Offbeat posts

Blogging can be rough (from a #firstworldproblems perspective, at least). You’re constantly being attacked for your opinions, bashed for your mistakes, and ridiculed for your presence as one of the biggest failures on the internet. I deal with it every day. Sometimes, it’s hard to muster the gumption to put words on the screen. As a parent, the education system in America has also been a source of angst. The list of problems with schools, parents, and the students themselves often makes me want to be a homeschooler. It makes it more difficult knowing that the internet offers so much potential as…

Those of us who grew up in the 80s are well aware that the culture, attitude, and utter cheesiness of the era was impossible to avoid. “Cool” had a much different meaning than it did in the 60s, 70s, 90s, and 00s, and the video you’re about to watch was likely considered “totally radical, dude” by the Apple employees who were able to watch it in 1984. “Blue Busters” was never aired publicly but was shows as a multimedia extravaganza at Apple’s 1984 International Sales Meeting that included on-stage dancers and a rendition performed by the original Ghostbusters theme singer Ray Parker Jr. It has been…

I was struck by something when I began reading Digg’s list of its “Ten stories you’ll be sorry you missed this year.” None of the stories had anything to do with tech. Oh, how times have changed. When Digg launched in 2004, it was almost completely a tech site, much like its predecessor, Slashdot. It was a place where people shared, commented and voted on the latest and greatest stories in tech and science. Part of the reason Digg quickly expanded its reach is because it did grow beyond its roots. By 2007, the Offbeat category was extremely popular and memes and quirky humor was as much at home on the site…

In the movies, it always start innocently. They are designed to help humans, to do the mundane or difficult tasks that are better suited for non-sentient robots rather than men and women. In the end, they always turn on us. Hopefully, the folks at the Swiss Federated Institute of Technology in Zurich are keeping that in mind as they develop the system for the Flying Machine Enabled Construction project. The video below displays where they are as of now in this first public demonstration: “The installation, called “Flight Assembled Architecture”, was conceived and built by teams led by my colleagues…

Tech exploded this year. There’s little to argue that gadgets and gizmos, social media and apps all had huge years as everyday life moved a step closer to becoming completely tech-driven for many in western society. What can we expect to see growing as the next big thing in 2012? That’s the question that our friends at GPlus took on in the infographic below. From group buying to crowdfunding, the trends of 2011 showed winners and losers in the tech industry for what they really were. 2012 should show no less of a boom. If anything, the explosions will be even louder. Click to enlarge. …

Twitter is used by different people for different things. It’s a communication tool for some, a news aggregator for others, and a way to spread a message for individuals and groups around the world. From the perspective of the US government, it can be a beacon of freedom as well as a source of international intelligence, which is why it makes no sense that Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman is leading the charge to have Twitter block propaganda being spread by Islamic extremists. The Senator cites a portion of the Twitter terms of service that states, “You may use the Services…

In the past, the best way to review the year was to look back through newspaper headlines and pick out the stories that were thought to be the biggest. It wasn’t an exact science and required intuition and subjective reasoning to decide what was most important to the people that year. Today, social media gives us a relatively-accurate indicator about what the general population finds interesting enough to discuss. 2011 was loaded with major events from falling regimes to natural catastrophes. Celebrities made foolish mistakes. Politicians tanked their careers. Tech companies rose. Tech…

Despite a massive Twitter campaign and a blog post that claims “Go Daddy no longer supports SOPA legislation” the company and their CEO have dodged questions about opposing the bill. In essence, they are taking a lesser role by not showing support for the bill. They have not opposed it. This week, they lost around 72,000 domain registrations. At a yearly discounted rate of $6.99 (most registrations are higher), that’s over half a million dollars per year. It is apparently not enough for them to speak out against the bill. Everyone from large corporations like Google down to small startups like…

Big races, big crowds, and big bets have been associated with Opening Day at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, CA, for decades. Traditionally opening the day after Christmas, the biggest names in horse racing converge to start the new season. This year, there’s a bit more attention falling on the track from two different industries: entertainment and technology. From the entertainment front, the upcoming HBO series “Luck” starring Dustin Hoffman and Nick Nolte will bring in patrons eager to see where the series, debuting in January, is being shot. Here’s the trailer for season 1: More importantly,…

The term “ancient” is relative and unfortunately I can remember using many of the machines in this video, but compared to what we have today, the various equipment used here are “older than the internet,” so to speak. It makes the end result, an equipment-generated variation of “House of the Rising Sun” by The Animals, even more epic. According to creator bd594, “My last couple of videos I built a couple of robot bands (yeah! machines that play actual instruments). These videos didn’t fair as well so I decided to go back to the basics and create a video staring my trusty old HP Scanner and a scrappy old…