Saturday, February 17, 2007

Interest

A few things have caught my interest in the past few days. They're interesting, if nothing else.

http://www.cangooglehearme.com/

Aaron Stanton decided that he had a brilliant idea that Google needed to hear. He didn't really know how to get in touch, so he decided to fly to California and camp out in Google's lobby until he got an appointment to pitch his idea. Great story, pretty inspirational. Makes me smile.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotic_jockey


Camel Racing is huge in a few countries in the Middle East. It's sorta like the rich man's sport. To have a camel go fast, you need to have a small jockey. They used to use small children, 4 year old boys or so. Slave trade, abuse, etc. etc. got them in trouble with the Western world. Qatar found a solution: Hire some swiss guys to build us robotic jockeys. Seriously. Robots riding camels. How cool is that?

~

Those are the two stories I really liked yesterday. I'm sure there were others I forgot. In the meantime, a few pictures that sorta blew my mind.

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA07997.jpg

That's a sunset. On Mars. Taken by one of the rovers right at the end of a Martian day. So cool.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sol582A_P2299_L456-A590R1_br.jpg


Another Rover picture. Take a look at that at full resolution. It'll take a day and a half to load, but it's amazing. I have a big crush on the mars rovers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Deep_Impact_HRI.jpeg

A picture from the Deep Impact mission NASA ran in 2005. The basic concept was that we'd shoot an 80 kg slug of copper at a comet, and we'd watch and see what'd happen. That's all fine and dandy, until we realize how ridiculously far away this comet is from us, how fast it's going, how fast the impactor is going. It's sort of like someone shooting a bullet in Oregon while we shoot a bullet from the top of the high school and have them collide. So cool.

I hope there's something primo coming in the future. Hmm. And now a few one liners.

"Steve was one of those guys that carried a notebook in his pocket just in case a girl told him she liked his shirt. Whenever that happened, he'd take it out, jot down her name and his current shirt, and put it back in his pocket. He spent a few minutes each Sunday organizing and planning his shirt distribution for the next week. He considered what classes he had with what girls on what day. He factored in the weather, the activities he'd be pursuing that day. He was prepared to maximize the exposure of his shirts to the ladies that loved them so.

This forethought brought about two great results. Steve learned to be organized, and girls liked the way he dressed. This put Steve in the perfect position to be the organizational head of Saving Boston. He was dashing and organized; what more could you want in a spokesman?"

Yep. These are just sorta there.

"If there was one characteristic that truly defined that brief and panicked interlude between the fall of the old world and the emergence of the associations, it was the speed in which bad guys constructed their lairs. It had only been two weeks; this place was huge.

Garbage can entered the hall. It was then he realized his mistake.

He should have stayed in bed this morning.

This was suicide. Ridiculous. Poorly thought out and a logistical nightmare from the beginning. It was sadly comical in the "let's irritate the panther and see what happens!" sort of way. Garbage Can let out a sigh. There were bad guys. Everywhere.

And here he was with explosive tic-tacs.

Great idea there Alpha, real great. No, honestly. The tic-tacs. Maybe I can offer the Brown Punisher a mint before he kills me. We'll take a little break while he freshens his breath. He'll pop it in... his brain will explode... great deal. only 94 bad guys left. No sweat.


See, there was a curious phenomenon at work here. It was called the Husenberger uncertainty principle. It stated that it would be impossible to determine just how many bad guys were waiting behind a certain door to kill you. In addition, it quanitified very certainly that they were going to kill you pretty quickly no matter how many tic tacs you offered them.

Garbage Can didn't know who this Husenberger fellow was. He didn't like him much.

Dr. Breakdance's thugs were closing in on him. He was toast. There were villains everywhere.

He had one shot. There was only one way out of this place. Breakdance Fight, now.

Garbage Can increased his stature. With as much macho as he could muster in the face of so many ugly bad guys, he called out defiantly, "Dr. Breakdance, your time has come. It's me and you, breakdance fight. If you win you can have the warehouse and we leave town tonight. If I win, you turn the bank back over. Take me on, boy. You got nothin'."

Now, asking Dr. Breakdance to have a breakdance fight with you is a lot like asking Bill Clinton to have a "Who looks more like Bill Clinton" contest. The smart money is always on Clinton for the win. No, really?"

To be continued on that one.

Yep. Happy Friday.

2 comments:

Kortney said...

very nice indeed

Jaron Frost said...

Hahaha! I love your Water story so much! It's just awesome in every way... And that mars landscape is quite stunning. It looks a lot like a regular old earth desert, which of course leads up to the old "iz ther life on marzz?!?!?!!1!!one!?" issue. Pretty neat.