Mannequin Hand Towels

Courtesy of this website, I have stumbled across the hilarious video embedded below. It's amusing that the guys always went for the woman's chest, and I think that the final driers out of both the males and females (the guy who offers a kiss of farewell and the girl who isn't shy to grab) would get along well together.

The "Talking" Cats

The below two videos are taken from an Amazing Planet article that I stumbled across. Amusing AND cute. Beat that.



Translation:

Mathemagics

Nearly as stunning as The Boy With the Incredible Brain is the "lightening calculations" of Arthur Benjamin, so-called Mathemagician.

The Chimp Challenge

Apparently, chimpanzees have a photographic memory of sorts. Once a chimpanzee was taught to touch numbers on a screen in ascending order, they were able to recall the locations of numbers momentarily flashed with far more accuracy than humans. You just try to perform on par with the chimp in the video embedded below.



Frankly, it's somewhat embarrassing. Oh, well. Let's see a chimp write a Blogger article. Ha!

Read more.

The Rise of Hackers

Embedded below is a fun and fascinating documentary on the origins of hacking, from phone phreaks, to computer mod-hacking, and finally to cyber-hacking.



Note: No rich individuals' profits were harmed in the posting of this video.

Out-Inventing Ourselves

I recently have come across a superb documentary on Google Video (really the only thing I use that somewhat drab service for) discussing the potential of artificial intelligence, both in enhancing humans, and in replacing them (see it embedded below).

This documentary, entitled "Horizon - Human Version 2.0" by BBC discusses the eventual "singularity", or point at which our understanding of the human brain and capabilities of computer processing power will converge to allow us to "download" ourselves, that is, our brains, into computers. It is a truly fascinating documentary and I highly recommend watching it.



Read more.

I've long been fascinated by this concept--could computers gain sentience, and if they could, should we allow them to? The documentary suggests that it is inevitable; if something can be created, it will be. Perhaps this is so, and perhaps not, but regardless of which direction the future takes it, I would personally love to see sentient computers. Why? Well, aside from the "cool" factor, I believe that it could go a long ways towards making life better for humanity. Imagine--a computer sentience that ruled humanity, giving perfect laws and directions and flawless judgment to those who deserve such. The world could be one of absolute peace.

Basically, the same thing that was discussed in I, Robot (the movie), but taken from the angle of a digital ruler being a good thing, rather than a bad one. Of course, there is always the question of whether or not we will be seen as pests and disgusting embarrassments to this creature, or perhaps adorable animals to be protected, as we often see dogs and cats. One cannot truly say which direction the future will take, but as I see it, we will either be destroyed by either one another or time, anyway. Why not make the gamble of creating something that could live beyond we, ourselves?

Though I wouldn't mind living in a virtual world where things just went my way. That would be something to die for, in a very literal manner.

Typing on Typography

Why is it that it seems I am always the last to be privy to various new (and old) creations of quality and value? Only just today, while glancing through the related links on YouTube for Abbot and Costello's Who's On First, I came across a related video of "Who's on First? Typography" (see below).



I was stunned. This animated digital typography is genius--artistic and amusing. Recently, I completed a design class in the college I attend, and one of those projects consisted of a typography project. I understood the basics of such, but these kinds of videos take it to a whole new level. I never fully understood the artistic value until now, and combined with something already hilarious, such as Who's on First, or Tenacious D's Inward Singing (below), the result is not only comedic stimulation for the ears, but also for the eyes. Absolute genius.



See here for more.

On an unrelated note, expect more updates as college is now out for the remainder of the year (that is, until January 15th).

Life Over Lucre

I'm reminded of how previous work of mine has been lost through the tests of time, so I decided that I will intermittently post some old work that I feel is worth remembering. My latest website, created for a project in college, is called Life Over Lucre. It's not a real organization, but it is devoted to the lobbying for free universal healthcare in South Dakota (my home state). I'm quite proud of how the design turned out, and I think the name is just downright clever.

Olympus!

For those savvy in the areas of Internet forum technology, phpBB is probably no stranger to you. For the rest, phpBB is a free, open-source forum software that is my personal favorite to use. It is flexible and boasts many features, yet has no price attached, while many rivals, such as vBulletin, require a great deal of money in order to purchase a "license." On the other hand, vBulletin, among others, have more features than phpBB. Thankfully, there are clever "hackers" that allow bits of code to add new features to phpBB, bringing it more or less on par with its rivals, if not beyond.

But I digress. The point is, as of today, the long-awaited phpBB 3 "Olympus" has been released. This means advanced features and security are now fully-supported and ready to be modified by the users, as opposed to the prior release candidates, which would change so often that one didn't really have a chance to play with the code.

I applaud phpBB's hard-working build team and look forward to more innovations from them.