The Weekend and The GUI

I think the article I miss the most in Latin is "the." Anyway, the weekend was the funnest I've had in Austin this semester I think. Friday night was an ACM potluck where we all brought a dish and played some board games. I made my awesome sausage dish and I think it came out well and it garnered a couple of compliments. I ate way too many cookies because they were so good. I learned how to play this game called Settlers of Catan which sounded pretty nerdy at first but it sounded like a lot of fun after I learned it. I also got owned in Egyptian Ratscrew. Saturday was NSC Boat Party, which was totally awesome. We had a boat on Lake Travis for 4 hours and there was tons of food available once again. The water was really cold because the skies suddenly got cloudy (it was so hot Friday though), but we still braved it. That night was the ACM officer debriefing, which was some more water and also some barbeque fun. I prefer Indian barbeques to American ones, but it was still fun and I had my first Tequila shot later that night at Ryan's place. I also played my first game of Settlers of Catan, which I didn't do too bad in. So that was my fun filled weekend, which will conclude tonight with the NSC officer dinner. My other main topic, for the sake of not being a dopey blogger, is this article on the history of the Graphical User Interface, or GUI. GUI is everything you see on your screen, and the article is really cool, concise history of its development. I didn't even know that it was originally conceived in the 1930s, but you may see some artifacts from your childhood in that article. It's a fun read, in my opinion.

There are a few other articles of interest for tech geeks. I was outside experiencing the lack of sun yesterday, but those of you who stayed at home may have noticed that Google was down for a bit and apparently it was a result of some DNS problems. Kind of a strange freak DNS accident to occur, but I can't see what they'd want to cover up since it was resolved so quickly. Artificial retinas, which I mentioned a while ago, developed at USC have been implanted in a few patients and seems to be a success so far. Though it only helps people with degenerated rods and cones and is rather pricey it's still a huge advance and can make the impossible possible. Everyone is curious about the Xbox 360 and now a picture has been leaked of the upcoming offering from Microsoft:



I'm pretty sure this is the real thing folks and definitely doesn't sound like a hoax. It's quite different from their first console, and I think it's progress. You can see the controller here. If you're not currently running Tiger, you may want to check out zaptastic, which is a widget designed to show you how insecure Dashboard is. It seems that Apple has gone too far in ease of use with this autoinstalling thing. If you're interested in 4-D models (the extra dimension is time), you should read the end of this interview with someone researching representing cities in four dimensions and check out their site. It's funny that dimension in Linear Algebra means something different then what we say colloquially because it's really just related to the most efficient basis for a vector space. But anyway, the last thing I thought I'd mention is that Microsoft has come to its senses and given support to the gay rights bill. I guess the power of the people works!

There's not a whole lot of movie news floating around this weekend but I'll do what I can. For yet another weekend, box office sales blew and the number one film was Kingdom of Heaven, which only raked in a sixth of what it cost to make. That's not surprising given that it got unfavorable reviews, and so the summer season is off to a horrid start and won't pick up until Revenge of the Sith next weekend (not this one) most likely. There were a couple of huge trailers released yesterday. First was a teaser trailer for Harry Pottr and the Goblet of Fire, which already has me excited about it despite being such a short glimpse. The first comprehensive trailer for The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is finally up, which is really starting to look up. I think it's trying a little too hard to compete with Lord of the Rings, but it still has plenty of hope. Lastly, I just thought I'd mention that 24 may end up moving to NBC, which hopefully would boost its ratings because I don't think it's been getting the viewership it deserves. We'll know for sure in another week or so.

Time for some Unconscious Mutterings:

I say ... and you think ... ?

1. Android::Robot
   
2. Revenge::of the Sith =P
   
3. Knight::, Dark = Batman
   
4. Stranded::Castaway
   
5. Weakness::Betrayal
   
6. Greed::Se7en
   
7. Walter::Chronkite (no idea how to spell his last name)
   
8. Dense::Closely packed
   
9. Sheep::Herd
   
10. Propane::"My name is Hank Hill and I sell propane and propane accessories"
    

Don't forget that Family Guy will be on Fox tonight at 8PM CST! Off I go to Buca di Beppo for the first time.