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The Onion: Yankees Building Vacation Stadium In The Hamptons

The Onion News Network, one of my favorite video podcasts, has just released a parody video of the New York Yankees and their thick wallet. It’s probably one of my favorite episodes they have ever done.

The Evil Empire closed the doors to Yankee Stadium on September 21, 2008. The Yanks failed to make the playoffs for the first time since 1995. New Yankee Stadium will open on my birthday next year (April 16, 2009). Don’t bother to get me tickets unless the Red Sox are playing.

Jogging Through Tokyo with a Wii

This is the best Wiimote hack that I have ever seen. A Japanese programmer has created a Nintendo Wii and Google Maps (Street View) proof of concept. Wii Fit was a giant step forward for exercising with video games. However, some things are a little clunky. For example, to run in place, you run around a virtual course with the Wiimote in your pocket. One of the great pleasures of running is the constant change of scenery.

This video demonstrates that running in place becomes a lot more interesting with realistic scenery. It combines exercise with visual stimulation and learning. With full-motion video instead of Street View images, this would be a lot better.

Nintendo intends to satisfy all audiences with simple, rendered worlds and playful music. However, adults prefer real music and real world experiences (or at least that’s my guess). That’s why I’m predicting Wii Music will fail.

Try to run on the google street view like a jogging game of wii fit from katsuma on Vimeo.

Politics and the Internet

The latest Barack Obama ad focuses on how McCain is out of touch with technology. What does that matter? Well, with bills floating around for issues like net neutrality and open spectrum, it’s essential for politicians to have a handle on basic tech skills. While these issues affect everyone, they are most important to those of us who are invested in the industry. Judging from sites like Digg, Reddit, Facebook (1,765,716 Barack supporters vs. 324,482 McCain supporters), and Newsvine, the Internet crowd is already largely pro-Obama. So, this ad probably wasn’t necessary.

(via Gizmodo)

Google Reader in Plain English

If you don’t use Google Reader or don’t know what it is, then you should watch this video:

This video is by the people at Common Craft, who are experts at explaining technology. One of their best and most popular videos is Twitter in Plain English. I actually think that video helped increase Twitter usage!

Olympic Medal Visualization

The New York Times continues to impress me with their online visualizations. For the Olympics, they created an Olympic Medal Count Map, which shows results from the first Olympic games of the Modern era (1896) to the 2004 Athens Olympics.

[via Neatorama via Digg]