2008 Nov 13, 10:30"There was bittersweet news for Keepon fans last month. The funky fuzzy yellow robot - pictured - is to be released commercially. But it won't come cheap - it carries a $30,000 price tag."
keepon robot dance humor video 2008 Nov 11, 3:57Grandpa's old films contain some surprises: "There was another reason why the Library of Congress wanted the original films. They are a treasure trove of historic video of the aftermath of D-Day."
video history library-of-congress 2008 Nov 5, 12:13Sure, we're laughing now but what if...
voting politics humor onion video president voting-machine 2008 Oct 30, 12:13On hearing news of Live ID supporting OpenID this is pretty much exactly what I was thinking: "With every big portal acting as a provider but not a consumer of identity credentials, users are still
going to wind up creating accounts for more than one service (says this user of Flickr and Google Calendars). When it comes to third-party sites, they may not need to remember a new username and
password, but they will have to remember to which of the providers they chose to provide the credentials for their account. Anyone who slips up may wind up with three or more identities on a single
website, with different data associated with each."
openid identity microsoft google 2008 Oct 25, 10:22My Xbox has a blog and my Wii has an email address: "Email a chum's Wii: You'll need to have a record of those damnably unmemorable friend codes for anyone you want to mail, but once you do it's
simple: just drop a message to w[friendcode]@wii.com. For instance, w1234567891011@wii.com."
wii howto email nintendo tips via:sarah 2008 Sep 30, 11:05Article on the team that owns the Office spell-checker: 'But, the team asked itself, should "calender" be flagged, or squiggled - have the red squiggly underline that indicates a misspelling? Yes,
because letting it go through as correct "more often masks the really common spelling error that people make for calendar."' I didn't even realize they had written calender rather than calendar in
the article
microsoft office spell-check language 2008 Sep 29, 2:28'"Internet Explorer is not currently your default browser. Would you like to make it your default browser?" the software program asked in an attempt to guilt Drewing into accepting its offer out of
pure pity.'
onion humor browser ie microsoft 2008 Sep 24, 6:37Info on how to get at what RSS feeds Facebook provides. "Facebook allows you to subscribe to a variety of rapidly updating content on the site. You can easily keep track of all of your friend's
status updates, posted items and notes." I'd like a RSS feed of my news feed please.
rss facebook reference help 2008 Sep 23, 1:11"...a film crew and a renowned scientist are plunked down on a busy city street corner, and an impromptu Q&A session with the public ensues." I like the concept. Two videos on the topic
video science education physics nyc via:boingboing 2008 Sep 9, 8:29Article on the data centers that backup the Internet Archive and handle CERN's LHC's data. "CERN embodies borderlessness. The Swiss-French border is a drainage ditch running to one side of the
cafeteria; it was shifted a few metres to allow that excellent establishment to trade the finicky French health codes for the more laissez-fair Swiss jurisdiction. And in the data sphere it is
utterly global."
lhc history internet cory-doctorow nature physics network hardware library science cern internet-archive 2008 Sep 8, 6:51Neil prints out brain cross sections from an MRI and pastes them onto a set of wooden cubes forming a model of his brain. "Last month I took a left-right MRI scan, reconstructed it, and rerendered
top-bottom and front-back scans... Another method to visualize a complex 3D object is to build a model. The dimensions of the MRI data cuboid are almost exactly 3x4x5. Accordingly, I obtained 60
one-inch cubes ... arranged them appropriately, varnished the 94 outside faces, printed nine carefully selected cross-sections and their mirror images, sliced the prints into 266 squares and glued
them to the correct internal faces."
art design brain toy model wood 2008 Sep 8, 10:26"This is what I call the "cup of tea" problem, after Douglas Adams: Newsreaders still feel it is worth a special and rather worrying mention if, for instance, a crime was planned by people 'over the
Internet.' They don't bother to mention when criminals use the telephone or the M4, or discuss their dastardly plans 'over a cup of tea,' though each of these was new and controversial in their day."
internet security humor douglas-adams via:sambrook 2008 Sep 4, 6:08The new Windows ad campaign begins. I thought it was funny. I thought it'd be more directly aimed at the Mac ads and have something about Vista. I'm no ad expert though so what do I know? "The ad to
air tonight is the first of a series and is meant to be humorous, said a company spokeswoman. She would provide no additional details about the campaign." Oh, jokes! I get jokes. Thanks for the tip
company spokeswoman!
humor video advertising microsoft 2008 Aug 21, 10:40"I see a lot of questions in the Media Center newsgroups and forums asking how to access recorded TV from another Media Center in the house. This is fairly easy to accomplish. In this entry I'll walk
you through it in Vista; XP is almost the same except for some of the steps for sharing and securing the folder."
tv vista windows mce sharing mediacenter dvr howto 2008 Aug 18, 3:46Legal corner case bugs exploited for free rent in SF. "Getzow is getting pretty well known along the Polk Street corridor. Unlike other serial evictees, who move among different neighborhoods, all of
his eight evictions in San Francisco have occurred in a 20-block area known as Lower Nob Hill."
article legal rent house eviction san-francisco 2008 Aug 18, 11:29"A special program about the housing crisis produced in a special collaboration with NPR News. We explain it all to you. What does the housing crisis have to do with the turmoil on Wall Street? Why
did banks make half-million dollar loans to people without jobs or income? And why is everyone talking so much about the 1930s? It all comes back to the Giant Pool of Money."
podcast audio economics npr radio mortgage 2008 Aug 14, 9:38
I recently finished Braid, the Xbox Live game, and a comparison with Portal is helpful. From a screen shot Braid
looks like a normal 2D platformer, but that's like looking at a screen shot of Portal and saying its a first person shooter. While the scaffolding of the game-play may sort of fall into that
category, the games are actually about exploring the character's ability and solving puzzles. In Portal the ability is bending space and in Braid its bending time. However, whereas in Portal there
is one space bending mechanism, the portal gun, Braid's protagonist explores several different time bending techniques including, most prominently, reversing time, but also time dilation, multiple
time-lines, and other odd things.
Similar to the difference in game-play, while Portal has a strict simplicity to its visual style, Braid is much more ornate, like you're playing in an oil painting. Without seeing video of the game, or playing the demo (which is available for free on Xbox Live) its difficult to convey, but it is quite lovely and the
animation adds quite a bit. Both games too are rather short leaving you just a bit hungry for more and have an interesting plot and an ending that I'd hate to spoil although Braid replaces Portal's
humor with melancholy. If you enjoyed Portal and Twelve Monkeys then I'd recommend Braid.
braid game videogame portal nontechnical 2008 Aug 10, 3:33
Doctor Horrible's Sing Along Blog is an Internet only show you may have already watched and heard everything about. If you missed this
somehow, its a musical by Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly) staring Neil Patrick Harris as an aspiring super villian who can't get up the courage to talk to his laundromat crush. Its
very funny, fairly geeky, and on the Internet so of course I've enjoyed it thoroughly and have some links to share. It surprised me how many blogs that I don't usually see posting the same things
telling me about it: first on Eric's blog, then The Old New Thing,
and even Penny-Arcade.
Dr. Horrible's again available online via Hulu with commercial interruption.
Check out the official fan site. They link to such things as the owner of Dr. Horrible's house.
He had appeared on Monster House, a reality show about remaking people's homes like Monster Car or Pimp My Ride is about remaking folk's cars, and had his house turned into a evil scientist's lab.
Consequently its a perfect fit for Dr. Horrible and in return the owner appears in one of the final scenes and in the credits as the 'Purple Pimp'. Apparently the purple suit is his. Also on his
blog you can find out what's happened on that big chair that appears in the show. All I'll say about that is, good thing Neil Patrick
Harris wears a lab coat while sitting on it.
At the recent Comic Con some attendees took video of the Dr. Horrible
Comic Con panel (video clips contain spoilers) some of which I've grouped together. Besides the videos containing the creators and stars of the musical who are all hilarious (see Felicia Day's comment on twittering) there's also some excellent bits about a possible second installment and information on the impending DVD. To
finish off this series of Dr. Horrible links check out this Venn Diagram of Felicia Day's work.
dr. horrible doctor horrible humor link roundup 2008 Aug 4, 4:22Satire: "...more than 170 bookmarked sites - personal web pages, blogs, Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg, Flickr and more. Each week Alton surfs the sites for hours to find evidence of
questionable behavior by people in his church. He jots offenses down and incorporates them into his Sunday sermons."
myspace humor religion satire 2008 Jul 24, 7:26Fake Facebook page considered libel and gets target big pounds: "Mathew Firsht was awarded 22,000 pounds in damages against an old school friend". Careful what you post...
facebook identity law legal privacy libel
Some rights reserved