Author: Jeff Milner

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Jesus Cat

Everybody loves the Jesus Cat. (371k .swf with sound)

Jason Scott explains:

I happened to show this to an IRC channel, and linked to a “stuff I have lying around” directory on one of my servers.

Two days later, 91,000 people visited.

And it was that specific URL too, and since I didn’t put it anywhere other than that channel, once, it meant someone gave it to someone else, or pasted it in another IRC channel, and then it just exploded outward. I see 3,000 matches for the original URL, and if you spend the time browsing them, you find lots of commentary. I’ll save you time and tell you the general responses:

  • Hilarious!
  • Stupid.
  • That cat’s not REALLY walking on water.
  • This reminds me of endless other cat stuff HERE’S SOME LINKS
  • I will now riff on the idea of a cat as a savior for the next paragraph.

91,000 throws it way past anything I’ve done, ever with regards to serving a popular file. Some of the others might have more longevity over the Jesus Cat (the Goatse article, for example, is still packing them in a year later) but for sheer popularity, Jesus Cat stands above them all.

God bless his wet, matted little fur.

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Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts for 2008

The Oscar nominations for the 80th annual Academy Awards were released yesterday. The nominations in the class of Best Animated Short Film are:

  • I Met The Walrus (Josh Raskin) View
  • Madame Tutli-Putli (NFB, Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski) View
  • Meme Les Pigeons Vont Au Paradis (Even Pigeons Go To Heaven) (Samuel Tourneux and Simon Vanesse) View
  • My Love (Moya Lyubov) (Alexander Petrov) Part one, part two, part three
  • Peter And The Wolf (Suzie Templeton and Hugh Welchman) View DIVX version.

(via)

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Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture

Randy Pausch, gives a wonderful and exuberant “last lecture”. He’s currently struggling with pancreatic cancer but hasn’t let it get him down at all.

Almost all of us have childhood dreams: for example, being an astronaut, or making movies or video games for a living. Sadly, most people don’t achieve theirs, and I think that’s a shame. I had several specific childhood dreams, and I’ve actually achieved most of them. More importantly, I have found ways, in particular the creation (with Don Marinelli), of CMU’s Entertainment Technology Center (etc.cmu.edu), of helping many young people actually *achieve* their childhood dreams. This talk will discuss how I achieved my childhood dreams (being in zero gravity, designing theme park rides for Disney, and a few others), and will contain realistic advice on how *you* can live your life so that you can make your childhood dreams come true, too.

By the way, producer/director J.J. Abrams of Lost,and Mission Impossible III fame (among others) asked Randy if he’d like to be in the new Star Trek movie that he’s directing, sort of fulfilling another of Randy’s dreams to be Captain Kirk (he’s not going to be captain, but it’s still pretty cool).

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Amazing Ant Colony

This remarkable video from the documentary Ants! Nature’s Secret Power shows a glimpse into the fascinating world of the ant. The narrator describes the intricate ant nest as an accomplishment equivalent to the building of the great wall of China.

The structure covers 538 square feet and travels 26 feet into the earth. In it’s construction, the colony moved 40 tons of soil. Billions of ant loads of soil were brought to the surface. Each load weighed four times as much as the worker ant, and in human terms, was carried over 1/2 mile to the surface.

I also recommend the TED talk by Deborah Gordon: How do ants know what to do?

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Viral Marketing

I don’t usually like to send on viral marketing links, it feels like I’m doing someone else’s job for them, but I liked the creativity used in this online store (not sure what language it’s written in). I think they actually sell everything you see. Here’s the link, and just to warn you, there is a bit of audio.

(via)

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Lies, Damn Lies, Statistics, and Conspiracy Theories

I just finished watching the conspiracy theorist documentary, “Zeitgeist”.

Much like the show Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon? by Fox Television, Zeitgeist makes you feel like the lines between truth and fiction are not so black and white, and even though many of the claims made are far-fetched, or even beyond belief, it still makes for compelling viewing.

From the zeitgeistmovie.com site:

Zeitgeist, produced by Peter Joseph, was created as a nonprofit filmiac [sic] expression to inspire people to start looking at the world from a more critical perspective and to understand that very often things are not what the population at large think they are. The information in Zeitgeist was established over a year long period of research and the current Source page on this site lists the basic sources used/referenced and the Interactive Transcript includes exact source references and further information.

Now, it’s important to point out that there is a tendency to simply disbelieve things that are counter to our understanding, without the necessary research performed. For example, some information contained in Part 1 and Part 3, specifically, is not obtained by simple keyword searches on the Internet. You have to dig deeper. For instance, very often people who look up “Horus” or “The Federal Reserve” on the Internet draw their conclusions from very general or biased sources. Online encyclopedias or text book Encyclopedias often do not contain the information contained in Zeitgeist. However, if one takes the time to read the sources provided, they will find that what is being presented is based on documented evidence. Any corrections, clarifications and further points regarding the film are found on the Clarifications page. Non-Profit DVDs / Free Video Downloads are available through the Downloads page.

That being said, it is my hope that people will not take what is said in the film as the truth, but find out for themselves, for truth is not told, it is realized.

From the origins of Christianity to the US government’s involvement in the September 11th attacks to the Rothchild’s attempt to take over the world, this documentary spans most of the conspiracy theories I’ve ever heard about. It even has a take on JFK’s assassination. Surprisingly enough, the moon landing as a hoax didn’t make the final cut.


[Zeitgeist – YouTube]

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Salty Waffles

It’s usually a good thing when someone says they just can’t eat another bite. That is, when you assume it’s because they’re full—not when you accidentally added 6 times too much salt.

So for the record:

Half a teaspoon ? 1 tablespoon

I’m going out for brunch lunch.