Category: Useless knowledge

Information you have no need for. Ever. Usually about me, but possibly about other trivial crap in the world.

Dubious Pimpage

If you aren’t reading Dubious Quality, you should be.  Here are a couple of articles from Bill that show some of the reasons why I am a fan:

The Definitive Load Screen From Hell

Kotaku had a very funny link yesterday to a video of “Smackdown vs. Raw 2006” on the PSP. It’s not the game, actually–it’s the loading screen(s). All six minutes of them. That’s right. To go from inserting the PSP dingle-thingy to actually wrestling in career mode, it takes over SIX MINUTES. And some guy made a little film of what’s happening during that time, complete with Benny Hill theme

The rest of Bill’s commentary on this is spot-on.  And next:

The Women’s Cross-Country Sk–Commercial–ii–Commercial–ng–Commercial Finals

Even though the Olympics have become far more spectacle than sport, cross-country skiing is still the real deal. Anybody who can ski eighteen miles in a race on a torturously hilly course is a warrior. They’re bad asses. And seeing it in high-definition for the first time was a real treat.

So I decide to watch this race, because it’s incredibly intense. And here’s what I get to see:
4.5 minutes of skiing
2.5 minutes of commercials
2.5 minutes of skiing
3.5 minutes of commercials
3.5 minutes of skiing
3.0 minutes of commercials
7.0 minuts of skiing
2.5 minutes of commercials
1.5 minutes of interviews
2 minutes of commercials

Read the whole article for more insight.

Well done, Bill.

[tags]Load screen hell, Olympic hell, Dubious Quality[/tags]

Bark at the moon – Guitar Hero savant

If you are a gamer, you’ve probably heard of Guitar Hero.  And if you’ve read much about it, you’ve probably heard people talking about how hard the hard level is.  If you have any doubts, check out this video by some insanely great Guitar Hero savant.  The image quality isn’t great, but it’s enough to get an idea of how hard this is.  Every time one of the circles at the bottom of the screen lights up, this guy has to hit a key on the guitar controller.  That’s fast, and tough. (via Dubious Quality)

[tags]Guitar Hero, Bark at the Moon, gaming[/tags]

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]

“Lawer” threatens to sue Cory Doctorow

This article and series of emails is just too funny. Here are a few tips for future pretend lawyers:

  1. Learn how to spell “Lawyer” correctly.
  2. Learn how to spell.
  3. Learn the difference between libel and slander.
  4. Make sure you are registered with a recognized law society/association.
  5. Don’t make up a title for yourself that has no meaning

[tags]Boingboign, Cory Doctorow, Pretend lawyers[/tags]

Playstation 3 may or may not be late – collective yawn heard

This is covered all over the gaming web.  According to a report by Merrill-Lynch (warning – PDF file), the PS3 will be late and more expensive than originally expected.  Then, Sony says not true.  Then, Sony announces the PS3 may be delayed because the Blu-Ray specs (Sony’s optical format for the PS3) haven’t been finalized.

How can a product with no firm release date really be delayed?   The best we’ve ever gotten from Sony is Spring 2006, and I’ve not seen a single site that believed that.  From what I can gather, gamers world ’round are reacting to this non-news with a great big collective “So?” or something like that.  AsI have often done, I’ll point you towards Bill’s commentary for a better write-up of this non-event.

[tags]PS3, Playstation 3, Sony, Yawn[/tags]

The unattractive more likely to turn to crime?

I would love to see more commentary on this study.

Mocan and Tekin analyzed data from a federally sponsored survey of 15,000 high-schoolers who were interviewed in 1994 and again in 1996 and 2002. One question asked interviewers to rate the physical appearance of the student on a five-point scale ranging from “very attractive” to “very unattractive.”

These economists found that the long-term consequences of being young and ugly were small but consistent. Cute guys were uniformly less likely than averages would indicate to have committed seven crimes including burglary and selling drugs, while the unhandsome were consistently more likely to have broken the law.

Very attractive high school girls were less likely to commit six of the seven crimes, while those rated unattractive were more likely to have done six of seven, controlling for personal and family characteristics known to be associated with criminal behavior.

I haven’t seen anything like this before, and hope to read more from other reasearchers about this. (via BoingBoing)

[tags]Ugly people, Crime statistics[/tags]