Out-of-shape? Middle Earth geek? Why not walk to Rivendell, and join a
worldwide community of Hobbit-fancying power-walkers, logging your
daily paces as you leg the distances traversed by the hairy-foot set.
Walk,
run, hike, bike, blade, swim – if you can measure the distance, you can
do this challenge. Keep a log, and record your daily or weekly miles
and the type of exercise. For walkers and hikers, you might want to
invest in a walking meter, they look like wristwatches. Otherwise, you
can estimate your distance at 1 mile for every 20 minutes of brisk
walking on a flat surface. Our original suggested deadline was the
opening of The Return of the King, December 17, 2003. As this glorious
day is now past, we are setting new goals, new times:
If you would like to set a long term distance goal, choose any one of the following…
1625 miles: Take the road home with the hobbits from Minas Tirith to Hobbiton.
It’s no secret that the US military is having more trouble than ever finding new recruits. You might think that recruiting from the MySpace generation would make perfect sense – a pool of millions of technology savvy young people. According to a study commissioned by the US Navy, however, you’d be wrong. MySpace kids, it is said, are like an “Alien Life Force”:
The MySpace generation is a “somewhat alien life force,” a Navy recruiting presentation contends — with a language and lifestyle that’s almost unrecognizable to adults. And because the kids are such “coddled,” “narcissistic praise junkies,” they’ll be beyond tough to bring into the military. Propensity to join the armed forces among these so-called “millennials” has dropped to as little as 3%; that’s down from 26% in 2001.
Read the whole great post by Noah Shachtman at Wired’s Danger Room. Military silliness at its best!
“It’s official folks, Rock Band will be $170 for Xbox 360 and PS3 and release Nov. 23. A Friday … wait, Black Friday? Yes, more on that in a second. The PS2 version will release Dec. 10 for $160. Our spidey sense started tingling that something was up when we received info that Amazon was listing Rock Band for $169 — a $30 reduction from the $199 they’ve had listed for months. Turns out that they received the official price today. The bundle includes the game (reg. $60, $50 on PS2), the guitar (reg. $60, but wired on Xbox 360, wireless is separate and $80), the wired drums (reg. $80), and wired microphone (reg. $30).
Now the big question: What were the powers that be thinking with November 23rd? Nov. 23rd is Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, the high holy “oh my gawd we’re going to get trampled when the stores open” day of the year. Can you imagine what it’s going to be like trying to pick up your game at retail on that day? Don’t know about the rest of you, but if there were ever a time to get your game by mail — this would be that time!”
Neatorama: “I don’t know what was more amazing–the fact that this guy kicked butt on piano, or the fact that (lo these MANY years after playing it,) I still remember exactly which levels these pieces were from…”
Digg: “A representative from Valve Software confirmed on Wednesday night that its upcoming releases of The Orange Box for PC and Xbox 360 have gone gold and are on their way for an October 10 release date.”
“Keep an eye on that eBay
auction in its closing minutes automatically with Page Reboot, a web
service that refreshes a given web site every 30 seconds (or any
interval you set). Similar to the ReloadEvery Firefox extension,
drop the URL into Page Reboot’s refresh box, set the refresh interval
(in seconds) and go. A bookmarklet version is also available.”
“Windows
only: Freeware application CDBurnerXP is an easy to use, all-in-one CD
and DVD burning suite with an impressive range of features. This app
can burn gapless audio CDs, create and burn ISOs, and even handle burning to Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs.
Its simple Drop-Box feature offers a really smooth way to add new files
to a project via drag-and-drop. If you’ve got the urge to burn a lot of
optical media but you don’t want to shell out $100 for Nero or some
other professional suite, CDBurnerXP is an excellent alternative.
CDBurnerXP is freeware, Windows only.”
“What happen when germs go into space on a rocket and come back to Earth? They become stronger and deadlier than ever:
Scientists wanted to see how space travel affects germs, so they took some along — carefully wrapped — for the ride.
The result: Mice fed the space germs were three times more
likely to get sick and died quicker than others fed identical germs
that had remained behind on Earth.”
“NBC has tapped filmmaker Doug Liman to produce a Transformers-inspired
