Author: RagManX

Unsurprising headline of the day…

This from Live Science:

Sex Still Satisfying For Men In Their 50s

Call Guiness. I don’t think anyone could have predicted that! More from the article:

Despite weakened sex drives and flagging erections, men in their 50s enjoy sex almost as much as those in their 20s.

The 30s seem to be a time of disappointment.

Researchers in Norway surveyed 1,185 men aged between 20 and 79 about various aspects of their sex lives, including drive, erections and ejaculations. The men were asked to rate their satisfaction with each aspect on a scale of zero to four, with four representing good sexual function and no problems.

The average scores for men in their …

20s: 2.79
50s: 2.77
30s: 2.55
40s: 2.72

As a man in his 30s, let me just say I’m not so sure I’d call the 30s a time of disappoinment. This study makes it look like the 40s and 50s could be better, but calling the 30s a time of disappointment sounds like a headline grab to me.

[tags]Science, Sex, Satisfaction[/tags]

Classic Sierra games re-released

Headline stolen directly from Joystiq.  I don’t have any more information than what is in the Joystiq article, but you can bet I’ll be watching for these.  Full article follows.  Hit the article for links to Amazon listings of these compilations.

Point and click adventure gamers rejoice! If you’ve been struggling to (legally) complete your collection of Sierra classics, Vivendi Universal is finally ready to give you just such a chance. They are releasing “compilations” of King’s Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest, and Leisure Suit Larry, available March 30th through Amazon, Target, and who knows where else.

There is almost no other information about the compilations, except that they run on Windows XP. Have they been ported or are they running through an emulation layer like Sarien? Does the compilation include all the games in the respective series? At $20 each, this could be a great way to build that collection. Then they’ll just need to release Gabriel Knight and Quest for Glory… then maybe LucasArts will get in on it…

[tags]Sierra, Retro gaming, Classic adventures[/tags]

A fashion don’t tip

Trey Stone and Matt Parker

Normally, I wouldn’t even want to admit looking at an Academy Awards fashion page of do and don’t tips, but I couldn’t pass this one up. I remember this event. I remember everyone talking about it. What really makes this worth pointing out is the caption for the picture:

DON’T… let sunglasses ruin an otherwise elegant outfit.
(Matt Stone & Trey Parker in 2000)

And here is the original dress that set up the above picture.

J.Lo Versace Dress

[tags]Academy Awards, Do and Don’t fashion tips, Matt Stone, Trey Parker[/tags]

A computer only a geek could love

digi_big3.jpg
I know you are tired of hearing this, but man, I need to get one of these. I don’t think my wife would approve, though. (via Engadget)

No doubt about it, the original Digi-Comp I is a rare item——in more ways than one. For example, there’s the Yahoo group FriendsOfDigiComp… How many other educational toys can boast their own Internet fan club? Remarkable, considering Digi-Comp is over 40 years old and has been off the market for at least 30… Which explains why the originals (if you can find any) are so scarce, commanding $100 or more on eBay.

But perhaps the rarest thing about Digi-Comp is the combination of hands-on and minds-on fun it affords. It definitely still has things to teach*, like Boolean logic and problem-solving… and it’s rewarding to build and use. That’s why Minds-On Toys decided to reintroduce it in an affordable kit format, with a thorough and professional revamp of the original documentation.

[tags]Digicomp, 3-bit computer, Kit computer[/tags]

Top 10 reasons geeks…

Here’s a set of 3 top 10 lists about geeks.

1) …make great fathers

  • LEGOS. The Geek is really more of a Man-Child than an adult. In their minds, they are still 10. They freakin’ still love to play with their legos, and have never grown up. I have one friend, WHO WILL REMAIN NAMELESS, that still has legos in his room. He doesn’t have kids. Just legos. Of course, my children love legos and Steve will lovingly spend hours playing legos with them.

2) …aren’t easy to be married to

  • MEMORY. Their minds are complete and utter LINT TRAPS. Not steel traps, LINT TRAPS. They capture all kinds of useless crap and store it up there. He can remember all the characters in a book he read when he was 8 years old but he can only remember 2 of the 3 things he was supposed to get at the grocery store. He can remember the date of Nolan Ryan’s no hitter, but he can’t remember our anniversary. He remembers every battle of WWII, but can’t remember what he gave me for a wedding present.

3) …make great friends

  • I like the fact that Geeks have no pretense of social norms. They will invite you over to their house to play board games or D&D, never realizing the rest of the world plays poker or drinks.

[tags]Top 10, geeks[/tags]

What did George Washington look like?

A brief article about some interesting work — reconstructing George Washington’s looks at several times throughout his life. Includes a fascinating video. (via Blue’s News)

“The most difficult part of the challenge in a way was morphing backwards when there are no images of the 19-year-old,” said recreation team member, Ivan Schwartz. “Our 19-year-old mystery man — the man who would become leader of the country.”

The team recreated Washington at age 57 when he was president; at age 45 when he commanded troops in the Revolutionary War and as a teenage surveyor.

[tags]George Washington, President[/tags]

Over the air HD reception

MAKEzine had a similar article in the latest issue, but here’s a write-up at HDBeat on how to get over the air High Definition signals on your TV.  I suspect doing this for your PC would be similarly manageable. (via MAKEzine blog)

Some of the best picture quality possible can be obtained with an antenna, at least until High Definition DVDs are released. It’s FREE, it’s recordable on some computers like Windows Media Center Edition and it works sometimes when cable and Satellite doesn’t.

[tags]HDTV, OTA HD, Hi Def[/tags]

Sound following robot

Wow, this is really cool. A LEGO Mindstorms robot with the capacity to follow sound. (via MAKEzine)

Paul-Nicolas created this nice robot that is capable of following the sound of a radio or a music instrument or a human voice. It follows the ideas developed on this site concerning the interaural time detection (ITD) (binaural sensor and high speed sampling).

[tags]LEGO Mindsprings, Robot[/tags]