Jentacular

Closing Down Sale

2007-11-27T09:58:00.001+11:00

I've already mentioned this to many people, but just in case I've missed you ...

I have decided to move permanently to the Google account I created when I got locked out a couple of weeks ago. The main reason is that it currently receives absolutely no spam, which is saving me at least half an hour a day that I used to spend reading through the headings to make sure real messages weren't making it into the spam folder.

So, if you want to e-mail me, send your missive to my new steatopygous.mathophile gmail account.

Also, to enjoy(?!) my future scribblings, you'll want to replace the "bozomode" in this URL with steatopygousmathophile.

See you on the flip side.

Oh ... and don't feel you need to use this service before you can join me :-). We make no value judgements over here at the steatopygous offices!

Gmail Account ... And Faith ... Restored

2007-11-21T11:41:00.000+11:00

Well, it took a week and a half, but I now have access to my original gmail address.

Thanks go to a very kind person in Canada, who is now the owner of the domain for the company I worked for when I set up my gmail account. They received the "request for confirmation" e-mail from Google when I asked for my password to be reset.

The amount of trouble this person went to in order to contact me and help me get my account back has restored my faith in humanity.

Now, I just have to read through all the mail I received in the last week and go through the hundreds of messages in my spam folder, to make sure none of them are false positives ... there goes the rest of my day :-).

Let this be a salutory lesson for everyone ... go right now and make sure that the secondary addresses for every account and registration you have point to an e-mail you can still access!

Bugger!

2007-11-11T19:27:00.000+11:00

My gmail account seems to have been compromised :-(.

Currently, I can still access my blog, since I'm still logged in, but I probably won't be able to post any more messages once I log off, until I can sort it out.

So, if you don't see anything from me in the next little while, you'll know why.

Oh ... if you see posts that don't sound like me, I guess that's because some other bastard is writing them!

Keep your fingers (and toes) crossed for me while I try to unscramble this mess ...

Listomania

2007-11-11T01:49:00.001+11:00

When I log into my Blogger account, there's always an article from Blogger Buzz staring me in the face.

Generally, I just ignore them and go on to add the new post that caused me to log on in the first place. However, today the article caught my attention. It was about the To Do List Blog.

Sasha Cagen asked people to send her their to-do lists and an enormous number of people did. She's recently published a book of some of the more interesting ones.

Anyway, have a read of her blog. Hopefully, you'll find it enjoyable, as I did.

Fun With Sodium Acetate

2007-11-11T00:25:00.000+11:00

Sodium Acetate is the main constituent in pocket hand warmers.

Heating crystals of Sodium Acetate Trihydrate to 100^°C, mixing them with water and cooling causes them to form a super-saturated liquid that is somewhat unstable.

A simple touch of a finger is all it takes to cause the liquid to crystallise, in quite a spectacular manner.

The Ups And Downs Of Life

2007-11-11T00:13:00.000+11:00

Thanks to Presurfer for the link to this article discussing a number of interesting staircases.

I love this one, which is more or less traditional on the way up, but is a slippery dip on the way down!

Leaping Lemurs

2007-11-10T23:37:00.001+11:00

The Sifaka lemurs, from Madagascar, in this short documentary are both graceful and very, very cute.

Unsolicited E-Mail

2007-11-10T11:32:00.000+11:00

This morning, I received an e-mail, mistakenly sent to me by someone named "Gerry".

I replied, pointing out that, since I didn't recognise the name, perhaps they had sent it to me by mistake, unless I'd met them in a pub in Sydney, during which encounter I'd subsequently consumed far too many beers to remember them.

Gerry replied saying no, we'd not met in a pub in Sydney ... and asking whether I had, by any chance, run into someone named Trish Murphy. I have a feeling Gerry thinks Sydney is still a small colonial settlement :-).

Album Cover Collage

2007-11-09T10:32:00.000+11:00

Also via Dump Trumpet, comes this page of album cover collages.

Obviously this person has plenty of spare time ... and I'm very glad they do.

Energy Crisis Averted

2007-11-09T10:29:00.000+11:00

Thanks to Dump Trumpet for the link to this video, explaining how two fundamental physical truths can be harnessed to provide perpetual motion.

Wanted

2007-11-09T10:10:00.000+11:00

This trailer for "Wanted", starring James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman, looks excellent. Come on 2008!

True Knowledge

2007-11-09T09:19:00.000+11:00

Here's an interesting video, taken from the website of true knowledge, an internet research company from the UK that has developed a search engine based on semantic content, rather than statistical data.

"Search" is not quite the right term in this case. The tool is more a kind of inference engine, which answers natural language questions by performing lookups and calculations over a database of facts.

All that's required now is a neural interface and my dreams will have finally come true!

Duelling Telsa Coils

2007-11-06T16:37:00.000+11:00

Thanks to Good Math, Bad Math for pointing me to this wonderful video of two Telsa coils being controlled so that the sound they generate forms a lovely duet.

I think they should bring out an entire album of this!

Tiny Dancer

2007-11-05T10:34:00.000+11:00

With apologies to Elton John, here's a very cute act I found via Spluch.

Amazing Multi-Layer Mural

2007-11-05T10:19:00.000+11:00

This is a video of artist Lewis Lavoie creating a large mural from a number of smaller ones.

It reminds me of Salvador Dali's portrait of Abraham Lincoln.

She's Obviously Not A Septic

2007-11-05T10:12:00.000+11:00

I definitely want this kid on my trivia team when she's old enough to get into the pub!

Death ... Tell No One

2007-11-04T22:48:00.000+11:00

I saw two excellent films this afternoon. The first was a hilarious English black comedy called Death At A Funeral. I almost choked a number of times!

After a ferry to Manly and a walk along the beach, I returned to the Dendy Opera Quays to see a preview of Tell No One, a new French murder mystery.

I recommend both, highly!

OS X Image Editors

2007-11-01T09:50:00.000+11:00

There are many image manipulation programs available for OS X.

In particular, we've recently seen the release of Acorn and Pixelmator, which use the Core Image facilities built in to OS X that take advantage of the GPU in your graphics card, thereby providing realtime rendering of most transformations.

Here's a nice comparison of both of these, plus DrawIt, which is one I'd not heard of until I read the article.

Oink

2007-10-30T16:58:00.000+11:00

There's an interesting article on Demon Baby, discussing the death of OiNK and the shambles that is the music industry.

While I'm not sure I agree completely with the logic, it's definitely right on the money ... so to speak :-) ... with the conclusion that it is the music companies' collective greed that will eventually bring about their demise.

Lost In Translation

2007-10-30T08:58:00.001+11:00

I discovered a wonderful translation site called Reverso this morning.

It provides quite a nice interface to the various Collins dictionaries that translate between English and French, Italian, German, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Portuguese or Polish.

Quite a handy little resource, so I've bookmarked direct URLs for a number of them.

I realise there are plenty of other translation sites on the web. I just thought this was a simple, neat one.

Pubic Service Announcement

2007-10-29T22:44:00.000+11:00

A year or so ago, some young chap sold off a website containing a million pixels, at one dollar each. It was quite a clever idea.

Well, that's nothing ... here's someone who is selling off her pubic hair to pay for perpetual defoliation of her follicles, via electrolysis.

I'm uncertain as to whether a single human being actually has a million pubic hairs. However, I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.

I found a wonderful image to use for this post, but decided that those whose sense of humour is as warped as mine can just click on this link if they want to see it :-).

The rest of you will just have to live with the provided picture of a Brazilian!

Oryza Sativa, Gratis

2007-10-28T14:44:00.000+11:00

Jeannine sent me a link to Free Rice.

The site hosts a vocabulary word game. They say they will donate 10 grains of rice to the United Nations , to reduce world hunger , for each word you get right.

Irrespective of whether this is true, it's a fun way to work on your vocabulary.

Prime Numb3rs

2007-10-28T11:52:00.000+11:00

Watching the latest episode of Numb3rs, I wanted to find out what Listing's Law was about.

I remembered that I'd heard some time back about a Numb3rs blog, which I had completely forgotten to check out. It's quite good.

Reading through it, I discovered that there's an even better one, set up by Stephen Wolfram (at least, it's hosted on his company's domain).

Can Can

2007-10-26T10:44:00.000+10:00

I have no idea whether there's some kind of trickery going on here, but these videos I found via Neatorama are pretty impressive.

Peggy Learns A Lesson

2007-10-26T00:19:00.000+10:00

My dear friend Jeannine sent me a link to this video, starring her son Michael (who plays Peggy's father, Jim), for which he and his friends won the Best Comedy prize in the Stanford heats of Campus Moviefest.

A Nice Blog

2007-10-25T22:54:00.000+10:00

My mate Dave W sent me a link to an article today from Good Math, Bad Math, the blog of Mark Chu-Carroll, a computer scientist who works for Google.

While the specific article didn't get my juices flowing, overall it's a wonderful blog ... well, apart from the name (I hate how Americans abbreviate "mathematics" as "math", rather than "maths").

It's a nice mix of mathematics, computer science and weirdo bashing!

String Theory In Two Minutes

2007-10-25T20:42:00.000+10:00

Brian Greene, who you may know from his television series and book The Elegant Universe, ran a contest asking people to produce a video of no more than two minutes' duration, explaining String Theory.

He recently announced the winner.

Most of them are pretty good. But, it's still far too complex for my depleted set of brain cells.

I think I'll continue to confine my study to the much simpler subject of G-String Theory :-).

The Little People

2007-10-24T20:24:00.001+10:00

Little People is a street art project that involves ... as you might imagine ... small, toy people.

All of the installations are quite cute, but I particularly like this one, which was the original link I followed from Dump Trumpet.

It doesn't look like much at this scale. You'll need to click on the image to see all the (tragic) detail it contains.

You Want Me To Do What?!

2007-10-24T20:10:00.000+10:00

I'm quite amazed that I've not heard of this game show a long time ago. Apparently, it has run for over 4000 episodes across 50 series since 1982.

Called Countdown, it works like this ... the contestants have to concoct a calculation whose answer is a given randomly generated three digit number, using another six numbers of various sizes.

In this episode, the guy on the right comes up with a pretty impressive calculation.

The Elements Of A Good Shower

2007-10-24T19:49:00.000+10:00

I discovered this wonderful periodic table shower curtain via Neatorama.

I'd love to get one. Sadly, though, it seems to be designed for a much large shower than the tiny cubicle in my bathroom.

Teleporting Baby, Part 3

2007-10-22T01:29:00.000+10:00

Here's a further installment in the teleporting baby series I've posted about previously.

I don't think this one's quite as funny, but your mileage may vary ...

My Favourite Colour Is Blue

2007-10-21T17:00:00.000+10:00

I came across an interesting article from The New Republic discussing why it is that we swear ... some of us more than others, of course :-).

I particularly like the discussion of attempts to close loopholes in the FCC regulations. Another example of conservatives shooting without thinking.

Updated: Thanks to my dear friend Jeannine for pointing out that the page pointed to by my original link had subsequently disappeared. Thanks also to Google for finding me a new link to the same content!

The Life Of Riley

2007-10-18T21:38:00.000+10:00

There was a segment in last night's news about Australia's oldest living person, a lady named Olive Riley, who just turned 108.

I was chuffed to read today ... on AppScout, of all places ... that Olive has a blog!

Admittedly, it appears that someone else maintains her site, but Olive's voice is definitely there, in every post.

Wonderful!

I hope I'm lucky enough to have someone to help me keep up with the latest technology when I'm old and infirm ... a couple of years from now :-).

Tipsy Text

2007-10-17T20:52:00.000+10:00

Watching Spicks 'n' Specks this evening, I was amazed to hear about Modern Drunkard magazine ...

... amazed and just slightly annoyed that, as the quintessential member of its apparent demographic, I have yet to receive my complimentary subscription!

Soylent Green Is People

2007-10-14T10:10:00.000+10:00

Yesterday, I finally got around to watching a TV show entitled "Writing With Food" that I recorded earlier this week.

One interesting thing I learned from it was that in 1993 Gay Bilson, a Sydney restaurant icon, was in charge of designing the dinner for the Symposium of Australian Gastronomy.

As her contribution to the menu, she decided to cook a Blood Sausage recipe that is normally made using pig's blood, but using her own blood, instead.

While I find this an absolutely fascinating concept, apparently her colleagues were less enthusiastic and she eventually shelved the plan.

Lindsay McDougall, another member of the show's panel who is a vegan, made an interesting point: this would have been an animal-based dish that no-one who is a vegetarian on purely moral grounds could possibly have a problem with, since in this case the animal had provided itself on a voluntary basis.

I've always thought that I should bequeath my body to a university, for scientific research. Now, I'm wondering whether it would be possible to donate it for gastronomic research.

Taking Lindsay's point to it's logical conclusion, I don't see how cannibalism can be considered immoral if the person being consumed has offered their flesh willingly.

What's more, this may be the best reason I've found, so far, for getting fit. I'd hate the chef to get stuck working with a fatty carcass :-).

A Lazy Saturday Morning

2007-10-13T10:27:00.000+10:00

I just spent half an hour reading back through xkcd, having not checked it out for ages.

There are a lot of very funny cartoons in there, but I particularly liked this one ...

The Sphincter Of Turin

2007-10-10T11:18:00.000+10:00

I found this wonderful picture via Dump Trumpet.

In case you're still trying to work it out ... yes, that is a dog's areshole :-).

Somehow, this seems a much more fitting canvas for such imagery than cheese on toast.

Waitless

2007-10-10T11:01:00.000+10:00

Waitless brings together a list of techniques for getting things done in a more expeditious fashion. Some I've seen before, but they're still clever.

If the baby soothing one really works, that's pretty impressive and incredibly useful to know!

I have a feeling they don't intend you to put the Turbo Parking one into practice :-).

Sure, it's a Sprint ad, but the content is still interesting ... and the style of the videos is kind of cute, too.

Non-Newtonian Fluids

2007-10-10T10:35:00.000+10:00

The viscosity of a Non-Newtonian fluid increases under stress, effectively turning it into a solid. This makes it possible to walk (quickly) on the surface of such a liquid.

I found this nice demonstration of its properties via Crooked Brains. The liquid, in this case, is a mixture of corn starch and water.

International Cephalopod Awareness Day

2007-10-10T00:53:00.000+10:00

I was quite embarrassed to discover that I had completely missed International Cephalopod Awareness Day, which was on October 8th.

To redress this terrible oversight, here's an amazing video showing why octopuses and sharks should not be made to share the same tank ... don't worry, no cephalopods were harmed during the making of this film :-).

!ekirtS

2007-10-09T20:22:00.000+10:00

My dear friend Susan sent me a link to this video. Pretty damned impressive!

Why Was I Not Informed?!

2007-10-09T00:24:00.000+10:00

Apparently, Cosmo recently organised a group of 1010 gorgeous Australian babes to congregate on Bondi Beach in order to set a new world record for the largest swimsuit shoot.

Sadly, my invitation to act as an official observer must have been lost in the mail :-).

There are more photos here.

Demo Fall '07

2007-10-09T00:05:00.000+10:00

The Demo Fall '07 conference was held in Palm Desert, California a couple of weeks ago.

If you follow the first link and click on the "See Demo In Action" button, you can watch the presentations.

There are heaps of them, and I've only had time to check out a couple, so I won't make any suggestions as to which ones you should watch. However, if you really need a starting point, check out Michael J Miller's picks.

404 Page Not Found

2007-10-08T23:59:00.000+10:00

I can't remember where I discovered it, but here's a post containing a number of interesting 404 pages.

My favourite is this one!

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

2007-10-08T23:41:00.000+10:00

Most people know Douglas Adams as the author of the Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy series of books.

However, he also wrote two books featuring a detective named Dirk Gently who runs the agency mentioned in this post's title.

BBC Radio 4 has just started running a serialisation of the first book.

Fortunately for those of us outside the UK, each episode can be heard as an audio stream for six days after it airs, by going to the show's website.

Alternatively, here's a direct link to the audio stream.

The next episode airs on October 10th, so be quick!

Rsizr

2007-10-08T23:12:00.000+10:00

I posted some time back about a new algorithm developed by a couple of Israeli software gurus that allows resizing and editing of digital images, without introducing distortions.

Well, it appears there is now a flash application that lets you apply the technology to your own pictures!

Take a look at Rsizr ... another one of those "Web 2.0" names that leaves out most of the vowels.

If you're interested in the algorithm itself, take a look at their paper.

Dear Oh Dear Oh Dear Oh Dear!

2007-10-06T10:41:00.001+10:00

I'm surprised I've not seen someone come up with this before (found via our old friends Dump Trumpet).

Maybe they have and I've just not been frequenting the right sites!

Mind you, what do you expect, when the company's name is "Go Ogle" :-).

Of course, Booble has been around for a couple of years. I guess Google hasn't tried to shut them down because their logo isn't quite as close to the real one as this is.

Nice Claymation

2007-10-06T10:20:00.001+10:00

Also found on the Wooster Collective blog ...

Amazing Animated Graffiti

2007-10-06T10:04:00.001+10:00

At the end of a long journey this morning, following many links, I arrived at the Wooster Collective, which is a blog about street art.

It included this wonderful animation, done by repeatedly drawing over the same wall, using what appears to be charcoal. Truly amazing!

Do go and take a look at the blog, because there are many wonderful pieces there.

Potential Energy

2007-10-06T09:46:00.000+10:00

Here is a nice piece on potential alternative energy sources.

I really like the two that suggest exploiting the excess energy children always seem to have ... particularly the one pictured, which uses a bouncing baby to re-charge batteries :-).

Dangerous Animals

2007-10-06T09:12:00.000+10:00

Via Dump Trumpet comes this set of posters warning of the "danger" posed by various animals.

It's a pain having to click on each link, but most of them are quite humourous.

WiFi Detector T-Shirt

2007-10-06T08:43:00.000+10:00

ThinkGeek have a T-shirt that detects the strength of WiFi (802.11b/g) signals in the vicinity and lights up accordingly.

Of course this isn't much use to me directly, but if everyone else in the world wore one, so I knew when to bother powering up the WiFi on my iPod touch, that would be very helpful.

One Laptop Pogue Critiqued

2007-10-06T08:21:00.001+10:00

I'm no great fan of David Pogue.

However, he recently did quite a decent review of the One Laptop Per Child project's XO-1 hardware, including a video showing off it's features.

Apple's Press Set To Improve?

2007-10-02T02:52:00.001+10:00

Apple is getting a lot of bad press right now, due to their iPhone-related cock ups.

However, if these pictures of a recent lecture at the Missouri School of Journalism are any indication, there may just be a slight pro-Apple bias in the fourth estate within the next couple of years :-).

Faces In Places

2007-10-02T02:14:00.000+10:00

Faces In Places is a blog whose posts are all images of everyday objects that appear to have faces.

I thought this one was particularly cute!

Ways To Consume Time #735

2007-10-02T01:40:00.001+10:00

Thanks to Dump Trumpet for pointing out this fantastic URL.

It allows you to watch a stream of all images as they're uploaded to Blogger accounts.

Absolutely amazing!

They've even included a slider that allows you to vary the speed with which the images are presented.

Clicking on an image navigates to the page on which it was posted, making this a fun way to find interesting blogs.

Think Different

2007-10-01T21:52:00.000+10:00

I like this video which uses the voice over from Apple's own Think Different marketing campaign, circa 1997, to point out their hypocrisy regarding locking third-party applications out of the iPhone.

I wonder how long it will be before someone does a hack of their 1984 commercial, replacing the face of "Big Brother" with that of Stevie J :-).

Beautiful Visualisation

2007-10-01T00:25:00.000+10:00

This is a short video explaining how Möbius Transformations that appear quite complex in the plane are equivalent to simpler manipulations of a projection from the plane onto a sphere.

Mathematics really can be beautiful sometimes!

Babies Just Shouldn't Drink!

2007-10-01T00:09:00.000+10:00

This baby, struggling to avoid going to sleep, reminds me of myself late into a good night on the turps :-).

I found the video via Neatorama.

PuppyppuP

2007-09-29T12:38:00.000+10:00

I'm almost tempted to pop out and buy a puppy and a mirror to see how long this could be made to last :-) ...

Suicide Of The Emoticons

2007-09-29T11:59:00.000+10:00

This may be quite old, but I only heard about it on a podcast yesterday.

Very cute ... and a little gruesome. Just the way I like it!

The War On Democracy

2007-09-29T11:29:00.000+10:00

I went to see John Pilger's new documentary The War On Democracy last night.

Mainly, it just confirmed what I already knew about US foreign policy, the CIA and their interference in the domestic affairs of other countries.

That said, I still came out even more appalled than when I went in.

The saddest thing is that the film is (at least currently) only being screened in Australia and the UK. US citizens don't get to see their government's dirty laundry.

Desktops Then & Now

2007-09-29T11:22:00.000+10:00

Crooked Brains has a nice article showing how the computer desktop has evolved since Apple released the first Mac in 1984.

For my money, things finally started to look reasonable around 1995 when Mac OS 8 and Windows 95 appeared.

My guess would be that it coincided with better graphics chips and higher resolution CRTs appearing.

Bird Deterrents

2007-09-25T08:59:00.000+10:00

I love my little pigeon friend who visits me on the ledge outside my kitchen window (and sleeps there each night).

However, my buddy Paul could probably use a few of these, to keep the cockatoos off his fruit trees!

Only The Finest Ingredients

2007-09-24T19:22:00.001+10:00

I hate that Halloween has migrated to Australia in recent years, but this article from Aranamuerta is kind of cute.

It provides instructions for creating a life-like witch's kitchen, containing such things as "bat's blood", "dragon embryos" and (my favourite) "North American garden gnome heads".

I'm tempted to whip some up, for the sheer joy of seeing them on my kitchen shelves.

Another Battery Hack

2007-09-21T07:19:00.000+10:00

This one is much more useful than the previous one I posted. The video shows that (at least some) 6V lantern batteries consist of 32 AA batteries.

Of course, the AA batteries are probably relatively low quality and may not last as long as a decent alkaline, so the value proposition will depend on how cheaply you can pick up the lantern battery.

Scent Of A Woman

2007-09-18T19:56:00.000+10:00

No, I'm not talking about the 1992 flick for which Al Pacino won his only Oscar.

This company is selling a product called "Vulva", which it says is essentially "fanny in a bottle" ... as the term is used outside the United States, of course; what sort of deviant would buy a vial full of farts!?

There's a promotional video on this page if you click the "Enter" button ... how appropriate :-). The voice-over is quite humourous.

While more artistic than obscene, it's probably NSFW ... depending on where you happen to work, I guess!

Non-Mona Lisa

2007-09-18T01:33:00.000+10:00

I found this Apple Lisa ad on Apple Gazette.

There's nothing particularly remarkable about the ad, really. I've just never seen a Lisa ad before. Also, the dude in the video is a very young Kevin Costner.

Bathroom Break

2007-09-18T00:56:00.000+10:00

I won't say anything, because I don't want to spoil it for you ...

Steve Irwin Parenting Products* ...

2007-09-18T00:35:00.001+10:00

... brings you the bullet-proof baby stroller. We can only hope this is a joke!

Thanks to Spluch.

* It's actually "Bulletproof Baby", but a Steve Irwin crack just seemed appropriate, somehow :-).

Easy YouTube Downloads

2007-09-17T13:48:00.000+10:00

This morning, I was looking for a way to download a copy of this YouTube Video on monads.

I discovered KissYouTube, which makes it about as easy as it can possibly be. You simply take the YouTube URL and put "kiss" in front of "youtube" ... so this one is http://www.kissyoutube.com/watch?v=9fohXBj2UEI.

You can download the video in its normal FLV (ie Flash Video) format or choose from most other video formats, including specific versions for various portable devices.

In case you're as mad as me and want to watch the entire series, I found it via this Lambda the Ultimate post.

Juxtaposition

2007-09-16T07:30:00.000+10:00

This is such a beautiful image!

Right next to an AT&T store that sells the iPhone, someone has set up a little stand providing an unlock service. They could have saved some ink on that sign by re-wording it to the equivalent "Fuck you" :-).

It's fantastic that there is now free, open source software to do the unlocking, but the vast majority of people will never hear about it, or won't feel comfortable downloading and running the program themselves.

It would be wonderful to see a campaign that put one of these outside every AT&T and Apple store!

2007-09-15T10:54:00.000+10:00

This is a nice explanation of how to visualise higher dimensions. Very useful if you're trying to understand String Theory ... although, to do that, you'll also need to be clever, like John Baez :-).

Speaking of John Baez, here's a post of his I found that explains the Millennium Problems, specified by the Clay Mathematics Institute, who will pay $US1M for the solution to each.

iTunes Artwork Grabber

2007-09-14T11:15:00.000+10:00

Josh's iTunes Album Art Grabber is an excellent site for finding album art that's available via the iTMS.

You type in an artist's name and album title, press the "grab it!" button and, hey presto, you have the album cover!

You don't even have to enter the entire album name; a substring is often enough.

There Really Is A God!

2007-09-14T10:02:00.000+10:00

... well, so I thought when I found Marry Our Daughter.

Sadly, the Neatorama article that linked to it confirmed my suspicion that it was a joke site.

What kind of sick bastard would play with a dirty old man's hopes in such a cruel way :-) ?!

Satellite Tracking Watch

2007-09-13T09:48:00.000+10:00

Well, no, not really. That's just how Tokyo Flash describe this amazing looking Geomesh watch.

The green LEDs tell you the hour, the yellow ones each represent five minutes and the red ones are single minutes.

I doubt you'd ever get to the point where you could glance at your wrist and know what time it is, so it's not very functional, but it looks so damned cute!

BrokeTrek

2007-09-13T09:15:00.000+10:00

JibJab has done a wonderful Brokeback Mountain parody of Star Trek (TOS).

I'll never be able to look at Spock or Kirk the same way again :-) ...

Kinetic Beach Sculptures

2007-09-12T08:36:00.000+10:00

Artist Theo Jansen has created some amazing, wind-powered kinetic "creatures" that are designed to walk around a beach.

Some of them are so clever that they can store a portion of the energy, to allow them to move away from the incoming tide even when no wind is available.

360° Versailles

2007-09-11T11:25:00.000+10:00

I found this via Dump Trumpet.

It's a 360° scrollable QuickTime view of the Versailles hall of mirrors.

There are a lot more of them here.

I'm A Nerd

2007-09-11T11:15:00.000+10:00

I'm sure you didn't need to be told that :-). However, after taking the Nerd Test, it's official.

I was a bit sad about the score on "History/Literature". I think if they split it into two topics I'd score much higher on literature. Oh well.

In The Air Tonight

2007-09-11T10:53:00.000+10:00

I found this on Project.ioni.st. Very cute.

Quite Interesting

2007-09-10T17:37:00.000+10:00

There's a wonderful quiz comedy show hosted by Stephen Fry called QI, which stands for "Quite Interesting".

You learn all sorts of fascinating things while watching it. For instance, some wag named this organic compound Penguinone. I can't imagine how they came up with that :-).

At least it's slightly more succinct than

3,4,4,5-tetramethylcyclohexa-2,5-dienone
If you like that one, Wikipedia has an entire page dedicated to compounds with unusual names.

Kung Fu Bunny

2007-09-09T10:35:00.000+10:00

I found this very cute animation via Random Good Stuff ...

Eating In Micro-Gravity

2007-09-08T15:18:00.001+10:00

Here's a nice little video of astronaut Don Pettit explaining what's required to eat food in micro-gravity.

You can find a number of other videos he's made via a YouTube search.

The one where he plays with large spheres of water is also interesting.

Astrological Artistry

2007-09-05T19:48:00.000+10:00

Here's a set of body paintings of the twelve signs of the zodiac.

My sign is Aquarius, but I don't believe in this shit, so I'm just going to show you the one I thought was a bit clever.

That's a damned scary looking tumour she has, I must say!

Wiki Rage

2007-09-05T14:35:00.000+10:00

Via Daring Fireball, I discovered Wikirage.

It provides a listing of those Wikipedia pages that have seen the most updates over various time periods.

I believe this gives some indication of hot topics that might be interesting to explore.

Big Mac

2007-09-04T02:00:00.000+10:00

My 24" 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo Extreme iMac, with 750GB disk upgrade, arrived today (well, yesterday, I guess, given the time).

The 20" Dell wide screen looks tiny sitting beside it, but you can never have too much desktop space, so it's welcome to stay.

Andy Mckee - Guitarist

2007-09-03T20:03:00.000+10:00

I just got my Mac Mini hooked up to the television and stereo in the loungeroom and was looking for something to check out the quality.

I stumbled upon this guy, who is nothing short of excellent!

Bubbles

2007-09-02T11:29:00.000+10:00

... and that's not a reference to Wacko Jacko's little friend!

I can't decide whether this is some kind of video/computer trickery. If it's real, it's bloody impressive.

Partial Face Transplants

2007-09-02T11:18:00.000+10:00

Freaking News recently ran a contest where the entries were combinations of two celebrity faces, mashed together via Photoshop.

Some of them are amazing, some are weird and some are downright scary!

I'm sure you know which category I think this one fits into.

Oh ... My ... God!

2007-08-29T00:57:00.000+10:00

I read the statistic recently that 20% of Americans can't find the USA on a map.

Well, I doubt Miss South Carolina could find her arse with both hands, if her answer to this question regarding the situation is anything to go by!

World Wide Whoops

2007-08-26T21:18:00.000+10:00

It had to happen eventually ...

Rubik's Cube Solving Robot?

2007-08-26T18:57:00.000+10:00

The method to solve Rubik's Cube is well known and based on simple group theory. So, it's quite possible that this robot really does solve it automatically.

However, I can't help but think "What if they had the machine perform a random set of rotations beforehand and then this video is just showing the robot running those rotations in reverse?".

There is a flash and a pause in the action at one point, implying the robot is looking at the current configuration and working out the right moves, but I'm going to take it with a large grain of salt, anyway.

The ZunePhone

2007-08-24T18:27:00.000+10:00

I've been avoiding saying anything about the success of the iPhone, until Stevie J decides he's willing to give us a little iPhone love down here in Australia.

However, this video is just so funny I can't help but post about it!

Get A Life!

2007-08-24T02:17:00.000+10:00

OhGizmo! has a post with two videos that pose the question "What if real life was like an internet chat room?".

I thought the first one was a bit boring, but I like this one.

Warning: it gets a bit rude in a couple of places.

What's Up Doc?

2007-08-24T01:53:00.000+10:00

I found these very, very cute Rabbit Scissors on Gizmodiva.

Sadly, they're designed for kids ... who'd a thunk it?! ... hence would probably be of no value in my office.

I may still order a pair, anyway, just for the sheer joy of owning something so damned cute!

The Great "Gadsby"

2007-08-24T01:41:00.000+10:00

Thanks to Random Good Stuff for making me aware of Gadsby, by Ernest Vincent Wright.

The entire 52 chapter novel, containing over 50,000 words, does not contain a single instance of the letter 'E'!

Thanks also to Google, whereby I discovered that this is an example of a lipogram.

What A Wonderful World!

2007-08-24T01:26:00.000+10:00

Via Neatorama comes this amazing hand puppetry, choreographed over Louis Armstrong's rendition of "What A Wonderful World".

Optical Illusions

2007-08-23T01:47:00.000+10:00

Here's a nice video I found on Project.ioni.st that illustrates a number of optical illusions. Again, the soundtrack is nice.

Flash Photography

2007-08-23T01:29:00.000+10:00

Here's another thing I found on Spluch.

I think you'll agree that the images say it all :-) !!