We Socialize

Amazing Basketball Shots!

mmophapi — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:40:10 +0000

WOW! Most teens (13-19) have seen this on Channel One news at their schools, but this has also been featured on Good Morning America and other popular television stations.

All the shots featured in their videos are one hundred percent real, they are even getting sponsorship requests for their videos now. This is a way to show teens that anything is possible. Good work guys.

Miley Cyrus voted worst celebrity influence of 2009

mmophapi — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:35:42 +0000

By Jill Serjeant Jill Serjeant – Wed Oct 28, 2:01 pm ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Miley Cyrus, one of Disney’s hottest stars of the past three years with hit records and hit films, has been voted the worst celebrity influence of 2009 by the very people who made her a star, tweens and teens, according to an online poll on Wednesday.

Cyrus, 16, took 42 percent of votes in the poll for AOL’s JSYK.com (Just So You Know) website aimed at 9-15 year-olds, pushing Britney Spears and rapper Kanye West into second and third places, respectively, in a section on worst celebrity influences of the year.

No reasons were given for the poor showing of the singer-actress and the popular star of Disney Channel’s “Hannah Montana” television series.

But the ranking follows a year which has seen Cyrus controversially dating a 20 year-old model, making “slant eyes” in an informal snapshot criticized as mocking Asians, and being accused of pole-dancing on a teen awards show.

Cyrus also came in No. 4 in the category of favorite female artist, behind 19-year-old country sensation Taylor Swift, “I Kissed a Girl” singer Katy Perry and R&B star Beyonce. The poll attracted almost 50,000 votes.

“I think Miley is in an interesting space where she is trying to graduate from being ‘Hannah Montana’ and a Disney channel celebrity and coming into her own and having a career beyond Disney,” said Stephanie Cohen, editor of JSYK.com.

“I think her fans still want her to be the sweet Hannah Montana and she is trying to age up…Parents are definitely resisting it,” Cohen told Reuters.

Cyrus has been one of the biggest teen idols in the world since 2006, selling more than 7 million albums, starting her own fashion line, and taking $154 million at the worldwide box-office for “Hannah Montana: The Movie” in 2009.

West, whose interruption of Swift’s acceptance speech at a music award show in September was deemed the most shocking moment of 2009, took 19 percent of votes in the worst celebrity influence section.

Swift, the best-selling U.S. artist of 2008, has risen again in popularity this year.

“I think Taylor Swift has done a great job of showing her true self and coming across as very sweet and down to earth. A lot of her songs are about the underdog and teens can really relate to her,” said Cohen.

Elsewhere, the stars of vampire movies “Twilight” and its forthcoming sequel “New Moon” dominated the JSYK.com poll. Kristen Stewart was voted favorite female movie actress and Taylor Lautner surged past Robert Pattinson in both the favorite male movie star and “cool guy you’d like to hang out with” categories.

Full results can be found at http://www.jsyk.com

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

Jimmy Kimmel owns Melissa joan Hart

mmophapi — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:28:37 +0000

Jimmy Kimmel owns Melissa joan Hart!

Printable Electronics on a technical upgrade?

mmophapi — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:26:14 +0000

Printable Electronics on a technical upgrade? You could say that!

by M. David Stone

Xerox on Tuesday announced a new silver ink (among other things) that it’s calling, and apparently is, a breakthrough in printable electronics, a leading edge concept that’s generated a lot of discussion but few actual products to date, largely because of the issues that Xerox’s new technology addresses.

In concept, printable electronics is just what it sounds like: using a printer, basically an ink jet, to print electronic circuits. If you can do that reliably, you can print electronic devices for far less than current methods cost. You can also print the devices on a variety of new materials.

The possibilities range from printing on flexible plastic (opening the door to displays you can roll up and put your briefcase), to paper and cardboard (for packaging that can give audio and video instructions for assembling a product, actively remind you to take your medicine, or confirm whether you already took it), to fabric (which will allow wearable electronics — a T-shirt with a display, say, replacing a printed slogan for marketing or for showing support for a political candidate.)

Until now the concept of printable electronics has been more promise than reality. One of the few actual applications has been printing antennas for RFID tags (the technology EZ-Pass or FastPass uses to charge passing cars tolls without forcing them to stop). . Those who keep an eye on the area have been predicting that the ability to print the entire RFID tag, instead of just the antenna (and print it cheaply enough), is the point where printable electronics will begin to take off.

As just one example of the possibilities, if you can print the RFID on packaging as easily as printing a bar code — right along the text and graphics, you can replace bar codes with RFID tags on every box of cereal, every frozen food package, and every can in a supermarket. Do that, and going through the checkout counter becomes a simple matter of walking past an RFID reader to register everything in your cart.

The big hurdle for printable electronics has been finding a practical (as well as economical) way to implement it. Given the goal of being able to print on everything from paper, to cardboard, to plastic, one of the big problems has been that the temperature needed to melt silver ink for printing — the conductor you need in electronics — tends to be too high for the materials you want to print on. Plastic, for example, tends to melt when it gets too hot.

According to Xerox one of the key benefits of its technology is that it can print with sliver ink at a much lower temperature than competing technologies, which makes it much easier for the materials it’s printing on to survive.

Another important benefit is that it can print reliable circuits in non-clean room environments. According to Xerox, printing with competing technologies in open air environments results in circuits that don’t last long or aren’t consistently reliable. However, Xerox says that its technology doesn’t need a clean room any more than a standard printer needs one for putting ink or toner on paper.

In addition to eliminating the need for a clean room and making it easier to print on various materials without ruining them, the new technology also promises to lower costs dramatically — enough to finally it make it practical to print entire RFID tags on anything. Xerox says it could bring the cost of RFID tags down from the current dollar or so each to roughly a penny each, which is to say, Xerox may have just reached the critical take off point that the industry has been looking for.

Still another important piece of the announcement is that Xerox says it will make the technology available to others. Assuming it does what Xerox is claiming, and assuming other companies agree it does what they need, this new technology may be just the breakthrough the industry needs to jump start printable electronics as a major new approach to building electronic devices.

Box-Office Bloodbath: Paranormal Slays Saw VI

mmophapi — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:22:57 +0000

What is the scary movie to see this Halloween? According to a review by Richard Corliss (Time.com), Paranomal slays Saw VI!

There was blood at the wickets this pre-Halloween, as the corpses of every one of the weekend’s new movies littered the lobbies of North American theaters. The Saw torture-porn franchise took the biggest hit, with its sixth installment getting chainsawed by the Paranormal Activity phenomenon. Another horror entry, Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant, was D.O.A. Astro Boy, the third autumn movie based on a kids, pop-culture touchstone, didn’t fly; and neither did the aviation bio-pic Amelia, which took off at low altitude and instantly crashed. As for the weekend’s goriest psychodrama, Lars von Trier,s Antichrist, it performed anemically in limited release. If you’re keeping score of the weekend body count, that’s Trick: 5; Treat: 1. (See a review of Paranormal Activity.)

Tom Join’s Facebook!

mmophapi — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:13:21 +0000

A very large picture has entered the cyber world and has begun to spread like wildfire among sites such as Digg.com, Facebook, and other related websites. We had to share it!

Real or not? Either way, the conversation is genius and very funny.

Credits to the many bored people among the internet who have time to do such a thing.

Click here to view the image spreading like wildfire!

(It was too big to post on our blog)

The Best Rollercoaster Videos, Now All In One Place!The 100 Most Iconic Internet Videos – #43 – Fat Kid on a Rollercoaster

mmophapi — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:54:20 +0000

If childhood obesity is an epidemic, then this viral classic could be easily its iconic “this is your brain on drugs” PSA. A large child and a lady named Janice take a spin on a coaster, and the whole thing is caught on camera. Janice is having a helluva time, laughing from start to finish, while the rotund fella next to her (the mystery of their relationship only makes the video more fascinating) seems to experience a full-blown panic attack as he witnesses the uncomfortable gravitational pull that barely keeps him strapped in while they fly through the air. To some, it’s utter hilarity while to others, it’s humiliation at its most raw. But everyone can agree on one question: how black must Janice’s heart be if she completely ignores the poor guy to her right? Shame, Janice, shame!

Wedding Cake Trends 2009

mmophapi — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:50:10 +0000

What do you get when you mix brides, cakes, and trends of 2009? Keep reading faithful fans.

This is not something that WeSocialize usually posts about, but we have been requested to write about the latest trends in the bakery world. For those of who wanted this, we hope this is what you expected.

The year 2008 is about to end and all of us are ready to welcome the coming year i.e. 2009. For those who have a wedding in the coming year, especially in the summer or spring of the New Year, it is the time to make the final choice with relation to their wedding dress as well as the design and style of the wedding cake. Talking about wedding cake, the year 2009 will witness the comeback of the fanciful and classic themes, with the colors ranging from pastel blue to lilac and lemon hues. Want to know more about wedding cake trends of 2009? Just go through the lines below and find all the information.

Wedding Cake Trends 2009

Hexagonal and Square Shapes

It is the time to move over the typical, round or heart-shaped cakes. The year 2009 has brought along a new trend, that of hexagonal or square-shaped tier cake. Add a touch of modernity to your traditional wedding by opting for cubes and layered hexagons, rather than the oval and circular designs. The stacked shapes will also prove to be a unique standalone centerpiece, for the newly-wedded couple’s table. As for adornments, geometric embellishments and sugar plaque details will work the best.

Chic Elegance

The chic ‘black and white’ style in wedding cakes has managed to maintain its position amongst the top trends in 2009 as well. For that elegant look, go ahead and have a cake design with monochrome flair. If you want, you can also match the black, lace-style decorations or intricate details of the cake with that of your wedding dress, since the former has been picked right from the ramp. If you are a true lover of Parisian culture, have white fondant icing on the cake, topped with black or dark brown icing.

Blue Hue

We have already mentioned that the year 2009 is going to be dominated by shades of blue, like turquoise, along with greens, such as aquamarine. If you want your wedding cake to be colorful, then bright blues and greens are the colors that you should opt for. A great idea is to have tropical theme for your wedding cake, with turquoise, aquamarine and sky blue as the base colors for icing. Silver, white, light grey and lilac will act as complementary colors, bringing your theme to life.

Comeback Pink

The coming year will mark the comeback of pink color. In fact, the color is going to rule the roost as far as the bridesmaids’ dresses as well as the flower embellishments on the bride’s white gown are concerned. So, it is apt that you adopt the color for your wedding cake as well. If you are all for pink, then an pink cake, finished with white ‘lace’ details, silver embellishments and pink flowers, will be perfect. However, if you want to tone it down a bit, then keep white as the base color and use pink for all types of embellishments on the cake.

Square Cupcakes
The trend of having a tower of cupcakes, rather than a traditional cake, is there to stay in 2009 as well. However, this year, instead of the usual round cupcakes, cakes in geometric shapes will be the flavor of the season. Towers made of square cakes are amongst the hot favorites for the brides in 2009. If want to do something different, have classic square cakes, decked out in ribbons and flowers, in a tiered or staggered style. The cup cakes can also be decorated as miniature ‘presents’, adding a special touch to the wedding celebrations.

Awesome Paint Drawings

mmophapi — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:47:41 +0000

I was on YouTube today and found a few great videos. These videos are of amazing drawings created using MS Paint. Some of these have taken the artist over 2 hours to draw. It’s absolutely ridiculous how good these artists are.

Mona List

Subaru WRX STi

The Next Serif Trend

mmophapi — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:42:33 +0000

In the past, we’ve been told not to use serif fonts due to its readability on low resolution monitors and poor rendering in WindowsXP. Now, with display technology advancing and IE7+ supporting ClearType by default, I think it is about time to change that rule. Take a look at the example sites that I’ve collected, you will probably agree with me that serif typeface will be the next web font trend.

Non-Web-Safe Fonts

If your target audiences are designers, don’t be afriad to to use the non-web-safe fonts such as Baskerville, Adobe Caslon Pro, Garamond, and Goudy Old Style. If your visitors are designers, the chance of them having those fonts installed are very high plus some are pre-packaged in the Adobe suite. Below are some good sample sites that use non-web-safe serif fonts.

Sushi and Robots (Hoefler Text)

Jina uses Hoefler Text as her main heading and body text. The headers look amazing by combining the uppercase and italic style.

Jon Tangerine (Baskerville)

From head to toe, you’ve got to agree Jon has a beautiful sense of typography. I was impressed to find that the logotype is not an image, just CSS. The main font used in this site is Baskerville.

Rustin Jessen (Baskerville & Adobe Caslon Pro)

Rustin combines Baskerville italic and Adobe Caslon Pro uppercase to create a nice typographic contrast for the category titles.

SimpleBits (Baskerville)

By styling the ampersands (&) and the word “by,” the overall design is enhanced.

W. W. Norton

Another great use of Baskerville.

Web-Safe Serif Fonts

Below are some example sites that use web-safe serif fonts such as Times, Georgia, and Palatino. I find Georgia is a bit over used in most modern websites, so I highly recommend Times and Palatino.

Design Taxi (Georgia)

Design Intellection (Palatino)

Cynosura (Georgia)

Black Estate (Times)

Bridinel (Times)

Made by Sofa (Georgia)

Design Work Plan (Georgia)

Typographica (Georgia)

Biggest Apple (Georgia)

Seed Conference (Times)

The Swish Life (Times)

More Examples…

Here are couple solutions for those who want to use non-web-safe fonts but afraid the visitors might not have the fonts installed.

Image Replacement – Embed your text in an image and use text-indent with negative value to hide the text.
SIFR – Use Flash and Javascript to replace the text.
Cufon – An alternative to SIFR, faster and easier.
CSS @font-face – It allows you to reference fonts that are not installed on end user machine. However, this CSS rule only works in some modern browsers.