Diary of a Network Geek

No, that’s not a science-fiction way of telling someone to screw off.

Are you a fan of the Terminator movies? Do you like playing around with pictures of yourself or your friends? Well, then Terminate Yourself is for you! This website lets you take a photograph of a person and munge it into an evil terminator. How fun is that?

And, yes, it’s part of an advertising campaign for the latest Terminator movie, but it’s still fun.

You all know I love me some photography, but I love me some creative Photoshopping even more!

So, now, for the few of you who haven’t seen this, there’s a website, Worth1000.com, that has regular contests, some of which are pretty cool.  I particularly like the Celebrity Vampires contest and the Final Photo contest series.  But, there are plenty of others to fill your Friday afternoon.

Oh, and if that’s not enough?  Take a look at the brilliant work of Ian Pool on IO9.com.  He’s done a whole series of super-heroes in their non-hero lives.  But, what’s cool about that is that he’s used a lot of action figures in super creative ways and, of course, Photoshopped them.

In any case, these are two sites that should dull the pain of having to work a full week at your boring jobs where no one appreciates you.
Happy Friday!

A Nerf “Tommy gun”?

Okay, this isn’t quite as cool as the Vulcan EBF-25, which was fully automatic, but the Nerf N-Strike Raider CS-35 is a close second. It’s a pump-action gun with a 35 dart drum magazine. Not fully automatic, but, then again, it doesn’t need batteries, either. If you follow the link you’ll get to a page with plenty of pictures and a short video of the Raider in action.

What’s cool is that drum magazine. I’m not sure how they’d do it, based on the mechanisms but rumor has it that the drum magazine from the N-Strike Raider will fit the N-Strike Vulcan. Now that would be cool! Just imagine, not only would you have ten more shots, but no hassle loading up a belt, just snapping in a magazine.

Well, we have a bit of a wait on this. It’s just been announce at a toy convention and I haven’t heard a word on when it will hit the streets.

Because I know you all can’t decide which book to read until I write one.

No, seriously, I know my faithful readers would be all over any book I actually slid past an editor to get published, because you’re great people. But, since I spend most of my time toiling away in a hellish server room, that’s not going to happen any time soon. So, until it does, here’s another website to help you pick what book to read.

This one is called Whichbook. And, unlike last week’s book picker, it doesn’t rely on you entering a book which you’ve already read. No, with this site, you can choose moods and content and all that sort of thing on a series of sliders. When you’re done, you’ll have a suggestion of which book to read. Hopefully, it’ll be something new.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities; an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties."
   --Reginald B. Mansell

No, this is not a plea.

Really, I have a giant stack of books to read, so all I need to do is reach randomly into the stack and pull out something miraculous. No, this is to help you, dear reader, pick out something new to read.
As a computer geek, I love anything that programatically generates something new based on previous information. Markov Chains, for instance, are fascinating to me, even if I barely understand them. So, when I saw this website, What should I read next?, I had to share it with you. To use it, go, enter the last good book you read and its author, then clikc the big button. In a few seconds, the page will refresh with a link to what it thinks you meant, which will hopefully be the book you had in mind. Then, click on that link and you’ll be taken to a list of suggestions for what you should read next.

I’m not sure I entirely trust it, though, since when I used Choke by Chuck Palahnuik, it returned a bunch of Photoshop books. Still, it’s a fun way to get shoved out of your little reading rut! So, go ahead and try it!

It’s Friday! Time for a little fun!

Okay, so this blog has been kind of depressing lately and the “fun” things haven’t been quite as fun. Hey, I’ve been busy! No, really!! Anyway, it’s Friday, the traditional day to let off some steam at work. But, I don’t reccomend going “postal” on your coworkers. Instead, try some games brought to you by the fine folks at Cartoon Network.
They’re all fun. Mindlessly fun, actually. Which is just what you need on a Friday afternoon.

Enjoy!