Google Maps with Street View

Check this out. You can drag the photo left and right to spin around. Click the arrows to move up or down a street. Also try picking up the little yellow man and putting him somewhere else. Look how his legs flap around. I love it. (Via TechCrunch).

I like to think in terms of technology granting me god-like powers. Prior to Google Maps satellite view, only God could see the world from above from any position. Google Earth extends my powers to provide flyovers, terrain, looking towards the horizon etc. Now this street view gives me the following god-like powers:

• look around a city thousands of miles away
• float above traffic on a busy street without danger
• freeze time (Hiro style)
• telescopic vision (try zooming in on the photo view). I can read phone numbers and opening hours on shop doors.

I guess God (and probably Sauron? (and Sylar any day now :)) would be able to achieve these feats with sound and real-time imaging, ie in God's version of Google Earth you can see yourself through the window looking at your computer. That just proves that my Google granted powers are a little behind God's. And that's as it should be, don't you think? Any company that gives me god-like powers for free is okay with me. Their email is pretty good also.

Camille - Le Fil

Now and again one of Milly's students lends her CDs to try. Usually they're not too memorable but this one girl lent her Le Fil by Camille. Camille is French and seriously amazing. Also her web site is very nice. She is clearly a little nuts (with the drone-hum in every song and the percussive fart sounds) but very talented and (may I say) incredibly sexy. Google her or 'tube her to your heart's content.

interesting article about making money with internet domains

This is about the genius who convinced cameroon to give him *.cm. Via slashdot. Some say these kind of people are just above spammers on the evil scale. I personally could argue (albeit unconvincingly) that they are actually contributing a valuable service to society. But really I just would like to be one of them. :)

I've been fascinated by this kind of thing ever since I found this site when I was looking up my (then future) bike. At the time it was one of the the top search results in Google (now it doesn't make the list, so Google is improving their filtering of this kind of thing). Take a look, it's quite impressive. I actually took a while to figure out that it wasn't a real site. Then I began to marvel at it and imagine how much money you might make if you had say 1000 of these. Or 10,000. And what if they were getting search hits from Google. WOW. Here's another nice one: weddingshoes.com. At KatanaPlanet one of the "authors" has a weird name, "Melissa J. Morphew" which you can Google to get a tiny glimpse of this one guy's collection.

Getting back to the evil scale, did you know Google is very happy to make (boat loads) of money in this way too? (See here and the faq. It says "AdSense for domains is currently available to large domain portfolio owners".. so that counts me out.) And we all know Google wouldn't be evil, right..?

buzzlegums and fudgehogs

our buzzlegums just weren't producing honey so I googled this forum page. it's funny! it's also funny that I know what they are talking about and it makes perfect sense. (if you really want to know...)

windscreen

MRA (Germany) via Twisted Throttle (USA) via Mr Postman it's home made from a sheet of perspex. not a bad job but a bit short and not too pretty. you can see the size difference. the new one is the touring model which means it's slightly longer than the stock model (which itself is much longer than the home made jobby) and has the upwards flip designed send, wind, rain and bugs up over my head. you can also see it's overdue for a wash by pure chance the rubber edging has a purple tinge to so it looks like it was chosen to match the colour. awesome looks 100% better and has made a huge difference to the amount of wind and noise hitting me on the highway. yay!

weekly heroes torrent report

Right this minute there are 29754 seeders, 19790 downloaders for the biggest torrent on torrentspy. I think it's the season finale.

pete doherty at 15

It's a YouTube video of Pete before he was famous talking to an MTV presenter while queuing to see Oasis. See here.

weekly heroes torrent report (S01E22)

via torrentspy.com. (To find Heroes torrents, go to torrentspy or EZTV and search for Heroes).

Feist, New Buffalo

I just heard of Feist, she seems pretty good.
Feist on Leno, via Stereogum (amazing voice I think) The video for the same song, 1234 which apparently was written by New Buffalo, who I have been a fan since I saw her show in brisbane (with greenapplecat) a few years ago and has a new album out just this week, called somewhere anywhere. Her new video: New Buffalo trivia: her name is Sally Seltman and husband is a member of The Avalanches.

the fake people

Paraphrased from big brother:
J: oh there's so many fake people in this house. oh boy I just can't stand the fake people. you're not fake, you're so genuine, just like me, that why we can hang out together
E: yeah, the other day I was thinking of saying something but I didn't say it, because I just don't feel comfortable being myself with all those fake people
J: yeah I really wish the fake people would like me more but if they don't think I'm good enough for them well I will just sit by myself and not say anything
E: I hate those people who just can't be themselves.
J: me too
etc

My Annual BB rating card

Like: Bodie, Emma, Aleisha, Billy
Whatever: Tony, Joel, TJ, Travis, Demet, Thomas, Susannah, Nick
Can't stand: Kate, Rebecca, Haley, Jamie, Gretel

tv

Last night our TV broke. It just stopped working. I liked that TV. :( It was a widescreen. It was only a few years old. I sent it to the shop but my hunch is that it could be a one way trip. I guess it's time for a new TV. Normally this would be good news but I had this little dream of buying a HD panel with 1080p and an XBox 360 with Gears of War on the same day and hooking them all up together in a little daze of happiness. In my fantasy this can be achieved for under $1500 which means the dream happens far in the future when the 360 and big HD TVs are cheaper. Now my hand is forced. Isn't it great that this is my biggest problem in life? We have three other TVs. So anyway, LCD or plasma? Let me know before tonight preferably.

Kirwan police crime bulletin

This one has some variety. We have the usual Dan Murphy's shop lifters (is that a bottle of Johnny Walker in your pocket or um...), cab fare evaders, purse snatchers. (Though I don't know about that one really - the woman leaves her purse behind at the vale and when she comes back some one has taken it. you could perhaps call that "finding" rather then "stealing"). Also we have a stabbing and a flasher. :( That's not cool.

The Crime Bulletin, Vol 1 Number 11, 9 May 2007.

(Crime Stoppers 1800 333 000).

My house in Google Earth

If you were paying attention to this blog about a year ago you might remember that I was very excited by SketchUp. Well I was in Google Earth and I've noticed that more and more buildings are starting to appear. There is a very dodgey looking Sydney Opera House. The Sydney Harbour bridge looks pretty good, as does the Center Point. Brisbane has a couple of buildings also. The level of detail is excellent compared to when I was last looking at Google Earth buildings. I remember looking at San Francisco. There were buildings there and it was cool but they all looked like various sized beige shoe boxes. Now we have nice looking models and even textures and so on. This inspired me to have another go at putting my house in Google Earth for real this time. I download the latest SketchUp and dug up my .skp file. I fiddled with the rotation, scale and position and submitted to the 3D warehouse. I think someone has to now approve it before it will appear. Will keep you posted. Here's a link. Better yet, here it is embedded:

bunny letter opener

Hackety Hack and _why's new blog

Code poet, writer, artist, insane genius and ruby guru _why has a new project and a new blog. Hackety Hack is coolety cool.

Heroes. Sylar. O... M...... F..... G!

Just saw 19 & 20. Holy crap. Thank you Mr Kring. This is literally the best thing I have ever seen on any screen ever. Ep 20 made me wet my pants. Seriously. Thank you. I will buy the DVDs.

Mordeth13

So I've not really been into video blogs until now. There is this one guy called Mordeth13. He's a Canadian guy who works as a teacher in a city in Taiwan. He mostly blogs with a helmet cam while riding his motorcycle or scooter. Anyway I suggest checking him out if you have the bandwidth. A couple of starters:

• Mordeth13 catches a Hit and Run killer
• M13 cries, scolds an elderly lady, helps a dog, and swears a lot.
• The biker wave (one of his most famous videos)

It's hard to describe why he's interesting but there's something about it. Sorry I'm not being very clear. YMMV. If you like the above then you can get loads more here.

the sorry state of music tv

Just for instance here's what's on right now. Channel V - Ice T's Rap School. MTV - The Hills Marathon. VH1 - Flavor Flav in yet another lame "reality" show. Other highlights, Bam Magera/Hulk Hogan/Various other D- grade "celebs" in yet more lame reality shows. Laguna beach, etc. Some lame Japanese game show with lame overdubbing (thanks Channel V). I also saw girls wrestling in slime also with overdubbing. (Trust me it's worse than it sounds). Etc. It goes on. Well it's no news that MTV makes TV shows, and once they were worth something, eg Beavis and Butthead, Daria, Pimp my Ride I don't mind, Cribs I can watch. Those where the good old days for sure. Now it's turned bad. And worse, other channels are doing their best to follow in the footsteps of MTV but with even harder scrapes of the barrel if that were possible. Eg, they have even found some crappy "reality" show from NZ. Can I get some music on my music TV? Perhaps squeeze a song or two in between the ringtone commercials (which I can do a whole nother rant about if prompted.... (On the other hand I did enjoy some of the video blog show on V). I'm not against reality shows in the broader sense, eg Big Brother. My tip: Billy to win. Aleisha runner up.

heroes torrent

Filename	Heroes.S01E20.HDTV.XviD-LOL.[eztv].torre...
Total Size	349.22 M (366182400 bytes)
Author	death734 - Member Since: 11/7/2005
Submitted	19 hours 16 mins ago
Checked	1 hour 51 mins ago
Health	14378 Seeders / 18741 Downloaders

Look how many people are downloading this one Heroes torrent right now.

(To find Heroes torrents, go to torrentspy or EZTV and search for Heroes).

on beards

Evolutionarily speaking the fact that beards exist means that they increase your chances of a) living longer or b) attracting a mate. Or if you prefer, God (and I don't think He shaves, do you?) created your beard so why are you so determined to remove it? Don't you want to look like God? Do you think you know better than God about how your head should look? Whatever the case I think it's pretty clear that you should grow a beard.