Bouncy balls Jan 11, 2006
In July of 2005, Sony shot a commercial for their new line of Bravia LCD TVs.  The commercials consisted of dumping thousands of bouncy balls down a San Francisco street and videotaping the results.  Here's what their website says: 
"In an age when CGI is commonplace, this makes the commercial all the more extraordinary. Every single frame was shot over two days - with the main sequence involving a 23-man camera crew and only one chance to get it right.

An entire block was closed off and special compressed-air cannons shot the balls into the air, while earth moving equipment poured thousands down the street. Not that you'd know it from the finished product, but these balls can do some damage, so all the cars were props and crew members went so far as to having protective shields and crash helmets.

But when you get it right, you get it right. The goal at the beginning was to deliver a 'really simple, visual celebration of colour'. We think you'll agree the results speak for themselves."
Pictures can be seen here, here, and here.  Videos can be seen here. 
[Image: balls.jpg]
#entertainment
Moon Amtrak Jan 11, 2006
Apparently there's a long-standing tradition of mooning an Amtrak train every June in Orange County, CA.  From the FAQ:  "Can I decorate my butt?  Yes, that's O.K." #travel
Firefox memory leak (8) Jan 11, 2006
I've been noticing recently that Firefox takes up several hundred MBs in the Windows Task Manager after I've opened and closed a bunch of tabs.  This is a bad thing.  So I looked it up. 

This site says to go to "about:config", create a new integer called "browser.cache.memory.capacity", and set it equal to "16384".  The problem is that this did nothing.  Apparently, it only works in older versions of Firefox. 

This site says to go to "about:config", create a new boolean value called "config.trim_on_minimize", and set it equal to "true".  Whenever you minimize Firefox, the memory usage will go down considerably.  Mozilla knows about the problem and agrees with this solution.  I tried it and it worked. #technology
Anti-telemarketing script Jan 11, 2006
The anti-telemarketing script is a set of questions you can ask a telemarketer, following the same type of script they use.  Results can be written down and mailed or faxed to the author as part of a project compiling information on telemarketers' habits and responses. #technology