heiser.net

Tagfu@#ers!

Christopher Heiser — 2009-11-11T15:46:13-08:00

Via Blanco!

US Broadband Speeds: TeH SuXX0rZ

Christopher Heiser — 2009-10-28T14:00:25-08:00

Read 'em and weep:

May The Force Be With You In Unique 15-Second Clips

Christopher Heiser — 2009-10-28T13:39:58-08:00

Star Wars: Uncut Trailer from Casey Pugh on Vimeo.

One Sweet Drift

Christopher Heiser — 2009-10-28T14:05:13-08:00

I speak Japanese. The guys on the video are saying: "HOLY F*&KING S#@T!!!!!!11!1!!"

Play Like You See It

Christopher Heiser — 2009-10-20T22:24:00-08:00

This headless musician on YouTube is my new hero. He shows videos of himself tracking guitar, bass, drums, and keyboards to a number very interesting songs including a few Smiths tunes as well as the MGMT single Electric Feel.

Kudos to Blanco for the link.

LeMans 40 Years Ago

Christopher Heiser — 2009-10-19T15:29:53-08:00

I'm not going to link all four videos, you can see them in all their glory over at Jalopnik. They are wonderful snapshots of the byegone days and include cameos by famous drivers as well as celebrities.

Einstein Challenged?

Christopher Heiser — 2009-10-14T21:31:25-08:00

Friends know I'm a big skeptic when it comes to dark matter and dark energy. I think that it's much more likely that the effects of physics are not consistent at scales that are sufficiently different that our own solar system. Some interesting empirical research suggests something similar although it's way to early to say anything definitive. Stay tuned.

Oktapodi

Christopher Heiser — 2009-10-14T17:37:17-08:00

SETIRolled

Christopher Heiser — 2009-10-14T20:06:00-08:00

Racing and Video

Christopher Heiser — 2009-10-05T15:18:08-08:00

My buddy Mark provided me with a GoPro mini video recorder last year. I used it with mixed results. However, GoPro have revved their line with a widescreen HD model that looks much more impressive. On the other hand, VholdR is also offering an HD helmet cam that has a better form factor but apparently not as good audio filtering to deal with wind noise. It's great to see where this is going.

Cellphone Radiation Levels

Christopher Heiser — 2009-10-05T15:11:00-08:00

Although experience shows that these measurements are not necessarily accurate on a individual basis--things like orientation, human physical features, and radio network performance can have a big influence--it's interesting to see a complete list of handset models and corresponding radiation levels.

I'm surprised that the iPhone is only a mid-pack emitter. I expected it to be among the highest in terms of radiation. This makes me feel better, although it's probably only due to the fact that it drops 30% of calls on average in places like NYC.

Sagan Remixed

Christopher Heiser — 2009-10-05T15:08:20-08:00

Friends of mine know that I make no excuses for my hero worship of the late Carl Sagan. So I was excited to see that even he was not immune to the fad of Autotune mashups that have exploded onto the Internets:

Astroturfing

Christopher Heiser — 2009-10-05T15:25:11-08:00

Tim Dickinson does a reasonable job of summarizing the forces at work behind the "grassroots" campaigns against health insurance reform.

Progress in Crashing

Christopher Heiser — 2009-09-27T16:34:35-08:00

To celebrate 50 years of crash testing, the Independent Institute for Highway Safety performed an offset crash between a 1959 Chevy Bel Air and a new 2009 Chevy Malibu. They weigh about the same, but you can see from the video that the Bel Air sustains massive damage compared to the Malibu. A lot of people consider vintage cars like the Malibu to be "tanks" that are impervious to damage, but modern engineering has clearly changed the equation:

Red Bull Almost As Bad As Red Bull Vodka For Driving

Christopher Heiser — 2009-09-27T16:26:51-08:00

Turns out that caffeine can impair you driving in a similar manner as alcohol.

Too Close To Home

Christopher Heiser — 2009-09-24T21:29:00-08:00

Faisal reminded me of this wonderful post that satirizes (in an painfully accurate way) the many ways in which the telecom industry (and the management of the companies therein) makes things so much harder than it needs to be.

However, in a related note, it seems that the perennial argument over how to price data is tilting in favor of the US-centric all-you-can-eat plans. But that won't stop carriers like AT&T into morally deplorable strategies like offering 3G microcells that supplement their crappy data network coverage--for which customers actually pay a lot more. Amazing.