Star Trek: The Sexed Generation

Lol.... Too funny.

I-Beamers Wins Bridge Building Competition Again

Making final adjustments to our bridge as other members of the team look on. (Photo by Mayo)

My team, the I-Beamers, won the 2009 Ryerson Popsicle Bridge Building Competition. Our bridge weighing just over 1 kg resisted a load of 805 kg and scored 97 points out of a possible 100 points.

Thanks to Mayo, Ryan and Mike for their hard work. Best of luck to all of us at the national competition in Montreal, March 6.




Competition scoring breakdown:

• Judging of originality, workmanship and aesthetics = 25 points


• Ultimate load = 40 points


• Design efficiency = 35 points

Official scoresheet:

Man Trapped In Elevator For 41 Hours

Forget shark attacks, this is much more scary. Also make sure to read the story. I learned so much about elevators. One being in most modern elevators, the Door Close button does not work!! It's merely there to fool us into thinking we have control over the elevator to put our minds at ease. I hate living in a condo.

Guitar: More Than Words

Here's a song I recorded in October but never uploaded. It's from the band Extreme. I think my singing improved considerably since my first vocal recording found here.

• Listen to More Than Words

I fixed all the dead links in previous posts to my guitar recordings.

Ryerson Bridge Building Competition 2008

Here's a video from last year's popsicle bridge competition held at Ryerson University. My team, the I-beamers, won the competition with an ultimate load of 588kg on a 1.2kg bridge.

The result of this competition qualified us for the Canadian national competition at Concordia University, Montreal where we placed 3rd.

In two weeks, my team will defend our title in the 2009 Ryerson competition. My bridge design for 2009 is based on last year's design but with vast improvements. I'm hoping it will hold over 1000kg.

Best Browser Nobody Knows About: Maxthon

Love Firefox's customization but annoyed that it sometimes doesn't display pages properly? Frustrated with how slow it opens compared to Internet Explorer? Then by all means give Maxthon a try.

I've been using it for 5 years and I am still convinced it's the best browser out there. Firefox is great, but it requires a bit of customization to realize its full potential. With Maxthon, everything you need is included in one package ready for download. I'm talking about auto-filling forms, password tracking, mouse gestures (this is probably the best thing for browsing most people don't know about), ad blocking, pop-up blocking, url aliases and much more. And it's free!

The best thing about Maxthon is it's 100% compatible with Internet Explorer. That's because it uses the IE engine. When you open Maxthon, you are essentially opening Internet Explorer, but with a bunch of addons that make browsing faster and better.

Here are some things I can do with Maxthon:

Mouse gestures - I can program Maxthon to recognize the movement of the mouse when I hold down the right mouse button and program it to do a certain task. The most popular task is the 'left' gesture which makes you go back a page. No more searching for the 'back' button at the top of the browser.

URL aliases - I can assign aliases to URLs. So instead of typing out the full URL out, for instance for this site, http://brian911.blogspot.com, I can simply make it recognize the word 'blog' and I will be automatically directed to this site.

Search aliases - Let's say you want to search Wikipedia. You can type out the full URL, go to the site, look for the search box and conduct your search. You can save a bit of time if you make an URL alias for Wikipedia such as 'wiki'. However, the best thing you can do is to create a search alias. Then in your address bar, you can simply type 'wiki' followed by your search terms and it'll take you directly to the results.

Give it a try:
Step 1: Register
Step 2: Download Maxthon 2.5

Street Fighter 4

Looks pretty sweet. Maybe I will finally buy a console in the new year.

EDIT: I modified the Youtube embed code to display the video in HQ. Let me know if it doesn't work.

Found my old website!

Wow, I thought my site would be gone by now but I found a backup I made here! However, the links on the webpage don't work anymore because most of the files were kept on a different server.

The MIDI website was my baby in high school. I thought it was a pretty snazzy design for 1999. Made some money off ad commissions too. While it was active, it received over 200,000 hits.

Anyhow, sweet!

Watch Dark Knight free online

I found this free link. Enjoy!

Thoughts On Modern Rock Climbing

I was searching for sample videos from the Canon HG20 and I found by accident this video that was shot at a climbing gym in Germany (I think). If you've ever been to a climbing gym in Toronto, you know they are pretty basic. The gyms are retrofits of older buildings and you don't get much else to do except climb. The service counters sell energy bars and bottled drinks but not much else.

Neulich in Gilching from Deti on Vimeo

This gym in Germany on the other hand looks like it was built from the ground up for climbing. It has a nice little cafe overlooking the gym where parents can wait and watch their kids climb, and where climbers can get refreshments and rest. This is what a climbing gym should be! - Not using old rusty fridges that was dragged in from who knows where.

Before I get lambasted, I understand the climbing culture is very minimalistic and that some people do not want the purity and history of climbing to be devalued by commercialization. Well, the fact is commercialization of climbing is well-underway. With the increasing popularity of climbing, professional climbers that at first only garnered support from specialty climbing equipment companies now attract global companies such as North Face. We have climbing 'rock stars' now in the likes of Chris Sharma who are idolized by young adoring fans through movies and YouTube. Climbing purists can resist all they want but changes are brewing.

It's not only the business that is changing. The nature of climbing is changing too. We're seeing more focus on big power moves (i.e. dynos) which require the climber to generate momentum to gain the next hold. These all-or-nothing moves look extremely impressive on TV but climbing purists will tell you climbing is about efficiency - Yoga on the rocks.

I guess this stems from the past. Climbing equipment has come a long way. It use to be every fall had a potential for serious injury or death. But not anymore. You see professional climbers fall at the crux of their project climb hundreds of time attempting the same move with little concern for their safety.

Things were different in the past. I remember climbing at Metcalfe and expressing disbelief to my climbing partner how incredibly high the first bolts were. The first bolts were literally 30 feet off the ground. Usually, you would place the first bolt at a height that would not result in serious injury or possibly death if you are unable to reach it and fall off. My partner explained Melcalfe was one of the first areas to be climbed in Ontario and back then, you only climbed at your abilities. The height of the first bolt was to discourage anybody from climbing beyond their confidence and abilities. Things have really changed since then.

Stack the memory to the sky

The best part was when he lowered his chair... See if you agree.

Helen Keller Actress Fail

Have A Random Sight Gag

Have A Random Sight Gag

Posted using ShareThis

What a guy

New song in the works

I have started the considerable job of tackling the acoustic version of the Eagles' classic, Hotel California. Go big or go home right? Here's what I am talking about:

Blog update

I've been wanting to update my blog with another guitar recording but unfortunately school's been pretty busy so I haven't had the time. I have however been practicing playing the guitar and singing at school in between studying and completing assignments. I promise when I get a bit more time, I'll put up another track.

I noticed the links for the older MP3s I put up are dead. I found another MP3 hosting site that doesn't seem to have an expiry policy. I'll re-upload my MP3s to the new hosting site soon.

John McCain is a Cylon!!!

Here's the proof:

http://www.429truth.com/2008/09/01/john-mccain-is-a-cylon/

Guitar: Quando now with vocals!

Yes, that's not a misprint. I actually recorded myself singing. It's rather embarrassing how badly I sing, but hey, you can't improve if you don't try right? So ladies and gentlemen, feel free to give me any advice on my singing. It will be much appreciated.

On the other hand, I polished up the guitar portion of Quando, Quando, Quando and added a rhythms section. This along with the vocals makes this the first "complete" song I recorded.

• Listen to Quando, Quando, Quando

Eric the Eel

Funny but true event that happened at the 2000 Sydney Olympics - swimmer from Equatorial Guinea wins a 100m freestyle heat despite having never trained in an Olympic size pool because his two other competitors got disqualified on a false start.

Guitar: Month 4 - Improv time!

I've been trying to play Quando Quando Quando from watching Youtube videos the last couple weeks. The version I'm trying to play is in a bossa nova style similiar to Michael Buble's version.

Anyhow, today after ultimate frisbee, I had some free time so I recorded a track for fun. It sounded a little bland, so I recorded a second track that I improvised. I think it turned out pretty well for a first take. Take a listen yourself!

• Listen to Quando Improv (MP3)