I’ve been spending a lot of time on YouTube lately and I’d like to show you two videos that grabbed my attention.

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The first video took three months of pre-production and four days of filming. It’s a stop-motion animation made of Post-It notes.

You can see the making of right here.

The second video is of a flashmob  from a group of dancers wearing Hammer Pants in a trendy store were they surprise hipsters in skinny jeans. It’s HammerTime!!!

I’ve seen this test a few months ago and I ran into it again today looking at videos on YouTube.

Let me show the clip first and then talk about it.

It’s incredible how we think our brain can see and analyze evrything when in fact it only sees what it’s focused on and completely disregards everthing else. 

It can go as far as missing the obvious too. I came across an article about Change Blindness which is a phenomenon that occurs when a person viewing a visual scene apparently fails to detect large changes in the scene.

In the following clip, people are asked to fill up a form. When done the guy at the counter duck done behing the counter and another guy looking completely different from the first one comes back up and hands the form to the subject. In 75% of the cases, the subject doesn’t even notice the difference between the to guys at the counter.

Our brain is a real mystery. Did you know that we are effectively blind for around 40 minutes per day? When our eyes move real fast from one point to another, like when you look rapidly at the wall to your left, the brain shuts down your optic nerve while your eye is in motion to prevent motion sickness. This phenomenon is called Saccadic Masking.

I could go on and on about all the things our brain does to alter our perception or basically mess with us. The brain is still something we don’t know much about and I fins it very interresting to read about all the things it can and cannot do.

I consider myself to be a geek. I get passionate about stupid stuff and can spend hours online reading about  the latest theories of a popular TV show or learn about the latest technological breakthrough. I work as an IT technician in charge of support for a clinical laboratory and I’ve been creating websites and coding since I was a teenager. This is why I decided to introduce the Geek stuff of the week.

I often find myself looking at t-shirts or gadgets only another geek would understand the meaning of and decided to share it with the world. Every week I’ll present my latest finds and also some old favorites.

Let’s get to it with a special Keyboard Edition.

i-Tech Bluetooth Laser Virtual Keyboard

The I-Tech laser keyboard acts exactly like any other “ordinary” keyboard: A direction technology based on an optical recognition mechanism enables the user to tap on the projected key images, while producing real tapping sounds. The Virtual Keyboard is the only keyboard that operates in total darkness. It connects to PDAs Smartphones and Computers using Bluetooth technology.

Price: $149.99US at ThinkGeek

True Touch Roll-Up Keyboard

These keyboards feature 104 keys in a standard QWERTY layout, but with a nifty twist of being the most portable keyboard seen to date. Simply roll the unit up when you’re done with it! A great tool for laptop users who miss their full-sized KB when on the road, or LAN party warriors looking to lighten their load.

The individual raised keys allow an amazing amount of tactile feedback when depressed. Wider keys such as the “Space’ and “Backspace” keys contain multiple sensors to improve typing accuracy. While it takes a bit of geting used to (finding the center of the keys is more essential than with normal keyboards), the portability of design and utter silence during use make this puppy a winner.

Price: $23.99US at ThinkGeek

Das Keyboard Ultimate

Unlike other keyboards, Das Keyboard Ultimate is equipped with gold-plated, high-end mechanical key switches for maximum comfort, speed, long life and reliability. Also unlike other keyboards, Das Keyboard Ultimate is not only a high quality keyboard when it comes to typing comfort and efficiency, it also registers up to 12 keys pressed simultaneously (n-key rollover) thus avoiding key jamming. An excellent multipurpose keyboard for fast touch-typers and gamers alike! 

Did I mention the keyboard sports 100% blank keys?

Price: $129.99US at ThinkGeek

Luxeed Dynamic Pixel LED Keyboard

With 430 LEDs the Luxeed is capable of individually lighting each key in your choice of color. What’s more it can do some amazing tricks like an animated rainbow across all the keys, or make each key light when you press it. You get four “preset” buttons above the arrow keys you can use to instantly choose between different customizable lit skin presets. Set-up a glowing skin for your favorite game with different colors to indicate each key action… or create illuminated patterns and designs.

Price: $199.99US at ThinkGeek

Optimus Maximus Keyboard

This amazing keyboard features a tiny screen on each key… that’s 113 screens in all. Each of its keys is a display which can dynamically change to adapt to the keyboard layout in use or to show the function of the key. For example, when the user presses the shift key, the pictures would change to upper-case versions. It would also make switching between different keyboard layouts rapid, and could make the switch to alternative layouts such as Dvorak easier for people who only have a QWERTY keyboard with no possibility of rearranging the keys. To demonstrate this concept, there are computer renderings showing example layouts for Quake III Arena and Adobe Photoshop.

Price: $1,589.99US at ThinkGeek

See you next week for another edition of Geek Stuff of the Week with a special T-Shirt edition.

I just came back from the movie theater where I went to see Role Models, a comedy starring Paul Rudd and Sean William Scott. What I saw when I came out of the projection room blew me away! Hundreds of tween waiting in line sitting down waiting to get in to see Twilight TWO HOURS before projection time!! I knew the movie was getting a small buzz especially from teenagers but I had no idea it was coming to this.

I remember watching the trailer of this movie at the beginning of the year and thought it seemed like a good movie but I forgot about it after a while until recently. It seems like the movie took forever to come out and that’s why I lost interest. But the marketing people did a great job for this film. I’ve seen girl having their pictures taken with the posters of the movie in the theather tonight and after all the publicity I’ve seen I feel like paying to see it too.

Even though the critics aren’t positive (which never stopped me from watching a movie before!!! Remember I know who killed me and Captivity?) I’m gonna give it a try and see for myself what the buzz is about.

For the last few weeks I’ve been looking to buy a new bluetooth headset. The one I have is too big and heavy, but it was a cheap option when I needed one. You see, in the province of Quebec in Canada, any use of a hand-held cell phone that does not have a “hands-free” function is prohibited while driving. So unless you have a bluetooth headset, you can’t talk on your cell phone while driving. If caught, the driver can get fined $80 to $100 and lose 3 demerit points.

The bluetooth headset I got cost me $20. It’s a Motorola H300 and I find it heavy because of the AAA battery it needs to operate. The other thing I hate about this headset is the thickness of the hook you need to put behing your ear. I wear glasses and putting this behind my ear isn’t comfortable.

I was watching The Office on NBC last week and in the episode, Pam and Jim were talking to each other using what they said was the world’s smallest bluetooth headset, the Matsuhashi B400.  I looked around on the Internet and I found out the headset they used was a fake one. But it got me thinking about what the smallest bluetooth headsets looked like.

After a quick search on Google, I found a few that called themselves the world’s smallest bluetooth headset. None of them have a hook which I like. The smallest one seems to be the Adtec AD-HSM10. It almost looks like a hearing aid. Then there’s the Invisio G5, the Sagem G4 and the Motorola Miniblue H9. I’m really considering buying the Motorola Miniblue H9 as I have a Motorola RZR V3T but it’s a bit expensive.

The technology is pretty impressive nowadays. I can’t wait to see where it will go next. How small will they go?

On August 28th, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered one of the greatest and most notable speeches in history.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Forty-five years later, Dr. King’s dream is coming closer to reality. Yesterday, November 4th, 2008, the first African-American was elected President of the United States of America.

I don’t really follow what goes on in the political world, in my country or others, but I did follow what went on during this last american election. 

Barack Obama is a wind of change to the USA. He is a great public speaker and seems to know what he’s talking about. He will, of course, feel a lot of pressure during his presidency. Not only for being the first African-American in the White House, but also to pick up the mess left by the Republicans in the last eight years. The wars and the economy crisis will also be a great challenge for the Democrats to overcome.

Is this a sign that racism is finaly going away? I believe so. I don’t think it will ever completely go away but this is a step in the right direction.

Let me end this post with the words of the great Martin Luther King:

Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

I’ve posted this link on my website back in May of this year and I’m posting it again since I’ve changed everything and wanted to make sure you guys still had access to it.

Threadless is a wonderful website where you can buy t-shirts online.

The designs are great and are made by people like you and me. Anyone can register on the site and post a design. The community then votes for those they prefer and the best designs are printed on t-shirts and sold on the website. The winning designer even gets money for his efforts!

Here’s the link: Threadless.com

Welcome (once again!) to a new iteration of Jamdez.com. I decided to go with an official blog format this time around. It will be easier for me to post content this way.

I’ll posting stuff I find on the web, new artists or band I discovered and anything that goes through my mind. Please take some time visiting my friends blog listed in my blogroll on the right (if you understand french).

Hope you enjoy it!