Saddam hung!

It's great and all that Saddam was hung for his crimes against humanity, but, there's a big hypocrisy still in place: how many "Saddams" currently live free in the world? Hundreds alone in Africa, I bet. The point is: we (the Western World) wanted Saddam’s oil, so, ultimately, we hanged him.

Is today a bad day for humanity? Who's responsible for the 500,000 Iraqi civilian deaths that have occurred since the US decided "Saddam has to go"?

Let's just hope next year Osama Bin Laden is found -- so he too can be brought to justice for his blatant disregard for human life.

The Book of Revelation

I haven't watched this movie yet, but I seen it on Filelist: The Book of Revelation.

It's a story about a young guy who gets raped by 3 young, hot, but hooded women.

When he goes to the police, no one believes him, or cares. (Hrmmm, getting "raped" by 3 hot women, even if it's against your will, doesn't sound like the worst thing in the world, anyway ;) ).

Wii theater?

Man, this looks fun. Here's people playing Wii Sports in a movie theater.

I wonder, when I get my Wii, if I should try it out on my projector.. heh :)

BlueRay and HD DVD: overpriced and overrated?

Just go to any electronics store now a days; you'll see why HDTV's look better: higher resolution, higher contrast, higher color accuracy and clarity.

HD programming on TV is growing -- Cogeco had 5 HD channels a year ago, they now have like 20. HDTV looks great, even on an standard resolution display (like my 480p projector): you get the benefits of higher contrast/colors, just not the resolution.
So, if you ask me, viewing HD content on TV is worth it, especially for action packed shows and movies.

However, HD programming on Blue Ray ($40 a movie, $1000 player or $700 PS3) or HD DVD ($35 a movie, $500 player or $200 XBOX360 attachment) is way, way, way overpriced.

As with all new technology, I'm sure eventually as BlueRay (Sony's) or HD DVD (Microsoft's) will catch on, these prices will converge to the price of DVD.
HD isn't even really that important, if you ask me, for comedy movies, or comedy TV for that, rather. Do you really want to see Jay Leno's chin or Letterman's wrinkles in high definition?


Even DVD's are way too expensive new: $25 average for a new movie. The only movies I pay that kind of money for are my absolute favourites, else I buy used. I don't think I'd ever pay $40 for a standard, non collector's edition movie, even if it was high definition.

I think the same thing is going to happen to movies that happened to audio cd's: the average price will go down, because people will get fed up with crap. Of course, the movie maker's would love if $40/movie stayed that way. Why should HDDVD's themselves cost 2X as much as DVD's? The process used to make them is the same as DVD, for god's sake ;) Higher resolution, woop dee doo. That's like new mp3 players coming out, replacing old models, costing 5X as much for 5X memory; which isn't the case.

Well, even though I bought a PSP the other day (which I'm excited to use for SNES emulation and homebrew, Dani as a picture/mp3 player), I hope Microsoft "wins" the format war this time. Sony's insistent use on proprietary formats is horrible.

Why are governments afraid of Tesla's ideas?

Einstein may have thought up the theory of relativity - which essentially explains gravity and how the universe works -which is awesome, but the man behind the inventions that supplied the energy for rest of the 20th century, was Tesla.

This man invented the AC electrical generation system - synchronous generators and induction motors. However, if you explore his works further, he dabbled in everything electromangetic and involving other unseen physical forces.

For instance, there's the Tesla coil, which is basically electromagnetic induction, at very high power levels. Not very safe.. you think Cell phones can cause cancer? I'm sure this would.

Anyhoo, I saw a program on this homebrew physist/artist guy I'd never heard of today, after watching a 20 minute piece on him on a show called "Beyond Invention". The other guy on Beyond invention was an engineering student promoting the "anti-gravity" effect, which is a fairly well documented phenomena, but main limitation is that it does not produce enough lift to overcome the weight of it's power source. The main limitation of most portable electrical phenomena is a better source of energy: batteries just aren't that great. However, some believe this effect has been utilized along with conventional aeronautical designs in the design of high end military aircraft (ie. B2 stealth bomber).

The last guy on the show was a really nice old man, who is totally convinced he has built a perpetual motion machine. Unfortunately, it seems to me he has built a dc motor with a very, very, very strong electromagnet. In fact, an independent tester went in to test this "Newman Machine". When he spun the rotor of the machine, all the lights in Newman's large home fluttered to the rotation of the shaft. A little brainwashed, but a nice guy, who built a big electromagnet, not a perpetual motion machine. He brings his 7500 pound motor around to carnivals around the US. I'd suggest to avoid these carnivals if you have sensitive electrical equipment.


The most interesting guy on the show, by far, though, was a crazy (looking) guy who lives in a den of 1000's of 1920's - 1960's old military electrical equipement. You're on Your Own When You Violate the Laws of Physics (and Don’t Take Notes)
To explain what I think he is, consider him a "artist", whose medium is Tesla's various contraptions.

Anyway, it seems to me from my observations, that he has indeed tapped into some form of energy we don't understand, but perhaps physists have been attempting to explain for decades, involving all that modern physics stuff - positrons, quarks, quantam theories.

Assuming he's not a fake (considering Japanese companies have exploited the effect, and the Canadian government shut down his lab, I doubt it), his device is:

- Create a whole bunch of different frequency radio waves of various power levels
- Hook up a bunch of tesla coils, and other Tesla equipment.
- Now, hook up this equipment in a certain physical location configuration as well as calibration, and BOOM!

Fucked up stuff happens. Heavy objects levitate, metals weld together with wood, etc.


According to some, Tesla was either shut down, quieted, or outright killed by the US government due to his numerous experiments. Decades later, this guy performing Tesla's experiments get shut down by the CANADIAN government.

So, why are the governments afraid? Are they afraid this guy is going to discover something really dangerous, or blow him self up?

Or was Tesla on to something that the "Man" (as I have no other way to describe such a concept) didn't want anyone else to know about, especially the public? I suppose the military might not want scientists dabbling in a certain direction, if said direction would lead to the public knowledge of how classified stealth systems worked. Who knows.





Anyway, it

"Research", The reality of the world of "drugs"

Long-term marijuana use may fog the brain

Well, another thing that bothers me now a days, is these medical "researchers".

Don't get me wrong, medical research is great. We should have studies on the effects of "illegal" narcotics.

However, this is not a serious study, and most aren't for things like pot. Why? The government, especially the US government, wants to keep all illegal drugs illegal, and their "researchers" must support said status quo.

The problems with this study, where the memory of the user's were tested:
- a few long term pot smokers were sampled
- a few people who used pot heavily for only a few years were sampled.
- some people who never or rarely used pot were sampled.

The few people who used pot long term were found to have "slightly worse memory".

now, I understand basic statistics and inferring on a larger set from a smaller set, but come on, any intelligent person knows the statement

"Although the study is retrospective – that is, the subjects were not tested on their cognitive abilities before they took up marijuana – the researchers are confident that the long-term users’ abilities were not significantly different from the other groups from the beginning"

is bullshit. 100's of other things could have effected these people's memories besides pot -- alcohol, other drugs, what they did for a living, how often they "exercised" their memory, etc etc. This is an extremely uncontrolled study, yet they make some big conclusions.

I'm not saying pot doesn't affect your memory - any drug that's chemical ingredient zaps to your brain could. I'm saying that studies should be done by independent researchers, one without government funding, pharmaceutical funding, or other organizations with agendas. No funding for that, I guess ;)


If I was a politician, I'd vote to decriminalize all drugs. The fact that they are illegal is what creates most drug related crime in the first place. I wonder how long it will take the governments to realize this (a few governments around the world have already.)

The reason is, you might say, "cocaine" is bad for you, so it "should" be illegal. Sure, it's not good for you. However, cocaine was a legal drug for medicinal purposes for many years. There are legally available drugs that will fuck you up much,much quicker than cocaine ever would.

So why is cocaine illegal, besides the fact that 80 years ago, the "drug experts" decided it should be? Remember, these are the same people who decided booze should be illegal, then it got legalized, and then decided pot should be illegal instead because of all those damm mexican pot heads causing trouble. ;)

My ideas here are supported by the condition of North American society: although many people are addicted to illegal drugs, far more people are addicted to legal drugs.
Education will help people, not throwing them in jail for taking a drug that only affects their body.

Let's keep the jails for real criminals.

The Rock Workforce!

http://www.therock951.com/

Dani and her co-workers will be on their "The Rock Workforce" later today - Dani signed up for it in August!

So, 95.1 brings Dani and her girls pizza for lunch/dinner.. pretty sweet if you ask me.

I've been listening to 95.1 a lot lately -- what can I say, I like Rock, and 95.1 plays a good selection, especially Canadian rock (I'm partial to OLP.)

Dragon Quest IX: for PS3.. errr... Wii... err... DS?

Yep , the new Dragon Quest is coming for the DS.


Everyone thought for a long time that Square (now Square Enix) was mainly a Sony publishing company, but no more.

Square goes for the system in the world selling the most right now.

Which is what? The Nintendo DS.

Let's see.. a $140 handheld (DS/DS Lite), with better gameplay and games, slaughters a $300 handheld (PSP)that has better graphics and multimedia capability.

Will the same prove true for consoles?

Certainly in this generation, Nintendo and Microsoft will gain most of Sony's marketshare.

Their $700 system (PS3) boasts worse graphics and games than the $400 XBOX360. Nintendo's $250 System revolutionizes gameplay, although cannot produce HD graphics like 360/PS3.

If you ask me, from the looks of it now, regardless of Sony fanboyism, Sony is doomed (in terms of holding their % market share of the gaming market) this time around, even though they had the majority for PS1/PS2 generation.

I'm glad. I hate Sony for their blatant disregard for consumer rights and for what consumers want. I hope they burn in hell :)

Borat, best comedy in ages!

Yes, Borat is hilarious. It's about the opinion of an outsider, who's small country, with it's strange customs, is in stark contrast to, but in some ways similar to, American culture, goes on a road trip across the US to learn from American culture.

It's a must see, for everyone. Borat insults (mostly not realizing it) just about every type of person/group: Jew, Black, Muslim, Republican, Evangelic Christians, etc etc.

Open Office Rocks!

Anyway, Open Office came with my "custom" install of Windows XP.

I've been using it instead of office ever since.. it has more features, a more intuitive interface, no stupid un-intelligent auto formatting, better page formatting, save as pdf, etc etc etc.

Anyway, it's drawing program (called DRAW) is also pretty useful. It has simple 3D as well. For instance, I made this figure last night in DRAW, took me about 3 hours or so. Would have taken me a lot longer in a 3d draw app, ie Autocad.