Colins Notebook: March 2009

Saturday, 28 March 2009

Create your own animations....Akon + Bush vs Osama!

GoAnimate.com: Akon blows up Osama

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!

New Media Douchebags Explained

The world of Wallace and Gromit recreated in Science Museum

The world of Wallace and Gromit has been recreated in a £2m exhibition on the second floor of the Science Museum, complete with mad machines, giant cabbages, villainous rabbits, extensive research library on cheese, improbable collections – one illustrating the evolution of the welly boot – and kitchen cupboards stuffed with the packets and jars fondly remembered from Park's own childhood in Preston, Lancashire

From Guardian - Link

Aaron Spelling's $150M Mansion

Possibly loony widow Candy Spelling says she chose her real estate agent after watching Madison, her dog, react to each candidate

From Daily Beast - Link

Aaron Spelling's $150M Mansion

16 Awesome Star Wars Papercraft Models

The amount and quality of paper craft models available for download is amazing. Chances are that anything that’s popular and geeky, has already been converted into a paper craft model.

Since Star Wars is both extremely popular and absolutely geeky, then it is not a surprise that loads of paper craft models are available on the web. Just follow the links and download the models. Beware, some these models are somewhat difficult to build. If you are novice, take a look at this article that will teach you how to make your own paper craft models along with some basic construction tips

From Creative Closeup - Link

Star Wars

The Future Of Gaming… Over The Internet To Your TV

OnLive delivers the hottest games from top publishers for instant, high-performance play on TV, PC or Mac over broadband…

City Of London bracing itself for G20 Protests

The G20 summit in London next week will be the target of widespread protests, many of which are being organised online. City workers have been warned that they might be targeted and police are preparing a massive security operation. But who are the protesters and what are they planning?

From Guardian - Link

G20 Protests

Button Takes Pole in Australia...Hamilton withdraws with mechanical problems..

From BBC - Link

Jensen Button takes pole in Australia

From AP

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Jenson Button led qualifying Saturday for the Formula One season-opening Australian Grand Prix, making the Brawn team the first in 39 years to take pole position on debut.
Button's time of 1 minute, 26.202 seconds edged out his teammate Rubens Barrichello by 0.30 seconds in Saturday's qualifying session.
It is the fourth pole position of Button's career, and the first since the 2006 Australian GP.
Before Saturday, the last team to secure pole in its debut race was Tyrrell at the 1970 Canadian Grand Prix.
It is a remarkable turnaround for the former Honda team. The Japanese automaker pulled out of F1 because of the cost in December, and there was doubt whether the team members and drivers had any future in the sport until team principal Ross Brawn completed a takeover earlier in the month

How To Be The Perfect Girlfriend...every woman needs to watch this!

Pretty much sums it up

From YouTube - Link

86 rules of boozing!

Haha...this is my personal favourite...

There’s nothing wrong with drinking before noon. Especially if you’re supposed to be at work

My version is...theres nothing wrong with drinking at lunchtime...especially if you have a meeting in the afternoon!

From Modern Drunkard - Link

booze

Will the Diffuser make Jensen Button no.1 driver and Hamilton no.2?

Controversial changes to reduce the money spent on F1 race car development look set to cause a complete shake of of the F1 season this year. Should be very exciting boys!

Teams are only allowed to test their cars on race weekends, they must use smaller wind tunnels, and they have to share information on tyres and fuel, which should reduce the need for an espionage budget. Tantalisingly, the teams can now choose to install a Kinetic Energy Recovery System, a device which gives drivers a seven-second spurt of extra power every lap, and sounds like it belongs in Mario Kart

The biggest technological development, however, concerns the diffuser, a part on the floor at the back of the car which organises the airflow, and is consequently essential to its aerodynamics. What's happened is that Brawn GP, a team that was formed less than three weeks ago from the debris left by recession-hit Honda, have by far the best diffuser.

Indeed, it's so good that Red Bull and other teams launched an unsuccessful legal challenge against it. Frank Williams, boss of the Williams team, said: "They [Brawn GP] are making the rest of us look like amateurs."

From The First Post - Link

Jensen Button

Happy Earth Hour - Turn Off The Lights Tonight at 8.30!

Tonight at 8.30pm, turn out the lights for an hour!

Earth Hour is an international event organised by the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature/World Wildlife Fund), and held on the last Saturday of March each year, which asks households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights and electrical appliances for one hour to raise awareness towards the need to take action on climate change. Earth hour was conceived by WWF Australia and the Sydney Morning Herald in 2007, when 2.2 million residents of Sydney participated by turning off all non-essential lights.[1] Following Sydney's lead, many other cities around the world adopted the event

From Wikipedia - Link

Earth Hour

Friday, 27 March 2009

Idaho Teacher Sells Pizza Ads On Tests

Is this how commercialised we are becoming? Are there really no limits to where we can advertise!

In a cash-strapped Idaho high school, where signs taped near every light switch remind the staff to save electricity, an enterprising teacher has struck a sponsorship deal with a local pizza shop: Every test, handout and work sheet he passes out to his students reads MOLTO'S PIZZA 14" 1 TOPPING JUST $5 in bright red, inch-high letters printed along the bottom of each page

From NPR - Link

pizza

9 Good Things The Internet Has Ruined Forever

What was life like before high speed internet? Funny to think that the kids will never know!

From omglists.blogfaction.com - Link

The Cisco Fatty Story - how to flush a job offer down the toilet

Have you heard about the whole Cisco Fatty incident. Girl gets a job offer from Cisco, but makes a schoolboy web 2.0 error, and disses the job on Twitter

Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work

Uh oh....me wonders if she realised how quickly this would go postal on her behind, and sweep the world, the minute she pushed the button...did she look for the undo button....or was she blissfully ignorant, until someone from Cisco posted a response

Who is the hiring manager. I’m sure they would love to know that you will hate the work. We here at Cisco are versed in the web

Theres a blow by blow account of the whole sorry saga over at Im Not Actually A Geek - Link

ooops

Setting up a PHP development environment...

1. Downloaded the latest XAMPP

2. Started Apache and ran phpinfo() from XAMPP menu to confirm working

3. Download latest CakePHP

4. Setup CakePHP development config and checked that works

5. Setup CakePHP production config and check that works.
* Copy cakephp to any location on drive
* Configure Document Root to point to cakePHP eg
DocumentRoot "C:/cake_1.2.2.8120/app/webroot"
* Configure Directory (change to same as document root in this case)
Directory "C:/cake_1.2.2.8120/app/webroot"

6. Create a test MYSQL database to check cakePHP database config

Up next...cakePHP configuration class...

http://book.cakephp.org/view/42/The-Configuration-Class

Make your remote control idiot proof!

From Lifehacker - Link

Clever idea for quickly dumbing down your remote for anyone knuckle dragging family members

Idiot Proof Remote Control

Online Toolbox: Jigs, clamps, and helping hands

From Make

In the Make: Online Toolbox, we try to focus on tools that fly under the radar of more conventional tool coverage: in-depth tool-making projects, strange or specialty tools unique to a trade or craft that can be useful elsewhere, tools and techniques you may not know about, but once you do, and incorporate them into your workflow, you'll wonder how you ever lived without them. And, in the spirit of the times, we pay close attention to tools that you can get on the cheap, make yourself, refurbish, etc.

Thursday, 26 March 2009

Grumpy alpha male proves chimps plan ahead

From Yahoo News - Link

A canny chimpanzee who calmly collected a stash of rocks and then hurled them at zoo visitors in fits of rage has confirmed that apes can plan ahead just like humans, a Swedish study said Monday. Santino the chimpanzee's anti-social behavior stunned both visitors and keepers at the Furuvik Zoo but fascinated researchers because it was so carefully prepared.
According to a report in the journal Current Biology, the 31-year-old alpha male started building his weapons cache in the morning before the zoo opened, collecting rocks and knocking out disks from concrete boulders inside his enclosure. He waited until around midday before he unleashed a "hailstorm" of rocks against visitors, the study said

Wednesday, 25 March 2009

He Will Hit You Again! Oprah Winfrey To Rihanna

The History of Street Fighter

From IGN - Link

IGN Presents the History of Street Fighter

Then there were the devastating special moves. Executing a Hadouken ("wave motion fist") fireball, Shouryuken ("rising dragon fist") uppercut, or Tatsumaki Senpukyaku ("tornado whirlwind kick") spin-kick could easily wipe out most enemies in one or two hits, but they were incredibly tough to pull off. Some gamers didn't believe they were actual moves. Discovering the tricks to Ryu's magical chi-based attacks was a matter of trial and error, or else the knowledge was passed down from experienced player to novice. Even then, the game's unique control scheme didn't always cooperate

Old friends pass away, new friends appear

It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend - or a meaningful day

Dalai Lama

Monday, 23 March 2009

But I Asked for the Salmon …

From Diners Journal - Link

This always happens to me!

Is it considered poor manners to insist that a waiter write down an order instead of attempting to commit it to memory?

Anger Actually Can Kill

From The Onion - Link

A study in the Journal Of The American College Of Cardiology says that anger and other strong emotions can trigger unhealthy irregular heart rhythms. What do you think?

Sunday, 22 March 2009

10 Reasons Kanye West Makes A Great Boyfriend

From Clutch - Link

This is funny...

Here’s the top 10 reasons why he should be…

People now say lard isn’t good for you. But it’s what we grew up with

From The Economist

What Barrys US health reforms have to deal with...

And Obamaworld is buzzing with ideas to help people keep fit. Taxes on booze, cigarettes and sugary drinks, which are low by rich world standards, could rise. There is talk of making companies install gyms in the same way as they do fire escapes. Some favour giving people a “nudge” (the title of a recent book popular among Obamaites) to live more healthily. For example, people eat less if restaurants serve smaller portions; children eat better if the school cafeteria puts healthy food at eye level.

The cultural obstacles to all this, however, may be greater than Mr Obama’s lean, sporty advisers understand. Consider the shoppers at the Save-A-Lot supermarket in Hamlin, West Virginia. At the beginning of the month, when the food stamps arrive, they snap up buckets of lard so big that the label says: “Warning—Children can fall into bucket and drown.” The manager, Key-Ray Adkins, shrugs: “People now say lard isn’t good for you. But it’s what we grew up with.”

Feminism Is The Radical Notion That Women Are Human Beings...

From sacbee

Nearly 100 years old, International Women's Day, celebrated on Sunday, March 8, marked an ongoing worldwide battle to ensure equal rights for half the globe's population on issues such as work, voting and abortion

Why can't you see stars or galaxies in the photographs that show the curvature of the Earth and part of the black background of space?

From Frequently Asked Questions About Astronaut-Acquired Photographs

The reason you can't see stars in high oblique photos is that the film speed is too slow and the shutter speed is too fast. Most of the films used are 100 ASA color positive. Fast shutter speeds are used to eliminate blur from the motion of the spacecraft. These films and shutter speeds would not be suitable for photographing stars from the Earth either. One exception to this rule is when astronauts use films and camera settings specifically to photograph features such as the Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis. In these cases stars also show up in the photograph. The photos are also slightly blurry because very long exposures are needed to capture these dim nighttime features.

Example photograph of the Aurora Australis that includes stars

Friday, 20 March 2009

Top 10 reasons the PS3 is failing

From Digital Battle

Not sure how much of the fact are correct, but interesting all the same...

The PS3 is trailing at a distant third, behind the Xbox 360 and well behind the Wii. We’ve gathered out top ten reasons the PlayStation 3 is failing at the moment.

Kanye West and Amber Rose - Cute couple

From Model witha brain

I ♥ them together, for the time being or whatever it is in Hollywood! I like the look that she has (reminds me of a co-worker from Wild Pair Melissa Carter, she had the same hairstyle and was the only one that I hung with that could pull this look of) and Amber adds her own personal flyness to Kanye's look right now (um not sure what his look is right now but this will do for now ;-) ♥

Wednesday, 18 March 2009

30 Days of Nothing

Beat the credit crunch by only spending on essentials for 30 days!

From intent

For 30 days, my family will buy nothing except our basic necessities. No clothes or books. No movies, no trips to the ice cream parlor. No paper, or pictures, or magazines. No fancy hair gel or take-and-bake pizza. Lattes? Nope. Nothing except what it takes to live. During that month, I will journal our experiences, and blog my thoughts about poverty and hunger and our response to those issues. I'd like to try and identify with some of the "least" (economically) of the world. We will try and live without electricity for a day; eat only rice for a day. Perhaps the family will sleep together in one room for a night - on the floor; or walk six miles one day - the distance some African women walk daily to get clean water

Tuesday, 17 March 2009

Lupe Fiasco - Sunshine - Wicked Tune!

Edible Excretions: Taiwan's Toilet Restaurant

From Time

"There's poop everywhere! Y-u-c-k," says 6-year-old Jordan Lien as he and his family dine at the Modern Toilet, a popular Taiwanese restaurant chain that's expanding into China and other parts of Asia. The boy was looking at the poop-shaped lights and dish covers and the curry on toilet-shaped plates

Every customer sits on a stylish acrylic toilet (lid down) designed with images of roses, seashells or Renaissance paintings. Everyone dines at a glass table with a sink underneath. The servers bring your meal atop a mini toilet bowl (quite convenient, as it brings the food closer to your mouth), you sip drinks from your own plastic urinal (a souvenir), and soft-swirl ice cream arrives for dessert atop a dish shaped like a squat toilet. (See nine kid foods to avoid.)

Some Indie Facebook Developers Pulling In Over $700,000 A Month

From TechCrunch

Now wheres that Facebook Programming for Dummies guide! Gimme Some!

The mass media may be enamored of the rags-to-riches stories of developers on Apple’s App Store, but it isn’t the only game in town for indie developers to strike it rich. We’ve gotten word from SocialMedia, a popular ad platform for social network applications, that one of the company’s clients pulled in over $700,000 in advertising revenues from their Facebook apps in December alone. Granted, this was spread over 30+ of the client’s applications, but the company only consists of a handful of (very prolific) developers.

While SocialMedia declined to name the company in question, it confirmed that it was not one of the large social application developers like Playfish, SGN, and Zynga who have raised large funding rounds and have been rumored to pull in over $1 million a month

Sunday, 15 March 2009

Go Green for Healthy Teeth and Gums

From physorg

With origins dating back over 4,000 years, green tea has long been a popular beverage in Asian culture, and is increasingly gaining popularity in the United States. And while ancient Chinese and Japanese medicine believed green tea consumption could cure disease and heal wounds, recent scientific studies are beginning to establish the potential health benefits of drinking green tea, especially in weight loss, heart health, and cancer prevention

10 Gruesome Sport Injuries...dont look!

From Ask Men

Sports injuries are a booming industry. If you had a better supplement than smelling salts to treat concussions, you would be a millionaire and a Nobel Prize winner for chemistry. Short of any miracle treatments, however, knee injuries and concussions are destined to continue.

In the past 20 years, athletes have trained like never before and they’ve ingested many supplements to help build muscle mass. In an effort to avoid some gruesome sports injuries, athletes have donned some immense pads, but they sometimes cause as many injuries as they prevent. Our list of gruesome sports injuries, however, are so freakish that nothing could have prevented them. The most incredible sports injuries are of the bone-popping, blood-spewing order -- and the bulk of them of career-enders

During the Carling Cup final between archrivals Chelsea and Arsenal, John Terry proved himself both brave and foolish. On a Chelsea corner kick, the ball crossed into the box and bounced in front of the net before Terry dropped his head in an attempt to head the ball in for a score. Unfortunately, for his face, Arsenal midfielder Abou Diaby was trying to clear the same ball with his boot. The result: The ball was cleared and Terry’s face was tattooed with shoe polish.

After lying unconscious on the field for several minutes with a face full of blood, Terry was carried off on a stretcher with a neck brace. Miraculously, he didn’t suffer a concussion or any broken bones

Rest are here

Saturday, 14 March 2009

Are you right brain dead? Give yourself a creative kick-start...

From Duct Tape Marketing

I find I get creative after a bout of heavy exercise...

My top 10 creative kick starters:
1 Go camping - the bank of stream is a creative haven
2 Stop, close my eyes and feel nothing but my breath
3 Go into a business I’ve never entered and use all my senses
4 Listen to Nirvana (mostly the live acoustic stuff)
5 Run - I can’t tell you how many blog posts I’ve written this way
6 Get olfactory - smells, odd and pungent stir something
7 Hang out in a public library
8 Read Emerson or Angelou
9 Watch cartoons (bonus: watch with 6 yr old)
10 Play my honey blond Guild D-35 - I don’t do that enough!

Lupe Fiasco performing in Paris, Tokyo

New Google Site to Share Money-Saving Tips

From blogoscoped

Google offers a new Google Moderator-based application called Tip Jar. The purpose of the mostly green-color-themed site is for people to contribute money saving tips and tricks in areas like work, family, transit and more. Once you submit a tip*, others can vote for it to increase its popularity rank

Kanye West on the Wake Up Show: Episode 3

Tokyo Metro Manners Posters

This are just sooooo funnee. Check out the pervert lurking...

The Tokyo Metro ‘Manner Posters’ (マナーポスター) is a ‘good manner’ campaign that has been running for roughly 35 years. Each year they have a new theme and every month a new poster is released describing the type of behaviour that is not tolerated on Tokyo’s subways.
This years theme is “Please Do It”. Although the posters talk for themselves, I have recaptioned them with the ‘good manner’ message that I interpret

From Loneleeplanet

10 Movies That Feature Gigantic Animals Killing People

From Unreality

As far as I’m concerned, movies that feature enormous animals eating, dismembering, eviscerating, disembowling or otherwise destroying human beings is a recipe for success. And I’m talking big animals here, so take your Birds and Bats and Snakes on a Plane and shove ‘em. Not all movies with this formula are mindless — anyone who’s read Moby Dick can tell you that the story runs much deeper than the quest to kill a whale — but even the cruddiest movies where oversized animals treat people like Rosie O’Donnell treats french fries is worth watching. After the jump, take a look at 10 movies where gigantic animals kill people. Sometimes it’s for food, and sometimes it’s for revenge, but whatever the reason, it friggin’ rules

Louis Logic - Captain Lou El Wino

Short but funny!

Captain Lou El Wino - Louis Logic & J.J. Brown

Louis Logic - Classy McNasty

Classy McNasty - Louis Logic & J.J. Brown