These are my links for September 8th through September 19th:

• Foldit – Solve Puzzles for Science
• Getting Started on the Google+ API – Google+ Platform Blog –
• Freetronics –
• HTML5 Rocks – A resource for open web HTML5 developers
• Shako Solenoid Valve for Water Drop Collision Photography –
• Secularism and Its Discontents : The New Yorker –
• CastingWords – Transcription services: Audio, Video, CD/DVDs… 
• Amazon Mechanical Turk –
• HiViz.com – Learn High Speed Photography. DIY kits
• David Scott Lewis, the mystery hacker who inspired the film "War Games" | VentureBeat –
• David Scott Lewis, the hacker who inspired WarGames –
• 1980s in film – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia –
• UT Painter Hall Telescope –
• Czech Heritage Society of Texas –
• The Algorithm: Idiom of Modern Science –

These are my links for December 23rd through January 4th:

• Best Buy Masters Computer Science & Information Technology | Ratings & Rankings | GetEducated.com –
• CSU CS Online Masters Degree –
• Portalarium – Game Developer in Austin (Richard Garriott has joined this team)
• Car2Go Sweeps Austin Off Its Wheels – Car2Go to hopefully expand its area, and definitely expand its fleet with new cars
• bunnie’s blog –
• TF2 Backpack Examiner – Blueprints –
• Musican killed in home burglary attempt, authorities say –
• James Jean | Home –
• Chumby Spare Parts at Sparkfun –
• The animal world has its junkies too – Animals that get high
• MakerBot Industries – Robots That Make Things. –
• chumby sphere forum –
• Chumby hacker board beta – ChumbyWiki –
• chumby hacker board wiki –
• Texas State History IMAX Theatre –

These are my links for September 21st through October 4th:

• George Lucas Stole Chewbacca, But It’s Okay
• First World War officially ends
• Infusion Profusion: Game-Changing Fast ‘N Cheap Technique
• Tilt-Shift Van Gogh
• Electron Switch Between Molecules Points Way to New High-Powered Organic Batteries – University of Texas discovery
• How-to: set up dual-band WiFi (and juice your downloads)

old.

I still get that twinge of jealousy with all his equipment that would have cost a pretty penny back then.  Not to mention his parents never seem to care about him wardialing thousands of calls on their line.  My parents freaked out everytime a computer would dial me.  But how else would I join those wionderful BBSes and get my TradeWars on?

WarGames: A Look Back at the Film That Turned Geeks and Phreaks Into Stars

The format war is over.

Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has undertaken a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders. This decision has been made following recent major changes in the market. Toshiba will continue, however, to provide full product support and after-sales service for all owners of Toshiba HD DVD products.

Now we can finally all go buy a damn movie player. Even though we won’t notice that much difference over regular DVDs. And now Microsoft can scramble to change their XBOX360, or not.

click the link at the top or the link below to see the full press release.

Toshiba Announces Discontinuation of HD DVD Businesses

19 February, 2008

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Company Remains Focused on Championing Consumer Access to High Definition Content

TOKYO–Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has undertaken a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders. This decision has been made following recent major changes in the market. Toshiba will continue, however, to provide full product support and after-sales service for all owners of Toshiba HD DVD products.

HD DVD was developed to offer consumers access at an affordable price to high-quality, high definition content and prepare them for the digital convergence of tomorrow where the fusion of consumer electronics and IT will continue to progress.

“We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called ‘next-generation format war’ and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop,” said Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation. “While we are disappointed for the company and more importantly, for the consumer, the real mass market opportunity for high definition content remains untapped and Toshiba is both able and determined to use our talent, technology and intellectual property to make digital convergence a reality.”

Toshiba will continue to lead innovation, in a wide range of technologies that will drive mass market access to high definition content. These include high capacity NAND flash memory, small form factor hard disk drives, next generation CPUs, visual processing, and wireless and encryption technologies. The company expects to make forthcoming announcements around strategic progress in these convergence technologies.

Toshiba will begin to reduce shipments of HD DVD players and recorders to retail channels, aiming for cessation of these businesses by the end of March 2008. Toshiba also plans to end volume production of HD DVD disk drives for such applications as PCs and games in the same timeframe, yet will continue to make efforts to meet customer requirements. The company will continue to assess the position of notebook PCs with integrated HD DVD drives within the overall PC business relative to future market demand.

This decision will not impact on Toshiba’s commitment to standard DVD, and the company will continue to market conventional DVD players and recorders. Toshiba intends to continue to contribute to the development of the DVD industry, as a member of the DVD Forum, an international organization with some 200 member companies, committed to the discussion and defining of optimum optical disc formats for the consumer and the related industries.

Toshiba also intends to maintain collaborative relations with the companies who joined with Toshiba in working to build up the HD DVD market, including Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures, and DreamWorks Animation and major Japanese and European content providers on the entertainment side, as well as leaders in the IT industry, including Microsoft, Intel, and HP. Toshiba will study possible collaboration with these companies for future business opportunities, utilizing the many assets generated through the development of HD DVD.

Joel Hodgson and some of the original Mystery Science Theater 3000 crew have set up a website for a new show they are making: Cinematic Titanic.

Fromt he blog/description, it sounds like it will be in the same format as MST3K, with B-movies and silhouettes and all. J. Elvis Weinstein and Trace Beaulieu are also in on the project, and the three of them happen to be the original cast of MST3K.

Interesting at least. I’m not sure why they are going back to old roots, but I hope its from inspiration and not from lack of living expenses. Mike Nelson’s Rifftrax were mildly funny to me, but nothing that made me laugh as much as MST3K. But I wonder if this project is in response to Rifftrax’s apparent success.

It’s the week of dystopian movies for drzy. I just watched Children of Men tonight.

I am a tad biased, as my favorite type of books and films are social sci-fi of dystopian nature, but really most sci-fi films have a relatively bleak look at the future, even if it isn’t our own future. (or, even a long time ago… in a galaxy far far away) For the books there are many, but these type of films are few and far between. And pretty much all of the films are based on or influenced by a particular book anyways.

Anywho, the film was very good. I’m not a big fan of Clive, but he’s done a decent job in all the movies I’ve seen him in, including this one. I’ll try not to give out any spoilers here beyond what the trailers show. Man has somehow accidentally engineered fertility out of our human equation. In so doing, the world plunges into chaos, and those countries left standing become racist/nationalist to an extreme. There are rebel groups fighting the power, and there are people who are now considered subhuman that are herded into camps.

The characters in this movie are remarkably deep and original, especially considering their limited screen time. Michael Caine was awesome, as only he can be. Chiwetel Ejiofor I have a fondness for since Serenity, and he definitely does not disappoint. Julianne Moore was ok, but I’ve never thought she was that great. Even the side characters manage to have a distinct personalities rather than being Guard #1 or Police Officer #7. The characterization is the real triumph of the movie.

For those looking for an action film, you may want to skip the first half. Sure there is a bit, but most before the half is marked with philosophy and discovery. Things pick up towards the end in a stark turn towards all out war.

As with many of these films, there is no clear resolution at the end. The glimmer of hope just becomes a tad brighter.

I recommend it as worth the ticket price and maybe even worth a second viewing, if only because you are like me and had metalhead days that flattened your hearing, so that UK accents are harder for me to decipher. Much of the dialog is very good.

I also rewatched Dark City today which furthered my dystopian trend. And… I saw Rocky Balboa last night, which surprisingly was a good movie that was enjoyable.

youtube has a great snowball effect going. First they stole all the thunder from Google Video with their superior tagging, searching, and embedding. Then people started posting old 80′s series, and now there are full length movies on the thing.

Here’s some retro luvin’:

Well, not exactly.

But this is a hypnotizing video montage of how they used Brando’s earlier role in the movies and updated it, complete with a speaking part.

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