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I Love Local Commercials - Sponsored by MicroBilt Corporation

2009 Nov 5, 2:07Two guys sponsored by MicroBilt to travel around the country and make totally awesome commercials for local companies. Includes such gems as Salt Lake Community Barbering & Cosmetology School: "Your hairdo is only limited by your immagination. And how far along we are in the semester.", as well as Cullman Liquidation: "They're used. Some of them have stains. We cover that up."PermalinkCommentsvia:boingboing video advertising commercial tv monthly

Fun With the Minneapolis Mayoral Race - Boing Boing

2009 Nov 3, 5:02The sample ballot for Minneapolis elections is awesome (see second to last entry)PermalinkCommentshumor politics image

Zombie Cake on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

2009 Oct 19, 4:32"This was our Zombie Wedding cake made by Mike's Amazing Cakes in Seattle! They're awesome! They made the Bride and Groom on top look like us down to the tux and dress, and the zombies matched our wedding party too!"
PermalinkCommentsphoto cake wedding zombie

DSC04581 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

2009 Aug 13, 9:46An awesome health care protest sign. I've made a huge mistake.
PermalinkCommentshumor photo obama politics television arrested-development sign protest

YouTube - "Weird Al" Yankovic - CNR

2009 Aug 5, 7:22Weird Al relates the awesome exploits of Charles Nelson Reilly in the style of the White Stripes. Notice the head of Chuck Norris mounted on CNR's trophy wall at 0:55s.PermalinkCommentshumor video weird-al charles-nelson-reilly music music-video

Am I Awesome?

2009 Jul 27, 11:12Answers a burning question on many of our minds.PermalinkCommentshumor web awesome

Social Media Venn Diagram Tee

2009 Jun 2, 11:18"Social Media. Unlocking the awesome potential of behavioral disorders." Can't go wrong with a venn diagram shirt.PermalinkCommentssocial humor shirt facebook twitter via:ericlaw

Using BitTorrent to Retrieve Objects Stored in Amazon S3

2009 May 29, 12:12"Any object in Amazon S3 that can be read anonymously can also be downloaded via BitTorrent. ... Retrieving a .torrent file for any publicly available object is easy. Simply add a "?torrent" query string parameter at the end of the REST GET request for the object." Yes, this is awesome!PermalinkCommentstorrent amazon s3 bittorrent p2p via:pskomoroch

Netflix CSRF - Stolen Thoughts

2009 May 3, 10:36

Looking at the HTTP traffic of Netflix under Fiddler I could see the HTTP request that added a movie to my queue and didn't see anything obvious that would prevent a CSRF. Sure enough its pretty easy to create a page that, if the user has set Netflix to auto-login, will add movies to the user's queue without their knowledge. I thought this was pretty neat, because I could finally get people to watch Primer. However, when I searched for Netflix CSRF I found that this issue has been known and reported to Netflix since 2006. Again my thoughts stolen from me and the theif doesn't even have the common decency to let me have the thought first!

With this issue known for nearly three years its hard to continue calling it an issue. Really they should just document it in their API docs and be done with it. Who knows what Netflix based web sites and services they'll break if they try to change this behavior? For instance, follow this link to add my Netflix recommended movies to your queue.

PermalinkCommentstechnical stolen-thoughts csrf netflix security

Netflix Watch Instantly Recommendations

2009 May 3, 9:17
WeedsAvatar The Last AirbenderPaprikaGrindhouse Planet TerrorOutsourcedThe King of KongPrimer

Netflix lets you watch a subset of their movies online via their website and a subset of those movies are available to watch on the Xbox 360's Netflix app. so its not always easy to find movies to watch on Xbox 360. Yet, I regularly see my Xbox friends using the Netflix app and its a shame they didn't make an easy way to share movie recommendations with your friends. Instead we must share movie recommendations the old fashioned way. Here's the movies I've found and enjoyed on my 360.

Weeds
You don't have to be a stoner to enjoy this humorous and dramatic satire featuring a widow trying to raise her children and deal pot in suburbia.
Avatar The Last Airbender
An American animated series that's an amalgamation of various Asian art, history, religion, etc. that maintains a great story line.
Paprika
If you enjoyed Paranoia Agent you'll enjoy this movie in the same animation style and by the same director and writer, Satoshi Kon. Its like a feature length version of a Paranoia Agent episode in which a dream machine lets outsiders view one's dreams but eventually leads to blurring the dreams and reality.
Grindhouse Planet Terror
I didn't see either of the Grindhouse movies when they first came out, but of the two, Planet Terror is the more humorous and exciting gore filled parody.
Outsourced
A refreshing romantic comedy that still has a few of the over played tropes but is easy to enjoy despite that.
The King of Kong
A hilarious documentary on the struggle between the reigning champ hot-sauce salesman and the underdog Washington state high school science teacher to obtain the Donkey Kong world record high score. After watching, checkout this interview with the creators of the movie and the villain.
Primer
I've mentioned Primer before, but I put it on here again because its really good and you still haven't seen it, have you?
PermalinkCommentsmovie personal netflix

"Your business card is CRAP!"

2009 Apr 20, 5:49Some awesome quotes from this video. Really need to watch the whole thing through though to fully experience the humor. "This is the most impressive business card I've ever seen. Its mine." On the topic of its non-standard size: "It doesn't fit in a rolodex because it doesn't belong in a rolodex." More from the comments:PermalinkCommentshumor video via:boingboing viral business-card

Time Travel Essentials - TopatoCo: We Sell T-shirts by the e-Shore

2009 Apr 15, 7:42"If you're like us, you live in constant fear of slipping into a wormhole and getting spit out in the 13th century, and the only real useful knowledge you have for your ignorant ancestors is 'watch out for that Hitler guy' and 'some of the Popes are evil.'" Its like they're inside my head! Love this shirt and poster telling you everything you need to know in case you accidentally fall back in time.PermalinkCommentstime-travel time shirt poster wishlist gift awesome

The Super Mario Bros. 3 'rainbow riding' LUA hack - Offworld

2009 Apr 15, 7:30Another cool Mario hack via some sort of awesome emulator: "...the FCEUX emulator includes a second LUA script that turns Super Mario Bros. 3 into the DS game Nintendo never made. The hack disables direct control of Mario completely, and only allows you to manipulate him (and protect him from the rest of the world) via mouse-drawn lines ala the DS's Kirby Canvas Curse and Atari's The Chase."PermalinkCommentsgame video mario smb3 videogame emulator

Awesome Spokesmen Billy Mays and Vince Offer

2009 Apr 8, 4:06
Vince Offer photo from onebutan-iphoneBilly Mays photo from onebutan-iphone

There can be no doubt that infomercial pitchmen Billy Mays and Vince Offer are awesome, but how can I decide which is my favorite?

Infomercial Performance.
Among other things they sell Zorbeez and ShamWow respectively, both of which are absorbant towels so first up I can get a somewhat apples-to-apples comparison on informercials for comparable products. Thankfully someone has created a Vince Offer vs Billy Mays youtube video featuring these informercials.

Billy has an upbeat yell to everything he says while Vince has an endearing condescension to his "You followin' me camera guy?" In the end I must give this one to Vince Offer.

Extracurriculars.
Billy Mays has a new show Pitchmen on the Discovery Channel, a reality show involving folks pitching inventions to the pitchmen Billy Mays and someone else. Vince Offer was arrested for assaulting a prostitute. A clear win for Billy.
Intra-pitchman Interactions.
Billy has challenged Vince to a pitchman-off which on the surface sounds like a point for Billy, but if you listen to the challenge Billy says that Vince attempted to extend the olive branch. Billy Mays calls out Vince on the Adam Corolla Show
PermalinkCommentspersonal2 infomercial stupid vince offer billy mays

April Fool's joke backfires on ThinkGeek | | A.V. Club

2009 Apr 7, 5:29"In response to the overwhelming demand for this made-up product, ThinkGeek has posted the following: ATTN Tauntaun Fanatics! Due to an overwhelming tsunami of requests from YOU THE PEOPLE, we have decided to TRY and bring this to life."PermalinkCommentshumor starwars thinkgeek awesome

Platonic Ideals in Anathem and The Atrocity Archives

2009 Apr 7, 11:58
The Atrocity ArchivesThe Jennifer MorgueAnathem

This past week I finished Anathem and despite the intimidating physical size of the book (difficult to take and read on the bus) I became very engrossed and was able to finish it in several orders of magnitude less time than what I spent on the Baroque Cycle. Whereas reading the Baroque Cycle you can imagine Neal Stephenson sifting through giant economic tomes (or at least that's where my mind went whenever the characters began to explain macro-economics to one another), in Anathem you can see Neal Stephenson staying up late pouring over philosophy of mathematics. When not exploring philosophy, Anathem has an appropriate amount of humor, love interests, nuclear bombs, etc. as you might hope from reading Snow Crash or Diamond Age. I thoroughly enjoyed Anathem.

On the topic of made up words: I get made up words for made up things, but there's already a name for cell-phone in English: its "cell-phone". The narrator notes that the book has been translated into English so I guess I'll blame the fictional translator. Anyway, I wasn't bothered by the made up words nearly as much as some folk. Its a good thing I'm long out of college because I can easily imagine confusing the names of actual concepts and people with those from the book, like Hemn space for Hamming distance. Towards the beginning, the description of slines and the post-post-apocalyptic setting reminded me briefly of Idiocracy.

Recently, I've been reading everything of Charles Stross that I can, including about a month ago, The Jennifer Morgue from the surprisingly awesome amalgamation genre of spy thriller and Lovecraft horror. Its the second in a series set in a universe in which magic exists as a form of mathematics and follows Bob Howard programmer/hacker, cube dweller, and begrudging spy who works for a government agency tasked to suppress this knowledge and protect the world from its use. For a taste, try a short story from the series that's freely available on Tor's website, Down on the Farm.

Coincidentally, both Anathem and the Bob Howard series take an interest in the world of Platonic ideals. In the case of Anathem (without spoiling anything) the universe of Platonic ideals, under a different name of course, is debated by the characters to be either just a concept or an actual separate universe and later becomes the underpinning of major events in the book. In the Bob Howard series, magic is applied mathematics that through particular proofs or computations awakens/disturbs/provokes unnamed horrors in the universe of Platonic ideals to produce some desired effect in Bob's universe.

PermalinkCommentsatrocity archives neal stephenson jennifer morgue plato bob howard anathem

Effektive CV/Poster Mailer on the Behance Network

2009 Mar 22, 10:35Graphic designer's awesome resume.PermalinkCommentsresume internet art design portfolio

Code: Flickr Developer Blog - Panda Tuesday; The History of the Panda, New APIs, Explore and You

2009 Mar 10, 5:15"We built this ... (many people wished we hadn't) ... the Rainbow Vomiting Panda of Awesomeness as an experiment (which used Ling Ling fwiw)." WTF? "It's a stream of, on average, more interesting photos then you'd generally get from polling Everyone's photos. The quality is pretty good, the best thing to do is watch The Panda for a while and figure out if a) you want to build something with a live stream of photos b) you can build something more better than a vomiting panda (which lets face it, it pretty hard to top!)."PermalinkCommentshumor panda flickr reference api photos

This Is Me - Archive: A Greater Force (March 6, 2009)

2009 Mar 6, 5:02Reminds me of the guy from the Jose Chung episode of the X-Files that would repeatedly yell 'Roswell!' whenever he felt he was the subject of government oppression. The more time passes I only end up remembering the awesome episodes of the X-Files.PermalinkCommentscomic cory-doctorow sheep humor censorship

Sorting it all Out : What do you get when you combine a base character with a buttload of diacritics?

2009 Mar 6, 11:47"Anyway, I decided to take the letter a and put as many different diacritics on it as I could." Micahel Kaplan sticks like 80 diacritics on the letter 'a'. Awesome.PermalinkCommentsencoding unicode diacritic language letter michael-kaplan
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