The Monkey King's Domain

Inside Lightwave 7 eBay auction

eBay auction for the book "Inside Lightwave 7", bought it when I was really into 3D animation. Hopefully one of you will give it a good home!

Making miniature clay oranges

Step-by-step photos showing how to make miniature (about 5mm diam) model oranges from modelling clay

(Link courtesy of BoingBoing)

Revolving Condos

The revolving restaurant is the pinnacle of civic achievement. I am a sucker for overpriced drinks, terrible appetizers and the line of stationary/rotating demarkation as long as I get a full 360 degrees with never a decent view. But a rotating apartment?

(Link courtesy of BoingBoing)

One more test

Still sucking....

Just testing

This new version of ecto......sucks...

Miami man survives after plunging from 5th floor of a parking garage.

Apparently despondent over a failed relationship, a man raced his car through a fifth-floor concrete wall of a parking lot, causing it to soar 50 feet before smashing into the second floor of a busy nearby store, police said, creating a spectacle even seasoned fire rescue workers couldn't imagine.

Sky-high French bridge opened...

Happy December 25th!

And to all a good night!

Topic Magazine

Topic Magazine

Wizard Fan Awards

You can vote for your favorite writers, pencilers, etc here.

Do me a favor though....under "FAVORITE MINI-SERIES" click the radio button next to "Other" and write-in "Touch of Death"

;)

Soy Clothing

From China comes soybean clothing. Yes, they've created a new fiber made from the leftover dregs of soybean oil and tofu production. Soy-based yarn is being exported by Shanghai Winshow Soybeanfiber Industry Company.

Many hip clothing companies are rolling out soy lines, among them Of The Earth, of Bend, Oregon, which will offer in its 2005 catalog a line of "soy yoga" clothing. (That's their Yoga Top heading this post.) Mei Fong wrote an informative story for last Friday's Wall Street Journal.

Link to Of the Earth (company mentioned in the article)

(Link courtesy of EyeBeam Reblog)

Larry La Prise...dead

With all the sadness and trauma going on in the world at the moment, it is worth reflecting on the death of a very important person which almost went unnoticed last week.

Larry La Prise, the man who wrote "The Hokey Pokey", died peacefully at age 93. The most traumatic part for his family was getting him into the coffin. They put his left leg in, and then the trouble started.

Happy Chrismahanukwanzakah

Happy Chrismahanukwanzakah

(Link courtesy of Christine)

Cuba's Biotech Boom

Faced with economic calamity, Castro did something remarkable: He poured hundreds of millions of dollars into pharmaceuticals. No one knows how - Cuba's economy, with its secrecy and centralized structure, defies market analysis. One beneficiary was Concepcion Campa Huergo, president and director general of the Finlay Institute, a vaccine lab in Havana. She developed the world's first meningitis B vaccine, testing it by injecting herself and her children before giving it to volunteers. "I remember one day telling Fidel that we needed a new ultracentrifuge, which costs about $70,000," Campa says. "After five minutes of listening he said, 'No. You'll need 10.'"...

(Link courtesy of BoingBoing)

Ironic....

A United Parcel Service driver was on his way to deliver parts to Cheshire Medical Center in Keene when his van was in a serious crash involving two tractor-trailer trucks on Route 9 at Chesterfield Hill, police said. The driver was taken to Cheshire Medical Center by ambulance with a head injury, but the hospital couldn’t do some of the tests he needed because one of its machines was down, police said.

And the parts to fix that machine were in the man’s wrecked truck on Route 9.

(Link courtesy of Brian)

Charlie and the Chocolate Trailer online

Trailer

Official website

(Links courtesy of BoingBoing)

Open Source Word-of-Mouth Advertising

"Plenty of corporations are willing to hire shills to generate buzz for a new product. But what people don't need to be paid to promote? Boston company BzzAgent found that their volunteers promote products simply because it makes them feel good. The NYT Magazine interviews several 'agents'. The volunteers cite the feeling of being 'on the inside', like sharing opinions with others, and enjoy feeling altruistic. Has Madison Avenue figured out what open source developers knew all along?"

BzzAgent

Epiphany - Keenspace

Well I've moved Epiphany over to the fine folks at Keenspace, check it out and check out a discussion about it at their forums.

Search Engines for Handwritten Documents

"Researchers at the University of Massachusetts have created a tool for automatically searching handwritten historical documents, such as the 140,000 pages that make up George Washington's personal papers in the Library of Congress. The most interesting part is that the papers are scanned versions of the originals and the search tool actually recognizes the handwritten text from these images."

http://ciir.cs.umass.edu/research/wordspotting

FACT Act - Free Credit Reports

"Under the terms of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions (FACT) Act, passed last year, and amid growing concerns over privacy and disclosure of sensitive financial data, the three leading credit reporting agencies must provide consumers with a free summary once a year of all credit information on file for that person. Consumers in 13 Western states will be able to grab free online copies of their credit reports starting Wednesday."

http://www.annualcreditreport.com/

The Internet...

just creeps you out sometimes. First off, yes I haven't been blogging lately, it's due to a combination of things. 1) Halo 2 (damn you!) 2) Getting other crap done (Rose, Epiphany web stuff) 3) Work 4) Holiday's, all of these things I'm sure most of you are dealing with in some shape or form. Anyway, the reason I'm writing this is I'm currently (well not currently) watching my parents living room in "virtual tour" mode being transmitted via the interimweb. It's just a wacky thing to see, my parents house (which they are selling after 27 years of living there) all done up in fancy 360 degrees form. My parents officially put the house on the market about 3 days ago, something that made me happy and sad at the same time. Happy because the new place they are getting will rock, it's brand new, exactly what they want and will be near to us. Sad though because a whole lot of memories have happened in the old house, my entire life that house was the "Kirsten home", but after a couple of months it will be simply a "home". I raise a glass to the old house, hoping that the next lucky group to have it, share the same wonderful memories that she has given us.

For those of you who are interested in checking out (or heck buying!) the Kirsten homestead:

http://www.realtor.com/Prop/1042841807?lnksrc=00045