Weekly links

A thunderous hail storm hit Oklahoma, and here are a couple of nicely filmed hail pelting a swimming pool, and another video where the owner watches as hail ruins his truck. In the Philippines, recent (and rare) hail storms were in Baguio 2007, and in Batangas just this June 2009. Meanwhile, current times, Metro Manila and the rest of the country is having a fever, with temperatures peaking at 37.3 last week. Nilalagnat ang Pilipinas.

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Have fun trying to find out how to say words the proper way, with HowJSay, and here is another one complete with talking heads . So now I know that affidavit is pronounced with a long ‘A’ (not affidaahvit), respite with long ‘I’ in Europe and short ‘I’ in US, and sonofabitch is best said by an angry congressman.

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For those who travel, here is a luggage that turns into a sturdy chair. Is that Christine Jacob modeling the luggage transformer?

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World’s worst jobs. You think your job sucks? How does smelling armpits or getting infected with malaria appeal to you?

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Thank you Pacman, for 30 years of never-ending fun! Speaking of “pixel” video games, here is a game/video that reflects real life. Dan the Man!

It Tweets!

The PCOS Machine not only counts and tallies votes, it tweets!

http://twitter.com/PCOSmachine

The Internet? Bah!

http://www.newsweek.com/id/106554

Interesting how one expert viewed the Internet back in 1995. Written by Clifford Stoll, astronomer and hacker tracker (see below), he started by saying that virtual communities and online libraries are ….

“Baloney. Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth is no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works.”

“Then there are those pushing computers into schools. We’re told that multimedia will make schoolwork easy and fun. Students will happily learn from animated characters while taught by expertly tailored software.Who needs teachers when you’ve got computer-aided education? Bah. These expensive toys are difficult to use in classrooms and require extensive teacher training.

He now sells the popular blown glass Klein bottles online, yet he used to say about e-commerce …

“Even if there were a trustworthy way to send money over the Internet–which there isn’t–the network is missing a most essential ingredient of capitalism: salespeople.”

Goes to show that being smart does not make you immune to epic fails.

Clifford Stoll is a US astronomer who became a Systems Administrator at a Berkeley Laboratory under the US Dept. Of Energy. It is here where he played a critical role in catching the famous hacker Markus Hess. It was during the latter part of the Cold War that the KGB engaged the services of Hess to steal information from the US.

The above utterances are further elaborated in his 1995 book called Silicon Snake Oil.

The i-feminine hygiene

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You know how amazing, great, spectacular, (insert more adjectives here) the new iPad is? It is just ridiculous!

Steve Jobs should fire whoever gave it that name though. MadTV has parodied the iPod looong ago, and a simple Google of the name would have stopped them from naming it as such. It’s either (a)Apple doesn’t care, (b)someone in the research department is having a laugh, (c) the team that named it are all men with no wife or daughters, or (d) or they just plainly effed up.

Samsung’s transparent laptop

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Samsung recently demo’ed the first laptop OLED with 40% transparent screen. 40% transparent! That is more than what we can say about our government!

Imagine the possibilities … directions and other info on your car’s windshield while you are driving, techie eyeglasses, aviation use … but on a laptop? Meh. I might put something with solid color on my desk behind it so it will not confuse or distract me, which will render the feature useless.