Woman Hit by Car, Sues Google

After a Utah resident was struck by a car while crossing a highway, she filed a lawsuit against the driver of the car – but named Google as a defendant as well. Since, you know, they’re the ones that told her to cross the road.

The lawsuit states that Google should have known that the directions they gave her (when she accessed Google Maps on her cell phone) sent her down a rural highway with vehicles traveling at a high rate of speed, lacking pedestrian sidewalks. And that they therefore had a duty to warn her, rather than sending her down a “dangerous path” that led to the accident and her subsequent pain and suffering and $100,000+ in medical bills.

Of course, her lawyer says that the media is being unfair for painting his client as stupidly ignoring her own safety and common sense by blindly following directions. It’s Google’s fault, for creating a “trap” with their bad directions.

Though the lawsuit doesn’t mention that Google Maps includes a disclaimer for pedestrian directions. On the website, it says “Walking directions are in beta. Use caution – This route may be missing sidewalks or pedestrian paths.” And on my iPhone, it says “Walking directions (beta): use caution.” Even if Google does have a legal duty to warn (which is probably debatable), they’ve probably already met that burden.

But let this be a lesson to you all: Look both ways before crossing the street, even if Google tells you not to.



AWESOME: Graffiti Light Warfare

Enough with the rainbows and flowers – it’s time for guns and missiles! This is the true power of light painting: every weapon at your fingertips.

Life After Lost (and 24): Day 3

Yesterday we looked at examples of Lost-style non-linear storylines. Today, in honor of 24, we’ll run down some examples of real-time TV and film.

The most obvious for Keifer Sutherland fans is Phone Booth, in which a man answers a ringing telephone and comes to regret it. Sutherland is the voice of the man making the call, so it’s hardly a Bauer-esque action-filled role on his part. The movie works well for what it is, though.

When you talk about real-time movies, the all-time classic is Alfred Hitchcock’s adaptation of the play Rope. It begins with two men murdering a former classmate, to then watch them spend the next 80 minutes as they hold a party with the food served on top of the chest in which they’ve stashed the body. The real-time, continuous scene approach is impressive, but to modern audiences the technique Hitchcock uses to get round technical limitations may appear clumsy: with film stock limiting continuous shooting to around 10 minutes, the joins are made by zooming into and out of a solid background such as a jacket.

If you want 24’s approach taken to the limit, check out Timecode. It involves the screen being split into four shots, each running continuously in real-time. The audio fades up and down to put the emphasis on whichever “scene” is most important to plot development at any time. It’s certainly creative (particularly on DVD where all four soundtracks are available in isolation), but not particularly enthralling once you get past the gimmick.

The same can’t be said of 102 Minutes That Changed America, a History Channel documentary about the attacks of 11 September 2001. It’s made up of dozens of different clips shot by ordinary people on camcorders and edited in a simple way: the footage is in real-time and at any particular moment, the most powerful video recorded at that moment is shown. The result is that instead of simply showing the Twin Towers collapsing on a loop, it puts the events into context and conveys the lack of information most people had and the panic they felt. The choice of footage for the moment the second plane hits the tower is probably the most chilling piece of reality you will ever see.



15 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About the Brain

Did you know that the belief that people only use 10% of their brains is a myth? Or that a brain has 100,000 miles worth of blood vessels, and over 100 billion neurons? Hit the jump for other interesting facts about the the organ that makes us, human beings, so special.

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Choosing a Laptop over a Lap Dance: Geeky Bachelor Party

The Hangover - Waking Up the next dayWe all know that bachelor parties are typically a great excuse to get completely wasted, and do some very regrettable things with your male friends. One of my favorites recent comedies The Hangover, which if you haven’t watched you should, centers around the crazy situations that can occur at these parties, like proposing to a stripper or stealing Mike Tyson’s tiger. Now certainly these scenarios are exaggerated for the film, nonetheless bachelor parties do pose somewhat of an issue for a number of geeks who, manliness aside, just aren’t that into strip clubs. I’m not knocking those who do, I’m just sayin’ it’s not my bag to watch girls work out their “daddy issues” on stage.

What’s the alternative?

Choosing TCIP over TITSI was invited to one of my oldest friend’s bachelor party this last weekend, and was very pleasantly surprised when I arrived to see that my geeky friend did not dissapoint. His best man had of course setup a decent sized keg, which was getting good use, but more importantly they had setup several tables with 8 laptops, all connected to Battle.net and were playing rounds of 4 vs. 4 on the new StartCraft 2 Beta.

Scheduled later for the night wasn’t a trip to a strip club, but the local gaming center. Once we got to the darkened den, with screens aglow in the dark we sipped our liquor infused Mountain Dew, got logged on, and played Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Day of Defeat: Source, the World War 2 expansion for Counter Strike, until the small hours of the morning. I have to say that we all had a great time, trash talking, and getting back into the experience that took up the good chunk of my high school and early college days.

Here’s my quick list why to go Geek for your bachelor party:

  • It’s less expensive to rent out a gaming facility than it is to get into a strip club or pay for a stripper. (Those 1 dollar bills really stack up fast!)
  • You are less likely to do something you will regret the next day, or even for the rest of your life! (Unless you really beat yourself up over how many times you got taken out by a head shot.)
  • You’re 99.5% less likely to contract an STD. “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas…except for herpes… that will come back with you”.

So…what about you? Have you exchanged that lap dance for a laptop?

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The History of Rickrolling [Infographic]

Rickrolling originally began as an Internet prank where one person would be provided a link to something allegedly awesome. When they clicked on the link, they would be taken to Rick Astley’s video “Never Gonna Give You Up”… something decidedly not that awesome. Hit the jump for other interesting facts about “Rickrolling.”

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Super Awesome Super Mario Crossover

Super Mario Bros. Crossover

If you haven’t had a chance yet, go play the video game mashup of Super Mario Bros. Crossover The game is playable for free online. The programmer went to great detail to bring Link from Legend of Zelda, Bill R. from Contra, Mega Man, Samus and Simon from Castlevania into the world of Super Mario. Each character is given a range of weapons and upgrades from mushrooms and Fireflowers, like Simon getting the Flaming whip or link getting the Blue Ring. The best part is that the full songs, music and sound effects are used for each character! Now go waste 30 minutes of your workday lunch hour!