It’s the wave of the future, dude

/ Shane / 2 Comments

Check this out:

This demo — from Pattie Maes’ lab at MIT, spearheaded by Pranav Mistry — was the buzz of TED. It’s a wearable device with a projector that paves the way for profound interaction with our environment. Imagine “Minority Report” and then some.

How cool is that? And the thing is, it’s not some crazy idea from way out there. It’s just a camera, projector, some finger tip things, and boom! Obviously it will get smaller / more useful over time, but the future is here! I thought iPhones were crazy…

Data Mining

/ Shane / 1 Comment

One of, if not THE main reason I moved to wordpress from livejournal was that livejournal didn’t offer the ability to see statistics. And the best part about those statistics are seeing what searches on google are leading to hits on my blog.

These statistics are not at all what you would expect, but they are fascinating. For example, the most frequent search item that people use to find this blog is ‘clock’. Searches that involve that word have landed on this blog more than 1,070 times. I just can’t fathom that! I’m sure there are entire blogs devoted just to clocks. As far as I know, I have only really mentioned clocks two times, and in passing at that. How far down the list must my blog be that people are finding me?

After clocks, my next two most searched for items are running neck and neck at just over 200 hits each. Kate Micucci is narrowly beating out searches related to the Mario ? box. The first I feel okay about since I actually took time and energy to write up an informative post. The second I feel a little bad about, since my post is really just a summary and link-through to another post. Still, at least in those cases I’m fairly sure that the searchers got what they were looking for, as opposed to all those clock people.

Sometimes when I look at the search results, I know exactly which post of mine the person found. For example, when someone for some reason searches for ‘smell my gas’, well, I know I happen to have a post with that name. Same goes for ‘phantom pig‘, though I’m not sure why anybody is searching for either of those things. Or when I see one for ‘job hunting secretly’, I chuckle to myself thinking, “Oh ho buddy, have I got a post for you.” I’m always glad when I feel like I have satisfied a request. Another example, I know the person who searched for ‘awesomest man ever’ definitely found what they were looking for.

Sometimes I know which post they found, but I’m not really sure if I have satisfied their request. For example, requests like ‘larp babes’ or ‘hot larpers’ obviously led them to this post, but it doesn’t look like they found what they were looking for. Or ‘what do hipsters eat’ obviously led them here, but were they wanting to learn how to be a hipster or were they just generally curious? Like, “What the heck DO they eat?”

Some posts I really, really hope they DIDN’T find what they were looking for, or else I would get a little self conscious, like the person who found me by searching for ‘fat man at baseball game’. I don’t *think* I’ve been to any baseball games lately, but hey they found my blog didn’t they? The same goes for 15 or so hits I’ve received on ‘odd looking people’. I mean, I’m not so attractive, but I hope nobody would describe me as “odd”. But here they are on my blog! (j/k by the way, I know those hits go here)

Some search terms are very specific to where I have no idea what they were searching for at all, much less how in the world they ended up on my blog. Take, for example, the search for ‘picture of 6 rings march 14,2009’. 

Then there are the very odd searches, like ‘zombie solution stuck in a building‘ or ‘how to explain a picture to a dead rabbi’. Aside from having no clue which post on my blog could have possibly fulfilled the search criteria, do you think someone communes with the spirit of a rabbi who died before the invention of the camera? And this person thought maybe he’d find someone in a similar situation on the Internet whose advice he might ask?

I think one of my favorite search items was ‘pickle pops and cancer’. I am SO vindicated on that one! Unfortunately, I haven’t had any hits on ‘nun skin‘ yet.

An exciting, yet relaxing weekend

/ Shane / 7 Comments

On one hand we didn’t really do all that much this weekend, and on the other hand we had a lot of exciting things going on.

The library has passes for all of the museum etc. around us, but they are mostly always gone, or at least the good ones are. Some of them are so completely always gone that one of the librarians confided that they were probably lost. But Sara managed to snag a pass to Adler Planetarium. I was already on board with going there for free, but that was before I knew that one of the exhibits right now was Sesame Street based. We did have to pay for that part, but it was well worth the money.  Evie was in 7th heaven, by which I mean she was happy as opposed to how you feel when someone forces you to watch that god-awful show. Although she was a little young, she was just so thrilled to be watching an “Elmo movie” on this huge screen, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from it. It was fun in the audience too seeing all the kids get so excited and like shouting out the answers to Big Bird’s questions, etc. and all the parents singing “twinkle twinkle little star” and just enjoying watching their kids. Needless to say, it was a big hit. I would recommend the show to anyone with little kids. There was more to see at the planetarium than I expected, but it was a little boring, especially for someone Evie’s age.

As if that wasn’t enough excitement for one little girl’s day, we also rode the train there and back. Since the train runs right by our house, Evie has always been into trains a little bit. This was the first time she ever rode on one and she was pretty excited. The train trip worked out perfectly and we definitely plan on using it a lot more in the future.

Probably the highlight of my day, was the (for lack of a better word) hipster-ish breakfast place that Sara found, Yolk. It was sooo super easy to get to from the train, and it was delicious. The best part? Instead of toast, you can substitute pancakes! “Yes, instead of my toast I would like to substitute a second breakfast.” I paid a little extra and upgraded mine to blackberry / banana pancakes. Evie approved. It was a tad pricey for breakfast, but I ate so much that I hardly ate anything else the rest of the day. Given it’s proximity to the Museum Campus, I’d imagine it could get busy in the summer, but it is huge and kid friendly.

So to top it all off, we decided to give Evie her first haircut! We only cut her bangs. They are always in her eyes and she would rather die than wear something in her hair to keep it back, like a barrette. She was really good for it. She didn’t exactly sit still, but she did okay. I think Sara’s not really happy with the job she did, but I think it looks fantastic, and not too short no matter what you might hear.

Evie has been saying a lot of funny words lately. Some of her favorites are perfect, excellent, and exactly. Like, “Hey Evie, how about when we’re done eating we go downstairs to play?” “Perfect!” Or “How are the grapes?” “Excellent.” Or “It looks like you’re putting your froggy to bed.” “Yes, exactly!”

But my favorite quote of the weekend? “And what else starts with the letter ‘R’?” “Arm!”

In other news, I started the dead and the gone and I have to say, with going on my second end of the world book in a row, all of this swine flu talk is coming at a bad time for me.

Bea Arthur Wrassles Her Last Dinosaur

/ Shane / Leave a comment

I’m sad to announce that Bea Arthur passed away today, at the age of 86. No more wrasslin dinosaurs for her. Bea, you’ll be forever golden in our eyes.

Hmm, that gives me an idea! We should start collecting donations to cast her body in sold gold! You can go ahead and send those donations to me.

Ultimate Showdown

/ Shane / 1 Comment

There was a conference I was supposed to go to this week that I ended up not going to for various reasons. I wasn’t exactly broken up about it until I found out that they keynote speaker was the Governator himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger! Best keynote speaker ever.

So, I was thinking about him and I hopped on over to IMDB to see how many Schwarzenegger movies I have seen in my lifetime. Oh man, so many great movies under that guy’s belt, how could you pick a favorite. But then I saw something that caught my eye – he has a movie listed as “filming”! Isn’t he busy off being a governer or something? So obviously I had to click on the link for The Expendables.

Right off the bat I notice that this movie is directed by none other than Sylvester Stallone! Crap on a stick, you’re telling me Sly Stallone is directing a movie staring himself and Arnold? And I hadn’t heard about it? Then I start looking through the cast…Stallone and Schwarzenegger of course, but hey, Jason Statham, nice! Jet Li? Wait a minute, Stone Cold Steve Austin is in this? Mickey Rourke (and I’m thinking Marv here, I haven’t even seen The Wrestler). This is starting to sound like the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny or something! NO WAY, they’re bringing in Dolph Lundgren?

When talking about the great action stars of all time, Dolph Lundgren gets short shrift. He belongs in the list for Ivan Drago alone (Drago being the big rediculous Russian from Rocky IV, the one that killed Apollo Creed), but lets not discount the original Punisher and Universal Soldier. He was He-Man for christ’s sake! If there is to be a battle royal for the all time action star title, he needs to be involved.

So obviously, it makes not one bit of difference what this movie is about, it is clearly one of the greatest of all time and it’s not even finished yet! Although, I am struck by the fact that there were a few people left off the list. Where is JCVD? You can’t leave out the Muscles from Brussles. What about Chuck Norris? Is Charles Bronson still around? Maybe you could wheel him out in an iron lung or something. The problem is, where do you draw the line? Kurt Russel? Does Harrison Ford make the list for Han Solo / Indiana Jones? What about Clint Eastwood? And does that open it up for cowboys like The Duke (except he’s dead, which opens up even more options)? Bruce Campbell? That chick that dated Flavor Flav?

You tell me, who else is missing?