This is a counter rant, so please excuse me. It regards a YouTube video parody turning a David Lynch comment on tiny cellphone screens being used to watch movies, into an iPhone commercial. A sensible debate in the ghettos of the YouTube comment system is beyond fanciful, so this gets a blog post instead. Take a look;

Ya think? Look here, cranky (all of Lynch, the person who made this parody and the person who posted it), no one is going to exclusively watch a worthwhile movie on the iPhone. If they do, they are indeed missing out. No one in their right mind does that. When I get an iPhone or an iPod touch, I’m going to have videos, cartoons and maybe even movies on it. Not because I think I’m experiencing the media in the manner the creator intended, but because I’ll be experiencing entertainment on a portable device in a manner I see fit. Quite frankly, with the horrendous drivel coming out of Hollywood these days, I don’t think I’d be missing much watching most movies on a 4″ screen. Either that or there’s some kind of special magic I’ll rob myself of, if I don’t watch Napoleon Dynamite or Borat in a theatre.

Get off your pretentious high horse you arrogant fucks, no one cares what you think. All we care about is having a sexy phones (this goes for any of the new generation phones with those nice, big, bright, gorgeous screens) with the ABILITY to play video. End of story.

Sorry about all that, here’s something to lighten the mood (since it’s so freakin’ awesome). God is a DJ;

I had the dubious “honour” of coming across this video on YouTube today, watch it and keep your scientific wits about you. Actually, the slightest shred of common sense will suffice;

Let me spare you the torturous, septic YouTube comments that resulted and tackle a few points about this video (most comments were anti-muslim, or racist or outrageously retarded regarding the age of some of the commenters).

Firstly, as should be blindingly obvious, this guy doesn’t have a clue about science. There’s no magnetic “zero” zone on earth, because the Earth’s magnetic field flows in a single vector around the planet. Here’s a brief run-down on the magnetosphere from the American Geophysical Union. If you’re in the southern hemisphere, your compass needle still points to the north. The only time it’ll point to the south is during geomagnetic reversal, in which case everyone’s compasses point to the geographic south (which becomes the polar north).
Secondly, the basalts around Mecca are not the oldest rocks in the world, that honour is awarded to zircon crystals from the Jack Hills in Australia. Mecca sits on the Arabian Shield which formed during the late Archean, at ~2500 Ma (at least according to the Saudi Geological Survey). The Jack Hills zircons are ~4100 Ma, so maybe Australia should be Islam’s most holy site? I didn’t think so

The rocks from the temples around Mecca are not made from pre-solar material. The chances that the only major, preserved pre-solar material fall in the world being the material those temples are made from is, excuse the pun, astronomical. Even if it were pre-solar material, there’d be a huge amount of pre-solar material elsewhere on Earth, and I’d probably be studying it.

There is no “infinite” radiation being emitted from Mecca. Infinity doesn’t exist for one thing. Secondly, if this is radiation pointing to heaven, then heaven changes its position every second of every day of every year. We live in a heliocentric solar system, not a geocentric universe.

I have an equally low respect for Islam as I do for all other religions. But I have an even lower respect for people pretending to be scientists (I’ll be taking to Neal in a later post) and others believing the bullshit they spin.

I’m out.

This is, by far, the coolest DS mod I’ve seen. The Zelda DS Lite. It’s currently going for US$610 on eBay.

Sourced from GoNintendo

I just completed the latest chapter in the Legend of Zelda Series, 12 days after I acquired it in conjunction with my Wii.

It took me just short of 60 hours to complete, despite my extensive experience with previous Zelda games, and I am still in awe of the experience. In my opinion, this is the best Zelda ever made and without doubt one of the greatest games ever made. I may so far as to write a full review at a later date, but for now; if you’re a gamer, buy Twilight princess and a Wii. After playing for an average of 5 hours a day, I’m inclined to do it again, even with the summer sun and its associated niceties beckoning me from within my self-imposed, curtain-assisted twilight realm.

The Nintendo Wii launches here in a mere 4 hours. In one hour I’m going to my local game shop for a launch party. I don’t think I could be more hyped, partly because it’s a new Nintendo console, party because of Zelda: Twilight Princess and partly because I’ve been anticipating this launch for 2 years. To quote Eric Cartman; “It’s like waiting for christmas, times a thousand“.

Though I’m quite the Nintendo fan, I’ve never actually been to a new console launch. I flew thousands of kilometres in 2001 to go to E3 and play the GameCube at its first public showing, which I suppose is pretty hardcore, but when launch came around, I simply ordered a cube from the USA and got it months before it came out here (NZ). It’s a first for me and I’m giddy with excitement.

I used to play with Lego a lot when I was young, I attribute it as being a contributing factor in my development as a fully-fledged geek. I also like Star Wars when I was young, also a contributing factor. It should have come as no surprise then, although it did, to discover that Lego has produced a collector’s edition Death Star set.

I remember the rainy days of my youth, before video games and the internet took over as my primary pass-times, being wholly devoted to making a new Lego “thing” out of bits of another Lego “thing”. I’m far too impatient these days, but just as demonstration of hpw extreme some people are, here’s two time-lapsed videos of the Death Star being built in Lego;

Remember how I said I’m too impatient these days? Well to emphasise that, I hereby agree with Scott Johnson that merely watching these videos, even in time-lapse form, makes me want to lie down and snooze. Urgh.

As a side note, I say “Lego” as the plural of Lego. I think saying “Legos” sounds retarded.

This very sad piece of news makes me a very sad panda. Comedy Central have demanded YouTube remove all Daily Show clips. Which is a bit of a bitch, since I don’t live in America, so the only version of the Daily Show I can reasonably expect to see legally is the lame International Version once a week on C4. C4 being the channel that is barely broadcast, more yelled from the top of a transmission tower located on the Moon, unless you have cable or satellite TV. Of which i have neither. Since I’m a poor student.

I mean, fair enough, it’s their content and they own the copyright. But it’s a daily news show of which you can’t buy DVDs. it’s not like they’d be losing much business, if any. But hey, if Comedy Central want to be a bunch of cunts, no worries. I’ll just have to “pirate” the show in another manner.

This is the music video for Weird Al Yankovic’s “White and Nerdy”, and it’s the funniest and coolest thing I’ve seen in a very long time. I’ve been a Weird Al fan since I was about 8 years old, so it’s great to see he’s still kicking some wicked parodies and keeping up with the current culture of nerdcore and the internet.

I should probably pimp my YouTube favourites page at this point, since I keep a lot of videos I like in there, so if you’ve got a few hours to waste, have a browse through there.