This Week on the 'Net - Elementary, Dear Watson...

IBM creates an artificial intelligence able to take on the best human players in a linguistically challenging game - Jeopardy.

Check it out:
Jeopardy Feb. 14 2011 (HDTV) - Watson vs Ken Jennings vs Brad Rutter IBM Challenge Day 1 Part 1/2

Jeopardy Feb. 14 2011 (HDTV) - Watson vs Ken Jennings vs Brad Rutter IBM Challenge Day 1 Part 2/2

Jeopardy Feb. 15 2011 (HDTV) - Watson vs Ken Jennings vs Brad Rutter IBM Challenge Day 2 Part 1/2

Jeopardy Feb 15 2011 (HDTV) - Watson vs Ken Jennings vs Brad Rutter IBM Challenge Day 2 Part 2/2

Jeopardy Feb. 16 2011 (HDTV) - Watson vs Ken Jennings vs Brad Rutter IBM Challenge Day 3 Part 1/2

Jeopardy Feb. 16 2011 (HDTV) - Watson vs Ken Jennings vs Brad Rutter IBM Challenge Day 3 Part 2/2

Final Jeopardy! and the Future of Watson

This Week on the 'Net - OK, Go

If you're not familiar with the work of OK, Go, you're in for a treat. This band is fairly straightforward pop, but they have some of the most fantastic videos.

One of their early videos that got a lot of attention was their Here It Goes Again, which feature the band members performing imaginative choreography on several treadmills - all in one take.

OK Go - White Knuckles (Official Video)

OK Go - This Too Shall Pass - Rube Goldberg Machine version - Official

OK Go - Get Over It

This Week on the 'Net - An Introduction...

My friend and fellow Game Vortex review, J.R. Nip, has said for quite some time that he hates YouTube. I thought that was funny, but understood much more when he finally explained that the reason he hates YouTube is because he can end up stuck there for hours on end, following one link to the next, and that most of the content is utter crap, but, occasionally, some of the stuff there is, well, epic.

Point taken. That's why I've made it my job to show him really cool things on YouTube, without all of the crap... Sort of "The Best of YouTube", if you will. It only occurred to me today that others might benefit from that selection process, so I will share my picks here, on a recurring 'column' (?) called "This Week on the 'Net". Oh, and don't assume that I plan to have something every single week... I just don't plan for this to be more frequent than that. (I do have lots of other things to do.) Furthermore, the name doesn't include "YouTube" so that I'm not unnecessarily limiting my scope.

Personally, I will also be using this as a way to quickly find content that I want to be able to see on my TV; This will primarily be focusing on content that will look good on a large screen, so you can do the same, if you like.

XKCD: Na... (Suggested Revision)

I'm a geek. I'm a nerd. Perhaps that's why I love xkcd so much. It's difficult to make it through Tuesdays and Thursdays as I wait to get my dose of xkcd on the next day.

A good deal of the humor is in the observations; there are a lot of really good thoughts that go into the making of xkcd. Another slice is the sheer simplicity of the artwork used to portray the humor - sometimes it's stick figures, other times it's graphs. The part that truly cinches it for me, personally, however, is the accuracy. I can laugh to myself over the truisms on his world map of the Internet for a better part of an hour, as I notice smaller gags I had overlooked at first glance.

It's for this reason that I was a bit shocked and saddened when comic #851 appeared to be riddled with inaccuracies...



First of all, there should be twice as many "Na"s before "Batman!". Second, as far as I could tell, from memory and looking on the Internet, there are three "Hey"s in "Hey, Hey, Hey... Goodbye!". I was unfamiliar with the Katamari Damacy song, so I checked that one out, and it appears that one was correct. And, while there are, undoubtedly, several other songs that could be added, "She's got the look" was extremely obvious, so I was surprised it wasn't included.

I'm no expert, so I may have gotten this wrong, but from what I could tell from multiple careful listenings to these songs, I suggest the following revised version:



I know this is a lot wider, and at first I thought, perhaps, he was intentionally truncating the Batman thing for space, but dimension has never been an issue for xkcd. I might be wrong; I might be crazy. If you see something wrong here, let me know. I welcome comments and suggestions.

Addendum: I just noticed on xkcd, that there is actually an officially "updated" version of Na, which simply features the addition of "Hey Jude".

And the Weiner is...

Yes, I admit it... Epic Fail.

I could complain about my wife being out of town and, therefore, not only not able to help me with my Venom costume, but causing me to be distracted, as I don't operate well (at all) when she's not around.

I could also blame the time I spent on reviewing stuff for the websites or helping to run the ACM Regional Programming Competition at LSU, but that would be unseemly, now wouldn't it?

Or, I could blame it on the red paint not drying on the rubber snake (it didn't for about a week, actually) or the fact that Hancock Fabrics didn't have enough of the material I wanted. I could even say it's all because my sewing machine refused to work the night before the contest... which is true, but hardly the one thing that went wrong...

The truth, of course, is that I tried to do too much, in too short of a time. I didn't even wear a costume for Halloween this year. Live and (hopefully) learn, I suppose. My plan is to keep working on the Venom costume over the next year, in my "spare" time. I am generally a busy person, but I'm going to try to set aside a few hours a week to work on "Personal Projects," such as building a full-sized R-Series Droid, modifying my car, dabbling with electronics and making costumes, not the least of which is this Venom costume.

In other news, my best friend, neighbor, fellow Game Vortex game reviewer and partner in crime, J.R. Nip, did throw together a costume in a single night, and not only did it come out nice looking - he actually took first place at Lamar's Corporate Headquarters Costume Contest. He went as Dilbert, with black shoes, white socks, black pants, a white shirt, a flip-up red tie that I helped rig up with a metal coat hanger and a mask he made of poster board, skin-tone material and enough chemical adhesives to tranquilize a horse. He did an awesome job, and won a hundred dollar prize, to boot!

Ah, well... Venom will have to have his day next year. . .

A Weak Start... Head and Shoulders...

Well, actually, Head and Chest... Last night I didn't find much time at all to work on my Venom costume, so most of the work is going to be done tonight when I get home. What does that mean for drying times? Eh... flying by the seat of my pants, as usual on these projects; we'll have to see what develops...

Speaking of the seat of my pants, I sliced open an old jumpsuit from waist up to middle back and across the back, in a plus-sign shaped cut for stress relief, then plan to patch the jumpsuit tonight and use it as the underlayment of the Venom costume. I stitched out my first "rough draft" at making a muscle-suit chest out of an old pillow that, despite my dog's wishes, is otherwise destined for the city dump. I will need to pick up some super strength Velcro for attaching one half of the muscle chest and for other certain parts to work right, as well as a good bit of black fabric, but I plan to do that at Hancock Fabrics on the way home. Tonight is build night... Hope this goes well.

The baseball cap and coat hangers idea seems to be working out pretty well, so far. I plan to add in some black foam core board I have left over from another project, to keep it light while providing some rigidity, but it will need to be painted with a plasticized paint when it's in place.

I also need to stop by some place for my paints on the way home. I have some black dimensional fabric paint (puff paints rule!), but I need some black gloss, white gloss and black gloss paints... Maybe Vinyl? Perhaps Latex? There's a Rustoleum Vinyl made for fabrics, but I don't know if I can source it locally... we'll see...

(Pictures to be added later this evening.)

Tongue! (But not on the first date...)

I found a suitable rubber snake! After searching around Baton Rouge and finding snakes that were either not rubber, too expensive, too small or too flimsy, I found nearly the perfect thing at Party Time on Bluebonnet. This snake is not as thick as I was originally looking for, but it is three feet long and is made of a very "springy" rubber, such that a slight motion will start if bouncing and oscillating, giving it a generally "lively" appearance. Best of all? It was around a buck and a half. Can't easily beat that...