txhoudini.com

I can’t believe I just spent three minutes watching this man iron a shirt but there is a zen like tranquility to his style, manner, silence and anal retentiveness. See for yourself:

(via Blame It On The Voices)

With SXSW around the corner and the arrival of the first batch of business cards (thanks Champion Printing!) I think it’s time to formally announce AudioScore Labs.

Last September Harmonix, creators of the awesome music game Rock Band, announced the Rock Band Network. The RBN is a way for bands of any size to get their music into Rock Band as downloadable playable content within the game.

Now obviously there is quite a bit of work that goes into the process as well as a lot of tweaking to make it enjoyable and fun. That’s where AudioScore Labs comes in. We talk with the band, listen to their music and then transform it into the Rock Band experience that players are looking for. There are quite a few companies doing this but no one else is based in Austin, Texas, the live music capitol of the world.

So, look for us during SXSW giving out our newly minted business cards (seriously, they are pretty sweet) and if you are in a band or know of a band looking to get into Rock Band drop us a line at info@audioscorelabs.com.

Dr. Rachie

I know I am a little late to the party, but I wanted to recognize Dr. Rachael Dunlop for her Shorty Award (supposedly they are the Oscars of Twitter) in Health. Dr. Rachie (as she is affectionately referred to by members and fans of the Skeptic Zone podcast) faced off against a host of practitioners of “alternative medicine” who tried to steal the award through fraud, deception, and ultimately childish name calling. You can read the full story at the wonderfully named blog, The Sceptics’ Book Of Pooh-Pooh.

As per the rules of the Shorty Awards, Dr. Rachie was limited to 140 characters for her acceptance speech and she made the most of it:

This award recognises the value of sharing evidence based health information on twitter. For science, reason and critical thinking, thank you.

Nicely said.

An Australian collective called The Glue Society has created a series of pieces called “God’s Eye View“. I prefer to think of it as more a satellite view but it is very cool nonetheless.

Can you spot Adam and Even in Eden?

Congratulations to Gerard Vlemmings! For those of you that aren’t in the know, Gerard is the brilliant mind behind The Presurfer. Yesterday he posted that he had quit his job and was devoting his life to the blog.

An amazing Rube Goldberg machine takes centerstage in Ok Go’s video for “This Too Shall Pass” from their album “Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky”

Since you are seeing the video below, it seems that OK Go’s open letter to EMI to allow embedded videos worked!

While a light snow (such as today) brings Austin to a near complete shutdown, it takes Pittsburgh International Airport quite a bit more. Such was the case during Snowpocalypse ‘09. With the airport shutdown due to the snow and closed due to the time of night, this young lady decided to have a little fun.

(via BoingBoing)

Hamas heavyweight and international terrorism arms broker, Mahmoud al‑Mabhouh, was murdered on January 19, 2010 in his Al Bustan Rotana Hotel room in Dubai, Saudi Arabia. It’s pretty obvious that a small group of middle-aged men are responsible for smothering him with a pillow. This has the international community in an uproar and accusing Israel’s infamous intelligence agency, Mossad, with the hit. As I used to say in grade school, No Duh!

Mossad is probably most famous for capturing Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi designer of the Holocaust,  in Argentina and bringing him to Israel to stand trial on 15 criminal charges including Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes. He was found guilt and hanged on May 31, 1962. Eichmann remains the only person executed in Israel by civil court conviction.

Mossad was made famous most recently in the award-winning movie, “Munich“. “Munich” is the true story of Mossad agents hunting down and assassinating those responsible for the Munich Massacre, when 11 Israeli athletes and one German police officer were killed by members of Black September, a Palestinian militant group tied to Fatah, at the 1972 Summer Olympic Games in Munich, Germany. That event is examined in the excellent (and Oscar award winning) documentary “One Day In September“.

For Jews around the world, Mossad is their protector. They not only take it upon themselves to protect Israeli citizens (whether they be Jewish, Arab, Christian, etc) from attack but to protect Jews from attack the world over. Killing this scum sends a pretty clear cut message. This is a surgical strike on a military target on a leval that no other nation is capable of doing. Zero collateral damage.

Saudi Arabi has released the passport photos of those responsible. They entered Saudi Arabia using a variety of European passports. I think that lower right hand photo looks a lot like Lost producer and Star Trek
co-producer, Damon Lindelof. I presume these men are safe and sound in Israel by now and won’t be doing any international travel any time soon (at least not with these passports).

Six Of The Suspected Assassins

Yesterday, just a short drive from where I live, a man decided the best solution to his frustration with the IRS was to fly his plane into the building where the IRS has their local offices. Amazingly, yet still tragically, he only killed one other person.

This evening I had dinner with my parents across the highway from the burnt building. As you would expect you are not allowed very close and there are dozens of TV satellite vans. It is truly incredible that so many people were able to get out safely.

click for larger image

The video to the third single off Vampire Weekend’s second album, Contra, features Jake Gyllenhaal, RZA, Lil Jon, and Joe Jonas.

I wasn’t planning on doing another “You Gotta See This” so soon after “White Deer” but this is just amazing. A bear with a missing front leg (paw?) has taught himself to walk upright.

Isn’t nature wonderful (and a little bit freaky)?

(via The J-Walk Blog)

The story of a small group of albino deer in North Central Wisconsin.

The book “White Deer: Ghost Of The Forest” by Jeff Richter is available at Barnes & Noble.

(via The Presurfer)

Sci-fi author John Scalzi has declared February 15th to be International Grover Appreciation Day. Who am I to argue?

via (boingboing)

I really enjoyed the television show “Digging For The Truth” that aired on the History Channel. It premiered in 2005 and aired for four seasons. The host for the first three seasons, Josh Bernstein, was a real life Indiana Jones. He has degrees in anthropology and psychology from Cornell University and at the time he was president and CEO of the Boulder Outdoor Survivial School (BOSS). The shows premise was to try to scientifically figure out some of histories mysteries. Might the Vikings have reached America first? Did Sodom And Gomorrah actually exist? It was very intriguing television. When Josh Bernstein left his hosting role in the beginning of the fourth season, the ratings took a big dip and the show was cancelled.

Now, the Discovery  Channel has a similar show, “Solving History with Olly Steeds“. It’s host, Oliver Steeds has led an equally interesting life. A journalist for Al Jazeera, a member of the Royal Geographical Society, and Director of Digital Explorer, among many others. He has a self-deprecating wit about him as he undertakes adventures you and I would never think to (such as meeting a Palestinian black market antiquities dealer, or taking Peyote in order to experience what the ancient Nazcans did during their ceremonies).

I just finished watching the second episode, “Nazca Lines”, and was pleased to find that Olly is somewhat of a skeptic.

The episode was on the huge lines and geoglyphs carved in the Peruvian desert thousands of years ago. Erich von Daniken, in his books “Chariots of the Gods” and “Arrival of the Gods: Revealing the Alien Landing Sites of Nazca” proposed that these were alien landing sites. Olly took a few moments out of his show to dismiss this as nonsense and to seek answers that can be scientifically proven:

Great! But, just a few moments later, Olly employs the help of a professional professional dowser to see if the lines were a way of marking water. Dowsing is a “method” of detecting something (usually water or oil) through the use of  a “Y” shaped branch or two metal rods. Dowsers believe that the movements of their “instrument” will signify a source of what they are looking for. Dowsing is, in fact, nothing more than the idiomotor effect (the same psychological phenomenon that “powers” Ouiji boards). Scientific studies have shown dowsing to be no more effective than chance. Through a horribly flawed experiement, Olly proves that “…dowsing does actually work.” Since Discovery doesn’t allow their videos to be embedded you will have to click on the link below (it will open in a new window or tab) and watch the video (and yes, you have to watch an ad first). See if you can spot the major flaws in Olly’s “experiment”:

Discovery Channel Videos: Solving History with Olly Steeds: Water Witching Test

Did you find it? Other than the fact that it is a single data point (scientific proofs need to be repeatable), Olly shows Senor Willie where the water is before blindfolding him. This proves nothing other than Senor Willie can judge the distance to the white lines while blindfolded. I love his shit-eating grin even before Olly tells him he was successful.

I expect more from the Discovery Channel, home of such great shows as “Mythbusters“, “Dirty Jobs” and “How It’s Made“. With the cable channels turning more and more to supernatural BS (yes, unfortunately “Ghost Lab” is on Discovery as well) we need to keep our scientific shows scientific. More dismissing of aliens and less dowsing, please!

The Kia Sorrento spot with characters from “Yo Gabba Gabba“. The more I see it, the more I dig it. [Continue reading...]

Pitchfork reported earlier today that they, and many other websites, have been getting emails each time YouTube user “iamamiwhoami’ uploads a new video since December. The videos are bizarre. Each video features the same woman with her face covered in what looks like tar. Images of animals appear in each as well as plenty of not-so-obvious symbolism. The production value is top notch and the music is very good. Check it out for yourself and let us know who you think it is.

(via Pitchfork)

Professor Roger Byard of the University of Adelaide has an article in the latest “Journal of Forensic Sciences” warning about the “false perception” that herbal (so-called) remedies are “safer than manufactured medicines”.

He warns that many “have lethal concentrations of arsenic, mercury and lead”. He goes on to comment that many pathologists do not think to check for these so-called treatments when dealing with unexpected or unknown deaths.

Of course, any good skeptic knows this is yet another study in a long line of scientific papers showing the dangers of these “miracle cures”. Earlier this month a paper in the “Journal of the American College of Cardiology“ that St. John’s Wort and Gingo Biloba can interfere with prescription drugs and cause cardiac problems.

For more information on the non-effectiveness of “herbology” I would point you in the direction of the UK-Skeptics’ page on the subject.

On a side note, Professor Byard has a number of other interesting papers listed on PubMed; including, Self-Constructed Shooting Devices Utilizing Manually-Impacted Firing-Pins (Suicide Machines) and The bones in the Abbey: are they the murdered princes? A review of the evidence.

(via The Consumerist, Sydney Morning News, BusinessWeek)

Google has been tooting their own horn (with some help from some ex-Googlers) over the fact that it took them only 26 hours from announcement to roll out Google Buzz to all Gmail users. I am not seeing the significance in this. Obviously they waited until they were really to start rolling it out before making the announcement. How is this any different than Apple announcing a new version of iTunes and it’s available for download before the press conference is over?

via Batman & Robin Comic Generator

It’s no secret that I am a Google fan. I have been trying out Google Chrome for the past couple of weeks and love it except for one odd thing left out. Chrome doesn’t handle RSS. One would expect it to, at the very least, recognize an RSS feed and pass it onto Google Reader. I just found a Chrome extension that solves this: RSS Subscription Extension. It’s from Google so I hope it makes it’s way into the next version of Chrome.