Best. Parrot. Ever.

Broken

Here's Rachel Maddow giving us all a much needed Civics lesson.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Back to the future.

Big props to SpaceX for their successful launch and recovery of the first commercial human space flight system. Their Dragon capsule went up, completed two orbits of the Earth and successfully landed in the Pacific. I'm excited yet conflicted about this success. It is great that private enterprise (albeit with a load of Government money) has finally fielded a system that is at parity with where NASA was in the heady days of the Apollo Program. But it's also a sad indictment of where NASA is today.

SpaceX has nearly completed a viable manned system after around two billion dollars in funding from the private sector and the Government in the form of commercial launch contracts. NASA has spent and estimated $40 billion on the Ares I launch system and at least another $3 billion on the Orion capsule that is meant to replace the Space Shuttle. Granted Ares and Orion were intended to push us back to the Moon and beyond but at 20X the cost of a low earth orbit system? I hate to say it but the bureaucracy of NASA appears to have snuffed out their ability to deliver on budget. Not to mention that the Constellation program was still going to cost as much as $1billion a launch....as much as or more than the existing Space Shuttle. The whole point of Constellation was to get us out of low Earth orbit again for less than the cost of the Shuttle.

Problems

Disease of the day, Anatidaephobia. Seriously? There are plenty of things to be RATIONALLY afraid of.

Man she is pissed

Why do we keep fucking with Mother Nature? She obviously has no sense of humor.

Enough with this bullshit.

Apparently George Lucas wasn't satisfied with the rape of my childhood. It would appear that he wants to digitally reanimate dead actors so that THEY CAN RAPE MY CHILDHOOD!

WTF Lucas? If you can't come up with some original ideas to fit within the universe that you created then just go sit down somewhere and count your billions.

Jeggings

Seriously.....Conan is awesome.

Visually stunning

Now this is one of the best examples of the future of data visualization. As computing power increases and display technology makes revolutionary jumps every other year things are only going to get more impressive.

The Doctor

Yes, I'm a nerd. Yes, I love Doctor Who. Watch this hilarious Craig Ferguson bit.

Helpless Crybabies

The latest leak of diplomatic communications by Wikileaks certainly shows one thing. Most of the major Governments in the Middle East are a bunch of hypocritical douchebags. They almost all agree that Iran's nuclear program is a very bad thing but NONE of them want to deal with it themselves.

Either they don't want to risk their own power base by stirring up radical opposition in their own countries or they don't want to worry about Iran smacking them back. The Saudis and the Egyptians certainly have the military hardware necessary to make that strike at Iran but lack the balls to actually do it.

They would rather "The Great Satan" be the bad guy yet again. I wonder how they would feel if we said that we'll do it but we want the Isrealis to run the operation. Probably not....

What an asshole.

Seriously? You sir are a hypocritical asshole.

Valuable information

Talk about creepy....nice shirt too.

Nice day job

Beginning to wonder if I made the right career choice, the view from my office is pretty shitty compared to this.

What for what?

I guess Fiat is really serious about buying Chrysler to crack back into the American market. Selling their stake in Ferrari to buy out Chrysler seems totally bat shit crazy to me.

They may as well chuck Maserati out as well since without the Ferrari DNA the product will be shit.

Wow!

Seriously people, TAKE YOUR MEDS!!!

Mysterious.

Is there a hollowed out volcano somewhere off the coast of California?

Coco is back.

Last night's cold open for the new Conan O'Brien show....hilarious.

Hey hens, meet the fox.

Remember the member of Congress that apologized to the BP CEO because he thought the punishment didn't fit the crime? Thanks to the Tea Party Shuffle he'll most likely become the Chairman of the House Committee for Energy and Commerce. I'm sure that he'll be a fine advocate for his constituents...as long as their initials are BP.

Friday Reminder

Make sure you take your meds.


Terrible Singer Gets Mad At Autotune - Watch more Funny Videos

The Southern Gentleman

Watch this fascinating interview of Jimmy Carter by Bill Maher.

No Talent Ass Clowns

If you are under age 35 and did not vote then you are what is wrong with this country. Shame on you.

If you are over 60 and voted for a Tea Party/GOP candidate then you are what is wrong with humanity. You let a bunch of fear mongering, racist assholes convince you that a black man is going to destroy "your" country. I can't wait until your Tea Party darlings privatize Social Security and it ends up going POOF in the next GOP approved Wall Street money grab. I'm young and from the generation that KNOWS Social Security is doomed, I'm making other plans for my retirement while continuing to fill the pot you just pissed away. Oh and good luck with Health Care on a fixed income!

I see crazy people.

Watch Olberman systematically demolish the credibility of Tea Party candidates using their own words.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Holy Shit!

This pilot has to fly Chinooks because they are the only thing big enough to carry is enormous fucking balls!

SHOTGUN!!

Now this some seriously fucked up shit.

Just, WOW!

Check out the amazing sensitivity and intelligence displayed by the Virginia GOP Chairman.

Holy shit.

Legends

Man, I miss George Carlin. He was right about Jon Stewart as well, I have this image of Stewart before a show telling the ghost of George Carlin that this one is for him.

A flip phone, seriously?

It's no secret that the iPhone and Android phones are eating Blackberry's lunch. Now Microsoft is entering the fray which will really hurt what is left of Blackberry's users, big businesses. Blackberry was dominate just three years ago but their lack of innovation and several product misfires have hurt them deeply. The failure of the Storm, the dud that the new Torch appears to be and the lack of new features in BB OS6 has just allowed that gap to widen.

So what is RIM's answer? A new flip phone.....seriously. The first time I see someone using one of these I will publicly shame them.

I just threw up in my mouth.

Do as I say, not as I do.

What you are doing is morally wrong and I think it should be illegal, but if there's money to be had then I'll take some of that action. That is the way of today's GOP.

This guy is a real douchebag. It's glad to see that he has such strong moral convictions and dedication to his Catholic faith. Of course like all things Catholic a little money goes a long way towards your path to salvation.

Prank

This is awesome.

It's not all rainbows.

Did you see Banksy's controversial Simpson's Opening? Kudos to the creative staff and Fox for actually letting this run....you'll see why.

Eloquence

In case you've never seen this it's one of the best funerals that you will ever see.

Cool

This video has some amazing animation and the thoughts presented are really good.

Cry Baby

Christine O'Donnell has become my new favorite punching bag, at least until Palin runs for office again. I love how these right wing nut cases always cry out that the "liberal media" (aka everyone except Fox News) is waging a war of character assassination against them. Well, when you have more skeletons in your closet than a funeral home then it's not character assassination...it's called history. Maybe if you didn't say such bat shit crazy things then the media wouldn't say such horrible things about you. What a crazy idea...

Whiskey at Lunch.

The Onion....FTW.


Study: Americans Get Majority Of Exercise While Drunk

WTF?

Read this crazy shit.

Great idea because "sexually active" single MEN never had sex with anyone underage. Oh right, that must fall under the "be fruitful and multiply" section of the bible.

The Past is now?

Today is the 39th anniversary of the opening of Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom. I'm an unapologetic Disney fanboy so I wish I was there today more than any other place in the world. I stumbled across this gem of a news report on the opening of EPCOT in Florida in 1982. It's interesting because of the parallels between the recession of the early 80's and now.

Hard to believe but at that point in Disney's history there were serious concerns about the company's future and most of the 80's was pretty rough for the company. Did the billion dollar bet of EPCOT pay off? Since that day Disney has opened 7 more theme parks on three continents....so yeah. That plus the revitalization of the animation studios that started in the early 90's.

Newer isn't always better.

Great story about the ladders of the San Francisco Fire Department.

Ladder Shop for SFFD from AdamKaplan on Vimeo.

Amazing idea

Check out this video. Pretty amazing!



Props to Kirby for the heads up.

Hell yes!

New movie trailer for Skyline.....holy shit!

Sad News

Quentin Tarantino's long time editor and collaborator Sally Menke has died. She worked as Tarantino's editor on all of his films since Reservoir Dogs and probably has had almost has much influence on his work as he has.

Here's the man himself explaining their relationship.

Whoa...

Sometimes Mother Nature just wants to remind you that you are her bitch.

WTF?

The guy who bought Segway road his beloved machine off a cliff to his death....no shit.

It's Traditional

I grew up in a big UAW town and I can assure you that stuff like this really does happen.

I can't believe that in this job market anyone would be stupid enough to do shit like this. The sad things is that it is these people that end up crying about how this isn't their country anymore and immigrants are taking all their jobs. You mean the ones that won't get drunk and high on their breaks?

The UAW cried foul in the 80's when the car makers moved huge parts of their production to Mexico. It wasn't just the lower wages that they could pay the workers down there it was to get some control over the QUALITY of the workforce.

I agree that this is mostly a case of a few rotten eggs spoiling the bunch but it is also indicative of a completely dysfunctional system.

LOL

Here is an Ewok in a Delorean time machine, your argument is irrelevant.

Amazing

This video makes me wish I could fly. It's amazing.

Guilty Conscience.

I fondly remember the day Bill Clinton was elected President. I was an 18 year old college freshman that was convinced that I'd be retired on some beach by age 30. I was raised in a relatively Conservative environment and Ronald Reagan was my prevailing ideal of what a President should look and act like. Needless to say I was convinced that Bill Clinton's Presidency was the beginning of the Apocalypse.

Fast forward 18 years. First off, holy shit I'm old. Second, given what Bush did with his two terms as President....I FUCKING MISS BILL CLINTON. I admit it I voted for Bush and defended him for years even though in the back of my mind I thought he was an idiot. Why? I got to watch us invade two fucking countries on live TV....that was pretty crazy. But once the full horror of what Bush's policies had wrought came to light I completely disavowed him and turned my back on the Republican Party.

Sure, Clinton did some stupid things and he was not above controversy . But when he is on is game he really is a brilliant guy.

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Backpeddler

Fuck you Karl Rove you spineless wart on the ass of Democracy. Rove couldn't even survive 24 hours of the radical right bashing him for actually saying what they should all know. This O'Donnell woman is crazy to the core. Once she looses her ass in the election I bet old Karl will be the first to appear on Fox yelling I TOLD YOU SO.

This is what the GOP has come to; as long as your Straight, White and Christian you're their kind of candidate no matter how big of a loon you really are. How sad is that? The party apparatus is just pushing the entire GOP more to the fringe by supporting people like this, there is no place for moderates in the Republican Party anymore.

GULP!!

Watch this first person view of climbing to the top of a 1700+ foot tall radio tower....fuck that!

Back to the Future Deconstructed.

Hilarious.

Why 'Back to the Future' Is Secretly Horrifying -- powered by Cracked.com

Crazy, defined.

Christine O'Donnell. Get used to that name because you're going to hear a lot of it for the next couple of months. This 100% crazy lady managed to win the GOP Primary for the Delaware Senate seat even though other Republicans are basically disavowing her as a candidate. So how did she get the nomination? Two words, Tea Party. Here's some of her greatest hits.

• She believes there is more evidence for Creationism than evolution...seriously.
• She's thinks that looking at Porn or rubbing one out should be considered adultery.
• She has accused her opponents of following and intimidating her.
• She's 41, single and considered masturbation a mortal sin. Great decision maker there.

Even Karl Rove thinks she's nutty!

Here is her anti-masturbation crap from the 90's, on MTV of all places.

Some guy must have really fucked her over in college.

Sweet

Ken Block is back with Gymkhana 3....awesome.

Laid back.......

Gin and Juice....spoken word style. Awesome and NSFW.

Urban Renewel

Watch this awesome documentary about Detroit. No one can keep Motown down forever.

I want to buy that old Train Station and turn it into my Evil Super Corporation's headquarters.

Burning down the house

At least there is some form of justice on the Internet for intolerant morons.

Auto-Tune the News does it again

Another hilarious song.

Faster!!!

Holy SHIT! Google's newly launched instant search is just stupid fast. Combined with Google's Chrome browser the Internet is finally fast enough to not be annoying.

Awesome....and sad.

I'm sure this Craigslist post is joke. Most likely posted by one of the several thousand now unemployed NASA workers that used to be part of the Space Shuttle Program.

If I were Bill Gates or Warren Buffet I'd buy the entire Shuttle Program from NASA intact and keep running it just as a giant fuck you to the Government. Could be one hell of a tax write off.

Weeeeee!!!!

Let's go on a pleasure cruise!

I Love Hubble

Next time someone waves a bible at you and tries to convince you the world is only 6000 years old then show them this.

Off with her head

How the hell did Jan Brewer get elected in the first place? She sounds like a mean version of Phyllis Diller and looks like eight miles of bad road. I love the reporter's reaction to her stonewalling in this video, I know he wanted to just say "are you fucking serious?"

Meh.

Well Apple seriously underwhelmed me with their newest AppleTV device. I've had the same capability for a couple of years now with a Roku box so yawn... The only cool thing was the Airplay feature that allows you to watch a video on your iPhone or iPad and then "transfer" that video to your AppleTV device instantly.

So no revolutionary subscription TV service, no apps for your TV, no cool remote control features using your iPhone. And the $.99 TV Rentals from Fox and ABC that Steve Job's was so excited about are now available from Amazon VOD on the Roku as purchases (not rentals) for the same price.

Running with the bulls.

Check out a new trailer for the upcoming season of Top Gear America....



It's looking more and more likely that it won't suck.....fingers crossed.

Hostage of Contract

Here's a great example of why entrusting contractors to design and support your data systems is a massive mistake. They'll convince you that they are the "experts" and that you couldn't possibly survive without them. Once your are hooked then you are theirs forever....

Cutting the Cable

I am living without cable for the first time in my entire life.

As a child my mother always had cable going all the way back to the original cable boxes with mechanical dials and no remote control. I have fond memories of my Father buying a DSS (now Direct TV) dish the very first year they were available. That 18" dish with a single box was like $700 dollars and a real pain in the ass to install but it had this groundbreaking feature called a Guide. That's right kids until that time no cable box had any kind of on-screen channel or programming information, you had to buy a magazine like TV Guide to know what was on. I personally have subscribed to both Satellite TV services at one time or another with other stints as a Comcast subscriber.

So what made me decide to cut my current Comcast service back to just high speed Internet?

Here you go:

1. The number one reason is cost. I was paying $90 for Comcast TV service alone and watching at most a couple of hours of TV a night but usually none. That just doesn't make any sense any more.
   
2. The second reason is that there are now alternatives. Between Boxee's ability to easily pull web streamed shows from their various portals to being able to watch Netflix EVERYWHERE I just don't see the need for Comcast.
3. The third reason is that I watch a bunch of online content that most people consider Podcasts. I watch more of this type of programming than any kind of "traditional" TV. Twit, Revision 3, Current TV, etc.
4. Forth, I was sick of paying outrageous amounts of money for channels I had no interest in. I don't hate sports but there is no way I could justify paying Comcast $5/month for ESPN and NEVER watching it. That's just one example, If I could pay Comcast $20/month and choose just 15-20 channels then that would be awesome.
5. Fifth, I was also paying $13 a month to Tivo because Comcast's equipment is a fucking joke. Considering that Comcast is one of the big proponents of killing CableCard the future have using any device with their service other than their shitty DVRs is becoming LESS likely. I would love to have a Windows 7 Media Center PC stuffed full of tuners but why invest $800 in tuners that Comcast will most likely make obsolete by killing CableCard support.

Soon, you may be making this decision yourself. Apple may be announcing their next genreation of AppleTV devices tomorrow. Imagine having a little box attached to your TV that you could download the NBC app and watch NBC shows or any other content provider you can imagine. Talk about screwing over the cable company.

Today's WTF

I don't know what the fuck it means but it's pretty cool. May be NSFW

In other news...

Ray Bradbury is still alive and a total raving crazy old man!

Houston, We Have a Throblem

Just watch the video....NSFW.

Great Joke.

So the RIAA and the National Association of Broadcasters have come together and proposed a fantastic idea. They want to force manufacturers of portable devices such as mp3 players and mobile phones to include a FM radio in every such device manufactured. Seriously? When was the last time you listened to a fucking radio station? Local radio is a vast wasteland of talentless personalities pushing poorly made advertisements interrupted occasionally by the same recycled crap music that they played an hour ago.

Radio Broadcasters have not woken up to the reality that their entire industry is already dying. What sane person would listen to an FM radio station on their mobile phone when they have access to Pandora, Last.FM or one of a dozen other streaming music services. Radio morons always use the same guise, we are providing valuable local information and if there is ever an emergency you'll be glad we're there. If there's an emergency then I'll grab any one of the shitty little emergency radios that I have lying around my house that haven't been used in 15 years.

Oh and associated yourself more closely with the RIAA is a great idea....they're so fucking popular with consumers.

Douchebag

A wise man once said that your driving skill does not correspond to the size of your wallet.

Here's a perfect example of that.

The Secret to being Evil.

Hopeful nerds around the world have always seen Google as some kind of White Knight in the corporate world. Mostly because Google gives a lot of their services away for free but also because the founders have always pushed the philosophy of "Don't Be Evil".

Google has been making back door deals with Verizon to try and ensure they get preferential treatment in the coming bandwidth wars. When you get betrayed by the ones you love it's always the hardest.

This Techcrunch article is the best one I've seen about the whole situation.

Take it to the bank.

This story about secret number Swiss accounts and tax evading bankers is awesome. READ IT!!!

R.I.P.

R.I.P. Former (i.e. disgraced) Senator Ted Stevens.

I've given Stevens shit in the past for his disgraceful exit from the Senate but I'm still sorry for his family.

Still, he was responsible for one of the best Internet Memes ever....the Series of Tubes.

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Today's LOL

First, this is some really funny shit. Second, she is a Hot Piece of Ass!

Update: BOOOOO!!!! Another Hoax Meme! She's still hot.

Time to punt.

Google and Verizon come out in favor of Net Neutrality...

So at first your like, way to go Verizon! Finally you've done something that is not a total dick move. However...they only want this lack of FCC restrictions to apply to wired networks. What's the big deal there you ask? Verizon knows that wireless is the future and that market has WAY BIGGER margins for them. It's far cheaper to build towers and create a decent mesh network than to buy right of ways and dig ditches for fiber. Besides, wireless users are already conditioned to pay exorbitant amounts of money for tiny amounts of data.

WTF?

I want one of these!!!

CRACKERS!!

Seriously, one day the Onion News Network is going to kill me. Make sure you watch to the end the last bit is the best.


Guatemalan Flight's Data-Recording Parrot Holds Clues To Crash

That's Helpful

LOL....Total losers.

Stirring.

The Big Picture never fails to move me. These pictures from Afghanistan are amazing and sad.

What me guilty?

Oh Charlie Rangel....just admit that you're a dirty scoundrel.

The Douchebag Chronicles

Reason #5432 to hate Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook.


He's worth AT LEAST $4 Billion and he drives an Acura TSX.......are you fucking serious?

I think a portion of my brain just shut down because I literally cannot comprehend that fucking statement. With billions at his disposal he could drive something truly magnificent but he chooses to drive the automotive equivalent of a scientific calculator. Talk about the ultimate expression of his personality, or lack there of.

What a douchebag!!!!

O.M.G.

Watch the Pagani Zonda R set a new Nurburgring lap record.



Make sure you watch that in HD. The most amazing thing is that the camera appears to be mounted in some kind of super steady gimbal rig because you can see the movement of the roll cage and dash as the car flexes through turns. Fucking amazing.

Go for the adventure

Here's a video from an Oxford educated guy that decided to quit his job and work as a security contractor in Iraq....crazy.

Today's LOL

Now this is funny shit.

Oil Disaster Boom Town

Holy shit this is a crazy story.

The Alan Parsons Project

Here come the laser turrets for the Navy. Hopefully they will have X-Wings next year to attack these things like in Star Wars.

Think about how much money they could save in ammunition. An aircraft carrier is basically a floating nuclear power station so they've got a massive amount of power in reserve.

The New King

Is Apple the new Sony? I remember when I was a kid Sony made all the coolest stuff; TVs, Stereos, the Walkman, the DiscMan and tiny freaking portable TVs. They were the home entertainment hardware kings and we all flocked to by their products. The Walkman made riding in the car with my parents something that could be enjoyed instead of feared. These days Sony is but a former shadow of itself, sure they still make great products but their market dominance is a distant memory.

At the height of Sony's consumer electronics dominance Apple was the king of the personal computer. If you had told someone in 1986 that Apple would end up ruling the portable audio market they would have locked you up. Get ready for Apple's big push into the living room....

The truth is out there.

The controversial head of WikiLeaks speaks at TED....fascinating stuff.

Miami Nice

So I've been watching back episodes of Miami Vice for the last few weeks on Netflix. I'm about half way through the second season and if you grew up in the 80's you should really think about re-watching it yourself. Here are some of my impressions.

• Don Johnson smokes....a whole lot. It's seems that every scene is an opportunity to smoke up and man does it look bad ass while doing it.
• Johnson's wardrobe is freaking insane....PASTELS!!
• Even a fake Ferrari Daytona is a thing of beauty.
• Then there are the other cars, whoever was responsible for sourcing the cars for the show was a serious motorhead. I mean who the hell owned an original Maserati Quattroporte in the 80's?
  
• Guest stars!! Its a veritable who's who of people that went on to bigger careers.
• The Music. First off there is the iconic Jan Hammer score which is pretty amazing but then there are all the classic 80's songs including some "performances" of music within the show itself.
• Man the dialog, story and editing of TV shows have come a long way in 25 years. Want to really appreciate Lost despite its less than stellar ending just watch a few episodes of Miami Vice.
• Lots of hot babes. It's amazing to see all of these girls in bikinis without obnoxious fake breasts.
• Edward James Olmos is one bad motherfucker. On BSG he could own a scene like no one's business but his presence on Miami Vice is amazing.
  

Close but no cigar

Shut the damn door!

Sigh...

Saw this new Chevy ad for the Corvette on Jalopnik and it just made me kind of sad.



Which reminded me of a pretty awesome commercial that Chrysler is running for the Challenger.



Who cares if the Challenger drives like a truck and anyone that buys one instead of a Mustang has shit for brains...that commercial is awesome. Although my first thought was WTF, why aren't those Challengers Red, White and Blue? Doesn't come in white for 2011....what bullshit. Have they not seen fucking Vanishing Point?

Money well spent

The RIAA is supposed to protect the interests of it's members, the companies and artists of the recoding industry. I'm not sure how blowing $62+ million on fighting piracy is really helping but whatever.

LMAO!

Now this is some seriously funny shit.

FAIL!

If you can afford an Audi R8 and a Samsung HDTV then pay for the fucking delivery charge...or borrow a fucking truck. Oh wait, he can't borrow a truck because people that drive Audis have no friends......ZING!

Props to Jalopnik.

Stay Classy

This is pretty cool.

Friend!

Funny stuff from The Onion as usual.


New Apple Friend Bar Gives Customers Someone To Talk At About Mac Products

Stick to what you know.

LOL.....check out this awesome story about Prince and his belief that "The Internet is Over".

This finally made me realize that while Prince appears to be frozen at age 32 by some kind of wizardry he still thinks like the 52 year old man that he really is.

It's just a phone?

I wish I was Steve Jobs and had enough money to not give a shit about any one else's opinions or problems.

The iPhone 4 has some 3G reception issues that may or may not be serious. My experience so far is that it gets far better service than my iPhone 3g did but a lot of people are complaining that holding your phone in a certain way kills the phone's ability to get reception. All phones are effected by this in one way or another but when it effects the Jesus phone all hell breaks loose. So people are irate and pleading to the Sith Lord himself trying to find some kind of explanation for why he is a cruel god and not a benevolent one.

So how does Jobs respond to one of these irate customers? "Relax....It is just a phone"

Such a far cry from his "what have you done" diatribe from a couple of months ago. Hey Steve; relax, it's just a phone.

UPDATE: The whole relax email may be a hoax....whatever.

Now that is sweet.

Retro styling meets modern Corvette? Man this thing is sweet.

Piss it away.

Here's a subject close to my heart, IT Project Management. It appears that parts of the Government have seriously dysfunctional IT systems that have had some bad fails over the last few years. The VA office alone has wasted $300 Million dollars on two systems that have resulted in no improvement in capability.

I've been involved in large scale IT Project Management for several years and here's my opinion on what goes wrong.

• Hire your own people to manage the contractors. It's not realistic to hire all the developers and programmers you need as full time employees but paying the same company to create the system AND run the project is the second biggest mistake you can make. You'll pay a fortune and it will take twice as long....I promise.
• The biggest mistake you can make is to hire a contract company to tell you what you need. Hire a good team of analysts and project managers as full time employees. Give that team the tools and the power to explore your organization, talk to the stakeholders and come up with a list of requirements that maps out your needs.
  
• Never, ever pick a platform or an underlying system based on a vendor pitch. Stick to your requirements statement like your life (or job) depends on it because it does. Find a system that meets your needs as closely as possible with as little customization as possible.
• Don't fall for a vendor's promise that their software can do anything you want. You want the "off the shelf" software to meet your needs as closely as possible with no customization. Custom programming = $$$$$$, you can never completely avoid this but make every effort to keep it to a bare minimum.
• Picking a platform first is the death knell. Trying to force a specific platform to conform to your existing processes will take forever and cost an absolute fortune. Besides if you really want to take advantage of new software systems then now is a good time to improve your processes.

If this helps you or your business then send me a check.

Light it up.

Whoa....

Lightning strikes three of the tallest buildings in Chicago at the same time! from Craig Shimala on Vimeo.

Frankenrat

Soon we'll all be able to smoke as much as we want!!!

PT Jobs's Phone Circus Spectacular Suckfest.

Today is launch day for the iPhone 4. I sit hear salivating for its sleek glass and stainless steel body, angry that I didn't have the time to get a pre-order. I'm left to root around in the filth with the unwashed masses grasping my shabby iPhone 3g like some kind of poorly evolved primate.

So why is the thing so "magical"? Look where we were twenty years ago....

Stan vs, the Volcano.

A little more inside info on how the Rolling Stone reporter was able to get the big scoop on this whole McChrystal fiasco. Looks like his only real issue was being stupid enough to let his guard down with a reporter within earshot.

Put it on your ho's.

This is pretty epic.

Loose Lips

I can't believe people are shocked that Obama shit canned McChrystal over the snarky Rolling Stone interview? Do you talk bad about your boss in a public setting? I liked McChrystal and I think that his approach to the war could have been successful long term so I hate to see him dismissed in this way.

Wonder if Obama can use this as a way to abandon the longest war in US history....

Who's hand is in your pocket?

Watch this shit.



A Representative from Texas apologizing to the BP CEO for the Government's "shakedown" of his company....at least he has his constituents interests at heart. Those being all of the oil companies interests in Texas.

Nice moves.

I thought that MTV had really gone into the toilet until I saw this.



Is that a Walkman on his belt? WTF.

Desperate Times

BP is employing private security firms to prevent the credentialed media from interviewing clean up workers on a PUBLIC beach. No....you read that right.



More of the same corporate bullshit. Of course the guy that is making the only money he can by cleaning up BP's mess isn't going to talk to the media in front of BP's security goons. It's not like he can go fucking fishing anymore.

Corporate Greed.

BP....Bird Punishers.


What BP...you can't fly so you take it out on the birds. Assholes.

The Art of Motorsport

This video is beautiful. It's amazing that this was filmed on a camera that you could probably pick up in a local camera shop for less that $3000. Of course there's no way to buy yourself talent like this.

24 HOURS IN 19500 FRAMES from tim hahne on Vimeo.

Coolest kid ever.

This is the coolest kid in the world. I f I could have one just like him it might change my mind about not wanting kids.



Everyone is so uptight about this kid smoking, fucking let him be. Don't you see how happy he is? A hundred years ago P.T. Barnum would have had this kid under a tent charging people a nickel to see the amazing smoking kid!

To hell with your moral objections. Why don't you start worrying about something important?

Now that sucks

It must really suck to be rich enough to afford an Aston Martin DBS but not rich enough to afford off street parking in London.

The Angry Dwarf

RIP Gary Coleman.

In latter years he was known as an angry man with a really big chip on his shoulder but I grew up with him as Arnold the precocious kid.

Super Hyperbole

The radical right is up in arms about a proposed mosque that will be built very near to the site of the World Trade Center. The Jesus freaks are claiming that it will insult the memory of those that died in the 9/11 attacks to have a place nearby where Muslims can practice their faith. They didn't seem to think that spending trillions to invade a country(Iraq) that had nothing to do with those attacks to be so egregious.

Of course all Muslims are evil and all Christians are good....right? It's racism and bigotry at its finest. Activate Constitutional Sanity check.....Separation of Church and State stupidity shield activated.

Wait for it....

May be NSFW, you may want to get a bucket.

Memorial Day

Link may be NSFW.

Wow.

The ultimate douche move

Read this fun little article.

Anyone that has ever worked for a large corporation knows what a total bullshit statement this shit is. All that "we empower our employees" corporate PR speak is what ALL companies say but the truth is so much different. What they really mean is go ahead and stop work an cost us a shit load of money but if you're wrong it will be your job and your ass. If you're right about stopping you'll must likely still get fucked because if there was an existing issue that should have been prevented then your boss, who you just went around, is going to bend you over his desk and show you his gratitude. Not to mention the fact that working in offshore drilling is a very macho business so what are the odds that someone is going to risk looking like a pussy because they are scared.

So go ahead BP and Transocean rape the corpses of the employees that died in service of your company. Assholes.

Still sad.

Check out this awesome time lapse of preparing a Space Shuttle for flight.



Now that you've watched remember this: In less than six months all of this infrastructure, experience, equipment and technology will be decommissioned. How many of the dozens of people in this video will still have jobs once the Shuttle is grounded for good?

The more I think about it the more upset that I get, if there was a viable alternative in place maybe I wouldn't be so pissed but this could very well be the end of NASA's manned flight program. Nearly fifty years of exploration, science and pushing the limits of technology comes to an abrupt end.

To me the Space Shuttle IS space exploration, the only manned flight system that I have known in my life. I remember the horror of watching the Challenger disaster from my grade school class room and the triumph of repairing the Hubble Space Telescope. There was a time in my college years that I had horrible insomnia and I would spent an entire night, sometimes nights on end, watching the live NASA broadcasts of missions in progress. I'll never forget the early morning hours of February 1, 2003. I was playing Mech Assault on XBOX Live when someone in game gasped that the Shuttle had burned up on re-entry. Everyone in game stopped what they were doing and turned on their TVs to watch the news but we all kept the chat going and talked about how sad it was.

While there have been two spectacular failures resulting in the loss of 14 crew members in its service life there have been 132 successful manned flights that have put hundreds of people into space. To put that into perspective there were only eleven manned Apollo missions and of those two were failures with one resulting in the loss of three astronauts. That's a less than 2% failure rate for the Shuttle versus 22% for the Apollo.

The Space Shuttle deserves to have a legacy, it has been a stunning success for nearly thirty years and if it turns out to be the end of manned flight for NASA it will be a sad statement of our Government and it's lack of commitment to science.

Creepy

Skynet is coming.

Game Changer.

Apple made a half-hearted stab at cracking into the living room with the AppleTV. It was great in theory but in practice Apple couldn't (or didn't want to) make a usable interface for their iTunes store that worked on a large format TV. You can still buy an AppleTV today, connect it to your TV and watch your content purchased via iTunes. It doesn't really innovate the TV experience, it just changes where the content comes from. You buy the shows from Apple via iTunes instead of buying them from your cable/satellite provider whether it be by monthly subscription or on demand. It seemed that when the iPhone came out Apple made a very conscious decision to let AppleTV twist in the wind and focus on the mobile platform. That choice certainly hasn't hurt Apple financially.

Now along comes Google which announced today their Google TV platform. The only similarity between AppleTV and Google TV is that you will buy a box that connects to your television. The Google box will connect IN BETWEEN your cable/satellite box and your television. The box will then be connected to your internet connection and allow you to overlay the Internet on top of your TV signal or vice versa. Think of it has having picture in picture with the TV and the Internet. You can pull content from online providers like Hulu and watch shows streamed from the Internet or services like Netflix.

For me this is just awesome. I usually browse the Internet on a laptop while watching TV so this just combines that into one simple interface. The implications could be huge.

Star Trek nerds only.

This video with Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis is awesome.

Dance Monkey!

Rand Paul is infuriating. Watch this:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

All he really cares about is the theory of the Constitution and ideal that the Government should be completely true to EVERY ideal set forth by the Constitution simultaneously. No exceptions, no interpretations, just the clear rule of the law. I think he may want to become a Marxist because his pipe dream of Democracy could only exist in the fallacy of a Socialist Utopia. Sorry Dr. Paul but laws exists because people lack morality either through their own ignorance or poor upbringing. The Constitution is a living document and our Government was designed to allow that document to be changed as society demanded. To embrace the Constitution is to embrace and champion change, not to fight for it's fundamental literal meaning.

In a perfect world there would be no need to "force" private citizens to not be racist but we do not live in a perfect world.

Seriously funny.

ONN does it again.


New Google Phone Service Whispers Targeted Ads Directly Into Users' Ears

Totally chill

Sloths are the most laid back animal in the world, check these guys out.

Liar!

This is kind of fucked up but awesome.

Turn that frown upside down

Kevin's wife of 12 years left him and she took everything except her wedding dress. Help Kevin as he struggles to honor his ex-wife's wishes of doing "whatever the fuck he wants" with her unwanted wedding dress. Talk about funny.

Fix It Already

Interesting article about how the Saudis fixed a HUGE oil spill that they kept very quiet. Fascinating article.

Sad

I hit this picture on Stumble and it just made me sad.

Tomorrow is the final officially scheduled flight of the Space Shuttle Atlantis. It will be her 32nd trip into space and puts us one step closer to having no manned space program in this country for the first time since 1961.

Update: The Boston Globe's awesome blog called "The Big Picture" has some fantastic high resolution pictures of what it takes to prep a Shuttle mission. The end of an era is nigh....

Why is that a surprise?

It amazes me that people are surprised to see Sarah Palin "writing" another book this year. If I could slap my name on a stack of my own bullshit and make $5-10 million then I would write a book every week. She'll probably have a cookbook out eventually....

As long as there are uninformed, uptight and ignorant people out there she'll keep selling her ghost written trash. I really hope she runs in 2012 if for only one reason. She was completely eviscerated in her one debate with Biden so can you imagine what it would be like to see her on stage with Obama? Talk about out of your depth.

Credit where credit is due, Sarah Palin has found her true calling as a media whore.

Running Amok?

How is it possible that the four biggest banks in America all made money for 61 days straight in the worst economy in decades? The sad fact is that these institutions are still solvent in large part by the enormous amounts of tax payer dollars that was shoveled into their coffers by the US Government. Still think that reforms in financial regulation and corporate governance are a bad idea?

Of course since we now longer have a manufacturing industry in this country we better cling to the few successful business sectors we have left. Now if they could just learn to fuck other countries out of their money while NOT destroying our own economy in the process. If that happens then we could be an economic powerhouse again. Of course without decent paying, low skilled jobs we are going to have huge amounts of unemployed for years to come...what are the social implications of that?

Roundabound

TomTom has made a brilliant commercial for new custom voices for their GPS devices. I give you Darth Vader....

The real thing

I had to watch this twice because I could not believe just how fluidly this guy moves. Check out what a REAL Kung Fu master looks like in action.

German?

No-talent, teen heart throb/douchebag Justin Bieber really needs to be in school.



Seriously? Doesn't know what Germany means? Give this kid a map of Europe and a DVD copy of fucking Schindler's List.

Fucking Pixie Dust

NSFW (language)

Adam Carolla can be a blow hard sometimes but I usually like what he has to say. This video diatribe is absolutely priceless and 100% right.

All those granola eating hippie posers that protested nuclear power plants in the 70's and 80's should be publicly ridiculed. Better yet they should be forced to pay for the CO2 offset of all the coal and gas that was burned to generate power instead of using nuclear.

Once bitten....

Watch this video of a girl getting bitten by a Rattlesnake in her garden. Make sure you watch the last 30 seconds when the girl's British friends talk about how much it cost for her to be treated in an American hospital.

Fantastic

Check out Trent Reznor's first post-NIN project called How To Destroy Angels. It's a collaboration with his wife....she's got a great voice. Here's the first single titled A Drowning.

Made me realize that I have a real preference for electronic music with female lead vocals. Goldfrapp, Hoverphonic, Bjork, Portishead, M.I.A., and Snake River Conspiracy to name a few.

Blame game

Who's responsible for the Deepwater oil rig explosion and subsequent oil spill in The Gulf of Mexico? A better question is who's going to pay to clean up what is most likely going to be the biggest oil spill in history? Personally, I hope that Halliburton finally gets taken to task for something considering the insane shit they got away with during the Bush Administration. We'll see how they fair against BP's massive army of lawyers and enormous pockets.

Guard Cat

I hope this video is real because it is hilarious. Don't mess with this kid because his kitty will kick your ass!

Arrrrrr!

Sometimes Chinese piracy results in great hilarity. Look at these bootleg Harry Potter "sequels" created for the Chinese market. My personal favorite, "Harry Potter and the Filler of Big."