Amazing editing to combine two shows about vampires. If you've never seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the show, not the movie), please do. It's a favorite of mine. I keep meaning to pick up the boxed set.

This classic cartoon has every Tex Avery trope in the book: from sledgehammers to corny jokes to wolf whistles. It's great fun. It ends with Imogene Lynn singing, a treat in itself. (Here she is singing "Big Boy")

A quick note on my new posting style: These short "Clips" are things I read or watched, and found interesting enough to share with you.

It's kinda like sending you a "hey, check this out!" email or iChat message.

If the headline or description intrigues you, click on the headline to go to the original site. My goal is to get you curious enough to read or watch the links.

I hope you enjoy the new style. It's an experiment in short-form, near-daily posting.

If you find stuff I might be interested in, you can bookmark it in Delicious.com and then tag it with "for:jasonian". It'll show up in my Delicious Inbox. Or send it to me the old fashioned way via email or iChat.

I'll still have more personal, longer-form entries too. And I'm working on a way to hide the Clips for those who don't care for them.

Finally, I turned off comments on the site. Too much spamming. If you want to comment on something I wrote, I encourage email or a response and link back at your own site. The "#" symbol is a perma-link to each entry.

On a recent walk, the evening sky had some amazing red tinting. I took a few shots with my iPhone camera; these aren't very good shots, alas.

Yuja Wang's fingers fly over the keyboard. Amazing dexterity.

Great idea.

Awesome animation with Post-It notes. The soundtrack is the same one Mac OS X 10.5 uses on first boot (Röyksopp's Eple).

LGBT couples working for the Federal government are now discriminated against less.

I hate being wrong.

Well, I don't mind being wrong, if I'm legitimately wrong. It's a learning opportunity.

So more accurately, I hate being told I'm wrong when I'm not.

It happened today, while I was killing time on Facebook. (Why was I killing time on Facebook? A very good question I have no answer to.)

Anyway, I took the "Famous Logos" quiz because someone in my circle had taken it. I figured I'd get all (or at least the vast majority) of them  right.

Unfortunately, the author of the quiz neglected to do his or her homework. Question 3 of the quiz was this:

See the problem? The right answer isn't there. I was forced to choose a wrong answer, which resulted in this:

(I chose Toyota, because the actual right answer, Lexus, is the luxury brand of Toyota.)

The logos are so different I'm not sure how they could be mistaken for each other:

I ended up with 10 out of 13 correct, or 77%, rather than 11 out of 13 correct, or 85%, making me a little more "wrong" than I actually am.

Teller (of Penn and) talks about how illusion is all about fooling the brain.

You didn't see the illusion because you weren't expecting one. You assumed I wasn't fucking with your head and that this hallway is actually a normal hallway. Those assumptions work great until you walk into a wall.

As a technology demo of the future of computing (rather than the future of gaming), it's fascinating. Along with the "Milo" demo video, it's It's like a more advanced version of Apple's Knowledge Navigator vision of human-computer interaction. We'll see if it's any closer to reality than that 20-year old concept. Game-wise, the "full body" fighting looks great, the facial and voice recognition is very cool. The zero-controller games like driving look contrived. I don't think I'd want to sit there for ten minutes so I can play pit crew and change tires for five seconds, nor would I want to keep my hands in a driving position for an extended time. There's only so much "real life experience" I want while relaxing.

Another option recommended by a friend.

If, after reading the Contents of Fast Food paper, you want to look into grinding your own burgers, some foodie friends have told me this is a great place for high-quality meats. The downside for me is they're grass-fed, and I've never liked the taste of grass-fed beef.

It's interesting research into the contents of various burgers ("Approximately half of their weight is made up of water"). Unfortunately, it doesn't provide any useful conclusions (like "higher quality meat is better") or whether fast food burgers are unique in their composition. Scientifically investigated, no actionable conclusions. The Annals of Diagnostic Pathology is peer reviewed.

I particularly like "Never Mind".

"As it turns out, the exercises synonymous with strong, attractive abs may not be the best way to train your core—and may be doing damage to your back."

What's better?

“If you want to burn your fat mass, make sure you have a combination of weight training and cardiovascular, but 90 percent of good abs is your nutrition,”

t.s. eliot rejects George Orwell's Animal Farm:

And after all, your pigs are far more intelligent than the other animals, and therefore the best qualified to run the farm—in fact, there couldn't have been an Animal Farm at all without them: so that what was needed (some might argue), was not more communism, but more public-spirited pigs.

It's not just AT&T offering subsidized netbooks. Also $199 for the computer, and 250 MB of data for $40/month, or 5GB for $60/month. Overages are $102/GB and $51/GB, respectively (way cheaper than AT&T's overages).

Sounds like a more-than-decent phone:

The Pre, which goes on sale Saturday, is an elegant, joyous, multitouch smartphone; it’s the iPhone remixed.

I'd consider it if I wasn't wedded to my iPhone.

Lou Romano, a development and production artist at Disney/Pixar, talks about his early work on "Up". I'm always fascinated by seeing early art and how it influences the final product. I loved this:

A challenge in film is conveying how something feels, not how it exists in reality. Research trips can be a blessing and a curse: the blessing in that visiting an actual place surpasses what you can get from video and photos alone, the curse in being too much a slave to the actual place. Imagination and feeling should dictate everything, not reality.

As low as $199 with a "qualifying plan" that starts at $40/month for 200 MB of data. Total base cost over the two years is $1159. Don't go too far over your plan though: It's $105 per gigabyte (of course, they market it as $0.0001/KB).

The $60 plan gives you 5GB data, and charges $503 per GB ($0.00048/KB) above that. Total base cost of ownership is $1639.

I'm not sure who goes for this. At the very least, AT&T should give away the netbooks.

Following up from The Beatles: Rock Band videos, turns out you can pre-order the game from Amazon and other places, and get behind-the-scenes footage and artwork. (If you order from this link, I get a tiny kickback.)

I think I saw "Delirious" in high school, after my friends were already quoting bits. I recently caught part of it on TV, and even bleeped out it was still riotously funny.

Coming 09/09/09. Yeah, I'm buying it. Watch the gameplay trailer too.

The trailer for the new Star Wars game looks awesome. Perhaps future films should be left to the game designers?

These folks were offering tasting samples at the local Costco recently. 25 grams of protein and 100 calories in three ounces. Tasted like a syrupy fruit punch. $20 at Costco. Not quite a meal replacement, but useful for recovery after working out.

One of my favorite shows is returning for a third season, after a brilliant end to season two. Chuck's final line was telegraphed from the start of the last scene, and still was deeply satisfying when uttered. So glad it's coming back.

If you haven't seen the show yet, Hulu<a/> offers all of Season 1 and 2 for free. Visit the link....

I don't very much like Schwarzenegger's politics or his continued insistence in using "I'll be back" as a catch-phrase, but his comment today about whether Rush Limbaugh is the de facto leader of the Republican party is a beaut. Visit the link....

The woefully underrated <em>Dead Like Me</em>—about a young woman who dies and becomes one of several Grim Reapers—was one of my favorite shows. It's a shame it lasted only two seasons. Fortunately that means you can pick up the complete series for only $30 at Amazon. It comes from the seriously death-obsessed mind of Bryan Fuller, creator of the equally underrated <em>Pushing Daisies</em> and <em>Wonderfalls</em>. Visit the link....

The SpelBots, Spelman's robot-programming team, competed in this year's RoboCup in Japan, and did very well. I've met a few of the SpelBots, all very smart, very nice women, and their founder, Dr. Andrew Williams, is an awesome and inspiring man. Visit the link....

I don't remember who first brought Perfect Balance to my attention, and I'm not yet sure if I should thank them for a great distraction or curse them for all the time I spent solving these physics-based puzzles. What's great is there is more than one solution to most of the puzzles. Visit the link....

I'll always prefer the 2-seater Lexus SC convertibles, but the new 4-seater IS is a sexy—if more adult—convertible. They're around $40,000 - $45,000, way less than the SC (starts at $67,000). Visit the link....

Indeed.

<blockquote>It essentially tells Californians that a right as fundamental as the ability to choose the marital partner of your choice is a kind of judicial lottery ticket -- if you got in early, you win, but those who arrived a few days late lose. Sorry.</blockquote>

Also:

<blockquote>And it's morally permissible to carve out exceptions to constitutional rights for specific groups, as long as it's done by majority vote?</blockquote>

And one more:

<blockquote>So, if a majority of Californians voted to "carve out a narrow exception" to California's right to privacy and applied it only to Jews, would it be constitutionally acceptable? If Native Americans were accorded all the protections of the law by a ballot proposition, except the right to marry a non-Indian, would that be legal? </blockquote> Visit the link....

Seriously fucked-up:

<blockquote>the tone of the opinion suggests that the justices themselves weren’t happy with it, but that they had to follow California’s unusual laws when it comes to amending its constitution.</blockquote> Visit the link....

My feeling exactly:

<blockqoute>I’m reminded again that people get to vote on my rights. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that.</blockquote> Visit the link....

I'm eminently disappointed by today's California Supreme Court Prop 8 ruling. Putting aside the gay marriage issue for a second, today's ruling upholds the ability of the majority to restrain or eliminate the rights of the minority.

What will be next? Will the majority curtail when tall people can walk the streets? How about banning driving for bald people? Will we be required to wear Dodger blue when visiting L.A. from the Bay Area?

You laugh at these inane suggestions, but when all that is necessary to alter the constitution of the state is fifty percent plus one, you are in for some inane laws.

Isn't this country all about protecting minority rights?

I guess I can't fault the Supreme Court themselves. That lays with the fucked-up way California lets their constitution be changed. Taking away rights, or limiting how those rights can be exercised, should be done only after careful deliberation and a super-majority vote, and perhaps not even then.

Consider that Prop 8 barely passed (600,000 votes, less than 5% of the votes cast, and 2.7% of the voting California voting population). Six hundred thousand voters made this decision for 22 million people.

Just in case, I'm going to act short, keep my hair long and and limit my trips to Disneyland.

Every year K&S offer a no-sales-tax "sale" on cameras, lenses and printers, and every year I scan the ad desperately looking  that no, I don't need yet another lens or camera. Fortunately, the one camera I want, the Canon 5D MKII, is excluded from this no-tax sale. Whew. Close call. Visit the link....

OK, I'm always willing to try a new scotch, especially one with a name like "Sheep Dip Scotch". However, it's $40 at BevMo, which is a tad expensive for me. (And the bottle at BevMo isn't anywhere as cool-looking.) Visit the link....

I haven't read comics in years, and only occasionally scan the funny pages, but just about all of these comic book lettering conventions were familiar. For some reason, it's comforting knowing there are rules for comic book lettering. Visit the link....

The trailer for Downey's Sherlock Holmes makes the brilliant detective out to be a quipping layabout who gets into fights with men double his size. It's like Tony Stark without the Iron Man hardware.

Wow. First, I've never heard of "The Devil Went Down to Jamaica", and my first exposure is with Muppets singing it:

Watch the original Muppets version of "Devil Went Down To Georgia".

Back in the late 80s, I spent a tiny fraction of my life in the theatre, on an invitation by my best friend Anton, predicated on our friendship and my love of Shakespeare. I've held those moments as my most cherished, and credit the time with the New York Parks Shakespeare Company for what little presentation and speaking skills I have.

Over the last few days, I've revisited my microscopic time on stage, thanks to Steve Martin's Born Standing Up, an autobiography of his life as a stand-up comic, which I listened to as an audiobook, read by Steve himself.

Born Standing Up isn't a story-of-my-life style biography; instead it recounts how Steve honed and perfected his stand-up act—an early yet influential part of his career—how working at Disneyland, learning lasso and magic tricks, and pecking away at a banjo led to his massive success as a world-famous comedian, and why he walked away from stand-up and never looked back. It talks about how his act was influenced as much by philosophical discussion as it was by physical displays. He describes his realization that comedy is about creating and releasing tension:

[...]

These notions stayed with me until they formed an idea that revolutionized my comic direction: What if there were no punch lines? What if there were no indicators? What if I created tension and never released it? What if I headed for a climax, but all I delivered was an anticlimax? What would the audience do with all that tension? Theoretically, it would have to come out sometime. But if I kept denying them the formality of a punch line, the audience would eventually pick their own place to laugh, essentially out of desperation. This type of laugh seemed stronger to me, as they would be laughing at something they chose, rather than being told exactly when to laugh.

The audiobook, despite it's all-to-brief four hour running time, was my companion on my daily walks, and on some days pushed me beyond my set distances, so enthralled was I by his soothing tone, remembered comedy bits and performance insights.

[amazon-product align="left"]1416553657[/amazon-product]

Anyone with a modicum of creativity—or someone looking for that spark—would do well to read Born Standing Up. The lessons that great performances are crafted, that they take work, that creativity is as much perseverance as it is inspiration, is something everyone—even if it's just preparing a ten minute presentation in front of peers—should take to heart. I was fascinated by Steve's recollections of the odd interests and insights he gained throughout his life that influenced him and his act, and that, as Johnny Carson once told him, “you'll use everything you've ever known.”

Steve's accounts of his time on stage triggered in me—even though I'm merely a footnote on an aside in the history of theatre—a rueful remorse that I didn't—or perhaps wasn't good enough to—pursue my theatrical passion. But those lessons from my days on stage remain with me. I use them every time I help craft presentations with engineers, engage customers in trade shows, or persuade colleagues in meetings.

YouTube has a bunch of Steve Martin clips (and another) and Smithsonian Magazine offers an extended excerpt of Born Standing Up; if you like it, you won't regret buying the book

or audiobook

(miniscule kickbacks come my way).

Beautifully designed furniture for holding your big screen television and related components. Definitely better than something from your local Ikea. Visit the link....

Chase's "iPhone as Art" series proves that great photography is not about the camera, it's about the photographer. And the rest of his work is pretty good too. Visit the link....

Awesomely moist, chewy and chocolaty brownies from the aptly named Killer Baker Company, "decadent" is putting it mildly. You'll want to go running before indulging. Visit the link....

Visit the link....

Gorgeous iPhone (and iPod) cases. The silver metal screen protector has a mirrored finish when the phone is off, and shines through when turned on. It's beautiful to behold. Visit the link....

Screenshot tool for quickly building step-by-step instructions. Visit the link....

It's one thing to drink beer, and a whole 'nother thing to brew your own. It's a hobby I keep meaning to take up. Coopers seems to make it easy. I may become a brewmaster yet. Visit the link....

For years I've wanted speakers for my bike so I can listen to my iPod without blocking my ears to screeching cars. I even tried rigging a set of portable battery powered speakers to my handlebars. It was beyond ugly. And a little sad. So I'm thrilled to see someone making a handsome accessory I can use to audibly annoy people as I cruise past them. Visit the link....