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In Case You Never Noticed: 'Point Break' and 'Fast and the Furious' Essentially the Same Film
1:01pm
Source: I Watch Stuff - The Best Movie News Ever
Shared by Bill
We really missed the boat not watching this last weekend
We spent so, so much time calling out Avatar for being Pocahontas Delgo with Wolves, and yet for going on a decade we've all been sitting here idly letting The Fast and the Furious think it's just a shit movie, not a shit ripoff. No longer, Fast and the Furious! This CollegeHumor comparison video should put you in your place. You are Point Break with cars, Fast and the Furious.
Hopefully this means that Point Break sequel will be 2 Furious.
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Cutting To The Heart Of It
Jul 28 9:30am
Source: So Much Pun - Funny Jokes in Photos
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My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-7-25)
Jul 28 4:20am
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Kayak Chooses Point Inside as One of Their “Apps We Like”
Jul 26 8:39pm
Source: Point Inside
Shared by Bill
one step closer to taking over the worldGood news travelers! Kayak, the world’s leading travel search site, has chosen Point Inside’s free mobile application, “Maps for Airports and Malls”, for inclusion in its in-app referral list of useful travel apps. This short list of apps is meant to provide Kayak users easy access to other travel-oriented apps Kayak recommends. The referral list is currently available in Kayak’s iPhone, iPod touch and iPad apps. From the Kayak app users can jump directly to the iTunes store to download Point Inside, or, if it’s already installed, invoke the app directly.
The benefits to Kayak’s users of using Point Inside’s Indoor Smart Maps™ are numerous. With over 70 airport maps there’s wide coverage, and Point Inside is the only mobile app to offer detailed, interactive, INDOOR maps of airport terminals, in conjunction with an auto-location feature. Point Inside users can search for items in any terminal, or interact directly with the airport map to get more information. Once a destination is selected, it’s highlighted by a pin on the map, like users have come to expect from “outdoor” mobile maps. This highlighting allows each person to “customize” the map based on his or her immediate need, whether that’s quickly finding the nearest restroom, or determining what restaurants are on the way to their connecting gate.
Point Inside users can also see their own true positions on the indoor maps by using SmartFix™, Point Inside’s proprietary indoor location method. SmartFix determines the user’s location by using GPS, cell towers or WiFi. However, if these methods are inaccurate, as is often the case indoors, SmartFix prompts the user to provide her own position by selecting a nearby landmark. Knowing where you are relative to where you need to go can help you ease the anxiety of travel. And knowing what amenities are nearby or on your way can help you make better, faster decisions.
In a quid pro quo, Point Inside is also offering its users immediate access to the Kayak app, with a link from the “Info” tab within each Airport. We’re happy to be working with Kayak to offer this convenience to users of both apps!
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Spammy looking site, but amazing technology. Can anyone explain the algorithm?
Jul 26 1:40pm
Source: Hacker News
Shared by Bill
Comments
This site is fun! -
The Birth and Death of a Lightning Bolt
Jul 26 12:34pm
Source: Geeks are Sexy Technology News
Shared by Bill
why is lighting so freaking cool?This short video, slowed down exactly 300 times, shows the birth and death of a lightning bolt. Enjoy!
[Via Scienceblogs]
Related posts:
Logic Bolt: Packing a Pico-Projector into a PhoneGoogle Chrome is Faster than Lightning [Video]Death Star Destroys Mosquito in Mid-Flight -
Seattle has America’s least ‘miserable’ economy
Jul 22 4:10pm
Source: Seattle Business News - Local Seattle News | The Puget Sound Business Journal
Shared by Bill
Seattle residents can claim the least miserable economy in the nation, according to one straightforward measure: the misery index, which combines inflation with unemployment.
Woo hoo! -
America The Mood Ring
Jul 22 9:41am
Source: GraphJam: Music and Pop Culture in Charts and Graphs. Let us explain them.
Thanks to Mashable for finding this awesome infographic made by researchers at Harvard and North Eastern Universities. It shows, “…analyze the sentiments we collectively expressed in 300 million tweets over three years against a scholarly word list, these researchers also mashed up that data with information from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Google Maps API and more. What they ended up with was a fascinating visualization showing the pulse of our nation, our very moods as they fluctuate over time.”
They also made an awesome time lapse video!
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Up in the North West, we got it goodLittle soggy, but...
Jul 22 9:30am
Up in the North West, we got it goodLittle soggy, but we’ve got it goodCan’t help thinking that I wish i wouldMove my ass down to Santa Cruz
Heading down to Santa Cruz today for my bachelor party. We have rented a sick beach house and will surf and golf and grill and drink all weekend. Going to be a blast! Pics to follow… maybe.
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My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-7-18)
Jul 20 5:56am
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Groundhog Day, or, the Problem with A/B Testing
Jul 20 3:05am
Source: Coding Horror
On a recent airplane flight, I happened to catch the movie Groundhog Day. Again.
If you aren't familiar with this classic film, the premise is simple: Bill Murray, somehow, gets stuck reliving the same day over and over.
It's been at least 5 years since I've seen Groundhog Day. I don't know if it's my advanced age, or what, but it really struck me on this particular viewing: this is no comedy. There's a veneer of broad comedy, yes, but lurking just under that veneer is a deep, dark existential conundrum.
It might be amusing to relive the same day a few times, maybe even a few dozen times. But an entire year of the same day -- an entire decade of the same day -- everything happening in precisely, exactly the same way? My back of the envelope calculation easily ran to a decade. But I was wrong. The director, Harold Ramis thinks it was actually 30 or 40 years.
I think the 10-year estimate is too short. It takes at least 10 years to get good at anything, and alloting for the down time and misguided years [Phil] spent, it had to be more like 30 or 40 years [spent reliving the same day].
We only see bits and pieces of the full experience in the movie, but this time my mind began filling in the gaps. Repeating the same day for decades plays to our secret collective fear that our lives are irrelevant and ultimately pointless. None of our actions -- even suicide, in endless grisly permutations -- ever change anything. What's the point? Why bother? How many of us are trapped in here, and how can we escape?
This is some dark, scary stuff when you really think about it.
You want a prediction about the weather, you're asking the wrong Phil.
I'll give you a winter prediction.
It's gonna be cold,
it's gonna be gray,
and it's gonna last you for the rest of your life.Comedy, my ass. I wanted to cry.
But there is a way out: redemption through repetition. If you have to watch Groundhog Day a few times to appreciate it, you're not alone. Indeed, that seems to be the whole point. Just ask Roger Ebert:
"Groundhog Day" is a film that finds its note and purpose so precisely that its genius may not be immediately noticeable. It unfolds so inevitably, is so entertaining, so apparently effortless, that you have to stand back and slap yourself before you see how good it really is.
Certainly I underrated it in my original review; I enjoyed it so easily that I was seduced into cheerful moderation. But there are a few films, and this is one of them, that burrow into our memories and become reference points. When you find yourself needing the phrase This is like "Groundhog Day" to explain how you feel, a movie has accomplished something.
There's something delightfully Ouroboros about the epiphanies and layered revelations in repeated viewings of a movie that is itself about (nearly) endless repetition.
Which, naturally, brings me to A/B testing. That's what Phil spends most of those thirty years doing. He spends it pursuing a woman, technically, but it's how he does it that is interesting:
Rita: This whole day has just been one long setup.
Phil: It hasn't.
Rita: And I hate fudge!
Phil: [making a mental list] No white chocolate. No fudge.
Rita: What are you doing? Are you making some kind of list? Did you call my friends and ask what I like and what I don't like? Is this what love is for you?
Phil: This is real. This is love.
Rita: Stop saying that! You must be crazy.
Phil doesn't just go on one date with Rita, he goes on thousands of dates. During each date, he makes note of what she likes and responds to, and drops everything she doesn't. At the end he arrives at -- quite literally -- the perfect date. Everything that happens is the most ideal, most desirable version of all possible outcomes on that date on that particular day. Such are the luxuries afforded to a man repeating the same day forever.
This is the purest form of A/B testing imaginable. Given two choices, pick the one that "wins", and keep repeating this ad infinitum until you arrive at the ultimate, most scientifically desirable choice. Your marketing weasels would probably collapse in an ecstatic, religious fervor if they could achieve anything even remotely close to the level of perfect A/B testing depicted in Groundhog Day.
But at the end of this perfect date, something impossible happens: Rita rejects Phil.
Phil wasn't making these choices because he honestly believed in them. He was making these choices because he wanted a specific outcome -- winning over Rita -- and the experimental data told him which path he should take. Although the date was technically perfect, it didn't ring true to Rita, and that made all the difference.
That's the problem with A/B testing. It's empty. It has no feeling, no empathy, and at worst, it's dishonest. As my friend Nathan Bowers said:
A/B testing is like sandpaper. You can use it to smooth out details, but you can't actually create anything with it.
The next time you reach for A/B testing tools, remember what happened to Phil. You can achieve a shallow local maximum with A/B testing -- but you'll never win hearts and minds. If you, or anyone on your team, is still having trouble figuring that out, well, the solution is simple.
Just watch Groundhog Day again.
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Deploy your own satellite for $8000
Jul 19 7:48pm
Source: Hacker News
Shared by Bill
Comments
Nate, lets do this just to spite Walton -
Dog Barks Batman [Video]
Jul 19 7:47pm
Source: Geeks are Sexy Technology News
Shared by Bill
Penny can sing The Victors. Lets call this a push.
Here’s a video of a pug named Teddy Almond Turtle (seriously, what kind of name is that?) who can yell “Batman”. By watching it, I guess that’s probably pretty much the only thing it can do, but at least it does it well. Anyway, enjoy the video… I guess?
Thanks Jimmy!
Related posts:
Amazing Batman Short Fan Film: City of Scars [Video]OMG: Batman vs. Darth Vader Lightsaber DuelThe new Batman “Dark Knight” movie poster
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SyFy Does It Again: 'Sharktopus' Trailer
Jul 16 9:59am
Source: I Watch Stuff - The Best Movie News Ever
You might think that something called "Sharktopus," produced by Roger Corman for SyFy, and featuring a shark-octopus hybrid as an antagonist, doesn't take itself seriously--especially when the trailer's rockin', surf-inspired "Sharktopus Theme" kicks in. But before your start passing judgment, how about you take a look at the cast first. That's right: ERIC ROBERTS is in this. Now who's got egg on their face?
Like his close relative the John Rhys-Davies, you may pluck the Eric Roberts from his natural B-movie environment and place him as far from it as you wish--be it the set of The Dark Knight or The Expendables--and he will always inevitably return to his home, the SyFy lot.
(via)
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My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-7-11)
Jul 12 10:34pm
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My Anaconda Don’t Want None Unless You Got Puns, Hun
Jul 10 6:00am
Source: So Much Pun - Funny Jokes in Photos
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Nowhere Near LeBron: Soccer’s Slim Salaries
Jul 9 7:20pm
Source: MintLife Blog | Personal Finance News & Advice
Shared by Bill
This always amazes me. Lots of MLS players make less than 45k a year which is just amazing.LeBron James had the nation’s attention for a full hour this week with his announcement that he will be joining the Miami Heat next season. (Whether an hour of prime time was meritted, we won’t judge.) The bottom line: Over the next five years, James will reportedly earn around $100 million — and that’s just on the payroll. Endorsements are extra. Not to mention income from investments and other business ventures. You get the picture – and it’s got a lot of zeroes.
As talk has zeroed in on the NBA star’s compensation these days, though, it’s worth taking a look at James’ peers: professional athletes in the soccer, hockey, football and baseball leagues. Few surprises there, it turns out: it pays to be a basketball or baseball star; soccer… not so much. Even though the U.S. national soccer team was the center of attention until a couple of weeks ago and, in general, the popularity of soccer has been on the rise in recent years, professional soccer players on average still earn just a fraction of the salaries of other professional athletes. The average MLS player, in fact, pulls in the equivalent pay of a nice desk job.
In this infographic, we compare the salaries of the top-paid baseball, basketball, football, soccer and hockey players, take a look at salary caps and give you the average compensation for a professional in each of these sports.
Restlessoul Blurbs
I enjoy using Google Reader and Del.icio.us quite a bit throughout the course of a day. I also enjoy sending interesting articles and funny links to friends who might enjoy them as much as myself. To make this easier on everyone, I created Restlesssoul Blurbs to keep track of my links and let anyone see what is peaking my interest at the moment. Think of it as me "trimming the fat" off the internet for you!Latest Blurbs
- In Case You Never Noticed: '...
- Cutting To The Heart Of It
- My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 20...
- Kayak Chooses Point Inside as On...
- Spammy looking site, but amazing...
- The Birth and Death of a Lightni...
- Seattle has America’s least ...
- America The Mood Ring
- Up in the North West, we got it...
- My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 20...
- Groundhog Day, or, the Problem w...
- Deploy your own satellite for $8000
- Dog Barks Batman [Video]
- SyFy Does It Again: 'Sharkto...
- My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 20...
- My Anaconda Don’t Want None Un...
- Nowhere Near LeBron: Soccer’s ...
