Company Demos iPod-Eating Blender, Wows Millions

Filed under “Oddities,” “Web Links,” “Humor,” “Food,” “Business & Entrepreneurship,” and “Video
by Adam at 8:54 AM

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Blendtec is a little company that makes kitchen appliances, most notably some uncommonly powerful blenders. Faced with the question of how to market their blenders, Blendtec decided to do something… different. You’d best take a moment to steady yourself before pressing the “play” button, especially if you own an iPod. (more…)

New Trailer for Transformers Movie

Filed under “Web Links,” “Movies,” and “Video
by Adam at 1:38 AM

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To quote the t-shirt that director Michael Bay wore during production: GIANT FUCKING ROBOTS ARE COMING.

A giant scorpion-tank-robo-thing chases some soldiers.

The Transformers were among my favorite toys as a kid. I was actually surprised to learn that they still make new Transformers toys. I guess there may be a market for this movie beyond those strange adult men who collect retro toys in unopened original boxes.

Even though I haven’t touched a Transformer in about twenty years, I was still pretty excited (in an utterly nerdy way) when I heard about this movie. I imagine anyone who ever pitted plastic Autobots and Decepticons against each other on a living room carpet will probably feel the same. :-)

Brawl - a Decepticon that takes the form of a police car

They even got the original Optimus Prime from the U.S. cartoon to voice Prime in the movie! Woo hoo!

Optimus Prime reveals himself to a couple of humans

I am such a dork. :*}

The Internet: “a series of tubes”

Filed under “Oddities,” “Humor,” “Technology & the Law,” “Politics,” and “Video
by Adam at 10:39 AM

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I may be the last person on earth to learn about this. Back in late June, Senator Ted Stevens (R, AK) regaled the Commerce Committee with a nearly 11-minute rant about his opposition to a proposed net neutrality amendment to a communications bill. That may not sound very interesting, but it was Sen. Stevens’s… unique attempt at explaining the workings of the Internet that brought this otherwise obscure speech to public attention. (more…)

DRM in 60 Seconds: Video Shows the Problem with “Protection”

Filed under “Media,” “Web Links,” “Software,” “Technology & the Law,” “Politics,” and “Video
by Adam at 6:14 PM

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Discovered on Uninnovate, this video takes less than sixty seconds to cover some of the biggest problems with digital rights management (DRM) technology:

If you’re unfamiliar with DRM, it’s basically a kind of computer program that’s embedded in the media you purchase — store-bought DVDs, iTunes downloads, etc. — that keeps you from using your computer to create copies of that media or even keeps you from playing it on certain devices. The idea is to prevent Internet piracy, but the problem comes when DRM keeps law-abiding consumers from doing perfectly legal things with their movies and music. Unfortunately, that problem crops up pretty frequently.

The video seems to be the work of “Defective by Design,” a Free Software Foundation campaign against DRM. If you’d like to learn more about how DRM violates your rights, and what you can do about it, here are a few places to start:

Updates

  • 11/05/2006 @ 11:30 PM — Added a brief explanation of what DRM does for those who aren’t familiar with the technology.

Frodo and Sam: Secret Lovers

Filed under “Humor,” “Movies,” “Television,” and “Video
by Adam at 11:32 PM

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TBS has cooked up a few amusing promos for their Lord of the Rings showings this weekend. Here’s my personal favorite, via YouTube:

Since when does TBS do slash fanfic?

Update

Turns out the embedded video above doesn’t agree with the Opera web browser. Opera users can still watch the commercial on the YouTube site, however.