Space Ninja

• Ronald D. Moore’s new show Virtuality
  Basically, it’s about a 10-year starship voyage where the crew spends their time in a holodeck to avoid going insane from boredom.
  Tags: ronmoore, virtuality, startrek, holodeck, virtualreality, television, scifi
• Starfleet Bridge Illustrations
  This is pure nerdly gold. Beautifully illustrated cutaway views of the bridge of every major ship featured in Star Trek, from TOS all the way through Enterprise.
  Tags: enterprise, startrek, cutaway, illustration, bridge, scifi, geek, diagrams
• Del Toro Signs To Helm Hobbit
  "Del Toro will move to New Zealand for the next four years to work with Jackson and his Wingnut and Weta production teams. He’ll direct the two films back to back… dealing with the 60-year period between The Hobbit and [Fellowship]."
  Tags: guillermodeltoro, peterjackson, wingnut, weta, lotr, thehobbit, hobbits, jrrtolkien, tolkien, newzealand, movies
• Video: How Hillary Can Still Win
  Hilarious video explaining how simple it would be for Hillary to win the nomination.
  Tags: video, parody, clinton, obama, politics, president, campaign, election, votes
• Amnesty International presents UnsubscribeMe.org
  "Unsubscribe is a movement of people united against human rights abuses in the war on terror. The threat of terrorism is real, but trampling over human rights and abandoning our values is not the answer."
  Tags: unsubscribe, humanrights, violations, torture, waterboarding, values, terrorism, politics, abuse
• Rep. Monique Davis to atheist Rob Sherman: ‘It’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists!’
  "This is the Land of Lincoln… where people believe in God, where people believe in protecting their children… What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous."
  Tags: atheism, religion, politics, illinois, lincoln, bigotry, wtf, moniquedavis, robsherman, government
• The Door-Close Buttons in Most Elevators Don’t Do Anything
  "In most elevators, at least in any built or installed since the early nineties, the door-close button doesn’t work. It is there mainly to make you think it works. It does work if… a fireman needs to take control. But you need a key… to do that."
  Tags: elevators, buttons, doors, close, doorclose, firemen, engineering
• Eric Meyer on Reset Stylesheets
  "This isn’t a field of straightforward answers and universal solutions. We are often faced with problems that have multiple solutions, none of them perfect. To understand… which of them is the best choice in the situation—that’s knowing your craft
  Tags: ericmeyer, css, web, standards, reset, design

“…Not because I’m some patchouli-scented, fuzzy-headed, ‘information wants to be free’ info-hippie. I’m at it because I want to fill my bathtub with money and rub my hands and laugh and laugh and laugh.”
–Cory Doctorow, from the forward of Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town

I’ve mentioned before that Zoe loves reading, but it’s really become one of her favorite things recently. She will happily sit on the floor paging through one of her picture books for ten minutes, quietly turning the pages, and pointing at things she likes. (Based on how often she points to their photos, her favorite things right now are kittens, puppies, and little babies.) I like to refer to this as “reading for comprehension,” and it marks a big change from just a month or two ago when books existed mostly to be manipulated. She would chuckle at the photos sometimes, or chew on the spine, but what she really liked was turning the pages. If you tried to read with her, and you didn’t let her just turn the pages as fast as she could, you would end up with a cranky little girl. Now, though, she’s all about the content. She’ll open a book to a page and spend a minute or two admiring the subject matter, and then turn to the next page.

She even knows which way is up — the other night, I watched her grab one of her books, and when she realized it was upside down, she set it down, stared at it for a second like she was figuring out the best approach, and then crawled in a circle around to the other side of the book.

The best part is her reading voice. Like most one-year-olds, Zoe spends all day long babbling and chattering away. Since she just repeats the same baby syllables over and over, the only real meaning that gets expressed is in tone of voice. When she’s upset, she get shrill and loud. When she wants attention, she gives short, sharp cries. When she’s happy, she quietly burbles, and when she’s excited she tends to shriek with joy. But she has a whole different tone of voice that she only uses when she’s reading to herself. It’s kind of cheerful and sing-songy, and Annie got a nice video of it the other night.

• Video: Utah Saints - Something Good ‘08
  "It was the freshest move I’ve ever seen, like he was floating on air."
  Tags: video, dancing, runningman, mchammer, utahsaints, music
• Video: How To Create a Baby-Headed Dancing Frog
  "Babies are cute, and so are dancing frogs. So what could be cuter than joining the two together?"
  Tags: video, babies, dolls, frogs, dancing, creepy, funny, howto
• Oprah Launches Own Reality
  "Winfrey also maintained that, in her new universe, all women will be strong and confident while retaining their femininity, pollution will not exist, and no one will die of disease without first making an appearance on her show."
  Tags: oprah, reality, parody, theonion
• Video: Mario Theme Played with RC Car and Bottles
  Someone has WAY too much time on their hands. But it does sound pretty cool.
  Tags: mario, nintendo, supermariobrothers, rc, remotecontrol, bottles, music
• Genesis 1 - LOLCat Bible Translation Project
  "Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem… At start, no has lyte. An Ceiling Cat sayz, i can haz lite? An lite wuz."
  Tags: lolcats, bible, christianity, creationism, religion, parody, cats, genesis

“In three years’ time, 20 typical households will generate more traffic than the entire Internet today.”
–Jim Cicconi, vice president of legislative affairs for AT&T