The Insomniac Coder

From: Lamborghini Sesto Elemento: Angry Called, It Wants Its Car Back | Autopia | Wired.com   From this picture it is obvious that “Sesto Elemento” is Italian for “ Baboon with exploded red anus.” Here’s a visual aide, courtesy of Wikipedia : The similarities are striking. I am having mixed feelings about this because I am one of those types that never outgrew his teenage obsession with Italian supercars . The problem is that I am right at that age when my back hurts just looking at those tiny cars (and for the record, I drove Mazda Miata roadsters for 5 years in a row and I never complained about back pain) but I am still a bit too young for the age where men run to a sports cars dealership the second they feel the middle-age crisis kick in. It’s like I can’t see myself driving one of these (especially here in DC where driving simply sucks) but I can’t stop from daydreaming about what it would feel like to let one of these rip open in my old neighborhood Autobahn (...

From: BBC News - 'Historic' broadcast of super HD from UK to Japan   A gig by The Charlatans has been sent to Japan in a first-of-its-kind broadcast of Super Hi-Vision TV . The technology, 16 times sharper than HDTV , has been developed by Japanese public broadcaster NHK . The standard could be used on giant public viewing screens, some of which may be in place for the 2012 Olympics . NHK hope to broadcast in Super Hi-Vision by 2020, although no television currently exists that can fully show off the 7680-by-4320 pixel signal. The "full HD" currently available means a display of 1920 by 1080 pixels - one-fourth the number of pixels both vertically and horizontally. I had such a hard time doing the basic math to compare this transmission to a normal 1080 signal that I had to make myself a visual aid: Notice that when you watch 720P on a 1080p TV, it is displayed at the same size as the 1080p signal, my comparison is showing the raw pixel counts. Basical...

From: Is ShopSavvy in Our Future? | CrackBerry.com   One of the little things that annoyed me about the Crackberry was that scanning barcodes sucked. It sucked hard. I say “sucked” because I eventually discovered that the Blackberry Messenger application has a live video barcode scanner that reads QR code barcodes nearly instantaneously. This means that the problem is software , not the device or the operating system. From this article I can tell that the ShopSavvy port to Blackberry will have a live video barcode scan. What I don’t understand is why other scanning apps can’t take advantage of the live video scanning from BBM. Is this because there is no API ? How come something that is so basic is not being exploited? I would love to be able to scan things as I see them at stores to look up more information on them.

From: Slashdot Games Story | Game Reviewers Face Odd Bribery From Publishers eldavojohn writes "You might be used to the idea that game reviewers receive games free and ahead of time, but Ars opens up a darker side to the mystery box. Like a $200 check from Dante's Inferno , reading, 'by cashing this check you succumb to avarice by hoarding filthy lucre, but by not cashing it, you waste it, and thereby surrender to prodigality.' Or how about a huge-ass sword from Darksiders . Or brass knuckles (illegal in some states) from the makers of Mafia II . Or rancid, rotting meat mixed with spent shell casings, teeth, broken glasses and dog tags from Bulletstorm . NCSoft gave out flight suits and trips to weightlessness. Nintendo apparently likes to send all manner of food, including elaborate cakes shaped as their consoles and games. Squeeballs sent a crate of stuffed animals . iPods from Activision and Zunes from Microsoft seem to be pretty tame bait for reviewers ... b...

Justin Bieber Found To Be Cleverly Disguised 51-Year-Old Pedophile One ticket, aisle please. At least the trip is going to be interesting since now most of the writing staff of The Onion is going to be there too.

This is my first Minecraft world. Getting the video done was probably as much a pain in the ass as the first few hours I spent playing this game.

I need at least two of these, my coworkers need them to help them survive the day. Any idea where I can buy these? We are willing to live with one that just has the shock setting, but it would be much nicer if we could get them with both buttons.

From: Report: Media Loves Apple And Its Army Of Fans Also, water is wet, sky is blue, cocaine is one hell of a drug. The main reason that the media won’t STFU about Apple is because it drives traffic. Post something good about Apple? Lots of traffic. Post something really bad about Apple? Even more traffic. The problem with Apple right now is that it is being covered as a mainstream company, and it isn’t. Apple is a niche company, which is more painfully apparent whenever something goes wrong and they fumble it, then the media coverage goes on as if this is a mainstream company, people feel hurt when Apple refuses to acknowledge wrong, etc. Because Apple is doing so well, everyone seems to forget that Apple is still not “mainstream” and doesn’t even have the kind of product line that you would expect from a mainstream company. Imagine a company that makes jeans for skinny girls that is just too popular for its own good, it sells a gazillion more jeans than it should, and people w...

From The Onion : I don’t get it, she looks as if she was fully clothed, so what’s the big deal? It’s not like she waltzed-in wearing an S&M outfit or something inappropriate. Do these people realize that the average 5-year old couldn’t give a shit about Katy Perry’s cleavage? I saw the clip, and they don’t even bounce. If we were talking about D-size boobs bouncing all over the place and threatening to pop out of a dress, I would feel worried. But *that*? Somebody has too much free time to get offended about something like this. Related articles by Zemanta The Katy Perry Cleavage Controversy Is Overinflated [Video] (jezebel.com) Misguided outfit of the day: Katy Perry wearing faux-cleavage for Elmo (shortformblog.com) Katy Perry On SNL: Cleavage & An Elmo Shirt (VIDEO, PICTURES) (huffingtonpost.com) Katy Perry Wears Low-Cut Elmo Top (omg.yahoo.com)

I am not getting any younger, and too many years of really bad heavy metal and too many years around loud industrial air conditioning units are really taking a toll on my hearing. Add to that a TV that for some really fucking stupid reason doesn’t have a legitimate earphone port (forcing me to use RCA line out to plug earphones into it) and decided it was time to look for some of that crap that old people use when their hearing stops working. The solution is this really cool gadget made by FiiO. It’s built almost identically to an iPod shuffle . It has a rechargeable battery and the charger uses USB , which means I can charge it off my Xbox 360 . The rear of the device has a spring-loaded clip you can use to secure it to your shirt/belt/whatever. Operation is extremely simple: one power button, rocker button for volume, and a slider to turn on or off the bass boost. The only LED in the device tells you if it is turned on and if it is charging. As for the sound, it works extre...

  This video perfectly illustrates why Minecraft is so popular that some of its victims (myself included) prefer to call it MINECRACK. Related articles by Zemanta $250,000-a-day Minecraft strikes indie game gold (texyt.com) How Not To Build A Fireplace In Minecraft (geekologie.com) Minecraft Is Free Until It Gets Fixed [PC] (kotaku.com)

From: Shoe Shine Saturday Photo Contest Sponsored by Kiwi Shoe Care | The Art of Manliness   My dad had a manly tradition that I fondly remember from my childhood. Maybe yours had the same one. One Saturday every month, my dad would pull out his wooden shoe polish kit packed with tins of KIWI shoe polish and take all his boots to the den to polish them. He usually watched In the Heat of the Night or a football game while he did it. He had a personal technique, as I’m sure most men do, to get that perfect shine. The warm smell of shoe polish and leather filled the entire room, and it would usually linger there for an hour after he finished. The tradition in my house was a little different: it was a chore stuck on either myself or my kid brother. My dad was (and my brother is) a policeman, and he was a stickler for highly shined shoes until much later in his life when he had to switch to softer shoes that sadly never took a good shine. I spent a few years in the Army , where...

From: FARK.com: (5646343) For the first time since the wars started, more private military contractors than uniformed service members were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Or if you're a glass-half-full sort, the military's plan to outsource casualties is working This is a bit too simplistic because a lot of these PMCs are probably very recent veterans, all this is doing is increase the monetary reward for even more danger and a lot less legal protection. How many of these PMCs left the service and immediately signed for PMC jobs?  The same poor bastards are getting killed, only for a lot more money. The problem here is that these people are still stuck doing the same job, and yes, for a lot more money, but they are not protected by the Geneva Convention . If you are running around armed to the teeth, and people are shooting at you, and you are not a cop or a soldier, what are you? If the prime motivator is money (that is, if you take out the obligation/duty carried by the ...

There is a new drug craze that is decimating the geek ranks . Authorities and parental figures are oblivious about it! Please, keep your nerds away from Minecrack ! Alex Esoterica claims that you can “stop anytime you want,” but he LIES. And don’t be thrown off by the cheesy graphics , this is how it sneaks on you. Related articles by Zemanta $250,000-a-day Minecraft strikes indie game gold (texyt.com)

At least if counting from launch (not operational) date. The Big E is our first Nuclear carrier, and is expected to be decommissioned in 2013. If it does, it would have had served for 51 straight years. This is what a mobile piece of US sovereign soil looks like: Here’s a handy size chart to try to visualize just how big it really is, courtesy of Wikipedia : Enterprise compared to large ships and buildings: USS Enterprise , 342 m The Pentagon , 431 m RMS Queen Mary 2 , 345 m Hindenburg , 245 m Yamato , 263 m Empire State Building , 443 m Knock Nevis, ex- Seawise Giant , 458 m Related articles by Zemanta Sept. 24, 1960: First Nuclear Carrier, USS Enterprise, Launched (wired.com) Oil company to build longest floating vessel ever (newscientist.com)

From: Struggling Blockbuster Eliminates Rental Fees | The Onion - America's Finest News Source FT. LAUDERDALE, FL— Blockbuster , the flagging video-store giant that has recently resorted to eliminating late fees and waiving replacement fines for lost or damaged movies , announced Monday that it would also be doing away with its long-standing rental charges in an attempt to stay competitive in the ever-changing home-video business . One of Blockbuster’s 39 Phoenix locations. According to press releases , Blockbuster’s new nationwide program, "The End Of Fees," promoted using $7 million of the company’s last remaining $10 million, will eliminate all costs associated with DVD rentals as well as per-unit charges for its video games , snacks, carbonated drinks, gumball machines, promotional cardboard standees, and literally anything else a customer comes across at one of its thousands of nationwide locations. It is really sad when it is impossible to figure out whi...

Two of us at the office already burned ourselves once this week due to our failure to do this : Made with the Sgt. Foley Meme Generator.

From: Chaos : Savage Chickens – Cartoons on Sticky Notes by Doug Savage How come nobody figured this out until now?

Image via Wikipedia Wikipedia: Grito de Lares - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This is a cool event (to me) because this is my ancestral hometown. On September 23, 1868 Lares, Puerto Rico was declared a Republic, independent from Spanish rule. The rebellion was crushed immediately, but is still remembered mostly by college students too happy to take the day off (it isn’t an official holiday because the political elements that participated in the rebellion were later considered to be of the “evil doer” persuasion) and by delusional political types that want to turn Puerto Rico into a 1950s Cuba clone. Even cooler is that literally everyone in my family has a 100% opposite political alignment to the types that supported the “Republic.”

Yup, stuck in my head. You’re welcome for the earworm.

From: Slashdot Technology Story | Microsoft Says IE9 Beta Demand Overwhelming You know what else is overwhelming? The sickeningly sweet taste of Kool Aid. Oh yeah. I will tell you this: I have been using it since it was released, and it has replaced Chrome Dev channel as my favorite browser. There is exactly ONE thing I can’t do in IE 9: edit my timesheets, and that is because my ASP for timesheets is kind of stupid when it comes to web programming, I am not even going to blame Microsoft for this one. Everything else runs great. On a side note, I tried yesterday’s Firefox Minefield nightly, and somehow it keeps getting faster and faster, and that’s comparing it to nightlies from a week ago. It is unreal. Little by little Chrome is becoming the worse browser in the pack. Related articles by Zemanta IE9 Aims to Out-Chrome Chrome (tjantunen.com) Internet Explorer 9 Beta looks Great (crazzycool.blogspot.com) Microsoft Overwhelmed by Initial Response to IE9 Beta (chasingeyes.com...

From: Poll: 1 In 5 Americans Believe Obama Is A Cactus | The Onion - America's Finest News Source   A growing segment of the population believes the president is pollinated by moths and hummingbirds. Related articles by Zemanta Poll: 1 In 5 Americans Believe Obama Is A Cactus (theonion.com)

Not exactly an earworm.

From: FARK.com: (5635296) This is making me really hungry, and also makes me miss our midnight excursions to the Waffle House right outside Fort Gordon back in the early 90s. Worse, even if I were to make it to the closest one (at least two hours South of here), I don’t think I have the stomach lining needed to handle scattered, covered, topped, diced, smothered and chunked hash browns .

This is a new bike drive train that does not rely on gears and chains, instead it uses a funny cam mechanism to move a system of pulleys and steel cables. I more or less understand the cam system, but I can’t figure out exactly how the wheel movement works. As for shifting, it is done by changing the position of the pulleys, which means an almost instant shift with no slippage, sort of a constantly variable transmission ( CVT ). What is left to see is if the cables are less prone to fall off the pulley system than a conventional chain falling off a normal bike. Update: A commenter showed me prior art and a patent on a design that is basically identical in principle. I tried looking in the Stringbike website and I can’t find any claim as to the source for the design, but from what I see in the original inventors’ website they are actively licensing the patent. Related articles by Zemanta Hungarian "Stringbike" Reinvents The Wheel (crunchgear.com)

The variation that really kills me is when I am waiting to make a left turn from the main road, and the damn green car does that.

  This is for Karla.

From: Intel Threatens to Sue Anyone Who Uses HDCP Crack | Threat Level | Wired.com   Here’s my uneducated guess, pulled straight out of my ass: 1. Oriental Electronics Emporium of China (a company of a company of a company owned by the PRC) reads about the crack, then has their crack team of reverse engineers make a chip to handle the HDCP crack. 2. OEEC turns this into a 15-cent chip that can be added to any DVD burner. 3. OEEC dumps this chip into their most affordable DVD burner deck, which can be bought here in the USA for about $69. 4. A week after they have sold the first hundred thousand, they leak to Slashdot that the OEEC 1000XR-HD can burn anything fed to it through HDMI . Yeah baby, pure digital copies. 5. OEEC sells a million copies of the OEEC 1000XR-HD. 6. Wired reviews the OEEC 1000XR-HD, they call it a piece of shit but it is good enough if you just want to use it to “legally back up” your owned content. 7. OEEC announces a cheaper version, the OEEC ...

The moron in question takes offense that a bunch of students chanted “ USA USA” at a football game, which could be seen as offensive to Muslims: From: Block-I chant portrays ‘neither patriotism nor remembrance’ | The Daily Illini The observance at Saturday’s football game was no different. A moment of silence was followed by a military airplane flyover; in between, Block-I students chanted “USA, USA.” This was neither patriotism nor remembrance in any justifiable sense, but politicization, militarism , propaganda and bellicosity. The University is a public institution that encompasses the political views of all, not just the most (falsely) “patriotic.” Athletic planners should cease such exploitation for political purposes. They might at least consider how most Muslim students, American or otherwise, would respond to this nativist display; or better, Muslims and others that live their lives under the threat of our planes, drones and soldiers . It looks like one of them “cry m...

  This is “ El Ateneo ,” a bookstore in Buenos Aires, located at a former theater.

This is in reply to Karla’s earlier post .