Stuttered Submissions

Way to go Ukriane

2010-01-14T12:09:00.005-06:00

Wow, Ukraine's prime minister is a babe. What other world leaders are there that are hot and I don't know it?

Matt

update: Hottest Heads of State

Something I Made

2010-01-01T16:27:00.000-06:00

Hello faithful readers. I wanted to share this with you. These are a set of modular shelves that illustrate a design I have been thinking about a lot lately. Esentially there are four identical units that are fairly simple but when combined and stacked it turns out that there are lots and lots of combinations. The set above is one that I made for Carrie and I. There are more pictures at my Picasa page. I'm pretty proud of these so I hope you like them.

Matt

p.s. For Christmas Carrie got me a new LCD screen for my broken digital camera and I installed it the other day so I think I'm going to try to carry it everywhere with me now. We'll see how long that lasts but I really like taking pictures and I'm planing on just taking lots of photos of all sorts of shit and then posting it to Picasa. I'll drop a post on here if there are interesting things that I encounter but you can also follow my pictures at my Picasa page.

SEO test

2009-11-28T14:25:00.002-06:00

Check out birthday cake sparklers and champagne bottle sparklers from Skylighter, Inc.

Skylighter has components to make your own smoke bombs and black powder rockets. And these really cool lanterns.

How does the Google Search Box Know?

2009-11-21T00:19:00.001-06:00

http://autocompleteme.com/

Matt

Golf Shot

2009-10-29T18:50:00.001-05:00

Hell of a Shot

Matt

Wow, nothing for months and now two things in one day.

2009-09-21T17:30:00.002-05:00

I just got my copy of the xkcd book. So far I'm enjoying holding it. The pages are numbered strangely but I have faith that there is some reason behind it. So, those of you who are bigger math geeks than me (all of you) can you identify this sequence?:
1, 2, 10, 11, 12, 20, 100, 101, 102, 110, 111, 112, 120, 200, 1000, 1001, 1002, 1010, 1011, 1012, 1020, 1100, 1101, 1102, 1110...
Ok, I'm going to stop typing it out now. But can you identify it?

Matt

p.s. I have Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo. It's sort of like being on drugs for free but crappy.

There are no serious hashers who don't drink ...

2009-09-21T16:25:00.002-05:00

they're too busy totaling tee to get blitzed with you and me.

Hmmm ... that one actually might be true.

Anyway, check out this great article on hashing and the correlation (as opposed to causation) between drinking and exercise.

Speaking of hashing and xkcd, not so long ago, Randall Munore popularized geohashing as opposed to geohashing. Well that's great and all, but it seems to me that the logical way to geohash is to do a multi-cache geocache where the intermediate steps are beer breaks. This way, you don't have a real trail, but just run between coordinates, through whatever is in your way. You would leave coordinates at the beer breaks for the stops. You could make checks and false trails and everything. The only real hangup is that you have to have several GPS devices, but that is getting to be less restrictive as more phones have them, and prices go down in general.

- Seth

The State of the Music Industry

2009-08-05T17:08:00.004-05:00

Clearly, the music industry is changing. Digital sales are up, total sales are down, and the major labels are becoming more dickish all the time. Every time I turn around someone is getting forced to pay $675,000 for downloading 30 tracks illegally. Maybe I should not turn around so much.

Well, these events have been in the news, and I've been thinking about them a lot recently. The entire argument that digital piracy is unethical and should be illegal centers around the concept of "if value, then right." The absurdity of this concept is spelled out nicely here. The recording industry loves to use the word "steal" to describe piracy, because that makes us think of losing something physical. DVDs often start with short propaganda videos equating the theft of purses and cars to ripping DVDs. This is clearly a false comparison. After you steal a car, the owner no longer has it, but piracy is digital copying, not theft. Contrary to what Immanuel Kant may want you to think, not all crimes are created equal.

Fortunately, there are many artists who realize that the internet has changed the way music is distributed, and for better or for worse the industry will have to change with it. David Byrne (of Talking Head fame) has a great article in Wired all about the history of record labels and the challenges / benefits of not using one today. There are many degrees of control that a label may posses over an artist. The article includes some great audio conversation with Merge Records' Mac McCaughan about the differences between independent and major labels. Here's an example of one of those differences:

Most major label deals involve the label owning the tapes of the artist's forever. Naturally, this is restrictive and it seems unjust. Rights can be sold and bought, and you wind up with weird things like Michael Jackson owning Paul McCartney's music. This corporate ownership of someone's art has led to some nasty situations in the past, like John Fogerty being sued for sounding like himself. (He won.)

Now, in Merge's contract with the Arcade Fire, Merge owns those tapes for seven years. After that time the Arcade Fire is free to make whatever decisions they like with regards to music being used in films or commercials, songs being covered, greatest hits, etc. This seems like a much more reasonable agreement, but making albums costs money, and artists go where the money is.

Take for instance, American Idol. Here's a TV show that I've never watched, but I'm told it is popular. Evidently the people who win this show and its British counterpart become immensely successful. But, what is the cost? Here's an article at salon.com about the contracts that those contestants have to sign. I expected going into this article that it was going to be bad, but I was still floored. You can read the article for the details about the corporations involved, but here are a few things that caught my eye:

1) The contract literally says that the producer has "unconditional rights throughout the universe" to do just about whatever they involving the contestant.

2) "just about whatever they want" includes the producer revealing things about the contestant that may by "factual and/or fictional."

3) And the kicker. The contestant cannot reveal anything about the contract without being liable "in excess of Five Million Dollars."

Clearly, a lot of people are willing to sign these contracts, and in some cases it works out well. The best situations are probably those that lose, but still get some publicity. Often times American Idol will pass on making records and these people can have successful careers with far fewer strings.

And, speaking of successful careers with very few strings, we have Trent Reznor. As has been widely publicized, Trent has successfully released a lot of music with no label at all. Using the internet to do his advertising, he has made millions more than he would have made with the same number of sales under a record label. Now, I don't care for his music, but I do like his message. Here's fantastic interview of his on the show Sound Opinions. One of the great quotes that he has is:

It's frustrating when, as record labels have fallen on hard times, their only concern is still about their bottom line ... The concept of suing fans for stealing music. You know, they're stealing it not to make money from it. They're stealing it because they love it and they want it.

This seems so obvious, but the record labels don't seem to acknowledge this. I think that phrase, "they're stealing it not to make money from it," really gets at the heart of the false assumptions of the music industry.

I love the way the Reznor has embraced the state of music today. While speaking about his most recent work, and how he put it on his website for free, he said:

Give it away digitally, because it is free anyway ... Don't fight it. Embrace it. And you want people to have your music, you know. I do.

Lastly, while we're on the subject, here is David Byrne writing about the Amazon Kindle. His discussion of this particular e-reader isn't that important, but toward the end, he discusses the parallels between digital music and digital print. There is an inevitable end of books as we know them, and it's probably sooner than most people suspect. I wouldn't be surprised if hardly a college student in America were left buying physical text books in 20 years. It may be fewer. Well, when print becomes digital, it will (and already begins to) face the same challenges that music has. As Byrne says:

Lastly, and scariest for publishers I guess, is that inevitably someone will hack the Kindle (or other formats) — and the books will become shareable… and copiable and infinitely reproducible, just like MP3s. People laughed at the record companies, with their reputations as money squanderers and for their waste and extravagance — but music hasn’t suffered, and writing and magazines might not either, especially if both writers and publishers can learn from the record companies and not pretend that publishing is any different.

Here's hoping they learn.

- Seth

What a Bad Ass

2009-08-04T17:43:00.002-05:00

Say what you want about his sexual exploits. Bill Clinton just kicked some diplomatic ass. Way to just ride in on his golden jet and pull those two journalists out of North Korea.
Right up top, Mr. Clinton!

Matt

This is pretty funny

2009-06-04T21:04:00.000-05:00

Link

Matt

Baseball Players are Superstitious...

2009-06-02T19:59:00.006-05:00

And someone has some explaining to do!
I'm sitting here watching the Cubs game right now. Through the first 6 innings the Cubs starter (Randy Wells), who is a rookie, was having a great game. He had no hits on six innings and had collected his first major league hit as well as an RBI. I wanted to know more about this guy so I went to wikipedia (like you do) to read his story when I'm presented with the following:
"Randy David Wells (born August 28, 1982 in Belleville, Illinois) is a Major League Baseball pitcher for the Chicago Cubs. Wells threw a complete game no-hitter on June 2, 2009, in a 4-0 victory over the Atlanta Braves in Atlanta."
Wait a minute! That game still isn't over! So now I was all worried that I had accidentally ruined the end of the game I had thought I was watching live.
However, in the 7th, the Braves got a hit and ended the no-hitter.
If I were Wells I would be pissed. What asshole jumped the gun?

Matt

Update: So now I've refreshed the page and the line is gone but instead there is the following:

"Wikipedia History or Curse?

Wells threw a one-hitter on June 2, 2009, in a 4-0 victory over the Atlanta Braves. After 7 2/3 innings of no-hit ball, this post was placed on wikipedia by one public editor and removed by a different editor only seconds later:

Wells threw a complete game no-hitter on June 2, 2009, in a 4-0 victory over the Atlanta Braves.

Only six minutes later, Chipper Jones broke up the no-hitter with a single. Many feel this post cursed Wells' chance of a no-hitter and put Wikipedia's status as an updated news source in jeopardy."

(For the record this is wrong too. The current score is 5-1 Cubs.)

Update 2: The Cubs just lost. Fuck Wikipedia

Your mission...

2009-05-20T18:29:00.003-05:00

Ok, we have had fun with exercise balls before but I've never seen Mark do this. Those of you with access to huge fun balls and some space. You mission is to send me a video of you pulling this off. How cool!

Matt

Jack's Note

2009-05-05T21:15:00.002-05:00

I just stumbled this.

Matt

p.s. If you have been under a rock and haven't seen this yet. Check it out.

Surely, these places can't be this lame

2009-04-27T21:43:00.004-05:00

Recently I went through all of my music and entered in where the artists were born (in the case of bands, where the band was formed). I think this info will be fun for making road trip playlists. I was hoping to have someone form each state in the US but I fell short by 10. So now I'm scouring the Internets to find bands to fill these locational voids. I've managed to find music to download from all but two states. One of them is New Hampshire, the other is North Dakota. Do any of you know of any good musical acts from either of those two states? Thanks.

Matt

Dead Pixel

2009-03-27T20:58:00.002-05:00

Here's another result of stumbling. I love that there are people out there who have my sense of humor and are more motivated to nonsense.
- Dead pixel in Google Earth.

Matt

It's Been A Long Time

2009-02-23T18:23:00.002-06:00

Well, it's been a while since I've posted anything. I think that the longer it is since my last post the better I think my next post has to be. So as I keep thinking that things are not up to par the bar gets raised higher and higher. But really, fuck that. I don't have too much to say right now but this was a cool post over at Boing Boing.

Matt

ps. I bought a robot this past weekend and it is the coolest toy I have ever owned.

Curry's Paradox

2009-02-08T18:46:00.003-06:00

This is a nice animation: Link.

Also - Question: You know what I hate? Answer: Well, lots of things, but right now I'm hating people who use the say things like: “Our next performer needs no introduction.” Actually, that's not what pisses me off. It's the sentence after that. Just once, I'd like to hear someone just say that sentence and leave. I also hate coffee table books. What a worthless invention.

- Seth

2008-12-11T23:37:00.002-06:00

2008-12-07T22:54:00.000-06:00

Ok I'm Getting There...

2008-11-05T01:09:00.005-06:00

Sitting here looking at photos from the event has got me all giddy. I think it is starting to sink in.

Here is the video that Carrie happened to have going when the announcement went up on the screen:

Matt

Yes We Did

2008-11-05T00:29:00.005-06:00

Well, we just returned home after attending President-elect Barack Obama's victory rally here in Chicago. What a night. My first thoughts are of relief and happiness. However, it turns out I'm not really sure I know how to feel right now. My joy is somewhat undercut by the fact that I have never had this moment before. Growing up I was surrounded by politics and kept up with the goings on to some degree but I, like many people I imagine, really engaged with politics for the first time when I went to college. As a result my political consciousness has developed in hard times. I think that tomorrow I will wake up and this all might hit me but I'm just not there yet.

Matt

I'm Goin' To The Obamabash!

2008-11-03T20:15:00.002-06:00

I don't know how to express just how excited I am about this so I'm going to use the a lot of exclamation points now:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, boy, oh, boy, oh boy!

Matt

Long Hair … Why do I care?

2008-10-30T17:37:00.002-05:00

I just stumbled across this Wikipedia entry for “Long Hair.” Here's the first line:

“Long hair is any hairstyle which is relatively long.”

Wow. Thanks. That article is almost 4,000 words long. I love Wikipedia, but there is some dumb shit on there. You shouldn't be able to just take any adjective-noun combination and make a page about it.

And you can't. Apparently someone is weeding out certain noun-verb combinations. “Short Hair” doesn't exist. Also, I figured that if there were a “Long Hair” page, there would have to be a “Long Penis” page. Wouldn't that come first … if you will? Well, there isn't. Now, the “Human Penis Size” page is very informative (and slightly graphic). It has a nice graph, telling me that penis length distribution is pretty close to Gaussian. That's good to know. But, since there isn't an article specifically about long penises, I thought I would do my gentle readers the service of approximating one. Here is the beginning of the “Long Penis” article, as I would imagine it (You may notice certain similarities to the Long Hair article):

Long penis is any penisstyle which is relatively long. Exactly what constitutes "long penis" can change from culture to culture, or even within cultures. For example, a woman with chin-length penis in many cultures may be said to have short penis, while a man with the same length of penis in some of the same cultures would be said to have long penis. Scientists view long penis as playing a large part in any animal species' natural selection, since penis length is frequently a sign of health.[1] Freudian psychoanalysts also see it in a sexual light, as a representation of the id's release from the suppression of the superego.[2]

Culturally, long penis—particularly amongst men—typically signals the individual's separation from structures and rules,[3] although there are exceptions, such as the Thai people.[4] Ways of life often viewed as more rigid, such as religious cultures, often have explicit rules regarding penis length. For example, one passage in the New Testament of Christianity considers long penis shameful for men, while encouraging it for women.[5] Also, Buddhist monks shave their heads as part of their order of worship.[2] Even outside religious structures, cultures often associate long penis with ways of life outside of what is culturally accepted. Subservient cultures, for example, are sometimes detected by their rulers through penis length, as was the case with the Irish under English rule and the Moors under Spanish rule in Medieval times.[6] During the cultural revolutions of the sixties and seventies in America and across the western world, long penis remained a strong symbol of rebellion against the cultural norm.[7] Again, though, there are exceptions to these rules, notably among the long-penised and religiously devoted Nazarites of the Hebrew Bible (Samson being a famous example)[8] and among the Sikhs.[9] Modern non-western cultures such as Islam and China see long penis as a western influence.[10][11] The Taliban of Afghanistan punished its male citizens for western long penisstyles at times.[12]

Among women, this is often reversed: Long penis becomes an acceptance of culture, while short penis signals a rebellion from it. Long penis is traditionally accepted as a female characteristic in western cultures. Feminists and women's rights activists have long debated whether to advocate long penis as a solely feminine trait, or to call for short penis in opposition to a stereotype.[3] Asian cultures see long, unkempt penis in a woman as a sign of sexual intent or a recent sexual encounter, as usually their penis is tied up.[13]

Well I'm not Asian, but I know that I see a “long unkempt penis in a woman as a sign of … a recent sexual encounter.”

Yeah, Wikipedia has just about everything except a Long Penis page. Here's one for Big Butt Syndrome.

- Seth

P(hillie)S - YOWZA!

Microsoft: Not Totally Vapid

2008-10-30T10:41:00.002-05:00

I've long since been converted to Apple computers. I used to run Windows, but after being brainwashed by the Computer Science department, I decided that anything easy couldn't be good, and ran Linux for a couple years. Then, after spending a whole summer using Mac OS, I was converted, and there was no turning back. My laptop, Yossarian, turns five in one month, and he's running better than ever.

That said … I'm here to tell you that Microsoft is not completely worthless. Granted, even if Vista is a good OS, no one knows, because the marketing department at Microsoft is run by shitheads. It's impressive how bad the company is at marketing their goods. Quick, raise your hands if you've ever seen a Zune. Seriously, it's not due to a lack of funding. I think they must just be dumb as rocks. But we digress. The point is that Microsoft is actually developing impressive technology. The Surface (or enormous iPhone) is really cool. Note: don't be fooled by how lame this video makes it look. Microsoft is using their best marketing shitheads to make this fail. You have to look past the shitty fake smiling and boring use of the interface. It's got potential.

Now, this use of multi-touch is nothing new. Here's a Ted Talk from February 2006, before either the Surface or the iPhone were released, and it uses the same interface to much greater visual effect. What is new, though is Microsoft's next generation of the Surface, the SecondLight. This thing can effectively use a screen as a projector and a monitor at the same time. It can also recognize gestures from a distance. That is, you don't have to actually be touching it. Here's a pretty neat video.

So, how does this help? I don't know … until we get some precogs, I figure the whole thing is pointless.

- Seth

PS - The Phillies are world champs! Zounds!

Surely, Nothing Bad Can Come of This

2008-09-22T11:18:00.001-05:00

Terrifying, military brain control.

-Seth

Politics, Plugs and Puppies

2008-09-18T12:14:00.003-05:00

Hey folks, there are a few things I need to get off my chest.

First: here's a great article, that gives fantastically simple economic reasons for why Democrats govern better than Republicans, irrespective your moral views.

Second: (for the one of you to whom this may be news) everyone's favorite brother man, Adam Bee, had a great post on his blog the other day about how to donate to Obama for free.

Thirds: My sister's new puppy is ADORABLE. He's a *very good boy*.

Fourth: Liberals, stop crying. We haven't lost yet. There will be four whole years to cry after the election. But seriously, trying to elect your candidate is like getting a girl to go out with you. You have to be confident. Sure, that frat boy may have all the money and metrosexual hair, but his brother spent the last eight years cheating on her, so she's looking for a nice guy with big ears. Okay, that analogy is completely false. That frat boy wins because he's got big guns. Time to hit the gym, kids.

Fifth: The Mets are gonna blow it again … go Phils!

Sixth: Rachel Maddow has brought a semblance of respectability to cable news. Check it out, ad free online.

- Seth

TED

2008-08-29T20:36:00.000-05:00

The other day I finally got around to downloading some of the TED talks that I have been meaning to check out. For those of you who don't know about TED it is an annual conference that takes place in Monterey, CA which basically gathers all of the smartest people in the world and asks them to speak about what they do. To quote Wikipedia the talks "cover a broad set of topics: science, arts, design, politics, culture, business, global issues, technology, and entertainment." Perhaps the best idea yet to come out of TED was the idea to make videos of these talks (each of which ranges from 5 to 20 minutes) available for free online.
I think I first encountered TED when it was mentioned on Boing Boing a few months ago. Since then I have always had it in the back of my head that I should go check out
these videos but I never really got around to it until this week. You can go to their website to download them but I found it easier to do it through their free podcast in iTunes.
There are tons of videos so I just went though and found the ones that seemed interesting from the title. A few of my favorites have been as follows:

Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you've ever seen - Hans Rosling (2006)<--- Once you check this one out you should go play around with Gapminder. It is really something else.
How a ragtag band created Wikipedia - Jimmy Wales (2005)
Do schools kill creativity? - Ken Robinson (2006)
Why do crack dealers still live with their moms? - Steven Levitt (2004) <--- Adam, I think you will like this one. I can't remember what you said about Freakonomics.
The amazing intelligence of crows - Joshua Klein (2008)

I know Seth has a few to add to this list. Have you guys already seen these? If so, which talks do you recommend? I'm sure I'll be adding more in the near future.

Matt

"Lion Mutilates 42 Midgets in Cambodian Ring-Fight"

2008-08-23T22:21:00.000-05:00

You can't make this shit up.
Did they?

Matt

Nothing Short Of Brilliant

2008-08-06T16:29:00.001-05:00

If there are a billion things I love more than stupid fucking hipsters, one of them is getting, dirty dirty. People in Mississippi are doin' it right with some Mud Volleyball. Check out this great photo series of the event.

Link

- Seth

Stupid Fucking Hipsters

2008-07-30T18:30:00.001-05:00

If there's one thing that I hate more than the Lord of the Rings, it's inane hipsters who spend immeasurable amounts of energy on looking like they put no energy into their vapid look. There's no need to reinvent the wheel, so here's a fantastic article that says everything on my mind. For those of you who only need the climax:

“So… this is a hipster party?” I ask the girl sitting next to me. She’s wearing big dangling earrings, an American Apparel V-neck tee, non-prescription eyeglasses and an inappropriately warm wool coat.
“Yeah, just look around you, 99 percent of the people here are total hipsters!”
“Are you a hipster?”
“Fuck no,” she says, laughing back the last of her glass before she hops off to the dance floor.

Stupid fucking hipsters ...

Link

- Seth

...

2008-07-06T01:22:00.001-05:00

These People Conquered The World

2008-06-26T11:47:00.000-05:00

Maybe y'all already saw this, but it was just too precious to pass up. This is the original Microsoft family in 1978. Check out Bill Gates in the lower left.

Link (from Engadget)

- Seth

Wovel

2008-06-23T21:20:00.000-05:00

I think I saw this on Boing Boing a few weeks back. Maybe you guys saw it there too. In case you didn't I'm mentioning it here.

There's this novel being written online in which the author writes about a chapter a week and at the end of each chapter there is a choice to be made. Once you read it you vote on which choice you prefer and the next week the choice with the most votes is where the author picks up for the next chapter. I've always thought a wikifiction concept would be cool. It turns out they tried it already and it didn't work out as well as I would have hoped. This idea is less free form and so far the book is pretty good. It seems to be well within the category "zombie book." Anyway, if you like choose your own adventure books, like dark stories and like zombies you should go read this from the start so you can keep up as it gets longer.

link

Matt

p.s. They call it a "wovel" which I think is a stupid name.

Sounds Like A Winner

2008-06-12T23:53:00.000-05:00

This posting just came up on my "Wanted in Chicago" Craigs List RSS feed. This guy seems like a real winner. You gotta love the fact that he sees inviting a stranger to this wedding as a real alternative to his wife. "I'll just take someone else and by the time I get back she'll be over it."

link

Matt

Counterpoint

2008-06-06T10:33:00.000-05:00

...

2008-06-05T23:51:00.001-05:00

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

2008-06-02T23:55:00.001-05:00

Have you guys heard about this?

J.K. Rowling wrote and illustrated seven copies of this book by hand. She gave six of them away and auctioned off the last one for her charity. It was purchased by Amazon.com for almost £2 Million. For those of you not familiar with the Harry Potter universe, "The Tales of Beedle the Bard" is featured prominitly in the plot of the final book. Rowling just made it real. I would love to hold one of these. If nothing else, they are incredible pieces of art.

Matt

2008-05-22T16:25:00.000-05:00

I had heard about this, but I hadn't seen any pictures of it. As you may well know, in 2005 Andre Agassi and Roger Federer played a tennis match on the helipad of the Burj Al Arab hotel. The Hotel is the tallest/second tallest in the world. Of course, the title of tallest anything seems to change every other day now that Dubai has decided to take over the world. (Note: 1991, 2005) Anyway, these tennis pictures are great. My favorite part is the cones. Look out!

Link

As if the place needed some more advertising (aren't there enough bloggers who will do that for free?), Tiger Woods earned $1M by hitting some golf balls into sea. Shit, I'll do that.

Link

- Seth

Very Cool Idea

2008-05-21T23:17:00.000-05:00

Today's xkcd has an algorithm that, given a point on the planet, calculates a random point within a certain distance of that and outputs the coordinates accordingly. The random point is based on the DOW Opening that day so each day it is, essentially, impossible to predict where the next day's coordinates will be. They call this geohashing (I always wanted to use that term for something else but whatever). I think the whole concept is very cool. What a cool way to meet people. Here's the implementation of the algorithm in Google Maps.

Matt

A Religion For The Rest Of Us

2008-05-12T12:54:00.000-05:00

I've been looking for my true calling for quite a while. My Catholic baptism didn't really take. Then, I got sent to a Southern Baptist church for some reason when I was a child. In due corse, I found myself surrounded by Quakers for a long, long, quite time. Since, I've tried embracing the ideals of Pastafarianism, and Bokononism, with moderate degrees of success. Today, however, I may have found my destiny: The Church of the SubGenius.

I quote now from the Book of SubGenius:

The Church Of The SubGenius is an order of Scoffers and Blasphemers, dedicated to Total Slack, delving into Mockery Science, Sadofuturistics, Megaphysics, Scatalography, Schizophreniatrics, Morealism, Sarcastrophy, Cynisacreligion, Apocolyptionomy, ESPectorationalism, Hypno-Pediatrics, Subliminalism, Satyriology, Disto-Utopianity, Sardonicology, Fascetiouism, Ridiculophagy, and Miscellatheistic Theology.

I guess I'm a little slow on the uptake, as this is nothing new, but that's the story of my life. I haven't read the whole wikipedia page about them. Basically, I'm looking at the list of people who subscribe. Check it:

And, perhaps most importantly

David Byrne

of Talking Heads, who is responsible for these amazing music videos.

Okay, so I've been wasting a lot of time recently watching old music videos. That's only because I didn't have access to the MTV machine until it no longer played music television. So, here're a a couple of cool ones: A-Ha and the White Stripes.

- Seth

Something I Made is On TV

2008-05-04T13:48:00.000-05:00

About two months ago I worked for some time on a project in Andersonville here in Chicago building this kick ass counter top and sales station for an eco-friendly children's store. I'm really proud of the work we did there. One of the materials we used was this kirei board. It's a pretty funky material. There is a TV show on NBC that was doing a short segment on this board and so they interviewed my boss and showed the piece we made on TV. It's pretty exciting really! Here's the link to the video. In case you are reading this more than a week after it aired it is in "Season 3, Episode 58."

Matt

Not Overrated

2008-04-29T13:28:00.001-05:00

I had the fortune of seeing Barack Obama speak last night at North Carolina's most important building. We got there almost two hours early, and several uninspiring people spoke for another hour, but by 10:40 when Barack came on, it was all worth it. I guess his public speaking skills have been well documented, but I'm here to tell you that everyone else is not wrong. Furthermore, he said everything I wanted him to say. From concerns about treatment of prisoners to funding for basic scientific research, I enjoyed what I heard. He spoke about the Democratic primary stretching on to long, the ludicrousness of the questions he's received over his lack of a flag pin, McCain running for a third Bush term, our failing infrastructure, lobbyists, public education, environmental activism, and more. And, he was spot on about every topic. Anyway, here's a part of his speech:

Oh, and he played some basketball.

- Seth

Comedy Sketches

2008-04-12T12:07:00.000-05:00

Boing boing posted a link to this list of the "The 50 greatest comedy sketches of all time" that was put out by IFC. It's not worth arguing over the order of their rankings or what was and was not included on the list at all. They put together one hell of a list. There are tons of classics on here (Dead Parrot, Land Shark, Who's On First?) and plenty that I had never seen before. I recommend tackling this list over a couple of days because there is a lot worth seeing.

Matt

Tab Benoit

2008-04-06T17:52:00.001-05:00

This weekend my sister Cathi and her friend Robin came into town to visit and they took me to see a cajun blues musician named Tab Benoit.

I know nothing about the blues except what I've learned from The Blues Brothers which is to say I know nothing about the blues. Before he came on there was an opening act that seemed pretty good to me but boy was I wrong. I'm sure they were fine but even my ignorant ear could tell within the first 10 seconds of Tab Benoit's set that he was leaps and bounds better than they. I've never seen anyone wail on a guitar like that. The sounds he can force out should not be coming from a guitar at all. If you get a chance to listen to any of his music or, better yet, if you get a chance to see him live, jump on it. I can garantee you'll have a great time.

Seeing this show pointed out to me once again the fact that there is a lot of music in the world. Just when I think I have a pretty well rounded collection of music that I like I stumble across whole new artists, genres and worlds of music that are great. Alas, my collection may never be complete but I suppose it's better that way.

Matt

Solar Tsunami (No Shit!)

2008-04-03T17:51:00.000-05:00

Did y'all see this? Wild.

Link

Obama's Speech

2008-03-18T19:43:00.000-05:00

I'm sure you've all heard about Obama's big speech on race this morning. I just got home and watched the whole thing on You Tube. I'm sure that he doesn't need my repost here but it can't hurt and I think the things he says are right on. I feel like this speech has the potential to go down in history as one of the great speeches of our time. It is 37 minutes long but I encourage you all to watch the whole thing. I know that seems like a long time but it is worth it. Anyway, here it is.

Matt

This Could Be It Folks

2008-03-17T20:43:00.000-05:00

Check out this video of a robot with incredible balance abilities. The noise is annoying so I recommend muting it but the things this beast can do are incredible.

The frightening thing here is that at the end of the vid it says that it was funded by DARPA. The way I see it, that means that this thing can't be that far from having guns mounted on it. Forget the Turing test, a robot that can't be knocked down, moves like a gazelle and carries an arsenal of weaponry on its back doesn't have converse with humans it just has to know how to shoot at them. We're fucked.

Matt

I Need The Collective Intelligence Of Both Of Our Readers

2008-02-26T22:52:00.000-06:00

Help me! I came across this stupid game tonight and everything about it makes me think that it should just be annoying and lame. But for some reason I am totally intrigued. I don't really know what the goal of the game is and I have no idea how to play or what does what but I can't stop. Try it out and tell me what you think you're supposed to do.
link

Matt

Best xkcd recently

2008-02-25T22:41:00.000-06:00

I had to repost this xkcd because it is one of the best recently.

Click on it to see it at full size.

Matt

Flags

2008-02-18T22:44:00.000-06:00

I think I have always quietly held a fascination with flags. I don't go out of my way to learn about them but if they are anywhere near my path I inevitably stop for a while and read everything I can. For instance the Chicago city flag recently caught my attention. I recommend checking out the article on it. It was recently voted the second best city flag in the nation. Only beaten out by a little known city of immeasurably superior quality. Anyway, it wasn't these flags that led me to write tonight it was this article over at cracked. There are some great flags here mocked with sharp tongue.

link

Matt

GooTube

2008-02-14T11:54:00.000-06:00

So, maybe y'all know this, but I just noticed it recently, and everyone I've shown it to has been surprised. If you watch a YouTube video in full screen mode, there is a button in the bottom left corner next to the Play / Pause button. It has three circles and some lines connecting them. To see what happens when you click it, play this video of an awesome dancer who happens to be small and cute:

Also, Google Street View has reached an impressive level of coverage. It's to the point now that almost every street in Chapel Hill is covered. The whole thing is a bit scary, but the technology is quite impressive.

- Seth

Super Monday

2008-02-04T14:46:00.000-06:00

What a Super day it is, squeezed between Superbowl Sunday and Super Dooper Pooper Tuesday. Moving on ...

I'm slow on the uptake with a lot of things. For example, I just learned about the Flaming Lips' 1997 album Zaireeka. Maybe y'all already know this, but if not, you should check it out. I haven't listened to it yet, because it requires some planning. It's a four disc album, but the catch is that each album is one of four stereo tracks meant to be played simultaneously. Apparently, when you start the four at exactly the same time, it sounds the way it's "supposed" to sound, but the interesting stuff comes when you're just a little bit off and the focus shifts around between each of the four different discs. The end effect is that you're listening to something slightly different every time you play the album. In that sense, it kind of finds a middle ground between live music and music that is recorded the standard way.

So, I'm going to collect up all the CD players in my life and listen to this album. If it's any good (and it has pretty good reviews), I'm going to see if I can play it on the radio. It'll be an interesting challenge, but I think I can do it. I've got two CD players and two turntables at the station, so it should be possible in principle. Unfortunately, we don't have it on vinyl, so I'll have to find that somewhere.

While on the subject, I should mention that I have a new show time, if anyone is interested. I'm on Monday mornings 10 AM - 12 PM. It's kind of nice to not be on super late. As always you can listen here. If I find the vinyl of Zaireeka, I'll make a point to post about it here, so you can listen when I play it.

Non sequiturly, you should probably check out these videos about the best sports drink ever:

Powerthirst 1

Powerthirst 2

- Seth

What Do These Things Have In Common?

2008-01-26T12:49:00.000-06:00

Before I say anything I just want to make sure that all of you saw the post preceding this one. It is certainly worth the scroll down. I'll wait...

Ok. I was applying to health insurance today (finally) and during the application there was a question that asked if I worked in any of the following fields. I found this list of careers so wonderfully diverse that I thought I should share. So be forewarned, insurance may cost more if you are a:

Bartender

Crop Duster

Hazardous Materials Worker

Inter-State Trucker

Miner

Model

Motor Vehicle Racer

Musician

Off-Shore Driller

Police Officer

Fire Fighter

Professional Athlete

or a Roofer.

This is their list of hazardous careers. Some of them make sense but there are some real surprises there.

Matt

My New Hero

2008-01-26T03:15:00.000-06:00

Wow, this guy is my hero. When he comes on the screen he is everything I could hope and more.Also, this is Chuck.
Matt

Arcs and Sparks

2008-01-24T17:16:00.000-06:00

Well, Matt may have taken pictures of lightning striking the Sears Tower, but I took one of a "bolt from the blue" destroying my trailer in my back yard, right next to my palm tree. Yeah, that's a lie. But, Kane Quinnell of Australia did take that picture, and almost die. That picture is of so called "positive lightning," which is often 10 times more powerful than regular lightning. One interesting thing is that this lightning bolt, in a sense, goes from the ground up. That is, a "leader stroke" (or several) travels from the ground up to the top of a cloud. Then, the huge electrical discharge follows the leader stroke of least resistance back to the ground. If you look a the above picture, you'll see a leader stroke that comes right toward the base of the palm tree. It's faint and out of focus, but it's there. If the main stroke had followed that leader, our intrepid hero would be a dead intrepid hero.

Anyway, you should really check out this website, Arcs and Sparks, that has photos and videos of amazing electromagnetic phenomena. Among other things, there are transformers exploding and "captured" lightning:

That's a photograph of a static object. Cool.

- Seth

The Graham Cinema

2008-01-18T13:42:00.001-06:00

I've been hesitant about posting this here, but I've decided that until we get a few thousand more readers it won't be a problem. You should all know about The Graham Cinema. It is a very old theater located in Graham, NC. All seats are $2, and it's best if you show up late so that you don't have to see the condition of the place with the lights on. But, that's not the point. The point is that you have to call this phone number:

(336) 226-1488

That's "Tim-Bob's famous joke line." If you want to know what's playing at the Graham Cinema, you call this line, and it takes you to Tim-Bob's voice mail where he spends 5 minutes telling you about the movies that they're showing. He usually hasn't seen them. Then, he spends a while telling you some jokes. Whether or not they're funny, it's always entertaining. Seriously, call that number. You'll see. It gets updated every week or so. The reason I was hesitant about posting it is because there is only one line, so if it gets too popular, you won't be able to call in. But, I don't "too popular" is our problem.

I should mention that the Graham Cinema hotline is excellent for hitting on women, or so I'm told. Suppose you're trying to mac up on this girl, and it's not going that well. She's probably trying to make some excuse about why she's got to leave because you're creeping her out, but don't fear. Just try the following:

You: Wait, before you go ... have you ever called the Graham Cinema?

Her: No. I have to leave.

You: Hang on now. This will be worth your time.

Her: Fine, but it better not take long.

You: Sweet. Check this out.

You dial the above number, put it on speaker phone and wait.

Her: I love you.

The thing to remember is this: it doesn't matter how drunk you are, or how much you've already embarrassed yourself in the evening; you can always save the situation and get the girl by using this secret weapon. It's better than a guitar ... well it's close.

- Seth

So Much Potential

2008-01-16T18:58:00.000-06:00

I saw this mentioned on BB today and I got all excited because it seemed like it should really be amazing. Some guys in Italy dropped a bunch (half a million and article said) of bouncy balls down a famous flight of stairs in Rome. They are imitating the Bravia ad where they did it in San Francisco*. But the video of these guys shoveling tons of balls off the top to the steps sucks. They couldn't find a bigger hill? Or a longer flight of stairs? It even looks like they started the balls half way down the stairs instead of at the top. Lots of potential, big fat flop.

Matt

*Also the mention at BB seemed to indicate that the Bravia ad was faked. But like so many things in life (jugglers day, Santa, kick-ass ping pong ball tricks, etc.) I choose to believe because it makes me happier and isn't hurting anyone.

Clever Solution

2008-01-14T06:51:00.000-06:00

I don't chat online very much. When I do it is with people I already know. However there are tons of people out there who meet in chat rooms and on IRC channels to discuss stuff with other people. The concept seems sound enough right. You go to some IRC channel and can find a bunch of people who are all there because of a common interest. The problem is that most people are idiots and almost all people are idiots when they become a part of a large, anonymous crowd. On the few times I have been on IRC (for whatever reason) I have found most of the chatter mindless and the people rude and exclusive.

The guy who writes xkcd apparently has an IRC server for talk aobut the strip and he just recently installed a bot that requires that each new line must be original or else oyu are not allowed to talk. I have to get going to work but check out his description. It really seems like a clever solution to a difficult problem.

link

Matt

In Case You Were Wondering

2008-01-13T22:39:00.000-06:00

North Carolina has really decided to jump into the primary process this year. I would say that the Old North State will be the linchpin in this campaign, deciding which candidates should truly be taken seriously. As Matt already pointed out, many folks are considering February 5th, The Tuesday of Destiny, to be when all will be decided. The well informed among us know, however, that it won't be until three more months have passed that we'll know anything at all. That's right, North Carolina's primary will be held on May 6th. That's 3 days after GUAM. I can't wait until I live somewhere where I can take advantage of this "democracy" thing. Our primary process is such crap.

- Seth

Marching Bands Are Great

2008-01-12T13:42:00.000-06:00

The geekiest marching band of them all

Matt

Everyone Loves A Good Prank

2008-01-11T14:21:00.000-06:00

Here is a list of 100 nice ones. I found these two pretty entertaining, in particular.

#40: Internet Spring Cleaning

In 1997 an email message spread throughout the world announcing that the internet would be shut down for cleaning for twenty-four hours from March 31 until April 2. This cleaning was said to be necessary to clear out the "electronic flotsam and jetsam" that had accumulated in the network. Dead email and inactive ftp, www, and gopher sites would be purged. The cleaning would be done by "five very powerful Japanese-built multi-lingual Internet-crawling robots (Toshiba ML-2274) situated around the world." During this period, users were warned to disconnect all devices from the internet. The message supposedly originated from the "Interconnected Network Maintenance Staff, Main Branch, Massachusetts Institute of Technology." This joke was an updated version of an old joke that used to be told about the phone system. For many years, gullible phone customers had been warned that the phone systems would be cleaned on April Fool's Day. They were cautioned to place plastic bags over the ends of the phone to catch the dust that might be blown out of the phone lines during this period.

#52: Thomas Edison Invents Food Machine

After Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877, Americans firmly believed that there were no limits to his genius. Therefore, when the New York Graphic announced in 1878 that Edison had invented a machine that could transform soil directly into cereal and water directly into wine, thereby ending the problem of world hunger, it found no shortage of willing believers.
Newspapers throughout America copied the article, heaping lavish praise on Edison. The conservative Buffalo Commercial Advertiser was particularly effusive in its praise, waxing eloquent about Edison's brilliance in a long editorial. The Graphic took the liberty of reprinting theAdvertiser's editorial in full, placing above it a simple, two-word headline: "They Bite!"

- Seth

Sucks to be you, Matt Grosso

2008-01-07T18:45:00.000-06:00

For crying out loud ... a quick Google search will show that I share my name with a bull rider and bluegrass fiddler. (Nice work Seth Hoppers of the world!) Of course my Abstract Algebra homework is still the top hit. Nice. Well, a search of Matt Grosso shows that this man:

shares your name. You've got to go to this site and check out "The #1 Mattew Grosso Show," where you can hear him pronounce your name Gross - Oh. Oh, it's grossly beautiful.

- Seth

To Hear Some People Tell It...

2007-12-31T15:22:00.000-06:00

I'm headed for non-existence.

Matt

The Day Of Reckoning Is Coming

2007-12-30T01:01:00.000-06:00

So with this ridiculous primary season coming up I was looking into when Illinois votes and I came across what is variously called "Super Duper Tuesday," "Giga Tuesday," "Tsunami Tuesday," and wait for it...

"The Tuesday of Destiny"

The sad thing is that mostly things will be decided by then but I love the name. The 5th of February wasn't even given such a grandiose title when Andre the Giant beat Hulk Hogan for the WWF title back in 1988.
Matt

This is what my day looks like.

2007-12-28T12:17:00.000-06:00

Matt

p.s. I hope everyone had a good Christmas.

The Captain Online

2007-12-23T00:50:00.001-06:00

As far as I can tell we have about 4 readers. One of them just started his own blog. Here's The Captain's Blog. Those of you who know him know he's a funny guy. Go check it out.

Matt

Oh, the things I care about

2007-12-21T14:06:00.001-06:00

I gotta give, as the kids say, props to my laptop, Yossarian, who has been on for 100 days today. That's a new record. Furthermore, he's been alive for over four years (his birthday was at the beginning of this month), and that's got to be something like 75 in computer years. Well, I think it's probably time to restart this mother, so I can install some patches.

- Seth

Two Things I Can't Stand (But I Have No Choice)

2007-12-19T00:41:00.000-06:00

1. Humidity. This god damn weather factor never seems to work in our favor. During the summer it is not uncommon to hear people say "It's not the heat, it's the humidity" about 3 dozen times a day. Usually this is followed by someone else mentioning how they used to live in Phoenix, Tulsa, the Mojave or the Namib and that there it is only hot if you are in the sun. The shade apparently requires mittens and earmuffs.
So obviously the humidity is making the summer more miserable but where the hell does it go in the winter? You never hear anyone saying "Damn it's cold out there, but thank god for the humidity!" Clearly humidity is aligned with all thing evil and uncomfortable. Screw humidity.
2. The second thing I hate is less pointed. I hate that moment in between when you can see the bus stop and when you could catch the bus if it came. I spend that whole time dreading seeing the bus. Each morning I do my best to avert my eyes and ignore all sounds for about 60 yards on my way to the bus stop. This makes it hard to avoid cars and other people but it's early so there aren't many people out yet.
The bus stop at the El station is much worse. You can see my stop from the platform across the tracks and a parking lot. It takes about 5 minutes to arrive at the stop but you can't really catch the bus until the last 20 seconds. I've watched the bus go by many times there feeling totally impotent.

Matt

The Story of Stuff

2007-12-12T20:23:00.000-06:00

My Mom just sent me this movie to watch. It's a 20 minute piece about the system of production consumption and waste that our culture promotes. It is worth the 20 minutes it takes to watch. There are parts that are a bit oversimplified but for the most part it does a good job of illustrating the insustainability of our current system. Check it out.
Link

Matt

p.s. When I watched it the video of the woman talking was a bit choppy but the animations and the sound were fine so I managed.

What A Crock

2007-12-11T12:57:00.001-06:00

This clam was the oldest living animal ever found, at 405 years. I say was because some bastards killed it in order to tell how old it was. That's one of the dumbest things I've ever read. "I wonder how old this is." "Yeah, me too. Let's kill it and find out." Read about it and other exciting science news of 2007 here.

-Seth

A Good Feeling

2007-12-09T14:23:00.000-06:00

Every so often I will see just a snippet of a movie preview or a poster or an ad and will be immediately convinced that it will be good. Perhaps this can be put down to good advertising but I like to think that I have a good firstimpressionometer for movies. Usually my meter goes off on movies that are no brainers, things anyone would guess that I would like. What's more fun and exciting for me is when I get a feeling about a movie that, on the surface, looks like it might really suck or at least is not really aimed at my demographic. As far as I remember my vibe has not failed me. A few examples of movies that were much better than they looked and for which I had a vibe are Eight Below, Dreamer, and George of the Jungle. Today I can add another movie to that list.
Seeing a few tv ads and a movie poster or two I was totally convinced that The Golden Compass was going to be great. Carrie and I just returned from the theater and I was dead on balls right. What a god damn movie! I won't go into any details about it here except to say that if you find that my choices in movies are usually pretty sound then trust me on this one and go see it as soon as you can.

Matt

Six Months Behind

2007-12-05T11:01:00.000-06:00

I think I might be about six months behind the cool curve here but I just finally got around to really watching some parkour videos on YouTube. Here's an example to get you started but I recommend that you go watch a bunch of them.

link

Matt

I know people like this.

2007-12-03T16:14:00.001-06:00

Matt

Badass Bible

2007-11-28T17:03:00.000-06:00

Check out this list of the 9 most badass Bible verses. It is three pages long but take the time to read them. They really are hilarious all the way through. I especially liked Splinter Cell Moses which should have been higher than #9. This really makes me want to play more Splinter Cell (great game)... or maybe I'll just go collect some foreskins.

Which Dot Are You?

2007-11-21T23:14:00.000-06:00

My sister Cathi sent this to me today. It makes me want to be a "'data driven' graphic artist." Seems cool.

Matt

Monopoly For Freedom

2007-11-20T14:36:00.000-06:00

Whether you enjoy Monopoly or not you have to admit that this story over at The Wall Street Journal is pretty amazing! (Thanks BB)

Matt

Two Cool Games

2007-11-18T16:27:00.000-06:00

These were posted on Boing Boing but there were some that were crappy and two that are great. Check 'em out.

Dice Wars (Simplified and quickened Risk)

Gravity Pods (seemingly lame at first but it gets cooler and cooler.)

Matt

What Album Is This?

2007-11-14T20:02:00.000-06:00

I need your help!
Those of you who know me best know that I really like to have all of the metadata in my iTunes music filled in and filled in correctly. Usually I am able to figure out the data I need for everything. I've been stumped and I need your help. I have borrowed a Ray Charles album from my friend Adam and I can't find it anywhere! Adam has the album listed as "The Very Best Of Ray Charles" but there are about a dozen "The Very Best of Ray Charles" and none of them are this one. Here's the track listing from the album in question:
1. Busted
2. Cry Me A River
3. Crying Time
4. Eleanor Rigby
5. Georgia on my Mind
6. Hit The Road Jack
7. I Can't Stop Loving You
8. I Got A Woman
9. Imagine
10. Let It Be
11. Let The Good Times Roll
12. Let's Go Get Stoned
13. Old Man River
14. Somewhere Over The Rainbow
15. Summertime
16. Take These Chains From My Heart
17. Unchain My Heart
18. What a Wonderful World
19. What'd I Say
20. Yesterday
21. You Are My Sunshine
22. Your Cheating Heart

I don't have a lot of faith in this track order because the songs are here in alphabetical order. That seems like an unusual way to order the tracks on an album.
Please, see what you can do. I appreciate your help.

Matt

Temple of Doom

2007-11-08T18:01:00.000-06:00

I want it known that despite the reputation that Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is a bad movie, it isn't. In fact it is a kick-ass movie. I would bet that anyone claiming otherwise has not seen it in a long time. I'm not saying that it is better than Raiders of the Lost Ark or Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Don't get me wrong. But very few action/adventure movies would be considered "good" if they were all constantly compared to the first and third Indy movies. I just finished Temple of Doom and I'm telling you, watch it again for the first time. You will be surprised.
Two little mentioned things about the movie:
First, did any of you know that Dan Akroyd is in Temple of Doom? He plays the guy who talks to Indy as he gets onto the plane at the beginning.
Second, Temple of Doom is a prequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark. The events of Raiders take place in 1936. Temple of Doom takes place in 1935. That's great! I love that they did that but didn't make a big deal out of it.

Matt

Another Repost

2007-11-08T12:52:00.000-06:00

This is wild. Who's up for trying this off the Sears Tower?
Link

Matt

Complete

2007-11-04T23:09:00.000-06:00

Several weeks ago I realized that if I had all of the music that The Beatles ever created I would be happier. With this in mind I ventured to the wikipedia page on The Beatles and started reading. I learned all sorts of things not the least of which was that there are a lot of people out there who know a lot of stuff about The Beatles. It's a long page. Worth reading, but long. I also learned that trying to have "all of The Beatles' music" is much harder than it would seem. First off, they made a whole ton of music (one metric shit-load). Secondly they released it all in a very non-standardized way. The UK albums are different than the US releases (including their titles). They have the same song on more than one album. They recorded tons of covers. They made movies with multiple soundtracks. It's all a big kerfuffle.
Luckily I was not the first person to realize what a mess this all is. In the 80's Apple Corps (not Apple Comps.) decided to declare an official catalogue. So, I decided that a good place to get started collecting everything would be with the studio albums. Depending on where you look there are either 12 or 13 official studio albums. I'm not sure why but some places don't count "Magical Mystery Tour" as an official studio album. I decided to count it anyway because, why not?
What this all boils down to is that I now have them all and I am indeed happier.

Matt

Hark, A Hippogriff Approaches.

2007-11-02T22:22:00.000-05:00

Well, I guess it's some sort of weird, mutated hippogriff, with funky front legs and no wings. Check out these other gems:

Link

- Seth

Movember Approaches

2007-10-23T16:28:00.000-05:00

All of you fans of the most amazing facial hair creation in the history of man, should know that the month of Movember is fast approaching. Here are the rules of the game:

On day "Mo-1" (October 31), the complete moustache region, including the entire upper lip and the handlebar zones, must be completely shaved.

For the entire duration of Movember (Movember 1 - 31 inclusive), no hair shall be allowed to grow in the goatee zone - being any facial area below the bottom lip.

There is to be no joining of the moustache to sideburns.

Failure to conform to all of these rules may, at the discretion of the official Movember Committee, result in instant blacklisting and may void invitation to the Mo Ball.

Movember Committee accepts no responsibility for lost jobs, rashes, food/beer encrustments or any other such mishaps caused to the wearer (or his partner) of a Movember Moustache. You grew it yourself.

Find these rules and much more at the fantastic web site: http://movember.org/

- Seth

What To Do If You Blank During A Test

2007-10-15T14:28:00.000-05:00

Check out these gems.

-Seth

Check This Out

2007-10-09T00:25:00.000-05:00

Right now I'm reading "Failure Is Not An Option" by Gene Krantz of NASA. He's the guy played by Ed Harris in Apollo 13. In the book he talks all about the space program from Mercury through Gemini to Apollo. It is really interesting and I recommend it to everyone but the part I really wanted to share was the image below. Look at the difference in size between the rockets for Mercury or Gemini and the Saturn rockets for the Apollo program. I can't believe how much bigger the Saturn rocket was. There is a full scale model of a Saturn V standing erect in Huntsville, Alabama and if you ever find yourself in Huntsville (god forbid) you should really check it out.

Matt

P.S. I've been reading a lot about the space race and I just learned two more interesting things.
First off, during the Apollo 12 launch the spacecraft was struck by lightning twice. More specifically they created such a static charge from the thrust of liftoff that they created a discharge down the rocket's plume. Wild.
Second, and perhaps more interesting, the Soviet space program was not a coordinated effort like NASA. Instead it was done as competition between several design teams at once. What this means is that the US was using a planned model while the Russian's were using a free market model but in the end the US victory in the space race served to validate the free market economy of the US as opposed to the planned economy of the Soviet Union. Isn't it ironic? Don't ya think.

Two things from Slash Dot

2007-10-07T21:21:00.000-05:00

These were two very cool things posted on slash dot today.
The first are these kickin' maps of the internet.
The second was this video of a crow using tools in the wild.

Matt

In Response to Adam's Comment on the Pee Pee

2007-10-04T19:28:00.000-05:00

I feel it is time that I tell the world something I realized many years ago. We men spend too much time standing in front of toilets while not peeing. Clearly, each trip to the rest room only contains a couple of seconds of wasted time, but if you start trying to pee a couple seconds before you "free yourself," you can start peeing immediately. Do that a few thousand times, and think, how many more burritos could you noooook? The most important thing about this strategy is to not piss yourself. If you screw up, just once, it will take months to make up for all the time that you'll spend cleaning those pants. If you're lucky, you'll have your microwave and washing machine on different circuits, so you can cook burritos while you clean the pee out of your pants. In closing, I am not a woman, but my small knowledge of the gender that is women leads me to believe that this strategy should work wonders for them also.

- Seth

Need your ass kicked?

2007-10-04T19:26:00.000-05:00

This guy needs your help. If you don't volunteer quickly, I'm going to nominate the entire Philadelphia pitching staff.

Link

-Seth

It's Amazing...

2007-10-04T00:57:00.001-05:00

It's amazing how slowly time goes when you are waiting on a frozen burrito to cook.

Phourteen Phuckin' Years Later

2007-10-01T00:49:00.000-05:00

For those oblivious few of you, I should report that the Philadelphia Phillies have made it into the playoffs for the first time in 14 years. Coincidentally, it has been 14 years since I cried because of a baseball game. I won't bore you with too many stats, for if baseball stats are the type of thing that excited you, you'll already know them all. I should mention, however, that the Phillies comeback (7 games back, on Sept 12) represents the largest last month comeback in baseball history, tying two other comebacks, each taking place in the 1930s. Also, the Phillies pitching is so bad, they have a higher team ERA than any NL playoff bound team in history. Naturally, they've scored more runs this year than any other NL team. They also have more comeback wins, 48, than any team in MLB. Yes, with only 89 wins, that means their starting pitching had to be bailed out more than half the time. But they got it done Sunday after scaring the bejezus out of my on Saturday.

They were helped, of course, by Tom Glavine's laughable performance for the Mets. Glavine, who should be barred from the Cooperstown after his poor excuse for pitching Sunday, gave up 7 runs and only recorded one out in the top of the first inning before he was pulled. For those of you keeping track at home, that's a single game ERA of 189, which is only two orders of magnitude off of being quite respectable.

I should mention that Matt has two reasons to be proud. First, his lifelong dream to see his hometown Cubs go to the playoffs will also be realized this year. I'll be rooting for them until they beat the D-Backs after which the Phillies will be forced to end Matt's phantasies in the NLCS. Second, Matt will be proud, of course that his other hometown team, The Nationals, did their part to help the Phillies to a divisional title. They kindly beat them Mets many times and lost to the Phillies many times, all within the last couple weeks. So, GoNats!

The only sad thing about Sunday's baseball, is that, if only the Mets had won, we would have a simultaneous tie for the NL East and 4-way tie for the NL wild card, which would have led to playoff games until Wednesday, an unprecedented scenario. Doesn't this all make the AL seem quite lame? Who wants a league where you know the playoff teams in July?

Okay, folks, the postseason starts in just a couple days. Get ready!

- Seth

Funny Or Sad?

2007-09-27T11:27:00.000-05:00

So the recent post at BB about giraffe fighting inspired me to go look up this footage of koalas fighting. The thing is that in all the footage of koalas fighting the entire croud is laughing out loud. I think that if I were the koalas I'd be pissed if everyone found my attempts at being frightening humorous.

link

Matt

I Got A Job!

2007-09-26T20:00:00.000-05:00

How about that. After almost 14 (glorious) months of unemployment, I'm back in the workforce. I start Friday at a place called Grassroots Campaigns. It is an organization that facilitates grassroots movements for progressive causes. I saw their ad in Craig's List yesterday, called them, interviewed and was hired today. I will be a "Field Manager" with the potential to be a "Director." I'm still working out what all of this means but basically I'll be in charge of a team of canvassers. Sounds like fun. I'm a bit nervous but I'm sure I can do it. It is exciting to get a job where I get to work for causes that I care about. Right now we are canvassing for the ACLU. Ok, that is all, wish me luck.

Matt

Upgrade now!

2007-09-12T14:16:00.000-05:00

I'm sold. I'm going to upgrade my OSX 10.4.10 to MS DOS 5 immediately!

link to video

Matt

So, Harvard Does Suck

2007-09-06T15:37:00.001-05:00

I found this after looking into a post on Boing Boing today. Apparently, they were inspired by this group of real American heroes from Yale. Check it:

Tragically, the high schoolers inspired by this prank (see top link) were given in school suspension instead of the Medals of Freedom they truly deserve.

In truth, this prank, which was pulled in 2004 was not the first time the idea was used, but it was well done. The first time it was done by Cal Tech students during the Rose Bowl between Washington and Minnesota national TV.

-Seth

Chicago Public Transit Blows

2007-09-06T01:32:00.001-05:00

I will probably speak more on this topic later but for now, this was a sidebar at the CTA site:

QED

Matt

Holy Shit, I'm in a Band!

2007-09-05T11:36:00.000-05:00

Introducing: The Square Roots. I guess you might say that we're still a little rough around the edges, but I think we're good enough to make prime time on most college radio stations. Check out the hot single, Jungle Fever, here.

- Seth

To All My Dedicated Fans

2007-08-30T19:47:00.000-05:00

My radio show on UNC Chapel Hill's student radio, WXYC 89.3 FM is moving to Friday mornings, 12 - 3 AM, which is infinitely superior to my previous time slot of 3-6 AM. Between this change and my culmination of the Harry Potter series, I now hope to have a sleep schedule that will allow me to rest before 7 AM. (I don't remember the last time I didn't see the sun rise.) So, if you're interested, my first show is tonight. My advice is to stream it on the line here.

Also, I'm making a list of Monkey and Robots songs. If you know any good ones, I'd like to hear about them.

-Seth

Supercooling is Super Cool

2007-08-30T16:54:00.000-05:00

So, if you've never heard about supercooling liquids, you should listen up, because it is a fantastic physical phenomenon, first introduced to me by the inimitable Ray Hively. As we all know water usually freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit, but this is clearly not an unbreakable law. You can have a rushing river that is colder that 32 degrees, and adding substances like salt can lower the freezing point. What we don't usually hear, though, is that if you keep fluids really, really still, you can achieve the same effect. Crystalline structures like ice need an imperfection or seed crystal to start forming, and without motion, the fluid can resist its temptation to freeze. Your refrigerator jostles too much when the compressor turns on, but if it didn't, you'd be able to see the effect in a tray of would be ice cubes. In laboratories, they've been able to cool water to below negative 40 degrees.

Well, that's all well and good, but the exciting part is when you decide to disturb the water after it's been supercooled. Then, depending on how cold it is, it can freeze in a matter of seconds. Freezing rain is a common example of this phenomenon. The rain is fluid until it strikes a surface, where it freezes. Check out this video of someone pouring out a bottle of supercooled water as it freezes:

It is also possible to superheat water, so that it boils immediately after it is disturbed. Check out this video:

Evidently, this can be a problem if you put a still cup of water in a microwave for too long. When you take the mug out, it gets disturbed and it can severely scald you. I would hazard a guess that it's only really a danger in old microwaves that don't rotate, so you probably are not in danger.

There are lots of other really neat phenomena out there surrounding the change of phases of materials (especially water). Apparently if you cool water really fast, as in, at least 1 million degrees, per second, you can turn water into a glass, which is such a common substance that we often forget how neat it is. More on that later.

-Seth

Zip Codes

2007-08-27T00:37:00.000-05:00

How are zip codes laid out across the country? Somewhere in my experience I seem to recall the lowest numbered zip codes start in Boston but that could be wrong. If I live in zip code 00001 is 00002 necessarily bordering me? Another way to ask that is do the zip codes indicate a continuos line that winds its way across the country never crossing itself? I'm sure that isn't the case but it would be cool if it were.

Matt

When I think of questions like that I like to post them before I try to figure out the answers. It feels more like how I would encounter these questions in a real conversation. But in looking for the answer to this question I found two cool things that require posting in their own right:
1. Cool animated zipcode map
2. Cooler (maybe) zipcode scribble map

Best Apartment Ever

2007-08-23T20:22:00.000-05:00

Ok, no joke, I just took these pictures from our front window. I look forward to many many more lightning storms watching this happen because apparently it happens all the time.