It dances, I geek out!

(This post brought to you by the "up" thumb.)

This is not news, really, though it was to me. If you haven't heard of the Sony Rolly, check out a demo of it here.

I don't know exactly why, but this strikes me as one of the best possible uses of technology. Sure, it might seem like some kind of technology with medical application would easily be more important, and I would agree to a degree since I am a contact lens wearer, but a lot of those technologies are aimed less at enabling disabilities and more at prolonging the inevitable. Whatever, right? That could just be a dumb opinion of mine that will change "when it happens to me", but bodies weren't meant to last forever, and we can't make them that way.

Rant over, geek start. This little dancing robot is so cool. (I've got robots on the brain lately since a friend of mine did this cool little project.) I think that's because it reminds me of the genius and purpose of art - and what it is and isn't. A conference on the arts I attended last year stressed that art shouldn't have utility; instead, it is what it is. It will resist attempts to use it for what it's not created to be. It's useless, but in a good way. It's there to be enjoyed and appreciated. (At least, that's what I took from the conference, whether I'm butchering the concepts or not.)

Rolly plays music and dances. So I guess it's useful in terms of having something around the house that plays music. But I don't think you can use it to make a call, or take a picture, or manage your calendar. You just enjoy it, and that's the beauty.

I don't care if you buy one or not. But if you do, I'll probably invite myself over and sit and watch it for hours. And drink your beer, if you have any.

Rise of the Machines

No, I haven't seen the new Terminator movie. (Not the same title, anyways.) That's not what this is about.

Check out this little nugget of ridiculosity. Virginians are not allowed to smile when getting their picture taken at the DMV. New computer software aimed at improving prevention of fraud and identity theft by comparing mugshots over time won't allow it.

It's not the first time we've made machines and forced ourselves to accommodate to them. I sit at a desk all day with a comfy chair and wrist pad and perfectly adjusted monitors so that I can stay sitting longer and be more productive. (Don't get me wrong, I like my job.)

But this one is harder for me to stomach, somehow. Just wait. Next they'll (it's kind of fun to lump all the nasty people in power into one steaming pile and suggest that all of them are out to keep us down and make our lives miserable) be banning people from driving whose knees bend the other way. Sound far-fetched? The dark future is coming, my friend.

Renaissance of the Nerds

Ever since this went down a few weeks ago, it seems as though Kathryn and I have been going through something of a nerd-renaissance.  (And yes, I was able to spell that last word without looking it up.)

I'll be brevious.  Recently Kathryn and I were driving and a bird flew across the front of our car.  It stayed in view after that, and pulled a sort of horizontal 180 degree flip, followed by a wicked upswing that was all the more impressive given the short amount of time it all happened in.

Here's the conversation that ensued:

Me: Did you see that bird?

Kathryn: Yeah, that was cool.  It did like a feinting wonky.

Me: You mean a Wronski Feint?   (Kudos to the Muggles who didn't let me down by giving me something to hyperlink to.)

Kathryn: [laughs]

In the conversation that followed, Kathryn admitted to sometimes intentionally botching up Lord of the Rings character names so that I could get them right and correct her.  Sorry Chica, but after blowing me out of the water a few weeks ago in our house Nerd-Off, nobody's buying it!  Plus, I think if we were trying to make Jesus cry by taking something he said and making a general 'principle' out of it, we could take the time when he said he'd be ashamed of us if we were ashamed of him and apply it generally to identity issues, such as being true to ourselves (which is essentially the same as being true to whatever personality or trend we follow anyways) - in which case, not being true to one's own innate nerdness is, by some form of logic, tantamount to messianic desertion.

Nerd out.

COWPIE #4 - T-shirt bleach stenciling contest!

Howdy folks, and welcome to another quality installment in our COWPIE series! This week's challenge:

Make our own t-shirt designs using bleach stenciling.

This particular prompt gave me a unique opportunity to blend the worlds of philosophy and fashion in a way that only a person with such little respect as myself for either world could possibly even imagine. As such, I make quite the many-layered statement (alas, if only I'd worn layers to deepen the metaphor), as you will soon see below. Not only that, but my particular approach to sticking it to the people who stick it to the man is particularly clever, if I do say so myself.

That self-said, I present you with my latest "piece":


Before I leave you to ponder the depths you've just been awakened to, let me show you Kathryn's next...


So there you have it. Enjoy, and be sure to vote for your favorite! Tune in next week for our challenge of making a 15 second television commercial for something you’d use on a daily basis (can be real or made up). Later!

JoeZone is back!

Greetings, all of you, on this fine Earth Day. Not only is today significant in terms of saving the planet, but it also happens to be a Wednesday, a.k.a. Hump Day. Put those together and you get Hump Earth Day.

While that revelation is certainly worth a gratuitous blog post in and of itself, I wanted to bring glad tidings of renaming my blog (the whole "make-the-title-so-long-that-you-fall-asleep-reading-it" bit had run its course) and adding a cool photo header! (I feel so 21st century!) Kathryn and I snapped some cool pictures in Corpus Christi last weekend, ultimately inspiring the makeover. (Our new digital camera is so cool!) So "JoeZone" is back and as cool as ever, just like these guys.

Anyways, you've got things to do, and I've got a t-shirt to bleach before 12:01 am tomorrow morning, so I'll blog atcha later.

COWPIE #3: Worldwide Issue Song

It's here! COWPIE #3 and my song. I'm so pumped - music writing is fun!

The prompt: Create a song, no longer than one minute, addressing an important global issue of your choosing.

I chose global warming! Or sustainability. Though, to be perfectly honest, I really thought we didn't want to sustain the warming of the planet. Whatev.

(Note: There is now a video inserted, though originally I just did the song for the contest. This is me coming back later and adding the video that Kathryn later put together since a widget I'd used to play the song in the first place no longer works.) After you listen, check out Kathryn's entry and listen to her song, and then vote (once) in the comments on one of our blogs to select the winner!

I'm posting the words here in case any parts of the song are hard to understand. You might try just listening first so you don't spoil fun surprises! Don't worry, you'll want to play this song several times anyways (at least), so there will be plenty of opportunity later to make sure you understood me correctly (which is important, of course, so that we all do our part). Also, this or this might help you understand the reference at the end...

Lyrics
Is it getting hot in here, or is it just me?
There's nasty greenhouse gases and rising seas
If something doesn't change we'll all be cooked alive
Don't know 'bout you but that ain't how I wanna die

We've got to take action before it's too late
There's polar ice caps melting while you hesitate
Let's change the policies that are too lenient
Move it or lose it - the truth is inconvenient

(So now let's...)
Go green, save forests, use better bulbs
Check tire pressure on those vehicles
Reduce, reuse, recycle, but what is more
You've got to believe the power is yours

(Earth, fire, wind, water, HEART!)

You've got to believe the power is yours!

COWPIE #3 Teaser

Yes, I know that COWPIE #2 hasn't officially closed voting yet, and no, this isn't some lame attempt on my part to get more votes because I'm afraid I'm not nerdy enough. (I'm actually quite secure in my nerdiness, thank you very much.)

I wanted to give y'all a heads up of what to expect for next week's COWPIE challenge. Since we got our first additional participant in the challenge this week, we want to be sure to give y'all enough time in case anyone else wants to get in on the fun, especially because next week's prompt is a little more demanding:

Create a song, no longer than one minute, addressing an important global issue of your choosing.

There you have it - you have been officially teased! Remember to vote for your favorite "Number Two" COWPIE entry!