Superficial Intelligence

If you haven't heard, Facebook has added a new feature (very much anticipated by me). It is a section called "People You May Know". This feature presents you with a list of Facebook users that have many friends in common with you. Thanks to this feature, I've been able to find at least 20 friends in the last week that I did not know were on Facebook. This feature is still not fleshed out enough, but it's already very useful. Personally, I would like to be able to see a list of all friends of friends. Also, the list always shows a random selection of people, so I end up seeing much of the same people over and over again, while some friends might still be lost out there somewhere. If you have Facebook, be sure to take a look at it. If you haven't, I'm sure you must have at least noticed the sudden increase in friend requests during the last week.

Posted by Fernando Torre at 12:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I think this piece at Google Blogoscoped is just hilarious. It is the best review of color pencils yet. Enjoy and add them to your feed aggregator while you're at it!

Color Pencils Reviewed

Posted by Fernando Torre at 11:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I have always thought that Legos are the best toys ever created. I have loved them since I was a little kid and will still play with them if given a chance. I was therefore excited to hear news about a Lego Massive Multiplayer Online Game being produced presently. They will probably have players completing quests to obtain the coolest bricks. One of the most interesting aspects of the game will be the ability to build all sorts of neat structures with your set of bricks. To find out more, check out the article at Wired and the interview report at Kotaku.

Posted by Fernando Torre at 10:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I am back in Minnesota. Things are still a bit hectic, since my wife and I moved to a new apartment last Saturday and are still putting everything together. As I struggle to get back to my regular schedule, enjoy this very cool video of a binary adding machine using wood and marbles:

Posted by Fernando Torre at 02:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I'm off to Puerto Rico to be at my grandmother's funeral. I'll be back on Tuesday.

Posted by Fernando Torre at 10:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I love Google Reader. I am subscribed to approximately 60 feeds on it and log in a few times per day. But there is one thing about the interface that really bugs me. It is the fact that the "Mark all as read" button is right next to the "Refresh" button. I have found myself (in more than one occasion) clicking accidentally on "Mark all as read" when I really just wanted to refresh the page. Even worse, there is no "Undo" button. So all the items that I was saving up to read later by leaving them unread are suddenly marked as read and lost in between the hundreds of other items. There are two solutions to this problem: either separate the "Mark all as read" button from the "Refresh" button by a considerable amount of space (the easy option) or implement an undo function (the hard, but ultimately more useful, option).

I wonder why Google hasn't stumbled into this usability problem. Maybe they did their user tests with users who had a small number of registered feeds and therefore weren't affected by this as much? Or maybe they are considering us regular users their test users? Nevertheless, I just wish that they fix that soon.

Posted by Fernando Torre at 11:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Last year I was trying to get in shape by running a few times a week. After a month or two, when I had reached the point where I could easily jog for at least an hour, I decided to go for a 5k marathon. I did terrible. I wasn't counting on the insane amount of hills we had to run through. I managed to get second to last of about 20 participants. Still, I felt great. It was my first race and I had survived. I had given it my all. The simple fact of competing and testing my skills was satisfying.

This last weekend, I went to participate in a tournament of one of my favorite video games. I was very excited because, similar to the race, this would be my first competition of its kind. I even spent the week training for it. When I got there, I was greeted with the news that all the slots for the tournament were full. There was no space for me. That's when I noticed that I would have preferred to compete and lose than to not compete at all. It is far more bearable to give it your all and lose than to not be able to give it anything at all.

Posted by Fernando Torre at 01:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

For the last day of the video game music week, I saved one of my favorites. This marching band really pulled off a great performance using classic Nintendo songs. I hope you all have enjoyed the interesting performances I have shown this week. Feel free to add more of your own in the comments section!

Posted by Fernando Torre at 11:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

There isn't much cooler (or geekier) than music made by lightning. These video clips feature Super Mario songs by two Tesla Coils. Nikola Tesla, for those of you that don't know, is one of the fathers of modern electricity, specifically, AC (alternating current). There are no speakers involved in the videos. Enjoy these awesome, almost bizarre, clips:

Posted by Fernando Torre at 11:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

VGL stands for "Video Games Live". These are live concerts that feature music from many of the most famous games of all time. I'm still on the lookout to see if they will offer any concert nearby. This particular clip features music from Kingdom Hearts and a Final Fantasy piano solo. Check their website to see if there is a concert near you!

I cannot embed this video, since the embedding has been disabled for this particular one, but here is the link:

Video Games Live - Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy

Posted by Fernando Torre at 10:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

To continue with unusual interpretations of video game music, here is the Final Fantasy Chocobo theme played by one guy with two guitars at the same time. This sort of feat would be practically impossible on acoustic guitars. Enjoy!

Posted by Fernando Torre at 11:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Ever heard of the theremin? It is one of the strangest instruments ever created. It is fully electronic and is the only instrument that depends on the person's proximity to it to play the notes. There are no strings or keys to press! Few are the people who venture into the weird world of the theremin. It is no wonder that a geeky instrument such as this is used by some to play video game music. Here is Zelda music on the theremin:

There are a bunch of other neat theremin videos around. If you want to hear more, check these ones out for starters:

Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy"

Final Fantasy X - To Zanarkand

Don't Worry, Be Happy

Posted by Fernando Torre at 10:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The second video of the week is a flute version of the Super Mario Brothers theme. The cool thing is that the guy is doing beatboxing at the same time as he plays the flute. Be sure to check out his other videos, including the Sesame Street and Inspector Gadget themes.

Posted by Fernando Torre at 11:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It's time for another themed week! This time, I decided to put up some of my favorite videos of live interpretations of video game music. I am a Nintendo fan, so most of the songs are from classic Nintendo games, such as Mario, Tetris, and Zelda. These are some of the coolest or strangest clips I have found, so I hope you enjoy them. I will start with a very fun video of a choir singing Nintendo acappella. Enjoy!

Posted by Fernando Torre at 10:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)