Friday, October 31, 2008

Link to a Point of Time Within a YouTube Video

Link to a Point of Time Within a YouTube Video is a short article that tells you how to link to a specific point in the Youtube video. 

Basically just add this to the end of the video URL:

#t=0m56s

Those aren't random letters and numbers. Put the minute number before the letter 'm' and the seconds number before the letter 's' to direct people to the portion of the video you desire.
Simple and awesome.
(From Melondrama)

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Disaster Girl


Just in time for Halloween comes Disaster Girl. Disaster Girl is a picture posted on JPG magazine by David Roth, which shows a mildly disheveled little girl looking mischeviously at the cameraman while Fire Engine 38 attempts to control a suburban house structure fire in the background.  David tags it, "She's just an innocent bystander. Or is she?"

Buzzfeed ran with the idea and started a photoshop contest. My favorite ones are the subtle jobs that add that "Where-is-Waldo" aspect to the silly picture. Someone has gone and animated it. Meme-tastic.




(From Found, Buzzfeed)

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Personal Genomes

(Guest TOTI by Guy Danus)

Personal Genomes, Harvard

"The Personal Genome Project is an open-ended research study that aims to improve our understanding of genetic and environmental contributions to human traits. In the second half of 2008, we will begin to enroll members of the public who are willing to share their genome sequence and other personal information with the scientific community and the general public.

The mission of the Personal Genome Project is to encourage the development of personal genomics technology and practices that:
* are effective, informative, and responsible
* yield identifiable and improvable benefits at manageable levels of risk
* are broadly available for the good of the general public"


The first ten participants in the PGP, called the "PGP-10", have volunteered to share their DNA sequences, medical records, and other personal information with the research community and the general public.

That's right folks! They are giving up their personal genomic privacy for the good of science! They've publicly released all of their private medical records.

The organization will soon be accepting other volunteers who wish to have their genomes mapped and participate in this study to better define the human genome.

Check out the following wheel for more information on the focus areas of the group:


(From /.)

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Kongregate

(Guest TOTI by Guy Danus)

Kongregate is a hub of gamers and gaming online. It includes some brilliant ideas that differentiate it from other gaming websites: it allows you to gain levels by accumulating points! To accumulate points, you have to be active in the Kongregate community, either by playing games and completing achievements, rating games, developing and uploading games or reviewing games. It's a ton of fun and there are thousands (literally) of free flash games rounded on this site. Hours of fun when you have nothing better to do :)

Some of the game achievements allow you to win certain cards. These collectible cards can then be played in Kongregate's original card game. It's actually quite a clever idea.

Also, there are contests every month for game developers to upload their new games. The game with the highest rating for the month gets some small cash prize ($1500 for October).

A few of my favorites include:


Bloons Tower Defense
This cute tower defense game allows you to place balloon popping towers and pop your heart out! Watch out for those MOABs! (Mother Of All Boats). You'll love to hate balloons.


This is a fun game with a great soundtrack - that also happens to be the central theme of the game! As the sound plays by, little tokens fly out that you have to catch, avoiding the red tokens and aiming for the purple ones. Sounds simple (and it kind of is) but it's a hoot anyway!


Shift-3
Clever idea for a puzzle game. There are two worlds that you can "shift" through, one black, one white, each one is a reverse of the other, including gravity. You have to find out how to get to the exit without dying by shifting through the two sides. Plenty of fun, and quirky storyline reminiscent of The Orange Box's "Portal".

Enjoy!

(From Guy Du Blag.)

Monday, October 27, 2008

Don Draper’s Guide To Picking Up Women

Don Draper’s Guide To Picking Up Women Is a comedy sketch by SNL that originally aired Saturday, Oct. 25th 2008. Want to pick up women like a pro? Follow these 4 easy steps by Don Draper.

The last step is the punch. It's like those learn-to-draw books, where the first two steps are chicken scratches, and the last step is a color rendering of the Sistine Chapel. Easy peasy. Way to go, SNL season 34, episode 6.

(From Buzzfeed)

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Mr. Accidental Scrub Out Guy

Mr. Accidental Scrub Out Guy is yet another installment of the video series from The University of Maryland School of Medicine Class of 2006.  A take-off on those old Budlight radio commercials that salute the common man, Real Men of Genius, if you will. And I will.   Nidus of Nasty, tehee.

Saturday, October 25, 2008

The Waldo Ultimatum

The Waldo Ultimatum is a youtube video parodying the Bourne Ultimatum by the Canadian comedy group The Imponderables. The Imponderables are Dave, Eric, Jon, and Tony. It's an oldie but goodie. My favorite part is the lightning-speed cameo by Carmen San Diego. 


(From Clusterflock, Coudal)

Friday, October 24, 2008

Famous Poems Rewritten as Limericks

Famous Poems Rewritten as Limericks is a self-explanatory webpage by Lore Sjöberg.  It's short and sweet.  Here are two:  

The Raven

There once was a girl named Lenore
And a bird and a bust and a door
And a guy with depression
And a whole lot of questions
And the bird always says "Nevermore."

Footprints in the Sand


There was a man who, at low tide
Would walk with the Lord by his side
Jesus said "Now look back;
You'll see one set of tracks.
That's when you got a piggy-back ride."

Bonus: Waste Land Limericks.


(From Metafilter, Articnomad)

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Recurring Science Misconceptions in K-12 Textbooks

Recurring Science Misconceptions in K-12 Textbooks is a poorly laid out, but wonderfully written site about how all the things you learned in science grade school are wrong. Including "facts" about space gravity, the shape of rain drops,  and sound.

(From Metafilter)

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

I'd Like To Have Been In That Meeting... Harry Potter

I'd Like To Have Been In That Meeting... Harry Potter is a 3-minutes and 20-seconds long comedy video spoofing Harry Potter by the The Dawson Bros.  It was animated by Richard Whitelock and voiced by Dan Benoliel and Jonathan Donahoe.  It's magic. 

 
(From Clusterflock)

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Mr. Always Prepared for Everything Guy

Mr. Always Prepared for Everything Guy is another installment of the video series from The University of Maryland School of Medicine Class of 2006.  It's a take-off on those old Budlight radio commercials that salute the common man, Real Men of Genius. I love the sphygmamonanomenananomah.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Drunk Pumpkins

Drunk Pumpkins is a silly collection of  jack-o-lantern pictures on Flickr and Buzzfeed.

Childish? Yes. 

But so's your face. 




Sunday, October 19, 2008

A Better Mousetrap 2008
























I'm posting this more for completeness, as promised earlier. A Better Mousetrap 2008 is an update on the same eponymous episode of PRI's This American Life (TAL) which aired in 2006. This is episode # 366, aired on October 10th, and the small economy bit is tacked on at the end. Meh. 

Alex Blumberg returns (in collaboration with the Planet Money podcast) with the latest in the financial crisis.


(From L. Nichols Wood Carving. )

[Edit: "NPR's This American Life (TAL)" changed to "PRI's This American Life (TAL)"]

Saturday, October 18, 2008

The Term Paper Artist

The Term Paper Artist is an article by professional term-paper-mill writer, Nick Mamatas, about the seedy underbelly of pseudo-academia.  He dishes on who buys his services, explains how he slogs through boring papers, and waxes philosophical on why students need his services in the first place.

Enjoy the exerpts: 

"In broad strokes, there are three types of term paper clients. DUMB CLIENTS predominate. They should not be in college. They must buy model papers simply because they do not understand what a term paper is, much less anything going on in their assignments.

...

The second type of client is the one-timer. A chemistry major trapped in a poetry class thanks to the vagaries of schedule and distribution requirements, or worse, the poet trapped in a chemistry class. These clients were generally lost and really did simply need a decent summary of their class readings — I once boiled the 1000-page New Testament Theology by Donald Guthrie into a 30-page précis over the course of a weekend for a quick $600.

...

The third group is perhaps the most tragic: They are well-educated professionals who simply lack English-language skills. Often they come from the former Soviet Union, and in their home countries were engineers, medical professionals, and scientists. In the United States, they drive cabs and have to pretend to care about "Gothicism" in "A Rose For Emily" for the sake of another degree. For the most part, these clients actually send in their own papers and they get an edit from a native speaker.

... 

The secret to the gig is to amuse yourself. I have to, really, as most paper topics are deadly boring. Once, I was asked to summarize in three pages the causes of the First World War (page one), the major battles and technological innovations of the war (page two), and to explain the aftermath of the war, including how it led to the Second World War (page three). Then there was this assignment for a composition class: six pages on why "apples [the fruit] are the best." You have to make your own fun. In business papers, I'd often cite Marxist sources. When given an open topic assignment on ethics, I'd write on the ethics of buying term papers, and even include the broker's Web site as a source. My own novels and short stories were the topic of many papers — several DUMB CLIENTS rate me as their favorite author and they've never even read me, or anyone else. Whenever papers needed to refer to a client's own life experiences, I'd give the student various sexual hang-ups.

...


I know why students don't understand thesis statements, argumentative writing, or proper citations.

It's because students have never read term papers.

Imagine trying to write a novel, for a grade, under a tight deadline, without ever having read a novel. Instead, you meet once or twice a week with someone who is an expert in describing what novels are like."

Touché. It's a pretty interesting read, which makes me believe again the power of daily writing. Even if all you write is crap. In conclusion, paper-buying is a land of contrasts.

(From Drexel's The Smart Set, Kottke.org, Blogbdon)

Friday, October 17, 2008

Wiki Sky

Wiki Sky is an online, detailed sky map. They have a tutorial on how to use the zany buttons

Currently they only provide the map of the space objects located outside of our Solar System. The map is generated automatically using their database with the positions and basic characteristics of space objects.

In oder words: blah blah blah, physics nerd-ery, blah blah blah, outer space geekery. 

(From  Guy)

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Mr. Really Bad With Children Guy

Mr. Really Bad With Children Guy is a video from The University of Maryland School of Medicine Class of 2006. It's a take-off on those old Budlight radio commercials that salute the common man, Real Men of Genius. A little old, but pure comedy GOLD.

BONUS! Original Bud Light commercials.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

We used to count votes, now we count bacon

We used to count votes, now we count bacon is an article on Radosh.net concerning the importance of post-election "game". I haven't really been paying attention to politics, and Bill Maher usually annoys me... but I just really liked the linked video with Chris Rock. Plus, I like the word "game" when used to describe non-sporting things.

From the article:
"The Obama campaign is famous for its ground game. The question is, does it have a post-game ground game? It's time to consider what happens if Obama goes into the election with an insurmountable lead in the polls, and ends up losing thanks to manufactured chaos at the booth."

Chris Rock touches on this possibility with humor, hypothesizing that someone will say, "Oh you got the most votes? Too bad you lost. We used to count votes, now we count bacon." Check it:
Ace.

(From Radosh.net)

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

7 Spectacularly Skilled High-Speed Photographers

7 Spectacularly Skilled High-Speed Photographers is an article on the Web Urbanist. It showcases the work of Johnny Chung Lee, Hannoc, Jasper Nance, Boris Bos, Peter Wienerroither, Martin Waugh, and Stefan.

This is probably what Superman sees every day.
























(from Guy)

Monday, October 13, 2008

Another Frightening Show About the Economy
























Another Frightening Show About the Economy is a second in an impromptu series on the economy by the NPR show, This American Life (TAL). This is episode # 365, which aired October 3rd. Not as good as the first (Giant Pool of Money), but still elucidative.

TAL explains the premise:
Alex Blumberg and NPR's Adam Davidson—the two guys who reported our Giant Pool of Money episode—are back, in collaboration with the Planet Money podcast. They'll explain what happened this week, including what regulators could've done to prevent this financial crisis from happening in the first place. You can learn more about the daily ins and outs and join the discussion on the Planet Money blog.
They break it down pretty well. Stay tuned for the third part which aired Friday, Oct. 10th when it becomes available online.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Digsby

Digsby...

"The best explanation for what it does is that it makes it so you have either:
a) extra time to not be procrastinating on the interwebs
b) extra time to procrastinate on the interwebs

Basically its IM, Email, and Social Networking all in one program -- easy and functional GUI, and pretty customizable. Only one thing I've noticed -- can be pretty demanding on your RAM, which can be a problem for slower computers.

Overall,   B+" 

(Guest written by Jsos, forwarded from Felicia D.)

Saturday, October 11, 2008

The Financial Crisis, as Explained to My Fourteen-Year-Old Sister

The Financial Crisis, as Explained to My Fourteen-Year-Old Sister is an article on The Bygone Bureau by economist and Magic-the-Gathering-nerd, Kevin Nguyen.

The Bygone Bureau is a journal of modern thought, specializing in travel writing and cultural criticism.

The article is wonderfully brief, wonderfully whimsical, and wonderfully explanatory.

It doesn't quite explain why the Dow "declined 128 points today to 8451.19, capping the worst week in its 112-year history with its most volatile day ever." But it is (slightly) less depressing than that Wall Street Journal quote. Enjoy!

(From JenK)

Friday, October 10, 2008

Pixel Girl Presents

Pixel Girl Presents is an award-winning site where you can download wallpapers and icons. They have Mac OS X and XP icons, Icontainer iconsets, desktop images, as well as tutorials, articles and links.

To capitalize on the the submission-fueled art, they made a gallery shop to sell shirts, buttons, plush monsters, and other gear you probably don't need. Unless you are a peculiarly needy person.

(From Guy)

Thursday, October 9, 2008

100 Skills Every Man Should Know

This is currently at the top of most favorited article on Metafilter.

100 Skills Every Man Should Know is a list of skills that Popular Mechanics deemed every man should know. Every person should probably know these. From handling a blowout and driving in the snow to treating snake bites and using a sewing machine. What I like about this list is it tells you how to do the skills, rather than just making you feel bad about how inept you are.

I think I would bomb the quiz in every category except emergencies. Oh well, I guess that means if things get really bad I'll be okay.

(From Metafilter)

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Zeer

Zeer is an online food consumer guide.  Not a restaurant-food guide, but a food-that-you-find-while-grocery-shopping guide. 

 You can read food reviews, view allergen warnings, write food reviews, and create shopping lists.   It's a Yelp for food products, if you will. 

And I will.

At first I thought the star rating indicated how good for you a food was, haha. WRONG. Just as well.  Sigh. This site just reminds me of how much I miss Trader Joe's. 

(From Guy)

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

The Money Meltdown

The Money Meltdown (TMM) is a site that explains everything you need to know about the U. S. money crisis of 2007 through ?.

The site is wonderfully designed, laying out macroeconomics for dummies in 5 easy steps. It has links on the background of the crisis, the key facts, what will happen next and advice for the average Joe.

TMM is reminiscent of your grade-school essay outlines, but is a touch less condescending. It even has fun cathartic videos tagged on at the end.

Grade: Absolutely ace, or inversely proportional to the U.S. economy.

(From Kottke)

Monday, October 6, 2008

The Giant Pool of Money

The Giant Pool of Money is a radio episode (#355) of NPR's This American Life, where Alex Blumberg and Adam Davidson explain the giant pool of money, U.S. housing crisis, and why we're in such a poor financial state.

There is currently a freezing of credit all around the world, which according to Adam, is something the world has never seen on this scale. The U.S. expects more than 1.1 million bankruptcies this year, twice the 2006 number. Foreclosure rates which were historically below 2%, were initially expected to go up to 12% at worst. In some mortgage pools today they are now expected to go beyond 50 percent foreclosure rates. What does this mean?

As NPR says:
"What does the housing crisis have to do with the turmoil on Wall Street? Why did banks make half-million dollar loans to people without jobs or income? And why is everyone talking so much about the 1930s? It all comes back to the Giant Pool of Money."
I loved this episode, mostly because I don't know anything about money. This episode broke down the financial crisis in easy-to understand chunks and charming (or sad) vignettes. If you don't have time to listen to the whole thing, or are an over-achiever, check out the transcript.

The best part of the story is when they focus on Glen Pizzolorusso.
"Glen had five cars, a 1.5 million dollar vacation house in Connecticut, and penthouse that he rented in Manhattan. And he made all this money making very large loans to very poor people with bad credit." Glen said:
"We rolled up to Marquee at midnight with a line, 500 people deep out front. Walk right up to the door: Give me my table. Sitting next to Tara Reid and a couple of her friends. Christina Aguilera was doing some, I’m-Christina-Aguilera-and-I’m-gonna-get-up-and-sing kind of thing. Who else was there? Cuba Gooding and that kid from Filthy Rich: Cattle Drive. What was that kids name? Fabian Barabia? We ordered 3, 4 bottles of Cristal at $1000 per bottle. They bring it out, you know hey're walking through the crowd, they're holding the bottles over their heads. There's fire crackers , sparklers. You know, the little cocktail waitresses. You know so you order 3 or 4 bottles of those and they’re walking through the crowd and everyone’s like: Whoa, who's the cool guys? We were the cool guys. They gave me the black card with my name on it. There’s probably 10 in existence. You know? And that meant that I spent way too much money there...

We looked at loans. These people didn't have a pot to piss in. They can barely make a car payment and we're giving them a 300, 400 thousand dollar house."
Wow.

(From tomorrow's link. Stay tuned, it's awesome. )

Sunday, October 5, 2008

xdrtb.org

Xdrtb.org is a site about extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB), a form of TB caused by bacteria that is resistant to the most effective anti-TB drugs. It has emerged from the mismanagement of multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) and once created, can spread from one person to another (According to wiki). Photos by James Nachtwey, TED winner
Sadzors.

Saturday, October 4, 2008

YouTomb

YouTomb is a site by MIT Free Culture that tracks videos taken down from YouTube for alleged copyright violation.

They track who issued the complaint and how long the video was up before takedown. According to their about page, the goal of the project is to identify how YouTube recognizes potential copyright violations as well as to aggregate mistakes made by the algorithm.

(From Guy)

Friday, October 3, 2008

Scrapblog

Scrapblog is an online scrapbook site. For people with way too much time on their hands. They have an annoyingly-voiced video on how it works. [Edit: video auto-starts, so I removed it. Click here to see it.]

According to their about page,
"We created Scrapblog because we wanted to go beyond sharing our photos and videos online. We made Scrapblog drag-and-drop-easy so that everyone can tell their stories and create beautiful multimedia scrapbooks.

Our goal is to enable everyday people to express themselves online in a creative way. We've been developing Scrapblog for over two years. However, what you see online today is only the beginning."
(From Guy)

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Roflrazzi

Roflrazzi is the latest lolz-themed website by the I Can Has Cheezburger (ICHC) people, world record-holders in riding the 15-minutes-of-net-fame through to eternity.  Basically it's a new lolz celebrity macros site. Bold words + familiar scenes = win.

Expect a new website by ICHC every time Madonna gets a new 'do.

(From Buzzfeed)

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Vote NO on Prop 8!

Dave and Lonnie Talk About Gay Marriage is a poignantly adorable (or adorably poignant) PSA against California's Prop 8: a desperate attempt by religious fundamentalists to take away the rights of gay and lesbian couples to marry. The artist's vision is a heartfelt one, and after the 1min and 18secs, everybody in the room will understand.
Please watch this in high quality:



Spread the word to VOTE NO ON PROP 8! If this can be a helpful tool for those who are on the fence, don't hesitate to forward it around the world! ROCK THE VOTE!

This post goes out there to the creator of this amazing animated PSA: Adrian. Love you!

(From Magister Dooley)