I don't know, Timmy, being God is a big responsibility .

Here is a neat short story about the consequences of quantum computing. Their science is a little iffy, but it's a fun story nonetheless.

Thor

Just saw Thor tonight. It was a lot of fun, and man are they gearing up for The Avengers! See if you can spot Stan Lee's cameo!

Thomas in the movies

http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0129802/

They're completely meat.

Brilliant Short story.

http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html

Backyard FX

Ooh, a double post today. I've been watching these guys for a while now, and they make a lot of neat things, especially if, like me, you work in entertainment. Anyhow, building neat things is neat.

Nuka Break

Here is a short fan film for Fallout!

Stanley Kubrick's Chicago

If you love photography and Stanley Kubrick, you might like this!

Friday

Making the best of the worst song for charity!

Dork Side of the Moon

Now that my work load has eased from nigh on impossible to merely hectic, I have more time to find neat things like this: a computer scientist and musician who has written the entirety of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" with an 8bit Nintendo sound emulator.

Television magic

Here is a neat collection of tube televisions the moment they are turned off.

NPR and PBS

Here's a petition to not defund NPR and PBS. I think these are awesome services to have and cost taxpayers nearly nothing, so they should be protected. Sign the petition if you agree.

Starcraft II: My Little Pony

I can't imagine how many hours it took to piece this together, but it is pretty amazing.

Replacing world landmarks with cheap souvenirs

My roommate has a photo on our fridge of his best friend swallowing the Eiffel Tower. Since first seeing it, I've been interested in playing with the perspective of famous landmarks, yielding amusing results...

Things you want to want to do.

So this is a simultaneously brilliant and terrible idea from a modern economics professor.

Most of us are better at finding thing we wished we did more often than we are at actually doing them. Some things that come to mind are studying (school, chess, or otherwise), exercise, diets, smoking, etc. I'm sure there are a few weirdos out there that have no problem with any of these, but for the rest of us, what I'm about to introduce might make the game a little more interesting. The idea is to commit yourself so fully that you can't back out later, even if you want to. You figuratively lash yourself to the ship. There is an interesting article at slate on these "precommitment devices".

The most sophisticated option mentioned in the article is a service called stickK. They offer commitment contracts where you set a monetary value on achieving your goals. Basically you give them your credit card information, set a goal for yourself and a price of failure. They then ask for updates, either from you or a referee of your choosing. If you fulfill your goal for the week you keep your money and you succeeded in your goal, great! If you fail, you lose the money and you can decide where it goes, a friend, a charity, or a political agenda you hate. Of course you have to decide where the money goes before you fail, if it's going to someplace you hate you'd better not fail.

I love these really original ideas coming out of economics, so I'm gonna give it a shot and see if it helps. I haven't yet decided how much money to risk on getting in shape but I figure it's got to be enough that I'll miss without being so much that I'll be financially damaged. I'll let you know how it goes.