Introducing YouTomb

Ever looked for a video on youtube that you'd seen before but realized that it had been taken down due to "copyright infringment"?? Chances are it's on YouTomb, YouTomb is a research project by MIT Free culture which tracks down videos which have been taken down for said reason. Not only that but you can see who it was that requested these videos be taken down. Now you can't see the videos on the site, so what's the point? Well as the creator says "YouTomb was conceived to shed light on YouTube's practices, to educate the general public on the relevant copyright issues, and to provide helpful resources to users who have had their videos wrongfully taken down." So you can see exactly which videos NBC or Viacom or the WWE request be taken down. Pretty cool stuff.

http://youtomb.mit.edu/

Weezer Pork and Beans

Look at all the memes!! I'm aware that South Park did something like this recently and all but this is really cool, is it pretty sad that I know every single one of these? Lightsaber Drumsticks FTW!!! and Miss Teen South Carolina too, very niiiice haha I don't care how dumb she is.

Stream of Consciousness #1

I don't know this summer has been weird, after months of feeling trapped or constrained in school and complaining about it nonstop until a week ago when vacations started, I am now dreadfully bored. I think I need the structure. It's sad to say but I feel like not being told or instructed to do something leads to me being completely and utterly useless. I dunno maybe I'm overreacting. I am overreacting. It's no big deal really, I'll get over it...I dunno it kinda reminds me of One Day in the Life Of Ivan Denisovich maybe I've become used to life in the labor camp and anything outside of doing my job just terrifies the crap out of me. I mean what's the big deal anyway? Do I really need to be doing something? Yeah I do. I mean what's Frodo without the quest to destroy the one ring? Some lame little piece of crap Hobbit that's what he is. What's Mario without his constant quests for that floozy Daisy? Just some plumber....and what's Mario without being a plumber? Some Italian guy with incredibly jumping skills. Jumping Skills. That's what defines Mario I guess. You know what's cool? Luigi's jump. How he kicks the air and stay up there for a few extra seconds...it doesn't work in real life, believe me I know. It amazes me how young videogames are, I mean the oldest characters are like around my age, Mega Man was born the same year I was...and half of the middle school kids today have no idea what a Mega Man is. Did I just say Mega Man was born? That's a pretty weird thing to say about a sequence of bits. Dial up sucks, I could do so much more stuff if I had a fast connection, but I don't so see you later.

The World's Tallest Man Made Structure

As of TODAY March 20th, 2008 that title belongs to Burj Dubai, or Dubai Tower at over 650m and with a final height of 819 meters to be achieved later this year.
Here's a diagram comparing Burj Dubai to other great structures of our time. What's most amazing is that as imposing and magnificent as Burj Dubai is it will only reign as the world's tallest structure for a small period of time. Yup believe it or not two towers are right on its heels and they will even pass it by a large margin. First we have Al Burj which will be in Dubai as well and whose final height has not been revealed but many suspect it will be around 1200 meters atleast that is its proposed height.

The second of these buildings is the Burj Mubarak Al-Kabir of Kuwait, another booming economy of the middle east. This tower is proposed to be 1001 meters tall which is more than Burj Dubai by close to 200 meters. Still the final height for many of these buildings are kept secret because as soon as one firm shows off a new height the others race to modify their plans to make their building taller. It's amazing really the race for the tallest building, I wonder if these buildings will withstand the test of time....imagine if years from now when we're all gone if those towers will still be standing.

Dallas Cowboys Hard Knocks Trailer

Since I don't have cable, would anyone be so kind as to record this? Haha, I'd really like to see how Wade Phillips runs practice as well as how the rookies get settled in, Felix Jones and Mike Jenkins especially and hopefully they cover some Free Agents, like Amendola and Joe West.

Neath Canal , looking North East

Neath Canal , looking North East, originally uploaded by semi.moronic.

simply stuning pic

Things I Hate, Things I Don't (Environmental Edition)

Hate: "Green" being used a term to describe general environmental friendliness. ("going green" etc.)
Don't: "Green" being used a term to identify middle school students who have not "scammed" with anyone yet. ( "Flavius is still green, Remi too." etc)

The Many Emotions of Steven Seagal

Pretty Hardcore.

The Thing About Icebergs is....

They are awesome! I figured since "Icebergs" are in my site name I should talk about them every once in a while. So The Australian Antarctic Division have some absolutely breathtaking shots of icebergs in the antarctic that are worth checking out.


Breathtaking right? Plenty of more at the Australian Antarctic Division website HERE

Letterman FTW!!

Letterman had some pretty awesome jokes at the expense of Hillary Clinton...and I quote:

"Hillary Clinton barely won my home state of Indiana. And she lost in the State of North Carolina. But here is the good news. She has a substantial lead in the state of denial."

"I was thinking about this. And i’m no political genius. I’m no pundit but it occurred to me that Hillary Clinton has one thing in common with President Bush. Neither of them has an exit strategy."

HAHA...excellent, It occured to me the other day that Hillary Clinton is the Democratic party's psycho ex-girlfriend who won't let go. Hopefully this will all be over, it's been over for a while now Hillary. So Just Give it up.

Every Kid's Dream

Now maybe that's not the case in America, but everywhere else in the world kids dream of one day being spotted by some coach of a big team playing alongside some of your idols, playing in the champion's league(Rafa Marquez ftw!), and eventually playing for your national team...Nike does an amazing job capturing that feeling.

Iron Man Impressions

Just got back from watching the latest comic book based movie, and I gotta say, I liked it! I mean I've always had a soft side for Iron Man because the suit is friggin' awesome and because underneath that awesome suit is a hardcore smart geek who built it. Tony Stark is what every nerd would want to be, rich, smart, cocky, women all over you, and the unlimited funds and time to tinker around and build whatever you want to be, so yeah I was looking forward to this movie. In that sense it did not fail, throughout the whole movie Tony Stark is that cocky sarcastic rich smart bastard who gets to play with awesome toys. And boy were they awesome! His set up is crazy, and there's some fictitious workstation that's like a 3d holographic thing you can interact with that has no chance of being made within the next 50 years but is still awesome. The Iron Man himself also looks incredible, I really have to congratulate the animators and engineers behind the graphics, because they look incredibly convincing and never look outlandish or too plasticky.

The story however does tend to drag. At a little over 2 hours it's not an especially long movie but the slow pace and lack of action makes it feel much longer. Also there's some bits of "humor" and characters that feel thrown in there only to please the waves of kids that will be flocking to see this movie.To be honest there's only a handful of true action scenes and I think the movie could have benefited from a bit more. I can't shake the feeling that this was just an expository film and that it's just building up for the sequel. The fact that there's no real strong antagonist only further illustrates this. The acting is pretty good, Robert Downey Jr. as stated before plays Tony Stark pretty incredibly and his character stays constant throughout, Gwyneth Paltrow has a good show and Jeff Bridges too.

Overall the movie is worth watching, I do really recommend it. If you're a geek it goes without saying that you need to be there, but even if you're not really one and are looking to be entertained go see it.

Also Iron Man owns a Wii!!!! You can see it right underneath his TV in his living room.