Squint your eyes, then read the word spelled by these movie posters:
This doesn't look Photoshopped. These could be unintentionally placed, or else the work of a clever but subtle theater employee.
[from http://www.eyje.com/pictures/funny/Perfect_Poster_Placement_PIC_]
I just upgraded to WordPress 2.5. Let me know if you see anything broken.
Ages ago (pre-1990), most computers weren't connected to networks. You had to use sneakernet to transfer files — put them on a floppy disk, and walk to the other computer (in your sneakers).
The rise of networking killed off sneakernet, but maybe only temporarily. Rasmus Fleischer writes in The Future of Copyright:
The capacity of portable storage devices is increasing exponentially, much faster than Internet bandwidth, according to a principle known as "Kryder's Law". The information in our pockets yesterday was measured in megabytes, today in gigabytes, tomorrow in terabytes and in a few years probably in petabytes (an incredible amount of data). Within 10-15 years a cheap pocket-size media player will probably be able to store all recorded music that has ever been released — ready for direct copying to another person's device.
In other words: The sneakernet will come back if needed. "I believe this is a 'wild card' that most people in the music industry are not seeing at all," writes Swedish filesharing researcher Daniel Johansson. "When music fans can say, 'I have all the music from 1950-2010, do you want a copy?' — what kind of business models will be viable in such a reality?"
Regardless of the mistakes the recording industry is making, I suspect the sneakernet will come back, at least for transferring large amounts of content.
This reminds me of this quote I first heard in the mid-90's: "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon filled with CDs."
An excellent story on hacking a punch card-based system. In the 1970's, the author attended a college whose registration system relied on punch cards handed out to students. This student was able to get into an already filled class by "hacking" a punch card.
Just saw a TV commercial for Crayola 3D sidewalk chalk. Kids were drawing on the sidewalk with this chalk, and when they put on special glasses they saw it in 3D. Needless to say the televised 3D effects were simulated, so I dug around to see if there really is a 3D effect.
It's the real deal. The glasses are the important piece, not the chalk. The glasses in the Crayola kit utilize ChromaDepth, a patented diffraction effect that makes red look closer, blue furthest, and colors in between (on the spectrum) fall in the middle. Reading reviews, the chalk in the Crayola kit is probably more colorful than typical sidewalk chalk, but it's the glasses that are the important bit.
Chromatek's most recent patent (from 1991) has some good drawings that show how ChromaDepth works.
Chromatek sells glasses directly, a set of three for $7 + s/h. I'm almost tempted to buy a set just to see it in action.
Travel + Leisure released their list of The World's Scariest Runways. Their "scariest" is the airport in Paro, Bhutan's only international airport. Surrounded by 16,000 foot peaks towering 5,000 feet over the city (elev: 7,300 feet), only 8 pilots are qualified to land at Paro.
The Atmospheric Optics site has amazing photographs plus good descriptions on most of the light effects you see in the sky, including rainbows, halos, sun (crepescular) rays, and more.
Joel Spolsky writes about the real-world difficulty of standards in "Martian Headsets". The article was spurred by Joel's observations on the Microsoft IE8 team's rock-and-a-hard-place predicament. The article uses a clever example of Martian MP3 players and headphones to show why standards start out easy to implement but end up nearly impossible despite everyone's well-meaning efforts.
Joel also tosses in an interesting anecdote about the Bible as a "standard":
If you've ever visited the ultra-orthodox Jewish communities of Jerusalem, all of whom agree in complete and utter adherence to every iota of Jewish law, you will discover that despite general agreement on what constitutes kosher food, that you will not find a rabbi from one ultra-orthodox community who is willing to eat at the home of a rabbi from a different ultra-orthodox community. And the web designers are discovering what the Jews of Mea Shearim have known for decades: just because you all agree to follow one book [of standards] doesn't ensure compatibility, because the laws are so complex and complicated and convoluted that it's almost impossible to understand them all well enough to avoid traps and landmines.
Standards are a great goal, of course, but before you become a standards fanatic you have to understand that due to the failings of human beings, standards are sometimes misinterpreted, sometimes confusing and even ambiguous.
After reading the article, I feel sorry for the IE8 team. And it's just a matter of time before Firefox, Opera, and all the other browsers feel the pain, too…
[via "The Flamewar of the Century" at john-ahrens.com]
Two crazy guys racing their BMW and Audi on a crowded Russian highway.
You can find more like this on YouTube searching for "bmw vs audi"
From Cracked.com's 13 Most Irresponsible Self Defense Gadgets Money Can Buy comes the shotgun flashlight that fires a .410 shell.
As Cracked.com points out:
Hey, it works as a flashlight, too! And the gun part of it points out the back! So every time you use your flashlight, you've got a goddamned shotgun pointing at your heart!
