Syndicate
What it would be like if all the greatest movies out there were re-enacted by animated bunnies at high speed, with all major plot points explained in 30 seconds?
Those are excellent shorts. The ones for Pulp Fiction, Borat, the Shining, and Star Wars all rock.
I was driving down the Deerfoot tonight, cruising at a peaceful 120km/hr. There were cars in front of me doing the same pace, even though it had been snowing all day and the roads weren’t the best. One of those vehicles was a Dodge truck, fairly new.
All of a sudden, everyone slams on their brakes with this truck at the lead. Some people have their 4-ways on, some people are panicking and straddling lanes, causing the people next to them to slam on their brakes in a panic. An icy calm washed over me, paired with mild indifference and a vague sense of curiosity. What was going on? Will I be in a wonderfully large crash? Where was I?
Then I start to think - why the hell is everyone panicking?! I’m sure most people driving on major highways have mastered the art of braking. Apply the right foot to the brake peddle with constant pressure. Do not adjust the direction of the vehicle, unless initial direction changes. Nope, apparently a few of these poor drivers just couldn’t grasp that one. So, the capable drivers (an exclusive club to which I have membership) slowed down and made room for the morons to dance around. Which they did.
Then I start to look around for the cause of this disturbance. What caused the Ram to slam on his brakes? And what the hell is that big black thing in front of him?! Oh. His hood! And it’s flipped open and completely blocking his view! Comprehension dawns - equal doses of amusement, incredularity, and apprehension follow. And then a slight sense of annoyance that I didn’t have my camera.
As a side note: Of course I could have picked up my camera from the passenger seat where I normally leave it, turned it on, snapped a sharp and well framed picture through my side window as I drove by this truck, while driving on icy/snowy roads with numerous confused and wandering drivers around me. That’s why I’m a member of the club.
The truck manages to pull off to the side of the road, to what I imagine would be thunderous applause if everyone weren’t in cars and there were more than 15 of us around.
I have to wonder, though, how did that one happen? Driving with the knee and you hit the trunk release? Maybe the driver dropped a lolipop on the ground and was looking for it and accidentally hit the trunk release in their urgent search? Spontaneous trunk clasp failure? I guess we’ll never know.
I picked up the Imogen Heap CD Speak for yourself a few weeks ago. It’s an excellent CD, and if you know Frou Frou, you’ll immediately recognize her in this group. I highly recommend picking it up.
This is great music to have playing in the background for just about anything - working, doing chores, reading, with people over - and seems to work well with most people. I guess I’d have to say it’s like if someone made Dido’s voice more normal and then gave her some cool electronic songs to sing. I really liked the Frou Frou album too - this chick can sing.
I find myself listening to it all the time. In particular, the song “Hide and Seek” - that tune sounds just awesome cranked up.
I also picked up Teddy Bears new CD called Soft Machine. This is more of an electronic/rock album; it’s quite fun. I really like the song “Cobra Sound”. This is another great CD to have on while you’re doing just about anything. It’s a nicely different album, kinda like Bran Van 3000.
I highly recommend both of the CDs - I hope you’ll enjoy them!
Well, it’s Friday, and I think that means it’s time for something completely different.
Remember those old school Nintendo games where you’d fight your way through an ever-increasing mob of peons to reach some sort of boss, who you’d then beat, only to repeat the cycle with slightly harder peons? I’m thinking of the old arcade Ninja Turtle games here.
Well, here’s a flash animation of a stick man going through that. It’s pretty fun to watch! Especially when he breaks out the weapons. There are quite a few of them, so don’t limit yourself to just one! Enjoy.
In today’s episode, we discuss driving.
Using the merge lane to sneak ahead
If you are merging into busy traffic, do not use the merge lane as a fastpass. You know what I’m talking about; that thing where people wait until the last possible second to merge in, thus jumping ahead. Sometimes you get caught by accident, but you know when you’re doing it on purpose. You should also know that you are a putz.
Pulling into busy intersections
If you’re on a busy road, and you come to an intersection, don’t enter the intersection until there is room for you on the other side. Especially when the road you are crossing is just as busy. It’s even worse when the guy in front of you already made that mistake and you do it anyway. Getting stuck in the middle of the intersection not only makes you look stupid, it’s also dangerous, and causes headaches for the other road.
I know you know this, so why do you keep doing it?! I once wrote a traffic simulator and had to come up with an algorithm for figuring out when to go or not go. It was incredibly difficult. But for a human driver, this is a brain-dead procedure. So use the power of your brain and don’t do it!
Jones Soda is one of those sort of “indie” drinks. They have clever flavours. Each bottle has a different amateur photo of something completely random, submitted by drinkers themselves. Under the cap, there is some piece of advice or a clever saying or something. Drinking a Jones is usually a good experience. (I highly recommend the Jones Vanilla Cola, it’s very good.)
Every year, Jones releases it’s “Holiday Pack”. Sadly, this only available in the United States. But one of our co-workers was fortunate enough to see a case on a recent visit and brought it to work for us to try.
I don’t know what to write about what you are about to see. Some images may disturb younger viewers.
Round 1: Turkey and Gravy (yup, you didn’t misread that!)
Round 2: Dinner Roll
Round 3: Sweet Potato
Round 4:Pea
Round 5:Ant-Acid
The principles in this book (a work-flow often called GTD) have achieved quite the cult following (google). I was first tipped off by an obscure post I can’t remember on Life Hacker. As I started pulling on the thread, I realized that GTD is buried at the heart of my favorite productivity sites. After becoming familiar with GTD, I found that they were using terms without me noticing!
Do you ever feel numbed by the things you have to do? Do you ever put off simple tasks because you have so many of them floating around in your head (pay bills, call the dentist, book car appt., etc..) that you can’t just focus on one of them?
If so, I would recommend this book. You can probably glean at least a few principles that will help you feel more in control of the stuff in your life. In GTD, stuff is any thing (big or small) that is floating around in your head and keeps gnawing at you to do something about.
Really, I see this book as the new generation of The Seven Habits, except that this is more useful to me than 7 ever was. GTD has been touted as “geek-friendly” and “fun”, but I would use the latter term loosely.
One downside is that I had to mentally filter out a huge amount of this book to get at the real meat of GTD and figure out what I can use. The first few chapters explain the GTD philosophy and principles, with the balance of the book explaining a very thorough implementation of GTD that I didn’t really care for.
What I did get out of GTD, and these have really helped me are:
Anyway, good book, just don’t get caught up in the book’s implementation details.
And start the 2 minute rule now. It’s awesome, I promise!
Last week I went on a trip to Ottawa, and needed a book to read on the flight. On glowing recommendations from Tom and Roy, I decided to try a novel by Terry Pratchett. As a trivia note, this book was released on my birthday in 2004. I suppose that must mean it’s good? Or maybe just that I would have to like it? Who knows. But the date stuck in my head.
I started the book late on Thursday, on my flight. I was done it on Saturday afternoon, I couldn’t put it down. The writing style is hilarious and I found myself really getting into the book and it’s characters, and laughing out loud quite a bit. The book is really cleverly written and it’s laced with puns, sarcastic wit and humour. It was just really fun to read.
On top of the wordplay was a really interesting plot. What’s interesting about the novel is that Pratchett never really talks about the world these characters are in. In a way, it doesn’t even matter. The main plot line is about a guy trying to restart a failed government postal service, which had been obsoleted some time ago. The newer system was unreliable and breaking down because it was being run by “greedy corporations”. I enjoyed the parallels to our world, the internet, and the hacker culture. Actually, the hero is very much a hacker - or at least I can see lots of similarities.
Example? How about a corporation taking over the newer technology, laying off a bunch of people, only doing immediate and urgent repairs to their infrastructure, raising prices because of their resulting monopoly, killing the competition or any startups, and completely focusing on profits instead of quality service/goods. Sound familiar?! I’m sure any of us working in the tech industry can relate to the management decisions of “quick and cheap implementation”. The plot also involves a lot of interesting comments on coroporate culture, and it’s lack of morals. Can’t really argue there.
The plot is by no means simple, with many twists and turns and mysteries to solve. All in all, a really fun read that you can’t go wrong with. Now that I’ve discovered this author, I look forward to reading his other books - apparently there are over 30 of them.
If you want to read more about this book, you can check out the wiki page for it, here.
