Interesting Links

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 16×16 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

I ranked, "You're probably wearing your very own homemade TRON costume right now!"

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 , the Pentagon's No. 1 supplier by contract value, is working on a keychain-sized, remote-controlled aerial vehicle designed to collect and transmit data with military and homeland security uses.

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