News For You: May 2004 Archives

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May 29, 2004

Smell-o-vision

Looks like Jacob Gaffney at the wine spectator is really looking forward to having smells delivered from his computer. He posted an article back in 2000 about a company named digiscents. Digiscents promised to deliver any scent possible by using a system of about 100 smell tanks. I can't imagine that really working, and I imagine that being why we don't have smell tanks on our desks now.

Now in 2004, Jacob Gaffney has posted again about a new device called the Olfacom that is trying to do the same thing. The Bureau Interprofessionnel des Vins de Bourgogne (BIVB), and France T�l�com have been working on. But as we all know if it's French it can't smell very good.

I for one could care less about being able to have smells delivered to my computer. In fact I would consider it more of an annoyance. Imagine if you got a virus on your computer that took over your smell box, or what would spam mail smell like?

Posted by Bryant at 08:54 AM | Comments (5)

May 28, 2004

Sometimes we all need vacations!

woah this place is a ghost town and to know people are posting for me in my absence***** anyway, todays post is www.makayama.com. this software company makes a program that will rip a dvd onto a pocket pc and have the file be out 100megs and the quality is pretty darn good! granted it does take about 3 hours or so on a smoking fast laptop to re-encode a movie but hey its great to have movies in your pocket.... peace... jesse

Posted by Jesse at 08:11 PM | Comments (0)

May 27, 2004

This post has been edited.

Posted by Bryant at 03:16 AM | Comments (3)

May 25, 2004

AIM today

Big ups to AIM Today (the little window that launches when you load up AOL Instant Messenger) for featuring a porn star as their 'rate a buddy' of the day.

Posted by Jesse at 11:24 AM | Comments (2)

I'm off to Monaco

So I think I should take a trip to Monaco along with a big fat diamond detector. A race car with a 200,000 USD diamond crashed and the diamond was lost. It's out there somewhere.

First it was a dumb idea to put a 200,000 dollar diamond on the front of race car. That's just about the least secure place to put it. The second dumb idea was to put rookie Austrian Christian Klien behind the wheel. Klien had never driven at Monaco before.

Anyways, I figure it'll cost me 500 dollars for a plane ticket, And if I limit myself to 50 dollars a day, I can spend about 4000 days looking for 10 years and still make a profit.

Posted by Bryant at 03:36 AM | Comments (0)

Quick Post

Sorry I've been busy with another project thats going to launch soon:

here are a few quick updates:
in case you were looking for a bull penis walking cane
or an island

Posted by Bryant at 03:29 AM | Comments (0)

May 21, 2004

My new dream Job

I think I found a new dream job. Being a patent clerk in Japan. From the sampling of inventions I see in this book, 101 unuseless japanese inventions , I can see why our friendly western neighbor is so efficient. They have a gadget or invention for just about everything.

It's such a different culture in Japan that I cannot even begin to understand some of their phenomena. Here's a few other morsels I've seen over the years:
- Engrish.com A great source of labels, signs, etc that show the abuse of our language. For a culture that loves English words, you'd think they'd get the usage right.
- Japanese Vending Machines Apparently you can get just about anything from these automata.
- Lost in Translation An entertaining look at a couple of bored lonely Americans finding fun and love in Japan.

Posted by Bryant at 05:29 AM | Comments (0)

May 20, 2004

Natural Selection

Here's news about a couple in Germany that has been married for 8 years. They have tried having a child, but have been largely unsuccessful. After visiting they were able to figure out the source of the problem. The couple wasn't having sex.

I can't imagine what they tried in attempts to produce a baby, but I can't believe of after 8 years of trying, they didn't figure it out.

Apparently the couple came from families that had extreme religious views and they just never learned about sex. Maybe this is God's way of saying that this couple is a few fries short of a happy meal, and that the world would be better off with them not having kids.

Posted by Bryant at 03:01 AM | Comments (6)

May 19, 2004

I double-DARE you!

In my high school chemistry days, we dealt with a lot of dangerous chemicals - sulfuric acid and exploding gummy bears to name a few. Jokingly, we would dare each other to drink this or that liquid. Some guys would even drink a little liquid nitrogen and spew it out in a cloud of smoke. This student apparently went for the real stuff and as a result was "found bleeding from nose and mouth." Eegh...

Posted by Edwin at 02:42 PM | Comments (0)

May 18, 2004

C-Walk on SNL

If you have nothing better to do on Saturday Night or don't have TiVO or Snapstream, watch Christopher Walken - The Best Of - on Saturday Night Live.

I'll be looking for three of my favorites:

1. The Blue Oyster Cult and the Cowbell: (Link goes to video clip)
- C.W. plays Bruce Dickinson, yes THE Bruce Dickinson, in a skit about The Blue Oyster Cult. recording "Don't fear the Reaper. Walken has a fever, and the only prescription is more Cowbell. The Cowbell Player, Gene, is played beautifully by Will Ferrell. So well in fact that the cast loses it a couple times.

2. Ed Glosser, Trivial Psychic:
- C.W. plays a man who can see the future. When he gets a premonition, he gets that trademark scary/crazy C-Walk face. He then procedes to predict an very boring event. This skit is perfect for C-Walk and as always he delivers beautifully.

3. The execution
- In this one, Walken is about to get executed. His Hillbilly executioner keeps making jokes about the execution. Hilarity ensues.

Posted by Bryant at 06:47 AM | Comments (3)

May 17, 2004

Selling your laptop on Ebay

Noah once contemplated selling laptops on ebay and was approached by people in foreign countries wanting to buy the laptops for ridiculous sums of money. I thought that it was probably a scam. It looks like I may have beeen right.

This guy Jeff was selling a G4 Powerbook and ended up luring a scammer. The scammer tried to get the guy to accept "payment" from a fake escrow service and then to ship the laptop overseas. The "victim" in conjunction with a forum of thinkers, recon, and scam artists found a way to get the scammer back. Read about this international operation that ended up turning the tables and getting the scammer charged hundreds of dollars. You gotta see the pictures of the P-P-P-Powerbook that this guy sent him. I wonder if anyone ever followed up on the professor running the scam escrow site.

Posted by Bryant at 02:25 AM | Comments (0)

Electronic voting that doesn't work

American Idol, the popularity contest that Sir Elton John has called racist May have another serious flaw: the voting system sucks. Each night the show is aired, there is a 2 hour window in which people are encouraged to phone in as often as possible to vote for their favorite vocalist. Apparently American Idol is losing votes. and not just a few, but millions of votes. Apparently, the existing pipes just can't handle the raging flow of calls from teenage schoolgirls.

Apparently it gets dirtier. There's money to be made. Now that you can bet on anything online, people are betting for who's going to be stay on and win, and then using technology to swing the vote. People are using autodialers and software to automatically place thousands of phone calls to swing the votes. In another scam, a company bought up phone numbers similar to the American Idol phone numbers and then had messages that told people to dial a 1-900 number to vote.

Oh I can't wait till the Presidential voting system goes electronic.

Posted by Bryant at 01:21 AM | Comments (1)

May 15, 2004

Can you hear me now? Good.

I thought people in the Midwest were all nice folk, but apparently nothing gets them riled up in Fargo like spotty wireless service.

According to Jason Perala, 22, he went to a Verizon Wireless Store in West Acres Mall in Fargo, North Dakota planning on yelling at store representatives. However, what ended up happening was something of a cross between nerd boy and the incredible hulk. He proceded to take off his shirt, put on safety glasses and the throw around computers and cell phones. Dissapointingly, he only caused about $2000 dollars in damage.

Imagine what this scene would have been like if he used Sprint PCS.

Posted by Bryant at 03:16 AM | Comments (7)

May 14, 2004

Eager Beavers

Looks like the Boston Globe has sunk to a new low. The Boston Herald reports that, in attempt to show exclusive Iraqi Prison Photos, they have posted pictures from an pornographic Islamic propoganda site. I don't know what's more alarming, that there is such a website, or that the Boston Globe printed uncredited photos from the website.

This just shows how quickly and dangerously they acted to shove more dirt on the war. This is on the same level as The Mirror in the UK printing fake photos of British Soldier Iraqi Prisoner abuse.

It disgusts me how much more they are covering the hazing of Iraqi prisoners than they are of the deliberate terrorist act of beheading innocent American contractor Nick Berg. There is such an political motive to only show the bad coming from the war, can the beheading of an American no longer get any media attention?

Posted by Bryant at 07:05 AM | Comments (2)

May 13, 2004

Not a big deal?

When the whiny RIAA isn't busy trying to sue students and busy not generating new talent, they're busy whining about how record sales have gone down since people have stopped spending money and have started downloading all of their music.

Apparently, if you look at the statistics another way, a way that makes more sense, then record sales have increased. This is why I hate statistics and am skeptical to put much value on statistics or arguments that rely on statistics. The RIAA claimed a 7% decrease in retail sales last year. Sure enough, according to RIAA numbers, they shipped 7% less product to stores. The RIAA is actively blaming this loss to online file sharing. However, cd sales have increased. The number of CD's purchased by people has increased by 9.4% . If the Lemonade stand game ever taught me anything, This seems to be good for everyone. Less inventory, lower prices, higher sales. The only people who get less money are the lemon sellers, but this isn't the fault of file sharing, it just indicates a smarter retailer that keeps less stock, and sells more for less.

I dont think the RIAA will every be able to stop online piracy. With a free digital distribution system why does the world need something like the RIAA any more? I'm just waiting for the day that KaZaa's successor rises. Hopefully this new file sharing system will be private and will be immune to RIAA lawsuits.

Posted by Bryant at 10:59 PM | Comments (0)

May 12, 2004

Next Time ask for a non-exploding battery

I've heard stories about people's laptops exploding and cell phones exploding, (2). When I first heard about these stories I just attributed them to terrorist activities or poor manufacturing. What I didn't know is that ALL traditional lithium-Ion batteries will explode given enough pressure.

Looks Like I'll be handling my cell phone, laptop etc.. with a little extra care and respect from now on. I'd also like to tell gadget manufacturers to stop putting exploding batteries in my stuff and to start putting non-exploding batteries in them. Apparently they now exist.

Their promotional video clearly shows their advantage.

Posted by Bryant at 03:45 AM | Comments (0)

May 11, 2004

Happy Birthday Jesse

Happy Birthday from all the staff at Bryantchoung.com and from your favorite icon and porn star, Miss Candi Coxxx (not to be confused with Miss Lara Roxx).

Posted by Noah at 06:31 PM | Comments (8)

Take one for the country

This group of women decided to act on their patriotism by making sure that "US troops shipping out overseas [leave] with the most sensually pleasing departure possible." I really don't know what to say....

Posted by Edwin at 05:06 PM | Comments (7)

Prison Abuse and its Consequences

In retaliation for the recent scandal at an Iraqi prison, persons claiming to be associated with al-Quida have beheaded an American captive and posted the video on an Arabic website.

Interestingly enough, the story is nowhere to be found on CNN.com (as of now). It seems inevitable that the coverage of this atrocity will be given far less attention than the alleged humiliating interrogation tactics used by American soldiers in Iraq. God bless our "objective" media.

UPDATE: CNN.com is now displaying the story as Breaking News. (4:00pm)

Posted by Joe at 02:19 PM | Comments (3)

Molecule Game

Not the greatest graphics, but pretty fun nonetheless. Kinda reminds me of chemistry class...

Posted by Edwin at 11:45 AM | Comments (1)

May 10, 2004

I hope to be the winning bidder

I have a special place in my heart for eby auctions such as this.

Posted by Noah at 03:46 PM | Comments (13)

May 09, 2004

Equal parts means less children

This study finds that if work in a household isn't split evenly and put more on either the man or woman, it's more likely that there'll be a second child. I really didn't find this that interesting - I thought "Great, another pointless study." But then I saw that the study came from our own Brown University. So now it not only seems pointless it seems like a waste of funds.

But for the heck of it, I'll try to decipher these results: couples where the work is placed mainly on one person means that he/she is whipped and thus the other is agressive - and this aggressiveness leads to less careful love-making rituals. Either that, or it's become a contest between "modern" (where the man does more work) and "traditional" (where the woman does most of the work) and they're trying to breed and overwhelm the opposite side.

Posted by Edwin at 10:47 PM | Comments (4)

A step in the right direction

We live in a society where groups like the ACLU and many liberals are quick to make sure everyone feels ok and accepted. This leads to our current state where everyone is normal, everyone's entitled to whatever the please, teachers can't give a kid Tylenol for a headache, but can get the kid on Ritalin.

In today's science and technology we're keeping weaker and weaker people alive, I'm bombarded with emails so that gramps can buy a pill to get it on, and just about everyone now has allergies and ADD.

If unchecked our society is quickly going to deteriorate into a lazy sloths, who are whiny complainers, who are overweight, sick, crazy and just plain dumb. This is why I have been a long proponent of not allowing everyone the right to reproduce. It is a tough job raising a decent kid and quite frankly many people just don't make the cut.

Monroe County Family Court Judge Marilyn O'Connor has set precedent by ordering a couple in New York to have no more children. If the couple has children, will be charged with contempt of court. The judge is offering free sterilization for the couple. The parents already have four children, ages 1,2,4, and 5. All of them are neglected and all of them have tested positive for cocaine.

I applaud this move by Judge Marilyn O'Connor and have set up http://badparents.bryantchoung.com/ that allows you to report other parents and people who should not be allowed to reproduce. I'm sure we can get a pretty sizeable list just by looking through our archives.

Posted by Bryant at 03:40 AM | Comments (6)

May 08, 2004

For the best rice, head to Japan

I hate ricerockets. this is one of my biggest pet peeves. First of all, 90% of the "modified" cars you see out there are just modified so that they look faster, but actually are probably slower. The ridiculous wings people attach to the back of their cars, the extra lights everywhere, sticking chrome in new and exciting places. It's just a mess. I just enjoy encountering them on the I-95 and smoking them with my biturbos.

Here's a site that shows what rice rockets look like in Japan. It is interesting that the Japanese do ridiculous things to their cars too, but they take a different approach, instead of making their cars look faster, sleeker, and futuristic, they make their cars look broken, tacky, and post-apocolyptic. I really hope none of these fads catch on in the states, the Star shaped exhaust? the intercooler piping through the headlight?

Posted by Bryant at 01:37 PM | Comments (2)

May 07, 2004

Handi-Capable

What's got four wheels, a rifle with a scope mounted on it, camoflaugue, tenessee mudflaps and a thirst for blood?

Demonstrating that all Americans should exercise the right to own a rifle with a scope attached to his or her wheelchair, Here's a gallery of Handicap Hunting photos that shows just what these heroes are capable of.

I don't know how I feel about this. Should a blind person really be hunting? With a crossbow no less? Isn't this just a slap in the face of all animals out there?

Posted by Bryant at 04:16 AM | Comments (1)

eat your way out

Crazy Legs Conti has placed himself in a phone booth full of popcorn. He has vowed to eat himself out of the buttered popcorn box in time to make his movie premier about competitive eating Crazy Legs Conti -- Zen And The Art Of Competitive Eating. These atheletes are truly impressive. I can't imagine being in a phonebooth of popcorn for 8 hours. The popcorn, the butter, the recycled fart air, not being able move, the kernels in your butt. It would be a horrible marriage of sensations.

Posted by Bryant at 04:05 AM | Comments (0)

May 06, 2004

This Room is a Zoo!!

Have you guys heard about this crazy story? Wow.

Posted by Noah at 08:05 PM | Comments (1)

I <3 Nature.

Jamie L. Verburgt, of Milwaukee Wisconsin was found with about 200 live animals in her apartment. She had about 70 ducks in a pen, snakes, turtles, rabbits, alligators, opossums, and squirrels. She also had animal carcasses in her freezer and in her garage.

When asked for an explanation. Apparently she picked up the dead animals off the road to feed the live animals. The live animals she was keeping to sell to pet stores. This must be the WORST scheme EVER to make a dollar. The humane society was called in to take away Verbrugt's Apartment farm

In 2000, her boyfriend, John Walters, was charged for mistreating exotic animals including a female cougar, female leopard, silver-tailed fox, monitor lizard, two caracals, a coatimundi, chinchilla and a reticulated python which he kept in his apartment.

First it's amazing that there are two of these crazies living in Wisconsin. Second its amazing/beautiful that these two found each other.

Posted by Bryant at 05:44 PM | Comments (0)

Guess whos back?

yep, im back after a small semi-retirement. its nice to take a vacation every now and then and well finals are just about done (done in like three hours) but i couldn't wait to post, especially about wisconsin.

This post is creepy. flesh eating beetles? decaying carcasses? aligators? not at the zoo? thats right its wisconsin!

(props to foxnews.com for the link)

Posted by Jesse at 09:37 AM | Comments (0)

May 05, 2004

Yeowch.

Ever since I first played Quake and developed a penchant for shooting things with a nailgun, a nailgun was always on the top of list of power tools I wanted to own. I heard though, that all nail guns come with a safety pressure switch such that it can only fire if it's being pressed up against something. Happy Gilmore made me question that. This makes me realize that there is no said safety method and that maybe a nail gun wouldn't be the best thing to own. X-rays are priceless.

Posted by Edwin at 05:25 PM | Comments (1)

Blood Sucking RIAA

It really chaps my ass that the RIAA is going out and suing people in the name of "poor" artists whom they claim are deprived of their royalties. Especially when big name music corporations are negligent in even paying out these royalties:

"It found that many performers and writers had not received royalties because the music companies had been negligent about maintaining contact with them."

And even after they swindle grandmas and twelve year olds out of thousands of dollars and conveniently forget to pass on royalties to artists, the RIAA still isn't satisfied. They are currently lobbying for a bill that would provide federal funding for civil action against college students and other file sharers. In their latest act of genius, many executives want to raise the prices of legal music downloads.

Posted by Joe at 12:03 PM | Comments (0)

May 04, 2004

Napolean Dynamite

I have a sneaking suspicion that this new movie closely resembles Bryant's high school years.

Posted by Joe at 02:21 PM | Comments (4)

Dum Dum Dum Dum Dum

It looks like the Mormons have joined the Anti Free Speech Band-Wagon by buying a(nother) block of Salt Lake city and restricting speech there. Since many people here seemed to be in favor of Christian censorship, I was curious how you felt about the Mormons telling you what you can and cannot say? Matthew? Jesse?

Posted by Noah at 01:37 PM | Comments (7)

"Where Wings Take Dream"

In celebration of renowned right-wing conservative and poor grammatist Jesse Justus returning to the site, I though I would post a link to several web sites that have dedicated themselves to collecting the bizarre sayings of our beloved president. Site A, Site B.

Posted by Noah at 12:27 AM | Comments (0)

May 03, 2004

Need help? Call A Hacker

I thought this was a real interesting story about the state of the telecom industry.

Someone had been making prank bomb threats into a high school. The local detective requested from SBC Ameritech to come up with the phone number that called at that time. SBC Ameritech came up dry. So the detective called up Kevin Mitnick. Apparently Mitnick knew the telco's system better than they did he ended up finding out who the prank bomber was. It apparently was a kid who was calling in bomb threats from his cell phone IN CLASS. Yeah, I know, it's crazy, kid's now have cell phones in class. What a wonderful world.

Posted by Bryant at 03:12 PM | Comments (3)

I'm going to Jail, Who's coming with me?

I'm going to jail. Not because the state wants to lock me up and throw away the key, but so that I can sit back have food cooked for me, not have a job, and sit back in my cell and watch my nice flat screen TV.

In Oregon, they have begun to allow Flat-Screen TV's with basic cable in individual cells. This seems to go against the view I had of prison of it being a way of punishing criminals. The only way that this would be torture is if they fixed the TV on an endless loop of the Nanny, movies that have the endings edited out, and a loop of the horrible crime they committed.

I can imagine this only leading its way to internet access in cells, at which point the deal is sealed.

Posted by Bryant at 12:45 PM | Comments (1)

Endless Graphpaper

It's 4 in the morning. I need to finish my Computational Geometry Homework. I need graph paper, What do I do?

Go to this site and print some more. Oh and they have so many kinds!!!

Posted by Bryant at 03:38 AM | Comments (0)

Water Camaro

Ah Before the big server crash of aught four those loyal readers of my site will remember my love of amphibious vehicles. Ever since the day I first drove the Boston Duck on the Boston Duck Tour, it has been a lifelong dream of mine to one day own a fine automobile that will allow me to travel from state to state as easily as island to island. I've reported on:
The Terrawind: a Amphibious RV
The Wooden Ferrari: a floatingwooden rendition of a sports car
The Gibbs aquada high-speed amphibian

I now bring you the amphibious camaro. Featuring a Subaru WRX turbo engine, it can do over 100 on land, and 40 mph in the water. And apparently it'll attract a girl or two in a bikini pretty quick too.

Posted by Bryant at 03:19 AM | Comments (0)

May 02, 2004

20 questions ... against a database

If you're bored. you can play twenty questions.

If you're bored and you have no friends you can play twenty questions against a computer.

Actually, the computer is quite good. You pick a sitcom character or dictator and you let the computer ask you yes or no questions.

Posted by Bryant at 06:19 PM | Comments (0)

It's Explosive!

If you have the patience or the skill to get past the fourth level in this game, I salute you.

Posted by Joe at 04:39 PM | Comments (1)

A plot to shoot 20,000 Koala

Koala populations on Kangaroo Island are booming. In fact, these lovable furry creatures are doing so well, Sandra Kanck of the Australian Democrats says we need to kill them. She pins the number at 20,000 koalas that need to be shot. She recommends bringing in professional koala shooters to do the job "quickly and cleanly."

Fortunately there are many opponents to this plan. I can't imagine a person with a cold enough heart to shoot a koala. So cute, so cuddly. What do they expect to do with all these dead koalas after shooting them?

In other news, Professional Koala hunters are finally getting employed, Koala burger lovers are cheering, and I'm looking forward to my Koala fur underwear.

Posted by Bryant at 04:07 AM | Comments (0)

May 01, 2004

ASCII hot or not

For those of you who only speak in Binary:
01010111 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01100100 01101001 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 00110000 00100000 01110011 01100001 01111001 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 00111000 00111111 00001101 00001010 01001110 01101001 01100011 01100101 00100000 01100010 01100101 01101100 01110100 00101110

For those of you who only like to see things in ASCII :
Hot or Not in ASCII

Posted by Bryant at 11:17 PM | Comments (6)

An Mp3 player that Bearly fits in your hand

I guess this is more geared towards the ladies in the audience. I previously reported on an mp3 player that was stuffed into a teddy bear. Now here's another version that's smaller so you can actually carry it around with you if you so desire.

Posted by Bryant at 11:10 PM | Comments (8)

Jam Sessions become LAN parties?

Soon, when you and your buddies get together for a Jam session, it might end up looking more like a Lan Party. You might all be plugging into a hub rather than an amp. You might be recoring on a high powered laptop instead of a high power amp, and instead of rocking the house, you might be able to pump the music worldwide.

Enter the era of the really electric guitar. Announced a while back, Gibson has finally launched its digital electric guitar. Right now most of you are probably thinking while this may be cool, Why did Gibson decide to replace the plug with an Ethernet Jack? First you'll get Distortion free audio that you can feed directly into a computer. Second, each string will be on its own channel with a special pickup that can act as an analog pickup or an acoustic pickup. This means that you can spatialize, distort, and separate the chord by string. I haven't heard it yet, but this may completely change how music sounds in the future.

I can already envision gibson digital guitar v 2.0 ... Wireless ethernet.