Author: Kirk

IDEA Awards 2005

The IDEA Awards are designed (forgive the pun) to celebrate the glorious designs that have been dreamt up within the last year, and includes designs from all cross-sections of consumerism. They’ve posted the award recipients of 2005 (all 158), including pictures for your viewing pleasure right here.

Some highlights for me (as I don’t necessarily agree with all of them):

Now tell me that design isn’t fun!

Big Fish Or Small People

Either this shows a very big fish or two very small people.

My mind boggles at the idea that this fish was caught. How old would this fish be? What exactly does a fish this big look like swimming around spawning?

How’s this for silly-speak?

This is the largest individual fish of the species that’s listed as the biggest in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Couldn’t he have just said BIGGEST FISH EVAR!!!!!

Updates:

High resolution image
A large stingray from the same area

Apparently these catfish are critically endangered, according to National Geographic, so it makes me a little sad to see something so obviously old and valuable to its species chopped up and fed to a village, no matter how hungry they may be.

Finally – a Jedi in British Parliament!

Mr. Jamie Reed burst onto the Parliamentary scene in Britain with an announcement that he is a Jedi.

I crave the indulgence of the House in interrupting such an important and enjoyable debate to deliver my maiden speech. Furthermore, as the first Jedi Member of this place, I look forward to the protection under the law that will be provided to me by the Bill.

Terribly brave of him, I must say. I suppose the idea that we co-exist with a race of small intelligent creatures (medichlorians) which, through training and meditation, we can co-opt to manipulate our environment isn’t all that far fetched. I wonder if we’ll see a Jedi religion come to fruition soon … it’s no stranger than the idea that we were planted here by an alien species, and it has historical stories of magic and mysterious things to help back up its veracity.

But I mean, come on! Becoming a Jedi is not an easy thing – even Anakin had trouble doing it.

Alberta’s Storm

In the last week or so a number of cities in southern Alberta have been assailed by various storms and floods. You can read coverage at places like The Globe and Mail and The CBC, but my uncle George was passed some amazing photos of some of the clouds in the skies during these storms. If you liked the movie Twister you’ll love these photos. They’re simply stunning.

I don’t know who to attribute these images to – if you’re the photographer please let me know. I can take the images down or give you credit.

Click on the smaller version to see a larger version.

Storm 1
Continue reading Alberta’s Storm

You Want Me To Get Out Of My Car, Officer?

I’m not claiming racism here, but I think the police can be a scary bunch of lunatics.

I’m talking about a video clip taken by a patrol car camera of the takedown of a nefarious criminal, found fleeing in her SUV.

Here’s the video, and a page with comments.

A woman is pulled over, and then apparently refuses to get out of her car when the police officer asks her to step out. He naturally uses his tazer weapon to extract the criminal from her vehicle. Twice.

There is also some commentary by another police officer there for your listening pleasure. I like the one where he agrees with the officer’s choice of tazer versus pepper spray. His reasoning is bullet-proof: the 22 year old woman, when asked to exit the vehicle, could have gone for a weapon. The pepper spray wouldn’t have stopped her cold like the tazer – the office was avoiding the greatest risk.

Oh, her crime? Driving with a suspended license.

Michael Moore on Sharing His Movies

For anyone who’s still willing to listen to Michael Moore (creator of Fahrenheit 9/11, Roger and Me, etc) and not roll their eyes (yes, I’m one of them), I found a small video clip of him talking briefly about what he thinks of people sharing his movies for free over peer-to-peer networks.

I like the quote “I do OK”. I’ve always respected his ability to maintain his own perspective even in the face of fame and fortune. Of course I see him as an active critic of many of our society’s foibles, which I respect. So naturally I think he’s on to something here.

We hear a lot of how the recording industry and movie industry are trying to protect the artist’s rights by suing anyone they can find that downloads movies illegally. Here’s an artist speaking directly to the issue, and the story is not quite the same as the corporate bigwigs’.

Here’s the video (1:40 minutes – 5.4MB)

This Makes Me Uncomfortable

Technology sure is an unfettered beast when we want it to be.

In the latest race to calm people’s qualms about travelling via airplane, a new security scanner is being considered for testing in the U.S. It’s much more effective than the X-ray machines currently in use, as it intelligently reconstructs the person’s body from the data. I can’t say much more because obviously details are not easy to come by.

You can see some sample images in this article.

Essentially proponents are saying that it will be used in lieu of a strip search, or for special cases. I say welcome to a slippery slope. We all know how that story ends.

Opponents are saying this is perverse, as the scanning of people only exposes the exterior of their bodies and not their interior, which strip searches would do. So it cannot replace strip searches. They are upset at the thought of officers at airports viewing images of naked children, or purposefully choosing the scanned people in order to obtain a free strip show.

The article finally mentions that officials are declining to say when or where these machines may be put into testing.

Yeah!

Public Service Announcement from Hitachi

Maybe you remember that PSA (Public Service Announcement) aired on T.V. in the 1980’s about how a bill becomes a law or some such? Anyhow, for some strange reason Hitachi has decided to follow in its footsteps in its announcement of a new technology to be used in storage products (read hard drives).

The technology behind it is mildly interesting to us geeks (you can start consuming the details at Ars Technica), but to consumers it means larger drives for cheaper. Simple as that.

However Hitachi wanted to make sure everyone understood it’s new technology product, so they made a nice cartoon for your learning needs.

Rated ‘A’ For Adult, and ‘F’ For Freakin’ Hilarious

Just a few files I’ve been meaning to put up here. Note that the first one is not really suitable for anyone younger than a teen. So if you’re younger than 16 or so, don’t click that link … just don’t!

Yes, I know, anyone under 16 will now be forced to click the link. But I have absolved myself of all responsibility.

Why don’t they make ads like this and run them when I watch T.V.?

Several years ago I found this animated fight scene online, and have saved a copy of it here. This was around the time of the first Matrix movie, and it obviously pales to that film’s special effects. But the non-stop punishment of the stick people is a must today!

I’m Only Here To Help

I know a few people who are currently slaving away in their academic dungeons, trying feverishly to finish some kind of ‘learned’ document. It could be some kind of monster thesis, or it could be some weekly assignment. These things can be tough, as often these people are thinking in the back of their minds that they may or may not want to publish these papers once they’re written.

So I want to help. I found a great service online where you can have your paper written for you, and it will be generated in a way that it is ready for submission to whatever body of approval you desire. It’s not going to be gibberish either, it will include images, citations, and all that other stuff that makes paper committees smile when they wake up in the morning.

There’s only one limit – it will only generate papers suitable for computer science academics. Sorry, but perhaps there is some special attribute of the computer science industry and it’s willingness to accept silly names and words for common things that makes this work so well. I mean really, what the heck is a CPU anyways? Can’t we just call it a ‘computer brain’?

If you’re interested in getting your paper made for you, go check it out.

If you’re curious about the veracity of the results, know this – a paper was created using this program and was accepted for a conference this year. Yes, the conference committee apparently read it over and thought it would be interesting enough and informative enough to have it presented at the conference. Quality stuff, I tell ya.

If you’re still in doubt, I could mention that the team behind this new tool is currently attending the esteemed M.I.T institute … or is that redundant? OK, just M.I.T.

Did I mention it’s free? I’ve even thrown together a sample paper, which you can view here