Thursday, November 24, 2005

Me and My Imaginary Friend

I don't consider myself an atheist, but this essay from Penn Jillette (NPR : There Is No God) is very provocative.

"I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith." That's just a long-winded religious way to say, "shut up,"

"How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do." So, believing there is no God lets me be proven wrong and that's always fun. It means I'm learning something.

Defiant Disco Turkey

Enjoy this cartoon of a defiant disco turkey (see eCard).

And have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

No snow for Santa

CNN.com - Snows fail to fall in�Arctic tundra - Nov 22, 2005

Ask the guy driving the Hummer next to you to explain to the children that there will be no snow at the North Pole for Santa this year.

Friday, November 18, 2005

Visual Tricks and the movies

So I popped in the "original" Star Wars trilogy DVDs last night and watched some of my own selected favorite scenes. Afterward, I was thinking about something I learned about human vision and visual tricks in my AI class.

When your brain sees a visual trick that seems like it should make sense, but is obviously a trick (see Walter Wick's Optical Tricks ) we are drawn to it, because our brain strives to understand the trick. However when we see something visually that obviously makes no sense, we just ignore it because we simply chalk it up as absurd, there is nothing to solve.

There is an analogy in the use of CG in movies. When you see Luke use the force to draw his light saber to his hand from the floor in "Empire Strikes Back", we look at the trick and wonder, "I bet they used a wire to move the saber through the air." And we say "That was a good trick." When we see Yoda doing ridiculous flips through the air in "Attack of the Clones" we easily realize that it is CG and we ignore how it was done. "It was just a computer."

BTW, if you haven't make sure you watch the old trailers and TV spots on the bonus DVD. They are priceless. I especially liked the voice talent and how the teasers often used story board illustrations instead of any real scenes from the film.

Monday, November 14, 2005

A Scanner Darkly

If you liked Richard Linklater's "Waking Life" and you like Philip K. Dick stories, check out this trailer for "A Scanner Darkly".

Thursday, November 03, 2005

Monarch butterflies

Pilot tracks monarch butterflies on long migration - Yahoo! News

I heard this man's story on NPR. Factoids:

"Not one butterfly makes the round-trip journey, and the offspring of those who start it head instinctively for a place they have never been.

After leaving Mexico, it takes three or four generations of monarch butterflies to reach their summer grounds in Canada and northern areas of the United States. The last generation, which has a longer life span, then makes the journey south to Mexico for the winter."

Good read for web nerds

Tim O'Reilly is the web's prophet. Better known as founder of the tech books series with the animal covers.

Recent buzzword, oft blogged, is "Web 2.0". Tim writes an insightful tome on What Is Web 2.0. Worth the read, for web nerds. In a pinch, you can skip to "Web 2.0 Design Patterns" and "Core Compentencies of Web 2.0 Companies" on page 5.

What I found interesting was, working in software, I can say my employers have not (are not) displayed these core competencies of Web 2.0. Makes you wonder about the future of such software (companies).

My next job

Geek Squad keeps U2 tour humming. Idea for my next job, tech support for U2.