Archive for December, 2005
Every morning I get up and make myself brush my teeth. Most of those mornings I contemplate what the hell goes on with that toothbrush the rest of the day - bacteria from my mouth having a little party in the bristles and multiplying like crazy. Thoughts of getting sick and germ-induced toilet visits loom like that annoying guy at the office that you forget about once he’s gone. Though in the end, the crap on the brush is the same crap already in your mouth (Adam from the Mythbusters had more bacteria on his tongue than a dog)- and you ain’t getting sick from your own mouth (unless you’re busy playing DIY fear factor food challenges) The mouth is full of hard core enzymes and good stuff that can kick bacteria’s butt - and if they don’t do the trick, the good old stomach acid most likely will. This doesn’t change the horrible fact that somehow fecal matter gets on your toothbrush while you’re not looking. (Blame the Mythbusters again for that research)
December 15th, 2005
Electric guitars took the idea of sound waves and acoustic properties and mostly threw them in the trash. An electric guitar is ‘electric’ because the vibration of the metal strings create an electrical signal through the use of sensitive magnetic pickups. This didn’t change much since their inception in the 1930s - but in 2002 Gibson produced a digital guitar that converted the signal from analog to digital internally, which was then piped out through an ethernet cable. Not quite your instrument for just having a jam session at a friend’s house. What about taking that concept and fitting out the guitar with high speed wireless - digital and untethered. Rock on.
December 15th, 2005
Blogger’s block? Blogstipation? I think getting slashdotted introduced something unfriendly to my blog’s immune system and I lot my feed appetite. But now the blogorrhea must come out! Of course, after a few days of not posting, there’s waaaaay too much backlog of news to catch up on. Perhaps it’s time for a “mark all as read” remedy. Then a margarita and some CSI.
December 15th, 2005
As a former barista (that’s a coffee maker if you didn’t know - and no, I made real coffees, not Starbucks mass produced crap) I can appreciate this competition of coffee art. Although I never tried my hand at what they call Latte Art (design is created by the pouring technique), I did do alot of etching (dragging knife, thermometer needle, etc through the foam / choc powder/sauce) Many simple etching designs are really easy and quick to do, and totally wow the customer … this usually makes for better tips 
Of course, this is all dependant on having great foam as a base. Most of this can be done with a fairly cheap espresso machine, but of course, the better your coffee geek gear, the better the foam!
December 11th, 2005
Whoever paid $609 for the Virgin Mary funyun really got there money’s worth! Jealous!! Not only did they win the bid on the miraculous (possibly even weeping?) chip AND baby Jesus, they also got a holy manger! wow. I’m so _whelmed. There must be some very sick people out there on Ebay. Wonder how much my ‘tortured penis of the emasculated prophet‘ would sell for?
December 11th, 2005
George Monbiot posts about the difficulties being faced by the European Union as there is more and more push by the governments there for people to use alternative forms of energy - specifically biodiesel. It seems that the use of biodiesel in Europe has far surpassed the usage in the United States - while those in the US still relegate biodiesel as a hobbyist’s fuel, the Europeans have already gotten deep into the thick of things with crops now being planted and harvested for this specific fuel source. Monbiot brings to light some very serious concerns about immediately damage to environments where companies are scurrying to make profit from this alternative fuel, but are deforesting and worse to do so. I imagine finding our way out of the Fossil Era will be full of difficult issues such as these, and many more that we won’t even realize damaged the Earth till decades later.
December 11th, 2005
Yogurting is a fairly new MMORPG from Korea, but not available in English yet. Parallel in cute-factor to Ragnarok, if I could read Korean, I’d probably be hooked already. The well-produced trailer (which is more of a music video for the theme song “Always”) really caught my interest with the nice graphics & cohesion, and the screenshots kept me wishing I knew Korean. The game is set in a Korean high school world, and has plenty of fantastical fighting to get your sword into. But if you feel more like playing dress-up and socializing with other anime fans, you can find that and more on Yogurting. I’m not clear about the name, so don’t ask! All i wanna know is, when will an English version coming out?
December 10th, 2005
apple ad spoof [repost via Spyhunter ]
While on my way to and from work everyday I am constantly astonished by the sheer number of white iPod headphone cords I spot. Of course I’m one of those people too. It sure does make me feel like just another lemming consumer… [ Though 1) I do think that iPods are great devices and 2) I probably would have bought another brand, but got an iPod as a gift. ]
Seeing so many of the white cords inevitably makes me think about my daily struggles with my messy tangle of headphone wires. The ear buds always work their way into a knot, and are always such a hassle to extract. Plus I have the Apple iPod remote which adds an additional length of wirey confusion. Somewhere in the space between these two separate issues I came up with the morbid thought that one day an iPod lemming will end up choking on a tangled cord. Or, even more morosely, committing suicide using the signature cords to hang themselves (Please don’t try this at home. This parody was performed by a trained stunt professional) So that is how the iDie iPod ad parody came to being. I guess it’s pretty sick and weird, but I couldn’t help myself. I seriously need some Shure earbuds and a shrink.
December 10th, 2005
Back in July, USA Today did an article on how bad the ‘internet addiction‘ problem is with kids in China. While any children in the good ole US of A suffering from sleepless nights in a dimly lit chat room would simply get a scolding, those unhappy Chinese youths have the pleasure of being sent to an addiction clinic where they will shock the hell out of them to exorcise their daemons. Sounds quite … medieval! So while the BuzzTrainer was simply for fun - this is serious. They need to install BuzzTrainers in the Internet cafes on seedy street corners where the dealers peddle this lethal digital smack to our Chinese brethren.
December 10th, 2005
This time I’m not makin shit up. Honest!
The transparent toilet seat GALACTIKA is equipped with tiny ultra bright Chip-LED in 5 cols.: pole-white, sundance-yellow, scarlet-red, amparo-blue and emerald-green. The energy is supplied by 4 pcs. AA 1,5V batteries, that you find in an inconspicuous batterycase taped with a velcro at the backside of the closet or at the wall under the cistern. The real clou of the luminous toilet seat is the very tricky elektronic processor. When opening the cover the LED light will be dimmed on slowlyand kindle their full power after 5 seconds. When closing the cover the LED light will be dimmed off gently. If you leave the cover open the integrated processor interrupts the powersupply after half an hour. One battery filling is good enough for one month run (depending on frequency (c:).
December 10th, 2005
December 21st, 6:45pm is the time for Unsilent Night 2005, where composer Phil Kline organizes a participant-powered sound system. What the hell does that mean!? Bring a boombox, tape-player, or even your DAP mini-speakers, and everyone plays the same 43 minute piece of music! Sort of like a moving ambient abstract performance piece, this has been going on in New York since 92 and is in its second year in San Francisco. Go here for the scoop. Add a bunch dudes dressed like Santa and you’ve got a life experience!
December 9th, 2005
Normally, the stuff on the Make blog would totally excite me - but being without my tools and tinkering equipment right now it more despressing than fun cuz I can’t try any stuff out! But this do-it-yourself macro-lens out of a Pringles can and old camera parts pretty much blew me away. Of course, I don’t have a spare camera body (or a Pringles can for that matter!), but it’s still amazing… It brings to mind my friend who fabbed a vacuum distribution system for his car’s intakes out of Home Depot stuff.
December 9th, 2005
Looks like everything is going full circle. Saw this really cheesey Egyptian themed laser chess set on Gizomodo today and it totally brought back memories of playing laser chess on my Atari ST! Boy, has computer technology progressed a long way since those days! While trawling for images of old skool laser chess, I found this nice set by some college students who put one together for a class. Nice. Now where’s my green laser pointer?
December 9th, 2005
I’ve seen more elaborate Christmas light setups in terms of sheer quantity and gaudity (that’s gaudiness to the rest of you), but this video shows someone who really took it to a new level! I’m curious how this was setup - using MIDI, or perhaps some kind of professional lighting design gear? Escellent overall, but definately needed a green laser or two!
December 9th, 2005
Being a big fan of fansubbed anime torrents, I have to put up with some god-awful typesetting, ass-ugly typefaces, and wost of all, a lack of understanding of video/tv production techniques. While I can decipher yucky script fonts and tolerate bad fake perspective compositing, when the fansubbed subtitles get cut off at the bottom of the screen I am left with no option but to watch on my computer. That is not why I bought my TV. But in all fairness it can’t all be blamed on the hard-working fansubbers. I think my TV needs to see the doctor for a case of excessive overscan. Overscan is when tv manufacturers expand the screen image waaaaay past the edge of the visible portion of the tv to compensate for the vast array of video signals the set may need to display. Someone who bought a $2000 set is not gonna be happy if they get video artifacts such as white bars, static remnants, etc on the border of their screen - so many tv makers set the overscan excessively high. There is a way to fix this - if you are brave enough to risk screwing up your TV. Many sets have a ’service menu’ that is accessible through a secret power-on button combo. In this menu you can change all sorts of crazy parameters such as geometry, color, etc. But this ain’t like your computer monitor’s setup menu - one wrong setting and you can render your television useless. Tempting, but dangerous. To calibrate all this stuff properly, check out these DVDs with test patterns, color tests, etc. (The Avia one can be found as a torrent.)
December 9th, 2005
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