Archive for October, 2005

Sunday, October 30th, 2005

10 things you didn’t know about Iran

by Warren

And none of them involve WMD. 🙂 It’s an interesting list, which I got the link to from Digg.

Sunday, October 30th, 2005

Sunday morning brain candy from the NYT

by Warren

Ah, the New York TImes on Sunday. A veritable fountain of sweet reading goodness. Here’s two interesting articles; a piece about how video is both swelling onto big screen televisions and tiny video iPods, and an article about the Maoists in Nepal.

Saturday, October 29th, 2005

Halloween shenanigans

by Warren

Cast your eyes to the right and you’ll see some pictures from the Halloween party I attended last night. Ah, costumery. 🙂

Saturday, October 29th, 2005

A talk show in a car

by Warren

Crazy crap like this is why the Internet was invented. Well, actually it was invented to keep lines of communication open after a nuclear war, but…meh. (That’d be great, btw…radioactive wastelands, and your only word from the world outside your bunker is some Nigerian spamming you.) Anyway, this guy in Boston has set up a video camera in his car, and he spends his commute to work conducting an ad-hoc talk show. His guests are usually his wife and whoever he ends up carpooling with, and he may even diverge into a cooking show at some point if there’s a bad enough traffic jam. Bloody brilliant.

(grabbed from Boing Boing)

Friday, October 28th, 2005

Where are you fine people located?

by Warren

There’s a new Google Maps mash-up called Frappr which is apparently all the rage amongst the bloggers. You basically subscribe to a map and point out where you are, so that everyone can see the physical locations (by city, don’t worry about hit squads, anybody) of all the readers. I set one up for Freyburg here, though I suspect it’ll be top heavy with Edmontonians and Vancouverites.

Friday, October 28th, 2005

Not so fast, China and India…

by Warren

According to some Yale nabobs, China and India have a ways to go before they become the new superpowers.

Thursday, October 27th, 2005

Insurgency splits between Iraqis and crazy-assed Al Queda types

by Warren

Apparently the Iraqi insurgency can be boiled down to native sons who hate the Americans and foreign fighters flush with cash and fanaticism, fighting under the banner of Al Queda. In the initial months of the insurgency, the two sides more or less worked together towards the common goal of sticking it to the Americans, but reacently the Iraqi nationalist insurgents have become fed up with the cold-blooded lunacy of Al Queda and told them to go to hell. The Guardian details the schism.

Wednesday, October 26th, 2005

King Kong: one expensive, long-assed movie

by Warren

According to an NYT article, King Kong clocks in at over three hours and cost $207 million. If it were anyone but Peter Jackson, I’d be REALLY worried about an insanely expensive remake with such a long running time. As is, the Lord of the Rings trilogy is a masterpiece, if not the best set of epics to come down the pike this generation, so I’ll cut our Kiwi friend a little slack. But $200 million? For a movie about a giant monkey? Yow.

Tuesday, October 25th, 2005

Front Row on a Mac Mini

by Warren

Courtesy of the Unofficial Apple Weblog, here’s some great video of a guy running Front Row (Apple’s snazzy new media management software) on his Mac Mini. Apple is restricting Front Row to the new iMacs, at least for now.
Best part of the video? Where the guy lets out a victorious “ooohhh yes!” after he fires it up.

And in case you’re wondering, fellow Mac devotees, here’s how you do it yourself. 🙂

Monday, October 24th, 2005

Gold: the other earth-raping precious resource

by Warren

The New York Times has an interesting article about how gold mining, which drove empires and was once the cornerstone of the world economy, is now contributing to serious environmental damage. And interestingly enough, the main reason people want gold nowadays is for something as inconsequential as jewelry. Apparently the quest for bling trumps any sort of planning for the earth’s future. Yikes.

google