Chain Reaction Barf

WARNING some of you may not like this post.

I don't know exactly why, but for some reason I find chain reaction barfing to be hilarious. Well, I was surfing the web last night and randomly came across this video. I was laughing so hard my back started to hurt. And of course laughing so hard that it hurts is funny in itself which causes a vicious cycle of continual laughing - hurting - more laughing. Anyway, here it is. NOTE if you don't think throw up is funny, just skip this post. (BTW, I'm gonna Tivo Family Guy to see if it is always this funny.)

Video

Wicked Ukulele Skills

2 Quotes from Einstein that I like

"The mind can proceed only so far upon what it knows and can prove. There comes a point where the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge, but can never prove how it got there. All great discoveries have involved such a leap.” - Albert Einstein

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." - Albert Einstein

Star Wars vs Star Trek

I think the outcome is pretty obvious. Enjoy.

Return of the Stockade

Do you remember seeing a movie or TV show or reading a book about the stockade? You know in olden times they would put criminals in a stockade in the center square so everyone could throw rotten vegetables, laugh at them, and otherwise humiliate the criminals while providing entertainment for everyone else. Well, it seems that in the age of the internet the stockade is back.

This link is a site detailing how a woman's T-Mobile side kick was stolen after she forgot it in a NYC Taxi. The sidekick is a $300 phone. Well, it turns out the thief was found and now there is a whole webpage devoted to making fun of the person. These guys even wrote a song about it. This site went up on June 6 and in just a few days it has exploded on the web. Amazing.

UPDATE: This is a link to the wikipedia entry on Internet vigilantism. This is a link to an article regarding Amir Massoud Tofangsazan who sold a broken laptop on Ebay... looks like this is the first example of internet vigilantism.

Video Games are Good

In defense of those hours I spend gaming comes this article.

here's no hard evidence that he'll want to try homicide in real life. The most comprehensive study yet on the social effects of such kill-or-be-killed games, conducted by researchers at the University of Illinois and the University of Michigan, found that prolonged playing of Asheron's Call 2--a gory online multiplayer fantasy--didn't make study participants more belligerent. Some observers speculate that playing violent video games may be cathartic, channeling pre-existing violent impulses into virtual reality, where they can do no harm. It's worth noting that the emergence of video games as a major youth enthusiasm has occurred at the same time as a striking drop in juvenile violence. Maybe Sen. Clinton should be encouraging more gaming instead of calling for a federal crackdown on it.

The truth is, critics are often ignorant of the moral universe of video games--violent games included. Yes, the wildly popular Grand Theft Auto series, in which the gamer plays a criminal on the make in the big city, is pretty amoral. But most violent games put the player in a familiar hero's role, notes Judge Richard Posner in a 2001 Seventh Circuit appeals-court decision overturning an Indianapolis anti-video-game ordinance. "Self-defense, protection of others, dread of the 'undead,' fighting against overwhelming odds--these are the age-old themes of literature, and ones particularly appealing to the young," Mr. Posner observes.

Video games can also exercise the brain in remarkable ways. I recently spent (too) many late-night hours working my way through X-Men: Legends II: The Rise of Apocalypse, a game I ostensibly bought for my kids. Figuring out how to deploy a particular grouping of heroes (each of whom has special powers and weaknesses); using trial and error and hunches to learn the game's rules and solve its puzzles; weighing short-term and long-term goals--the experience was mentally exhausting and, when my team finally beat the Apocalypse, exhilarating.

Technology writer Steven Johnson likens the intellectual process at work in video gaming to "the basic procedure of the scientific method." True, I might have better used my time reading Phillip Roth's new novel, but as mind-aerobics this exercise surely beat watching the tube. As for my kids navigating the game, wouldn't it be comparable with their playing chess for hours?

So gaming is the new chess.

Demographics

I've talked about demographics and human capital before. The Wall Street Journal opinion page has a good summary about the subject.

Number Stations Go VoIP

Are you into secret codes and secret agents? Check this out.

And this.

Looks like slashdot is being used for this as well. See this.