We’ll start off this update with an awesome video:
As well as another I told you so moment. Although this one, I think most sane people knew already, it’s fun to see how deep the crazy can go! I’m also thinking that if this ploy hadn’t worked, the next idea would have been cough syrup. Why not?
To everyone that reads That’s Church, you know about Ginny’s hatred of pigeons. Well, a writer in Seattle has the same reaction to crows. Fair warning, it contains foul (fowl) language.
According to Palin, environmentalists caused the oil disaster, by not letting us drill for oil. I can almost, almost grasp her reasoning. But then I remember that I have a brain and am usually grounded in reality.
I think the Student Flush might be the best named event almost ever. At least this month. Good luck to everyone participating!
I don’t think I’ll be able to pull a team together in time, but how much fun would this mini-golf fundraiser through the South Side be? Also, why have I not know that this happens every year?
Here’s an article about online ads, and specifically, why they suck.
PBS released a trailer for the Video Games Live documentary they will be airing in August:
When it comes to Pittsburgh, I’ll be going to see it (for the third time), I love the suites from Myst (of course, but have yet to see it live), Civilization, Warcraft, and total highlight of the last concert, what was used to close Act I: Zelda. I’m still surprised that two songs (MGS4’s Theme of Love and Portable Ops’ Calling to the Night) didn’t make it into the Metal Gear Suite, but I cannot recommend this concert series highly enough. Make sure you watch it on PBS this summer!
Is is possible to create and air your own ad? Well, it’s now a lot easier thanks to Google. Interesting Now with the correct video and everything! Oops:
One of the blogs I read all the time is JOHO (Journal of the Hyperlinked Organization). He was live-blogging a talk given by a CMU professor, and I was drawn into this awesome use of Captchas:
He says that about 200M captchas are typed every day. He was proud of that until he realized it takes about 10 seconds to type them, so his invention is wasting 500,000 hours per day. So, he wondered if there was a way to use captchas to solve some humungous problem ten seconds at a time. result: ReCAPTCHA. For books written before 1900, the type is weak and about 30% of the text cannot be recognized by OCR. So, now many captchas ask you to type in a word unrecognized when OCR’ing a book. (The system knows which words are unrecognized by running multiple OCR programs; ReCAPTCHA uses those words.) To make sure that it’s not a software program typing in random words, ReCAPTCHA shows the user two words, one of which is known to be right. The user has to type in both, but doesn’t know which is which. If the user types in the known word correctly, the system knows it’s not dealing with a robot, and that the user probably got the unknown word right.
I’m still getting caught up on videos and such from the last month. This has it all, it is a must, absolute must watch (just don’t forget it’s from May 6):
Via Andrew Sullivan, here is a fantastic quote from Douglas Adams, in 1999:
So people complain that there’s a lot of rubbish online, or that it’s dominated by Americans, or that you can’t necessarily trust what you read on the web. Imagine trying to apply any of those criticisms to what you hear on the telephone. Of course you can’t ‘trust’ what people tell you on the web anymore than you can ‘trust’ what people tell you on megaphones, postcards or in restaurants. Working out the social politics of who you can trust and why is, quite literally, what a very large part of our brain has evolved to do. For some batty reason we turn off this natural skepticism when we see things in any medium which require a lot of work or resources to work in, or in which we can’t easily answer back — like newspapers, television or granite. Hence ‘carved in stone.’ What should concern us is not that we can’t take what we read on the internet on trust — of course you can’t, it’s just people talking — but that we ever got into the dangerous habit of believing what we read in the newspapers or saw on the TV — a mistake that no one who has met an actual journalist would ever make.
Well I’m back. Well I never really left, so here’s a giant update for everyone, enjoy!
I somehow missed this commercial the first time around, and I really like it:
For all the music folk out there, Slate has a cool article about playing in tune. I remember going to a concert of Catham Baroque in College, they had major issues because where they were performing was a cold space, except the floor was heated. It wreaked havoc on all their instruments.
Also in Slate, an article about the AP Styleguide and how changes are made. I need a new one, I’ll have to check out their store to see if the 2010 version is available.
And again in Slate, a cool article about PowerPoint. It can be awesome, it really can be, just don’t do what most people do!
The first part of Star Wars Uncut is up. The project brings people from all over the world to do small segments of A New Hope and then splices them together:
Also, I’ve watched this video a couple times, and it’s amazing, an Octopus steals a diver’s camera while it is still on. The diver chases and finally gets it back:
Want to know what kind of hell happens to your mind when you stay inside a Wal Mart for 24 straight hours? Read the hilarious report here:
An employee yelled “Shut up!” to me after I stood in the middle of the lingerie section and screamed “Spring Break!” at the top of my lungs.
I know it’s over, but I meant to post this while the contest was going on, but this Lost video was made by a local guy. It didn’t end up winning, although when I watched all of the finalists, I really liked it the best:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiKABfaQsbY
Ok, some more about Lost. Here are the characters are summarized by cats:
There was a theory that the eruption and subsequent ash cloud of Mt. Eyjafjallajokull would cool us down a bit, or maybe even stave off summer. Sadly, it’s been warm here. Read the article here, and I’ll be glad that my friend Kyle was finally able to make it back from Europe after all kinds of delays getting there (and the possibility of becoming stuck)
NASA captured this amazing photo of clouds over Africa:
I fully realize that this would probably clog anyone’s arteries in about three seconds after putting the first bit in your mouth, but it still looks really good: pancake, cheesecake, pancake, strawberries whipped cream. I’m assuming the strawberries make it healthy, right?
Maybe the national media wouldn’t be blindsided by things like Arizona’s new anti-immigration law or Virginia’s racially tone deaf governor if it took attacks on gays and lesbians seriously, if the media saw them for the outliers they are, and stopped giving politicians like Brewer and McDonnell a faith-based pass when they attack sexual minorities. Because governors and legislators who attack sexual minorities today invariably go on to attack other minority groups tomorrow. Hate is hate is hate.
Leviticus 19:33-34 (NIV) When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt.
Moral of this story, don’t celebrate a win before the game is over:
Aussies are safer in a strip club than a church, suggests new government data. According to the latest figures compiled by the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, 1600 people were charged with committing a range of 27 offences in the state’s “places of worship” in 2008. Astonishingly, the data showed only 282 people were charged with the same offences in adult entertainment premises.
I think I have a new favorite blog, it’s called The Big Caption, bringing together images and typography
I’m angry at Arizona for so many things, including their ban on willingly creating a human/animal hybrid (How will I amass my Centaur army now?!), but this is always heartbreaking, Arizona is now firing or moving teachers that don’t speak English properly, which makes sense to me (granted, how they frame that bill and everything associate with it was kind of underhanded), but I’d like to bring attention to what ope of the Secretary of Education’s advisers said:
Teachers should speak good grammar because kids pick up what they hear
And thanks to Jezebel for putting together this awesome guide to traveling in Arizona:
Thank you, that is all.
Ok, it’s cool, but the bicycle wheel is just showing off:
This ad is awesome, one because it’s the first motion-sensitive billboard that I’ve seen, and second, the format works great for the venue. A coworker of mine is in D.C. this weekend and even though I’ve never been there, I recommended the Spy Museum, I’ve only heard people rave about it, next time I’m down in Washington, I’ll have to check it out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mc1FeR54F-Y
Just because it’s funny:
I don’t want to say I told you so. But I told you so (well, at least maybe).
Student newspapers at private schools are sticky business, I should know. From where I stand, the school is in the clear to do this. Should they? Well that is another matter entirely. My heart goes out to the writers and editors, I know how hard it can be, without the administration threatening the jobs of faculty members (good grief).
Panera is testing a “pay what you think it’s worth” store, and if it works (the money goes to charity), will open more. It’s fun, since I’m writing this in a Panera. With moronic teenage girls running the bakery counter. I’ve heard them argue about the unfairness of driving, and how they are stapling napkins. I’m not sure why either.
Ever want to know how the stop sign was created? Slate investigates here. And here’s what would happen if a corporation had been charged with making it:
And Slate takes a look at this year’s Clio Awards.
This is amazing, and the first building reminds me of Myst Island. I know, huge nerd, but we all knew that, didn’t we?
