Rock Star alter egos are growing in numbers "You're forming a fake band -- that's what you do," says Sadri, calling the game "the best part of karaoke, adding in a drummer and guitars."
The Magpie Developer Jeff Atwood is one of the best programmer/writers around. I love reading his stuff, some I agree wholeheartedly with, other stuff we disagree, but this post is about a dead-on as they come. This idea has been floating in my head for a long time, but it is hard for me to conceptualize it in words, Atwood does a brilliant job at it. Must read for any developer.
Andy Olmsted's Last Blog Entry. (Warning: Pretty rough) No matter how you feel politically about the war, this reminds you that each number people throw around as statistics is a human life. This is extremely well written, and pretty rough on your soul towards the end, but something everyone should read. Its a shitty situation all around, but there is always a human face behind the statistics and I want to make sure I never forget that.
To preserve his body during the voyage home, the second-in-command stored Nelson's body in the ship's vat of rum and halted all liquor rations to the crew. Not a bad idea, but when the ship reached port, officials went to retrieve Nelson's body and found the vat dry.
Disregarding good taste (in every sense), the crew had been secretly drinking from it the entire way home. After that, naval rum was referred to as Nelson's Blood.
making vodka pills in 24 hours Recently, Chef Fabian was experimenting further with the Adria/Torreblanca technique of making 'vodka pills.' I use this word to describe the process of making liquid-filled candies by pouring flavored alcohol syrups into cornstarch and letting it set until a hard outer shell forms.
Strategy Letter VI - joelonsoftware.com As a programmer, thanks to plummeting memory prices, and CPU speeds doubling every year, you had a choice. You could spend six months rewriting your inner loops in Assembler, or take six months off to play drums in a rock and roll band, and in either case, your program would run faster. Assembler programmers don’t have groupies.
Entire Article is Dead On. A must read for anyone in the software biz.
Over on Mark Cuban's blog there is an extremely interesting post accompanied by an email (that for all I know could be made up) but is a very very
interesting email none the less. Cuban said he trusts the source, I just read it but if true this could be the most shittiest paragraph
I have ever read below. Go read the post for yourself, but it seems like the final screw for some of the media companies involved, but alas it isn't
average Joe consumer that they screw, but instead it sounds like they screwed over their own artists:
> The media companies had their typical challenges. Specifically, how to
> get money from Youtube without being required to give any to the
> talent (musicians and actors)? If monies were received as part of a
> license to Youtube then they would contractually obligated to share a
> substantial portion of the proceeds with others. For example most
> record label contracts call for artists to get 50% of all license
> deals. It was decided the media companies would receive an equity
> position as an investor in Youtube which Google would buy from them.
> This shelters all the up front monies from any royalty demands by
> allowing them to classify it as gains from an investment position. A
> few savvy agents might complain about receiving nothing and get a
> token amount, but most will be unaware of what transpired.
I hate using the word 'tipping point' but I wonder if this deal (if the above is true) is their tipping point, a lot of media companies have lost major money to pirating, and
of course have absolutely no clue how to provide something of value to a customer in digital form that isn't bogged down in some type of single-company based DRM for us consumers. Was this a last ditch effort?
A hope that by sliding this deal under the table, they (media companies) get to execute their rights to save face, also get to keep the money (sorry artists, it is an 'investment') and
also get to hop on the 'GoogleTrain' (and maybe even somewhere down the line get to influence the direction and reporting of Google Users info for their own purposes? (I mean they DO have a stake in YouTube, and it would be advantageous to both companies to share my search habits that involve music.
I will be honest, if this is true then it moves me farther away from GoogleVideo or YouTube, I won't swear it off completely, but MSN's Soapbox and Yahoo's video just got much much much more appealing.
Some intimate details on the Google YouTube Deal - Blog Maverick
* HD 1080p video mode support over VGA and component cables.
* Xbox 360™ HD DVD Player support.
* Stream WMV video from a Windows PC running Windows Media Player 11, Zune software, or Windows Media Connect.
* Play video from storage devices such as USB flash drives, Xbox 360 Memory Units, etc.
* Play video from CD or DVD data discs.
* Xbox 360 Wireless Headset support, including battery level indicator in the Xbox Guide.
* Video support for 50 Hz HDTV modes (DVD and HD DVD only).
* Xbox 360 Wireless Racing Wheel support.
* Set up automatic downloads of newly released Xbox Live Arcade trial games.
* Support for upcoming release of XNA Game Studio Express (separate download and subscription required.)
* Stream music, pictures and video from a Zune device."
Damn It. NO Divx streaming. Please MS, let us stream Divx so we don't have to transcode it into wmv for the transport/overwire to our TVs. It's like going over your sholder to wipe your ass. We can do it the hard way, why not let us just do it. (I'll still use WMV everynow and then, I promise ;) )
Uploaded by RocketRaccoon on 28 Aug '06, 11.39am EDT.
Although I would disagree and say that Netflix and a slow adaption of a new idea (mail DVDs) is what is killing Blockbuster, this pic still makes me crack up. (Note the store is closed).
I have been on the edge in deciding if I should preorder Gears of War or not (x360). Everyone is hyping it so much, but usually when that happens on a game (PC or Console) it usually doesnt live up to the hype. I have to admit though, after watching this, I will be running by the local gamestop on Monday to preorder. This looks awesome.
Brainstorm it:
Looks kind of like God of War. I wonder how they're doing the targeting. Yeah, screw the PS3. I'm definately getting a 360 and maybe a Wii down the line depending on the games.
"Jim Henson's 'Fraggle Rock' is coming to the big screen.
The 1980s cult hit TV show is being developed by Ahmet Zappa -- younger son of Frank Zappa -- into a full-length live-action musical fantasy starring the classic characters."
Yes I know it has been awhile (and by looking at my post logs probably the first time I have ever gone over 2 weeks without posting something) We had a blast on our UK tour, but I had some technical glitches that had to get worked out when I got back on this site, so this is the first chance I get to post about our trip.
Er.. well not post.
Lost is coming on and we finally got caught back up last week, and I must say that the show is starting to grate on me but i am going to go watch it anyways. I see no hints of resolution (at any level) , and as much as I love the show, I really hope it doesn't lose it's glimmer because of story futility (and yes really almost all TV is, but Lost is highly entertaining futility). So look for a bunch of posts in the next few days recounting our trip and me trying to step through Google's 1.65b stock purchase of a legal hornets nest and a bunch of ideas about where Vista and the xbox 360 are going to have hot buttery love making sessions via the cat 5 runing through my house.
We posted tons of pics from our trip (Literally 700+) on Flickr, but we also took a bunch of short videos and I must say that one of the highlights by far from our trip was eating at a conveyor belt sushi restaurant. Yeah there is probably one around Atlanta (and if not I would probably invest in anyone wanting to open one) that I don't know about, but I really really enjoyed tempting fate and watching a certain piece of sushi roll by and seeing if it would come back to me, or if I could correctly guess who would pick it up if not. Sushi Stereotyping.
Travis - The Boy With No Name Travis is back. I wouldn't say I hated 12 memories, it was meant to be very political, I just thought it went a little overboard and was somewhat preachy. Then when the greatest hits CD came out to be honest I was really hoping it didn't mean the end to one of my favorite brit bands. Boy With No Name is everything they were capable of. Supurb CD all the way through. Every song is brilliant. Big Chair is probably my favorite song and the opening to the CD on 3 Times is as good as it gets in music imho.
Pop! Why Bubbles are Great For The Economys (Gross) One of the better economic books I have read in while, where the author gets their premise across in a well written, clear and concise manner. Basically Gross believes that the infrastructure left over after economic bubbles, provides companies with the ability to move forward (maybe more than the original bubble did). Not a hard read, I would definitely suggest it for a day and the beach/lake.
Feist - The Reminder I CANNOT GET "I feel it all" OUT OF MY HEAD. Period. Great album, angelic voice.
Catan - Xbox Live Arcade I am hopelessly addicted to this board-turned-video game on the xbox360. I had never played the board game but had seen it being played in some comic shops growing up. Click the Pick and play the demo, it isn't the 360 interface, but same game.
Arctic Monkeys - Favorite Worse Nightmare No Sophomore slump here. Just as good (if not better) than Whatever they Say.
Beautiful Evidence (Tufte) Tufte reads like a text book, most people would say bleh, but the information about "information" that he can deliver is top notch. My first Tufte book was "A Visual Display To Quantitative Information" and it was extremely well done, albeit confusing at time. I think beautiful Evidence is a little easier of a read (I am still only half way through it) and a little easier for myself to understand the ideas he is presenting..
Fountains of Wayne - Traffic and Weather Fountains of Wayne are the Gods of pop music. If Welcome Interstate Managers was a collection of short stories in song form, then Traffic and Weather is an even better collection with more humor. I already feel like CNN has the hottest female anchors, imagining them throwing their lust around like the Title track to the CD makes it even better.
Game of Thrones (Martin) I started this book assuming it was going to be a high fantasy novel. Elfs, Dragons, Magic and the like. It isn't. It IS fantasy but more surrounding the politics and cunning of a few high ranking families. Incest, Murder, Intrigue, unscrupulous midgets. It has it all and more.
