An iceberg that collided with Antarctica has broken a piece of the continent off, forcing maps of the bottom of the world to be redrawn, European scientists said today.
more here
April 20, 2005
Paging Magellan…
Game Off
The Hollywood Reporter has an interview with game development great Lorne Lanning on why he has decided to shutter production of his smash hit “Oddworld” series.
Snickers, Anyone?
From the “whoa” dept this morning comes this story. Scientists have successfully transplanted the healthy insulin-producing cells of a mother into her daughter, effectively curing the daughter’s diabetes. This is huge. The daughter still needs to take powerful anti-rejection drugs, but it’s still a major step in a very good direction.
My Name In Lights
I guess I finally made it big. And yes, that is my entry. Guess the flash didn’t go off for the picture 
April 19, 2005
New Food Pyramid
mypyramid is the website that details the new food pyramid, as well as a calorie and exercise counter.
Houston, We Have an Essay
Spectrum has a great (and long) essay that describes the behind-the-scenes work that went into saving the Apollo 13 crew. Great stuff for space nuts.
White Smoke
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany is the new pope. It’s no longer “Pope John Paul”. Now we have “Pope Benedict XVI”. Weird to make the mental change.
Kiss My Shiny Metal Case
Awesome. A Bender casemod. It’s all in Danish, or Dutch, or Martian, or whatever, but the pics are great.
*Update* Jan Erik has an English url for the casemod. Thanks Jan Erik.
Madden 2005 on Xbox 2
Actual game engine screen shot. The future of gaming is bright, indeed.
Ball of Extrusion
Katamari Damancy. The words just roll off your tongue. For months I’ve been hearing how incredibly addictive this game is, but it wasn’t until a few days ago when my friend Jan bought the game for PS2 that I really understood. It doesn’t have the graphics of a Doom or all of the move combos of an advanced fighting game. What it does have is gameplay. There are basically only a few controls, and those control your movement around the screen. You’re a little guy who pushes around a little ball of stuff. It picks up small things (thumbtacks, mice, candy, calculators, etc) and gets bigger. As the ball grows, you are able to pick up larger and larger items (cars, people, elephants, fences), until your ball of stuff (your “Katamari”) is so huge you can pick up battleships, skyscrapers, and sports stadiums.
It’s totally twisted and hyper addictive. The level design is what makes it so much fun. You usually have a time limit to grow your ball of confusion to a certain diameter (measured- natch- in meters/centimeters/millimeters). You can only access the next area of the map once your ball is beyond a certain size.
It’s a little hard to explain, but it’s awesomely fun to rumble down the boulevard picking up all of the people, cars, and buildings in your sight. Playing the game with Jan on Sunday was hilarious as he would chase panicked people around with his Katamari while saying “Join Us!” in his spooky voice. Or saying “You will be assimilated!” Had to be there.
There’s a new Katamari Damancy coming out. Apparently, it’s more of the same, but in this case that’s a good thing.
April 18, 2005
New Star Wars
Not that one! These guys have produced what is reportedly a very good looking Star Wars film. Star Wars: Revelations is available online for download on all its 242mb goodness. I’m downloading it now.
And High School Freshmen Panicked…
Scientists have finally started decoding a huge cache of classical texts, long though lost to decay.
In the past four days alone, Oxford’s classicists have used it to make a series of astonishing discoveries, including writing by Sophocles, Euripides, Hesiod and other literary giants of the ancient world, lost for millennia.
April 16, 2005
English Spoken Heer
(apologies to Robert)
Your Linguistic Profile: |
| 60% General American English |
| 30% Dixie |
| 10% Upper Midwestern |
| 0% Midwestern |
| 0% Yankee |
Don’t Panic!
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy opens April 28th. O Freddled Gruntbuggly!
Building
I’ve just completed a set of cabinets for our pantry. Deceptively difficult. Or rather, they took a lot longer than I had planned. I mean, it’s just a plywood box with a face frame and some doors, right?
Oh no, grasshopper. The box was pretty straightforward, until I decided to put 2 shelves in it, and had to make sure they were the right height to store the tallest stuff we have. Then the face frame had to be of oak, and took a while to get just right. Then I had to have a piece of top moulding and custom side moulding I made on the router table because, you know, you can’t just go halfway on one aspect of a project if the rest of it looks so nice. The compromises stick out, you know? My curse.
And so to the doors. Egad, the doors. I spent the better part of a week on these four monuments to a slow pace. Erin said that she wanted them to match the doors in our kitchen. This meant a brand new bit (natch). Actually, a new bit set in order to get the rails and stiles just right. Then an agonizing period making sure I cut them to the right lengths. Have you ever tried to measure the length of rails for an opening. It’s way harder than you think what with the depth of the hinges (euro-style, so that’s another new thing I’ve never tried), the rebate of the cope and stick joint, the overlay of the doors, and the gap between them. Nuclear physics would be easier.
Oh, and the finish took five days. Could have been faster, but still…
So at the end of two and a half weeks we have a beautiful set of cabinets that can’t be hung yet because we need to paint and install crown moulding, which means we need to evacuate the pantry of almost five years of clutter, and the washer and dryer.
I’ll post pics when they’re up, but don’t hold your breath. Maybe I’ll turn the cabinets into a coffee table so I don’t have to lug the beast onto the wall.
Next up: I may just be crazy enough to tackle a Really Big piece of furniture for the kitchen:sort of a built in hutch. Did you say “hutch” growing up? I did, but it’s less common than I thought.
Oh, but that’ll have to wait until the chessboard is done, the chairs are repaired (for a client), and the spec cutting boards are done (for another potential client: this one could be big).
Lots to do. Good to be able to make a buck in the shop.
Off to make bread.