"Watch what you wish for"

If you're passionate about the movies you watch, I found a site that may interest you. It's called Jinni and it's still in beta. The idea behind the site is that it uses the information you provide about the movies you like and don't like to build a profile so that it can recommend new movies for you to watch. You can also rate stuff you've seen, write reviews on movies and TV shows and if you live somewhere in NetFlix's jurisdiction, even tie into your NetFlix account to speed up the ordering process.

If this sounds great to you, I have 10 invites to give out. If you're interested, send me an email (kplesz - my hotmail address) and I'll send an invite to the first 10 to respond.

WWII slightly redefined

The Urban Dictionary's take on WWII. My favourite part:
"Allies invade on D-Day... 5 landings: 2 British, 2 American, 1 Canadian. (everybody forgets the Canadians.)"

Wheeee!

It's faked, but it's still funny. This is what you would call the über water slide.

Interesting fact: Oil wells are deep yo!

If you ever wanted to visualize how deep a typical deep oil well goes, it has the same proportions as a human hair ten feet long.

Nicknames for stores

I'm sure I'm not the only person who makes up or adopts nicknames for the stores in their environs. Here's our list:

The Real Canadian Superstore - Stupid Store
Wal Mart - Wally World
Starbucks - Fourbucks
Howard Johnson's - HoJos
Tim Horton's - Timmy the Ho'
Staples - [pronounced stah-pleez]
Winner's - Weiners
McDonald's - Rotten Ronnie's
Target - [pronounced with a French-like tar-zhay]
Pizza Hut - Pizza Slut / Pizza the Hutt
IKEA - [pronounced 'I Kill Ya' with an accent - the ells are silent]

Here are some other pet names that I didn't know about:

Microsoft - Mister Softee
Home Depot - The Home Despot
Costco - The Hundred Dollar Store
Neiman Marcus - Needless Markup
Pottery Barn - Robbery Barn / Poverty Barn
Toys 'R Us - We Be Toys
Outback Steakhouse - Steakback Outhouse
Bed, Bath, and Beyond My Budget
KFC/Taco Bell combo stores - Colonel Sanchez

How about my readers? Got any pet names for your stores?

It's always about the money

Way back in '91, Kentucky Fried chicken changed its name to "KFC". Most people thought the reason for the name change was the unhealthy association with the word "fried". The real reason behind the shift to KFC had nothing to do with healthy food. It was about money.

Snopes has more.

Now you can rate those who do your renovations

A friend of mine started a new web service which is now live. The idea is that it can be scary trying to pick the right people to help you with your renovation project. So he thought it would be a great idea to create a site that allows people to rate the contractors and trades they have hired to work on their homes.

And thus RenoRaters was born. Isn't that a smart name (if I don't say so myself - because - well, I picked it)? Now of course the site is a little bare at the moment because it is void of any ratings, but with any luck that should change soon. This site is meant to serve all of North America, so no matter where you live in the USA or Canada, feel free to write up a little review for the people who have helped you with your home renovations. There are also articles, some of which have been posted already.

But RenoRaters isn't just for home owners. Nay nay. As a contractor you can make use of the site to promote your business by writing articles and adding useful information about the services you offer. RenoRaters can even host a web page for your business if you don't already have one or link to an existing site. There is even a feature for finding extra trades to help with projects.

Hopefully Andrew (the creator of RenoRaters) will see this post and add any comments on anything I've missed.

I think we need a new kind of car review

I read a lot of reviews about cars. I guess next to technology, gadgets and music, I have a huge interest in cars. That might have something to do with my love of driving. Anyway...... moving on....

Although every review I've read touches on the technical, performance and handling aspects of the car under review, I rarely if ever see any discussion about other things that I think are very important to the audience. Things like whether the car stereo supports iPod or generic mp3 player direct connections. Or if the seats are comfortable on long trips for people with circulation or back problems. Or whether the cargo area (trunk) is suitable to hold a standard set of luggage or if its shape is too irregular to store anything useful. Whether the pass-through between the trunk and back seat is large or is an obstructed opening. Whether the various storage compartments inside the car are ergonomic, or if the included navigation system is as usable as a Garmin portable model. Things like where the power outlets are and how many. Whether the rear seat can support 3 full-sized child car seats or just two. How good all around visibility is in the vehicle. Is it hard to find 3rd party floor mats that fit the vehicle?

I think these are things people want to know about new cars and I'm just not seeing this kind of information in the typical review. So I'm debating an investigation of what it would take to get this kind of review online, with support from the car companies. Or perhaps a web site where folks can submit their own real-world personal reviews of their vehicles online. Thoughts from the peanut gallery?

SETI makes contact

Kyle... Brad... Joel... this one's for you.

You've got the music in you

Bobby McFerrin demonstrates the power of the pentatonic scale, using audience participation.

Pie-pops? Lolli-pies?

Pie. You know how I love pie. It's the perfect dessert. It has one inherent flaw. The pie plate. Without the pie plate, the pie is at risk. The pie falls flat.

The solution: Make it flat in the first place and bake it around a lollipop stick.

Begin rejoicing.......

Orangeman (it's code)

Back in the late 19th century there was a telegram boom and as happens today what with cellphone carriers charging for every little thing, the telegraph carriers back then charged extra for messages longer than 10 words. Thus the least-expensive telegram was often limited to 150 characters. In today's world, Twitter allows for 140 characters.

This fuelled a boom in telegraphic "code books" that reduced both common and complex phrases into single words. Dozens of different codes were published; many catered to specific occupations and all promised efficiency. The phrases seen here are from the third edition of “The Anglo-American Telegraphic Code,” published in 1891.

Could a Twitter code book be far behind? The mind cringes.

An Ernest contribution.

Reverse vending machines

This is something I'd like to see in Canada. Just drop your drink container into this reverse vending machine and get your deposit back.

Not only does it collect refundable containers, but it compacts them too.

Superman will marry Wonder Woman

A couple in Portland Maine is getting married dressed as Superman and Wonder Woman. The bridesmaids are dressing as Amazon warriors. Spiderman, Aquaman, The Hulk, Batman and The Flash will be in attendance.

Failure is necessary..... embrace it

Here's a rather inspirational video about failure. I love the closing line, it reminds me a lot of my improv training.

Thanks to Gord for making me aware of this video.

Stormtrooper universe

Someone decided to pose their stormtrooper action figures in a number of bizarre poses, one for every day starting April 3rd 2009.

They're too funny. Better not to drink coffee while viewing them.

Bravo Stéfan.... bravo.

Getting more out of your iPhone to get around

If you own an iPhone but don't yet own a full-fledged dedicated GPS device - the kind that gives spoken turn-by-turn instructions, you may want to hold off on your that purchase. Navigon makes a GPS application for the iPhone and my friend Ernest graciously let me see it in action.

To start with, Ernest mentioned that there is a special $70 price, which is a great deal considering that it normally sells for $100. This deal will be over on August 15th.

On to the application. One reason why you might be interested in a dedicated navigation application is that the Google maps app built into the iPhone might be good for occasional navigation but it doesn't provide turn-by-turn instructions (by voice) or 3D view of the route. Also, using the Google Maps app for navigation requires a data connection to the internet for map data and as such will consume your precious data allotment. With the Navigon app, the maps are built-in.

One thing to note before you even consider getting this app is its size. It takes up a whopping 1.3GB of storage, so make sure you have the storage room left on your phone. If you've used a dedicated GPS navigation device before, you may find the Navigon app to be a bit slower, but not enough to be annoying. You'll definitely want auxiliary power available for the iPhone while using this too, as it does use up power fairly fast. Also, if you depend on your iPhone for a lot of in-car phone calls, you might want to look elsewhere - using the phone puts the navigation on hold and out of sight (or so I've read). Some nice features of this app include a 'take me home' feature, and 'reality view' and 'lane assistant' which displays highway signs and lanes in detail to assist with exiting a roadway(see Navigon site for a look). Other nice touches include navigation to contacts saved in the iPhone's address book and a Speed Assistant to alert you if you drive faster than a user-preprogrammed speed.

The bottom line is that if you've been hoping to maximize the convergence of your iPhone to include turn-by-turn navigation, Navigon is a great way to achieve that dream. At a $70 introductory price, it's much more reasonable than shelling out for a $300 dedicated GPS device.

Schrödinger’s LOLcat

Clicky for the full comic.

I think I will call it Wolfie

There's a new search engine that might be a good compliment to Google called Wolfram|Alpha. At first I wasn't that impressed with it, but the more I use it, the more I'm beginning to see its value. This isn't a search designed for finding web pages, this is more of an engine that makes use of known bits of information and manipulates it into some
kind of statistical result for you to view. So search engine is a misnomer - it's more of a fact based computational knowledge engine. It computes answers. It provides answers to certain kinds of questions. It's an 'answer engine'. The way this engine interprets your input takes a little getting used to, sometimes not knowing what to make of your query. So there is a learning curve here. As I said to a good friend of mine, Wolfram needs to 'relax the syntax' a little. But when it is able to understand your query, the results are quite extraordinary.

Some queries you can try to give a small sampling of what Wolfram Alpha is capable of:
[your city] weather
$50,000/yr
synonyms of [word]
time in [city]
mortgage $450,000, 4%, 25 years
brother's daughter's daughter
vitamin d in 1 cup milk
tides [city] tomorrow
[planet] [time] [date]

What is butter? Wolfie knows - it'll display the average nutrition facts. Ask it to convert $1 to British pounds, or the distance between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Who starred in Casablanca? How was the weather in New York on May 26, 1987? How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

This is just the tip of the iceberg though, you should watch this video tutorial.

One of the things the tutorial demonstrated that I was curious to try was name distribution. I typed in "Karl" and it showed that people born who were named Karl peaked around 1960 / 61. I was born in 1961. For Darlene, her name peaked around 1959 - she was born 2 years earlier. Heidi (my sister): you need to try this... you're going to laugh. I tried Olivia (my grand-daughter) - this name has been seriously peaking since 2000. These are the kinds of things Wolfram Alpha can show you. The best part of this project is that it's very new, so as it accumulates more data from the world, there's no telling what kinds of analysis, relationships and calculations it will be able to do for us. Looking down the road, this kind of power will be accessible through robots or wearable portable assistants. Then some serious shit's going to happen.

An artist well beyond his years

Think about what a typical 6 year old kid typically is capable of drawing or painting. Stick people with huge heads, standard box/triangle houses, you know the deal.

Then there's the work of 6 year old Kieron Williamson. Yes, that's his work on the right.

Go here for more.

Teach your cat to yodel...... OK... they're not really doing it

At first I was afraid this would be mean and gross, but this video clip on cat yodelling is rather funny. In fact, the more I watch it, the louder my laughing gets. As the disclaimer at the end says, "None of the kitties, yodellers, or engineers were mistreated during the making of this film. They were however, moderately annoyed."

If you liked that, you might also like The Engineer's Guide to Cats.

Gee that's like ten years ago!

Remember what the web looked like in the late 90's? No?

Let me help rectify that for you......

The web has come a long way in 10 years, no?

People just make shit up don't they?

Here's a graph showing the geographical breakdown of birthers and fact-based thinkers.

It must be something in the water...

Dontcha just love dressing up?

The 10 types of Comic Con fans. This is brilliant. Props to the booth babes, the Star Wars fans and the Lolitas.

Look at those Trekkies though. Don't you feel at least a little sorry for them? At least Star Warsers (is there such a word? - I'm coining it right now) and Steampunkers and Lolitas get to wear awesome outfits and carry lightsabres and stuff, but the Trekkies..... those poor Trekkies (and I'm a Trekkie). All they get to wear are cookie-cutter uniforms only available in 3 colours. And why on Vulcan (see what I did there?) would you wear the colour associated with crew members destined to die in the episode (red). Mind you, Trek skirts are hot. In an Austin Powers 1963 sort of way. And how about them hair-dos?

Because it's all about probabilities

If I was ever to write and give a commencement speech, this is how it would open:

"Every opportunity you pass by causes a whole universe of possibilities to wink out of existence."

"Mustard's no good without roast beef." Chico Marx

I only found out about this like 5 minutes ago, but today (as is every first Saturday in August) is mustard day.

I did my part and BBQ'd a couple hot dogs.

♪Bo belly belly fo felly♫

The BigBelly solar-powered trash can is an idea whose time has come. Unlike normal city trash cans, the BigBelly cans are also trash compactors. BigBelly can hold 5x the trash of a normal can, which reduces the number of pickup trips. Not only that, BigBellys can be rigged to send text messages to waste management folks when they’re full to eliminate the need to drive around to check if cans are full.

How many of you were singing 'bo belly belly fo felly' after reading this blog post?

Can you dig it?

North America is talking about alternative sources of energy to meet the increasing demands of the expected 'electric economy', which will likely include electric cars in the future. Our society is also under pressure to switch to energy sources that have a smaller carbon footprint, which is making things like solar, wind, hydro and nuclear look better by each passing year. But the one option nobody seems to be talking about, which BC and Alberta have a great potential to exploit, is geothermal.

I'd like to know why. It seems like a no-brainer.

You wouldn't need as much energy if your home was built better

All the talk about becoming more energy efficient doesn't seem to be filtering down to the home itself yet. What if I told you that the technology exists to construct a home that is so energy efficient that in the dead of winter, it would only need the heat from a hair dryer to maintain a comfortable temperature? Many days of the year, you can literally heat your home with just body heat. This is accomplished using a higher degree of insulation, ultra-efficient windows and a variety of passive heating technologies including solar and geothermal heating. This results in a reduction in energy required for heating by at least 75% to as much as 95%. This technology only adds 14% to the cost of the home's construction.

"In the United States, a house built to the Passive House standard results in a building that requires space heating energy of 1 BTU per square foot per heating degree day, compared with about 5 to 15 BTUs per square foot per heating degree day for a similar building built to meet the 2003 Model Energy Efficiency Code. This is between 75 and 95% less energy for space heating and cooling than current new buildings that meet today's US energy efficiency codes. The Passivhaus in the German-language camp of Waldsee, Minnesota uses 85% less energy than a house built to Minnesota building codes."

Developed in Germany, Passivhaus is a housing construction methodology that exists today. There are around 20,000 Passivhaus homes in the world. There should be much more. We could be saving literally tons of CO2 and oil / gas per home, never mind the energy cost savings.

More efficient energy made in your own home

I've come across quite a few conversations lately about alternative power generation and happened to stumble upon the fact that Calgary's local electricity provider (Enmax) has been experimenting with a new technology that could revolutionize the way we heat and power our homes.

The technology is called micro combined heat and power (microCHP) and the particular version of said technology I came across is the WhisperGen. It's basically a heat and power system based on a four cylinder Stirling engine. It produces electricity and hot water suitable for household use or space heating and burns natural gas (or diesel or kerosene). The advantage of this technology is that for about the same amount of natural gas currently used to heat a home, you can have hot water (to both heat the home and for showers, etc.) plus electricity. Much more efficient.

These systems are being sold as off-grid self-sustained power and heat systems for boats or remote dwellings and on-grid systems for heating and providing power with the ability to sell excess electricity back to the utility.