3d modeling in the near future

Microsoft provides an open interface for Kinect, which lets hackers use the Kinect camera for whatever crazy projects they can come up with.

This video is a little technical, but even non-technical folks should be able to follow the amazing new user interface.




I would expect to see more refined versions of this commercially available within the next two years.  3d CGI will faster, easier, better looking, and more accessible to amateurs.

Hopefully Microsoft will learn something from this project and open the interface for more projects.

Inception in C

I loved the movie Inception.  Someone loved it more than I did.

This person wrote a program that mimics the movie and implants the idea into Fischer.  I wish I could read C code.

Some people have action figures.  Some people have posters.  The Inception crew is now the first movie cast to be recreated as C code.

Prince plays guitar?!?!?!?!!!!

While My Guitar Gently Weeps, done my Tom Petty and several other great guitar players. I think that's Clapton behind the beard and glasses.

About 3:30 in Prince starts playing a solo. He goes on for the remainder of the video. Utterly unbelievable.

I seem to remember him playing lead guitar on 1999 and Little Red Corvette.  But I don't remember anything like this sort of skill.  Of course, that was a lifetime ago.  So maybe he's been practicing.

That guitar solo could stand with some of the best I've seen/heard from Clapton, Vaughn, and Hendricks.  I had no idea.

Misconceptions

XKCD is always brilliant.  Yesterday's is especially so.

The Wikipedia List of Common Misconceptions article is real, and quite well done.  It is the sort of thing that everyone ought to read through at least once a year.

Merry Christmas

Welcome to the future

Quest Visual has just released Word Lens, an iPhone application that will instantly translate anything that you can point your iPhone camera at.  Right now it is only Spanish-English and English-Spanish.  Signs, menus, whatever you happen to have around you.  You don't even have to take a picture--it translates in real-time while viewing whatever you point your phone at.

I understand how it all works.  But I was still surprised to see it happen this soon.  And the implementation is amazing.  You have to watch the video.

I would almost buy an iPhone, just to play with this.  But I'll wait for the Android version(s).  It can't take long.

Why you shouldn't become an archivist

This site, Xtranormal, has a software that will take your spoken words and add a movie.  The technology is so simplistic that it is funny.  The argument is biting and hysterical, in large part because of the monotonous computerized voices.

I love Jon Stewart

Funny guy.  Good perspective.  I think he actually tries harder to be fair and balanced than any "real" news program out there.  This interview made me love him more.

Come on, Jon.  Get out on the field.  Let's set up that 24-hours new channel dedicated to fighting corruption.  You, me, and Bill Moyers.  And maybe Jon Stossel.

The stove of the future

I can't tell who is making this.  It might just be a video mock-up.  But it is pretty cool.  I can't embed the video, so click to watch, and then read the rest of my notes:

http://www.thatvideosite.com/video/the_william_a_glimpse_into_the_stovetops_future

This is a big step in the right direction.  Here's what they need to do in order to make a truly transformational product.

* Add a webcam to the vent-hood, looking down onto the stovetop.
* When you set a pot onto the stove, the webcam looks into the pot and identifies the contents (referencing a database that all stoves share.)
* On the little panel it asks you "is this fresh or frozen broccoli?" if it is unsure.
* If the pot is empty it asks you what you are heating the water for.  If the last time you heated water it was for spaghetti, then that is it's first guess this time.
* It asks you how you want the food cooked.  So for broccoli it would ask how tender you want it.  If it has done this dish for you before then it defaults to how you had it cooked last time.  If need be then it shows you pictures of broccoli in various stages of tenderness and lets you touch the picture you want.
* It asks you what time you want each pot done.
* If you have too little or too much water in the broccoli, then it tells you that, too.
* It has a voice that comes on and says "please come stir the broccoli", when it is time to stir.
* The webcam watches the pots and if something is about to boil over it turns down the heat.

Now that's a stove of the future.  All of the food arrives at the table at the same time and cooked perfectly.

File it under funny

The Center for Tactical Magic has revived the ages-old tradition of placing curses on repressive and harmful organizations.  Their implementation is both hysterical and poignant.

Read it all the way through, especially if you have no background in witchcraft.

I do not believe in curses.  But I recognize the history and applaud the modern interpretation.  I'm almost tempted to stick a few of these, but I can't afford the gas to drive where the stickers really belong.

The church needs something like this.  I'll bet the Catholics have something that I'm just not aware of.

Want

From the website:

"The Maverick is the true flying car: drivable on public roads with a civilian driver's license, and pilotable when airborne under S-LSA/E-LSA certification with a Sport Pilot license and Powered Parachute rating. Preparation for flight is quick and simple, thanks to our innovative wing deployment system, which also provides the Maverick maneuvering capabilities unique among powered parachutes."

Kids say the darndest things

Lincoln decided that he wanted to write a letter the other day.  He got out paper and then made Christy take dictation.  After they finished the first letter he made her write another.  Then he colored in some pictures to fill in the "blind" parts--the parts where there was nothing to see.

Laura and Rachel are two of our cousins that we see regularly.  Lincoln is 4.  I don't think he meant 'like' in the Junior High sense of the word.

Pattern matching

The video is interesting.  The X-Files background music detracts from the serious nature of the report--a poor editing decision by the El Paso TV station.  I was ready to dismiss this out of hand until they reached the side-by-side comparison of the lights over New York and the lights over El Paso.




I approach life with the assumption that I don't know everything.  I form a framework of what I think is true, and then I try very hard to allow new information to change my framework when it doesn't fit.

I can think of only four possible explanations:
1. Visitors have arrived from another planet.
2. A government is testing some new top secret weapon.
3. A new natural phenomenon has just begun to occur.
4. Somebody is playing a hoax.

I am inclined to dismiss the first three explanations as being too incredibly unlikely.  Long-distance space travel is just plain hard.  Governments have not demonstrated the competence to build technology leaps this large.  And any government that was competent enough to do that wouldn't show it off in the sky above New York City.  And any natural phenomenon would not occur for the first and second times in the same week, like this.

The more times this happens the more likely we are to get an explanation.  My guess is that it has to happen at least ten times or we will not get an explanation.

If I were the marketing director for a new movie about aliens landing on earth, this is exactly the sort of viral marketing campaign I would do.  I wouldn't actually put the lights in the sky.  I would just film realistic crowd scenes of people looking at the sky and then use photoshop to fake the sky images.

That said, the video is still spooky and unnerving.

This is how you fix Congress

One of my aunts just sent me this chain email.  I have a policy against forwarding them, because I know that many of them are spawned by spam marketing companies who use them to harvest email addresses.  But this one made me laugh, so I decided to post it.  This is unedited.

"

Congressional Reform Act of 2010

1. Term Limits.

  12 years only, one of the possible options below..

  A. Two Six-year Senate terms
  B. Six Two-year House terms
  C. One Six-year Senate term and three Two-Year House terms

2.  No Tenure / No Pension.

A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.  

3.  Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security.

All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately.  All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. 

4. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.

5. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise.  Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

6. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

7. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.

8. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/11.

The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen.  Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves.
""

It's a good start.  Most of these are too vague to be enforced.  Number eight would probably qualify as an ex poste facto law, and would not hold up in court.

Do you get the internet?

Take this little test.

If you lol then you understand the internet.

If you don't get it then don't fear.  It's not that important.  It's just the internet.

Rock Me Baby

funny video break

A moment of artistic zen

Beautiful new Jaguar concept car

Jon Stewart is awesome

Jon Stewart's critique of the Obama administration is hilarious and spot-on.  Go and watch!

I'm proud to be an American!  Freedom of speech is wonderful.  Seriously, click and go watch.  I wish I could embed it here, but Comedy Central won't let me.