Flour Power

Looks as bad as it sounds…

I love covers. Even to the point of compiling a list of them. And this is probably one of the best, and more elaborate, I've seen. It's Stand By Me (originally by Ben E. King) played all over the world, with multiple instruments and vocals perfectly combined.

The song comes from the award-winning documentary Playing For Change: Peace Through Music. Their version of Bob Marley's One Love is also worth watching.

(via Gizmodo)

Or at least the smallest I have ever seen...

It seems that Japan is not the only source for wacky products, as this one comes from the United States.

Bakon Vodka is a superior quality potato vodka with a savory bacon flavor. It’s clean, crisp, and delicious. This is the only vodka you’ll ever want to use to make a Bloody Mary, and it's a complementary element of both sweet and savory drinks.

 

We start with superior quality Idaho potatoes instead of the random mixed grains that make up most vodkas. Our vodka is column-distilled using a single heating process that doesn’t “bruise” the alcohol like the multiple heating cycles needed to make a typical pot-still vodka.

 

No tinge or burn on the tongue, no obnoxious smoky or chemical flavors, just a clean refreshing potato vodka with delicious savory bacon flavor.

I'm... speechless...

They even have a recipes section, with drinks like the Bakon Mary, the Rosemary Bacontini and the Irish Boar...

More info at the Bakon Vodka website.

To promote Terminator Salvation (premiering on the 21^st of March), Terminate Yourself is a cool little app that can turn your picture into an evil robot from the future. It' s as easy as uploading a headshot (or taking one with your webcam) and adjusting the level of "damage". The result is somewhat disturbing.

If you like creating these mockups, you can also embed your face in several "famous" images, turn your picture into a "Obama Hope" poster and create your own Warhol-esque gallery.

(via Gizmodo)

To "celebrate" the shutting down of Geocities, Dreamhost is offering a free account for 2 years (usually priced at around €162) to everyone that has a Geocities account:

“In honor of WebRing” or something, we are now offering to the first 1000 GeoCities users who sign up TWO YEARS of a completely free DreamHost account (including domain registration)!

No strings attached.

All you have to do is verify you are an existing GeoCities customer by creating a page on your GeoCities account (or editing an existing page) to have the phrase “I’m off to DreamHost!” on it!

Then when you signup for us, simply put the full url to that page as your “promotional code” and you’ll get a 2 year plan (normally $214.80) free!

And we promise to never shut down.

It's all on their blog, along with a brief history of WebRing, a site that has been around almost since The Beginning (of the Internet) and was part of Geocities. Entertaining read for those of you who were around at the time (I think I remember seeing it...).

Anyway, the offer of free hosting and domain registration for 2 years is not to be missed. This blog is on Dreamhost and everything has been running quite smoothly (the only glitch was quickly solved). So I guess I would recommend them, although I don't know about scalability because this blog has (for now) very low traffic. At least they always have great promotions. If you can't get your hands on a Geocities account, using the promotional code "777" to sign up will give you one year hosting and domain registration for just under €7 (Earth Day promotion, so it won't last a lot of time, I would say).

I'm guessing a hunt for Geocities accounts will start...

A few days ago, when the responsibles for The Pirate Bay were found guilty, I hinted at a way to search for BitTorrent files using Google. Well, someone actually went and created a wrapper using Google Custom Search that uses that trick, and The Pirate Google was born!

 

Please Note: This site is not affiliated with Google, it simply makes use of Google Custom Search to restrict your searches to Torrent files. You can do this with any regular Google search by appending your query with filetype:torrent. This technique can be used for any type of file supported by Google.

       The intention of this site is to demonstrate the double standard that was exemplified in the recent Pirate Bay Trial. Sites such as Google offer much the same functionality as The Pirate Bay and other Bit Torrent sites but are not targeted by media conglomerates such as the IFPI as they have the political and legal clout to defend themselves unlike these small independent sites.

       This site is created in support of an open, neutral internet accessible and equitable to all regardless of political or financial standing.

 

Kudos to them!

Also, I love the logo.

On related news, it seems that we might have a retrial of the Pirate Bay case. One of the lawyers representing the Pirates has "called for a retrial after reports that the judge was a member of the same copyright protection organisations as several of the main entertainment industry representatives".

One of the groups of which Norström [the judge] is a signed up member is Svenska föreningen för upphovsrätt ('the Swedish Copyright Association'), where he is joined by Henrik Pontén, Peter Danowsky and Monique Wadsted, all of whom represented the entertainment industry in the case against file sharing site The Pirate Bay.

The judge also sits on the board of Svenska föreningen för industriellt rättsskydd (Swedish Association for the Protection of Industrial Property), a group actively advocating for more stringent copyright laws.

Norström argues that he was not however swayed in his judgement by involvement with copyright protection groups.

Ah! I mean Ahrrrr!

UPDATE: It seems that Google has been disabling these kinds of sites, but you can still use the filetype:torrent attribute in regular google searches (via Inquisitr).

132 will mark the next milestone in my Guinness counter. Why? I'll explain.

As you might remember, I previously mentioned that 1 pint is not equal to half a liter. In fact, it's something like:

1 Imperial pint = 0.568261485 liters

Now considering that my body weight is approximately 75Kg and that the density of Guinness is the density of water (which I know it isn't, each beer has a different density based on a variety of factors, but the variation is too small to be relevant for the case at hand) - 1g/cm³ - let us make the following calculation:

75 / 0.568261485 = 131.98

What this means is, by the time I finish my Guinness pint number 132, I'll have drunk my own body weight in Guinness! When presented this way, it sounds a little bit overwhelming.

Anyway, judging from last weekend, I guess I'll get to that number quite soon... And then I'll probably stop counting. Or I'll just remove the counter, so that people don't think of me the drunk-bastard-that-likes-to-show-it-off-on-his-crappy-blog.

I just hope I can get the milestone glass this time.

Over at Cracked.com there's a list of "The 10 Coolest Foreign Words The English Language Needs", which is a fun read by itself, but it's the word in the top spot that makes it even more entertaining, at least for me (numbers #10 and #7 are also quite fun). The list goes as follows:

#10. Bakku-shan (Japanese)
A beautiful girl... as long as she's being viewed from behind.

#9. Espirit d'escalier (French)
When you think of the perfect verbal comeback... much too late.

#8. Mamihlapinatapai (Yaghan)
A look between two people that suggests an unspoken, shared desire.

#7. Backpfeifengesicht (German)
A face badly in need of a fist.

#6. Nunchi (Korean)
The art of not becoming a Backpfeifengesicht.

#5. Shlimazl (Yiddish)
Somebody who has nothing but bad luck.

#4. Tatemae and Honne (Japanese)
What you pretend to believe and what you actually believe, respectively.

#3. Sgiomlaireachd (Scottish Gaelic)
When people interrupt you at meal time.

#2. Tingo (Pascuense)
To borrow from a friend until he has nothing left.

And the winner is...

#1. Desenrascanço (Portuguese)
To pull a MacGyver.

This is the art of slapping together a solution to a problem at the last minute, with no advanced planning, and no resources. It's the coat hanger you use to fish your car keys out of the toilet, the emergency mustache you hastily construct out of pubic hair.

Where most of us were taught the Boy Scout slogan "be prepared," and are constantly hassled if we don't plan every little thing ahead, the Portuguese value just the opposite.

Fuck preparation. They have desenrascanço.

As the article points out, and well, desenrascanço says a lot about the Portuguese culture. If you want to know more about it, head over to Portuguese for Dummies (beware of the eye-bleeding yellow background), although I find it a bit far fetched in some parts.