So Long and Thanks for All the Fish

Well, real life has kept me quite busy (a good thing, as I have pretty much been living outdoors playing with the kids), so some of my online projects have gone a bit neglected. This blog would be one of those things.

Something came up today though that is extremely cool, and worth discussing. Google in August of last year bought a company named Neven Vision, who specialized in Biometrics. Why, you ask? Well, specifically the part of biometrics that they were interested in initially was facial recognition. Now you see where I'm going with this, who thinks that both Google image search and Picasa could benefit from being able to find photos with faces of people in them? I certainly see a large value in that.

Today (it may be gone by the time you read this), they are testing some of this functionality on their image search page. Add the following modifier "imgtype=face" to the end of an image search, and you can see what I mean. Example: change http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&q=jobs&btnG=Search+Images to http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&q=jobs&btnG=Search+Images&imgtype=face
and you will be greeted with the face of that billionaire who lives on that infinite loop thingy.

Very good stuff. Now, back to my hiatus status for at least a week.

5 of the Now

You'll notice a definite hip-hop flavor to this list. That's been the majority of my listening lately...perhaps MTV is to blame.

Queen & Wyclef Jean - The Platinum Collection - Another One Bites the Dust
This track rocks hard. Queen was hands down my favorite group as I was getting into Classic Rock back in high school, and Freddie's stripped-down vocals own the track here. Couple that with Wyclef's smooth production, and the seriously amped-up bass, and it's a winner.

KRS-One, Kanye West, Nas & Rakim - Classic (Better Than I've Ever Been) [DJ Premier Remix]
I like Kanye, but I bought this for the wealth of original hip-hop talent that he brought along. KRS-One alone would have been enough to intrigue me, but bringing along Rakim and Nas just improves it all. Good stuff. Thanks to Blender for pointing me in the direction of this track.

Rihanna featuring Jay-Z - Umbrella - Good Girl Gone Bad
This track has grown on me a ton, and is now my favorite track that she has done. Smooth, good beat, all-around great track. This was obtained at the request of Shannon who wanted it for driving music on a trip we were taking. I would give an iTunes link, but this won't actually be released until June. If you listen, make sure you have XM, as the crap that passes for FM radio cuts Jay-Z off the track entirely.

Busta Rhymes, DMX, Lloyd Banks, Mary J. Blige, Missy Elliott, Papoose & Rah Digga - Touch It Remixes (Explicit Version) - Single
Music tips can come from unusual places. This was on Nelly Furtado's Summer Top 10 list on MTV Hits recently. I liked her quite a bit (at least her music), but man she came off dumber than hell on that show. However, her pick of this is impeccable. The video trots out an endless lip of hip-hop celebs, and Mary J throws down with some force. The whole track has a very Missy-Timbaland influenced feel to it. Great track. Welcome back Busta.

DJ Khaled featuring Akon, T.I., Rick Ross, Fat Joe, Baby & Lil' Wayne - We Takin' Over - Single (USA)
I can't say I condone the theme of this song, but screw it, I like Fat Joe and his gang. Akon's unique vocals are a great contrast to people like Joe and Rick Ross. Still can't stand Lil' Wayne, but I'll let it slide this time. This and "Make it Rain" by Fat Joe are both incredible.

Now, one last tidbit to leave you with. It turns out MTV.com has tons of music videos that you can watch on your computer. Who knew? http://www.mtv.com/music/video/

I was impressed to see they had both new and old videos on there. I also did not expect Aesop Rock to look anything like this: http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/?artist=1225460&vid=65229

This makes me sad/angry

I'll get off of my soapbox here one of these days and start posting new content again, rather than just syndicating other news items, really I will.

However, I couldn't skip this one. The original slashdot link for this story is here. The summary from there is:

"A student at the Houston-area Clements High School was arrested, sent to an "Alternative Education Center" and banned from graduation after school officials found he created a video game map of his school. School district police arrested the teen and searched his home where they confiscated a hammer as a 'potential weapon'. ' "They decided he was a terroristic threat," said one source close to the district's investigation.' With an upcoming May 12 school board election, this issue has quickly become political, with school board members involved in the appeal accusing each other of pandering to the Chinese community in an attempt to gain votes."

I hate close-minded people screaming terrorism, censorship, etc. and running for the hills in general. I do my best to try to educate people when this is happening, to stop it from spreading. This one hits close to home though.

When I was in high school, I made a DOOM 2 map of my high school (a wad, for those who remember). It turns out our school was old enough that it had all sorts of cool, hidden areas that I had found my way into over the years. My personal favorite is the lofts above the auditorium, where there is likely still tagging with my name to do this day.

All of it combined to make a really cool world for my friend and I to play DOOM 2 over 9600 bps modem. Good old days indeed. Would I have had an inkling in my mind that anyone would ever consider something like that a threat? Hardly, and I bet this kid didn't either.

Texas, I'm seeing proof that your education system ranks near the lowest in the country. You don't have to look farther than the political personnel that have risen from your ranks in recent (or not so recent in certain executive examples) years.

What is this number?

How DiD i come up with a Very Dumb blog post? And, Ask yourself Could Sending it to the junK foldEr be verY smart?

In either case, I have no idea why my typing was so bad on the previous sentence, or what this number means: 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0

Why Google, Why?

Others have talked about how they really like the personalized Google homepage, and even the new themes. I personally no longer use a homepage, I never really close my browser so it wouldn't make much sense. I tend to just bounce between a few Google applications for the most part.

However, even those I know who do like the homepage would have to question Google's latest move I'm guessing. Since its start, the personalized page was at http://www.google.com/ig (OMG, how did I just link to your personalized homepage? --fun with n00bs). Apparently, that "ig" now stands for "iGoogle", complete with an ass-tastic logo and all.

Google, you should know better. Why did you stoop to this lowness?