Oh how I love me some Katamari Damacy. A friend had told me about it first… the cute little seemingly pointless game where all you do is roll around a ball and pick stuff up. It sounded incredibly boring, but as anyone who has had the chance to play it knows, it’s incredibly addictive and nowhere near as simple as it sounds (with an awesome soundtrack, to boot.)
When I first saw the previews for Jarhead, I thought oh lord, not another Pearl Harbor. Not another patriotic call to arms at a time when a military operation has the lowest public support ever… but alas, looking more into the film, while I’m sure it takes the patriotic “I love my country, and I’ll fight for it, but only for the right reasons” route, it doesn’t look to be the blatant flag waving I thought it was at first glance. Interestingly enough, the television spots are much more rock ‘n’ roll, America, Fuck Yeah! than the trailers, and possibly the movie, actually are.
Carnegie Mellon University and German scientists, looking to bring Douglas Adams’ Babelfish to life, demonstrated a prototype translation system which, through a series of electrodes in the cheek, neck, and throat, can detect spoken words and then translate them into another language on the fly.
The look of our Dept. of Public Records will be undergoing some change in the next few weeks as we sort out the move from Blosxom to WordPress. I liked Blosxom. It’s database-free setup was great for anyone who didn’t have access to a MySQL database, and the file system was very easy to manage and customize. I think it is a great starter content management system, and it was a wonderful place for me to cut my teeth on in the area of CSS customization and the overall idea of blogging.
Read more on Please Excuse The Mess: From Blosxom to WordPress…
As a big fan of The Apprentice: Donald, as NBC now refers to it, I was curious about the newer version featuring style diva Martha Stewart. After her little stock insider trading scandal and brief jail time served, it seemed to me like a great PR move to try and polish up her tarnished image. In the beginning, I really didn’t have an opinion on her either way, but after having watched the show over the last few weeks, I can say that for me it’s definitely done it’s job. I think Martha Stewart is fantastic.
The show is pretty much like the original Apprentice, with the tasks focusing more on Martha Stewart related things like making salad dressing, or creating a children’s book. Product placement is as prominent as ever, and the “Martha Stewart” brand is reinforced at every turn. If you didn’t know what the woman stood for before, after watching a few episodes you’ll understand exactly what “Martha Stewart” means.
An interesting difference in this one is that her sidekicks, her “Carolyn & George” if you will, are her daughter, and some guy who looks eerily a lot like Vice PResident Dick Cheney, who always has a cigar in his mouth and who I definitely believe is the reason she went to jail. Also, featured are Martha’s 3 homes and multiple studios, and as an added bonus, she’s surprisingly open about having gone to jail. In one episode, one of the candidates was complaining about not having time to get something done, and Martha replied, “Well I went to JAIL and I STILL ran my empire!” In last night’s episode, when visiting the candidate’s living quarters, she remarked, “Oh, living in such close conatct with people… it’s like… well, you know.” I’m surprised she’s so open about her jail time, but it definitely help build her image. She’s been through a lot, and she’s back for more. Again, beautiful PR.
If you haven’t checked it out yet, I’d say give it a watch. It’s definitely more interesting than you think. (And on top of that, next week’s episode, two people fail so miserably, they BOTH get fired!)
More about Martha Stewart Apprentice, Wednesdays at 9 on NBC.com.
Cameron Moll’s article “Good Designers Redesign, Great Designers Realign” at the web 2.0 design blog A List Apart explores the difference between redesigning and realigning, calling on designers to stop incessent redesigning, and to remember the key tenant of the web still stands true today: Content is king.
Read the full article here.
Poil11 has an article on You Awake on how to integrate photos from your mobile phone into your WordPress blog. Pretty good how-to on the subject… way to go, Poil11!