June 26, 2005
Safety Sign Generator
St. Claire, a technical communications company, has a free application called Sign Builder 2.0 that allows you to generate your own custom safety signs. The signs come out in color, in a .pdf file for easy printing. Besides real world safety purposes, it is also great for generating warning signs about a co-worker's flatulence problem. Think I will make some for when Foo is feeling crazy or Lester is extra anti-social.
Source: Cool Tools
NextFest
WIRED magazine's NextFest was at Navy Pier in Chicago this year. Can't pass up that opportunity, so dragged Inga with me to check it out. I created a Flickr Photo Page with the photos from NextFest and if you can also go to the NextFest website if you want to get an idea of what NextFest is all about.
The highlight of the show for me was meeting Lorenzo Santillan (student - left) and Fredi Lajvardi (teacher - right), with their robot 'Stinky' (center) who were among the students and teachers featured in the story La Vida Robot. The La Vida Robot story was linked to a few months ago, so I'm sure many have read the story already :) . It is one of the best tales of ingenuity and percaverance that you will ever read.
There is a follow-up story to their tale, as there has been an outpouring of support for the students with contributions to the LaVida Robot scholarship fund and a producer lined up to turn their story into a major Hollywood movie. Contributions to their scholarship fund can be made here.
Posted by JB at 6:42 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)June 24, 2005
Geeks Playing Poker
I'm not the only geek playing poker. Star Trek: Next Generation Actor, Wil Wheaton has signed up with Poker Stars and will represent them in the World Series of Poker. According to the press release, he is an accomplished poker player. It will be interesting to see how he does.
Posted by JB at 12:49 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)June 23, 2005
I need to clean my desk...
June 22, 2005
The Onion 2056
A kind soul on Slashdot has mentioned that there is a special issue of The Onion from the year 2056. I hope my town is spared from the ravages of the Texas/Unified Midwestern States war, but look forward to seeing the vat grown clone of Jimi Hendrix in concert.
Posted by JB at 1:25 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)What Pre-1985 Video Game Character Are You?
Who doesn't like a good personality test? (Or a bad one.) Here is one especially for refugees of the arcades of the 80s. After ten questions, you are matched to a classic video game character. Here's what I got.
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June 18, 2005
Kodak To End Production of B&W Paper
This is for the friends and family members that I know are non-digital photographers. Kodak has announced that they will stop producing black and white paper in 2006. Inga tells me that they are not the major producer of B&W film, so this is probably not that big a deal, but probably a sign of less selection of materials in the future.
Posted by JB at 1:27 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)June 14, 2005
Armored Buses On The Road of Death
Found on Gizmodo, a story on the armored buses that transport people from the Baghdad airport to the 'green-zone'. It's a good indicator on just how stable things are in Iraq, considering that these buses only travel at night, with the roads closed to all other traffic, and have a Humvee and helicopter gunship escort. And they still get shot up! What a mess...
Posted by JB at 1:34 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)June 11, 2005
AltThai
Feeling a little bad about not mentioning this last weekend. We tried the new restaurant AltThai in downtown Arlington Heights last weekend. Looks like we have a new favorite Thai restaurant!
AltThai is a bit on the small side, so it gets crowded fast during the peak dining hours. The set-up is very modern/hip with a cool water sculpture and wine bar as focal points. The menu is quite large with all the Thai classics plus many other new takes on Thai flavors. I had a catfish curry featured on the house specials that was incredible. Inga had a tofu based dish that she can't remember exactly that she also enjoyed.
AltThai has a website that is in desperate need of attention! How about a menu and a graphic that hasn't been blown up so much that it is pixelated and unreadable! But I digress.
AltThai is awesome. Check it out, but leave a table for us!
Posted by JB at 1:51 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)June 8, 2005
Watch Your Car Run Into A Wall
Progressive Insurance has a collection of auto crash test videos from 2001-2005. Dramatic slow-motion and three zoom-ins so you can feel the whiplash. I watched the videos of my car getting tested and it made me very glad that I have the side curtain airbags.
Posted by JB at 2:01 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)June 7, 2005
Geek Ghetto
The Washington Post has a story on Tokyo's Geek Ghetto. An enclave of nerds and geeks, full of comic book shops, electronic stores and themed coffee houses. Sounds like a slice of heaven if not a cool vacation destination.
Posted by JB at 2:04 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)June 5, 2005
Sunroof Sunset
Inga took this photo.
June 2, 2005
Fear The Robots
Now that MTV shows everything but music videos, the best place to see them in on the Net. Thanks to Blentwell to linking to this new Chemical Brothers video. It feeds on how creepy those car building robots are.
Posted by JB at 2:22 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)Art Binkowski in Cinderella Man
Chicago boxer Art 'The Polish Warrior' Binkowski (who my Dad and I have seen fight live many times) is in the movie Cinderella Man coming out tomorrow. He is cast in the role of boxer Corn Griffin who Jim Braddock (Cinderella Man) fought in 1934. In case you don't know, Russell Crowe is on the left and Binkowski on the right.
Nazi Nukes
The only know drawings of a Nazi atomic bomb were discovered by historians. They were a long way away from a working bomb, but is fuel for the alternative history crowd.
Posted by JB at 1:20 PM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)