Someone has made a video of the unaired pilot of "Heat Vision and Jack" available via bittorrent. From waxy.org:
First up, the best TV pilot you've never seen: Ben Stiller's Heat Vision and Jack from 1999. Jack Black stars as Jack Austin, an astronaut on the run from NASA after a solar accident makes him the smartest man in the universe. Owen Wilson plays his talking motorcycle. Produced by Stiller, who also appears in the introduction and as a strip club DJ. [waxy.org]
[via boing boing]
From a mailing list I'm on comes this site: askthetechgirl.com.
What is "Ask The Tech Girl"?
If you like sexy, smart, strong girls with superior tech skills, you are in luck.
"Ask The Tech Girl" gives you the rare opportunity to talk live to a super smart, sometimes snarky and always sexy tech girl, geek chick or network ops cutie.
The next time you need tech support, why not spice it up a little? Call our toll free number and find out why we say "We Give Good Tech"...
(Aha, they got the link from Something Positive).
Mark Twain
"By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man's, I mean."
[Quotes of the Day]
From over on Population:One:
Let me get this straight. Nicholas Cage is playing Benjamin Franklin Gates, scion of the family Gates, which has been sworn for generations to find and protect a legendary treasure. The Founding Fathers of the United States left clues to the location of the treasure in the symbols of America, in particular the eye in the pyramid. Now he's racing against a British rival to reach the treasure before it's too late?
I'll see that. [Population: One]
The preview looks quite cool. And I'm a sucker for conspiracy type movies. I'll definitely check it out.
The creator of ASCII, Bob Bemer, has died at the age of 78.
Key computer coding creator dies
The man who invented the Esperanto of the technology world enabling computers to swap information freely has died.
Bob Bemer developed the Ascii coding system to standardise the way computers represent letters, numbers, punctuation marks and some control codes.
He also introduced the backslash and escape key to the world of computers and was one of the first to warn about the dangers of the millennium bug.
Mr Bemer died on 22 June at his home in Texas following a battle with cancer. [BBC News]
If you are using IE on Windows, you might want to think about looking at an alternate browser for today (or heck, forever). Microsoft released a warning about IE and IIS yesterday, indicating that they have a security hole which could enable hackers to get at your personal information when visiting compromised web sites. I personally recommend Firefox (the latest Mozilla browser), it's pretty slick. There's also Opera, which I used to use a lot when I was using Windows more.
I know a few friends of mine who still use Windows have said this feels like the last straw for them. Firefox works well and with this they're about to give up on IE for good.
The Trunk Monkey, from Suburban Auto Group. Having a problem on the road? Get pulled over by a cop? Get egged by kids? No need to fear, The Trunk Monkey is here to save the day. I think I need the theft retrieval system the most.
Update: From the comments on this post, it appears that Trunk Monkey is originally from Trunkmonkey Racing, a race team that came up with the concept over two years prior to Suburban Auto Group's ad campaign. Supposedly they are slightly annoyed, but "basking in the publicity." Sounds like a plan to me, they've even got an Orkut community.
Charles M. Schulz
"I know the answer! The answer lies within the heart of all mankind! The answer is twelve? I think I'm in the wrong building."
[Quotes of the Day]
via Boing Boing, photos from the Superman Festival in Metropolis, IL. None of the Supermen look that happy to be there though.
From MacNN:
Alpine Interface Adapter for iPod to ship this fall
Alpine today announced it would ship its Alpine Interface Adapter for iPod (model KCA-420i) this fall... [MacNN]
I really really want this. I don't mind using the cassette adaptor, but it just isn't as good as having a direct line in.
From an article on CNET about Yahoo blocking Trillian:
IM spam, commonly referred to as "spim," has been flagged by experts as a growing problem. However, experts have also written off spim as a far cry from e-mail spam, which has caused enormous headaches for consumers and businesses alike. [CNET.com]
SPIM? I have to say this is one of the lamer terms I've heard. If you look at the origin of the term spam, it doesn't even seem to come from email at all. So I guess that means for email we should be calling it 'spem'.
I really can't think of anything to say about this except maybe "DEAR GOD WHY!?"
An all-star CD starring William Shatner?
Ben Folds puts own album on hold for actor's work
CLEVELAND, Ohio (Billboard) -- Ben Folds is pushing back the release date of his next solo album to early 2005 in order to give "Star Trek" veteran William Shatner's upcoming collection, "Has Been," his full attention. The set is being targeted for a September release by Shout! Factory.
"It is a great record and it is really worth going out and doing some shows in major cities," Folds told Billboard.com. "(Shatner) is not a musician at all -- he's not rapping or singing -- but he is still part of the music. I've never heard a record quite like it." [CNN.com]
I just discovered today that Hartford, CT is now one of the cities listed on craigslist.com. I didn't think we were a big enough place to even rate our own section of craiglist.
My mom's been wanting to try out Comcast's On Demand for a while. This afternoon she decided to watch Love Actually on it. I've been watching too and in my opinion On Demand isn't worth the price of it. First, lots of small streaming issues. Little audio glitches or small bits of pixilation. My parents say they didn't notice, but it's just enough to drive me nuts. Second, pan & scan. Boo Hiss. I didn't notice any choice to order a widescreen version either. So given that it isn't much cheaper than a DVD I think I'll stick to renting DVDs.
Oh, and the movie wasn't too bad.
Solomon Short
"Any great truth can -- and eventually will -- be expressed as a cliche -- a cliche is a sure and certain way to dilute an idea. For instance, my grandmother used to say, 'The black cat is always the last one off the fence.' I have no idea what she meant, but at one time, it was undoubtedly true."
[Quotes of the Day]
Wired has an interesting article on how spam affects the blind.
Blind Get Earful of Spam Daily
It's annoying to read spam. It's even worse to hear it. Blind users rely on text-to-speech programs to hear what's on their screens, and they face an aural assault daily. [Wired News]
AnimeonDVD.com is reporting that CLAMP will be working on some sort of project with Marvel Comics due out in 2005. The character it involves was not named but was said to be someone you wouldn't think of as typical CLAMP material. Hmm. I'm trying to think of who I might want to see a CLAMP version of. Almost anyone I think of leaves me with a bit of a disturbed feeling. Just think of Spidey, X-Men, or maybe Ghost Rider as done by CLAMP.
It seems that octopuses have have a prefered limb (tentacle?):
Octopuses have a preferred arm
Most octopuses have a favourite arm, zoologists have discovered. This is the first time they have been found to show any bias when choosing which of their eight limbs is right for the job.
The creatures use their trusty first-choice appendage when exploring a new nook or cranny, says Ruth Byrne of the University of Vienna in Austria. She presented the discovery on Sunday at the annual meeting of the Animal Behavior Society in Oaxaca, Mexico. [Nature.com] [via David Harris' Science & Literature]
How exactly does one say which arm it is? Something like 3rd limb clockwised?
Since I've been spending a lot of my time down in CT these days I've been watching the news here a lot more. The big story for a while has been the investigation of Gov. John Rowland. Lately it has seemed like there's been almost a little bit more every day about his dealings.
HARTFORD, Connecticut (AP) -- Connecticut Gov. John G. Rowland will announce his resignation Monday night, amid a federal corruption investigation and a growing move to impeach him, an administration source told The Associated Press.
The governor was planning to announce his resignation on a live television address to the state at 6 p.m., the source said Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Rowland's resignation would elevate Lt. Gov. M. Jodi Rell to governor.
Rowland, 47, a Republican easily re-elected to a third term in 2002, admitted late last year that he lied about accepting gifts and favors from friends, state contractors and state employees. [CNN.com]
Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there. Today mom and I made breakfast for my dad. I made hollandaise sauce for the first time, it wasn't too hard (I used Alton's recipe since I'd just seen him make it on his show recently).
The wonderful folks at TRSI just delivered my copy of the LE of ROD TV. The case for the series is like an actual book with plastic 'pages' for the DVDs. It's definitely the coolest of the DVD cases I have. I took a picture with my crappy little phone cam since I can't seem to find my digital camera at the moment. Click on the image to the left for a bigger picture.
For the strange but cool department:
Flash: 99 Rooms
99 Rooms. Enter at your own risk. (I haven't wandered too deeply, yet.) It's easy to waste time here! [#!/usr/bin/girl]
It's not a game. But it is interactive. This is one of those things that I think flash is really cool for. This reminds me of some of the early stuff I remember people doing with Quicktime ages ago.
Via Ellen:
I'm an irredeemably eejitous, liberal, tight as fuck, pathetically simple-minded, dribbling child!
See how compatible you are with me!
[Brought to you by Rum and Monkey]
Via The Universal Church of Cosmic Uncertainty, a link to a cool project for making an Amazon Wish-of-the-Month club. Each month it randomly picks something for you to buy from your wish list and buys it and sends it to you. You set things like a price maximum so that you don't end up buying something too expensive. Quite the cool idea.
The other day I was at the video store and happened to see a copy of one of my favorite '60s movies, The President's Analyst. James Coburn plays Dr. Sidney Schaefer, the analyst for the President of the United States. Of course this becomes a dangerous job since every other government on the planet wants to find out what the President has been talking about. IMHO, It's one of the best spy/conspiracy spoofs ever. I remember the first time I saw it, it was on TV as the afternoon movie when I was a teenager. I loved it then and I've loved it almost every other time I've seen it. I'm so happy to find this out on DVD.
One side note, the case for this DVD is one of the more strange ones I've ever seen (see image). It has latches on the side to help keep the DVD case closed. When i first tried to open it I was baffled for the first few moments. Has anyone seen any other releases with this type of case?
This subject in my spam folder had me scratching my head some today:
menstruate Any software - very low prices rumpus
There's a class on anime at the University of Texas. Sounds pretty cool. I've actually read Dr. Napier's book Anime: From Akira to Princess Mononoke a few years ago and thought it was interesting. Why couldn't they have classes like that where I went to school (oh wait. I did take that class called "Sex and Death", nevermind).
It strikes me that something is seriously wrong with a vibrating rubber ducky.
While languishing in the bath, there are a number of different items that'll make your stay infinitely more pleasurable than a touch of Radox and a few bath salts. There's the loofah for one, and a more pleasurable back scratching device hasn't been invented. There's also the rubber duck, essential for any aquatic recreation, although seldom seen at the municipal swimming baths for obvious reasons. The duck is an icon of water-based serenity. A beacon in the fog of a steaming hot tub. A little yellow rubber thing that floats in your bath.
Or at least it was until the arrival of I Rub My Duckie, the rubber duck with a secret weapon beneath the hood. Dubbed a personal massager, the Prozac-faced yellow peril houses a powerful motor that provides the user with an unlimited (well, two AA batteries kind of unlimited) source of soothing, vibrating enjoyment. [firebox.com]
boing boing has a cool link to a site that gives events in alternate history. Here's a bit from today's history:
in the Dreaming, Wandjina came to the people of Pindanjaru with much wisdom. He spoke of caring for the land, of building a bridge to the stars, and of the coming of the pale men. He promised to return on that day to defend the Dreaming against their invasion.
in 1149 B.C., Trojan forces landed on the shores of Greece, and began a 10-year siege of the peninsula.
in the 3rd year of Usermaatreakhenamun's Reign, a vision of Egypt destroyed came to him in a dream. The young pharaoh had been sickly, but this dream filled him with strength. He began to eat only fresh vegetables and meats, and soon his strength grew. By the end of his 53-year reign, Usermaatreakhenamun had conquered half of the known world, and Egypt would never be in danger of destruction again.
in Kaliyuga 597, Gauthama Siddhartha, a prince of India, sat beneath a tree and meditated. The riches of his people were before him, privilege and honor enough for 10 nobles. But he knew nothing of poverty. After much meditation, he decided he preferred it that way. He became a hideous tyrant, conquering the lands to the north as well as other Hindi.
in 1304, so-called "Protestants" founded the city of Jesu, in France. Worshipping in secret, the Protestants grew in number in the region until they felt strong enough to attempt secession from the Holy British Empire.
in 1789, Mrs. Alexander Hamilton served a dessert treat for General George Washington, a dish called ice cream. It was not received well, and has never been a popular sweet since.
in 4561, in a desparate attempt to gain access to food from farmlands around the city, troops in Hanoi burst through the Chinese siege forces in a bloody battle lasting half the day.
in 1892, Sir Basil Rathbone, famed director of the British cinema, was born. Early in his career he had tried his hand at acting, but was such a miserable failure that after only one or two films spent the rest of his career behind the camera. [Today in Alternate History]
And even better, there's a news feed.
Having an affair? Don't forget to use a "shag phone". [via boing boing]
Ambrose Bierce: "There is nothing new under the sun but there are lots of old things we don't know." [Quotes of the Day]
Yes, it's the day for me to comment on iTunes. Has anyone else noticed that they have stopped saying that albums they have are only partial albums? Or is this a bug over there. I noticed in their RSS feed that they had a bunch of stuff by The Cars. In the RSS feed it indicated that it was the full album, yet when you go to iTMS there are only five songs from it listed. The even weirder part is they have a 'add album' button which is $9.90. Yes, $9.90 for five songs that would be $4.95 bought individually. I think Apple needs to have an iTMS blog for reporting on things like this. Especially since their support page was insanely broken when I tried to leave a message about this.
I love wireless. Lately I've taken to sitting out down on the porch during the day when it is nice out. The wireless signal there is great and it's covered so I'm in the shade (with no glare issues). I've also been making use of the music sharing feature of iTunes a lot because of it. Also, since I'm driving between Boston and Hartford a lot I've started getting into audiobooks. Currently I'm on the third book in Stephen King's The Dark Tower series and it has completely sucked me in. This morning I sat down to listen to the last part on the porch (something I hadn't done before) and discovered that iTunes won't share out audiobooks from audible. What the hell? Audible? Apple? What's the story here?
Cnn.com is reporting that Ray Charles has died. I think we should have a week of mourning, at least.
Apple's new Airport Express sounds great. It's one of the things I've really been looking for. A nice way to have a wireless repeater that (hopefully) doesn't kill the network speed. Everything else is just really good icing. Mini base station, great. Printer server, great. Streaming audio receiver: great. AirTunes, which is part of iTunes 4.6, here's where I think they missed slightly. You can only stream to an Airport Express box. I would have loved to have seen the ability to stream to any other box running iTunes. Yes, there is music sharing, which is great, but I can think of times when I might want to be just streaming to a laptop. Or both a laptop and an airport express. I live in a fairly good sized house and maybe people in multiple places want to be able to tune in.
I think Apple also needs to come out with some kind of stereo/AV component for listening to music and viewing photos (and maybe even movies) on your home theatre system. Something that works like TiVo's Home Media Option (which is now included in the TiVo subscription instead of as an add-on), but more tuned to how Apple does things. It would let you listen to AAC encoded files, and AAC files you bought from iTMS. But it would act more like the iTunes music sharing does. To me, this could be the killer box for Apple. Roku comes close with their products, but it still isn't exactly what I'm looking for. The one thing I know I don't really want is a full computer attached to my home theatre system. It just seems like overkill to me when I have a server already that has all that stuff stored on it.
Sir Julian Huxley: "Operationally, God is beginning to resemble not a ruler but the last fading smile of a cosmic Cheshire cat." [Quotes of the Day]
Mom recently asked me if I had anything else like Mark Farina's Mushroom Jazz, which she really likes. Hmm, what to recommend to her...
Today was my mom's birthday, so we brought her out to eat at a little place in Glastonbury, CT called Min Ghung. I'd glanced over a review of it a few weeks ago and thought it sounded interesting. The food ended up being amazing. I had some sushi for an appetizer and then their Salmon Teriyaki, which was very tasty. It was two large hunks of salmon. Mom got a Salmon Tartare to start and then had Shrimp Yakisoba that looked really good. She said it was great. And my dad had the Manila Pancake. Everything I tasted was really good. I can't think of anything I wouldn't want to try again.
Now, the other great thing about the restaurant is their sake selection. They have 52 different types of cold sake. We had two. One called Rihaku (Wandering poet), which was really flavorful and had a nice aroma of chocolate. The other was the one I really liked, called Kaguyahime (Bamboo Princess). The waiter had the hostess come and tell us the story of the Bamboo Princess, which I immediately recognized from one or two anime shows I'd seen.
So, I highly recommend this place if you ever find yourself in the Hartford, CT area. I'm pretty sure I'll be going back there soon.
14 Questions Stolen from Lyn. Posted to my blog just to see what kind of response I get.
How do I spend the day when the power is out for most of it? By playing my Fire Emblem and the original Legend of Zelda on my GBA. I'm kind of amazed at how much I remember of a game that came out 15 or so years ago. And by how much it still holds my attention.
Mark Twain: "Familiarity breeds contempt - and children." [Quotes of the Day]
Neil Gaiman had The Conversation with his daughter recently. If I'm ever a dad I want to be have a conversation like that with my kids.
Funimation has announced that there will be an uncut Shaman King release. I guess they are working with 4Kids on this. It will be a dub and sub release. Yay! I was so worried that we'd only get a saturday morning cartoon-ized version of this. Thank you Funimation!
Do you really need to release some discs with the damn security warning stickers on every frickin edge of the case? It's really a pain. Please stop. Thank you.
Seen on a LiveJournal I read, the Pink Lady and Jeff DVD Boxed set. Aie!
The New York Times Magazine had an article on manga last sunday that's a pretty cool read.
