Digital Camera Bleg

May 23rd, 2011

So I have a Kodak Easyshare V803 camera that’s given up the ghost; the telescoping lens no longer retracts.

I like the quality of the photos it took; it was what I used to take convention photos (such as those here, here and here). I also like the Kodak interface, and need a camera that I can just slide into my pocket. However, I fear the pop-in/pop-out lens mechanism is one that is likely to fail over time.

Does anyone have any recommendation for a slim profile digital camera, at least eight megapixals, that’s not too expensive? (I think I paid around $100 for the Easyshare.)

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Supper’s Ready (or, Music for an Apocalypse)

May 21st, 2011

Everyone else is doing it, might as well hop aboard the “I Don’t Believe In the Rapture, But Here Are Some Snarky Blog Posts” bandwagon. Which brings up the question of what music is best for an apocalypse.

Putting aside the blindingly obvious choice of REM’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I feel Fine),” my favorite apocalyptic song has always been Genesis’ 23-minute long art-rock epic “Supper’s Ready,” the ending of which is a pretty literal description of the rapture. Plus it lets me continue the recent Peter Gabriel trend.

So here’s not one, not two, but four full length complete lives versions of the song. Some of the videos are slideshows and the sound quality varies, but some of Steve Hackett’s swoops and slides still give me chills.

This one is a very rare live concert video of the entire song:

Finally, this is not the entire song, as it includes several different snippets of various songs, but it also features live concert footage and the end of the song:

As a bonus, here’s an animated Tony Banks describing how the song came together:

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Crappy TV Movie Validated by Science

May 18th, 2011

From Slashdot comes news that the local atmosphere heated up right before the Sendai earthquake, and that such heating can be detected (and presumably photographed) via infrared.

What struck me about this story was that it validates the deeply unlikely premise behind a mediocre 1974 TV movie called The Day the Earth Moved. In it, an aerial photographer takes pictures of desert landscapes using a flawed film that reveals where earthquakes will strike due to a red line running down the middle of the fault zone. Naturally, the pictures reveal that a quake will strike a local town, and the usual race against time ensues.

So congratulations to writers Jack Turley and Max Jack. You were one of those thousands of shotguns firing in the dark that actually hit something.

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Now If They Could Only Make Them Talk

May 16th, 2011

The final launch of the space shuttle Endeavour will be carrying baby squids into space.

I’m sure that both Margaret Atwood and the staff of Space Squid are delighted at the news.

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Man 1, Nature 0

May 12th, 2011

At lot of people, faced with record floods, would leave.

Then there’s this guy. He built a sandbag wall, then expanded it to a moat and a berm, with pump in the moat, all the way around his house and barn in DeValls Bluff, Arkansas. It’s not a work of particular complexity, but it works, and it looks like it took a Herculean effort to build.

Bonus: At about 1:30 into the second video, it sounds like Boomhauer from King of the Hill is in the boat with them…

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Water Falling From the Sky

May 12th, 2011

Attention Austinites: That wet stuff falling from the sky is called “rain.” I know you may not have seen these in some time, but it’s a naturally occurring phenomena.

It should also help ease our extreme drought.

In celebration, here’s Ladysmith Black Mombazo with “Rain, Rain, Beautiful Rain.”

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“Obi-Wan Kenobi Is Dead, Vader Says”

May 11th, 2011

This is pretty much pitch-perfect. For the cherry on top, page through the hundreds of comments…

(Hat tip: Instapundit. )

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I Have the Touch

May 11th, 2011

Continuing the Peter Gabriel theme, here’s the version of “I Have the Touch” remixed by Robbie Robertson for the Phenomenon soundtrack. This is availble on iTunes…but only if you buy the full album. Thanks, but I don’t like it that much.

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Hat Trick Shot Glass Window Treatment Center Post Office Space

May 10th, 2011

A hat I signed (among many, many others) at the World Horror Convention is up for sale at a charity auction on eBay for horror writer Bryan Smith, whose wife recently died after a long illness.

And let’s face it it, the line “Signatures include: Peter Straub, William F. Nolan, Joe R. Lansdale, F. Paul Wilson, Jack Ketchum, Lawrence Person, Brian Keene, Joe Hill, John Picacio, Bill Crider, John Skipp,” etc., is pretty flattering to one’s ego, since not even Your Humble Egomaniac would put those names in that order…

(Hat tip for structure of the subject line here.)

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Attention German TV: Star Trek Forces Were Not Involved in the Killing of Osama Bin Laden

May 10th, 2011

“Yesterday a German news station had a major image fail. While covering the US Navy SEALs operation to kill Osama bin Laden they mistook a Star Trek fan-made emblem for the Maquis for the actual SEAL Team Six emblem.”

Evidently the Klingon skull and bat’leth blades simply weren’t a sufficient giveaway…

Vaguely related: Star Wars Propaganda posters.

(Hat tip: Instapundit.)

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