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23 June, 2004

Name The Building

Whole Wheat Radio listeners know that Jim and Esther are constructing a 24x28 foot building that will house WWR and serve as a venue for live concerts and other fun things.

So far, it's been referred to as the "Wheat Hole." That's a decent name, but they are open to other suggestions.

So put on your thinking caps, get creative, and help them out. Post your suggestions as a comment.

Here are a few of mine:

• The Talkeetna Coliseum
• The George W. Bush Memorial Ballroom
• The Grand Ole Wheat Hole
• Carnegie Hall West
• Radio Town Music Hall
• The Moron Tabernacle
• Madison Square Glacier
• Esther's Performing Arts Center
• The House of Booze

Posted on 23 June, 2004

22 Megapixels

Michael Reichmann's first look at the Phase One P25.

Phase One has been one of the leading manufacturers of digital backs for medium format cameras since the genre was invented some 10 years ago. One industry estimate suggests that their market share is now between 65% - 75% -- varying by country and individual markets. In other words, they are market leaders.

There's a simple reason for this. Phase has consistently produced a product that, while expensive, has featured state-of-the-art technology along with ease of use and professional workflow

Priced around $30,000, this is not something targeted to hobbyists.

Posted on 23 June, 2004

Word Color

Download Douwe Osinga's fun little Window app called Word Color.

It uses Google Image Search to determine the color of a word or string of words. It goes out there, retrieves the top 9 images and loops through all pixels, calculating the average hue, which is later converted to a color.

Using only the hue ensures that we don't end up with the kind of gray/brown that we all used to get as kids after mixing all available colors in the hope to get the utter best color.

I tried it on a few search terms:

Microsoft

George W. Bush

John F. Kerry

John Walkenbach

Whole Wheat Radio

Green Onions

Douwe has more Google hacks here.

Posted on 23 June, 2004

The Chopped Liver Archives

The next time someone says, "what am I, chopped liver?" you can send them to the Chopped Liver Archives.

Posted on 23 June, 2004

Potty Bomb

Don't try this at home. In fact, don't even try it at work: Porta-Potty Bomb.

Ok, what you do is take two aerosol cans and 3-4 packs of sparklers and a port-a-potty...

(Thanks Jim Kloss)

Posted on 23 June, 2004

Impossible Images

From Worth 1000: Mission Impossible.

The rules of this game are thus: You are to photoshop impossible feats. Your image must include a subject performing an action that is not possible.

Posted on 23 June, 2004

VB 2005 Preview

Ken Getz presents A Sneak Preview of Visual Basic 2005.

Summary: Provides on overview of the new features in Visual Basic 2005 including, My Visual Basic, IntelliSense, Edit and Continue, AutoCorrect, Just My Code, Windows Forms enhancements, and more. (30 printed pages)

Posted on 23 June, 2004

New IE Evangelist

From ZDNet: Microsoft appoints a new IE evangelist.

Microsoft has boosted the prospects for some enhancements to Internet Explorer by appointing a new member to its product management team. Some analysts believe the appointment means that the much criticized browser will get a polish before Longhorn is released and IE's importance begins to fade.

The new evangelist is Dave Massy (not shown here).

In June 2003, Microsoft announced it would not release any new versions of IE as a stand-alone browser. Instead, the software giant said IE would be an integrated part of Longhorn, the company's next major operating system.

However, Longhorn is unlikely to appear for another two or three years, and as many companies are slow to upgrade their operating systems, it may not be in widespread use for up to three years after that.

So how long will it take?

"If he can bring back the same innovative spirit running up to IE 5.5, we can look forward to a good product. But the problem is that it will take about 18 months," Starnes said.

It takes eighteen months for the largest software company in the world to do a browser upgrade? Sheesh...

Posted on 23 June, 2004

Stupidity Awards

Cast your vote in the 2nd Annual World Stupidity Awards.

Coming this July in Montreal, Canada at the world's largest comedy festival - Just For Laughs. Five new categories of stupidity this year! Voting is now open.

Last year's winners are listed here.

(via Steel White Table)

Posted on 23 June, 2004

ABCs Of Terrorism

Here's a Child's ABCs of Terrorism. It starts out like this:

A is for Al Qaeda and amnesia. Are you old enough to remember when the war on terror was being fought against people who actually attacked us?

B is for Bush and Bin Laden. They hate each other, but they could never be the same without each other--just like lots of mommies and daddies!

(via Diversionz)

Posted on 23 June, 2004

An Excel Quine Formula

Jonathan Rynd sent me this unusual Excel formula:

=SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE("=SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE
(#@#,CHAR(35),CHAR(34)),CHAR(64),#@#)",CHAR(35),
CHAR(34)),CHAR(64),"=SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE
(#@#,CHAR(35),CHAR(34)),CHAR(64),#@#)")

Paste the formula into a cell, and you'll see that it does nothing. The only thing you see is the formula itself.

According to Jonathan:

This formula constructs a text string which just happens to be the same as formula.

It's like trying to speak a sentence that fully describes itself. The process is called "quining"; the sentence is a quine. It's rather non-obvious; most of my early guesses would have led to an infinitely long formula.

The key is the SUBSTITUTE functions. It starts with a copy of the formula, except the parts in quotation marks were replaced with #@#. The inner call (executed first) replaces the @ with the string. The second call replaces the # with CHAR(34). The end result is equivalent to the original formula.

It works because the string is substituted into itself twice.

Here's the Wikipedia entry for quine.

In computing, a quine is a program (a form of metaprogram) that produces its complete source code as its only output. For amusement, hackers sometimes attempt to develop the shortest possible quine in any given programming language.

The article also includes quines for several programming languages. Jonathan's formula should be listed among the other examples.

Posted on 23 June, 2004

Another Foiled Prank

You may recall this prank: How to wrap your friend's apartment in tin foil.

It seems that the prank is becoming very popular. Here are two more, with photos:

• Servers Under the Sun
• Blinded by the Light

Posted on 23 June, 2004

Powerful Celebrities

From Forbes: The annual Celebrity 100.

The top 5 are Mel Gibson, Tiger Woods, Oprah Winfrey, Tom Cruise, and The Rolling Stones.

Jean-Georges Vongerichten (a chef in New York) just barely made it, at #100.

Posted on 23 June, 2004

Long Excel Formulas

Dick Kusleika is looking for the longest and ugliest Excel formula -- one that's actually used in real life. I think it's a contest, and the winner will get a free car or something.

Posted on 23 June, 2004

Yann Arthus-Bertrand Photos

Unusual photos by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. Most are studio portraits, and a lot of them include farm animals.

Posted on 23 June, 2004

Microsoft Employees

David Weinberger writes: Talking with Microsoft.

I don't think I've ever met a Microsofty that I've disliked. In my 15 years of experience with 'em, I've generally found them to be hugely bright, passionate, and funny ... although some of what they do when they're put together into the mighty Microsoft Entity deeply disturbs me. Even so, the people I've met have been straightforward and non-huffy when talking about where we disagree.

I tend to agree -- although I certainly can't say that I haven't met any Microsoft employees that I disliked. Somehow, Microsoft as a company is less than the sum of its parts.

Posted on 23 June, 2004

Photographers' Rights

From Bert P. Krages II, Attorney At Law: The Photographer's Right (PDF link). Print it out and put it in your gear bag.

Your rights and remedies when stopped or confronted for photography.

(via Boing Boing)

Posted on 23 June, 2004

Sketch Comedy

You can view lots of humorous sketch comedy movies (and other stuff) at Olde English.

Posted on 23 June, 2004

Eco-Artware

Art from recycled stuff: Eco-Artware.

I sought out products and artists that were factoring the environment into their design. As I did so, I unearthed an artistic movement that married earth friendly materials to innovative design...

That was the beginning of eco-artware.com, a web-based gallery of stylish, well-made products enabling us to live well, while living lightly on the earth.

Here's a bowl made from a vinyl record ($29).

Other items include coasters cut out from a computer motherboard, bud vases made from shotgun shells, and a CD rack made from bicycle rims.

Posted on 23 June, 2004

Origami Quilt

Instructions for making an origami quilt.

Posted on 23 June, 2004

Sno Ads

This is perhaps the most obnoxious marketing idea I've ever heard: Sno Ads.

Sno Ads are highly visible, unique, color advertisements on the snow that are strategically placed in high traffic, winter resort areas to achieve maximum visibility. All Sno Ads� are 100% environmentally friendly and leave absolutely no negative impact on the environment.

No negative impact? How about destroying a perfectly good view?

They justify this despicable activity by donating 10% of revenues to environmental organizations.

Posted on 23 June, 2004

Hillbilly Blog

Talking like a hillbilly is fairly easy. Writing like a hillbilly is a bit more difficult. Buddy Don, however, has nailed it in his Wandering Hillbilly blog. Example:

tiz back to the reglar grind this mornin, witch that means bein back in the offus after a week away. i gut plenty to ketch up on, probly jes a nuff to keep me real busy till tiz time to go away agin, this time on a real vacayshun, witch we leeve out on thursdy to see sumbidy git marrd n then tiz a lil stroll thru the smokies n mayhap as much as a week in tennessee, mayhap not.

If you can't understand this stuff, try using the Hillbilly/English Dickshunairy.

(via The Presurfer)

Posted on 23 June, 2004

Text Stereogram

This is amazing: A text stereogram.

Cross your eyes just right, and you'll see a hidden message. Really.

(via Eyebeam reBlog)

Posted on 23 June, 2004

Dental Distortions

Fake teeth for special effects: Dental Distortions.

Dental Distortions began out of frustration. As a Dental Tech of 12 years, I used to make funny buck teeth and fangs for friends each Halloween. I even entertained the idea of starting a mail order business back in the 80's (long before the internet), but unfortunately I listened to my mentors who told me that NO ONE would pay $20 for a set of fake teeth. Well, the 'fake hillbilly teeth fad' of the 90's proved otherwise, so in 1998 I decided to throw my hat into the ring as they say.

Posted on 23 June, 2004