links for 2005-01-31
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I thought it'd be neat to make a radio station search engine. It turns out the FCC's is already pretty feature rich.
links for 2005-01-29
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Researcher names a protein after a popular children's video game. Hilarious!
links for 2005-01-28
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A great overview of a lot of behind-the-scenes silly things from the Firefox team.
links for 2005-01-27
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Sun is really serious. They kicked off their opensource Solaris initiative by releasing the source for dtrace.
links for 2005-01-26
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A guy from Scotland goes to Tokyo and takes a picture of a girl taking a picture. He posts the picture he took on a Flickr and within 6 weeks the girl in the photo finds it and posts the picture she was taking at the time.
Photos of my parents' new bedroom
My dad has posted some pictures of their bedroom remodeling project. I haven’t been there in a few weeks, and he’s started doing work on the bathroom. In fact, it looks like he’s done a lot of work on it. This’ll give a nice progression for those of you who have only seen it once or twice since it started.
Garry's Mod v6
Nomad will be happy about the big new feature in these preview screenshots of Garry’s mod v6. Garry says: “Should have it by the end of next weekend..” Also, this video made me laugh for exactly 1 minute and 25 seconds.
Update: Actually, according to this thread, Garry's hard drive is AWOL and there may never be another Garry's mod release ever again. We all wait on pins and needles!
Update 1/26: Garry's "broken hard drive" was a hoax. Also, he makes fun of idiots on his forums and bans people randomly for saying stupid shit.
links for 2005-01-25
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“Legal experts say there is no law against using faeces as a flag stand and the federal constitution is vague on the issue."
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Cooking for Engineers, Where is Raed, and Engadget are among the nominees
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A non-photo realistic driving game
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Search the closed captioning text of television shows
links for 2005-01-24
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I'm going to have to stop doing this.
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Some great Revolution rumors, and some less-great ones. No DS connectivity? Are they crazy?
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Sorted and sized by popularity(categories: metafilter tags)
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> 9.1 x 10^9
Inauguration Protest Photos
Inauguration protest photos. Quite excellent.
Mars Meteorite
The Opportunity rover has discovered the first ever meteorite ever found on another planet. The probabilities involved have led some researchers to wonder what this tells us about the cratering rate and weather patterns on Mars.
AskMe and "ET P" bumper sticker
Ask MetaFilter comes to the rescue, finding the answer to something that’s bugged me for two and a half years. Simply phenomenal.
Achewood 1/20/05
Somehow, I think Vlad’s idea in today’s Achewood would really be popular (in an ironic pop-culture Subservient chicken-esque sorta way). With a free afternoon, a few sandwiches and fixins, and a hungry woman, we could probably fake it.
Update: Is this somehow related?
24 Apologizing to Muslims
In previous years, 24’s bad guys roster has included a family from the Balkans, unidentified Mideastern countries, Mexican drug smugglers, and a British former intelligence officer. (Not to mention Nina. Where’s she from?) But Muslims are (rightfully) upset with the depiction of the otherwise normal-seeming Araz family as a terrorist sleeper cell.
Your local Fox affiliate may begin showing PSA’s before, during, or after the episodes.
Cool Keychains
Gizmodo has a photo of some pretty damn cool keychains: miniature terrariums with cacti inside. One of those and a blue tritium-filled keychain would make me happy.
Waxy and Sean Astin
Interweb personality trivia: Andy Baio sat behind Sean Astin in Anthropology 101 at LAVC.
flickr
I’ve started taking some pictures with my low-res camera on my Visor, and posting them to Flickr. There are a few up there of my workplace right now. I hope to integrate a “latest photos”-type thing into plutor.org in the near future.
Woman eats six pound burger
Remember those six pound burger photos that made the rounds a while ago? The bar’s challenge – eat the burger in less than three hours – has been met by a 19-year-old 100-pound female college student from New Jersey.
Dissecting the iPod shuffle
Fark Photoshop: Goofus and Gallant
“Satirize a Goofus and Gallant strip” Fark Photoshop contest. Possibly one of the best ever.
Huygens
The last time the European Space Agency tried to drop something onto a planet, the Beagle 2 was lost, and no one was able to determine why. This time, the Cassini orbiter has dropped Huygens onto the surface of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon and one of the few atmosphered bodies in the solar system. If everything is going according to plan, Huygens should have hit the ground about an hour ago, and NASA will begin recieving data (relayed through Cassini) around 10:30 EST.
Update: "European Space Agency mission managers for the Huygens probe confirm that data of the probe's descent to Saturn's moon Titan are being received." "The Huygens team ... hope to release first images later today." Great news!
Apple hoaxes and scams
In celebration of yesterday's announcement of the iPod shuffle and Mac mini, here's a quick list of notable Apple product hoaxes and scams from the past couple of years.
P-P-P-Powerbook - scam
An obviously fake Powerbook was constructed at the advice of the Something Awful forums, in order to scam an eBay scammer. This notorious reverse scam was documented in particular detail.
p-p-p-powerbook.com
G5 iMac - hoax
This photo was strangely posted with no claims whatsoever, but the implication was that it was a new product, possibly the expected new iMac. Later in the forum thread, the poster admitted it was a 20" LaCie LCD screen in a 15" Powerbook box.
appleinsider.com
iPod flash - false mockup
Not a hoax per se, but I felt it belongs on this list. Based on insider descriptions of the flash-based iPod, themacmind.com made a 3d render mockup that ended up being pretty close to the real iPod shuffle.
themacmind.com
iPhone - hoax
Someone modified a photo of an advertisement for the Sony Ericson T610/616 to look like what could be a rumored iTunes-compatible cell phone. The rumor mill says that Apple is working with Motorola to create such a phone, but no reliable photos have shown up, yet.
macrumors.com
iHustle - scam
An NYU student was scammed into buying a fake Powerbook for $200 from a guy on the street. The scammer put a lot more effort into it than would be really necessary.
viceland.com
iHome - hoax
A series of photos of a cardboard box made to look like the rumored headless iMac. Wasn't too far off from the Mac mini, and since it was released only a couple of days in advance, there wasn't a lot of time for disproofs before it became moot.
engadget.com
simonwoodside.com
Macworld Expo rumors
Macworld Expo starts tomorrow, and here’s a good rundown of all the rumors. It’s been difficult to see the wisdom of some of Apple’s decisions lately (although, like Jack Bauer, they were eventually shown to be right). But just about everyone sees immediately that both the flash iPod and the headless iMac are ridiculously good ideas.
Update: iPod shuffle, Mac mini (no i?)
Paper models of Polyhedra
An offhand reference in The Golden Ratio led me to research Archimedean solids, which led me to a page with Paper Models of Polyhedra. Fun!
Halo Hero Zyos
The day before New Years, I went to MoMA in New York with the inlaws. We had reservations for dinner, but we were a little bit early and were sick of walking, so we stopped at a random (extremely nice, mid-high-range) restaurant and sat down in their quiet bar for a pre-dinner drink. We were chatting casually, and Mrs. D asked me “what are the big games now?” I told her that this was a huge season for sequels: Half-Life 2, GTA: San Andreas, and Halo 2, in particular. The very curteous bartender, a man with a thick french accent, stopped what he was doing, bent over towards us, and asked “Excuse me, but did you say you play Halo? I love that game.”
I’ve never played the game, but it obviously has had a huge impact on people who otherwise might not consider themselves gamers. I cant figure out how to segue from that story to a link about an international Halo superstar, but let’s pretend I did it smoothly.