Monday, February 8, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
The United States Still Have a Chance
Just... Hit... Play!
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Mass Backwards | ||||
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Monday, December 21, 2009
Apophis Passes Pretty Colose in 2029
Here's the projected path. The "likelihood of an impact is significantly reduced" hopefully it won't pick up too many satellites as it passes well within the moon's orbit.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Avatar: Number One Box Office Seller of All Time
Just got back from Avatar, from the folks who brought us the movie "Titanic"... which I have haven't seen...
The highest grossing films of all time is a funny thing. It's valued in U.S. Dollars, and thus doesn't reflect actual numbers of ticket sales.
More interestingly, the most of the highest ranked films by gross have done extremely well internationally.
Avatar will be at the top of this list before long. Amazing special effects created with evolutionary technology have set a new standard for the film industry to follow.
"Great, it will make a lot of box office paper money, but..." does Avatar have the epic story line we saw with Star Wars and Lord of the Rings?
Not even close. The Avatar storyline is somewhere in between Pochahauntus and Titanic. It has a derogatory view on the human race and doesn't try to hide it... (Story Spoiler: Humans Cut Down Old Growth Tree in Desperate Search For Unobtainum) It's a direct corollary to what the manifest destiny Americans did to the Native Americans; with a catch - We should have started the Civil War a few hundred centuries too early and I'm sure we would be in much better shape now as a result.
What happened to Freedom being a Good Thing? Freedom is what we were in search of, and it's what we've had, for a while now.
On that note, with the US Dollar in questionable status with the rest of the world, I'm sure Avatar will do extremely well internationally due to its inherent Anti American sentiment. And considering our Paper Money's status, the international gross figures ought to be huge considering Titanic grossed more internationally in 1997 than the second-place finisher, Lord of the Rings grossed world wide in 2003 Dollars.
Interesting lessons to pull from this list?
Rank Name Studio Gross US International Yr
1 Titanic Par. $1,842.9 $600.8 $1,242.1 1997
2 LOTR-Return of the King NL $1,119.1 $377.0 $742.1 2003
15 Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs Fox $883.7 $196.6 $687.1 2009
6 Pirates Caribbean: World's End BV $961.0 $309.4 $651.6 2007
29 Star Wars Fox $775.4 $461.0 $314.4 1977^
The highest grossing films of all time is a funny thing. It's valued in U.S. Dollars, and thus doesn't reflect actual numbers of ticket sales.
More interestingly, the most of the highest ranked films by gross have done extremely well internationally.
Avatar will be at the top of this list before long. Amazing special effects created with evolutionary technology have set a new standard for the film industry to follow.
"Great, it will make a lot of box office paper money, but..." does Avatar have the epic story line we saw with Star Wars and Lord of the Rings?
Not even close. The Avatar storyline is somewhere in between Pochahauntus and Titanic. It has a derogatory view on the human race and doesn't try to hide it... (Story Spoiler: Humans Cut Down Old Growth Tree in Desperate Search For Unobtainum) It's a direct corollary to what the manifest destiny Americans did to the Native Americans; with a catch - We should have started the Civil War a few hundred centuries too early and I'm sure we would be in much better shape now as a result.
What happened to Freedom being a Good Thing? Freedom is what we were in search of, and it's what we've had, for a while now.
On that note, with the US Dollar in questionable status with the rest of the world, I'm sure Avatar will do extremely well internationally due to its inherent Anti American sentiment. And considering our Paper Money's status, the international gross figures ought to be huge considering Titanic grossed more internationally in 1997 than the second-place finisher, Lord of the Rings grossed world wide in 2003 Dollars.
Hence, Avatar is Number One All Time
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Google Seriously Shakes Things Up
Details surrounding the new GPhone - the Nexus One - are still emerging, but this much is confirmed:
It uses Google Voice and Voice over IP technology which means that you do NOT need a voice plan.
It features unlimited GTalk so you don't need a text messaging plan.
It (should) operate over any network with only a data plan. TMobile and ATT both offer data plans without contracts, for about $30 per month.
It will work fine over a wireless network -- no service plan requried at-all.
It's up for sale January 5, for $200 -- unless you have a google account, in which case it's $100.
It looks like my iPhone will be relegated to iPod duty in the near future.
It uses Google Voice and Voice over IP technology which means that you do NOT need a voice plan.
It features unlimited GTalk so you don't need a text messaging plan.
It (should) operate over any network with only a data plan. TMobile and ATT both offer data plans without contracts, for about $30 per month.
It will work fine over a wireless network -- no service plan requried at-all.
It's up for sale January 5, for $200 -- unless you have a google account, in which case it's $100.
It looks like my iPhone will be relegated to iPod duty in the near future.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
MIT Wins Network Challenge
In all of nine hours, the team based out of MIT won this year's Network Challenge by finding all 10 red balloons that were distributed around the country.
Read More at DARPA.mil.
Great idea!
Read More at DARPA.mil.
Great idea!
Friday, December 4, 2009
MIT Picks up my Unused Idea
Several weeks ago, DARPA came out with their latest Net Challenge: Spot 10 red weather balloons that will be randomly positioned near major roadways throughout the United States on December 5, 2009. The prize is $40,000 -- which would solve about 99% of my financial woes at this time... so I was interested.
It turns out there weren't really a lot of other rules... So how to solve this?
My idea was a simple solution: Put it out there to Facebook, Twitter, Digg, local news channels and AM radio, that you can win $500 for spotting one of these balloons. The kicker is that there isn't a good way that DARPA can stop any average joe from setting up their own balloon in their back yard -- so there are sure to be a few decoys out there. But it doesn't really make a difference... you just collect as many balloon locations as possible, submit them within a week... and if you are the first to come up with all 10, you make $40,000... distribute the rest of the cash to the respective balloon finders, and you're off and gone.
Enter the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's solution:
We're giving $2000 per balloon to the first person to send us the correct coordinates, but that's not all -- we're also giving $1000 to the person who invited them. Then we're giving $500 whoever invited the inviter, and $250 to whoever invited them, and so on... (see how it works).
OK so their payouts are a little bigger -- and it sounds a lot more like a pyramid scheme... but nevertheless, it makes me feel just a little bit smarter today.
Keep your eyes peeled tomorrow for red balloons -- and if you find one, Help Us Win!
It turns out there weren't really a lot of other rules... So how to solve this?
My idea was a simple solution: Put it out there to Facebook, Twitter, Digg, local news channels and AM radio, that you can win $500 for spotting one of these balloons. The kicker is that there isn't a good way that DARPA can stop any average joe from setting up their own balloon in their back yard -- so there are sure to be a few decoys out there. But it doesn't really make a difference... you just collect as many balloon locations as possible, submit them within a week... and if you are the first to come up with all 10, you make $40,000... distribute the rest of the cash to the respective balloon finders, and you're off and gone.
Enter the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's solution:
We're giving $2000 per balloon to the first person to send us the correct coordinates, but that's not all -- we're also giving $1000 to the person who invited them. Then we're giving $500 whoever invited the inviter, and $250 to whoever invited them, and so on... (see how it works).
OK so their payouts are a little bigger -- and it sounds a lot more like a pyramid scheme... but nevertheless, it makes me feel just a little bit smarter today.
Keep your eyes peeled tomorrow for red balloons -- and if you find one, Help Us Win!
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