Tag Archives: knowledge

Thoughts

What should your superpower be?

Blogthings is running a quiz on this, and I went through it. The questions were a bit loaded, and I wasn’t sure about a couple of the answers, but even after I went back and changed them, I still got the same result. That short fuse of mine shows through again… For the record, I don’t think I’m terrifying, and neither does my wife. And I’m not keen on that whole “world belongs to you” business either. But, I’ve got a short fuse, I’ll admit that. And I’m definitely intense, driven, passionate and obsessed — sometimes to my detriment.


Your Superpower Should Be Manipulating Fire
You are intense, internally driven, and passionate. Your emotions are unpredictable – and they often get the better of you. Both radiant and terrifying, people are drawn to you. At your most powerful, you feel like the world belongs to you.

Why you would be a good superhero: You are obsessive enough to give it your all.

Your biggest problem as a superhero: Your moodiness would make it difficult to control your powers.

What Should Your Superpower Be?

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Condensed knowledge for 2007-06-01

Here are the weekend-ready goodies:

  • MS releases the Surface touchscreen computer. Previously code-named Milan, this puppy is manipulated using our hands — no mouse, no keyboard. You might say, whoopee, these displays have been around for years. True, but this is the first time they’re coming to the mass market, and what sets this device apart is that it interacts automatically with other wireless devices. If you put your wireless camera on the Surface, it’ll know to download all of the photos from the camera, wirelessly. If you put your cellphone on it, and it’s got a wireless connection, you can then drag that same photo to your cellphone. Same thing with videos. The built-in, automatic interaction is really, really cool.
  • Have you heard about the MINI Cooper D? It’s a sweet little car! (I have the Cooper S myself, but I’m already drooling for the D). The revised model will get up to 72.4 mpg! Wow!
  • Xerox has developed paper that you can re-use up to 50 times. You can print on it using UV rays, but the characters will start to fade after 24 hours, and when they’re completely faded, you can use it again. Now that’s what I call recycling!
  • A completely innocent American was arrested, handcuffed to a pillar, his feet were chained, and he was interrogated by the Secret Service, all for trying to pay with legal, new $2 bills. The man went to Best Buy to pay an outstanding balance for a stereo installation on his son’s car (after the store promised him it would be free, but charged him regardless), and when he decided to pay it with $2 bills, the clerk called the police, who then took him into custody and interrogated him. What’s more, he was handcuffed inside the store, in full view of everyone! Here’s my take on this… First, I don’t like Best Buy, because their prices are always higher than Circuit City and CompUSA. Second, their employees are rude and haven’t got a clue about the technology they sell. Third, that pathetic cashier owes the man a huge apology. Fourth, that cop who hancuffed and arrested the man shouldn’t be on the force. His powers of judgment are obviously subpar and he has no common sense. And fifth, the excuse of the police spokesman, Bill Toohey, is absolutely inadequate: “It’s a sign that we’re a little nervous in a post 9/11 world.” Just what does a $2 bill have to do with 9/11? That was their apology to the man? That’s it?!
  • The Rattlebuster is a really cool CD that plays vibration-inducing sounds at certain frequencies, helping you pinpoint the annoying rattles and vibrations in your car’s interior. As a MINI owner who’s had a persistent rattle in his dashboard for the past four years, a rattle that countless trips to the dealership couldn’t resolve, I can safely say that every MINI dealership ought to make this product a standard part of their diagnostic procedures.
  • Richard Marcus wrote a really nice piece for BlogCritics detailing what happens to the water in our environment when all of the medications that we take pass from our bodies into the sewers, then into lakes and rivers. The effects of the metabolized drugs on wildlife are shocking, and do not bode well for us, either.
  • Want to know the top ten passwords people use? Have a look at this, and try not to use one of them yourself, eh?
  • It pays to know your photographer’s rights!
  • Steve Jobs and Bill Gates met on the same stage and talked publicly for the first time in decades. What’s more, they complimented each other! 🙂
  • This is why I think public education is getting to be rotten to the core. The public school system endorses events like the one where Joel Becker (irresponsible dolt extraordinaire) from UCLA speak their dirty minds. This dude actually advised kids as young as 12 years old to have sex, do drugs and masturbate… Kids were forced to attend this event by their school, and it was only months after the fact, when pressed repeatedly by parents for an explanation and apology, that they admitted the subject matter was inappropriate. I have to wonder, where is our responsibility as adults to educate our children properly? How can we let the school system continue to chip away at the values we try to instill in our kids? How screwed up is this world when a person as irresponsible as Joel Becker is not only allowed to hold a professorship at UCLA, but also allowed to expound on the virtues of sex and drugs to young, impressionable children?
  • Hey, look, Screaming Beans! 🙂
  • A new spoofing/phishing technique has been spotted in the wild, where some sort of DLL attaches itself to IE, and when people surf legitimate URLs (like their bank website or PayPal), they get asked for unusual extra, private information. This thing isn’t yet detectable by anti-virus/anti-spyware programs, so be sure to follow this story as it develops. And if you get asked some strange questions the next time you visit your bank’s site, don’t answer them, call the bank to verify why they need that information.
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Condensed knowledge for 2007-05-05

Getting right to the links:

  • English Russia has photos of some amazing cakes made by a baker from St. Petersburg called Zhanna. They’re completely edible and very creative. I can’t even begin to imagine the work that goes into making them, but I’m sure it’s not easy.
  • The police have started to arrest children and treat them as adults. Just plain weird, and not right. It’s one thing to scare them by taking them to the police station and going through the motions of that whole process, but it’s quite another to actually create arrest records for them. That stuff will haunt them throughout their adulthood.
  • How does Google rank your blog? You might want to read this and find out.
  • Check out the pessimist’s mug.
  • This is by far some of the best advice I’ve read in a long time. A kind fellow has put together a list of things you can do to ensure survival during hard times (occasions such as natural disasters, wars, food shortages, cold weather, etc.). It’s most definitely worth a read, but make some time first — it’s going to take 15-20 minutes to get through it.
  • ETFE (Ethylene Tetrafluoroethylene) is an amazing polymer that is finding its way into some pretty innovative modern achitecture. Have a look at this BusinessWeek article, and also see the photos.
  • Here’s how to see EXIF data right in your Mac’s Finder.
  • The Daily Show has a great video segment of Bush debating Bush on the Iraq war.
  • ASIFA has a wonderful post on why you should be original and not copy others. Great stuff!
  • Shorpy, my favorite 100-year old photo blog, has transcribed a typed letter used in one of the episodes of “Leave It To Beaver”. It was supposed to be from Mrs. Rayburn to Beaver’s dad.
  • It’s a blog post like this that lets me know I’m right for being pro-choice.
  • Did you know some credit card companies will penalize you for paying your credit card on time and in full? If you’ve had this happen to you, I say it’s time to ditch them.
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Condensed knowledge for 2007-05-04

Here’s the good stuff:

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Condensed knowledge for 2007-05-03

This post picks up where my previous one left off. Here’s the good stuff:

  • Do you like old printing presses, or the quality print jobs in old, rare books? Then you’ll love this video of a small press that still uses the old methods to create some amazing results. (You’ll need Quicktime to view it.)
  • John Dvorak is a Mac troll. And I bet he’s drooling for an iPhone as well.
  • Check out the Google Maps directions from NYC to Dublin.
  • Did you know raw milk is illegal in many states in the US? Neither did I, until now, but I think it’s a very silly thing. Check out the stance of the public official quoted in the article. You’d think the guy was talking about terrorists, not some stuff we find in the supermarket. Remember the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld? See any similarities?
  • This article made serious waves when it came out a few weeks ago. The Washington Post arranged for one of the world’s best known violinists, Joshua Bell, to sit in a DC metro station and play on his violin — a Stradivarius. The music was classical, but extremely moving. Would people stop and listen? Would they realize what they were hearing was amazing? Check out what happened.
  • Back in April, Johnny Hart, the cartoonist who created B.C. and Wizard of Id, died. Rest in peace, Mr. Hart!
  • Look At This has a series of “Monkey-ed Movies” on their blog. They’re parodies of movies and television programs done entirely with chimps. Funny stuff!
  • Keith Washington was, or may still be, Prince George county’s deputy homeland security director. He is also trigger happy to the extreme, and can pull his gun on you at any time. He’s shot up two furniture delivery men in his home, and also pulled his gun on a real estate appraiser as the man took photos of his home. Someone tell me how this guy got the job. Or is the Homeland Defense department purposely looking for these sorts of people?
  • IKEA makes prefab houses, and they’ve begun to make them available in England.
  • This is a great video of the real estate house prices from 1890 to the present, adjusted for inflation, and plotted as a roller coaster ride.
  • A drunk guy fell under a passing train in Cologne, Germany. After the train went over him, he got right up and kept on going. That’s one lucky dude.
  • Beware the bot fly and its larva. This is NOT something you want to experience. There’s also a video to go along with that.
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