Month: February 2007

Posted on

Random Crap

Rapidshare Search Engine (from Angelus) – An interesting tool I didn’t know existed.

Tesco Cans Refunds Policy After 360 Pricing Mishap (from Tera) – A pricing error in January meant that XBox 360 games consoles were advertised in the store for £297.81. When the machines’ bar codes were scanned at the till, customers were asked to pay £299.97 — £2.16 more. Under the policy, Tesco allowed the shoppers to take the consoles for free. Ouch. Great news for crafty British shoppers, but for Tesco, not so much. They’ve now, rather wisely, ditched the offer, replacing it with a deal where “customers will get back double the amount they were overcharged”. Guess that’s what happens when you abuse a good policy.

Chocolate Wii Controller (from Digg) – Wondering what to do with the packaging that your wiimote and nunchuck controller came in? Why not fill them with chocolate! We did. They’re both stuffed with sponge fingers to fill them out a little, otherwise we’d have used a lot more chocolate. Not a bad thing in itself, but we didn’t have that much chocolate. I would’ve thought the hot chocolate would’ve melted the plastic.

There’s a common saying in Cantonese during the new year: 恭喜發財, 利是逗來 (gong hey fat choy, lai see dao lar), which literally translates to wish you good fortune, hand over the red envelope (money pouch). I didn’t know how to write the character for dao, so I was searching online for this phrase. I landed on this page: 舒展超 之 大玩派 (they’re using Chinese Traditional Big 5 encoding if you’re seeing random characters). Anyway, there was this post that I found hilarious:

農曆新年期間，例牌在手機上收到相當多的賀年短訊（SMS）。當中有的頗為「行貨」，求其整兩句「恭喜發財，萬事如意」便算；有的則明顯是對方收到後，再順手轉寄的，否則怎會整篇都是簡體字？

但無論「行貨」也好「借花」也好，心意是一定有的。這種短訊祝福雖然很數碼化，但也一樣可以見字如見其人吧！

說到「如見其人」，不得不提我收到的一個賀年MMS；這MMS與SMS的不同之處，就在個M字，代表Multi-Media（多媒體）也！而拜3G手機所賜，這個M字也可以說是Movie吧！

話說年初一那天，手機「嘟嘟」響起，收到短訊；打開一看，卻是一則多媒體短訊（MMS），由朋友P君寄來的。當中包含了一段短片，須先下載才能觀看，我就不由分說同意下載了。

不消一會，下載完畢，影片播出。只見一個歲零兩歲的細路，一副拜年的裝束，向我邊抱拳邊牙牙學語；背景有一男聲，明顯是其父親P君，在指導（指使）他說：「恭喜發財，利是逗來。」細路就照樣學道：「公器罰財，你屎倒來。」

我看了之後，哭笑不得！忽生一計：既然你用MMS拜年，我就用MMS派Cyber利是！於是用手機自拍一段派利是的短片，回了過去！夠絕！

The overall post talks about a guy receiving Chinese new year greetings over MMS and SMS. One of them included a video clip of a very young kid learning from his father how to say, “Gong Hey Fat Choy. Lai See Dao Lar.” Chinese has a bunch of characters that sound the same and in Cantonese. To complicate that even further, there’s like 6 or 7 tones for each sound, making it even easier to screw up. In Mandarin, there’s only 4 default tones, with a soft 5th tone. So the kid basically says most of the sounds correctly, but in the incorrect tone, making a completely new sentence saying “public machine fines wealth, your poop has arrived.” It’s a common tradition when a kid wishes you good fortune to give them a red envelope (usually filled with some cash). However, since this person used a MMS to greet him, he decided to reply with a cyber red envelope, instead of a real one with cash.

I was telling this story to Cari and she tells me a story in return:

haha my mom’s god son.. he says fat choi like the vegetable.. the black hair like things we eat. so his sister made fun of him and said.. why is he congratulating a vegetable?

How To Give A Great Man To Man Hug (from SueOn) – Pretty funny to tutorial.

clocky (from Digg) – The alarm clock that runs away and hides when you don’t wake up. Clocky gives you one chance to get up. But if you snooze, Clocky will jump off of your nightstand and wheel around your room looking for a place to hide. Clocky is kind of like a misbehaving pet, only he will get up at the right time. Haha! Perfect gift for your kid going to college. They’ll need it.

Photosynth Technology Preview (from Digg) – Welcome to Photosynth, a new technology from Microsoft Live Labs that takes a large collection of photos of a place or an object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed three-dimensional space. Pretty neat and it utilizes Windows Presentation Foundation for the neat UI graphics.

What your Sleeping position says about you (from Digg) – Scientists believe the position in which a person goes to sleep provides an important clue about the kind of person they are. The names they gave to the sleeping positions are rather funny: Foetus, Log, Yearner, Soldier, Freefall, and Starfish. I definitely swap between the Foetus and Soldier positions.

Beer launching fridge (from Digg) – Wow. Now this is an idea that could pick-up: a mini fridge with a catapult on top and an automatic beer launcher. The cool part is that it’s very small and incredibly accurate. Seriously, it’s a gadget that I would buy! I really like the little contraption on how they pull the can out from the fridge.

Stand-in Chinese mistress sought to take wife’s abuse – A Chinese businessman has advertised on the Internet for a stand-in mistress to be beaten up by his wife to vent her anger and to protect his real mistress, Chinese media reported on Monday.

TMNT Arcade ‘Level 1’ gameplay (from MS newsgroup) – I remember spending countless quarters playing this game (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) at the arcades. If this game supports multiplayer (all 4 controllers), it’d be super neat!

Guess what’s in my pants (from Angelus) – Jimmy Kimmel from The Man Show sticks something inside his pant pocket and asks random women on the street to feel it and guess what it is. Rather hilarious. One woman actually starts biting it.

Russian Tunnel Video (from Tera) – This 3150 m long tunnel in Russia is the longest in-city tunnel of Europe. There is a river running over it and water leaks at some points. When the temperature reaches -38 degrees like it did this winter, the road freezes and the result is the attached video taken during a single day with the tunnel camera. And the answer to the most popular question: the name of the song on the video is “Avalon” performed by an artist who goes simply by the name “Juliet”. The album is “The Best of NYC Afterhours – Volume 3”. You’d think they’d put up big red flashing signs warning people to drive slower…

Beatboxing flute inspector gadget remix (from Hjo3) – Beatboxing Flute player Greg Pattillo inspector gadget with a twist like nothing you’ve heard (unless you’ve been wandering through washington square park and heard him there) The 2nd song he’s playing is actually Axel F (from Axel Foley) and isn’t really related to Inspector Gadget.

The Really Big Guide To Secret Menu Items – More secret menu items at Taco Bell, Wendy’s, Chipotle, Subway, Jamba Juice, In-N-Out Burger, Starbucks, Dairy Queen, Chili’s, Blimpie, Burger King, Popeye’s, TGIFriday’s, Denny’s, and Arby’s.

Costco’s Electronics Return Policy (from The Consumerist) – Due to abuse, Costco is once again updating their return policy. The following items now have a 90-day return window: Televisions, Computers, Cameras, Camcorders, iPod/MP3 players, and Cellular phones. However, it does come with 2 year warranty from the date of purchase, which is rather neat. This only applies to purchases after this policy goes into effect which is being slowly pushed into all stores. Good thing I bought my TV before then 😉 There is something new where Costco is offering in-home TV setup. I wonder if that means they’ll deliver the TV too, which was one of the main reasons I didn’t get a TV till recently.

Parents raise copycat risk from TV’s revhead tot (from /.) – AN award-winning TV commercial showing a toddler driving a four-wheel-drive has been pulled off the air. The Advertising Standards Board said it had banned the ad for Hyundai’s Sante Fe 4WD after more than 80 viewer complaints. You can watch the ad here: Hyundai Santa Fe. I thought the ad was rather cute.

Toilet Paper Folder & Dispenser Prototype (from Digg) – This is a project that me and my friends built for school (UC Berkeley). Its made of lego mindstorms, scissors, and some scrap metal. With all things considered, I think it turned out alright. Not only does it fold your paper for you, it also cuts it. It would be the perfect accessory for a fancy, high-tech, Japanese bathroom! This video shows two test runs; the first run works well, while the second one could have gone a little smoother… Haha! I need one of these!

wahaha milk - mario yoshi copy
Wahaha Calcium Milk blatantly copies the Mario/Yoshi combo (from Digg)

Posted on

How to speed up AIM 6.0

One of the things I’ve hated about AIM 6.0 is the fact it’s very sluggish and I think I’ve found the cause of that problem. By default, if you enable logging, AIM will display your previous chats inside that window. Although they don’t show you the entire log, they do show you a good week’s worth. I mean when I hit CTRL+A, CTRL+C (select all and copy), it froze my IM windows for about 10 seconds, trying to copy the chat into my clipboard. Of course this was with someone I’ve chatted with quite often.

So the 1st problem lies in the fact there’s 1+ week worth of logs being displayed into your AIM window, but the bigger problem lies in the fact each buddy has only one log file. Right now my log file with RayAlome is at 677KB and that’s logging from Jan. 4th, 2007 (when I installed AIM 6.0 on this machine). Each time I double click RayAlome’s screenname on my AIM buddy list, it opens that file and tries to parse out 1+ weeks worth, causing a major delay in trying to chat with him. Since this log is loaded into memory, subsequent visits to this IM window has to bring all that back up. What’s worse is if I close the window, opening another chat session with him again will result in reparsing the log file.

Imagine this log file continue to grow. In a year, I’d have 4meg log file loaded and parsed every time I try to chat with RayAlome.

The trick is then to disable the loading of the log when you want to chat with someone. If you really want to see what you guys last chatted about, you can always click People > Show Logs or just right click their screenname and click Show Logs. To disable the loading of the log file when you open a chat window, hit F7 for settings (or Edit > Settings…). Inside the General IM section, uncheck the box that says: Keep IM conversation text after IM is closed.

That’s it. My AIM window now loads up immediately when I double click someone’s nick. Hope this helps!

Posted on

Random Crap

Pictures From the Sky (from Digg) – Very pretty pictures. They appear to have been taken from YANN ARTHUS-BERTRAND.ORG.

Bar Code Clock (from Digg)

Massive Pound-And-A-Half Rats Infest KFC/Taco Bell In The West Village – They are big. A pound or a pound and a half. Rats! Plump, healthy-looking and oh-so-agile. CBS 2 cameras caught dozens of them early Friday morning through the window of this closed KFC-Taco Bell in the West Village. And now CBS 2 has learned that the Department of Health will keep the restaurant closed until it can reinspect it. The video shows these big rants running around KFC. This KFC was in fact operational, and was opened even last night. Yahoo! News has more information about it.

No need to diet AND exercise to lose weight? – – A new study debunks the widely held belief that diet plus exercise is the most effective way to lose weight. Researchers report that dieting alone is just as effective as dieting plus exercise. … Thirty-five overweight but otherwise healthy adults — 16 men and 19 women — completed the 6-month study. Twelve were assigned to a diet-only group; they reduced their calorie intake by 25 percent. Twelve were assigned to diet plus exercise; they reduced their calorie intake by 12.5 percent and increased their exercise by 12.5 percent. The remaining 11 subjects made no significant diet or exercise changes. Redman and colleagues found that the diet-only group and the diet plus exercise group lost roughly the same amount of weight, albeit by different means. They lost about 10 percent of their body weight, 24 percent of their fat mass and 27 percent of their abdominal “visceral” fat — the deep internal fat linked to heart disease risk.

Meetings make us dumber, study shows (from Digg) – People have a harder time coming up with alternative solutions to a problem when they are part of a group, new research suggests. Scientists exposed study participants to one brand of soft drink then asked them to think of alternative brands. Alone, they came up with significantly more products than when they were grouped with two others. It’s not just “two heads aren’t better than one”, it’s “two heads are worse than one”.

Technical Support in Medieval Times (from MS newsgroup) – Shows what happened to scholars when scrolls were upgraded to books and the support they needed to use the new system. Hilarious skit.

PS3 Song (from MS newsgroup) – A rather funny parody song making fun of Sony and the PS3. The song is called “How To Kill A Brand” and this person just took the song and added a slideshow behind it. The song it’s parodying is The Fray – How To Save A Life.

**********GAMER CAST NETWORK**********

“How to Kill a Brand” by Doc Adams.

****I DID NOT MAKE THIS SONG****

I added the photos and made it into this video but the song is all Doc Adams.

*Puts on Flame Suit*

I found the song at GamerCast Network: How To Kill A Brand
(to save as mp3 right click and save as)

I want to offer a thanks to Doc Adams for endorsing this video. He did a great job I only put it here for all you to see. enjoy 🙂

******UPDATES********
Official name of the song is “How to Kill a Brand” -By Doc Adams and he has graciously given me the green light to keep this on here.

-Thanks to everyone for the feedback. If I would have know it was going to get this much attention I would have spent more time on the editing. Hopefully next time the video will be as good as the song. Thanks again.

***I DID NOT MAKE THIS SONG***

LYRICS

Step 1, You make your console cost the most,
You Beat your chest and proudly Boast,
Despite no good exclusive games
You make a bunch of ridiculous claims,

Then ignore our need to play online
Don’t make it fun like Xbox Live
Use Blue Ray, Which I don’t need
Now you’re getting your ass kicked by the Wii

Sony, you went wrong, with your PS3
I’ll just keep playing my 360
Hope this song has helped, you understand
Now you know, How You Killed Your Brand.

Phil Harrison yeah you know best
Except you didn’t Beta Test
Sure I can surf the net
But I can’t find my Gaming Friends

You Say Halo 3 Don’t worry you
Instead you offer Killzone 2
But Killzone 1 sucked before
So what made you think we wanted more?

Repeat Chorus..

Phil Quotes

Repeat Chorus

Phil Quote.

Photo Illusions (from Digg) – A photographer went around the world with objects and photos and realigned them to take the picture, showing you the original merging into the scenery of the current.

Smart Guys Date in Parallel (from Digg) – So a few days ago, I was on the phone, whining to my dad about throwing a Fifth Annual F—— Valentine’s Day party and trying to figure out my personal life. My dad listened thoughtfully, and then began explaining to me what I was doing wrong. The problem, he said, is that I date girls serially. His diagrams are hilarious! Tera then asks, “so… women are appliances?” I replied, “They’re resistors. Guys are batteries and we send the love current through them.”

Windows Vista (from Digg) – This set contains my work from the Microsoft Photoshoot I did late 2005 – early 2006. My mission was to create genuine images to be a part of the Windows Vista Wallpaper collection. Two shots from the Photoshoot (first two in the set) made it to Vista’s Wallpaper Collection, while many others remain here, and waiting to be uncovered. I couldn’t be honored enough for the privilege to work with Microsoft on this fantastic project. Special thanks go to Jenny Lam, and Luciana Misura from the MSX Design Team for this wonderful opportunity. Interview with me by Long Zheng about The Vista Photoshoot. You can download High Resolution (1920×1200) versions of most of these images on my website (www.hamaddarwish.com)

Aerial Photographs of Mexico City (from Awesome Pics of Mexico City) – This are a few of the pictures that I have taken while working as a Helicopter Pilot over Mexico City. The best and most recent Mexico City Stock Aerial Photography, I hope you find them interesting.

A few interesting test answers provided by kids today: (from Digg)

how to determine gender of a catadding imaginary objects in the system to get the desired resultwhy did the boss fire him?

New Zealand fishermen land massive squid – New Zealand fishermen may have caught the largest Colossal squid ever found — weighing around 450kg (992 pounds) and with rings the size of tyres.

largest collosal squid

Posted on

Random Crap

It’s been awhile since my last post. You can blame the TV. Been playing with it too much. It’s so sexy!

This past week was somewhat weird. I’ve had training for a course in Advanced Windows Communication Foundation (Indigo), which was quite informative. Unfortunately this 2-day class began at 9am, and for as long as I remembered, I don’t recall getting up at 8am for work. I also ended up going to sleep around 12am (ahhh! so early!) for those few days.

This past weekend, Stanman and his gang came over to my placed and we played the Wii, Guitar Hero, Xbox 360, and some other stuff on my new TV.

I’ve been meaning to post my new HTPC experience for awhile, but I’m still waiting to get my hard drive. I currently have the Seagate 250GB + 500GB 7200.10 SATA hard drives in my HTPC. They’re a bit noisy. I’ve already purchased the Western Digital 500GB SATA hard drive (which everyones seems to say is very quiet) and should be arriving this week, at which point, I’ll be swapping out the Seagates and putting in this Western Digital. Then my HTPC will be complete (minus the TV tuners, which is a later project) and I’ll blog about it.

When watching TV or movies on my new TV, I feel a bit odd, somewhat out of place. Before, I would always be multi-tasking. Watching a movie, surfing the net, and chatting with friends all at the same time. Now putting me on the couch and just watching TV feels a bit odd. I’m thinking I might just start using my laptop while I watch TV so I don’t feel so weird. That or I can purchase an exercise bike and force myself to exercise when I’m watching TV. Derek suggests that I make the bike be the power source of the TV so if I stop, the TV turns off.

More Creative and Beautiful Wallpapers (from Digg) – Wallpapers can be creative, inspiring, gorgeous and hilarious. Recently we’ve posted an overview of Selected Wallpapers for Desktop and Web Design and Christmas Wallpapers. Now it’s time for something fresh, original and creativie. Let’s take a look at some more creative and beautiful wallpapers for your personal desktop. A nice collection of sites with some pretty wallpapers.

$1500 electric guitar made from 1/3 of a $15 Ikea table (from Digg) – Zachary built a very nice looking electric guitar top from a $15 Ikea end table. He says he can build three tops from one end table.

Construction of the World’s Highest Bridge (from Digg) – Construction of the Millau Bridge in France – The Millau bridge over the River Tarn in the Massif Central mountains is more than 300m (984ft) high – taller even than the Eiffel Tower. With its concrete and steel pillars soaring high above the morning fog in the Tarn Valley, the construction makes a spectacular sight.

Speedtest.net (from Digg) – Another pretty neat speed testing site. A lot more fancier than Broadband Reports’ Speed Test.

Empty boxes and politeness dent generosity – The research by Victoria University of Wellington’s economics department showed that how much is already in a donation box, the mix of coins and notes, and what sorts of signs are present will influence how generous the public will be. … “The most important thing is to never leave the box empty,” said senior lecturer John Randal. … More banknotes than coins led to larger individual donations, but a fall in the number of donations, while more coins saw more donations but of a lower value. Interesting study.

Dog store sign angers Seattle residents – A newly opened store catering to very pampered dogs, especially female dogs, is getting more than questioning looks for its name, High Maintenance Bitch. Haha.

Wii Quarters (from Digg) – A parody Wii game cover for a common college game: Quarters. Hilarious piece of work.

Not just good, but good for you (from Digg) –

Mounting evidence suggests sex helps keep us healthy

  1. Easing depression and stress
  2. Relieving pain
  3. Boosting cardio health
  4. Countering prostate cancer
  5. Healing wounds
  6. Fighting aging

There were some rather funny/interesting quotes:

But wait, there’s more. A recent study of college students at the State University of New York in Albany suggests that semen acts as an antidepressant. Females in the study who were having sex without condoms (see safe sex caution, above) had fewer signs of depression than women who used condoms or abstained from sex.

I can’t resist another plug for semen. It’s possible that male goo can lower blood pressure. Another recent study found that women who gave their men oral sex, and swallowed, had a lower risk of preeclampsia, the dangerously high blood pressure that sometimes accompanies pregnancy.

The Poshest Gas Station in Los Angeles (from Digg) – A very funky modern architectural gas station. I didn’t know what poshest (or posh) meant, but according to dictionary.com, it means smart and fashionable. I would hardly describe this thing as “fashionable”. Also, it shows a clear misunderstanding of what octane is (i.e. 87, 89, 91) by describing them as good, better, and best respectively. I guess that’s what the common people believe to be the case.

Vegetables as we don’t see (from Digg) – An interesting assortment of animal carvings from vegetables and fruits:

bell pepper frogseggplant sealscauliflower sheepcabbage fishbell pepper rabbitpotato guinea pigmushroom seewawlettuce duckkiwi and orange and ice cream cones made of carrots and cauliflowersquash pigscreaming orange

Posted on

Free AutoCheck Report (Similar to Carfax)

Autocheck is similar to Carfax where it looks up the details of any car with a VIN (vehicle identification number) and gives you a full report of all th records on the car.

This was initially posted on SD, but that thread has been pulled. The trick was in this URL http://fostermotors.earthcars.net/cgi-bin/autocheck.cgi? dealerid=koonscollegeparkford&vin=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX, where you replace the XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX with your VIN. There is also an added “space” between autocheck.cgi? and delearid which you’ll need to remove as the URL was too long. I’ve made a simple form that’ll automatically generate that URL for you. All you have to do is enter your VIN and click “Get Free AutoCheck report“.

THIS NO LONGER WORKS


VIN:

Enjoy!

Posted on

Website was down earlier today

My website and email servers were down for a few hours earlier this morning.

According to DreamHost Status:

Planned Power Outage

We were just informed one hour ago from our building management that an emergency maintenance window is scheduled for this Saturday morning, February 24th, at 1AM PST. UPDATE! The building has just changed the window to be 23 hours later.. it is now scheduled for Sunday morning, February 25th, at 12:01AM PST. This maintenance window involves taking our entire building’s power offline for approximately 3 hours. The word from the building:

It was discovered by ABM Engineering during the power monitoring equipment installation, that a Phase C Conductor Cable on UPS #4 has been compromised to the point that immediate action to repair it is necessary or a ground fault will occur to the building systems.

Since only one of our three data centers is losing power, not all servers will be shut down. Unfortunately, our core routers and our upstream providers are in that data center, so there will be no network to any servers during the window. Gaah.

Since we have advanced (albeit limited) warning of this event, we will be onhand to physically power off all of our equipment at 11:15PM PST. Barring any unforeseen issues (on our end or the building engineer’s) we plan on having everything back up by 4AM PST, hopefully much sooner.

This outage will affect everyone’s sites and email. Email sent to our customers during this outage will be deferred on the sending server and will be delivered after service is restored.

We apologize for the inconvenience this no doubt causes, as well as for the short notice. We will be posting updates as possible during the outage.

The servers have been brought back online and should be fully functioning now.

Posted on

Pachelbel Rant

SueOn sent me this video a few days ago: Pachelbel Rant – A comedian rants about how much it sucks to play Pachelbel’s Canon in D on a cello. Recorded live at Penn State, this piece by comedian/musician Rob Paravonian has been a favorite on the Dr. Demento Show. The comedian/musician is Rob Paravonian and you can see more of him at RobPRocks.com.

The comedy sketch was hilarious. I’m a big fan of Canon in D as it’s a very soothing song. Also, if you know me well, I like music for their melody and not for the lyrics. That’s why I generally don’t like rap, though there are exceptions. Given that I really like Canon in D, all the example songs that use the same chords from Canon in D are songs that I really like. Even if I haven’t heard of the song, I found myself enjoying it.

The list includes:

I think I like every single song on that list (even the ones I’ve just barely heard). In fact Green Day’s Basket Case is one of my favorite songs and Dookie was one of the 1st CDs I ever owned. I actually got introduced to Green Day from Edward back in 4th grade. I guess the melody and chords of Canon in D are just too good.

Rob also has a video blog (or vlog as they call it nowadays): Life as a Comic and the videos he’s posted are actually quite funny:

Posted on

Dryer

I got my Whirlpool dryer installed a week ago. Haven’t actually gotten to use it yet though. It was pretty big and took more space than my old one, due to a fatter exhaust pipe. However, now my dryer and washing machine are matching. My next laundry is next weekend so I’ll report back to you how long it takes me to dry my clothes.

Random Crap:

Porn movie causes trouble for two men (from Digg) – Police made contact with the neighbor, a 39-year-old man, who told them he heard a woman screaming from upstairs and feared she was being sexually assaulted. The subject said he grabbed the 39-inch sword, went upstairs and kicked in the door to investigate. … The victim told his neighbor, and later showed police the evidence, that the noise came from a pornographic movie he was watching.

OpenCola – Open Source Coca Cola (from Digg) – OpenCola is a brand of cola unique in that the instructions for making it are freely available and modifiable. Anybody can make the drink, and anyone can modify and improve on the recipe as long as they, too, license their recipe under the GNU General Public License. The original webpage opencola.com is no longer available and has been replaced with a link farm, but you can find all the information you need on the Wikipedia page.

Sex in fast lane halts traffic on Israeli road – Israeli police investigating why a car was blocking traffic in the fast lane of a major highway on Sunday found a couple inside having sex.

Cyanide and Happiness – STD – At first I didn’t get the joke. What the heck is “the bar”? What are they talking about? But after Angelus mentioned it might be the censorship/mosaic rendering, it made much more sense.

Dave Devries The Monster Engine – Art (from Digg) – This guy apparently takes kid drawings and make the “cool” or as I would say coolify it. Pretty neat.

Tersumus eraser (from Digg) – The palm-size Tersumus eraser is shaped like the well-known key on a computer keyboard. Interestingly enough, I’ve never seen such a big “delete” key on any keyboard. Usually, they’re the default size on in the little island where my insert, home, end, page up, and page down keys are. My “backspace” key on the other hand does resemble that size.

tersumus eraser - delete key

How did the whole “Tooth Fairy” thing get started? (from Digg) – The Straight Dope tackled this topic back in 2004. According to their crack staff, “The tooth fairy as we now know her didn’t make an appearance until the early 1900s.” Her popularity may have hit the mainstream in 1949 when a popular children’s story by Lee Rogow was published.

Vista Ice Office (from Digg) – There appears to be a couple more here on this Russian site. From the Digg comments I also found these links: Windows Vista Week One Roundup and The Ice House That Gates Built. According to them:

So, about that giant ice house that Microsoft put up in Dundas Square: apparently 270,000 pounds of ice went into the construction of the 1,800 square foot structure, which includes a fully sculpted kitchen, dining room, study, living room, two bedrooms and bathroom all wired-up with televisions and computers (real, as opposed to of the ice variety) running demos of Vista and Office 2007. It’s lucky that the weather has finally decided to act wintery, because expensive electronics don’t tend to get along with melting slush.

The house is open to the public between 10 a.m. – 7 p.m. today through Saturday. Highlights include the working ice toilet paper holder, ice fire place, ice microwave, and the sweet ice stereo system. Bring mittens.

I remember watching some travel show at Derek’s house and they show this hotel made completely of ice (you even sleep on an ice bed) that is all year round. Crazy! I don’t remember the name of the hotel, but it’s somewhere in Canada.

Teton Fire (from Digg) – Brilliant morning color over the Teton Mountains from the west. 5xp hdr (I put the technique in a note below.) Wow! This is a really pretty photo. Would love it as a my wallpaper, but unfortunately, it’s not 1920×1200.

Table Hockey…On Real Ice (from Digg) – WiseGreek decided to build a mini hockey table using real ice to “see if the basic idea would work on real ice as opposed to using the air bearing principle.” Video after the jump. Pretty neat project.

Zelda Reorchestrated (from Digg) – ZREO stands for Zelda Reorchestrated. It is our goal to transcribe the musical masterpieces that you have heard in the greatest video game series ever created: The Legend of Zelda! Our goal is to give each and every song from The Legend of Zelda series a realistic and atmospheric sound with the quality that you would expect from such film composers as John Williams, Howard Shore, and James Horner. We don’t look to seek profit or fame. This is merely our own form of artistic expression that stems from The Legend of Zelda. If it weren’t for Zelda, ZREO wouldn’t exist. So we are grateful to have such a legendary video game series that can pull so much inspiration out of us. I’ve been listening to some of these Zelda songs on repeat. You can download them too if you want.

Tiny duckling has rare mutation: 4 legs – A rare mutation has left the eight-day-old duckling with two nearly full-sized legs behind the two he runs on. Nicky Janaway, a duck farmer in New Forest, Hampshire, 95 miles southwest of London, showed the duckling to reporters Saturday. Crazy! There’s so much mutations recently. Is it a sign that evolution will take it’s next big jump?

duck mutation with four (4) legs

Posted on

恭喜發財! My New TV!

恭喜發財! GONG HEY FAT CHOY! Happy Chinese New Year! Today marks the beginning of the new lunar calendar year. This year is the year of the pig.

So I was at Costco today getting some necessities (alright, they were more like goodies), when I decided to ask them about when my Vizio 47″ LCD HDTV would be coming in. After a quick lookup, they said they had already tried to call me, but apparently it was the wrong number. The guy who wrote down my cell number must’ve heard me say 675 instead of 679. I guess 5 and 9 do sound similar. So I could’ve been called a week ago since they’ve had stock for some time and I called in to give them my cell over a week ago. I even called back a few more times asking how much longer before it’s my turn, but each time while waiting for the supervisor (with the list), I get hung up. Anyways, they said it was available for me to purchase today.

At first I was planning to borrow Tekman’s van to carry this, but this was totally unprepared for. I decided, what the heck, Derek was able to fit it into his Civic, I should be able to fit it into mine. Unfortunately I didn’t calculate the fact that Derek also has a wife (or at least someone else who went with him to Silverdale). I pull down all the seats in my car and pack everything into the front, the box just won’t go in as I try to jam it. Guess I miscalculated the size of my trunk. Tekman lived all the way in Bothell and it’d suck to tell him to drive 40mi to Bellevue Costco to help me out.

Derek had to pull his out of the box, so I guess that was my next step. I open the box in the parking lot of Costco and start removing things. The TV was rather heavy and trying to be careful and lifting the damn thing didn’t really work out. I gave Derek a call, since he was only 15mins from this Costco asking for help. Derek comes of course and helps me load the TV into the trunk and then helps me carry it into my place.

I had made plans with CDMCC to watch Breach tonight, so I didn’t get a chance to play with it till I got home and it’s SWEET! My “basic” cable comes with a bunch of HD channels which I’m guessing is part of the “basic” package since they’re required by law (I believe) to include these channels. I then tested it with my Xbox 360 running at 1080p via component cables and tested a few games. Now I just need to get some cables from monoPrice and my HTPC is set to go!

Random Crap:

The cost of leaving your PC on (from Digg) – Between my server and my Windows Media Center home theater PC, I have at least two PCs on all the time at home. Have you ever wondered how much it’s costing you to leave a computer on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? … So leaving my server on is costing me $200 / year, or $16.68 per month. My home theater PC is a bit more frugal at 65 watts. Using the same formulas, that costs me $81 / year or $6.75 per month.

Man wins $25,000 lottery two days in row – An airline pilot from Maplewood won a $25,000 lottery jackpot — two days in a row. Raymond Snouffer Jr. matched the winning numbers 11-14-23-26-31 to win Saturday’s Northstar Cash drawing with odds of about 170,000 to 1, Minnesota Lottery officials said.

Why it’s gross to kiss your sister – Researchers who wanted to find out why it is not only taboo to kiss your sister, but also disgusting, said on Wednesday they have discovered why in a discovery that challenges some basic tenets of Freudian theory. … Spending time in the same household and watching your mother care for your brother or sister is all it takes. This is all subconscious, of course, reported the researchers, who worked with Debra Lieberman of the University of Hawaii. … “It should regulate both altruism and incest disgust.” … What determined incest disgust and altruism was the same — how much time an older sibling spent watching his or her mother care for a younger one, or how much time the two spent together in the same household.

Mega gallery: 07′ LEGO video game art (from Digg) – a bunch of video game pictures made of Legos including Mario Bros and Sonic the Hedgehog.

Someone From Work Left Today And His Goodbye E-Mail Was Hilarious… (from Derek) – Hilarious email. Apparently this was originally written by Chris Kula, but I wonder if someone really sent this.

Posted on

Xbox 360 Reward

I previously posted on how to get 4 Free Xbox Live Arcade Games. The games are here! I just got an email today giving me codes to redeem Frogger and Joust.

Download your free Xbox Live® Arcade games.

You bought, registered and signed up. Now it’s our turn. With over 100 high-def games, we’re giving you some right now—free. The next generation keeps its gamers happy. Just follow these steps to download:

  1. Turn on your Xbox 360™ and sign in to Xbox Live.
  2. Highlight and select “Xbox Live Marketplace.”
  3. Select “Redeem Code.”
  4. Enter a code and download the game.

I personally registered with the 2 Free Games code before I found out there was a 3 and 4 free games code. People who used the 3 free games code said they also got Robotron: 2084. I haven’t heard of anyone that got the 4th game yet. If you did, please let us know which one it is. I also have a feeling that the 4 free games code may have been a fake published on the deals site, since the 2 codes were some what in chronological order.

Anyway, I’m not sure if you can still get in on this deal, but you’re more welcome to try. All these games were somewhat classics, not really next gen type, but they’re still rather fun.