Giving for the Holidays Through "First Giving"

Though I'm not overly sentimental about the holiday season, I do recognize and support efforts to be more universally generous. It has a great impact, even if but for a short amount of time. It is a shame that we tend to only recognize how little others have in a time when we end up spending the most money on gifts that end up in the backs of closets and in storage.

Either way, I've been thinking about having people donate money to charity rather than give me presents for Christmas for years, but it's one of those "next year" tasks that didn't seem like it would ever get done.

Well, this year it's going to happen, in large part to my friend, Maria, who posted a link to a site that allows you to set up a personal web page where people can donate sort of directly to you, and the money raised ends up going to the charity. Thank you, Maria.

Gifts are fine, in my book, but I've reached a point in my life where I have just about everything I could ever need or want and would rather see that money go to a cause that might save someone's life.

The site is First Giving, and it has a fairly simple user interface, so I was able to be up and running in a matter of minutes. Now all I have to do is get the word out to people, which is what I'm trying to do now! You can visit my personal page, which has been set up to donate to the American Cancer Society.

Like I say on the page itself, very few people go through life without being affected in some way by cancer, so I thought it would be a sort of universal cause to pick for a charity. I have lost family members to cancer, and recently, but so have millions of other people, so it behooved me to choose the ACS. I didn't set a goal, and I don't want to be presumptuous and self-important, but donate if you can. If you can't, try to do something else to give back.

Even if you don't feel comfortable giving to the ACS, think about picking up a toy to donate to 'Toys for Tots' or participate in a holiday food drive. That's all. I just wanted to get the message out there. Thanks so much.

Bill Bryson - Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid

I just finished reading 'The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid', which is by far one of the most entertaining and yet informative memoirs I have ever read. It was written by Bill Bryson, and its greatest accomplishment IMHO is recreating the world of the 1950s in the Midwest of America so that I felt as thought I was there, or at least could have been there.

I am generally enamored of all of Bryson's works, and, though this work ranks up there, it is hardly my favorite. I am extremely partial to A Walk in the Woods, for example. It has lit a fire under me, has made me think that someday even I could hop on the Appalachian Trail and experience its singular wonder.

If you get a chance, check out, rent, borrow, buy, or steal(just kidding) one of Bryson's works. If you're too lazy to do it yourself, here is Amazon's Bill Bryson page. Take a gander at it.

Protocast 1: Netflix/PS3, MoH, Horror Movies, Lost, Fringe, and Dollhouse.

Here is the first 'Protocast'. I discuss a lot of stuff, but mostly I stick to horror/scifi, so beware. 25 min.

My Podcast Alley feed! {pca-8cb5dfbd206bb8a064595abcc5e3f622}

The History of Data Storage

Geekologie has posted a wonderful "history" of data storage, from floppy disks to flash drives. It's really amazing to see just how quickly we've come in such a short amount of time. Even as I type this, I feel like it's already out of date.

Animatronic Head

I really, honestly have to admit that this is by far one of the creepiest videos I've posted on the blog in a while. Technology is truly getting out of hand when the animatronic heads we produce look real, and not real in that "banana" flavor we get in candy, but real in a real way, like in the video above. It's only :20 long, but it's quite haunting to see that we've reached the point that we can duplicate humanity with such ease. Blech.

Half-Life 2 Casting

I have been oddly obsessed with the world of 'Half-Life' for the last couple of weeks. It's not as though I have a reason to. I haven't been playing the games, not any one of them. I haven't so much as thought about the games, really, but I keep running across creative depictions of the game(s), so I feel obliged to blog about them. Hmmm.

Bill Bryson's Notes From a Large Hadron Collider

I have been obsessed with Bill Bryson's books for the last several months, so occasionally I'll enter his name into the Google News search engine and see what's happening with the country's favorite travelogue writer from across the pond-slash-Iowa. Today I found the following morsel of writing.

From The Times Online:

In the event that it fell to you to identify the most exciting place on the planet, the likelihood is small, I imagine, that you would pack a bag and travel at once to Switzerland. Still less, I dare say, would you turn your back on Geneva and head out past its western suburbs and into the pleasant but uneventful countryside beyond. There, in a broad valley shared with France, stands a collection of buildings that look like the leftovers from a 1960s Festival of Bad Design.

This is it. You have found it. This is CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research. Over the next few days the people who run the place will cautiously restart the immensely large machine (almost 27 kilometres around) known as the Large Hadron Collider and begin swooshing particles around it in a way that will, when it is fully humming, recreate conditions as they were in the Universe one millionth of a millionth of a second after the beginning of the big bang.

Read the entire article here.

Half-Contra

This is a mod - of sorts - that approximates Contra re-made in Half-Life, with pretty awesome level design and all of the sound effects you know and love from Contra.

Google Banning Scammy Advertisements

From Consumerist:

At last, someone has taken a stand against the tooth whitener ad menace. It's no tiny or obscure ad network: it's Google. The company has decided to live up to its "don't be evil" motto and ban advertisers who place ads that lead to sites peddling products like scammy free trials, get-rich-quick schemes, and malware. Previously, they would ban individual ads, but not advertisers.

Harlan Ellison Discussing the Inception of Scientology

Scooby Doo Zombie Tee

Over at Threadless, you can find this awesome take on Scooby Doo (in the time of the zombie apocalypse). Dibs.

Lou Dobbs's $8 Million Buyout

From Think Progress:

Although Lou Dobbs has been saying that his departure from CNN was an “amicable parting on the best of terms,” the New York Post reports that CNN wanted him gone so badly that it gave him an $8 million severance package. Dobbs “had a year and a half to go on his $12 million contract.” He’ll be appearing on Fox News tonight to talk with Bill O’Reilly, who has called the former CNN host a “stand-up guy.”

Just the Deaths, Ma'am. Total Recall in Retrospect

A part of me thinks that I should be horrified by the idea of reducing the entirety of 'Total Recall' down to the deaths. It takes the legs out from under the argument that the violence is a mere adornment to the 'art' that is a film like 'Total Recall'. The early 90s was an awesome time for action films and a murky period for those in favor of free expression. The violence run amok in 'Total Recall' is nearing upon ridiculous. Meh. It's a pretty cool video, and nearly as entertaining as the movie itself, so enjoy.

Mortal Kombat 3 - The Supreme Demonstration

I really miss loving Mortal Kombat 3. Sometimes I wish I could still muster the same kind of enthusiasm for it that I could a decade ago. Good times.

28 Songs. 7 Min 48 Secs. Mario Paint.

I know I've been a little too enamored of showcasing these videos on the blog, but I swear that most of them are worth the watch, including this one. It's a simple trick, and not necessarily deserving of ultimate praise, but I have mucho respect for anyone willing to spend this much time on such outmoded technology to make something so impressive.

And, because I'm on a quest to find the most awesome / weirdest 'Ghostbusters' stuff on the internet, here is the theme on Mario Paint. It's entirely flawed, but I couldn't find a superior version, so here you go.

Alex the Genius Parrot

From NPR:

Alex the famous African gray parrot, renowned for the landmark cognition research conducted by owner Dr. Irene Pepperberg, Ph.D., has died at the age of 31 [2007]. By learning elements of the English language to identify shapes, colors and sizes, Alex shattered the notion that parrots are only capable of mimicking words.

According to Pepperberg who is a faculty member at Brandeis University, Alex was able to identify 50 different objects, seven colors and shapes, and quantities of up to six. Alex also understood the concept of bigger and smaller and same and different. Pepperberg says they were in the midst of learning basic mathematics skills.

Alex the Parrot, An Apt Student, Passes Away

'Daybreakers' Trailer

Lightning May Contain Anti-Matter

From Science News:

Designed to scan the heavens thousands to billions of light-years beyond the solar system for gamma rays, the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has also picked up a shocking vibe from Earth. During its first 14 months of operation, the flying observatory has detected 17 gamma-ray flashes associated with terrestrial storms — and some of those flashes have contained a surprising signature of antimatter.

What is Antimatter? I'm not really sure. But according to Wikipedia,

In particle physics, antimatter is the extension of the concept of the antiparticle to matter, where antimatter is composed of antiparticles in the same way that normal matter is composed of particles. For example, an antielectron (a positron, an electron with a positive charge) and an antiproton (a proton with a negative charge) could form an antihydrogen atom in the same way that an electron and a proton form a normal matter hydrogen atom.

It reminds me of the music scale, where an A# (A-sharp) is also a Bb (B-flat), except antimatter is much more complicated.

[SIGNATURE OF ANTIMATTER DETECTED IN LIGHTNING]
[Antimatter]

An Unexpected Scratch

Running Twice a Day is Beneficial

I had always heard that running twice a day, like lifting weights twice a day, is ultimately bad for you, since the muscles you use need time to rest and rebuild, but apparently that is not true.

According to Runner's World:

By running more often, you reap the same fitness benefits you get when you boost the duration and intensity of any one run: reduced body fat, increased VO2 max, and improved muscle tone. You just get those benefits sooner.

The article stresses that you work in the second daily workout slowly, doing it only twice a week and backing off the length of the original, longer workout so that your body can effectively catch up.

[DOUBLE DUTY: Run twice a day to get stronger and faster—sooner.]

A Letter on Evolution: The 'Religion' of Evolution

My growing fascination with the way we use language, and indeed how it changes, is the impetus behind posting this video...and also its message, I admit.

Language is indeed very powerful and yet something which changes frequently. In microscopic steps, it seems sometimes. An entire debate can hinge - as often the evolution debate does - on semantics, on whether people "believe" in evolution.

And yet, this is how scientists are "losing" this "debate". It's really a non-debate, and scientists aren't losing the debate. They're losing the PR battle. Every year - I won't say every day, though this distinction may be accurate - new evidence solidifying the relative truth of evolution is revealed (as much as anything can be "true").

This is the place where the rub happens. Scientists believe - there's that word again - that nothing can be known in an absolute way. It is not belief, as the video suggests, in a blind sort of way. So that's why there is a "debate".

I could, if I had the time and patience and desire, begin to dispute any number of scientific realities and end up turning the tide on them. That may sound arrogant, but it's not. It's a disparity between the way the two camps discuss the issue. I am no more capable than anyone (who is not a scientist) of disproving scientific data, but since I realize that disputing something in today's world creates a "debate", then I am already halfway to the point of converting people to my side.

Creationists/IDers are just the same as the PR folks who work for cigarette companies. They hire (Read: pay) scientists to say that "there is no known link between cigarettes and cancer". And there are people who say that trans fats actually clear arteries, rather than clog them. That Elvis is still alive. That George Bush was responsible for 9/11.

Babies and Accents

The BBC is reporting on a study conducted on children, to see whether or not they develop accents before they begin speaking.

German researchers say babies begin to pick up the nuances of their parents' accents while still in the womb.

Writing in the journal Current Biology, they say the babies are probably trying to form a bond with their mothers by imitating them.

[Do Babies Have Accents?]

Evil Dead Re-Release

From Geek Tyrant:

Grindhouse Releasing is bringing Sam Raimi’s original horror classic THE EVIL DEAD back to the big screen as a midnight movie.

Raimi and producers Robert Tapert and Bruce Campbell gave the go-ahead for a series of EVIL DEAD revival screenings to Grindhouse Releasing partner Bob Murawski, the film editor of Raimi’s SPIDER MAN 1, 2 & 3, DRAG ME TO HELL and the EVIL DEAD sequel ARMY OF DARKNESS.

I don't think my excitement at this moment can be quantified.

Character Alignment Grid

List of Zombie/Undead-Related Video Games

Thank you Wikipedia:

This is a selected list of video games with an undead theme, containing games featuring undead as the central theme or a major theme. Subjects for an undead theme may include zombies, vampires or ghosts. It also covers werewolves which can be portrayed as allies of the undead.