Cheap art idea.

The Rasterbator lets you take any image or photo, rasterize it up to a 5 meter long/wide poster size.

Raise your hand if you used to make banners in PrintShop as a kid. Can you believe they still make PrintShop — version 20! Bonus fact: It is actually one of the first, few .NET based shrink wrapped software packages.

[via Chris Pirillo] 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.

TINKLE FOR KERRY!!
 
A night of comedy to benefit the presidential campaign of John Kerry.
 
Friday, July 9th
8pm
Southpaw
125 Fifth Ave
Park Slope, Brooklyn
 
Hosted by:
DAVID CROSS, TODD BARRY and JON BENJAMIN
other guests TBA
check our website (tinkle.info) for updated show information
 
Tickets: 25$
(go to concertsforkerry.org to purchase tickets)

Comments: I’ve been to these Tinkle events before and they are always very funny. This one promises to be special and will probably feature some very well known comics. Plus it’s for a good cause. Vote Kerry.

Directly from MetaFilter:

South Park does the “Aristocrats” joke. (WARNING! Windows Media file, very very not safe for work.) “The Aristocrats” is a long-lived comedians’ in-joke–or, rather, an extraordinarily filthy joke that’s not really a joke. (Gilbert Gottfried knocked ’em dead with it shortly after 9/11.) Now it’s going public (sort of): Penn Jillette and Paul Provenza are making a movie featuring over 100 comedians telling their own versions. The South Park version linked above is “not even in the top 5 for dirtiest.” Yikes!

Comments: The first link video is safe for work, its just the south park gang, the audio is definitely headphone only material.

I guess the whole thing is just a comedian’s competition on who can come up with the filthiest/funniest version of the bit between the setup and the punchline. The punchline not being funny at all.

I find that I use a humor compatibility test using certain things from movies and TV shows. For example, I think the funniest part of the clip is Cartman doing the “hold on Kyle’s” in the middle of the story.

Here’s how to play a fantastic team quarters game

Setup:

1. Buy a large quantity of domestic beer
2. Get a large table, clear out all the chairs
3. Pick two teams of around four people each on opposite sides of the table(tournament style play is ok for more than two teams, but single-elimination is recommended)
4. Place eight cups in line parallel to the teams in the middle of the table.
5. Fill the cups with approx 1/3 of a beer can
6. Put a large pitcher in the middle of the line of cups
7. Fill the pitcher with approx 1.5 cans of beer
8. Procure two clean quarters (pre-fancy state quarters bounce better)

Playing:

1. Each team gets one quarter. At a starter’s signal players begin bouncing the quarter into any one of the small cups (not the pitcher yet)
2. If the quarter goes in, the other team must select one person to drink the cup with the quarter at the bottom. Simultaneously, they must pass their quarter to the other team and they get to continue playing for other cups.
3. Once a team has sunk four cups, they move on to the big pitcher. The team to get the quarter into the pitcher wins. The losing team must drink the pitcher.

Hints and rules:

1. Every player gets two attempts, then they must pass the quarter
2. The final pitcher drinking should be one person at a time and no repeat drinkers, which should leave an anchor member who must finish whatever his teammates leave for him
3. If a quarter leaves the table, game-off until it is back in the hands of the players
4. Between game toweling off of the table is recommended (beer zamboni)
5. Speed is essential, lots of yelling will ensue

 

The New York Times has an article about modern F1 technology. It just skims the surface of the massive amount of technology that goes into the sport.

also noted on slashdot

[via my brother Kevin]

Joel Spolsky, noted software development guru has finally gone off the deep end.

His latest rant is a classic example of a certain syndrome we’ve encountered many times in computing history. Certain people have this thing happen to them where they become so comfortable with a specific technology, so in tune with the ins and outs, best practices, invented cool workarounds, that they hit some brick wall when it comes to accepting that they have to move on. Joel is finding himself in this situation now. He’s very proud of his many years of VB, COM, ASP experience and probably finally feels like he’s got everything under control. Life is peachy. Then MS decides (nearly 6 years ago) that the time to make a quantum leap is now and that leap started with .NET and continues on through Longhorn and beyond. Managed code. Joel is thinking “why oh Lord must they change things when I’m a guru over here?” I’ll have to learn how to guru all over again. So maybe I’ll try to convince the world that it is a bad idea to introduce this new stuff and I’ll stick to my guns until it’s time to retire.

How many times have we heard this? “Nobody wants Windows, DOS will be it for me”, “Who needs to run more than one application at a time”, “I will never use a mouse”, “Win 3.1 (or 98 SE) is all I’ll ever need, I’ll never upgrade” and on and on.

Was Joel at the PDC? Somebody should show him the demo of Longhorn running VisiCalc. I saw it with my own eyes.

I could go on and on about all this, but I think I’ll leave it here: Raymond Chen is a fascinating read and his lessons shouldn’t be forgotten, but he’s not the future. Managed code (in many shifting forms) is the future. Look at Don Box for inspiration. The guy knows more about COM internals than anyone and one might have expected him to grow old crowing on about how COM rules for all times, but instead he used his guru credibility and skills in building absolutely key, cutting edge stuff in Indigo.

Over the weekend I attended the Formula One Grand Prix of Canada in Montreal. I went with Hollie’s brother and his friends who have been going annually for ten years. Ten years of experience resulted in a well-honed fun machine of a weekend. Virtually no decisions to be made and lots of “stay to right through the turnstyles” and “this bartender pours the best drinks” etc.

Like many venues, the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve gives out the good seats to loyal fans and our seats were fantastic. This picture is on the cool down lap after the race. (I could only take pictures of the slow down laps with my point-and-shoot digital camera) ((also, what is it about pictures that we feel we must take them from our own cameras? There are hundreds of pictures from the race that are so much better than mine, shot by professionals, but still I post this crappy one just because *I* took it.)) We were at a 180 degree hairpin turn which means the cars go from around 180 mph, down to around 40 (in around 70 feet!) through the extremely tight turn then hard on the gas and back up to near 200 in a flash.

It is pretty difficult to describe the controlled violence of a modern F1 car. When you see it on TV you only get to hear the high end whine of an engine turning at 19,250 rpms, what you miss is the chest rattling thunder-like low end. The other major difference from on TV is the sense of speed. You simply can not imagine how late a driver can brake for a turn in these cars, how fast they can accelerate out of the turn and how quickly they can change direction.

Update: more pictures from my camera here

(hmm, this one reminds me of someone)

I don’t remember how I found these originally, but this guy makes cartoons on the backs of business cards.

His site is GapingVoid.com

I get the cartoons through Ben Hammersley 

This is what happens when people repeatedly tell you how great you are… (you start to believe them).

Last night Hollie and I went to see Matthew Dear perform at Joe’s Pub. Going in I had been a huge fan of his work. Get a sample of his tune called Dog Days here.   The guy has a gift for creating intricate, beautiful techno/minimal songs.

So what does he do? Comes out and sings. One song even featured him with one of those Richey Sambora, circa 1987 plastic backed guitars. Quote “I’m not even making that much electronic music anymore”. Granted some of the backing music might have been ok, but it was totally lost.

Now I can understand being a performer is much more satisfying and much better for picking up women if you are able to stand out on stage with a mike, lift up your shirt, writhe around seductively than the previous time I saw him on stage with a bunch of laptops and knobs that looked remarkably like he was up there checking email. Of course the laptop event was fantastic and memorable. 

The crowd was primed to start dancing. One girl could barely contain herself and was dancing furiously for the warm up acts. Matthew was unable to get anyone to budge from their “what is going on here” disbelief poses. I even heard a “man, that sucked” as it was wrapped up.

I was so disappointed.

Newsworthy stuff from ZAGAT’s newsletter.

BED: The trendy South Beach restaurant and lounge where patrons eat their meals on beds is readying a Chelsea offshoot located above the club Spirit, in a sixth-floor space that leads to a roof terrace (530 W. 27^th St.).

New York Burger: This modern-looking Park Avenue South fast-food shop will feature high-quality ingredients, including burgers made of Coleman all-natural beef, homemade dipping sauces, freshly cut fries and real fruit smoothies (330 Park Avenue South / 24th street).

Starwich: The first of four branches to open by the end of the year, this hi-tech sandwich shop on the far West Side will provide patrons with optional smart cards to pre-program their orders, which can be customized from over 100 ingredients, including luxe items like lobster, lump crab meat and pomegranate duck. The space itself will feature Wi-Fi, complimentary cell-phone chargers and original artwork (525 W. 42^nd St./10th ave).

Comments: What separates a gimmick from just a good idea? BED sure seems to be a gimmick since I can’t think of a good reason to eat on a mattress. But then again, who knows maybe I’d like it. I don’t immediately discount stuff that’s trendy as much as many of my peer group naturally would.

Virtually any establishment can lure me in with technology. Starwich certainly sounds like they fit that bill. Except with 100 ingredients I’m already feeling a stifling Paradox of Choice. For the lazy non-link followers, Paradox of Choice is a book subtitled “Why More is Less” and is about how consumers today are often faced with too many choices. The constant drive towards more options has left us overwhelmed, stressed, and unhappy.

UPDATE: I didn’t do the book description justice, here’s a better one.

… as choices proliferate, people have a harder and harder time making decisions. And they end up less satisfied with the decisions they make. They are filled with regret over those that turned out well but might have been better; they develop unrealistically high expectations; and when decisions disappoint, as they almost always do because of these expectations (we bought a terrific stroller and left the store dissatisfied that we couldn’t find the perfect one), they blame themselves. The result is stress, unhappiness, and in extreme cases, clinical depression.