What really goes on in Cheyenne Mountain

America sure knows how to spend it's defence budget. Apparently, for 50 years, NORAD (that's the North American Aerospace Defence Command...that's right the guys responsible for identifying (and hopefully neutralising) airborne (read nuclear) attacks on the US and Canada) has been putting money towards both a Santa hotline as well as a Santa-tracking service utilising the whole arsenal of forward-warning systems.

Apparently it all started with a local advertising campaign in Colorado Springs which accidentally replaced the company's phone number with the private number for the head of the NORAD operation.

5 things you can do with your phone (that you probably didn't realise)

A cool article here which includes such niftiness as finding your phones serial number, unlocking your car and even testing your microwave.

So, 100 and a bit

So there we go...I hope you enjoy all the informational goodness.

Settlers

So, thanks to Chris, I am now addicted to Settlers of Catan. Admittedly, it's one of the most popular boardgames around, and it's won heaps of accolades, but still...addicted. And just in case the social interaction involved in playing on an actual board gets in the way, there's been plenty of projects to create artificial intelligence programs to play against humans (such as JSettlers).

It gets even better, there's now a $700 3D, hand-carved 10th Anniversary version. So cool! (here)

Fox hunts

So, it appears that, for the first time, two separate species have been observed hunting together (where neither species is human). New Scientist reports here, that groupers and moray eels in the Red Sea have been observed helping each other to hunt smaller prey. As you can see in the videos in the article, the grouper loses a prey-fish under a piece of coral so swims over to the nearest moray eel and performs a weird dance shaking it's dorsal fin. The eel responds by following the grouper to the coral (which the grouper identifies by dancing over) and going in for the kill, thus flushing out other prey for the grouper waiting above. Apparently, the main problem with inter-special teamwork is distributing the spoils, but these fish each swallow their prey whole thus negating the problem. Pretty cool, huh?

ScanR

Another service, again, recommended by Lifehacker. ScanR takes a pretty simple premise, basic OCR and detail recognition and makes it available to anyone. It means that, say you run into someone and they give you their business card, you can then take a photo with you camera-phone, email it off to the service and you get sent back an entry for your address-book. Similarly, you can just scan whiteboards or documents into searchable PDF files. Handiness.

The name's a bit weird, but this service sounds pretty handy. As recommended on Lifehacker It allows the users of Google Calendar to synchronise their main calendar with that on their mobile phone or PDA. It's still in beta...but it's free!

Which brings us to Wii

The day has finally come: It's my housemate's birthday...oh, and Nintendo's long, long, long-expected new concole, the Wii, is here! I'm sure you all know about it's cool new features; the wireless remote, the ability to download any and all games ever released on any Nintendo console etc; but the best bit is that it looks like Nintendo itself will stay alive, if just a little longer. All the data so far has shown that most people buying the Wii in the first couple of days already have either an Xbox 360 and/or a PlayStation 2, and even then, more Wii consoles have been sold in the first 10 days of release than there have been Xbox 360s produced. (Stan Beer over at ITWire reckons that Microsoft is going to have to increase their loss on each console to even stay in the game...which I think is only a good thing). So with Nintendo's little niche of 'pure games' carved out and ready, the demise of the last honest games company may be a way off yet.

The ultimate gamer's cabinet

This is a photo-tutorial on how to make an awesome cabinet to hold all your games consoles...and for that matter, your DVD player, your VCR, your set-top box and anything else that would look nice in a tower next to your TV. While the fans won't really do too much, they still look cool (really bad pun, sorry folks).

250 free Office templates & documents

Here is a handy collection of pre-made templates and documents for MS Office, such as wills, formal letters etc. Could be quite handy.

The Prestige

Clearly the best film of its genre I've seen in a long time (though I'm not quite sure which genre it belongs to). In the time which it is set, magicians were the performers. When Shakespeare entertained and infant comedy amused, magic astounded. As you can imagine, without cameras, only the sharpest eye could catch a magician, and even they had to watch the trick many times in the hope of seeing a mistake. In short, the film examines the rivalry between two magicians, each determined to be the best...and each determined to do whatever was necessary to better their rival.

It is also worth watching each of the performers, as they all act so gracefully until their character each "gets their hands dirty" in order to preserve their greater morals.

The film opens with a voiceover by Michael Caine describing the three acts of any and all magic tricks. There is the initial 'pledge' in which the magician presents to the audience, typically for inspection, a seemingly ordinary object. This is then followed by the 'turn'. The turn is the trick itself, the actual act which provides the deception is provided in this second act. However, no trick is complete without the 'prestige'. It is in this third act that the magician reveals to the audience the illusion, and thus when he puts his reputation in their hands. If his illusion is good enough, he will be renowned as the only man who can perform such an amazing feat.

I mention this because Christopher Nolan has managed to include, and yet conceal, so many turns, that this film is an amazing ride through so many tales of revenge that by the time it's over your heart's pumping, your mind's still running, but you've had just enough. This is what I think makes Nolan's films so fun to watch, the pace slowly, but not too slowly, builds until you're mind is darting through all the clues he's left in the first part of the script as you try to unravel the secrets of the climax, and then the climax comes and leaves you both wanting more, but willing to wait for it.

Definitely see it, if at all possible, see it on the big-screen.

(IMDb)

100th post

I know it's been a long time coming, but here it is, ellipses' first milestone. So, I've saved a bunch of posts for a big, information-junkie's heaven.