Wow.. RC Skillz
Posted by Stephen Waits Wed, 31 May 2006 17:15:00 GMT
Ralf sends along this YouTube video of a guy doing unbelievable stuff with a park flyer.
Crazy Deep Oil Market Analysis
Posted by Stephen Waits Wed, 31 May 2006 16:05:36 GMT
Check out this analysis of oil prices. The interesting thing is that compared to the 70’s crisis, oil today is still a bargain.
I’m all for $8/gallon oil. It helps reduce traffic, gets more people on bicycles and motorcycles, and reduces giant (empty) SUVs. It’s good pressure.
Sadly though, it really screws over lower-income people.
Algorithm March!
Posted by Stephen Waits Tue, 30 May 2006 21:18:34 GMT
Fake news..
Posted by Stephen Waits Mon, 29 May 2006 16:23:30 GMT
Can’t trust anything these days. As if we didn’t know, some of the news is fake.
The "oops" gallery..
Posted by Stephen Waits Sun, 28 May 2006 01:39:41 GMT
A bunch of “fuck up” pictures here. Most are aviation related.
Stewart vs. O'Reilly
Posted by Stephen Waits Sun, 28 May 2006 01:07:48 GMT
An article over at Media Matters has a few interesting points to make:
… studies have shown that viewers of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart are consistently better informed about current events than consumers of other media, and Daily Show viewers are considerably better educated than viewers of The O’Reilly Factor. Further, consumers of Fox News in general have been found to be significantly more misinformed about current events than consumers of other mainstream media.
That’s good stuff. I know a few highly educated people who gulp down everything O’Reilly says like mid-westerners on meth. Formal education doesn’t translate to intelligence, or one’s ability to see clearly. Those political blinders are thick.
World Cup Schedule
Posted by Stephen Waits Wed, 24 May 2006 17:37:00 GMT
A coworker, Chrsitian, pointed me to this great printable World Cup Schedule.
Also, if you’re in the US, and you use Google Calendar, search for “World Cup TV Schedule” and add it to your calendar. Very convenient!
Pzizz ZOT!
Posted by Stephen Waits Wed, 24 May 2006 17:30:00 GMT
MacZOT.com Fans want Pzizz because ‘According to the National Sleep Foundation, sleep deprivation and its effect on work performance may be costing U.S. employers some $18 billion each year in lost productivity. Another study pushes this cost to over $100 billion.’ - link to full article
Casts of Ant Nests
Posted by Stephen Waits Wed, 24 May 2006 16:11:50 GMT
This guy captured ants, removed them from their nest, and then cast the nest. I can’t imagine the work involved in digging the cast out. See pictures here.
Social Dynamics of MMOGs
Posted by Stephen Waits Wed, 24 May 2006 16:08:28 GMT
Here’s a paper on the social dynamics involved inside MMOGs.
Via O’Reilly Radar.
Superbike Monster Stunting
Posted by Stephen Waits Sat, 20 May 2006 08:28:46 GMT
Some video shot by my friend Nate of a really talented guy stunting the superbike driven Monster at the ‘05 Laguna Seca MotoGP event. This guy was sick.
E3 2006
Posted by Stephen Waits Tue, 16 May 2006 17:56:00 GMT
So another E3’s come and gone. I didn’t quite break my record low enthusiasm mark this year. I was slightly more interested than the last few years. I did spend more than two hours on the floor this time around. That’s mostly because I got there before Ralf and HK and then resaw everything with them after they arrived.
My friend Tim managed to get us into the Gears of War playable room. I didn’t play, but both Ralf and HK did. I’m not sure about the gameplay, but I have to say after seeing the live demo, I’m convinced this can be the next Halo – the 360 pusher. Unfortunately, I’m not sure if all of the Halo-buying-mass-market-homos in the world will be able to open their eyes wide enough to see anything other than Halo 27: More of the Same Crap for Wal-Mart Shoppers Everywhere.
MotoGP on the 360 looks great. I think a lot of the next-gen graphics are a little crazy. Everything has incredibly high-contrast edges, so that what should be smooth fields of grass end up looking like a Photoshop experiment gone bad. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should do something everywhere! Producers and Designers please take note of this!
Otherwise it seemed to me that MS had the usual sort of decentralized unfocussed booth we’ve become accustomed to seeing from them.
PS3 had more playable games than I expected. I liked Warhawk and will definitely play it - though it clearly had some issues. Gran Turismo HD looked really good, even if it’s just a hi-res version of more of the same. The PS3 F1 game looked fantastic, but didn’t play so well. Madden looked like a bad joke.
Sony needs to seriously do some crowd/fluid dynamic simulations on their booth design. The relentless MGS trailer was always causing the entire PS3 area to be swamped. If you were interested in the PS3, but not MGS, you would find yourself in a mass of people staring up at a giant screen – all of them perfectly in your way of just getting close to one of the PS3 titles. You could wait in line to go upstairs, but nobody waits in lines do they?
Wii. As of now, non-existant for me. Nintendo, being highly fanboy-driven, has always had the most packed booth at E3. I think this always added to their hype-level, in a good way. This year they closed the booth down, and you had to stand in line to get in. No. I’m certain they’ll have 2 or 3 truly great games on the platform some day.
PSP had a decent showing; many more games than I’d expected. Some looked great. However, this show was about PS3 and Wii.
DS Lite looks cool. I’ve wanted one for awhile and it was nice to see it in the flesh. I still think touch and dual screens (and Wiimote) are completely gimmicky; however, I want to play Brain Whatever it’s called and Animal Crossing.
Kids. I saw kids at the show again. WTF. There’s already enough of us idiots who work in the industry but don’t really need to be there packed onto the floor.
As were were trying to escape the lunacy of the floor, heading toward the doors, Michael Madsen grabbed my arm and told me to take a picture of him with a fan. I didn’t realize who it was at the time, and thought to myself, fuck you. Then his son or whoever was with him said, “it’s ok, I’ll take it”. But MM reiterated, “no, I want him to take it”, pointing at me for no logical reason other than unbalanced brain chemistry. Ralf says, “it’s ok, he’s doing it”, talking about the kid, and we left. About 15 feet later we realized who he was. Whatever.
I really enjoyed hanging out with Tim, Ralf, and HK. We weren’t able to connect with Jeppe for some reason, but I’m sure I’ll see him soon enough.
Tim and I had scheduled a 40 or 50 mile bicycle ride for the Saturday after the show. I planned it all out. Of course that fucker flaked on me. I’ll see him this coming Friday where I can give him more shit about it, but he should consider this his public flogging!
Finally, I spent the 4:30 hours on Amtrak (about 2:15 each way) watching Long Way Round which I’d ripped onto my PSP the night before. Not many people know what this is.. but it rocks. It was a seven part TV series where Ewan McGregor and his best mate Charley rode their motorcycles from London to NYC – only they went the “Long Way Round”. It was fantastic. I got through 6 of the 7 episodes on the train and watched the last one at home. Highly recommended!
There you have it.. My E3 ‘06. Not sure there’s any reason for me to go to E3 any more, so this may have been my last – at least for awhile.
Radar for everyone!
Posted by Stephen Waits Mon, 15 May 2006 16:15:52 GMT
Wow, this thing is rad. With the advent of Mode S and ADS-B transponders, we’re seeing a huge opportunity for improved safety margins in aviation.
Now, companies are bringing the technology down to the “little guy”. AVWeb links to a review of the Kinetic Avionics system, which includes a receiving and decoding hardware as well as PC software. This is fantastic!
Topsail/TIA much more than Phone Number logs
Posted by Stephen Waits Fri, 12 May 2006 14:54:21 GMT
Ars is running a great article about Topsail.
Seriously scary stuff.. The NSA seems to have switched roles from foreign spying to domestic spying. That sucks.
Oh, BTW, Shrub and company still HAVEN’T CAUGHT THE TOP AL QAEDA LEADERSHIP! Try to remember that the next time you see him saying the reason for all of this, in his bumfuck retardo I’m a complete fucking idiot hick accent, is so we can catch “Al Qaeda”.
Ars also linked to some rather insightful comments, with several updates, from Defense Tech.
FedEx Thunderstorm Deviations
Posted by Stephen Waits Tue, 09 May 2006 17:10:56 GMT
You probably know that a large number of FedEx aircraft land in Memphis every night. Everything is unloaded, moved around, loaded, and then they all head back out.
This is an interesting visualization of what happens to those arrivals when a thunderstorm moves through the area.
Daglow at Women in Games Conference
Posted by Stephen Waits Sat, 06 May 2006 21:08:22 GMT
Gamasutra is running an article on the WIGI which features a few pics of Daglow. He says:
Daglow sees things in terms of his team. “As a studio head, you have a sense of who’s hurting at any given time, just as you walk around the studio.” Sometimes it will be coincidental. One team member recently lost a parent. “That’s a hurt you can’t do anything about. You feel it, but you can’t do anything about it.” Daglow admitted. But when the team is hurting from the level of effort that’s being put into a project, “That’s something that you feel. And it gets me right in here.”
MacBook Pro - I'm waiting..
Posted by Stephen Waits Thu, 04 May 2006 04:54:47 GMT
Ok.. I’ve waited now, basically a year for the MBP’s. They got here, then I decided I’d wait for a) some kind of bonus check from work (still waiting) and b) for the details of the new MBP to shake out. Well, I’ve now come to the decision that this iteration of MBP just isn’t for me.
Why would I wait? Here are a few reasons why..
- Many of the MBP’s where making weird noises …
- And overheating like mad - I went and felt one at the Apple Store and it actually burns …
- And battery life is no improvement over the previous generation, and I’m a battery life nutcase …
- And sometimes the fans aren’t working …
- And trackpads have been flakey …
- And screens are unevenly backlit …
But probably more important than all of those (except maybe the heat thing), is that Intel’s Merom is due out this Fall. With Merom, we should get about the same, or maybe slightly less performance (though still plenty), at a considerable power savings. That should fix the battery life and heat problems.
For now I’ll stick with my Mini and my crusty old Laptop, now sporting Kubuntu. Since Cathy’s got her own laptop now, that eases things on me a bit, and I can get by just fine. After all, for most of what I do I just need Opera, Thunderbird, and a text editor, along with various compilers and interpreters - and I’ve got all of that on all three of my personal PC’s.
Cathy just says, “you’re being very patient”.
Best Buy gets 0wned!
Posted by Stephen Waits Thu, 04 May 2006 04:18:35 GMT
I fucking hate Best Buy. Therefore, I love this mission to mess with the Union Square Best Buy. I liked how they didn’t do anything wrong and the stupid security people flipped out, and how the cops had to finally give up because there was nothing to be done. I also enjoyed reading through all of the individual agents’ recaps. My favorite quote:
A little while later, an older woman with a handful of products walked past me at one point muttering to herself, “Everyone in this goddamned store is wearing a blue shirt and nobody knows a thing!”
That one hit my funny bone..
Turns out this group has pulled off a bunch of funny missions, including the recently circulated Meet a Black Person in Aspen.
About John Koza
Posted by Stephen Waits Thu, 04 May 2006 03:51:59 GMT
Popsci.com is running a piece about John Koza, inventor of genetic programming.
Genetic programming is what got me interested in the entire realm of evolutionary algorithms. In 1997, my coworker and friend Francois loaned me a copy of this weird book, “Genetic Programming” (Koza). I still remember the excitement of reading through the Santa Fe Ant problem and GP solution! Thanks to Francois - that opened doors to a massive world for me; that of stochastic search and optimization. I love this stuff.
Since then I’ve played with all sorts of stuff, and applied it to real work many times. It’s really great, and I encourage any programmer nerd freak to check it out.
Guns rule!
Posted by Stephen Waits Thu, 04 May 2006 03:30:25 GMT
Check out this mostly non-metal “assault” weapon. The whole calling them “assault” weapons is fucking retarded. Even Schneier seems to have fallen for this politically-charged name.
Guns rule.
Everyone should have them.
Via Schneier on Security.
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