Thursday, November 30, 2006

Star Trek Crystals found in Mineral Guide

The Mineralogy Database lists 4,442 individual mineral species complete with a "comprehensive image library."

Contrary to what the astronomers and geophysicists would tell you, it would seem that mineralogists have a sense of humour. Dilithium, the fictional mineral from Star Trek can be found in this otherwise serious database here: http://webmineral.com/data/Dilithium.shtml

Dilithium does exist in the form of dual bonded Lithium atoms (Li2). However the entry in this database refers to the fictional crystal, a "bottle brown," non radioactive substance that focuses the matter/antimatter streams on Federation Starships. The crystal structure is composed of Tellurium, and Lithium (Li2Te), which is "confirmed" by the following citation:
Nemoy, L S; Doohan, J, Star Fleet Transactions , 1 (2364) p.239-444, First Star Fleet Federation Symposia on Deep Space Findings from the, Enterprise NCC1701A Voyages
What an age to live in.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Flying with a friendly guy

From the livejournal "Mfiles," I read of the exploits and adventures of Flight Attendant and voice-over performer, Michael McAdam.

See: The photos of hotel rooms from around the world. [Link]

Hear: The tale of the flight to Toronto with only one passenger. [Link]
"I did all the announcements to Ron, not to "ladies and gentlemen," and I only had to do them in English. The captain came on, congratulated him ... We took pictures with Ron and laughed."
It makes for a great read.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Firefly Fans Hold the Line

I read today that the much anticipated Serenity/Firefly convention in Burbank, California called "Flanvention II" is on the brink of cancellation. "Booster Events," a convention running company, seems to be in financial crisis, and if they can't get it together by December 1st, they will pull the plug on what promised to be the biggest Sereniverse convention yet.

But as Browncoats know, you can't just sit around and wait for others to do for you. When the going gets tough, you do it for yourself. The California Browncoats have rallied and are planning to make sure that anyone who chooses to come out anyway, will have something to do when they get there.

If I had deeper pockets I would love to send down some cash to help out the cause, and buy tea and dumplings for everyone who still shows up to the party, even when the planners are nowhere to be found.

For more information on the topic, here are some useful links:
Keep flying.

Monday, November 27, 2006

Top 5 handy driving tips

Whilst driving in Calgary, or anywhere else where humans use automobiles, try to keep these simple tips in mind.
  1. Slow the fuck down.
  2. Use your bloody turn signals.
  3. Let a brother in.
  4. Stop tailgating.
  5. Pick a lane and stay there cowboy.
These are day one drivers ED lessons that somehow most people seem to forget apply to them. </rant>

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Wear your Fandom on your sleave

The Sunday Flickr Favourites team brings us this offering: The "Fantastique" Science Fiction patch cloak. Made by Rob Jan to show his "tribal" allegiances, the cloak is based on those worn by Klingon officers from Star Trek 3: The Search For Spock onwards. A sleeveless, five panel cloak gives enough space for even the most well travelled fan. See the entire set here - [link].

Saturday, November 25, 2006

Spam Haiku


Lodged in the webspace of John Y. N. Cho, a member of the weather sensing group in the Lincoln Laboratory of MIT, is the greatest collection of Spam Haiku ever constructed.

At http://web.mit.edu/jync/www/spam/ one will find over 19,000 Haiku written about the Hormel potted meat product, SPAM. Monty Python may have sung about it but the contributors to this site wax poetically about the pinkish "meat."

The collection became large enough and popular enough to warrant the printing of a book. Spam-Ku: Tranquil Reflections on Luncheon Loaf is available from Amazon.com.

My favourite from the archive is #4654:
Is saying "I'm pink
Therefore I'm SPAM" putting the
Hog before Descartes?
--Barrie Collins, bcollins@comox.island.net

Friday, November 24, 2006

Where are the restrooms?


Where are the restrooms?
Originally uploaded by ChandlerZH.

The washroom signs at the Science Fiction Museum in Seattle try to cover all the bases.

However, if you are classified as a meat popsicle, sentient shade of blue, "hexagon", or gelatinous cube you are out of luck.

Five more random Wikipedia Pages

Once again, I hit the random article button on the English Wikipedia five times. These are the articles it returned. Read each in their entirety and learn something new. If you find an error, consider fixing it for the next user.
As the Zen Buddhists say, "The only bad Duttaphrynus himalaynus is no Duttaphrynus himalaynus."

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Star Wars themed Flash Drives


Mimoco is a company that creates USB flash drives with unique, artist designed cases.

Their Star Wars Series has super-deformed R2-D2, Darth Vader, Chewbacca, and Stormtrooper bodies to make your flash drive reflect your personality.

They are a bit pricey, with a 1GB drive starting at $79.95 with the top end being the 4GB unit at $169.95, but being the first on your block with something like this is priceless.

[Link]

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Venus on the Half-shell

Kilgore Trout is the fictional alter-ego that Kurt Vonnegut has used as a plot device in several of his novels. Trout is one of the few characters who are smart enough to figure out that he may be the product of another man's imagination. As an unappreciated science fiction writer whose works are used only as filler material in pornographic magazines, his work crops up in Vonnegut's work to illustrate various points. In "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater" Trout's book "Venus on the Half-shell" is mentioned, and subsequently inspired Philip José Farmer to create an actual work under Trout's name.

The book deals with the last human, Simon, who has escaped the destruction of the Earth, and now travels the galaxy in an overtly phallic Chinese spacecraft in a search for the meaning of Life.

While this is a similar premise as The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, the story more closely resembles Voltaire's Candide wherein the characters encounter various philosophies on life, none of which completely answer Simon's questions.

I love my copy, and was very lucky to have found a copy in a local bookstore. Although it is not actually a Kurt Vonnegut work, and the assumption that Kurt wrote the work did piss off Mr. Vonnegut, I include it on my "Kurt" shelf.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Cease and Desist

Richard Stevens, the artist behind Diesel Sweeties recently was served with a "Cease and Desist" order from Lucasfilm, regarding some of his Star Wars themed T-shirts. I have one of his "Gonk Droid had a Posse" shirts, and have been eying the "Space Demon From Beyond Pluto" shirt as well.

The shirts in question still seem to be available here: http://www.dieselsweeties.com/shirts/geekshirts.shtml

Get them before they are gone.

In a pseudo-protest Richard made a lovely "Cease and Desist" shirt. It speaks volumes.

Monday, November 20, 2006

Office Voodoo

Fresh from ThinkGeek.com, I see this miracle of modern manufacturing: The Staple Free Stapler.

This device staples papers together - without staples! Before we burn the witch, lets find out how this thing works. Apparently a tiny flap is cut in the corner of your paper, then folding it in on itself, it tucks back into a tiny paper pocket. It still sounds vaguely like voodoo, but I like it.

The downside is that it only works for stack of paper up to five sheets, which may not be a problem for your applications. It may not unseat the Red Swingline stapler as the cube-jockey's best friend, but it still get the Slashboing thumbs up.

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Dr. Who Art

The Slashboing Sunday Flickr favourites Team has worked through the night and through their hard work they found this Photoshopped image of the Tenth Doctor Who and his companion Rose Tyler.


-Photo by Katrina, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Con-version 23

Are you guys excited for Con-version 23 next year? Con-version is Calgary Science Fiction and Fantasy Society's yearly convention.

There was a plan to re-brand the event to "Nexus" to shake off the bad feelings and perceptions "Con-version" had. A recent vote of 20-18 decided to keep the name "Con-version."

See you all there.

Friday, November 17, 2006

Calgary Fandom Weekend

Here are some of the things happening in Science Fiction Fandom this weekend in Calgary:

Friday, November 17
Harry Potter Meetup
7:30 p.m.
Second Cup 10th St at 4th Ave, NW Kensington
http://harrypotter.meetup.com/83


Saturday, November 18
CSFFS Meeting: Con-Version/Nexus Meeting
1:00 p.m.
Bonavista Room Lake Louise Room, Delta (Formerly Best Western Hospitality Inn)
http://www.csffs.org/?p=12


Monday, November 20
Calgary Star Wars FanForce Meeting
7:00 p.m.
Boomtown lounge, Delta (Formerly Best Western Hospitality Inn)
http://boards.theforce.net/calgary_ab/b10615/25493395/p1/?9

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Lesbians To the Rescue

A recent graffito in Calgary proclaims "Lesbians to the Rescue."

I think this speaks for itself.

Calgary Street Art - Lesbians to the Rescue

Shopping in Calgary or How to Surf the Orgy of Carnage:

Recently posted to the Calgarians Livejournal group was "even_fl0w's Calgary Survival guide for the holidays." Chris wisely brings up some points regarding the Christmas shopping season. He has "OFFICIALLY smashed the panic button," given the following conditions:
  • Lack of manpower in the retail and service industry.
  • Calgary's booming economy has resulted in a population/traffic increase.
  • City Construction/Roads.
  • General Holiday insanity.
This is quite the recipe for disaster, but with some common sense and general considerations, we can all get though this together.

A sample:
... if you accept the fact the service/retail industry is severely understaffed, you will not stress yourself over it. Stress is caused by the feeling of lack of control over a situation, so remove it completely. Being polite, calm and cool with clerks and store staff really does wonders. People are worked hard over the holidays and the last thing they need is an irate customer tearing into them. Back off, avoid the brain aneriusm[sic]and chill. Negative energy is a virus that doesn't help anyone.
It is this kind of rational cool-headedness that we shouldn't have to be reminded to maintain, but it seems we still have to.

[Link]

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

50 ways after 50 Days

Today is day 50 of my contribution to the 365Days Project on Flickr, where the goal is to take a self-portrait every day for a year. To mark this milestone, my contribution for the day was me flashing a "fiddy" hand gesture. This is unlikely to be any sort of real hand gesture used or understood by anyone, but it does handily spell out "50".



This is also marks the 50% mark of my participation in the month long NaBloPoMo. If you don't know what that is, and are unwilling to look it up on Google or follow a simple link, then frankly I can't help you.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Drinkbot: Life imitates art

First of all, I would like to apologize to those who read Slashboing via an RSS feed via Livejournal or other such reader. During my resent switch over to the Blogger Beta system, I inadvertently re-published some of my DragonCon entries from September. It is a little early in Slashboing's life to be running a "best-of" series.

To complete the circle on the earlier post about robot-bartenders, I present the spiritual antecedent to the Motoman; The Tiki Bar Tv episode: Drinkbot!

Here we learn why robot-bartenders will never be able to replace human cocktologists. [Link]

Robot Bartender

I found this robot bartender in an industry design magazine. It uses a touch screen for the user to enter the drink choice, then it makes your drink. It kind of resembles the robot bartender from "The Fifth Element."

Expect to see these things pop up in convention centres, airport lounges, and novelty rich-guy places.



"Do you want some more?"

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Monday, November 13, 2006

Inside Jokes for the Folks

As I recently discovered, my circle of friends use each others blog as more than just a nice diversion, as a but as a true source of daily information.

So here is a collection of inside jokes, aimed directly at my close friends.
  • fanboy basic movements number 1
  • don't eat found meat
  • clam jerkey shouldn't expire
  • who hasn't been painted blue yet?
  • you have quite the induced wembly
  • programmable shirts & e-toast
  • "The Big Suck"
Thank you for your time.

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Movie Sequels II

Here is a partial list of some upcoming movies to prove the point that if people liked it once, they will love it again, and again, and again.
  • The Dark Knight (Batman Begins 2, Batman 6 in the series)
  • Spider-Man 3
  • Live Free or Die Hard (Die Hard 4)
  • Indiana Jones 4
  • Rocky Balboa (That makes #6 for this series)
  • Casino Royale (a remake, and a prequel, what could fail here)
  • Shrek the Third
  • Hellboy 2: The Golden Army
  • Rush Hour 3
  • Jurassic Park 4
In all of that, is there a Serenity 2? No. Nor is there a Gandhi 2 either so I guess we should be glad.


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Sunday, November 12, 2006

Sunday Flickr Favourites

As part of my participation in NaBloPoMo, I would have to post every day, including Sundays. I rarely post on the weekend, so I thought I would start a reoccurring Sunday Slashboing feature where I post a picture from Flickr. Quick, easy and to the point. Ready-go.

I present to you some Lego Star Wars costumes from Baycon 2006.

Lego Star Wars costumes
-Photo by artvixn

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Saturday, November 11, 2006

Chewbacca's Blog

The blog "http://rrrrrrrrrrrrrnnnnnnnnnnhhhh.blogspot.com/" seems to be written by Chewbacca, completely in Shyriiwook, the Wookiee language of grunts and roars.

I would say some of the images may be "Not safe for work", but that really depends on you, your job, your co-workers, your boss, and your moxie.

To quote the site:
Aaaa aaaaarrrrr rrrrrrrr rrnnnn nn nnhhhh, aaaa aaaaa aaaa aaa uh aaa uh-aaaaaa aaaaRRRRRR HHH. Aaaa guhaaaa aaaaa uhaa aar rrrrnnn uhnnnn nnn uhnhh.
aaaaa aaaa aaaa aaaaarrn nnhhhh, hurrnhhhh. UUUHHHGGG-rrrr!
You said it big guy!

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Friday, November 10, 2006

w00t: Defined

Although I'm still working on a quantification of Awesome, goopymart has posted a Flickr set that pictorially defines common leet-hipster web terms like "WTF?" and "n00b".

This has to be the best depiction of the feeling that the word "w00t" is to inspire.

woot defined from goopymart
Image by goopymart via the Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 licence .

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Thursday, November 09, 2006

Bad Spellers love Firefox 2.0

As always, Slashboing is on the vanguard of Yesterday's news.

I have long been using the Firefox web browser, and recently updated to Firefox 2.0. I have to say I love the built-in spell checker. Why did it take so long for that to happen?

I don't have to futz with Blogger.com's or Hotmail's spell checker with its crappy interface. It operates like the spell checker in Word, where it underlines your questionable entries in red. They also have a Canadian English dictionary so I'm not forced to drop the "U"s from "colour" and the like.

If you haven't already done so, get Firefox 2.0 now.

*Note of interest: "futz" is in the Firefox dictionary.

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Why I blog

Long before I launched Slashboing I was reading blogs. Some were read because I found them interesting and informative. Others I found by accident through the usual web searches. Looking at the bulk of blogs I would stubble upon I figured I could never start my own blog. Why? Because I don't fall into any of the following categories:
  • religious zealot
  • conspiracy theorist
  • hate-filled misanthrope
  • *squee* OMG like so in love with Linkin Park
  • homophobic bigot
  • political asshat
  • exhibitionist
So what made me start blogging?

I found that many of my friends had blogs, or online journals, that not only didn't fall into one of blogging crap traps, they were informative and thought provoking. Surely I could do that.

Except this post. Not really much going on here. It looks like the blog orchid has been pretty thoroughly picked over. Maybe some of the blog blossoms will grow back by tomorrow.

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Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Funky Star Wars Puppets

Chensational is a great blog dedicated to puppets. Kanja Chen from Toronto has made some very interesting puppets, but of special interest to me, of course, is the Star Wars puppets. Each picture is a link to the specific puppet article.


Chewie PuppetDarth Maul Puppet
Images from:http://chensational.blogspot.com

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Tuesday, November 07, 2006

I am Number 17

At a recent Halloween party I went dressed as "Prisoner 17" from the ITV series, "The Prisoner."

I think the outfit rocks, but most people don't get the reference. Granted my outfit is still missing the white trim of the jacket, but I am working towards that. It seems that many people did not catch the 17 original episodes that first aired in 1968. I only saw it because PBS and YTV aired it in late-late-late night reruns in the late 80's and early 90's.

There is talk of bringing back the series in 2007, and/or a movie version in 2009. Mayhaps my costume is just years ahead of its time, and not 38 years out of date.

Be seeing you.

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Monday, November 06, 2006

Some People need a good punch in the face

A few weeks ago, Defender75 posted to his journal ( here ) that he wanted a shirt with the phrase, "Some people need a good punch in the face" printed on it. So Slashboing obliged him thusly:
Finding the seal generator on www.says-it.com, I was moved to make a seal with the same sentiment.Enjoy!

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Sunday, November 05, 2006

Neon Photography: Electric Heat

From my Flick favorites, I bring you this fantastic neon sign. I love vintage neon, don't you?


-Photo by Ben Campbell


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Saturday, November 04, 2006

Hurra Torpedo rocks the house

Hurra Torpedo is Norway's most famous kitchen appliance band. Watch as they play the best ever version of Bonnie Tyler's power ballad "Total Eclipse of the Heart"



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Friday, November 03, 2006

IMDB worst movies analysis

I love looking through IMDB's Bottom 100 list. The list ranks the worst films of all time, as rated by IMDB users. One has to take these things for what they are. If one's favourite film should happen to fall on this list, it doesn't mean you should stop liking it. It simply means most other people didn't dig it. Deal with it.

There is a certain joy in seeing a movie you hate listed as one of the worst of all time.

I notice a trend in these films. They all fall into one or more of these categories:

The Sequel No-one Asked for
Best Examples: The Police Academy Series, Mannequin: On the Move, Son of the Mask

The first film does ok, so why not make a Sequel? Don't make a sequel if you have no story. Simple. Got that? Good.

The Vehicle
Best Examples: From Justin to Kelly, In the Mix, Glitter

Got a hot/popular/rising star? Slap them into a movie where the only reason to see the film is to watch them thrash about and chew on the sets for an hour and a half, then watch it tank.

The Poorly Executed Children's Film
Best Examples: SuperBabies: Baby Geniuses 2, The NeverEnding Story III, 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain . Note: these are also all un-wanted sequels.

Films for children should be viewed a little differently than other films, but a bad film is a bad film. The ones on the IMDB list are horrific.

The Schlock Horror Debacle
Best Examples: Manos: The Hands of Fate, House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark

Horror is another genre with its own set of standards, but some films don't even meet those.

Conclusion

Thinking about dropping Chamillionaire into a wacky follow-up to 1999's My Favourite Martian? Stop. Think. Use your head.

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Thursday, November 02, 2006

Star Wars Fan Films

Do you love Star Wars Fan Films? Of course you do. Tired of finding low rez clips on YouTube, Google Video or crap sites like Ebaumsworld? Of course you are. Why am I asking rhetorical questions? To help you out, silly.

The premiere spot to find Star Wars Fan Films is www.fanfilms.com. You will get redirected to the fan film section of theforce.net, but the short URL is easier to remember. There are other genre films hosted there too, such as the Lord of the Rings inspired "Almost there and back again" and the Matrix spoof "A glitch in the Matrix."

All the films are downloadable, often in multiple formats and resolutions. This is where the YouTube and iFilm uploaders often get their content. As much as I love YouTube, if you need your fan film fix, theforce.net is the place to be.

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Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Top 5 movies of personal influence

In no particular order, here are the top 5 movies, that when watched with the right mindset, will give you some insight into who I am.

Is that navel gazing goodness or what?
  • Zelig (1983) - [imdb]
  • I Heart Huckabees (2004) - [imdb]
  • Star Wars (1977) - [imdb]
  • Reservoir Dogs (1992) - [imdb]
  • ¡Three Amigos! (1986) - [imdb]
These aren't the best movies ever made, nor are they necessarily my all time favorites. They are films that I have identified with, were important to me during a critical stages of my life, or formed the basis of friendships.

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