iPhone speaker volume vs sony headphones volume

Digg.com in 2009

slightly larger here: http://i12.tinypic.com/8btli6d.jpg

PLEASE DIGG IT IF YOU LIKE IT

I couldn't find the firefox 3 skin, if there's one already but who said newer is better? XP and Vista tells you something?

On this day...

July 22: Parents' Day in the United States (2007); Pi Approximation Day; Feast day of Mary Magdalene and also my birthday! yey me

Goodbye Veronica Belmont!

Homer erectus

A doughnut-brandishing Homer Simpson was painted next to the giant on the hill above Cerne Abbas, Dorset, to promote the new Simpsons film.

>entire article

The trailer of the movie The Simpsons which will be released on July 27.

HD

Google video loves porn

Like I said, sex will always attract people.

Lifted

I accidentally found the great Pixar animation shown before Ratatouille started.

iPhone for your grandma

Looks like Apple is working on some sort of an iPhone nano.

After all the success of the original iPod was based on it’s simplicity. It did just one thing - made your whole music library portable. But it did it real well.
So what if a simple iPod with lots of storage is enough? And what if Apple just added a simple phone capability to it, so you don’t have to carry two gadgets anywhere you go.

Just a simple iPod music player and a simple phone to make calls. Wouldn’t that be a great device?
Apple thinks so too and may just have such a device soon in an iPhone Nano form factor, as it’s recent patent filing called “Touch pad with symbols based mode” indicates.

>>entire article

Engadget sort of confirms this:

DigiTimes sources are now reporting that the iPod's capacitive touch-screen will be "less complicated" than the panel used for the current iPhone. No multi-touch?

Apple is definitely cooking something up.

Here's a video of an iPhone being etched. Apple doesn't provide laser engraving for the iPhone yet.

I'm talking about Apple products today so I want to mention that I just bought another iPod. My first iPod was stolen but I bought another one exactly the same: 30 GB, black. The ear buds are the same color but the leather case is black now. I like it more because it matches the color of the iPod and when it gets dirty you can't really tell, unlike the white one I had. The iPhone is currently too expensive for my patience and it doesn't have enough memory + all other problems and bugs, so I'm waiting for the second generation.

Obama girl

Yey! vote for O(s)bama!

Google Trends and Google Sets

Google Trends is one of my favorite Google services because it lets me see what people care about, what they search. You can select the time frame, region and compare results.
Google Sets is also a great service from Google. If you want more examples of something just type in something.
Oh, and by the way, did you know porn is better than Microsoft and Apple? Sex will always sell.

omg! - from Yahoo

Yahoo launched omg! I'm sure they couldn't find a stupider name. It's mostly about celebrities and fashion so it's probably for girls no older than 13 so it doesn't really matter.

Ratatouille and Transformers

They were both magnificent and funny. Transformers was a little bit too intense in my opinion but the special effects were awesome. It had more humor than expected but I didn't really like the acting of Megan Fox. Ratatouille had a lot of funny parts but I think they should have made it more realistic not in terms of detail and quality of animation, it was awesome, but in logic. I wish they had a better idea for how the rat controls the nerd. The rat pulls his hair and he moves in that direction. I don't buy it. Otherwise it was awesome and funny. The audience clapped at the end of both movies, kinda lame to clap at a screen but definitely two movies worth watching.

Sunburn, T-mobile, iPhone and Good Luck Chuck

I had this severe sunburn on my feet and I couldn't walk yesterday and the day before yesterday. I spent too much time in the sun on the fourth of July. The sand was burning and the ocean was cold as ice. It was a weird day. I didn't feel anything but when I woke up next morning my feet were so red, heavy and hurt like hell.

I called T-mobile yesterday for some information about the new hotspots service and the guy that answered knew nothing about it. He had to look up the information and I waited about 20 minutes until he finally told me correct facts. 1 second please... 1 second please... 1 second please...

It’s called T-Mobile HotSpot @Home, and it’s absolutely ingenious. It could save you hundreds or thousands of dollars a year, and yet enrich T-Mobile at the same time. In the cellphone world, win-win plays like that are extremely rare.

Here’s the basic idea. If you’re willing to pay $10 a month on top of a regular T-Mobile voice plan, you get a special cellphone. When you’re out and about, it works like any other phone; calls eat up your monthly minutes as usual.

But when it’s in a Wi-Fi wireless Internet hot spot, this phone offers a huge bargain: all your calls are free. You use it and dial it the same as always — you still get call hold, caller ID, three-way calling and all the other features — but now your voice is carried by the Internet rather than the cellular airwaves.

>entire article


DVD Jon made the iPhone work as an iPod with WiFi, without AT&T activation. link


This one is a must see.

Whatch it in HD

What sucks at iPhone

I'm now working on madwh.headplug.com my first personal flash website but I ran out of ideas.

Here's a list I made from different reviews on the web about what sucks at iPhone.

- no cut/copy paste
- no instant messenger
- it has a 2 mega pixel camera but cannot record video
- no card slot
- no 3G
- only 4 GB, unlike an regular iPod with 30 GB, at least is more than a shuffle! :) but let's not forget it's flash so you don't need to worry too much about shaking or dropping it as if it had an HDD
- can't easily transfer contacts from another cell phone, you can do it only through a computer
- 2 year contract
- slow internet connection
- at&t is the only carrier for iPhone at least 2 years from now
- the only add-on software will run directly from the Internet
- although you have an iPod included you can't set song as ring tones
- the battery is not removable
- it doesn't have overall search
- you can't jump to the top or bottom of a page only in the browser
- if you listen to a song while you're in another program you must go back to iPod to stop the song
- takes more steps to call someone than on other cell phones with real keyboard
- you must switch the virtual keyboard when you want a comma or period
- can't view flash websites
- you can open word and pdf documents but can't edit them
- doesn't have any game
- can't directly access iTunes Music Store directly from the iPhone
- very expensive ($499 the 4 GB one and $599 the 8 GB one)
- my greasy hands would leave marks all over the screen
- you can't do anything without looking at it
- doesn't have GPS
- doesn't make chocolate chip cookies

And that's pretty much it. I'll get one anyway.

School is out... finally

I didn't write anything because I'm still incredibly lazy. School is finally out after a boring week. I'm now working on www.english.2fear.com a website for Web Design and for the English class. When I'll have enough knowledge in Flash I'll probably create a website for myself or a blog in flash. I hope this laziness leaves me alone so that I can write more often here. Oh, and I almost forgot, I'm now obsessed with Command and Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars. It's an extraordinary game. I've never been obsessed with a strategy game until now. I actually didn't play a strategy game for years. I'll write more about it if I feel like blogging.

Gates vs. Jobs

lazyness

Why am I so extremely lazy??

Another entry about school

This is a photo of... guess what, a prison? You're close, try again. If you said a school you guessed right. It's the school where I go every day, the place where I vegetate but where I also waist(ed) my time and my childhood. School is a nightmare. We're forced to study and I can't take it any longer... I have to do the BCP thing until Monday, it's a big project at Biology on which I was supposed to work since the beginning of the year but because I was lazy I now I have to finish it in 2-3 days. I have intense feelings varying from very sad to very happy in short periods of time. I feel weird, but I can't wait vacation, that's for sure.
Thanks to school I can now sit on a chair and do nothing for more than 2 hours. I can dream and think about many things that keep me awake (literally) while looking at a wall or even at the teacher explaining things. I can "listen" to the teacher for hours and if you ask me what was all about I have no idea. If something unexpected happens in the classroom I suddenly wake up and look around because lessons and all the boring things are on "ignore". Teachers are complaining because they have to read boring assignments/homework/projects. I don't care!!! School is stupid and boring. It's their choice that they're still in school.

Daxflame's friends

I forgot to post this photo. I found it at school on the network and I also posted a video on youtube with this photo. If you don't know who daxflame is watch one of his videos: Tape face.

Onion skin in Flash

I finally figured out how to use onion skin in flash. Flash has many advantages compared to fireworks when it comes about animations. Fireworks it's actually designed for editing pictures but flash it's very confusing and it takes a while to learn even the most basic things. I'm now working on a longer and much more complex animation and I'll post it here when it's done but until then take a look at my first animation in flash. To start the animation click on the picture below.

Earth like planet - Gliese 581 c

In my opinion the new discovery is simply amazing but I wouldn't send the workaholics I mentioned in my previous post to this planet. It makes you wonder if there really is life on other planets and if there is what kind of creatures live there? Where did those creatures come from? Where do WE come from?

Earth-like planet discovery 'may support life'
25/04/2007 - 07:51:11

An Earth-like planet that could be covered in oceans and may support life has been discovered outside the Solar System.

The new world, which is 20.5 light years away, orbits a region with the right temperature to allow liquid water on its surface.

Scientists believe it is only 1.5 times larger and five times more massive than Earth, making it the smallest extra-solar planet known.

But the really exciting discovery is that the planet inhabits the habitable zone of its parent star, Gliese 581.

Also known as the “Goldilocks zone”, this is the narrow orbit in which temperatures are not too hot, not too cold, but just right for surface water to exist as a liquid.

The habitable zone varies according to the heat output of the star, and Gliese 581 is much smaller and colder than the Sun. So even though the planet is 14 times closer to the star than the Earth is to the Sun, it lies in a region where rivers, lakes and oceans are possible.

Liquid water is one of the pre-requisites for life as we know it on Earth.

Dr Stephane Udry, from the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland, who led the European astronomers who announced the find today, said: “We have estimated that the mean temperature of this super-Earth lies between zero and 40 degrees Celsius, and water would thus be liquid.

“Moreover, its radius should be only 1.5 times the Earth’s radius, and models predict that the planet should be either rocky – like our Earth – or covered with oceans.”

The vast majority of planets already discovered orbiting stars outside the Solar System are giant gaseous worlds the size of Jupiter or bigger.

Life as we know it could not exist on these planets. But the new planet is highly unusual because it is so small, and therefore probably rocky. Given its size and location, it is also likely to have an atmosphere.

Two other planets also orbit Gliese 581, which lies in the constellation of Libra and is among the 100 closest stars to the Sun.

One, Gliese 581 B, discovered two years ago, is a Neptune-like planet with 15 Earth-masses so close to the star that it makes an orbit every 5.4 days. The other, Gliese 581 D, has eight times the Earth’s mass and completes an orbit in 84 days. The new planet, with a 13-day orbit, is designated Gliese 581 C, but as yet has no name.

The planet was found by Swiss, French and Portuguese astronomers using the European Southern Observatory’s 3.6 metre telescope at La Silla in Chile.

They employed a method of long-distance planet finding that looks for the “wobble” on a star caused by the gravity of a large object orbiting it.

By measuring the wobble motion, shown as shifts in the star’s light spectrum, astronomers can calculate a planet’s orbit and mass.

Gliese 581 C is certain to be a key target for future missions dedicated to the search for extra-terrestrial life.

“Liquid water is critical to life as we know it,” said Dr Xavier Delfosse, a member of the team from Grenoble University in France. “On the treasure map of the universe, one would be tempted to mark this planet with an X.”

COROT, the first space telescope specifically designed to search for Earth-like rocky planets around stars other than the Sun, was launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) last December.

By 2020 at least one space telescope should be in orbit with the capability of detecting signs of life on planets light years from Earth.

Two such missions, Darwin and the Terrestrial Planet Finder, are planned by ESA and the American space agency Nasa.

Both craft will have instruments sensitive enough to spot water and oxygen on Gliese 581 C, should it exist.

Dr Malcolm Fridlund, ESA project manager for COROT and study scientist on the Darwin project, said: “This is a very important step on the road to finding Earth-like planets. The planets we’ve found so far outside the Solar System have all been different from our own Earth, and more like Jupiter or Neptune.

“If this is a rocky planet it’s very likely that it will have liquid water on its surface, which means there may also be life.

“There are caveats, one being that the environment around a red dwarf is very full of radiation. All red dwarfs have a lot of flare activity, but this doesn’t necessarily exclude life.”

Scientists have calculated that the planet has about double Earth’s gravity. Any creatures living there would therefore be twice as heavy as they would be on Earth.

Their bodies would probably reflect this, said Dr Fridlund. Weak, fragile animals would not be able to support themselves or move around on land.

“Life on Earth evolved to fit the environment through natural selection,” Dr Fridlund added. “With a big pressure you would need a strong skeleton, or shell, or to be soft and malleable.”

Since Gliese 581 is much older than the Sun, life on the planet may have existed for longer than it has on Earth. Tantalisingly, it could therefore be more advanced.

Scientists at the SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Life) Institute in the US are understood to be taking the possibility seriously and turning their radio telescopes towards the planet.

A paper on the discovery has been submitted to the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.

SETI has already listened for intelligent signals from Gliese 581 on two occasions in 1995 and 1997, as part of a general sweep of stars within 45 light years of Earth.

Spokesman Dr Seth Shostak confirmed that SETI would be tuning in to the star again, using its new Allen telescope array in the Cascade Mountains of north east California.

The Allen array is still under construction but the first 42 of its 350 antennae should be ready for use this summer.

“We’ll be taking another look,” said Dr Shostak. “I suspect it will move to the top of the list.

“I am excited about this discovery. We have assumed all along that small planets will exist in great numbers, and some by chance will be in the habitable zone. But we haven’t been able to find them because the instruments favour big planets.”

He added that having an old star increased the likelihood of intelligent life.

“Life on Earth is four billion years old, and it’s taken all of that to produce us,” he said. “The older the star is, maybe the greater the chance that it has produced something that’s clever.”

Aliens living on the planet would be able to pick up 20-year-old TV and radio transmissions from Earth if they had a receiver powerful enough, he said, but it would be easier for them to detect military radar signals.

Further reading

Options

I don't know why girls like so many options but I certainly don't. I always listen to the same music, buy the same sandwich, wear the same clothes. When I see a girl or a woman that can't decide what to choose I don't get angry only when is about computers, it takes me longer. I do believe variety makes our lives a little better but sometimes instead of trying something new and assuming the risk that I might not like it, I just pick the same old things that I know worked for me and always will. I think the best advice to give to somebody who is living an black & white life, living the same routine, doing the same things over and over like a robot is to tell him or her to do something different everyday. It would probably work for me too but I'm way to lazy to do something else and interrupt my everyday activity of wasting time in front of the computer. As a final note, I hope workaholics become robots and go to another planet.

guy puts his phone number on youtube

I saw him on cnn.com.

Internet reporter Jacki Schechner talks to a guy who put his number on YouTube and didn't sleep for 36 hours. (April 23)

I called him and he doesn't answer, the voice mail tells me to leave a message or something like that.

Kinda stupid but it probably works when you're bored to death.

Stupid "hips" (ass) shaking in class

I'm very very lazy and that's why I didn't post anything. The spring break was great but something even greater is... I'M DONE WITH THE STUPID WASL!! :D
The English teacher turned the music on and wanted us, boys, to shake our asses, he said hips, in front of all the girls in the class while they grade us. I didn't do it but I think it was stupid what he told us to do. We are reading "The House on Mango street" and we're now at a chapter about hips and he really wanted to see us how we shake our hips.? I can't see any educational purpose in this. He is my favorite teacher ever because English is the period that seems like 2 minutes. He always talks about anything but what we should study. The truth is, boys can't shake ass like girls. Boys can't really dance, that's what he tried to prove us. We can't really dance, so what? If the English class was boring I would have probably talked to the counselor because what he does is completely non-school activity. The funniest part tough is when a classmate understood what he has to do he said: "I'm not shacking any hoochie coochie!"

Just for the record, these days happened:
- massacre at Virginia Tech College
- Basescu, the president of Romania suspended

about me and school

Although I hate many pictures/videos crowded in my last blog posts I didn't blog because I didn't feel like. School is harsh this month and I have the math WASL in about 2 weeks. I'm sooooooooooooo sick of school and I can't wait the vacation. There's a debate going on if failing the math WASL means you cannot graduate but I'll do my best anyway and I'm really glad the science WASL is not required for sure. I completely suck at math and I know the math WASL will be much harder than the English WASL I had. I've learned some things about me since my last post. I rarely remember something if I don't specifically think that I need to remember but I easely remember visual things. I can't learn a phone number as fast as I can memorize a scene from a movie and... hmmm I already forgot the second thing. I didn't specifically think that I need to memorize it. I guess I'm just tired. This is another thing but I've noticed it long time ago. I can't learn or do homework if it's a lot. I really can't. I look at it and I say: this is to much, I can't do it, and I'm not doing any of it. I'm like an computer to which is given to many tasks at the same time. I freeze, or something like that. It sometimes happens but I'm glad I don't always get that much homework or stuff to learn. I can't get school out of my head and I'm really stressed with all the homework and everything. I always say to myself: what did I forget now? Can't wait for the 1 week break coming next week...

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl

Haha, it's a good game by the way.

Drive-thru

I can't remember where I first saw this...

done with WASL (english)

I'm finally done with the English part of WASL! :D

Test Drive Unlimited bug

weekend

I'm glad I'm finally done with the writing part of WASL. I had 3 days of writing and I have two more days of reading next week. Reading they say, I have to read a text but I still have to write, I have to answer some question... blah Tomorrow day off and hmmm I think no homework till Monday. :D I'll watch The Departed because I heard it's a good movie and I'll write something about it if it really is a good one. I watched Babel, a veeery good movie about all the suffering in the world. It's a sad movie but I love it. Many people compare it to Crash and they say both suck. I had the patience to watch Babel from the beginning until the end but it's really boring if you don't understand or you don't care about what's going on.

I came across this interesting video about a pillow fight:



and this one:



(I first saw it on ciops.ro)