Hello Apollo

Say it with Me…

Thomas — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 06:14:26 +0000

…”Al Gore’s Academy Award Winning Film.” Man that’s strange. Never in my life did I think I’d ever see those words together. Just wait a few months and maybe we’ll be uttering “Nobel Peace Prize Winner Al Gore.” I still think the Democratic ticket for `08 is his if he wants it.

Knights of Cydonia

Thomas — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 00:19:52 +0000

I know this video has been out for 6 months or so but, since MTV doesn’t actually play music videos these days, I just saw it for the first time today and it kicks ass. The amount of movie and television references that are in the video are amazing. There’s Star Wars, Planet of the Apes, Mad Max, The Matrix, Battlestar Galactica, Westworld, Batman, Kung Fu, The Lone Ranger, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Heavy Metal, Maverick, High Plains Drifter, The Searchers, and Legend. Awesome video.

Eye of God

Thomas — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 03:32:38 +0000

Today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day is that of the Helix Nebula, which is 700 light years away in the Aquarius constellation. It appears red in this photo because of dust. Looks eerie to me.

Darth Stewart

Thomas — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 17:52:33 +0000

Speaking of Cheney, here’s a nice, little clip, from a few weeks back, of Jon Stewart channeling Darth Vader in an attempt to get through to the Vice President.

The Devil Went Down to Australia

Thomas — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 17:06:21 +0000

Clashes have broken out on the streets of Sydney between police and anti-war campaigners protesting against the visit of US Vice-President Dick Cheney.

It’s nice to see that Americans aren’t the only ones who disapprove of the Puppet-master.

[BBC]

Vaccinating Against Wal-Mart

Thomas — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 16:26:07 +0000

A visit to India by Wal-Mart executives has sparked protests by small shopkeepers worried about its plans for a tie-up with Bharti Enterprises.

“Good for the Indians”, I say. I’d like to be able to go somewhere on this planet without running into a Wal-Mart and that f*cking smiley face. Grrr.

[BBC]

Egyptian Blogger Jailed

Thomas — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 16:11:51 +0000

An Egyptian court has sentenced a blogger to four years’ prison for insulting Islam and the president.

Truly sad. If this doesn’t make people appreciate the freedoms that we enjoy in this country, then nothing will. Could you imagine the millions of people that would be jailed in this country if we weren’t allowed to criticize Bush? You’d have 70% of the population behind bars. Poor Jon Stewart, he’d probably get the death sentence.

[BBC]

Le Petit Prince Goes to War

Thomas — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 03:40:33 +0000

Yesterday, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair announced that the 7,100 troops in Iraq would be cut to 5,000. Today, the BBC is reporting that it is highly likely that Prince Harry, or Troop Commander Wales, will be getting a chance to experience Messopotamia first hand.

From Harry the Nazi

To Harry the Pongo

[BBC]

Stars Over Stuttgart

Thomas — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:08:30 +0000

Today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day is that of the night sky over Stuttgart, Germany. Most notable are:

Pleiades, the blue cluster in the top center of the image
Aldebaran, the bright star in the top left of the image
Mira, the variable star in the bottom of the image just off-center to the right

Atari Code Reborn

Thomas — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 21:35:22 +0000

It seems artist Ben Fry has managed to turn Atari 2600 code into art.

Like any other game console, Atari 2600 cartridges contained executable code also commingled with data. This lists the code as columns of assembly language. Most of it is math or conditional statements (if x is true, go to y), so each time there’s “go to” a curve is drawn from that point to its destination.

When a byte of data (as opposed to code) is found in the cartridge, it is shown as an orange row: a solid block for a “1″ or a dot for a “0″. The row is eight elements long, representing a whole byte. This usually means that the images can be seen in their entirety when a series of bytes are shown as rows. The images were often stored upside-down as a programming method.

The original version of these images are a series of 13×19″ prints where you can actually read the individual bits of text. I modified a version of distella to produce disassembled text output in the format that I wanted, and then used Processing to write a second program that creates the image of the output.

Awesome. Simply awesome.

Thanks to the guys at Kotaku for pointing out this gem.

[distellamap]