Free Will Debate

Recently in my church's Men's Bible study class we have been going over the concepts of Free Will vs Predestination. This is quite an interesting study and one that brings up many questions. The reason I mention this is that today I was reading a blog that I read regularly (Dilbert Blog) and I found a link to this article that is a non-Christian look at this concept. I had no clue this was something that was even looked at from a non-Christian perspective. One of the main arguments for predestination is that God knows all and knew from the beginning of time that we would make the decisions we were going to make, so I just find that others would even look at this concept kinda odd.
In our class one of the best explanations for this debate was a quote from a Baptist minister. My memory fails me but I believe it was something like "The Bible speaks of predestination and the Bible speaks of free will and I believe in the Bible". I recommend partaking of this study sometime in your own Bible study group if you haven't already.
In addition, I want to say I don't really agree with the article I linked. If you base your theories off this article people would not be able to be prosecuted for their crimes because they were predestined to do their crimes (hence my suggestion on a doing a Biblical study on this). Also the argument about neuroscience vs evolution in the 3rd paragraph from the bottom seems to be a really silly argument.

April Fools

Heres's a collection of April Fools jokes that have been played in the past. I tried some of these at work yesterday, but couldn't get anyone to take to them. I wasn't brave enough to call our supplier and ask her to fax me some paper... perhaps Monday. I enjoy the photo on this article, but I'm not sure what it has to do with it.

Dr. Who Beatles Medley

Here's a shout out to all my fellow Dr. Who fans. I was checking out some stuff on YouTube earlier today and discovered this really neat Dr. Who Beatles Medley. This would probably be pretty boring to you if you're not a Dr. Who fan, but really cool if you are. It's a series of clips from various Dr. Who (new series season 1) that someone cleverly put to different Beatles songs. This reminds me of how much I like Dr. Who while I anticipate season 3.

Speaking of the Beatles & Dr. Who, the Beatles were actually on the original Dr. Who series.

WiigoBot Perfect Bowling Game

Someone got really creative and decided to create themself a nice lego robot to bowl in Wii Sports. Not only does it bowl, but it bowls a perfect game. I guess when you match a computer against a computer, you get what you expect. I guess it's impressive on a resume to say you can program legos.

w00t

If you IM me or have played EQ with me, you've probably noticed I use the term w00t alot. To me, it's always been a sign of victory, or perhaps even a battlecry. I didn't really know the exact meaning/origin of it until I read this article earlier today. It does make sense, I just had never really thought of it, I'm glad it didn't mean something really bad.

iPhone Should Go?

I have pretty much kept my mouth shut about the iPhone since its announcement, but I guess I should let you know how I feel about it. I read this article this morning by John C. Dvorak and couldn't agree more. I'm not really sure what Apple is thinking, but this idea can't be good. The concept is good, but the idea is not. You're consolidating two products that just don't belong together. First of all, I think they're way over their heads, does anyone remember the Motorola Rokr? I barely do, it was the "promised phone" with built in iTunes that came out about a year ago, now you never hear of them.
Maybe it's just me, but I don't understand the concept of the mp3 player + phone. First of all don't most phones already have this functionality? Also, it is advertised as being a "breakthrough internet device", but it doesn't even support 3G (although it does do wifi which is cool). I've also heard it only has a 16 hour battery life even when not being used. I've grown accustomed to keeping my phone on always and only have to charge it once a week, I can't imagine a phone I have to charge at least once a day. Also, is it going to be like the iPods, no way to replace the battery? I'm probably wrong on a lot of my opinions, so please use the comments to let me know otherwise or what you think of it. I love what apple has done with the iPod, but I just can't see this iPhone working out.


*Edit: I checked it out and there has been no standby time announced that I could find, the 16 hours was in "music mode"

Fish Fryer

I'm not sure whether this guy is a freak or just highly creative, but he has spent 10 years of his life developing a fryer/fishtank combo. Here's what's happening, we know that oil floats on water, you can fry stuff in oil, fish live in water, why not combine them. I wonder how many poor fish were fried during the testing phases of this, but since he runs a restaurant this may work out perfect. The morbid part would be if he used the oil to fry fish in and the fish have to eat the crumbs. These fish have to be the most unhealthy fish ever. If the oil doesn't get'm the heart attacks will.

Vadergoyle

I had to read this a few times before I believed it, but there is a Darth Vader gargoyle on the National Cathedral in DC. I'm glad we have the force being used to make the water better drain off the cathedral. There is a more detailed reason for why he is there described in the article, but basically, a kid won 3rd place in a "design a gargoyle" contest in the early 80's. His design was Darth Vader. This had to be the coolest kid in the world, and the judges had to be Star Wars fans. I'm proud to have Vader on a National Cathedral.... God Bless America.
I plan on going to DC again in September or October, I may have to go visit Vader.

Internet Readers Acutally Read More

We see many stories about how Internet news readers (such as myself) often don't read the entire article. I have to admit, I'm guilty, I read the headlines, the first few sentences, if I'm not interested, I continue on to something that could be a better waste of my time (confession: I didn't read all of the article about adopting sheep last night). I had always assumed that's how internet articles work, who reads the entire things anyway.
I came across this Techdirt article today that says the contrary. It makes an excellent argument.... people who read the newspaper often stop because the continuations to page C4 with some obscure title. To be fair, I did read that article, it's only a few lines long though and has an interesting title :).

Unborn Dragon to be Slain

In China, they have been in the process of making a 13 mile long dragon for around two years. This has been quoted as rivaling the great wall of China. The dragon is being built for the sole purpose of tourism, however, now it may be in danger of not being completed. The reason for this possible discontinuation is for "environmental reasons". I really hope they don't shut this down, I'd love to see the finished product. This has to be one of the coolest projects I've heard of, if I ever go to Beijing you can count me in. Unfortunately I couldn't find any cool pictures of it to include, but if you find any feel free to post a link.

Adopt a Sheep

Here is an awkward blog about adopting sheep. According to the site it is one of the worst droughts in Australia and the sheep are not handling it too well. For $35 you can feed the sheep for 100 days, name the sheep, and email a letter to the entire flock. You're also welcome to visit the sheep in person if you wish and they have a link to the website that tells you more about the family, but it is a dead link.
This seems a little strange to me, but I haven't investigated it too much. It seems like a good cause (helping animals and all) but always thoroughly investigate something like this before donating. I post this link not necessarily to encourage you to donate to the sheep, but just to make you aware of the interesting site.

Hurra Torpedo?

I believe I need to change my blogs name to "What the heck are they think'n" because that seems to be the topic of most of the stuff I post. I found one of the most messed up music videos I've ever seen though. It's a remake of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" by a band called Hurra Torpedo. They have an interesting percussion, which includes a refrigerator as the base drum and a stove as a "noise maker". Word of advice to these guys..."Get a belt".
Also, it seems like I remember seeing these guys perform on SNL about 10 years ago so they've been around for awhile. The appliances act as a welcome disturbance to their music.

Peyton Manning + Kids

We've all seen the commercials on TV of Peyton Manning trying to be a nice guy, but I think SNL may have captured a different side of Peyton than we've seen before.
As you may know I'm not such a big Manning fan (either one of them) so I kinda enjoy this video. I like the finishing statement "Spend time with your kids so Peyton Manning doesn't".

Load of Croc

When you think of smuggling something across the border you often think of drugs or jewelery, maybe even people, but who would've thought Croc Smuggl'n would be a problem. Yes, a lady was actually caught with three live crocodiles strapped to her waist trying to smuggle them across the Gaza border. How do you even think that you're getting away with that? This brings up too many questions to me.... I mean, how do you even get them to be stop struggling long enough to get by security?
I must also admit that when I saw the headline and read the first sentence I was really hoping it was some kind of foiled terror plot. "Your people have oppressed us too long, now feel the power of the crocs!!"

Justin.tv

Talk about living a public life, this guy named Justin is doing just that. He has strapped a camera on his head and is broadcasting his life live 24/7 (even in the bathroom). This is really weird, some people will do anything for attention, but you gotta hand it to him, he's creative.
I can't imagine this is too popular of a move with the girls, but who knows. He's had this going on now for almost 9 days, I don't see it lasting too much longer. From watching his life, he seems stressed about the situation, but that may be the type of guy he is.

**Disclaimer -- This is someone's life, so I can't really vouch for the content you will see.

Monty Python Star Trek

Here's a great video of something that you would actually expect to see on Star Trek. It's a Monty Python and the Holy Grail Star Trek spoof. I've seen several of these out there (I actually posted a lego one), but I think this one just seems the most natural Holy Grail spoof. They were always doing something strange like this in Star Trek, so it's not too far from the truth.

Taser Ignite Potato Cannon

Here's a great video showing an example of the appropriate use of a potato gun at the office. Ok, maybe there's not an appropriate use of projectile potatoing in an office, but if there were, this may be it. No more being bagel boy.

Geeks More Attractive

It seems as though lately being a geek has become popular. That's fine by me (Geek before geek was cool), because now we articles like Ten ways being a Geek is Attractive to show some appreciation for the geek. This shows that attraction is more than skin deep. I wonder when exactly being a geek become uncool.

Brainshare Made Me Say Wiiiiiii

Now that I'm home from Brainshare, I've been thinking about the role the Nintendo Wii played and how it must have played a similar role at other conferences. Not only were they giving them away in drawings, but many, if not most, places had the Wii set up for people to play. This seems to be the ultimate social gaming system. Other gaming systems were there, but none as popular as the Wii was (not even a contest).
This got me thinking how clever an idea it was for these vendors to set something like this up. I can't think of a better way to draw people to your booth than to play the Wii with them. One company had boxing matches, another, a home run derby. It seemed like the ultimate thing to do for a geek conference. I glad Nintendo is back at it and continues to develop such superb gaming technologies.

Introducing Godtube

Last night I was introduced to a really cool site called GodTube (the linked video not only takes you to the site, but is the Fox News announcement video). Similar to YouTube, this site "utilizes Web based technology to connect Christians for the purpose of encouraging and advancing the Gospel worldwide".
I checked out the site and immediately started finding some really neat blog material from here. Here's one of the video's I found on the 8 reasons we don't share our faith. This is a clever video with some humor, but a lot of truth.... obviously I'm reason #7.

Special Thanks to Wally for the blog contribution.

Brainshare Gecko Videos

All week long Novell has been playing these videos featuring the SuSE Gecko. They were mainly advertisements for the training and bookstore, but I thought they were worth posting. I downloaded these from the Novell marketing site and uploaded them to youtube for you.
Part 1 - Rocky Reference
Part 2 - Star Wars Reference (my favorite)
Part 3 - Karate Kid Reference

I love that at the end of the 3rd video he has his CLP ribbon (CLP = Certified Linux Professional). They were giving out these ribbons at Brainshare this week for your Certifications (I got the the CNA ribbon). I'd hope the main linux mascot is a CLP.

Twittervision

If you've been reading this blog for around two months you probably remember be talking about twitter. In fact, I even had the twitter shield on the right side of my blog for about a week. I found it really difficult to keep up with and didn't know what to put on it exactly (plus I didn't know anyone else who used it). I decided shortly after using it to be a twitter quitter. Fortunately, not everyone has stopped. In fact, if you want a good look into what is going on around the world you can check out all the twitters at Twittervision. I can't really describe what this site is, just go to it and see for yourself. I guess to start describing it, it's what people are twittering about across the world. This site is really cool, I could just set and watch it for long periods of time.

Hulk Hogan Japanese Commerical

This is a funny yet sad little video of Hulk Hogan in a Japanese Commercial. Ok, maybe it's not as funny as it is weird. What is this anyway, an air purifier? This video makes me feel uncomfortable for some reason :).

Get a MAC part 2

This morning during the Brainshare keynote speech they played another "I'm a Mac" video. I thought since I posted the part one to this, I should put up the part 2 as well (I think it's better). I really like the leopard reference. Also, once the video was over, the actual Linux lady from the video came on stage. It looks like the Novell marketers may be doing something right this time.... I'm glad, Novell just doesn't get the credit it deserves.

Racing Games Make you Wreckless?

This seems like another one of those silly articles that declares video games as bad. It's trying to say that playing games that involve wreckless driving will make you a wreckless driver in the real world. I don't know that I agree with this too much. Maybe if you were playing hours of a video game, then jumped directly into your car and headed out, that might have some effect, but I doubt it. Why's everyone always picking on video games.

Don't Copy that Floppy

This "Don't copy that floppy" video seems to be the most recent video craze out on the internet. Thought I'd share it with you just in case you haven't seen it. I agree, please don't copy any floppies, in fact, burn any floppy that you can find (either literally or to a cd) to get rid of them for good. I never liked the floppy form of media even when it was popular.... I'm glad we now have the usb flash media that is so much easier.

Novell's I'm a Mac Spoof

Here is another video that was featured during Monday morning's keynote address here at Brainshare that is based on the "I'm a Mac" commercials. This is a little corny, but still funny. I thought they were going to get rid of these commercials, but I'm glad they didn't.

First Class Death

I've heard that frequent fliers will often get upgraded to first class. Who wants to wait and earn all those miles, if you don't, another way to get an upgrade is to die. I find this story a little bit disturbing. The man who was asleep should have at least had some sort of warning.... that's just an odd thing to wake up to.

Brainshare Will it Blend

As previously mentioned I'm at Brainshare this week. So far, it's a really neat experience. This morning during the keynotes for the start of Brainshare, they had a special "Will it Blend" episode. I find it interesting that the only thing we can tell that didn't completely blend was the end user.... isn't that the truth.

Mercedes Fish Car

If you like fish, and you like cars, well, you'll probably still think this story is a little weird. Mercedes, when considering aerodynamics of new vehicles, decided to look to marine life. This was a very clever move, I feel, I mean what's more agile than a fish? The car looks really strange, but according to the article it sure seems to have little wind resistance.

Brain Share Week

This week I'm in Salt Lake City, UT at the big Novell conference called "Brain Share". Today was registration and vendor visitation. I believe I have stocked up on a lifetime of swag. Even though I'm traveling this week, if I find any good news or hear some good stuff @ brainshare, I'll keep you informed.

Three Way Tie on Jeopardy

For the first time in twenty-three year history, it looks like there was a three way tie on Jeopardy. The three people playing the game all answered the final Jeopardy question correctly and chanced enough money to put them all at $16,000. This resulted in a three way tie which should get them a rematch on Monday.
Personally, I didn't watch the show, but I find the story really cool. My theory on Jeopardy is that it comes on after Wheel of Fortune to knocks you off your high horse. I always feel a quite clever after watching Wheel of Fortune, it seems like the contestants there never have a clue to what the puzzle could be, however, 30 minutes later when Jeopardy comes on, I feel like I should go back to third grade.

No Celery Allowed!

Usually bringing some extra vegetables is a good idea, unless of course you plan on throwing them. Apparently the tossing of celery at football (soccer) games is such a problem that in Stamford Bridge they must ban it from even entering the arena. First celery next tomatoes.... who throws celery!!!

Movies that Make a Guy Cry

A few weeks ago I read an article about Movies that Make Guys Cry. I didn't really want to waste your time, so I didn't post it. The list is one of these really stupid lists that I don't really agree with. For example, if you cried during Titanic (unless it was from boredom or laughter) you're out of the cool guy club. Rudy, I can see that (also insert any corny sports movie).
Apparently some of the readers of this article that also agreed with me and posted another list. This one seems much closer. I would like to add Star Wars Episode 1 (the beginning when you heard the opening music after such an anticipated wait, and the end when you wondered what has become of Star Wars).

Old Mario Video

Here's a video from 1988 talking about Nintendo and Super Mario Bros. I love how clueless the people seem about who the Mario Bros are... plus I dig the sweet 80's hair. A great question was posed that I had never thought of, "If they are the Mario Bros. why aren't their last names Mario".

Colbert's Advice for March Maddess

It's March and the madness has begun. We now have about two more hours to fill out the brackets before the games begin. I watched the Colbert Report last night and he had some pretty good advice on filling out your brackets. Here's a clip from the report. I love the advice he gives about "Tech" schools.
I'm really horrible at filling out these things so I'm just hoping not to embarrass myself too bad.

Happy Pi Day

Today being 3-14 (pi = 3.14) is the official day of pi estimation. I don't know about you, but I plan on spending today calculating pi and appreciating all things round. Speaking of that, it wouldn't be such a bad thing to celebrate by having a pie. Happy Pi Day!

Hacking a Coke Machine

My daily how to for the day was how to hack a coke machine. This looks like it may be a really cool trick to show your friends. I'm not too sure that I'm brave enough to try, but perhaps some day I'll gather up the courage to do it plus I'm not sure how legal it is. I don't see that there is any damage done, infact it may actually allow you to get some info about the quality of the beverage you are about to consume.

Ya know, what's with my coke blogging recently?.... I just noticed.

Funeral Cast

Sometimes you just can't make it to a funeral of a loved one for some reason or another. In Ireland in such a case, you can always just catch the webcast of the entire thing. As an IT person I really appreciate the use of technology, however this may be taking it too far. Part of going to a funeral is being there for the family. With services such as these it seems as though that could be taken away. On the other hand though, a record number of people could now start attending funerals. Here's a link to the site of the funeral home.

Road Trip

For the next two weeks I'll be traveling so I'll not be blogging as much due to not surfing for content as much. This week I'm taking a tour of the wonderful state of Kentucky. Next week I'll be attending the big Novell shin dig in Utah (brianshare). I will still be posting stuff, just maybe only one or 2 things per nights (although due to travel I may have to miss a few nights though). I will also apologize in advance for the typos and horrible sentence structure. This blog's editor will also have less access to the internet this week and will not be notified in a timely manner about the posts to review next week.

Ban Water, Save the Environment

This is a great example of why you should be informed before you support something. Several people have signed a petition to ban water. Using water's super secret "scientific" name of Dihydrogen Monoxide (h20) people made up a petition to ban this chemical using no lies. Don't be a "joiner".

Time Travel is Hopeless?

They say hindsight is 20/20, so who wouldn't want to go back to the past and warn themselves not to make that "big mistake" or go back and do something to change the world. Unfortunately, scientists are now saying that it looks like time travel is impossible.
I guess if you really think about it, if time travel to the past were ever possible, we'd probably know about it today. The world would be full of people from the future popping back to see what the ozone was like. If you think about it though, if time travel were possible in that sense, the whole world would be ruined. It'd be a constant battle to not make mistakes. Maybe that's why the scientists say it's not possible, their future selves came back and warned them to tell everyone that or the world would be destroyed. Just a thought.

BTW they misspelled my name ;).

Bill Gates Back to School

I've heard a lot about how great a job Steve Jobs does when he speaks, but it seems like most the time the stuff he talks about is over hyped. The real guy I have respect for is Bill Gates. He really is a true geek (the basic PC user geek). A few years back he starred in a video with Napoleon Dynamite (for Microsoft employees only) that was just really cool. If you have not seen this before, here's a link to it. To me it seems like Bill Gates isn't given the credit due in most cases.

The Diet Coke Paradox

I turned on the news this morning and saw a report on Fox News about how diet soda can actually cause weight gain. I had assumed that anytime you put the caramel coloring and all that junk into your body over and over it couldn't be good (same applies to regular soda), but hadn't considered diet sodas as a problem of weight gain.
I decided to do some research on the issue and found this video about it (also submitted it to digg). I found this other article released by CBS in January about the same thing. I do know diet soda makes me hungry and has a bunch of artificial junk in it, regular soda has calories and sugars in it, so my conclusion is they're both bad, just don't drink too much of either and you'll be ok.

Bill Gates Coke Commercial

This looks like a rather old coke commercial, but I thought it was kinda neat because it stars Bill Gates. I prefer coke as well Bill, but while we're on the subject I find most geeks drink diet soda. I'm not sure why, or the relevance of this, just an observation I've made.
There's a song about buying the world a coke, I wonder if Bill's riches could buy every person in the world a Coke. I'm not going to take the time to find out how much Bill is worth vs the population vs the cost of a coke; but I would guess though he probably could buy the world a coke especially considering if he got cans at bulk prices.

Banana Phone

I watched this really silly banana phone flash video a few weeks ago and cannot get it out of my head. What is banana phone? The quick answer is it's a really punny song (and you know how I love puns) from a kids album (Wikipedia article giving much more detail). Want a banana phone? Well, here's a link where you can get banana foam for your cell phone and ipod (the pictures on this page are well worth your time, I promise). I really enjoy the original version of the song, it stays with you.

Catepillar Video

Here is a cool video of how caterpillars get their tea. The best part is when the caterpillar cries. Who knew they had hypnotizing powers.

Simplified Economics

I had a really good Economics professor in college, so it wasn't as boring as Economics usually is. If you want Economics broken down and want a good laugh check out this translated Economic Principles video. I'd like to see this guy do a break down of politics.

Droid Mail

I knew everyone loved Star Wars and now even the USPS is getting in on the action. It looks like they are going to be releasing R2D2 shaped Postal boxes. I'm not sure where or how many will be released, but hopefully some come to Pikeville just in case I want to send mail to a galaxy far far away.

Inspiration to Dieters Everywhere

For the first time in 5 years Manuel Uribe left his house. Once weighing over half a ton, Uribe has managed to lose close to 400 lbs. He is still bed ridden, but decided to come out of the house in celebration of his weight loss. He was offered a bypass surgery to lower his weight but refused choosing to do so naturally. His goal is to get down to 250 lbs and help overweight people get assistance with healthy eating habits.
This is a man we can all respect! He has set a real goal for himself and as we can see is intent on achieving it despite the hugeness of this task.

I Choose You Dodge Neon

Obsessed with Pokemon? Me either, but if by chance you are, you better hurry and bid on this sweet Dodge Neon covered in Pokemon playing cards (warning the ebay page has annoying music). My favorite part of this is the comment

"If there is a buyer who meets the reserve, I will fix the spots that the rain ruined and make it look even better than the pictures..."

He says he will clear coat it to make it more rain resistant if you buy it though. My hopes would be that it Pokevolves into a Porsche.

BK the Movie

I'm as big of Burger King fan as the rest of them, I love the King commercials and even worked there for three years, but a Burger King Movie just doesn't seem right. Unlike the Geico cavemen, the actual King character doesn't seem to have much character. He's always just superimposed into some really cool situation, that's what makes him great. I will say though, the XBox games were a good marketing idea, but I think I'll have it my way and not watch the movie. I just can't imagine sitting through two hours of the King, even if he is superimposed in cool situations.

Sweet Pool Tricks

Most of you guys know I used to play a lot of pool. I wasn't very good at it, but I learned some of the basics. I was sent this trick shot video earlier today and thought I'd share it with you. I love the classic ball in the shoe shot. Some of these are basic (I've actually been taught one or two), but many are excellent. What's amazing about it is that it's all one guy.

Soldiers Driving in Iraq

I found this video of soldiers driving through the streets of Iraq about a month ago and it has stuck with me since. As you watch the video you notice how maniacal they drive (honking their horn and bumping people to get through). This is done to avoid an ambush. Here in the safety of our homes we sometimes forget what these guys have to go through on a day to day basis. I know this isn't so much of the battle, this is the battle to get to the battle. Thought I'd share this with you. Keep our troops in your thoughts and prayers.

in Space

Have you ever noticed how when all else has been done the idea of "why not do it in space" is introduced. For example.... Jason X. "You know what would make a cheesy killer movie even worse.... let's kill in space, yea, people will love it" (same concept applied to Leprechaun in space). What reminded me of this is last night I got to the final level of Excite truck... what was it, a racing level in space. Sure it was different from all the other levels, but it just reminded me that when in doubt we turn to space to take things one step further. Coming soon "Star Trek in Space".


Sorry off topic from stuff I usually blog about, but thought it was worth mentioning.

OSX on a Dell

Since I heard that Macintosh was going with i386 hardware, I've been thinking about putting OSx on my PC, but didn't hear too much about it until last night. When it first came out I heard a lot of hype about putting Windows on a Mac. This was exactly the opposite hype I expected. Mac owners are happy with their software, we hear from them all the time how OSx is so much better than Windows. When I heard about their "Bootcamp" and "Parallels" programs allowing them to run Windows, I was really surprised.
Last night I got an IM from a friend telling me how he had just installed OSX on his Dell laptop. Needless to say, I was excited and asked how he did it. He pointed me to the OSx86 project page. There they have a wiki with several guides on installing OSx (including a hardware compatibility list). I had looked up how to do it several months ago, but couldn't find anything on the internet about it, I'm glad it's finally out there. I haven't gone through the page thoroughly yet, but it's on my list of things to do. Thought I'd share it, if you have any experience with this, please let me know how it works.

Special thanks to Josh Potter.

Jedi Angry about Sabre Ban

You want to anger a Jedi? Take away their weapon (remember how angry Luke got in Return of the Jedi when the emperor took his weapon). It looks like the UK is now finding this out. I find this article to be all around weird. I'm not sure if this is for real or not, but I really hope it is. I find it odd that they're protesting on behalf of religion and they actually have people registered as Jedi as their religion (if you click the link in the article it gives more detail about that).
By the way.... who thinks "You know what would be a good idea? Banning Samurai swords, they could be a huge problem if they get out of hand."?

Oh, and as a bonus.... as I was looking for pictures of Jedi, I remembered I actually dressed up as one a few years ago so I included it. If you can't tell, that's me on the left.

Another Strike Against Video Games

Why is it that we blame everything on video games? I can somewhat understand why some things such as obesity are blamed on video games, but I really can't understand what games have to do with owning pets.
The article is really boring and doesn't give too much of an explanation of why people would not just have both... here is the main argument to save you from reading the whole thing:

The president of the Australian Veterinary Association, Kersti Seksel, said children choosing computer games over pets was a factor in the decline of pet ownership. "These days children interact more by playing computer games and less by going out there and throwing the ball to a dog. We need to learn people skills, physical skills, and sitting in the lounge room with a computer doesn't teach you that," Dr Seksel said.

Flawed logic if you ask me. What does throwing a ball with a dog have to do with people skills? Why can't kids do both. I'll chalk this one up to people just wanting to make video games look bad again.

Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie

If you're like me and you worry about aliens reading and stealing your thoughts you may find it useful to make you an AFDB (or an Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie). Sure you may laugh, but we'll see who's laughing when the aliens invade. I thought I would share this with all my readers so you can know and be protected.

In all seriousness though, I think it's great how you can find stuff like this on the internet to build. It's also neat how much detail they go into and how they specify how thick to make your foil.

Origami Yoda in 59 Steps

You ever wish you had your own origami jedi master? Is that even a question that needs an answer? Of you course you do! Now with this simple 59 step instruction guide, you can have a Yoda replica. 59 steps too many steps for you? Patients young padawan, creating a jedi takes time.

Hardcore Badminton

I used to play a lot of backyard badminton when I was a kid, but never took it seriously. I always thought of it as something that was done at picnics or family reunions, but this video proves otherwise. These guys really get into it. Who knew there was professional badminton (probably everyone but me)?

Special Delivery -- Parts

Wow, talk about creepy stories, this one is bound to get you. Talk about a Kodak moment, a man had a human liver and human head delivered to his house by accident. How do you even begin to apologize if you're the DHL guy.

Death Star Conspiracy

Here is a really cool article that somewhat mocks the conspiracy theorists who believe the 9/11 incident was an inside job (or at least that's how I took it). It's an article with eight questions that could point to the Death Start Attack could be an inside job. These guys really make some good points, some of them I could answer, some I cannot. The good one was the one about how convenient it was that Darth Vader was outside the Death Star when it exploded.
Just to make sure, I went to amazon to look up the book to see if it existed. It doesn't :). However, the search results did return books about the 9/11 conspiracy, maybe that's a conspiracy in itself.


Special thanks to Harry for this contribution.

Longest Slam Dunk Ever

Since March is starting and the basketball madness is kicking in, I thought I would share this video of a really long slam dunk with you. Ok, maybe they are cheating by using a trampoline, but it still doesn't make this any less funny. Look how intense these guys are. Also, I wonder what it is that they are all repeating.

Fiddl'n Around

I must say I've been waiting to announce this for two weeks now. Here goes:
I mentioned to my father that I was wanting to learn how to play violin. He says, "Well, I know where you can get one for free". Dubious to the situation, I decided to go along with it and see what he was talking about. We went to a mobile home lot (he knows the owner really well) and my Dad told one of the employees I was there to pick up the fiddle. To my surprise he said "You're welcome to it" and showed me where it was. As I opened it, I noticed it was in horrible shape. Pieces were out of place and it had a lot of what I believe to be water damage. I knew nothing about violins or how to make one, but I thought I'd at least give it a try. To ruin the surprise it turned out better than I expected.
Here is the video/photo story from my various accounts.
1) Video of when I got it.
2) Video of me sanding it. (mostly useless, but very short)
3) Picture story from my flickr account.
4) Presentation of it being finished.

Now, I have me a fully functional violin, however during my research I found that it is a smaller one that is meant for a young beginner (ie. it doesn't fit in my monkey arms too well). It has a great sound considering, but that's just my opinion and what do I know. I've put a lot of work into it and probably around $30 in supplies (new bridge, strings, glue, varnish, clamps, etc.), but all in all, it's been a lot of fun.

Real life Tricorder

Do you remember the tricorder? Of course you do, it's the thing Spock carried around his neck and would analyze things with. I've always thought these were the coolest, if not the most handy things the StarTrek crew had. Now, they have become a reality, kinda. I'll go ahead and break your hopes and tell you it's not even close to as cool as the one on the show, but who knows, maybe their's looked something like this one when they first got developed too. The one Purdue has came up with is big and clunky and has to spray water on things to make it work, but hey, it works.

RIAA Crack Down

I saw this article the other day about the top 25 pirating schools. As mentioned before, this blog in no way endorses piracy, however I will say that these "crack downs" seem almost like "scare tactics".
First of all the RIAA seems to be wanting the attention drawn to them. I draw this conclusion by the previous article as well as this article posted on their site. I've been wondering how they find out who is downloading what. They could confiscate the logs from various peer to peer (P2P) software companies (that may work). They could also upload mp3's with some kind of tracking method to phone home when launched built in (I question the legality of that). Another option would be to go onto one of the college campuses and do packet captures to see what exactly going on (I'm sure this one is illegal).
With that said, I know they are sending letters to the people who have downloaded the music offering a $3000 settlement or $750 per song without actually confiscating the hard drive. My next question is how is this evidence going to hold up in court? I'm not a lawyer (my brother is really close to being one though), but I do know that you can't use evidence that you have acquired illegally. So, if one of the methods they used to track down one of these downloading people is illegal, then it would automatically be thrown out. Let's assume though they do have this information legally though, just for fun. Now the student who has illegally download the music could argue he was mixed up with someone else. MAC and IP spoofing are too easy to do, so it is highly likely that this could happen. In fact, if I was pirating music, I'd probably do one, if not both of these.
I'm no expert so I'm not sure how these cases will go, but it'll be interesting to see how this stuff pans out. I'm wondering how many students will call their bluff and take it to court. This will be something the RIAA must be very careful with, you can't speak loudly and carry a stick that's gonna break.

Dognapping

I'm not sure if you've heard this story yet or not but something just doesn't seem quite right about this dognapping that took place out in LA. Ok, I'll go over this for you these people advertise that their Yorkshire terriers are for sale. Robbers come and pretend to be interested then steal the dogs at gunpoint but all was caught on tape.
This seems all wrong to me. First off, knowing that these people owned dogs at this price and us knowing that they had a security system, we can assume they live in a fairly nice house. Nice house means valuables most likely, or at least money, however nothing in the article mentioned that anything else was taken. I'd be thinking jewelry or rob their safe, but only gett'n away with $12,500 worth of dogs that are at least somewhat identifiable, doesn't sound like a good idea. I would also think black market dogs would be hard to liquidate. Did someone call a pet detective?

First Fire, then the Wheel, Now ABC

Earlier in my blogging career I put together a collection of the Geico commercials in the order they were broadcast. Since then there has been many more and each one seems to be gett'n better. It looks like these cavemen may have finally gotten the break they deserve. This article describes it in more detail, but I'm really looking forward to this show. I hope it's done up right and not really corny.

I know, the picture is of Captain Caveman, but hey, who doesn't enjoy good ol' Captain Caveman. Which makes me wonder, was he a ship captain or a captain in the military.

Real Time Terror Tracker

If you ever wanted to know where the terrorism is happening right now, the map for this is right here. Who needs to turn on CNN to hear Wolfe talk about all the death that occurs, you can see whats going on right now(btw have you ever noticed how Wolfe is obsessed with people dying). It's updated every 5 minutes and the incidents are well represented.

Woktch This

This is an amazing story about how a man runs a television station from a modified wok. This story teaches us not to underestimate the powers of math. Not too much is said about it, but I'm sure the cooking shows broadcast over the station are great. Also, I bet the musical programs really "wok out".

Head + Remote = Remote Wrangler

Maybe I'll just change my blog to bad ideas, because it sure seems like I find an awful lot. Here's you another one. It's called the Remote Wrangler and it allows you to keep the remotes on your head. If you lose your remotes often, well I was going to say maybe this is for you, but c'mon, this thing isn't even for those people. I don't even think its as useful as the hats they made with the turn signals. I think I'll buy one of these just for the sweet fashion statement it makes.

Roomba Efficiency

I saw this diagram the other day and forgot to bookmark it to my blog links, but just had to go find it again. It's about how you think a roomba works and how it actually works. It sounds like a cool idea, I have a robot in my house and it actually does my housework. It seems like much of the technology I buy, it rarely ever lives up to my hopes and you just are waiting for that one more improvement.

Tooth Tunes

I enjoy music as much as the next person(if not more), but it sometimes seems that we go a little too far with our music obsessions sometimes. This commercial shows exactly what I'm talking about. Introducing "Tooth Tunes".... have 2 minutes of music while you're brushing your teeth. This seems odd all around. That means you have to spend a few minutes before you brush your teeth to upload a song onto your toothbrush (yes, that's the strangest thing I've typed all week). Maybe now that I'm approaching 30 I'm gett'n too old for this high falute'n technology these kids are using.