Category: Sad

Amazing (and Scary) Japan Tsunami Video and Photos

These three videos have compiled a large amount of the amazing video footage into a few YouTube videos, In Focus has a pile of amazing photos spread among two articles, and The Big Picture does as well.

Update: Related, if you’re concerned about the damage to the nuclear plans and if they could cause more trouble, this Reddit AMA with a former nuclear emergency planner (and current nuclear engineer) will clear things up and put to rest some of the “Holy cow, the world’s going to be covered with radiation!!!!1111leleven!!11!” concerns.

And I just came across this video that was pretty intense and this video (direct download — right-click, save as if it doesn’t work in your browser) that was downright frightening (I think both of these clips are part of the above links, but not 100% sure).

Update on 3/14: These before/after satellite photos are absolutely amazing and terrifyingly frightening.

Sadly, There’s An App For That

Need to know when you’re going to have your next bowel movement? PooTime is here to help.

It’s The Inequality, Stupid

New Math Is Stupid Math

My oldest daughter is working on long division in her math class. This is their new method they’re learning to do it (sorry about the poor quality — it was a crappy phone cam image and then I tried to make it more readable in Photoshop).

How Is This Easier?

Now how does this new method made things easier? It involves several more steps, and gets a helluva lot more complicated as you had more digits to the dividend. And this is followed several pages of pretty pictures that is supposed to make this make more sense. As an old math geek, this personally makes less sense to do it this way, as it involves more steps in the long run. There are then pages of pretty pictures that try to make it easier, but it just confuses me even further. My daughter’s smart enough to understand the old-school method, and prefers it to the new-fangled method.

Am I missing something here, or does the attempt to make all math into pretty pictures just make folks understand it less?

I’m At Work, Missing The Super Bowl…

…but I have a TV on in the back room, and sadly turned it on to see Christina Aguilera screw up the national anthem.

Not only were the lyrics messed up, but seriously: Why can’t anybody sing the song normally, without doing the vocal gymnastics that some of these folks do when they sing it? Oh that’s right: It actually requires talent to hold a long sustained note, something that I don’t know if Christina Aguilera actually has. When sung right, our national anthem can bring you to tears. This had the same affect, but for different reasons.

US Gov’t Didn’t Think This One Through

The CIA has launched a taskforce to assess the impact of 250,000 leaked US diplomatic cables. Its name? WikiLeaks Task Force, or WTF for short.

Speaking of the WikiLeaks mess, this quote from EFF co-founder John Perry Barlow sums it up quite nicely:

We have reached a point in our history where lies are protected speech and the truth is criminal.

Could not have been said better.

The recent essay in The Atlantic entitled The Hazards of Nerd Supremacy: The Case of WikiLeaks is also worth a read.

Is That A Terrorist?

Or just an average person? Yes, it’s an older marketing campaign that’s been ripped apart, but the point remains: How did we get here?

Along the same lines, a great write up on how we should just close the Washingoton Monument and a Q&A with the folks from Wired’s Danger Room.

I personally am also wondering why the media is flipping out on the WikiLeaks cable disclosures when, really, Julian Assage is doing the job those same reporters should be doing. A great read on that subject. Really, is it Assage’s fault for publicizing the documents, or US security for letting them out? The Aussies blame the US.

A great quote I just found from the day after 9/11: “If terrorists are able to make us curb freedom of assembly, freedom of speech…they’ve won more than we can imagine.”

Anybody Up For Some Calvinball?

Calvin and Hobbes launched 25 years ago today. Reddit is discussing their memories about the comic and I agree: I never looked forward to reading the comics like I did then.

If you want to go back and check them out or find your favorite comic, there’s a great Calvin and Hobbes search engine. The complete collection will always be on my wish list

And Don’t forget: tigers will do anything for a tuna fish sandwich.

Reading/Watching Material

First off: Cheap plug. I’m playing with the Central Oregon Symphony this weekend, and I’d encourage you to come out and see the show. The piano soloist we have coming to play with us is phenomenal, and it’ll be a great show. Concerts are free, click here for ticket info.

OK, enough of the plugging, let’s get down to business (videos are after the jump).

Videos after the jump

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FarmVille Kills

Mom of the decade nominee here, folks.

Facebook and those stupid little addicted games are dangerous — especially if you’re the baby of a Facecrack-addicted worthless mom:

A Jacksonville mother charged with shaking her baby to death has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.

Alexandra V. Tobias, 22, was arrested after the January death of 3-month-old Dylan Lee Edmondson. She told investigators she became angry because the baby was crying while she was playing a computer game called FarmVille on the Facebook social-networking website.

You hear that, folks? Farmville kills.

(Actually, poor parenting kills, but that’s beside the point and doesn’t make for as good of a headline.)

Arrest records are here and follow-up story here.