Category: cool things!

These things are cool!

Imagine Dragons: “Radioactive” on SNL

Screen Shot 2014-02-08 at 12.29.54 PMI haven’t watch Saturday Night Live in many years, but recently I found a song called “Radioactive” by a group named “Imagine Dragons”, and stumbling around YouTube I found that they performed the song with a rapper named Kendrick Lamar on SNL just a few days ago. This is a powerful song, and the live rendition they gave on SNL is one of the most energetic of performances I’ve seen of any band. I don’t really like rap, but Lamar’s soliloquy definitely boosted the energy of the rest of the performers, and the audience was fully engaged, as you can tell by the applause at the end.

I’ll have to listen to more of their music, to get a feel for what else they’ve done, and I also want to find the lyrics, but at least this is a good song to get the heart racing and adrenalin pumping.

Addendum: According to an entry in “Songfacts”, the lead singer “struggled most of his life with depression and ADD and anxiety issues. He explained to AbsolutePunk that he penned this song ‘coming out of a pretty serious spell of depression and having a new awakening and a real vigor for life.’ He added: ‘That’s the general thing where that song came from. There’s more specifics to it, but that’s the basic, general idea.'”

Enjoy!

Beautiful, terrifying free-fall videos…

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From two years ago, when Felix Baumgartner jumped out of a perfectly good, pressurized capsule at 24 miles up, and free-fell to Earth to test a pressure suit and make history as part of the Red Bull promotion, “Red Bull Stratos.” This is a compilation of videos taken from the GoPro cameras attached at various places on his suit, and just released on YouTube. Personally, I have great admiration for him, and for his predecessor, Joe Kittinger, who made a similar jump back in the 1950’s. I also would never in all of my remaining life ever do what those men did, it isn’t even on my “bucket list”! My severe acrophobia wouldn’t let me even climb the ladder to get into the capsule, much less allow me to ride it up 24 miles!

This video compilation takes various views of Baumgartner’s jump, from his chest, legs, and from the outside of the capsule. GoPro cameras are amazing in how fantastically well they capture hi-definition video, and how rugged they are, and this video is definitely a beautiful, terrifying addition to their library. The addition of the ground-to-air conversation added to the excitement, especially when Baumbgartner went into a high-speed spin during part of the descent.

Well, enough talk, here is the video, please enjoy (and if you feel sick while watching, don’t worry, I think a lot of people will, too!)

Back to the blogs! Russian flash-mob! New job!

So, it’s been an eventful couple of weeks, so eventful that I had to actually spend the time living them, instead of blogging about them! Between searching for a new job, interviews, traveling to see family for Christmas, and fighting the lingering snot-virus that took up residence in my sinuses, I really haven’t much of a chance to write up anything.

Now, though, the holiday travel is over, I’ve accepted an offer to work (at last!), I’ve recovered from the annoying cold, and I have some free time until the new job starts, so I’ll be getting back into the swing of blogging things!

First up, I stumbled across this video from 2012 of a flash mob in Russia performing “Putting on the Ritz”! It’s really nice to see at least some Russians having a great time, it’s a refreshing change from the old Cold War Soviet days when all the pictures you would see from the USSR would be dour, grayish, bland things, with the occasional “official State Culture” entertainments. One of the commenters on the YouTube video was pretty funny, saying that it sounded like the singers were singing “Putin oguretz”, which is “Putin is a cucumber.” In the old days that person would have been “disappeared” but now he just joins in the sea of snark that is the YouTube comment section!

At any rate, here is the flash mob, enjoy!

Nerdtour 2012: Riding on the Enoden pt.4: Shichirigahama Surfin’ Safari

Shichirigahama train stationMy journey on the Enoden line continued, leaving Hase and the Great Buddha, and heading for Enoshima.  Along the way, though, through one of the windows on the train I spotted the ocean, and thought “that looks neat, I want to see the beach!”  So, I persuaded my buddy John that we should get off at the next station, named “Shichirigahama.”

 

[one_third]surfers[/one_third][one_third]surf shop[/one_third][one_third_last]lone surfer[/one_third_last]Turns out that it’s well-known for its surf, and there were a whole lot of surfers taking advantage of the mild November afternoon and evening.

 

[one_third]beachcomber at sunset[/one_third][one_third]Man near seawall staring at the ocean[/one_third][one_third_last]couple on the beach, with Mount Fuji[/one_third_last]There were also a lot of people just out enjoying the beach, taking in the sun. There’s something about a beach, with the waves crashing on the shore that’s just peaceful and relaxing, makes it easy to get into a contemplative mood, or even to just “veg-out”.

 

[one_third]John photographs some beach girls[/one_third][one_third][/one_third][one_third_last][/one_third_last]My buddy John also found, um, “other” views as well…  “So, not so disappointed at stopping here now, are you John?”

 

[one_third]Sunset behind Enoshima[/one_third][one_third]Mount Fuji after sundown[/one_third][one_third_last]Shichirigahama Beach after sunset[/one_third_last]Shichirigahama reminded me very much of southern California, especially around the Sunset Beach area I visited a long time ago.  Sunset Beach was aptly named, and Shichirigahama’s sunset was equally stunning, I kept taking pictures and videos every few minutes, just to try to capture the view. I even got to get a picture of Mount Fuji, but just like in 2007, all I could get was a silhouette shot…

 

Here’s one of the videos I took, of the Sun just disappearing behind the mountains beyond Enoshima Island.  You can see more of the pictures at my portfolio site.

Enjoy!

Nerdtour 2012: Riding on the Enoden pt. 3: Hase station and a train ride

After spending about an hour at the Great Buddha of Kamakura, the day was fast coming to a close and it was time to get back on the Enoden, in order to get to Enoshima before dark. AFter getting back to Hase station, there was a little time to kill before the next train, so I took a few pictures of the station itself, and a bit of the surroundings. The Enoden line goes almost as far back as there were trains in Japan, it was first laid down about 100 years ago, and many of the stations (and the neighborhoods around them) retain many traces of the older line.

In some ways, with the old wooden beams and the narrow gage tracks, some stations on the Enoden are reminiscent of some old West train stations, of course without the coal and water feeds that Western trains needed. Some of the train cars are modeled on the earlier cars of the line, as well, although with modern instrumentation and controls.

When the next train came, it was time for a quick ride. This is a short clip for the first leg from Hase, going to Gokurakuji station, one stop towards Enoshima, to give you a feel for what the ride was like. We didn’t actually get all the way to Enoshima, one of the stops before then looked interesting, a town called Shichirigahama, which turned out to be a very nice town indeed.

Oh, and notice the care that the conductor uses, there are specific gestures to each instrument, which work as mnemonics that the conductor uses to make sure that each item in his checklist is complete. The combination of hand and eye motion and examination of the control settings at the same time gives the conductor stronger reinforcement than simply moving his eyes to check the controls. My Japanese teacher used a similar approach to teach us how to write kanji characters, one of the steps was writing the character in the air while speaking the stroke numbers aloud. “Muscle memory” helps the “main memory”.

As always, there are more photos on my portfolio site.

New official ComfyCon Vendor’s Room!

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The official ComfyCon Vendor’s Room is now on the main ComfyCon.net website! Go there for all the good ComfyCon merch!

ComfyCon 2013! It’s here!

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It’s that time, boys and girls! Time for the easiest, most stress-free, relaxing, COMFIEST convention you’ll ever attend! ComfyCon 2013 is here! Three days of geeking out your own way, you can watch the panels, host your own panel, do whatever you like, because you never have to leave your computer, or even put on clothes, although if you want to cosplay, that’s fine too, we won’t judge! The convention happens entirely online! No need to pack a suitcase, no need to book a flight, because there’s no place to go!

The brainchild of Randal (“Something Positive”) Mulholland and Danielle (“Girls with Slingshots”) Corsetto, aided and abetted by a bunch of other webcomic artists, the first ComfyCon last year was created for people who couldn’t get to go (or didn’t want to hassle with going) to San Diego Comic-Con. Danielle and the others used YouTube to host the panels live and streaming, with much craziness and pantslessness, at least from what I could see. At any rate, the ComfyCon program is here, at ComfyCon.net, check out all the panels, I can guarantee they’ll be the easiest to attend, and you don’t have to worry about filling up the room or dealing with those horrible uncomfortable chairs (unless you have some yourself, for some reason)! Best of all, no con funk! Unless, again, you have it yourself, in which case…

Update!  Now that the official ComfyCon Vendor’s Room is open, beat feet there and scarf the sweet sweet merch from the artists!  THEY HAVE DEALS!

Nerdtour 2012: Riding the Enoden pt. 2: Kamakura

enoden1-044So, after riding the Enoden for a few minutes, it was time to get off at the station in Hase town, where the Great Buddha (Daibutsu) of Kamakura is situated. Like most of the towns along the Enoden, Hase is a tourist town, making the most of the local attraction. A lot of tourists come because of the Buddhist aspect, and a lot more come just to gawk (yeah, I’m guilty of the latter.)

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Not being Buddhist myself, I didn’t get the spiritual feeling, but as a techie, to me the Great Buddha is an impressive engineering feat! Cast in bronze sometime in the 13th Century, the statue is hollow, allowing people to go inside for a mere 20 yen (about 30 cents US).  The temple grounds around are also very impressive, with sculptures both man-made and natural. 

kamakura-046This day was particularly fun, because there was a tour group from an elementary school, and some of the kids were split up into groups, each group assigned to speak to a foreigner in order to practice their English.  The group that approached me and my buddy John did a very good job of introducing themselves, asking if they could ask questions, and handled their English fairly well.  The questions were basic, “Where are you from?” type questions.  It was fun watching them “ambush” other foreigners, too, although I have to wonder if all of the foreign tourists spoke English.

So, here is the gallery of photos I took in and around Hase and the Great Buddha of Kamakura.

Enjoy!