So we’re all big nerds right? Well it turns out that some of us are way cooler nerds than others and have managed to combine the childhood obsession with building things, Lego construction, with the more adult version, computer-building. I was hunting around for cool case ideas for a home theatre PC I’m thinking of building when I came across this cool Lego computer case by “Winston Chow”:http://www2.hawaii.edu/~wchow/ at the University of Hawaii.
The build is recounted “here”:http://home.hawaii.rr.com/chowfamily/lego/
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Our President looks like a monkey
So it’s no secret. He does. Not only does he look like a monkey, but sometimes he probably smells like one too, although I wouldn’t know because I’ve never been that close to him. To celebrate his looking a bit more simian than the rest of us, I’m glad that the internet has produced “bushorchimp.com”:http://www.bushorchimp.com/ in which pictures of President Bush are put right next to pictures of chimpanzees. Almost 5 million people have visited since the site went up in 2000, join them. Here are some of my favorites:
The starting gun goes off for another nuclear arms race
Despite being the single largest nuclear power in the world, the United States is building more missiles. Maybe it’s an echo of the saber-rattling going on in Iran or North Korea off the Oval Office door, but this is just disgusting. The goal is, according to this “NYT article”:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/03/washington/03nuke.html?ei=5088&en=ed161959958c796a&ex=1330578000&adxnnl=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1172936294-dgS7tY5dDxejG69oMkkkMQ , to replace the arsenal of aging warheads with a generation meant to be sturdier, more reliable, safer from accidental detonation and more secure from theft. Nuclear weaponry has absolutely no place at all on the modern ‘battlefield’, if we can use such a term. Is the US actually considering using these weapons, and if not why would billions of tax dollars go to such a program? Does anyone remember what happened last time somebody used a nuclear weapon?
!http://www.westbynorthwest.org/summer02/vop/abomb.victim01.gif!
As if the US re-arming wasn’t enough to get the whole world back in the nuclear market, Col. Khadafi of Libya adds another disincentive. In a rare interview with the BBC, Khadafi complains that western countries never followed-through on their promises of development aid in exchange for his country’s nuclear disarming. For more on that story go “here”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6414387.stm
New York City seen hosting a new kind of migrant
The unending urban sprawl emanating from New York City has caused a different kind of migration. According to this “article”:http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/006225.html from “Word Changing blog”:http://www.worldchanging.com/ wildlife has been leaving the ecological desert of suburbia for the next best thing. That turns out to be the parks and waterways of New York City. Recent urban jungle sightings include hawks, falcons, coyotes, and beavers. Yes, there are beavers in Brooklyn.
Free music: Harvey Danger
It’s not often that you’ll hear me endorse straight up rock and roll. Generally I take my rock with a twist of Swedish pop, folk, or political anger but this latest album by Harvey Danger is good. Not only is _Little by Little_ good, it’s also free. The band decided to release the album as a free “torrent”:http://www.harveydanger.com/downloads/Harvey_Danger-Little_by_Little.MP3.zip.torrent , “direct download”:http://files.harveydanger.com/downloads/HarveyDanger_Little_by_Little.zip , and as a “traditional CD”:http://www.harveydanger.com/store/ . As to why a young rock group might *on purpose* expose themselves to the perils of pirating? Here’s their “explanation”:http://www.harveydanger.com/press/why.php .
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The new album is bouncy enough to dance to but not too pop-ish, with smooth male vocals and thoughtful but still-accessible lyrics. By no means pedestrian, _Little by Little_ is what rock has been waiting for. The sound is reminds me of Ben Folds, but without the pretension that makes him almost unlistenable. Luckily you don’t have to take my word for it, “try it yourself”:http://www.harveydanger.com/downloads/ . Let me know what you think.
Nutrition data at your finger-tips
At “NutritionData.com”:http://www.nutritiondata.com/ , you can enter any recipe or food and get an exact breakdown of what’s in it. I’ve been mostly vegetarian for about three years now and I’ve been off and on worried about whether I’m getting the right nutrients to be healthy. Now I can find out exactly what I’m eating down to which amino acids I’m getting from what foods. As an example of the level of detail this site goes into, here are some graphs that came up after I searched for white mushrooms. It turns out mom was right, they are good for you. One of my favorite board games is set to make its XBOX Live Arcade debut. For anyone who hasn’t played it, Settlers of Catan is absolutely the height of analog (board) games. Developed by game genius Klaus Teuber, SoC is simple enough to be fun for first-timers and complex enough to be enjoyed after playing it every day for weeks, something I may have done in college. Science fiction counts on certain facts, one of those is wearable technology. Clothes that change color to match the wearer’s surroundings, external health monitors à la Starship Troopers, and even full body computers like the ones sported by gargoyles in Snow Crash. All of these presume that we can in fact wear technology. Well, today we mortals are one step closer to that reality as scientists at the University of Illinois have invented a fabric made up of 500 micron wide chain-mail links capable of transmitting electrical signals across its surface. Brilliant! Check out this brilliant video about net neutrality from the directors of ‘Four Eyed Monsters.’ Their website is a bit confusing so I couldn’t figure out exactly who ‘they’ are except that their names are Arin and Susan and they host one of the best videos I’ve seen on the subject of net neutrality and the future of the internet. Please see this clip (it’s a little over 10 minutes long) and show it to others. This is a very important issue and it’s critical that we educate ourselves about what’s going on. Let’s exercise some democracy!! The most recent recipient of the Newberry Medal (the Pulitzer for children’s literature) is not being greeted with open arms as most have been in the past. The reason? On the first page of “The Higher Power of Lucky” the 10 year-old main character hears the word scrotum in reference to another character’s dog getting a snake bite in that most sensitive area.
This entry was posted in Original Duenos, Uncategorized and tagged food, internet on .
Settlers of Catan to be ported to XBOX
The seemingly infinite variety and enjoyability of the game comes from a dynamic hexagonal board that is literally different every time you play and its heavy reliance on player interaction. That’s why it will be perfect for XBOX Live Arcade, playing on a simple user interface and leaning on the ability to play ranked competition. This makes me want an XBOX 360 bad.
There’s an interview with the creative director of Big Huge games, the developer of Settlers of Catan for the Arcade. Find it “here”:http://www.joystiq.com/2007/02/22/off-the-grid-interviews-brian-reynolds-of-big-huge-games/ (thanks Mike)
Miniature chain mail invented by University of Illinois scientists
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A link to the “University of Illinois homepage”:http://www.uiuc.edu and “another”:http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/dn11220-microscopic-chainmail-could-link-wearable-gadgets.html to a New Scientist article about the discovery.
The fate of the internet
http://foureyedmonsters.com/neutrality/!
Save the Internet | Rock the Vote
Thanks for the link “Jeff”:http://jag85.com
No red carpet for most recent Newberry winner
??“Scrotum sounded to Lucky like something green that comes up when you have the flu and cough too much,” the book continues. “It sounded medical and secret, but also important.”??
All over the country now there is a debate raging among school and local librarians as to whether they should stock the book, despite “the word” that graces its first page. To include the book would force librarians and teachers into an awkward vocabulary lesson, but to not do so would be censoring what must otherwise be a very good book. The age old debate takes another turn.
Here is a “NYT article”:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/18/books/18newb.html?ex=1329454800&en=0abee84c6d8ad9f4&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss on the story.
