High Concept – Episode 1 – 20 second excerpt from Daniel D Lindmark on Vimeo.

Just a taste, to prove that I still love you, infernet.

I stumbled upon a great collection of illustrator brushes.

In case I forget, here is a site that details some of the important control panel applets in WinXP. Very useful if you are doing “runas”

Beat Sheet Central is a website that hosts movie / TV treatments aka beat sheets. The author has transcribed a series of movies and shows, but also has opened his site up for submissions.

By understanding the technical breakdown of great works that have come before us, we can expand upon that experience and project greatness into the future.

Beat Sheet Central [via wikipedia while trying to figure out what goes on in a treatment]

I will have to remember that I carry a camera on my phone, because this morning, I saw a delightfully confusing collection of car accessories:

Florida gators license plate holder. Confederate flag magnet. Puerto Rican flag. Navy sticker. The piece de resistance? An upsidedown american flag sticker.

So what we’re talking about is a states rights, anti american, naval officer who wants to annex the PR, while watching florida sports teams.

This is 10 times better than some kid with his mom’s volvo peppered with punk band bumper stickers.

For $300 / hr it’s a lot cheaper than skydiving. I bet if you wear something slutty, he’ll hit on you, or maybe even play his guitar for you.

Warning: He claims to be the most photographed man, next to the president.

Radio Controlled Southern Belles meets TURBO!

You know it’s a bad day when your Internet Service Provider (ISP) calls your phone to tell you that your IP address is spewing forth spam.

It’s also not good when that event is preceded by a webpage redirecting to a crap website and your antivirus software giving up.

Luckily Windows has a malicious software removal tool. That can catch a few things after your antivirus bites the dust.

I was also previously unaware that there is a Network Monitor 3.3 to look at your network activity. Watch those ip requests fly by.

I just thought I would quickly mention Cheapass Games.

From their own mouth:

“We here at Cheapass Games are aware of two basic facts about games: they cost too much, and they are at some level all the same.

If you ignore the clever shapes they come in, the cheap little plastic pawns are an interchangeable part of most of the board games in your house. So are the dice, the money, the counters, the pencils, and just about every other random spare part. These generic bits and pieces can account for as much as 75% of a game’s production cost, and that cost gets handed to you.

If you had your choice, you’d probably invest a little bit of money in one good set of gaming paraphernalia instead of twenty crappy ones, and then just buy the new part of every “new” game. Yet most companies insist on selling you the whole package every time; it’s like bundling a can opener with a can of beans.

Cheapass Games come with the bare essentials: boards, cards, and rulebooks. If you need anything else, we’ll tell you. And it’s probably something you can scrounge from a game you already own, or buy at a hobby store for less than “they” are charging you for it. Heck, if you need to, you can even buy the parts from us.

And once you’ve assembled your collection of generic small parts, you can use them for every new Cheapass Game. We’ve standardized our designs so your gaming toolbox will last. If that sounds pretty good, page through our website and check out all the cool things Cheapass Games has to offer you.”

Facets, a Chicago video store with an amazing collection of obscure and out of the way videos, is now providing video by mail.

Essentially, they are servicing the long tail. I can’t wait to rent “Liquid Sky” which was not available at either Netflix or Blockbuster Video.

Rent videos by mail

I’ve been a member of Depart-ment for over two years, and even designed the flyer for their last show.

They are closing down shop. It’s the end of an era. You will still see me at pitchfork this year, but read the press release for more details.

From their press release:
“After six years and nearly twenty shows we are giving DEPART-ment
a big kiss goodbye.

DEPART-ment has been an interesting learning experience for
all of those involved from organizers to makers to buyers.
We envisioned, created, and ran an innovative model (together
for new economy) for an arts and crafts fair heralding in a
new era of makers across the US and further.  We are proud to
have been a part of the beginnings of new generations of indie
DIYers that include slews of other arts and crafts fairs,
organizations, magazines, and web presences such as DIY
Trunkshow, Renegade, Constructor, Handmade Detroit, MAKE,
Craft, Readymade, Etsy and so forth.

The short of it is that although DEPART-ment’s model was
innovative, it was also an incredible amount of work and time
particularly for the organizers.  For the most part we have
broken even but sometimes we have even lost money on shows.
All of our work was on a volunteer basis.  Still we stayed
committed to our original intent of creating an arts & crafts
fair that was low risk for new makers to be involved, that
didn’t necessarily require the same time commitment for the
maker to participate in, and was set up like an actual store
with departments.  As a result we have had well over 1000
makers involved and we have seen folks go from not being a
maker to having a successful business as a maker.

Since 2003, lots of things have changed in all of our lives.
We now live in Indiana, Ohio, Belize, Oak Park & Chicago.
We all have our own businesses, some of us are back in grad
school.  Though we all have been committed to the DEPART-ment
model, none of us really have the time, effort, or finances
currently to continue and hence we kiss DEPART-ment goodbye.

That said, we would like to thank everyone who has stepped up
to participate by helping us run shows, by participating as a
new maker, a seasoned maker, a shopper or otherwise has
supported a coming together for new economy.  We have met and
worked closely with literally hundreds of area, national and
some international makers.  We have drawn much inspiration and
friendship from it.  We wish you all well in your pursuit of
creating, making, re-purposing, and inventing your own goods,
businesses and lives as we continue to do so in our own lives.

This year the arts and crafts fair at Pitchfork Music Festival
(in the tennis courts by Chirp Record Fair) will be run by a
new entity, Coterie Chicago.  Coterie Chicago will be a bit
more in the traditional arts and crafts fair mode (not set up
like a store as DEPART-ment was).  See the website for more
information and to sign up for Coterie’s email list:
http://www.coteriechicago.com

Take care and may health and happiness follow…
from the organizers of DEPART-ment”

The goal: We have two televisions and one satellite TV tuner. Occasionally, I want to watch something on the primary TV that is not satellite TV. Think DVD, video games, or silence.

Some times, my special lady friend would like to watch satellite TV. I get tired of schlepping the video games to the other room. She gets tired of avoiding watching her shows when I just want to shoot some hookers.

Behold! The TV Remote controll Extender:

Read on to see how it’s done.Just to be clear, this is an entry level hack, done with ghetto-ass implementation. I wanted something quickly, and I didn’t have the right tools. Those who pursue a higher level of aestheticism will either refine my techniques, or buy some hardware that will do the equivalent (like an IR blaster, or another receiver). I realize that my techniques should be obvious to someone with a hint of common sense and basic electronics.

Supplies:

1. A remote that you don’t care about breaking. Before you start, verify that the remote works and your batteries work. This will save you time when you are troubleshooting your shoddy workmanship later.
2. A soldering iron. Solder.
3. Insulated wire.  I used paired 18 AWG. This is overkill.
4. Alcohol.
5. (optional) Some Music. I recommend either TV theme songs,  or something with some heavy metal vamping.
6. A camera, piece of paper, or a photographic memory to document taking apart your remote so that you can put it back together again.
7. Screwdrivers. Phillips, and flathead.

Theory:

Your electronic device (TV / satellite receiver) can listen to your remote control, through the magic of Infra Red Light Emitting Diodes (IRLED). Imagine a pulse of light that is invisible to the human eye. I have no idea the specifics of the encoding, but it’s a series of on/off patterns that presents a binary pattern. If I had to guess, it would be pulse width modulated, just like your CD players, only with an incredibly smaller data frame. PWM works by keeping your ons or offs steady for an amount of time proportional to the data you are trying to send. If it’s on for 10 ms, then maybe you mean 10. If it were on for 1 ms, maybe you mean one. Now that I think about it, it’s equally likely that they are using a steady data frame, and each time position is the bit value. What do I look like, wikipedia?

Also, since we’re on the subject, why don’t modern cell phones have an IRLED so you can control electronics? It would put the universal remote assholes out of a business, but I’ve never really cared for them either.

So, let’s say you’re watching TV. A sexy lady comes on and you can see a bit of her cleavage. You say to yourself, “I’m a heterosexual man, and like seeing the female form. It would be a crime for me not to see that again.” Now, the television and the remote, both do not have a button or command for “Jump back so I can rewatch the naughty bit again.” Maybe it should, but for the sake of this tutorial, it doesn’t. You have to speak remote-control-ese. You then press “jump back 5 seconds”. That is translated to a series of numbers, which are pulsed through the airwaves, received by the television, and you are able to reenact your manly desires through the miracles of modern technology.

But, I digress.

Procedure.

Start with a remote control:

Use your monkey brain to figure out how to take it apart. Remember, just because some asshole with no education was able to put it together, does not mean that you can take it apart without breaking it.

Once you have it apart, bask in the glory of evolution. Not only have we invented a way to capture a visual image of something that happened in the past, and not only have we captured a series of images so that you can watch them in sequence, but you can watch them on your fat lazy ass, and not have to get up to change to a different sequence of images. Aren’t we clever monkeys!

I’d like to point out a few things about this circuit. It is extremely simple.

1. There are pads for connecting a circuit for when the button is pressed.
2. There are two IRLEDs,and a driver circuit.
3. There is a power regulation circuit where the batteries are connected.
4. There is a tiny microprocessor that is sitting in the form factor of the older microprocessor that it replaced. They gooped shome shit on top of it (see bottom) in order to make sure you can’t tell what the micro processor is. Not that it would be hard to replace this remote via reverse engineering.
5. Oh yeah, a switch, to change modes.

Oh geeze, writing this procedure is getting old. Document how the IRLED is connected. If you accidentally connect it backwards, you could ruin your remote. Snip off the IRLED and leave a small amount of the metal leg so that you will be able to solder onto it later.

Cut your wire to length (I used 30 feet) and strip the ends. Solder one end to the legs where the LED used to go. I used pipe solder and a shitty 40 watt soldering iron. I’m sure you can find better and do a better job. There is a little plastic window where your LED can wave to the television. Make sure you snake your wire through the hole.

Solder the other end of the wire to an LED. I used an ohm meter to make sure I was connecting the cathode and anode to the correct legs.

Put it all back together. It will probably not fit anymore, because you did such a shitty job, so use some gaffer tape or glue to get it all back together.

I cannot stress this enough: Use strain relief. It should be impossible for the end user to separate the solder joints you made.

Viola: a remote control extender. Now go eat more cheesecake.

It’s funny because Optimus Prime is _also_ a hyperbolicly adored leader that doesn’t live up to the hype.

Google Image Result for http://botropolis.com/wp-content/uploads/change-into-a-truck.jpg

via [someone's facebook avatar icon]

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cartoons has a new shirt on pre-order:

I just love the description. Two guys playing tennis on the back of kodiak bears with a lit bundle of dynamite instead of a tennis ball.

TopatoCo: Most Dangerous Game Shirt

This is a quick game, it should only take you about 20 minutes to  complete.

It simultaneously satisfies my retro game itch, as well as introduces interesting game play.

Mostly you are a few blocky pixels adventuring across disapearing chasms, ropes, snakes, and hot lava. The bosses are fun to fight, and the “second half” of the game exploits the namesake.

Play [Don't Look Back]

The best part is the end, when the round table erupts with talking heads breaking down into skanks and getting all up in each others grills.

“When a bearded, bespectacled Joaquin Phoenix appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman February 11, he gave bloggers across the world the biggest Valentine they could hope for. What to say about this, that hasn’t already been pounded into oblivion by everyone from your neighborhood blogger to Ben Stiller? Movie star goes on talk show, exhibits possibly affected eccentricity; talk show host fires back with lighthearted but emphatic barbs; audience and blogosphere go nuts. It seems like most people are in agreement that Phoenix is taking the piss on this one. But there remains the chance that Phoenix isn’t faking it, and that he really thinks near-incoherence and a rap career are good ideas. Even if probability leans toward this being a commentary (albeit a ham-fisted one) on the culture of fame — or a Punk’d-esque documentary directed by Casey Affleck — with the amount of press Phoenix has been getting as a result of this appearance, who’s to say he’s not right either way? Of course, he wasn’t the first — nor will he be the last — celebrity to mangle a media moment. From inebriated monologues to sportscaster throw-downs, from coke to couch-jumping, here are the Twenty Weirdest TV Interviews of All Time.”

[MOAR]

Oliver shows off the failed attempts that got him to the place where he could create the game, reveals how Ico/Shadow of the Colossus inspired its design, and gets big bonus points for referencing David Lynch’s excellent book Catching the Big Fish in showing where he gets his inspiration (here, physically, a swimming pool).

Simon Oliver, Handcircus from This Happened – London on Vimeo.
[via]

Oh, hell yes! For halloween a couple of years ago we dressed up as zombie republicans, but this is infinitely better, as there will be more zombies and better drinking.

On the list:
Simon’s – great dive bar. You can order food from the neighborhood and have it delivered here.
Charlie’s Ale House – decent food. A little pricey, but great booths
Hamburger Mary’s – A drag queen themed hamburger joint. Awesome.
Hopleaf – This one isn’t on the “list” but I don’t really understand the point or concept of an “organized” pub crawl. If a bunch of zombies show up to a bar with money, they will be served. The hopleaf has an amazing selection of beers from all around the world.

This pubcrawl will knock your socks off.

Drop us a line if you want to rub elbows at the crawl.zomb

Chicago Zombie Pub Crawl 2

Audio and onscreen text NSFW.

I  have to get a transcript of this. They do a great job of sounding exactly like a kowtowing electronic-interest piece.

via [user submitted video]

Hah ha! I said taint.

Listen to the original version of tainted love. I like the pictures of 1960s computers. Thank you infernet.

I do this same thing every day of my life, but the power is strengthened somewhat by other people participating:

I’m a little conflicted about this one.

1) I love full bodied women. Actually, I love all sorts of women. My standards are pretty low. I can’t really understand really picky men.

It’s like food. Some of it’s amazing. Most of it’s good. Some of it’s bad, but you eat it anyways because you’re hungry. Overall, I can’t imagine turning down food, and I definitely can’t imagine not trying new things, or enjoying food for what it is. Same thing with dames. But I digress.

2) I just lost 25 lbs. It was actually, really easy. All I had to do was put my mind to it and dedicate.

3) Women of shape are hot.

4) Some of the women are a little ditzy and victimish.

5) Naked women with curves.

Warning, it’s mostly talking:

via [googling video for "burlesque"]

I’m going to look for a video clip of this ad.

Scene: A poorly lit room is filled with 4-8 year olds. They are watching Saturday morning cartoons. A video tractor beam is projected onto their face, originating from the screen. They are slowly floating towards the television.

In walks dad with a dozen donuts. It’s family time! Hooray, your children will temporarily spend time near you because you peddled them sugar. Now watch them bounce off the walls for the next three hours.

It’s disgusting, but it’s a 0/10 compared to, oh say the childrens’ crusade.

Anyone who is interested in a few rounds of layer tennis with a focus on vectors and illustrator, drop us a line.

Either start with a link to a file, or an introductory email, and we’ll start the first volley.

No rules, unless you need them to focus.

I’ve got the ability to scan your attachments for viruses and the know-how to find out where you live, so no funny business.

South Park has a really funny episode about the recession.

Favorite scenes:
Stan opens up a savings account and the money is gone before the account is even finished opening up.

A reporter is asked about the situation and blows his brains out in response.

Timothy Geitner uses a combination of a decapitated chicken and wheel of fortune to determine what to do with a failed insurance giant.

vai [I needed something to watch while eating kefir and yogurt]

Tommy Sparks “She’s Got Me Dancing” from Eric Wareheim on Vimeo.

That’s Eric Wareheim of “Tim & Eric’s Awesome Show Great Job” fame. The video does more to capture the internal workings of my mind and is a microcosm of the human condition.

The freeze frame pretty much says it all.

Dancing hippies? Overweight musclewrestlers? Hopping/popping emo kids? An overly muscular woman shooting lasers out of her eyes? Girls in Xena garb eating ice cream cones?

Everyone who thinks my flare for the dramatic borders on attention whore should take note: I am severely underclassed and underdressed:

“The vast majority of the hit casual games are written in C++,” said David Fox of iWin at his talk at GDC’s Casual Games Summit on Monday, as attended by Gamasutra.Nonetheless, he took a look at the wide variety of tools, engines, and middleware that can make development of casual games easier and more profitable.

Gamasutra – News – GDC: Tools Of The Trade For Casual Games

This is a nice brief overview of various indie game platforms. Word to the wise, don’t write your engine from scratch. It’s 2009. You have more interesting things to do.

Not mentioned is the Lassie Adventure Studio, which I plan on using when it is released later this year.

I will, however check out the list in more detail if I become one of the laid-off masses with delusions of indie game glory.

via [googling for some unrelated code advice while working late because you have to share lab equipment with a midget]

Y chromosome – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

“Today, the human Y chromosome itself contains only 78 working genes,^[9] compared to close to 1500 working genes on the X chromosome. In some animals, Y degradation is even more severe. The dunnart, a marsupial carrying a 10-12 Mb Y chromosome, has only four characterised genes; among them the SRY gene, is the smallest known mammalian Y chromosome.”

Via [wikipidia while writing a dirty rap and forgetting which chromosome the mens have]

Some duchebags are proposing that you should use as much electricity as possible during earth hour. It’s funny and I get it, but it won’t be funny in 100 years when people are fighting and dying because of the pollution and energy consumption.

I know that repeating this crap is the worst thing I can do for it, but you should be aware of who you share your world with when you are considering saving it:

 
60 minutes of Anti-Earth Hour

View Current Signatures   –   Sign the Petition

To:  World Population

I am proposing a worldwide strategy to discredit the theories of man-made global warming, starting with the 60 minutes of ‘Anti-Earth Hour’. On the same date and time as Earth Hour, March 29th, 2008 at 8pm, your local time, join the fight against the lights off hour by turning your lights ON.

In fact, turn everything on! Below, I will provide you with a list of all potential items and objects that you can turn ON as a way to counter the effects of Earth Hour.

-all household lights
-air conditioner
-heater
-automobiles (your ride)
-automobile headlights
-washer
-dryer
-dishwasher
-stove/oven
-put on oven’s self-cleaning cycle
-microwave
-any/all kitchen appliances
-television
-dvd player
-game system
-stereo
-and any other electrical equipment you can think of

Please sign this petition to indicate your support and participation to 60 minutes of ‘Anti-Earth Hour’.

Disclaimer: I will not be held responsible for any actions that result in damages or harm, such as but not limited to, burning down your house due to faulty wiring, etc. Participation is at your own discretion.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

Save the Date

Mark your calendars for Friday, MAY 29th!

threewalls is hosting its unforgettable spring fundraiser:

You Oughta be in Fangs
Written and directed by Death by Design

Decadent 1920s party-goers in search of hot-jazz and free-flowing booze, head to an underground speakeasy run by conjoined whisper sisters, but discover cold bodies and free-flowing blood. Assisted by a team of waxen virgins and undead goons, Vampires move incognito through the euphoric crowd, adding to their brood.

Come and enjoy an evening of cocktails, live entertainment, and delectable Vampire bites.

Food created by Bleeding Heart Bakery

Event will be held on May 29th, 2009, details following soon, so stay tuned and be reborn this spring as the eternally undead!

Threewalls info (not sure if this is the address):

    *  119 n. peoria #2d
    * Chicago, IL 60607
    * 312.432.3972
    * info@three-walls.org

via [threewalls pr email]

Let’s say you’re playing tech support for your loved ones.

Let’s then say that they have a laptop by ACER (Aspire 5050) which has ~100 GB hard drive with two partitions of about 50GB apiece.

Let’s then say that said loved one has never put data on the second partition out of ignorance (the kind of ignorance divorced from shame).

You _could_ repartition the hard drive by first deleting the unused partition and expanding the primary partition using the Disk Manager.

But, if you get this error “cannot be converted to dynamic or the volume being extended is a boot or system volume” when you try to expand the primary partition, don’t fret.

Simply _shrink_ the drive. I did it by two bytes. When the disk manager returned from that dialog, it took up the whole 100 GB. It’s a bug, but when a bug does something useful it’s called a feature.

Btw, I’m sorry you’re working on a loved one’s computer.

Dlisted | Be Very Afraid

“The Smoking Gun reports that the methed out version of Billy Mays was arrested in Miami last month after he got into a brawl with a hooker! It all started when Vince picked up the pussy peddler, Sasha Harris, at a night club. The two new lovebirds went back to his room at the Setai Hotel where Sasha told Vince it would cost him $1,000 to slap and chop her snatch. Vince agreed, and so the fun and games began. While they were making out, Vince told the police that Sasha bit down on his tongue and wouldn’t let go. This caused Vince to punch her several times until she let go.”

CAZWELL

YouTube – CAZWELL – I Seen Beyonce At Burger King featuring Jonny Makeup.

Synthesia made a piano learning  tool that looks strikingly like Piano Hero (it was actually called piano hero, but there was an uptight lawyer afraid people might confuse the two). Although there have been piano and midi teaching tools before, this one looks like I might give it a go again. I just hope they build in support for all my extra moog knobs.

Synthesia made a piano learning  tool that looks strikingly like Piano Hero (it was actually called piano hero, but there was an uptight lawyer afraid people might confuse the two). Although there have been piano and midi teaching tools before, this one looks like I might give it a go again. I just hope they build in support for all my extra moog knobs.

AFK JFK | Thinkin’ Lincoln : A Weekdaily Webcomic by Miles Grover

Marilyn62: r u pooping?

Priceless

“One day after publisher Random House signed former President George W. Bush to write a presidential memoir entitled Decision Points, Mr. Bush announced that he had tapped former Vice President Dick Cheney to write the memoir for him.

“This book will detail the twelve greatest decisions I’ve made in my life,” Mr. Bush told reporters in Crawford, Texas today.  “The thirteenth greatest decision was hiring Dick Cheney to write about the other twelve.””

via [borrowitz report], via email suggestion.

Try it, you’ll like it. The Borrowitz Report is great for worktime RSS feeds. It’s short, humorous, and packed with humor. It’s like a long-form satire article boiled down to the bare minimum.

From craigslist:

“Are you hosting a corporate event, a trade show, sci-fi convention, or
even a private function? Looking for a unique way to make any gathering
of people unique and memorable? Look no further! Our Minneapolis,
Minnesota based DeLorean Time Machine rental is an excellent means of
creating unique memories that will last a lifetime. Companies such as
Hyatt-Regency Hotels, SystemWare and more have used our time machine to
enhance their corporate events by creating a time travel theme. The
ways to wrap the theme of time travel around your event are endless.
Need advice? We have worked with numerous creative event agencies. Drop
us an email and let’s talk
“

Check out the details here http://timemachinerental.com/

The rates are pretty good, too. It’s $2 for every mile of travel from
minneapolis plus $750 for the first day and $500 for each additional day. That means it would cost me $1759 to have it hang out in my back yard for a night. “Hey baby, you want to black out and let me have my way in this totally awesome replica of a time machine from 1985? Drink up”.

A college friend of mine just concluded his Thesis Defense. Dr. Wagstrom successfully defended his thesis on Open Source Software and communities.

It’s a little heady at over 200 pages, but it’s good reading if you’re into seeing how OSS communities function and how to exploit/coexist if you’re a big company.

The thesis includes an investigation with Eclipse developers, for those who are interested.

A photobug was recently describing the benefits of a view camera. I always thought they were just old-timey cameras. What I didn’t realize is that the rear section where the photo is exposed could move towards/away from the front, up/down, or tilt. Those features give you an amazing amount of control over the way an image is captured. You can even take a picture of a tall building close up by kajiggering the camera correctly.

It’s weird that we’ve got these fancy digital cameras, but have lost many of the abilities of this old machine.

Let’s hear it for those who have come before us!

Play Sirtet.

It’s like tetris, but
1) You only drop single blocks
2) Blocks only disappear when they form tetroids
3) If you have more than four blocks of a same color touching, they are now dead and can’t be cleared.

It’s fresh. [Try it] via [ironic sans] via [thinkin-lincoln]

I was hunting for a way to send midi messages into flash/actionscript for some live animation hijinks. I would use my midi controller to trigger animations using commercially available sequencing software to record / retrigger once I had the sequence right. I mean, building all of that functionality into flash would be fun, but I’m only going to be alive another 30-50 years, so wheel reuse is sometimes preferrable.

Unfortunately I’ve not found any native support. Just when I was considering creating a midi translator, somebody beat me to the punch. It’s a java application that takes the midi messages and connects them into flash.

Abumarkub via [random internet searches]

I’m going to try out some print-on-demand.

I’ll post the shirt, buy one, and see how I like it and get back to you. But you can buy it now, if you like _heavy_ metal.

BTW, you can customize the color and type of shirt.

They’re going for $5.50 (or best offer) apiece if you buy the whole lot:
Link to eBay auction.

Free shipping. Ooooh. Free shipping.

It’s not that funny, except it’s underwear pervert humor applied to the flaccid economy.

xkcd – A Webcomic – 1000 Times

I use the above comic to precede a harmless anecdote. The economy is such that corporations are doing things to conserve money. Sometimes misguidedly so.

My company is now trying to save money by doing calibration of a subset of our electronic equipment in-house. It can be done in such a way as to not ruin the measurements of our equipment. I will remain skeptical.

An engineer responsible for the process came up to me with a calibration procedure. “Where can I get a 10^12 Ohm resistor”. I thought he was kidding. “You want a tera ohm? Seriously?, you’re going to have to buy one.” Next logical leap. Connecting resistors in series adds their resistance. “Well, can’t we just make one? What’s the biggest resistor size we have?”. “100 Mega Ohms. Don’t even do it. Just don’t. You will be a laughingstock”. Sometime between getting the idea and putting in an inventory request for 10,000 100 Mohm resistors, they realized how long it would take to solder those together.

Proportion. Scale.

After watching some old Episodes of Pee Wee’s Playhouse, I felt like creating a website to announce the secret word of the day.

Rule 1 on website creation: search for prior art:

http://twitter.com/Pee_Wee_Herman

Secret Word

I would like to think that my design would be cleaner and more ad free, but I also think that function precedes form, so enjoy the websites. Take your pick.

(My idea actually would make the action change from day to day. Things like shimmy, dip, pogo, drill, etc

The coconut crab is the largest terrestrial arthropod. It is expected that this is the largest that they _can_ get, which is very fortunate, because along with flying kittens and flying snakes, giant arthropods are creatures who don’t exist but could which would dominate humans very quickly.

Found while doing drawing research.

I went out with a friend of mine and we were remincing about Phil Harman. I found this audition tape of him on the YouTubes:

Holy Schneikies!

One of my favorite games for the NES, “A Boy and his Blob”, is coming to the Wii. They could have made it with nubbin 8-bit graphics and I would have come running.

By the way, there is an awesome remix from ocremix.org of the soundtrack.

Update: I found some video of the gameplay. From the video, it looks as if you have an unlimited number of jellybeans. I’m not sure how to feel about that, because the jellybean scarcity made the game challenging. It was also a little bland and monotonous after the first few hours of play, so maybe this is a bonus. I still can’t get over how gorgeous the graphics are.

 
Dot for Meggy Jr. – demo + screencast from make magazine on Vimeo.

Meggy Jr RGB is a handheld platform for developing your own pixel-scale video games. Featuring a fully addressable 8×8 RGB LED matrix display, big fat comfy button switches, customizable handles, a lo-fi audio transducer, and even 8 extra LEDs for lives, score, ammo, or level, Meggy Jr RGB is a little kit you won’t want to miss. Meggy Jr is fast, programmable, open source and hackable.

Stuff like this is hard for me to resist. You can pick one up here and get some code for it here.

There is a pink dolphin.

Maybe now they will overturn Proposition 8.