WINNERS

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Hokuto no Ken for the Sega Genesis.



So I got this game with my Genesis when I was a kid. In North America it's called "Last Battle". Mostly because in the late 1980s most people didn't know what the fuck Hokuto no Ken was. Additionally they toned down the body/head exploding and enemies just whizzed off the screen. I never got even close to finishing it because I sucked at videogames... and it's crazy to see someone get farther than I did when I was 9 (which like i said, isn't too hard).

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

THE LAST STARFIGHTER

Most of you are probably a lot younger than I am, but that doesn't matter. I want you to go to the "VIDEOSTORE" and check out a copy of The Last Starfighter. It is pure 1980s awesome. If you are a hopeless videogame addict this movie will give you the warm fuzzies.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

How to tell if you're bad at video games

Christopher Hitchens is the man

Organisms that glow - Bioluminescence



These are Cypridina hilgendorfii. They belong to a class of organisms called ostracods - a type of crustacean. Too tiny to make a meal of, humans have nonetheless found a use for them. When you piss them off, they secrete a substance that glows a beautiful blue color. This species is native to Japan, and is locally called umi-hotaru, or sea firefly. They were used in WWII by Japanese soldiers to provide light to read maps and messages.
C. hilgendorfii in action. The jar is from the 1940s and yet the chemicals remain active.
Although there are tons of sea creatures that can produce their own light, many other types of organism have similar abilities. Certain insects and fungi can also give off different colors of light. The biochemical pathways for fireflies, fungi, ostracods, etc. are not all similar, suggesting that bioluminescence has evolved multiple times independently.


 

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

STOP MAKIN FUN OF MY POKEMON

NOPE

Fear is one hell of a motivator.



I saw this on a blog called The Derp Files and watching it pissed me off.

You know, the USA has abandoned its founding principles, but not by passing health care and stimulus packages; rather, by poisoning its political system with lobbyists and poisoning its electorate with media garbage like this. FFS half the former presidential candidates for the Republican party have jobs on FOX News. There's something wrong with that. Palin's still in the public eye despite being irrelevant and incompetent. You can bet that Christine O'Donnell (the tea party lady who is not a witch) will follow the Palin strategy and write a book or join FOX news and make millions.

America is waning in technological leadership, industrial leadership, and is in danger of a huge faith-based backslide in personal freedoms courtesy of a party which bandies the word "freedom" about like it's a thing you can buy from Billy Mays. George Washington would be sick.

Additionally, the Chinese ALSO spent money on stimulus, and they are currently UNDERGOING health care reform.

If you want some hyperbole, here you go.  If america falls, it's not gonna be because of health care. It's gonna be because of corporations selling out american jobs overseas coupled with endless tax breaks for corporations and the rich. It's gonna be because of repeated funding cuts to education, infrastructure, and science. It's gonna be because of deregulation of financial markets, turning the stock market back into a casino. It's gonna be because of global warming deniers, abstinence-only education, creationism, and tax-free churches.
 

Monday, November 1, 2010

You wish you were a spy.

And that's okay. Aram Bartholl wants you to feel like a spy with his new project, "Dead Drops". Named after the spy technique of  the "dead drop" , the idea is simple: USB thumbdrives grouted into the sides of brick buildings throughout a city. Anyone can upload or download their contents. Have a song you want people to listen to? Some photographs or art to show off? Upload it to a dead drop. At the time of writing there are 5 in NYC only, but who knows how big this could get.

Sounds like a cool idea, but how many people are just gonna a) delete the files, b)fill it with copies of goatse or other malicious content, or c) steal the thumbdrive and sell it for crack?

We've seen instances where this kind of information availability can bring out the best in people, and also the worst. Time will tell if Aram's project will take off.

Aram Bartholl's "Dead Drops"

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Alright, This is a picture of the Sun.

It looks like some sort of fuzzy ball of lint, but this is an image of our host star the Sun. What you see are filaments of plasma on the surface.

Free Candy!!

Friday, October 29, 2010

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Behold the Mimic Octopus


Many cephalopods such as octopuses and squid have amazing control over their skin color and texture, both to hide them from would-be predators AND to give them a leg up (8 legs up?) on their prey.


Apart from the bright blue eye spot, this octopus is very successfully camouflaged.



Oh, and to put it to rest: don't worry about the plural of octopus. Strictly speaking it's 'octopodes' because the -pus ending is Greek (as opposed to Latin). Nobody uses that though, so octopi or octopuses is just as good.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Run and sell that... homeboy

Looks like Antoine Dodson of "Bed Intruder" fame has come out to pitch an iphone app that alerts you to nearby sex offenders. Try not to use it in Ohio or your entire screen will be full of red dots.

Bullets hitting things

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Bees and Flowers

I don't know how many of you knew about this, so I figured i'd show you something cool. Humans have decent eyesight (well most of us do), but our vision encompasses just a tiny slice of the electromagnetic spectrum. We can't see ultraviolet or X rays, and we can't see infrared, microwaves, or radiowaves. When we look at a yellow flower, all we see is yellow. Bees can see into the ultraviolet spectrum, and many species of flowering plants have flowers with patterns only visible in UV. The leading theory is that these patterns serve to help guide bees to them.

The visible spectrum (left) and the false-color UV (right). Obviously the UV part isn't actually "red": we don't have a word for whatever color it really is because our brains can't make sense of it. 

:3

Alright I just saw this video of a budgie that makes R2D2 noises. It's amazing.





If you want to learn more about birds I'm sure that bird on head could help you with that. She's got a bird and a blog, and doesn't afraid of anything.

Creepy Doll Lady

I don't remember when I found this site, or even how. Hell, I don't even remember bookmarking it. Long story short, it's a set of galleries of creepy repainted dolls.  The most upsetting by far is the male doll on the left, who the painter has seen fit to adorn with a five o'clock shadow despite all the dolls being proportioned like children. There are dozens of galleries of these creepy dolls, in different clothes and different poses. I challenge you to make one of the pics your desktop wallpaper without having nightmares tonight.
OH NO NOT THE BEES! NOT THE BEES! OH GOD THEY'RE IN MY EYES

Friday, October 22, 2010

QUICHE

Quiche is delicious, let me tell you. The tl;dr of a quiche is that it's like a pie full of omelet. Everybody likes pie. Like tourtiere, this is a pie you eat for a meal. Can you believe that shit?

The real business is that is it so much more than just a pie made of omelet. You have an awesome flaky crust and a filling that is egg based, but lighter in texture than an omelet.

You can put whatever you want into it, but one of the classics is quiche lorraine. It is named Quiche Lorraine because of the character Lorraine McFly in Back to the Future. Yes, Marty McFly's mother invented the quiche lorraine (the scene was cut out of the movie). There is literally nothing bad about it. It's gruyere cheese and bacon. It's a pie with cheese and bacon in it. The only way it could possibly get better is if it also contained winning lottery tickets.

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE. You like spinach? Hell yes you do. You like it because it's tasty and is full of vitamin A and some other shit too. I bet you could put that shit into a quiche if you wanted. You know, maybe sweat down some onions in butter on low heat and cook them til they're translucent, then saute some spinach up in there. mix it with some beaten eggs and cream, a tiny bit of flour, a tiny bit of nutmeg,  and pour that delicious liquid into a pastry crust that you had blind-baked earlier (or bought I guess). If the stars are aligned just right, you could bake it in an oven at 350F until a pin poked into the center came out clean.

You could call it... quiche florentine.

LOOK AT THIS MOTHERFUCKING QUICHE. LOOK.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Man bothers cop with dildo

Fallout New Vegas unboxing video - hilarious

Dude giving you the play-by-play of what you get when you purchase Fallout New Vegas...

Nudibranchs

These marine gastropods are typically brightly colored to discourage predation - they themselves are voracious predators. I'll picspam later but for now, check out this one.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH FALLOUT NEW VEGAS.

Aging is a disease, and this man wants to cure it.

No, this is not Rasputin.

Some of you might know this gentleman: Aubrey de Grey. He's an Englishman who has taken up the quest to annihilate age-related diseases. Don't let him catch you calling it immortality - a claim that many journalists love to bandy about when referring to de Grey. Immortality is the necessary endpoint of his quest, but increased health into old age is the real subject. He aims to rally biologists, gerontologists, and geneticists to tackle aging on a cellular level. To that end, the Methuselah foundation (named after the biblical character) has created a contest to substantially increase the lifespan of mice.

Recently de Grey's group has put up a new contest - one that will reward the first research group to develop a fully transplantable human organ, grown from the ground up. The idea? If an organ is failing, simply swap it out for a fresh one.

There's a great wired interview available here for those of you who are interested.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Who wants to live forever?

New research shows that increased intake of branched-chain amino acids (leucine, isoleucine, valine) can raise the median lifespan of mice by 12%. Take care to note that the MAXIMUM age at death was not raised, but the average age at death.
It is thought they act by increasing productivity of mitochondria and staving off the ravages of reactive oxygen species (ROS), which are implicated in DNA damage and disruption of cellular function.

After a little searching I found that BCAA supplements have been available for bodybuilding for some time, and although it isn't the fountain of youth, it may be beneficial.

INCEPTION

YouTube Doubler

environmentally friendly jaguar

This is the Jaguar CX75. It combines electric motors and microturbines. Microturbines are a technology that WAS used in some cars in the 1950s, but ultimately abandoned because American consumers rejected the near-silent turbine tech because they didn't sound like the roaring V8s they were accustomed to.

At any rate this car, when finished, will be very quick - 0-60 in 3.4s with a top speed of 205 mph. It won't be cheap either - estimates come in at $300,000USD.

Jaguar CX75. Click to embiggen

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Suddenly, no visitors?

Hits crashed hard the last couple of days, what gives?

Harry Enfield - LOADSAMONEY

A sad announcement.

Mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot has died at age 85, of causes undisclosed. He was the originator of fractal geometry - the famous Mandelbrot set was named after him. Below is a zoom into the mandlebrot set, showing increasing complexity the more you zoom in.


Friday, October 15, 2010

GIMME PIZZAAAAA

Need a study break? Think again.

A new study has shown that your willpower is linked to how you think willpower works.
In essence, your perceptions and beliefs are far more powerful than you realize.

The study split students into two groups - one was told that willpower was a 'limited resource' that you needed to replenish with rest/breaks from the task at hand, and the other was told that willpower was inexhaustible.

Those who were told that willpower was limited ended up procrastinating 35% more on demanding tasks, and ate 24% more junk food. Those who were told that willpower was unlimited ended up powering through tasks and procrastinated far less.

Just think about it. Apparently was have an inexhaustible supply of mental effort on call. That's pretty impressive, and it has implications for addiction and obesity treatments.

Last year's 500 carat monster diamond

Sourced from the Cullinan mine in South Africa - named after the 3000+ carat Cullinan diamond.I am not sure of the fate of this 500+ carat diamond but it looks exceptionally clear and free from inclusions and imperfections.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Interactive BATMAN/JOKER Breakdance!

Check this out. Batman and the Joker have a breakdance competition in the subway. It's interactive, so you have to choose a character and choose his moves!

U GONNA GET GRAPED

Nanotechnology - Water bouncing on carbon nanotube array

This ultra-high speed film shows the superhydrophobic (water avoiding) nature of a carbon nanotube array. The force of surface tension in the water droplet is much greater than the attractive force between the droplet and the array, so the water remains a droplet instead of spreading out and soaking into the array.

Many everyday objects have hydrophobic coatings: eyeglasses, automobiles, kitchenware, carpets, and some clothing.

THIS IS THE FUTURE OF VIDEO GAMES



I'm sure some devs warned marketing that FPS games on kinect would make people look like retards... but they went ahead with it anyways.

Valve announces DOTA 2!!!!

Not surprisingly, Valve + Icebox have announced the sequel to DotA, DOTA 2.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

DotA developer + Valve making an announcement tomorrow!

Apparently Valve and Riot! games have been battling over the trademark for DOTA / Defense of the Ancients. I don't know who's going to win, or what Valve has in mind for its announcement. Is Valve going to release a source-based steam-enabled champion battlan game?


Time (tomorrow) will tell!

League of Legends


Edit: fuck this game

Sunday, October 10, 2010

SUPER HOT UPDATE LoL Edition

I'm fucking TERRIBLE at League of Legends.

It's unbelievable.



Oh shit did you also hear about Google... they have been test driving automatic/computer controlled cars.

Internet company Google is testing cars that can start, steer and stop without a human driver.

Google says its engineers have test driven more than 225,000 km using seven test cars. The cars have been tested on several California roads, including San Francisco's winding Lombard Street.

The cars use video cameras, radar sensors and a laser range finder to "see" other traffic, as well as detailed maps to navigate the road ahead.

Google says the cars are safer than those with human drivers because they can react more quickly and effectively. However, during all tests humans were available to take over the controls if needed.

Jon Stewart just chillin out with a bunny.

George Carlin telling it like it is.

Blogging Update

I love to read blogs. One of the ways I can catch up with you guys and read your blog is if you put your blog link in your profile. That way, myself or any other fans can just take a look at your profile in order to get linked to your blog. It's a great way of getting yourself out there.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Canadian Thanksgiving > American Thanksgiving.

Not that I'm hating on Americans or anything, but our version of thanksgiving is superior. The primary reason is timing. Canadian Thanksgiving is in October, a full two months before Christmas. This leaves exactly enough time to a) not be tired of turkey anymore and b) Lose the weight incurred by gorging on thanksgiving dinner. Americans have Thanksgiving in November... hardly enough time to regain turkey lust OR lose the post-turkey day blubber.

I will admit that I'm touched (aroused?) by the heartwarming story of how pilgrims nearly starved to death and were subsequently saved by north american indians, only to be repaid with smallpox and genocide. Your thanksgiving STORY is better.

COOKING PRO TIP: Before cooking your bird, jam butter between the skin and the meat. Try to get it everywhere. You can use a compound butter too if you like. Also, when you baste it.. instead of using water, use some half-decent white wine. Gravy with wine in it is godtier.

Looking to buy a new computer? Check this out.

This guide is originally from /g/. It might be a couple of months old, but what this means is that the prices in the guide have fallen. Remember to search for the lowest prices for individual components, and go with retailers you trust. If you find a low price at a retailer you've never heard of / has bad ratings, see if you can get that component price matched with a more reputable retailer.
I got my last set of components at http://www.ncix.com/ , a Canadian retailer. I did my price comparisons at www.shopbot.ca. Your mileage may vary, of course.


Thursday, October 7, 2010

NYC Mayor Bloomberg doesn't want food stamps being used for soft drinks

In an attempt to curb childhood obesity, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg and his health commissioner want to ban the use of food stamps to purchase soda.

"City statistics released last month showed that nearly 40 percent of public-school children in kindergarten through eighth grade were overweight or obese, and that obesity rates were substantially higher in poor neighborhoods. City studies show that consumption of sugared beverages is consistently higher in those neighborhoods."

Personally I think it's a great idea. Food stamps are meant to help poor families get the nutrition they need to stay healthy. Soft drinks have no nutritional value in them, so it stands to reason that they should not be eligible for purchase with food stamps. Yeah, everyone needs a treat or whatever once in a while, but the government food stamps are for necessities, not treats.

It IS true that the USA's agriculture has an artificially skewed price structure (cheap meat, cheap starch, expensive veggies... thanks subsidies!), but estimates put soda pop purchases around 100 million dollars of the 2 billion dollars worth of food stamps. Allocating that 100 million dollars to fresh and healthy food would definitely have a positive impact.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Cee-Lo Green - Fuck You (Live)

Hunt's Ketchup pulls HFCS from their products!

While there are still detractors of the claim that HFCS = shit, some companies seem to be responding to consumer dissatisfaction.

Personally, I highly doubt that enough companies will make the same positive change that Hunt's has - the US corn industry is too mighty. If Pepsi turns "Throwback" into a permanent product... there might be some hope.

 

New Hunt's 100% Natural Ketchup Features Five Simple Ingredients

OMAHA, Neb., May 17 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Hunt's®, a ConAgra Foods brand, is pleased to announce that it has removed the high fructose corn syrup from every bottle of its ketchup products. Hunt's 100% Natural Ketchup brings forth the naturally rich tomato flavor of Hunt's tomatoes and contains only five simple ingredients: tomatoes, sugar, vinegar, salt and other seasonings, with no high fructose corn syrup, artificial ingredients or preservatives.

Hunt's 100% Natural Ketchup began rolling out to major markets nationwide in mid-April. Consumers should be able to find product on shelves everywhere by mid-May. Suggested retail pricing for the new Hunt's ketchup recipe is the same as the previous recipe. 

SMOKE KETCHUP EVERYDAY

the hungarian sludge spill is really bad. wow.

An aluminum plant in Ajka, Hungary spilled some nasty red shit which has killed more than 100 people so far. It's gotten into a nearby tributary and will be flowing into the Danube river. 40 square kilometers have been polluted with this shit. I'm sure the company will face no consequences! Photos AP.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Inception soundtrack makes everything sound epic.

I don't give a damn if you've never seen the movie. This soundtrack will make the most mundane activity seem like the whole world is at stake.

You could be taking a piss, you could be checking your email, or microwaving a god damn burrito. To the Inception soundtrack, you are checking your email for reality altering viruses. you are taking a piss to save the world. That burrito is the one thing that stands between you and oblivion.

Incidentally if you haven't seen the movie... it is excellent.


BWOWWWWMMMMM

Russian FOAB - "Father of all Bombs"

Apparently this bomb outclasses the previous champion for "biggest goddam conventional bomb", the american MOAB, by quite a bit. It's got 4 times the yield (44 tons TNT equivalency) and 2 times the destructive radius as the american MOAB, despite weighing a good 1000kg less.




So there was a furry at work yesterday...

I'm not quite sure why, but there was a dude in a fox suit at work yesterday. He was ADD bouncing around the lobby while another gentleman took pictures of him. I wasn't able to take any pictures but he looked kinda like this.
wat.




Sunday, October 3, 2010

State of the blog address

Hey guys, I've noticed a few more folks have followed recently. Glad you like what you see on this blog, and I'm sure some of you have blogs of your own you'd like me to check out. I will take a peek at them when I get home today. I'm sure you've got some cool posts.

Friday, October 1, 2010

More Minecraft. Yep!

Started a new map. This is what I found. Giant overhangs and a lava fountain in the middle of the central one. This shit is gonna be dangerous since the giant shadowy area will keep monsters alive for much longer than usual. Since I usually have no regard for my safety, I will likely die a ton.

Wanna fight the forces of evil? it's easy!

One of the greatest YTP videos ever made. Easily.

Inkjet printers waste horrendous amounts of ink.

This is just criminal. If you ever wondered why your inkjet printer is constantly crying out for ink refills... take a look at this.




There's a reason why companies can sell printers for 50 dollars. It's because they piss through the ink so fast they recoup all the money lost on the printer sale in a matter of months. All I can say is next time, I'm buying a laser printer.

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Alright this is friggin genius: Minecraft water ladder

I gotta try it, looks almost as fast as the boat elevator with no risk of drowning!




Pico de gallo

Also called salsa fresca, this condiment brings freshness and heat to tex-mex food.
It's 'similar' to the commercial salsa you buy at the supermarket, only it tastes less like preservatives and ass.
This stuff is also unbelievably easy to make. Seriously.

3 medium tomatoes
1/2 small onion
Some sort of hot pepper. obviously jalapenos are popular cause they're 'meatier' and not too hot. I used birds eye chilis cause thats what's in the garden.
4 or 5 sprigs of fresh cilantro (leave this out if you're one of the poor bastards with the gene that makes it taste like soap)
juice of one lime
More salt than you would think is necessary

Dice the tomatoes and onion. If you've got jalapenos dice them too. If you've got a tinier chili, chop them even smaller. Rip the cilantro leaves off of the sprigs and rock your knife across the leaves to chop them up a bit, then throw them in. Add more salt than you would deem necessary. Roll the lime to bust the juice capsules then shank it like an inmate and squeeze it in.

Achievement unlocked: You just made some pico de gallo.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Minecrafting some more

Got an amazing world spawned in minecraft... giant gatdam cave system full of lava and water - as a matter of fact i found the vast ocean draining into a huge vertical shaft right by my spawn. Couple of floating islands too. Watch this space for some screenshots. I am by no means an autist minecraft pro but this particular world is cool as hell.

Quick Non-authentic green curry

My way of doing thai curry is not strictly thai style - it's hybridized between Indian and Thai. I fried onions and curry paste in oil, then tossed the chicken chunks in that mixture. I also threw in a couple of finely diced habaneros (which caused my hands to burn for two days afterwards). After the chicken was partially cooked, I added a can of coconut milk and brought it to simmer. After that i threw in some zucchini and green peppers - couldn't find thai eggplant, not that THAT is a surprise at all.

Ate it w/ rice, cilantro, and freshly snipped bird's eye chilis. Next time I cook something interesting i'll get some pictures up.

Minecraft Autism - Dude builds a motherfucking PROCESSOR in minecraft.





WAT

Edit - The guy who did this apparently got a job offer because of it.

Germany will finally finish paying reparations for World War I on October 3, 2010

This weekend, Germany will pay the last sum of money they owe to the Allies for WWI. The last chunk of money is approximately 100 million US dollars. With giant numbers being swung around all the time in the media, the total amount of reparations might surprise you - only 40 billion US dollars. The reparation amount was set by the allies at the end of the war at the Treaty of Versailles, mainly to punish Germany for being dicks, and also to try to rebuild France and Belgium (whose infrastructure and land were heavily damaged).

As you may or may not remember, part of Hitler's platform was rejection of the Treaty of Versailles. Bitching about the ToV was instrumental in Hitler's garnering popular support for the Nazi party.

So Gratulation an Deutschland!

Saturday, September 25, 2010

ROBO GEISHA


This is my face when i saw this fuckin movie. Two bombs were not enough.

An open-ended question: Is there life on other planets in the universe?

I'm too damn lazy to make a poll. I don't give a damn. Think about this shit though:

Our current search for Earth-like planets should find a suitably Earth-like candidate by May 2011.
We already know of approximately 1200 exoplanets (planets that orbit other stars), and our methods for detecting low mass planets keep improving.

But do we even need Earth-like conditions for life to occur? What about places like Mars, Titan and Europa?
If you do think there is life out there, do you mean sentient life, complex organisms, or just simple microbe analogs?

Let me know what you think.

Minecraft, or "How I learned to stop worrying and love the creeper"

Alright, I gotta get this shit off my chest (presumably because minecraft shits on my chest).

I suck dick at minecraft. It's shameful. I never care about survival. i never prepare or make enough picks/shovels/etc. I forget to make armor pretty much every time. I run around at night like a boss. I jump over lava. I am shit at the game on purpose. Some people like to build amazing monuments to the lord of autism - I just want to get away with being a dick head as long as I can.

this is your god.

Friday, September 24, 2010

IT'S LIKE IM REALLY IN /CK/

Alright let me tell you about these little fuckers here. A lot of people think that these are split peas.


WRONG. These are yellow lentils, lens culinaris. Lentils are a member of the pulse family of plants, and they are packed to the brim with dietary fibre and motherfuckin protein. They will make you a beast. Get a crock pot, put some onions and garlic in that bitch. Sweat that shit out on low with a little oil, then add some chopped chili pepper, cumin, and tumeric. Maybe a little fresh curry leaf if you feel like it. Then add equal volumes lentils and stock. I use chicken stock but you can use vegetable stock. I don't give a damn.
Put the lid on and simmer that shit, stirring occasionally.
Eat with some rice.

Did I mention that lentils are super inexpensive, healthier, and much tastier than RAMEN?

CHALLENGE 1

Yo I just got this idea a minute ago.

I wanna hear the best thing that happened to you this last week. It can be simple as hell like finding a $20 in a jacket pocket, or something crazy like reuniting with a lost relative. If it made your life more positive, post it here. Be inspirational and be cool.

S

Sit down. Listen to what Shaundre says.

Welcome everyone to my brand new shiny blog!


I'm new to this whole thing so bear with me. I'm gonna change the gatdamn world with this thing some day but first I gotta get some momentum. This is where you come in. Great things can be achieved when everyone works together.


Peace.