July 2005 Archives

Wiki Maps link via

An Italian couple stole 50,000 euros from a woman after convincing her they were vampires who would impregnate her with the son of the Anti-Christ if she did not pay them link

Bible warning link via

drummachine link via

Hackers unlock weapons on 5 million account for an online game link via

Virtual sweatshops link via

iPod Flea link via

Shopdropping link via

Cell phones can predict the future link via

100 Million buys a trip around the moon link via

Hello Kitty Chess link via

100,000 bouncy balls down a San Fransisco street link via

I, for one, welcome our Japanese female android masters link via

Condensation due to the Prandtl-Glauert Singularity link1 link2 via

The war on terror as told by magic: the gathering cards link via

Livio de Marchi has created wooden replicas of his favorite cars so that he can move around in the water canals of Venice link via

How to Screen Print a Poster link via

Building a Linux keg dispensor link via

Statistics and the globe link via

While driving home tonight, I noticed some low hanging clouds. Made me wonder if it was a precursor to a tornado...

I saw a couple of interesting movies lately. They were:

Battle Royale This film is about a time when students are out of control. So the government passes an act. A class of students is taken to a remote island and forced to fight their classmates. They have an explosive collar placed around their neck, are given some supplies, and are given a random weapon (sometimes good like a gun or sometimes useless like a pair of binoculars). They are told that the last person standing will be rescued from the island.

Kontroll This movie is about the Budapest subway system and the workers who check for train tickets. It has good music, a cute furry chick, and a strange killer.

Primer This is a science fiction story about a group of inventors who discover that the machine that they created can allow them to travel back in time. It is a story about trust and how that is affected when a friend can essentially change history. What was interesting about this movie was the fact that it was filmed for a very cheap amount ($7,000). And yet the movie doesn't seem to suffer for it. The director acted in the movie, produced the movie, did the music, and also edited the movie. It was filmed mostly in the director's parent's garage. And this philosophy is also carried into the movie. The scientists take copper tubing and freon from a refrigerator and palladium from a catalytic converter. Another unusual thing about this film was that each take was filmed once.

As far as the story goes, there is a detailed timeline here, an interview here, and the movie's website here (with a bulliten board).

I went to Alamo Drafthouse's road show of Zaireeka by the Flaming Lips. It was pretty cool. I went with Jeff Shaevel and Mike. It was located pretty close to my house in Old Settlers' Park. There were four huge inflatible movie screens and speakers that were on the outside of the viewing area in the middle.

While we waited, Mike tried playing Go with Jeff.

Once the sun had set, we listened to a couple of groups. The first group was the Austin Theremonic Orchestra. After them, Pong played for us. I liked them. They sounded like the B-52s.

And then, of course, the main show started. 4 CDs, 4 sound systems, 4 movie screens. People got up from their chairs and moved into the middle. You could only watch one screen at a time and keep track of the two in your peripheral vision. So, you had to rotate occasionally to see what the screen behind you was up to.

Vertex game link via

Building a marble shooting airgun link via

Within 24 hours, pirates have produced an e-book of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince link via

Making ham and cheese sandwiches link via

Death star subwoofer link via

Tech companies are compared to nations link via

Pee Goal link via

Dual view LCD link via

Clock that only display the time if it is prime (7661 times a day) link via

We describe an experiment in which a Giant African Snail, acting as a data transfer agent, exceeded all known "lastmile" communications technologies in terms of bit-per-second performance link via

Chess960, a game variant invented by fugitive chess genius Bobby Fischer link via

Toby Emmerich, head of production at New Line Cinema, had a choice between seeing a film in a theater or watching it in a screening room at Jim Carrey's house, with a private chef handling the culinary options. Despite this seemingly loaded deck, Emmerich opted for a real theater and was shocked link via

In honor of the first manned Moon landing, which took place on July 20, 1969, we've added some NASA imagery to the Google Maps interface to help you pay your own visit to our celestial neighbor link via

How to poach an egg link via

Can a Bayesian Spam filter play chess? link via

Condensing personal finance books link via

Hooter shooter link via

Can't Stop

Jon didn't arrive early enough so we played this quick filler. My dice luck was bad tonight. It was a sign of my foreboding future.

Evo

It has been a while since we played this game. I started off between Mike and Jon. Unfortunately, the climate was not kind to my Brontosaurus and evolution did not see fit to give them more than one leg to use. So, only one animal could escape the freezing or baking temperatures. Sadly the rest died.

Another mistake I made was to spend too much victory points on horns. I figured that I would have to fight for my survival. However, my neighbor Mike had the same number of horns as myself. And Jon was too far away to attack.

Andromeda

Another classic game that we don't play anymore because we buy too many new games. In this game, it all boiled down to luck. For my final turns I had two chances to establish a station. If I would have gotten either of them, it would have given me the win. Unfortunately, the puck was not with me. Another thing that I should have done was to keep more joker cards. Mike kept quite a number of them which gave him second place.

Costco versus Walmart link via

Waiter rants link via

RAID water coolers link via

Dear lazy web link via

Akihabara becomes geek sex paradise link

Mario teaches physics link via

Hollywood denies request to use short clips to make a personal home movie link via

Jet powered Toyota MR2 link via

OS/2 R.I.P. age 20 link via

Each key on the keyboard is a screen showing chararcter (or action) it activates link via

A programmer outsources his own job to India link via

Early bomb detection can backfire because of the grisly fact that human beings act as human shields link via

Better looking signs than baseball link

So here I am sitting on McNeil and waiting for the light at Parmer to change. I am deep in my own little world; so much so, that I am not even looking at the red light and waiting for it to change into green. Then I hear a dull bang and I look up to see two cars spinning out of control.

The first thing that I do is get my phone out and start to dial 911. But as I am about to hit send, I look up and see many people outside of their cars and on cell phones. I figure the odds are good that one of them is already handling it. So I turn off the engine and go out side. One vehicle has flipped over and is on Parmer south of McNeil. The other has actually driven up a guy wire for a telephone pole and is dangling on it. I go to that vehicle to see if I can help but there are already people there. Two people are in the vehicle and both are unconscious and leaning on the dashboard. The police arrive immediately (in less than a minute).

I am not in the mood to stand and gawk and I didn't see the start of the accident so I get back in my truck and carefully drive through the glass and car parts.

This was obviously a T-bone collision where one car was at least travelling 55 MPH (people normally drive at least 65).

This just screams out to the mortality of life, how instantaneously it can end, and how freaking unsafe my vehicle can be...

I hope everyone was alright. Thank god for helpful bystanders.

Ars Mysteriorum

This is a return on investment game with a bunch of blind bidding. A lot of it! And therefore you can get hosed a lot in this game. Especially if you are towards the end of the turn order since that is one tie breaker. This game also has a lot of special cards that gives you power and these are played a lot. Which brings us to another hosage factor. At the beginning of the game you can buy one spell (all spells generate income based on a row/column/stack factor). Unfortunately, the two spells that I could choose from were both too expensive and I think that I suffered because it (other people did buy one).

It was an interesting game by, Alan Ernstein, the maker of Tahuantinsuyu. I would give it another chance.

McMulti

Ahh... another game of McMulti... with Adam. This time we played with a different house rule that helped even out the market swings. But those random number generating dice still were able to hose the entire group. Four double ones were rolled (3 back to back) early and this led to four news events happening. And all of them were horrible taxes. After selling off almost all of our equipment to pay for them, we were ready to start on the road to recovery. Adam was lucky and he was able to build up six gas stations and start selling gas for lots of money. Unfortunately, he was 10 dollars away from calling the end of the game. And my luck increased enough to give me the win (1487 to 1345)!

Call My Bluff

Gah! Dice are flawed. With three stars showing and Tim saying that there were ten of them out there, I had to call. Much to my regret since there were more and I was out of the game. At least Tim won the game by rolling three stars again and knocked out the remaining two players.

So I watched 30 Days yesterday. This is a new series by, Morgan Spurlock, creator of SuperSize Me. It was about people living outside their comfort zones. In this show, two people spend 30 days off the power-grid at Dancing Rabbit. One of the people was a man and DR only served a Vegan or Vegetarian menu. He was Jonesing for meat real bad. Bad enough to go rabbit hunting. Bad enough to drive into town and try to buy meat. Bad enough, after being repeatedly sabotaged by the DR folks and being mocked by the other person of this show, to continue attempting to buying meat.

The other show was a P.B.S. series about living the frontier life. And there was one man who needed meat. Bad enough to talk to the local Indian tribe and get them to shoot a deer for him.

I think that I would be one of those folks. I am an omnivore and I am trying to eat more veggies. But I would miss meat...

I'd prefer to leave it to professionals to kill the cow, but if it were
a condition for eating burgers that I kill a cow every now and agin,
I guess I'd borrow a nice sharp shinken and practise full shomen cuts
with somewhat more of a focus than I do now.

  -- Graham Wills

So I am driving into work and stop at Parmer and Metric. I see what I think is a homeless man begging for money. I think that he is more creative than most. But then he turns around and I see that he is advertising for a Laundry Store.

Damn Advertisers!

...and talking on the cell phone!

Damn Cellphones!

Call My Bluff

Three people had arrived and that was enought to start a light quick filler game. In this game, we had only 7 plays and each of them were exact! Gah! That was enought to knock out both myself and Jon which gave the win to Adam.

Santiago

We have not played this game in a while which is sad. It is a good game. I initially guessed wrong in the first two turns so I was off to a bad start. And strangely, for some reason, the group and Ed just did not get along together. Ed was always ended up the odd man out. I paid some high prices to get some valuable plots but it was not enough to win me the game. I came in second.

Torres

Torres is another good game that I have not played enough (but it is a bit of a brain burner or analysis paralysis game). I was a little afraid at the start because I was playing with Ed. And Ed loves this game (and I am sure has played it more recently than I). However, I was able to critically hose him in one instance and maintain control of the highest tower and that gave me the win. Some things that led to it were I was able to go last in 3 of the 4 times and Ed did not have the card he needed at the last play.

Dan must have a secret job in advertising. No one else would dare to use minatures... They are just not mainstream... You should have included the tooth-pick trebuchet! Five guys are not enough to cut it!

Cool chalk signs at a store link via

Carpet with ariel photos on it link via

GMap of London with traffic camera overlays link via

How to heat a swimming pool with a BBQ grill link via

Build your own computerized smoker link via

Funeral viewing held how he liked to live life, sitting and watching football link via

Radar assisted braking in new Mercedes link via

Performance art piece that uses construction equipment and 20-foot long knitting needles to construct large-scale objects link via

"My intent is to harm society as much as I can, then die." link via

Chain reaction flash game link via

Senor suicide link via

Bikeamper link via

Google News stories of Paul's life link via

Quit your safe job and follow your own path link via

"This illustrates the extraordinary imagination of nature - or of males - to counteract the female strategy," link via

I noticed that someone had placed a pair of fuzzy dice on the gravestone marker by the side of the road. So I stopped and investigated further. It seems that a person's name was written on the marker in a blue pen: Beah Hamaker -- March 28 RIP.

Fredericus

Ed and Susan brought a new game for us to play and they needing some playings in order to write a review. So, we played Fredericus. In this game, you "hunt" cards with your falcons in the middle. If clouds are the neighboring cards to an animal card and your big falcon is sitting in that column, then you can take the card. If a cloud and a ground surround an animal card, then your small falcon can take the card. If two ground cards surround opponent's falcons, you can "hood" them. Being "hooded" is hard to recover from. Your falcon looses its turn, so it cannot escape it for the next time. And only one person needs to spend an action point to hood your falcon again.

The other part of this game is betting that an animal is going to be caught in a column before it becomes your turn again. And I could not predict people's actions. The game seemed to play too long for what it was worth.

Hispaniola

We finaly got around to playing the Michael Schacht trick taking game that uses a board. It comes in a large box as well, and to be honest, you can easily replace the board with some cards and use a small box. In this game, trump is decided by spending cards. The highest, non-tied, card will determine trump. If there is no unique number, then players pick another card and try again. You must follow suite, but the highest card will win if no trump is played (like Sticheln). The winner of a trick gets to place a pawn on the corresponding ship (neutral if 3 or more colors were played, otherwise the led color). The pawn can displace a previous pawn which will fall onto islands (which count as negative points). As more pawns are displaced, the previous pawns work their way onto more negative islands until they finally go back into your supply.

This was an interesting game that I would like to play again...

Geschenkt

We ended the night with another light card game. I have learned not to take on too many card groups and not to try and force the other players to chip in more tokens. Eventually they will just grab that card.

Lord of the Rings - The Confrontation

And then it was just me and Adam. Adam suggested that we play The Confrontation. Unfortunately, I was not able to grok a strategy. Adam decimated me and made me his tool. I called each match as hopeless early on.

If a woman is going to drive a Hummer, then it should be painted pink and have Barbie painted on it. "My Barbie can roll over your car..."

I wonder if that truck is going to a tailgate party...

Anarchist Cookbook author loses control over work thanks to copyrights link via

Dear music industry, what I have stolen from you and why link via

A trip from Florida to Florida link via

Summertime Moon illusion link via

A benefit of being a zoo keeper is that you get to eat the animals link via

"Why don't they stop fighting? We're never going to join a Federation of Planets if this continues. Don't they know that? Why don't they want to help end starvation instead? I wish we lived in the future." link via

Custom printed on our 3D printer, each trophy represents the traffic to the site over the course of the contest. link via

Advitisers now replacing real sports link via

She said, Nerd said link via

New bullet train with cat-eared air brakes link via

How to cast silver bullets link via

Moveable keys for a keyboard link via

A counterpoint to Super Size Me link via

Scientists have created zombie dogs link via

Van Gogh - Starry Night as a mosaic of 210,000 tiny photographs link via

Talking to the Star Wars Nerds who are in a line for the wrong theatre link via

Build a working Enigma machine with paper link via

Proposal to build a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road (home of Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter) link via

Extracting video from cat brains link via

Michael Jackson in old video games link via

Buy a WTF sticker link via

"For the love of humanity, can't you people just jaywalk?" link via

Akira Haraguchi recites PI to 83,431 decimal places link via

Japanese Star Trek art link via

Ed and Susan had their first game day at their new house. I knew I was in for a drive when the directions started with "Take IH-35 North until Oklahoma and then take the first left...". Its a nice house with 5 acres of land out in Liberty Hill. I don't know if the commute is worth it. I hate my twenty minute commute from Round Rock.

Around The World in 80 Days

For the first game, we play Around the World in 80 days. I like the game. It is a light and easy game. I would have won but I could not find two ship cards for the last journey! The person to my right kept taking the swap 3 cards action and no ships came out and were left to me when it was my turn. Out of desperation, I spent four gold to draw two more cards (which turned out to be train cards! argh!).

Funkenschlag

For the next game, we had seven people and we split into two games. I played Funkenschlag with Adam which is a risky gamble. He is tough to beat at this game. I limited the board to the difficult area of seas and mountains. Also in the game, we were short of resources. Coal was depleted early and never recovered. Adam was smart in buying the only garbage plant in the game (and taking advantage of the cheap garbage prices). Phase three actually came out half way into the game which is unusual to me. I rarely get to see phase 3 in this game (and it is definately needed). John was a new player and he kept lots of money instead of spending it to make money.

Caribbean

For the next game, I wanted to try out Caribbean. And I found out that it was not such a good game after all. The entire game is a blind guessing game. You place six betting markers each turn and the winner of each ship gets to move it. And if that was not chaotic enough, you can steal treasures from other ships and drop it in your own harbour. Good thing I didn't buy this game! I won the game easily and I was the only player who used multiple ships to drop treasures to my harbour.

The Gothic Game

For the last game of the night, we played The Gothic Game. This is a fun game where you try to be the last person standing. Susan fell off the wall and into the moat. She was able to avoid drowning and crawl into Dracula's lair. She was then bitten and turned into a Vampiress. I tried to find a weapon in the Trophy Room but fell into an Iron Maiden. Adam was desperately trying to find some garlic in the Kitchen but was unlucky when Susan glided over him and drank his blood.