Videos: Awesome Chemistry, Pacman, Wedding FAIL

The Awesome of Chemistry


Science!


Pacman Ghosts Discuss TV




...and because it's just not Friday without some FAIL,

Wedding Photo FAIL



Have a great weekend!

Friday Youtube: Animal Power Moves, Shocked Kitty, Mortal Kombat

Animal Power Moves!

Animal strength in one clever or gross or strange way or another.




The Shocked & Appalled Kitty

It's just shocked and appalled. Nothing more.




Oregon Trail vs. Mortal Kombat

Anyone who grew up with Oregon Trail in any capacity also grew up with MK. Exactly what it sounds like.




And that'll be it for this Friday. Have a great weekend!

Thursday Technology: Wii Think, WiFi Sensitivity, Dante Fail, 3D-TV

What do Wii Think?


This is not a joke.

Wii has a new one, reports Dvice. Concept peripheral that is. The reported use is that by getting older folks to think really, really hard, they'll ward off teh Alzheimer's. Yay! Right? Well, not really. See, there's not much scientific evidence saying that thinking real hard prevents Alzheimer's.

However, they have succeeded in creating the equivalent of the Nintendo Power Glove that our parents and grandparents can wear on their heads.

(sidenote: they spent so much on materials for this concept and the photog that they couldn't actually get a real Wii and used a cardboard mock-up instead.)


Dang Kids and Their Wifi - Spiders!

Now the Santa Fe New Mexican reports that one [man] has sued his neighbor for refusing to turn off their cellphone and Wi-Fi hotspot. Arthur Firstenberg claims he was made homeless by the neighbor, who apparently didn't appreciate his unique ailment. Firstenberg's legal argument is a bit of a treat, suggesting he's been forced to live in his car

I was going to put something in here about being crazy, but DSL reports already pointed out that "the science that does exist strongly suggests that those claiming to be suffering from "electromagnetic sensitivity" are simply suffering from psychosomatic disorders, and might be helped by therapy and/or medication."

If you're looking for a handout, collect unemployment like everyone else and stay home, crazy. Oh, wait. You can't. Alien death ray neighbors and all that. Sorry.


The Smack Dante so Hard Virgil Feels It Dept.



The folks behind the fun and enthralling demon-killing reimagining of one third of Dante's La Divina Commedia have sold the art so that Del Rey Books can release Longfellow's translation to coincide with the game release.

This, also, is not a joke.

Aside from the mix of zombie apocalypse and romance novel and "holy crap did he stitch a fabric cross to his chest?" and the fact that Dante does not - at any point in The Divine Comedy - wield a spine-mounted scythe, anything stick out for you?

If they'd sexed up any of Jane Austen's novel covers, I might have been a little more receptive in my Single Author class back in college. Then again, I'd have been even more disappointed by the contents. No, thank you. I'll stick to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (which is apparently starring and being produced by Natalie Portman!?)

But I digress. Message: stop pillaging classic literature with a file and wax. You're messing up the patina. And then it's worth nothing.


A Note on 3D-TV

With CES behind us for 2010, let's make one thing pretty clear: 3D-TV is the new generation's LaserDisc.

Companies see a new, cutting-edge technology, see James Cameron's "Avatar" blowing the sides off the movie industry and they want to stick their fingers into that honeypot. No! Stop! You're wasting your money!

There are people without TV's. There are people with TV's that don't use them because they haven't figured out or gone through the trouble of getting a digital tuner. There are people without cable. There are people - like me - who have a TV and cable but have not upgraded to HDTV (or even a flat panel) because of the cost.

Is anyone going to take one more step and purchase a television with a 3D badge so they can sit on their couch with glasses on? Well, yes. And those people are wealthy early-adopters.

But for the rest of us, it's silly. I loved going to see the 3D IMAX version of "Avatar" a couple weeks ago. But a really expensive television in the living room that makes me put on glasses that will probably get lost or crushed or the dog chewed them up so I can watch an occasional 3D show or movie? (Note: the tech to film "Avatar" was just invented by Cameron and most shows/broadcasts aren't even filmed in HDTV yet.)

I just don't see it.

But maybe I'm not wearing the right glasses.


That's your tech wrap for this week! What are your thoughts?

Friday Film on Tuesday: Dumb Funny, Darksiders, Avatar on Pocahontas

This isn't early, but late. So more to love this Friday! Enjoy.



Hahaha...someone said in the comments of this video "If you think this is funny you must be six years old." I did not realize I was six.


Darksiders

One of my pleasures is video games. Granted, I only just finished Mass Effect and Bioshock this past year. And I'm working - very slowly - on Fallout 3. But I played the demo of Dante's Inferno (AWESOME!) and was impressed.

This looks equally impressive:



Avatar on Pocahontas on Avatar on...

I recently saw Avatar in full-on IMAX 3D. It was tasty and delicious. And it blew my mind. For me, the story was a 6.5/10, but the movie magic that happens with 3D and the special effects would bring my overall rating to an 8.5/10. The trailer blew my mind. But let's look at the mashups, shall we?

Friday Vids: FFXIII, Iron Man 2, Toyota Sexist? (+ Stoned Cats)

Another Friday, another bunch of videos, and always more to love. To keep the streak going, we're going to continue to geek out on you, starting with some video games:

IGN Daily Fix

Final Fantasy XIII has been released!

...in Japan. Check that fanfare!



So pleased it will be coming to Xbox360.

And the Jessica from the Fix was right...


Iron Man 2 Trailer

...is frickin' awesome!



Noms for the eyes.


Toyota Yaris: FAIL or WIN?

So Toyota Australia had this idea: jump into the social media bus and try to steer it a little in their direction. They solicited user-generated entries for ads for the Toyota Yaris AND let the world decide which one would win.

The following video, the winner, is safe for work, but the language is VERY double-entendre and has been called worse things than sexist. And they're Australian.



And a barrage of bloggers and tweeps and "opposition" popped up and had that winner pulled before going to air.

So, the question is: fail or win? I think their idea was a win, but the result of the idea was questionable. But not a fail. It's a lesson learned for anyone trying to exploit social media. You're herding cats. It can be a win and a fail. And when you're dumping something onto the internet, you're not just dealing with your consumers. You're dealing with every single person who has nothing better to do during the day than become offended by something and write letters.

But in a way, this is a huge success. Lots of coverage, lots of media - at least on the internet. And if you think about it, when user-generated content generates more content, you've arrived. I present a parody of the marketing initiative that led to the Yaris experiment:




Random: Catweed

So here's something relatively random: cats getting high on plants. Weird thing is, it was in my search results for the Yaris. Not so weird it turns out: the clever bugger listed the video description as:

Fresh Organic Chronic Catnip @ www.catweed.com .Toyota Yaris - Clean Getaways commercial rocks, now catweed rocks.

See? SEO isn't exactly magic ;)

Now, for those stoned kittehs!



Have a great weekend!

Extreme Projector Gaming

Must get one of these...

Friday Videos: Wicked, Voice Acting, FAIL

Wicked

This recording of the Glee cast recording the Wicked song "Defying Gravity" has gotten a lot of play and has turned people onto Glee as well as Wicked, which I saw at the Aronoff Center for the Arts about a year ago. I've never seen Glee, but did grow up (and still occasionally partake in) acting in the theatre. It's a fantastic song from an amazing musical.



Here's Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth performing Defying Gravity at the Tony Awards, if you want to know what it looks like. [insert superlative here]


Wouldn't want to get too silly with the art stuff when we could get silly with bad voice acting. Here's the top 50 worst voice acting clips from video games. Evar.




And then there' Risky Business Gone Wrong, for a piece of FAIL this week.



Have a great weekend!

Friday Videos: Moonwalk Fail, Shake Weight, N64 Kid

In the tradition of keeping things within the range of the attention span of the internet, I present you with 3 videos under 2 minutes:

Moonwalk Fail

Not much to be said - plays as advertised.




Shake Weight

Only 4 million reps? Please comment your own conclusions. :S




N64 Kid

Because a classic is always a classic. Seriously, that's not me. I'd be way more excited.

Guitar Hero: Beatles?

As many of us giddily await tomorrow's release of Rock Band: Beatles, here's an appropriate parody of what Guitar Hero might do...



(h/t to Allen, a friend, who worked on the real project)

Tech Fetish Thursday: Wordy Clock, Skinny-Mini PS3

QLOCKTWO



The QLOCKTWO caught my eye immediately, probably because I have a deep thing for timekeeping devices that rivals only my fascination with cartography. But this clock, created by German company Biergert & Funk is unique in that it eschews those concise, simple numbers and goes for the linguistic version of time.

It also goes for the expensive version of price at about $1600. Many colors. Collect them all!


The Skinny PS3



This skinny-mini version of the 120GB PS3 came with a $299 pricetag this week. Not a huge surprise since Sony did this to the PS2 back when.

PS3's still come with some pretty high-end Blu-ray action ...and are still not compatible with my library of PS2 games. For now I'll stick with my PS2, Wii, and 360, though I'll probably be waiting a while if I hold out for an Atari-esque drop in price ("The fun is back, oh yessiree!"):

Tech Gadget Thursday: Man Wall

DVICE posted about this multimedia monster of a man-wall:



I agree that it is a wonderful bit of overload. It's just not my flavor. Let's see if we can fix that.



Much better.

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Tech?

Aside from the obvious terror of the internet (or someone's basement RAID array) becoming conscious and, therefore, potentially Skynet or a sad accident between a IEEE 1394 interface and a corpse populating the world with zombies (and, by proximity, the internet, creating ZombieSkynet), what reason is there to be afeared of technology?

For some, it's called Wii. Wii Fit, that is.


Yeah, that's the Japanese version, just for kicks

Granted, the Wii instills fear in many people for many reasons. Hardcore gamers tremble at the thought of friends and families gathering in the living room to laugh and exercise with an intriguing but admittedly imprecise user interface.

While there are arguments for Resident Evil 4 and Metroid Prime 3, the Wii Fit is an argument against why computers should gain the ability of sentience (like this lovely comic).

Wii Fit made me fat. It's true. I never thought too much of the mild bulge around my mid-section, but when I stepped on the Wii Fit, I found I was barely Overweight and flinching to Obese. And I'm a reasonably-fit, albeit heavier-than-i'd-like person.

And then I tossed it off, said I was too good for Wii Fit. But there it was, under the coffee table, begging me to do the age thing again, begging me to be weighed. And after a month or so, I did it again. And, by a twitch, I hit Obese.

DAMN YOU, WII! DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!

No. Stop. It's not the Wii's fault. It's me. I knew. I've known for a while. But I ignored it. And I ignored it. And then I couldn't. Who wants to be fatty-boom-ba-latty? Who wants a computer to tell you you're Obese?

Not me.

C'mon Wii Fit. Bring it. I'll take breaks for Wii Sports boxing. But only that. Then back to the balance board. Stretch. Bounce. Games. Yoga.

Even if you're sporting a T-800 memory chip under there, it only serves to make me better to fight the robot (or zombie) Armageddon.

Bastard!

Violent Video Games: I Can See for Miles and Miles...

From Techdirt:

Nearly six years ago, we wrote about a study showing that playing video games can help improve your vision, and now there's another study showing that such video games can help improve vision -- specifically contrast sensitivity, which is noted to be "important in situations such as driving at night, or in conditions of poor visibility." But, of course, rather than paying attention to all that, we get stories about how all violent video games must be banned.

It's a delicate balance and a controversy that will always be around, especially as games for next-gen consoles (and those coming after that) are only going to get more and more realistic. Unfortunately, the studies and research and thoughts are all reliant on tests trying to quantify subjectivity. Vision is measurable and objective, but violent tendencies and video games rely on hundreds of different personality and history variables that really can't be converted to reliable numbers. And even the worst studies hit on correlation - not causality - which is the rule more than the exception in psychological studies.

What are your thoughts? Are video games too violent? Is there good in them if they have benefits? Do you think brain exercise titles that have appeared recently for the Nintendo DS and Wii can replace the violent nature of war games and still deliver the benefits?