Google search results for “KH(Ax)N” for x=1 to 100

Filed Under Geek on 2009-01-16, 13:30 | Leave a Comment

Ever wonder just how many ‘A’s you should be using when searching for one of Captain Kirk’s most famous phrases? Tim has graphed it out for you.

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Tickets for the Swearing In Ceremony of Barack Obama

Filed Under News, Personal on 2009-01-15, 16:59 | Leave a Comment

Just got back from picking up our tickets from Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi’s office. So excited to actually have them in my hands. Only 5 more days!

We’ve got seats in the North Standing (or Purple) area. If we get there early enough we might actually get a decent spot in the center! Here’s a map of the Inauguration “seating” for the different tickets:

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We’re Headed to the Inauguration!

Filed Under News, Personal on 2009-01-14, 20:05 | 1 Comment


image via Flickr

Jan 20th is my birthday and I can’t think of any better present this year than having Barack Obama as President.

I’ve never been much of a political person. I have my own views and opinions, but have never been interested in all the politics. A lot of that changed with this past election. Finally someone I felt could represent most of my interests and outlooks was running, and actually won. On November 4th, I watched Obama give his acceptance speech in a room of friends from all walks that I never thought would be as concerned as they were. Here was an entire generation energized by the potential the Obama represented to all of us.

Fifteen years ago I stood in the cold winter air of Washington D.C. on January 20th to watch Bill Clinton get sworn in. I had just turned 13 years old and did not really understand the significance of the moment. My highlight was having the group of people around us join in a chorus of “Happy Birthday”. However looking back on it, I realize that it meant something to my dad. I can’t speak for him, but I imagine he felt that there was someone taking office that represented him and his generation. It’s my turn for that. Coincidentally my dad will be there too!

So a few days after the election I decided that I wanted to be in D.C. again for another inauguration. We booked flight tickets (after a friend offered us floor space on which to crash) and I drafted an email to Nancy Pelosi requesting the free, but incredibly rare tickets. We had very little hope of actually getting tickets but looked forward to joining millions of people on the mall to experience this historic event. To my surprise a few weeks after I had sent in my request, I received an email from Nancy Pelosi letting me know that she would like to offer me tickets to the event. I was ecstatic.

So on Monday, Heather and I will hop on a flight to D.C. to join an estimated 4 million people for an unprecedented celebration. We’ll probably be spending the night on the floor in a friend’s office, 1 block from the Capitol, getting up early to get through the security checks and into place to wait for the official ceremony at noon and for history to take place. I will be twittering non-stop, and doing my best to take photos as I want to document for myself and I know others are interested in a more personal take on the event. If you’re going too, let me know!

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Dracul: Prince of Fire, a Fire Ballet

Filed Under Art, Fire Art, SF Bay Area on 2009-01-09, 16:44 | Leave a Comment

Last night we gathered with a large number of friends for the second performance of “Dracul: Prince of Fire” at The Crucible. We’ve been to several of the previous fire ballets and knew that the tickets were worth every penny. Apparently so did the rest of the Bay Area as the performance quickly sold out.

For those that aren’t familiar, The Crucible is an Oakland based non-profit organization that encourages collaboration of Arts, Industry and Community through training in the fine and industrial arts. You can take classes there on topics such as welding, neon, jewelry making, wood carving, fire dancing, and more. This fire ballet is a celebration/fund-raiser for their 10th year in existence. With your ticket purchase you will get a wonderful show, plus you’ll be helping a great organization.

The show itself was amazing from start to finish. I’m not a fan of ballet personally, but as readers know, I love me some fire. And there was plenty of fire for the evening. I don’t want to give away any parts of the show, but it had me applauding both the performers as well as the people behind the fabrication. In addition there was a lot of amazing aerial performances as well as humorous nods to popular culture.

I highly recommend going if you get the chance. I would recommend wearing warm clothes however, as it is held inside The Crucible’s warehouse, which is not know for its warmth. People will give you envious looks (rather than weird ones) should you bring a warm blanket. The show runs Jan 7th-10th and Jan 14th-17th. There are still several nights left at varying ticket prices, but they will sell out. For more info, check out the page on The Crucible.

The following trailer for Dracul uses footage from previous performances to give you an idea of what to expect:

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I Spy Eye-Fi for the iPhone

Filed Under Gadgets & Hardware on 2009-01-05, 19:02 | 3 Comments


Say that quickly three times. I love my Eye-Fi card and have since the early days beta-testing it. It makes “downloading” photos easier, parties more fun, and opens up all sorts of new possibilities. I also like my iPhone as well, but I’ve been kind of disappointed with the iPhone apps for instant uploading of photos so far. AirMe tends to crash and loses the photo, Klick adds the wrong location, and sending via email sends a stripped down image. I’m hoping that the new EyeFi app for the iPhone fixes all these issues and becomes my new app of choice for quickly uploading photos to sites like Flickr as well as transferring to my laptop. More info on the new Eye-Fi app being announced at this year’s Macworld is on their site.

via

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Wingsuits and the Crazy BASE Jumpers That Love Them

Filed Under Video on 2009-01-05, 16:38 | Leave a Comment


wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.

There aren’t many videos online that give me goosebumps in a good way. This is one of them. I can watch this over and over and over and still my jaw drops. The clip above is from Matchstick Production’s ski film, “Seven Sunny Days” (trailer). There are a ton of videos out there of people who are BASE jumping with wingsuits. It’s nothing new, but still awe-inspiring. They may not be as fast as a guy with a jet strapped to him, but I’m sure they’re having a ton of fun out there.

Buzzing tourists:
Wingsuit jumping in Switzerland:
And we’ll leave you with the trailer for ‘Learning To Fly’, a film about Chris McNamara’s first year learning to BASE jump:
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An unoccupied derelict’s attempt to communicate

Filed Under Pranks, Scam on 2009-01-05, 14:56 | 2 Comments

Heather received the perplexing email at the end of this post in her inbox a few days ago. I’m not sure what it all means, and I could only find this post on Yahoo! Answers with other people questioning it as well. The email posted there was slightly different in some sentences.

Intelliant (the username in the email address) is a company that provides OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software. Alternatively “IntelliAnt” is another company that provides “end-to-end corporate services focused upon addressing both Business and IT needs of the corporate world”. I doubt either is behind this email though, unless they’re testing OCR software on someone’s scribbled rantings.

Another clue is that all the emails in the To: field were *.edu. The other copy of the email posted on Yahoo! Answers was from “i.love.school@gmail.com” but was addressed to *.edu email addresses as well.

Is it some strange spambot looking for valid emails? Or maybe a spammer trying to craft emails that get past filters? Is it viral marketing? Is it just somebody bored? Anyone have any ideas?

UPDATE: Looks like some people are already on the case and have uncovered a plethora of information related to this interesting email. Head over to tomecatti’s livejournal for more info and enough links to keep you busy until 2010! I haven’t read it all, but there’s a good summary posted in an lj community:

So, about two and a half weeks ago, I got this weird email at my university email account. My first reaction? Post it in my LJ and laugh. Over the next two weeks, that LJ post was flooded with other people who got the email, with interpretations, theories, and sudden paranoia about terrorism. We’ve come to a few conclusions: It’s not Jim Strope, author of the hilarious manifesto Weeping for Narcissus, but it also could be, because Jim is practically giving the culprit head in his denial. It also seems to only be going to people with some association with Colleges; students and faculty members have shown up. We’re also pretty sure that it’s this guy who registers his sites as “Tom Jones”, but is more likely named “Michael” or “The Man Smarter Than Everyone For Seriously You Guys” and wants to make the Borg real.

(warning: All links here may give you a combination headache and lulz, and be packed full of stupid “puzzles”)

Original email that H recieved:

—–Original Message—–
From: intelliant@gmail.com [mailto:intelliant@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, December 28, 2008 12:16 PM
To: [REDACTED]
Subject: An unoccupied derelict’s attempt to communicate

Is it accurate to say that you’re trying to find another human who thinks as you do? If not, there is no need to read further as it means that those who think just like you are already around you.

You must wish to force all people to adopt your views. Or does it appeal to you more to promote imbecility?

I was planning to get married this year since it would have increased the tax refund. They told me a marital union should be about love. They had no interest in acting as allies.

They think the most wonderful thing is to find what you enjoy doing. This is self-deception. Perhaps one twentieth of today’s GDP would suffice to live luxuriously by historical standards.

People ask how I make ends meet as I rarely work. I question why they compensate skillful liars by donating to the movie industry. Why do they crave after cars and private property? Is it not apparent that they admire traveling only as long as it’s highly regarded by the general populace?

They’re confident that society can’t change. But as children, they dreamt about omniscience, perfect relationships, and utopias. We are still that impressionable. We’ll build a society based on rational thinking.

Don’t reply to this message as we will not read it. Use the best internet search engine to search these words.

arrogant teenage expectation intelligence students
light philosophy strategy ideology logic
distilled pure general design insecure
terrestrial personality intolerant delectable defiance
conspiracy social spiritual art traits
indoctrination innovative Borg monomania clandestine

Search for three words at a time for best results. Hence, there are a very large number of possible searches, so only the fanatical will succeed.

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New Year’s Eve at the Blogger Bungalow

Filed Under Personal, SF Bay Area on 2009-01-01, 22:19 | 3 Comments


photo by Violet Blue(?)

When it came time to decide where we were going to spend the evening welcoming 2009, it was a tough choice. There were things happening all over the Bay Area, but not wanting to do the “party circuit” we decided we had to pick one. Enticed by interesting hosts/guests, technology, and gift bags compliments of Good Vibrations, we got dressed, touched up the red in the hair, and headed over to Violet Blue’s Blogger Bungalow for her New Year Party.

The party wasn’t just for invited guests though, as she had all sorts of live-blogging technology setup in order to share our celebration with everyone online. There was an Eye-Fi enabled camera circulating around the guests where photos were instantly uploaded to the Blogger Bungalow Flickr account. There was a Macbook on the table next to the absinthe and chips logged into a WordPress blog and 12seconds.tv. Guests were encouraged to post on either of the sites, and some of us took 12 seconds in between conversations to record silly videos. We stayed up until the wee hours of the morning talking tech, sex, art, and culture. There was even time for some late night Twitter-nanigans.

In addition to the Eye-Fi camera, Scott Beale of Laughing Squid also took some photos, and I grabbed a few with my iPhone. I’m sure there are tons of other photos, tweets, and blog posts if I can just try to remember the names of all the wonderful people I met….

Hope everyone out there had a safe and enjoyable celebration and is looking forward to this new year as much as I am! Have a great 2009!

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Year-End Travel Meme Time

Filed Under Personal on 2009-01-01, 18:29 | 2 Comments

List the towns or cities (I’m including National Parks too) where you spent at least a night away from home during 2008. Mark with a star if you had multiple non-consecutive stays.

Monterey, CA *
Lewisville, NC
Santa Barbara, CA *
Olema, CA
Seattle, WA
Black Rock City, NV
Cedar City, UT
Bryce Canyon National Park, UT
Loa, UT
Goblin Valley National Park, UT
Moab, UT
Las Vegas, NV *
Hollywood, CA
Miami, FL
New York, NY
Chicago, IL
Yosemite National Park, CA
Los Angeles, CA
Joshua Tree National Park, CA

Want the full details? Here’s my Dopplr profile

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How To Pronounce Labret and More Fun Facts

Filed Under Body Modification, Education on 2008-12-29, 10:00 | 2 Comments

A common misconception about the popular below-the-lip piercing is how it’s pronounced. I can’t count the number of times that I’ve heard people say “It’s French, the ‘t’ is silent!”. Consider this your Body Mod Public Service Announcement for the day. The ‘t’ is pronounced. It’s not French, it actually comes from Latin: labrum meaning “lip”, and -et meaning “something worn on”.

If you’re interested in more information on the labret piercing, ModBlog (aka BMEZine, one of my favorite sites) has an article and even a wiki page. Did you know that the labret is part of cultures in Alaska, South America, Africa, and even ancient Babylonia?

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