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Miscellaneous

It’s Cold in Lethbridge

It’s currently -38°C in Lethbridge.

weather in lethbridge

That’s -36°F. Only a little colder and then numbers for Celsius and Fahrenheit converge.

Oh and did I mention that’s WITHOUT the wind chill factor. Yeah, with wind chill it’s more like -47°C!

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Miscellaneous

Spoilers

Wikipedia’s policy on spoilers:

Articles on the Internet sometimes feature a “spoiler warning” to alert readers to spoilers in the text, which they may then choose to avoid reading. Wikipedia has previously included such warnings in some articles on works of fiction. Since it is generally expected that the subjects of our articles will be covered in detail, such warnings are considered unnecessary. Therefore, Wikipedia no longer carries spoiler warnings, except for the content disclaimer and section headings (such as “Plot” or “Ending”) which imply the presence of spoilers.

It makes complete sense, but this policy change is something I would have liked to know BEFORE I read the plot summary of The Road, a novel I WAS looking forward to reading.

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Miscellaneous

Obama and all but one US Presidents share ancestor

A seventh grade student, BridgeAnne d’Avignon, and her 80 year old grandfather traced President Obama’s ancestry back to a common relative with most of the other presidents. They’re all related to the former King of England from 1199 to 1216, John “Lackland” Plantagenet.

You may remember John “Lackland” Plantagenet, or John of England from the characterization in Disney’s Robin Hood.

Disney's Prince John

Prince John and Sir Hiss as scanned from page 166 of The Illusion of Life Disney Animation by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston.

Yes, THAT Prince John. Aha.

According to BridgeAnne, the only former US president that does not share John “Lackland” Plantagenet as an ancestor is Martin Van Buren.

Video news link.

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Miscellaneous

Foursquare

Foursquare is the iPhone app that rewards social behaviour.

It’s not out yet, but according to The New York Observer, it should be available in time for SXSW.

“What we wanted to do is turn life into a video game. You should be rewarded for going out more times than your friends, and hanging out with new people and going to new restaurants and going to new bars—just experiencing things that you wouldn’t normally do.”

So, a video game that rewards being adventurous and outgoing in, you know, real life?

Kottke is calling it the new Dodgeball. One significant change I’m wondering about, will it work in Canada?

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Miscellaneous

Who was General Tso?

Q. What do you get when you mix Chinese Food with German food?
A. I don’t know, but an hour later you’re hungry for power.

What do you get when you mix Chinese food with other cultures? In this video, New York Times reporter Jennifer 8. Lee talks about her quest to find the origins of familiar Chinese-American dishes—and some of the interesting consequences of mixing Chinese food with other countries’ cuisine. The results are humorous, fascinating, and mouth watering.

Click to play or watch Jennifer 8. Lee talk about Chinese Food at TED.

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Miscellaneous

81st Annual Oscar Nominations

The Oscar nominations were just announced. Best picture nods go to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Reader, and Slumdog Millionaire. More after the jump.

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Miscellaneous

NFB Online!

The National Film Board finally went online today. Canadian classics like The Log Driver’s Waltz, The Cat Came Back, and Neighbours are now in reach of the people they were created for, Canadians! (you other folks from around the world are welcome too).

They’ve included links to various social networking bookmark sites and enabled embedding. Here’s a 2008 movie by Murray Siple, Cart of Darkness, about “a group of homeless men in North Vancouver who’ve married their love of shopping-cart racing with their business of bottle picking.” (NSFW for language).

They still have some kinks to work out, like the embed code linked to the wrong video and it isn’t standards compliant by default (nobody else does that yet either) — but in general it looks like they’re on the right track.

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Miscellaneous

Some Awesome Things

Enjoy these awesome things:

Hit play or watch Some Awesome Things at Youtube.

(via)

What’s really awesome is that it’s warm enough (here) to go play basketball and street hockey at the end of November. (Don’t get me wrong, climate change is very bad news for the long term).

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Miscellaneous

Dilbert Comic in your Feed Reader

Dilbert Comic in RSS format, with the cartoons! Yay.

http://feedproxy.google.com/DilbertDailyStrip

(via)

Categories
Miscellaneous

PowerDVD XP

I don’t use this software anymore:
PowerDVD XP
CD-Key:MV78219757293118
SN: 14165277