Benny Ling’s Bling

Chris Foresman:

[...]

And Apple, please just make a smaller version of the Mac Pro—no need to call it xMac. I’m guessing two HD bays, an optical drive, a Core2 Duo, a couple PCI slots, and a respectable graphics card ought to do. Put it in a mini-Mac Pro tower case, and sell it for less than a thousand dollars. This last wish comes not out of any particular need for myself, but just so I can stop hearing about it in comments on Every. Single. IL. Post.”

via New Year’s (Apple) wishes from the Infinite Loop staff.

AHAHAHAHA.

Gold.

C’mon, Apple. Make it happen already. I’d buy one in a heartbeat.

As you take steps to avoid the germs and viruses that proliferate as winter progresses, you’ve no doubt received a good share of advice on how to avoid catching whatever’s going around.

ABCNews OnCall+ spoke with experts about some of the popular myths about germs that tend to spread as fast as the bacteria themselves this time of year.

Is a dog’s mouth cleaner than a person’s? How unsafe are public toilet seats? Some of these questions lack hard data, and the study findings sometimes conflict.

So before taking advice from your friends, you might want to check their wisdom about our microbe neighbors.

via Cleaning Up the Top 10 Myths About Germs.

Some good tips here:

Sponges typically DO NOT help keep your kitchen cleaner, they just spread germs around.

Plastic cutting boards ARE more sanitary than wooden ones.

Antibacterial soap DOES NOT keep your hands cleaner than regular soap.

And finally, they blowing air from a hand drier DO NOT spread germs.

There, you can finally sleep peacfully tonight.

There are more on that website, so check them out.

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist

Opened on October 3, 2008

Directed by Peter Sollett

High school student Nick O’Leary, member of the Queercore band The Jerk Offs, meets college-bound Norah Silverberg and she asks him to be her boyfriend for five minutes.

Why it’s on here: Before I even saw this, I was expecting it to be the next Superbad or Garden State. Then I saw it and thought it could actually achieve that level of success. Not only was it fun (and funny), but it had a sweet side to it that made it more than just the typical teenage comedy. It may have not been the best comedy of the year or even as good as Superbad or Garden State, but considering it is at least better than most other stupid teenage comedies, it deserves a bigger audience than it got in October. The charming Kat Dennings is at her best in it, as is Michael Cera.

via The 19 Best Movies That You Didn’t See in 2008 « FirstShowing.net.

Hmm…

Sounds like the prefcet movie – romatic comedies rock my world.

The past couple of years have seen an explosion of open source programming languages and utilities that are geared toward children. Many of these efforts are based around the idea that, since the days of BASIC, programming environments have become far too complex for untrained minds to wrap themselves around. Some toolkits aim to create entirely new ways of envisioning and creating projects that appeal to younger minds, such as games and animations, while others aim to recreate the “basic”-ness of BASIC in a modern language and environment.

via Linux.com :: Open source programming languages for kids.

Drag and drop programming? Things where you can actually “see” what your programming goes and what it does?

Yeah, I’m all for that.

The Digg comments for this article are serious gold – gems like “Bah, just start ‘em on C++, tough learning curve but if they succeed they’ll be one of the best damned programmers ever, and if they don’t – well, I hear McDonalds is hiring…”

I Digg that. Pun intended.

LOLCODE is an esoteric programming language inspired by the language expressed in examples of the lolcat Internet meme. The language was created in 2007 by Adam Lindsay, researcher at the Computing Department of Lancaster University.

The language is not clearly defined in terms of operator priorities and correct syntax, but several functioning interpreters and compilers already exist.

via LOLCODE – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

“Hello World” in LOLCODE:

HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
VISIBLE "HAI WORLD!"
KTHXBYE

“HAI” introduces the program.

“CAN HAS <file>” acts as the includes statement.

“VISIBLE <message>” prints a message to the screen.

“KTHXBYE” exits the program.

See? Far, far easier than Java.

Epson Artisan 800

Printers usually aren’t this exciting. Or this good looking. Or this powerful. The Epson Artisan 800 ($230) is absolutely packed with features — the good kind of features that you actually use. This all-in-one print/scan/fax beauty sports a 7.8″ touch panel with a 3.5″ LCD to preview photos, Wi-Fi for printing from any room, and super fast prints — up to 38 ppm in black/color and photos in as little as 10 seconds. The Artisan 800, which produces Ultra Hi-Definition prints (yes, they’re as good as they sound), also packs in the ability to print directly onto ink jet printable CDs and DVDs; dual paper trays for plain and photo paper; handy individual ink cartridges; memory card slots to print photos without a computer; an auto document feeder; and built-in two-sided printing. We dare you to find something better at this price point.

via Epson Artisan 800 | Uncrate.

Don’t really care about the 7.8″ touchscreen, nor the LCD, nor the dual paper trays.

However, my next printer MUST HAVE:

1. Direct CD/DVD printing.
2. Auto-duplexing (double sided printing).

That’s it. I’m easily satisfied.

ROCHESTER, New York — December 30th, 2008 — Ambrosia Software, Inc. announced today an update to its wildly popular space-based strategy shooter, EV Nova. EV Nova 1.1.0 is a Universal Binary that runs natively on Intel Macs, and continues to work on any Mac running Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later.

via EV Nova for Mac OS X updated to Universal Binary! | Ambrosia Software, Inc..

EV Nova rules.

Enough said.

Left 4 Dead was easily one of the most exciting PC releases of the year and has kept most of us blasting zombies with friends well through the holidays. But as good as the stock game is, some Team Fortress 2-style downloadable content will surely make it better, and Valve has revealed that the first batch of Left 4 Dead DLC will be revealed “shortly.”

via Left 4 Dead DLC news coming “shortly” to PC, 360.

Any L4D news is good news.

Downloadable content, however, is even better news.

If you haven’t figured it out already, Left 4 Dead is a really, really, good game.

Co-Op is awesome, and Versus is fun as well.

I’m one of those gamers who doesn’t like killing their friends in video games, so Co-Op is always something that I’ve enjoyed. For me, it feels like I’m a part of a team, heading towards a common goal.

The first time I came across co-op was in back in the days when I had a GameCube. Man those things were awesome. Anyway, Dave and I rented out Conflict:Desert Storm for a weekend, and we were hooked.

It’s no surprise that he ended up getting it for his original Xbox.

…and thus, my love for Co-Op gameplay was born.