But what is it? If you’ve had a bad day at work then this guy has you covered?
Author: Nathan Campbell
Mario redubbed with realistic sounds
This is odd.
How to cook Bacon
Add some maple syrup to this mix and I’m sold. I’ve always cranked up the heat and put a lid on the saucepan. Because I like my bacon crispy. But this looks better.
Breakfast here we come…
Think you’re a Scissors, Rock, Paper gun? Take on the supercomputer
The New York Times has created the world’s fastest scissors, rock, paper player. A computer that draws on the memory of 200,000 games and analyses your most likely move based on patterns. I took a stab, and 200+ games later I declared the computer the winner. I reckon it’s slightly harder than the games in the Alex (the) Kidd games. I thought the “the” was their – but not according to Dr. Google.
“Computers mimic human reasoning by building on simple rules and statistical averages. Test your strategy against the computer in this rock-paper-scissors game illustrating basic artificial intelligence. Choose from two different modes: novice, where the computer learns to play from scratch, and veteran, where the computer pits over 200,000 rounds of previous experience against you.”
I tried thinking really hard about the best possible move and picking the opposite. I tried picking the same move ten times in a row and then changing it (I won that one, but lost the nine before that).
What are your strategies? With real people I like to call my moves in advance just to get people doublethinking. Then, if they think I’m trustworthy, they win the game, but I win the game of life. And if they don’t – I win both. It’s win/win.
I wonder if asking people what they call the game (ie the order they frame the three options in) is indicative of a person’s stock throw? Maybe it’s the one they put in the middle. I’m definitely a rock guy. Mainly because in my family a win came with the opportunity to physically demonstrate the action of the winning item. And a rock is more fun to dish out than scissors.
Robots from a war zone
There’s just something a little bit nice about this. A US soldier named Rupert Valero who loves action figures, especially robot/transformer types, has been building toys from scraps he’s picked up around Afganistan and using them to impress the local kids.
He’s made a bunch of robot things using plastic bottle lids.
Rupert makes these things when he’s bored, in this interview he says he’ll pull out his knife and start working away on his plastic creations in spare moments while he waits for the artillery cannon he works on to be put into action. But it’s not something solely for his benefit.
“When we are outside the wire, and interact with the Afghan locals, I take some of my little creations, and you see the eyes open wide on these little kids. I think I put in my humble talent to some use if it means winning hearts and minds of the Afghan people.”
“Out here, it’s 4th world, not even 3rd world. Kids are corrupted at a very young age. Boys are brainwashed to be soldiers, girls to be literally work horses. The kids we see out on patrol have never seen a He-Man or DCUC Batman. Afghan children play with rocks and dirt, which is never in shortage.”
You can buy a few of them on Etsy, and see a bunch of his previous creations on Flickr.
Via hilobrow.
Christian rap kids sing wearing snuggies
Don’t people know YouTube videos can be set to private?
My Life in Albums: 1999: Powderfinger, Pumpkins and an Eternal Nightcap
1999 was a big year for me. We moved to Brisbane. I started year 11 at school. I was suddenly meant to be taking things seriously. And I started earning a little bit more money than the $2 a week we were previously entitled to. So I could afford to buy a few more CDs.
For the first few months of our life in Brisbane we were living in a modernish rental house in Keperra. With a pool. Bells, and whistles. And I remember this song was doing the radio rounds…
Eminem didn’t really do it for me in a big way. I do remember enjoying Cake in that year…
But the defining album for me from 1999 was Powderfinger’s Internationalist. I bought it with the proceeds of an afternoon spent cleaning the fence at our new house (where my parents still live).
I also discovered the Whitlams, properly, in 1999, when I got me a copy of Eternal Nightcap (incidentally, we saw them two weeks ago with the Queensland Symphony. We had second row seats and they were amazing. Playing through Eternal Nightcap plus some more recent hits)…
This was also the year I discovered the Smashing Pumpkins. Thanks largely to my obsessive friend Benny. And my friend Damien who brought me a pirated copy of Siamese Dream back from China. Disarm has embedding disabled – and I think it’s the best song on that album, followed by Soma…
And Today…
This Ben Kweller cover of Today is pretty cool.
The Bible and Press Releases: What do they have in common?
I just wrote a massive post on Venn Theology about literary theory and the Bible. You should read it, and comment (it is 2,500 words). Because this is something I’ve spent most of the semester so far thinking about, and wanting to argue about, with people who are big on single purposes for books of the Bible, and single “implied readers”…
But here’s a little bit I thought was more generally interesting. I reckon a lot of the Bible is written to persuade, and I think there’s a natural comparison between the Bible and press releases – which shapes the way I approach questions of rhetorical purpose. From that post (which I’d love you to read and comment on):
I want to suggest that much of the Bible, particularly the historic and prophetic books of the Old Testament, and the gospels, are just like Press releases. The case is harder to make for the New Testament pastoral epistles, where specific intended readers are mentioned. But letters to church groups, because they naturally contain people of different status (both spiritually and socially) are, again, just like Press Releases.
Press releases are, by their nature:
- Intended for multiple audiences – the media, and the masses (through the conduit of the media). What you write in a press release needs to tick the right boxes for the journalist who’ll read it (because you send it to them), but it also has to have some sort of appeal to the final audience. In the case of my organisation press releases were put online for our members (financial supporters) and the public to read, sent to journalists, staff, politicians and board members.
- Factual, but subjective – press releases are a particular interpretation of the facts. It’s not the job of the press release writer to be objective. That’s the journalist’s job. Press releases come with bias.
- Persuasive for each intended reader – there’s not a whole lot of point writing a press release if you’re not trying to persuade somebody to respond in a certain way on the basis of the facts of the story. Press Releases aim to persuade each intended recipient – and often to persuade them to do different things. The journalist has to be persuaded to write a story, the end user (the reader) has to be persuaded to see things from your point of view and to act accordingly, the staff member of your organisation has to be persuaded to think (and speak) of the subject matter a particular way, the financial supporter has to be persuaded that your work is of value and that they should keep supporting it.
Those three elements become important when you set out to write a press release. Every line counts. But every line counts differently for different people. Joe Average may not care where the money for a project is coming from, but the small business who has given you $1,000 of their hard-earned wants to know that that cash is being put to good use. The Board of Directors don’t really care about how a project is going to effect an individual resident, but papers love that stuff. Because they like pictures and stories about people. But the one document is used to inform and persuade many readers, from many backgrounds. And that is wrapped up in the author’s intent. If the author writes with purpose. And I’d like to assume that the writers of the Bible fall into the category of writing with purpose. But I think our job is to assess each book of the Bible for a variety of purposes for a varied audience – not one purpose for one audience. Unless that purpose is specifically stated. But even then, it’s place in the canon suggests that God has different purposes for different people in different circumstances to the intended recipient. Right?
The Great Gatsby: NES Edition
I just played the Nintendo version of the Great Gatsby. Well. Sort of. The Classic F. Scott Fitzegerald novel has been adapted to the classic gaming system. But with a catch. It’s online.
You can play it here. Here’s some shots from my play through.
Someone at Mars Hill doesn’t hate video games
This is pretty funny.
There’s this old school universal cheat code from the days of the NES called the Konami Code.
Go to Mars Hill’s website and enter it – just hit the combo of keys above on your keyboard + enter – and you find an “Easter Egg.” Somebody there knows more about gaming culture than they’re letting on, because the code takes you to Driscoll’s ill-conceived rant about video games, posted and discussed here the other day.
H/T ChurchCrunch
Build a Lego Brick Home… made from ice
These are cool. And official. Lego official. Lego ice brick moulds.
Then you can make little ice minifigs to go with it.
Shirt of the Day: Caffeine’s a hell of a drug
The other day I tracked down ten health benefits of caffeine for a post I wrote on thebeanstalker.com – 10 majestic pieces of scientific proof that drinking coffee is good for your health. Caffeine is good for you. And that article proves it.
So, here’s a shirt to go with it, a nice play on the Rick James sketches from the Chappelle Show.
You can get it here.
Mmm. Type Sandwiches
This brings some of my favourite subjects together – typography, Helvetica and burgers. Delicious mix.
Via this Flickr set. There are more sandwiches there. But I love this one:
And this one:
New Page: College Resources
I’ve collated all the useful posts I’ve written about being a student at QTC (predominantly being a first year student) into a single page. I’m adding apps, links, and other resources I’ve found useful. If you see any gaping holes in any areas – like apps I might find useful. Let me know.
It’s π day in 5 days…
The 14th of March (3.14) is pi day. Assuming you write the date like an American. Pi day. It makes the world go around. Pi day has an official website. Where you can get some digits of pi. For fun.
To celebrate the awesome magicalness of Pi. Here are some bits of pi.
This guy used the decimal points of pi to make music.
Here’s a pumpkin pi (via BoingBoing).
And a π necklace. Correct to a lot of digits.
Or this one, with almost 4,500 digits of pi.
Get a hold of a pi clock…
Or a clock where π features but isn’t central… if you want to display it all year around.
Have some pi drinks. With π ice cubes.
Finally. Check this out. Blow your mind. Eat a pie for pi day – and use pi to help calculate the size of portions required. Because pi is just the other side of pie.
Here are some π posts from my archives.