Great Photo-manipulations of Animals

Nothing like a good Photoshop job, even better when it's just weird. Here is a page that has 30 Funny Photo-manipulations of Animals. Some of these are quite frightening. I'm sure this is how some monsters in Sci-Fi films/shows are created. At least it's how the Wuzzles were created.

Wikipedia Vs. Predator

In life, when I find a random object, I often wonder, "Who would win a fight between this random object and the Predator". OK, maybe not even I am that awkward, but here is a page called "Wikipedia vs. Predator " dedicated to something that weird. It takes a random item pulled from Wikipedia and pairs it against the Predator. Turns out the Predator can defeat most obscure objects/people that are thrown out there.

Preparing Your Pets for War

Let's face it, when the zombies and robots come to attack (hopefully not at the same time), it'd be best to use all your available resources including your pets. Here is a useful article on "8 Ways to Prepare Your Pets for War".

The New Literacy

The other day I got my new subscription of Wired magazine in the mail and after I got off work, tore into it and started reading. One article I came across called "The New Literacy" got me thinking. In school (college included), I really disliked writing. I still dislike sitting down and writing. Then I realized, what I do just about every day here is write, but I enjoy it (not claiming to be good at it). I found this to be a really great article on how writing has evolved.

Star Wars Dance Off

Here is an excellent video of the 2008 Star Wars Dance off. Personally my vote goes to the wookie. If you like this and you're bored, here is the one from this year, but 2008's seemed better to me.

The 12 Types of Facebookers

I was watching CNN a few moments ago and they were featuring an article they had about the The 12 most annoying types of Facebookers. We all know people from each of these categories, but I guess the level of annoyance you have by them can vary. Personally, I don't care when people facebook/tweet about obscure or menial tasks in their lives. I actually enjoy them from time to time. Anyway, the article will have you shaking your head and saying "I know that person".

On Ramadan

Today started the month that Muslims celebrate Ramadan. Although I'm a Christian, I like to at least know a little about other religions. A "plurk" (similar to twitter) friend from Saudi Arabia posted this video of President Obama's speech on Ramadan and it made me curious. I went to Wikipedia and read the article about it (linked above) and I was impressed. Along with many other things, it's a month of fasting and reading the Qu'ran.
This got me to thinking, something similar would be great for Christians. If you are Christian, I would ask, when was the last time you fasted? Or maybe even, when was the last time you (by yourself) sat down and read the Bible? Or perhaps, when was the last time you had a really earnest prayer to God? I ask this not only of you, but of myself, as a reminder that a lot of Christians need to be like a lot of Muslims, more devout. In regards to this, I will share this verse from 1 Peter 3:15. Also, remember that in the Bible it says "when you fast" not "if you fast".... assuming that you will.

The Preamble in License Plates

Here is a really neat work of art. A guy ordered custom license plates from all 50 states and created the Preamble of the Constitution from it. This isn't something that has been created recently, but it's still really cool.

Epic Fails in the Star Wars Galaxy

Growing up with Star Wars, I've always excepted it's flaws. In most cases, I didn't even notice them. Here is a great article point out some of the Star Wars world's epic fails. Strangely enough, I found my self secretly debating each one of these points... such as "Of course the blaster is a little slow, it's because the light beam is concentrated".

40 Disappearing Technologies

I probably blog too much about technologies that are vanishing, but I keep finding these really interesting articles about things that are going the way of the dodo (unless we genetically engineer a new one from DNA). Here is a great Computer World article titled "Obsolete tech: 40 things on their way out". Maybe I'm such a sucker for these because they help me reminisce. The other day I heard some older people talking about "party lines" and felt a little left out.... the next generation will feel the same about cassettes and boomboxes.

New Fatty Foods Study

This just in, fatty foods are bad for you! OK, maybe we all knew this, but here is a study showing that the effects are worse than we may expect. We all know that fatty foods will make you gain weight, but this study shows that the effects are more immediate than that. They decrease one's cognitive abilities as well as one's physical ability.

How Many Groundhog's days for Phil

The Bill Murray movie "Groundhog's Day" is a true classic. It's one of those movies people either love or hate. I really enjoy it. The question stands, however, how long did Phil Connors spend in Groundhog's day? The linked article is really great. It goes through and does a really excellent job estimating how long Phil went through this repetitive day (complete with pie chart).

Burgler Taunt's via Facebook

Nobody likes a thief. What makes it worse is if they taunt you from your stolen goods. This story is about a family who had some of their stuff stolen, including a laptop. Their laptop was automatically set to login to Facebook, the thief logged into their profile and talked about the burglary. It's probably not the smartest thing to do unless he's going through proxies or using public Internet access, but it is kind of clever. What we learn here is to not save your passwords on your computers, or at least to secure your Windows login with a password (screensaver password protected as well).

Hey Alan, Alan, Alan

I'm not sure I understand this, but who ever said you had to understand humor to think it's funny. I believe this is something from a new show to come out on BBC with talking animals, but I'm not sure. Anyway, funny.

Amazing Climber

I remember in college we had a guy in our dorm who was nicknamed "Spider Man". He was so called this because when he consumed alcohol he had the amazing ability to scale from the first to the fourth floor of the dorm without using steps. It was quite intriguing, but not as impressive as this guy.

Ben Franklin and Others

I spent much of last Saturday touring Philadelphia. As you walk around the city, you see a lot about Ben Franklin, and for good reason. He was a truly brilliant man. Going right along with my adventures last weekend, I saw this link earlier in the week telling a lot about inventing and Ben Franklin. Maybe I didn't do such a great job introducing this link, but check it out and you'll like it.

God as a Programmer

When Jesus came to Earth around 2000 years ago, he was a carpenter, a creator like his father. If, for some reason he was to come to Earth today and live amongst us, it only makes sense he would be a programmer. Not only a creator, but a creator of intelligence (whether he'd have syntax errors is up for debate). Here is an interesting page that shows what God might type if he were creating Earth again in a program. It seems like I've seen this before, but it's been a while, and it's a neat thing to watch.

Death Masks of the Famous

I just came across this article featuring Death Masks of Famous People. While really creepy looking and kind of morbid, they're really neat. I've actually seen the Death mask of Lincoln which is displayed in the Smithsonian in DC. It's kind of odd to see someone's face that hasn't been around for hundreds of years.

Caffeine vs. Calories

I start my morning like many other Americans with a good cup of coffee. Unfortunately some caffeinated drinks that we run on can also be filled with calories. Here is an excellent calorie vs. caffeine guide. Fortunately the things I drink don't contain that many calories. The question is, if my brewed home coffee (0 calories) was similar to the caffeinated drink that has the calories of the Big Mac, would I give it up. The answer is .... probably, but I wouldn't be happy about it. I don't go to StarBucks too often, but this article made me go to their nutrition guide to see what I'm drinking when I have one of their lattes. Fortunately, I get the one with skim milk and although I pay a lot, it's not too bad.

Lucky Duck Gets a Shoe

You just have to love a good heart-warming animal story. Here is one. A duck broke it's leg, and the leg grew back backwards. The owner decided, as opposed to putting it down, to have a custom shoe made. Now it can keep up with the other ducks. Next, there is a possible duck surgery.

Cleaning Spyware from A Computer

I have an RSS subscription to HowTo's of the day. The other day I saw it and it was "How to Remove Spyware Manually". I first thought this would be kind of a silly article giving not so good advice. After checking it out, it's pretty good. Speaking from personal experience, you could really run a business removing viruses and spyware from people;s computers. One caution is though, in most cases when spyware has really been into a system, it's really difficult to remove it completely without formatting the hard drive. I found this fairly useful and, although not recommended for the novice user, fairly straight forward to follow.

Could You Become a Citizen

I was fortunate to be born as one of "We the People" of these United States. Many people every year come to the USA seeking citizenship in this free country. One of the things they must do to become a citizen is to pass the US citizenship test. It takes some studying, but turns out, it's not that easy even for us. MSNBC had an article the other day asking if you could become an American Citizen. I'm going to go out on a limb and say many of us Americans could not pass the test. I took this test they had and scored a 70%.... perhaps that's passing.

My Dog is Smarter than Your Toddler

Maybe I don't have a dog, but here is a study showing that the average dog is smarter than a two year old. Score one for animals vs. human kind. I've actually seen some dogs do some pretty amazing things, so this study is not too big of a shock. When you have a dog, it becomes almost like a kid, part of the family even. It's no wonder Lassie could tell us that Timmy was stuck in a well.

A Times Table Like You've Never Seen Before

What do you get when you mix a robot and a vampire.? Questions we all want to ask. A platypus and a ninja? Well, time to find out the answer. Here is an interesting multiplication table showing what you get if you cross several comic things that we all know and love. Unfortunately there is no monkey or pirate.

Knitted Password Protector

I got this link shared with me the other day by a reader who is a knitter. It's a knitted password protector. Forget all those expensive privacy screens... making one of these would be much more fulfilling and cheaper, not to mention keep you warm during the winter. Excluding all the distractions on the Internets, it could help keep your attention focused on your work.

Old Crow & Gillian Welch

This weekend I went to Philly to an Old Crow Medicine Show concert. This made the 5th one I've been to and was a little different. They had three opening bands, two which I enjoyed, and one I did not care for (unfortunately the band I didn't care for got the most playing time of the concert). I usually look for YouTube videos of the concerts I go to and see if I can find myself. This time I could not find one, but I did fine an excellent video that I've embedded of Old Crow and Gillian Welch. She was one of the acts at the concert I went to and they ended up doing this as an encore.

A Message from IT to All Employees*

Working in the IT field, you will notice certain behaviors toward you and toward IT in general. Here is a message from what appears to be a cynical IT person to all employees. I must admit, I've seen several of these instances mentioned in this rant and got a good laugh at this guy's rant.

*The rants of this person in no way represent the feelings of the IT staff at the company I work for to our employees.

Giant Slip and Slide

I'm gonna file this under the great category of "If it's on the Internet it has to be true" and say this video was not edited. Either way, it looks like a lot of fun, and if there were any misses in the trials of this, the fun may lack a little.

Star Wars vs. Star Trek

My wife and I were having a conversation last night about "Star Wars" or "Star Trek" and which is better. Just a bit ago, I came across this article about the very same topic. I thought about making a comment about this, playing chicken and not telling my viewpoint but may as well. I grew up playing with Star Wars toys and being obsessed with Star Wars. I made the barber cut my hair like Han Solo (the action figure I always carried around). For nostalgic reasons alone I must take the Star Wars side.
With that said, I was disappointed with the prequels and put them in a bin near (but not quite as far away from me) the last two Matrix movies. I'm not going to dis Star Trek, because I do like pretty much every series they've came out with. In a movie by movie comparisons (Star Wars 1-3, The Battle for Endor, and Star Wars Christmas Special excluded), I would not even think twice about choosing Star Wars over Star Trek. The fact that there have been so many Star Trek series and such depth added to their world, is what would make me start to second guess my decision, but I'm going to stay with Star Wars as my vote for this one.
Sorry for the rant on this, but there's actually so much more to be said.

Slate's Choose Your Own US Apocalypse

Whether in 10 or 10,000 years (perhaps longer), someday America will no longer exist. Slate has compiled a list of possible ways the US could end and allows you to create your own apocalypse. This is kind of odd, but a lot of fun strangely enough. It's something fun to mess around with. Mine involved the world getting taken over by robots (of course) and having little faith in human kind.

The Upgrade From Girlfriend 4.0 to Wife 1.0

This link has circulated around the Internet for a while now, but it looks like it got an upgrade. It's the upgrade guide from Girlfriend 4.0 to Wife 1.0. It's how relationships would work (from a male perspective) if girls were as simple as software. My guy readers will probably get a good chuckle from this if they haven't seen it before, the girls, maybe not so much. The simple truth is, when you get married, you quit trying to figure them out, and learn they're probably right.

Tiger Woods Info Graphic

I've said before if someone made a robot to play basketball, it'd look like Michael Jordan. I'm beginning to think that is true with Tiger Woods and golf. He's just magnificent to watch. When I hear of a pro golf tourney, the first think to look for is how Tiger is doing. Most the time the answer will be "really well". A reader of my blog who makes really great infographics recently made one of Tiger's career. It's pretty amazing to see the progress, and some of the money he's made.

2 Aliens Taking Over the Same Planet

Blip from Sean Mullen on Vimeo.

I love these animated short videos like this. The characters in this one are just great. It's amazing what a little team work can accomplish.

The Running Robot

We're now one step closer to robots becoming self aware and taking over. Perhaps this running robot doesn't make them self aware, but it will help in the taking over part. The video starts by showing a robot being taunted (pushed) by a human and finishes with it running away (probably because it killed the human). All it needs is a blaster to come out of it's arm and it'll be ready for world domination.

Faces in Places

As humans, it's not out of the ordinary to personify objects. After being around something, it can seem to take on its own personality. When it has a humanized face, it makes things much easier. Here is a collection of photos that have inanimate objects that have unexpected faces.

Comic Con Costume Fails

Nothing like when a bad costume comes together, unless you're the one wearing it. Here are some pictures from Comic Con showing some really bad costumes. To be honest, the one of Master Chief isn't too bad, especially when you compare it to the Iron Man. I wonder if they check with their friends and say "Hey, does this look OK, or is it too ghetto?" only to finally be convinced as their friends hold back their laughter.

Non-Traditional Russian Nesting Dolls

A "must have" souvenir if you visit Russia is a Russian nesting doll. Here is a list of 25 Russian Dolls that you may not see everyday. It makes me recall the "Yo Dawg" "Pimp My Ride" jokes. "Yo Dawg, I hear you like Star Wars, so I put a Jedi in your Sith Lord"...

Fun With the Pentatonic Scale

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

This is much cooler than it sounds. As a music lover, I really enjoyed this. This is a video of Bobby McFerrin speaking at the World Science Festival earlier this year.