Old Ministry song. (Gawd, I guess about 20 years old now. Feels like yesterday.) (Not an official video, of course.)
I guess metal is for angry people, like blues/country is for sad people. Of course it does not mean you're angry or sad all the time.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Numbers are fascinating
Numbers are fascinating. The difference between a million, a billion, and a trillion is huge, but it's just abstract to most of us. As an illustration, it's said that Michael Jordan makes more per day than many people make per year, and yet if he saved everything for five hundred years, he would still not be as rich as Bill Gates is now. Astounding.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
World's biggest self-portrait
World's biggest self-portrait, "drawn" with GPS over several continents.
It's not clear to me how he made commercial airplane pilots take their planes in curved and curly paths over the ocean.
Pascal said:
Yeah, suuuure. An airliner actually went from the eastern tip of Brazil, flew south-east far over the ocean, then turned back in a loop, and nobody got fired because of the useless fuel consumption, delays in passengers trips, and disregard for very carefully optimized flight plans in these financial crisis times?
A likely story!
If ANY airliner had made that loop-de-loop [at the nostril] over Lebanon, I think I would definitely have heard about it. Especially if the very same plane, flying as if to spy on our fine touchy homeland's military secrets from above, also passed over Israel in the same go.
[...]
Reminds me of this story I heard on the TV news a couple of weeks ago:
"Another danger of global warming : experts worried that the multiplication of wind farms might end up slowing the planet's rotation, from opposing all that atmospheric motion."
Good grief. And if we tore down a mountain it would speed up the planet's rotation?
Anyway, it's looking like this "big drawing" is just a sham. Although a surprisingly carefully constructed one. It's a pity some people think it's great fun to make fools of others. That's rather low, I think.
It's not clear to me how he made commercial airplane pilots take their planes in curved and curly paths over the ocean.
Pascal said:
Yeah, suuuure. An airliner actually went from the eastern tip of Brazil, flew south-east far over the ocean, then turned back in a loop, and nobody got fired because of the useless fuel consumption, delays in passengers trips, and disregard for very carefully optimized flight plans in these financial crisis times?
A likely story!
If ANY airliner had made that loop-de-loop [at the nostril] over Lebanon, I think I would definitely have heard about it. Especially if the very same plane, flying as if to spy on our fine touchy homeland's military secrets from above, also passed over Israel in the same go.
[...]
Reminds me of this story I heard on the TV news a couple of weeks ago:
"Another danger of global warming : experts worried that the multiplication of wind farms might end up slowing the planet's rotation, from opposing all that atmospheric motion."
Good grief. And if we tore down a mountain it would speed up the planet's rotation?
Anyway, it's looking like this "big drawing" is just a sham. Although a surprisingly carefully constructed one. It's a pity some people think it's great fun to make fools of others. That's rather low, I think.
Fall of the towers (updated 3)
Traces of big amounts of special explosive have been found in the ruins of the WTC. In other words, clear evidence that they were demolished and didn't fall because of the planes.
From email:
One question: what kind of tv-show it this where the scientist is interviewed?
Is that private, state, illegal? It looks like a normal tv-show on the normal tv.
This would be impossible in France.
No national TV would broadcast such a program.
Even mentioning the issue is kind of forbidden. A quite famous star making one-man-show humor, Jean-Marie Bigarre, has endorsed this view casually on a radio-show on a very widely listened to radio, Europe 1. He spoke less than a minute, maybe 30 secs. Since then he is excluded from that radio station, on decision of one of the leaders. And actually there is a real silence around him.
This is when I started to seriously consider that this version may be true...
(Yes, it was a normal Danish national TV show, I think.) This is amazing, France is not exactly known to care deeply about the reputation of the US establishment. I guess it illustrates how frightening the idea of an "insider job" is. (By the way, just stating the idea that the towers were demolished is not the same as saying that the US government were behind it. It is just saying that we don't know the full truth.)
Update: many interesting data in this film.
And another film.
"Journalists said 'why are you not wanting Bin Laden for 9/11?' and FBI said: 'we just don't have the evidence'."
This is very well-produced film.
Did you know that the fire was no worse than some people managed to get down from above the impact site? They have an interview with one of them.
Why did all three buildings fall at virtually free fall speed? That should be impossible.
Why was there molten metal under the rubble of all three buildings? No fire does that.
Why were none of the airplanes intercepted by military planes, like is standard procedure?
On 9.12.2001, the Attorney General announced to the world that a passport from one of the highjackers had been found in the street. A small paper object had survived a crash and fire which was claimed to have brought down the largest buildings in the world? What more evidence do you need that they will not hesitate to lie?
From email:
One question: what kind of tv-show it this where the scientist is interviewed?
Is that private, state, illegal? It looks like a normal tv-show on the normal tv.
This would be impossible in France.
No national TV would broadcast such a program.
Even mentioning the issue is kind of forbidden. A quite famous star making one-man-show humor, Jean-Marie Bigarre, has endorsed this view casually on a radio-show on a very widely listened to radio, Europe 1. He spoke less than a minute, maybe 30 secs. Since then he is excluded from that radio station, on decision of one of the leaders. And actually there is a real silence around him.
This is when I started to seriously consider that this version may be true...
(Yes, it was a normal Danish national TV show, I think.) This is amazing, France is not exactly known to care deeply about the reputation of the US establishment. I guess it illustrates how frightening the idea of an "insider job" is. (By the way, just stating the idea that the towers were demolished is not the same as saying that the US government were behind it. It is just saying that we don't know the full truth.)
Update: many interesting data in this film.
And another film.
"Journalists said 'why are you not wanting Bin Laden for 9/11?' and FBI said: 'we just don't have the evidence'."
This is very well-produced film.
Did you know that the fire was no worse than some people managed to get down from above the impact site? They have an interview with one of them.
Why did all three buildings fall at virtually free fall speed? That should be impossible.
Why was there molten metal under the rubble of all three buildings? No fire does that.
Why were none of the airplanes intercepted by military planes, like is standard procedure?
On 9.12.2001, the Attorney General announced to the world that a passport from one of the highjackers had been found in the street. A small paper object had survived a crash and fire which was claimed to have brought down the largest buildings in the world? What more evidence do you need that they will not hesitate to lie?
Friday, April 10, 2009
Connalli photography
Connalli photography.
Apropos "over-cooked" (over-saturated and over-processed photos). And over-sugared.
Apropos "over-cooked" (over-saturated and over-processed photos). And over-sugared.
Beardyman does a thing
Beardyman does a thing. (I didn't embed it because it needs HD.)
The sounds that man can make with his mouth. Who needs a music studio when you have your mouth and a Kaoss Pad (whatever that is)?
(It does seem that none of the sounds are made by a synth or recorder, all by him, incredible as it sounds.)
His Kitchen Diaries is worth a revisit.
The sounds that man can make with his mouth. Who needs a music studio when you have your mouth and a Kaoss Pad (whatever that is)?
(It does seem that none of the sounds are made by a synth or recorder, all by him, incredible as it sounds.)
His Kitchen Diaries is worth a revisit.
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Dog food conspiracy?
Did you know that the big "dog food conspiracy" is killing all our dogs? Apparently!!
What this looks like to me is another person making money off people's fears.
I know that kind of web page, I have studied how they are done, and I have seen so many of them. The simple text, speaking to people's emotions... Lots of bold type... Lost of red and yellow text... Lots of call to action... Lots of blaming a conspiracy so he can rescue you... Lots of hard sell... Lots of bullet lists and graphics... And collecting email addresses from those not ready to give up hard cash up front. You don't need all these things for giving people information, you only need it for selling things to them.
You push all the reader's buttons about their love for their pet and their fears for their pet, and then they're ready to think "well, forty-seven dollars is not a lot to save the life of my beloved dog! I would be a monster to try to save that money! And look, it's discounted, it's marked down from seventy-seven dollars! I better buy now!"
This is e-books, there is no cost to sell them. (Although obviously he does not really push that point a lot, if people don't realize it's not a paper book so much the better.) If he is really doing this out of concern for other people's dogs, why isn't he selling them for five dollars? Or giving the info for free and take donations to cover costs? I'm sure if his info is that revolutionary, he would get tons of donations from grateful pet owners.
What this looks like to me is another person making money off people's fears.
I know that kind of web page, I have studied how they are done, and I have seen so many of them. The simple text, speaking to people's emotions... Lots of bold type... Lost of red and yellow text... Lots of call to action... Lots of blaming a conspiracy so he can rescue you... Lots of hard sell... Lots of bullet lists and graphics... And collecting email addresses from those not ready to give up hard cash up front. You don't need all these things for giving people information, you only need it for selling things to them.
You push all the reader's buttons about their love for their pet and their fears for their pet, and then they're ready to think "well, forty-seven dollars is not a lot to save the life of my beloved dog! I would be a monster to try to save that money! And look, it's discounted, it's marked down from seventy-seven dollars! I better buy now!"
This is e-books, there is no cost to sell them. (Although obviously he does not really push that point a lot, if people don't realize it's not a paper book so much the better.) If he is really doing this out of concern for other people's dogs, why isn't he selling them for five dollars? Or giving the info for free and take donations to cover costs? I'm sure if his info is that revolutionary, he would get tons of donations from grateful pet owners.
Overcooking
Mike J on overcooking photos (and vegetables).
He has other good articles on that site, including this one about viewing distances (from a print).
The demand for resolution does not increase proportionally with print size, for instance, because you tend to view larger prints from further away.
He has other good articles on that site, including this one about viewing distances (from a print).
The demand for resolution does not increase proportionally with print size, for instance, because you tend to view larger prints from further away.
Why have micropayments failed?
For the past fifteen years, ever since the World Wide Web hid mainstream consciousness, it's been predicted by many, including myself, Guy Kawasaki, usability guru Jakob Nielsen, and writer Scott McCloud, that micropayments would become the next big thing... any day now... just wait and see...
It hasn't happened.
Micropayments is the idea that you click on something and you buy a song or a picture or whatever for download, for a small amount, like five cents, twenty cents or fifty cents. This is not practical with credit card payments since the fee is more than fifty cents. (I think iTunes works because most people buy more than one song at a time.)
For a couple of years there was a pretty good system called BitPass, which I used. The buyer went to their site and bought "units" which then could be spent in small amounts on sites which used the system. Guy Kawasaki was involved with them. And I think I was their biggest vendor until they went bust.
My experience with that system gave me a clue as to why micropayments have not taken off: when I sold twenty pictures for fifty cents, I had some sales, but when I sold four hundred pictures for ten dollars, I sold more! It was the same price per picture, but people wanted to buy the larger amount at a time.
So what I'm wondering is if we are wrong in only considering the pain of spending money, but not also the pleasure of spending money. Spending fifty cents is exciting for a child, but for an adult it has to be five or ten dollars to give a kick.
Maybe instead it is the amount of content which you get that is the important bit. But maybe not. Think about it: say you're looking at a painted plaster souvenir in a shop. It's priced at ten dollars. If you like it, you buy it. But if it's priced at five cents, it's clearly junk! You don't bother.
It's a different matter if we are talking about things we actually need. We buy them regardless. But things you can buy via download are mostly things we could do fine without, so the value is all in the mind. And so what value we attach to it is influenced by the price. And so things priced less than a dollar are "worthless", and so micropayments have not attracted enough attention to go mainstream.
It hasn't happened.
Micropayments is the idea that you click on something and you buy a song or a picture or whatever for download, for a small amount, like five cents, twenty cents or fifty cents. This is not practical with credit card payments since the fee is more than fifty cents. (I think iTunes works because most people buy more than one song at a time.)
For a couple of years there was a pretty good system called BitPass, which I used. The buyer went to their site and bought "units" which then could be spent in small amounts on sites which used the system. Guy Kawasaki was involved with them. And I think I was their biggest vendor until they went bust.
My experience with that system gave me a clue as to why micropayments have not taken off: when I sold twenty pictures for fifty cents, I had some sales, but when I sold four hundred pictures for ten dollars, I sold more! It was the same price per picture, but people wanted to buy the larger amount at a time.
So what I'm wondering is if we are wrong in only considering the pain of spending money, but not also the pleasure of spending money. Spending fifty cents is exciting for a child, but for an adult it has to be five or ten dollars to give a kick.
Maybe instead it is the amount of content which you get that is the important bit. But maybe not. Think about it: say you're looking at a painted plaster souvenir in a shop. It's priced at ten dollars. If you like it, you buy it. But if it's priced at five cents, it's clearly junk! You don't bother.
It's a different matter if we are talking about things we actually need. We buy them regardless. But things you can buy via download are mostly things we could do fine without, so the value is all in the mind. And so what value we attach to it is influenced by the price. And so things priced less than a dollar are "worthless", and so micropayments have not attracted enough attention to go mainstream.
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
hid cam
Hidden camera with a bi' of nudity. Some are good fun.
... but how it irritates me that such shows add those idiotic sounds and music. Braindead. It's like hitting the audience over the head with a hammer, "it's comedy, it's comedy, it's comedy!!!!!" (In these cases I just turn the sound on the video down to zero, since there's no information given anyway.)
It's a Ukrainian TV show. I must say they are making good use of the gorgeous Ukrainian girls. Wooo boy.
... but how it irritates me that such shows add those idiotic sounds and music. Braindead. It's like hitting the audience over the head with a hammer, "it's comedy, it's comedy, it's comedy!!!!!" (In these cases I just turn the sound on the video down to zero, since there's no information given anyway.)
It's a Ukrainian TV show. I must say they are making good use of the gorgeous Ukrainian girls. Wooo boy.
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