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September 07, 2005

Starship Size Does Matter

Ever want to compare an Imperial Star Destroyer to a Klingon Negh'Var? Or the ships from Starship Troopers to 2001 Space Odyssey, Babylon-5, or Macross? No? Well this guy did it anyways. Jeff Russell's Starship Dimensions compares side-by-side the scales of starships from a few dozen different sci-fi series through 7 different orders of magnitude. Fantastically nerdy stuff. Apparently HALO could eat Borg Cubes like candy.

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August 30, 2005

Perry Bible Fellowship

During my extensive investigation of Square Lake (60 seconds on google) I came across another comic that was kinda in the same vein of sardonic humor, but in a different direction. The Perry Bible Fellowship, written and illustrated by Nicholas Gurewitch, is a collection of dark and twisted humor wrapped in cotton candy. Give it a read, both the writing and the illustrations are top-notch.

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August 29, 2005

Square Lake is the bees knees

Square Lake was a comic written and illustrated by Dan Acton that ran in the one of the University of Illinois student papers a few years back. The paper's website recently deleted the archive, but fortunately it was saved by the kbps blog. I had a couple classes with this guy, top-shelf fellow. The comic has some seriously dark humour. It's sort of like a 1930's Bazooka Joe gum wrapper comic that was regularly beaten as a child and forced to wear a skirt to school. Check out the archive.

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August 25, 2005

End of the World Photoshopped

Oh no, it’s the end of the world! They must have finally legalized same-sex marriages, right? Not really, photoshopping competition site Worth1000.com's completed contest of the day is Mass Destruction. There are 25 entries depicting the end of the world and in true Hollywood fashion, its the recognizable cultural landmarks that are the first to be destroyed. (That poor Empire State Building has been blown up so many different times over the years) On the topic of destroying the earth, check out Geocide on no less than 11 realistic ways that the earth can be obliterated including the physics, timeline, resources, and odds of success for each way. A must for aspiring mad-scientists.

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The Sims present R. Kelly's "Trapped in the Closet"

For those of you not familiar with "Trapped in the Closet", it's R-Kelly's latest opus where he does the same song 5 different times and sing-describes every minute action of a love triangle drama. For those you not familiar with Machinima, it's a form of media using 3D videogame engines to create and direct scripted movies. Where these two converge is Kendra Flemons's recreations of all 5 chapters of Trapped in the Closet using the Sims engine. Do to some limitations though, there are no guns, sex is replaced with hugging, and bad acting is replaced with great 3D animations.

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August 24, 2005

Google Talk: A Constructive Criticism

Google Talk beta is Google's foray into the instant messenger world. Using a Jabber server of their own, they are attempting to popularize an open standard that hopefully the other clients (AOL, MSN, YAHOO) will one day follow, allowing the same interoperability that email enjoys. Although officially announced Wednesday, late Tuesday I found a link to the Google Talk download page a day early and decided to take the Google Talk beta for a spin to see what it's all about. I was able to get 2 other friends already on GMail to chat with me over the new client to see it in action. While I found a lot of things I liked, there were still many problems I see that might prevent this client from taking off at this point.

What I Liked
In true Google style, Keep It Simple Stupid is in effect. The client is incredibly lightweight (900KB install) and the GUI is very unobtrusive. The windows have little or no border, and nothing is there that doesn't need to be there such as ads, stock tickers, etc. The client is extremely lacking in options, although this might be a good thing to most people. Right clicking anything reveals few if any available actions. The preference screen has only the basics, but most options that I usually set on other clients are the default here. Not playing a notification sound while the window is visible is one of those features you think would have been the default for years. I still want to strangle people who can sit in front of the AIM client talking to one person with the conversation window maximized, and still need to hear the chime sounds for both sending and receiving IMs. These are usually the same people who still have their desktops set to 800x600 (once saw 640x480) even on a 19" LCD. That’s another story though.
Multiple conversations are stacked together and can roll up to be hidden if the need arises. The main buddy list window can be minimized to the system tray if you don't like it taking up room on the screen or taskbar. The client also acts as a GMail notifier so you don't need to have both that and the standalone GMail notifier. In conversations the “screenname:” stamp doesn't repeat itself if you've sent multiple IMs without alternating to the other person first. This makes sense but still throws me off a little. The away/available status is easy to flip and easy customize with no dialog windows and confirmations to click. Also there is a quick filter/search box for whenever you eventually get so many buddies that you may have trouble finding them by scrolling. Like everything else this is quick and intuitive.
The voice chat feature could not be easier. Even behind our NAT routers and firewalls, there was nothing to configure for either myself or my friend. The sound quality was crystal clear. There's not much to it, you talk, you listen, it works.

What I Didn't Like
I know Google was trying to keep everything simple as can be, but I would have liked to see basic file transfer, or inline images. Even if you don't agree on inline images, it’s the 14yr old girls that make or break an IM client, not computer purists or snobs. And the 14yr old girls want to share pictures on screen without any hassle. But this is a beta, so like the many important features of GMail that were added in later versions, we can expect Google to listen to its users on adding new features.
Another thing I see as an issue towards mass adoption is the close meshing of the service with one's GMail account. In order for someone to try out Google Talk, they must first sign up for a GMail account (if they haven't already). GMail is still in Beta, and if I've heard correctly still requires new users to be invited in by old users (correct me if I'm wrong). While GMail invites are cheaper than Soviet currency, it's still an extra step (or 3) to new users.
Also, your GMail becomes your screen name for anyone wanting to contact you. This has its advantages and disadvantages. It will make it easy for friends of mine to find me quickly. However, I don't always want everyone who knows my Email (which could be any number of harvesters or spam operations) to be able to IM me. In the blog game, one will often post their screen name for strangers to contact them about whatever, which is fine except that I'd have to post my personal email account on the web, which is something the web-savvy know not to do. My only option would be to have 2 Google Talk clients open (is that possible?) with different GMail accounts, one personal and one public. Perhaps Google could add a multiple account feature or allow non-email screennames or ID# to allow more anonymity? The Jabber protocol this client is based off treats your screenname kind of like an email address. For example it would see you as Someone@gmail.com, whereas 'Someone' can be anything you wanted, for the sake of simplicity Google makes 'Someone' your gmail account name. I think with a little tinkering on their end they could make user defined screennames (more than just the Alias field) that lets us talk without giving out our personal email at the same time.
My last gripe is the interoperability issue. Yes I can access the talk.google.com service from GAIM or any other multiple-service client. But what’s the point? Everyone I'd ever know on Google Talk would already have an AIM, Yahoo, or MSN account already linked to me in the first place. It's the interface that I like about Google Talk and if anything, I should be able to use my AIM account through Google Talk's client. Call me picky, but I don't like having multiple running clients open on one desktop. If Google Talk could cover all the other services, it would allow us to slowly wean ourselves off the other services to strictly Google (like my slow move from Hotmail to GMail) once its popularity has taken off and the program leaves beta, which is not for a while if its anything like Google's other services (Gmail, News, Maps etc).
I know some of these features would be against the main point of Google Talk and keeping it simple, perhaps there should be a Pro version along side that lets the veterans get what they want, without confusing the novices.

Conclusion
Over all, I think they are on to something and I applaud them for taking a shot at leading the way to a free and open standard for a medium that is illogically fragmented. The interface is great and I hope its shortcomings will be addressed in later versions.

Pros

Cons

Suggestions

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August 23, 2005

ENGADGET  198...... NO CARRIER

If you're old enought to remember Upload/Download ratios, ASCII art, and callback verifiers, you'll love Engadget's little Engadget 1985 special. (If you have no idea what those are Learn some history! (and stay in school (and say no to drugs))). Done in the style of the BBS systems of old, it has monospaced type, 16 color images, suitcase sized cellphones, floppy disk drives, it's perfect! Can you remember the excitement of your favorite bbs getting a second line with a 19.2Kb modem? Pirating the non-shareware version of Wolfenstein3D? Boot disks? Ascii pr0n? Those were the days.

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August 22, 2005

Nov 13th: Intl. Database Poisoning Day

If you've ever heard of Bugmenot, its a service that provides fake logins for those "free registration to view" news sites that try to collect your information just to read the latest on troops dying or Britney Spears's baby. You can donate by creating fake login/pass(s) and submitting them to bugmetnot for everyone to use (a firefox plugin makes grabbing the logins easy). Their service is a protest to the practice of collecting and selling user information for neferious purposes. They are asking you to register at least one fake profile (ie poison a database) on 1 or more of the top news sites: www.nytimes.com, www.washingtonpost.com, www.latimes.com, www.ajc.com, www.chicagotribune.com, www.dallasnews.com, www.nypost.com, www.baltimoresun.com, www.philly.com, www.mercurynews.com on November 13th. The more useless demographics they have the less their data is worth, Screw advertisers! Cept mine to the right ----->

Posted by maddh at 09:18 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

August 19, 2005

Circle of Death Simulator

What is our current terror alert level, yellow? So something could happen anywhere, anytime, or maybe not. Won't someone please think of the children?! We'll someone did, the High Yield Detonation Effects Simulator (or HYDESim) will tell you (based on your location and size of the nuclear weapon) whether your children will be vaporized, serverely burned, or just slowly dying from fallout. It uses the google maps API and is pretty handy. You could actually use it to chart anything that propagates in a cirle like gossip, universal brotherhood, or ebola. Note: does not apply to things that are "sweeping the nation" since that would be a left-to-right horizontal gradient.

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August 18, 2005

Hey me too!

When I originally read about this a few hours ago, I didn't think it was thaaaat great, but now its on like every tech/humor site, and I'll be damned if I'm the only blog on the planet not to have this starwars related post. So here you go, Vader has a Posse, and Kit Fisto has Meat Dread Locks. Apparently the Vader/Posse sticker was done by an actual LucasArts employee. cool?
sidenote: Vader is listed as 6'8" but Hayden Christensen is listed as 6'1", does that mean Vader has 7 inch platform shoes?

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August 17, 2005

Alien Lvs. Predator

Tired of having to write all your own Alien vs. Predator fan fiction? (Yes we all know what you would do with invisibility armor) Let these guys do it for you, and while not in the same vein as the Alien or Predator movies, its pure bliss compared to the "burning diaper filled with indian food" that was Alien vs. Predator (I refuse to call it AVP) Anyways in Alien Loves Predator they live together in some sort of weird lifemate situation, and experience New York as only 2 co-habitating predatory aliens of different species can. The web comic has around 140 pages if you've got time to check the archive.

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TV email alerts

Patent Pending TV Eyes scans 500 channels of television in realtime, logging the closed caption content of every show. You can select keywords to have the TV Eyes email you alerts every time your keywords are mentioned on television with information on where and when it was mentioned. If your into space news use the keyword "NASA". If you like being the first to know about embarrassing celebrity deaths use "autoerotic self asphyxiation" as your keyword. Maybe you want to know every bit of news about Britney Spears's pregnancy, just type "I am retarded", then type it again, cause you are.

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August 15, 2005

Finally, a cocktail that's right for me....and you, and you, and you, and...

At last, this whole internet thing is starting to live up to the hype. Thanks to the mixilator, no longer will I have to sit through 1-on-0 drinking sessions suffering an onslaught of unimaginitive, impersonal cocktails. David Embury's drink generator will whip up a little something-something just for you depending on time of day, taste, strength, and other key preferences that only you and your bartender/therapist are privy too. Links to Cocktail DB for ingredient explanations (WTF is Sauterne?!?), and suitable substitutions (apparently, ordinary white wine will make a fine alternative to Sauterne) are helpful and almost necessary. Also, there are robots [/nerd quotient satisfied]. So now instead of pouring Busch Light onto cheerios for my AM fix, I can enjoy a tarty, aromatic "Handled Drummer". Wicked! Thank you AOTS.

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August 11, 2005

OMG it does?

Porting DOOM to various devices (that weren't meant to play DOOM, or any game really) is all the geek-rage nowadays, spawning the internet meme It Plays Doom. A Gizmodo reader played on one of their jokes by actually making the site ItPlaysDoom.com. I'm adding this to my newsreader, This is deliciously nerdy, it sustains me.

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