Month: November 2006

Because .NET Framework 3.0 which includes the product I work on: CardSpace (formerly known as InfoCard) was shipped, the whole CSD team is getting 3 extra days off this Thanksgiving, giving us a 9 day weekend. It was announced somewhat late + my favorite vacation is where I get to wake up at 3pm in the afternoon and not go to sleep till 7am in the morning.

Friday was also basically part of a weekend since in the afternoon, we went to watch Casino Royale (review to come soon) as a morale event and that evening, we had our ship party at The Triple Door, which basically consisted of open bar and 80’s music. Met up with a bunch of people from my team and we spent a lot of time just chatting, doing trivia cards, and connecting pogs to form structures to balance alien finger-puppets on them. I had this awesome chair which was like 10 ft tall. There was karaoke, but most of the people weren’t that great. One even hurt my ears. Did you know the word karaoke means “empty orchestra” in Japanese. I knew it was a Japanese word, but didn’t know what it stood for. 空(kara – empty) オケ(oke – short for orchestra). That reminds me… I haven’t done a Japanese phrase in a really long time. Well, that’s the one for now and maybe I’ll do more when I remember.

I actually drank 2 drinks, both asking the bar tender what he’d recommend that was good tasting. The first lady suggested a martini with pomegranate juice. That one was okay, didn’t taste too bad. The second bartender suggested this thing called lemon meringue (I think that’s what he said because the image of a pie came to mind) and that one tasted pretty bad. I stopped after a couple sips. Wild Ginger was catering for us, so there was a bunch little Asian boxes of food (the old ones that were trapezoidal used for left overs and sometimes had a metal bar on the top). The food was okay, wasn’t especially good. Then there was little deserts that were pretty good. Most of us left around 11ish.

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Random Crap:

Millions of dominoes fall (from Digg) – Millions of dominoes knocked down for a new world record. The World Domino Toppling record attempt has become something of a tradition. The first time it was tried, in 1988, competitors toppled 1,382,101 dominoes, and established a new World Record. Pretty neat. Too bad they didn’t show the whole thing.

The World’s Most High Tech Urinal (from Digg) – In an effort to handle its nighttime public urination problem, Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, is considering installing urinals that disappear below street level during the day. Unlike the automated, self-cleaning toilets planned for Toronto and Vancouver, which are enclosed booths with doors that that automatically open after a set time period, the Urilift system is a two-meter high stainless steel cylinder with three alcoves, each with a urinal, and no doors.

pixelnotes (from Digg) – A wallpaper consisting of four layers of varying grey tones on a bright primary backing. Each layer is perforated in a grid format and backed with a tacky adhesive similar to ‘post-it’ notes. Pixelnotes is inspired by the way we work within a space. The walls become functional, an integrated noticeboard that documents our activity within the room. Pixelated formations and shapes develop according to our patterns of use. Pretty neat!

Gears of War – Fortunately, Gears of War lives up to most of these things, but the actual act of playing was much different than what I expected. … EA called this game overrated. When EA releases a game half this good, they can talk

Peruvians fret over erotic theme park – Article wasn’t that interesting, though the caption of the image states: Now the occasional visitor is surprised to find in the central plaza a 65-foot (20-meter)-high purple-colored replica of the maca root, a tuber traditionally consumed as an aphrodisiac, and, nearby, a sculptured phallus rising from a vagina-shaped wading pool. The thought of a *blip* coming out of a *woohoo* just seems scary/freaky/weird.

Adam Carolla Harasses PS3 ‘Nerds’ (from Digg) –

“If somebody wants to leave the line for what may be a defunct game a year from now anyway… I’ll give them an all expenses paid trip to the Bunny Ranch… a free visit, a free meal, free plane trip, free place to stay, and a free lady or ladies of their choice,” said Jeremy.

“Anyone who has been in that line for more than a few days is someone who hasn’t been laid in as many years,” Carolla told Jay. “How ‘bout you get out of that line, you give up your space and your new Xbox or whatever the hell you’re vying for and we get ya laid out at the Bunny Ranch?”

Jay’s response? “Never gonna happen,” he told Carolla and Jeremy. “It’s the PS3. Ain’t gonna happen.”

Carolla went on to ask another gamer, a man named Carlos, who also declined. When the bit was said and done, no one waiting at the Best Buy took the host up on the morally questionable offer.

Is the chance, however slim it may be, at a new PS3 more enticing than free illicit sex and partying with a prostitute? For some gamers, apparently, yes.

Wii Broke It (from Digg) – It is with a heavy heart that we bring you this special weekend report. When PopSci’s Wii arrived last week, it didn’t spend too much time in the box. Ripped open without any hesitation, our little Wii gave us a long Friday’s worth of furious Wii Sports and Excite Truck action at PopSci HQ. But then, it was time for it to go off to a photo shoot, where its fate would be sealed. Popular Science takes apart the Wii and shows us the inner magic. Do remember to check out the gallery as the article was pretty short.

Underground Video Of Tyranny In China (from Digg) – It just pains me to see China like this, yet similar things happen in America today, just not as extreme. You’ve probably heard about cities taking land from home owners and basically giving it away practically for free to companies like WalMart and Costco. The ability to do this is through a policy known as eminent domain which allows the government to take land away from owners for the bettering of the general public. Of course a fair compensation is required (unlike what they’re doing in China), but it becomes rather gray when they take land to build Costcos and WalMarts in my opinion. The reasoning they say is the amount of tax revenue generated from these companies will allow the city to do much more. If they don’t take the offer, they’ll just select another nearby city which will give them land and the tax revenues will go to that city instead of ours. Sigh… And just a week after the ban on China’s Wikipedia was lifted, it appears the ban was reinstated: Wikipedia blocked again in China (from /.) Sigh…

Scientist regrow chicken wing (from Digg) – Chop off a salamander’s leg and a brand new one will sprout in no time. But most animals have lost the ability to replace missing limbs. Now, a research team at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies has been able to regenerate a wing in a chick embryo — a species not known to be able to regrow limbs — suggesting that the potential for such regeneration exists innately in all vertebrates, including humans. Neat! Now we can grow chicken wings and breasts and drumsticks without growing an actual chicken!

Gloe™ Light-Up Bear – saw this in my Costco newsletter and the bears just seem scary to me:

Line Rider Die at the slopes (from Eddo) – Line rider (beta version) movie staged on the mountains. The song is banquet by Bloc Party. This video shows some awesome things you can do with Line Rider if you have the time and patience and the accuracy. I don’t remember if I posted this game before on this blog, but it’s a flash game: Line Rider (from Cari). It’s fun, but lacking some crucial tools like undo or erase. Here’s some other interesting videos: Linerider Jumps the Shark and Line Rider Sled-Force.

Happy Birthday CrabyAple!

And everyone on my team gets the entire next week off! Yay! A 9 day vacation. 🙂

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Random Crap:

PS3 Line Insanity; Pregnant Woman Tries Not To Give Birth While Waiting (from Digg) – Apparently, one woman who is nine months pregnant, has been trying to ignore her contractions in order to stay in line, while another woman who isn’t even interested in gaming decided to line up just for the hell of it. Sigh… PS3 before baby. I wonder how the kid will turn out since the mom will probably ignore him/her while enjoying the PS3.

Free long distance calls through Google? (from Digg) – Although it’s almost certainly against the terms and conditions, the new feature could theoretically allow users to make free long distance phone calls to any North American number. Interesting idea, but putting your phone number out there is like posting your email in a public directory. You’re bound to get more phone calls from telemarketers. On the other hand, you have free services like Jajah.

Petit jeu connu (from Digg) – I’ve seen the baby picture a bunch of times already, but someone decided to photo shop it and does a pretty decent job. We have Hulk Hogan, KISS, Michael Moore, and a bunch of other hilarious ones.

Windows Vista testers get free copy of RTM (from Digg) – If you’re a Vista tester, Windows Vista Business (by default, Ultimate if you ask for it) is yours – check your email account associated with your Connect profile. If you qualify (if, that is) then you’ll get a free copy in form of a unique Connect invitation to a new sub-page with the build on. You must have submitted one bug at least to get a free copy and be on the technical beta. I thought that was pretty neat.

Smash My PlayStation 3 (from Angelus) – We will be one of the first people to get our hands on a PlayStation 3. After we do, we will destroy it in front of all the PS3 fanboys moments after we buy it. This is only a social experiment, for the entertainment of the donors, and visitors of this site. Hahahahaha.

DENTIST HIRES 60 PEOPLE TO GET HIM PS3S (from Digg) – Murray Newlin, a dentist in Columbus, Ohio, wants to buy 15 PS3s this holiday season for his grandchildren, nieces, and nephews. A feat not even Santa Claus himself could accomplish. So he set out to do the impossible by paying 60 different workers to take eight hour shifts waiting in line in at four different Wal-mart stores in the Columbus area. Ouch! Similar to the Japanese business Eiji who paid homeless people ~$200 for each PS3 they obtained for him, but the difference being, he’s planning to KEEP these friggin’ PS3s.

I’m assuming these are legit workers who work for minimum wage (I’m guessing is around $6/hr). He could’ve also hired illegal immigrants for a lot cheaper, but I don’t think there’s too many of those in Ohio. But who knows how much he is paying. Let’s just assume the worse. The entry mentions he paid 60 people for 8 hours shifts each. So that means each PS3 probably has 4 person waiting for it and at $6/hr, that’s $2880. If the launch is at midnight, then they probably started lining up around 4PM on 11/15 since the PS3 launches on 11/17. If stores open around 8am, those people probably started lining up at midnight of 11/16.

Actually even though that $2880 might look like a lot, consider the fact that the retail of the PS3 is around $500 – $600, making 15 PS3s an investment of $7500 to $9000. If he buys in the aftermarket, where prices are ranging between $1500 to $2500, we’re seeing a savings of over $10,620.

However, not everything is happy and cheery for PS3 resellers either. PlayStation 3 fetching mostly ho-hum prices on Japan Net auctions (from Digg) – But some of the 4,000 PlayStation 3 consoles up for auction on Yahoo! Japan Wednesday were downright bargains. Some had game software thrown in with the machine, selling near the retail price of about 60,000 yen (US$510; €400) for the more expensive model with a 60-gigabyte hard drive, and 50,000 yen (US$420; €330) for the cheaper model. Ouch!

Sony taking big hit on each PS3 sold; Xbox 360 in the black – what’s interesting about this article is the fact that the Xbox 360 might not be sold at a loss anymore. Also, if you haven’t noticed, there might be a (BIG) chance that Amazon.com will be selling the Xbox 360 core system for $100 next Thursday. There will only be 1000 units and I believe the selling starts at 11am PST on Thanksgiving. Go to their homepage and vote for the Xbox 360 system.

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Random Crap:

Owner claims kittens have dog-like traits (from Digg) – Brazilian student Cassia Aparecida de Souza, 18, claims her cat’s offspring has been born with dog traits last Friday, three months after mating with a neighbour’s dog in the Brazilian city of Passo Fundo.

(image from Yahoo!)

Ten things not to do with your data (from Digg) – Deaths at the hands of bananas, smelly socks and WD-40 are some of the unusual fates to have befallen innocent hard drives, according to a data recovery company that has released a list of the most remarkable cases of data loss witnessed this year. I original read this article on BBC, but it appears they have pulled the article.

And a university professor appeared not-so-clever when he heard a squeaking noise from the drive of his new desktop and decided to open the case and spray in some WD-40. Although successful in stopping the drive from squeaking, this was largely because he had also stopped the drive from working.

Easy Mental Multiplication Trick (from Digg) – How to transform a multiplication into addition through the drawing of a stool. It works with any numbers if you keep the right partition. You can verify with your calculator! an interesting trick, but I highly doubt it’s faster than straight out multiplication, especially when dealing with large numbers. What essentially the person is doing is straight multiplication. 2×3 = 6 because 2 lines intersect 3 lines 6 times. With the curves the person draws, that’s the addition part, where you’re suppose to add multiple lines together. The diamond shape is used for the shifting where if you recall, the each additional number in the bottom multiplier, an extra space you give it before you add.