It’s been so tiring these past few days… I can hardly keep my eyes open.

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Random Crap:

pya! FLOOD:
(img) トミカタワー – Tomy Car Tower – I’ve always dreamt of a parking system similar to this, where all you do is drive into this spot and some sort of elevator will take you to a free empty spot. But then I realized the delays that will make system fail, though with a circular system, you can really have many many elevators.
(img) 宇宙船（ホンダ製） – Universe Car (Honda) – License plate shows ACURABOT. Totally a rice car.
(img) ねえねえそこのお姉ｓゴフッ – Super Kick
(vid) ヴォイスパワー – Voice Power – I want to learn how to hit that pitch to break glass. Is it the same pitch for all glass, or is there some way for the screamer to feel the resonating vibrations to know which pitch to scream at?
(vid) 目覚まし時計 – Malfunctioning Alarm Clock – I wouldn’t want this to be my alarm clock.
(img) BABY – cracking baby. pretty nice art
(img) 朝から散歩。。。眠いwan – Walking the sleepy dog in the morning – puppy is so cute!

Virtual property market booming (from /.) – A gamer who spent £13,700 on an island that only exists in a computer game has recouped his investment, according to the game developers. Treasure Island (6000 Acres/25 km²) – for US$26,500, Zachurm “Deathifier” Emegen purchased a virtual island on Project Entropia. A large island off a newly discovered continent surrounded by deep creature infested waters. The island boasts beautiful beaches ripe for developing beachfront property, an old volcano with rumors of fierce creatures within, the outback is overrun with mutants, and an area with a high concentration of robotic miners guarded by heavily armed assault robots indicates interesting mining opportunities. Quite amazing!

Crab vs. Pipe (from kobashi) – This is a video taken in 6000 feet of water. An undersea robot is sawing a 3mm wide slit (1/10th of an inch … remember that width) in a pipeline. The pressure inside the pipeline is 0 psig, while the pressure outside is 2700 psi, or 1.3 tons per square inch. Then a crab comes along….

Samsung announces five slim phones (from artemyst). Honest to god, I didn’t even notice the females holding the phone. Probably because the phones themselves are so sexy! But is it just me, or is the left 2 phones very similar to the Motorola RAZR?

Final Fantasy XI Online (from eddo) – A remake of the Full Metal Alchemist Opening intro, but with Final Fantasy XI characters! Pretty cool if you’re a fan of both!

Skater falls through roof (from deadlock) – saw this video before, but the Mario music compliments it very well!

Funny ricer (from deadlock) – probably a joke video, but it’s still hilarious to see how this ricer explains how great his Civic is. Wait for it… Wait for it… BUSTS OUT A GRAPH! HAHA!

3D Rendering of a Ford Engine (from deadlock) – a very nice video of all the different components of a Ford engine rendered in 3D. Pretty interesting. Would’ve been nicer if they explained what was happening too.

Three die playing catch with grenade – A hand grenade being used instead of a ball in a game of catch exploded early on Saturday killing three youths in this Bosnian town, police and news agencies said. … Police said an inquiry was under way and declined further comment. It was not clear why the grenade exploded. I’m pretty sure the reason while the grenade exploded was because the pin came off (either on purpose or accidentally). Ungsunghero thinks they might’ve been playing Hot Potatoes, that man version. Anyway, I’m more curious on why the police are investigating why the grenade exploded and not why they were playing a with a grenade.

Ship Blasted Pirates With Sonic Weapon – modern day pirates get fought back with modern day technology!

Firms make profit by paying too much tax – Because the Dutch Treasury pays 5 percent interest on any excess amount paid that it returns later — more than commercial banks would offer — some firms gladly accept an estimate that is too high, Dutch Finance Minister Gerrit Zalm complained on his weblog Monday. Maybe the USA should do this!

Here’s the pya! FLOOD:

(img) 記念撮影 – Giant Pumpkin
(img) 顔 – Ice Cream Faces
(img) カーセックス – How cars are made. – When your car is that hot, everything wants a piece of it.
(vid) ロケット花火 – Rocket Fireworks – Idiot burns his own butt.
(img) 滝 – Waterfall
(img) 明らかに別人 – Amazing Sunglasses – So amazing, you become another person!
(img) ｶﾞｸｶﾞｸ(((( ；ﾟДﾟ))))ﾌﾞﾙﾌﾞﾙな橋 – Broken Bridge – Can’t believe people still use it.
(img) 雀のケーキ – Mahjong Cake
(img) ハート – Cars Headlight Heart
(img) Glacier scenery
(flash) 棒リズム – Stick Rhythm – N0 Music… No Life – cute animation with stick figures dancing around the computer
(flash) The MASK – animation about a giraffe and his tree and an ostrich who wants a part of it. storyline was iffy, but the animation was pretty cool.
(img) (´Д｀)nya – Baby Kitten
(img) これで安心 – No More Worries – A Japanese article on the anti-rapist device woman keep in their privates. The penis looks realy sad.
(img) Glass Bridge
(img) 自分を表す – Knitted DNA Strands
(img) フレキシブルガール – Freaky Blue Girl – a very creepy contortionist
(img) １かん違い – Giant Sushi
(img) ママ、ちょっと待って～！ – Mama, wait for us! – cute baby polar bears
(img) ﾛﾅﾙﾄﾞへの挑戦状 – Ronald’s Challenge – Would you ever eat that much stuff from McDonald’s?
(img) ﾛﾅﾙﾄﾞへの挑戦状 – Ronald’s Challenge – Would you ever eat that much stuff from McDonald’s?
(img) 瞬間芸「ネッシー」 – Lochness Monster – Pretty cool water drop effect
(vid) 追跡不能 – Unable to Continue Chase – Someone the cops managed to crash their car into a light pole
(img) す…吸わないでwan – Litter of Baby Puppies
(img) 雪だwan – Puppy in Snow
(img) 量産開始 – Another Litter of Baby Puppies

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Random Crap:

When people buy a 1/4 drill, they’re not really buying a 1/4 inch drill, they’re buying 1/4 inch holes. The product itself is not as important as what it does and how it benefits the consumers. (from /.)

The Ultimate Star Trek Collection (1989) (from /.) – Guess this is a must have for every Star Trek geek. Though the author did warn readers to leave their couch once in awhile or you might end up like the lady in 480-Pound Woman Dies After Six Years On Couch.

Buddy Info Page (from lsiymle) – turns out AIM is providing a new feature. If you look at your profile, you’ll see that it now contains a link with the text: Less right clicks, use the Away Page! I actually really like this feature because it provides you with a page with EVERY single buddy’s profile information, so now you don’t have to go and right click each one and click “Get Buddy Info…”. My sister at first thought it was a virus, but then everyone suddenly started to get it, including me, so she was curious if I had gotten an aim virus. Haha.

Let’s be friends (from deadlock) – Touching photos of unusual animal friendships.

Tyra Banks Goes Undercover As Obese Woman (from artemyst) – “I started walking down the street and within 10 seconds, a trio of people looked at me, snickered, looked me right in my eye and started pointing and laughing in my face,” the talk-show host said. “And I had no idea it was that blatant.”

23 eerie parallels between Xbox 360 and the Sega Dreamcast. (from /.) – I don’t particularily agree with all the points they made, but it is indeed scary to see so many similarities.

Eight Below (Apple Movie Trailer) – The huskies are so cute!

So my colleagues and I had our weekly poker game today. It was quite exciting and I actually won money, though I lost my initial $10 buy in, and when I bought in a 2nd time, I got my initial $10 back and actually made an extra $2. The winner of this week’s game was Derek leaving with $18 in his pocket.

During our game, several of us got hungry and decided to order pizza. However, after an hour, the pizza deliver guy still didn’t arrive, so we gave the Pizza place a call and they told us that it was going to be here in a minute. You see, after losing my initial $10 buy-in, my contingency to continue playing was that pizza was going to come or else we were going out to get food anyway, so there was no point to buy back in now. So after the call, I bought back in, and within 10 minutes I had actually made up back the initial $10 lost, which I guess was a good thing to buy back in, but it could’ve as easily gone the other way too. After 10mins, the pizza still did not arrive. This time they asked for his phone #, which they didn’t bother asking on the earlier call which led us to believe that the guy on the other end just made up the expected delivery time. So we pull the we’re going to cancel card and they offered the pizza to us for free. Of course we couldn’t reject an offer like that, though we should’ve since when we started to eat the pizza, it was actually pretty bad. The max we agreed that we’d pay for a large pizza like this was $2-3. Anyway, we did tip the driver after he confirmed with the pizza parlor that we were indeed getting our pizza for free.

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Random Crap:

I just got the most interesting IM just a few minutes ago: (screen name removed to protect the user’s privacy)

Anonymous: i love you
Anonymous: whooops
Anonymous: wrong person

At this point I get a pop up if I want to receive message from this person which I haven’t chatted with in years. And when I saw that, I was like wo… I can understand that if a close friend says that or if someone I helped recently said that, but not someoen I haven’t seen or heard from for years. But I found it extremely hilarious that someone could say “I Love You” to the incorrect person. So our chat continues:

Anonymous: nah, jk
Krunk4Ever: haha
Krunk4Ever: long time no chat
Krunk4Ever: what’s up?
Anonymous: nah i love u anyways
Anonymous: nothing much
Anonymous: who is this
Anonymous: this is not (name of friend)
Anonymous: so fu
Krunk4Ever: oh i see…
Anonymous: eat tofu
Anonymous: bye
Krunk4Ever: cya

So yesterday, I got in my email my 2 Blingo iTunes Gift Certificates. Pretty sweet. You know, I have not spent 1 single penny on iTunes yet. My 1st $10 in iTunes was a present from Liam and I still have like $4.xx in my balance. Now I’ll have $24.xx. =)

The new Yahoo! Maps is finally out! Still in beta though, but it looks pretty nice. Doesn’t have the Satellite Imagery mode yet, but it’s released a lot of its APIs for developers which is a really nice gesture for anyone that wants to have mapping software for their website.

A really hilarious cross between Azumanga Diaoh and Final Fantasy 7 (from artemyst)

TransMedia Glide – Effortless (from /.) – sounds like an interesting service they’ll be providing. However, 50MB is a bit low on space for the free account. Only time can tell if this service would be any good.

What is Glide?
Glide is effectively twelve software and service environments integrated in a single online application, providing powerful creation, communication, sharing and ecommerce features only made possible by Glide’s integration and online compatibility.

Glide’s twelve integrated environments include Glide Photos, Glide Music, Glide Video, Glide Docs, Glide AllMedia, Glide Contacts, Glide Calendar, Glide Timeline (Glide’s action oriented search engine), Glide Mail, Glide Cast (video, audio and text conferencing), Glide Share and Glide Shops.

Glide is browser based, and supports all major platforms (PC, Mac, Linux) and all major browsers (Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera). No software installation or configuration is necessary to preview and share media and communicate.
Consumers just log on to www.glidedigital.com.

Glide’s built in trans-coding engines creates universal compatibility between users by automatically creating streaming browser-based previews of virtually all major document, image, audio and video file types imported.

“TransMedia’s emphasis on compatibility and integration have produced incredible capabilities that are simply unavailable from other software vendors,” said TransMedia Chairman and CEO Donald Leka. For example, Glide users can share and experience music playlists, video playlists, product information and ads in real time with anyone that has a browser and an internet connection by simply dragging and dropping these assets into a video or text conference.

It’s been more than 20 years since the desktop has been completely overhauled. The last time was back in 1984 with the introduction of Apple’s Macintosh computer operating system. TransMedia is turning the Desktop on its head with a new patent pending user interface: the Glide Action Bubble™ and Active Feedback Screen.

Glide is designed to be accessible on any device: PC, cell phone, PDA and set top box. In an effort to provide a consistent and simple interface across devices, Glide’s proprietary navigation system replaces traditional menu lists, toolbars and top, left, right and bottom navigation. Glide replaces traditional navigation concepts with the Glide Action Bubble linked to Glide’s Active Feedback Screen, which provides users with continuous feedback. Users simply hover and an action bubble appears displaying only the options available.

Glide is scheduled to be launched to the consumer market on November 15th for the PC version and will be available at www.glidedigital.com. The Mac version will be available on Christmas Day, December 25th.

TransMedia is transforming the economics of software and online services. There are three packages for consumers:

1) Glide Premium: $9.95 monthly / 99.95 annually – includes all 12 environments with 2GB of storage
2) Glide Standard: $4.95 monthly / $49.95 annually – includes all environments (except video and audio conferencing) with 750MB of storage
3) Glide Free: Includes Glide Mail, Glide Contacts, Glide Shops, Glide Photos, Glide Music, Glide Video & Glide Docs with 50MB of storage

TGIF!!! It’s been a long tiring week.

So Rob came up to Seattle to visit CDMCC and we went out and chilled tonight. We didn’t exactly go bar hopping, but we did go to 2 different bars where CDMCC, Rob, and Elizabeth order drinks. Since I was designated driver, I had the perfect excuse not to, but it’s not like I couldn’t think of another excuse, it just makes it easier for me. We first went to Brouwer’s Cafe. It’s a pretty comfy joint and the atmosphere is really nice. We went there last time with Vandel and Liam. They have really good fries with this chipotle sauce which is excellent. Also according to CDMCC, they have like 80 different beers (mostly imported) on tap. It’s actually quite a sight. Afterwards, we headed over to Red Door Ale House. I really needed to pee, but it took me literally 5 minutes to get through the crowd to the restroom. The place was jammed pack and the music was so loud I couldn’t even hear my voice. The atmosphere was okay, but not really my type of chilling place. I’d much rather chill back at Brouwer’s. Actually, it was quite fun on how I found the names of this place. I was googling some variation of Brausser, Brauwser, Brauser, etc but didn’t really get anywhere. Then I googled Bars Fremont Seattle and one of the links listed several bars including Red Door and Triangle something. Red Door sounded familiar and it turns out to be the 2nd bar we went to. Using FlashEarth with VirtualEarth, I found the street (Phinney and 35th) where the first bar we went to was on and then googled that street name with bars and found Brouwer’s after a couple links. One thing I like more about VirtualEarth is that you can zoom in more than Google Maps. The night was fun. Rob came up earlier today and I think he’s going to be leaving sometime Sunday or Monday. CDMCC and Rob are actually going to be working tomorrow on some truck/imagery project which I won’t be elaborating on.

On our way home, the topic of AI came up and then it lead to computer doing language translations. Elizabeth then brought up the story of how before, some guy online did a translation of “out of sight, out of mind” from English to Chinese. Then he took the Chinese symbols and piped it back to be translated from Chinese to English. The ending result was invisible idiot. At first it made a lot of sense on how out of sight = invisible and how out of mind = idiot, but then the more I thought about it, the more it didn’t make sense. Computer translations don’t work like that. It never simplifies things and usually translates word by word. I actually did this test on babelfish and came out with the following:

out of sight, out of mind
出於視域, 在頭腦外面
Stemming from sight, outside brains

This translation makes much more sense in how translators today work. Since ‘of’ makes the object after it possessive of the object before it, think about it as the sight’s out and the mind’s out and you can see why the final English translation is that way.

I googled it and it turns out it’s quite an urban legend. The actual quote is: Some scientists were testing a program that could translate from English to Chinese and back again. They fed into their computer the English phrase “Out of sight, out of mind,” and out came some Chinese ideograms. Since none of the scientists in the room at that moment knew Chinese well enough to determine whether the computer’s Chinese translation had captured the spirit of the English phrase, they fed the ideograms back into the computer. The translation back into English read “Invisible idiot.” There’s no verification if this is true or not, but my gut instinct tells me if someone wants to test a translation machine, funky english phrases wouldn’t be something you want to test, unless you wanted to see the hilarious output.

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Random Crap:

Got this map off bittorrent:

Seems to be a very detailed map of Middle Earth (from Lord of the Rings). It’s a 8meg image, so it may take some time to load and I can finally utilize my bandwidth! The image is really detailed, but you’ll have to click on the Full size: 8740×8208 link in the upper right hand corner.

Calif. Man Caught in ‘HOV’ Lane With Dummy – this man thought he was clever by driving in the carpool lane with some doll, until he got caught.

Blue Ball Machine (from deadlock) – I’ve always loved contraptions! The music got a bit annoying after awhile though:

Stamp collectors hail blockbuster trade – The trade was remarkable in that it was a cashless exchange involving one $3 million item for another, and because it completed Gross’ collection of every U.S. stamp from the 19th century — a feat no museum has accomplished.

Dentist severs finger and fakes car crash – article wasn’t that interesting but I wanted you to read this line and tell me what you think: A Dutch dentist who chopped off his finger and then faked a car crash before claiming 1.8 million euros ($2.2 million) from insurers was given a suspended sentence and fined by a court Thursday. Does that mean he got the 1.8million euros? Cause in my insurance terminology, filing a claim is what you do before you get the money and when you actually claimed it, that means you already got the money. With only a 25K euro fine and 240hrs of community service, that’s still over 1,775,000 euros!?!?! That’s 7395.83 euros / community service hour! I wish I could make bank like that by doing community services.

Amazon trying to steal Google Print’s thunder with new service – story basically talks about Amazon providing it’s own publiciation search utility to compete with Google Print. However, I just noticed this new really neat feature Amazon will be providing: The second program, Amazon Upgrade, will allow customers to “upgrade” their purchase of a physical book on Amazon.com to include complete online access. For example, a software developer who buys a Java programming book will not only get the physical book delivered to his or her home, but will also get 24×7 Web access to the complete interior text of the book. Buy a cookbook and you will not only have it on your shelf, but also be able to access it anywhere via the Web. By ordering a real book, I can have a digital copy online which I can access from anywhere where I have online connection! That’s totally sweet!

Amazon Mechanical Turk (from MSDL) – Complete simple tasks that people do better than computers. And, get paid for it. Amazon’s new beta service where they’re hiring people to do monkey work. Not exactly sure how it works but I hope people aren’t getting paid $0.03 for 60mins. Sounds interesting though…