What's the most important story?

Quantum entanglement: ghost imaging

Via Futurismic: "Ghost-imaging" is creating a picture of an object using light that never interacted with the object, but which is pared to light that did through quantum entanglement. This image here seems to have been taken with a camera aimed not at the toy solder, but at the light source shining light on the toy solder.

The next step will be the loadstone resonators from The Dark Materials trilogy. Oh, and THIS:

Dr. Deacon said he believes ghost-imaging may enable a satellite to be equipped with a detector that would be coupled with a second camera that would take images of the sun. That combination of technologies could generate ghost images of the Earth's surface, even if there are obstructing atmospheric conditions.

Doctor Huh?

Sooo...we were talking about accents tonight. I thought this was pretty funny...okay, only sorta funny, but especially funny for any fans of the David Tennant version of Doctor Who and Catherine Tate.
^_^

Panic Attack!

Tipped off to this by a friend who lives in the Hollywood Sector. Says this lil' indie dude from Uruguay is blowing up in Hollywood because of this. Sorta like a proto District Nine scenario, I guess. Anyway i thought it was cute, despite the trite soundtrack.




It's a smidge too clean.

USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-A

Coconut-carrying Octopus

MMO's again

Found this...thought some of us could relate to it.

A Lego Insect Collection-Can we get even more fragile?

Dragonfly 01
Originally uploaded by pupipupi

Lego user pupipupi built a set of these amazing insects, right down to the boxes that hold them. Inspiring and beautiful.

Happy winter solstice!

I was at Stonehenge again for the solstice. There were way less people than in the summer.

There was a druid called King Arthur there. Some other druids were facing each way and chanting 'let there be peace in the east', 'let there be peace in the west', and so on when the sun came up.

Did it get more peaceful at all in Hawaii around 8:08 GMT this morning*?

*That's 21 December 2009, 10:08PM Hawaii time.

Vermicomposting Part 2: The System

The system is fairly simple. I use a very specific system, and it's not the cheapest solution available, but it does illustrate the workings of this process very well, so we'll use it as a sample case, to drive home the primary points.

I'm using a Can-O-Worms, from Waikiki Worm, but many DIY options will work, once you understand the principles. I've even heard of people using single coffee cans with a hole punched in the base. I'll go over the process with my system, though, to help show you the basics.

The base (A) rests on the ground, in the shade. When you start, You fill the first bucket (B) with some kind of neutral fiber bedding (mine came with a block of coconut husk which, when soaked with water, serves as a decent place for the worms to live), and nest it into the base. You provide food for the works to eat; vegetable waste and the like. You sprinkle it over the top, and add your worms. Cover the top with shredded newspaper. Wet the whole thing. The lid (E) fits into the first bucket. Cover the system and go live your life.

(The worms eat the food. They also eat the bedding. They will eat it and poop it out and eat their poop and poop that out and so on until their poop looks a lot like mud. This is not a coincidence. Mud is made of tiny rocks and water, but it is also made of organic material produced by decomposers like worms. You are facilitating the economic conversion of a natural process, harnessed and directed for personal gain. You are, in essence, a pimp.)

As you generate more vegetable waste from the eating of vegetables, you add more of said waste to the first bucket, under the shredded newspaper. The newspaper gives the worms something to crawl through to get to the food. The worms will also eat the newspaper. The worms will eat just about anything you put in the bucket. They will even (get this) eat human hair from haircuts. My wife cuts my hair, and the first time she cut my hair while we had worms, I tried to put all my cut hair into the bucket. My wife stopped me, for fear of giving the worms a taste for human tissues. Worms get a raw deal. This is the kind of prejudice you will be dealing with, should you decide to keep your own worms.

Eventually, your first bucket will fill with food. The worms will have broken some of it down, but it will still look like food. "Gross," you will say. It should be noted at this point, that if you stick to vegetable matter, your system will not smell bad. It should actually smell kind of pleasant, like a forest floor, or some equally nice metaphor. When your first bucket is full, you scrape up the top layer of vegetable waste and newspaper and place it into an empty bucket. (C), let's say. You lay that on top of the first bucket (B), and continue as if nothing had happened.

Here is what is happening here: The buckets all have little holes in them (H). These holes are just large enough so that worms can pass through them. The worms will crawl up from bucket (B) to bucket (C), and eat the food there. They will also crawl back down to bucket (B) and eat the partially digested food there--and I cannot be sure of this, but it seems they will also move to the lower levels to breed. I often see little baby worms in the lower levels. These baby worms also eat the partially digested food, and further digest it. All worms move throughout the system, breaking down new food, and really breaking down older food in a process called... I have no idea what this process is called.

We're a couple of months in, at this point. All the while, you've been feeding the worms with waste from your kitchen (as you create it), and watering the worms every couple of days. The water trickles through the system, and keeps everything moist and happy. This water drains out of the system I have via a spigot (F) that empties into a regular bucket (G). This water, in later stages of this process, is nitrogen-rich and valuable to plants, which I will discuss in subsequent chapters.

At some point, your top bucket will fill up with food, too. Then, you add your final bucket (D), in the same manner you added bucket (C). Go ahead and inefficiently eat vegetables and fill that up too. Months more later now. You've filled up (D). What do you do?

You harvest vermicastings, that's what. With the help of friends, lift up the top layers (Buckets (C), (D); and lid (E)). Remove bucket (B), and place it on top of bucket (D). You will notice this: That the worms, while you were living, working, making love, plotting revenge, etc. have converted all of the original bedding and food into something that that looks a lot like mud. This "mud", as you naively call it, is the most nitrogen-rich soil additive your small mind can conceive of. "Gardeners' Gold", they call it. Can you imagine how amazing it must be for them to call it that?!? Anyway, put the lid to the side and wait. Go inside, and play Little Big Planet, or something.

I'm planning a chapter on worm behavior, but here's a spoiler: Worms hate the light. When confronted with light, a worm will move in the other direction. So your first bucket, bucket (B), exposed to all that light, should be clear of worms in an hour or so. Give it a stir every so often; they'll migrate down to bucket (D) in short order.

So now bucket (B) is filled with only worm castings. Again, Gardeners' Gold. At this point, kick yourself for not having a garden. Better yet, go back in time and make sure that you had a garden. This stuff is great for placing at the roots of plants to help them grow. If your plants are already planted, you can sprinkle it around their base, and let it filter down. I've maintained an herb garden for nearly a year now, and never fertilized it with anything not from my worms.

So yes, I've avoided using those little $0.69 cent sticks you can buy in gardening stores. And I've avoided throwing maybe a hundred pounds of kitchen waste down the garbage disposal, so the waste-water treatment facilities don't have to deal with it. Or the fish don't have to eat it. I'm fully aware of the horse-shittery surrounding this practice. Maybe it's good for the world, and maybe it's not. How the hell should I know? If we hit Peak Oil, and this is a skill I have, how does this help me prepare for the coming apocalypse? How does this differ from the completely useless practice of keeping birds? I don't fucking know. You know what grows well with all these worm castings and all this worm tea? Mint. You know how many recipes I generally make that involve mint? Two. And one of them's a Mojito. So yeah. Do I enjoy this? I sure do. Am I saving the world? No idea. It's fun, though. It's like keeping birds, a little. I mean, it's easy to get delusional about the importance of what I'm doing here. But will I ever achieve a carbon offset remotely equal to the cost of the plastic in my plastic worm buckets? Who knows? Actually, that's measurable. The question is, do I dare do the calculation?

So anyway, when you've emptied bucket (B) of castings, you leave it up there, at the top. You scrape off the top layer of bucket (D); the food and the newspaper, and cover the system again. The harvesting should happen every three months or so, but it will vary with the amount of vegetable waste from your kitchen, and other factors, I'm sure. To be continued!

HP computers are racist

"This is just so wrong if it is true"

Star Wars: The Phantom Menace Review (1/7)

It's ten minutes long, part 1 of 7, and one of the best things, evar.

Wait.

No.

Part 2 is better.




OhgodPART3OHGOD

How does Augmented Reality Change the Story?

Last I checked, we all exist in narratives defined by limited information. With all the knowledge available to us, does the relevant become lost in a fog of data? Do we still live in stories?

World of Warcraft and Project Management

Wondering what you nerds think of this article comparing World of Warcraft raids to real-life Project Management. Is there more here than just the obvious?

If you face a major project or several major projects, chances are you can’t crush them before they overwhelm you. Instead, you gather your team at work, grab a seat at the conference room table with your laptop, and you burn down each project one at a time. Trying to tackle all of them would be as much of a wipe as a Warcraft raid trying to tackle all the bad guys at once.

Prisencolinen Sinainciusol [What English Sounds like to Foreigners]

From Geeks are Sexy:

This crazy song was written by Adriano Celantano in 1972 to show English-speakers what they sound like to un-comprehending foreigners. If you kind of zone out and let your mind go, you might actually mistake it for English. That’s because the song is composed of English phonemes (the sounds that make up our language) that have been jumbled up into jibberish.

There's that Shazam iPhone app that can recognize music, and it actually got this: Prisencolinen Sinainciusol by Adriano Celentano.

Avatar

A friend of mine in the blogosphere is putting together a roundtable from the websites that cover geekdom to gather opinions on Avatar. Do any of you Pieces of Things bloggers have opinions about it that you'd be willing to share?

Hitler's Brain, the Thread

The article itself is sort of anticlimactic, describing the events that took place to remove Hitler and his entourage's remains from history so that they couldn't become a place of worship by future fascists. That's kind of interesting, but what I found enjoyable was the thread that followed. Hope you do too.

Lancelot


Lifted from io9, as one would imagine.

Insurance companies paying facebook gamers virtual $$$ to oppose reform bill

Forgive me my moment of self righteous indignation or if you've already heard about it, but I just read this and it made me vomit all over my computer. Everything is well described in this article, here:

In a game like Mafia Wars, you can get in-game currency in a number of different ways. One of them is by accepting offers from third-parties.

It's this third method that an anti-reform group called "Get Health Reform Right" is using to pay gamers virtual currency for their support.

Instead of asking the gamers to try a product the way Netflix would, "Get Health Reform Right" requires gamers to take a survey, which, upon completion, automatically sends the following email to their Congressional Rep:

"I am concerned a new government plan could cause me to lose the employer coverage I have today. More government bureaucracy will only create more problems, not solve the ones we have."

So congressmen and women are getting swamped with these letters from facebook gamers. This would be fine in and of itself, except that they are sent by people who just want a new gun for a video game and have absolutely no interest in or knowledge about healthcare reform, and are not actually working with any grassroots organization (hence, "astroturfing"). Who they are working with, knowingly or not, are all the organizations associated with gethealthreformright.org: insurance companies (see the list in the article).

It's one crazy, terrifying future to think that insurance companies are gearing up to change healthcare forever with their facebook gamer army.

The True Dangers of Pokémon

Congratulations, stupid!

Vermicomposting Part 1: Overview

I keep worms. They live in a series of stacked buckets outside my kitchen door. These buckets are specially designed to allow air, water, worms, and other substances and creatures to move throughout the system. It keeps out rats, dogs, cats, cows, and other large animals. The worms eat primarily plant waste--vegetable scraps from the kitchen. They also eat newspaper. The point of this is three-fold:

1. to keep the amount of garbage I throw away to a minimum


2. to generate nutrient-rich castings and casting-liquid to feed and water my garden


3. to add a certain sense of false authority and smug self-importance when I speak about environmental issues.

So far, so good.

We started with the bucket-thing, called "Can-o-Worms" and procured from the Waikiki Worm Company. While we had a gift certificate for a starter pound of worms, we instead used worms from my sister's worm operation. She had been keeping hers for some time, and had a surplus.

I have been keeping worms for about 7 months, and I think I'm pretty into it. Here are some pictures.

     

The system is very simple. You feed the worms vegetable scraps (carrot tops, apple and lettuce cores, and so on). The worms eat it. They poop it out. They eat their poop. They poop that out. They eat it some more, and poop it out again. It is really, really gross.

In future posts, I will detail feeding, harvesting castings, worm behaviors, and other neat stuff. I will try to mention poop every time.

12:44 am videos

Hope you are all having a good weekend. Here's a few things from the internets. ^_^

(OneMinuteGalactica)

Little Red (via @andevers)

By Ciara, via A. N. Devers.

Seaweed fresh from a Honolulu canal

A Honolulu-style seaweed harvest?
This clip is one of the most incredible things I've seen on the local news. Unfortunately KHON failed to ask the ogo collector for comment and give him a chance to respond, but otherwise this is an amazing story.

(Also, a next-day follow-up.)

yeah but more importantly

full episodes available here

Star Trek Online

I'm guessing some of you might be interested in this...or maybe even this -> 'oH ghaH QaQ jaj DaqjaH! I'm pretty sure I know what I'll be doing on Feb 2nd...

The TV Show!

At the risk of attracting more Japanese spammers, here's a little gem spit up by the internet today:

Star Trek lip-sync (for lack of a better term.)

Because we need more star trek related mashup humor, I saw this on Twitter after (my pal and yours) Adam Savage tweeted it. Apparently it's blowing up the interwaves, so I figured I should jump on that bandwagon.

Freelancing sucks sometimes

I just finished a ten-year freelancing stint last year.
This funny thing reminds me of it.
So does this one.

Origami and its "real-life" applications

Since we are being infected by Japanese sex robots, I figured I'd try to find some sort of counterbalance. Superstar artist Corinne Kamiya posted this on facebook. I thought I'd re-post it here. It has a funny sort of parallel resonance to how the Europeans found ukiyo-e in their packing crates in the nineteenth century and went crazy.

I am going to NYC

Hey, I'm going to be in NYC this week and next! Any requests for things to check out/post about?

Political poems

A haiku about Larry Craig, the former U.S. senator from Idaho:

Between flights, furtive,
The heart reduced to Morse code --
Feet tap in stalls.

Another about former presidential candidate John Edwards:

Should not have posed for
my weird videographer --
now my hair is mussed.

More "sex scandal haiku" here.

Sumo wrestling time

I was thinking about sumo, found these clips and wanted to share.

First, a video compilation of 53 straight victories recorded by Chiyonofuji, one of sumo's greatest all time wrestlers. (You can see him dispose of Hawaii-born Konishiki at 3'20" and 4'30". Unfortunately, Konishiki is already in his fat slob phase at the time of these bouts.)



Second, here are some young sumo wrestlers-in-training doing side splits. These men are flexible.

Avatar Machine...

Yet another funny thing linked from Kotaku.

Avatar Machine [LONDON] 2008 from MARC OWENS on Vimeo.

While I found this to be charming and resonant, I couldn't help but think "must... switch... camera... angles!"


Here's the artist's site.

Here's the Kotaku article

The perfect blend of chaos and order.

The world is in balance with this organizational cube

Star Crack II

Just FYI for StarCrack fans. Don't know if anyone heard yet but they're making a live action.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1037854/fullcredits#cast

Probably best you guys just stay friends...

Genius, pure genius. Almost made me spasm up coffee through my nose while I was drinking it. Please enjoy.

Dead Flys

Face-Off With a Deadly Predator

"Time to get in the water yeah?"

Two Sarah Palins!

Sarah, meet Sarah. (via The Daily Dish.)

Taking selling out to new extremes

Tweeting ads to your friends. (Or to your Twitter followers.)

Maybe this bad idea will die before it takes off, as people dump those who tweet ads.

I hope I'm not being too optimistic.

cute

I hope someone tests this in court

Texas' gay marriage ban may have banned all marriages.

The Earth With Rings

This is how awesome the Earth would be if it had rings.

How the iPod Saved America from Being Sad Forever

It's the first iPod commercial ever. Contrast it with the "unplanned" "spontaneous" "expression" of "group enthusiasm" at the Microsoft store. Sure; to be fair, one's a produced advertisement, and the other is a WELL-produced advertisement oooooOOOOOOoooo! ZING!! BURRRN!!!22!

I'm thinking, however, about the success of the iPod product line, and the genesis of that success. Sure, the interface is great--navigating that much content with what is essentially one big button is no small feat. The form factor is simple, almost generic, allowing anyone to integrate the thing into their personal style. The ads emphasize personal freedom and joyful abandon and an unapologetic love of music and dancing to said music (and again with the generic thing).

This has all been discussed over and over, but the one factor I've never heard mentioned when trying to understand the iPod's success is the release date, October 23, 2001. A little over a month after 9/11. Everyone in America was still pretty bummed, if I remember right. We thought nothing would ever be the same; that we'd all have to be vigilant and well-informed and serious for the rest of our lives. We didn't, it turns out. Our culture was still there, and we are who we are, for better or for worse. It didn't take long for reminders of who we are to creep back into daily life, and now here we are. Hello!

Makes me wonder, if the iPod doesn't occupy some special place in the American psyche, because it helped come to a timely rescue. Did these simple, happy, ads stick in our heads; not simply hawking a music player, but as a reminder that there were still good reasons to be consumery, dancey, slightly oblivious Americans? Are we repaying the iPod for helping us not be sad forever?

OMFG...

How much does Bill Microsoft pay these guys?

D&D Character Sheets

We'd talked about doing this a while back; so I found a nice simple D&D character sheet for each of us to fill out. I mean, anyone who feels like it. We can link it to personal profiles in the sidebar, or something. I don't know.

I started one, and one thing I found difficult was the allocation of ability points. I have no idea how strong I am, but I know I have more dexterity than strength, so maybe if we all decide on a set number of points to allocate (54, say--average) and distribute them among our different abilities, that will be an easier thing to do. It always kind of weirded me out that so much of the game of D&D was decided in those initial rolls, in the same way that Ayn Rand freaks me out.

This is an interesting exercise, and I think it may be best to see this as a résumé, avoiding any modesty, and cataloging our skills. Or maybe it will just be enough to gaze upon the gold standard of D&D CVs, and leave it at that.

Ford SHELBY vs CAMARO vs JEEP vs VAZ 2107 vs HELICOPTER

Kick ass rendering...

For those who, like me, didn't know about AutoTune and Meme...

I thought this was very informative. Thanks Professor Wierd Al!

Beautiful Bike Raffle for a Great Cause

http://www.getbettergabe.com


I don't know this guy, but it's a good cause. Have been in a similar situation myself years ago and all the help people gave me makes me want to give back.

X-Men #1: Covered

There hasn't been any comic covers here in a while, you guys. Here's some inspiration from Covered: Dan Scanlon does X-Men #1

Aaaand one more...

Sorry, one more YouTube...this one reminded me of Mr. Chang and Frodo: the Museum of Humanity

Lego Howl's Moving Castle

Yeah so this 14 year old kid named Imagine made
Howl's Moving Castle out of Lego. It took him and his mom two weeks to build. It's pretty kick ass. He's part of a Hawaii based Lego users group called
LEAHI. I am part of this group. Imagine made this piece with a castle themed event in mind. This event took place this October at the Honolulu Academy of Arts. I had to sit next to this thing and suck with my weak-ass, no-skill-having, six-hour-build diorama. It was really neat. It's already been blogged on the usual Lego user group site, I just saw it in the blog Mr. Pony reffed for the husband-hunting bra thread! Great job, Imagine! You are officially blowing up!

Lest we forget...

Lizards are bad-ass.

LEGO Minifig Patent

...And of course you saw this, via the Curated Internet.

This just made me laugh.

Hamilton Mixtape

This is quite good. That's all.

An Interview with Mr. James Bowthorpe

I obtained this exclusive interview with James after meeting him by chance at an exhibition detailing the BBC's new inter-planetary condiment delivery system. He has just set the world record for riding a bicycle around the world as quickly as you can. You may remember him from my other posts.

R: Congratulations on cycling round the world, Mr. James Bowthorpe. Have you been on any long bicycle rides before?

J: Not since the mid-nineties, when I did trips over the Himalayas, through a bit of Russia, and from Alaska to LA.

R: When did you decide to cycle around the world and why?

J: May 9th 2008. I did it to raise £1.8 million for Parkinsons disease research at the clinic where I volunteer. I'm really hoping to step up the fundraising now that I'm back...

R: People can donate here, right?

J: Yes. That's amazing, Ruby, I've never heard anyone say something hyperlinked out loud before.

R: Yes I am quite amazing, world record holder James Bowthorpe. What does cycling round the world mean exactly?

J: According to Guinness, it's 18,000 miles of cycling, crossing two antipodal points, with no u-turns. You're allowed to get on planes and boats and things along the way.

R: How do you know when you've cycled round the world?

J: You get back to where you started from; you recognise road signs, city names and eventually you start seeing faces you know.

R: How did you get ready for your trip?

J: By going to the gym and strolling around the place. I read a few books about cycling and also flicked through my diaries from the earlier trips. I also did a fair bit of cycling, but not so much that I was sick of it by the time I was leaving.

R: What did you worry about once you got going?

J: Time, space and where to pitch my tent.

R: What was the longest time you went without going into a building? Is a tent a building?

J: I was probably only a couple of days outwith buildings; buildings are where most food is kept and I ate a lot. A tent isn't a building because you don't build a tent, you pitch it or erect it; some people make camp or "bivvy-down", but no-one builds a tent.

R: I often "bivvy-down." Who did you talk to?

J: I talked to myself, people that I met and the weather.

R: What was the longest time you went without speaking to someone?

J: About a week probably. During that time I did a lot of shrugging, smiling and pointing to get by.

R: When did you eat?

J: Never whilst cycling until I managed to rig up a system whereby I could hang a bag of baby carrots off my handlebars.

R: What kind of amazing things did you eat?

J: Fish balls, special sauerkraut, Mega-Burgers, Vegemite in tiny sealed trays (on a plane).

R: What was the strangest day you had?

J: Flying back in time from New Zealand to Vancouver. It was 6 in the evening on the 15th when I left and I arrived after 11 hours in a plane at 2 in the afternoon on the same day.

R: Did you see any films or TV?

J: I watched Star Trek (the new one) on the ferry between New Zealand's South and North Islands. Apparently its one of the most beautiful ferry crossings in the world, but I was too tired. There were also some occasional motel viewings of Seinfeld.

R: Did you see any Star Wars or Lego products along the way?

J: I don't remember but it seems unlikely that there wouldn't have been any at all. I saw someone playing Lego Star Wars on Playstation, does that count?

R: Yes, of course it counts, it's both Star Wars yet Lego! Why didn't you cycle across Hawaii?

J: Too hilly.

R: What was it like when you got home?

J: Frikking Awesome.

If you enjoyed this interview, you might also like Britisher saint Bowthorpe has embellish the fastest Negro to tone around the globe. Mr. Pony, is this written by one of your pet robots?

We are Douchebags

via @Humanhand

Nunchuks are useful.

Normally I think it's kind of uncool to use dead celebrities to hawk stuff in TV commercials (like that DirecTV ad with Chris Farley), but in this case I'll make an exception for my #1 favorite bad ass mofo Bruce Lee. Wa pow!

Mishandling nuclear fuel

Mr. and Mrs. Pony and I were discussing nuclear power the other day, and a 1999 nuclear chain reaction at an experimental facility in Japan came up. The idiocy of those involved made many wonder if the nuclear power industry could be trusted to deliver electricity safely.

The accident began when workers were converting enriched uranium into oxide powder for use in preparing fuel for the Joyo experimental fast breeder reactor...

An inadvertent nuclear chain reaction, or so-called “criticality accident,” began at 10:35 AM local time on Thursday, September 30 at the JCO Co. Ltd. Conversion Test Building at Tokai-mura, Japan, about 75 miles northeast of Tokyo. The chain reaction, which gave off intense heat and radiation, could not be stopped until 18 hours later....

It appears that workers deliberately circumvented safety measures to save time. A solution of uranyl nitrate was transferred into a large-volume precipitation tank, rather than the smaller, cylindrical container required by regulations. According to JCO Inc. official Yutaka Tatsuta, one of the injured workers reported that some 16 kilograms of uranium solution had been poured into the precipitation tank, nearly eight times more than its criticality safety limit of 2.4 kilograms.

Workers reported seeing a blue flash and then started to feel ill. According to one report, “the area was wrapped in a haze of blue smoke.” Workers told plant staff that “they saw a blue flame rising from the fuel.” Kenji Sumida, a member of Japanese government’s Nuclear Safety Commission, concluded, “I know this is difficult to believe, but I think that we have no choice but to recognize this accident as having been critical.” The criticality continued for about 18 hours until the water that was moderating the flow of neutrons and allowing the chain reaction to continue was drained and the tank was flooded with boron, a neutron absorber.

Tokyo Electric Power, Japan's largest utility, made people even more nervous when it was found to have falsified its nuclear plant repair reports for 15 years.

Maybe the anti-nuclear power sentiment is fading though, as 8 new nuclear plants opened last year from Hokkaido to Kyushu.

I still don't think I'd be comfortable living next to a nuclear power plant, even if it gave off less greenhouse gases than a fossil fuel plant. Then again there are 18 nuclear-powered submarines at Pearl Harbor just a few miles from Honolulu. Each has a mini nuclear power plant on board.

Giant French Automatons invade Berlin! Story at ten.

Much as I hate 4-on-the-floor techno...

Closet Tale

"I saw you-right before you went to outer space." Lord British vs. Martha

Heisted from i09, or Kotaku, or something Gawker-y.

Cantina

Tauren Halloween Costume

Speaking of Halloween, check out this sweet costume our old friend Earl made (Your old friend, my new friend). He was a Tauren last year, but this year he resolved to be like, a better, higher-level Tauren with badder-ass armor and gear. Here are some notes on how he made it:

I made the armor mainly with craft foam, sealed with mod podge and painted with black latex house paint and dry brushed with metallic silver acrylic paint .. the giant rivets are ping pong balls cut in ½ ... And the chest piece base is made from a rubber maid tote and a laundry basket … I plan on making a rough tutorial and posting it online with pics to help others interested making this kind of stuff… when I was researching all I could find was elf armor and Halo armor.

Happy Halloween!

Oops, left this a bit late. I was hoping the London - Hawaii time difference would save me. Happy All Souls' Day!


This is my jack-o-lantern for this year, on my balcony. It was designed by my friend's 3-year-old. Hopefully it's scaring the $@#! out of the feral kids in the council estate behind my apartment. I know I'm terrified of it.

update-- just figured out how to fake the time on this so it turns out I did post it on Halloween after all! Does this relate to this?

The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon

Okay, this thing's over ten minutes long, but if you HAVE ten minutes, it's worth it. Like, if you don't have ten minutes, don't watch it. But if you do, do.

Brace Yourself for a LEGO Reality Show

Get ready for some unscripted TV featuring LEGO® Brand Building Bricks.

Why Is Your Dad So Weird?

Sittin on tha Toilet

Maybe don't click on this while you're at work.

Via @radtke327

Felicia Day <3 astronomy

Via the Bad Astronomer. To be honest, if they just kept the Felicia Day part and got rid of everything else it would be much better. This is what happens when scientists try too hard to be cute.

Terminator 2 Rap

Not quite as awesome as the original, but every bit as thorough.

don't be scared, it's just the future

and now for some J-metal.

Okay, I'm sure not everyone here is into J-metal or Anime, but I think you will still get a laugh.
Death Note is a dark anime about a kid who finds a special notebook. Basically, you write someone's name in it, and they die. Maximum the Hormone did one of the opening songs for the series. Video is ok. But then someone came around and misheard the lyrics. And thus, we get this...

Ala Moana Tower

I've been spoiled this past month working on the 18th floor of the Ala Moana building. Two floors higher and I could have been in the old revolving restaurant, but I can't complain—it was hard enough trying to get work done with a view of the marina during two tsunami warnings! Ah well, thirds the charm.

From the right (with constant daydreaming of a 2012-like apocalypse, and from what I've learned from WoW, I'm pretty sure I can get on roof of the shopping center):

From the left:

I did not know this: the La Ronde was the first revolving restaurant in the world!

Addendum: I couldn't help myself—Panic originally posted this in a comment somewhere I think, but it deserves the front page:

Worst Superhero Cartoon Ever

I don't remember this cartoon at all but I guess it was on TV some time ago. It is maybe the worst cartoon I've ever seen. It probably should go on the superhero blog instead but I'm not sure that one is active.

quick little thing

via @theofanning

Shepard Fairey; Keeping the artworld up to its usual standards.

This is basically a link to a law periodical, which ran a brief article about one of my least favorite artists "coming clean" in regards to the misappropriation of a highly seen photograph to make a highly seen poster. I feel bad for the Obama campaign to have even been involved in this stupidity.
I just want everyone to know that Shepard Fairey was/is/and always will be a tool in my opinion.

Now Look What You've Done

Tarantino explains what "Top Gun" was really about

Sorry if you all have seen this before. I suspect this clip has already made quite a few rounds online - but I just found it yesterday while researching a "Top Gun" scene. (Lest you think I've suddenly morphed into a cheesy Hollywood film specialist, allow me to explain: A real-life fighter pilot who has a cameo in this move is about to become the top U.S. commander in the Pacific. I'm writing about him.) Anyhow, enjoy:

I'll just leave this here...

Cool Halloween costume, Part 2

Another very cool Halloween costume -- an homage to the best Star Wars figure of all time.

That was the problem playing with Star Wars figures with other kids when there was only one Boba Fett-- inevitable bickering about who got to play with BF. I mean, compared to IG-88 or Greedo, it was a no-brainer who was the favorite. The rocket pack, the cool gun, the badass face visor. Hell yeah!

where was this when i was a kid?

it's even got bowel loops on the lining!

found it and others on the huffington post in a slideshow of wierd halloween costumes for children.



the look on this kid's face as the alien bursts out of the costume is priceless.

Bear muscles

Hey, my friend just gave me yet another animal toy whose guts you can see!



She did this without knowledge of these: [1] [2].

Can any Chinese speakers translate? [UPDATE: Oh, it's Japanese! Odori?]

oooohhh... dat's da way it is!

Hey, remember The Factory?

Yeah, The Factory. Many, many magic evenings. None of them very well represented by this video, but I'm not sure what I was expecting, exactly.

I remember one big dark room with intense music, and one slightly less dark room with less intense music and a poorly installed carpet, or something. Anyone remember anything else?

Best not to think too hard.

Star Wars (Episode IV): Why did the Empire try to kill the heroes on the Death Star?

Grand Moff Tarkin and Darth Vader have a plan, and one that very nearly turns out to work perfectly: They install a tracking device on the Millennium Falcon so the Death Star can follow it to the rebel base. In order for this to work, Luke, Leia, Han, Chewbacca and the droids have to actually get to the ship and take off, right? So why does the Empire try to crush them in the trash compactor, then send squads of stormtroopers after them? I mean, I can understand sending some token troops just to make sure it wasn’t obvious, but they really seem to be trying to kill them. Of course Leia does say “They let us go. It’s the only explanation for the ease of our escape.” But I’m inclined to agree with Han that it really wasn’t that easy, and seriously, Princess, if you’re so sure you’re being tracked, why are you going straight for the place you know the Empire is looking for?

For those of you willing to indulge your sci-fi-inner nerdness, go here for even more ridiculousness. The comments section is just as priceless.

Snow?!?!?

It's not even Halloween yet dammit.

Shaky frame because I'm cold. Stupid cold. Stupid winter. Stupid AI-BU9 for living here.

I'm going back to my little grass shack...

not in Kealakekua, but in Nuuanu. More like a single story rambler than a shack. And the only grass is in the yard. And it's my parents' house not mine. But I'll be home to blow up shit on new years.

December 27th to January 9th.

Start working on the imu.

Mameshiba

Mameshiba! Did you know, this video is so cute you'll want to scoop your brains out?

Bullets hitting things in really slow motion

I kind of watched the whole thing.

A stupidly accurate AT-AT by Rocko

AT-AT-Front2
Originally uploaded by Rocko™

posted via Flickr.

A Sampling of Anti-Gay Marriage Ads

The Huffington Post has put together a nice little sampling of anti-gay marriage ads. Over and over you hear "it's not hate" and "it's not bigotry". The ads are full of encapsulated little concrete reasons for why you should oppose gay marriage. There are references to statistics and studies, none of which is dwelled on much. The ads invariably return to the idea of "doing what's right". The language and imagery really give me the impression that the ads are preaching to the converted.

Two things going on here. First, the ads are intended to offer concrete (often economic) justifications why gay marriage should be stopped. Second, the ads appeal to the motivations of the motivated, the reasons why the viewers rage so strongly against gays getting all married. This part seems to be heavily encrypted, but the motivations seem to range somewhere between "it's wrong" to "it's disgusting".

What strikes me most here is the stark disconnect between the justifications and the motivations. Usually both aren't so clearly displayed, but I think it's this same disconnect that makes select Teabaggers so inarticulate. See also the state's rights arguments made in defense of slavery in America.

The ads, I believe, are intended to provide alternate ammunition to people whose primary reasons are at best personal and irrelevant (and at worst; very, very mean). It seems to me that if you make your point using canned statistics, while keeping your real convictions to yourself, then maybe you're not entirely on the correct side of the argument.

I don't mean to use only examples opposed to my own alignment (Neutral Good). I'm sure there are cases of the Secular Left doing this as well. I just can't think of any, possibly because it's rarer, but more likely because this sort of thing is harder to see when you're doing it yourself.

link via @shortpacked


UPDATE: Guilty! I saw this picture:


from this article and immediately started trying to think up reasons why the war in Iraq is a bad idea, just so that little girl wouldn't have to say goodbye to her dad. I'm no better than those racist and homophobic bigots, rhetorically speaking. I hang my head in shame.

Riot Photo

Okay, I'm going to be completely honest. I didn't even read the article.