The Business of Killing Cockroaches

Say you're in the bathroom and you see a cockroach on the ground. Its tentaces are waving in the air and you feel like a cowboy in the wild west as you stare at the glossy body of the insect. What do you do?

For those of you who either leave the room quickly or immediately pick up the nearest shoe to chase it down, there might be something immensely more effective coming to the market soon.

It turns out, men and cockroaches have something in common: they'll both do anything for sex! Some cockroach scientists (imagine having that job) have finally been able to synthetically manufacture the sex pheromone that attracts the males within 9 seconds. Apparently they will drop everything and even risk their lives just to get some action!

If this synthetic pheromone is as successfuly as they think we just might be rid of those pesky little roaches in our homes.

The only question is, what would it be like without them? We don't always think about the impact these little creatures make in our lives, but besides being disgusting and very unsanitary... what role do they play in how our cities look today? (They eat almost everything, if there aren't around to eat those things, would anythign be different?) Would their absence give rise to something even worse? Will killing off all the males be the trick to destroying this species?

If cockroaches could write novels, they may have already predicted this day and the killer machine that would destroy half of their popularion!

My dislike of cockroaches is only second to my dislike of spiders. But I can't help wondering if we should do it just because we can.

Pointless-ness and Bill Nye

Isn't it awesome how "the next few days" turned into a week and a half? Or has it been 2 weeks? either way...

And no, Bill Nye is not pointless. Bill Nye is awesome.


No Sims 3 talk today though. Today I'm back to my original antics. While looking around, I saw a site that documents stuck tic-tacs and it consists of pictures like the one on the left. Except most of them are less colorful because they're white tic-tacs.

In case you're curious... here's what it is: Stuck Tic-Tacs

Well... I don't know, it seems kind of um... pointless. And how come I've never had any stuck ones... granted I haven't bought any tic-tics in years but still.

However, I am posting this and--somewhat--promoting it, so there.


In other news, Bill Nye writes for Gizmodo about the new oleophobic coating on new iPhone 3GS.

Admit it, you read "Bill Nye" and that song went through your head. Go ahead. Go youtube it right now and relive your childhood. I know I would if I could!

My other life.

Today's post is more a game review than anything else. I've been slacking on reading up on articles, so instead, I'll entertain with a little story of my favorite PC games of all time and a review of the latest installment of the popular Sims franchise.

Before I delv into the new, however, let's first bask in the glory that is original Sims for a moment:

It was first released on February 4, 2000. I remember borrowing from a friend and instantly falling in love with it. I was a master at "greening" my sims--although I do remember accidentally killing one of my early sims when she became too depressed and the horror as I watched her become a tombstone and the empty lot. I even made a storyboard in Junior-year English class for Macbeth because I can't draw worth crap. It tok a long time to get all the period costume but it was well worth it.

Fast forward to freshman year in college and the same friend got me into TSO. Yes, it had its faults--the graphics being one of the biggest drawbacks, especially when I tried going back to the game in 2005 and could barely stand it. But, it was built on the same engine as The Sims 1, so what do you expect. Other than that, I enjoyed it for a long time, particularly the teamwork games.

Unfortunately, it became more of a online dating platform fairly soon and the different Sims mafia sprung up all over the place. (People will try to bring real life into pretend life whenever they can, won't they?)

After about a year, I moved onto another MMO. But that's a different story.


Next, it was 2004, a few months before my birthday, I found out about The Sims 2's release in September that year (just after my birthday!).

The base game had a lot of new innovations compared to the first game and the garphics certainly looked much better. As time went by, more and more expansion packs came out that introduced so much more both in gameplay and building design (one of the biggest draws of the games for me), it became a great medium for storytelling. Many people write stories based on their sims, and I know I'm not the first one to make a comic, and I definitely won't be the last using The Sims 2 to make videos.


Finally, it's June of 2009, almost 5 years after release date of The Sims 2. I had planned on holding off buying The Sims 3 because I was convinced my PC would not let me play the game at the caliber I wanted to for such a revolutionary installment of the franchise.


And then I made the big mistake--or fortune--of checking out some video game pre/reviews on youtube. I've only gotten about 2-3 gameplay time so far, so this is more of an initial impressions review. For those of you who care.




Character Creation


This is the logical starting point because that's the first thing I did, even before I changed the resolutions and graphics settings. Several things jumped out at me:

1. Highly customizable colors for hair color as well as patterns for clothing items. (+)


2. Love the ability to control body fat and muscle mass; really makes it the sims that you can make more like real people. Although personally, I always made skinny sims... (+)


3. I kind of felt like the sims faces were mostly the same but then I messed around a little with randomizing faces. Generally, I like the highly customizable facial features, but I wonder if there is any way to create your own face kind of from scratch without having to randomize until you get one that is kind of similar. To me, even when I customized the features, they still more or less looked like the same person. (*)


4. I found myself wishing for a way to only adjust bust or hips size. After all, not everyone who is skinny have A-cups and not everyone with a big butt is fat. *Note: the Sim on the right is a skinny sim with the muscle mass bar maybe 1/5-1/4 of the way up. (-)


5. I'm also pretty sure there is not way to change height while creating a sim. That's something I've been kind of hoping for, especially for videos. Certainly hope that can somehow be implemented in the future. (-)


6. The male sims were rather disappointing so far. I had a hard time finding a face that I liked and the clothing selection was both too limited as well as unflattering on the sims. The former I expected but the latter I had expected more from. It could've been the relatively more muscle mass I put on my sim but... I think it was more the clothing. (-)


7. *Note: Screenshot of my male sim. It's not a great picture of him but I forgot to take one while creating him.

7. The ability to clone a sim in the character creation screen is definitely a plus if you are making twins off the bat or need multiples of one sim for a video. (+)

8. The new trait system adds some new elements to the game that's really different from previous installments. Each trait gives you different possible lifetime achievements to pick from as well as prompt different moods and possible events in the "Live" mode. It almost feels like a.... rpg! (+)

Live Mode

First, let me just say, one of the awesomest things (so far) about this game is the ability to go from your own house to another lot/property in the city without having to deal wtih the annoying load screen. There is no wait time once you've finished creating your sim. From the moment you put them in a lot, you can zoom freely in and out of their house and into the map screen where you can see the whoel time. At one point I sent my sim to the theatre and I think I saw him physically walk down the street to the venue.

This is very much like SimsVille that was in production before they chucked it for whatever reason (I looked forwards to it for a long time until The Sims 2 was announced). It's also great to finally physically see the workplaces of the sims, instead of sending them off to the ether whenever the carpool picked them up. You can even zoom right to the work location when you are on the look for a job screen.

One strange/nice thing is, instead of placing the newspaper randomly on the ground, the sims will now place them in their inventory, prompting me to repeatedly ask the question of, "Where did the newspaper go?!" when I was trying to find my other sim a job.

Skill building and the daily life is mostly the sims as before. Although certain traits will allow your sim to learn some skills faster than other sims and the biological needs of the sims don't need to be met nearly as much as before. (Less bathroom time, essentially.)

And I am not ashamed to say that I was hoping for more from 'Whohooing.' I feel like it was steamier in The Sims 2 than Sims 3. Literally. Please see the following video.

This is getting a little long. So I'll break it up so I can talk more indepth about the other aspects of gameplay in a different post. For now, let me just conclude with a section about what makes The Sims 3 so much better for filming.

Video Capture

As someone currently working on filming in the sims 2, I have to say this game is so much more conducive to filming on a low-end machine. There was absolutely no lag when I press that "V" button and the video recorded with a resolution of 1024 x 600....something (sorry I don't have my notes in front of me!), which is awesome resolution. I can't wait to try it on another, better machine at home.

Here is another video with some gratuitous nudity.

And as smooth as that video looked, it was as smooth as it was during recording. I can't express enough in words how much I love that. The quality went down a little once she started moving but it's not really that bad at all.

Stay tuned for more the next few days.

Would you like some bullshit with that pee?

How would you like to pay $1.60 to pee?

Well, that's what the CEO of the European budget airline, Ryanair, wants to start doing on their Boeing 737-800 jets.

Michael O'Leary is serious. Serious about reducing the number of bathrooms from 3 to 1 for 6 extra seats, put in a credit card reader so you have to pay 1 pound (or about $1.60 US) for a few moments of claustrophobic alone time.

I get reducing the bathrooms from 3 to 1, especially since their usual flights take roughly an hour around Europe. And more seats = more money. But charging people to use the bathroom? I mean, seriously. There's even a nasty rumor going around that he's toying with the idea of requiring passengers to load their own luggage onto jets so as to save the cost of having baggage handlers.

Once again, I say, "Really?"

Unless those flights cost $10 round trip, I'm not taking it.

Don't think we Americans are immune from fee raises, however. Starting this Wednesday, United Airlines will start charging extra $5 at the airport if customers don't pay their checked-baggage fees online. And US airways will follow suit in July.

This is a clear case of, "We can do whatever we want because you either take the flights or you drive for 3 million miles." I want a teleporter and I want a teleporter NOW!

Who's that?

This post is a reaction to this article.

The person in the picture is Kar, found depicted in a 6,000-year-old tomb.


Take a good look. Does he remind you of anyone?



Keep looking.


You see it yet?

No?

Okay, try again.




You gotta have it by now!



Fine...



Tada!


(Go back and look at the first pic... the little guy is actually quite cute!)

Sorry, a little humor at the expensive of our prez :)

Twitter could save you...

...in the event of a zombie attack!

Does your city police station have a twitter account? If not, you should consider writing a letter and asking for one. That is, if you want up-to-date information on any imminent zombie outbreak!



I wonder who gets the twitter-updater job.

Stranger than fiction

Okay, I've accidentally erased this post THREE times. I don't think I'm meant to post it, but I will anyway.



One word: Ugly.



Enjoy the freakiest fish on earth.

Ice cream... or pudding?

I was about to post some completely inane and irrelavant post for today (wait, how is that any different from any other day?) when I finally found something that interested me enough to blog about.

Apparently, Coldstone has developed ice cream that doesn't melt. Is it going to sit there like a fake ice cream cone? Well, not exactly. Apprently, instead of melting, it transforms into gooey goodness of JELLO-O pudding.

The only thing is... that actually sounds kind of gross to me. I just don't know how I feel about that.

But if ice cream/pudding is your thing, then I'd suggest you go try it out!

Equality for all...and zombies.

Have you seen any zombies lately? If so, you may have seen Jacque Orneuve from Port au Prince (Haiti).

Mr. Orneuve came to the US 15 years ago and has been working and paying socials ecurity for more than 13 years. When he became injured last year, he filed for Social Security benefits, only to be told that he was not eligible because Haitian records indicate that he had passed away in 1993, at the age of 51.

“I understand that Americans have a fear of zombies, but that shouldn’t
keep them from obeying the law,” Orneuve said. “They’re discriminating against
me beacuse of my religion and my physical condition. It’s got to stop.”

Mr. Orneuve and his son sailed to Florida in 1994, escaping political tensions in their home country at the time. When the US government sent for his records, it shows that he was already dead. His friends and relatives swear he was brougth back as a zombie in a voodoo ceremony several days after he passed away, however.

“I’m not dead – I’m the living dead,” says Orneuve. “There’s a distinct
difference. They treat me like I don’t exist.

Now his case will go in front of the US supreme court as one of the first cases that the new Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor will be presiding over.

It's okay, Mr. Orneuve. If the US government decides zombies are not eligible for benefits, you can always make some money starring in horror movies. It's much more fun watching real zombies versus fake ones with too much makeup.

Plus, maybe you can be the undead spokesperson. Undeads have rights too!!

Let's all study history

This was supposed to be one fo yesterday's posts but I got sick... but let's start with this:

I came across an article about how history students are more promiscuous. At least according to a study done on over 850 students at Oxford University by the Cherwell newspaper (student run). They also found that students who do not have sex more than once a month are most likely to come first in their degree.

Couple things here.

1. I don't think 850 students is really that good of a sample number. But I guess it's not that bad for a "casual" survey.
2. You can't trust surveys anyway because people lie even when it's anonymous.
3. Next time you see "summa cum laude" on someone's diploma, you know they weren't getting any in college--despite the what it may look like. (Yes, I know it's Latin, but it still looks funny because guess what, we don't speak Latin.)
4. However, chances are, they may be getting more lay now. Especially if they have a lot of money.
5. The biggest question is... did this survey tell us that history students get the most booty or do they just lie the most about getting said booty?

Then it goes on to say more things which really concern. Now granted, this is Britain we're talking about, but still.

Although a mere 5% of students confessed to having had a sexually transmitted
disease (STD) – much lower than the national average of one in three people –
around half of respondents admitted to having unprotected sex

1 in 3? Seriously? If for some reason I ever go to the UK as a single woman, I will never hook up with anyone there. Never. That's disturbing. For that matter, what's the stat for the US? Because if it's the same, I'm not having sex with anyone I haven't put through the screening then. If I were single that is.

And this:

Sam Tucker, a spokesman for St Anne's College, said he thought that the reason
for a relatively high number of students having unprotected sex could stem from
lack of knowledge about the risks. He said: "I think people sometimes don't
realise the consequences of their actions.

Do they have a worse sex education than we do or something? I don't think people can still use that excuse here. I had 3 or 4 separate health education that told me unprotected sex was bad from 6th grade to high school graduation. If you have unpotected sex, it's because you're stupid, lazy, or easily manipulated.

And in case you don't know about them yet... pygma jerboas are cute! I had a video but I can't get it working right now. Will post later I suppose.

Cheese Rolling Derby

This video is sure to make you laugh and go, "OOOH!" I don't know if I can understand why people would do this to themselves but hey... a tradition's a tradition, amirite?

And this poor cat! This is why you shouldn't let your cat play with bees!

You can own a brahmin too!

No, not the Hindu brahmin (or brahman). I'm talking about the Fallout series mutant cows.

These Belgian cows were the results of a 19th century crossbreeding from the local cows and British cow, which apparently created a mutation in the gene for myostatin, a protein that regulates lean muscle growth.

Now we just have to figure out how to make them have two heads.



For more pictures

Best job ever.

Many of you have probably gotten the email about the Johnson and Johnson rectal thermometer being personally tested and how that's supposed to make you feel about your daily grind of a job. Despite the fact that that is a false claim, you laugh and think (lie) to yourself, "At least I have it better."

That is, unless you work for Canon. Hirashi Sakamaki, the president of Canon Electronics has some interesting theories about how save money, increase productivity, as well as enhance employee relationships.


Yes that's right, the answer is easy. You simply take away all the chairs in the office and make your employees stand for 8 hours a day. Oh but it doesn't end there. If you leave and go in the hallway, you better make sure you're walking at a rate of 5 meters every 3.6 seconds (or 4.5ft/s!!), otherwise alarms and flashing lights go off and everyone gets to make fun of you when they see you. And just in case you forget, there's a sign on the floor in the hallway that urges you to, "Let's rush: If we don't, the company and world will perish."

The best part is: the same principles don't apply to the big boss, as he gets to sit in a comfy chair in his office.

So the next time you think your (office) job sucks, just remember that you could be working for Canon.

Leave it to the professionals.

Today's moron of the day: (you can go ahead and fast forward to 0:39... this ain't no Ax Men)


Moron Cuts Tree and Crushes His Porch - Watch more Funny Videos

Remember kids, do not try this at home!

It's pretty awesome how sometimes we just don't think things through. Hey, think of it this way, at least 10 years down the line, they can laugh about it.

Torture me pretty

Here's the Made-Me-Chuckle story of the day:

Link

Out in the Time magazine today, according to former FBI interrogater, Ali Soufan, the most successful interrogation to date of an al-Qaeda operative required none of those hardass techniques.

All it took to get Abu Jandal to talk? A handful of sugar-free cookies because he had diabetes.

I shall forever remember him as the Cookie Monster.

What I learned from this story is that terrorists have to watch what they eat too.

Human Speech

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. It would appear you have arrived at my humble blog and no doubt expecting some interesting read. So let's get down to it!

This story I will probably hold dear to my heart as it is the story that prompted me to start a new blog for the purposes of providing interesting and bizaare stories to you, the reader. Let's start off with a picture:

I trust that everyone remembers this (in)famous picture of what scientists do to animals. (I am neither condemning nor condoning--although I will say I fall more in the view that animal testings are okay, although I am conflicted when it comes to certain animals. I am a human being as you all are!)

So what has our esteemed scientists done now? Given mice speech.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30984848/

Okay, not really... yet. But we just may expect talking mice a few decades down the line. The story goes that apparently mice are very similar to human beings genetically, which is part of the reason we like to experiment with them. That and the fact that we can breed them like rabbits and human beings aren't as concerned with rodent cruelty as they are about primate cruelty.

"With this study, we get the first glimpse that mice can be used to study
not only disease, but also our own history."

Wolfgang Enard of the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthrophology (and colleagues) are conducting a study about the evolution of human speech using lab mice. Science Jargons alert! Basically, scientists have found that in humans, there are two amino acid substitutes on the FOXP2 gene compared to chimps. This changes became fixed after we humans split off from the chimpanzees in the great tree of "Where did we come from?". The reason they theorize that this gene is responsible for how we came to have speech is that people who carry a nonfunctional version of the FOXP2 gene have impairments in the timing of the facial movement required for speech. This in turn suggests the gene is involved in the motor control of the lips, tongue and larynx required for speech.

Enter stage right: genetically altered mice.

Unfortunately, we won't be hearing littel adorable mice talking about taking over the world any time soon, but maybe in a few 10000's of years! (Or decades, considering how much shorter each mice generation is.)

The brain circuitry of these new mice have started to show changes that were previously linkd to human speech. And--apparently little mice babies send out distress calls when you take them away from mommy--their ultrasonic vocalizations are already showing changes.

However, let's not forget that we don't know enough about mouse communication to really understand how these changes really mean.

Nevertheless, I shall hold out hope that a few escape mice will eventually give rise to a new world where we can learn "mice-an."

In other news, beware the wrath of a woman scorned: http://www.mosnews.com/weird/2009/05/25/1909/