Sometimes I Roll Over And Pee Too.

Great, another study about how men are just brute tools that can't escape from their animal instincts. This study compares the behavior of dogs and men and their social auditory signals. They say that just like dogs whine in submission or challenge by growling, men also change the pitch at which they speak based on perceptions of dominance. You'll speak lower to someone you deem inferior, and higher to a more impressive man. But don't think you can just fake a lower voice than normal on purpose, studies show that fakers get their asses kicked.

LiveScience.com - Men Act Like Dogs to Determine Dominance

The President Must "take care that the laws be faithfully executed."

"Well… we're not gonna! We're gonna have a sandwich." Ever wonder why there have been so few vetos from the Bush administration? No, its not just because Republicans are running the legislature and he agrees with everything that comes through. And no George isn't taking a page out of Tommy Thompson's playbook, using line-item veto to cross out letters spelling completely new words in the bill. He's found an even easier method; and it makes less commotion too. Instead of rejecting laws officially, the Bush Administration just ignores them. They've issued over 750 challenges in signing statements that can detail how the executive branch will (or more accurately, won't) enforce the law. They use ambiguous language and obfuscated statements to leave legal jurisdiction completely at their own discretion.

He will inform Congress "in a manner consistent with the president's constitutional authority to withhold information that could impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative processes of the executive, or the performance of the executive's constitutional duties.''

Right. That's probably how the government was sposed to work; congress would pass laws no one would enforce and the courts are preempted altogether.

• Bloomberg.com: Opinion
• CNN.com - ABA: Bush violating Constitution - Jul 24, 2006

GTA Lessons Here!

I'll be damned if I'm gonna pay some 8 year old 25 bucks an hour for video game lessons. But that's cause I've got some pride. And skill. And I don't like people telling me how to do things, I wouldn't sign up for guitar or golf lessons either. When I think about it, this seems more and more like a legitimate business and less like those 1-900 tip numbers. People pay experts for advice in all kinds of things they want to get better at; why not video games? I guess the real hurdle you have to get over is that people train in and play games professionally. But look at baseball, tennis, golf, poker, or any number of other games that we're accustomed to hearing about as serious sports. Take a step back and every one of those seems just as ridiculous as pressing buttons as a career.

Northwest Florida Daily News: Want to get good at videogames? Hire a kid

Hands Off The Internet?

Where the hell is that lame astroturf movement now that government is actually screwing with the Internet? Oh it has nothing to do with hurting broadband providers' proclivity to gouge money from the Internet, so they don't care. This new bill banning social networking from schools and libraries in an effort to "protect" the children from cyber-stalkers is terrible. Its just lip service to the "save the children" bullshit that politicians all stoop to. You know that when some one says "won't someone please think of the children" on the Simpsons they're making fun of you, right? Tech dirt has a good point, that sticking your head in the sand doesn't make the danger go away. The kids are gonna surf the web, whether you want them to or not; hell they probably understand the concepts you're trying to legislate. Like that new goatse law that some embarrassed senator pushed through legislation. (of course that might be false, its hard to do research on that kinda thing) Legislating against practical jokes, yeah you guys are certainly getting worthwhile shite taken care of. Of course there are various interpretations of 'obscene' or 'misleading' and there's also a nice loop hole in just not using a DNS link. Whatever. The real flip flop is that bush apparently agrees that misleading links should be punished with jail terms, but his administration was responsible for ICANN denying the .xxx domain. Way to be consistent. I guess the message these career hillers are all sending is that they'll vote for whatever will get them re-elected.

Techdirt: House Rushes Through Bill To Make The Web More Dangerous For Kids

Boys With Toys.

Ok, so here's a normal reaction. The town changes zoning laws somehow and you lose your business as a result. So you spend a couple weeks converting a bulldozer into an armored tank and run over everything associated with the town government. This actually worked amazingly well, the cops couldn't touch him. Although if I'd been trying to take him down I think I would'a thrown some C4 under there. Take a lesson from like any WWII movie you've seen, guys. The hero always disables the tank, he doesn't shoot through it.

YouTube - Man destroys town with armored bulldozer

Something to Talk About.

Google talk updates.  Well I think I've successfully made the switch from AIM to gtalk.  I hardly ever sign on to the yellow guy any more, and that's just to see if some obscure person is online.  But Talk is about to get better with three new updates.  File transfer, yeah I know AIM did this but I bet it'll be sweet.  Voicemail, basically for leaving funny or embarrassing recordings.  And music status, I don't think this'll actually work.  How does it know what music player I'm using?  Mostly this'll just be a trick, people go to my the myspace page to see what I'm listening to anyway.  So nothing mindblowing here, just some interesting changes.  Unfortunately you don't seem to be able to download the newest release.  Its being rolled out like all the gmail and chat features were.  You sneaky bastards!  I still love you though, just make sure I'm high on the list.

Google Talk

Like A Phoenix Rising From Ashes.

Well, not a Phoenix. Not rising. And not ashes. Like a man in a banana suit, inside a banana stand. Microsoft, in what can only be interprteted as acknowledgment of genius, will be streaming episodes of Arrested Development for free on their new media service later this year. Hmmm... Or I could pay for HDNet's HD broadcast of it. Or I could watch it on G4- tech tv. But no, I won't be doing any of that, because those chumps are all out later than the DVD release on August 29th. Its good to see that there'll be sources available to less diehards, but that's not for me. I need to OWN it.

Also its funny to read the comments on Digg, its pretty obvious who's seen the show, who's really into it, and who's completely oblivious:

• Thank you Microsoft! I vaaaalue your tiiiime!
• What? This is a fantastic BUSINESS MODEL.
• I guess you could say I'm buy curious.
• Oh, Bob Loblaw, you are a mouthful!

digg - Microsoft To Show Arrested Development For Free Online...
Microsoft to show 'Arrested Development'

Looking away from syndication, will they go the route of Firefly and make a Feature Film from the concept? I don't really think so, but it would be funny if only be cause Maeby sold the rights to the Bluth story in the last episode.

Why Am I Mr Sparkle?

I'd like the phone book for Hokiado, Japan, Please. OK, here you go, a phone book for Hokiado, Japan. Thank you, may I please use your phone? Is it a local call? ...Yes.

Hello, Don’t forget — this weekend, call any phone in Japan for free. It couldn’t be simpler. When we’re not giving away calls for free, Skype is still one of the cheapest ways to call international phones. Take a look at our rates to all countries. Happy calling, The people at Skype

Really? You're advertising that you can call any phone in a remote land from an untraceable number at no cost? I've never really enjoyed making prank calls, but isn't this just asking for it?

Free Swag.

Well that Facebook noise finally pays off. They're giving away iTunes music. And a lot of it. Every week they'll serve up a million codes to redeem a preselected 25 song sampler pack of a common genre. All you have to do is add the apple students group and then click the link at the top each of the next ten weeks to get yours. Nice Facebook, you just earned an edge in the played out social networking sites category. I never got anything from the Myspace except come-ons from ladies of ill repute.

Facebook giving away 10 million iTunes music samplers

RF-Yoink!

Every once in a while its not the best idea to be on the bleeding edge. Usually what happens is that you sink a bunch of cash into a medium that never takes off (*ahem* sony), or you have poorly written firmware (*ahem* verizon), or maybe your $12,000 TV burns out because they hadn't done any testing by the time you bought yours. But that's the chance you take for being extra-cool. Lets just hope you're not on the implantable RFID train yet, cause those things are apparently easier to crack than humpty dumpty. Valuable personal information on RFID just seems like trouble, that's why I'm so pumped up about the new E-passports. Sit at an airport with the right antenna and people will be screaming "I'm an American! Here's my picture! Here's my passport number! Here's my fingerprint"! Here's basically all the information on the wishlist of every identity thief out there. RFID is great for inventories and other non private data, but get a grip folks, and lets make sure we know what we're getting into before we find ourselves treading water in the deep end... holding a bowling ball... surrounded by sharks.

Engadget-VeriChip's human-implatable RFID chips clonable

Sell Outs.

Childhood has an incalculable leg up on the present in that I remember pretty much everything fondly. I spose that's mostly due to the adage about things 'that don't kill you', and the fact that everything that happened in the past hasn't killed me. Yes folks, this is another "things were better back when..." post. And this time I'm going off on Parker Brothers. They've done it now; they've signed on with Visa and are getting rid of the money in Monopoly. Instead of hoarding, counting, calculating, and stealing those wonderful rainbow bills (that are partly responsible for my cashlust today) you'll be able to swipe your card to stay at Park Place. This just seems to take all the charm out of the classic and turn it into mall madness. (And I don't want all you skirts clamoring about how that's a great game. Its stupid, end of discussion.) The kid in me is a little upset cause it'll be harder to cheat, and the adult thought there may have been some value in kids adding, sorting, hiding, pickpocketing and learning that people will screw you out of your cash. But hey, I'm sure we'll still be able to cheat somehow. And maybe it'll be good for kids to learn about electronic money. They could even throw in some spreadsheets so they could budget out the next turn and learn not to blow it all on booze. I do hope they move on to an advanced version with bank errors, credit fraud, hackers, phishing scams, identity theft, and people that take forever at the atm.

Monopoly ditches cash, goes plastic - Engadget

That Was YOU?

Ah Victoria, by far the classiest and most urbane region of Australia. The meandering rivers leading gracefully to the ocean... wait. What? Is that a Baby Ruth? Oh god. You guys aren't just piping shit into the ocean, are you? Yeah, but its not that much, only 34 million gallons a day. Well the jig is up Victoria, you've got to cut that shit out. No more raw sewage dumping in the ocean. What's that? you're used to it? Welll... alright, one more year of raw sewage dumping. But then you've got to clean up your act.

globeandmail.com : Victoria told to quit dumping sewage in ocean

How Expensive Are Your Toys?

This RC jet hits about 200 mph and has a sweet engine roar. Wow, that's cool and everything, but how much did it cost? Cause I have no doubt that I would crash it the very first time I flew it. And if I fixed it up good enough for a second flight, I'd crash it then too. Someone should put some self piloting UAV gear in a squadron of those. Sending our enemies scurrying from model planes, how great would that be?

What If We Treat Customers Like Customers?

Huh, not just suing people, but trying to solve the problem? Novel! Everyone knows China is the place to get your hands on illegitimate copies of movies. For better or worse those things are everywhere. So the media companies are thinking of ways to combat the problem, including releasing DVDs sooner after the theater release, or even on the same day. Apparently its been done before, but only in countries where physical piracy is out of control. You know, the kind that should be easier to prevent. In the US, physical, piracy is kept pretty well in check and the movie studios are all claiming that digital piracy is costing them an arm and leg. But instead of trying to solve the problem like they are in other countries, they're suing people. Seems like if you were really being hurt you'd change your business model. Maybe that's just me.

Techdirt: It's Amazing What Happens When A Government's Not In Hollywood's Pocket

The Net Flix Offer Wasn't Far Off.

Uh. Seriously? Have you read this? I like Bond movies and I would probably dismantle my nuclear stockpile for a bit part in the next one, but I'm no autocratic dictator of a nuclear threat. Kim Jong Il is reportedly willing to get rid of all the radioactive typo-dongs in exchange for playing the villain in the next bond movie. That's your motivation, to be a bond villain? Well I spose its better on film than in real life. Although, Kim, baby, did you see Die Another Day? Wealthy North Korean dictator's son goes power crazy and threatens to destroy the world with elaborate weapon of mass destruction. I guess in the new one they could disarm the madman by offering him a movie part.

KIM JONG-IL OFFERS TO ABANDON NUKES IN EXCHANGE FOR ROLE AS VILLAIN IN NEW BOND FILM - Yahoo! News

My news sources:

• typo-dong
• License to Il

News Flash: Verizon Customers Pay Too Much.

No Shit. Have you ever looked at a bill from these guys? Is like freaking Dostoevsky over here. 20 pages of call lists, policy changes, disclaimers and fees printed so small you can tell they don't want you looking at it. Granted I would probably notice thousands too much, but with all the random fees and fines, how would I know when a $200 bump isn't legitimate?

• Verizon: error leads to thousands of dollars in overcharges - Jul. 19, 2006

Hot Water Plus What Equals Cold Beer?

Ok, so I'm not sure I actually get this. Maybe its completely untrue, but this company says that they're making solar powered air conditioners. They can cool to 40 degrees with water at only 130 degrees. Normally you'd need higher temperatures to vaporize the water into steam to drive turbines, so this "cooler" hot water system is ideal for unfocused solar collection units. Watch the flash explanation for details on why that's notable and efficient. Its also a good review of how the majority of the electricity we use is harvested.

• Rankine_And_Sterling_Cycle_Animation

Adopt A Tree, Eat Its Children.

I was this close to adopting an olive tree as a gift, but then I realized that we don't live in the EU. Dammit. Its still a fun idea though, adopting trees: ridiculous! For a scant 65 pounds you get a year's produce from your organically grown tree including olive oil and olive soaps. You can also go visit your little tree on a sunny hillside in Italy whenever you want. You can even pick which grove you want to adopt from. But there's only 188 trees left, so all you European readers better hop to it.

• Nudo – What is Nudo?

I Know It CAN Be Done.

My roommate just bought a terribly expensive macbook and no longer uses his laptop. Somewhere along the lines of our theorizing the old wifi picture frame idea arose, as a solution for what to do with this expendable hardware. I think it would be a cool project, but somehow I just don't see it getting done. I'm usually impressed at the motivation at the outset of these projects, but somehow this feels a lot like the sailcar or the motorized DVD shelf. I always think of this Seinfeld scene:

JERRY: When do you intend to do this?
KRAMER: Ohh.. should be done by the end of the month.
JERRY: You're doing this yourself?
KRAMER: It's a simple job. Why, you don't think I can?
JERRY: Oh, no. It's not that I don't think you can. I know that you can't, and I'm positive that you won't.
KRAMER: Well, I got the tools. I got the pillows. All I need is the lumber.
JERRY: I don't see it happening.
KRAMER: Well, this time, this time you're wrong. C'mon. I'll even bet you.
JERRY: Seriously?
KRAMER: A big dinner with dessert. But I've got till the end of the month.
JERRY: I'll give you a year.
KRAMER: No, no, no. End of the month.
JERRY: It's a bet. (They both "pinkie swear" to lock the deal)

• Repair4Laptop: How to Make a Digital Picture Frame from an Old Laptop or Notebook

Like Peas In A Pod

So I started reading this story about how Amazon wants to start shipping food. I though about priceline and how that was an odd service. Then I remembered Peapod by Giant. So I've placed my first order to be delivered tomorrow, we'll see how it goes. The site is actually very well put together. They remember your previous orders, so its easier to find items you like. But they also hook into the bonus card system so they know all the stuff you've bought in store as well. I like the shopping list feature too. Its basically a text field that you type your grocery list into. When you're done you click start shopping and it goes through and uses your list as consecutive search terms on the site. I like it a lot because somehow its easier to think of all the things I want at once, rather than finding them one at a time. Anyway, we'll see if this is worth the added cost or not. I could see it being slightly addicitive. oh, and check out this code for $10 off your first order over $75: CJA2. It always pay to spend 30 seconds googling for coupon codes.

• STLtoday - News - Nation

But I Do Like Making Money.

Just not from this. You might have read a little while ago about the weblogwire challenge: to start a profitable web company in one week with $500. All you need is a good idea. And here it is: The Weblogwire is a service that distributes press releases to bloggers. Companies pay from 50-100 dollars to distribute breaking news and bloggers flock to the site for free cutting edge and most importantly reliable information. Interesting concept, so I signed up, what's the harm? Mostly its been a few advertisements (that what press releases are anyway) not terribly exciting. I did get a release from a company starting a service called blogkits. Its supposed to be a revolutionary new way of connecting bloggers with appropriate advertisers, but different than adsense. I'm not really too clear on the details at this point but it could be interesting if they're not just full of newspeak and jargon.


BlogKits Performance Marketing Network
theWeblogWire Blog » Blog Archive » The Challenge: One Week, 500 Dollars, An Awesome Product

Lets All Go To The Lobby.

How many movies do we need to make about how effed up the world is an how the US government is responsible? I spose at least three.

• An Inconvenient Truth - Google Video
• Who Killed the Electric Car? trailer - Google Video
• The Road to Guantanamo Film Trailer - Google Video

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The world is destroying itself, consumers are being screwed while the rich get richer and the real expense is the liberty of the entire race. Not exciting. Now here's something I can get behind:

• Casino Royale Trailer

Only 125 days left to watch 20* bond movies.

*21 if you count 'Never Say Never Again'

Alternative Advertising.

I've been thinking a bit about advertising since my rant about TV execs a couple days ago. My general feeling is that advertising doesn't effect me much, but that can't be completely true. God knows what kind of subconscious brand loyalty schemes are running wild in my noggin, but I do know that I actually enjoy some types of 'limimal ads. They usually involve humor in a traditional medium or creativity and innovation in an unexpected location.

Check out these ads creating anti-meth awareness. Some of them are pretty startling and effective. Like that burnt spoon left on the street.

• You are infected by meth - new campaign from The Buntin Group

Or the firm that got permission for local graffiti artists to tag buildings in key locations with AT&T information.

• Graffiti Taglines - Forbes.com

And who doesn't like those "messin with sasquatch" jerky ads.

• Jack Links Beef Jerky

Low Sodium Blues.

So I've been cutting down on my sodium lately, which is very weird for me. A low sodium diet is 2 grams a day and a reduced is 4 grams. I figure if I shoot for 2 grams a day I might actually hit 4. I'm not a food driven person, so my diet generally consists of whatever I happen to consume in a given day. Needless to say, planning, reading nutritional information and counting milligrams is kinda cramping my style. But I'm giving it a go, so I checked out the back of the Stouffer's insta-lasagna type meal that showed up for lunch today. 1040 mg of sodium?!? Holy Crap! That's definitely not worth 3 ounces of meat, cheese and pasta. I guess its pretty clear what needs to get dropped; screw this not buttering my toast crap.

Reduced Sodium Diet

Can I Get My Movies On A Disc The Size Of A Trashcan Lid?

The New York Times is old skool. They prefer laser disc over DVD, but that's probably because they called them digital video discs back then. I remember laser discs, they had a player in the college multi-media lab I worked for back in ought one. That was five years after this article was written but I can't ever remember thinking that laser discs were a good idea. Those things were huge. And not in the good way. Check out these "recent releases" and prices from 1996:

Aliens - $59.95
The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill but Came Down a Mountain - $39.95
Goldeneye - $44.95
Les Miserables - $39.95
Nell - $39.95
Toy Story - $29.95
12 Monkeys - $39.95
Twister - $34.95

While Digital Video Dithers, Laser Disk Just Gets Better - New York Times

Did You See That?

I've been meaning to find something about this for a while now. There are static posters on the walls of the metro tunnels that give the appearance of motion as the train rolls past. New idea, in a lacking medium. Those walls were pretty boring before. So the advertiser gets their message across, Metro gets a few duckets and the consumer gets a little entertainment. See? New ways of making advertising interesting.

I just saw a new one for Target last night and it was long, at least it seemed longer than the car ads I'd seen before. I wouldn't go as far as to say its 3d, but there's an odd quality about it. Maybe its the flickering between frames that held my attention and left me a little confused after it was over. (but that's true of Target ads on TV too) I have to say I'm a little worried about when the novelty of these things wears off. If every inch of tunnel wall is covered that constant stream would give me such a headache. Not to mention the poor epileptic commuters...

• Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority
• Sub-Media

Update
In case you're not up for looking through the Sub-Media Site:

The Submedia audience isn't just captured. It's locked in place. Voluntarily. And as anyone who's ever been on a subway car will testify, one of the greatest challenges is knowing what to do with your eyes. Most people look out the window. At nothing.

That's where we do our stuff. Suddenly the blackness is broken by an illuminated, animated 20-second show. Your show. Your message. Alone in the space. It catches the eye. Then takes it for a ride.

Our reach is superb. A single Submedia installation in a major metropolitan area can yield two to three million cumulative first-hand impressions per month. (And millions more in second-hand publicity value.)

The audience is definitely downtown. Urban. Youthful. Professional. Trend setters. Commuters. Working people in major markets. And it's refreshed every few minutes during rush hour.

The frequency: daily. On the way to work or the way home. A Submedia show becomes part of the day. And if the entertainment value of your message is high, it becomes an anticipated event. People look for it. What other medium can make such a claim?

Damn. I wish I thought of this.

Orbiting Moonbounce.

The words hairbrained, crackpot and delusional came to mind when I read about a model inflatable spacestation set to be shot into orbit by a former Russian ICBM. Then I read that it'll cost $5- $10 million just for that flight, and Bigelow thinks that's cheap. My adjectives changed to eccentric, cavilier and pioneering. He's all set to drop half a billion dollars by 2015 on getting an inflatable hotel into orbit; and has placed another 50 million aside for whoever can invent a space taxi to it. I know, sounds like lunacy. But lets face it, all the great innovators were a little off. Henry Ford, Howard Hughes, Thomas Edison. So who am I to call anyone crazy? Apparently crazy people are often responsible for revolutionizing technology.

New Scientist SPACE - Breaking News - Model of inflatable space hotel set to launch

Bigelow Aerospace - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Over Our Heads.

I tend to think we've got this ocean travel thing pretty well figured out with our ships and radios and GPS and helicopters. Apparently the rogue wave phenomenon that scientists dismissed as exaggerations of the sea hold more weight than they thought.

"The storm was nothing special. Its waves rocked the Norwegian Dawn just enough so that bartenders on the cruise ship turned to the usual palliative — free drinks. Then, off the coast of Georgia, early on Saturday, April 16, 2005, a giant, seven-story wave appeared out of nowhere. It crashed into the bow, sent deck chairs flying, smashed windows, raced as high as the 10th deck, flooded 62 cabins, injured 4 passengers and sowed widespread fear and panic."

Whew that's enough to sour a good cruise. The terms "monster" "rogue" and "titans" are easily applied to waves that have been observed as tall as 80 feet, and are theoretically as high as 198 feet. Its kind of odd how they talk about waves as living entities, and even odder how reasonable that seems. Somehow I find it very easy to imagine a few of these giants prowling the oceans looking for something to crash into. I'm no ocean sailor but a wave even half the height of the statue of liberty would leave me with no faculties at all. And probably a mess in my pants. I hate to think what would happen to a Volvo 70 if it ever met an 80 ft wave at 30 knots. So rogue waves are real, more common than they thought, and generated in several "hot spots"... I can't wait to get back on a cruise ship. All you need to know: if your cruise hits a storm, drinks are free.

Rogue Giants at Sea - New York Times