Drink This Show

The maker of this video built a robotic arm. His girlfriend’s kitten decides to attack it. One can only guess who wins.

Hey guys, it’s time to talk Apple.

I’m here to tell you how amazingly awesome the new iPad by Apple actually is after reading all the negative press it has received. However, before I tell you how great it is, I want to get some things clear. No, the iPad does not have multitasking capabilities. No, the iPad does not support Flash. No, it does not have photo/video capturing capabilities either. So there you go, those are the CONS.

Now for the PROS.

The iPad has third party support, which means it is able to run third party apps, without the pesky modifications. Which means I can play Papi Missile on a BIG SCREEN!  I am definitely looking forward to that. Also, HTML5, the still-developing next gen version of HTML, is probably the best resolvent for the Flash problem. Although the internet is not fully HTML5 yet, this is a very promising factor for Apple.

The price of the iPad is not cheap, but it is also not over the $1000 price tag that was predicted. The cheapest iPad is $500 and it has 16 GB of storage. A 3G compatible iPad will be available, with which you will need to buy the AT&T $30/month for unlimited data. There is also a 32 GB and a 64 GB version.

So there you have it, folks. The iPad is better than you think. So please stop dissing it until it comes out, and we can see how great it truly is!

Skribit is an Atlanta-based startup for bloggers that need help coming up with interesting topics to write about. Trying to start a community around your writing is hard, but asking for feedback and input is often one of the best ways to get the ball rolling. Skribit’s founders always ran into the problem of finding topics to blog about. They wanted to keep a regular blogging schedule to keep their readers happy but didn’t want to write about the same old stale news and such floating around on every other blog.

All you have to do is sign up for a Skribit account and then set up a simple widget that you can easily paste into your blog or website. Skribit then allows your readers to give a suggestion on a topic they want to read about, and vote on other suggestions that your readers have left. All of your suggestions are stored in unique interface that allows you to easily view all of your suggestions.

But what happens after your readers leave a suggestion? Once you see a suggestion you like, you can choose to link it with your blog post on the subject, and then any Skribit users interested in seeing a post based on that suggestion will be informed of your entry. You can also share suggestions through Facebook and Twitter to provide inspiration for your followers on those services.

Skribit has two types of accounts available for its users. A free account allows you to use Skribit with one blog and get up to 15 active suggestions at once. Skribit Pro accounts let you use the service on an unlimited number of blogs, take in unlimited suggestions and give you the ability to customize your widget or suggestions tab. Skribit Pro is $24 for a year of service, but if you use the promo code ackbar42 by January 27, 2010, you can get Skribit Pro for 50% off. Try Skribit out today!

A French software engineer said on Friday he was claiming a world record for calculating Pi, the constant that has fascinated mathematicians for millennia.

Fabrice Bellard told AFP he used an inexpensive desktop computer — and not a supercomputer used in past records — to calculate Pi to nearly 2.7 trillion decimal places.

That is around 123 billion digits more than the previous record set last August by Japanese professor Daisuke Takahashi, he said.

Takahashi, using a T2K Open Supercomputer, took 29 hours to crunch Pi to 2.577 billion digits.

Bellard took 131 days, comprising 103 for the computation in binary digits, 13 days for verification, 12 days to convert the binary digits to a base of 10 and three final days to check the conversion.

The gear cost “a bit less than 2,000 euros” (3,000 dollars), Bellard, who earns a living as a software consultant in digital television in Paris, said in an email exchange.

“It is a completely standard PC. The only unusual thing is that it has five 1.5-teraoctet hard disks. Mainstream PCs generally have only one 1-teraoctet disk.”

Bellard has placed on his website details of the achievement, including the use of a high-powered mathematical engine called the Chudnovsky algorithm that chewed through the computation.

Extracts of the 2,699,999,990,000-digit outcome have been published so that they can be compared to preceding records in order to gain independent verification, Bellard told AFP.

Files containing the digits are also being offered to any outside organism keen on hosting the record, he said.

Pi, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, kicks off with 3.14159… in a string whose digits are believed never to repeat or end.

Bellard said he was “not especially interested” in Pi’s digits but more in taking up the gauntlet of writing the software to carry out the arithmetic.

“Optimising these algorithms to get good performance is a difficult programming challenge,” he wrote.

If you like science and comedy, this is the guy for you.

I don’t know if you have heard yet, but Joan Rivers got stranded in Costa Rica recently. The woman at the desk wouldn’t let her board the plane because she had two different names in her passport. Her passport reads, Joan Rosenberg AKA Joan Rivers, Rosenberg was her late husbands name. She was stranded, could not use her credit card, and only had $100. Luckily there was another worker that felt sorry for her and drove her to the main airport.

With stories like this popping up all over the place, it is a wonder as many people fly as they do. Ever since this latest terrorist attempt, airport security has gotten stricter. Many people are being patted down, and do you know who they are? They are just average day Americans with kids that are flying to Disney World, the beach, or to see their families. I don’t mean to be racist, but why must security be as tight for people that check a bag per person, have 5 people traveling, including kids, and heading toward Orlando. In case they haven’t noticed, the latest terrorist attack was suspicious from the beginning. It was one foreign man, traveling by himself, he didn’t check any bags, and barely had any carry-on luggage if any at all, besides the bomb. That is the kind of person that needs to be checked more thoroughly.

When I travel, I carry a laptop, video camera, DSLR camera, and various equipment to go along. When I was going through the San Antonio airport, they had to check my backpack because they thought I had a weapon. I was pulled over to the side and the woman unzipped my bag. She said, “will anything cut me if I stick my hand in there.” What kind of question is that? It turns out they were wondering what my monopod was. They thought it was a bicycle pump. My question was, what the heck would I do with a bicycle pump to blow up a plane?

The point is that born Americans are being treated like terrorists, and yet the terrorists still get through the search. Something needs to change, and it needs to be done now.

Video of a pop up office set made of cardboard. Includes a chair and a desk! Great for travel and small apartments.

Cheating Wife – Watch today’s top amazing videos here

“Shake it up baby!”

We howl as we sing along to the new Beatles Rockband. The story mode of the game starts out in the Cavern Club with Twist and Shout. With each new venue, the music slowly progresses just as it did in real life. When you finish a song you earn pictures. There is a picture for getting three stars on a song and one for five stars, as well as one for finishing the entire venue. Once several pictures are earned, a rare video is unlocked of The Beatles doing whatever they do.

Instruments

The game includes Paul’s Hofner base, Ringo’s Ludwig drums, mic, and mic stand. The base is one of the most realistic video game controllers I have held. It has the length, the look, and the curves of a real Hofner base. When I started banging on the drums, they felt a little different, quieter, but different. After the first awkward song , I was getting the feel of the new drums and I was loving it. Unlike the first Rockband game, the base pedal in this one feels a lot sturdier. You might be saying, “What is so special about the microphone in this game?”. Well if you are just that far out of the loop, I’ll tell you. YOU CAN HAVE THREE PEOPLE SING AT THE SAME TIME! No! I did not stutter, you heard me right. It allows you to plug in three mics, all used with one controller. Anybody can sing any part they want. That way, certain people can be designated to sing different songs. The great thing about having the mic stand is that if you only have three people but want the have a full band, that one special person can sing and play an instrument at the same time!

Rating

I give it a 4 out of 5. It is a great game and The Beatles are amazing, but it won’t let you play other songs that you have downloaded for other Rockband games. You also can’t play songs you download on Beatles Rockband on other Rockband games.

Other than that, it is a definite buy.

Interesting Animation from Google Japan showing how Google Street really works. Check it out, and leave a comment telling us what you think!