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Yes it is an ad, but its beautifully filmed and features some nice if slightly scenester style fixie riding. Lots of respect for the drop in off the block on the fixie at the beginning.
Devolve yourself is a funky little tool to give you an idea of how you would look as one of your distant ancestors. Upload a photo and you can see yourself as you would have looked up to 37 3.7 million years ago, in short hairy.
Check it out and if anyone wants me to post their devolved selves email me and I will get it up here.
Roll over the image at flickr to see how we used to work way back in 2002!
Here are some amazing videos on how to program a PDP-11. I never had to program them, but the old engine test cells at Ford were running PDP-11's when I was working there as late as 2003. This is truly from the era when a computer really knew how to compute.
Link Via Boing Boing
Made me smile
It is great to see headlines of a US president doing the right thing. It has been eight very long years.
I saw Lykke Li when she played at the Doug Fir and I wish she had played this awesome cover of Rick Ross Hustlin. She is definitely an artist that needs to be seen live for the full effect.
Oregon introduced a smoking ban on the 1st of January and the contrast with London is stark. The build up to the smoking ban in London was heavily advertised and there was enormous media coverage, just about the only thing that seems to have happened here is that a small sticker has appeared on the doors of most bars and restaurants stating that you are not allowed to smoke within 10ft of the door. I do not know why the ban has had such a low profile, perhaps it is now becoming the norm around the country/world that people don't need educating. I imagine that soon you wont be able to smoke indoors in any european or north american city. Kids growing up today will have no idea of the joys of a smoky pub and coming home with their clothes smelling like an ash tray. The lucky bastards.
Fantastic slideshow with audio of the incoming Obama team from the NY Times. All of the portraits are shot against a plain white background. You can spot all the ex-military people immediately from their posture and pose. It is also a remarkably diverse group of people, a broad range of ages, race and gender are represented and it gives an impression of a thoroughly modern administration.
So in the dreck of all the iPhone apps that are littering the itunes store I have found a couple of photography apps that are well worth keeping.
Darkroom - Free or 0.99 for premium features.
This app does one thing and it does it well. It acts as a steadycam for the iPhone camera. In short it takes sharper pictures in darker conditions than the iPhone camera. The results really put the iPhone camera to shame and this is now my default picture taking application.
Camera Bag - $2.99
Applies creative filters to your images. Theses range from the classic polaroid to the over-saturated Lomo like. Take a crappy iphone picture open this up and hey presto something interesting can come from it.I like the Helga, Lolo and Cinema modes. It can be a touch slow but it does a great job spicing up your images.
Macbook Pro in the middle driving the dell 24 inch on the left. Dell Vostro on the Right controlled with the mac keyboard and mouse using Synergy. Compulsory startup whiteboard in the background. Not shown in picture total mess of cables and bits of paper.
I am pretty sure when I was twelve I thought you could do this with a frisbee.
Also why cant they call the damn thing a frisbee.
Tip of the hat to Siri via Portland Mercury
How can I never have heard that Russia built nuclear powered lighthouses. I nearly have a degree in nuclear stuff, if someone had told me that you could build nuclear powered lighthouses my life might have been very different. The Russians had a need for lighthouses along its remote massive Northern shore and with no people or infrastructure for hundreds of miles opted for nuclear power. Fortunately they used the relatively safe Radioisotope thermoelectric generator rather than a nuclear reactor. This is the same kind of nuclear battery that is used aboard spacecraft like Cassini.
From wikipedia
In addition to spacecraft, the Soviet Union constructed many unmanned lighthouses and navigation beacons powered by RTGs[1]. Powered by 90Sr, they are very reliable and provide a steady source of power. However, critics argue that they could cause environmental and security problems, as leakage or theft of the radioactive material could pass unnoticed for years (or possibly forever: some of these lighthouses cannot be found because of poor record keeping). There has been even an instance where the radioactive compartments were opened by a thief; it was inferred that the resulting radiation poisoning was fatal[2]. There was also the case of two woodcutters in Siberia who came across one of these units and slept close to it as a heat source during a cold night. They both died a few days afterwards from the irradiation.
More great pictures here at Englishrussia.com
I love this Atheist Bus Campaign. Originally conceived as a response to the Jesus said ads running on london buses the campaign managed to raise £135,000 to put ads on 800 buses, 1000 tube cards and a rolling ad on the LCD screen outside Bond St Station.
I like the simple positive design reflecting the equally positive message, that’s all people now stop worrying and enjoy your life.
Update: From the desk of Internet connected parents comes this almost unbearably ironic complaint from the organisation Christian Voice. From the BBC
But organisation Christian Voice has complained to the Advertising Standards Authority saying they break rules on substantiation and truthfulness...
...The ASA's code states "marketers must hold documentary evidence to prove all claims". The regulator said it would assess the complaint and decide whether to contact the advertiser.
But Stephen Green, national director of Christian Voice, said: "There is plenty of evidence for God, from people's personal experience, to the complexity, interdependence, beauty and design of the natural world.
"But there is scant evidence on the other side, so I think the advertisers are really going to struggle to show their claim is not an exaggeration or inaccurate, as the ASA code puts it."
I can not wait for this to go in front of the ASA, I only hope that all future ads run by religious organisations will have to meet the same standard of proof. I certainly hope that Russell's celestial teapot comes up during the discussion.
If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.
Went to see the superb Man on Wire, a documentary about the illegal tight rope walk between the twin towers. The film is a riveting 90 minutes with some genuinely remarkable archive footage and awe inspiring photographs. All of the major characters are interviewed and it is clear the emotional impact the experience ti had on many of them.
My favourite moment of the film comes when the arresting police officer , a thoroughly down to earth mustachioed New Yorker, is being interviewed and describes Phillipe Petit as a tight rope dancer, not a tight rope walker because of the way hew moves on the cable.
A highly recommended 90 minutes.
This afternoon I am headed to this beautiful cabin in central Oregon for the week. I am hoping to also make it down to the Mt. Bachelor ski resort for some New Years Day powder!
This is something I have long suspected but now it is official; Portland is America's beardiest city. The latest Portland Monthly has a beard expose including some truly enormous examples of facially hirsute men.
Neil you would be a child amongst men with your beard in this city.
Portland Monthly
Well it's all white any way. It has also been inaccessible to most anyone without a 4wd vehicle over the last weekend. We are just coming out of the biggest storm in 28 years. It is beautiful right now, though I imagine it will be a big mess as it starts to melt.