What did we learn this week? Week 8

So some of may have noticed there was no What did we learn this week last week.  For Week 7.  Why you may ask? Well, for one I was short on time and exhausted from real life.  Two, after the complete and utter disaster of my Einstein post (thanks to the 4 of you that read it and are interested in science) I started to wonder if I should even bother.  Then I got some positive feedback and some view from my election blog, so I figured I would keep on going.  Plus what the hell us I’m I going to do in my free time?  So without further ado, here is What did we learn this week……week 8 (I couldn’t name it 7 since that would’ve been last weeks!)

Rich people really don’t pay attention when they drive……

So Sunday we went with my parents to look for baby furniture.  We also had to go to dinner the same night at a pretty good German place afterwards so we looked at furniture stores in that area.  Now the area we were in has a decent amount of well to do and actually rich people in it.  I hate driving around there because I maintain that the more money people have the less they care about their car (they’ll just get another) and the less they pay attention while driving.  Thus was the statement I made when someone swerved into my lane with no blinker.  As I pulled past I could see him texting away with 2 kids in the back seat.  What and ass.  So to further prove my point, after we got to the restaurant and we’re having a couple of drinks for my cousins birthday, the waiter came over and asked if we had a Mercury Milan.  I responded yes and asked why, then he told me it had just been hit….in the parking lot.

So we went out and sure enough a woman in her late 40’s to early 50’s had backed into our door not paying attention.  What was she driving? A BMW.  To further my point, she has enough money to not go through insurance, and just pay to fix our car, $1649 to be exact.  Don’t get me wrong, She is actually a very nice lady, and I feel bad for her, but she was from a more affluent part of the area and wasn’t paying attention.  Point, set, match me.

In other news….Is twitter more addictive then alcohol and cigarettes?

Well, I’m not sure, but Professor Josh has a very in depth chart on his blog that shows it just might be, why not head over and check it out at http://professorjosh.wordpress.com/2012/03/23/is-twitter-more-addictive-than-alcohol-and-cigarettes-infographic/

“no…really, follow me!”

What did the iceberg say to Titanic? Glub….Glub…Glub….

At 2:20 am on April 15^th 2012 it will be the 100^th anniversary of the sinking of the titanic.  To this day explorers and scientists along with Titanic enthusiasts are debating and still trying to figure out how it sunk (other than the iceberg) and why it went down so fast.  The Titanic sits more than 2 miles down and to this day there are more and more pictures and video (higher quality than anything before) coming back from the murky depths and giving us a better picture of what happened.  For some great pics and the full story check out bisarbeats blog at http://bisarbeat.blogspot.com/2012/03/unseen-titanic.html#.T2xeMOa9qTE.wordpress

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Running low on energy? Want a little snack? Then put down that banana and pick up a cookie!  Wait?! What?!

Well, yeah, kinda.  A study by the university of  Sydney did a study to see which foods would satisfy your hunger and provide you with energy at the same time, and yes it seems that cookies and bananas are about the same.  Check out http://blog.massivehealth.com/infographics/bananas_vs_cookies for the whole story.

“Bring it Cookies!”

Good news everybody, Adobe has a brand new Photoshop coming out….

Now the bad news, its still like $700!  Yup for the first time in over a decade Photoshop is getting a completely new look, to me it was a bit similar to lightroom.  It’s also getting 65 new features.  Sadly the pricing is the same.  I tried it out and liked it myself, to try it out for free for yourself, check out Adobe Labs’ website at http://labs.adobe.com/  oh and by the way it’s a really large download so grab a sandwich or something while you wait for it.

NFL Blitz comes to real life….

You would think a team named the Saints would keep their noses clean, but nope.  Apparently as incentive to the players, the coach and management instituted a bounty system.  Yup, they would get paid for hitting certain players.  Let’s just be clear though, not just hitting.  The defensive players were paid $1500 for a knock out and $1000 for a “cart-off”.  The numbers would then be doubled or even tripled for play-off games.  Some of the players that were targeted were Aaron Rodgers, Cam Newton, Brett Favre and Kurt Warner.  Some of the biggest names in the sport and some of the biggest crowd draws.  Also, to make it even worse, the Captain of the Saints defense Jonathon Vilma offered $10000 to any one that knocked Brett Favre out of the 2010 NFC Championship Game.  For more on the story check out http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/7718136/sean-payton-new-orleans-saints-banned-one-year-bounties

“Wheres Bourbon Street?”

It’s a bird! An Angry bird! In Space!?

Yup Angry Birds space is now live!  For all you casual gamers or people that just want a diversion the latest in the Angry Birds series is live.  This time in space!  Do I really need to say anything more?  Go get it!

“If you think we were angry before!”

For all you TMNT fans out there…..

It looks like Michael bay is planning on resurrecting the movie series about mutant turtles, that happen to be ninjas.  My good friends over at Anomic Office Drone are under the opinion that they will ruin it, but come on guys, its about a group of mutant turtles that are ninjas, how bad can it really get?  Anyway head over to them and read all about it here  http://anomicofficedrone.com/2012/03/21/michael-bay-plans-to-ruin-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles/

“Ruin TMNT? Really? Look at the pic and tell me that again!”

We’ve been slimed!

In food news more and more supermarkets are hopping on the “No Pink Slime” Bandwagon.  Which I am a fan of.   Granted the FDA says its safe and as far as I know in the time its been added to food no one has died from it, it’s just fucking gross.  I mean come on, you’re adding Ammonium Hydroxide to the stuff to kill germs? For a list of who does and doesn’t sell it check out Allergic’s blog at http://atomiclotusbox.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/more-supermarkets-refuse-to-sell-pink-slime-in-their-meat/

“So, they said no more pink slime, I guess this might be another option for filler!”

Did you check out the new Linux based operating system created by a group of hackers?

Yeah, I would trust them not to put any backdoors into it.  The Anonymous OS was released this week based on the Linux distro Ubuntu.  The main problem is that the hacking group of the same name isn’t the group that put it together, in fact they say its riddled with holes and security issues! So who did put it out? Apparently no ones.  For more details check out Danny Carbons blog at http://dannycarbon.com/2012/03/19/anonymous-operating-system-prompts-security-warnings/

“Seriously, this time it wasn’t us!”

So that’s it, the week in review, I’m sure I missed some things, but that’s it for me.  Enjoy your weekend and as always thanks for reading!

John

What did we learn this week? week 6

Well here we are another week of 2012 in the books, so what did we learn?

Apparently you can sue yourself…..kinda.

In an ongoing saga for the great Stan Lee, he is now being sued by himself….kinda.  He is actually being sued by a company he started…..then left…..which actually bears his name.  I wonder in the courtroom if there will be Stan Lee then an evil Stan Lee? That would be wicked….the full confusing story can be found here http://www.movieline.com/2012/03/07/stan-lee-vs-stan-lee-the-epic-legal-follies-of-a-comics-mastermind/ for those of you interested.

 

What the?! I thought I had the new iPad?!

Well, not me, I never would be able to afford one, but for millions of Apple users and fans the iPad 3 was released this week to….well…I’m not really sure.  There are some improvements over the iPad 2, but not to the extent most had hoped.  Most of my Apple friends say they’ll wait for the 4^th one.  I mean it’s nice and the new display is awesome, although calling it a retina display is a bit confusing, I thought it had to do with retinal scanning for security.  I’m sure it’s going to sell, I mean for 10 years Apple could’ve sold a ketchup popsicle to a woman wearing white gloves in the desert, but the latest iPad just doesn’t seem to be a huge jump.  While the new feature set is nice, better rear camera, better and faster graphics, better display etc, I think the biggest feature is that it caused a price drop for the iPad 2’s.  Which means more people will probably be giving them a look.  For the full specs take a look here http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/the-new-ipad-3-everything-you-should-know/

 

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a Bat!

Batman Year One Deluxe edition is being released on March 14^th.  For those that don’t know, year one is critically acclaimed and is one of the most important in the Batman saga.  It’s obviously about the crime fighters first year, one thing that makes this issue special is that it’s written by Frank Miller, with artwork by David Mazzucchelli.  So if you’re a Batman fan, this is a must have.  For more info check out http://firewireblog.com/2012/03/08/batman-year-one-deluxe-edition-new-printing-due-on-march-14th/

 

They do exist! Well maybe.

So, in Peru a mummy was found, nothing new there, except that it has an elongated skull.  Yup, this things skull is almost the size of its small body and as usual everyone is baffled.  Did I mention the larger than normal eyes also?

An anthropologist believes it to be a child of under 2 with an enormous head which possibly a human sacrifice.  Let’s be real for a minute, chances are it’s just a deformed human, but I’m sure that crazy greek dude, Giorgio A. Tsoukalos from Ancients Aliens (I love that show) will be talking about it soon enough!

Check out the full article at http://reinep.wordpress.com/2012/03/07/mummy-with-giant-head-discovered-in-peru/

 

I just bought the game! What do you mean there’s already DLC that I have to pay for!?

So the hotly anticipated ending to the Mass Effect trilogy, Mass Effect 3, was released this week…..along with the first DLC (downloadable content)  Some people see this as just another way to get more money from the already popular game by offering the DLC at launch.  We as gamers are always surprised to see a patch needs to be installed for a game that just came out, but to have DLC on launch day just makes it seem like we bought an incomplete game, jeese, give us a month to think that our 60 bucks bought a full game before you release the DLC! Anyway that’s just my thought on it.  As long as it’s not important to the finale I guess no one’s twisting your arm to buy it.

“What do you mean there’s already DLC?”

 

Glad you’re back from the injury, now if you would look at this pink piece of paper…….

It was announced this week that after 14 years the Indianapolis Colts decided to release Peyton Manning.  I guess the main concern was the amount of surgeries he had, but in 2011 they signed him to a 5 year deal, worth 90 million dollars.  I guess the prospect of another injury was too great for a team that went 2-14 last year.  With Peyton gone and their Superbowl winning coach, I guess it’s time for rebuilding.  I’m sure Manning isn’t retiring anytime soon and plenty of mediocre clubs would pay millions more for him.  For more about it check out http://anomicofficedrone.com/2012/03/07/peyton-and-the-colts-part-ways/ and http://www.nfl.com/news/story/09000d5d82777827/article/peyton-manning-colts-part-ways-in-most-appropriate-fashion

“Seriously, I always thought you’d get cut before me!”

 

From the “What the hell?!” department…..

Conservative Christian Pat Robertson wants Marijuana legalized.  Yeah I know of all people right?  His arguments actually make sense on this one though.  He talks about the cost of the war on drugs and even thinks the US has gone too far when it comes to drugs.  Pointing out how many juveniles are being locked up for years over a joint, unless you’re rich of course (he points that out)  He also says that he believes it should be treated like Alcohol.  He even points out that since 2006 47,515 lives have been claimed in Central and South America (granted not all are related to Marijuana)  Any way, if you’d like to read more, and I’m sure some of you would like too, here’s the full story http://20poorandfabulous.com/2012/03/08/pat-robertson-wants-marijuana-legalized/

“Is it 4:20 yet?”

 

What’s it take to be an internet star?

Well apparently not doing an informative beer show on Youtube, blogging about beer or this blog either.  Apparently you need to be a rebel leader for 20 years in Africa kidnapping and terrorizing villages oh and keeping them as slaves, normal and for sex.  In an effort to catch him a video about Joesph Kony was released on Youtube.  The 30 minute video shows his atrocities and had 32 million views by Thursday.  For more on Kony check out http://www.freep.com/article/20120309/NEWS07/203090359/Hunt-for-jungle-militia-leader-Kony-goes-viral-aiming-to-get-him-arrested?odyssey=nav%7Chead   or Wikipedia him.  If you want to check out the video of this scumbag for yourself, take a look here http://youtu.be/Y4MnpzG5Sqc

“Joseph Kony, putting the infant back in infantry since 1986”

 

Take him down Red 1!

12 years ago a little game called Counter-Strike was released, well, to be fair it was a Half-Life mod.  It quickly became one of the most played PC online tactical shooters ever, in fact many still play the original today.  Then a few years later Counter-strike Source was released, bringing a new level to the genre of tactical shooters.  Not only were the graphics better, but using the Source engine made the physics way better as well.  Even though the Call of Duty and Battlefield series have kind of taken the lime light, both Counter-Strikes are still played today.  Now, 12 years after the original, Valve and Hidden Path Entertainment are releasing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.  One of the coolest features? Cross platform play across all supported systems! Yup, whether you have a Mac, Windows machine, Xbox 360 or PS3, you’ll be able to blast your friends full of holes.  I for one can’t wait.  For more info and a trailer check out http://store.steampowered.com/app/1800/

“Here Kony, Kony, Kony.”

 

It really is bigger on the inside.

So apparently the babies room, formely my computer room/office/catch all is a T.A.R.D.I.S (Time and Relative Dimension In Space for you non Doctor Who fans) because it seemed to bigger on the inside.  For the last for weeks I have been sorting through 15 to 20 year old crap and throwing out countless garbage can loads.  I then moved the rest into a much bigger space in the basement….which apparently couldn’t hold everything, so I went through again and finally the basement is about 90 percent done.  How an 11×11 room wouldn’t fit in a 40×20 space is beyond me.  How I accumulated that much junk is also beyond me, I guess old John is less tolerant of crap and throw more away then young John did.

“Yup, there is 25 years of crap in here, including a Sony sports cassette walkman and a socket 3 486 motherboard! Old Skool bitches!”

So yeah, that’s it for this week, it’s actually kind of a lot isn’t it?  So I hope you learned something and enjoyed it.  Thanks for reading!

John

What did we learn this week? week 4

So a whole lot happened this week and its been really hard for me to narrow it down, plus I got a bit distracted working on my new blog The Beer Show companion blog http://thebeershow.wordpress.com/ the companion to my youtube show, cleaning out my soon to be babies room, blogging about what it feels like to be an expectant father and to be honest, I just forgot, so here goes….so…..What did we learn this week?

If you paint it, they’ll be afraid…….

So in Southside Shopping Centre in Wandsworth, London a painter by the name of Andrew Walker, did such a good job of painting a 3D image inside an elevator that people were afraid to walk in.  He painted a 3d image that made it look like the floor was missing.  Yup, a pretty kick ass image indeed, check it out over at the fire wire blog http://firewireblog.com/2012/02/20/elevator-illusion-shocks-unsuspecting-london-shoppers/

Ladies and Gentlemen, Ike and Tina…..er……Chris and Rhianna?

So this week we heard that Chris Brown and Rhianna would be working together again.  Really? I mean I’m all for forgiveness but this just has bad idea written all over it.  The good folks at 20 poor and fabulous have put together a pretty good article, asking if they are indeed the new Ike and Tina, so head over there and check it out.  http://20poorandfabulous.com/2012/02/20/are-rihanna-and-chris-brown-the-new-ike-and-tina-turner/

Major Tom are you there?

So this week, 50 years ago, John Glenn made a historic space flight.  John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth.  he discusses it in a video that the 1000 year old man posted here http://toodamnez.wordpress.com/2012/02/20/50-years-later-astronaut-john-glenn-recounts-his-historic-mission-in-space/  enjoy!

Good news everybody!!!

For all you gaming Doctor Who fans, BBC has announced that The Eternity Clock, will using the Unreal 3 engine, which should be pretty awesome!  from what I’ve heard the game sounds pretty good, so we’ll have to see.  You can check out the full story at http://theunpaidgamers.com/2012/02/21/bbc-worldwide-and-supermassive-games-bring-doctor-who-the-eternity-clock-to-life-with-unreal-engine-3/

Waterworld? hopefully no Kevin Costner!

So Scientists have found a new planet.  A steamy waterworld that’s supposed to be larger than Earth.  The original designation for the planet was GJ 1214b and was first found in December 2009, It wasn’t until new Hubble Telescope images that they found that the water world was surrounded by a steamy atmosphere, for the complete story check out Bisarbeats blog http://bisarbeat.wordpress.com/2012/02/22/bisarbeat-new-type-of-alien-planet-is-a-steamy-waterworld/

Ever watch Star Trek The Next Generation and want Geordi’s visor?

well if you did then good news! Google is working on a pair of internet enabled glasses!  They’ll be Android powered, allow you to check your email, check in to your places and update your Facebook.  They’ll link to your smart phone and provide a heads up display.  It would be interesting to see how they would work with the monocle feature for the yelp app. for more info check it out Danny Carbons blog http://dannycarbon.com/2012/02/22/google-to-offer-terminator-style-smartphone-glasses-later-this-year/

Permafrost my A…….

So a group of Russian scientists found an Ice Age squirrels burrow, that contained fruit and seeds that had been buried in the Siberian permafrost for more than 30000 years.  From the tissue samples, they were able to resurrect a plant.  The plant, The Silene Stenophylla is the oldest plant that has ever been brought back and the scientists say its in full working order.  Personally, I would’ve been more impressed if they had resurrected the squirrel.  Anyway for the full story check out Contr237’s blog here http://videogamenews4you.wordpress.com/2012/02/23/russians-resurrect-30000-year-old-frozen-flower/

Don’t cross flooded rivers with no pants on….

So a man in Zimbabwe is in the hospital after a crocodile bit off his testicles and some of his penis as tried to cross a flooded river.  Did I mention he was carrying a box tomatoes on his head…..and had no pants on?  He had taken off his pants and put them in the tomato box to keep them dry, makes perfect sense.  For more of the story check out Anacristina79’s blog at http://anacristina79.wordpress.com/2012/02/23/crocodile-bites-mans-testicles-during-zimbabwe-river-crossing/

When IT says not to disable the firewall they mean it!

So there is a possibility that on March 8th the internet will be shutdown, by the FBI, apparently hundreds of computers in more than a hundred countries have been corrupted by the DNSChanger Trojan.  Whats its do?  Basically it sends unsuspecting users to fake sites of that look just like the real ones to steal info.  For the full story follow the link here http://atomiclotusbox.wordpress.com/2012/02/24/will-the-fbi-shut-down-the-internet-on-march-8-because-of-computer-virus-concerns/

So I think thats about it, I’m heading to Las Vegas for a little bit this weekend, hopefully I’ll get some blogs in for you but if not I’ll see you all when I get back, so thanks for reading!

John

So let me get this straight, all the ink cartridges cost 50 bucks, or I could buy a whole printer for 60?!

So I went down to my office to do a little work tonight.  I decided to print something out and found that nothing came out.  I had a set of new cartridges, so I put them in to find that the black would work half the time and the red would work, the yellow and blue how ever…..did not.  So after multiple head cleanings I still had the same results.  So I put some head cleaner on the heads and am now sitting waiting and I started to think of just how much a scam the whole home computer printer thing really is.

Years ago when I bought my first inkjet printer it was a Cannon Bubblejet 4000, it was snazy and could print color! not like my old dot matrix.  I bought it at Service Merchandise (how many of you remember them?)  I worked in the electronics department there, it had to be about 1995.  I waited for the floor model to keep getting marked down, eventually I paid 149 dollars for it (at the time it was like 300 new)  At the time it took 2 cartridges, a black and a color.  or you could remove the printhead carriage and cartridges and put in a double sized black ink cartridge (I believe it was the BC-21) The double sized cartridge I think was like 25, and the two small cartridges were I think 15 a piece.  That printer lasted me till about 2002 before I replaced it with a lexmark that had USB.

So that was like 7 years, since then I’ve had at least 5 inkjet printers by various manufacturers, why?  Easy, I would go to what ever store to buy ink and find that the color cartridges plus the black cartridge would be like 50 bucks, if not more (especially Lexmark and Epson) but right next to the cartridges would be refill kits that were cheaper!  So I started filling my own cartridges, it was a bit messy but it worked….until some jerk wad at the printer manufacturers decided to put microchips in the cartridges that made it impossible to fill! (without a reset tool, of course the tools were a bit hit or miss so…)

So with that being done, I would go to buy ink, then again I would see that the ink for all the cartridges I needed ranged between 45 and 60 bucks.  A few aisles over on the other hand were printers that came with the ink, better features then the old one, usually on sale for like 90 bucks, sometimes less!  Why would I buy the new printer instead of the ink cartridges?  Easy, in the early days (my beloved Cannon BJC-4000) if the ink stopped flowing because the printhead had gotten clogged or went bad, no problem, you could buy the carriage with the printhead, plus the double sized black ink cartridge had its own print head.  You can’t do that with most newer printers, so I would buy the cartridges, go home and put them in only to find the print head was shot, so I would try to clean them with solution, sometimes it would work, other times, I would be out the cost of the ink and then buying a new printer!

So now, half of the time, I buy a printer, refill the cartridges once or twice until they or the print head fail, then just buy a new printer for almost the same price.  How sad is that?  I mean why even sell the ink anyways?  Anyway, just thought I’d talk about it a bit, I think we’ve all had that moment when we’re at the store looking from the cartridge boxes to the shiny new printers and back again.  What do you think? What do you usually do?  Leave it below in the comments area, for now, I’ll be trying to get my printer to print until I go buy a new one….

What did we learn this week? week 3

Well, its Friday, so it’s another edition of what did we learn this week? Well first off…..

Incest might not be best…..but it might be the only choice in Iceland!  Apparently its hard to find someone to date….in Iceland.  The population is so small, roughly the size of Pittsburgh, that people will sometimes start dating someone only to find that they are a long lost relative!  So to help this problem some very nice people have started a searchable database…for the link to the full story please visit my good friend, anacristina79’a blog at http://anacristina79.wordpress.com/2012/02/11/icelanders-avoid-inbreeding-through-online-incest-database/

I now pronounce you sausage and green peppers.  If you and your significant other are really into pizza and have 10k you now can have Pizza Hut take care of that pesky ring for you with their engagement package.   Yup you heard right.  Want to know more? Once again anacristina79 can be thanked for this one!  http://anacristina79.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/pizza-huts-10000-engagement-party-package-includes-a-ring-fireworks-and-pizza/

From the “you can never have enough bacon” department.  Well I love bacon, but I even think this goes a bit far.  Apparently Jack in the Box now is offering an extremely limited time bacon shake….yup you read that right.  They didn’t say how limited, so if you’re a bacon fan and want one you might want to visit the Jack in the Box website to find out where to get your fix!

Whitney Houston died? What should we do? Well if your the same company I bitched at last week for not offering a UMD game exchange program in the US (yeah I’m talking about you Sony!) you raise the prices on her CD’s, well at least until you get caught!  Sony put the prices back then apologized but seriously Sony wise up will ya?  The link can be found here at my friend anomic office drones blog, if you want the full story http://anomicofficedrone.com/2012/02/13/you-stay-classy-sony/

For all of you Grateful Dead fans with….cough….cough…. Glaucoma…The US is close to legalizing medical marijuana everywhere as long as it abides by the Washington DC rules….I would tell you more about it, but to be honest typing this is making me hungry so head over to http://anacristina79.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/congress-oks-medical-marijuana-everywhere-with-dc-rules-attorney/ for the link to the full story!

D’oh! Guess who got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame?  That’s right Chelsea Handler…..er no….wait….I mean Matt Groening!  Yup the creator of The Simpsons and Futurama has finally been awarded his very own star on the walk of fame.  I may not be a huge fan of the last few seasons, but I love the older ones and think this star was a long time coming and well deserved, kudos Matt!   For more check out http://anomicofficedrone.com/2012/02/14/matt-groening-just-got-a-star-on-the-hollywood-walk-of-fame/

The Godfather part 4, What do you do if you’re a Sicillian drug dealer on the run from the Sicilian mafia…..er…..government?  Well if you’re an idiot like Michele Grasso, you run to London then post pictures of your escapades showing famous places….oh did I mention he even labeled a photo album Christmas in London?  Yup pure genius and now you can guess who’s being extradited back to Sicily.  The full article is over here at my other good friend Danny Carbons blog http://dannycarbon.com/2012/02/15/sicilian-fugitive-deported-after-london-whereabouts-revealed-on-facebook/

They do exist! Well according to Timothy Good anyway.  The best part? He says that Eisenhower had 3 secret meetings with them! Yup, he appeared on a BBC2 program discussing it.  The article also has some other info, how true it is I don’t know but its a good read! So check it out over at Ray Alex’s http://reinep.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/former-us-president-eisenhower-had-three-secret-meetings-with-extra-terrestrials/ and enjoy!

Put them in the Iron Maiden! Yup you Bill and Ted fans know that statement, and also you know I ain’t talking about the torture device either!  Iron Maiden announced their Maiden England World Tour! Yup so look to see if they’re coming to a city near you!

Be honest, you didn’t really buy the electric car to save the world….did you?  Because if you did guess what?  You may be making it worse!  Yup, a study that focused 34 Chinese showed that the amount of fine particle emissions produced to make the electricity for the electric cars was worse then from regular cars.  If you want the full story the link can be found here http://anacristina79.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/study-shows-impact-of-electric-cars-is-worse-than-petrol-powered-vehicles/

Thanks to the good folks over at http://larryfire.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/did-you-know-that-it-costs-2-4-cents-to-make-one-penny/ I now know that it takes 2.4 cents to make a penny!!! what the F#$%? why are we still making them!? they can be found on any street in the union! pay the homeless and unemployed to pick them up and return them! I mean we actually lose money making the things, no wonder we’re broke, any way head over to the above link for the full story!

So I find its funny that everyone seems to focus on movie and music piracy hurting the respective industries, but why is no one talking about technology knock offs?  Well my friends at the Ramblings of a Techie blog discuss this very topic, http://theatretechgeek.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/chinese-rips-off-damaging-the-industry/  enjoy!

And on the lighter side….er darker side?  Forbes magazine put together a list of where exactly the Galactic Empire and Emperor Palpatine went wrong! So enjoy!

Oh, and the last thing I learned this week is that when UPS says 2 days guaranteed means “we’ll get it there when we damn well please”  I find it funny that a company that loves logistics they don’t know what the f they are doing.  See, my package shipped on the 15th, 2nd day air.  I live near Chicago so imagine my surprise when I saw it landed in Des Moines Iowa, instead of at Ohare airport, then hopped on a truck to go from Des Moines, back to….Des Moines! yup it departed then a half hour later arrived there again! then departed like 10 hours later to come to Chicago by truck! WTF happened to the air part of the 2nd day air?!  So once again, UPS is late getting me a package, and before you jump on me, the original date that THEY said it would be delivered was the 17th.  So UPS gets the middle finger award for the week!

Enjoy your weekend!

John

Ahead of its time? The movie Hackers……..

17 years ago a movie was released that many of you probably didn’t watch.  The movie was Hackers.  At the time the internet was still in its infancy and Windows 95 had just come out, most people didn’t even own a computer let alone go online for anything yet.  It had some young stars that have since taken off and some pretty big names at the time, Johnny Lee Miller (Trainspotting, Eli Stone, Dexter), Angelina Jolie (Do I really need to list anything here?), Matthew Lillard (Scream, Scooby Doo, , Fisher Stevens (Short Circuit, Early Edition, Lost), Alberta Watson (Le Femme Nikita tv series, 24, Nikita), Lorraine Brocco (Goodfellas, The Sopranos, Rizzoli and Isles), Marc Anthony (mainly a singer but has done some acting work) and Penn Jillette (Penn & Teller: Bull$hit, Penn & Teller tell a lie).  It also had a great elecetronic (I’m just using a generic term here) music soundtrack featuring some of the biggest names at the time, Prodigy, Orbital, Underworld and Leftfield just to name a few, the score by Simon Boswell wasn’t bad either.  In fact it spawned a total of 3 soundtracks because not all the music would fit on one disc.  The 2nd and 3rd also had music “inspired” by the movie.

Granted a lot of people didn’t care for the film, I enjoyed it.  I’ve been into computers and technology since I got my first computer, a Commodore VIC-20 back in like 1982 or 83, when I was like 4 or 5.  I knew that not all of the terms they were using were correct, I also knew that a lot of the phone phreaking things they showed and did did’t work anymore, but I didn’t care.  I also knew that mainframes weren’t made of visual columns showing every workstation at a company or that a computer worm doesnt actually look like a CGI worm.  I knew that was all done to make it more appealing, just like the stylized way the rag tag group of hackers dressed.  What I don’t think anybody knew, is that even with all the outdated equipment and lingo, how much more relevant that movie is today and how it foreshadowed today’s world.

The plot is basically about a group of late teens who enjoy breaking into mainframes, whether its a company, a bank, or even a tv station for fun and bragging rights.  Basically just to say they could do it, anything they download would be used just to show that they did it, not for profit or anything like that.  In one part, one of the Secret Service agents is reading the Hackers Manifesto, which gives a bit of incite into why they do what they do.  One night, the newest (n00b) of the group hacks into an oil companies mainframe, he starts to copy a garbage file.  As he is doing this the IT security people notice it and start a trace (not ultra realistic but whatever).  As they are tracing him his mother walks in, tells him to go to bed and turns off his computer, causing him to only have a partial copy of the file.  This file we later find out is a worm program that the head of security buried in the system to steal 20 million dollars, after he detects the hacker he then installs a virus that is going to cause oil tankers to capsize, and blames it on the hacker and his friends.  Long story short the young hackers defeat the bad guy with the help of a few thousand hackers from around the world.  There’s a lot that I left out about the movie, but thats the basics, now you’re probably wondering how this is relevant today or how it foreshadowed anything.

Well here’s how.  Lets take the group Anonymous for example.  They hack into computer systems and mainframes of large organizations,  download files then over load the server much like they did in the end of the movie hackers, only it probably doesn’t look nearly as visual.  Unlike in the movie though, they release the data for all to see, not just other groups.  Of course they say they are just doing it for fun, maybe they are maybe they aren’t, so far I haven’t heard about them taking any large sums of money or holding a companies hostage with a computer virus.  I am not agreeing or disagreeing with what Anonymous is doing.  I’m just pointing out that with the rising number of cyber attacks across the boards, maybe someone 17 years ago should’ve watched the movie Hackers, and instead of making fun of it or saying Angelina Jolie was hot, realized that this was a very real future.  Parts of the movie are probably more true today then ever, people still use simple passwords (especially non computer people), they still leave machines logged in when away from they’re desks, ships are mostly computer controlled and linked to GPS, companies both big and small get cyber attacks every day and employ IT groups that know security.  In fact the whole world today is one big network.

So I guess my point is that a small time movie that took a chance on some young stars really was ahead of its time, hell you can have Spielberg and Lucas CGI out the cordless phones, pagers and outdated machines and replace them with new equipment and the plot would still work, in fact more people would probably understand it.  Rarely do movies from the past seem relevant almost 20 years later, but to me this one does, and like I said above, it foreshadowed the world we live in today.  Thanks for reading and as always if you have the time, drop by and checkout my youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/nervousdogprod or some of my work at http://www.2dayhangover.com

john

What did we learn this week?

So, what did we learn this week?  Let’s recap some of my favorite things.

Turns out the FBI had a file on Steve Jobs, that mentioned drug use.  What FBI profile doesn’t have drug use involved, anyway to read the whole story check out my good friends over at Danny Carbon.

http://dannycarbon.com/2012/02/09/steve-jobs-fbi-file-notes-drug-use/

Want to get out of violating copyrights on your illegal porn download stash? Just say you didn’t do it, then claim that porn can’t be copyrighted! Duh! Thanks to my good friend over at Pkrf1end’s Blog for bringing it to our attention!  Read the full story at

https://torrentfreak.com/you-cant-copyright-porn-bittorrent-defendant-insists-120206/

Once again showing the US customers that they don’t give a shit, Sony has announced that even though they have a discount program in Europe that is sort of a transfer program for UMD to Vita games. Sony this week gave US customers the finger and said nope you can buy some at a discounted price, but there will be no such program.  Thanks Sony!  For the details check out Contra237’s blog at

No discounted UMD transfers to Vita for US

From the, “Did someone really need to pay for this study?” category comes news that at least a quarter of tweets are useless!  Shit, I could’ve told them that for free!  Check out the full article at

http://dannycarbon.com/2012/02/08/a-quarter-of-tweets-are-useless/

Whats the oldest living organism on Earth?  If you said Jerry Lewis, Dick Van Dyke, Cloris Leachman or Betty White, you were close but wrong.  Scientists recently found a 200,000 year old organism in the Mediterranean.  It’s a seagrass named Posidonia Oceanica, named after Posidon.  Apparently this grass has a leg up on all of humanity and can reproduce by cloning.  you can read more about it over at Bisarebeat’s blog

http://bisarbeat.blogspot.com/2012/02/oldest-living-organism-on-earth.html#.TzPmOADDwY4.wordpress

For all you movie buffs out there that want more useless knowledge (like me) I found the best website for you, it points out hundreds of errors in movies! So Geek Ahoy and enjoy!

http://www.moviemistakes.com

Spiderman…Spiderman……yup us comic book geeks (or nerds if you prefer) all know that Peter Parker became Spiderman when he was bit by a radioactive spider…Well good news!  A white cobweb substance has been found in a radioactive waste pool!  So if they are spider webs, and you’re bitten by one just maybe……anyway the full story can be found here

http://bisarbeat.blogspot.com/2012/02/white-cobwebs-found-in-nuclear-waste.html#.TzU-2C6Eshw.wordpress

From the “DUH!” department comes a report by the BBC that CEO pay may not be linked to performance….really? whats your first clue? the 20 million they make plus bonus’s they get while running a company into the ground?!  Glad the BBC wasted the money on this one and not the US government…shocking right?  Anyway if you want to read more about people that make more in a year then most entire families do over 2 generations then head over to the BBC….

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16932043

What do you do when you find a note that daddies little girl wrote on Facebook?  Well if she swore like this guy’s daughter and insulted her parents, you take her laptop outside and give it the Old Yeller treatment!  Not sure if its true, but if it is, well then God bless rednecks and now enjoy!  Oh, and by the way there is a bit of swearing…..

Ever drop your phone?  Ever drop it into a pitcher of beer? into the toilet? or forget it in the pocket of your carpenter jeans then threw them in the wash? (yup that was me RIP Nokia 5100) Well then my friends the future is here for you! This company has developed a process that will waterproof your phone for 60 bucks!  So if you’ve ever dropped your phone into a hot tub full of call girls then go here….

http://www.liquipel.com/

So just to prove that they could still stick it to us after the failure of PIPA and SOPA Hollywood is raising ticket prices! Yup, granted it’s only 4 cents or so, but for 16 dollars for two tickets, plus drinks and maybe some popcorn, you might as well just buy the damned thing when it comes out.  At least at your house the floor isn’t sticky…..well most of you anyway!  Want to read all about it, check out 20POORANDFABULOUS’s blog over at

Infuriation: Movie ticket prices on the rise

If you think being married sucks and that your wife takes all your money, then be glad you don’t live in Indonesia.  Why you ask? Well, apparently the Gorontalo (wasn’t he the six armed guy in Mortal Kombat?) Provincial Government will now send the pay of married civil servants to their wives accounts, they think this will prevent infidelity, well at least the husband won’t be able to afford to cheat…..the wife on the other hand…..for the full story check out.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16959455

Follow that Timelord! So if you’re a Doctor Who fan, then this might up your alley, there is a spinoff audio show called The Minister of Chance.  It’s based off a character in a 7th Doctor audio play about another Timelord, so if you cant wait until fall for Doctor Who then check out…

http://www.ministerofchance.com

Anyway, I think that’s everything I’ve learned this week, or at least a few of the things I found interesting and thought I would share.  So have a great weekend.  If you have some time check out my beer show on youtube at

when you’re done there, give my friends at so you have a girlfriend.com a watch at

http://www.soyouhaveagirlfriend.com

Have a great weekend!

john

What did we learn this week?

So I decided to finish the weeks off by trying to briefly go over a few things I learned this week, both on line and in real life.

Bamboo can make a cellphone

Well, to be fair, bamboo and a creative UK student can make a pretty slick looking prototype phone, hopefully it becomes a reality!  Here’s a link to a CNET article so you can learn more!

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57370680-1/adzero-brings-students-bamboo-phone-concept-to-life/

The Edmonton Oilers (its a hockey team) have apparently perfected time travel.

So even though I am a self proclaimed geek and nerd, I still like some mouth breather things, like hockey.  I’m a huge Blackhawks fan and when I see them allow 17 goals in 2 games against the Edmonton Oilers, I assume its because Edmonton has perfected time travel, went back to 1985 and brought Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier forward in time and gave them Gagner jerseys to wear.

It’s the end of an era, McDonalds discontinues the use of “Pink Slime” as a filler.

Well to be fair, everyone said “slime” to me it looked like pink toothpaste but eh, still.  Apparently they were taking all the leftovers from processing meat and using some chemicals to make it “safe” to add to meat.  Granted I never heard of someone dyng from it, but still kind of gross.  If you want to read more check it out here…

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/mcdonald-confirms-no-longer-using-pink-slime-chemicals-171209662.html

Nicole likes farts….yup

So yeah, apparently Nicole over at http://soyouhaveagirlfriend.com/ likes farts! you don’t see that everyday from a woman.  Head over and check out this weeks episode!  If you haven’t heard about http://soyouhaveagirlfriend.com/ give it a try!

Felicia Day is a internet pioneer……and an awesome red head!

Yup those of you that know me already knew that i thought that, but what the hell I thought I’d give a short overview of her and why I think that.  You can get more info on my blog https://johnsbluebox.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/whos-that-girl-felicia-day/ or at… http://feliciaday.com/

Long wait for new sci-fi…..

If you’re a sci-fi fan, you may have to wait until mid year for your favorite show to come back, maybe even longer.  Check out my blog entry about it for more info.  https://johnsbluebox.wordpress.com/2012/01/30/what-the-wheres-my-sci-fi/

Achievements….for working in an IT department?

Yup, it was inevitable, eventually someone was going to combine their love of video games, IT and perhaps The IT Crowd into one awesome list of real life achievements to accomplish….  find it here!  http://evilrouters.net/achievement-unlocked/  See how many you can unlock!!

The Hunger Games are almost here!….and I feel fine…

So the long awaited Hunger Games are coming to the big screen and sadly I couldn’t really care so far.  I tried reading the books a couple of times and they just didn’t work for me.  The plot isn’t bad, I like the idea, just didn’t care for the books, maybe I’ll give them another chance in a bit.  Maybe I’ll like the movie though, I mean I didn’t like the LOTR books either, but the movies are some of my favorites….only time will tell…

You can punch a co-worker……if one’s  a douchbag and the company farms out its HR department…..

At a company a friend of mine works at, there are two sales guys.  One is a complete and utter ass.  I mean he makes horrible jokes to the customers and everything.  The other guy is a good guy and a good sales guy, he doesn’t bring in as much money as the jerk though.  Also, just an fyi, I’m not talking about like a store here, these are corporate accounts.  So the jerk was talking to an executive assitant and said, “I should have (other guys name here) file these papers!” and laughed.  Then guy number 2 said, “HEY! I’m standing right here!”  there was some other snide remark from the jerk off, then the nicer guy punched him in the back of the head!  Now all of us have had to deal with this jerk and the other guy did what we all wanted to do.  We thought he was going to get fired.  Now comes the fun part! The company doesn’t have a Human Resources department! It’s farmed out! So after two weeks or so of going through paper work, the HR company said that whatever happens to one guy has to happen to the other, so instead of reprimanding or firing anyone, they both walked away! so if your going to hit someone, make sure they insult you first, and that your HR department is off site so they don’t see it!

Want to break old printers and fax machines? I’ve got the soundtrack for you!

I know its old but no other soundtrack is better for destroying office equipment, well and office’s in general, then the Office Space soundtrack.  God its awesome to wreck stuff to that one, especially the Scarface track that’s on it.

Well that’s what I learned this week and I hope you learned it as well!  So stay tuned for more blogs and hey please check out my Beer Show over at my youtube channel….  http://youtu.be/QlHziuQCDNM  and if you’d like check out the rest of them also at http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF257ED14691B4177

So once again thanks for reading!

Big deal…its another new Android phone…..Wait….its made of Bamboo?!!

Yup, thats right, what start off as a concept by U.K. university student Kieron-Scott Woodhouse, is now turning into a real product, made of bamboo.  Why not?  Bamboo grows much quicker than most other trees that wood comes from.  It also is a very beautiful wood when used properly.  An entrepreneur saw the concept an voila! the ADzero was born!  It’s still in devolopment and there are no known specs, other than a custom Android UI, no pricing yet and no carriers announced yet, but still it’s a pretty slick looking phone.  You can follow the devolopment of it on ADzero’s Google+ page.    You can see some pics and the full article that I read here

http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/adzero-is-a-gorgeous-bamboo-android-phone-2012021/

and more info at

http://www.justadzero.com/

Enjoy and Thanks for reading!