Building a LEGO Star Destroyer

So how long does it take to build a LEGO Star Wars Star Destroyer? These guys at "a dog named fish" website put together their set in 10 hours and they documented the whole process and made it available as a video clip. All I can say is WOW!!!
Link

More on Grokster decision

Here're a few more links in response to the US Supreme Court Grokster decision.

• Grokster: Confusing sin and sinner
  Always interesting, The Register's take on the decision.
  
• The Real Lesson of Grokster
  Wired New's opinion piece on the matter.
  
• Grokster May Haunt Podcasting
  With Apple providing podcast support in the recently released iTunes 4.9, it's on wonder tech writers will start linking the Grokster decision to podcasts.
  

Should Engadget be in Singlish?

Engadget is the popular blog focusing on the latest gadgets and technology. They have recently launched the Chinese, Japanese, and Spanish version of their website. I'm just wondering if there can be a Singlish version of their website. An entry on the iPod on the Engadget Singlish site could go something like this.

This white box thing is called the Apple iPod lor. Looks very chio leh. Can listen to many many songs and got this round circle wheel. Turn round and round damn shiok ah. The iPod is also damn tok kong, the picture version got 60GB sia, powderful! If you dun want the tua one, can also take the iPod mini lah. Very small and got many many colour, very stylo milo. Actually hor, compared with the Creative Zen Micro, also got many colour lah, but they look a bit obiang leh. If use, sure kena suan by your friends one.

I'm sure there are folks who can do better. For non-Singaporean readers, you may want to use the Coxford Singlish Dictionary to help you decipher it. Oh, disclaimer here... this is not endorsed by Engadget.

US Supreme Court strikes a blow against P2P sharing

The US Supreme Court has ruled in the Grokster case that P2P companies can actually be liable for the copyright piracy found on their networks. This has the potential chilling effects on innovations for tech companies. Plenty of websites are chiming in with their opinions. Here're some links that you should check out.

• File-swap fallout
  CNet's round up of news and perspective on the ruling.
  
• Hear the Grokster decision
  Want some irony? Use the P2P Bittorrent network to listen to the Supreme Court's decision. The link leads to a Bittorrent file.
  
• Read the decision instead
  Read the decision on PDF format if you wish.
  
• RIAA and MPAA's "victory" conference
  Notes of the press conference by the music and film industry group on Corante.com.
  
• Pro-Grokster press conference
  The supporters of Groksters have something to say too.
  
• Cory Doctorow chimes in
  Sci-fi writer and P2P supporter muses on the decision on Popular Science.
  
• More stuff on Copyfight
  

There will be more in days to come.

R2-D2 and Chewie seen in a new light

Now that all six Star Wars films are released, shouldn't we start looking at the original trilogy in a new light? This interesting article looks at R2-D2 and Chewie as agents and folks who knew the whole rebellion plan. Afterall, they are the survivors from Revenge of the Sith. Interesting read and perfect for those who love to come up with theories on the plot in Star Wars.

If we accept all the Star Wars films as the same canon, then a lot that happens in the original films has to be reinterpreted in the light of the prequels. As we now know, the rebel Alliance was founded by Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Bail Organa. What can readily be deduced is that
their first recruit, who soon became their top field agent, was R2-D2.

Link

Crying, while eating

It's just astonishing what Net dwellers can come up with. This site contains videos of people who cried while they ate. They either have too much time on their hands, or they're just trying hard to spread a meme.
Link

Magazine for LEGO fans

If you're a LEGO fan, you'll want to get your hands on this new magazine called BrickJournal. It's a LEGO magazine about everything LEGO, including incredible models that were built and the people who built them. The first issue is online for download and any true blue LEGO brickheads will want to grab it immediately.
Link

Directory of freely available music

CommonTunes is a website that lists the legally available free music on the Web. Some of the top downloads now include Beethoven's Symphonies from the BBC and the Wired Commons CD.
Link

Movie based on American McGee's Alice announced

While it is not the best game around, I actually enjoyed playing the game American McGee's Alice. The premise where Alice has to find off creatures based on those in Lewis Carroll's book carries with it a certain kind of charm. There have been talks of an Alice movie for some time, seems like according to Eurogamer.net, Universal Pictures is going to make it with Buffy aka Sarah MG as the lead.

According to Hollywood news site Variety, Buffy star Sarah Michelle Gellar has already signed up to take the title role. Marcus Nispel, whose other credits include the 2003 Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake and the forthcoming Pathfinder (some nonsense about Vikings and Native Americans), will direct.

The movie will follow the plot of the game, which adds a twisted spin to Lewis Carroll's classic tales. Some years after her adventures in Wonderland, Alice's parents are killed in a house fire and, devastated by the loss, she winds up in a mental asylum.

Link

Parents 'ignore game age ratings'

Are game ratings really effective? Well, at least according to this research done in the UK, it does not prevent parents from buying games not suitable for their kids. So whose responsibility is it when kids play violent games?

"Most parents think their child is mature enough so that these games will not influence them," Modulum researcher Jurgen Freund told a games conference.
...
"Parents perceive age ratings as a guide but not as a definite prohibition," said Jurgen Freund, Modulum chief executive.

"Some may have not liked the content but they did not prohibit the game."

Link

What does it take to be Batman?

Forbes.com has an interesting piece on what it takes to be Batman, i.e. how much do you need to spend to be able to take on the role of the caped crusader. It breaks down for you the items that you need, including the training you need, the car, the cave, etc. Well, seems like if you have plenty of spare cash, such as a total of US$3,365,449 in the bank, it's not impossible. Take for example, here's what you need for your utility belt.

Batman's utility belt is a one-of-a kind prototype climbing harness, paired with a magnetic grappling gun with a monofilament decelerator climbing line. Fortunately, you've got other options. A decent nylon utility belt can be procured for about $10 from any martial arts supply store. You can also equip yourself with:

Climbing spikes: $70 (Black Diamond Spectre Ice Beak Ice Piton)
Small digital cell phone: $150 (Motorola RAZR, with cellular contract)
Ninja spikes: $10 (Set of three)
Throwing stars: $30 (Set of four)
Medical kit: $20

Link

Useful things to do with your USB drive

The USB drive has more or less replaced the floppy. This website gives you an idea of what you can do with your USB thumb drive. Some of the things that you'll learn from the PCStats website include using the drive as a boot disk, a portable web browser, a portable word processor, and even a portable media player. Ah... you never thought that your thumb drive would be so useful, right?
Link

List of sexy podcasts

If you're looking for something more raunchy for your MP3 listening pleasure, the Fleshbot website has a list of what they call Sexy Podcasts. They range from the famous Dawn and Drew Show to the erotic Open Source Sex. There are also others that are more "hardcore". Strictly for adults only.
Link

V-Gear LANDISK-network your storage

I'm actually quite interested in this device. It's a harddisk enclosure that allows you to put in your disk, and then you can hook it up to your network and it'll work as a network storage device. It runs its own Samba and FTP server so it's just plug and play. Nice. The only problem I have with it is that the website does contains some funky Engrish. Just take a look at the FAQ here.

Why Landisk only support FAT32 format?
As a Data storage unit which should be compatible as much as priority with all OS(operation system). Therefore, Landisk is not only a defect but also support NTFS. So far NTFS can support Win NT, 2000 and XP to read and write but read only on Win98, ME and Linux. FAT32 can read and write on all WIN OS, Mac OS X and Linux. File limitation is the only one issue between FAT32 and NTFS. FAT Support LBA frame, support to Max. IDE format up to 2TB(2,000GB) and file up to 4GB Max.

Just read the portion that I've highlighted in bold. Makes you a bit wary of the product, eh?

PC inside an Xbox

This guy has placed a PC into his Xbox. Yes, we know that the Xbox is essentially a PC. But what this guy has done is to put a full-fledge PC into the box. The site has photos and takes you through the steps of his mod.

Life after Star Wars in 3D

Who says there's nothing to look forward to after the Star Wars saga has concluded with the Revenge of the Sith? Lucas and company are here to suck more cash out of us fanboys with a 3D reissue of the six movies. When it is released, you can actually reach out and touch the lightsaber, although we would strongly advise against it.

Rick McCallum, co-producer of the STAR WARS prequel trilogy, appeared at a press conference in Japan earlier today. He talked about the future of STAR WARS, specifically about the 3D updates of all six films and the upcoming TV series.

Babes to star in Dead or Alive movie

Dead or Alive is a game with hot, sexy babes fighting each other. Okay, so there are other male characters in this fighting game but the gals are the stars. Now that Tecmo has announced that there's a movie based on DOA and that Hong Kong action flick director Cory Yuen is directing it, we can expect to see these hot, sexy females played by hot, sexy actresses, including Devon Aoki as Kasumi. Other confirmed hot, sexy cast members include Natassia Malthe (Electra) as Ayane, Jaime Pressly (Not Another Teen Movie) as Tina, Sarah Carter (Final Destination 2) as Helena, Australian pop star and actress Holly Valance (National Lampoon's Pledge This) as Christie.

Hope that this doesn't turn out to be another Street Fighter.

iPod Users Hate Cell Phones?

Seems like iPods and cellphones don't really mix well.

A British sociologist has bad news for the mixed-media wizards looking to use streaming video and other tactics to tap into the lucrative IPod culture.

He's found that owners of Apple's popular digital music player love being able to shut out the world's distractions, hate their cellphones and would prefer not to talk to anyone.

So are iPodders unfriendly? Hmmm... although I don't have an iPod now, it seems like when I'm listening to my MP3s on my Treo, I tend to not want to talk to people too. Not exclusive to iPod owners, I should say. Bet the same thing applied to Walkmans too.

Doctorow's new novel available for free download

Cory Doctorow's new third novel is now available for download, if you don't wish to buy the hardcopy. Yes, the full novel is available online, just like his previous two novels, "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" and "Eastern Standard Tribe". This one's called "Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town". Why is he doing this? Shouldn't he charge for it? Well, you can read why at this link, and I quite agree with him. For this novel, the plot summary courtesy of Publishers Weekly is as follows.

It's only natural that Alan, the broadminded hero of Doctorow's fresh, unconventional SF novel, is willing to help everybody he meets. After all, he's the product of a mixed marriage (his father is a mountain and his mother is a washing machine), so he knows how much being an outcast can hurt. Alan tries desperately to behave like a human being--or at least like his idealized version of one. He joins a cyber-anarchist's plot to spread a free wireless Internet through Toronto at the same time he agrees to protect his youngest brothers (members of a set of Russian nesting dolls) from their dead brother who's now resurrected and bent on revenge.

Go read it!

Orgasms ‘turn-off’ women

It's strange how the human body works. New Scientist has an article claiming that when women have their orgasm, their brains actually switch off.

For women, it seems, sex is a big turn-off, reveals a brain scanning study. It shows that many areas of the brain switch off during the female orgasm - including those involved with emotion.
...
“At the moment of orgasm, women do not have any emotional feelings,” says Gert Holstege of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

So much for sex being emotionally-involving?