Wednesday Zeitgeist

Day late, because the script I use to parse the RSS of my Tumblr link blog and generate the HTML for the Zeitgeist is not on my laptop and I couldn't be bothered writing another script. Sorry about that.

And yes, I am that guy ... parsing RSS to generate HTML for your edification. I am sure you're jealous of my elite hacking skills, because we all know that chicks dig skills.

Nothing much else to report. Working on stuff, hanging out. Usual.

Oh dear. First rule of boxing - don't just stand there. Need to fast-forward to the 30 second mark. And ignore the bad music. It's a weird thing that people do to these fight videos.


That's Don Frye, who looks suspciously like my father-in-law. He is awesome, over 40 and still fighting. Like some sort of MMA Rocky ... brawler with a magic chin. He's also mental. There's a fight we're the ref stops it before he taps out in an arm-bar because it looks like he WON'T tap out. Am arm bar is basically where you get someone's arm between your legs and bend it the wrong way with your bodyweight. If you don't submit your elbow snaps. The guy must be nuts.

My occasional addiction to MMA (now through the unified UFC and Pride) continues unabated. I must be nuts.

Category:Ship Types

The Profit Calculator

Splash, Splash, You're Dead: The Military's Next-Gen Water Gun: The SPP-1 flying-nail pistol came into service in 1971. It is more compact than the Underwater Defense Gun and half the weight, and even now is standard issue for Russian combat divers, including a section of the Presidential Security Service that patrols the flooded sewers connecting the Kremlin to the Moskva River.

“Number of stars in the visible universe = 30 billion trillion (3x10²²)” - The Universe within 14 billion Light Years - The Visible Universe

Or our nearest neighbours: The Universe within 12.5 Light Years - The Nearest stars

The Traveler's Dilemma. Game Theory

Schneier on Security: Cyberwar

Steam Trek: The Moving Picture (Star Trek Parody)


HowTo: Make your own M41-A Pulse Rifle, the rifle from Aliens

Google Keeps Tweaking Its Search Engine

“Russia has repeatedly claimed that the majority of these manufacturers produce AK-47 without a proper license from IZH.[17][18] The Izhevsk Machine Tool Factory acquired a patent in 1999, illegalising manufacture of the Kalashnikov rifle system by anyone other than themselves.[19]”: AK-47 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nessie caught on tape (via goochcamper)


Further investigation has reveleaed that Nessie was caught on tape by a guy who thinks Aliens talk to him. May not be reliable, is all I'm saying

Q&A: Seth Godin Says 'Know When To Bail'

“Speedy solar storms carrying a billion tons of charged gas through space let out a thunderous scream before they unleash satellite-stopping radiation storms that slam into Earth's magnetic field.”- Radio ‘Screams’ Forecast Dangerous Solar Storms

Startup Search. Directory of web technology startups. I am not in there. Yet.

The LOLs never stop: LOL BOTS

Desktop Tower of Money: 3 tips to profit from casual games

Glyphius Copywriting Software Review

Wednesday Monday Zeitgeist

About 10 years behind on lame link spam, so thought I start the week on the right foot.

My apologies to all concerned for Boomshine. Quite addictive, apparently.

I am obsessed with 300. We're going to go see it at Imax on Wednesday night. I think it will be hell-of-cool.

I gave a lecture on Thursday at Swinburne, which was pretty fun. I scrapped the offical talk (which was about XML) and riffed for 60 minutes about things I think are cool.

And we have a gig in a couple of weeks. First practice yesterday. I haven't played the drums since November. Bit clumsy, but other than that was all good.

Speaking of games: Kongregate. It's like YouTube for games. Genius. Made me cry because I never thought of it.

CricInfo - for when you need Cricket rendered into near-realtime 3d.

Zelda Theme Music. ReOrchestrated.

Twitter Vision. Mesmerising.

And, get this: I am Jodee Rich's friend on Twitter. As in One.Tel. How funny is that?

Albono Peacock:


Secret confession: I am addicted to UFC and Pride.

Wednesday Zeitgeist

Hot. So very hot. So hot that I had to ask Mrs Android this question to complete the Zeitgeist:

hey, what's the name of that game where it's a mechanical table with silver balls? and flippers ...

The answer is of course PinBall ...

Now I have to attempt to be all brainy and stuff and code up some ... stuff.


TechStars - start-up incubator. Now if only there was a local one. I proposed moving to Boulder, Colorado for 3 months, but not really convenient this year.

Weasel Words of War. Why use torture when an "extreme rendition" would do the job?

The MacGuffin

How a hanging is supposed to work ... apparently, not that fun.

Daniel Libeskind’s design for Gazprom City, the future St. Petersburg headquarters for Russian energy giant Gazprom:



“Zimbabwe, the land of dying children” by RW Johnson in the Sunday Times.

World Health Organisation figures show that life expectancy in Zimbabwe, which was 62 in 1990, had by 2004 plummeted to 37 for men and 34 for women. These are by far the worst such figures in the world.

Battle of Helms Deep. In Candy

Giant Rabbits to feed the poor

The Nazi Raccoons that Ate Germany. Not even a joke. Nazi. Raccoons.

Buy Sealand! Donate and get citizenship. I think I might pitch in some cash ...

The Heff. Sad, sad old man.

Greatest Martial Arts Moments. I like the one with the Pinball sound effects and the raining bodies.

The future ... it ... lives

"It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be. . . This, in turn, means that our statesmen, our businessmen, our everyman must take on a science fictional way of thinking." - Isaac Asimov

Sentient Developments: Must-know terms for the 21st Century intellectual: Redux. Particularly like: "Information Theoretic Death" and "Bayesian Rationality".

Loops of highly charged particles burst from the sun's surface:



Fermi Paradox
"The Fermi paradox is the apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and the lack of evidence of contact with such civilizations."

Bizarre New Form of Life Found in Arctic Ocean, Scientists Announce

Wednesday Zeitgeist

Today's theme is, of course, love.

Ah ... love.

It's like, TOTALLY AWESOME.

One thing we don't love is Primus Telecom ... we've been billed for our new phone connection despite the fact the phone doesn't actually work. Highly unrecommended service.
And my wife (OMG!) just cracked it about Qantas. So we don't love them at the moment either.
And we also don't love Mr Abbott, do we.


- Man vs Beast. Weirdly disturbing television. I kind-of love it.
- Three things you didn't know about AIDS in Africa.
- Buy land on the moon.
- Learn a language. You never know when Esperanto will come in handy.
- This year I would love to build an arcade machine. I probably won't, but it would be bloody cool to have one.
- Non-lethal viruses to neutralise cities. I love the Cold War, don't you? Infect everyone with a virus that swells their brain!
- 18 Secret Armies of the CIA. I like the Khamba Horsemen the best.
- Taxonomy of Apocalyptic Scenarios. Ranges from Class 0 - Regional Catastrophe through to Class X - Planetary Elimination.
- BTW, Saddam is on Youtube. But you can't have the link.
- Dear John said it was heroic for the Iraqi people to uphold the rule of law despite the fact Saddam was really REALLY bad and they are not having a civil war and stuff. Funny that a tyrannical dictator can get a fair trial , but some illegal combatant poor bastard caught in Afganhistan in a civil conflict by an invading occupational force can't get one. Surely this is unheroic and possibly un-Australian? I'm looking at you, Howard. You fucker.

That's it. Work, if I can remember how to program through all this sunshine and love.