I went to a wedding this weekend, and the silence of no sanctus bells during the consecration was noticeable. Why not an app for that? There’s nothing in Google Play nor the Apple Store. Sanctus bells aren’t cheap, and they pack a loud punch. The enterprising altar boy can easily connect to the church’s PA … App Idea: Sanctus Bells
These were published way back when I had a Xanga account. I was totally on point with these. Not sure what happened to the #1. Click to embiggen and make bigly.
Virgin Mobile towers are down. I heard that things won’t be back up for another 72 hours…so no calls or texts if you’re on their network. VM’s site doesn’t mention it at all. Here’s a screenshot of the outages, from Down Detector. Notice the large red monstrosity over my area, Pittsburgh. Regardless, the outage looks … Public Service Announcement: Yes, Virgin Mobile Soiled Its Drawers
You don’t need to know much about the characters, or the series itself, to appreciate this little filler episode (embedding the video is disabled, hence the direct link), showcasing the evolving psychology of boredom. I don’t even mind the “dopey, good-natured male vs exasperated, dutiful female vs mischievous kid” trope. One thing to know: Vincent … “Shave it.”
From A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court: I rather wished I had gone some other road. This was not the sort of experience for a statesman to encounter who was planning out a peaceful revolution in his mind. For it could not help bringing up the unget-aroundable fact that, all gentle cant and philosophizing … A Reign of Terror and a Guillotine
A belt clip holster for cell phones, attached a retractable draw string, so that the phone is always attached to the clip, and subsequently the hip. The idea is to prevent accidentally leaving the phone somewhere, which happens to users who have minds that are always in some other place (like mine). Some high-level specs: … Someone Steal This Idea and Do a Kickstarter
This post was originally titled: “Don’t Tell Me How To Feel About My Own Body,” quotes included. Though that was an obvious appropriation of retarded activist-speak, I couldn’t bear having it so prominently on display. Satirizing activists is a few degrees lower on the cringe-meter than an actual activist, and I don’t have the perpetual … The Epistemology of the Man-flu
I did another hackathon. See photo below for photographic results. I somehow got more sleep than past hackathons, but that’s not saying much. The local news covered the event (PS- I’m not a CMU student as the title implies). You can try to watch the video but it’s Flash-based and the site takes forever to … Sleepathon
Due to screen fatigue…at least in the United Kingdom: “I wouldn’t say that the ebook dream is over but people are clearly making decisions on when they want to spend time with their screens,” says Stephen Lotinga, chief exeutive of the Publishers Association, which published its annual yearbook on Thursday. “There is generally a sense … Ebook Sales Trend Downward
Just what the title says. UPDATE: Here are some photos from the December comic con. Someone from something, and Bucky Barnes from Captain America/Avengers: Freddy Krueger: People from a thing: New-ish Batman and old-school Robin: A version of Wonder Woman: Indiana Jones and yours truly: A Doctor Who (I think), some Harry Potter person, and … Steel City Comic Con 2017 Photos
Jill has decided to serialize her new book, The Minäverse, and you can read the first chapter here. Jill was kind enough to send me an ARC* and it’s definitely a good ‘un if you like absurdist sci-fi, a la Douglas Adams and that other author of that one book I can’t recall right now. … The Minäverse by Jill Domschot
tl;dr – a very good retelling of the original Possible spoilers below. See my previous posts here and here about the film. Thoughts, in no particular order: 1- Visually and aesthetically impeccable. Director Rupert Sanders did an excellent job of portraying a society figuring out its relationship with acute, mechanical, physical augmentation. He skirts the … Ghost in the Shell (2017) Review
“Always the same, and now all this. No more stones. No more spears. No more slings. No more swords. No more weapons! No more systems! No more superpowers. You can fire your arrows from the Tower of Babel, but you can never strike God!”
Gamification of Safe Driving Gamify car dashboards, or an app itself on your phone, that rewards safe and efficient driving, accompanied by a small social media framework. There can be badges for keeping your vehicle on its eco-efficiency setting, days without a ticket or accident, for not speeding up or braking suddenly, for taking more … Two and a Half App Ideas
One of the funniest lines I’ve heard in a video game.
Astronomical distances are unfathomable—literally, inconceivable—so much so that we need ultra-instrumentation to calculate them, which in turn dump their data streams into analog displays for these distances can be “visualized.” Imagine yourself traveling through space. Scary, isn’t it? There’s a reason why some of the more accurate depictions of life in space in science fiction … The Epistemology of Large-Scale Distances
“Doesn’t anyone have any more missiles!?” Nibiru is the real, cosmic, deal. I know this because all of the theories of Internet-connected folks concerning its arrival into the Milky Way don’t posit the planet crashing directly into Earth like two perfect billiard balls. If it was contrived it would be aiming straight into us, right … The Earth’s Poles Shifted and All You Read Was This Blog Post
Plenty of metal band releases nowadays feature a track, usually in the middle or at the end, that’s a little quieter or more contemplative, probably to break the sonic elephant-gun onslaught of everything else you’re hearing/have heard. If the metal band is Christian, this track is the time to let listeners know you are, in … One Weird Trick for a Worship Band to Make Their Album Go Platinum
There’s this video, and then there’s comments I’ve read all over that go something like this: 1) “So weird to see the Death Star upside down,” or something equally as innocent and merely observational. And someone replies with: 2) “you idiot theres no upside down in space its all relative you probably like the prequels … The Epistemology of Orientation in Space
The canary represented Arrival‘s Louise Banks and forshadowed both her ability to communicate with the heptapods and forsee the future—just as canaries were used in coal mines to “predict and communicate” death for humans in mineshafts if the air toxins rose to lethal levels. The canary was a purely narrative device, and not there to … The Meaning of the Canary in Arrival