2008-02-27
TSA Gangsterz
Probably not suitable for work, but a very funny satire on the Transportation Safety Administration:
2008-02-26
Guild Wars hits Five Million!
Guild Wars hits Five Million! - GameDaily
So cool. So very very cool.
NCsoft and ArenaNet today announced that the Guild Wars franchise has sold over five million units worldwide. The series of games includes the original Guild Wars, Guild Wars Factions, Guild Wars Nightfall, and Guild Wars: Eye of the North. Currently, ArenaNet is developing a full-fledged sequel in Guild Wars 2.
"Guild Wars is a proven success and has set a new standard for online RPG games with its unique business model and superior playability," said NCsoft CEO Taek Jin Kim. "ArenaNet is dedicated to creating games that expand the market and provide great new content to our loyal player base. This success has built a great foundation from which the next generation of Guild Wars games will grow."
"Reaching the five million mark is extremely gratifying for us at ArenaNet because it shows the hard work and dedication we put into our games has resonated with the fans," said Mike O'Brien, co-founder of ArenaNet. "We are committed to supporting all of our Guild Wars players, and at the same time, we're extremely excited to work on the game's evolution. Certainly the future of Guild Wars is as bright as its past and present."
So cool. So very very cool.
2008-02-24
Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 Massacre
5min - How to Abuse Rollercoaster Tycoon 3: Massacre - Video
Basically the dude gets the roller coaster going so fast it breaks through the end of the track and kills a lot of people. Stuff goes flying everywhere.
Basically the dude gets the roller coaster going so fast it breaks through the end of the track and kills a lot of people. Stuff goes flying everywhere.
2008-02-22
2008-02-21
Midomi
I'm watching American Idol with the family and (sadly) my girl Kady gets reamed by Simon. I liked her performance in as much as it was one of the better slow songs of the night. But the fact is - fuck the slow songs! It's the kiss of death.
Anyway, the American Asian girl chooses a big fat killer song. She's good but my wife and I are remembering the "original" which is better. I tell my daughter I'll find it in my music collection and play it for her.
There are several problems with this promise. One is, it turns out I don't have it. But I don't know that yet because I don't know the name of the song or the original artist. I search the internet for "Believe me" and other bits of the lyrics.
Finally I remember: there is a site where I can hum the music into a microphone and it will figure out the song. After searching some more I discover it is Midomi.com.
I plug in the mic, hum away, and it tells me the song is You Que No Vivo Sin Ti which is obviously the wrong language. (Turns out it is the right song.) The second choice, however, is You Don't Need To Say You Love Me originally by Elvis! That's good enough so I hit Amazon.com's mp3 download service and find one by someone named Dusty Springfield. I recognize the name and I know I should know who she is but I was less than 10 years old in the 60's! I play a sample and that's it. Fucking awesome performance.
$0.99 later it's in my music collection and I'm playing it for my daughter.
My original plan was to visit iTunes and watch the video of the performance which would undoubtedly have the name of the song ... but the performances weren't posted yet - just placeholder art.
I have to give major props to Midomi. You should check it out if it's at all easy to hook up a microphone to your computer.
(Coincidentally the third choice Midomi comes up with is Kelly Clarkson's Breakway.)
w00t.
© 2008 Stephen Clarke-Willson, Ph.D. - All Rights Reserved.
Anyway, the American Asian girl chooses a big fat killer song. She's good but my wife and I are remembering the "original" which is better. I tell my daughter I'll find it in my music collection and play it for her.
There are several problems with this promise. One is, it turns out I don't have it. But I don't know that yet because I don't know the name of the song or the original artist. I search the internet for "Believe me" and other bits of the lyrics.
Finally I remember: there is a site where I can hum the music into a microphone and it will figure out the song. After searching some more I discover it is Midomi.com.
I plug in the mic, hum away, and it tells me the song is You Que No Vivo Sin Ti which is obviously the wrong language. (Turns out it is the right song.) The second choice, however, is You Don't Need To Say You Love Me originally by Elvis! That's good enough so I hit Amazon.com's mp3 download service and find one by someone named Dusty Springfield. I recognize the name and I know I should know who she is but I was less than 10 years old in the 60's! I play a sample and that's it. Fucking awesome performance.
$0.99 later it's in my music collection and I'm playing it for my daughter.
My original plan was to visit iTunes and watch the video of the performance which would undoubtedly have the name of the song ... but the performances weren't posted yet - just placeholder art.
I have to give major props to Midomi. You should check it out if it's at all easy to hook up a microphone to your computer.
(Coincidentally the third choice Midomi comes up with is Kelly Clarkson's Breakway.)
w00t.
© 2008 Stephen Clarke-Willson, Ph.D. - All Rights Reserved.
2008-02-20
Goth Mar (Gothic March)
I've only ever composed, as in actually thinking it through and writing it down on paper (physical or electronic), two tunes, and the first one is lost to history. Normally I just noodle around and overdub.
The second piece I actually thought through is this one: Goth Mar (Gothic March). I like it quite a bit. I composed it one note at a time using Cakewalk. It's got some really thick chords in it. It's got a good tempo. It's got some really fancy finger work - in fact, it's probably not humanly possible to play, which is cool.
Check it out.
© 2008 Stephen Clarke-Willson, Ph.D. - All Rights Reserved.
The second piece I actually thought through is this one: Goth Mar (Gothic March). I like it quite a bit. I composed it one note at a time using Cakewalk. It's got some really thick chords in it. It's got a good tempo. It's got some really fancy finger work - in fact, it's probably not humanly possible to play, which is cool.
Check it out.
© 2008 Stephen Clarke-Willson, Ph.D. - All Rights Reserved.
2008-02-15
Happy Birthyday, Tommy Tallarico, Future Rock Star
This is Tommy when he was a tester at Virgin. I was wandering about with my camcorder and I captured this moment.
Since then, Tommy has won more awards and produced more music and sound effects (and concerts!) then I can remember or imagine.
© 2008 Stephen Clarke-Willson, Ph.D. - All Rights Reserved.
2008-02-14
Kady Malloy
Okay. Her name is Kady Malloy and she's clearly being held in reserve when it's time to add some excitement to the show. There has been almost no footage of her and yet she is one of the best! Ah, the joy of Idol editing.
Y'all keep an eye on her now!
And we'll miss you, Kyle Ensley and Josiah Leming.
© 2008 Stephen Clarke-Willson, Ph.D. - All Rights Reserved.
Y'all keep an eye on her now!
And we'll miss you, Kyle Ensley and Josiah Leming.
© 2008 Stephen Clarke-Willson, Ph.D. - All Rights Reserved.
2008-02-12
Where's Cady What's-her-name?
What happened to my girl Cady? Didn't she make it to Hollywood? Is she being held in reserve for later on American Idol?
Well, we'll know soon enough, as they choose the top 24 tomorrow night.
© 2008 Stephen Clarke-Willson, Ph.D. - All Rights Reserved.
Well, we'll know soon enough, as they choose the top 24 tomorrow night.
© 2008 Stephen Clarke-Willson, Ph.D. - All Rights Reserved.
2008-02-10
Nano-Plasm Tech: Smart Wings
One of the bits of technology in my book Nano-Plasm is "smart wings". The idea is that by changing the shape of a wing you can get much more efficiency than with a standard fixed-shape wing.
Here's some video of a Bumble Bee that shows how the Bumble Bee is able to fly in spite of the fact that according to "normal" flight equations his body weight is too great for his wing span.
This video was shot with the cool new digital high speed camera from Vision Research.
© 2008 Stephen Clarke-Willson, Ph.D. - All Rights Reserved.
Here's some video of a Bumble Bee that shows how the Bumble Bee is able to fly in spite of the fact that according to "normal" flight equations his body weight is too great for his wing span.
This video was shot with the cool new digital high speed camera from Vision Research.
© 2008 Stephen Clarke-Willson, Ph.D. - All Rights Reserved.
2008-02-09
The Star Spangled Banner
Jordan Sparks Sings the Star Spangled Banner
This was the first time I heard Jordan Sparks sing. She's good!
I still get a tear in my patriotic eye when someone does a good job and hits that high note (assuming they even try).
The American Idols haven't been so great lately. They are missing "it". I've only watched one full season before - the one with McPhee and Taylor Hicks.
Kelly Clarkson has "it." Wow. This season, which I'm watching, the Idol team is working hard on getting a real pop superstar out of the whole process. And they are also focusing on the story telling. And the story telling is what makes Idol great. When you hear someone's pathetic upbringing and then they get a ticket to Hollywood... Wow. Those are killer moments.
The girl to beat this year is Cady someone, who can sing in any style, and imitate anyone, and is dripping in confidence.
Go Cady What's-your-name!
© 2008 Stephen Clarke-Willson, Ph.D. - All Rights Reserved.
This was the first time I heard Jordan Sparks sing. She's good!
I still get a tear in my patriotic eye when someone does a good job and hits that high note (assuming they even try).
The American Idols haven't been so great lately. They are missing "it". I've only watched one full season before - the one with McPhee and Taylor Hicks.
Kelly Clarkson has "it." Wow. This season, which I'm watching, the Idol team is working hard on getting a real pop superstar out of the whole process. And they are also focusing on the story telling. And the story telling is what makes Idol great. When you hear someone's pathetic upbringing and then they get a ticket to Hollywood... Wow. Those are killer moments.
The girl to beat this year is Cady someone, who can sing in any style, and imitate anyone, and is dripping in confidence.
Go Cady What's-your-name!
© 2008 Stephen Clarke-Willson, Ph.D. - All Rights Reserved.
2008-02-06
Does Visual Studio Rot the Mind?
Does Visual Studio Rot the Mind?: "We see computer technologies going through a life cycle where they turn from beneficial to evil. I recently installed something from a Microsoft site that dutifully gave me instructions about clicking the yellow bar at the top of Internet Explorer — the yellow bar that is now protecting us from popups and other bad stuff coming through — so I could bypass the normal protection against the installation of Active X controls. The instructions go on to tell you to ignore all the warnings Windows will then provide about installing this Active X control, because this particular one, unlike all the others, actually does a good thing."
© 2008 Stephen Clarke-Willson, Ph.D. - All Rights Reserved.
© 2008 Stephen Clarke-Willson, Ph.D. - All Rights Reserved.
2008-02-05
Nano-Plasm Book Preview
I was poking around LuLu.com and I discovered there is a book preview for Nano-Plasm.
Check it out!
Then buy a copy of your very own!
© 2008 Stephen Clarke-Willson, Ph.D. - All Rights Reserved.
Check it out!
Then buy a copy of your very own!
© 2008 Stephen Clarke-Willson, Ph.D. - All Rights Reserved.
2008-02-04
Seven year old plays Total Annihilation
He's so cute!
© 2008 Stephen Clarke-Willson, Ph.D. - All Rights Reserved.
2008-02-03
Japan at Night
The picture "Japan at Night" in this blog post Low Light is now my most popular picture having received nearly 32,000 hits over the last ninety days.
It's popular on many MySpace profile pages owned by gay and lesbian people. At least, that's what I deduced by following the page references back. I could dig through my collection of photos for other pix that might appeal in the same way, but sadly, I have no idea why the gay and lesbian community might have latched onto this particular picture.
[Update: my wife says gay and lesbian people like the photo because they have excellent taste.]
[Update 2: in the original Low Light blog post I mentioned that the movie Collateral used film cameras for shooting slow motion. But now digital cameras are totally up to the task.]
© 2008 Stephen Clarke-Willson, Ph.D. - All Rights Reserved.
It's popular on many MySpace profile pages owned by gay and lesbian people. At least, that's what I deduced by following the page references back. I could dig through my collection of photos for other pix that might appeal in the same way, but sadly, I have no idea why the gay and lesbian community might have latched onto this particular picture.
[Update: my wife says gay and lesbian people like the photo because they have excellent taste.]
[Update 2: in the original Low Light blog post I mentioned that the movie Collateral used film cameras for shooting slow motion. But now digital cameras are totally up to the task.]
© 2008 Stephen Clarke-Willson, Ph.D. - All Rights Reserved.
2008-02-01
Mickey Hand Lamp in Disneyland Hotel Room
(Click for larger photo.)
© 2008 Stephen Clarke-Willson, Ph.D. - All Rights Reserved.
Drinking Mashup
Some guy made a strange mashup about drinking using a piece of music I wrote called "Stomach Gurgling."
Original Stomach Churner Blog Post
Direct link to the music: Stomach Churner - scroll down in the playlist to the last one and click it to listen.
The music I wrote is intermixed and perhaps hard to differentiate from the rest. Here's a link to the original piece:
Stomach Gurgling
© 2008 Stephen Clarke-Willson, Ph.D. - All Rights Reserved.
Original Stomach Churner Blog Post
Direct link to the music: Stomach Churner - scroll down in the playlist to the last one and click it to listen.
The music I wrote is intermixed and perhaps hard to differentiate from the rest. Here's a link to the original piece:
Stomach Gurgling
© 2008 Stephen Clarke-Willson, Ph.D. - All Rights Reserved.
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