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July 25, 2006
Episode Twelve
...enjoy!
...and the Daily Show covering the Internet aka a "series of tubes."
Also, I got a new lens for my camera- a 50mm f1.8 by Canon. I have a couple shots so far on my flickr page.
July 20, 2006
Sometimes I wish I could punch the news
This is a good example why:
'King of Queens' star: I've seen Suri Cruise
Episode 11
...is now up. Enjoy.
July 13, 2006
New James Gang!
Back from a short hiatus, The James Gang has a new episode for download.
Also for your listening pleasure, NPR Fresh Air interview with Thom Yorke.
July 11, 2006
They went and did it
Chimp playing Pac-Man (video) - The beginning of the real Planet of the Apes is here.
Nice Ping Pong moves (video) - my brother could still beat him
July 09, 2006
Yeah but does it have red eye reduction?
715 megapixel photo ... might have to wait a second for it to load when you zoom in - (via digg)
It is made up of about 170 images, taken with a Canon 10D and a Canon
100-400L lens.
Almost all of the photos were taken at 400mm, with a few of the "fill" shots
(eg, the sky in the top left corner) taken at around 200mm.
All photos are at ISO 200, 6 seconds, f/6.7 (Manual mode)
The large buildings (ie, all of the office buildings) are at least 1200
metres (1300 yards) away from the camera! The Harbour Bridge Pylon is
about half that distance away.
The Zoomify image is made up of 14,729 jpg files, each around 5-15kb,
which are demand-loaded. Good thing too, given that the original image is a
1.3Gb Photoshop file!
"Gigapixel" goodness here, too.
July 06, 2006
Exercise in futility
Aimee and I are in a softball league this summer.
So far I'm batting .250.
My very first at-bat was a hard liner right to the second baseman. My second at-bat I stupidly thought it we had two outs and got thrown out on a double play because I didn't run it out.
My third at-bat I got a base hit. The ball spun off the bat weakly down the third base line and I beat it out. My final try I hit it right to the pitcher hard- something I almost always do (including straight at Aimee's face the day before the wedding).
My defense has been average so far as well. Although tonight I almost had a Bo Jackson-esque (sorry couldn't find any baseball clips of him) catch... if it weren't for the fact that the ball popped out of my glove. Imagine this only with me.
Ok, maybe not. I had to run down the ball as fast as I could, I wasn't even sure if I would get there- it landed squarely in my glove and popped out- but I was running full steam, so it wasn't as sad as it sounds.
We'll see how we do next week. Our team couldn't hit at all this week. We lost by a pitiful 23 to 6 (last week we won something like 18-10).
Random Links:
Animated GIF - Ghostbusters the movie (via Kottke)
Slashdot - computer support stories
Video - Highlights from this year's Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest - Kobayashi cleans up again, but barely.
List of so-called "beautiful" OS X apps - I'm including it just because some look pretty useful.
Counter Strike pwnage by Franco (a guy I play with sometimes in CS:Source) - notice half way through when half his team timeout and they still win...
Nintendo gets President Bush a DS Lite for his 60th b-day. With Brain Age. (via MetaFilter)
July 04, 2006
They have people in space now?
Aimee and I just saw the space station fly overhead. The predicted time time for fly-over is pretty accurate! I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by that. I hear those NASA guys are pretty smart. Here's a nifty page that will tell you what time to look up (and where) to see it in the sky (it takes a little while to load).
July 01, 2006
Free money... at a price
A while back I got a card in the mail with a dollar enclosed.
It was from "Knowledge Networks/SRI" in New Jersey. They said they'd be calling me shortly for a survey, and the dollar was in appreciation of my participation.
Umm. K.
I guess it's not a bad tactic if you really need people to respond. Survey response rates are usually pretty low, so some kind of incentive usually helps boost that up a little bit. I thought at the time I might even help them out if they did call me, even it it was on my cell phone dime (we don't even have a land line). Hey, now that I don't have cable I have a lot of free time, right?
Time passed and I never got the call - that I know of. I've also been dodging a lot of tele-marketers on my cell phone because I was doing some insurance research and in bad judgment actually put my phone number on one of the sites during registration (of course it was required - oh well).
Then, the other day I got this in the mail:
(click for a bigger picture)
Two dollars. The offer has doubled! And all I had to do was nothing! Interesting. It reads:
Dear Customer: I don't think I'm officially a customer, am I?
Recently we called your home (not possible - did you mean my cell phone?) about a nationwide survey, but we were unable to complete the interview. We promise not to sell you anything.
Our company does research on television, radio, and yellow pages usage. As a token of our appreciate for completing our survey, enclosed is $2.00 for your help.
We hope you will take the time to speak to our interviewer.
Thank you.
So... what happens if they try to call and I don't answer again? Three dollars? Or does it double each time and I'm looking at a $4 payoff? Either way, this is looking up for me. I'll keep you updated.
Another weird thing was the front of the card:
(click for a bigger version)
A smiley face with what appear to be green "thought bubbles" - untraditionally in a downward sweeping motion - drawn very lazily in MS Paint. The smiley face is thinking: Sorry we called at an inconvenient time. Is he telepathic? Why not just have that message along with a smiley face? Or even a dialogue bubble instead of a thought bubble?
I'll have to ask them if they ever call me. Or maybe I'll just let it ring...