Robert Soloway
Robert Soloway, a man identified as one of the world's most prolific Video removed
YouTube removed one of my videos today. It's unclear to me why. When I open the YouTube page it has a message that reads "This video has been removed due to terms of use violation." I scanned their "Terms of Use" and "Community Guidelines" and didn't see how I had violated either one of them. There's a lot of talk about how the mass media slants the media one way or the other. Some people believe that blogging (or vlogging) is a way to get information that is free from censorship. Unfortunately, the tools that people use for blogging (like blogger and YouTube) are not free from censorship. Dropping people's videos from YouTube is a perfect example of that. I went back through some of the videos that I've blogged about and discovered that there were quite a few that displayed "This video is no longer available."
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
From: Me
Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2007 3:46 PM
To: YouTube Service [mailto:service@youtube.com]
Subject: RE: Video Removed: Inappropriate Content
I belive the video is worth having online. Can you give me specific details on how the video is "inappropriate"?
-[Me]From: YouTube Service [mailto:service@youtube.com]
Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2007 1:13 PM
To: Me
Subject: Video Removed: Inappropriate Content
YouTube | Broadcast Yourself™Dear Member:After being flagged by members of the YouTube community and reviewed by YouTube staff, the video below has been removed due to its inappropriate nature.Please refer to our Terms of Use and the Community Guidelines for more information on what video material is not permitted on YouTube.— The YouTube TeamCopyright © 2007 YouTube, Inc.
CNN's Google map
In the spirit of Google Developer Day (May 31) I've written this simple Google Map whosit. Enter an address (e.g. 94560) to have it mapped. You might have to zoom in or out to see the newly added address. Check out the google site for information on webcasts from Developer Day.
This is a pretty simple example but it demonstrates how you can take a list of addresses and integrate them with a web service like Google maps. Instead of accepting the addresses from a form, you could do it programatically. Here's what you have to do to add this to your own site. You won't need the form.
- View the source of this web page, copy the HTML between the comments that read START COPY and STOP COPY. You can include or omit the comments themselves, it doesn't matter.
- Paste the code wherever you want.
- Sign up for an API key. It's a no brainer, really. You enter your URL, accept the terms and voila.
- Replace the portion of the HTML that reads key= (mine starts with ABQ) with your own key.
- Find the line that reads showAddress("94545", "94545"); and replace it with your own address. Copy and paste as many of these lines.
Microsoft Surface
Microsoft Surface (previously Milan) brings us one step closer to those cool Sci-Fi-ish multitouch prototypes we've been seeing. Did they beat Apple to the punch on this one? The product is expected to hit the market in Winter 2007.
This is a pretty funny commercial.
Canon virtual plant
Canon has set up a Virtual Plant. You can watch a video to see how they make their lenses.
Elave
Elave commissioned this risqué ad to prove they have nothing to hide. Watch their video on YouTube.
UPDATE: The YouTube police removed my video, check out the nothing to hide site instead. You can see the video by clicking on the overhead projector. Sorry, the download is dramatically slower.
Street View
Google Maps has a new feature called "Street View". Click on a blue outlined street and you'll see the view of the location from street level.
UPDATE: Stan Schroeder has compiled the top 15 google street view sightings. The one with Cornelius Van Der Vies (#06) is particularly interesting. Also, here's a picture of the vehicle that does the pictures.
The Big Donor Show
BNN is airing a show titled De Grote Donorshow that pits contestants against each other Big Brother style. The winner the kidney of a 37-year old woman suffering from an inoperable brain tumor. Read more...
UPDATE: Apparently the show isn't real after. According to CBS it was a hox to get the government to reform its organ donor law. When I first heard about this I thought it was really strange that there weren't more sources of information on this story. Still, the hoax seems to have been perpetrated by BNN so it's surprising that more news agencies didn't pick up on it one way or another.
This is a funny video from Movies over the web
Two sites mytheater and joox allow you to watch movies over the web.
UPDATE: These are cropping up left and right. Here's one called videohybrid. You'll find other movies at SlyFoxTV.
Fire safety
This is a pretty instense video on fire safety. I didn't notice the woman's face until someone pointed it out to me. The firekills website has several other videos as well. If you have trouble seeing any of them, let me know and I'll post them to YouTube.
Rosie v. Elisabeth
Is this a hand on the pulse of public opinion on the war in Iraq? It aired (05/23/07).
RvD2
OMG! This videos (RvD2: Ryan vs. Dorkman 2" is one of the coolest I've ever seen! Stop whatever you're doing and watch it.
The DIVX version has better resolution (if you can get it work). I didn't have much luck with it
If you liked that, you might try searching for star wars cut scenes or star wars fan film on youtube. You find things like Three In The Afternoon.
Also, it looks like the StarWars website is going to allow you make your own movie mashups.
USB drive adapters
If you've ever wanted to plug a regular IDE drives into your PC's USB port, here are some devices that might help. I use these things to buy myself cheap (but slow) disk storage. I've purchased about half a dozen of them. They're sold at
Meritline.com (11.99),
and
PCMicrostore ($15.00).
TheTechGeek ($17.99) sells a simliar item for SATA drives.
You should know that these cables don't provide any cooling for your drives so you shouldn't use them for extended periods of time without some sort of cooling system. IF you're not looking for a solution you can carry with you, then you might consider a USB hard drive case. You can buy those at most computer stores.
Feeling sexy
Crestock.com (a stock photo site) is offering a Cannon EOS 1Ds Mark II to the winners of their photo
contests.
They've already found a winner to the first round (The Meaning of Life). Rounds 2 (Feeling Sexy?) and 3 (Speed Demon) are still open.
If you don't want to rifle through the whole list you can check out the highlights. Check out their contest page to find out more about entering.
Brood XIII
A group of insects known as
Brood XIII are expected to emerge this month in parts of the midwest after spending 17 years underground. The roman numerals label broods that live in particular area. They are one of 15 separate 'broods' that appear regularly throughout the midwestern US.
OK I've probably just pissed off every person who knows anything about insects by ignoring or replacing words that have special significance in your world. Where I come from, the word "brood" while sounding very cool, doesn't fit nicely in casual conversation; nor does the term "periodical cicadas". Sorry.
Pimped out nutcracker
These days you can pimp just about anything. Pimp my nutracker dot com goes farther than anyone expected this to go.
Joe is Japanese
Joe Is Japanese dot com has clips from the cool biography of Joe, who is Japanese, more or less.
Girls Gone Wild doesn't exactly live up to its name as well as this parody.
Sand castles
Harrison Hot Springs just had its Tournament of champions. The world Champtionships competition starts the Tuesday after Labor Day. The final judging is on Sunday afternoon and the Exhibition of finished sculpture continues until Canadian Thanksgiving/Columbus Day in October. You can see pictures from the competitions on their site (
1
2
3
4
5
6
). Jeff Rense has some on his site but it's unclear whether they're from the same event.
Marvel and DC
ItsJustSomeRandomGuy made some parodies of based on the MAC/PC commercials. These are for Marvel/DC.
Someecards
Looking for that unique card that says exactly what you're thinking? The cards at someecards
fill in where Hallmark leaves off with cards like "Sorry for asking you to get a boob job" and "If masturbating in my office is wrong, I don't want to be right".
This is a funny Joost
There's been a lot of buzz around Joost, a service from the people who gave you Kazaa and Skype. The new technology uses peer to peer technology to bring television to your desktop. SFGate
wrote an article on it yesterday. I downloaded/installed it and tried four different videos. None of them worked. Let me know if you want an invite. This technology would be really cool if they allowed you to create your own channels like YouTube.
Puppy snatcher
The real mother of these pups didn't interested in taking care of them so the cat took matters into her own hands. Please forgive the cheesy announcer.
A friend of mine is leaving for NY, we're going to miss her.
Pink
Jacob's friends turned his apartment into an art installation by wrapping everything in pink. The pictures are funny, don't bother with the video.
Moveable heads
Do you remember the Scissor Sisters 
DIVX 6
I finally agreed to let the DIVX player on my laptop do it's upgrade. I'm not sure why I procrastinated as long as I did. I'm usually really good about doing upgrades. This time though I'm really disappointed in the results. I was just raving about their product the other day, pointing out its ability to open multiple windows at the same time. Would you believe they took that out of the new version? They did it to resolve a problem with the download manager. Are you kidding me? Download managers are a dime a dozen. In fact I have one built into my browser (Firefox) already. Why would I want another download manager? They took their best feature (multiple instances) and traded it in for a feature I have no interest in (download manager). Now I have to go digging around for an older version of the software and pray that I don't get stung by any sploits that might be luring around. I give the DIVX upgrade (version 6) a definite thumbs down.
Director's mother's cut
In this contest, artists take horror movie's and make posters for the child-safe versions of the movie.
Jimmy Kimmel is on the street asking women "What's in my pants?"
This poor guy gets powned in this funny practical joke.
Breakdancer
The original
"Patada subte Times Square" video featuring the kid getting nailed by a breakdancer in Times Square is spreading like wildfire but this remixes are even funnier.
asketchymess from gawker.com writes: Lesson Learned. Next time that kid steps out on the dancefloor, she is going to BRING IT!
What would happen if lolcats took over a TV channel? Read 
Somebody made a funny compilation of people sleeping.
The story of Sodom and Gomorrah with some artistic liberty thrown in.
Escapa
I have a hard time lasting longer than 16 seconds but on Barrie's hamster powered powerhouse I lasted longer than 30.
Exclusive nightclub
This poor Wheel contestant misspells "ekclusive". Another woman
mistakes Pluto for Mercury.
This video by 
Power outtage
After 237 days of uptime we were finally taken down at on May 13 09:45:01 for some kind of power problem. I wasn't here but I imagine the UPS powered it on as long as it could. It came back online on May 14 07:12:29. I'm reminded that finding a way to get the UPS to mail me warnings should make itself onto my todo list. Unfortunately the serial port is already ocupado. I actually remember exactly the last time I rebooted the machine, I was going to install the new OS when I realized they had completely messed up the install process. It might be a good time to look back into that as well.
Vending machine hack
The machines at my work don't look anything like this so I can't try it out just now. Let me know if this works.
War president
Joe at American Leftist make this picture with the images of the American service men and women who died in Iraq. Click on the thumbnail to see the larger image.
Metal mix
I made the best metal mix. Check out this playlist.
1 - don’t stop believin’ - journey 2 - pour some sugar on me - def leopard 3 - knockin’ on heaven’s door - guns n’ roses 4 - you shook me all night long - acdc 5 - walk this way - aerosmith 6 - paradise city - guns n roses 7 - for what it’s worth - ozzy osbourne 8 - sweet child o’ mine - guns n’ roses 9 - crazy - aerosmith 10 - welcome to the jungle - guns n’ roses 11 - love in an elevator - aerosmith 12 - sweet emotion - aerosmith 13 - miss you - the rolling stones 14 - beast of burden - the rolling stones 15 - under pressure - queen
SNL Celebrity Jeopardy
The Celebrity Jeopardy skits from SNL are some of their funniest skits. I've seen the countless times and yet they never fail to steal a laugh out of me. If you run a search on YouTube.com you'll find a bunch of compilations like the one below which features clips with "Sean Connery".
TheTech
Today I visited TheTech museum of innovation with my niece's third grade class. They have a machine that scans your head to make a 3D image. I've included it below.
The object below uses a slightly more obscure browser plugin called the Cortona VRML Client. You can install it by following the link.
Deathguild
Death Guild is one of the camps at Burning Man. I wish I could find the video of the Black Rock Couple I saw that one year. Now that was a fight. Women are brutal. They were tearing each other apart until she finally lunged across the arena, got him in a leg lock and jammed her tongue down his throat. Damn girls and their cooties.
The ministry of truth
If Rupert Murdoch (e.g. FOX) is your only source of news then you might want to take a second look at how you view the world. Check out this video that makes fox news look more like the Ministry of Truth than a reputable news organization. This is more evidence, if there are still people out there who doubt it, that the news of the future that's worth reading will be more likely to come from the same people who write blogs than from corporations like Fox News.
Hand-held interactive projector
Xiang Cao and Ravin Balakrishnan from the Dynamic Graphics Project at the University of Toronto are working on a
hand-held interactive projector.
Invisible wiring
Flatwire offers a solution for wiring your house after it's already built without having to cut into the wall: flat surface-mounted wiring. The kit costs $129. You can purchase a basic sconce light to go with the kit for an additional $49.
Pulp Muppets
Pulp muppets is a mash-up trailer of Muppets and Pulp Fiction by 416-Film
[RGS].
Some other really cool pulp parodies can be found at 10zenmonkeys.
Lady Troubles
In episode 1 of Net Hat Co's "Off the Wall" Wallby faces trouble finding himself a lady.
[RGS]
Millimeters Matter
In Samsung's Millimeters Matter commercial for their Ultra II, they feature mini pies being thrown at equally small victims.
[Neatorama]
Think before you post spoof
This is an AACS (Advanced Access Content System) spoof on the Think Before You Post ad. See the Everyone Knows Your Name for another one from the original campaign. See also the Die DMCA video summarizing the fiasco, and the DMCA wikipedia article.
For even more historical info, see Muslix64 and HD DVD movies.
Double time it's tussle time
WTF is going on in this country. Did someone enact martial law when I wasn't looking? Check out this crazy video from LA earlier this week. Check out other videos listed on BoingBoing. Put people in a state where they feel like they're living in fear under the control of a fascist government and it won't be long before they lash out. Democracy has taken another terrible blow. This time it came from within.
How to impress the ladies
This crazy little bird (the manakin) does a moon walk to impress the ladies. [Neatorama]
This is another cool way to Silverlight
Microsoft has released its answer to Flash. The executable is only a couple megs big and installs in under a minute. Look out Adobe. But how quickly will those existing .NET applications scale to work inside a browser? Here's a cool example of a scrapbook.
Denise Matthews
Remember Vanity Six of "Nasty Girl" fame? The head nasty girl herself "Vanity" has found God and made herself a minister. Her site has a really cool scrapbook. Don't miss the "donations page". I've included a snip of it below. We used to be neighbors and I didn't even know it.
This quote is from her website.
Hi, this is Denise. A lot of you may assume that I am rich, or well off, due to checks coming in from the records and movies and stuff in the past as 'Vanity'. When I gave my life to Jesus, I gave up any and everything attached to the name 'Vanity'. Vanity is dead.
This is from her 1982 (still a club favorite).
I guess I'm just use 2 sailors
I think they got water on the brain
I think they got more water upstairs
Than they got sugar on a candy cane
That's right, it's been a long time
Since I had a man that did it real good
If U ain't scared, take it out
I'll do it like a real live nasty girl should
iGoogle
Workdays can get pretty hectic. With so many things to get done by the end of the day I can sometimes be forced to ignore oddities in the day for the sake of crossing things off the list. That's what happened today when I opened my Google personalized homepage and noticed the little "i" just before the word Google on the logo. "Had this been there before" I wondered? "How could I not have noticed that before?" As it turns out I'm not as crazy as I thought. Nor had Mac zealots hacked the popular search engine in an attempt to prove their platform's superiority over Linux. Apparently the developers have been calling it iGoogle behind the scenes because it's "a name that connotes interactivity, internet, personalization all at once." Engineers wanted to call it that publicly from the start but were shot down by co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page.
Read my HOWTO to learn more about customizing iGoogle.