I've been a little busy lately, what with my new niece and all!

Zoe Kate was born this last Thursday evening. Weighing in at 7lbs, 5oz and 19.75" long. She's cute.... and tiny! I forgot how little babies are.

So Zoe officially puts me at uncle x2 now. (Pretty soon I'll be uncle x3 when my brother and his wife have their baby in February.) But Zoe also puts me in another important position. I'm also her Godfather. How great is that?

Okay, this is very cool. In this particular Shockwave app, you fly through a sky full of clouds. While it doesn't sound very interesting, it definately sucked a bit of time out of my afternoon. You can change your speed by clicking and dragging up and down, and direction by moving your mouse around.

You might also be interested in <a href="http://www.ertdfgcvb.ch/]the rest of his site[/url">. Apparently his name is Andreas Gysin. He makes some pretty cool stuff.

So I'm sure most of you are aware of the Sony-BMG rootkit fiasco. If you're not, you should be. First of all, the CDs have been around for about eight months. The president of their global digital business division has gone on record stating "Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"

Well, there are a couple reasons to care. Trojan horses have been spotted using the DRM software, companies are now reviewing their policies on personal CDs at work, and even World of Warcraft wasn't safe.

Sony is temporarily removing the rootkit DRM from new CDs, presumably from the bad PR and now class-action lawsuits from California (with more to follow).

So this has been around for a while and I've been behind the times... but it's still cool!

This guy is completely reconstructing the now closed Mr. Toad's Wild Ride from Walt Disney World. He's been working on this for quite some time, and he's got amazing detail in these models.

At this time, the model is only 24% done (and I guess he's also working on 20,000 Leauges and the skyway). I'm looking forward to the day it's complete!

This is one of those things you always know about, but it's far different to actually see the before and after of advertising photography. There's even some product shots in there. I was really surprised, though, to see how much work goes beyond the simple removal of blemished skin or stray hair. Some of these images had reconstructed hair, minute contrast detailing, etc, etc... It's really amazing to see how great a picture can be in the right hands...

[size=1]BE WARNED: the site is EXTREMELY slow... as in sub-dial-up speeds.[/size]

Update 6/30/06: There are now more before and afters, but they are all by request only, even the ones that were viewable before.

So it's now been revealed that Windows Vista will have seven different editions. Prices haven't been revealed yet, but for the functionality of the Starter Edition, it better only cost $10.

So here's my plan: I'm getting a bucket of popcorn and a lawn chair and heading to Best Buy once Vista is released. I can't wait to see the sales people exaplaining to the average consumer the differences between all these.

This is another reason I'm a Mac guy... one $129 OS for everyone. Oh, and did I mention that OS X came out several years ago? Vista might get released before the end of 2006.

It's about time some noticed the real reasons for the decline in movie-goers. This NY Times article (use BugMeNot if it requires a login) sheds light on some of the real reasons for the drop in theater attendance. Among them: higher gas prices, alternate entertainment (TV, video-games, internet), DVDs, and (here's the real shocker) Hollywood movies just aren't as good. For once, the studios are accepting that movie piracy, while still a threat, is perhaps not the prominent reason not as many people are heading to the theaters! Now if they'd just work on getting rid of the obnoxious people in the theaters...

So I stumbled across Grow a while ago. Now they've produced Grow RPG, a new twist on the game.

These games are a lot of fun. Place the objects on the globe in a certain order. They will interact with each other and level up. The goal is to get all the items to their maximum level. The RPG has a little story that plays out too.

Seriously, give it a go. They're hella fun. It only took me 7 tries to complete the RPG. My advice: keep track of the the order you place the items. It will help a lot!

A quick link I got off Digikitten.com showed me this beauty... or more accurately rip-off of a beauty.

I'm not entirely sure this is legal, is it? I mean, they did't even try to make it original. Of course, they did do a damn good job of ripping off the design. Apprently the Shuffle Pro as it is being dubbed by Luxpro Corp. works identically to the iPod Shuffle (not sure about iTunes support) and uses the same stick style USB connectivity.

This could be what's to come.

This is a flash piece from a fictitous museum in the future outlining how google and blogs have changed the face of journalism and the internet. Definately an interesting watch.

The general take is that between Google's all encompasing goals and the surge of bloggers, traditional media is challenged and it's what we want. Are we sure?