Not Overrated

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

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

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!)

Did y'all see this?  Wild.

Link

Obama's Speech

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

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

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

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

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

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