Tim and the Tin Titan

27.2.04

reHeated
Eyebeam reBlog is an interesting concept: take one guest netizen who reads lots of blogs to post his favorite links. While this can sometimes lead to lots fo cross-linking, it can also make you discover some real gems like this one: Mario!

MP3 Everybody!
Netlabel Catalogue is a list of record labels that has music available to download. It tends to be a bit more on the eletronic side, but still worth digging around to find the good nuggets.

Legal Grey
The EFF has issued it's legal opinion on Grey Tuesday. It is interesting to learn that there is not federal law protecting records made before 1972 but there may be state law that do. I don't even know if DJ Danger Mouse is an American...

26.2.04

Petals Around The Rose
I can tell you only three things:
the name of the game
the fact that the answer is always zero or even
the answer for any particular throw.

Petals Around The Rose

24.2.04

Wedding Pictures, San Francisco Style
ephemera.org has a very nice set of pictures of same-sex couples getting married in SF. How can you disagree with something that makes these people so happy? Just go take a look at the face of these people and tell me that it's an "evil" act!

There is also a campain to have people from all over the world sent bouquets of flowers to random couple waiting in line at city hall to get married. It started with this livejournal post and now there is a site called Flowers for Al and Don where you can make smaller donations by paypal (for those of us who can't afford to send a $20-$50 bouquet). The Guy running the site is using the fund to supply flowers for the clerks who marry the couples. Any left over money will be donated to worthy causes.

Grey Tuesday
Today is Grey Tuesday. "Tuesday, February 24 will be a day of coordinated civil disobedience: websites will post Danger Mouse's Grey Album on their site for 24 hours in protest of EMI's attempts to censor this work."

The album is a Remix of Jay-Z's Black album with the Beatle's White Album. I got my copy from IllegalArt.org last week when I first heard that EMI was trying to shut it down. Not the style of music I usually listen to but it's worth a listen, rather inventive. Keep in mind when listening that every note of music comes from the White Album and only the vocals are original.

19.2.04

YAUFG: Yet Another Use For Google
Google innovates again: Search by Location currently works in the US but it's a good concept. Let's say you want to send flowers to your mom who lives in another city but want to use a florist that is local to her. Punch in "florist" and her zip code, problem solved.

Useful tool
WhatTheFont is a useful site. Feed it an image of some text and it will try to match up the font used in the image to it's font DB. Having spent alot of time trying to match an old legacy font that was used in a project, I think I'll keep this one in the old digital tool belt.

17.2.04

Pop Culture Referential
I don't know if it's a joke or not but it's on Polaroid's Knowledgebase:
Ever since the song "Hey Ya" by Andre 3000 of Outkast came out, everyone is shaking their Polaroid pictures. I have always been told that you should not shake a Polaroid picture, but I'm having a hard time convincing those around me that this is true. What is the answer?

Answer
The short answer is no, you don't have to (and shouldn't) "shake it like a Polaroid picture." ...


Click the link if you want the explanation. Nice job of Polaroid of jumping on the bandwagon.

11.2.04

Not Making Par
If Bush is not re-elected (an I do hope he'll be gone), he will be the only president since WWII to leave office with a net job deficit. Here come the graphics: Jobs Created By US Presidents | MFA

From the Mouth of soon-to-be Parents
defective yeti's post today is hilarious:

Talking about birthing classes he is talking with his wife:

We also learned the father of the child traditionally cuts the umbilical cord. "Why?" I asked, upon hearing this. Our teacher seemed confused by the question, so I clarified. "I mean, if there an actual reason for the father to do it -- like, because he's standing right there anyhow, and the midwife's hands are full -- or is this just a feel-good measure to make the husband feel useful, so, later, with the guys, he can be all, like, 'dude, I totally helped out with that birth!'" The teacher conceded that the latter was the case. Knowing that the cord cutting is purely ceremonial, I've decided to go whole hog. I plan to wear a suit with a sash that reads "DAD," and proclaim "I declare this baby to be ... born!" while cutting the cord with a giant pair of scissors.

Great visuals on this one. Not sure my wife would agree, though :)

[De]Valentine
we love you, yes you provides print-your-own valentines cards. They are in their particular style, some examples:
"If you ever get mauled by bears, I hope they stay away from your face, cause I think you're cute"
"Money can't buy you love. But love can't buy you cargo pants"
"I love you THIS much. Wait... You aren't REALLY form Tacoma, are you?"

4.2.04

Denied
Do pharmacists take the Hippocratic Oath? If they do, this guy need to get canned and prosecuted.

[Update Mon, feb 16th] Apparently, he has been fired. It's a start! Although he will probably be hired by some born again kook. This guy should be made to wear a sign that says "I will put my belief in an invisible superpower before your health".

Intel on Intel
Slate a good article out today The Bellicose Curve - Faulty intelligence has catapulted the United States into war all too many times before. It does a nice job of setting the current war in the a context of previous snap decisions that led to conflict.

A link in the article points to an analysis of the US military budget. It's called Trimming the Fat andoutliness some of the more non-sensical, yet major, spending. These include the Navy's requests to build 1 new nuclear sub (for the modest sum of 2.5 billion each) for the past 3 years when they already have 55 operational nuclear subs. They also make the point that next years military budget will be almost equal to 1968's (height of theVietnamm war) yet Bush's budget does not include the cost of the war in Iraq. That will be covered in a "supplemental".

Two eye openers on the Us military today.

3.2.04

Robotic pressure
Hektor is a spray painting robot. It consists of a spray can and "trigger" assembly suspended on two long lines connected to two motors on the upper corners of the canvas. By varying the speed and direction of each motor as well as activating the trigger, Hektor can paint a wide variety of scenes. What is even more impressive is that, according to the PDF on the site, Hektor has it's own path finding algorithm to know how to execute the art. Also be sure to check the movie [no direct link]. An impressive project.

These are not the droid you are looking for
Bruce Schneier has a good article on the inefficacity of check IDs as a terrorism countermeasure: IDs and the illusion of security. I have mentioned Bruce before regarding the Password Safe app.

2.2.04

Spy Free?
According to a post on BoingBoing.net, the version of Real Player that you download from the BBC has been stripped of all it's "spyware" options because of the BBC's strict privacy policy. Get your cleaned up version here.

Cookie Economics
Ben Cohen, of Ben&Jerry's Ice Cream fame, explains the American Federal Budget using Oreos and it's the most clear and concise explanation I've seen in a while.
You can see it at TrueMajority.

The Ads
IFilm has the Super Bowl Ads. I have only watched a couple so far but by far the funniest are the 3 by AOL. It helps if you've seen American Chopper on Discovery Channel. The IBM and Visa ads are also very good.

And a note on IFilm, I don't know where they get their bandwidth from but it seems to be limitless, not even a slow down on Monday morning after the big game.

Say it isn't so...
As it was stated elsewhere, in an Orwellian moment of "War is Peace": Bush and Blair nominated for Nobel peace prise