Zombie apocalypse

Could you survive an outbreak of zombies? Check out your chances here. Seems I have a reasonable chance, better that 50% is good, isn't it?
56%

Mingle² - Free Online Dating

Smart Cars

The Smart car will be available in the USA next year, I don't know if this is a real ad for it, but either way it's pretty funny. In case you missed it Tom Hanks drove one in The Da Vinci Code. It is the official car of Live Earth. For me I still prefer the Mini.

Google: Draggable Driving Directions

Whatever will they think up next, this is a cool update to Google maps, check out the video for a demonstration.

Top 10 dead (or dying) computer skills

Computerworld has it's list of the top ten dead or dying computer skills. Some I have to question, was COBOL ever a skill? Did PC network administrators ever? I much prefer their readers suggestions, some of them are still very salient today. My favorite being number 2 - "Commenting and documentation (actually, that's a computer [skill] that people never had)."

My first Rock n' Roll Concert

March 1, 1958

This was the first Rock n' Roll concert I ever attended. Buddy Holly and the Crickets at the Trocadero, Elephant and Castle. The poster is from 20 days later when they made it up to Liverpool, one of the provinces. As was the style back in the olden days, they were traveling with supporting acts. As I recall they were an English pop "star" Gary Miller, a new comedian trying to break through Des O'Connor and The Tanner Sisters.
But Buddy Holly and The Crickets, what a concert, what a talent. When they broke into "Maybe Baby", a big hit in the UK at the time, the 4500 crowd in attendance went wild. They may have even slashed a few chairs, also a trend at the time. Buddy Holly was a supreme talent, he could both sing and play guitar very well. But his greatest talent was a songwriter, both words and tunes. Listen to virtually any song he wrote and it takes you back to the time when we did not carry guns and despite the threat of the "Bomb" we were all so much happier then. To me it was a gross oversight when MTV or VH1, whatever published their list of "100 most shocking moments in Rock and Roll" without even a mention of Buddy's death. The plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Richie Valens was to me, and many others The Most Shocking Moment in Rock and Roll.
If Buddy had lived, I am sure he would still be a big influence in the music industry. His music will never die.

San Francisco in Jello

San Francisco in Jello, what a cool concept. The artist Liz Hickok on her site says "I make the landscapes by constructing scale models of the architectural elements which I use to make molds. I then cast the buildings in Jell-O." Then she photographs or videos them. You have to visit her site to read more about this and her other projects. I found out about this from my favorite music magazine, Paste.

Carl Sagan - The cosmic calendar

Carl Sagan was the best for explaining who and where we are in this amazing Cosmos.
The last 10 seconds of the 31st of December in the cosmic calendar contains all of our history. Now how about we do something in the first few seconds of the new cosmic year.

Cooling down the computer

Cooling down your computer with Mineral Oil, in an Aquarium!! Sound like something you might try, check out details here before throwing out your fish or dunking your Dell.

JibJab Rules

Just in time for the 4th July holiday our friends have come up with another good video. What I like is that the intelligent ones look intelligent, and the rest ..... well you be the judge. The Star Spangled Banner as done by the Presidents.

Star Spangled Banner
|Funny Jokes at JibJab

Nina Simone

You've gotta love Nina Simone, a most distinctive voice. A terrific arranger, the complete package. First check out her version of "Ain't got no" from Hair.


And of course her version of "Mississippi Goddam" is the ultimate, but then of course she wrote it anyway.


And one of my all time favorites has always been "Feeling Good" and of course there is no video I can find of her performing it. So we will have to make do with the excellent video HBO put out for their "Six Feet Under" promo.

History of UNIX,, a brief segment

So how long has UNIX been around, can you answer that before watching the video? Some very leading edge hardware featured here.


And if that has whetted your appetite then you will need this tutorial on command line programming for UNIX.

Please don't talk about me when I'm gone

The great Billie Holiday in early 1959 on a TV show. Sadly she died in July of 1959. But she was in good voice here, some great styling to enjoy on a Tuesday.

Hey Paris - Dion

Dion DiMucci, currently in the Rock and Roll hall of Fame. Always singing about girls, "I Can't Go On (Rosalie)", "Runaround Sue", "Little Diane", "Sandy", "Donna the Prima Donna" and "Ruby Baby". I've probably missed a few, but now he has added Paris to his list. Check out his song, and then for you youngsters who never heard of him go check out some of his earlier work, both solo and with the Belmonts.

World Peace

Rodney Carrington - Show Them To Me the blue country comedian and singer sings about a way to create world peace.

Cost of gas

OK, so you are thinking gas (petrol) is expensive where you live. Are you sure about that? Thanks to Pizdaus for the picture, check out his site he has loads of good pictures there. I can relate to this since I live in the Bay Area, but I still remember in 2004 paying $80 to fill a tank when I was in England on a trip.

Tom Mabe rules

I love this guy, Tom Mabe, I wish I could come up with this stuff when those a*hole telemarketers call.

Shinybinary

Check out the cool art by UK artist Nik Ainley. He has some striking work here which you can buy as prints, or on t-shirts and even some wallpaper for you computer.

Mock the week

Some oldies but goodies. A quick laugh for the weekend. Spot the link between the two.



and another

You love me - DeVotchKa

DeVotchKa tour footage by Nick, hauntingly beautiful song with excellent video.
I haven't featured DeVotchKa in a while, figured it was time to bring them back.


And then to make a complete contrast, here they are live from the Avalon Hollywood performing The Enemy Guns.

Colorful English language

It's not so much the pictures here, it's the very excited commentary by the English commentator. Some of his prose is priceless. "teardrops the size of pineapple chunks!", "braver than a matador in high heels and a pink tutu", "braver than a bullfighter with no knickers on". Just don't get that turn of phrase at a 49ers or Raiders game.

How to be # 1 on Google

It's easy, you just select a popular current event, and misspell an important word in it. As in my mistake with Torandot / Turandot. It got me to number one. But, here's the sad thing, another 1,169 sites got it wrong also.

My Life

Billy Joel, with assistance of Elton "Godzilla" John in a live concert from the Tokyo Dome, Japan back in 1998. Hilarious, just for Billy's face most of the way through it, you can't see Elton's face.

Hey You

Here's Madonna's song for "Live Earth". Probably the most relevant thing she has done in a few years. Nice video, hopefully it will help get people to realize that we need to do something. Don't just wait until 7-7-7 start on it today.

On The Surface

Since I've been linking to so many of these media interfaces, I guess I should also show the down side. I still want one, but thanks SarcasticGamer for showing us the other side of it.

Jeff Han

Here we go with another interface system, here Jefferson Han of Perceptive Pixel presents his amazing new human-machine interface at TED 2007. I can't wait 'til we are all using stuff like this.



Something along similar lines to check out would be accenture Interactive Wall Technology, I like this also because I can see some uses in the manufacturing area.

Have a slogan

Just what we needed, click on Murphy, and he'll come up with another one.

Something to think about

So this morning as I am getting ready for work, the TV is on as always and I am partially aware of what they are talking about on Good Morning America. They start showing the work of this artist in England who does extremely miniature art. He even has to time his heart beats to do the brush strokes in between them. It looks interesting so I think I'll check him out on the Internet. But on the way to work of course I forget all about him, and his name. Then as I'm checking my e-mail I see one from my friend Maggie from Ramsgate, England. And what is in it? A PowerPoint presentation of Willard Wigan!!! Is that strange or what? Coincidence, you tell me. Anyhow the one shown here is The six wives of Henry VIII in the eye of a needle. Check out some of the others at this BBC site.

Fugheddaboutit!

A real, living, breathing, thinking human being in the white house? Nahh it will never happen, but it's nice to dream.

British GMTV is cruel

Poor Rachel, she had to ride the "Infusion". There is no way you'd get me on it, but it was funny watching someone else suffer. Infusion is the world’s first suspended looping coaster completely over water!!!

Feed the homeless

Now if we could all do this somehow life would get better. Tom Mabe pranks a restaurant into feeding the homeless, nice gesture.

Training for the future

I heard this guy on KFOG's morning show this morning, very smart. He mentioned this clip on YouTube. Isn't it funny that it was a "Christian" group that walked out, after throwing water all over Mike Daisey's prompt sheets. A very "Christian" thing to do. Or did I misunderstand the "Christian" tenet. The Boston Globe had this to say about the incident. Mike is currently touring with his "Great Men of Genius" monologues, if you get the chance check him out.

Short Attention Span Theater

Jon Stewart from Short Attention Span Theater: 1991-1992 (Comedy Central/Comedy Channel)co-hosted with Patty Rosborough. He looks kinda young here, but then I bet we all did back in 1991. Pretty funny with the weight comparisons.

glumbert.com - Jon Stewart from back in the day

Derek and the Dominoes

Derek and the Dominoes on The Johnny Cash show. Amazing video, and then you get Carl Perkins, Eric Clapton and Johnny Cash singing "Matchbox" together. I had never seen this before. Truly one for the ages. They start of with "It's too late" written by Chuck Willis, and previously notably sung by Buddy Holly and the Crickets.

George Carlin, one for the ages

George Carlin shown through the years. Is he getting better as he gets older? Gotta love that "stuff" monologue. He is the epitome of wordly eloquence. Gives the definition to curmudgeon.

£100,000 to Paul Potts

Times online Simon Crerar wrote: "Singing mobile phone salesman Paul Potts woke up £100,000 richer today after winning television show Britain's Got Talent, and revealed that he will spend part of his prize money clearing debts and improving his teeth."
All I can say is he certainly has the voice to warrant the win. I didn't see the show, it's not shown in the US. But I understand the little girl Connie Talbot (age 6) came in second.

Things have changed - Bob Dylan

Some Bob Dylan music to get you through the weekend. have a good one.

"Times they are a changing" - really prophetic, this from 1969

"Things have changed" you never sang a truer word Bob!

Only in England

You know I often receive e-mail jokes that start with "Only in America .....", but this certainly fits into the "Only in Britain ...." mold. For one thing this would be banned in the USA anyway. But there is quiet a kerfuffle about it back in the UK.
Seems some advertising company has painted a 100,000 sq ft advert featuring the image seen here. And it is directly on the flight path to Gatwick Airport (London's other airport). British media is suitably impressed.

Prosumers are you ready for this?

Voice: Philip K. Dick Avatar.
Date: 6th April 2051
Lugar: desconocido

Prosumers this is your future, are you ready to experience it? Could it be this way? It doesn't seem that far fetched to me. I found this fascinating.


Is it just me or does this avatar sound like Arnold Schwarzenegger digitally enhanced?

Paul Potts in Semi-finals

Production values came up a bit, but it is still the Paul Potts voice. Here he is singing "Time to say goodbye" aka "Con te partirò" an Italian song written by Francesco Sartori (music) and Lucio Quarantotto (lyrics). As I understand it he won the semi final and is looking forward to the final on Sunday night. TV never moved this fast when I lived in the UK.

Sweet fan

Just in time for the heat wave check out this cool fan from ThinkGeek. And it's only $389.99, I guess I'll stick to my fan without the lights. Not so much fun though.

Triathlon minus the bike

Here we go with running, swimming but no biking, instead you get cookies. On today's wacky Japanese TV show, you get to run on a treadmill with ever increasing speed munching on cookies as you pass a rest stage. And then if you are not fast enough you get hurled backward for a nice swim. What could be more fun? A triathlon maybe?

Why not publicized?

As a general rule I watch at least one network newscast a day, and the occasional cable news show. But nowhere have I seen any mention of this. Maybe it was blocked by GM! Not likely. But it looks like just another day in the life of dear leader. Dubyah's riding through Rome in a Cadillac limo, and runs out of gas. Isn't it ironic.
You can get more background info from this spot, assuming you read Italian. OK, I found an English language site.

Reactable

Wow, Something like Bumptop for musical sounds. This is a really awesome interface.
They say it best when they write "The reactable is a collaborative electronic music instrument with a tabletop tangible multi-touch interface".



Here's another demo vid.......


and here's some "live" music on iit from Europe.

What kind of American accent do you have?

This was kind of fun, and maybe a bit uncanny. You see this test doesn't listen to anything. You just tell it how you pronounce words. Here's my results.

What American accent do you have? (Best version so far) Northeastern Most people don't know it but this is actually what dictionaries are based on. If you don't believe me, pick up any American dictionary and look up "source" and "sauce" and you'll see they are written with the same vowel pronunciation.

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

And now here's the uncanny part, as those who know me can attest, I am British. But when I first came to the states 25 years ago I lived in Massachusetts. Close, no cigar.

Send your atheist friend an "I Told You So" card after the Rapture

Just write your letter and it will be hand-delivered immediately following the exodus of the pure from the Earth. But you must be thinking to yourself, "How can the letters be delivered after the Rapture?" The answer is simple. The creators of this site are Atheists.



read more | digg story

Bring 'em home

MC Hammer is relevant again. What happened to the rest of the hip-hop community? This make too much sense, but I'm guessing Dubyah (Hero of Albania) doesn't listen to hip-hop much.

Somewhere over the Rainbow - Conny

Wow, maybe Britain does have talent, after I left I wasn't sure. But this is the second clip I've linked here from this show. Conny, aged 6, sings "Somewhere over the rainbow" and I got goosebumps. It even evoked this from Simon, "She was pitch perfect" in a statement to one of the other judges after she had finished. Good luck to her, and I hope she get's to sing for the Queen.

While you are in the mood to look at this show, check out Tony Laf another good talent, singing his own song "I'm Good".

Plane flies under Stockholm

Flying a remote control plane through a 4.5km tunnel under the streets of Stockholm sounds like fun. The plane was 80" wide and weighed 13lb. The tunnel in question was the Södra Länken.

Cheap gas

There is some cheap gas that will be available soon, 50 years old, but certainly cheaper than the current stuff is. Dunno how good the Schlitz beer will be though. Anyway they are digging it all up on Friday. See you there.

Video killed the radio star

The first video ever seen on MTV, not. But a cool version to be sure.
This is a cover by The Wrong Trousers.

glumbert.com - Video Killed the Radio Star

Majority Rules Drinking Party

or "Drinking party from hell". Not sure if this is a game show or a party. Could be either, and you don't really need to speak Japanese to get it. My take is that they ask a question of opinion, and everybody selects one of two options, and the minority get slammed to the floor with their drink going all over them. Wildly funny.

Something to make you think

Global Warming
True or False, yes or no.
Serious food for thought.

glumbert.com - The Most Terrifying Video You'll Ever See

Human Tetris, getting wet version

Funniest game show I've seen in a long time. Human Tetris, if you can fit, commit. If not then you get wet.

Amazingly good voice

From the Britain has got Talent show, 1st round auditions. Listen to Paul Potts singing "Nessum Dorma" from Torandot by Puccini. Looks like even Simon was blown away.

[Thanks for finding my from/by typo to Anonymous! Why doesn't anybody use a name, it's gotta be easier to think up a faux name than to spell Anonymous.]

BumpTop

Another really cool interface way beyond windows. Presented here by Anand Agarawala, it's called BumpTop and I think I want it.



Here's another look at it.

Freaky facade

I'm really glad they never used to do this on the few times I frequented Yates Wine lodge. This was back in the days when it was "cool" to go to Yates after you had already downed an enormous number of pints of beer elsewhere. Then you had to consume as much Australian Sweet White wine as possible and see who threw up first (they had to pay for the wine). But if the building was doing this, I'm sure I would have been the one throwing up.

Pachelbel's Canon in D - disected

Pachelbel or Taco Bel? Rob Paravonian is a very funny man, who has more than a passing knowledge of music. Something to enjoy for the weekend.

American Gangster

This looks like it could be interesting. With Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe. Director Ridley Scott, opening in November of this year. Gonna be a long wait.
American Gangster, look out for it.

Fun with old disks

What do you do with obsolete hardware (hard drives), have fun by removing the diska, put them all into one drive, spin up to speed, nudge, voila!

Michael Moore

Hey Sickos, Michael Moore wants to hear from you.

Latest .. for dummies page

Check out how to use an umbrella (or maybe how not to). There is a guest instructor, no hints but the initials are GWB.

Subliminal Advertising

Subliminal Advertising - does it work? You betcha bippy. I never saw this guy Derren Brown before, I'm assuming it is some British TV show, but he certainly appears to have nailed this subject.

Tom Waits for no one

On any given day I don't get very excited about animation, I don't watch any animated shows on TV, much prefer real people. On the other hand I do like Tom Waits, one of my favorite artists. This Academy Award winning short combining Tom and the animators I found very tastefully done. You can read about it here and here.

Smoke on the Water

A world record by 1,683 guitars playing "Smoke on the Water", with one guy singing who didn't know the words. Oh well you can't win them all. I guess Guinness just counts the guitars. All this in Kansas City.

How thirsty are you?

Want a boost? Need more energy? Want the power of 400 babies? This is funny.

Rare Lobster

And we are not talking about how to cook it. This lobster is so rare they quote odds of 1 in 50 Million!!! He is a true two-toned varmint, kinda looks half cooked. But check him out. Caught off Newport Rhode Island (not Maine) and will probably end up retiring to a large aquarium.

The Deer Hunter

So this guy was out in the woods hunting for Bambi's mother. And he met the deer.


So he made a hasty retreat, ran down the road and found a phone box, whereupon he made the following phone call. Click to listen.

911call.wav

The daily walk

Every lunchtime, to escape the cube it is nice to take a walk and commune with nature. So yesterday I thought I would take my camera with me and try to give you a little feel of the area where I walk. It is very pleasant, but sometimes windy as you may hear. the wind whistles in over the Golden Gate Bridge (which cannot be seen in any of these videos) and straight down to the Hayward Shoreline Park District.
Here is the first 360 degree view about a half mile from the Center.

There is a large amount of wildlife around here, mainly of the bird variety, and the Center would appear to be the nesting place of a huge amount of swifts. I think the largest mammal I've seen was a ground squirrel. Anyway here is the second 360 degree view taken a further halfmile down the trail.

What if we joined every image on the Internet?

Microsoft sure seems to be making a lot of new software announcements lately. This is about a couple of really cool visual products. Joined together they can be really interesting one is called Seadragon and the other is Photosynth. The presentation here is from a conference in Monterey.

It's time to make sure your metadata is up to date.

Shop Fremont

My hometown has put out a bunch of commercials to encourage people to shop locally. Why not? Save fuel, shop in Fremont. If you live in other Bay Area cities, then spend fuel and shop Fremont.


Did I mention they are quirky?


And really well acted.


Then there's an actual store in Fremont advertisment.

Why is my girlfriend mad at me?

This is Japanese Human Art, no need to understand Japanese. She is mad at him, why? The reversal goes back further than the beginning to explain all. Tres cool.

2007 Cheese Rolling

Here it is the 2007 Cooper's Hill Cheese Rolling and Wake from Gloucester, UK. You can read more about it on this site. Even a few days of rain before the event didn't discourage the thousands who attended. This is an annual event where the object is to catch an 8lb Double Gloucester Cheese that has been rolled down an almost vertical hill. Can't be done of course, but I think the first one down the hill, living, gets the cheese.