The Beer-Every-Mile SF Half Marathon: 13 Beers in 13 Miles

https://exercisingwhileintoxicated.wordpress.com/2010/07/26/the-beer-every-mile-sf-half-marathon-13-beers-in-13-miles/

Several of you told me that I was “going to die” if I drank 13 beers while running the San Francisco Half Marathon. I did not die.
I puked three times, blacked out for miles 11 and 12, and needed five hours to finish. This is my story.

'Officer Bubbles' Sues YouTube Commenters Over Mockery

http://idle.slashdot.org/story/10/10/19/1410222/Officer-Bubbles-Sues-YouTube-Commenters-Over-Mockery

"'Officer Bubbles' — the Toronto Police Constable who was videotaped threatening a G20 protester with arrest for assault over the crime of blowing bubbles at a police officer has had enough of mocking videos and comments on YouTube. He has decided to sue everyone involved (commenters included) for more than a million dollars each. The complaint is detailed in his statement of claim — most of the comments seem fairly tame by internet standards; if this goes anywhere, everyone is going to have to watch what they say pretty carefully. The lawsuit appears to have been successful in intimidating the author of the mocking cartoons into taking them down."

Justices to Hear Suit of Ashcroft Over Detention

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/19/us/19scotus.html

Abdullah al-Kidd, born in Kansas and once a star running back at the University of Idaho, spent 16 days in federal detention in three states in 2003, sometimes naked and sometimes shackled hand and foot, but was never charged with a crime.

The Obama administration had urged the justices to reverse a decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, that had allowed Mr. Kidd’s lawsuit to proceed. “If permitted to stand,” Acting Solicitor General Neal K. Katyal wrote, “the decision below would seriously limit the circumstances in which prosecutors could invoke the material witness statute without fear of personal liability.” 

That's the whole point.

Should Taxpayers Get Receipts?

http://www.good.is/post/should-taxpayers-get-receipts/

8-Bit Metallica

So, I really liked the 8-bit Metallica covers from last week.  I've been messing around with other songs.  The main problem is that unless it's a very popular song there isn't a tab file with vocals included.  Without vocals the midi versions get pretty repetitive.

For the time being I finished the rest of Metallica's first four albums.  They are uploaded to mediafire.
http://www.mediafire.com/?rr7dv7nhtzlzz

College Student Finds GPS On Car, FBI Retrieve

http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/10/08/1413240/College-Student-Finds-GPS-On-Car-FBI-Retrieve

"A California student got a visit from the FBI this week after he found a secret GPS tracking device on his car, and a friend posted photos of it online. The post prompted wide speculation about whether the device was real, whether the young Arab-American was being targeted in a terrorism investigation and what the authorities would do. It took just 48 hours to find out: The device was real, the student was being secretly tracked and the FBI wanted their expensive device back ... His discovery comes in the wake of a recent ruling by the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals saying it's legal for law enforcement to secretly place a tracking device on a suspect's car without getting a warrant, even if the car is parked in a private driveway. ... 'We have all the information we needed,' they told him. 'You don't need to call your lawyer. Don't worry, you're boring.'"

http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/dmh5s/does_this_mean_the_fbi_is_after_us/

Oh Data, How I Love Thee

http://www.xkcd.com/802/

Most People Don't Use IE

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/10/05/1351251/Microsoft-IE-Browser-Share-Dips-Below-50

"Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which has dominated the Web browser market since blowing by Netscape in the late 1990s, last month fell below the 50% market share level for the first time in years. IE's share of the worldwide market fell to 49.87% in September, down from 51.3% in August and 58.4% a year ago. It is followed by Firefox, which increased its share slightly from 30.09% to 31.5% and Google Chrome, which grabbed 11.54% share, more than triple its September 2009 share, according to market watcher StatCounter."

8-Bit Covers of Metallica, Led Zeppelin and Any Other Band

Last night, I was reading through an info thread, where people post images that contain info on various subjects.  One of these explained how to turn any song into an 8-bit cover.  I followed the process, and much to my suprise it produced some pretty good results.  You can see the orginal image with instructions to the right.  Here is my overview of the process (slightly modified by me).

1. Go to Ultimate Guitar and get the tabs for the song you want.  The instructions recommend you get either 'guitar pro' or 'power guitar' type tabs.  There are often multiple versions of the same song uploaded.  Get the one with the best rating.  Where it lists instruments in the tab make sure it has vocals included.

2. Once you have your .gp4 tab file, open it up in Tux Guitar.  Export it as a midi file.  File > Export > Export Midi.  Tux Guitar is pretty easy to use, so you shouldn't have any problem.

3. Now download GXSCC and just drag your midi file into it.  It should start playing.  If you click on Config near the top you will be able to choose the instrument set.  It defaults to the SCC full set, and you can change it to a famicon set.  Famicon is the NES, so if you're aiming for NES like songs choose that.  I do think SCC sounds slightly better as it seems to have a greater range.  I went with Famicon for all the ones I made.

4. To export the song just click the Authoring button.  It will export the song exactly as it sounded in GXSCC to a wav file.  Since wav files are way too big you should convert them to FLAC.  Use whatever program you want.  I use foobar2000 for conversions.  Since wav and FLAC are both lossless you won't lose any quality.  From there convert again to your lossy format of choice (e.g. mp3, ogg).

I made some songs last night and uploaded them to mediafire.  They are all in ogg format, and zipped with 7zip.

http://www.mediafire.com/?9fo3zc6b4f7g285 - Metallica

http://www.mediafire.com/?ubkhmo2udk1gu64 - Led Zeppelin

http://www.mediafire.com/?jwo5p4nfztqv9xe - Yes

http://www.mediafire.com/?32rwxylbxg4fp0d - Other Random Bands

Led Zeppelin:
Achilles Last Stand; Black Dog; Immigrant Song; Misty Mountain Hop; Moby Dick; Over The Hills And Far Away; Ramble On; Rock And Roll; Stairway To Heaven; Ten Years Gone; The Ocean; When The Levee Breaks

Metallica:
...And Justice For All; Battery; Blackened; Creeping Death; Dyers Eve; Enter Sandman; For Whom The Bell Tolls; Master Of Puppets; Metal Militia; Nothing Else Matters; One; Orion; Phantom Lord; Ride The Lightning; Seek And Destroy; The Four Horsemen; Welcome Home Sanitarium

Yes:
All Good People; Close To The Edge; Roundabout; Siberian Khatru; South Side Of The Sky; Yours Is No Disgrace

Others:
Hallowed Be Thy Name; Money; Another One Bites The Dust; Bohemian Rhapsody; We Will Rock You; Raining Blood; Super Mario Bros Theme; Snow Owl

I think the results turned out pretty well.  Just for reference the end of One was where I decided this was awesome.  I did Money as a comparison to Brad Smith's wonderful 8-bit Dark Side of the Moon.  Unsurprisingly, his is better.  Although, it took him 100 hours to do the album, where-as it took me a few hours to do 40 songs.  Quantity vs quality.

Edit:
Did the rest of Metallica's first four albums.

http://daleswanson.blogspot.com/2010/10/8-bit-metallica.html

$0.002 = 0.002¢

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2isSJKntbg#t=1m30s