As I hit publish on my last silly post, I realised I could use the same template for a number of things. Namely:
My wife is . She . When I and it dawned on me **, I wanted to marry her all over again.
Thus:
My wife is amazing. She carried and gave birth to my daughter Amelynne. When I first saw my little girl and it dawned on me that I now have my own clone, I wanted to marry her all over again.
See how that works?
My wife is magical. She made me home-toasted muesli yesterday. When I ate breakfast this morning and it dawned on me that I have maple syrup in my breakfast cereal, I wanted to marry her all over again.
{{< youtube eB3RJ1U_MJA >}}
I’ll be purchasing Caravan Palace ASAP. I’ve found a group that embodies the music I love. Apparently it’s called Electro Swing. I haven’t heard a single one I haven’t liked yet.1
Originally this post had an embedded Grooveshark song or playlist, but I can’t be certain which since Grooveshark isn’t up anymore. Instead I’ve embedded one of their videos. ↩
Such a missed opportunity. Instead they announced some sort of e-reader thing.
There’s this new craze on Twitter1 to get people to ask you questions anonymously and answer them on Twitter or your website. It uses this little site (run by FormSpring.com) called formspring.me to solicit questions, and people derive some amusement from it.
BUT
The day I heard about it, I thought immedaitely of skribit.com which I had only JUST installed on my site a week earlier and does exactly what formspring.me does only prettier, usefull-er and integrated-into-your-site-ier which for me are all important things.
See that little blue tab over there -> ??
That’s the Skribit tab. It says “Suggestions”, but if you hover over it, it says Skribit too! Click it. I dare you. I’ll wait. You can come back by clicking the little (x) in the top right… Go on…
See that form? It lets you ask questions, just like Formspring. It even lets you do it anonimously, just like Formspring. Unlike Formspring, Skribit lets you add tags, follow questions until they’re turned into posts, and generally interract more with the person you’re asking. But it’s not just for anonymous questions. Paul Stamatiou (one of the creators) has been using it on his site since he started building it, and his readers suggest posts then vote on the topics that they want to see him write about, which was the whole reason he made it in the first place. It’s all about curing Writers Block, which I own up to having about 99% of the time2 .
Well Skribit launched at the end of last year! They’ve been open for business for a while now, but they’re pushing to get the word out for twenty-ten3 , and I had to write a post about it so I could tick that off my Skribit to-do list. So if you’re already using Formspring.me (bleh) or just want some feedback from your readers in a way that makes you accountable and helps you keep track of it then you should probably go install it. It keeps out of the way, and it’s kinda pretty. It’s easy to install (there’s a Skribit widget for Wordpress too) and integrates with Twitter and Facebook so your lazy readers don’t even have to log in! If you’re interested try the tour to get a feel for it (or just test it out here), or read about the people who made it
And to my reader(s)4 you can leave me suggestions on what you’d like me to write about, or ask anonymous questions, just like all the cool kids are doing! Try it5!
Of course this post’s disparaging remarks against formspring were not endorsed or condoned by Skribit6 .
I think in the near future there will be docking stations everywhere with a screen and a keyboard. You simply pull out your phone, plug it into the docking station, and instantly all your applications and data are available to you. Chrome, Google Apps, and Android make this vision possible.
via Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing: Google vs Microsoft on the browser, cloud, and mobile platforms.
Dammit! I said this to people 3 years ago. I should have written it down, if only to prove that I’m at least as good at imagining the future as Don Dodge. Of course it might never happen like this, but the thought that 3 years after I first said it, Don Dodge can now see it happening before his eyes at Google is kinda gratifying.
To the rescue by Original by Draken413o
This was a sign used in the Singapore Design Festival 2007, that has somehow made it’s way out into the wild. We need more zones like this marked around Adelaide. Draken413o took this very artistic shot of it.
The next was an entry in a Worth 1000 contest to inject superheroes into well known works of art. I love it.
Superhero ModRen - Starry Knight? by by Smizzle
{{< youtube gnwyxr0UdSU >}}
not visually appealing, but a terrific track
When I find music that I like I can’t let it go until I share it. This is one of those tracks.
{{< youtube tgbNymZ7vqY >}}
This is so great I wanted to laugh and cry. I miss the Muppets so much. Whoever is responsible for their Youtube channel needs to be paid ten times what they are getting, for bringing back the spirit of the Muppets from before Jim died. The last few movies and straight-to-video offerings were quaint and fun, but nothing like what they used to be. Youtube is their new home, and is suits them well.
Bravo! Encore! More! More!
Now I’m rather pleased that I can get myself around Wave, post links to my photos and generally do all the good stuff.
There are however, people of my acquaintance who are a lot more technologically ‘ept’ (it should be a word, you know - the opposite of inept) and have started mucking about under the bonnet of Wave.
One of these is Dave, and the other day he introduced me to a little gadget he calls 5x5. The object of the game is to totally fill the grid with black squares. Clicking on a square results in that square (and those around it as seen in the initial pattern below) toggling its colour. There is a solution in 14 moves.
I’ll hand over to Dave to explain what it is, how it came about, and how it works.
5x5 is a puzzle I first saw as a DOS PC thing back in the late 1980s. I wrote my own version of it back then (just for fun) and, ever since, it’s sort of been my “try a new environment” project. I’ve written versions for DOS, Windows, OS/2, the old Palm Pilot and even for GNU emacs.
Some time back I quickly wrote a HTML/Javascript version so, given that that’s pretty much all a Wave gadget is, I reworked it as a gadget. The main difference with this version is that it’s coded with the state of the game held in the Wave. This means that a) you can always come back to it and it’ll be how you left it and b) everyone who is part of the Wave can see what’s happening and can also make moves.
All you have to do is use the “add a gadget” toolbar button (the one that looks like a green jigsaw) and just input this URL in the dialog that you get: http://serenity.davep.org/5x5/5x5.xml
Hmm - the fun stuff begins!
Oh, and PS … I couldn’t do the puzzle (/grin) not even using Wave’s fabulous “playback” feature!
By now if you’ve been using Wave long enough you should know that a search for [with:public] gets you a big long fast updating list of all the Waves that people have shared with the world. If you’ve been reading the Complete Guide to Google Wave you might know to narrow down the search with tags and terms too.
But were you aware that Local Waves have popped up everywhere as well, and you can find users near you just by plugging your city/suburb into the search (with the public wave search) eg. [with:public city name]. If you can’t immediately find a Wave for your location, you can start one! Just create a crafty title, and make the Wave public. Encourage people who join to mark themselves on a map, and shout out their Twitter/social details for people to connect elsewhere.
Have a tonne of fun, and stay safe!
First, the extension installer gives you an option in your New Wave menu to “Go Trick or Treating”. When you click that, it creates a new wave and inserts a gadget (try clicking around that to see what surprises await). Then, whenever a user types ‘trick or treat’, the robot fetches an image from Google Image Search for either a yummy candy bar, or well, something not that yummy.
From the Google Wave Developer Blog\
No one I know has ever celebrated Halloween (it’s relatively new in Australia), and I say “Bah humbug!” (wrong holiday I know). But for those of you who want to get into the spirit of it (bad pun I know), but don’t want to leave Wave, this might be for you.
I think us Wavers should be worried…
Google Wave – Down for maintenance
So this is what happens when they need to fix something? It’s kinda soothing.
PS. Those clouds move.
{{< youtube W5zJZQjP094 >}}
Watch the Astro Boy trailer on Youtube
I was a fan of the 80’s Astro Boy series, which I’ve begun watching again as a adult. I haven’t ever read the original manga though which I’m sad about. I am a big fan of the robot boy with the rocket legs and the machine-gun butt though so I was stoked to get to see this new CG animated movie version.
I was a little disappointed. It’s a good movie, but it feels like it lost it’s edginess. The original cartoon was creepy at times - a bit dark and disturbing. Maybe things don’t creep me out like they did when I was younger but this felt sugary-sweet and a little to happy. The music was cheesy kid-move fare, and the plot was wrapped up so happily I thought I was going to puke.
Yes it’s a kids movie. Yes it wasn’t pitched at me. But the original cartoon had genuine moments of despair and heartbreak for the characters. Why the makers of this thought that kids couldn’t handle some of those concepts now is beyond me.
The whole thing was a bit too Dreamworks-esque. It borrowed ideas and elements from so many other animated movies (and relied way too much on the so-scared-I-peed-myself gag) it ended up uninspired and dull, instead of exciting and fresh like Astro Boy was when I was a kid.
It’s a standard kids movie: harmless and fun. But it’s not the same Astro Boy of previous incarnations, and it’s not at all challenging or interesting.
This rates stars ★★☆☆☆