But in other news, Dr. Horrible did attempt a take-over. Seen here is Neil Patrick Harris (Barney of How I Met Your Mother fame) in his famous online-blogger-slash-failed-supervillain avatar!

Google “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” if you want to see more of him!

1. Get a good boomerang. A boomerang is a precise object and is difficult to mass produce.^[1] Do not assume that all boomerang-looking objects will return if thrown. There are several cheap versions on the market which will not work properly, or may be dangerous to throw. A good boomerang should cost around $5-10, or £5-10.

2. Find a large, open area. (i.e. a baseball or soccer field) There should not be any trees or other obstructions around the distant area. You should know the estimated distance the boomerang will fly (which should be supplied by the manufacturer) and throw in the middle of an area with twice the area of the boomerang’s range. Never throw a boomerang in a crowded area. Warn onlookers before you throw the boomerang so they will be watching the flight.
3. Watch out for wind. Wind is a big factor in the proper return of a boomerang. The best flights will be achieved in 0-5 mph winds, however, after some practice you will be able to adjust for many wind conditions (within reason, of course) by throwing more into the wind, turning the boomerang, or by adding weight or flaps. The suggested angle to the wind is between 45° and 90° to the right or left of the wind in direct relation to the throwing hand. To get this angle, face directly into the wind, turn about 60 degrees or so to your right (if you are right-handed) and throw your boomerang in the direction you are facing.
4. Start with the proper grip. The two main grips are the cradle grip and the pinch grip.
   • The cradle grip is where the boomerang is grasped like you would a tennis racquet. The flat side of the boomerang is to the palm of the hand and the fingers wrapped around the shaped side. The thumb is either over the fingers (like a fist) or just above the index finger. Hold the boomerang as close to the end as possible to get maximum spin.
   • Use the pinch grip for better spin and control. Place the boomerang between the thumb and forefinger with the thumb on the curved surface. Cock the boomerang back toward the wrist at about a 45° angle. Pinch tightly so that the boomerang “pops” from the fingers as the arm straightens out. This makes for a cleaner release and better spin which helps the boomerang return.

5. Keep the layover angle (or angle of release) slightly less than perpendicular to the horizon. You’ll want to throw the boomerang overhand, like a baseball. A boomerang that is thrown horizontally like a flying disk or a frisbee will not return. The proper layover is normally 75-80°, but each boomerang will have its own “proper” layover. Start with the suggested angle and work from there. You must throw your boomerang nearly perpendicular, with the flat side of the boomerang away from you!

   

6. Throw the boomerang horizontally, or up to 20 degrees above the horizon. Most beginners will want to throw the boomerang up too high. This is not necessary, since the boomerang will naturally climb as it progresses through the circle of flight. If you throw too high, the boomerang will land behind you. If you throw too low, the boomerang will fly in front of you.

7. Catch the boomerang. It should be spinning relatively horizontally (if it is thrown properly). The easiest and safest way to catch a boomerang is to reach out both hands and attempt to clap them together on it. If the boomerang is moving too quickly, do not try to catch it! Later, after you have a better understanding of how the boomerang will react, you may try some trick catches or one-hand catches, but exercise caution. Wear cycling or weight lifting gloves, especially if you are attempting trick catches. These have open fingers for gripping the boomerang while throwing, but have extra padding in the palms, which will give you more confidence to catch the boomerang!

Mutiny is often trolled by anonymous commentators, and among the lurking crowd there are a few that stand out. On Mutiny their opinions are bounteous, and yet they are mysterious and faceless. So, we at Mutiny thought it will be fun to take a break from all our serious debates on Mutiny, and have a fun little contest to give the faceless on Mutiny a face.

The Contest

• Download the Smiley.psd or Smiley.jpg
• Using the Smiley file as a starting point, design one or more gravatars for either any of the anonymous commentators listed below or any other faceless mutiny commentator of your choice (including Mutineers).
• Submit your images to either our Flickr group, or email the file to tech[at]mutiny.in
• Submission Deadline: March 30, 2008

The Faceless Commentators

You may submit your designs either for any of these anonymous commentators or for any faceless mutiny commentator of your choice (including Mutineers)

• 1conoclast
• The Modern Mullah
• Smartopinion
• da Punjabi
• no blog no bullshit

The Prize

The winner will be announced on April 1, 2008
The winner and their winning gravatar will be featured on Mutiny, and the winning image will be used as a gravatar for the respective anonymous commentator or Mutineer here on Mutiny.

The image will only be used with permission from both the winner and the respective commentator or Mutineer

Credit

• A big thank you to Wolfgang Bartelme for letting us use his Smiley devkit for the contest
• African Masks Photo by slack12

If you share photographs on Flickr and have been using it for over a year, then you will find the recently launched free Photo Time Capsule service from Photojojo interesting. Photo Time Capsule scans your Flickr account for interesting photographs from a year back, and once a month sends out an email with the photographs it has found. The photographs are selected based on: number of views, number of times marked as favorite, and number of comments. Continue Reading »

Here at Mutiny we make use of quite a few WordPress plugins in order to provide all the features you see around the site. So, for some of you WordPress enthusiasts out there, here is a look under the covers of Mutiny.in, and a selected list of WordPress plugins we currently use.

• bdp-comments - used to show recent comments.
• Customizable Post Listings
• Democracy - poll plugin
• FeedBurner FeedSmith - Redirects WordPress.com feeds to FeedBurner feed.
• Full Text Feed - We us this plugin to publish full posts to the feed when the <!–more–> tag is used. (This plugin will not be required once WordPress v2.5 is released.)
• Get Custom Field Value
• Google XML Sitemaps
• Gravatar
• IP 2 Country - Guesses the country of the visitor based on IP. We use it to display the commentators country flag.
• Popularity Content
• Related Posts
• Role Manager
• Search and Replace - Search and replace text across all posts.
• ShareThis
• Subscribe To Comments
• Widon’t - Solves the widow problem in typesetting.
• wp-cache
• WP-ContactForm
• WP-Footnotes
• WP-PostRatings
• WP Ajax Edit Comments - Allows administrators and visitors to edit comments, and alerts visitors whenever their comments are marked as spam.

TECH UPDATE: For the last week you might have noticed some comments on Mutiny disappearing after you made them. The new comment box we put up apparently was throwing the spam filter off which caused them to be trapped as spam. We have since reverted back to the previous comment box.

Apologies for any inconvenience caused due to the spam-filter acting up during the last week. Note that comments on Mutiny are not moderated manually at all. The only case where comments are moderated is if they come from a previous blocked/spammed source, or if they contain certain keywords that we automatically track as offensive, or if you are William Monahan and Martin Scorcese attempting to script The Departed’s sequel on our blog.