Brit In Austin: 01/2006

[WEB LINK] Like clouds?

Wierd one this! The Cloud Appreciation Society has some wonderful photos!

[WEB LINKS] And they target girls too..

The Swedish Ministry of Health and Social Affairs are so concerned by the way girls are now being targeted as objects that they have set up a G!rlPower website and advertising campaign to better inform them.

[WEB LINKS] Play NES and SMS online...

A great little site with loads and loads of old Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Master System games to play online.

[WEB LINKS] They do NOT look that good in real life

An excellent site by Glen Feron who touches up photos for magazines. Follow the link and hover on and off the picture to see before and after!

[WEB LINK] Great game ZOOKEEPER

A japanese game that someone has taken off the japanese site and put onto theirs... so I link to it! Zookeeper, simply make a row of three or more of the same animals by switching two around!. Also available for Nintendo DS.

[WEB LINKS] Mr Picasso Head

Great fun... Mr Picasso Head

[VIDEO] The Bible

Penn and Teller read the Bible.

[VIDEO] If you don't know who Noam Chomsky is... they are succeeding

Noam Chomsky has been outspoken about governmental atrocities since the late 60s. If you beleive the propaganda machine then he is an anarchist. He is actually a softly spoken MIT professor of linguistics and a very intelligent man unlike George.

[VIDEO] Power of Nightmares

Want to know what is truely going on?

Power of Nightmares Part 1

Power of Nightmares Part 2

Power of Nightmares Part 3

[WEB LINKS] March of the Penguins.

If you have not seen March of the Penguins then get it added to your Netflix list NOW. Imagine, penguins are adapted tropical birds whose environment shifted as the plates of the earth moved and they dropped flying for swimming. The demonstrate emotions and love. It is a FABULOUS movie.

[VIDEO] Leader of the free world - NAH!

A true leader is calm in EVERY situation, if a door doesn't work he doesn't stand there looking dumbfounded.

[VIDEO] Donate your old PCs to the Third World

For all those people who think Prince Charles is useless... The Digital Partnership.

See also attempts to ship old spectacles to help people to see clearly, although a former MIT student has an even better idea.

[VIDEO] Inside Nintendo

If you are a serious gamer and you have never seen this brilliant BBC documentary then be prepared to set aside an hour for a seriously educational and quality programme about video games... Inside Nintendo.

[VIDEO] How to fold a T-Shirt PROPERLY!

My brother-in-law Henry showed me how to do this years ago so I was happy to find a video of it on Google. It is a bit wierd, I admit it, but it's a neat party trick, everyone likes it!

[WEB LINKS] Pop Up Words

Make your own Pop Up Words with the people at instructables. Don't miss their HOWTOONS.

[WEB LINKS] Yet more Flickr Fun

If you enjoyed the last entry check out this site to create your own successories and demotivators or play with some of the other flickr toys on offer.

[WEB LINKS] Despair Inc - Demotivators

If you have ever worked for a big company, or even in a reasonably large office, you will have seen Successories, inspirational posters, mugs, postcards, calendars etc.

I was delighted to discover that some smart guys here in Austin came up with the antithesis.. Demotivators.

Not only is the product superb but so is the website, with lots of humour and links to other wierd and wacky sites. You can easily eat up a day on the site.

CHECK THEM OUT, buy this product for your boss before he buys a successory for you!

[VIDEO] Kayne West

I had heard about his outburst on the Red Cross appeal for Hurricaine Katrina but I had not seen it. Here it is in all it's glory. Kudos Kayne you are my kind of man!

[VIDEO] Shlomo - Human Beatbox

If someone ever gives me control of a late night TV channel then "Later with Jools Holland" will definitely be an addition to the schedule. The ex Squeeze pianist is very highly thought of in the UK and his show attracts the best of modern musicians.

Here is the only thing I could find on Google, Jools introducing a guy called Shlomo - the human beatbox.

[RANT] Make me happy!

Vote for me at

[VIDEO] Dragon Illusion and how to make it.

The excellent Dragon Illusion.

And here is how to make it from Grand-Illusions.com.

OH THEY ARE THE WORK OF THE DEVIL!!!!!

[WEB LINKS] Japanese Abandonment

There is something wierd about the Japanese, they seem to abandon places! On such a small island with such a large population they have a tremendous habit of just up and leaving somewhere to rot.

See this fabulous story of Gukanjima - the abandoned island but most of all check out the photographs.

See these photosets of more Japanese abandonedment, Navigate yourself if you are daring.

Or let me choose some of the best for you...
The best abandoned theme park, shrouded in mist!

Set 1 - Dutch stylee Gullivers Travels theme park
Set 2 - just in case you can't find the NEXT button at the bottom.
Abandoned amusement park - The right most of the two buttons at the bottom is NEXT.
and another

Am I wierd to find these fascinating?

You can totally get why they came up with things like The Ring (see the japanese version not the hollywood version) or the Survival Horror games (Resident Evil, Silent Hill etc) or the fabulous Studio Ghibli movies like Spirited Away.

Of course America has its own Christian version thanks to James Bakker. Not as much fun but still a bit creepy!

Try Defunctparks.com for yet more in your neighbourhood!

[WEB LINKS] 360 panoramas

I have always been a fan of the 360 panoramas right from the outset. See the BBC's range of 360 shots of the United Kingdom for examples.

If you have never heard of these, they are produced using one of two systems...

The simple system uses a set of photos taken from a camera on a tripod which swivels round 360 degrees, software then stitches the images back together. You can then use a little Javascript on your website to allows you to play it back from your point of view rotating the camera all around and zooming in and out (obviously better with high resolution pics).

The professional option is a mirror dome system, the camera lies on its back on a tripod and the mirrored dome is suspended above it. One photo gets you the full image (with you hiding under the tripod). Software is used to turn the image into a 360 degree shot and again a little javascript on your website gets you a cool rotating 360 degree image. 360 one vr is one professional system on the market, 0-360 is another

Here is a pretty cool site called Arounder that followed through with one of my ideas of shooting the whole of europe with one of these cameras. Try Barcelona for a really excellent tour. They are all nice high resolution shots.

Take system this one step further and put a video camera where the camera is and you get 360 degree shots of a movie, in this case various tours on an open top London bus (BBC) - needs RealPlayer.

If you really want to see how cleverly you can use this, get hold of Britneys dance beat on the PS2 (yes Britney's dance beat!) and go to the video vault and select immersive to see the 360 concert warm up movies (you have to unlock most of them). They are the future of TV once we get stereoscopic headsets that don't give you a headache.

[WEB LINKS] BBC Radio 2

Just in case you have not checked out my links on the right this is BBC Radio 2.

The BBC are one of the most independent news providers in the world, they are subsidised by the people of the United Kingdom and have no funding from outside interest (corporations!).

The great thing is the radio is all advert free. Check out the list for Radio 2 on this web page and have a listen. If this is all a bit too old for you, check out Radio 1 or drop the menu down at the top and select something that takes your interest!

[WEB LINKS] Free books!

I first came across Project Gutenberg back in the 80s before the Internet was even born. Now, with the world wide web it is a fantastic resource for out of copyright written material.

Want to be a smarty pants, check out a great philosopher like Plato or just look at the top 100 downloads.

[FUN] Why Austria never get to the World Cup

[WEB LINK] How to view foreign websites

Name taken from Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy, the Babelfish was popped into one's ear and translated any language into your own.

The babelfish website does the same and it FABULOUSLY useful on the world wide web!

[VIDEO] How to put your bike into your van

load her up!

[WEB LINK] Fabulous Flickr Viewer

You know I love flickr, well here is an excellent Flickr Viewer.

[WEB LINKS] Commodore 64

Do you remember the Commodore 64?

[VIDEO] JackAss

Ooooh OOOOOOHH AAAAAAAARHHH!

[VIDEO] Still loving those XBOX 360 ads!

Deamon

[VIDEO] I AM A CHRISTIAN GODDAMIT

American Christianity, you've just gotta love it!

[VIDEO] Wierd? Funny? You decide!

SNL - Lazy Sunday - The Chronicles of Narnia Rap

This is the same video on devil ducky as they appear to have taken it off google video!

[VIDEO] Wierd!

The wierdest sneeze I have ever seen!!

[WEB LINKS] Cool T-shirts...

Design them yourself or buy other people's designs... Cool T-Shirts!. (This one is "French Army Knife")

[WEB LINKS] How hollywood makes money

Not from movies... according to Edward Jay Epstein who has written a book called The Big Picture which suggests that Hollywood makes little or no money from Cinema releases but most of it from spin-offs... Question of the day, are movies just big adverts which we pay to see?

[WEB LINKS] Nostalgia

A bit british in its leanings but cool for anyone wanting a wander down nostalgia lane...

[WEB LINKS] We are what we do

We are what we do is a wonderful website to help encourage us to do something to make a difference, either to ourselves, someone else or the world.

[VIDEO] Brilliant ads!

Gotta love those XBox360 ads!

Skipping

Banned

Water Balloons

[VIDEO] Video game comedy

OK so the gaming theme continues, with a comedy song about... well just watch it :)

[VIDEO] Excellent home made pop video.

This is an excellent home made video for a fall out boy song.

[VIDEO] So american football is good for something.

There are times in my past (office) life when I wish we had a Terry Tate - Office Linebacker

[VIDEO] Super Mario 64 beaten in 16 minutes

If you have ever played Super Mario 64, and I apologise for the number of video game posts I have on here, then you will be amazed by this video.

The player cheats, exploits bugs but the control on long jumps is amazing.

[VIDEO] Football IS better than American Football

Sorry to keep harping on about it but, well, football is the best!

[WEB LINKS] Butterfly

I have just order a mini DVD camcorder from Butterfly photo.com.

I know the quality isn't great on these gadgets yet but the convenience of recording to a DVD then popping it into a DVD player to playback is superb. Or pop it into your PC to copy it onto a few DVDs for friends.

The Sony mini DVD cameras are the best quality but they are pricey, I investigated every type and opted for the Canon DC20. Here are my reasons...

Cannon scored very highly on the Camcorderinfo.com reviews, the DC20 is only $90 more than the DC10 and has a higher resolution CCD with better images and photos, it has a built in light and flash. The Hitachi's came close but DVD-RAM is not for me, media is too expensive. The Sony DVD403 is excellent but very expensive. The DVD203 is cheaper but nowhere near as good. The DVD92 is not bad, most people complain about lack of connections but who needs them when the simplest and quickest way to transfer the data to your PC is to drop the disc into it!? The Sony DVD7 is a gimmick and a poor one at that. Panasonic never came into it, poor quality and DVD-RAM. So the DC20 wins on price, quality, media price and connections. Plus a $50 rebate from Cannon.

Camcorderinfo.com gave me every last little detail that I needed to know for my research, and Cnet let me see them in action and read customer reviews.

When it comes to blank media you cannot beat Shop4tech.com.

When it comes to Memory Cards you have to give it to Amazon on price.

[RANT] Convergence! WHERE!

OK, so I started my business on the 1st of Jan 2006 and went out to buy myself a Handheld PC, I wanted a GPS so I could plan my routes from customer to customer. Ideally it should operate as a phone as well and look up the number of the person calling me on a database of customers so I would know what I was talking about before I answered.

So off I popped to Best Buy only to be pointed in two different directions for the GPS and the Handheld PCs, add to that the fact that, of the measly 4 Handheld PCs they had, only one was charged! Sheesh!

Well, if history is anything to go by this product will be huge in 2007, I am always wanting stuff 2-10 years ahead of the curve.

[HAPPY NEW YEAR] An Englishman always discusses the weather!

Happy new year to you all from sunny Austin. The weather here today was a fabulous 80 degrees which would be great were it not for the fact that I have been here 6 months now and can count the number of times it has rained on ONE HAND!

Still... could be worse! (needs Microsoft Powerpoint).

[WEB LINKS] Slickr Flickr Screensaver

Slickr - A screensaver that uses flickr as it's source...too cool!

Footnote, my PC Crashes a lot when this is running, not sure if it is the amount of memory it is using or the fact that the software is a Beta issue.

Brit In Austin

Monday, January 30, 2006