Valhalla Island

This is it:

1. Go to the Wikipedia random page. The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2. Go to Random quotations. The last four words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3. Go to Flickr’s explore the last seven days. Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

Put it all together, that’s your debut album.

Mine: Tom Van Mol “The pure scientific mind” and this is my album cover. I love it all except the album art.

Blockbuster Video’s breakthrough idea to compete with digital downloads and NetFlix: An in-store kiosk from which you download movies onto a portable device. If it wasn’t already obvious how out of touch traditional film companies are this takes it to an insane level of misunderstanding. Via Daring Fireball.

I forgot to link to this when it was released but there’s some fantastic, long and in depth discussion in this episode on the Windows vs. Mac “debate”. Starts at about 9 minutes.

It’s some beautiful footage. I’d love to make something like that but what I’d love even more is to experience it through my own eyes, rather than through a lens. As Jeff in the comments points out:

Looks to me like you completely missed summer while hiding behind the camcorder.

Via Lachlan.

A Macbook Pro with blackboard paint on the lid. This is so stupid it hurts.

And for ages I’ve been trying to make my Mac more useful for taking notes / to dos. The problem is, that whenever you remember something to do you have to switch it on, power it up, find the application, and then the moment’s gone. And I can never find my notebook when I want it.

Here’s an idea, use a pen and paper if it’s so hard to switch on and power up your computer. There’s a reason schools switched from blackboards to whiteboards — blackboards suck. Do you really want to carry around messy chalk and an eraser? And if he can’t find his notebook when he wants it, why doesn’t he keep it with the computer which he can evidently always find. Argh, this is so stupid!

Will is covered in water so it makes a really cool exploding kind of effect. I love the few which you can see the puncher’s face in the corner. Via Waxy.

I think this is just awesome!

I am closing after the MV Dixie Queen has passed upstream.
I am opening for the MV Dixie Queen, which is passing upstream.

Via Waxy.

Inspirational story of adventure from Will Chaffey who came to Australia from the US with no plan as an 18 year old. You can listen by clicking his name underneath the photo or subscribe to the feed and download it from there. The Conversation Hour is my favourite Australian radio show, it’s worth subscribing to for the daily updates.

What the post doesn’t tell you is that if you run it through a server in the United States you’ll be able to watch all that video content sites like Hulu don’t let you watch from outside the US. I was aware of this process’s existence but I had no idea it was so very easy. It’s completely changed my world.

Fill the fun bar all the way to the top and keep it there for a few seconds to have a successful date.

All transferrable to real life. Again, Via Waxy.

A photo set comparing scenes in GTA IV with real life scenes in NYC. It’s unbelievably realistic. I’ve always dreamt that when I’m a multi-zillionaire I’d have a GTA style game modeled after my town, I should just move to New York. Via Waxy.

An Applescript to find the point where your site has been referred to, something I’ve wanted for a long time. A commenter points out that the same can be achieved with a custom stylesheet and CSS3 attribute selectors like a[href=http://valhallaisland.com], I love attribute selectors but never thought to use them like that before.

I don’t know if this is frightening or extremely cool. It’s only 40 feet underwater so if things did go wrong I suppose you could get out alive. Apart from the “I’m in a kind of submarine” factor, I think it’d be amazing and for only $15,000 a stay, what a bargain! Via Uncrate.

Sidenote: One of the most terrible Flash websites ever. Screens take forever to load with super slow animation and content is interrupted with “tips” on how to use the website.

Absolutely incredible huge scale animation on the streets of Buenos Aires. I can’t even begin to imagine the amount of work this must have taken. Via Andrew K.

Incredibly cool Javascript block building, isometric thing. It’s hard to explain what it is, just head over and start playing with it or read The Man in Blue’s blog post.

Fantastic screen saver for OS X and Windows.

In the middle of the night. Absolutely amazing photographs. Click to see higher resolution versions (but not much higher).

A $6000 giant inflatable ice berg is the first thing I’d buy as a multi-zillionaire.

A graphical programming language with source code that looks like abstract paintings. Via Waxy.

Mark Pilgrim on Microsoft shutting down it’s PlaysForSure servers that verify the music you “purchased” is actually yours. The ability to play PlaysForSure music will soon be extremely unsure.

A service that creates a feed of upcoming album releases based on the music you listen to at last.fm. This was made for me! Keeping track of when your favourite bands are releasing music is a burdensome task and often I don’t find out about new releases until months after they’re out. This service solves that and all I need to do is type my last.fm username and subscribe to a feed. This is a seriously fantastic app. Via Waxy.