Into the Void

RPS - 15

This is an extreme version of Rock-Paper-Scissors. There are fifteen hand gestures, each of which wins over seven gestures and loses to seven gestures. With that many gestures, there is only a one-in-fifteen chance of a tie.

Via the Daily Nugget.

Technorati: extreme+sports rock+paper+scissors

About a year ago there was a video circulating on the net about a computer game. You all know I’m too boring for computer games, but this one had a tie-in with physical, cultural and technological evolution. You can’t beat that.

[The name, Leslie, tell them the name!] The game is called Spore. Better pre-order that puppy. It’s going to sell out fast.

You know you want it. If you think you don’t want it, go grab another can of Monster, sit your hyper little butt down and watch the 36-minute video below. In the video, developer Will Wright demonstrates an alpha version of Spore at the 2005 Game Developer’s Conference. You’ve never seen anything like this before!

So why is so cool about Spore? Well, you get to design one-celled organisms. The fun is in configuring your creations and watching them feed and grow and evolve. Give them a new limb, watch them figure out how to use it, that is, watch the software figure out how to use it! Put them together, watch them build a community, watch them build a nation. Give them technology and they’ll incorporate it into their culture.

Plus the game is published by Electronic Arts, the folks who brought us The Sims. These guys have been creating games since Commodore 64 days. I can’t remember being this psyched over a silly computer game. I pre-ordered it and am waiting waiting waiting impatiently for the release date.

Technorati: evolution Geekess Spore The+Sims Will+Wright

I think I’ll name my next dog
“Hash: b2e189abf85e809a51522cdb0e53083a”

I found Don Park’s site (see below, Identicons) while searching for 2D barcodes such as ShotCode and QRCode. Once I get everything tagged, life is going to be much simpler.

:-)

Ok, so Don had links to some other fun icon sites, and I’d like to share them.

This one, created in php by Charles Dark of Visual Consumption, uses the same concept but a different implementation to build a colorful 9-code “Visiglyph” of your IP address.

This avatar, also based on IP address, can be found at planetOzh. I like mine. It’s purple.

And here’s your identicon:

Technorati: Visiglyph Identicon security tech

Don Parks Daily Habit - Visual Security: 9-block IP Identification

An interesting site I came across a few weeks ago, lost, then found again.

Look, I’m beautiful! Uh, well, at work anyway. My identicon at home looks like one of the bugs from the movie “Starship Troopers.”

Update: Since you wondered…

Music Download: Red Bird & the Meatheads

Got an mp3 in an email from a friend the other day. As you can see above, Windows Media Player made an excellent visualization for the song, which is called Red Bird & the Meatheads.

it is about my birds. he would like me to tell you that the goofy voices are his singing what the birds yak. he does a good job. i am serious when i tell you that any resemblance to a parody of bob dylan is unintentional. it is magic, this song. i really believe that. he did it in twenty minutes & i– & this is me, remember, hyper-critical & knowledgeable about every perfect thing– i have rarely heard anything this accomplished done in even twenty hours or twenty days. me, i am yakking myself too much, so i will just send the mp3.

he would like me to tell you it is called “red bird & the meatheads.”

Technorati: music, mp3

Ok, so they’re not flowers, they’re lemniscates.

If you are using IE 5.01 Service Pack 2 (SP2) or later and the Microsoft Office 2003 Web Components, you can play with this interactively by clicking on the flower. IE may give you a security warning. Apparently IE doesn’t trust Excel.

The equation is
ampl + PM * SIN(petals * theta) ^ exp

Where
Petals is the number of petals in the lemniscate,
PM is +1 or -1,
ampl is a unit to add to the SIN function
and exp is an exponent
theta is the angle - you can’t change this.

Try the following data:

Have fun!

pupsam_selfkisss_diaporama

Surfing the ‘net and came across this wonderful set of photos in which photographers show their imagination and Photoshop skills by creating an picture of themselves kissing themselves, hence “Selfkisss.” [Spelling intentional.]

What is surprising is the range of emotions expressed in the photos, and how true the photographers/artists were to themselves in creating a fanciful moment of self-love.

‘The marvellous thing about a photograph is that it captures a glance, a gesture, a moment, fleeting reality, the wellspring of emotion.
However, what is presented here does not exist, never existed and will never exist.
But through technical mastery, one stands before it, like a aerialist on his wire, in unstable balance between “I believe it” and “I do not believe it.”‘
– Louis Samaria
[ Originally en français, Leslie’s unskilled translation]

Photoshop Self Love

VODKA - p.i.n.k. Spirits - Vodka Infused With Caffeine and Guarana - Mixed Drinks - P.I.N.K.

My shrink recommended I try a new beverage called “P.I.N.K.” Well, I think he was recommending it. I didn’t exactly get stern warning out of the conversation. I picked up a bottle today and brought a sip or two to enjoy while I polished up a couple blog entries for publication.

Errrrr, well, it was actually more like a mug of the stuff. The mug shown in the picture is the Pendulum Resources mug available at the The Bipolar Planet® Manic Mall.

So what the heck is P.I.N.K.? Well, it’s 80 proof vodka from the Nederlands pumped up with guarana and caffeine, the equivalent of 1/2 can of Red Bull per 1-1/2 oz. shot, but without the awful sweet vitamin-y taste. It is very expensive at $45 per bottle, very trendy, trés chic, and utterly unremarkable tastewise. The liquid isn’t colored pink, only the bottle.

This stuff must have been created with the manic in mind.

Count me in.

P.I.N.K pink vodka guarana energy drink vodka caffeinated vodka Red Bull manic Red Bull Bipolar Planet

Mr. X was asking about his favorite DOS-based Doubles Pinochle program again. I was unable to get it running under either Win2000 Pro or WinXP Pro SP2 - it looked as if it were grabbing the fonts with the wrong character size. I had given up on it, but Mr. X is really into pinochle.

So here it is, 3AM, and DPIN is running under Windows 98 in a VMWare virtual machine. If I didn’t have bouts of insomnia I’d never get anything important done!

Incidentally, Kubrick looks hideous in a 640×480x16 window. But it was usable enough to enable me to write the first draft of this post. Good deal.

VMWare virtual machine pinochle kubrick Windows 98