Big Pickles

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...

I just finished Portal. Part of the Orange Box, it's been out on PC and XBox 360 since October, and was just released on PS3 this month. If you have access to any of these platforms, I strongly urge you to do what you must to acquire and play this game. It is fun.

It's not a long game, 19 puzzle-like levels, and I probably finished it in about 3 or 4 hours. All I can say is that on about the second or third level you begin to realize that you're playing a game like no other before. And that feeling only intensifies throughout the game, up to and including the closing credits.

Which is my real reason for posting. Have I mentioned Jonathan Coulton before? Oh yes, here and here. I read several months ago that he had been asked to write the music for a video game, which I thought was awesome. Then I learned that it was only the music for the closing credits, which seemed less awesome. So I forgot about it.

When I finished Portal, I was impressed by the song at the end, but it didn't jog my memory. It was only when I played the game again with the developer commentary turned on (that's another thing about this game, it has built in commentary like a DVD--how cool is that?!) that I learned that it was Jonathan Coulton, and then I was all, oh yeah...

ETA: And Portal sweeps the WRAs!

Labels: the cake is a lie

These guys are awesome.

Labels: audio, radio star violence, video

You know the drill. You type in a word, and then R2-D2 translates it into his language.

Labels: astromech protocol

I've seen several studies cited recently that show that kids perform better in school when they are taught to focus on effort rather than talent. A recent article in Scientific American reaches the same conclusion.

The students who held a fixed mind-set, however, were concerned about looking smart with little regard for learning. They had negative views of effort, believing that having to work hard at something was a sign of low ability. They thought that a person with talent or intelligence did not need to work hard to do well.

I wouldn't say I had "little regard for learning," but I can definitely identify with the disdain towards effort. In my high school, all of us smart kids knew who the "workers" were, and how many of them had usurped our rightful places at the top of the class. In fact, the ultimate betrayal was when, around sophomore year, one of our own became a "worker," instantly shooting to the top spot with his unstoppable combination of effort and talent.

Of course, the "workers" were the ones that got into med school.

Labels: gifted, talented

I'm no singer, but I'm guessing this guy has a well trained falsetto.

Labels: audio, little mermaid, video

In Back to the Future, Dr. Emmett Brown said to Marty McFly:

I'm sure in 1985 plutonium is available at every corner drugstore, but in 1955 it's a little hard to come by.

Turns out he wasn't that far off.

Be sure to read the reviews.

Labels: mail-order radioactive chemicals

...for a lawyer.

Labels: funny names

"And that's why I hate Christmas."

Labels: christmas, tech

Handy infographic which illustrates several different baseball pitches. Have to remember this for next season.

Labels: baseball

Here's an interesting article on what, exactly, makes Guitar Hero so great.

Jack White gets some love at the end.

Labels: games, music, music games

After watching Melissa run her 5K I got motivated to start running again. Along with that I've been trying to eat better and lose a little weight.

I found two websites that are pretty useful if you're wonky like me about this kind of thing, and like to keep track of all your calories. FitDay will let you get as detailed as you want as far as nutrition and exercise, but the interface is a little bare bones. It sure beats the Excel spreadsheet I was using before, though. Sparkpeople is probably just as detailed, but it's a bit more user-friendly and community oriented. It will tell you exactly what to eat every day if you want it to. It reminds me of the online nutrition and workout plans you get with some gym memberships, but it's free.

These sites will track all your exercise info as well, but I use other sites for that. I log my bike riding at My Cycling Log, and my running at Log Your Run. (Both sites will track both activities, as well as others, but I like each for the one it specializes in.)

Each of these sites have cool modules that allow you to plot your routes on Google maps to determine mileage. Or you can do the same thing at Gmaps Pedometer.

And finally, I'm using a training program from Cool Running, (I'm doing the Intermediate 5K), and the calculators at Running for Fitness. Active is also useful for looking up local races. It has other sports, too, so check it out if you're looking for a local volleyball tournament or something.

Labels: exercise, nutrition

First, watch the commercial to get the jingle stuck in your head. I'll wait.

Now then. In the mid-eighties my parents bought my little brother one of these things. I don't know that he ever got all that attached to it, but he seemed to like it enough. What I do remember about My Buddy was that my older brother and I beat that thing mercilessly.

I still don't know what it was about that toy that caused David and I to succumb to violent tendencies we never knew we had. We never abused any of my sister's toys like that. (Sure, Super Grover spent more than his fair share of time up on the roof, but he was supposed to fly.) All I can tell you is that there was nothing more cathartic than grabbing My Buddy by the ankles and smashing his head into the metal bunk bed frame. Over and over and over...

I'm sure it started as a way to annoy my little brother. You punch his toy in the face, he gets mad, a good time is had by all. But it grew into something much bigger. Maybe it's because he really was indestructible--and he was the perfect size for such manhandling--so we took it as a challenge to see if we could really damage him. (I don't think we ever did.) Or maybe there was just something about his face that provoked our wrath.

Anyway, I was reminded of all of this by a blog post that claimed that My Buddy was for kids whose parents thought GI Joes were too violent. I had plenty GI Joes, but they never once inspired the kind of blood lust that My Buddy did.

Labels: nostalgia, violence

Trouble At' Mill will be another thirty-minute film like A Close Shave and The Wrong Trousers.

Wallace and Gromit have a brand new business. The conversion of 62 West Wallaby Street is complete and impressive, the whole house is now a granary with ovens and robotic kneading arms. Huge mixing bowls are all over the place and everything is covered with a layer of flour. On the roof is a 'Wallace patent-pending' old-fashioned windmill.

No word yet on when it's expected to be released, but Nick Park has said that he's using faster production techniques now than he has on his other films.

Labels: gromit, movies, wallace, wensleydale

This comic at Salon.com traces the rise and fall of a hip, ironic catchphrase.

Labels: comics

Someone out there has a blog devoted to anthropomorphic food characters. Huh.

Anyway, if you don't recognize the Del Monte Country Yumkins, it's probably because your mom fed you generic canned green beans instead of the good stuff.

Don't feel bad, I'm sure they were just as healthy.

Labels: nostalgia, plush collectibles

This movie looks awesome.

I do love me some Jack Black.

Labels: movies

I've blogged about Jonathan Coulton before, but he rates another mention. Probably several more.

This is the video to a song called "Flickr," which is really just a bunch of random phrases strung together about random pictures people put on Flickr. Trust me, it works.

Labels: audio, pictures, video

His acceptance speech is long, but very good. He can't resist rhyming and using cliches, but he's so sincere, you love him anyway.

(Originally the video cut out some of his remarks about torture, but in the end it appears that the level of irony involved in censoring a Liberty Medal recipient was too much to bear.)

Labels: video

Did you see this video during combined PH/RS meeting yesterday?

Melissa did. She wasn't sure if it was a church-wide thing or if it was done on a local level, but she told me that she won't soon forget hearing the voices of Chris Parnell and Amy Poehler in the chapel.

They also showed this FedEx commercial.

Labels: church, tv

This blog post fascinates me.

Here's a guy who doesn't want to bother calculating the tip on his restaurant check, even though he probably has a palm pilot or laptop or cell phone out during dinner (judging by the importance of wifi access) and could easily use the calculator in said device.

So he rounds everything to even dollars, only to realize that he could be using those precious cents digits to communicate a wealth of information to himself about each meal. Simple addition, subtraction, and multiplication are too much to bother with, but binary/decimal conversions are de rigeur, apparently.

No less remarkable is his discovery that restaurants seem to be pretty lax about the total you write on your receipt.

Labels: math

Melissa finally accomplished her goal to run the annual Mansfield 5K.

Here are the race results.

One caveat: Melissa accidentally switched race numbers with her friend Shauna Steenbakkers, so their results are switched. Her time was 33:18.

Yay, Melissa! She's looking for another 5K to run in November or December.

Labels: running

Only In China.
Only In Texas.
Only In America.

These pictures attempt to sum up the entire world. You'll see what I mean.

Labels: pictures

I guess they probably don't keep stats on things like this, but I'll bet it's never happened before.

It's one of those things that, given the number of at-bats in baseball history, was bound to happen sometime.

Labels: physics, sports

Did you ever wonder what Super Mario Bros. would look like in the style of Stalinist Soviet propaganda? I know I have.

Labels: fun, games, video

Another addicting game that's difficult to describe, takes minutes to learn, and a lifetime to master!

Labels: fun, games

My kids love Word Girl.

First they found her on the Internet.

Then they found her in 5-minute shorts at the end of their PBS cartoons.

Then they discovered that she's getting her own full-length show this fall.

Then I found her on the Internet.

It's a vicious cycle.

NYT on Word Girl

Jim Lehrer Interviews Word Girl

Labels: fun, kids, tv

It looks like an old card game from the 60s, and it really ate up my afternoon. Just place cards on the board in such a way that your guests are sitting next to people they like.

Labels: fun, games

MICHAEL: Hey Dad, if you want to get some more information about something, you should check the Internet.

ME: Thanks for the tip.

Labels: kids these days

ME: Hey, Michael, I heard they're coming out with a new Zelda game for the DS.

MICHAEL: You mean Phantom Hourglass?

ME: Um, yeah, that's the one. How did you hear about it?

MICHAEL: I saw it on YouTube.

ME: Oh. That's right, I guess it's already out in Japan. It's not going to be released in the US until Christmas.

MICHAEL: Yeah, maybe Santa Claus will bring it to me!

Labels: games, internet, kids these days

So I signed up for some Facebook. Everyone else needs to sign up now so I can have some friends.

It's a pretty slick interface, far superior to MySpace, as far as I can tell. I'm still not sure about the whole social networking thing, though. It's clearly geared toward kids who are still in school, so I find myself thinking about old friends I haven't contacted in years.

Still, Steve was asking me about a way to aggregate everyone's blogs, photos, videos, etc. this summer. Something like Facebook would be very useful in that regard.

Labels: internet, nostalgia, social networking

Okay, it's a toothbrush with a concave back that is designed to redirect a stream of water just like a drinking fountain. So you don't have to use a cup (or other less sophisticated means) to rinse after brushing.

What will they think of next?

Labels: design, tech

This is so two years ago, maybe I even linked to it before, I can't remember. It's "Since U Been Gone" covered by Ted Leo. Something reminded me of it today, and now my brain is craving it like heroin.

I've been thinking we need some new music at our house. Maybe Ted Leo and the Pharmacists is just the thing.

Labels: music

Melissa, you need to show the boys this video.

Labels: video

"You come to me as Beginners. When I'm through with you, you'll be Experts!"

Labels: fun, games, movies

You type in words, and then they sing it for you.

I could play with this for hours. It's fun to see how many songs you can recognize from just one word.

Labels: audio, fun

Paul Graham has some excellent articles.

This one is about Stuff. I feel like I've been saying this stuff to myself for years. And yet I keep accumulating more stuff.

"What I didn't understand was that the value of some new acquisition wasn't the difference between its retail price and what I paid for it. It was the value I derived from it. Stuff is an extremely illiquid asset. Unless you have some plan for selling that valuable thing you got so cheaply, what difference does it make what it's "worth?" The only way you're ever going to extract any value from it is to use it. And if you don't have any immediate use for it, you probably never will."

Amen, brother.

Labels: material goods

I have been looking for this for a long time, a way to play the old Oregon Trail game that we all played on Apples in elementary school. I've download stuff and tried to get it to run with no success. There are more modern versions available which are no good.

Now someone has set up a Virtual Apple II emulator that lets you play Oregon Trail on the web. I think you have to have Windows and Firefox for it to work.

(By the way, I found the link at MentalFloss, another highly recommended site.)

Watch out for dysentery!

Labels: fun, games, old school

Yesterday we were talking about how we needed to upgrade our stereo system, and Melissa mentioned the Bose store we saw at the mall.

I told her that Bose sucks.

She was incredulous, so I offered to post a few links. It's a lot to read, but by the time you're done you will be amazed at the sheer power of marketing.

What about Bose? (short)

Why Bose Sucks Review Resources (long)

Stuff like this always makes me wonder what else I'm assuming is good or true, not because I've examined it, but because some rich, powerful company or organization has spent a lot of money honing my perceptions.

Labels: audio, debunkification

It's a sport where you throw a ball at someone's face.

It strikes me as an office-friendly version of Crotchball.

I've seen the flickr group before, but I didn't know they had such a slick website. Be sure to watch the instructional video.

Labels: fun, sports

I've heard of people who stop by Ikea every morning for breakfast, and others who choose to simply hang out there on the weekends, but now you can elect to stay overnight if you just can't bring yourself to leave.

Labels: shopping

Some guy went to Dell's website and priced a PC with Ubuntu Linux pre-installed.

Notice the price.

(Don't get the joke? Explanation.)

Labels: incredibly geeky humor

There's an article about Junie B. Jones books in the New York Times. Apparently, some parents object to Junie's grammar, afraid their kids are going to start talking like her if they read too many of these books.

I don't buy it. The arguments I thought of as I read the first few paragraphs show up on the second page: Mark Twain and Shakespeare. I think exposure to non-standard English, in either direction, can only be educational.

Labels: books, language

The boys at Car Talk recommend adjusting your mirrors to eliminate your blind spots while driving.

They say it takes some getting used to, but once you get the hang of it, it's awesome.

Labels: driving

These lists pop up all over the place from time to time.

I thought the first three were pretty good.

Labels: lists

In 1947 Life Magazine asked some cartoon artists to draw their characters while blindfolded. The results are pretty cool.

Labels: art, fun

So the Asian kids are using their piano skills to play the guitar. They just crank up the volume and play one-handed hammer-ons (to use a term I recently learned from Guitar Hero).

And hey, since you only need one hand, that frees up your other hand to play ANOTHER GUITAR!

Labels: crazy guitar skills, music, simpsons

You enter your address at this site, and it tells you how walkable your house is.

Except, there's been so much traffic at the site I haven't been able to try it yet. The way it's supposed to work, as far as I can gather, is it counts up the number of businesses, schools, and other services within walking distance (1 mile) of your house.

I have to imagine that my address has a pretty good walking score. I think we have every kind of business imaginable within a mile of our house, plus two schools and two nice parks. Maybe we should start walking more.

UPDATE:

So I finally get in and find out that my house has a walk score of 35: Unwalkable. That's bogus, man. Actually, it didn't see a lot of the businesses in my area, so I might have had a better score had I been able to update the information.

Labels: maps, walking