Black Box Voting FOIAs e-voting logs - politics
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON Nov 3 2004 -- Did the voting machines trump exit polls? There’s a way to find out.
Black Box Voting (.ORG) is conducting the largest Freedom of Information action in history. At 8:30 p.m. Election Night, Black Box Voting blanketed the U.S. with the first in a series of public records requests, to obtain internal computer logs and other documents from 3,000 individual counties and townships. Networks called the election before anyone bothered to perform even the most rudimentary audit.
America: We have permission to say No to unaudited voting. It is our right.
11/3 '04 Can we trust the election results? - politics
Voters from at least half a dozen states reported that touch-screen voting machines had incorrectly recorded their choices, including for president.
Voters discovered the problems when checking the review screen at the end of the voting process. They found, to their surprise, that the machines indicated that they voted for one candidate when they had voted for another. When voters tried to correct the problem, the machine often made the same error several times. While in most cases the situation was reportedly resolved, many voters remain uneasy about whether the proper vote was ultimately cast. Meanwhile, voting experts are concerned that other voters are experiencing the problem, but failing to notice that the machine is indicating the wrong choice on the "summary" screen...
Of course there won't be a long-drawn out recount process here, because the e-voting machines are broken and aren't trustworthy. With such narrow margins that we're seeing, this democracy can't survive even a slim amount of vote tampering.
We must demand to see the source code for these machines.
See also: Watchdogs Spot E-Vote Glitches
11/1 '04 bin Laden is waging an economic war - politics
"Every dollar of al Qaeda defeated a million dollars, by the permission of Allah, besides the loss of a huge number of jobs," he said. "As for the economic deficit, it has reached record astronomical numbers estimated to total more than a trillion dollars.
Wow... and George W Bush has been playing into his hands. Turning our surplus into the largest deficit ever, losing jobs all over, and losing American lives, or livelihoods to a needless war.
A vote for Bush is a vote for Bin Laden.
11/1 '04 "Just the one-fingered victory salute" - politics
George W. Bush gives us the finger... literally.
10/29 '04 Lassie! Call 911! - WTF?!
Faith, a 4-year-old Rottweiler, phoned 911 when Beasley fell out of her wheelchair and barked urgently into the receiver until a dispatcher sent help. Then the service dog unlocked the front door for the police officer.
"I sensed there was a problem on the other end of the 911 call," said dispatcher Jenny Buchanan. "The dog was too persistent in barking directly into the phone receiver. I knew she was trying to tell me something."
10/29 '04 Voting problems in Florida for 2004 - politics
"I believe that what is occurring in Florida is purposeful," says Rep. Robert Wexler, a Democrat whose district includes Palm Beach and Broward counties, areas hardest hit by the 2000 fiasco. Hood's maneuvers in the state are not a matter of mere ineptitude, Wexler says. "This isn't one incompetent error -- it's five or six. It's impossible to believe that Jeb Bush is that incompetent. This is a purposeful strategy."
10/28 '04 Bush still lying about Iraq - politics
Not only were the missing explosives at the Al Qaqaa base before, during, and after the war... A "5 EYEWITNESS NEWS" team shot video after the war with US soldiers inspecting the facility.
Update: More info here
10/27 '04 WTF is caging? This is not democratic! - politics
This is a record of emails sent improperly to the @georgewbush.org domain instead of the .com domain - two emails came across with an excel attachment named "Caging", and had many voter's addresses listed in Jacksonville, FLA.
If you can't win without cheating, is it really worth winning? I hope these people go to jail for a long time.
10/27 '04 Already, Florida's election is sketchy - politics
A secret document obtained from inside Bush campaign headquarters in Florida suggests a plan - possibly in violation of US law - to disrupt voting in the state's African-American voting districts, a BBC Newsnight investigation reveals.
10/27 '04 Triumph takes on Star Wars nerds - funny
OK, and so you're dressed up as... a huge nerd? And your mission is to eat a lot of peanut M&Ms?
10/26 '04 this is as much about Rehnquist as Bush - politics
What binds Bush and Rehnquist so closely is not anything that should properly be called conservative but an aggressive commitment to dismantling the federal government's enforcement of civil rights and civil liberties while expanding the state's power to police and punish.
10/26 '04 John Peel passes away - sad
This is very sad news. For many of the artists that I listen to, I've always considered the "peel sessions" to be my favorite of their lineup.
10/24 '04 100 Facts and 1 Opinion - politics
The Non-Arguable Case Against the Bush Administration
Nothing new here... just some of the greatest hits.
7. Vice President Cheney said that Iraq was "the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault for many years, but most especially on 9/11." The bipartisan 9/11 Commission found that Iraq had no involvement in the 9/11 attacks and no collaborative operational relationship with Al Qaeda.
15. The Bush Administration underfunded Nunn-Lugar--the program intended to keep the former Soviet Union's nuclear legacy out of the hands of terrorists and rogue states--by $45.5 million.
21. Despite repeated calls for reinforcements, there are fewer experienced CIA agents assigned to the unit dealing with Osama bin Laden now than there were before 9/11.
24. The Bush Administration granted the 9/11 Commission $3 million to investigate the September 11 attacks and $50 million to the commission that investigated the Columbia space shuttle crash.
32. The Bush Administration relentlessly pushed an energy bill containing $23.5 billion in corporate tax breaks, much of which would have benefited major campaign contributors.
35. The Bush Administration let disgraced Enron CEO Ken Lay--a close friend of President Bush--help write its energy policy.
37. Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge awarded lucrative contracts to several companies in which he is an investor, including Microsoft, GE, Sprint, Pfizer and Oracle.
49. In 2000, candidate George W. Bush promised to protect the Social Security surplus. As President, he spent all of it.
54. The Bush Administration's Secretary of Education, Rod Paige, called the National Education Association--a union of teachers--a "terrorist organization."
62. At the behest of the french fry industry, the Bush Administration USDA changed their definition of fresh vegetables to include frozen french fries.
76. The Bush Administration created a massive tax loophole for SUVs--allowing, for example, the write-off of the entire cost of a new Hummer.
91. President Bush said we had found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, before he admitted we hadn't found them.
10/22 '04 Election Incident Reporting System - politics
No voter should face disenfranchisement at the polls. This powerful new tool will make possible rapid response to problems on Election Day to help meet our goal that every legitimate vote gets cast and counted properly.
10/27 '04 Hunter S. Thompson takes on the election - politics
Your neighbor's grandchildren will be fighting this stupid, greed-crazed Bush-family "war" against the whole Islamic world for the rest of their lives, if John Kerry is not elected to be the new President of the United States in November.
The question this year is not whether President Bush is acting more and more like the head of a fascist government but if the American people want it that way. That is what this election is all about.
10/22 '04 Bush supporters in an alternate universe - politics
Steven Kull adds, "Another reason that Bush supporters may hold to these beliefs is that they have not accepted the idea that it does not matter whether Iraq had WMD or supported al Qaeda. Here too they are in agreement with Kerry supporters." Asked whether the US should have gone to war with Iraq if US intelligence had concluded that Iraq was not making WMD or providing support to al Qaeda, 58% of Bush supporters said the US should not have, and 61% assume that in this case the President would not have. Kull continues, "To support the president and to accept that he took the US to war based on mistaken assumptions likely creates substantial cognitive dissonance, and leads Bush supporters to suppress awareness of unsettling information about prewar Iraq."
Bush supporters also have numerous misperceptions about Bush's international policy positions. Majorities incorrectly assume that Bush supports multilateral approaches to various international issues--the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (69%), the treaty banning land mines (72%)--and for addressing the problem of global warming: 51% incorrectly assume he favors US participation in the Kyoto treaty. After he denounced the International Criminal Court in the debates, the perception that he favored it dropped from 66%, but still 53% continue to believe that he favors it. An overwhelming 74% incorrectly assumes that he favors including labor and environmental standards in trade agreements. In all these cases, majorities of Bush supporters favor the positions they impute to Bush. Kerry supporters are much more accurate in their perceptions of his positions on these issues.
"The roots of the Bush supporters' resistance to information," according to Steven Kull, "very likely lie in the traumatic experience of 9/11 and equally in the near pitch-perfect leadership that President Bush showed in its immediate wake. This appears to have created a powerful bond between Bush and his supporters--and an idealized image of the President that makes it difficult for his supporters to imagine that he could have made incorrect judgments before the war, that world public opinion could be critical of his policies or that the President could hold foreign policy positions that are at odds with his supporters."
10/20 '04 Dude! You're gettin' a draft! - politics
Jenna & Barbara Bush Welcome You to
SPRING BREAK FALLUJAH 2005!
OK, THEN WHAT FACTS DO YOU HAVE THAT A DRAFT IS COMING?
1. Independent military experts say the draft is coming.
2. The Bush administration has already begun to implement a draft for young Americans with special skills.
3. Earlier this year the Selective Service secretly asked for the authority to increase the draft age to 34 AND include women. Why ask for that authority if no draft is being planned?
4 .The Selective Service also has a plan for drafting health care workers up to the age of 44.
5. The Bush administration is secretly bringing back local draft boards
"Post Traumatic Stress Disorder excuses a lot of crazy-ass batshit behavior." ...Join the Army, it's just like Nintendo, only you die.
10/20 '04 The Truth about Kerry - funny
Find out what the "Americans United Against Charlie" have to say about this year's presidential candidates... and why you shouldn't vote for a man who believes George W. Bush.
10/20 '04 No Stolen Elections! - politics
"I remember the stolen presidential election of 2000 and I am willing to take action in 2004 if the election is stolen again. I support efforts to protect the right to vote leading up to and on Election Day, November 2nd. If that right is systematically violated, I pledge to join nationwide protests starting on November 3rd, either in my community, in the states where the fraud occurred, or in Washington DC."
10/19 '04 idebate - politics
Was Bush wired during the first debate? Who knows? If he was, then why did he suck so badly? Has he been wired during his entire administration, or just always relying upon the tele-prompters?
10/15 '04 Bush lies to the American people - politics
...this is more than just a flip-flop. This is an outright lie.
March 13, 2002: "So I don't know where he [Osama Bin Laden] is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him...I truly am not that concerned about him."
October 13, 2004: "Gosh, I don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden. That's kind of one of those exaggerations."
Don't believe me? Just take a look at a video of these two quotes...
10/13 '04 Oprah smacks Bush, for women's rights - politics
"There was Oprah, doing what she does so freakishly well, cheerleading and extolling and impressing upon, getting women up and getting them angry and demanding that they exercise their hard-won right to vote and demanding that they quit dissing their feminist ancestors, the ones who worked so damn hard for suffrage and for freedom of choice and for the right to tell powerful sexist Republican men where they can shove their repressive sexist antichoice bigotry.
This was her fabulous, much-needed message: Take your rights for granted at your peril, ladies. Move, or else. Choose how you want the laws to treat and respect you and your body -- or someone else, someone who hasn't touched a vagina for 30 years and who thinks sex is only tolerable in the dark, fully clothed and with a respectable prostitute, will choose for you."
10/13 '04 Want to win? silence and disenfranchise! - politics
Employees of a private voter registration company say they saw evidence of fraud. It could mean that hundreds of people in Las Vegas who think they are registered, may not be. They may have moved on to Oregon, and beyond.
10/13 '04 Bush wasn't the first to lose - politics
Franklin Pierce was the first president (1852) to win the electoral votes necessary to take office, and yet still lose the popular vote. At least, the first where the popular vote was recorded. There have been 4 presidents who didn't win the electoral vote:
1852 Franklin Pierce (42.5% to 47.3%)
1876 Rutherford B. Hayes (48% to 51%)
1888 Benjamin Harrison (47.8% to 48.6%)
2000 George W. Bush (47.9% to 48.4%)
None of the previous presidents went on to win a second term. In fact, in 1892 Grover Cleveland again beat our Benjamin Harrison in the popular vote, and this time collected the necessary electoral votes.
10/12 '04 Possibly too much like a truck... - WTF?!
Like that's a problem.
"So you get all the attributes of a commercial truck – but you don’t need a commercial driver’s license to drive it."
How far will it go? Who's next to come to the SUV market... Peterbilt, Mack, Caterpillar?
10/12 '04 Bush can't admit mistakes - politics
This is what makes him the wrong president. The correct president is someone who is introspective, contemplative, and will think about their actions - not only before, but after they're made. A good president is one who is constantly moving to make things better, and not leave behind wasted opportunities from poor decisions.
10/10 '04 Straight talk from White House West - funny
Will Ferrell delivers an important message.
"I'm George W. Bush, and I approve this message. In fact, I think it is awesome.
Hey there, how ya doin, America? As you well know, ever since I took office... well, things have been really, really bad. CUT Well, that seemed like a good one. No, you said bad instead of good. Oh."
10/9 '04 illuminating presidential debates - politics
Yeah... I got published
His arrogance has alienated our allies, made our citizens suspects, and decimated any trust or global respect the United States had before his administration.
10/6 '04 If Bush wins, women lose - politics
It's nearly inevitable that new supreme court justices will be named by the winner of the presidential election in November. If this happens to be George Bush, Roe vs. Wade will likely be overturned. According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, nearly 70 million women will lose the right to choose to have an abortion across the country within the first year.
10/6 '04 Graduate from the electoral college - politics
"An initiative on the Nov. 2 ballot would amend Colorado's Constitution, effective immediately, to scrap the winner-take-all allocation of electoral votes that 48 states now use. Instead, Colorado's nine electoral votes would be divided to reflect each candidate's share of the popular vote (rounded off to the closest electoral vote)."
When more states like Colorado join states like Maine and Nebraska by awarding proportional votes, then we'll see the power return to the people. We'll also see a chance to get third parties involved in the discussion, which would be enormously beneficial to our current system.
Update: George H points out this Denver Post article.
10/5 '04 2004 popup poll watcher - politics
Rather cool flash utility showing each state's representation in the electoral college. Color-coded for current polling results. The neat thing is this allows you to play "what-if" games. By the way, there is a way that neither could win... if both get 269.
10/4 '04 Is Michigan the next Florida? - WTF?!
Was this absentee ballot arrow mis-alignment done intentionally? I can't believe something like this doesn't get proofread. Even if the mishap went the other way, this would be blatant voter disenfranchisement, and a disgrace to our democracy.
Update 10/04/04:The Secrectary of State wrote back with this resonse.
9/30 '04 Michael Moore speaks to Ann Arbor - politics
Moore also made sure to address the issue of Kerry’s “flip-flopping”. Moore proclaimed that Kerry should answer that he was simply supporting the President. Moore suggests Kerry answer the attacks with, “I believed in you. I supported you, and you let us down.”
9/28 '04 Trunk Monkey - funny
The most handy invention since the wheel, no car driver can be without their very own trunk monkey...
check out the videos
9/25 '04 Our democracy is in real trouble - e-voting
Even a chimp can hack a Diebold voting system... is this how we want to preserve our future? Thank goodness we have blackboxvoting.org
9/24 '04 cybergames to replace locked-out NHL - wack shit
Disappointed hockey fans can still watch the puck drop in more than 50 million U.S. and Canadian homes when the defending Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning face off against the Philadelphia Flyers in the season opener of the video game NHL season on G4techTV.
"Millions of die-hard hockey fans on both sides of the border are upset," comments Charles Hirschhorn, "Commissioner" of G4techTV. "Until the lock out ends, G4techTV will be there."
9/23 '04 say goodbye to holistic synergies - finally!
Commerce One's ship sinks.
9/23 '04 Diebold GEMS tabulator security hole - e-voting
By entering a 2-digit code in a hidden location, a second set of votes is created. This set of votes can be changed, so that it no longer matches the correct votes. The voting system will then read the totals from the bogus vote set. It takes only seconds to change the votes, and to date not a single location in the U.S. has implemented security measures to fully mitigate the risks.
Why don't people want to look? Suppose you are formally informed that the gas tank tends to explode on the car you are telling people to use. If you KNOW about it, but do nothing, you are liable.
LET US HOLD DIEBOLD, AND OUR PUBLIC OFFICIALS, ACCOUNTABLE.
1) Let there be no one who can say "I didn't know."
2) Let there be no election jurisdiction using GEMS that fails to implement all of the proper corrective procedures, this fall, to mitigate risk.
9/22 '04 pongmechanik! - 37337 h4x0rz
A great german project to build a pong game out ofa (pre-chip, pre-transistor, pre-tube) relay based computer. Also includes a rather informative documentary with english subtitles.
9/21 '04 Kerry's high school garage band CD - interesting
The Electras reissue CD... they're not bad.
9/13 '04 Vote for Bush or Die - politics
Great summary of how the Republican's have adopted the faulty strategy of using fear to control the American voting populace into backing their candidates, and how politics has woven itself into the war on terrorism. Announcements of threat levels increasing, or capture of high-level targets have been timed to offset the media attention of their political rivals.
The Republicans have weakened the war on terror, and have not made our country safer.
9/13 '04 Bush flip-flops on assault weapons - politics
"It makes no sense for assault weapons to be around in our society." George W Bush, August 12, 1999.
He said he'd keep us secure, but now he's flip-flopping. Tell President Bush to ban assault weapons today.
9/10 '04 the world's shortest blog - politics
Just One Question...
"How many times have you been arrested, Mr. President?" *
* $1362.72 Bounty to the first person to ask George W. Bush this question in a public forum.
9/10 '04 If Bush was running against Jesus... - funny
Jesus of Nazareth says, "Judge not, lest you be judged"...
Jesus is soft on crime.
9/8 '04 Election Night Drink Specials - politics
Get a discount on your beer for showing up with that "I voted" sticker.
9/8 '04 George W. Bush: AWOL in Alabama - politics
Let's move the discussion beyond what John Kerry did or didn't do in Vietnam. The fact is, he went. George W. Bush didn't - and at least one Texas Air National Guardsman is ready to talk about how he doesn't remember ever seeing George report for duty.
9/1 '04 Kaiju Big Battel - funny
Danger can happen.
More at: Wired News
9/1 '04 Just in time for Halloween! - funny
Get your very own, genuine Child Pimp & Ho Costumes here.
8/28 '04 Ben Barnes on Bush and National Guard - politics
"I became more ashamed of myself than I've ever been because it was the worst thing I did - help a lot of wealthy supporters and a lot of people who had family names of importance get in the National Guard. I'm very sorry of that and I'm very ashamed of it and I apologize to the voters of Texas for that."
8/27 '04 It takes courage to attack a wounded vet - politics
First of all, thank you for pointing out to all of us that Mr. Kerry was never struck by a BULLET. It was only SHRAPNEL that entered his body! I did not know that! Hell, what's the big deal about a bunch of large, sharp, metal shards ripping open your flesh? That happens to all of us! In my opinion, if you want a purple heart, you'd better be hit with a bullet -- with your name on it!
--Michael Moore
8/20 '04 hold on, I'm hacking into your computer - funny
Learn what happens when you download too much porn, and the upright citizen's brigade finds out.
8/19 '04 Terrorism is about fear and control - politics
"In the war on terrorism, the one damn thing that we as average Americans can do is to refuse to be terrified."
8/18 '04 Bear passes on Busch binges on microbrew - funny
A black bear was found passed out at a campground in Washington state recently after guzzling down three dozen cans of a local beer, a campground worker said on Wednesday.
He tried a mass-market Busch beer, but switched to Rainier Beer, a local ale, and stuck with it for his drinking binge.
8/17 '04 POISONING CONSUMERS WITH TEFLON - wack shit
Not only does the use of non-stick pans increase the instances of anemia in society (less iron from cast-iron pans), but it also can cause cancer... and here's the kicker: DuPont has known about it for 2 decades.
The original article can be found on the New York Times.
8/17 '04 Mistakes Were Made - funny
One of the girls pressured us all into trying Ecstasy. BIG MISTAKE. After 30 minutes, I started to get incredibly horny. We all did.
...
Find out what the Partnership for a Drug Free America is really promoting... ;)
8/17 '04 a new 12-sided die - funny
Bored of playing D&D? Use this die to help choose what to do next.
8/17 '04 George W. Bush: terrorist #1 - funny
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."- George W. Bush, August 5th, 2004
8/10 '04 Bikes against Bush - 37337 h4x0rz
Using a Wireless Internet-enabled bicycle outfitted with a custom-designed printing device, the Bikes Against Bush bicycle can print spray-chalk text messages sent from web users directly onto the streets of Manhattan.
More at Wired
8/10 '04 International Observers for Election 04 - politics
For the first time in United States history, a team of international observers will monitor the presidential election, the U.S. State Department has announced.
This year, 13 Democratic members of the House of Representatives appealed to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in July to send observers for the November election, citing the election violations they say took place in Florida and other states during the 2000 election.
7/27 '04 Moore invites Bush to Crawford screening - politics
Filmmaker Michael Moore is bringing his blockbuster documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" to President Bush's adopted hometown -- and has invited the film's star to attend.
7/20 '04 jib jab's "this land" - funny
Are you a left-wing weiner, or a right-wing nut-job?
7/19 '04 MC battle on the senate floor - funny
As a quick-thinking senatorial aide switched on the Senate’s public-address system and cued up the infamous “Seven Minutes of Funk” break, Mr. Leahy and Mr. Cheney went head-to-head in what can only be described as a “take no prisoners” freestyle rap battle.
7/13 '04 CSS Zen Garden - +1, Insightful
To begin, view some of the existing designs in the list. Clicking on any one will load the style sheet into this very page. The code remains the same, the only thing that has changed is the external .css file. Yes, really.
7/12 '04 lawsuits against Diebold - e-voting
Critics of electronic voting are suing Diebold Inc. under a whistle-blower law, alleging that the company's shoddy balloting equipment exposed California elections to hackers and software bugs.
7/12 '04 Golf across Mongolia - it's your duty
Have you ever golfed across a country? http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/04/international/asia/04MONG.html
7/9 '04 facetop videoconferencing - 37337 h4x0rz
"Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have designed a new system that cleverly blends a video-conference feed with a transparent image of a computer desktop into one full-screen window."
This looks like it has a really promising future for videoconferencing. Kudos to Apple for developing and releasing such killer software.
7/7 '04 Game Boy tunes - 37337 h4x0rz
The new music revolution is using obsolete tech to drive new pathways into electronica. One can purchase game boy cartridges to sequence their own tracks:
Little Sound DJ
Nanoloop
7/6 '04 WN:links now through RSS - finally!
Let me know if you have any problems.
7/5 '04 Krugman likes F911 - politics
He claims that Michael Moore has done our nation a great community service. Even Dale Earnhardt Jr. took his Nascar crew to see it.
It's becoming far more clear to the ordinary average joe who isn't being told by the mainstream press that Bush is strongly favoring the rich and screwing the poor.
7/5 '04 and knowing is half the battle - funny
Another take on the GI Joe Public Service Announcements... some are wack, others - just plain funny.
7/3 '04 Powell stays at the YMCA - funny
Colin Powell shows off his disco-dancing moves by singing the Village People's YMCA.
7/2 '04 US govt says MS IE is insecure - finally!
The Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team touched off a storm this week when it recommended for security reasons using browsers other than Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer.
6/29 '04 L0TR: F3ll0wsh1p of teh R1ng - funny
Uruk Hai [arrow] Boromir
Uruk Hai [arrow] Boromir
Uruk Hai [arrow] Boromir
Boromir: "****ing campers"
**Aragorn comes across the battle
Aragorn: "Boromir joo noob! ***!"
Uruk Hai: "Hah, pwn!"
Aragorn [broadsword] Uruk Hai
Aragorn: "I bring joo teh pwn!"
**Aragorn goes to Boromir
Boromir: "Damn lag!"
Warning: Connection problems detected
Boromir has disconnected
Aragorn: "FFS!"
6/25 '04 text-based stereogram - 37337 h4x0rz
Ilkka Kalliomaki's ascii text-based approach at the classical stereogram.
6/23 '04 really cool office space - +1, Insightful
If / when I start my own business, it will be designed like this.
6/17 '04 Pope fears Bush is antichrist - politics
"Madsen, a Washington-based writer and columnist, who often writes for Counterpunch, says that people close to the pope claim that amid these concerns, the pontiff wishes he was younger and in better health to confront the possibility that Bush may represent the person prophesized in Revelations."
Madsen contends that "Bush is a dangerous right-wing ideologue who couples his political fanaticism with a neo-Christian blood cult."
6/15 '04 Cali sets e-voting standards - e-voting
"California is making sure that voters will be able to verify that their votes are being counted correctly. I call upon (federal election officials) to follow my lead and establish nationwide testing and qualification standards for (paper-trail verified) systems as soon as possible."
-- California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley
6/16 '04 When the Right Wine Is a Beer - interesting
Think the right wine to go with that meal is a rouge... guess again. It's a Belgian Witbier!
6/15 '04 Florida is troubled by voting - e-voting
Touchscreen voting machines in 11 counties have a software flaw that could make manual recounts impossible in November's presidential election, state officials said.
6/15 '04 Women Vote for Paper Trail - politics
rescinded its support of paperless voting machines on Monday after hundreds of angry members voiced concern that paper ballots were the only way to safeguard elections from fraud, hackers or computer malfunctions.
6/14 '04 ReDefeat Bush - politics
A blog tracking the failures and lies of the Bush administration.
6/8 '04 Oval Office Space - funny
BUSH: Heeeey Clarke. Whaaaat’s happening.
CLARKE: Uh, hi, Mr. President.
BUSH: We need to talk about your WMD reports. Yeeeeah…we’re really trying to punch up our Iraq intelligence. Did you get a copy of that memo?
Yeah - just what you thought it was... and it's well done too.
6/8 '04 Fahrenheit 911 is coming - finally!
Finally, we get to see the trailer.
6/7 '04 Lessig goes bankrupt on email - interesting
"Dear person who sent me a yet-unanswered e-mail, I apologize, but I am declaring e-mail bankruptcy."
Damn... sometimes I wish I could do the same thing.
6/2 '04 protect our votes - politics
Move On is urging voters to contact the president, and their representatives to demand that voting machines produce human-readable paper receipts so that a recount can be possible.
6/2 '04 strategery - politics
A dangerous plan is better than no plan.
6/1 '04 NYT calls for open voting - politics
The New York Times weighs in with an editorial piece reccomending that the government switch from closed software, to open source for their touch-screen voting machines. There have been some good steps in this campaign to bring down the secrecy and fix the flaws in these voting machines - is this enough to get a free and fair election come November? Will the USA continue to be a democracy?
5/24 '04 create your own IM avatar - 37337 h4x0rz
nifty flash app that allows you to stylize your own avatar.
5/24 '04 Sense and Sensationalism - politics
"...I can't help thinking that the 2004 election is going to be a referendum on whether the Constitution and an overall principle of human rights and equality are understood by a viable majority of US citizens, or not. And what am I going to do if the answer is 'not?'"
5/24 '04 Bush game - WTF?!
Join the Hulk, Mr. T, and fat-ass He-Man as they take on the Bush cronies and try to free Voltron from their evil clutches. This is combination of really funny flash animation, a video game, and some really well thought-out political complaints about the current administration.
It also requires a strong stomach at times...
5/21 '04 some notes on who wrote linux - wack shit
"The history of UNIX and its various children and grandchildren has been in the news recently as a result of a book from the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution. Since I was involved in part of this history, I feel I have an obligation to set the record straight and correct some extremely serious errors. But first some background information."
--Andrew S. Tanenbaum
5/17 '04 Couple told to try sex - WTF?!
A German couple who went to a fertility clinic after eight years of marriage have found out why they are still childless - they weren't having sex.
"We are not talking retarded people here, but a couple who were brought up in a religious environment who were simply unaware, after eight years of marriage, of the physical requirements necessary to procreate."
What were they thinking? That the stork was supposed to bring it to them? This is the type of thing that evolution was created to prevent.
0/0 '00 This War on Terrorism is Bogus - politics
The 9/11 attacks gave the US an ideal pretext to use force to secure its global domination...
- Michael Meacher, MP.
(was environment minister from May 1997 to June 2003)
5/10 '04 Reagan pleas for stem cells - politics
From what I hear, most Republicans worship the Reagans. With this public plea to "win one for the gipper"... this could have some sway over the issue.
5/6 '04 average IQ and politics - politics
The dumber your state is, the more likely it is to vote Republican... and the more frightening thing to add are the misperceptions of various issues relating to Iraq, such as the presence of WMDs, ties to al Qaeda, and Iraq's ties to 9/11.
"What's more striking is that of those who hold factual misperceptions of one or more of these issues, a vast majority support Bush."
5/5 '04 they knew about the abuse - politics
The Bush administration knew about the torture and abuse occurring in Iraqi prisons by US soldiers several months before the story broke in the press.
5/5 '04 kids - don't try this at home - funny
well, don't try it at school either. The stupid tricks middle school kids play on each other...
5/2 '04 liquid armor - 37337 h4x0rz
New research has led to discovery of a fluid that is flexible enough to move around in, but rigidifies in a microsecond, enough to stop an archer's arrow, or a stabbing ice pick or knife.
5/1 '04 not good enough - politics
(old news, but still relevant)
I guess that you can't give up 3 of your limbs while serving in Vietnam, then become a senator and still be patriotic... no, in fact that means that you're as evil as Osama Bin Laden. That's the kind of "with us or against us" accusation that Max Cleland had to face.
4/29 '04 Shrek's 60 pounds of fleece - WTF?!
How did he eat in that thing?
4/26 '04 Diebold may face charges - politics
"A California voting systems panel voted unanimously Thursday to recommend that the secretary of state decertify an electronic touch-screen voting machine manufactured by the company...
The panel also voted to send the findings of its recent Diebold investigation to the state's attorney general for possible criminal and civil charges against the firm for violating state election laws."
4/23 '04 the tide turns, Diebold booted - politics
California has decertified a model of Diebold voting machines, and claims elections violations. This is a good sign that the states are starting to take the issues surrounding electronic voting seriously.
4/21 '04 dude, where's my weapons? - politics
Funny Bush parody shirt.
4/20 '04 wired hockey benches - 37337 h4x0rz
The San Jose sharks are using a Tablet PC with DVR capabilities to deliver instant replay to the bench. Also:
"The team burns DVDs of players' shifts on the ice and hands them out to individuals. The Sharks regularly watch the DVDs on their laptops while traveling from game to game."
4/15 '04 hacking old technology - 37337 h4x0rz
This dude turned his Smith-Corona typewriter into a keyboard for his wife's computer... what a labor of love.
Which reminds me of the portable Atari project: VCSP, where all you need is an Atari 2600 and a portable TV to make your own portable video game system... this guy should market these.
4/15 '04 hacking old technology - 37337 h4x0rz
This dude turned his Smith-Corona typewriter into a keyboard for his wife's computer... what a labor of love.
Which reminds me of the portable Atari project: VCSP, where all you need is an Atari 2600 and a portable TV to make your own portable video game system... this guy should market these.
4/14 '04 final 4 incidents - wack shit
Please narc on your friends who chose to be absolute idiots, flipped over cars and passed out drunk right after setting shit on fire... we'll give you cash money!
4/14 '04 regime change starts at home - politics
MoveOn is sponsoring a nationwide bakesale for democracy! Join in at local bakesales...
Regime Change Fundraiser
Arbor Brewing, 116 E. Washington, Ann Arbor, MI
MoveOn.Org has created a series of effective, dynamic television ads to educate voters about George W. Bush’s failed policies. The Washington Post says the MoveOn.org ads are helping John Kerry “go toe to toe with the President” in key media markets in battleground states.1 In fact, Republicans are trying desperately -- so far, without success -- to keep these ads off the air. We think the truth about Bush’s record should be on the air, as much as possible. And getting advertisements on TV costs money. So please join us at Arbor Brewing on May 15th at 6 pm! Suggested donation: $50. Pizza, light refreshments, and cash bar. All proceeds to MoveOn.Org Voter Fund.
Just east of Main Street at Washington, in downtown Ann Arbor.
Saturday, May 15, 06:00 PM
4/8 '04 changing democracy - politics
...one vote at a time.
These Diebold parody ads strike to the heart of what's going on. Perhaps through humor, this nation's citizens will learn what's happening.
4/5 '04 we know all about you - 37337 h4x0rz
"When the 40,000 subscribers to Reason, the monthly libertarian magazine, receive a copy of the June issue, they will see on the cover a satellite photo of a neighborhood - their own neighborhood. And their house will be graphically circled."
This is a rather dramatic illustration to draw attention to privacy rights, and big-brother database integration.
4/5 '04 Santorum lube and fecal matter - politics
This all relates to a sex-column article I read last summer in the MetroTimes about how Dan Savage has coined a new phrase redefining the word Santorum.
3/31 '04 Wired News expose on e-voting - politics
This is the issue of the year - will we get a fair election in November? Will the voice of the people count, or will we lose control of our democracy to the corporations? This is scary mostly because ordinary people don't know about this mess. We should be out in the streets yelling and screaming just to get attention. We need paper receipts on voting machines so that recounts are possible.
3/23 '04 you're fired! - politics
Bush ratchets the culture wars one step further by changing rules allowing gay people to be removed from their federal job for simply being gay... particularly after claiming that gay people "ought to have the same rights" as all other people. This redefines "shock & awe" for me.
Too bad he wasn't found to be gay, then his hypocrisy would be complete, particularly after marketing products on his own website that were made in Burma - after banning trade with that nation for their record.
3/17 '04 bailing out a sinking ship - politics
The Bush administration is going down... everyone knows it. The best the officers can do is to bail out their sinking ship by piling lies on top of lies, and changing the topic when confronted with facts...
Move-On is hosting a video clip showing Rummy arguing about whether an "imminent threat" claim was made before the Iraq war.
3/12 '04 the first real exoskeleton - 37337 h4x0rz
Wired News has an article about BLEEX, and though it currently looks clunky, it looks like it's got a bright future (picture the "walkers" in Aliens):
Also see the
Wired News article.
3/11 '04 Aliens Vs. Predator - finally!
It looks like this match made in heaven is becoming a reality... can't wait until the fun starts!
3/10 '04 I'll betcha million dollars! - WTF?!
Sad, sad story about how some woman was arrested in Georgia who tried to pay for stuff at Walmart with a million dollar bill. When it was refused, she offered two gift cards that had $2.32 value. When that was refused, she tried the cool million again.
3/9 '04 Just for the taste of it! - WTF?!
A young, rather unfortunate baby girl was named Diot Coke in Yorkshire way back in 1379...
3/7 '04 for james bond wannabes - 37337 h4x0rz
cool geek gadget digital camera hidden in a lighter body. Allows one to take pictures, video, audio and time-elapse photos... only $99! License to kill not required. :)
2/27 '04 the life of mario (and luigi) - 37337 h4x0rz
Really crafty 8-bit animation.
part 2
part 3
2/27 '04 Geeks! Help MoveOn organize - politics
Do you have the rare combination of political skills and technical chops to be a Geek Organizer? Take our test and find out!
2/25 '04 Dingell strikes Bush mislead - politics
John Dingell strikes back at the Bush Administration for trying to hide all the lost jobs by re-classifying fast-food jobs as manufacturing...
I am sure the 163,000 factory workers who have lost their jobs in Michigan will find it
heartening to know that a world of opportunity awaits them in high growth manufacturing careers
like spatula operator, napkin restocking, and lunch tray removal. I do have some questions of this new policy and I hope you will help me provide answers for my constituents:
- Will federal student loans and Trade Adjustment Assistance grants be applied to tuition costs at Burger College?
- Will the administration commit to allowing the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) to fund cutting edge burger research such as new nugget ingredients or keeping the hot and cold sides of burgers separate until consumption?
- Will special sauce now be counted as a durable good?
- Do you want fries with that?
2/24 '04 Just what you need! - 37337 h4x0rz
When you absolutely, positively need to spy on your neighbors... in the next county. The RC Predator sports GPS and a high-rez digital still & video camera, and can effectively travel up to 20 miles!
2/24 '04 save democracy! - politics
It's time to take a stand on voting technologies and methodologies. Now, while we have the time to make a change.
Nevada Secretary of State Dean Heller expects that elections officials nationwide will be watching closely, with some of them hoping that the printers fail. "I clearly believe that there are certain people within the election process who don't want that scrutiny on how elections are run," Heller said. "Why elections directors so fight this process is just incredible to me."
Let's pass H.R.2239/S.1980. Look them up here:
http://thomas.loc.gov/ and contact your representative / senator.
2/20 '04 show me your papers please - politics
Damn... what kind of country do we live in? Thankfully, we have the supreme court, the final defensive line against cracks and punks who want to mess with democracy by violating the constitution.
2/19 '04 fist of rummy - funny
"You may have defeated my Southern Hook Palm technique, but can you defeat the 1000 styles of Rumsfeld?"
2/19 '04 help Michigan 'stay cool' - it's your duty
This survey is part of Granholm's "cool cities initiative".
2/18 '04 O'Reilly eats words on Bush - politics
"I was wrong. I am not pleased about it at all and I think all Americans should be concerned about this," O'Reilly said in an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America."
O'Reilly said he was "much more skeptical about the Bush administration now" since former weapons inspector David Kay said he did not think Saddam had any weapons of mass destruction.
Instead, he chose to blame CIA director Tenet with the intelligence failure... yeah right. The CIA had been telling the white house for ages that the uranium and other claims were false.
2/16 '04 what's your material made of? - interesting
Interesting commentary on the structure of various materials... beyond this nothing more is visible, for the moment.
2/16 '04 dumb and don't know it - interesting
Abstract
People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it. Across 4 studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although their test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd. Several analyses linked this miscalibration to deficits in metacognitive skill, or the capacity to distinguish accuracy from error. Paradoxically, improving the skills of participants, and thus increasing their metacognitive competence, helped them recognize the limitations of their abilities.
2/16 '04 My DJ - funny
I've got a personal DJ to provide a dope soundtrack to my life... what? don't you have a DJ?
2/12 '04 Quiz: Bush or Palpatine? - politics
See how many of these quotes you can properly attribute to the hawkish leader of a troubled "democracy".
2/12 '04 pond hockey championships - interesting
A pond and a puck is all you need. The frozen winterscape is where the heart and soul of hockey exist, and not in some super-star packed heated arena... (although those games can be fun to watch as well). Here's to more amateur promotion, just for the fun of it events that don't put hockey teams into bankruptcy...
2/11 '04 who's more presidential? - politics
Dean's little "scream" was an overinflated fiasco by those who were jealous that he had so many excited supporters in an exuberant pep rally... Interesting to compare with the current puppet that's plaguing this nation, and his supposed "kicking the liquor" in 1986... that's not what this '92 wedding video shows.
Now who do think is less presidential?
2/10 '04 Where's my Detroit? - wack shit
Will the real Black Sinatra stand up? It looks like they doctored up the D to make it more inviting for the super-bowl bid. The interesting part is the actual pdf that they offer with the real & faked images.
2/10 '04 censure bush - politics
He knew.
He knew there was no connection to 9/11. He knew the claims of WMD were weak, and the evidence thin. He knew that the yellowcake uranium was a fraud. He lied to the American people at one of the most formal events, in one of the worst possible ways.
2/6 '04 2 heads are better than one? - WTF?!
Baby born with (almost) 2 heads prepares for surgery... Wow, imagine if she had twice the brainpower - she could be the first of a mutant race of super-intelligent beings.
2/5 '04 Bush's "fuzzy math" - politics
I hope the rest of the nation is paying attention to the drivel that this guy is spitting out. This should all too easily be used as campaign fodder for whoever remains standing against Bush.
2/5 '04 read & modify jpeg exif header - 37337 h4x0rz
This is a very cool utility that allows one to read all of the camera settings used to shoot your digitial photograph. This also allows you to change many of them - most notably, the time & date stamp, which can be really annoying - particularly when you forget to set the clock on your camera before taking a whole bunch of pictures.
2/5 '04 CDs make bad gifts for kids - +1, Insightful
Who are you really promoting when you purchase a studio-produced CD?
2/3 '04 Don't be an asshole... - politics
Vote Democratic in 2004, and tell Bush where to shove it. "Bush in 41.2 seconds"
2/3 '04 kaba kick! - WTF?!
What are we teaching our children? Didn't anyone see "The Deer Hunter"?
2/2 '04 janet's superbowl breast - WTF?!
Well, I guess nobody can confuse her with Michael anymore...
1/29 '04 dead whale explodes in city - wack shit
Behold, the amazing power of nature and negligence. This rivals the stinkymeat experiment, and just about disgusting enough to make anyone a vegetarian.
1/29 '04 Accountants aren't boring - funny
This evidence totally contradicts all the negative stereotypes that we've heard about accountants.
1/27 '04 Bush admits to misleading - politics
This administration is just plain evil.
Less than a year after declaring there was "no doubt the Iraqi regime continues to possess the most lethal weapons ever devised,"President Bush and the White House began to openly "back away from its WMD assertions today." The New York Times reported, "White House officials are no longer asserting that stockpiles of banned weapons would eventually be found" after their weapons inspector, David Kay said he "doesn't think [WMD] existed" after the 1991 Gulf War.
In response, the Administration is beginning to blame the intelligence community for the WMD fiasco, and planning an internal "review of prewar intelligence." Administration ally Kay concurred, arguing "I think the intelligence community owes the president [an apology] rather than the president owing the American people."
Earlier reporting found that senior Administration officials deliberately "bypassed the government's customary procedures for vetting intelligence," and the White House set up a separate intelligence apparatus, the "Office of Special Plans," to "cherry-pick intelligence that supported its pre-existing position and ignoring all the rest." For example, the president's well-known declaration in last year's State of the Union, asserting that Iraq "sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa," remained despite CIA demands to remove such allegations from his speech.
1/8 '04 Matrix parody... the helix - funny
OK, many dorky parts here, but overall it looks like it could be funny, in the tradition of Spaceballs-style idiotic parodies of major blockbusters, that is.
1/7 '04 spam & viruses linked to mob? - 37337 h4x0rz
"If you hava a profitable, illegal business sooner or later you will pay taxes to the Mafia," said Kaspersky.
More info available here: http://www.accountancyage.com/News/1135797
1/4 '04 Detroit is the fattest - interesting
Houston no longer claims the girth title, and falls in stature behind Detroit.
12/31 '03 You Terrorists! - politics
Better watch what you read, suddenly the old Farmer's Almanac turns you into a traitor. Why do you hate America so much?
...a person with an almanac "may point to possible terrorist planning."
12/23 '03 digital camera comparison - finally!
Go beyond reading the specifications, and actually compare example images from one camera to another, side by side.
12/22 '03 the Kurds caught Saddam first - politics
This wasn't a stroke of military intelligence brilliance, it was a hand-over of Saddam from the Kurds for political gain. How far will Bush lie?
"Ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was captured by Kurdish forces, then drugged and handed over to the American forces as a revenge against the rape of a tribal chief’s daughter by the tyrant’s psychopathic eldest son Uday, a media report said today."
12/21 '03 What is Presidential? - politics
"Bring 'em on". How does the rhetoric of "W" compare with other memorable presidents?
12/19 '03 bush in 30 seconds - politics
It's time to join together, to pool our thoughts and dollars to bring about regime change in our own nation. Help vote for the best videos to air against Bush during the week of his "State of the Union".
12/18 '03 bush's war on democracy - politics
This liar has passed far beyond dirty politics, misleading and lies. The Bush administration has declared war on the American people and their democracy by removing information from the official record that they simply disagree with.
12/12 '03 1st ammendment for 7 yr olds - politics
A second-grader is punished by his school for telling a classmate that his mom is gay. He was disciplined for explaining what the word gay means, his teacher wrote:
"He told the other child that gay is when a girl likes a girl. This kind of discussion is not acceptable in my room. I feel that parents should explain things of this nature to their children in their own way."
What a shock, what a horror! We can't have little kids telling other little kids such things!
12/12 '03 video camera replaces joystick - 37337 h4x0rz
Ever wanted to star in your video games? Apple's isight can be used as an input device to control actions in the toysight video games.
12/11 '03 Star Wars Gangsta Rap - funny
An oldie but goodie. Atom Films bought the rights to this one, so you have to sit through a short ad first.
"It's not the east or the west-side. It's not the north or the south-side, this is the dark side... we got death star, we get death star".
12/11 '03 towers are the players - funny
Gollem is a bad-ass, because he's got the the bling-bling.
12/11 '03 Nevada chooses voting receipts - politics
“A paper trail is an intrinsic component of voter confidence,” -- Nevada Secretary of State Dean Heller
While the printers add to the cost of the voting systems, Heller said “money takes a back seat to accuracy, security and voter confidence.” The printers let voters see their ballot choices before finalizing their votes.
The decision to go with Sequoia machines was based in part on a report saying the Diebold machine that was analyzed “represented a legitimate threat to the integrity of the election process.”
12/10 '03 a tapestry of lies - politics
I'm beginning to think that the Republicans really have a malicious streak... they're trying really, really hard to be evil:
"Kyoto and its policies are inconsistent with freedom, prosperity and environmental policy progress," said Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), who chairs the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. "I'm becoming more and more convinced, as time goes by and we look at the research, that global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people and the world," Inhofe said at a briefing.
12/9 '03 the adventures of Action Item - funny
For anyone who tries to hand you an action item, hand them this in return:
"Check your scope document commissioner! I don't see that on my list of deliverables for this milestone! But we should take that discussion offline..."
12/5 '03 let me eat you... OK - WTF?!
Man asks other man if he can eat him. Second man agrees, and they together fry up and eat one of his body parts. Later, the cannibal finishes him off and eats 2/3rds of his "meal".
12/7 '03 I'm ashamed to be an american - WTF?!
Patricia VanLester had her eye on a $29 DVD player, but when the siren blared at 6 a.m. Friday announcing the start to the post-Thanksgiving sale, the 41-year-old was knocked to the ground by the frenzy of shoppers behind her.
Paramedics called to the store found VanLester unconscious on top of a DVD player, surrounded by shoppers seemingly oblivious to her, said Mark O'Keefe, a spokesman for EVAC Ambulance.
This just in:
This woman has a long history of making such claims.
12/4 '03 backing down from trade wars - politics
Bush decides that what he did was wrong, and wants to stop pissing off the world community just in time for his "election" campaign.
12/4 '03 miserable failure - politics
Guess who's become the latest target of link-targeting?
12/2 '03 making the world a worse place - politics
Yup, that's right - the Catholic church wants to be excused from giving condoms and the pill to their employees as part of a prescription drug coverage - even though it's a California state law.
11/23 '03 Calif. requires vote printouts - politics
California Takes Lead in Protecting Democratic Voting
Electronic Frontier Foundation Media Release
Sacramento, CA - Responding to a raft of reports detailing flaws in electronic voting systems, California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley today announced that he is requiring all electronic voting systems purchased by California counties to provide a paper printout to allow voters to verify their votes and auditors to verify election results.
11/20 '03 turkey soda? - WTF?!
Just what will they think of next? Even if I did eat meat, this would be just plain gross.
11/19 '03 mac fishbowl gen. 2 - 37337 h4x0rz
this one is pretty... though it's sad that a G4 had to die for this one.
11/13 '03 The Trojan Games... - WTF?!
To take a page out of the "all-drug" Olympics, what if they were to expand the sport to encompass other sports, or competitions?
11/12 '03 Britons awed by beer pouring - wack shit
In an online British poll of most significant technological achivements, 40% favored a widget that helps make a can of ale frothy - as if it just came out of a tap. This beat out other inventions like the internet, cellphones, etc.
"we can't imagine anything worse than sitting down in front of the telly and pouring a pint with no ‘head'!"
11/11 '03 It's a phallic purse... - WTF?!
...for your beer. Of course the chicks are going to flock around you.
11/10 '03 fight for secure elections - politics
The EFF is taking a stand against "black-box" voting software that might be used in upcoming national elections. Imagine a scenario worse than "hanging chads"... more like "missing bytes", and who would know for the wiser? These machines are controlled by large companies run by people with strong political motives.
11/10 '03 worst album covers ever - WTF?!
Some of these are vintage... who in their right mind would ever think that these pieces of "art" are "cool", and worth listening to the "sounds" imprinted on the vinyl contained within?
11/8 '03 we like the moon! - funny
...but not as much as we like cheese.
Silly little ditty by some nutty singing hamsters.
11/4 '03 Tomacco - It's alive! - wack shit
It's too bad these Frankenstein foods didn't come across my table earlier.
This Wired News article talks about some dude who actually grew a
tomacco plant (inspired by the Simpsons).
At the end of the article,
they mention Simpsons-inspired foodstuff, Skittlebrau.
11/4 '03 you're in the meatrix - +1, Insightful
Yeah, large agro-business has you in the Meatrix. Learn what is happening to the world of commercial animal raising, and why we need to support small farmers, free-range and organic farms.
11/3 '03 wifi on a chip! - finally!
This is very cool, making it far easier to integrate internet services into PDAs, cell phones and many other handheld devices. This could easily usher in the wave of ubiquitous internet, and should allow much cooler robot inventions.
10/31 '03 The clone wars begin - wack shit
Gross, the FDA says that cloned-meat is safe to eat.
10/27 '03 Il faut que tu respire - interesting
Cool french music video about getting out and enjoying life. Rather ironic that they spent so much time working on this indoors on a computer.
10/24 '03 don't overengineer things - interesting
"Sometimes being too cautious keeps you from trying, and therefore things are built more complex than necessary." - Contrary to myth, you really can use a cheap ballpoint pen in space. It works by surface tension, and not gravity.
10/20 '03 where there's smoke... - 37337 h4x0rz
Yeah, you don't want that kind of fire... not at a nuclear power plant. It's a damn good thing that the Davis-Besse plant was taken offline, since they really didn't have their act together, and allowed their windows machines to be infected by a worm...
The corroded cap, and the Windows infection topped off with being the top suspect for causing the August 14th blackout - not good.
10/20 '03 proprietary languages suck - +1, Insightful
Why spend thousands of dollars only to be edged into a corner next year to spend thousands more?
Use the source, Luke.
10/3 '03 the brain is a wonderful thing - interesting
Found on blogs everywhere...
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
10/3 '03 IE bug & Half Life 2 theft - 37337 h4x0rz
It looks like Valve software got h4x0r3d by somebody who exploited an XSS bug in IE, and a buffer overflow in Outlook. Naughty, naughty. Teaches you to be so dependent on a monopolistic company that could care less about security.
10/2 '03 intimigate - politics
Don't you wish the president was simply lying about his sex life? Don't you wish the president simply argued with his detractors? Don't you wish we felt comfortable to question authority? Don't you wish that we were told the truth? It's more than 16 little words, it's a contempt for this nation, and Mr. Bush is anything but a patriot.
10/1 '03 yippee kai-yay - wack shit
Bruce Willis wants Saddam... for a cool million.
10/1 '03 the new diet food? - interesting
Beer: it doesn't make you fat, and women may actually stay trim by drinking beer.
9/25 '03 Recall Bush - politics
Dear Rep. Issa,
Congratulations on achieving your goal of putting the recall on the ballot! You have once again proved that, with enough determination, willpower, and cold hard cash, anything is possible. Kudos to you sir.
During the early days of the recall effort, you blamed Gray Davis for California’s $38 billion deficit, and compared him to a CEO that needed to be ousted from a failing company. President Bush, meanwhile, has created a $455 billion deficit. Your dedication to a balanced budget, and your willingness to hold those who violate this principle publicly accountable, makes you a natural ally in our drive to help recall George W. Bush from office.
9/25 '03 Stuff for evil villains - funny
"A Secret Lair isn't so secret with a couple of hundred ex-construction workers wandering the globe, blabbing to bar patrons about the secret shark trap you built into your underwater grotto. That's why it's vital to mind Helpful Tip #12:
ALWAYS KILL OFF YOUR CONSTRUCTION CREW ONCE YOUR LAIR IS COMPLETE!
9/18 '03 The Angle Grinder Man - funny
A modern-day super-hero. We could definitely use more good samaritans who fight back against injustice while wearing spandex suits...
9/14 '03 backyard roller-coaster - 37337 h4x0rz
Build your own roller-coaster... no tickets, no lines... who says you can't DIY?
9/10 '03 16 cylinder, 1000hp cadillac - WTF?!
What... are they trying to build a batmobile? They need to paint on some flames.
9/3 '03 awful if true - politics
Are the N. Koreans starving so badly that they're resorting to the ultimate sacrifice? Here's another page which implies that strong-arm communist governments have used starvation as a tool throughout history, and that cannabalism has been seen in many places.
Can these stories be validated? Dunno. Can they be proven wrong, or will they ever be reported on by a reliable media source? Who knows.
8/29 '03 Want to be an evil villain? - funny
Don't have much cash to take over the world? At least now there's this guide how to do it in style.
8/28 '03 Yasutoko brothers' fan-club - WTF?!
you are hella lucky foo u was right there by takeshi yasutoko omg dats hella
crazy nigga i would of licked him cuz ima marry him someday anywayz i jus wanted
to tell u how lucky u was so holla back
booshie
8/21 '03 backup files to DV tape - 37337 h4x0rz
Now I know where to archive my files... I've been waiting for this one.
8/19 '03 elevator madness - wack shit
gruesome elevator malfunction
8/18 '03 Mr. Fusion is on it's way! - interesting
Garbage... it's the fuel of the future!
"Doc goes through the trash can, picking out some rubbish.
Marty: Wait a minute, what are you doing, Doc?
Doc: I need fuel. Go ahead, quick, get in the car."
8/15 '03 how good is your shredder? - interesting
New software allows for scanning itty-bitty pieces that once were part of shredded documents in order to mostly reconstruct it. This also talks about reconstructing former E. German documents.
8/14 '03 robots for defense - 37337 h4x0rz
These things look pretty cool... particularly the wall climber. How long until we have fully automated robot fighters patrolling the perimeter?
8/13 '03 cross-country road race - interesting
This sounds like an ultimate robot challenge... On the other hand, it would be great if this was sponsored by NASA instead of the group that thought of the death-casino.
8/13 '03 model plane inter-atlantic - interesting
We have entered the age of the drone... now where's my flying car?
8/11 '03 move your body - funny
yes, music videos can be made with 8-bit video
8/8 '03 31337 H4X00R ROOLZ! - 37337 h4x0rz
that is all.
8/8 '03 watchu talkin' bout Willis? - politics
Which Arnold do you think the people will vote for?
8/8 '03 what is this world coming to? - politics
I guess this means little kids around the world will spend their time smashing the Shrub to bits.
8/8 '03 driven photographer - 37337 h4x0rz
did you ever have a fantasy, and then devote your heart and soul into fleshing out that fantasy? This guy built a portable pin-hole camera out of a utility truck.
8/5 '03 Co-housing in Ann Arbor - +1, Insightful
The Washington Post did a good job describing the details of this project.
8/5 '03 Animation studios vs. M$ - finally!
Disney and two other animation studios have worked together to use Wine (the Windows compatibility layer for linux) for porting Adobe Photoshop to linux... hell yeah, though this has got to be a blow to the Gimp project.
8/4 '03 Keep your password safe - interesting
This illustrates more than a few reasons why it's a good idea not to share your password, change it often, and choose one that's secure.
8/1 '03 the heavens are falling - interesting
what's next? fire and brimstone? too bad this didn't fall in a certain spot...
7/31 '03 man flies across Channel - 37337 h4x0rz
I want a pair of these... perhaps with a little rocket attached to the back.
7/31 '03 pope says gays aren't people - politics
"It is a tremendous shame that the leaders of our Church are becoming the vocal proponents for intolerance and continuing discrimination."
Wasn't it Jesus who is attributed to the quote: "Love thy brother as thy soul, guard him as the apple of thine eye."
And in an outrageous ploy, they add: "Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such unions would actually mean doing violence to these children..."
7/31 '03 dash computer in a stereo slot - 37337 h4x0rz
Hmm, perhaps I can use this as my new webserver.
7/29 '03 all-gay high school - interesting
That's got to be an interesting experience. I bet the republicans will go to town with this one.
7/27 '03 we need a gooder president - politics
"if you let people have their own money, they will demand a gooder service", and, "when somebody produces that gooder service, somebody is more likely to find jobs". - Dubya
7/23 '03 colo on the moon? - WTF?!
"September 11 caused people to think about what data backup really means, and there is also always the threat of a natural disaster here on earth, such as a small asteroid hitting the planet."
Yeah, sure - if there's anyone interested in restoring your data after such a catastrophic event. I think this is just a way to escape the RIAA/MPAA and other such ludicrous IP laws. Who's going to defend your servers on the moon?
7/22 '03 What is patroitism? - politics
Patriotism is believing that we live in a great country, and fighting to preserve that. Here is one such instance of that fight:
"Apparently, deliberate lies wrapped in the flag and delivered by the president in a transparent attempt to sway public opinion in favor of going to war with Iraq are not quite as serious as, say, lying about having an extramarital affair with a White House intern.
The president lied, and as a result we are engaged in a guerilla war with no apparent exit strategy.
The president abused the trust of the American people and abused the power of his office.
It is a big deal. A year from now, Americans can speak loudly about this issue with their ballots. We can ensure that there is a peaceful and bloodless regime change by denying President Bush and his cabal of neo-hawks another term in office."
7/16 '03 Hairy palms or prostate cancer - interesting
"The more you flush the ducts out, the less there is to hang around and damage the cells that line them," Graham Giles, of the Cancer Council Victoria in Melbourne, told New Scientist magazine on Wednesday.
7/16 '03 AOL kills netscape - interesting
Funny commentary through caricatures of what really happened.
7/21 '03 Bush lies - politics
We all know this one's false:
"The larger point is and the fundamental question is: Did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program?" Bush told reporters, with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan sitting beside him. "And the answer is: Absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in. And therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power. . . ."
What's going on here? Can someone explain this to me? Perhaps this may be insightful:
Is lying about the reason for a war an impeachable offense?
Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be "a high crime" under the Constitution's impeachment clause. It would also be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony "to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose."
7/12 '03 Don't be a sharecropper - +1, Insightful
Do you own the land on which you farm? Or are you just another cog in someone else's field?
7/10 '03 More Bush administration lies - politics
"I'm not reading this. This is bullshit," - Colin Powell upon being presented with embellished CIA intelligence reports, which he was to read in front of the U.N.
Also, inside the Bush administration "there is a lot of sorrow and anger at the way intelligence was misused".
7/9 '03 Real-world Rip Van Winkle - interesting
This dude has something with friday the 13ths - Man wakes from 19 year coma... wow, what a world to wake up to. He's probably still looking forward to seeing Lionel Richie perform at the summer Olympics...
7/8 '03 they spelled it wrong again! - funny
...and it's green this time?
6/27 '03 I can see you naked - interesting
Backscatter technology may someday make airline security look like the naked mile.
6/23 '03 Mickey D's drops the drugs - interesting
McDonalds calls for phase-out of growth promoting antibiotics in meat supply, establishes global policy on antibiotic use
Now that's a step in the right direction... or at least it should spark the debate and educate the public. You've got to feel sorry for the Determan's: Without the drugs, "they could die. The worst thing would be the suffering."
6/22 '03 Wanted: new webmaster - interesting
If you steal the thunder from Steve's Keynote, you end up feeling the thunder all yourself...
6/18 '03 22% of Americans are morons - politics
a third of Americans mistakenly believe that WMDs were found in Iraq, and about 22 percent think Iraq actually used WMDs during the war...
there's more - 30% say the Bible is the "actual word of God" to be taken literally, 56% think in war, the media should support the government over questioning it, 5% would be "more likely" to buy food labeled as genetically modified and there's much more.
6/19 '03 fold your own paper toy robots - 37337 h4x0rz
These things are cool, too bad I can't read Japanese, or have a laser-jet metal printer... there are also Star Wars vehicles available.
6/16 '03 you should drink more Powerade - funny
harsh review of the Matrix Reloaded... reads like Mad Magazine, if their target audience wasn't pre-pubescent boys. Also check out the Return of the Jedi review
6/13 '03 Bush 0, Segway 1 - funny
the photos are enough... I wonder if he had it turned on
6/13 '03 more than meets the eye - finally!
The Transformers may come back to the silver screen - but as live action
6/12 '03 eat a duck abortion - wack shit
perhaps I'm not worldy enough, but this just seems gross
6/11 '03 shuttle columbia tribute - WTF?!
I guess everyone has their own way of expressing things
6/9 '03 Gollum wins MTV award - funny
pretty funny acceptance speech
6/4 '03 Iraq war was about oil - politics
Wolfowitz claims that the real motive for war was that Iraq is "swimming" in oil... "for reasons that have a lot to do with the US government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on: weapons of mass destruction."
6/2 '03 Do you really know yourself? - funny
TiVo's profiling reveals your true personality
5/30 '03 honey, you make me so horny - interesting
ancient drink studied for aphrodisiac qualities
5/27 '03 Fuel cells hit the streets - finally!
UPS teams up with Chrysler to push for a cleaner SE Michigan
5/14 '03 Trinity cracks ssh server - 37337 h4x0rz
Looks like they got things right for a change
3/11 '03 die spammers! - finally!
Bush does something right for once - signs bill to create do-no-call for telemarketers
3/8 '03 Iraq nuke link was forged - politics
hmm, maybe we should rush and make another poor decision, just like the election
3/8 '03 Dept. of Homeland Security - politics
Is this who we really want protecting our nation? Have you got your tattoo yet?
3/8 '03 Switch to Linux - funny
Linux gives you the power to be an evil villain with genetically altered cyber-goats
2/11 '03 greenspan smacks down bush - politics
see also: h4x0r economist
1/2 '03 Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis - funny
Asses of vengance rocking the superpositronic metaraygun
2/11 '03 summer activity tan lines - funny
a little too close to home
1/28 '03 state of the union - politics
"Your enemy is not surrounding your country -- your enemy is ruling your country." -GW Bush
2/1 '03 eric emotes - funny
Best use of a webcam to document humanity
1/21 '03 Bush Tax Cut On SUVs - politics
How many contributors can we please at once?
1/29 '03 terry tate, office linebacker - funny
unbelievably funny commercial that aired during the superbowl. As if the onion was doing ads for TV
1/23 '03 A State of the Union - politics
Wow, this is one politician who's being honest
1/13 '03 Laden VS. USA - WTF?!
This is real, this is not the Onion
1/13 '03 Don't go to Oregon - onion wannabe
...they might not let you ride the bus, stinky.
1/13 '03 Michigan's Money Quest - interesting
does someone owe some you loot?
1/15 '03 Let The Inspections Work - politics
I thought Americans were supposed to be the good guys
1/15 '03 Frodo has failed - politics
this should be self-explanatory for those who are familiar with LOTR
1/20 '03 japander.com - funny
Western stars making an ass of themselves in Japanese TV commercials
10/28 '02 labor predictions for 2000 - funny
old matchbook prediction of the future of the computing industry
7/1 '02 kung fu chimp - WTF?!
A real chimp trained in martial arts