Little bits

Jets and Jetman

2011-12-01T00:31:00.001-06:00

Amazing video of Yves "Fusion-man" Rossi flying with jets...

CNN featured him as well:

While I've became a big fan of the man back in September 2008: Fusion-man

P.S. Here is also an awesome interview with Yves Rossy at TED:

Kiev Live Timelapse

2011-10-22T15:57:00.000-05:00

While media companies demand thousands of dollars to develop promotional videos for Euro-2012, Oleg Finger has produced an amazing masterpiece on a budget of only $30!

What's The Fuzz with Google+?

2011-08-01T16:49:00.001-05:00

Looks even worse than MSN Spaces & where r those now? What does it have that FB doesn't & why should I move?

Google docs, chat, email and what not is the biggest problem of Google+.
It looks just like a glue of everything Google had and not as a uniform platform built up front. It's going to be really hard to unify all these independently written apps into a single platform. Facebook on the other hand brought up the idea of a social operating system their platform is in the first few years of their existence and were building apps on top of it ever since.

But the biggest thing that Google is lacking is idea. Zukerberg kid was not just a great developer, which I'm sure Google has a ton, he understood the domain much better than anyone who's been in it for a while before him. He understood what people would fall for, and thus what his app should or should not have. Google ads features just because they can, Facebook ads them only because they make sense in the global picture. Linkedin required you to know person's email to add someone, now they let you add anyone you want, because FB does. Google translates its apps with translators, Facebook does it with its users, - not because they don't have money, because that's the way it should be done in a truly social OS. Facebook introduced News Feeds - something I would grant them a patent for even though I'm generally against patents - now everyone has them like it's something completely obvious. Remember what Zukerberg kid said when people were screaming about stalking feature the News Feed was? He said you might dislike it and we'll give you control over it, but we won't remove it cause it is essential part of the system. And he knew what he was talking about even with complete opposition from everyone else, now list me a single feature Google+ knows what they are talking about and not just copy it from Facebook? Google+ is going to be yet another failed a posteriori glue and Google should better concentrate on what they do best - search, and not on something they have no clue about.

Every company eventually turns into IBM - big, clumsy and lacking innovation. Microsoft did, Google is doing and Facebook will do one day!

P.S. ‎... and Apple too will one day become IBM. Big companies have too many people with huge salaries that make them afraid to take risks. That's why they only copy what they know became successful, putting the power of company's big buck behind. Like Microsoft, they bet on second-mover advantage, even though they have a choice to bet on the first. Start-ups don't have that choice: their only bet is first-mover advantage and for that reason they have to come up with something radically different, different to such extent that they can win over by the pure idea and not by money. That's what Microsoft had with Windows, Google with search, Facebook with social networking and Apple with user interface. After that they all went into other territories just because they could, not because they had a great idea. And Apple's transition to IBM will start once Steve Jobs is not there anymore - he seems to be the only one there to have guts to take risks.

Thanks to everyone who spurred this discussion on Facebook in response to my Twitter post on July 11!

P.P.S. Forbes: A Eulogy for Google Plus

Quantifying Friendships

2011-07-29T15:38:00.001-05:00

Now that I was stupid enough to add some celebrities to my Facebook friends I get annoyed by friend suggestions that Facebook bases on the amount of friends in common. Surely enough when I click on those "friends in common" I see all the celebrities and people who add everyone.

Of course there is friend on Facebook and there is Friend, but beside me and the friend in questions there is no one to quantify that relationship. And I'm sure letting users explicitly quantify relationships on Facebook will be supper annoying and not used by most of the users in much the same way they don't use Friend List. What Facebook can do though is to approximate this quantification.

A friend who has 100 friends is more likely to know and have something in common with me than a friend with 4000 friends. In other words this also means that the more friends I have, the less I value each of the particular friendships (on average of course). This is why having 1 friend in common with someone who has 10 friends makes me more likely to know that person than someone with whom I have 10 friends in common, all of which have 1000 friends. Just a suggestion for friend suggestion.

Window Shopping Reinvented

2011-07-24T14:58:00.000-05:00

This great idea gives a whole new meaning to window shopping!

Shared by Meg who keeps a great blog of her misadventures.

Ukrainian wedding a la "Alice in Wonderland"

2011-06-09T14:04:00.001-05:00

Very modest Ukrainian wedding a la "Alice in Wonderland" -=B-)

The former minister of social politics Lyudmyla Denysova is said to have spent $600,000 on this home-made musicale ;-)

Source: ТАБЛОID: Екс-міністр Денисова витратила $600 тисяч на весілля?

Manslater

2011-06-08T22:47:00.001-05:00

The Manslater is an indispensable gadget every man dreams to have - Woman Language Translator!

Laughed at from a pointer by Mani & Amineh :-)

Obama's Birth Video

2011-05-02T13:16:00.001-05:00

Hillarious video of President Obama Roasting Donald Trump At White House Correspondents' Dinner! -=B-)

Cudos to Chris for sharing.

Smack My Bitch Up Remix

2011-03-15T18:01:00.000-05:00

For those of you who remember the naughty official Smack My Bitch Up music video, here is a funny unofficial, but equally naughty sequel to it ;-)

All the naughty videos are coming from my lil brother ;-)

Make the Girl Dance Baby Baby Baby

2011-02-17T17:14:00.001-06:00

Haven't been posting for 4 month, but this one definitely deserves time to watch and blog about -=B-)

So here is the original:

Now here is a sequel:

And here is a plagiarism:

The original video is by French band "Make The Girl Dance".

Thanks to Abe for this being his best french song ;-)

Time Treasure

2010-10-27T18:40:00.000-05:00

"Time Treasure: They have returned" is a location based augmented reality game that overlays game characters over objects in the real world. This awesome idea along with augmented reality applications like Layar and SixthSense, demonstrates the great potential of augmented reality applications.

The game is developed by MUVEDesign for Android Tablets and is planned for release in 2011. Film and music have been created by Gary Hayes, while some placeholder animations are from "World of Warcraft", courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment.

Without giving the plot away, the structure of this game is quite straightforward. There are ten layers of time from 2050 back to 5000BC that you slowly penetrate following stories, clues and trails all based at POIs (points of interest, precise locations) around your city.

See also:

Thanks to Ulli for sharing this awesome video!

The English Language In 24 Accents

2010-10-13T16:18:00.000-05:00

This is probably the fastest growing viral video of all times: it gathered more than 2 million views since September 18, 2010, which is less then a month.

The guy is absolutely amazing - everyone who saw this video were amazed by how precise he is in faking those accents.

And the kudos go to Vahideh jaaaaan who shared this "must see" masterpiece with me :)

Armless Pianist Wins 'China's Got Talent'

2010-10-11T22:38:00.000-05:00

Liu Wei, a 23 years old armless pianist who lost both arms in a childhood accident and plays the piano with his toes, has won China's Got Talent. Liu Wei performed his version of James Blunt's love song You're Beautiful to a packed audience at the Shanghai Stadium.

Liu's arms were amputated after he suffered an electrical shock while playing hide-and-seek when he was 10.

At the age of 18, he decided to pursue a career in music, using his feet to play the piano, much as he uses them to navigate on the computer, eat, dress and brush his teeth.

Source: The Independent: Armless pianist wins 'China's got talent'

Fruit and Vegetable Decomposition

2010-10-05T13:40:00.001-05:00

If you like time-lapse photography as much as I do, you'll certainly enjoy this video:

The author of this video took a picture every ten minutes initially. but the playback at 30 frames per second was too long, so he used a quarter of the images, making it 1 picture every 40 minutes. The video spans 74 days. The growth at the end of the video is from the potato. Also, the hundreds or thousands of little specks you see buzzing around are fruit flies.

Source: Henry's Webiocosm Blog: Fruit and Vegetables Decomposing, Time-lapse

Thanks to Roozbeh for sharing this nice time-lapse.

Barefooting

2010-09-12T15:15:00.001-05:00

Never thought this would be possible until Heather shared this awesome video...

Turns out barefooting was invented back in 1947 and currently has its own World Barefoot Council within International Water Ski Federation

Jedi Mind

2010-08-27T15:27:00.001-05:00

This amazing technology, developed by Jedi Mind, Inc., allows the user to interact with the computer and other machines through the power of the mind!

The technology involves the use of a wireless headset, which detects brainwaves on both the conscious and non-conscious level. This revolutionary neural processing technology makes it possible for computers to interact directly with the human brain.

Surely enough George Lucas has sued 'Jedi Mind' for $5 million for alleged trademark infringement.

Saw Guillaume watching this video in Le Monde's article "Pour George Lucas, la guerre des clones aura bien lieu", so kudos to him for reading it regularly.

What different sorting algorithms sound like

2010-08-25T12:15:00.002-05:00

This particular audibilization is just one of many ways to generate sound from running sorting algorithms. Here on every comparison of two numbers (elements) the author plays (mixing) sin waves with frequencies modulated by values of these numbers...

See also:

Thanks to Aws for this "Awsome" "audibilization" ;)

Indian Pole Dancing

2010-08-17T11:09:00.000-05:00

A very interesting pole dancing competition in India ...

The dance is called Mallakhamb (or Malkhamb) and is a traditional Indian sport in which a gymnast performs feats and poses while hanging from a vertical wooden pole or rope. Mallakhamb also refers to the pole used in the sport.

Typewriter Orchestra

2010-07-12T20:05:00.000-05:00

Viennese Percussionist Martin Breinschmid with his version of the "Typewriter"...

Live at the BASF concert hall Ludwigshafen,Germany 2008,Strauß Festival Orchestra Vienna. Thanks to Dima for sharing.

Male Satisfaction

2010-07-05T16:23:00.000-05:00

Here is male version of Benny Benassi's famous masterpiece :)

Shared with the world by my lil brother :)

Check also Benny Benassi's: Official Website, YouTube Channel, Facebook Page & Twitter Page

Play Soccer Go to Hell

2010-06-30T13:08:00.002-05:00

In this hilarious masterpiece BillyBobNeck explains why Soccer is America's surest path to socialism :)

This in turn reminded me of John Cleese's hilarious take on American football :) Cudos to Grisha for sharing!

See also:

P.S. And for those who still thinks this is real, here is a quote from NC Comedy Arts Festival:

In 2004, Paul Day got asked to take part in a comedy night to raise funds for John Kerry's presidential bid. Rather than be just another comic telling "Bush is stupid" jokes, he came up with the character of Billy Bob Neck, Billy Bob is bleeding edge satire on those in the Christian Conservative Movement who believe that "George Bush is the greatest president since Winston Churchill" and that President Obama wants to personally kill your grandmother...

North Korea beats Brazil

2010-06-26T19:29:00.000-05:00

You wouldn't believe it, but this is an actual footage from the news broadcast on North Korean State Television, recorded from a TV set in Pyongyang 36 hours after the game finished... Accordingly to the broadcast North Korea beats Brazil 1-0! In reality, Brazil won 2-1, but North Korea surely claimed the victory B-)

This reminded me of an anecdote in which the General Secretary of the USSR and President of the USA compete in running. The US president wins, but the news in the Soviet Union say: "Our General Secretary came second, but the US president came one before last" :-)

Thanks to Meena for sharing!

A strange relationship between dogs and bears

2010-06-24T23:22:00.002-05:00

Polar bears are the largest living land carnivores and are very aggressive. Nevertheless, they seem to have develop a deep relationship with the dogs in the Arctic.

Taken from the show "Jailed Polar Bear" on http://www.firstscience.com/. Thanks to Rustem for sharing!

Creative Viral Ad

2010-06-21T23:04:00.001-05:00

Everybody was reposting this awesome video on Facebook today, so I'm sure you'll love it too :) Well, try to guess what the ad is all about anyways...

СВ-шоу з ВВ

2010-06-19T00:40:00.003-05:00

СВ шоу завжди приваблювало тим, що жартувати Сердючці доводилось не по заготованому сценарію і часто з людьми, які їй зовсім в цьому не помагали, як це було з Людмилою Гурченко. Ця передача такою проте не була, і на мою думку була одною з кращих в СВ-шоу, оскільки запрошені самі були непоганими приколістами. Зустрічайте вибухонебезпечну суміш: ВЄРКА СЕРДЮЧКА і ВОПЛІ ВІДОПЛЯСОВА!