Month: January 2007

I haven’t had time to watch it all the way through yet, but “Turkish Star Wars” (Dünyayi Kurtaran Adam) (Google Video) sounds intriguing:

Released in 1982, Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam was created in Turkey caught in the midst of massive political upheaval. As a result, American-made films were not easily acquired and were often remade with a Turkish cast and setting. The musical soundtrack is entirely lifted from Western film hits of the time, primarily using Raiders of the Lost Ark. There are also scenes incorporating the music of Moonraker, Flash Gordon, Battlestar Galactica, Planet of the Apes and Disney’s The Black Hole.

Thomas Hawk’s Digital Connection made a nice post entitled Top 10 Hacks on flickr, which mentioned a couple of things I knew about as well as a couple of Greasemonkey scripts which proved immediately useful. My favorites include:

• Slickr: a great way to make flickr photos into a screensaver
• flickr rich edit Greasemonkey script: adds bold, italic, and link tools above comment text entry boxes in flickr.
• flickr multi group sender Greasemonkey script: replaces the very slow “add to group” button in flickr, allowing for sending to multiple groups at once; indispensable!
• flickr Leech: displays up to 200 thumbnails at a time, allowing you to quickly become acquainted with a photographer’s work.

While I’m at it, I guess I should mention a couple of things that weren’t in his list that I find useful:

• add referrer into comments Greasemonkey script: I wish this sort of “trackback” was something that flickr included by default. When you comment on someone’s photo, this script adds a line telling that user how you came upon their photo (e.g. a search, a particular set, the Explore page). I wish more people installed this one when viewing my photos!
• Groupr: allows you to quickly browse through photo groups you’ve subscribed to by downloading thumbnails.
• flickr Scout: one of the many cool tools at fd’s flickr toys, this one tells you which of your photographs have made it to the flickr “Explore” page. However, as mentioned on the page, this can be “bad for your mental health.”

Best Of Bootie 2006 features a nice collection of mash-ups for download, sized specifically for burning to an audio CD.

Armchair Arcade has written quite an authoritative guide in the feature The History of Computer Role-Playing Games Part I: The Early Years (1980-1983).

Microsoft Photo Info is a free software application that

allows photographers to add, change and delete common “metadata” [EXIF] properties for digital photographs from inside Windows Explorer. It also provides enhanced “hover tips” and additional sort properties for digital photographs in Explorer (in Details view).

I found it quite useful, and you can’t beat the price: free! However, in order to download it, you have to go through Microsoft’s draconian Windows verification process, which seems to only work through Internet Explorer. :-p

Drivl.com has compiled the results of every Mythbusters myth test, coming up with a neat interface to browse them.

Billboard and Rolling Stone report that Van Halen is reuniting with David Lee Roth for an upcoming tour, with Eddie Van Halen’s son Wolfgang replacing Michael Anthony on bass. I guess I’ll reserve judgment (on both pieces of news) until I actually hear the band…
via Fimoculous

Wired magazine has a very interesting feature entitled What We Don’t Know:

How did life begin? What’s the universe made of? Why do we sleep? 42 of the biggest questions in science.

This feature is made even more interesting by the addition of a wiki allowing others to contribute and collaborate.

It’s hard to disagree with The Sun Online’s list of the 25 Most Shameless Paycheck Grabbing Roles In History. Can you think of any they missed?

CNN Money’s list of the 101 Dumbest Moments In Business 2006 is an interesting, albeit infuriating read.