ArsGeek

The Get Out Clause are an upcoming UK band who are currently unsigned.  They took a brilliant and I’m sure soon to be much copied method to producing their own video.  Unable to hire a production crew for a standard 1980’s era MTV music video, they performed their music in front of 80 of the 13 million CCTV “security” cameras available in England, including one on a bus.

They then used Britain’s Data Protection Act to request the footage that was shot of them.  Grab some decent and inexpensive video editing tools (say. . . an iMac) and presto!  They got themselves a unique and in my opinion quite interesting music video.

Technorati Tags: brilliant, cctv, nanny state, music, video, technology, big brother

Anyone want to join me in applying for a million dollar grant to establish the link between high end gaming rigs and number of frags?

Technorati Tags: monkey business, obvious, stabby, knife wounds, primate dueling

 Honking reduces time, rids of stress and saves gas! Just don’t do it around the Javits Convention Center or you’ll be fined $350.00

Do you ever walk through a store and some little item that seems so odd yet brilliant catches your eye? Even if you are intrigued you certainly don’t purchase it. I mean how can you explain the buy when you’re only getting it out of curiosity? It’s packaged for really old people!!!

Enter in the “No-Rinse Shampoo/Conditioner Cap”. No, it’s not a shower cap, it’s a shower cap that has a special chemical inside that after 20 seconds in the microwave (or room temperature), you place it on your head, massage your hair for 1-3 minutes depending on length and voila- CLEAN. No rinsing required.

I was both skeptical and impressed so I bought one for $4.99 (I searched it online and found it cheaper). My hair is relatively thick, medium long and colored. If it could pass the test on me, it was a winner.

• Seriously, think of all the possibilities should it work:
  Camping/hiking
• Long trips on planes, trains, cars, space shuttles, buggies, boats, being locked in a trunk…
• Late nights out and you don’t have time for a shower in the morning (pop on the cap and presto- clean hair… just pull it back in a ponytail or use a dab of gel).
• If someone uses the excuse “Sorry, I have to wash my hair…” just toss them a cap and say, “I’ll pick you up at 8!”
• Power outage
• Bed ridden due to illness/broken leg/awesome new video game
• A zombie uprising
• You plan on visiting Chicken, Alaska

The results are in. My picky hair that also has my scalp itchy from most products actually has me feeling refreshed. It seems clean, conditioned and light and I found no hair dye in the cap (which is a good thing!)

Combine this with the No-Rinse Bath Cloths and you can face the apocalypse feeling fresh!

Occasionally I learn something or hear a tidbit of info that makes me smile to myself.  Today’s tidbit was Chicken, Alaska.  No, it’s not a dish and it doesn’t involve heating something frozen, which I imagine happens quite a lot in Alaska.  Chicken is a town.  Full time population of 17 to 37.

So why the heck is it called Chicken?  Why not a nice name, like nearby Eagle.  Eagle always did better in school, was on the track team and lets face it, Mom liked Eagle better than Chicken.  And why can’t Chicken count?  17?  37?

Back in the 1800’s when Alaska was much heavier as it was full of gold, lots of people went up there to deal with this mineral obesity.   While gold is nice to spend and shiny, its pretty tough on folks trying to eat it.  So the locals turned to the (now state) bird the Ptargna. . . the patarma. . .  the Ptarmigan.  This cute fella right here.

By closely watching the habits of this plucky little birds, the miners were able to track down fresh supplies of grain, fruit and other bits of nature’s bounty thereby assuring that they were the first of Alaska’s sandal wearing, whole food eating vegan hippie residents.  Nah, just kidding.  They ate the little suckers.

Eventually 1902 rolled around and they filled the spot to capacity (somewhere between 17 and 37 people?) and had to make it into a town.  They decided on the spot to name it after their favorite foodstuff.  Problem was, no one really knew how to spell  Ptarmigan.  Hell, I can’t spell Ptarmigan and every time you see the word Ptarmigan you can rest assured that it’s a cut/paste from Wikipedia.  Fearing ridicule from the rest of the world, they put between 34 and 74 pairs of eyes to searching for a good name for the place.

When that failed, I’m sure someone half-jokingly said “let’s just call the damned place Chicken and get back to rolling in our gold.”  And that is how Chicken, Alaska came to be a town.

You can visit it today.  In fact, if you’re driving from say. . .  Hell’s Kitchen in New York to Chicken, Alaska - a trip of 4,099 miles, you can use these directions as provided by Google maps.  They’ve got a cafe, a salmon bake and of course, a bar.

Despite my earlier mental picture of the place, the streets ain’t paved with gold.  Or Ptarmigan bones, but rather packed gravel.  And you’ll have to bring your own phones, electricity, internet and bathrooms as Chicken Alaska has none of these things.

Chicken has been thrust squarely into the modern age however, as they have their own website, hosted out side of the town, of course.   Just how squarely into the modern age have they thrusted?  Well, they seem to have landed somewhere between Lynx and the Animated Gif era.  Regardless, I’ve officially added Chicken, Alaska to my list of places I’d like to see before I die.

Technorati Tags: chicken, Alaska, tidbit, factoid, facts, strange, drumsticks

I’ve long tinkered with 3D art, landscapes and figures.  I don’t consider myself an artist but with programs such as Bryce 5.5 I was able to make this:

Not a masterwork by any means, but not bad for someone who’s just tinkering.  A while back I actually shelled out the money for Bryce 5.5 because it was alot of fun to work with. I had a smallish render farm (2 virtual servers at work, 3 laptops and two Lenovo desktops) for building my images.

Now you can enjoy both Bryce 5.5 and DAZ Studio for free!  Go ahead and grab ‘em for Windows.

Technorati Tags: free 3d art software, daz, bryce, computers, artists, technology

SAGA is something of a new concept.  It’s a collectible MMO which charges $19.95 for the game (you can play for free but lots of things are locked).  Or - you can hit FileFront right now and grab one of the 50,000 free registration keys to essentially get this game for free.

Here’s the press release.

For the first time in FileFront history, the Ziff Davis site is offering a full copy of a released game: SAGA, the world’s first collectible MMO RTS. Players have until May 11th to secure one of 50,000 Retail Keys available at http://www.filefront.com. SAGA can normally be purchased for $19.95 from the official SAGA website and at many hobby stores across America.

SAGA uses an innovative collectible revenue model first implemented by the THQ studio Genetic Anomalies in 1997 and now seen in over 120 online collectible games, such as the upcoming EA collectible RTS BattleForge.

SAGA has no subscription fees. Players pay as little or as much as they decide, by purchasing ‘booster packs’ of random troops and spells, which are traded and customized to create the strategic army of choice for each player.

SAGA can be played for free; however, the unregistered free version disables many of the features that players find most attractive in a collectible game. Using the Retail Key from http://www.filefront.com unlocks trading, guilds, espionage and PvP combat.

Technorati Tags: RTS, MMO, CCG er, video game, press release, saga

Click the picture for the full sized version.

As Dawn mentioned earlier, I spent last week in the Dominican Republic, where the Media Queen managed to capture perfectly a typically beautiful sunset.  We can all use sunsets like this now and again, so I’m sharing.

Technorati Tags: photo, art, sunset, dominican republic, picture, pics

No pun intended.  It’s nice to see an artist who really gets it and has the clout and wherewithal to do things their way, on their terms.

Yesterday Nine Inch Nails in the person of Trent Reznor (who’s name I always thought sounded like a hardy German stout. Sorry.) put up a whole brand new album on their site.  The Slip is completely free, as a way of thanks to the fans of NIN, who’ve recently embraced digital distribution and life without a label.

The kicker?  It’s a great album, it’s CC licensed, it’s NIN - there is no kicker!  Go get it!

Technorati Tags: nin, the slip, awesome, artists, who, get, it

I realize this might be a “duh” article yet I’m posting it anyway.

If you’re a website owner or have a profile… any where SiteMeter is tried and true. I’ve had the free/basic service for 8 years now and after trying out other stat keepers, none have measured  up to the information I’ve been able to obtained through SiteMeter.

Useful situations: If you’ve blocked your creepy ex’s e-mail address and can recognize his/her IP from the full header of the message, you can easily see that they’ve been visiting your site, when, what pages and how often they’ve been reading your every word. You can also get a good idea when their IP address has changed and what the new one is to deny access to your site. 

My main purpose is to get an idea of what the people like and why they head my way. So far it’s mainly because of Betta Fish

I’ve tried just about every other service out there and this still remains on top. The logo/stat meter is relatively small and easily hidden within a CSS. I’ve used one for all social networking profiles and my website without needing multiple accounts.

The upgrade price varies depending on page views and can range between $6.95 - $199.95 per month. Give it a chance, try it out for a month and then you’ll see how other trackers just don’t seem to compare; unless of course there’s one that easily does the same thing in such an organized manner with all the perks and is totally free. If you know of one, let me know!

If you’re interested or have an account:
Site Meter news/announcements
http://weblog.sitemeter.com/2008/05/01/beta-test-volunteers/
Beta Test Volunteers?
We would like to begin building a list of 100 brave souls to participate in our upcoming beta test. The testing will require volunteers to be accessible via email, a willingness to paste new or additional code on their site pages, and to provide detailed written feedback on results. We do not anti…
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I’m a huge proponent of life outside of our planet. I do really believe the chances are very high for life, perhaps even intelligent life. What I lack however, is concrete proof of this. Until, perhaps, now.

Technorati Tags: aliens, mars, rovers, proof, mars monkeys

“Hello World” is the traditional first program you write when learning a new language, first appearing in K&R’s “The C Programming Language” book in 1978. Since then it has been implemented in almost every programming language on the planet. This collection has it in 366 coding languages (even LOLCode!) and 58 human ones! Is your favorite here?

read more | digg story

While Ben has been on vacation, I’ve had my own little adventure: Foot being crushed by a powered chair lift that prompted me to take meds for the pain; which caused me to sleep walk resulting in moving my son’s wheelchair that got tangled up in my television wires which caused it to fall screen first- but not until it knocked over my potted plant where the clay shards placed holes in my favorite 4 year old Gotham looking 27″ Magnavox (not smart, very not smart). Staring at the hole in the frame caused tears to well up in my eyes and I cringed as I listened to it hiss for a bit after I unplugged it.

(Sniff) I knew it was time to up the television game as so much has changed in the past few years and so much more is prepping to change in under a year… perhaps the technology Gods were pushing me to upgrade, the hard way.

I could possibly do without a set because I’ve been watching more and more shows/film via Netflix and Hulu on my laptop- but my boy requires his console games (okay… kind of me too.)

I had an offer for a free television set- old style 36″ screen (I’m not positive on the screen size, but the entire television set was gigantic and the only catch was that I’d have to move it up some narrow stairs that two men had issues getting into the dwelling in the first place.) After a few days of playing musical televisions with Jonathon’s set and the injured one (I had to keep swapping them around because he falls asleep watching a movie each night).

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Lesson #113 for Journalists and photographers of all stripes. Jet engines push these massive planes through the air by generating thrust. You can all think of thrust as really strong, really hot wind.

Technorati Tags: a mighty wind, thrust, media, jet engine, video, whoosh

You know that expression “like watching a train wreck”? Well, not quite a train wreck but. . .

Technorati Tags: parking, video, ouch, wee

Ahh sweet memories of childhood.  Bootlegging moonshine, selling arms to neighbors and smuggling cigs into Canada.

Those aren’t your childhood memories?  Well I’ll bet you have the ATF to thank for that!  The Bureau of Alchohol, Tobacco Firearms and now, Explosives (ATFE) has launched their kids page!  Enjoy pictures of old time ATF agents and  the POISON that was popular long before guys were growing their hair out and smearing makeup on themselves.

Technorati Tags: atf, kids, firearms, drugs, alcohol, tobacco, wholesome family fun