Big specials this Father's Day...

Keepon starring in Spoon video "Don't you Evah" with developer

Keepon is a dude

Check out this little dancing robot called "keepon". He (no anatomy shown but I'm just assuming because of his boppy dancing style) has as big a range of movement and number of dance moves that you could expect from a couple of balls placed one on top of the other, and can also respond to visual stimulation due to a couple of cameras. developed by a Japanaese guy Hideki Kozima (oviously) and programmed by Marek Michalowski, but not yet available for purchase.

More videos can be found on Youtube

Could definitely use this on my next camping trip

I'm not too sure on the size of this lamp, but the idea looks pretty good. Wind up torches (flashlights for the confused out there) have been out for a little while now, as a step up from the solar powered variety, potentially a lovely paperweight at night, but this new wind up LED lamp has me interested. I'm also not too certain on the full power of this lamp, since my school computer blocks any sales sites (and I'm not going to wait to write this till I get home), but if I can light a campsite area fairly well without involving lighting any gas, wood, or remembering to charge the batteries in my torch the night before my camping trip (normally a blur), then that'd be just great in my books.
Found the item yet again on gizmodo, which is generally reliable to have at least one decent item to check out on most days.
Will have to check out price and availability when I get home.

Just stick with one name, please

The photo section on news.com.au had me cackling at my desk at lunch today and I thought that no-one should miss out on a bit of a laugh, so check these out. Some name combos just should never happen. And I thought mo-fo was quirky enough.

photo gallery

Another reason just to never bother

Some people may take videos like this to be a bit of a personal challenge to get out there and get really good at something, whether it be whitling kangaroos, juggling, baking fantastic muffins, or merely burping the national anthem. For others like me, it makes me thankful that I never wasted the time and effort required, cos I never woulda been that good anyway.

Microsoft is on a winner here

I can think of way too many cool ways to use the technological potential shown by this table. Watch the video and try to come up with some other ways to use the table (or slightly larger versions of it.
In addition to the card games mentioned, can you imagine the fun you could have playing all the old regular board games on the screen like Monopoly, and Pictionary. I think that the real fun though would come in games like Risk, where battles could be played out on screen with some player involvement. The new territories could change colour when captured and certain victorious pieces could gain hero status and the like.
D&D players would be in a whole new world, with scenarios popping up in front of them as they move their characters through a new world without ever having to wait for turns. Each player can interact with the screen and their character at the same time. Real time battles could be experienced by multiple players on the one screen, and the fun shared together (not a whole lot different from regular console games with multiple controllers but you get the gist, no need to split the screen!).
Mix this surface computer with Microsoft's other surface computing technology (video found here) and we'll almost be at the same level as star wars. Still a short while away from Star Trek though.

You can also check out the Microsoft site's promo of the 'Surface' computer here

If only I was Indiana Jones

There are many times in my life that I've wished I was an Archaeologist and this is another one of them. I watched this video on the discovery channel a few months ago about a man who believes that he has discovered the true location of the lost city/ies of Atlantis as described in the writings of Plato.
After watching this video and recently travelling through China where I saw amazing historical relics from civilizations dating well before what I would call Chinese civilisation, I'm starting to put together in my head an idea of what truly existed before recorded time as we know it. The apparent connections of major and advanced civilisations from Egypt, Central China, central Asia, and South America are becoming way to strong to be random. There is growing evidence to show a level of technology and philosophical knowledge that rivals and in some cases betters our own from millenia ago. If that isn't amazing then I don't know what is. Simple things like the ability of potters in ancient China to add fine details to their artwork with apparently simple tools, in ways that we are unable to replicate today even with our 'new technologies', just makes me want to get out a shovel and start digging into more of the worlds historical wonders. It seems that as a world civilasation we have forgotten far more than we have learned.
Anyway, check out the video, but beware it's 50 minutes long.

I can totally do that!

It would be cool if only he could do the worm like Krud. Then I could say that he was half way decent. Otherwise, meh.

Who am I kidding, you don't have to like or even know what break dancing is to see that this guy is awesome at it.

WARNING!

BEER WARNING

Police are warning all men who frequent clubs, parties and local pubs
to be alert and stay cautious when offered a drink from any woman.

Many females use a date rape drug on the market called "Beer."

The drug is found in liquid form and is available anywhere. It comes
in bottles, cans, or from taps and in large "kegs". Beer is used by
female sexual predators at parties and bars to persuade their male
victims to go home and sleep with them. A woman needs only to get a
guy to consume a few units of Beer and then simply ask him home for
no strings attached sex.

Men are rendered helpless against this approach. After several beers,
men will often succumb to the desires to sleep with horrific looking
women whom they would never normally be attracted.

After drinking beer, men often awaken with only hazy memories of
exactly what happened to them the night before, often with just a
vague feeling that "something bad" occurred.

At other times these unfortunate men are swindled out of their life's
savings, in a familiar scam known as "a relationship."

In extreme cases, the female may even be shrewd enough to entrap the
unsuspecting male into a longer term form of servitude and punishment
referred to as "marriage." Men are much more susceptible to this
scam after beer is administered and sex is offered by the predatory
females.

Please! Forward this warning to every male you know.

If you fall victim to this "Beer" scam and the women administering
it, there are male support groups where you can discuss the details
of your shocking encounter with similarly victimized men. For the
support group nearest you, just look up "Golf Courses" in the phone
book.

Would you drink this water?

Found some cool Engrish in my time and have some great photos to upload at some stage, but this is one of my most recent findings (click on the photo to get a larger image). We were walking around Shanghai International airport trying to find some water for our berocca tablets (necessary item for travel perkiness), when we stumbled across this machine. I can just picture the little authomites now.

Pearls of Wisdom

I've copied these directly from a site called lucidcafe, which I only found through a shoutwire (I haven't quite worked those out yet). Anyway these 14 gems made me have a chuckle so I thought I'd pass them on.

"Fourteen Things That It Took Me Over

50 Years To Learn" by Dave Barry

1. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.

2. If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be "meetings."

3. There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness."

4. People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.

5. You should not confuse your career with your life.

6. Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.

7. Never lick a steak knife.

8. The most destructive force in the universe is gossip.

9. You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time.

10. You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she's pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.

11. There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age eleven.

12. The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above-average drivers.

13. A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person. (This is very important. Pay attention. It never fails.)

14. Your friends love you anyway.

Thought for the day: Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.

Billy is the Master of his balls

I just see a whole lotta time spent not getting it right.

Mentally Challenged Woman who just happens to have blonde hair

Funny Stuff

Time Passes

Once again a whole swag of time has passed since my last update. Sadly, an update to the blog hasn't been able to make it anywhere near the top of my priority list in the past couple of weeks. I'll give you a basic rundown of a few of the main distractions that I've been dealing with; school's back for a new year, which means that I have had a load of new students to deal with a classes to plan for; I twisted my knee snowboarding two weekends ago, just badly enough that I am forced to wear a brace for a total of 8 weeks, but not badly enough that I haven't been able to get around at all; we bought a new car, which means that we've also had to organise just what to do with the one we already had in order to get it ready for shipping back to Aus in a few months; on the day that the Leopard delay till October was announced I hit the Apple store and I got myself a new macbook (couldn't wait for Leopard any longer); I have started a University post graduate accountancy course, so far not so good; we are travelling to China for a 20 day trip next Wednesday, which is gonna put me behind in my studies, and also means that I have to complete an assignment early; and so on. One of my main problems is that if I have only a couple of tasks I'm great at getting them done, however, when the number of tasks I have to do increases too much, the more I seem to be able to procrastinate and not do any of them. My brain gets overloaded and goes into shutdown mode. Really sucks for getting things done.

Youtube rival with an actual chance

News Corporation and NBC Universal will be teaming up to provide a free online streaming video service featuring full length movies and TV shows. Unlike Youtube there will be no user uploaded vids to start with, so everything available will be professionally produced and revenues will be generated in the form of advertisements. The article on Australian IT didn't mention the form that these advertisements will take, but I'm really hoping that they will be simple onscreen text adverts like on Youtube, and not scattered throughout the shows like on TV. I am, however, sure to be let down on this, though there is always a chance that the ads will just be shown at the start of each show and thereby able to be skipped. These pros are pretty cunning buggers, so I'm sure that they will figure a way for us to swallow more ads and generate some decent advertising bucks. A small number of high profile advertisers have already signed on to the project, and a number of other production companies like Viacom have also expressed interest in a service that better protects the owners copyright. Looks like we'll just have to wait and see whether this site will become anything decent or not, which really seems to depend on just how greedy the media big wigs wanna be.
With a service like this, I'd be able to hook my laptop directly up to the TV and watch a decent quality show, without having to shell out for a tivo or an Apple TV. There's definite potential here. Stay tuned...

Australian IT March 23rd 2007 - News, NBC plan YouTube rival

Brain Power

Silicon Valley based company Neurosky, has created a device that can successfully measure brain wave activity and interpret it for use in a variety of applications. A report in Australian IT told of the high possibility of these devices being used in gaming by the end of the year. The technology has been around for a number of years now, but has until now been too expensive for commercial application. Neurosky is reportedly able to produce the single sensor devices in large quantities in Korea for $50 each, which I reckon is extremely affordable for what it is. The device was demoed at the San Francisco Game developers conference, where a man dressed in a Darth Vader costume used only the power of his mind to switch on and off a light saber. He told al of the onlookers that it was like he was using the force, and that the device was also able to allow users to further manipulate objects in game, such as picking things up and moving them.
The devices have been sent out to various companies for them to develop software and ways to make use of this new interface. An example of the way that this device could be employed is to link them in with MP3 players, in order to select songs according to the listeners mood. The thing is that I can just see the porn industry really getting into this new technology. Imagine the long distance fun that people can have with the simple ability to turn on and off and manipulate certain devices with their mind. Nuff said.

Brain Wave Games Near. Australian IT

Ultimate Trekkie Pad

For any Star Trek fans out there, this would have to be quite the place to live. A guy from north of London has kitted out his apartment in a complete Star Trek theme modelled on sets from the series Star Trek Voyager. The guy's motto is "Bliss is a room without wires", so the apartment is almost completely voice activated. Even the doorbell to the apartment greets you with Patrick Stewart's voice saying, "Welcome to the 24th Century".

It'd be a great place to spend a bit of time, but I can't say that I'd want to live there. All that artificial the lighting would kill me. The pictures are really good, and are made even better after you show them to your wife and say that it is the design that you've picked out for the new bathroom.

Just Mucking Around

Put together this short series of clips that we've collected over the last three years or so. The clips were all taken on our tiny digital camera with terrible picture quality, but it's till been fun to piece them together. Disclaimer - Video is meant to show that snowboarding in Japan is fun, not that we are great at it. Since many of the clips were taken earlier on in our stay, the snowboarding ability shown is not so great. Beanies on, means early footage. Helmets on, means recent. There, pride sated.

White and Nerdy

This song has been on the Internet for quite a while now, but I believe it deserves to be appreciated and spread around a little more. I still remember laughing along to "Wierd Al" Yankovich's old hits like, I'm Fat, when I was in Primary school. So it was great to see that he was still around when I first watched this a number of months ago. You have to listen to it a few times to try to catch all of the lines, some of them are simply hilarious. This song came back into my mind when I had the sad opportunity a couple of days ago to hear the original song that this is a spoof of. Weird Al's version is much better!

Super multi core chips leading to software programmer HELL but the product potential is AMAZING

I read on Gizmodo about an article on the Technology Review, about Intel's new 128 core terascale superchip. The superchip is just a little bit larger than the size of a postage stamp, yet has the ability to perform a teraflop, which is a trillion operations per second, or as gizmodo puts it, the ability to play Halflife 3 at 60fps and full resolution. The processing power of this chip equals that of what was produced by a computer the size of a 2000 square foot room in 1996. Wow!
The article states that while processor manufacturers have been aware for a long time of the speed benefits of multi-core processors, they have been unwilling to make them due to the major overhaul of software programming that would be required. Programs would need to be written so that their processes could be divided efficiently and effectively among the various cores, called parallel programming, to avoid situations like bottlenecking; when one process finishes early but has to wait for other processes to catch up before it can move on.
Chip manufacturers have been able to avoid the change for a long time, by their ability to continually increase the speed of the single core processor. Recently, however, the manufacturers came to an impasse, when the single core processors simply required too much power than was feasible to be able to improve on their speed any further.
The thing is, once programming techniques evolve to be able to handle the new situation, and these chips are able to be installed in everyday devices like mobile phones, the sky's the limit with new product functionality. One idea I was particularly taken by was the real time translation of phone calls. We're really heading towards star trek now, when everyone walks around with a communicator device attached to their shirt (or where ever works for you), that translates speech from all languages right to you. Forget the need to actually study languages anymore, sounds amazing.
One thing though, I just don't wanna see any of those artificial intelligence nuts anywhere near one of these chips. The movies and books show that it just wouldn't be worth it.
Can anyone think of any other uses for this much processing power in a small device?

Inspector Gadget Remix

To continue with the beatbox theme, check out this guy's unusual talent of beatboxing while still managing to play the flute quite well. The choice of the theme song for Inspector Gadget doesn't detract from the appeal of the performance either. Aah the memories...

Beatbox guy makes a new hit

It's been ages since my last post, so I prominse to post more soon, but for now enjoy the beatbox guy again with another well made production.

Japanese Grocery Store Crazyness!!

The things you can find in a Japanese grocery store are often a bit strange and a bit of a laugh, but not normally disturbing like this. Happy Valentine's Day, the European way. I can just see it. "Here you go love. I'm sure you've always wanted a shooter of sperm coloured liquid in a sperm shaped container". Funnily enough, I couldn't get anyone to purchase one and check on the taste.

I'll take 10, thanks

These micro compact homes would be perfect for housing near the snow resorts in Hokkaido, and I would love to get myself a patch of land and plonk down a whole swag of them. You've gotta check them out! Not exactly spacious living quarters, but when you only want somewhere to flake out after a busy day of getting out and about, they seem pretty perfect to me. Living in Japan for a number of years sure helps to make you realise how much space is truly needed for comfort. Utilising aircraft and motorhome innovations, they manage to fit two double beds inside a 2.6 metre cube, with a toilet and a table that supposedly seats up to 5 people. The cubes are transported by truck, and either craned into position or even helicoptered in. Nice! The option is also there to attach solar and wind power generation to the cubes, though I would hate to be out there wiping off each time it snowed (a good long broom would probably do the job I suppose).
Designed and developed as a University Project in Munich Germany, they are currently only available for sale and delivery in Europe, but will soon be available in the US. I think I might fire them off an email to check what they are doing about the potential market in Japan.

BTW- Another option is the 'mini home', developed in California. It is a much more expensive option and meant to be your only home, not just a holiday home. It is also built to be as eco friendly as possible, with the potential to live a completely off the grid life.

Unlucky coupl'a weeks, and costly too

Just wanting to have a whinge. In the last two weeks, a number of my items of property have decided that they have reached their used by date. Firstly, and most devastatingly, my relatively new (but past their warranty date) snowboard boots. Damn expensive too, and going great, when just last week the stitching figured that it had had enough and was going to bust. Next, the video camera that I've been struggling with for a few years (always had problems, not user based I assure you), has also gone one step too far and must be replaced. To top that off, the tripod that holds said beast, has also managed to fall into numerous pieces while being transported around town. This one is slipped in just for good measure, because it has also been dying over some time, but just so happens to be at an all time low; my laptop PC is giving up the ghost more regularly than ever and needs to be replaced. It is presenting me with the blue screen of death after sometimes only half an hour of use (I used to get a least 2 hours before it rebooted). I'll let you know when I get something else, these things like to attack in large groups.

January's almost GONE!

It's time I woke up from my post Christmas and New Years slumber and put a few things down. My trip back to Australia this last holiday period turned out to be quite inspiring, because it gave me a good chance to sit down and try to give a bit more focus to my life. I'm 28 now and I still seem to be hovering in much the same way as I was at 21. Deep, I know, hence the large pause between postings.
One of the major decisions that I have made in the last month, is the decision to go back to Uni and do some more study, something I hoped that I would never have to do. I'd been pondering it for about a year, but had not been able to find a course that I felt was suitable, since I was looking to get some practical skills, and engineering courses are pretty much an impossibility for me to do by distance education.
When back in Australia, I started to get interested in the idea of heading up to be a part of the mining boom, which is still getting bigger by the day. I was once able to witness the mining lifestyle first hand, when I took a trip up to Roxby Downs during my high school years. When I was there, I had a feeling that one day I would be back there, if only for a short while. The job that I have been most interested in so far, has been the position of purchasing officer. Not the most glamorous position but I am reckoning that it's a pretty good place to start, since people in charge of the flow of money get to know fairly well how a business truly runs. With the mining town 2 weeks on, 1 week off roster, I would also have enough time to devote to other business pursuits that I have been thinking of for a while. In addition to all this, I have been pondering whether or not to try to get myself into the army reserves as an officer. I could do with the added fitness and self discipline, also the tax free money would be a bonus (though not huge), but I'm still not too certain on the almost guaranteed tours of duty. I'm thinking that the current world climate doesn't leave too many military personnel sitting around resting on their laurels, even the finance officers.
The two options that I've left myself for study at the moment are to work towards a Grad Dip in Accounting, or a Grad Dip in Information Technology. I'm leaning quite heavily towards the Accounting right now, because I can't see it being outdated any time soon, and it is a skill in demand by almost every company. If I were to branch out on my own, the skills learnt would also be invaluable. Study begins in May, so I'm looking to enroll soon and try to get my hands on a reading list or two and get started.
While in Japan my brain has been severely under worked. I've been at times very busy, but I wouldn't say mentally taxed. It's time I knocked off a few cobwebs and got back into it. I also can't say that I ever thought that I'd be studying more into accounting, my low level Pass 2 in Accounting 1 in first year Uni, just goes to show how much effort I put into it at that stage.
Anyway, no-one is likely to have read this far, so I may as well sign off here. There have been numerous other distraction in the last month, but I will have to try to get onto detailing some of those at another time.