- My Oscar picks. I list who I think will win, and in parentheses I list who I want to win:

Best Picture: No Country for Old Men (I saw No Country. I thought it was awful. I also saw Juno and Michael Clayton. Both were interesting, but not Oscar-worthy. There Will Be Blood deserves to win.)

Best Director: Cohen Brothers. (I prefer Anderson for There Will Be Blood.)

Best Actor: Daniel Day Lewis. (Daniel Day Lewis. The guy is an acting machine!)

Best Actress: Julie Christie (Julie Christie. She has been around forever. Ellen Page was fun, but her character was too cute by half. Cate Blanchett was stale in Elizabeth. Give Julie the damn statue!)

Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem (Bardem is the lock of the night, but how hard is it to play a quiet psycho? You see them all the time on the big screen. I prefer Hal Holbrook. Anyone who can do a dead-on impression of Mark Twain is fine by me.)

Best Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchett (Cate is in the Dylan biopic for how long? 10 seconds? Give it to Amy Ryan.)

Follow this link to read what the experts think will happen on Oscar night:
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20007870_20164475_20173231,00.html

- On a slightly related note...after watching Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth: The Golden Age, I found out where potatoes came from. I always assumed they originated in Ireland. I had no idea:
http://www.weidners.com/Potato_journey.htm

- A full lunar eclipse on February 20th. An eclipse saved Columbus 500 years ago. Perhaps one might save you someday:
Eclipse saved Columbus

- A while back, I remember reading about the Chinese govenment trying to affect the weather for the Beijing Olympics. Apparently it's having some success:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=4214557

- "You dipped, and then you dipped again. It's like putting your mouth in the whole dip. Just dip once, and get it over with!!!" Well, little Timmy had a valid point:
Only dip once

- Several months ago I mentioned how few American WWI veterans are left. Now there is only one left:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2004168010_apobitwwiveteran06.html

- Ten technologies we could build, if they weren't so darn expensive:
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/01/10-sci-fi-techs.html

- Ten easy to learn math tricks:
http://listverse.com/science/10-easy-arithmetic-tricks/

- American Civics Test. I scored an 85%
http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/resources/quiz.aspx

- Two articles about artificial life. According to the first article, scientists will create artificial life in the next 3 to 10 years. In the second article, apparently someone already has created artificial life!
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8R4H0Q00&show_article=1

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/oct/06/genetics.climatechange

- I bought one of my spring semester programming books early, so I could get a head start on the course. The programming language I am referring to is assembly language, and it's the language I would most likely use if I want to program this type of machine:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/20/powered_jackboot_exoskeleton_darpa_mit/

...or if I want to some day build this (yes, this is an actual picture from the new movie)













- Which hands to play, and not to play, in low-limit poker. Memorize this, and I guarantee you will (at the minimum) break even every time you play at a casino:
http://www.lowlimitholdem.com/main/StartingHands.htm

- Wonderful optical illusion. Which way does the silhouette spin for you? Supposedly, this optical illusion tests whether you are left-brain or right-brain dominant. It spins counter-clockwise for me, but if I stare to the left or right of the silhouette, and let my eyes relax, it will start to spin clockwise! Kooky!
http://www.switched.com/2007/10/15/the-trippiest-optical-illusions-on-the-net/

- The most popular myths in science:
http://www.livescience.com/bestimg/index.php?url=myths_gumballs_03.jpg&cat=myths

- Seven reasons why the 21st century is making you miserable: (Number #8 should be the democrats re-gaining control of congress.)
http://www.cracked.com/index.php?name=News&sid=2370

- Which is more painful...an ant bite, a honey-bee sting, or a hornet bite? Does someone actually keep track of these things? They sure do, and it's called the Schmidt Sting Pain index. It's a list of the various types of insect bite/stings and how painful each one is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmidt_Sting_Pain_Index

- I hate injections. Let me state this one more time...I HATE NEEDLES!!! I simply cannot stand the thought of sharp metal pushing into my skin. Well, injections may soon be a thing of the past. It's about freakin time!!!
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=3584538&page=1

- A map showing the majority religion in each county of the United States. Fascinating to see which religions are strongest in each part of the country. I could stare at this map for hours:
http://www.valpo.edu/geomet/pics/geo200/religion/church_bodies.gif

- Newt Gingrich writes a scathing article regarding my hometown and its pathetic school system. I don't care for Newt's personality nor how he handles his personal affairs, but I agree with his politics about 99% of the time. Too bad the city of Detroit will never listen to ideas like his:
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070808/OPINION01/708080311/1008

- A 16 page piece from the New Yorker magazine about Rudy Giuliani. The article tilts left (it's the New Yorker after all), but it has some really good biographical information about America's mayor. In a future update, I will explain why I am supporting Rudy for president and why he has the best chance, of any republican candidate, to defeat Hillary:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08/20/070820fa_fact_boyer

- Do you download software, music or videos from the internet? Eight years ago, Napster was all the rage. A few years after that, programs like Limewire, Bearshare, and eMule used P2P (peer to peer) technology for sharing files across the net. Now the latest craze for stealing stuff on the net is bittorrent. Here is a beginner's guide to understanding bittorrent and how to use it successfully:
http://lifehacker.com/software/ultranewb/a-beginners-guide-to-bittorrent-285489.php

- History's ten most over-looked mysteries. One of these on the list I wrote about a few years ago on this site (the Voynich Manuscript.) I would add the Roanoke colony to this list (which I also wrote about on this site.)
http://www.livescience.com/mysteries/top10_history_mysteries-1.html

- The rare river dolphin of China is no longer rare...it is now extinct. The first animal to go extinct in 50 years. I am certainly no animal-rights activist, but it is a shame to see a whole species disappear. Oh well, it will be back. Fifty years from now we will clone the sucker!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6935343.stm

- A computer scientist proves that a Rubik's cube can be solved with only 26 moves. I can easily match two sides of the cube, and occasionally I was able to get three sides. I was never able to solve it:
http://blog.sciencenews.org/mathtrek/2007/08/cracking_the_cube.html

- Winnie Cooper is a math genius! Kevin's struggles with mathematics and the relationship he formed with his hard-nosed math teacher are my favorite episodes of the Wonder Years. More about the real Winnie Cooper and why math is so important:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2007-08-13-danica-mckellar_N.htm

- Can you survive in outer space without a space-suit? The answer might surprise you:
http://www.slate.com/id/2171522/nav/navoa/

- Computers can now automatically beat humans at checkers, and for all practical purposes can also beat humans at chess. Can a computer beat a professional at a game of Texas-hold'em poker? Follow this link to find out:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/26/business/26poker.html?hp

- Lunar eclipse August 28th. I will be watching, will you?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20070723/sc_space/planaheadtotallunareclipseaug28

- Bowling is making a bit of a comeback in the states. It was very popular in the 70s and 80s but took a huge dive in the 90s. I am a horrible bowler, but I know a great deal about the sport. Bowling has always been big in family:
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0724gr-bowling0724-ON.html

- Do you know the difference between tan, khaki and beige? How about the difference between dark blue, navy blue, and midnight blue? Almost every color you can think of has an official name. Here is a website with names of some of the most popular colors. Next time someone tells you that they want to paint their nursery "coral" you will know which color they are talking about:
http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2007/07/24/32-common-color-names-for-easy-reference/

- Ten rules for writing numbers and numerals. Here are two rules I personally try to follow, which you wont find on the following website:
I almost always put a slash "/" through any zero I write on a piece of paper, and I always say "zero" instead of "o" when telling someone a phone number. To a computer scientist there is a huge difference between a "zero" and an "o."
http://www.dailywritingtips.com/10-rules-for-writing-numbers-and-numerals/

- How to predict the weather without a forecast:
http://www.wikihow.com/Predict-the-Weather-Without-a-Forecast

- Can you name the 43 presidents in ten minutes? I named 40 of the 43. I forgot the 8th president, the 14th president and the 21st president:
http://www.sporcle.com/games/presidents.php

- The 30 wealthiest Americans of all-time, adjusted for inflation. Most of these guys were around during the reign of the 21st president:
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/business/20070715_GILDED_GRAPHIC.html#

- I gave up on the The Onion a few years ago. It's just too left-wing for me, but a contributor at NRO (National Review Online) posted a link to the following article on The Onion. It is hilarious!!!
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/john_edwards_vows_to_end_all_bad

- According to the following scientist, humanity has to get off this rock and onto Mars in 46 years or we are all doomed! I have always felt that we need to leave the earth eventually if humans want to keep on thriving, but we have more than 46 years. We have plenty of time. No rush. Perhaps what you will gain most of all from this article is a discussion of the Copernican Principle, which I had never heard of until I read this piece:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/17/science/17tier.html?_r=1&ref=science&oref=slogin

- Computers can no longer lose at checkers: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070719/ap_on_hi_te/solving_checkers

- Which Desperate Housewife are you? My girlfriend forced me to take this quiz! (I am joking. I was happy to try it.) Apparently I am Bree. I have only seen the show a few times, so I have no idea if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I have a gut feeling it's not something to brag about:
http://abc.go.com/primetime/desperate/quiz/index.html

- The seven most annoying things about the immediate future:
http://valleywag.com/tech/modern-and-awkward/the-seven-most-annoying-things-about-the-future-270430.php

- That Jack Bauer guy sure has friends in high places. Apparently Justice Antonin Scalia is a big fan of the show 24, and recently used moments from the show to justify pieces of his judicial philosophy: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070616.BAUER16/TPStory/TPNational/Television/

- How many bytes are in a megabyte? How many meters are in a kilometer? You probably know those answers by heart, but do you know how many bits are in a terabit? Muahaha! The following chart shows all of the prefixes for units. Get use to the prefixes tera, peta, and exo. They will become relevant in the next ten years:
http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/prefixes.html

- Speaking of petabytes, IBM created a new super-computer that can do over 1 petaflop (1 quadrillon or 1,000,000,000,000,000) operations in a second. It's articles like this that motivate me to finish my computer science degree:
http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/26/ibm-unveils-one-petaflop-blue-gene-p-supercomputer/#comments

- Why do certain colors represent certain items or ideas? For example, why is the Master's jacket always green? Why are republican states red and democratic voting states blue? The next two links explains these color-related questions, and many more:
http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2007/05/01/11-great-color-legends/
http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2007/07/03/13-more-great-color-legends/

- A few days ago, my brother pointed out that the Nathan's hot-dog eating contest is coming up. No one is a bigger fan of Kobayashi (the ultimate competitive eating champion) then I am, but I am pulling for Joey Chesnut. The name alone makes Joey a legend! He sounds like he should be sticking-up airports with Henry Hill or having a calzone with Sil and Tony. Besides, the Cooney Island hot-dog contest is on Independence Day, and Joey Chestnut is a true-blue American! You gotta root for him!

I think we should have a little wagering pool amongst us friends. Let's each pick who will win and how many hot-dogs the winner actually eats. I am picking Joey Chesnut, and I think he will eat 54 dogs.

Here is a wikipedia article about Joey Chesnut. He aint some old, fat slob like many competitive eaters. He is just a regular, 23 year-old college student from California:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joey_Chestnut

- Ten super-hero powers that can (nearly) be duplicated with modern technology:
http://blog.scifi.com/tech/archives/2007/05/04/10_techs_that_g.html

- Another typing test. I can barely break 50 words per minute with this one. That makes me think it is a good test:
http://www.jonmiles.co.uk/fingerjig.php

- Wireless, wireless, wireless. Everything is going wireless these days. Your internet, your console gaming machines, your home phones, etc. What if scientists could figure out how to transfer electricity wirelessly? Now that would rock! Well, that technology is on the way. The ramifications are staggering:
Wireless electricity

- The Sopranos TV show has ended. I will truly miss it. IMO, The Sopranos was a hit and miss TV series. Sometimes it was the best TV has ever offered, and other times it was boring, chaotic, and completely off the mark. Only a few people read this site, and of those who watch the Sopranos I know you kids have already seen the finale, so what I write in this update will not spoil it for anyone.

The final episode was a HUGE disappointment to me. I know that one of the big selling points of the Sopranos was that many of the storylines were open-ended and the show was never meant to give closure, but come on! I really needed some kind of resolution to Tony's story and some of the other major plot elements. David Chase owed us. Instead, he rubbed our faces in it. I always knew that Chase had contempt for his audience and the final episode clearly proves it. My best interpretation of the finale is that Tony got iced, and that's why it ended so abruptly. The whole show was based around him. I am guessing that Tony got shot in the head and that's why the show suddenly went dark. Here is an article supporting the same theory:
Sopranos Ending

- The last Civil War veteran died in 1959 (the war ended in 1865.) World War I started in 1914, ended in 1918, and America entered WWI in 1917. If the youngest American WWI veterans were 16 or 17 years of age in 1917, then simple math tells you that America's youngest WWI veterans are now at least 106 or 107 years old. For this reason, there are very few veterans left from WWI. In the next few years, there will be no one left who fought in WWI. Here is a list of all known veterans (from the Allied side) of WWI. According to my counting, there are only ten Americans veterans still living:
http://www.answers.com/topic/surviving-veterans-of-world-war-i

- Which Star Wars character matches best with your personality? Take this test to find out. My match was Yoda (I was hoping it would be Obi-wan.)
http://www.liquidgeneration.com/Media/Default.aspx?MediaId=1415

- Five scandals which rocked the art world:
http://www.neatorama.com/2007/04/24/5-scandals-that-rocked-art/

- Please tell me that none of you use any of the following passwords on the net. I have about a dozen different passwords that I use for my various email addresses, websites and messageboards I visit. Here is a list of the ten most commonly used passwords:
http://www.threadwatch.org/node/14095

- Last week astronomers found a planet with similarities to our own shiny-blue orb. It's only 50 light-years away, which is a hop, skip and a jump compared to the known size of the universe. Is there really anyone out there who thinks that life doesn't exist beyond the earth? The odds of us being completely alone is insanely low! As my brother and I keep saying, I hope we find them first before they find us. If they have the technology to find us, then they have the technology to ruin us.
Earth-like planet

- A wonderful article about Frank Miller, the famed comic-book writer:
LA Times Article on Frank Miller

- Someday you wont have to use a clunky controller to play your Xbox or Playstation games. Imagine the possibilities of a game system which could read your thoughts. I can see this technology being applied to alot more than video games:
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8OQTFQO1.htm

- New methods of resuscitation are changing the way scientists and doctors bring people back from the brink of death:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18368186/site/newsweek/

- A 2600 foot tall skyscraper in Kuwait? Will be finished by 2008? My goodness! I wish America still raced to have the tallest buildings:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/bw/20070501/bs_bw/may2007gb20070501516453

- Yeah, yeah, yeah...I swore off the Oscars last year with a blistering attack on their politics and morality, but darnit, I love make Oscar predictions, so here we go:

Best Picture: Toughest category to pick this year. I am going with Babel, because it has a political message, and Hollyweird loves a movie with a message.

Best Director: Scorsese finally squeaks one out, but he should have won for Goodfellas.

Best Actor: Forrest Whittaker. However, I wish Peter O'Toole would win. IMO, O'Toole is the greatest actor to never win an Oscar. How he didn't win for Lawrence of Arabia is beyond me (he was awarded a life-time achievement Oscar, which he almost turned down.)

Best Actress: Helen Mirren. Easiest pick of the night.

Best Supporting Actor: Eddie Murphy.

Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Hudson. 2nd easiest pick of the night.

Best Original Screenplay: Little Miss Sunshine.

Best Adapted Screenplay: The Departed.

- 50 things we know now that we didnt know last year:
http://www.tbo.com/life/MGBUFCRF5WE.html

- Do you have what it takes to be president? Take the following quiz to find out:
http://www.mentalfloss.com/quiz/quiz.php?q=40

-Almost lost a finger during shop-class in high school? Don't worry about it. Soon, you will be able to grow a new finger if you lose one:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/19/ap/tech/mainD8NCNHQO0.shtml