The official Dreamhost blog has posted an entry with a video called Let’s Save Our Environment.

Tavis (the author of the entry) says the video came from a hitchhiker that his uncle picked up a while back.

The hitchiker gave my uncle a packet containing a cd-rom video and a few pages of song lyrics and the synopsis/proposal for a movie called “Kathy and Erol”.

The video is one of the most frightening thing I’ve laid eyes on in quite a while. It is most likely destined to become another internet fad (much like All Your Base Are Belong to Us) and features a middle aged “man” lip-syncing to a poorly sung song and “dancing”. The guy is obviously a pedophile or mass-murderer. Yet another reason never to pick up hitchhikers.

The Times of India has an article exploring whether or not sexual references are found in Harry potter.

‘There was no need to stick the wand in that hard,’ he (Dumbledore) said gruffly, clambering to his feet. ‘It hurt.’

This is pretty laughable to me. You could take lots of passages from many different books out of context and apply sexual innuendoes to them. The fact is, people like to pick on whatever is the most popular and find something wrong with it.

Besides, bash.org already had an “article” talking about this issue ages ago.

The article at Times of India also touches on Batman and Robin being gay.

‘Touches on Batman and Robin’ … I guess that was a sexual reference…

I performed a search at google for php htmlentities and the results were returned in a different format than usual. The same search moments later returned the results on the original google design. I guess someone at the google factory jumped the gun.

The header pretty much sums it up. Sharp Corp. has developed an optical disc capable of storing 100 gigs of space based on Blue Ray technology. I wonder how much it will cost. Currently discs that store about 8 gigs of data go for more than $6 a pop, so I’m thinking around $70 or so. I’ll just stick to my external hard drives.

NASA has a video up of the Deep Impact collision (no I’m not talking about the movie starring Elijah Wood).

This movie shows Deep Impact’s approach to comet Tempel 1. It is made up of images taken by the spacecraft’s medium-resolution camera from May 1 to July 2, 3:50 Universal Time. The spacecraft detected three outbursts during this time period, on June 14, June 22 and July 2. The outbursts appear as flickers or bursts of light. The movie ends during the middle of the final outburst.

Medium resolution camera? Can’t NASA afford a high definition movie camera by now?

If you are a complete dork and think that Princess Leia’s metal bikini costume from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi is the hottest thing you’ve ever seen, then head on over to leiasmetalbikini.com.

As the title suggests, this site is dedicated entirely to Leia’s metal bikini. There are images of “Slave Leia”, images from fans wearing the costume, and more. It’s scary… very very scary.

I just got home from seeing War of the Worlds, and if you overlook some flaws, it’s a good flick.

The good:

• The special effects were great. The CGI was excellent.
• Acting was good, even if you hate Tom Cruise. The little girl from Taken (I’m too stupid to remember her name and too lazy to look it up) was really good in it.
• The sound was nice. I’m a big fan of loud booming noises, and this movie has lots of them.
• Suspense, action, drama and comedy (small doses) made the story flow well.

The bad:

• There are some major continuity flaws in the filming. If you’re not a complete nerd that is obsessed with small details, you might not notice. But I am a complete nerd and I am obsessed with small details (like someone’s leg crossed in a side shot and uncrossed in a front shot) so it irritated me.
• Something really stupid happens at the end (this is a spoiler so I won’t say what it is until later)

You have to realize that the book, War of the Worlds written by H.G. Wells came out in 1898. That’s a long time ago. In order to make a modern day movie, things have to be updated and changed. I think this was done well, and poorly at once.

Minor spoilers follow. Read on if you’ve seen the movie or don’t care.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re looking for something fun to do with your family in Chicago, pack up the kid’s strollers and take them to the Museum of Science and Industry where they can look at real human corpses!

Body Worlds is a touring exhibit which will be at the museum through September 5th. It features human specimens put on display so that you can learn more about your insides. From msichicago.org:

The exhibition features more than 200 authentic human specimens, including entire bodies, individual organs and transparent body slices that have been preserved through the process of “plastination,” a technique that replaces bodily fluids and fat. BODY WORLDS offers a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see and understand our own physiology and health and to gain new appreciation and respect for what it means to be human.

It’s also really gross! Check out the screenshots and decide for yourself.

I will definitely be attending this thing if I can make my way to Chicago next month.

According to nature.com, research was conducted on 76 Tibetan Buddhist Monks, in which their “perceptual rivalry” was tested.

Each monk wore a set of goggles that presented two conflicting images (one in each eye). This type of visual makes a normal person’s head spin because your eye can’t decide what to focus on. However, monks skilled in the waste of time art of meditation are able to stay focused on one image.

Another test they were given can be found at http://www.uq.edu.au/nuq/jack/bonneh.html in which you are to stay focused on one yellow dot and the other two will disappear. Normal people can maintain the illusion for 2.6 seconds. One monk kept this up for 12 minutes… what a freak.

I have a PowerBook G4. When I sit at my desk to type on it I get small electric shocks in my wrists. If I run my hand over the face plate, I feel small electric currents.

This has been going on for a very long time now and I just figured that I was imagining things. Yet today I have discovered that I am not entirely insane.

It turns out that the electric current only occurs when my barefoot is placed on the air vent under my desk. So maybe my house isn’t grounded?

This still leaves two questions:

1. Why does it only affect my powerbook? I’ve experimented with other electronic metal devices, but nothing happens.
2. Is it harmful to my Mac?

Maybe I should move my desk…

According to an article found at nature.com, a team of scientists at Cornell University (located in Ithica New York) have produced self replicating robots.

The robots are made of 4 10-cm cubes which can rotate against each other. They are preprogrammed to replicate and do so by placing their uppermost cube on the ground. They then pick up other cubes that they are fed and continue stacking. Watch the movie for a clearer idea.

Hod Lipson (what were his parent’s thinking?), team leader for this project says that it would be interesting to see self replicating robots learn to evolve. How about creepy, Hod? Obviously the man has never read X-Men comics or watched the cartoon series. Remember Master Mold, leader / builder of the Sentinels (evil robots that started to take over)?

Ok, Sentinels will most likely never happen, but I’m sure the military will get ahold of this technology (that is, if they don’t already have it) and then war is going to get weird. Imagine this replicating technology on a nano-level. Put the replicating robots in a bullet, shoot someone and within seconds they replicate and explode your enemies’ body. Gross!