Religious Programming

I realized a long time ago that people, developers in particular, are fanatic about the way they practice their professions. Programmers especially tend to be religous or dogmatic about the particular tenets of their programming language or development methodologies.

This article kind of brings into focus, plus it's funny if you're a nerd.

Creepy music aside...

I came across this post from Engadget the other day and just barely found time to pass it along.

It's about an "OS" that replicates the interaction made famous by the movie "Minority Report".  There's also a pretty in depth video to go with it, although the music that's used in the background is a little too esoteric.

It's pretty impressive. I would install it as an add-on to just about any operating system out there, if it were available.

g-speak overview 1828121108 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.

We can all have our own Nuclear Reactors!

Okay, maybe we can't have our own reactors, but a neighborhood or two could all pitch in on one.

This new design from Hyperion Power Generation could be the ticket for cheap, local power.  Plus it's "fun" sized.

A car that makes me wish I had to drive more often...

This may be the smallest version of the Batmobile that I've ever seen, but it's definitely worthy of the name.  This is one of the cars that was on display at SEMA 2008.

Click on the image below if you'd like to read the original blog entry.

Thanks to Rich for finding this gem.

Should the people who are successful be treated fairly, too?

I suppose I can't let this election go without posting at least one interesting politically charged topic go by.

One of the proposals out on the table, I won't mention who is championing it by name, is that we tax people who make more than $250,000 more heavily.

I found this article, on the Fortune Magazine's website, that gives a perspective on who these "rich" people are.

I'm always worried when plans that come up that make those who work hard and excel pay extra for working hard and excelling. Don't they deserve fair treatment at the very least?

You should also look closely at the chart of the distribution of the amount of taxes paid by the higher income brackets. Taxes are already largely disproportionately paid by the upper brackets.

Crib Safety Recall

This actually has nothing to do with the theme of my blog at all, but I figure that sometimes it's good break with tradition.

I saw this video on Hulu about a recall on some hazardous baby cribs. We don't have one in particular, but if any of you do, I'd rather have this video out there at least one more time just in case it saves even just one person some grief.

The New Star Trek Movie

I found this post on the upcoming Paramount release of the Star Trek Pre-quel:
http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2008/10/15/exclusive-new-star-trek-movie-photo-with-kirk-spock-sulu-and-the-uss-enterprise-bridge/

It seems to me like the cast look reasonably like their older selves. I couldn't get a good enough feel for the visual quality of the film from the photos, but they do give a good idea of the general look of the movie.

They're had better be a lot of explosions in space and aliens. Any science fiction movie with out explosions and aliens automatically gets low marks from me.

The Greatest American Hero

I know this post is linked to an older post from another blog, but I just found it today.

It has some pretty good info about a Greatest American Hero movie set to begin filming in 2009. In conjunction with the film, some animated episodes and "comic" novels will be release towards the end of this year.

It's kind of fun when the people, who were kids at the same time I was, decide to make movies based on stuff that was cool when I was a kid. It's like getting to live my childhood over again, except I can drive. Legally, that is.

http://tvseriesfinale.com/articles/the-greatest-american-hero-ralph-hinkley-to-return-in-comics-animation-and-movie/

So who wants to get free stuff?

Microsoft is getting on the free stuff bandwagon with the SearchPerks program.

All you have to do is sign-up, let them watch you via small application (assuming you don't mind that sort of thing), and you get "tickets" as a reward for each search. Up to 25 tickets per day.

This kind of like Skee-ball for searching.

I think I'll test try it out. More on what I find later.

* You will have to use you IE 6+ to participate.

Robots should be useful...

I found this very in depth video on a new robot.

It rides a unicycle.

That's it.

I can't figure out why anyone would want want of these. I think it would be far cheaper and healthier to buy your own unicycle.

On my "cool electronic lawn mowing dog" scale, this gets a low 1.5, because it does almost nothing to further the dream of the electronic lawn mowing dog.

Cool Anti-"Pork" Website...

I was watching the Presidential Debate yesterday, and Senator McCain mentioned a website that lets you know what people in the Legislative Branch are adding the most line item spending items (a.k.a Pork Barrel Spending).

The site lets you sum up the amount spent in each bill by individual, state, party, or the entire legislative branch. The numbers are astronomical.

I recommend you look over what the people who represent you have been doing with your money.

Here's the link: Citizens Against Government Waste

It's good to have competition...

At long last, T-Mobile has brought out a good competitor to the iPhone.

It's called the G1. It's based on the Android OS by Google, and looks to have a good set of features that makes you actually want to use the darned thing.

It's designed to let you decide what you want to put on your phone, not what Apple wants you to put on your phone.

Oh yeah, and it's hundreds of dollars less than the iPhone.



If you want a lot more information, you can watch the press conference. It's boring, but it still has the most info on the G1 out there.

Wowee!

Well, you know I can't resist an entry about a cool robot.

This one is kind of like a Roomba, only useful.

It can wander around your house, has a camera that you can adjust the vantage point and allows you to command and get telemetry from a web browser.

It's called the Rovio, and it's really going to be quite affordable ($299 U.S.).

I'm one step closer to the Electronic Lawn Mowing dog...except this one doesn't mow the lawn.

For those who want a Mac, but not a "Mac"....

I saw this post on a product that allows you to attach a USB Dongle to your relatively new Intel x86 machine and install the retail version of Mac OSX.

I've always said for years that if Mac would sell OSX it would start to take a bigger chunk of the personal computer market.  But does Mac listen to me, nope!

Now their operating system will start to take more market share with or without there blessing:

http://www.engadget.com/2008/09/17/os-x-installing-efi-x-now-shipping-for-155/

The Japanese are smarter...?

The Japanese apparently aren't keen on the iPhone.  Apple has sold about 1/10th of what they've sold in the United States.

This makes me wonder if they're smarter than we are, have already cooler stuff, or just don't get the sublime nature of the iPhone.  I'm thinking it's one of the first two personally.

Here's an interesting article on how well it's been selling over there.

The Mathemagician

There's a web site that posts lectures called TED.com.  It's goal is stimulate ideas:

"TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design."

One of the lectures is by a guy named Arthur Benjamin.  He can do some pretty amazing math in his head. If ever you need someone to figure out what the tip should be, he's the guy for you.

I think this qualifies a really nerdy, but I'll post it anyway:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/arthur_benjamin_does_mathemagic.html

For more about TED you can read up here: http://www.ted.com/index.php/pages/view/id/5

The numbers don't count, sort of...

I know it shouldn't matter who's got the most medals, but it's nice to have the most of something.

Olympic Medal winners at NBC Olympics.com!

This should be an event, too.

I don't know if there are any plans to add this to the Olympic games in the future, but there should be.

I can only think that these guys don't have any small children roving around looking for things to smash. At my house whenever I just stack two pillows on top of each other, my children knock it over like a heard of Godzillas.

So here's a link to some guys with kids older or more incarcerated than mine:
Lego Olympics

Really makes you want one....

Okay, I feel it's my duty to post really cool robots that relate to Star Wars.

Star Wars isn't even my favorite Sci-fi franchise, but there is so much cool stuff out there based on its lore.

This one I would have to say is the one of the best uses of R2D2's image.

Marketing actually makes a difference...

I don't like being the M$ cheerleader. But I've been using M$ stuff like Office, Windows, SQL Server, Visual Studio, etc., for years.

For the most part I've been pretty happy with their stuff. Sometimes there are bugs, sometimes it's missing something that I'd really like to have. If it's bad I go looking for an alternative. Usually M$ catches up with the curve.

I found this site today, and wanted to say that sometimes a product is as good as its marketing.