Movie Star/Famous people game

We played a fun game at a great New Year's Eve Party on Saturday Night. The first person picks a famous person. The next one must think of a famous person whose first name starts with the same letter as the previous last name, and so on done the line. If someone thinks of a person whose first and last names begin with the same letter then the play reverses. (instructions and an internet reference to legitimize this are here)

--> --> --> ---> ->

Let's play a round - Player one says Joe Pesci, Player Two says Paul Shaffer, Player Three says Stephen Sondheim (reverse), back to Player Two who says Steve Harvey, to Player One who says Harry Houdini, reverse to Player two, etc..

We had a lot of fun, especially reversing, because then the pressure is on to come up with famous people even faster than normal. The reverses were especially popular because it was harder to come up with first and last names with the same letter. I suggest Internet Movie Database (imdb.com) for more famous people names.

More fun was confusing people with C pronounced like S names (Cindy Crawford, reverse!) or foreign language derived names where you couldn't be sure what the first letter was (Julio Iglesias anyone?). Sometimes people would pipe up with ficticious people, like Peter Parker, or single name celebrities, like Madonna, or some rap stars names like Ole' Dirty Bastard... is that a B next?

This is not like the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game, which requires much more movie knowledge or internet access to the Bacon Oracle at UVa. That game is all about networks.

What will you do with your extra second this year?

Because the world is running down we need to adjust our clocks to keep pace with the Earth. It turns out that atomic clocks are more accurate than the earth is. Though if your intention in using the clock is to know what time of the day it is, then you must synchronize your clock with the earth's motion. This slowing down of the earth is the source of the clever sign on the convenience store in one Futurama episode that says "Open 28 hours".

On New Year's Eve this year those of us in the Eastern Time Zone get an extra second just before 7pm. The clocks will read 6:59:59, then 6:59:60, before moving on to 7pm. I am going to take an extra heartbeat or one twelth of a breath with my extra second.

The best part is that the leap second will be inserted just before 12:00 midnight for the Greenwich time zone. Which will have Londoners at their New Year's Eve party counting down - 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... 1...

My Best Christmas Present - first official Honest Hypocrite T-shirt!

My favorite Christmas present this year is the first official T-shirt for the Honest Hypocrite, given to me by a big fan of the blog. I especially like the Truth is Out There font.

I am thinking about a line of t-shirts for my blog and this one has inspired me further, anybody out there interested? Designs are in progress.

Blinded by the (LED Christmas) lights!

We went to enjoy the Christmas Lights at Longwood Gardens last week. They had one tree with the new LED Christmas Light technology, and boy did those lights look like they were strobing at me at 60 Hz. It was painful and it hurt my eyes.

I am not alone in my concern, Andrew comments on the same thing in his Dec 3rd entry. Planet Christmas, way back in October, suggests that the time has come for these LED lights. I hope not, because then Christmas will become the season of headaches, migraine auras and latent epileptic seizures due to these strobing lights. A Slashdot commenter sees the possibility of harnessing the strobing and suggests using the LED Christmas lights as an emitter for a build your own optical data link.

Christmas Wrapping How To: A book box from a shirt box

Books are sacred objects to me, you should always treat them right. I once had a bad experience when giving a book as a gift. I had just wrapped the book by itself and when it was opened the recipient ripped the book jacket as well as the wrapping paper, oops! So to avoid that I always give my books in a box.

Anyone can easily take a shirt box and with a few cuts and folds, turn it into a book box. I choose to do this because the book would be swimming in a big shirt box and you save on some wrapping paper and wrapping difficulty. The example below is a gift for my mother this year for Christmas (I am not a big Danielle Steele fan, I just hope she doesn't see it in the blog, which is funny on multiple dimensions).

1.) Choose a box lid or bottom into which the book fits crosswise. You will only need one or the other, this is a good way to get rid of mismatched or extra box parts. The other dimension should be a box height more than twice as wide as the book, since we will fold it over in order to make the lid.


2.) Make a cut on each side of the box at the edge of the book. This will allow you to make the first of the two folds that will turn half of the box into a lid for the other half.



3.) Score the box on a line between the two cuts so that it will be easy to fold. Fold the box.



4.) Score the box again along the line shown and then make another cut on each side of the box. This will allow the next fold of the box.


5.) It won't be perfect, only a perfectionist would insist on boxing their books, but you may have some ends on the box that should be cut so they don't pierce the wrapping paper later.

Voila! A book box from leftover shirt boxes to protect your precious written lump of civilization on its way to a lucky loved one.

Death of the Ribbon Magnet meme

Once I saw this ribbon for sale at Spencer's, I realized that it is time to write the obituary for the ribbon magnet meme. Satirizing the ribbons has occurred for some time now, but seeing this type of parody of them at Spencer's is like getting your news from the Today Show - you are way behind the curve. This stupid magnet falls in the same category as the "my child beat up your honor student" bumper stickers.

I still hope to review the various strains of this meme in a future post.

Beyond just white roofs and roads

Black roofs vs. White roofs are the topic of discussion over at Worldchanging. Worldchanging has a post about the environmental value of white roofs. Three simple approaches to reducing the cooling needs are plant trees, paint roofs white, use lighter colored pavement.

Treehugger points out that just changing roofs to white could actually have a significant enough effect to cancel out the expected effect of global warming. They use a very simple model to demonstrate this, but the data is enough to warrant using a more exact model to better estimate the impact.

I have always had the idea of taking this approach one step further. What if the surface (roof or pavement) turned black when it was cold outside and white when it was hot? In the summer the surfaces would reflect solar radiation and keep the surface from heating up, saving on cooling costs. In the winter the surface would be cold and remain black, absorbing enough radiation to melt snow or ice. This is especially important for my driveway this time of year.

Since I am an idea man, I just have to suggest the idea not perform the difficult implementation task. However, I do wonder if such a surface would just equilibrate to a grey color as it heated up from cold and black or cooled down from hot and white. Such a static result would lack the dynamic adaptation to temperature to produce the desired effect.

Dystopian 8-bit an appropriate soundtrack for the future

I have been listening to a group called 8-bit, a self-described "robotic old school nintendo rap crew" who "landed on your g**d*** planet in 2002". I first saw these guys as the Friday music act on Attack of the Show (July 28), and knew I had to hear more seeing just one song. The general theme of their music is that they are robots who enjoy the robot thug lifestyle. They appear to be suffering from a severe dissociative disorder and alienation from their own bodies by believing they are robots from another planet. It does make for clever, though filthy mouthed lyrics. Their songs are appropriate for anyone who sometimes feels overwhelmed by the seeming dystopia (dystopia, dystopia, dystopia) brought on by technological acceleration.

The disaffection with reality reminds me of the scene in the Matrix when Agent Smith has captured Morpheus and is trying to torture information from him. Agent Smith longs to leave the simulated reality of the Matrix and his duty to control the humans imprisoned therein. He complains that he has been contaminated by the stink of humanity and reality, much like the feeling one assumes the members of 8-bit have when they perform. In songs like "you ain't no robot" they express their disgust at human physical functions and the very idea of corporeality - they hate the thought of being trapped in "meat". Even breathing is distasteful as related in "oxygen".

In "I-deez", one of my favorites, "robots don't have drivers licenses so they gotta get fake i-deez", mostly in order to continue their debauched existence. Don't let the potential negativity stop you from sampling these songs however, the beats are grooving and the rap lyrics are clever and amusing at times. "Drunk" has a great bass riff yet serves as a cautionary tale about avoiding drinking to excess, mostly by doing the opposite of what the song tells you to do. I suspect the whole robot thug lifestyle act is a gimmick to create a great act, but let's give them credit for their disaffection.

You can find some mp3 downloads of their songs for sampling at their website at Ninja Star Records and at the 8-bit Myspace account. I am declaring these songs R-rated not only because of the corrosive dystopian philosophy they espouse but also because the language in them is something even the older kids should avoid using in the work environment or in front of mom.

Giant Christmas snow globe in the wild and exciting decorations

Careful readers will recall that I was hypnotized by a giant snow globe long before the Christmas season began. I have finally spotted one of these snow globes in the wild in the best of all possible places - at my neighbor's house! I apologize for the quality of the picture (remember my Treo phone camera stinks) but I felt compelled to take a picture for the historical record.

Other exciting Christmas decorations on my block include a lighted train whose wheels blink to produce the illusion of rotation. It is so hypnotic it must be responsible for some accidents at the light on the corner.

This set of decorations seems to have grown almost organically on the lawn. It is just a fun collection of holiday eclectica.

Which file extension are you?

Even considering the extreme geekiness of these types of quizzes, I am still willing to admit to you that I have taken two in as many days and found them amusing for the 30 seconds it took (which is about what the internet is for anyway). The "Which file extension are you?" quiz was at least familiar enough for me to relate to. Enjoy it or not as the mood strikes you.

Given that I have a new iPod nano that I have been filling up and annoying my friends with, I think they would all agree with the conclusion below. I am glad I am not a .pdf, I hate that file type!


Which File Extension are You?