awesome-robot

PHP Has a Theme Song

PHP now has a theme song.  This is a song called, what else, "PHP" by a guy named Lee Fernandes.  I found it on something called "Emergent Collective One"

 

You can listen to it here:

Mike Parsons surfs 64 foot wave on the Cortes Bank

Off the coast of southern California lie some of the largest waves in the world.  Cortes Bank is a chain of underwater mountains in the Pacific Ocean, about 100 miles west of San Diego, USA, the peaks are a hazard to shipping, but help create a noted big-wave surfing spot.  In 2001, Mike Parsons challenged the bank and conquered a 65 foot wave:

"The ocean was just alive. The amount of chaos going on over that reef was amazing. There was probably a mile and a half of white water." - Mike Parsons

 

 

Click Here to watch this ride with commentary along with others riding the Cortes Bank

 

More about the Cortes Bank:

 

In the early 1990s Larry Moore, photo editor at Surfing magazine, made flights out across the bank on rumours of giant waves. By 1995 he'd seen and photographed waves and that year he led an expedition with a small group of surfers out there (including Surfing magazine editor Bill Sharp). But conditions were poor and they only surfed a few small waves.

A kind of inner-circle of surfers planned for the ideal conditions at the bank. In 2001 a storm called "Storm 15" in the Gulf of Alaska and a high pressure ridge over California came together to create huge swells but light wind over the bank. A team of surfers went out on a fishing boat, with big-wave tow surfers Ken Collins, Peter Mel, Brad Gerlach and Mike Parsons, plus paddle-surfers Evan Slater and John Walla. On the morning of 19 January 2001 they found smooth glassy conditions and enormous waves breaking across about 1 mile (1.5 kilometer) of reef, with the last part of it ridable.

Larry Moore photographed from a circling plane, Dana Brown shot from a boat for his surf film Step Into Liquid, and Fran Battaglia shot from two other boats for his wave science film for Surfline *Making The Call: Big Waves of the North Pacific, his documentary for Swell, XXL, NBC Dateline, The Billabong Odyssey and Activision's Kelly Slater Pro Surfer video game. Parsons was towed into the wave of the day, estimated at 66 feet (20 m) on the face. It won him the Swell XXL Biggest Wave Award (now Billabong XXL) prize of $60,000 for the biggest northern hemisphere wave surfed in 2000/2001.

On January 5, 2008, Mike Parsons, Brad Gerlach, Grant "Twiggy" Baker and Greg Long challenged the spot again. Mike Parsons was photographed on a wave bigger than his award winning ride of 2001, judged by the Billabong XXL judges as 70+ feet on the face.

Although very difficult to get to, the reputation of Cortes Bank draws crowds when conditions are good. On a trip with the Billabong Odyssey in January 2004 Sean Collins (surf forecaster and one of the initial inner circle) counted 10 or 12 boats with about 40 surfers.

from Wikipedia

 

 

Box of Grenades

So my girlfriend, Dawn, and I got this amazing setup at a garage sale last weekend.  It's pretty awesome, It's a crate and cardboard/metal tubes that used to house grenades.  In fact, this box came from Guantanamo Bay.  It's wooden, containing about a dozen or so cardboard tubes with metal ends. It has pretty awesome markings all over it that say stuff like "hand grenades" and id numbers.

It was so awesome, I couldn't pass it up, but now I have no idea what to do with it. If anyone has any idea what kind of crazy art project I can do with this, let me know. Leave a comment here, if you do!

What is Net Neutrality and Why does it Matter?

So what is Net Neutrality?  Why should it even matter?  Think about everything you do online. All of that fun stuff is sent to your computer no matter who creates it.  Right now your Service Provider is required to send everything you want to see at the same speed. Why? The ISPs now want to start charging the content creators to send their sites faster, or to send it at all.  Also imagine this: The Internet being sold in packages.  $30 for AOL, ABC, and Disney, $10 extra if you want Google and Yahoo. $20 more for Blogger, Myspace, and Youtube. Anything else will be charged per page or megabyte.

This is a very important issue coming Nov 4.  If John McCain wins, you can say goodbye to the internet as it is.  You'll see the sites Cox or Comcast wants you to see, not the sites you want to see.

The fact that the internet is free and open has made it what it is today. Without the little guys like us contributing, it just wouldn't be as fun, as useful, and would certainly not have developed the "internet culture" it has today.

Barack Obama is FOR net neutrality.

John McCain is AGAINST net neutrality

 

Here's a video explaining net neutrality.

 

 

Is this how you want to pay for your internet?

 

 

The candidates' stances on Net Neutrality:

 

 

Further info :

 

John McCain Plagiarized his Bomb Iran song

John McCain must be a fan of Vince Vance and the Valiants.  How do we know? Well it seems Heart, Jackson Browne, and The Foo Fighters aren't the only artists who's music he's using without permission.  He didn't write "Bomb Iran." In fact, he took it from Vince Vance and the Valiants.

 

Listen to it here:

Vince Vance and the Valiants - Bomb Iran.m3u

Here's the John McCain version

 

From Wikipedia:

The group is also known for its still-controversial 1980 song entitled "BOMB IRAN", which was recorded in the midst of the Iranian hostage crisis and sung to the tune of "Barbara Ann" by The Beach Boys and The Regents. "BOMB IRAN" was "The Most Requested Song in the United States", according to Billboard Magazine, in 1980 for several weeks during the heighth of the Iranian Hostage Crisis, garnering much radio play and millions of dollars worth of free publicity [Newsweek, US News & World Report, Playboy, Rolling Stone, etc.] for the band and its already notorious live stage antics.

 

The Lyrics:

Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran
Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb,
Bomb Iran
Let's take a stand
Bomb Iran
Our country's got a feelin'
Really hit the ceilin', bomb Iran
Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran

Went to a mosque, gonna throw some rocks
Tell the Ayatollah, "Gonna put you in a box!"
Bomb Iran. Bomb, bomb, bomb,
Bomb Iran
Our country's got a feelin'
Really hit the ceilin', bomb Iran
Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran

Ol' Uncle Sam's gettin' pretty hot
Time to turn Iran into a parking lot
Bomb Iran. Bomb, bomb, bomb,
Bomb Iran
Our country's got a feelin'
Really hit the ceilin', bomb Iran
Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran

Call the volunteers; call the bombadiers;
Call the financiers; better get their *** in gear
Bomb Iran. Bomb, bomb, bomb,
Bomb Iran
Our country's got a feelin'
Really hit the ceilin', bomb Iran
Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran
(Let's nuke 'em! Whoo!)

Call on our allies to cut off their supplies
Get our hands untied, and bring em' back alive
Bomb Iran. Bomb, bomb, bomb,
Bomb Iran
Our country's got a feelin'
Really hit the ceilin', bomb Iran
Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran

Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran
Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb,
Bomb Iran
Let's take a stand
Bomb Iran
Our people you been stealin'
Now it's time for keelin', bomb Iran
Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran