Servo3000: Live on the Web

This Google Maps mashup plots each fire and lets you easily see if they are contained or not. It’s amazing how many are burning right now.

Update: Neatorama posted a link to a better one that shows evacuation sites, estimated fire locations and estimated evacuation areas. Find it here.

What if real life was like posting on the web? Actually, this really makes me want to shout “pwn3d” during business meetings.

via Calendar Girl

Despair has a do it yourself poster generator for making your own versions of their great posters. Here’s my attempt:

This is an amazing video that everyone who uses the internet needs to watch.  Henry Rollins = Hero.

via BoingBoing

The Onion is consistently good, but every now and then an article comes by and just kills me. This article on the failed launch of Sousaphone Hero is destined to be a classic:

“In the career mode, you can rise from playing in park gazebos for church picnics to performing in the halftime show of the Harvard-Yale game,” Hendleman said. “If you score enough points, you can unlock the ultimate level: playing in the John Philip Sousa–led Marine Band at Grover Cleveland’s inauguration.”

“And if you like multiplayer gaming, you’re in luck,” Hendleman continued. “In Sousaphone Hero’s cooperative marching-band mode, as many as 135 of your friends can play simultaneously.”

Hendleman also emphasized the “fun” rewards players receive as they become more proficient. If they hit enough correct notes in a row, the on-screen crowd yells “huzzah” and “bully,” and the sousaphone controller’s spit valve will “drain.” Flubbing notes, however, makes the controller “fill” with spit, preventing further play and causing the crowd to throw rotten eggs at the hapless on-screen sousaphonist. If characters earn enough bonus points in career mode, they can spend their Liberty-head nickels on a red, green, or blue “sock” for their sousaphone’s bell, or an invigorating chunk of peanut brittle.

Read the full article here

Inspired by this comic, people have been sneaking chessboards onto roller coasters (with this pieces glued to the board) and getting some truly awesome souvenir photos. Check them all out.

[via BoingBoing]

I’m getting addicted to this game. The idea is simple: you and your computer opponent each choose a word and then try to guess the other’s word. After each guess you find out the number of letters that you guessed correctly. Sounds simple and little goofy, but it turns out to be very engrossing.

[Image and link from Salon].

(Image and site from Make Magazine)

I love this converter of strange units. Here are some fun facts:

• 1 testicle of a right whale = 10.02 Jennifer Annistons
• 1 placenta = 29.88 US quarters
• 1 average bowel movement = 7.05 human eyeballs

These units of measurement are way better than pounds or kilograms.

This story about a UK judge who doesn’t understand the web has been everywhere today.  The catch is that he is presiding over a trial involving inciting terrorism over the internet.  From the article:

Prosecutor Mark Ellison briefly set aside his questioning to explain the terms “Web site” and “forum.” An exchange followed in which the 59-year-old judge acknowledged: “I haven’t quite grasped the concepts.”

I don’t think the story here is really about the case in his courtroom.  I have had to testify about the software development process before and attempt to explain things that, although are basic to me, are extremely foreign to someone with no experience in the field.  Judges learn the basic concepts and figure out how apply the law, which is something they should know very well.  I give kudos to this judge for admitting that he doesn’t know the lingo and for taking time to understand it.  Still, it scares me a little to think about a digital copyright case coming before a luddite one day.

I think the real story is more about the digital divide that still exists.  For most of us, certainly for all of us who read blogs, the web is an indispensable tool and hearing that someone doesn’t use it is like someone telling us they don’t use the phone or the postal service.  How much longer will it be viable to not have any knowledge of the web?  How do you convince people who have ignored the internet revolution that it is time to get on board?

This story about a UK judge who doesn’t understand the web has been everywhere today.  The catch is that he is presiding over a trial involving inciting terrorism over the internet.  From the article:

Prosecutor Mark Ellison briefly set aside his questioning to explain the terms “Web site” and “forum.” An exchange followed in which the 59-year-old judge acknowledged: “I haven’t quite grasped the concepts.”

I don’t think the story here is really about the case in his courtroom.  I have had to testify about the software development process before and attempt to explain things that, although are basic to me, are extremely foreign to someone with no experience in the field.  Judges learn the basic concepts and figure out how apply the law, which is something they should know very well.  I give kudos to this judge for admitting that he doesn’t know the lingo and for taking time to understand it.  Still, it scares me a little to think about a digital copyright case coming before a luddite one day.

I think the real story is more about the digital divide that still exists.  For most of us, certainly for all of us who read blogs, the web is an indispensable tool and hearing that someone doesn’t use it is like someone telling us they don’t use the phone or the postal service.  How much longer will it be viable to not have any knowledge of the web?  How do you convince people who have ignored the internet revolution that it is time to get on board?