Big Pickles

I never thought of this before, but it's true. Every base is base 10, in that base.

Labels: math

This Band Aid parody is a pretty seamless edit of the original.

The parody is good, but I had just as much fun seeing the old footage of George Michael, Boy George, Sting, and Bono back in the day.

Labels: music, video

Let's hope this one doesn't become bimodal.

Labels: economics, math

This video is awesome.

The subject matter is very interesting, to begin with. The idea that you can compare apples and oranges (or seahorses and English people) to determine the best thing is pretty cool.

But what makes this video so fun to watch is the juxtaposition of irreverent, sometimes profane language an otherwise very refined, academic style.

You might disagree with the value judgments--it seems clearly biased toward a liberal, hipster aesthetic--but I guarantee you will be entertained.

Labels: video design

CNN has an article on TiVo Guilt today. The New York Times had a similar op-ed two years ago. So it's not a new thing.

It's very similar to Netflix Guilt. And isn't this just the modern version of letting your newspapers and magazines and books stack up unread?

The deal with TiVo is that you have limited hard drive space to work with, so you have to manage it. If your TiVo is full when you go to bed, then it will start deleting shows to make room for new stuff, and because you haven't meticulously accounted for every contingency and programmed it accordingly, its algorithms might cause it to prioritize what to get rid of first slightly differently than you might have. In other words: Unmitigated Disaster.

So when you watch two hours of TV and maybe even delete a few shows you're not interested in, you feel like you've had a productive evening. You've freed up plenty of space so that TiVo doesn't have to take matters into its own hands, and you can rest easy until the next day. If, on the other hand, you watch a Netflix movie, you've accomplished nothing. Two hours, utterly wasted. TiVo is still full, and getting fuller. Soon it will start deleting things, and then you run the risk of Missing A Show.

(Of course, by Missing A Show I mean that you will have to download it the next day or watch it on hulu. We're not barbarians, after all.)

Your Netflix movies don't give you the same "use it or lose it" ultimatum. They'll patiently sit there and wait until you're ready to watch them. No late fees, remember? Sure, there's this nagging feeling that you're not getting your money's worth if you don't watch at least four movies per week, but that's nothing when TiVo is holding an episode of Numb3rs hostage.

(Updates below.)

Peter Schiff was an economic adviser for the Ron Paul campaign and a frequent guest on financial news shows. Over two years ago he predicted that we would be in exactly the mess we're in now, when all those around him were predicting the opposite.



The thing that gets me about this video isn't so much that he was right and Art Laffer, Ben Stein, and all the rest were wrong. It's that they all find his opinion so detestable that they can't resist interrupting him even when they all have equal time to talk in a non-confrontational format. The animosity they have for his prediction seems to betray that deep down they know he might be right.

If that's the case, than he is committing the ultimate betrayal among financial pundits. These guys don't have to be any better than astrologers, and the news shows will keep inviting them back because they can always find an excuse for why they were wrong--especially if they are all wrong together. Usually they just claim that "no one could have predicted this" and they go right on making predictions. (Like Karl Rove, who is somehow still considered credible after his "The Math" blunder on NPR.) But Peter Schiff takes this out away from them by actually doing his job--examining the fundamentals and basing his prediction on his best analysis of reality--and they hate him for it.

UPDATE: Turns out Peter Schiff loves a good analogy.

UPDATE II: NPR picks up the story.

UPDATE III: Hey, no media fad would be complete without a conspiracy theory. In this video, CNN loses the feed right before Schiff is about to say that everything the government is doing is just making things worse (at about the 4:00 mark). Or should I say, "loses the feed," wink wink, nudge nudge.

Labels: economy, video

At least, I try.

I've read two of Malcolm Gladwell's books, and I loved them. They are fun to read, and they make you think. I was just telling Dan about him this weekend, and yet, I was at a loss to explain what these books are actually about. "He just has some good ideas..." was about all I could muster.

Then I read something like this and it makes me wonder if I've been had. In fact, it brings back memories of another book that was fun to read and made me think.

Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

My loathing for that book is now the stuff of legend, but in 2002 my exuberance towards it and subsequent disillusionment with it awoke in me a skepticism that I've tried to cultivate ever since. John T. Reed was the one that opened my eyes, as he demonstrated that while Kiyosaki may be fun to read and while he may make you think, in the end you can't really say what his books are about, either.

I still say Gladwell is the better writer--and also, his books don't have the added danger of inspiring you to blow your meager savings on more books, seminars, and shady real estate shemes. But it's good to be reminded that for all my skepticism (some would say cynicism) I'm still not above getting swept away by the occasional siren song.

Labels: books

From teh 1905.

[WARNING] This post is probably PG-13 or so. Proceed at your own risk.

This is an excerpt from a review of the movie from a man's perspective. I don't know who wrote it or where it's from, but if I ever track it down I will give proper attribution.

Ultimately this film and the books, I suspect, are the work of a person who understands the most narcissistic fantasies of young women. This story isn't about love. It's about a fantasy that every woman has to be so special that she is chosen by the impossibly gorgeous, horrifically powerful yet timid and gentle man of her dreams. In this case, all the aforementioned criteria are fulfilled by his being a "vegetarian vampire."

I'm not picking on girls here--the equivalent of this for guys is two chicks at the same time. Every guy wants to be so strong and handsome and smooth that two gorgeous women that every other guy wants are so attracted to him that they forgo their inhibitions and take him at the same time.

Labels: books, movies

Tonight during dinner I put some Artur Rubinstein on the stereo. Amy thought the first Chopin piano solo sounded like "Hot Cross Buns." At least she recognizes piano music, I guess.

Benjamin was less impressed. "Can't we listen to David Bowie?"

By the way, just in case I haven't linked to AMG before, it's basically the IMDB of music.

Labels: music

Dan asked in the comments a couple of weeks ago how I could like Obama and Ron Paul. I wanted to answer that it's because Liberal and Libertarian kind of sound the same. But I addressed the issue in a post I made back in February. I still feel like Obama is more grounded in real-world, workable solutions, and less driven by ideology than anyone else running. His FISA vote back in June exemplified that, I think. It was a cold bucket of water on the heads of lefties who assumed Obama would always be their anti-Bush.

Also in that post I mentioned how Steven Leavitt, author of Freakonomics, predicted Obama would be president on his blog back in November 2006.

I was reminded of that when I happened upon this electoral map resulting from a survey conducted that month. Obama 28, McCain 510. He's come a long way.

Labels: politics

This guy really likes John Williams. So he wrote a song that's kind of a medley of John William's movie scores, except he doesn't use any of the music from Star Wars. Instead, all the lyrics are about Star Wars. And it's an a capella quartet, and he sings all four parts.

Why is everything cool on the Internet so confusing to describe? Just watch it.

Labels: music, video

Quick, what's the first thing that pops into your head when someone mentions cooking and NPR? For me, it's a certain dessert--which shall remain nameless because my mother sometimes reads this blog--made famous by Alec Baldwin on SNL's Delicious Dish. If you're familiar with this particular sendup, you know that the humor lies in the fact that cooking segments on NPR can come across as a little, well, bland.

So it's with great surprise that I find myself seduced by an occasional guest on the station, Nigella Lawson. I've heard her talk about her cooking a few times before, and after this morning's segment, I finally decided to find out more about her.

You know that episode of Scrubs where J.D. asks out a girl stuck in an MRI machine without ever seeing what she looks like, and then rejoices when he finally sees that she is smokin' hot? That's sort of how I felt when I saw a picture of Nigella Lawson. I was already smitten by her voice, but I imagined her to be much older and look like Julia Child or something. Maybe because she speaks the Queen's English, I expected something closer to the queen. Anyway, let's just say I was presently surprised.

Labels: food, radio

If you watched more than one presidential debate this year, then you probably noticed what I noticed. These guys tend to repeat themselves.

This video drives the point home.

Labels: politics

There is a radio show on NPR on the weekends called Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me which I highly recommend. It's hilarious. (If you're not interested in my political views, stop reading here and pretend this post was just to tell you about that show.)

Anyway, the host of the show, Peter Sagal, writes a blog which I only came across by accident today. And in this particular post, he says basically the same thing I said to one of my co-workers this morning.

Which is this: I wonder if people who believe in conspiracy theories think about everything else that would have to be true in order for their conspiracy theory to be true? In the case of Barack Obama, people are saying all sorts of things about how he is a secret Muslim or a secret supporter of terrorism or whatever other flavor of Manchurian Candidate is in vogue today, without stopping to realize what that would look like in the real world if it were actually true. (Do they?)

My favorite is the theory that 9/11 was an inside job. If it was, it would have been the greatest display of competence the Bush administration had managed to achieve, before or since. It just doesn't make sense that the team who manged to pull off something like that would bungle everything else they attempted so mightily. 9/11 would be their "we can put a man on the moon." Are you kidding me? We can pull off 9/11 but we can't plant a few WMD's in the Iraqi desert?

Peter Sagal put it very well, I think. Conspiracy theories thrive because for many people, the reality is intolerable. It is easier to believe in a conspiracy, no matter how unlikely and convoluted, than accept the facts as they are.

Labels: politics

What a game for the Texas Longhorns! I know there was some skepticism about whether their win over Oklahoma last week was a fluke, but they sure played like a #1 team tonight.

The highlight for me was when backup quarterback John Chiles threw a touchdown pass in the fourth quarter. Plus he picked up quite a few rushing yards. Chiles played for Mansfield Summit, but the announcers kept saying "Dallas." They were specific about where Missouri's quarterback is from--Southlake Carroll. (Maybe having been the highest ranked high school team in the nation has something to do with it.) Oh well, no love for Mansfield.

Labels: sports

If you haven't seen this yet, you won't be disappointed. Both candidates are hilarious.

Labels: video

It's not enough anymore to know basic lifesaving techniques, now they want you do it with a particular song in your head.

U.S. doctors have found the Bee Gees 1977 disco anthem "Stayin' Alive" provides an ideal beat to follow while performing chest compressions as part of CPR on a heart attack victim.

In retrospect, it's surprising a show like Scrubs hasn't put together some kind of montage based on this song. (Have they?)

Labels: medicine, music

I've never been to New York City, but I dream of living there someday. Too much TV, I guess.

Anyway, I love stuff like this. An ex-New Yorker has cataloged some of the tips and tricks he used to get through the day with minimal hassle. Some are really cool, and some are just bizarre (and I take exception with his characterization of Kandinsky as "pointless") but they are all fun to read.

We all have stuff like this in our heads, don't we?

(via Kottke)

Labels: living

Coolest tattoo ever.

Labels: art

There is a Hyatt Regency hotel at the DFW airport that used to be an Amfac. When I was a kid our family went there for an all-you-can-eat buffet. It must have been some kind of event with my dad's work.

I was probably about seven or eight, I just know that I had recently discovered shrimp. My parents used to dump a couple of pounds of shrimp in a big bowl of ice and eat shrimp cocktail while watching TV. They would share with us kids, but I could never get enough.

That buffet was my chance to eat all the shrimp I wanted. And I did. I ate so much shrimp that I spent the car ride home curled up in the fetal position, afraid that each bump would make me barf. I felt so sick. But I'd do it again, because I love shrimp.

This guy knows what I'm talking about.

Labels: food

Ok, loyal readers, I need your input here. I like this new template, but I'm worried that maybe the links are too subtle. Linked text is just barely darker than normal text, so it might not be obvious when you can click on something. (The hover color is nice and bright, though.)

So, what say you? Is anyone having any trouble finding links to click on in my posts? Do I need to make them more obvious? If no one has any complaints I will leave things alone, because I like the subtle color scheme. I just want to make sure it's still functional.

Labels: meta

This is similar to the idea that an infinite number of monkeys at typewriters will eventually type all of Shakespeare's plays.

In theory, the number pi, because it "goes on" forever, contains all possible combinations of digits. So any string of numbers you can conceive of is in the digits of pi somewhere.

All information that can be represented digitally takes the form of ones and zeros, or binary. So if you convert pi to binary, then conceivably you are in the possession of all information. Including a lot of stuff that could get you into trouble.

Labels: math

Techcult brings us a pretty comprehensive list of 150 online Flash games. I was familiar with maybe 20% of these, and was reminded of a few I had forgotten. Remember Yeti Sports?

Pick a winner and settle in. But keep this recent xkcd comic in mind as you do.

Labels: games, internet

There used to be this guy named Richard who worked at our office and liked to talk about TVs. In fact, it got to the point where he wouldn't even bother introducing the topic, because everyone already knew what he was going to talk about. He would just walk into your office and start saying something like, "You know, I've been thinking about it, and I've decided that 32 inches is just too small..."

I'm going to be channeling Richard in this blog post. If TVs aren't your thing, you know what to do.

Simply put, the Sony KD-34XBR960 is the Holy Grail of cathode ray tube (CRT) high definition televisions. I acquired it yesterday.

Sony started manufacturing this television in 2003, and quit about three years later, when the entire industry abandoned CRT technology in favor of flat panel form factors like plasma and LCD. However, most critics agree that the new flat panels still do not measure up to the best CRTs in terms of picture quality. Sure, they're coming closer, and since CRT development has been abandoned, it's probably only a matter of time. But for now, CRT is king. According to CNET:

The bottom line: This is the reference standard for picture quality among direct-view HDTVs and happens to be a great value.

Since 2004, the KD-34XBR960 has been my white whale. I watched it drop in price from its initial list of $2200 to half that when it was finally taken off the market. I watched it go for $1000 on eBay and craigslist over the years. I watched as the official KD-34XBR960 thread at AVS Forums grew to over 6000 posts. And now it's mine. For just $400 from a nice guy on craigslist, including the matching stand.

I hardly know what to do with myself anymore.

Labels: tech, tv

Popular Mechanics has a list of 100 skills that every man should know. A lot of them even have videos, which is handy, because I have no clue how to brew my own beer (#17). (And that wasn't the only skill which immediately reminded me of Clint.)

I was especially interested in #15: Use a Sewing Machine.

One of the most elegant mechanical devices in the home, the sewing machine can be used on camping gear, light tarps, kites and myriad other manly stuff.

I grew up watching my dad sew. You start out sewing on your scout badges, then you're sewing stuff sacks and other camping gear, and before you know it you're making Jedi costumes for your kids.

Speaking of, I think I'm going to be hemming tablecloths for our upcoming client appreciation dinner at work.

Labels: skills

If you're like most Americans, you've mastered every board of Desktop Tower Defense and are ready for something new.

Never fear, Whiteboard Tower Defense is here. I hope you weren't planning on being productive today.

Labels: games

The bailout failed in the House today, but there's still a good chance they'll rehash it until it passes.

What's crazy is that this is one argument that finds liberals and conservatives on the same side. No one wants to bail out Wall Street. I read a piece by Michael Moore this morning where, rhetoric aside, he basically agrees with Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich. What is the world coming to?

The only people who really want the bailout are Wall St. itself and the Bush administration.

The big question for me is why Ben Bernanke is so keen on it. If it were just Bush and his crew, a lot of Dems in congress would be more skeptical, I think. But I've heard several of them say that they trust Bernanke to be apolitical, so if he says a bailout is needed, they're inclined to believe him.

Bernanke is supposed to be this economics wonk fresh from academia, but all his colleagues seem to be against the bailout. I'd like to hear a point-by-point rebuttal from Bernanke about why he disagrees with someone like Allan Meltzer, or any one of these guys, for that matter. We need to find a way to tease out Bernanke's true motivations on this whole thing.

Glenn Greenwald lists the following ten principles for how our government functions, and how each one of them applies to the bailout.

1. Incredibly complex and consequential new laws are negotiated in secret and then enacted immediately, with no hearings, no real debate, no transparency.

2. Those who created the crisis, were wrong about everything, drive the process.

3. Public opinion is largely ignored, as always, and public anger is placated through illusory, symbolic and largely meaningless concessions.

4. The Government begins with demands for absolute power so brazen and absurd that anything, by comparison, seems reasonable.

5. Wall Street, large corporations and their lobbyists own the Federal Government and both parties, and therefore they always win.

6. The people who run the Washington Establishment are drowning in conflicts of interest.

7. For all the anger over what Wall St. has done, the Government--as it bails them out--isn't doing anything to rein in their practices.

8. When the Government wants greater and greater power and wants to engage in pure corruption, it need only put the population in extreme fear and it gets its way in every case.

9. On the most consequential and fundamental questions that define the country, the establishment/leadership of both political parties are in full agreement, and insulate themselves from any political ramifications by acting jointly.

10. Whenever you think that the Government has done things so extreme that it can't top itself--torture, theories of presidential lawbreaking, a six-year war justified by blatantly false pretenses--it always tops itself.

Labels: economics, politics

Like a lot of people out there, I'm sure, I've spent the past couple of weeks or so trying to wrap my head around this financial crisis we find ourselves in. Here's a convenient link to ten good articles of varying scope and detail about how we got into this mess.

If you aren't going to read any of those, read this one. It's short, easy to understand, and you already know the author.

Labels: economics

Schmapp!! is this super useful map program that you can download and use to see all the great tourist destinations and attractions for any city you would care to visit. I use it all the time.

Okay, I'm totally lying. I've never used it and honestly can't see that I ever would. (But you might still like it.) I'm only blogging about it because they used one of Melissa's Flickr photos for their Dallas Arts District page.

So yay, Melissa's a published photographer! Except my name is on the Flickr page, so they gave me the credit. Oh well.

For years we've been asking for more cowbell. Have we been getting it? No, we haven't.

Until today. MoreCowbell.dj is finally delivering the cowbell that we've been after all this time. You simply upload an mp3 file from your computer and then select the amount of cowbell and Christopher Walken that you feel is appropriate.

Don't hold back too much though. You're gonna want that cowbell on the track.

Here's an example:

	Make your own at MoreCowbell.dj

It's amazing how we will do stuff in the context of a game--especially video games--that would just be work in real life.

To wit, How To End Childhood Obesity.

I'm sure it would work, too. My mom has these Crystal Light drinks with "immunity" on the label and my kids go nuts for them. Because it's like something a video game character would drink.

Labels: food, games

I've found this procrastination flowchart to be eerily accurate.

Labels: internet

This is one of those political gotchas that's only possible because of the Internet.

You know Peggy Noonan, former Reagan speech writer, current Wall Street Journal columnist and occasional on-air conservative pundit. Here she is today in the WSJ, doing her thing, talking up Sarah Palin, McCain's running mate.

Now here she is on MSNBC, giving her true opinion about Palin in a candid conversation with fellow conservative pundit Mike Murphy and NBC analyst Chuck Todd (none of them realizes their mics are still live).

If you can't make out what she says, there are transcripts out there, and her quotes are already on her Wikipedia page (of course). Let's just say that it would appear that she doesn't believe her own rhetoric.

Labels: internet, politics

The Hidden Radio has no visible user controls. Or, you could say that the whole thing is just a big volume/tuning knob. Interesting design.

Labels: design

Now that the Olympics are over I can get back to Mad Men. This is an awesome show.

Ever since I started watching this show I've been meaning to look up the exchange rate between 1960 dollars and current dollars. I estimated it at about 10 based on clues in the show, but that felt a bit high. Turns out it's more like 7. (That's not counting any adjustment for the difference in buying power of $1 in Manhattan vs. suburban middle America, of course.)

Anyway, they talk about money a lot on this show, so you need to have some feel for how much things cost and how much people are earning. I'm sure someone else has already done this somewhere, and when I find it I'll post a link, but until then:

Don Draper makes $35,000 a year, which would be $245,000 to us. He once got a $2500 ($17,500) bonus and tried to use it to take his beatnik mistress to Paris, but she declined. So he gives her the money, tells her to buy a car, and never speaks to her again. When he makes partner he starts making as much as $45,000, or $315,000 in today's dollars. When his long lost brother tracks him down, Don gives him $5000 to leave town and never contact him again. That's $35,000 to us, and more than Pete Campbell makes in a year.

Pete Campbell starts the show making $75 a week. That's $525 to us or $27,300 a year. Not nearly enough to afford the $32,000 ($224,000) apartment his wife Trudy insists on buying. Oh, but the Realtor says they can get it for $30,000 ($210,000) so that will help. Good thing Trudy's parents can front the down payment. Pete and Trudy got a "chip & dip" for their wedding valued at $22 ($154) which he was able to exchange for a .22 rifle.

Harry Crane makes $200 ($1400) a week, and is dismayed to find out that his coworker Ken Cosgrove makes $300 ($2100). That's $72,800 and $109,200 a year to us. Luckily, Harry finds a way to impress his bosses and earn a $25/week raise ($81,900).

Peggy Olson starts out making $35 a week. That's $12,740 a year to us, and even Don is surprised to hear how little she makes. He makes it sound like she's asking a lot when she requests a $5/week raise for taking on the duties of a junior copywriter, but he probably would have given her more. Even with her raise, she's making the equivalent of $14,560 annually. No wonder she was upset when someone swiped $3 ($21) from her locker.

Don's wife, Betty has to call a tow truck when her car breaks down. He informs her that he has the part she needs in the truck, and he can fix the car on the spot for $9 ($63). That's a little more than the $4 ($28) she has in her wallet, but she manages to get by on her charm, as she always has. Later on, their son Bobby breaks the hi-fi. Betty informs Don that it will cost $18 ($126) to have it repaired, or just $9 ($63) if they want to haul it down to the shop themselves. Don doesn't.

Anyway, if you think you might want to start watching Mad Men, you should probably practice multiplying by 7 in your head. Or have a calculator handy.

Labels: tv

So I'm watching an episode of Sesame Street yesterday for the first time in years (we just replaced our TiVo, and pickings were slim) and I happened to see Tina Fey and her Bookaneers in a segment that was irresistibly cute. Then Brian Williams did a short where he says "Squid squid squid squid squid squid."



Was Sesame Street always this clever or was I just too young to appreciate it? Anyway, I know YouTube is full of classic Sesame Street clips from the 80s, but they don't have everything. Muppet Wiki to the rescue. They document everything involving Muppets, which includes every episode of Sesame Street.

Check out episode 1575, where Mr. Rogers visits Big Bird but no one believes him, just like with Snuffy. Classic.

Labels: tv, wiki

Clive Thompson compares the Weight Watchers diet to Role-Playing Games (games like Dungeons & Dragons, The Legend of Zelda, or World of Warcraft). In those games, and similar games like The Sims, you spend a lot of time doing menial, repetitive tasks in pursuit of a larger goal, and that's kind of like what counting calories is like. Plus you get better at learning strategies to maximize your fullness per points and stuff, just like a game. I can totally see it.

Incidentally, the reason I don't do WW is the same reason I avoid online RPGs like WoW. The games can be addicting, and I find that WW causes me to obsess about food to a degree that seems--I don't know--unhealthy.

Labels: food, games

At what point do we quit calling these "stairs" and just accept that it's a rock climbing wall with really well-defined holds?

Labels: pictures

Oh, so that thing is supposed to be a stack of french fries?

Melissa and I thought it was a sucker tree.

If you're at all interested in the recent Russian invasion of Georgia, what caused it and what it all means, War Nerd Gary Brecher gives a pretty good rundown of it at his blog, Exiled Online.

It's a fun read, but pretty irreverent. You've been warned.

Labels: news

...from just one letter from the movie poster.

Seems impossible, but you'll be surprised how many of these you know. I got 14.

ETA: Here's a hint. If no. 29 were a Jeopardy answer, it would be in the category "Stupid Answers."

Labels: movies

You've probably heard about US Men's Volleyball head coach Hugh McCutcheon, who is taking leave from coaching the Olympic team because his wife's parents were attacked in China.

During my freshman year at BYU, McCutcheon was an assistant coach for the BYU Men's volleyball team, and I took a couple of his PE classes. I just wanted to say what an awesome teacher he was. That was some of the most fun I ever had in college, not to mention the best volleyball I ever played.

During a scrimmage late in the semester, this one hot shot on the opposing team spiked the ball hard in my direction. Through a combination of involuntary reflexes and blind luck, I was able to make the dig and keep the ball in play. After the point, McCutcheon walked over to me and told me that it was a great play, but he didn't like my attitude. After a dig like that, he said, I needed to get in the face of the hitter and let him know just how much I enjoyed denying him the satisfaction of a clean kill.

That's probably what I liked best about him. He enjoyed cutting the cocky guys down to size and giving the quieter players the recognition they weren't claiming for themselves.

Labels: sports

I first came across this article a couple of years ago, but I was reminded of it again somewhat recently. I don't think I've blogged about it before, but if I have you'll forgive the repetition.

Repenting Hyperopia

This article proposes that supposedly farsighted (hyperopic) choices of virtue over vice evoke increasing regret over time. We demonstrate that greater temporal separation between a choice and its assessment enhances the regret (or anticipated regret) of virtuous decisions (e.g., choosing work over pleasure). We argue that this finding reflects the differential impact of time on the affective determinants of self-control regrets. In particular, we show that greater temporal perspective attenuates emotions of indulgence guilt but accentuates wistful feelings of missing out on the pleasures of life. We examine alternative explanations, including action versus inaction regrets and levels of construal.

(Emphasis mine.)

I think this article is interesting because it touches on something that I've felt and a lot of people I've talked to have felt, but rarely gets any press. Some of the work/life balance stuff out there gets close, I think ("Nobody on their death bed ever wished they spent more time in the office.") but those ideas are usually still expressed in a forward-looking context.

One example where I've seen this play out is by talking to former mission companions. Almost all of them have expressed regret for being so concerned about the rules and less focused on the immediate experience. If they could go back, they say, they would worry less about following the rules exactly and spend more time helping people and even having fun.

(Interestingly, I heard this advise repeatedly before my mission, from returned missionaries, but I largely ignored it. The incessant call for exact obedience from the leadership has much more sway with a new missionary who just wants to do the right thing.)

Obviously, the consequences of short-sighted decision making are real and can be dire, so I'm not advocating "eat, drink and be merry" by any means. I'm just saying that warnings against such may be over-represented, and that it might not hurt to remember that as life goes on, we value the memories of those times when we lived it up maybe a little too much over the memories of when we were careful and prudent.

...XKCD-style.

This morning when I checked the site he had just over 1400 donors. Now he has over 2300. Not bad for one day's work.

Labels: politics

Maybe you've seen this before, but it was new to me. VideoJug is chock full of instructional videos about how to do most anything. I ended up there while looking for instructions on how to operate a Trangia stove.

It appears to be British or European in origin, and professionally done. Some of them are pretty funny.

Labels: internet, video

Just like it sounds, Urban Prankster documents creative pranks carried out in an urban setting. Many of the groups submitting material are satellites of New York's Improv Everywhere, but there are submissions independent groups and individuals from all over the world as well.

Labels: internet, pranks

Baby Smash! is software that you install to protect your computer from smaller people who tend to bang on the keyboard with little rhyme or reason.

As babies smash on the keyboard, colored shapes, letters and numbers appear on the screen. Baby Smash will lock out the Windows Key, as well as Ctrl-Esc and Alt-Tab so your baby can't get out of the application. Pressing ALT-F4 will exit the application and Shift-Ctrl-Alt-O brings up the options dialog.

I like how the program assumes that random banging might possibly result in Ctrl-Esc or Alt-Tab but never Alt-F4.

Labels: babies, tech

You know the trick you used to read comic books in class, where you prop up a textbook and hide the comic behind it?

Yeah, I've never done that either. But I've seen it on TV.

Anyway, this is the work version of that.

Labels: books

This guy takes Garfield comics and photoshops Garfield out of them. The result is a very mentally disturbed Jon Arbuckle.

The New York Times has an article on the site, where they also get a response from Jim Davis. He seems to like it just fine.

At first I figured this must be a parody, but I was wrong. It's part of a real ad campaign for modesty at BYU.

Think Inside The Circle.

That might as well be BYU's motto.

The rest of the posters are here.

To be clear, I don't have a problem with the standards at BYU per se, but the heavy-handed enforcement and propaganda like the above is a different story. They know how to take all the fun out of being good, that's for sure.

Labels: BYU

"Guitar Hero on the Nintendo DS? How would that work?"

I'm glad you asked.

Labels: games, music games, video

There are five trees in my yard, and none of them are the same. I've never really known what kind they are. What can I say, Forestry is not one of the Eagle required merit badges. So I've just lived in in ignorance.

Until today.

Thanks to the Texas Tree Planting Guide, I'm fairly confident that I've identified my trees.

Starting in the back yard, going clockwise:

Live Oak. It looks deciduous, but it's really evergreen. Those leaves stay green all winter. This sucker is huge, but we have it trimmed up pretty high. You can hear the branches scraping the second-story rain gutters from inside the house, so it's probably due for another trimming. Drops a lot of acorns, which have to fished out of kids' pockets at laundry time.

Sycamore. This one is nice-sized, too. Very pretty bark. Drops these annoying spiky balls that look like naval mines and wreak havoc on the lawnmower and bare feet, though. At least the kids don't put them in their pockets.

Cedar Elm. I might be reaching with the subspecies, but I'm pretty sure it's some kind of Elm. By far our largest tree. This one seems to rain sticks more than anything else. Until the kids are old enough to mow the lawn, they will have steady employment picking up sticks from around this tree.

Baldcypress. We're in the front yard now. This tree is the opposite of the Live Oak--it looks evergreen, but it's deciduous. Those needles turn brown and fall off in the fall and winter.

Texas Redbud. For about two weeks every spring this tree is the most beautiful thing on our street. Well, except for the other Redbuds, several people seem to have them. For the rest of the year, though, it's kind of a pain. The branches are real twisty and like to grow downward, so I have to trim it almost every year. It gets some love in October, when we hang ghosties from it.

That's it. That's all my trees.

Labels: forestry

This blog post got me thinking about Facebook and Webkinz, but mostly about the construction "____ is ____ for adults," which I seem to come across a lot. So I Googled it.


God/religion/evolution/romance is a fairy tale/stuffed animal/imaginary friend/Santa Claus for adults. (By far the most common.)

Golf is marbles for adults.

The Army is Boy Scouts for adults.

BSD is Linux for adults.

Serenity is Star Wars for adults.

Shingles is chicken pox for adults.

Gmail is Hotmail for adults.

Prison is timeout for adults.

NewsTrust is Digg for adults.

NYC/Las Vegas is Disneyland for adults.

The Unseen Guest is Cake for adults.

Ikea is Lego for adults.

Ilva is Ikea for adults.

Grey's Anatomy is Dawson's Creek for adults.

Fettuccine alfredo is macaroni and cheese for adults.

Have you heard of any others?

I wonder if Richard Feynman has this picture hanging up somewhere?

Bonus points if you can count all the theories, conjectures, constants, and cats represented here.

Labels: science

New pictures are up on Flickr. There is a link off to the left, but here it is again. For emphasis.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigpickles/

I really should change the account to Melissa's name, since she's the one who posts all the pictures and writes the captions these days.

Labels: pictures

A little advice for Pants and Shan:



More at Newborn Baby Zone.

Labels: parenting

See if you can follow along.

There is a band from England called Utah Saints. They wrote a song in 1992 called "Something Good." They remixed it in 2008 ("Something Good '08"). Kanye West posted the video to the remix on Vimeo. The premise of the video is that MC Hammer got his moves from a pub in Cardiff, Wales.

Just watch the video. It's hilarious.

[EDIT] The Vimeo link is gone, but here it is on YouTube.

Labels: music, video

Everything that we're afraid of, from childhood to parenthood.

This would have been interesting to know as a kid. You know how everyone is always telling you "They're just as afraid of you as you are of them" referring to animals, other kids, whatever? Turns out the same goes for parents--their kids scare them to death.

Labels: kids these days

Melissa asked me on my way out the door this morning if I had any good ideas for Cub Scouts tonight. I suggested "Steal the Bacon."

"I don't know that game."

"Google it."

I Googled it today, just to see what she would find if she took me up on my awesome suggestion, and I found this website with like every kids' game know to man.

Well, boy.

And girl.

Labels: games, nostalgia

You have fifteen minutes to name as many elements as you can.

You don't have to know where they go on the chart, but you do have to spell their names correctly.

Ready... GO!

(I got 40 in seven minutes before I gave up. I'm sure some of you out there can fill in the whole chart.)

P.S. What's with elements 112-118? Are they new? I don't remember ever learning them. And talk about unoriginal names.

Labels: games, science

This past weekend everything got shuffled up at church, so I put together a map to help myself visualize the changes.

The color of the marker indicates what ward that family was in before the shakeup. And I was limited to 100 data points, so I just picked a few families from each ward that appeared on the leadership rosters.

Arlington Texas Stake

Labels: church

So I'm reading this article about the switch to digital broadcasting that will happen next February. I'm one of the minority that relies on analog broadcast television, but I'm not really worried about the switch. (Like many in my situation, I'll probably use the conversion as an excuse to finally get an HDTV--and possibly an HD TiVo to go with it!)

I can't get over this picture in the article, however:



This man lives in a retirement community and it looks pretty cozy. It's clean and nicely furnished with a deliberate, masculine decor. The guy looks pretty tough, or at least he used to be. But check out the teddy bear.

I wonder what kind of meaning it has for him. Did it belong to one of his kids, or his wife? It looks pretty new. But it got me thinking about what kind of objects would be meaningful to me if I were his age, and in his situation. Maybe by the time my kids are grown and gone it will be nice to have some of their old toys around to remind me of when we were all younger.

I know kids sometimes like to keep things around from their childhood, baby blankets and teddy bears and whatnot. It never occurred to me that a parent would have the same inclination towards their kids' toys. Artwork and baby shoes, sure. But now that I think about it, if I'm ever an old man living alone, I think it would be pretty cool to have one of Benjamin's worn out toy swords hanging up on my wall.

Labels: kids, tech

SquarO feels like reverse Minesweeper. They give you all the numbers, and you have to figure out where the mines are supposed to go.

My fastest time so far is :49 on Easy. I expect my times will come down as I learn the shortcuts, same as Minesweeper.

ETA: There you go, I just did one in :26.

My best time on Medium is :36.

Labels: games

These will freak you right out.

Mario

Homer Simpson

The guy that makes these just started his blog a couple of weeks ago, so be sure to check back for more.

If you haven't been rickrolled yet, just give it time.

If you don't know what rickrolling is, check out this article in the Guardian. The interview with Rick Astley at the the end is particularly entertaining.

Once you're up to speed, check out how this dude managed to pull off a live rickroll of his boss.

But, as with most things, the prize for best rickroll ever has to go to xkcd.

Labels: internet

When I was a little kid and my mom would take us to the library each week, I had a system. There were several books, or collections of books that I would look for every time.

It was the same at my school library. There was this huge picture book about astronomy, I think it was called The Universe, and if it was in, you grabbed it and checked it out. No questions asked. Having that book checked out in your name was like a status symbol in elementary school. If it was checked out (and it usually was) then you headed for this book about drilling to the center of the earth, and if it was out then you made your way to the thumb print drawing books, this funny sports cartoon book, and so on.

While this hierarchy of desirable books was dictated by what was cool at school, at the public library I was on my own, and free to indulge in books that would have subjected me to ridicule among my school friends. One of my favorite collections was the Creative Activities Program series. I always loved non-fiction as a kid, especially "how-to" books. It's probably why I learned my knots so well in scouts. These books showed you how to do things like build a submarine out of cardboard boxes, complete with working torpedo launchers.

Each week I would check out a different volume--Making, Creating, Fooling, even Sewing. But I never got to read Volume 2: Playing. I imagined it was the best one, too. I mean come on, Playing. I would dash to the shelf every time, but it was never there. I guess some other kid must have lost it or something.

The other series I would always look for was this collection of spy books. They were illustrated in this awesome 70s style that you only see on Sesame Street anymore and they were chock full of useful information. The red ones were called Spy Guides and included Secret Messages, Disguise & Makeup, and Tracking & Trailing. The blue ones were called Detective Guides and included Catching Crooks, Clues & Suspects, and Fakes & Forgeries. I haven't been able to find these anywhere, but it looks like they might have been republished as single volumes: one for spies and one for detectives.

A customer review at Amazon says it best. These books are like The Art of War for eight year olds.

Labels: books

What do Fonzie, Captian Jean-Luc Picard, and George Michael Bluth have in common? They are all figments of Tommy Westphall's imagination.

Tommy Westphall was an autistic child in the TV show St. Elsewhere. In the final episode of that series, it was revealed that Tommy had dreamt the entire run of the show. That means that any other shows that had crossovers with St. Elsewhere were also part of Tommy's dream, and so on. When you consider all the connections, it soon becomes clear that almost all of TV must have originated in Tommy's mind.

For example, characters from St. Elsewhere once visited the bar on Cheers. Cheers spun off Frasier. In Fraiser, Niles and Daphne read Caroline in the City's comic strip. CITC's Annie was hit on by Friends' Chandler. In Friends, Phoebe's twin sister Ursula is also a waitress in Mad About You. Paul from that show leased his old apartment to Kramer on Seinfeld. So all these characters exist in the same fictional sphere.

But a few connections really make things blow up. In Mad About You, Paul did a documentary narrated by The Dick Van Dyke Show's Alan Brady. And from there you can get all the way back to I Love Lucy and the Mary Tyler Moore Show, and a ton of other shows in between. It helps that some shows are crossover whores, like The X-Files (15), The Drew Carey Show (8), and Hi Honey, I'm Home, which racked up 17 crossovers in its 13 episodes on the air.

You can totally play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon with this, and to me it's even more impressive because they are all fictional connections. Can you connect Peter Petrelli with Larry Appleton? Or The Cosby Show's Heathcliff Huxtable with Cosby's Hilton Lucas? Or the US and UK versions of The Office? I could play with this all day.

ETA: Ok, I just thought of a bunch of problems with this thing. What happens when one show treats another show as a TV show, instead of a reality? For example. Paul Buchman from Mad About You leases his old apartment to Kramer from Seinfeld. But George and Susan from Seinfeld are shown watching Mad About You on television one evening. How can that be? To George Costanza, Paul Buchman is not a character on a TV show, he's the real person who Kramer leased his apartment from.

If you think about it, this kind of continuity error happens anytime anyone in this multiverse treats any of the others as TV shows. There are several other examples on Seinfeld alone. Kramer gets a job on Murphy Brown. George talks to George Wendt (Norm from Cheers) and Corbin Bernsen (Arnie Becker from L.A. Law) backstage at The Tonight Show. None of this should be possible because to the Seinfeld gang, Murphy Brown should be a real reporter, Cheers a real bar, and Becker a real lawyer.

Labels: tv

Got this from Suzanne.


The rules are simple:

Bold movies you have watched and liked.

Turn red movies you have watched and loved.

Italicize movies you saw and didn’t like.

Leave as is movies you haven’t seen.


* The Godfather (1972)
* The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
* The Godfather: Part II (1974)
* The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
* Pulp Fiction (1994)
* Schindler’s List (1993)
* Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
* One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
* Casablanca (1942)
* The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
* Star Wars (1977)
* 12 Angry Men (1957)
* Rear Window (1954)
* No Country for Old Men (2007)
* Goodfellas (1990)
* Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
* The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
* City of God (2002)
* Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
* The Usual Suspects (1995)
* Psycho (1960)
* Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
* Citizen Kane (1941)
* The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
* North by Northwest (1959)
* The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
* Fight Club (1999)
* Memento (2000)
* Sunset Blvd. (1950)
* Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
* It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
* The Matrix (1999)
* Taxi Driver (1976)
* Se7en (1995)
* Apocalypse Now (1979)
* American Beauty (1999)
* Vertigo (1958)
* Amélie (2001)
* The Departed (2006)
* Paths of Glory (1957)
* American History X (1998)
* To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
* Chinatown (1974)
* Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
* The Third Man (1949)
* A Clockwork Orange (1971)
* Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
* The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
* Alien (1979)
* The Pianist (2002)
* The Shining (1980)
* Double Indemnity (1944)
* L.A. Confidential (1997)
* Leben der Anderen, Das [The Lives of Others] (2006)
* The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
* Boot, Das (1981)
* The Maltese Falcon (1941)
* Saving Private Ryan (1998)
* Reservoir Dogs (1992)
* Forrest Gump (1994)
* Metropolis (1927)
* Aliens (1986)
* Raging Bull (1980)
* Rashômon (1950)
* Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
* Rebecca (1940)
* Hotel Rwanda (2004)
* Sin City (2005)
* Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
* All About Eve (1950)
* Modern Times (1936)
* Some Like It Hot (1959)
* 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
* The Seventh Seal (1957)
* The Great Escape (1963)
* Amadeus (1984)
* On the Waterfront (1954)
* Touch of Evil (1958)
* The Elephant Man (1980)
* The Prestige (2006)
* Vita è bella, La [Life Is Beautiful] (1997)
* Jaws (1975)
* The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
* The Sting (1973)
* Strangers on a Train (1951)
* Full Metal Jacket (1987)
* The Apartment (1960)
* City Lights (1931)
* Braveheart (1995)
* Cinema Paradiso (1988)
* Batman Begins (2005)
* The Big Sleep (1946)
* Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
* Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
* Blade Runner (1982)
* The Great Dictator (1940)
* The Wizard of Oz (1939)
* Notorious (1946)
* Salaire de la peur, Le [The Wages of Fear](1953)
* High Noon (1952)
* Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983)
* Fargo (1996)
* The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)
* Unforgiven (1992)
* Back to the Future (1985)
* Ran (1985)
* Oldboy (2003)
* Million Dollar Baby (2004)
* Cool Hand Luke (1967)
* Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
* Donnie Darko (2001)
* Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
* The Green Mile (1999)
* Annie Hall (1977)
* Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
* Gladiator (2000)
* The Sixth Sense (1999)
* Diaboliques, Les [The Devils] (1955)
* Ben-Hur (1959)
* It Happened One Night (1934)
* The Deer Hunter (1978)
* Life of Brian (1979)
* Die Hard (1988)
* The General (1927)
* American Gangster (2007)
* Platoon (1986)
* V for Vendetta (2005)
* Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
* The Graduate (1967)
* The Princess Bride (1987)
* Crash (2004/I)
* The Wild Bunch (1969)
* Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
* Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)
* Heat (1995)
* Gandhi (1982)
* Harvey (1950)
* The Night of the Hunter (1955)
* The African Queen (1951)
* Stand by Me (1986)
* Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)
* Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
* The Big Lebowski (1998)
* The Conversation (1974)
* Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
* Wo hu cang long [Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon ] (2000)
* The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
* Gone with the Wind (1939)
* 3:10 to Yuma (2007)
* Cabinet des Dr. Caligari., Das [The Cabinet of Dr Caligari] (1920)
* The Thing (1982)
* Groundhog Day (1993)
* The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
* Sleuth (1972)
* Patton (1970)
* Toy Story (1995)
* Glory (1989)
* Out of the Past (1947)
* Twelve Monkeys (1995)
* Ed Wood (1994)
* Spartacus (1960)
* The Terminator (1984)
* In the Heat of the Night (1967)
* The Philadelphia Story (1940)
* The Exorcist (1973)
* Frankenstein (1931)
* Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
* The Hustler (1961)
* Toy Story 2 (1999)
* The Lion King (1994)
* Big Fish (2003)
* Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)
* Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
* Young Frankenstein (1974)
* Magnolia (1999)
* A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
* In Cold Blood (1967)
* Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
* Dial M for Murder (1954)
* All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
* Roman Holiday (1953)
* A Christmas Story (1983)
* Casino (1995)
* Manhattan (1979)
* Ying xiong [Hero] (2002)
* Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
* Rope (1948)
* Cinderella Man (2005)
* The Searchers (1956)
* Finding Neverland (2004)
* Inherit the Wind (1960)
* His Girl Friday (1940)
* A Man for All Seasons (1966)
* Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)
* The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

It looks like I hand reds out like candy. The only thing I've seen that I didn't like was Wizard of Oz. It just seemed so long when I was a kid. Plus I did not appreciate the scary parts.

I'm going to watch Shawshank tonight because I'm embarrassed to admit I haven't seen it yet.

ETA: Okay, I've seen it now.

Labels: movies

You know, like nunchuku skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills...

Only, we're talking things like dialing a rotary phone, using a card catalog, adjusting your tv antenna, and cranking up and down a car window.

Labels: tech

The link that lead me to this picture was labeled "Good luck!"

So there is this professor who has come up with a technique to keep his students vigorously engaged in otherwise dry and tedious subject matter. Each lecture contains a lie, and the students are challenged to find it. It's more than just an attention-getting device, it also provides valuable practice in questioning and verifying everything you hear.

As one commenter is quick to point out, the professor would really have to know his stuff for this to work. Most of my teachers--especially in high school--made enough honest mistakes that their lectures would never stand up to this kind of scrutiny. So I guess the technique forced him to pay extra close attention as well.

What a neat idea.

Labels: education

I love behavioral economics. It's a beautiful amalgam of theory and counter-intuitive empirical observation. It's the opposite of ideology. It acknowledges that people don't always behave the way we expect them to, and tries to figure out why. And according to this article, Barack Obama's wonks are rooted in it. I guess it makes sense that it was Steven Leavitt, author of Freakonomics, that turned me on to Obama over a year ago.

From the article:

As Thaler puts it, "Physics with friction is not as beautiful. But you need it to get rockets off the ground." It might as well be the motto for Obama's entire policy shop.

I think that encapsulates the difference between Obama's crew and someone like Ron Paul, who I think also has a lot of good ideas. Everything coming from Lew Rockwell and the libertarian think tanks sounds good in theory, but it feels like working out those physics problems where vacuums and frictionless surfaces are assumed. Same goes for Bush's cadre of neoconservatives and Clinton's neoliberalism. Sure, universal health care/getting rid of the Fed/invading Iraq sounds good, but is there any real evidence that things will play out in reality as well as the theory suggests? It's all deductive, and assumes that if we fix policy around over-arching principles, the details will bear out those principles.

I have no way of knowing whether Obama would be a good president, but I like the idea that his people strive to form policy that accounts for and relies on hard data, rather than trying to implement a broad ideology that is assumed will bring about desired results. I'm willing to give the inductive approach a try. It seems more scientific, even humbler. It acknowledges that no one really knows what will happen until we try something out.

Labels: politics

Vanity Fair has reconstructed several iconic Hitchcock scenes with modern actors. It's interesting what choices they've made to reconstruct the scenes.

Most of them substitute today's glamorous stars for yesterday's--Charlize Theron, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Scarlett Johansson are all beautiful as Grace Kelly, and Naomi Watts and Jodi Foster work well as Tippi Hedren.

But you know someone's having some fun when Seth Rogen is cast in Cary Grant's role.

Labels: movies

Like Pacman, but you control the ghosts.

Labels: games

What do the 41-9 Boston Celtics and the 25-0 Memphis Tigers have in common?

The Dribble-Drive Motion offense.

Labels: sports

Once when I was a kid, I mentioned to my mom that I tend to associate numbers with certain colors. She responded that it sounded like I had a neat idea for a Swatch watch. This was the eighties, after all, when Swatches were all the rage.

I didn't think much of it, really. When you're a kid, it seems like colors are often used as a memory aid. In first grade, Mrs. Parker's class was green, Mrs. Tyler's class was blue, etc. So I always assumed that the letter P is green and the month of May is yellow because I had some memory of similar associations from childhood. Probably I'm just remembering some colored refrigerator magnets or something.

Today, my officemate Scott directed me to the wikipedia page on synesthesia. He was reading about a piano player that had it, and it reminded him of Ratatouille, where the rat sees colors and hears music when he tastes certain flavors. He thought it would be a cool condition to have.

I'm now convinced I have grapheme-color synesthesia. It's strongest for digits, but I also get colors for letters, days of the week, months of the year, etc. I don't know why it would be cool to have, though. I can't remember it ever coming in handy for anything. I just figured everyone did this.

The colors I see:

Labels: wikipedia

The trailer for the new movie is out. It's even in HD!

My premature verdict: better than Rocky Balboa and Rambo, in the 80s action hero reprise genre. Unlike those two, this movie isn't Ford's attempt to relive his glory days--in fact, it took some convincing by Spielberg before he would even agree to do it.

But there will still be some acknowledgment that the character is past his prime, as evidenced by this line from the trailer:

Indy friend: This ain't gonna be easy.
Indy: Not as easy as it used to be.

Labels: movies

There are a ton of websites I use regularly that I don't think I've ever mentioned here because they seem like common knowledge, but today I got to thinking that maybe they aren't. For example, no matter how many times I mention it, it seems like there is always someone in our office who has never heard of Snopes. (That probably says more about our turnover than anything else.) So here's a few:

IMDB: Just kidding, everyone already knows this one.

Google Maps: ...is the best! True dat! Double True!

Okay, seriously now...

AMG: All Music Guide, like IMDB but for music. In fact, I actually like its sister site, All Movie Guide, better than IMDB, though it's still in beta.

Metacritic: Collects reviews on all kinds of media from various sources and combines them into an aggregate "metascore."

Snopes: Urban legend and hoax debunker. Whenever you get an email warning you about the latest carjacking scheme or that Barack Obama is a terrorist, you can usually count on Snopes to make you feel stupid for having believed it for a second.

(This website has become so popular that email hoaxes now tend to include "I checked it on Snopes and it's TRUE!" Notwithstanding, check it on Snopes and you will probably find that it's not so much.)

The Drudge Report: Not always the most accurate, but almost always the first with breaking news. Mostly politics, some entertainment gossip.

ConsumerSearch: Sort of like Metacritic but for consumer goods, they gather multiple professional reviews from various sources and use them to determine a winner. Epinions is a good site for consumer reviews, but it's gotten cumbersome lately.

Weather Underground: My favorite weather site, it has very detailed information from neighborhood weather stations, if you need that data for a project or a log or something.

Dinkytown: I don't know what's up with the name, but this site has every kind of financial calculator you can imagine. Very useful for simple models and projections (How long will my money last, etc.) I use it at work all the time.

Zillow: Map of real estate values. Careful, if you haven't seen this one before, you may end up spending the rest of the day looking up the market value of all your friends' houses.

That's probably enough for now, but I'm sure there are tons I've forgotten.

Labels: internet

I'm loving this band. Their name is a little off-putting at first, but then again so is Barenaked Ladies. They are Canadian, too, so maybe that has something to do with it.



(via BoingBoing)

Labels: music, video

This American Life is a very compelling radio show that airs on NPR on the weekends. Each episode is composed of several "acts" that share a theme. This week's theme is "Tough Room," and I'm linking to it because three of the four acts deal with stuff I'm interested in.

Free download

Act 1 is about the Onion, Act 3 is about LDS Missionaries, and Act 4 is about Malcolm Gladwell. (I'm sure Act 2 is interesting, too.)

Labels: audio

You don't see too many websites like this anymore. It's too bad, really. Someday our kids won't believe us when we tell them how bad it used to be out there.

Note: Be sure to hit refresh several times. It gets better.

Labels: internet

From the New York Times, the first graph illustrates how Americans spend money, and the second show rates of adoption of different consumer technologies. I didn't realize that cellphones caught on quicker than the Internet.

Labels: money, tech

I'm always on the lookout for new desktop wallpaper images. I have a few favorite sites that I use, but this article in Smashing Magazine introduced me to several more. I'll probably spend a few days looking through all of them.

Wallpaper tip: For best results, you want a wallpaper image that already matches your screen resolution, so you don't have to mess with stretching or tiling or anything else that degrades the image quality. To determine your screen resolution in Windows, right-click your desktop, click Properties, click the Settings tab, and there should be a box labeled "Screen resolution" with a slider bar in it, telling you your current resolution (usually something like 1024x768 or 1280x1024 for standard monitors, or 1050x1680 or 1200x1600 for widescreen). When you go wallpaper hunting, you can usually narrow your search to images of that size.

Labels: pictures, tech

It's can't really be true that all the coolest stuff out there is really only useful for single people, right? It only seems that way because I'm married with kids. Right?

Labels: design, furniture

At the Four Seasons, when they make the beds, they make a three-inch "foot pocket" fold in the sheet at the foot of the bed to give your feet some extra room. That's good thinkin'.

Labels: household

Just like it sounds, RulesofThumb.org gathers every rule of thumb into one place. They range from seriously helpful guidelines to Murphy's Law-type observations.

Under Parenting:

CHILDREN AND FOOD
Young children's enjoyment of a home-cooked meal is in inverse proportion to the amount of time spent preparing it.

ON CHILDREN IN GROUPS
One boy has a brain. Two boys have half a brain. Three boys have no brain.

What did you call the "S" weapon in Contra? We always called it "Spread," but in this article, the author refers to it as "Spray," which I've also heard. I think it's officially called the shotgun, but I don't know anyone who ever called it that.

Other great games mentioned: Double Dribble, Tecmo Bowl, Pro Wrestling, and of course, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out. I still have every one of those games.

Labels: games, nostalgia

In Spin The Black Circle, you spin the puzzle around and try to get the black circle to fall into the right spot. Does that sound exciting? Because it is. It really is.

Labels: fun, games, puzzles

Your typical brain teaser adventure. There are lots of these around, this one didn't seem too difficult at first, but now I'm stuck on number 8.

ETA: Ok, once I figured out number 8, I sailed through the rest of them pretty easily. I think there's about 24 of them. And the English isn't too great, so watch for that.

Labels: puzzles

You've probably seen it, it's all over YouTube:



I'll just say that Scarlett Johansson has my vote.

Labels: politics

An epic battle.

Labels: animation

It was about a month ago, remember?

I told you that you needed to play this game, Portal.

But you didn't listen, did you? Nope, you figured you had better things to do.

Now you're trying in vain to decipher the latest xkcd. Too bad, it's a good one.

I tried to tell you...

Labels: the cake is a lie

I normally try to avoid posting about politics, which is my excuse for not posting much lately. It's all politics out there nowadays.

But I thought this was too good to pass up. I would love to hear President Bush's response when someone explains to him that his favorite painting doesn't mean what he thinks it means.

Labels: The Slipper Tongue

Because, by all indications, the Internet does.



By the way, Buzzfeed is my new favorite tool for finding fun stuff on the Internet. Check it out if you're bored.

Labels: actors, links

A short article by Mark Gaberman, on writing for Jeopardy.

I've always wondered about what it would be like to write for that show. Sounds like it's wicked awesome, just as I always suspected.

Labels: game shows

The 2007 Periodic Table of Elements Printmaking Project.

For example, here's Potassium:

I though it would be fun to show the element in a more different way, as to where it is found (bananas) and what the element was classified as : metal... so I thought that making a structural banana with plates jumping into the foreground and informing the viewer some basic data, the atomic number and name of the element.

Labels: art, science

I just received notice that Jeanine has a blog, so I've updated my links to the right.

The announcement came with the details of the birth of her son, Clark Vance Marshall.

Labels: babies, blogs

Have I posted about the Edge before? Every year, they pose a question to a bunch of scholars, mostly scientists, and then print up their answers in a book. This year's question is "What have you changed your mind about?"

(Check out the questions from past years as well, if you haven't before.)

I liked Richard Dawkin's explanation of how changing one's mind is frowned upon in politics but encouraged in science. It's something I've tried to explain more than once recently.

I can think of two things I've changed my mind about in recent years. One is my opinion of the virtues of free markets. I used to default to the pro-capitalism side on any issue involving privatization, deregulation, unionization, etc. I'd still say I'm a capitalist, but I no longer reflexively think that free market forces are the cure to all ills.

Another is my optimism about the world in general. I used to take it as given that the world is getting worse and worse all the time, and it would continue to do so until we eventually destroyed ourselves, but I no longer believe that. In many ways, it's getting better all the time. Whether we're talking about technology or ethics or international relations, as bad as things sometimes seem, you can almost always argue that things are better now than they have ever been.

Labels: answers, questions

ThinkGeek never ceases to amaze.

They have a WiFi alarm clock that you can set up so that it will donate real money to an organization you hate every time you hit the snooze bar. Awesome.

I've heard of this ploy used as a motivation tactic before--my dad had a life coach who used it. I don't remember what behavior he was trying to reinforce, but he gave the guy $1000, and every time he screwed up, the guy would send $100 to Hillary Clinton.

This is the first time I've seen the tactic implemented in an alarm clock. "But," you ask, "what's to stop you from just lying in bed and listening to the radio?" You could just switch it to the oh-so-annoying buzzer. Or, in keeping with the spirit of the thing, tune it to a radio station you loathe.

Labels: sleeping with the enemy

Hey, remember Man vs. Kids? If you're like me, you're reminded of it every time one of your kids punches you in the kneecap.

Well, like Inigo and Fezzik, it's wise to know your limitations before going into battle. Find out how many five year olds you can realistically take on at once by clicking here.

It could save your life someday.

Labels: ...leaving twenty for me...