Amusing: December 2007 Archive Page

The new clip improves on last night's version, I've added blinking eyes, improved the nose glowing effect, and moved one of the legs a bit.

Update: Here's the file if you'd like to use it.

Reindeer.blend

I've been using Blender3D for about two years now. Here's a little Christmas animation I whipped up.

That's supposed to be sparkly glowy things coming from his shiny nose, but it looks more like a puff of breath. I'm pleased with the head motions. I've got the eyes rigged up so they can blink and track an object, and I've got the two front legs rigged. I'll probably try to rig the other legs and do a simple walking animation, but I'm through for the day.

News Digest: After a 2006 shake-up at Yum, an executive named Hearl rose to the top position. But now Hearl is out, replaced by someone named Eaton. 

Yum executive Hearl will retire
Eaton to be new development chief

By Alex Davis
alexdavis@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal

Yum! Brands announced yesterday that the company's chief operating and development officer is retiring a year after he was promoted from president of Pizza Hut.

The Louisville-based fast-food company said Peter Hearl, 56, has decided to leave at the end of March after 17 years at Yum and its predecessor, PepsiCo. He will be succeeded by Roger Eaton, a Yum veteran of 12 years who now oversees the company's restaurants in Australia and the South Pacific.

"Roger Eaton is the perfect choice as Yum's new chief operating and development officer," David Novak, Yum's chief executive officer, said in a statement yesterday. "He is one of our very best leaders, with enormous talent, strategic thinking, energy, commitment and a stellar track record of consistent results."

Hearl's appointment on Dec. 1, 2006, was part of a shake-up of Yum's domestic management team. At the time, Yum faced lackluster domestic sales at many of its brands, including Taco Bell and Pizza Hut.

(From the Courier Journal, via Language Log.)

Blogged as a reference, for the next time I have to introduce students to semiotics (ytmnd.com).

Why does this happen? For some reason, perhaps the oddity of ordering milk from an online bookseller, has attracted a large number of spoof reviews -- Lovecraft, Coleridge, romances, haiku. Here's a bit of Tuscan Whole Milk flash fiction:

This milk was so good, I passed out. When I woke up 3 weeks later, apes ruled the earth. It was crazy. DRINK THIS MILK!

Via BoingBoing, which credits ytmnd.com for the meme.

Footage from a NASA camera, via CBS:

Heh. Lightweight. That's funny. Via Information Week.

Zuckerberg said that when Facebook considered Beacon it hoped to let people share information across sites with their friends. He said it had to be clear and easy to control, while also being "lightweight so it wouldn't get in people's way as they browsed the Web."