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Friday, 09 June 2006

Ronaldinho

For those that were into yesterday's football video, here's another one of Ronaldinho getting a new pair of shoes from my boy Skylar:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6I22o2-fJgY

For those who are living in a cave (or in America), the world cup starts today! I'm psyched, partly because I like football, but mostly I live in a primarily Latino neighborhood and can walk half a block to the local bar that will be showing all the games. Also, it'll be a good way to practice my Spanish.

Of course, Skylar's got me beat. He's headed to Germany in 10 days - apparently they're showing all the games too, but on a MUCH better system.

UPDATE: For your viewing pleasure, here is the complete US schedule for all world cup games: http://www.soccertv.com/wc-us.cfm

Posted by flow Frazao on June 9, 2006 at 10:27 AM in Cool Stuff | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thursday, 08 June 2006

The Coolest Optical Illusion Ever

This is one of the most impressive optical illusions I've ever seen. Go to this page and stare at the black dot in the middle of the picture for 30 seconds. Then, after 30 seconds move your mouse over the image BUT DON'T TAKE YOUR EYES OFF THE BLACK DOT.

What a mind job.

Posted by flow Frazao on June 8, 2006 at 11:05 AM in Cool Stuff | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Recopilacion de Jugadas Espectaculares

Even non-football fans should appreciate this one:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AckaOQ_H5CY

Posted by flow Frazao on June 8, 2006 at 10:57 AM in Cool Stuff | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

US Allowed Zarqawi to Escape

Don't get me wrong, I'm all about today's mandatory "Yay USA!" cheer, but I still don't understand why we didn't stop this guy when we had the chance:

The United States deliberately passed up repeated opportunities to kill the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, before the March 2003 US-led invasion of that country.

[...]

Mr Scheuer was a CIA agent for 22 years - six of them as head of the agency's Osama bin Laden unit - until he resigned in 2004.

He told Four Corners that during 2002, the Bush Administration received detailed intelligence about Zarqawi's training camp in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Mr Scheuer claims that a July 2002 plan to destroy the camp lapsed because "it was more important not to give the Europeans the impression we were gunslingers".

"Mr Bush had Zarqawi in his sights almost every day for a year before the invasion of Iraq and he didn't shoot because they were wining and dining the French in an effort to get them to assist us in the invasion of Iraq," he told Four Corners.

"Almost every day we sent a package to the White House that had overhead imagery of the house he was staying in. It was a terrorist training camp . . . experimenting with ricin and anthrax . . . any collateral damage there would have been terrorists."

And here's a CNN report about the time the Iraqi army captured Al-Qaeda's Second In Command© but then let him go because 'they didn't know who he was':

Iraqi security forces caught the most wanted man in the country last year, but released him because they didn't know who he was, the Iraqi deputy minister of interior said Thursday.

Hussain Kamal confirmed that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- the al Qaeda in Iraq leader who has a $25 million bounty on his head -- was in custody at some point last year, but he wouldn't provide further details.

A U.S. official couldn't confirm the report, but said he wouldn't dismiss it.

"It is plausible," he said.

And finally, here's the good professor Juan Cole weighing in on the fact that none of this really matters all that much at all:

There is no evidence of operational links between [Zarqawi's] Salafi Jihadis in Iraq and the real al-Qaeda; it was just a sort of branding that suited everyone, including the US. Official US spokesmen have all along over-estimated his importance. Leaders are significant and not always easily replaced. But Zarqawi has in my view has been less important than local Iraqi leaders and groups. I don't expect the guerrilla war to subside any time soon.

Hopefully he's wrong.

Posted by flow Frazao on June 8, 2006 at 10:10 AM in Iraq | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Weird Earls

Wednesday, 07 June 2006

CIA Spider Web

Here's a pretty striking image of the 'spider-web' the US has woven of illegal detentions and transfers, with collusion of Council of Europe member states:


click to enlarge

Posted by flow Frazao on June 7, 2006 at 05:26 PM in America, Current Affairs, Iraq, Scary Bush, War on Terra | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Magnetism: The New Sixth Sense

A must-read article on people who've implanted small magnets into a fingertip to give them a sense of magnetism. It's no X-ray vision, but it's kinda nifty:

"We chose the ring finger primarily because of its size and relatively low importance in gripping action, so there was plenty of room for the implant and a lower chance of physically damaging the implant," Huffman explains. Jarrell puts it more bluntly, writing about the procedure in a BMEZine article from March: "'If you had to lose or seriously damage one of your fingers, which would it be?' This was our answer." But nobody's finger fell off, and Huffman's results were better than they'd imagined.

According to Huffman, the magnet works by moving very slightly, or with a noticeable oscillation, in response to EM fields. This stimulates the somatosensory receptors in the fingertip, the same nerves that are responsible for perceiving pressure, temperature and pain. Huffman and other recipients found they could locate electric stovetops and motors, and pick out live electrical cables. Appliance cords in the United States give off a 60-Hz field, a sensation with which Huffman has become intimately familiar. "It is a light, rapid buzz," he says.

Posted by flow Frazao on June 7, 2006 at 05:09 PM in Cool Stuff | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Jon Stewart Trounces Bill Bennett

Last night conservative douchebag Bill Bennett managed to tear his fat ass away from the slot machines long enough to appear on the Daily Show, where John Stewart took Bennett to school on the issue of gay marriage:

Stewart: So why not encourage gay people to join in in that family arrangement if that is what provides stability to a society?

Bennett: Well I think if gay..gay people are already members of families...

Stewart: What? (almost spitting out his drink)

Bennett: They're sons and they're daughters..

Stewart: So that's where the buck stops, that's the gay ceiling.

Bennett Look, it's a debate about whether you think marriage is between a man and a women.

Stewart:I disagree, I think it's a debate about whether you think gay people are part of the human condition or just a random fetish.


It's all downhill from there. Seriously, don't miss this one. It'll make your day.


Posted by flow Frazao on June 7, 2006 at 03:03 PM in America, Culture, Current Affairs, Television, US News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Weird Earls

Posted by flow Frazao on June 7, 2006 at 02:54 PM in Weird Earls | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Opt Out of Credit Card Offers

Register to stop getting credit card and insurance offers in the mail at OptOutPrescreen.com.

The site is endorsed by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. Using OptOutPrescreen's secure submission form (or their 888-567-8688 number), opt out (or in, ha!) to snail mail credit card offers stuffing your mailbox by entering your name, address, social security number and date of birth. Not only will this save you from the temptation of a new credit card, it might save a few trees and help Al Gore on his noble quest to save the world.

Posted by flow Frazao on June 7, 2006 at 09:51 AM in Cool Stuff | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

A Return to Blogging?

It's been a long time since my last update - almost a month and a half. It's hard to believe that so much time has passed, but there it is in plain sight. I've been so busy trying to get Kiva together that I really haven't had time for anything else. I've never felt so singularly dedicated to anything before. It's a great feeling, but sometimes I'm afraid I'll burn out. You can only work so many 15 hour days in a row.

The past few months have been really exciting. It's amazing for me to look at the Kiva website. So many things go through my mind - we've enabled well over $100,000 in loans to 9 different countries. That's a lot of money in America, let alone in Honduras or Cambodia or Uganda. Incredible to think about all the repercussions that money will have for years to come.

As for me, my skills have grown exponentially. I've done more in the past five months with Kiva than I did in two and a half years at a certain unnamed government organization where I used to work. My latest triumph has been the creation of a banner that people can post on their websites to promote Kiva businesses. You can see it in action over on the right.

Basically, I wrote a bunch of PHP code that generates some javascript code. Then, the javascript generates HTML that's wrapped up in CSS so that it formats correctly. All this is pretty much transparent to anyone who wants to use the banner on their site - for the end user, the banner on the right is produced by including one line of code in a web page:

<SCRIPT type='text/javascript' src='http://www.kiva.org/banners/bannerTower.php'></SCRIPT>

That's pretty damn cool, if I may say so myself. And if you had asked me to do it a year ago you would have gotten a blank stare. Not anymore though. I've rediscovered why I got into this field in the first place, and it's great to feel so inspired.

If I may be so bold as to quote one of my personal tech heroes:

"yes i love technology, but not as much as you, you see, but still i love technology, always and forever...."
- Kip Dynamite

Posted by flow Frazao on June 7, 2006 at 02:03 AM in Kiva/VEF | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack