When life gives you lemons, turn them into spray bottles. This nifty little attachment lets you do just that.

Tags: food

Bubble Tea in Indonesia

Designed by Adam Mulyadi.

Finally, Boba's systematic ordering process takes the mystery out of ordering bubble tea. Take a modernist grid as your base, big type for flavor, top it off with bold colors and add some cute icons for sweetness and, there you have it, bubble tea made easy.

Visit Boba.



For bigger menu images see this post at Art of the Menu

When I moved to France way back when, one of the first things I set out to buy was a kitchen scale. Kitchen scales are not difficult to find in Europe because most of the countries use weights for baking and in every other type of recipe. In spite of their ubiquity, it was hard to find a scale that measured in both in grams and kilos as well as ounces and pounds. Since few use those standards of measurement in Europe, even kitchen scales that I’d used in America would have a little toggle switch somewhere on them (often on the underside) to shift back and forth between ounces and grams. But whenever I looks at scales in Europe, there was invariably a gaping hole where that switch would be.

(I always thought it odd that they would leave a switch off the same kitchen scale that they make for one part of the world and not the other. Seems to me that it would be easier to make one scale for everyone. But on the other hand, it would also be easier if everyone used the same system of measurement.)

Continue Reading My Kitchen Scale...

Louisiana State University student Jordan Lefler has written his master's thesis on LOLspeak, the language used by I Can Has Cheezburger cats with image macros.Lolspeak, which I characterize as an internet dialect of English that is used in conjunction with images of cats, exhibits distinctive variations and patterns which differ from those of standard English. Lolspeak has influenced other language use and may have a significant impact on the English language, due in part to the internet‟s role in the evolution of English (Crystal “Language and the Internet,” 2006:26-27). To approach this data, I created a multi-modal discourse transcription technique for analyzing Lolspeak utterances within the context of their images based on Grounded Theory (Glaser and Strauss “The Discovery of Grounded Theory” 2007:9). I implemented this technique with randomly collected Lolspeak data that I collected from the website www.icanhascheezburger.com. My work has dual future implications in that it could be used to further studies of Lolspeak or other internet dialects/ languages, and the transcription method I have invented could be beneficial to those looking at other forms of multi-modal discourse.The complete 129-page book can be found in .pdf form - herevia

If you look up the term "First World Problems" in the dictionary, you will probably find this video.via

Stephen Wildish is back, testing your knowledge on the movies of the 1970s.Stephen WildishPreviously: The 1960's Film Alphabet, The 1980's Film Alphabet, The 1990's Film Alphabet

Chris Ziegler, interviewing Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha for The Verge:

We also talked about OEMs’ perennial press to skin the operating
system — a trend that looks poised to continue in Android 4.0 —
which developed into a full-blown conversation about the conflict
between the mythical “stock Android device” and the realities of
business between manufacturers like Motorola and carriers.
“Verizon and AT&T don’t want seven stock ICS devices on their
shelves,” he said, insisting that he “has to make money” and that
there simply isn’t a way to profit on a device that isn’t
differentiated. “The vast majority of the changes we make to the
OS are to meet the requirements that carriers have.”

Negotiations with the carriers:

Android handset makers: Here are our phones. How would you like us to change them so that you will sell them?

Microsoft: Here’s $200 million. Please sell our phones.

Apple: Here is our new phone. It comes in black or white. We will let you sell it.

 ★ 

The sound and picture are poor, but the entirety of Errol Morris' A Brief History of Time is available on YouTube.

Featuring music from Philip Glass, the film is a documentary about Stephen Hawking and his ideas about the universe. Morris recently stated on Twitter:

Yes. I plan to re-release [A Brief History of Time]. (It was never properly color corrected and is one of my best films.)

The film is difficult, if not impossible, to find on DVD and isn't available on Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, or iTunes. And as far as I can tell, the soundtrack was never released either.
Tags: A Brief History of Time   Errol Morris   movies   Philip Glass   physics   science   Stephen Hawking   video

I use DevonTechnologies’ WordService ones on a daily basis.
∞

SnapRuler: A screen measuring tool that can automatically snap to edges and corners on screen, and lets you copy measurements to the clipboard in CSS-, HTML- or Objective-C-friendly formats.

Mac App Store

Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States. If current trends continue, about one in three of readers will die from cancer. Are there ways to apply today's powerful computers and mathematics to defeat this disease?

What a great time for new music releases! Here's the first single from the forthcoming Magnetic Fields album, Love at the Bottom of the Sea. The album is full of bells and whistles in the good way. And synths abound. Synths! [Via]
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See more posts by Alex Balk
4 comments

I have rarely in my life seen something as physically impressive as this performance of Swan Lake:

It's not just what she does, it's how rock-still she is while doing it. Just, wow. (via ★interesting)
Tags: ballet   dance   video

There is a Unicode character and an HTML character for the skull and crossbones.

Please work it into your testing accordingly.

Irish hand-dancing duo Suzanne Cleary & Peter Harding, previously seen doing the Pam Pa l'Americano, are back hand-dancing to a Ting Tings's remix of Hands.via

C.G.P. Grey delivers a swift message for the History Channel.C.G.P. Grey

Fiver.com is one of those places where people share things they're willing to do for $5. Here's one of seller cathy01's ads:I'll be your girlfriend on facebook for 10 days. I'm Cathy, a 23 year old student and I live in New York city. There's a second option by the way: If you want a few messages (3 max.) on your profile to make somone jealous that's also possible, just send me the message(s) and the facebook-link! byebye!x (I don't! do any promotional stuff!Fiverr | via

via

Coachella recently released it's line-up for this year's edition, which will be held over two weekends, April 13-22.Coachella

Whee!

Jim Stengel:
What is especially interesting about Jack Daniel’s beginning to advertise regularly is that demand then exceeded supply. “From the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s, it was on allocation,” Eddy said. “The sales representatives would literally go into an establishment and let them know how many bottles or cases they could have. When other companies would pull back from advertising, Jack Daniel’s spent money on ads to tell people they couldn’t get it.”
I love that.
∞

I'm not looking to kick up any political dust here, but this is quite an intriguing trailer. Horror master Tobe Hooper (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Poltergeist) shot a film in the United Arab Emirates last year called Djinn, about a couple who return from a trip to the US to discover that their apartment is haunted by a malevolent being. There were recent reports that distributor Imagenation Abu Dhabi was going to shelf the film for being "politically subversive", but new reports say it's still on track to be released this year. Italian site MovieSushi (via STYD) found the first long promo trailer, and it's honestly rather boring. Take a look! ›››

Continue reading: Watch: Trailer for Tobe Hooper's 'Politically Subversive' Horror 'Djinn'

Reaver:
Reaver implements a brute force attack against Wifi Protected Setup (WPS) registrar PINs in order to recover WPA/WPA2 passphrases.

Via Lifehacker’s step-by-step guide to using Reaver.

A Rube Goldberg before your first cup of coffee. This guy's amazing....Visit Devour to watch this video.

I love the combination of a boxy grid-based design and great product photos in use at the Unit Portables site. You immediately get the feeling that their products are genuinely unique. However, my favorite part of the design is the way they have pulled the color of the main products displayed on the homepage onto the box below. It works especially well with the strong red and blue bags. Nice touch! Via @tomcavill.

Capture: Launch Capture on your iPhone and it starts recording video immediately, saving the resulting recording to your camera roll on quit.

App Store

Justin Blanton on using Click-to-Flash in Chrome as a built in feature:
The thing is, with Chrome, you don’t need a plugin or extension to ensure that Flash (or any other type of content that requires a plugin) is blocked by default, but easily enabled when needed; this sort of functionality is built into the browser.
He also has an impressive list of extensions for Chrome.
∞

Nice overview of using Services in Mac OS X — this can be a really powerful tool.
∞

Artist: The Big Pink
Album: Future This
Release date:
17.01.2012

Tracklist: 1. Stay Gold
2. Hit The Ground (Superman)
3. Give It Up
4. The Palace
5. 1313
6. Rubbernecking
7. Jump Music
8. Lose Your Mind
9. Future This
10. 77

Style:
Experimental Indie Shoegaze


read more

Another video to accompany the Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi album Rome has been released, for "Two Against One", a song featuring Jack White. The grim, apocalyptic, surreal video was directed by Chris Milk. He also created the video for the Rome track "Black", and will soon have a hand in its feature film.

Watch the video for "Two Against One" below:

Elizabeth Olsen — the younger non-twin sister of the Mary-Kate and Ahley — stars in Chris Kentis and Laura Lau's remake of the 2010 Uruguayan film that unfolds in real...Visit Devour to watch this video.

The strange tale of how the man behind Tom & Jerry made a twelve-minute Hobbit movie in a month to exploit a Hollywood contract loophole.

View Article

FAPG:
FAPG means Fast Audio Playlist Generator. It is a tool to generate list of audio files (Wav, MP3, Ogg, etc) in various formats (M3U, PLS, HTML, etc). It is very usefull if you have a large amount of audio files and you want to quickly and frequently build a playlist. It is coded in C to be as fast as possible, and does not use any specific audio library (like ID3Lib).

If you work with credit card processing, this graphic will explain how the credit card is derived.

You can use it to better create test data or whatnot.

To better serve our customers both in functionality and security we have made some browser support decisions for 2012. While you can always access Viddler from a PC, Mac or Linux we have tightened up a support plan for browsers.

Viddler will support the current stable release of a browser and the prior version. This will start 6 months after the newest stable release has been published.

Example: if IE version ‘x’ comes out tomorrow, we will continue to support and test the previous version of IE for the next 6 months and we will make sure our site works in full in IE version ‘x’ by the time we drop testing for the previous version. This does not mean the site will cease to work with the previous version, just that we are not fully testing the previous version any longer.

We have made these decisions so that we can provide our customers with the best platform in all current major browsers.

* We recommend using a supported browser to get all of Viddler’s newest features:

IE 8+ | Windows
Firefox 3.6+ | Windows Mac Linux
Chrome 12+ | Windows Mac Linux
Safari 4+ | Mac Windows
Opera (We do not test in Opera but believe our site should fully work) | Windows Mac Linux

* These were the current browsers and versions as of January 9th, 2012.

AirPlay, the ability to wirelessly stream music out of your iOS device to nearby compatible speakers, is a pretty big deal to iPhone and iPad owners. Alas, thanks to some pretty silly pricing on AirPlay speaker sets, they've remained relatively uncommon and out of reach. Now Griffin's trying to capitalize on that market gap with its new audio amp, which straps on an AirPort Express and transforms any old set of stereo speakers into an AirPlay station.

The Griffin Twenty hooks up to the copper connectors from your speakers using spring-loaded clips on its back. It comes with an S/PDIF optical input and includes the necessary TOSLINK cable to connect to your AirPort Express. A chunky volume knob is also included for more refined...


Continue reading…

Ion Audio has introduced a couple new game controllers for your favorite iOS device, and — as you've probably guessed — CES 2012 is the place to check them out. The first, iCade Core (price TBA), is a desktop unit that is compatible with the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. Essentially a compact version of the original iCade cabinet, the device features a cradle that you can swivel from portrait to landscape mode, depending on the orientation of the game you happen to be playing. iCade Mobile ($99.99), on the other hand, is a handheld controller for iPhone and iPod touch that boasts a D-pad, four shoulder buttons, and four buttons on the face. Both should be available in the second quarter of this year.


Continue reading…

Lana Turner (as ‘Samarra’) stands before a decidedly masculine rendition of the goddess Astarte in MGM’s opulent production of The Prodigal (1955).Having changed hands several times over the decades, the dilapidated statue now resides in a neighborhood backyard in Lumberton, New Jersey.

So far we have small korg-like mod wheels, a cryptic model name, and maybe some step faders/switches? Keys look on the small side. http://www.casiomusicgear.com/

Unless we find it does something new sound-wise, I’m not looking forward to it yet.

Updated:

Related: My Synthesizer Programming Trick SabaTwoTiga VST Released (free) Friday Link Load: $45 Analog Synth DIY

The X-Pro1 mirrorless camera isn't official but you can already pre-order a trio of lenses for Fujifilm's first mirrorless camera — the same three lenses leaked by the French magazine Réponses Photo. Both the Fujifilm 35mm f/1.4 and 18mm f/2.0 lenses are listed for $499.95 on Amazon, with the 60mm f/2.4 macro offered for $599.95.





We're also getting a first look at what's purported to be the LC-XPro1 leather case for the 83 x 138 x 38-mm X-Pro 1 as well as the EX-X20 flash from origins unknown. But at this point, we're guessing you're just as desperate for information about Fujifilm's hot little shooter as we are while awaiting its anticipated announcement at CES this week.


Continue reading…

Whether you're stuck inside and need to break out or you've found locked outside and need to get in, having the key or password is rarely your only option. Here are our top 10 favorite tricks for breaking into and out of nearly any locked down environment. More »

Over in the forum area of dPS we have an area called ‘Tutorials’ where members submit their own tips and tutorials for the community.

In recent weeks a wonderful series of articles on the topic of Light has been published by one of our wonderful members – Richard Taylor.

Rather than republish the tutorials here on the blog I would strongly urge you to check out what Richard is producing. So far he’s up to 5 parts (there could be more to come). Check them out at:

Light – An Introduction
Light – How much?
Light – Indoors
Light – Outdoors
Light – High Contrast

A BIG thanks to Richard Taylor for posting these (and many other) great tutorials. Check out more of his work on his Flickr Stream and on 500px.

Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.

Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.

Understanding Light: A Series of Tutorials

Cringely, back in 2008, predicting an Apple acquisition of Adobe:

The major point here is that Adobe is in play, or at least Apple
thinks so. The company has plenty of cash and stock to do the deal
and plenty of incentive, too. Apple’s goal in acquiring Adobe
would be to control first Flash and second Adobe’s emerging Air
application platform. Adobe announced this week a broad industry
initiative to extend Flash to mobile devices, but Apple wasn’t a
participant. Why bother if you intend to shortly own Flash
outright?

Funny thing is, Apple has a done a pretty good job controlling Flash, at least in mobile. Anyway, you could make a lot of money betting against Cringely’s predictions.

 ★ 

Windows/Android: If you're looking to root your phone but don't want to pore over complicated instructions, a new program called Unlock Root claims to root a ton of different phones with ease. More »

The 19th century reference guide for childhood remains a classic


While today's youth are more likely to face a touch screen than a vast expanse of wilderness, the principles established in The American Boy's Handy Book remain as valuable as ever. A comprehensive reference for the practical skills all boys (and girls) should still know, the guide has remained in circulation since the original 1882 publication, offering detailed, approachable instructions and diagrams on how to rig river boats, defend yourself in a snowball fight, choose a dog, use your finger as a match, put on a dramatic rendition of Puss-in-Boots and more.

Daniel Carter Beard, founder of the Boy Scouts of America, originally published the tome as a guide for young men to learn essential skills that would carry them through adulthood. As a renaissance man of sorts, enchanted with the magic of childhood, Beard worked an author and illustrator when he wasn't scouting. His drawings graced the pages of several works by Mark Twain, and in the Handy Book bring to life the skills he imparts with charm and practicality.

The lessons of the book are organized by season to ensure that youngsters have year-round inspiration to pursue their interests, whether that be spear fishing, flying kites or reading minds. The instructions and illustrations are perfect for adventurous children or grown kids looking to recapture some of their lost youth. The most recent iteration of the book from Tuttle Publishing prints the vintage illustrations in a hardback edition wrapped in coated canvas.

Record MP3: A web app that lets you record an MP3, then share it.

Via Boing Boing.

Photography artist Jean-Francois Fortou creates out-of-proportion photo sets and captures himself in them.via

Five things that intrigue me right now:

1) Will Wright Is Back. Whah! “If we had that much situational awareness about you and at the same time we were building this very high-level map of the world, and I don’t just mean where Starbuck’s is, but all sorts of things like historical footnotes and people you might want to meet. I started thinking about games that we can build that would allow us to triangulate you in that space and build that deep situational awareness.” And maybe it includes a TV component! (His 2007 SXSW keynote is still my all-time favorite.)

2) Just.Me. Looks interesting, love the name.

3) Denton’s Memo. Okay, this commenting system (Pow-Wow) could be the real deal. However, I doubt that the product itself will be that revolutionary — I mean, how much can we do with comments? But the power will be in pairing it with an editorial agenda. Imagine if something like Reddit or Metafilter were more programmed, had the power of a media enterprise around it.

4) Newsright Launches. Sigh. These guys keep trying.

5) VYou 2.0. VYou comes out of Beta on Monday.

If you have a snoopy roommate or a curious sibling, this trick will help you find out if they've been using your computer when you're not around. More »

I am breaking my newly established “don’t link to anonymous type sites rule” because turns out his name is ‘Mike’ — close enough for me, my rule is still intact — this is simply too awesome.
∞

This week’s episode of America’s favorite electrical engineering podcast:

This week, John Gruber and Dan Benjamin discuss the TSA,
Siracusa’s and The New York Times’ possessives, financial
transaction processors, Apple Geniuses killing flies with
flamethrowers, an Apple announcement in New York, coin-op arcade games,
and bring the episode to a shocking conclusion.

Brought to you by the fine folks at MailChimp and Shopify.

 ★ 

Claim your travel bag with a novel approach by the makers of the ubiquitous black notebook


The new year typically conjures grand schemes for traversing new terrain, and whether you're packing for a weekend of backcountry boarding or finally taking that long-awaited trip around the world, keeping track of your belongings is the key to any successful journey. A great alternative to the feeble tag they offer at check-in is Moleskine's set of sturdy luggage tags.
Devised by Italian industrial designer Giulio Iacchetti, the unmistakable tags are modeled after Moleskine's signature "In case of loss" page found at the front of their notebooks. Crafted in four colorways—including basic black and the bolder hues of cerulean blue, magenta and lemon green—the trusty hardcover and signature elastic strap are sure to keep it securely attached to your bag.
Pick up a set online from Moleskine or Chronicle Books for $10.

Chain and the Gang - Detroit Music

Marco released his new blogging platform: secondcrack. The readme is comprehensive, but this bit in the FAQ is my favorite:
Why should I use this instead of [existing solution]? I don’t know. You probably shouldn’t.
I’m holding off for a bit on using it, but mostly because moving this site will be a lot of work.
∞

Upstart Harlem rapper Azealia Banks, the woman behind "212" and "Liquorice", has a few bones to pick. Last night she took to Twitter to give Kreayshawn a piece of her mind, for posting a link to her "212" video... via a porn site.

Vlambeer’s much loved Super Crate Box is now available on the iOS App store. Halfbot did an excellent job with the conversion.

Vlambeer’s smash hit SUPER CRATE BOX brings back the glory of the golden arcade age when all that really mattered was getting on that high score list! Grab your baseball cap and loosen your pants, it’s time to fight endless hordes of enemies and collect every weapon crate you can. Prepare for an arcade delight with tight controls, refreshing game mechanics, cracking retro art and a terribly hip chiptune soundtrack.

Super Crate Box won numerous awards, including prizes by IGN, EDGE, IndieGames.com and a nomination for ‘Excellence in Design’ by the Independent Games Festival. So far, over 85 million crates have been collected worldwide.

App Store – Super Crate Box.

Five years ago, 800-CEO-READ (the company behind ChangeThis) chose The 100 Best Business Books of All Time. Since then, thousands of new business books have been published, so we've updated and expanded the book with new, informative sidebars, a fresh introduction, and a closing manifesto. It is available now in both paperback and digital editions.

To celebrate this new edition, we are presenting a companion eBook, 5-4-3.

In 5-4-3, we chose four books from each year since completing The 100 Best that are worthy of your time and suggest three ways you can experience each of them.

The 100 Best and 5-4-3 are the perfect pairing to inspire yourself and others in the new year.

Kevin Kelly argues that Spielberg's Tintin movie passes beyond the uncanny valley into the "plains of hyperreality".

One of the great charms of the Tin Tin movie (besides its solid story, and uplifting sensibility) is the incredible degree of detail, texture, lighting, and drama that infuses every scene. Because the whole movie is synthetic, every scene can be composed perfectly, lit perfectly, arranged perfectly, and captured perfectly. There is a painterly perfection that the original Tin Tin comics had that this movie captures. This means that the stupendous detail found in say TinTin's room, or in a back alley, or on the ship's deck can be highlighted beyond what it could in reality. You SEE EVERYTHING. When TinTin's motorcycle is chasing the bad guy and begins to fall apart, nothing is obscured. Every realistic mechanical part is illuminated realistically. This technique gives a heightened sense of reality because every corner of the entire scene is heightened realistically, which cannot happen in real life, yet you only see real-looking things. This trick lends the movie a hyperreality. Its artificial world looks realer than real.

The uncanny valley issue has been less noticeable lately, but what really snaps me out of being immersed in movies lately is the Impossible Camera™. In 100% CGI shots, when cameras move quickly with sharp changes in direction over long distances, something that actual cameras can't do, it snaps me right out of the action because it's so obviously fake. For instance, any scene in the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movies where Spidey is flying through Manhattan. Fay, fay, fake.
Tags: Kevin Kelly   movies   Steven Spielberg   Tintin   uncanny valley

With all of the things out there to read on the internet—all of the blogs we want to keep up with and all of the news funneled to us every day—how can you make sure you read each item in a way that really enriches your life? The short answer: You can't, not without help, anyway. Here's how you can stop, refocus, and change the way you read so you'll take more away from it. More »

With the gut-wrencher Shame, an uncomfortably funny Young Adult, Spielberg’s heart-string pullin’ War Horse, a high-flying Tintin adventure, the shining return of Cameron Crowe, the oversized popcorn blockbuster Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, the overlooked hilarity of Carnage, the pulpy thrills of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and the subdued near-masterpiece that is Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, last month was a pretty fantastic time at the movies.

Now we’re entering January. While this time of the year is usually a dumping ground — and we’ll be getting plenty of films of that low-caliber — there’s a surprising amount of films to check out this month, mainly the award-ready expanding releases.

Newlyweds

Opens January 13th. Now on iTunes and VOD.

I haven’t seen much of Edward Burns’ directorial work, but after Newlyweds, I definitely plan on fixing that. Burns’ cheap as nickels indie — 9,000 bucks, to be exact — is so damn enjoyable. It takes a few minutes for the documentary/breaking the 4th wall approach to work, but once it does, the film begins to play as a solid dramedy with some strong performances and plenty of relatable awkward situations.

Coriolanus

Opens January 13th.

Ralph Fiennes‘ first venture into filmmaking isn’t as badass or as silly as the first trailer sold it. Plus, if Coriolanus was all action, that’d be a bad thing, since the scarce gun battles are certainly not the film’s strong suit. Outside of the clunky action, the bombastic drama is excellent. Fiennes makes a good first-impression with a gritty take on Shakespeare, but it’s his powerful and loud performance as Coriolanus which stands out.

The Grey

Opens January 27th.

I missed the chance of seeing Joe Carnahan‘s survival film last month, and it’s been bugging me ever since. Not only because of the glowing feedback out of the Butt-Numb-a-thon screening, but mainly because Joe Carnahan’s a director I follow with great interest and excitement. He’s capable of overblown fun, proven by The A-Team and the underappreciated darkness of Smokin’ Aces, but he can also deliver compelling drama, as shown by Narc. The Grey comes off as a mixture of both sensibilities.

We Need to Talk About Kevin

Opens January 13th.

By far the best horror film of 2011. Lynne Ramsay‘s heightened horror film is, out of only three pictures, her best effort yet. Movern Callar and Ratcatcher were very good, but We Need to Talk About Kevin is on another level. Ramsay’s adaptation isn’t meant to be taken literally, though. With the over-the-top nature of the flashback scenes, both tonally and stylistically, it’s not intended as realism. This is a dark, funny, and all around excellent film.

Rampart

Opens January 27th.

See Oren Moverman‘s Rampart more than once, even if you come out hating it. Unlike The Messenger, the type of film one sees the greatness of right away, his follow-up takes time to work. At first, I admired Rampart, but not until my third viewing did I come to love it for its audacity, the main character’s symbolic messineness, and Woody Harrelson‘s intense and vulnerable performance. Moverman either twists or throws out all the dirty cop cliches we know and goes for something more existential and internally bleak, making Rampart something kind of special and one of my favorite films of 2011.

Haywire

Opens January 20th.

Even if everyone who saw the film at AFI loathed it,  Haywire would still remain at no. 1. It’s Steven Soderbergh, someone who could film a box for 2-hours and probably still make it exciting or interesting. Good thing the reviews out of AFI, such as our own Kate Erbland’s, haven’t squashed the excitement for Gina Carano’s big screen debut. Apparently it’s quite ass-kicking. With the cast Soderbergh has, he would almost have to go out of his way to make a weak movie.

Honorable Mentions: Red Tails (alone for the aerial sequences, not the cheesy-looking drama), Man on a Ledge (could be a cool B-thriller, which I’ve heard it is), Miss Bala (haven’t seen it, but all the reviews say it’s an excellent and dark thriller), and, no, I’m not going to make One for the Money an honorable mention.

This is a guest post from Natalie Peace of PeaceAndProfit.com. She is the author of 30 Keys to Building a Multi-Million Dollar Business: What They Didn’t Teach Me in Business School. Natalie is an entrepreneur, business coach, and she’s currently writing a book on how to start a wildly successful business.

Looking at the businesses I’ve built, managed, and sold (worth $2 million) by the age of 30, I’ve been reflecting lately on what set the foundation for my achievements so that I can help others experience financial security and abundance. I believe my success is the result of an unusual childhood, and a few unique things my parents did to set me up for success.

1. Give incentive to learn from the masters
My father actually paid me $2 to listen to each chapter of an audiobook and then summarize the main points in my own words, so I wound up listening to dozens of audiobooks throughout my childhood. (I didn’t get paid for chores as they were simply expected of me.) The trick was that he would choose books on management, wealth building, and personal growth.

I was four years old when he started this, and as a result I became fascinated with human potential and manifesting wealth long before I was even old enough to have a paper route or babysitting job. All this knowledge seeped into my young, fertile brain and shaped my subconscious, priming me to be a confident entrepreneur and manager. People often tell me about great, classic books they read by people like Napoleon Hill, Og Mandino, Denis Waitley, and Zig Ziglar and I smile, fondly recalling my experience listening to those masters.


2. Encourage questions
Both of my parents went out of their way to make sure I felt heard, understood and valued. They would explain to me what was interesting and important about anything I was saying and would then expand on the topic with their own knowledge. And they were always willing to answer the million “why” questions I asked, with real answers. They never responded “because I said so.


3. Provide unconditional love
Researcher Brené Brown talks about the concept of teaching children that they are worthy of love and belonging, rather than telling them they’re perfect. This is a big distinction, and I believe I’m a good example of why this works. There will be days when the world is going to chew you up and spit you out. People are going to laugh at you and call you names, and they will reject you and your ideas. Knowing all of this will happen to your child and insisting that they are perfect no matter what will not help them.

No one is perfect. We don’t need to be! Instead, we can learn to hear feedback from others through a filter that says we’re completely lovable as we are. If we know for certain we are lovable regardless of what people do or say to us, we can then hear criticism and search it objectively for meaningful clues on how we can improve. My mom has always shown me a great deal of love and affection, and it’s certainly one of the biggest secrets of my success.

4. Show the importance of a strong work ethic
When I was a teenager, Dad had me mowing his yard, which was a sprawling acreage back then. Of course I had more fun things to do than household chores, so I got it done as quickly as possible. One day when I had finished, he thanked me and told me he wanted to tell the neighbors about my mowing skills, so they would hire me to do their yards as well.

The prospect of making cash appealed to me, so I was all ears. My dad then said, “Let’s take a look at the yard now. Are you happy with how it looks? Would you sign your name to this job, proudly telling people you did it?” As I surveyed my hasty mowing efforts, it was plain to see that I had left behind several tufts and swatches of grass. I realized that no one who’d seen this would hire me to take care of their yard. My dad could have yelled at me for being lazy, but he chose instead to demonstrate the benefit of a solid work ethic.

5. Teach kids to be powerful
I was not allowed to indulge myself in negative self-talk. I was shown how to cancel negative beliefs (like “I can’t do this”), and replace them with positive ones, focusing on the desired outcome. I started doing visualization exercises and focusing on goal-setting at the age of five, beginning with small goals like teaching my dog how to sit and saving up to buy a bike. When I had success achieving these goals, it gave me the confidence to reach for bigger things, with the belief that I would attain them.

I was encouraged to set goals in all areas of my life — when I was six, I wanted the training wheels off my bike and knew it would take practice to get there. When I was 12, I set a goal to take a babysitting course so I could earn money. When I was 13, I set a goal of being a really good friend.

You can help your kids set goals in areas they’re genuinely interested in, as well as set goals they would probably achieve anyway (like passing second grade). Get them to write down these goals somewhere they’ll see them every day, and check them off when they’re complete. When I did this as a kid, it gave me enormous satisfaction. (It still does today!)

As a result of a somewhat unique upbringing — thank you, Mom and Dad! — I don’t have a fear of success, and I know that creating abundant wealth is possible. What other unusual and effective parenting methods have you used or observed to set kids up for success? Share them in the comments!

2011 saw the release of two movies I'm very proud of: Ratline and Stake Land.
Jim Mickle's Stake Land, for which I directed 2nd unit, received amazing reviews and an incredibly ...

It's hard to explain the experience of expertise. That's why one of the first things they teach you in journalism school is to avoid questions like, "What's it like to be a mathematician?" It's hard for your interview subject to know how to respond and you seldom get a useful answer.

But not never.

On Quora, someone* asks, "What is it like to have an understanding of very advanced mathematics?" And the responses are surprisingly interesting. Especially the first, wherein an anonymous mathematician lays out a detailed account of how advanced mathematics have altered his/her view of the world and of being a mathematician.

• You are often confident that something is true long before you have an airtight proof for it (this happens especially often in geometry). The main reason is that you have a large catalogue of connections between concepts, and you can quickly intuit that if X were to be false, that would create tensions with other things you know to be true, so you are inclined to believe X is probably true to maintain the harmony of the conceptual space. It's not so much that you can imagine the situation perfectly, but you can quickly imagine many other things that are logically connected to it.

• You are comfortable with feeling like you have no deep understanding of the problem you are studying. Indeed, when you do have a deep understanding, you have solved the problem and it is time to do something else. This makes the total time you spend in life reveling in your mastery of something quite brief. One of the main skills of research scientists of any type is knowing how to work comfortably and productively in a state of confusion.

These are only two bullets on a multi-bullet post. You really should read the whole thing.

Great find, noggin!

*I couldn't tell who had asked the question. Maybe I'm just not familiar enough with Quora. If you can see a name for the thread's original author, let me know.

This is kind of amazing: if you put a contact microphone on a hard surface and then process the sound in realtime, you can turn that surface into a touch screen...or a programmable musical instrument.

(via ★johnpavlus)
Tags: video

In 2002 Dinah Sanders started a personal holiday called Discardia. As she writes in her book, Discardia: More Life, Less Stuff, her quarterly festival celebrates “unconsumption, the slow movement, downshifting, and voluntary simplicity.” In other words, it’s about getting rid of stuff so you can enjoy a richer life.

Sanders (who maintains a blog called Discardia) believes that many people mistakenly seek the good life by acquiring lots of things and experiences and then try to shoehorn these into an already overcrowded life. But Sanders maintains that the good life is better achieved by taking the opposite approach: stripping away the layers of material, habitual and emotional cruft that we accumulate over time to reveal a more meaningful, engaging, and manageable way to live.
Read my review of Sanders' book at credit.com

There are dozens of different solutions for remotely monitoring and administering your computers, all with different strengths and weaknesses (LogMeIn is just one example). Meshcentral is the newest addition to the field, and it comes courtesy of Intel Senior Architect Yilan Saint-hilaire. The free application is entirely built on HTML5, requires only a browser window to run remotely, doesn’t need you to change anything in your network settings (e.g., firewall settings, enabling VNC, etc.), and gives you complete access to your computer’s file system from anywhere with an internet connection. In addition to the file browser, Meshcentral also provides sleep/wake/restart functionality, a terminal app for access to your computer’s...


Continue reading…

Paul Krugman:

But Washington isn’t just confused about the short run; it’s
also confused about the long run. For while debt can be a problem,
the way our politicians and pundits think about debt is all wrong,
and exaggerates the problem’s size.

Deficit-worriers portray a future in which we’re impoverished by
the need to pay back money we’ve been borrowing. They see
America as being like a family that took out too large a mortgage,
and will have a hard time making the monthly payments.

This is, however, a really bad analogy in at least two ways.

 ★ 

Good article — and, in a self-referential twist, it’s typeset using Roboto itself — but to me, Roboto is just the new Arial.

 ★ 

If learning to code is one of your goals or New Year's resolutions, then Code Year is a program for you. The initiative, provided by previously mentioned webapp Codecademy will email you free interactive programming lessons each week. More »

Start the new year with a better way to work. Track your hours painlessly with Harvest. Designed with productivity and ease of use in mind, it’s simple to track time via the web, Mac or your iPhone. Trusted by innovative businesses like Happy Cog and Adaptive Path, Harvest is a powerful tool to help you work smarter and faster every day. Give Harvest a spin with a free 30 day trial.

From New Scientist, a list of eight different ways to lose weight that actually work. Because science!

If your idea of a holiday workout is lifting glasses of beer late into the night, then it's not just the extra calories you need to worry about. Randy Nelson and his team at Ohio State University in Columbus found that mice exposed to light at night weighed 10 per cent more at the end of the eight-week study than mice that had experienced a standard light/dark cycle, even though they ate the same total number of calories and did the same amount of exercise.

(via @daveg)
Tags: food   lists   science

Author Clay Johnson believes that, much like junk food leads to obesity and health problems, junk information is killing our productivity, efficiency, and worse, feeding ignorance. His new book, The Information Diet, discusses this problem in depth. In this post, Johnson details how to kickstart your Information Diet for 2012. More »

Dear Lifehacker, More »